shamanic healing

Three worlds

/ Shamanic Healing of Ames / Leave a comment

I, Grandmother Cottonwood, am a magnificent tree. I live in three worlds.

My roots reach deeply into the lower world, pulled by gravity , the magnetic pull of Earth’s core. My roots draw in nourishment and water and all earth elements needed to feed me.

This is the zone of magic, of power, of earthy energies and animal spirits, of ancient knowledge, of survival on this planet. This is the region of Earth wisdom that will feed your souls.

The wisdom of the lower world has been accumulated over millennia from the time our Earth was a swirling mass of gasses, even before life took hold.

All myths, legends, all ancient wisdom resides here. You can tap into their power and richness. They will feed and fuel your growth. As my roots feed me.

I am rooted to the Earth

GCW root zone

My magnificent trunk and large limbs reside in the middle world, the spiritual aspect of the created world. Here I weather storms, bake under a hot summer sun, rest in winter, scatter my seeds in spring. Here I age and witness tired old limbs fall to the earth and others thrive and come into leaf.

I witness my bark growing thicker and tougher each year. I interweave branches and roots with the sycamores, the hack-berries, the thorny locusts, the grasses, the nearby cottonwoods.

Here I interact with the energy, the spirits of those who walk by or who lean against me, those who give me tree hugs.

Our spirits are all one here. All living beings are connected through our invisible energies. Our spirits interweave and overlap whether we know it or not. We communicate and understand each other. Human, plant, animal, insect, Earth.

As a living being on planet Earth, my awareness is centered in my physical reality in this place and time

I am centered in my body.

Grandmother Cottonwood

My smaller branches and tiny twigs, my growing tips and buds, my fine crown of leaves reside in the upper world. This is a place of expansion, of light, of growth, a place of miracles of divine wisdom and divine energies. This is the realm of spirit, of your higher self.

Here the sunlight touches my leaves fueling their growth as they absorb the life giving light. My crown brings the amazing energies of the divine down from the heavens into my body to keep life alive. I reach to the sun, my source of power. I am whole and complete

I am aligned with divine light.

Grandmother Cottonwood in fall

I am rooted to the Earth. I am centered in my body. I am aligned with divine light.

New Years thoughts

/ Shamanic Healing of Ames / Leave a comment

It is the season… for releasing the old and welcoming the new

…for renewing yourself in mind body and spirit

…for reconnecting with your dreams

…to reaffirm your soul’s purpose.

…To gently clear out all that would keep you stuck in unhealthy patterns of the past.

Single feather in winter

Release with blessings and gratitude those people, places, actions, beliefs and situations that no longer work for you, that now feel out of harmony, off balance; those that drain you; obligations that numb your mind; those places and traditions that shatter your peace; Entertainment that hurts your heart; People you you must defend your sensitivity against; Beliefs that harm you and others.

Welcome the new with confidence and grace

Be patient as you shift into new beliefs that lift you up, healthier thought patterns, new pathways and plans for a well lived life, creative new ideas and goals.

Welcome the light, the source of all things, into a creative partnership with yourself as you step up to a new level of self understanding, love, harmony and flow.

Winter robin

Be kind and gentle with yourself as you navigate this amazing time of change, transition and transformation.

Welcome to the New Year!

Ask the spirits for help

/ Shamanic Healing of Ames / Leave a comment

Does the prospect of change, even a small shift toward the light feel challenging, as though you must move a boulder off your chest, a ton of bricks from your back, extricate yourself from quicksand that is sucking you under?

You can ask for spiritual assistance, guidance, and help with problems and challenges in your life that seem insurmountable. When you ask from a place of self honesty, surrender and trust, you will receive answers and assistance.

Painted lady butterfly on red zinnia

The answers and assistance from spirit may come in many forms. You may see a sign in nature, such as an amazing spider web, a colorful bird in flight, a full moon surrounded by colored light… You may receive spiritual wisdom and assistance through your senses, sight, sound, touch, taste, smell as well as simply knowing the truth in your heart and mind.

Your challenge is to discern the true and helpful spirit given messages from other random thoughts or ideas in your head.

Loving spirits will never ask you to harm another living being or the environment or send hateful messages or energy to another. Loving spirits will never ask you to harm yourself, put yourself at risk, or keep yourself small.

True spirit messages will give you a feeling of energy and possibilities and purpose. Spirit messages will resonate with your wise self and in your heart.

When you carry out loving spiritual advice your actions will enhance and reweave the web of your life and all life with energetic threads of love and renewal.

Robin in winter

We loving compassionate spirits are all around, supporting you, waiting for your awareness and awakening to our presence and our support for you.

Please ask for our help, receive our communication in whatever form it comes to you, then do your best to carry out the loving and compassionate advice you receive.

Trust what you receive from the compassionate spirits, and more will be given to you.

Reflections

/ Shamanic Healing of Ames / Leave a comment

I see and feel failing ash trees. They are losing vitality, declining and dying as an out-of-control insect invades and destroys with no boundaries, no sense that when it kills the host trees it will no longer be able to survive.

