Sleep, Dreams and Shamanism

I have always found sleep an easy thing. My wife can tell you that I fall asleep remarkably quickly and usually sleep quite deeply too.  I never thought much of it, even though for the past few years I’ve been experiencing excessive daytime sleepiness too.  I suppose I thought it had to do with my iron deficiency, or not enough coffee in the morning.  It’s hard to believe that for the past six months or more I’ve been falling asleep at work and not thinking much of it at all. The only reason I’m thinking of it now is because when I fall asleep at work, I instantly slip into a dream.

What little I’ve read suggests that such instant dreaming is not entirely normal, and I’m going to talk to my doctor because getting through the workday is becoming excruciating. But I’m interested in the link between my dreamworld and the Other Worlds of shamanism. Perhaps my brain works a little differently and this could actually be beneficial to my journeying. Perhaps I slip into the Other Worlds easily because the dreamworld is always just a moment away. Or is it vice versa? Maybe I should work on lucid dreaming next.

This is fascinating to me, so if any spirit-workers out there have a dream story to tell, please share!

Magic Is Real

I believe in the reality of magic, but there are plenty of times when I act like I don’t. This morning the Universe gave me a huge wake up call.

See, a long time ago, one of my spirit guides (I’ll call her A.) told me to put black peppercorns in the corners of my meditation/piano room for protection. I liked the idea, but procrastinated on actually getting the peppercorns. When I finally did, I didn’t really know what to do with them. So I did nothing. My wife had a good idea about special hanging globes to put them in, and I knew full well it would be a very very long time before we found and bought the appropriate apparatus. Again, I did nothing. Meanwhile A. told me to forget the special hanging things and just put out the pepper in temporary bowls. A few nights ago, I agreed to do it right away. But I didn’t do it. Then the night before last, I promised to do it. I didn’t. Then last night I said I would surely do it.

I didn’t.

So at four in the morning my wife woke up to the sound of running water. We traced it down to a pipe directly above my meditation seat and altars.

We live in a two-storey apartment unit. My mediation room is on the upper floor. Somehow, the water was coming down through the walls and ended up flooding the lower floor. Water poured out the baseboards of my meditation room and along the floor, and water threatened to start pouring through the ceiling where the leak was originating, but it didn’t. Instead, it poured out the ceiling below.

It’s hard to describe, but the result is that miraculously nothing got wet, despite the huge buckets and garbage pails of water that poured through. The water was dangerously close to a lot of things, like my meditation altar and our computers, but nothing got rained on at all. There is a huge sopping wet spot on the ceiling — it covers pretty much the whole living room ceiling, really. And there are now gaping holes in my meditation room ceiling where the plumber finally fixed the leak. But again — nothing was damaged other than that.

I call that magic. A hard lesson, but one I’m not going to forget soon.

 

Algonquin Photos

As I go through Algonquin-withdrawal, I’m looking at photos from our previous trips, and I thought I’d share.

My wife’s so cute, I couldn’t help but post a picture of her cooking bacon…on a shovel.

Me feeding the grey jays. If you hold out your hand, they’ll swoop right down and land on it.

My wife and a grey jay.

A beaver, probably at the dam on Arowhon.

Me feeding a tame fox on Arowhon road. He looks scruffy but was doing well for himself and his family of kits!

We named him Chunky.

Is it any wonder why I want to go back?

Welcome to Nunavut

This video makes me so happy. I’m not sure why, except that I’m drawn to the Inuit culture.

These days I’m aching to go up North to Algonquin. We tend to go a couple times a year; I’m not sure we’ll make another trip before the year’s out. But I feel my heart is there.

I adore the autumn, so naturally I want to experience it in the most beautiful setting possible. I’ve always loved autumn, even long before I became pagan. I used to ache with the falling leaves and be nearly torn apart by this intense beautiful sadness. Now it is different; my life is different; I feel more beautiful joy than beautiful sadness. It is a huge step for me because it used to be so important and I never thought I’d give it up. But it gave me up, as it were.

I want to go to Algonquin and see moose and feed chipmunks and sit with my wife by a fire.  I want to journey amongst the falling leaves and meet new spirit guides. I think this weekend I should find some little substitute — something with the same spiritual flavour that I’m seeking.

 

 

Learning to Rest

Sorry to anyone waiting for an email from me! I’ve become a zombie after helping my wife’s mother move house and I need to get my energy back up. I’m a bit at a loss as to how to do that, since I’m not naturally bouncing back. I should probably take it easy and journey for myself a bit.

Of course I’m itching to get back to my normal schedule and have some fun. It’s hard to rest sometimes; I’ve never been particularly good at it. So I’m thinking of ways to rest that feel spiritual too: quiet talks with my spirit guides, baths, reading, and journaling. I need to get my meditation room into some semblance of order (right now it’s full of my wife’s mother’s boxes) and spend some serious quiet time in my sacred space!

Free Shamanic Readings: My Process

I’ve been doing shamanic journeys for others for a month now, and it’s been an incredible experience. I get so much out of doing this and I’m grateful to everyone who wrote to me, and anyone who will write in the future. Tonight I thought I should talk a bit about my process and clarify a couple things.

