Arriving in Denver was the demarcation point between Phase 1 of my scenic tour through the National Parks and my gentle glide into my home state of South Dakota and visiting relatives along my path to get there. I feel like I am going through a sort of retrospective, not surprising as my 50th birthday is on the horizon.

Seeing my niece Christina is always great. She is beautiful, inside and out. This was the first time meeting her fiancé, Justin, and I truly enjoyed our conversations and time together.

Justin had to work the next day, and Christina had class in the morning, so instead of going to Rocky Mountain National Park, Christina and decided to go see Body Worlds & The Story of the Heart at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and then go see Hubble at the IMAX theatre in the same building.

Body Worlds & The Story of the Heart had come to Portland, but for some reason, it didn’t appeal to me to see real human bodies that had been stripped literally to the veins and tendons. But a few months ago a friend had mentioned that she had really been amazed with the exhibition. Christina had heard that as well. So we went.

What an amazing creation our body is! Especially the heart, from which everything else expands. If it is true that we create in our imaginations what happens in our experience, then we are amazing creators of an intricate spiritual machine. If that is the case, just think of all that we can create with even more limitless thinking. Seeing each organ, each capillary, the systems that carry us, that move us, that inspire us. It was truly a fascinating exhibit that made me realize how precious and amazing life is.

And to think that the human body is only one of millions of species of beings operating from a heart, with systems that function in perfect unity. That doesn’t include the oceans of water, the clouds in the sky, and the earth that holds it all in its loving embrace. We have really dreamed ourselves a grand place to be, and an amazing way to be in it.

After leaving Body Worlds, we made our way to the IMAX theatre to view Hubble. Astronauts filmed the movie while they made the final attempt to fix the problems with the Hubble telescope so that scientists could continue to view the far edges of the universe, those other worlds that sometimes seem beyond our imagination, but are brought into our view through an incredible combination of knowledge and technology.

We had moved from the inner exploration of the body to the outer exploration of the universe. The parallels are astounding.

As humans, we are made up of billions of cells that create systems that propel us, support us, keep us alive, forever expanding and changing until the end, when we return to the source of light, an infinite nothingness from which we are created anew. The universe is made up of billions of stars, heavenly bodies that form systems, swirling and morphing, changing and expanding until the end, when the universe collapses into the void of darkness, an infinite nothingness from which it will ultimately be born again.

There are no coincidences in this universe. Everything has a reason, a purpose. We are all stars, made of stars, in a universe of stars.

It was a fascinating experience, and a wonderful stay with Christina and Justin. Next up? Omaha and my sister Linda. I may not blog as frequently for the next month or so. I have some projects to catch up on, and I won’t bore you with my visits with relatives unless I have some aha moments to share. See you soon!

The realness of leaving the Lodge is starting to sink in. Today I awoke with all that I have to do, and with the realization that in less than two weeks I will be on the road to a new stage of my life.

Feeling sadness, with a touch of doubt about my choosing to leave for three months, I sat down to do my daily ritual of drawing a Sacred Path Card: The Discovery of Self Through Native Teachings.

Sacred Path Cards by Jamie Sams

I also have a new deck called Wisdom of the Hidden Realms by Colette Baron-Reid, a very beautiful set of cards that help bridge the worlds of the material and the spiritual.

Wisdom of the Hidden Realms by Colette Baron-Reid

The question on my mind the past day or so was “why not just move into Portland instead of hitting the road?” The first card I drew was Painted Face, which speaks of self-expression, to use my creativity to express my feelings, talents, and desires.

Yesterday I taught the third day-long workshop in Shamanic Writing Level II, which is all about how to be creative and what to do with that creativity. One of the principles of my teaching is that creativity is healing as well as productive, which the card reading said in black and white. The card pointed to this time of allowing the Medicine of the Self to emerge, to offer the gift of my Medicine to others who may have need of my talents. The card went on to say that changing appearance, attitudes, and activities to match the healed me is called for at this time. It’s always amazing to me that the cards reflect exactly what is happening. I’ve been dying to the old in many ways, and leaving the Lodge seems to be another reflection of that in my life (read Shaman’s Death post for more on dying to the old).

Then I went to shuffle the Hidden Realms cards and saw at the bottom of the deck the Mapmaker of Destiny card. I thought to myself, now wouldn’t that be the card to draw. I shuffled thoroughly for about a minute, and lo and behold, that’s the card I drew!

The card reading says it’s a sign that I’m being given an opportunity to transform Fate into Destiny. A Map of Destiny shows all the places I’m meant to visit, places where I will be challenged to evolve into the highest aspects of the Self. Fate represents the events in my life that were meant to happen and that I can’t change. Fate is transformed into Destiny according to how I respond to my circumstances. Destiny offers me the ability to make great opportunities out of fated experience, so free will and choice are possible at certain points on my map.