This insect survives now, but will ultimately destroy its own home and food supply.

Dead tree

This is nature reflecting the human state of mind and state of health. This no boundaries, destroy everything in your path dynamic takes place on a global scale, as Humans declare war on others and destroy their own habitat with little regard for the long term consequences.

Nature also reflects the human state of mind in the weather…

Do you store up toxic and stormy emotions in your personal atmosphere, letting them build into cyclones, tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes of tantrums and violence? Are you or those in your family or city easily triggered into fury?

I’m here to tell you that you can clear yourselves and release the clouds as they accumulate and before they become heavy and ominous with many layers of fear and anger.

Heavy clouds

You can learn to calm and clear yourself before the emotional storms overtake you. Ask for help if it feels too difficult, too overwhelming.

Yes, I understand you don’t want to… think you can’t… prefer to be in denial… don’t want to do the work… are scared to do it…don’t have the money…don’t have the time…insert your habitual excuse here…

Let me tell you that your healing matters not only to you, but to your family, your city, your planet. The actions you take, the decisions you make will affect and reflect in our Earth for years to come.

Will you choose healing, or will you choose to be paralyzed by fear?

When you are able to face the facts and difficulties in your life head on, with courage and tenacity, when you are able to clear and heal your emotions and learn to deal with them in a healthy way, your life will improve dramatically, your health will improve, you will begin to love your life once again!

Message from Grandmother Cottonwood

The Earth and those around you will reflect your new clarity and health!

Heal yourself, Heal the Earth.

Climate change

/ Shamanic Healing of Ames / Leave a comment

Our world is heating up and we are stressed!

Our ancestors became acclimated to a cooler world. The capacity to survive within those parameters has been passed down through thousands of generations of all animals, plants, humans birds, insects, sea creatures from the blue whale to tiny one celled organisms from desert sage to all manner of mushrooms, to towering cottonwood trees.

Grandmother Cottonwood

All of us live and thrive here on our home planet within a limited range of conditions.

We are slowly being pushed out of our comfort zone. Our home is becoming a stranger to us.

The seasonal changes become erratic, the timing is off. Trees maintain their leaves later in the year, and become vulnerable to ice and freezing rain. The weight of thick ice on thousands of leaves and branches can topple and crush a huge tree.

You might be comfortable in climate controlled buildings or cars. You might not get outside much or tune yourself closely to nature’s subtle rhythms and harmonies, so you might not know with the evidence of your own senses that our world is shifting out of balance.

I speak for the great web of life. I speak for the rooted ones, the four legged fur bearers, those with wings, the six and eight legged communities, all living creatures that form our web of life with intricate interconnections and relationships.

Squirrel and walnut tree

We are all in this together! We need each other to survive!

Dear humans, please find a way to work together, heal your animosities, your grudges and resentments. Release your emotional baggage in healthy ways, heal once and for all your ancestral enmities.

Clear yourselves so you can be at your full light and power, at the highest vibrations you are capable of. You are needed here and now to heal this Earth and bring our home back into harmony and balance between all beings…

…between hot and cold, day and night, summer and winter, give and take, life and death, resistance and flow, fear and love.

For empaths

/ Shamanic Healing of Ames / Leave a comment

Are you feeling the weight of the anxiety and fear you’ve inherited from your ancestors, that you pick up from your neighbors, friends, people who drive by your home, customers in the store you’ve entered, in the library stacks just opposite you, those closed in with you on the plane…

Do you soak in the anxiety and fear from the news, feel the victim’s pain, the anger, fear, and outrage the media amplifies?

Virginia Creeper

Your true light is dimmed by the clouds of stuffed emotion you pick up from others as an empath.

Dear ones, it is not your job, your responsibility or your duty to take on and feel the feelings of any others! You are to live your life, not that of others. It is your job to feel your own feelings, to to know yourself and shine your light.

When you strengthen the tapestry of your aura and ground your energy to the earth, it will be easier to filter out the random energies of others. When you discern the energy you are feeling is not yours, ask it to drain into the Earth for recycling.

If you feel it is important, you can teach those close to you to begin to feel their own emotions. Where do they show up in the body? Describe the sensation in the body. What sense is activated? Name the emotions if possible.

This is a new skill for many, so patience is called for. If it is too overwhelming, they may need a healer or therapist.

If your family, friends, loved ones cannot or don’t want to learn to feel their own feelings, remember, it is not your job to do it for them! Perhaps they will eventually be ready to heal, but do not hold your breath.

Grandmother Cottonwood

Maintain energetic and emotional boundaries and keep yourself clear and whole. This is your mission above all else.

In this way you help keep our world healthy and allow your light to shine to the full extent.

Creation/destruction

/ Shamanic Healing of Ames / Leave a comment

You are the creator of your life. But think of this… You are also the destroyer.

Prairie grass sprouts after a fire

In your home you paint fresh color on a wall, destroying and covering the old color. You may tear down a wall to create a larger room. You may give away or repurpose old clothes you no longer use to make room for new more fashionable and better fitting clothes.