I do offer my readings free of charge, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. I can’t imagine myself needing a monetary exchange; people tend to be so appreciative and that alone feels like a proper energy exchange to me. I think that charging for readings would ruin the whole experience for me. I’m not frowning on people who do charge for readings; I actually think my situation is a bit unusual as I have not felt drained or used in any way. Perhaps the Universe or my spirit guides are compensating me for the work. It does feel like a gift and an adventure.

I want to emphasize that I don’t consider myself psychic – I am nothing without my guides. Because of this, I have decided not to continue offering card readings. It is not my strong point at all and I need to do a lot of work around trusting my own intuition. I adore oracle cards and often consult them, having first asked my guides to help me choose meaningful cards. But I feel my interpretations are lacking and I don’t want to disappoint anyone.

So what will you get if you ask me for a shamanic journey? It does vary from person to person. All I need from you is a question or issue that you want me to explore. You can give me as much or as little detail as you like – a simple question is okay, and so is a very complicated one. Then I’ll take your question to the spirit world. Usually I will first ask one of my spirit guides to take me to one of your spirit guides. I believe that people have multiple guides and lots of useful helping spirits, so I may contact a spirit you have not yet worked with. Spirits can come in many forms, too: animals, humans, places, or deities. I may be able to contact a specific spirit or deity if you ask me to, but please understand that it is really up to the spirits themselves as to what happens in a journey.

What kind of questions can’t I deal with? There are a few, though thankfully these kinds of questions have rarely come up. First and foremost, I can’t do any journey that would invade someone’s privacy. That means that I need permission before I journey for someone, and you cannot ask me to journey about another person specifically. Questions such as “What is Mr. Right thinking about me?” seem harmless but I can’t address them without permission from the relevant person. I also can’t delve into matters of health, because I’m not qualified to give medical advice and it’s not smart for me to try. This also means I can’t tell you what will be the result of life-or-death situations.

The best questions to ask are ones concerning your own path, purpose, and development. I haven’t had a truly trivial question yet; people generally want direction for their own growth and that’s fantastic. The spirits are happy to oblige when you are working towards fulfilling your life’s purpose.

Whatever your question is, I will try to get as much specific information as possible by asking your guide a variety of questions. Be aware that knowing more about your situation will help me ask better questions, so feel free to tell me as much as you are comfortable.

After the journey I will write you a report detailing everything I can possibly remember. I’ll tell you a bit about how I entered the Other World, either through trance with a drumming track, through a very hot bath similar to a sweat lodge, or even through the help of an entheogen. If an animal appears in the journey, I will look that animal up in Ted Andrews’ book Animal Speak and tell you a bit about the animal’s significance. Sometimes I’ll offer my own interpretation if something in the journey was unclear and I had an intuition about it. You can always ask for clarification about any aspect of the journey. Ultimately though, the messages I receive are for you to interpret; I’m merely the messenger. Sometimes you just won’t get a straight-up answer and I assure you, it drives me crazy too!

I think that about covers it! Please comment if I’ve missed something. And if you think you’d like me to journey for you, please write to me at janicejove(at)gmail.com.

Labour Day Weekend Family Party

After months of handcrafting soaps, lotions, salves, scrubs, toners, bath bombs and more, my wife and I finally got to show off our work at the annual Labour Day weekend family party. Everyone got to pick out their favourite items in their favourite scents and we encouraged everyone to take as much as they liked…because we ended up making a lot of stuff. It was so very gratifying to see everyone excited and happy over their choices, and so much fun.

It was a hectic and energy-filled party, and a great day, which ended with a beautiful orange moon.

A Witchy Birthday

Yesterday I was thoroughly spoiled, first by the Universe for giving my wife and I great energy and joyfulness. We couldn’t have been happier; we were high on love. Next, my wife spoiled me with treats including a gorgeous witchy outfit. We went to a witch store we hadn’t been to (http://www.catbookandcandle.com/) and had a great talk with the owner, who gave me a beautiful piece of citrine. Next, I got a haircut, and we caused a bit of a stir when my wife started gathering up the clippings into a bag. I explained we planned to give the hair to our Tree, which we were to visit that evening.

We finished labeling and sorting our Journey Tree Hedgewitchery bath and body products for the party today — it’s an insane amount of stuff. I’ll blog about that with pictures later. Then, we went out for our night drive. 

I have to report that our trek to the Tree was foiled by conservation parkies who were suspicious of us entering the park at 1:00am. We did get part way in, escorted by the parkies (there’s a long story there), and at a bridge crossing a Canada Goose flew by making a loud, distressed sound. We took this as a sign that we really weren’t meant to go to the tree. We weren’t disappointed though, and as we discussed it going home, we decided we ought to visit other trees now, different trees, maybe even random trees, and speak with them and give them gifts instead of focusing on the one Tree. As much as we love it, we probably won’t go back (issues with the parkies were that bad). I’m not at all sad; my communion with it in Other Worlds is so strong anyway.

The point about the goose was interesting so I looked it up in Ted Andrews’ Animal Speak. He writes: “you can expect to have the imagination stirred toward new travels to distant places — whether in the body or the mind.” This makes a lot of sense given that my wife and I spoke of our “gypsy” nature as a reason to move on from the tree. We have favourite places yes, but we’re always on the move.

Today is the big family party at the farm; another great day for sure. I’m counting my blessings!