Apparently, NOW is one of those times. I’m faced with a circumstance brought to me by Fate. How I respond will lead to my perfect Destiny. The Challenge is to face the things within me that must change in order for me to express my highest good.

No matter which form they take, all challenges and allies are perfect expressions of Fate inviting me into my Destiny. The final line of the reading: “Remember that Fate makes the map, but Destiny is determined by the manner in which I engage my journey.”

I wasn’t given the choice to leave the Lodge, but now that Fate has shown its cards, it is how I proceed that is leading to my Destiny. I just need to breathe and trust that all is being shown exactly when I need it.

Blessings on Your Path,

Marilyn

A month or so ago, I was encouraged by my Horse as Teacher book series business partner, Kathy Pike, to call Beth Karish, a woman who helps clients play in the quantum field of possibilities.

Horse as Teacher: The Path to Authenticity

Horse as Teacher: The Path to Relationship

Kathy said that every time she had worked with Beth, she had received invaluable information for her next step on her path. I found that to be true for me as well.

In my session with Beth on the telephone, she used a combination of shamanism, quantum physics, Matrix Energetics, and intuition to help me see more clearly what had been rumbling around in my mind, but that I hadn’t gotten completely clear about. The question I brought to her was if we should do Book 3 of the series now, or wait.

After a few questions about what the first two books taught me and how I had gotten out of my flow, she asked me, “What if you re-awoke to the wonderment of the world?”

Well, that certainly evolved the conversation into something much larger than whether to do the book now or later. Beth shared that the image she was getting was of me standing on the edge of a cliff and Spirit whispering to me, “Jump!” and I say, “I can’t!”. Spirit says it again and I resist again. Finally, Spirit pushes me, and lo and behold I have wings and soar above the abyss.

She said, “You do better in the  unknown. You like it on the edge… That gets the passion going. So stop resisting, and jump!”

Beth nailed it on the head. What I realized was that I wasn’t afraid to jump into the unknown; I had been fearful of letting go of what I had built over the last 12 years, of not using my mastery of writing and helping people get published. More specifically, I had been stuck in a place of scarcity, that I would lose my income if I switched to doing Shamanism full time, or writing my own book, or…

Then it hit me, while I love helping others, and have based my life on the idea that you get everything you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want, I had forgotten to help ME! I’ve been putting my writing and message aside to help others, and that was taking away from expressing my genius and passion. Spirit had been giving me every opportunity to help myself, but I wasn’t seeing the support. I was stuck in scarcity, instead of gratitude and new possibilities.

There was a paradigm shift for me that day. I needed to manifest a way for me to share myself in ways that fulfilled me first. Only then will I be able to passionately help others in a way that really supports all of us. What a difference in perspective.

Last week, when I realized I’d be leaving the Raven Lodge, I was surprised by my acceptance of that reality. I thought I’d be devastated, but instead, I’m excited about the new possibilities. Beth was correct, I do better in the unknown. There is a new playground out there, and I get to explore it. How blessed am I?

What’s most fascinating is that ever since that logjam of letting go of what I thought was what I had to do broke open and I accepted the new direction, prosperity has been flowing my way. Money is showing up in ways I never dreamed it would. Little and big things every day are validating that the direction I’m going is right and true for me to follow my passion and share myself with the world.

I feel a vibrational resonance that I haven’t experienced for years. Obstacles are disappearing and the right person, thing, or understanding is coming to me exactly when needed. I’m back in the flow and loving every minute!

My greatest hope is that everyone is able to experience this feeling in their life. It truly is a great playground to play in!

From my heart,

Marilyn

In the nine years I’ve studied Shamanism with Jan Engels-Smith, founder of LightSong School of Shamanic Studies, I have witnessed an ever-increasing shift in the willingness of people across all beliefs to talk more about their spirituality, about energy frequencies and how they affect what we create in our lives, and about a need to strengthen our connection with what I call Creator Energy (God, Spirit, Source, or whatever you choose to use to describe that energy). Even media icons like Oprah are regularly discussing these changes. Although everyone uses different metaphors, archetypes, mythology, symbols, rituals, ceremonies, etc. to connect to the Creator Energy, we are all, ultimately using the same basic principles to reach our higher purpose by how and what we create in our lives.

This blog is meant to give you different perspectives on how energy works, mostly from a Shamanic perspective, but also incorporating understanding from the different belief systems my path has revealed to me. I will share resources, insights, and observations that I hope will stimulate your creativity and transformation as our world moves to a new paradigm of consciousness, discovering new ways of utilizing energy to make change within, as well as changing our world.

Welcome to the Journey!

Marilyn