In your life you dismantle those beliefs that no longer resonate or serve your purposes, and you create new supportive beliefs. You withdraw from relationships that hurt and diminish you and create new uplifting connections.

You create and destroy and create again. You make and unmake, you build up and tear down. You construct something fresh as you deconstruct the obstacles to its creation. In this way, you grow and create the life, the home, the environment that you desire.

You create and destroy just as nature does. A tree grows supple, flexible, tall, shady. After many years it becomes huge, brittle and breaks easily in a destructive storm. The sun can now reach the earth allowing new seedling to grow into the light as they feed on the decay from the old wood.

Tiny seedlings and concrete

As humans you must realize this is part of the pattern of your lives and your civilizations, your history. The new and fresh is built on the foundations of that which has served it’s purpose and can no longer sustain itself.

Your challenge is to discern when the time is right to release your tight grip on what has been and reach out in trust to what is coming and help to shape this new reality into a life that is lived fully, with a whole heart.

Knowing this pattern will help you weather the times of destruction in your life, divorce, the death of a loved one, a job loss, a move, a natural disaster. All of these events are difficult, perhaps devastating…

But please know that you will create a new life again from the ashes of the old. You will endure!

Are you ready for healing?

/ Shamanic Healing of Ames / Leave a comment

Healing means a change, a movement toward wholeness in your life. Healing means letting go of old stale harmful beliefs, self harming thoughts, energy patterns that no longer keep you safe or comfortable.

Healing means trusting and stepping into the unknown from the well-worn, the comfort zone, the tried and tired old ways of being.

Painted lady butterfly on red zinnia

Healing means gathering your courage, looking honestly at your life and facing facts, then realizing you can transcend and grow and release what seems to hold you back, what seems a bedrock fact of your life.

You can hold a vision for what you want your life to become and begin your movement toward that, one step at a time. There is no need to rush! Hold your vision to your heart. No one can take it from you!

Healing is letting go, healing is allowing yourself to open to new possibilities and ideas and visions that harmonize with the core of who you really are. Healing brings your true self into focus.

Healing is not the same as curing. They are two separate things. Curing means the abolishment, the erasing of illness or disease. Healing is the movement of your spirit, heart, and mind toward your own clarity and light.

Healing is a gentle opening to your wise and true self, a letting go of all that blocks your spirit. If you are alive on this planet, in a body, you can heal.

A healing practice

/ Shamanic Healing of Ames / Leave a comment

First, gently allow your body and mind to relax, breathing deeply, letting yourself sink comfortably into your chair or bed or mat…

Now, imagine the crown chakra at the top of your head, gently opening and beautiful liquid-like golden light from the divine pouring into and through you like water.

Grandmother Cottonwood

Feel it pouring down through the energy center, filling every cell of your body, every organ, every nerve and blood vessel, every bone and muscle, every ligament, every skin cell…every microscopic connection between cells… Imagine the beautiful light filling them all effortlessly with its cleansing healing power.

Imagine and see and know this amazing healing light filling you from head to toe displacing and sending all heavier energies away, letting them drain through your feet into the Earth for recycling.

Now when light reaches your feet, pause a moment to enjoy the feeling. Then let it begin to fill your aura from your feet to your head, permeating every particle of your energy with liquid golden light.

Allow this light to assist in weaving your aura together in a beautiful tapestry that draws in life affirming energies and filters out all incompatible energies and those that belong to others.

Now, sit with this light and let it circulate from your head to your toes slowly and thoroughly throughout your entire body, then from your feet to your crown through your aura.

This is the light of the divine. Feel it, know it, experience it. Let it heal you and bring you peace.

Grandmother Cottonwood, summer moss

When you feel complete with this practice, give thanks, then tap your cheekbones, the center of your chest and rub the bottom center of your feet near the big toe joint. Let yourself come back to the here and now.

Harmony with nature

/ Shamanic Healing of Ames / Leave a comment

Perhaps you fear the power of storms, avalanches, earth quakes, lighting, tornadoes… hurricanes…bob cats, mountain lions, bears…

Nature is not your enemy!

You are not here to conquer and subdue nature, but to observe and learn her ancient language, understand her patterns moods and rhythms and live in harmony with her.

Flooded creek

To respect nature is to live in unity and accord with the forces and seasons of the natural world, reading her signs, staying clear of any dangers you perceive, taking shelter when needed, paying attention to her slightest cues and hints of what is to come.

These signs will touch your early warning system: your intuition that is born of your existence on this planet. You must pay attention to what is around you and how that resonates in your body heart and mind!

Living in harmony with nature can mean nurturing the plants and rooted growing beings from the towering trees to lush shade loving ground cover, learning their ways, what they need.

Hosta in bloom

Living in harmony with nature can mean caring for your domesticated animals, letting them teach you, observing their ways. It can also mean a kind and healthy balance between the habitats and habits and needs of wild creatures and those of the human world.

As you commune with the spirits of nature, you will know your place in this harmonious web of life and learn to exist in peace with all conditions and all creatures.