Hard to be flashy

It's really hard to do try to do something actively spiritual every day in order to write about it. I got off to a very enthusiastic start, but that pace is proving to be more than I can maintain. That isn't to say that I'm not doing anything spiritual: yesterday I contacted a spirit animal to help me with an issue I've been struggling with for years (I felt odd putting out a spiritual help wanted like that, but it seems to have gone well -- but that's not far along yet for me to say much about) and today I made a bracelet to help me connect with an existing totem. So it's not as if I'm sitting idle. It's just difficult to come up with something flashy right now. I've been pretty emotionally tired -- not sure why. Maybe because I'm working extra hours at my job until I leave? It's still part time though, so I really don't know.

Greeting the sun

Since today was so gorgeous, I decided to try working with the sun a bit. I work with the moon fairly as an entity fairly often, so i don't know why it never occurred to me to do the same with the sun. Perhaps it's because I feel more aligned with the domain of the moon: intuition, feeling, oceans. But that's really a false dichotomy isn't it? I live more in the light of the sun than the moon. Distancing myself from that energy is just foolish.

Has anyone else ever realized that they were creating a false dichotomy which was holding them back? I'd be curious to hear about it.

Pondering the nature of totems

I've been thinking about the nature of totems/power animals/what have you lately. There's no real consensus among Neoshamans (at least that I have seen), which leaves the questions open to anyone who cares to care about them. I think that discussion can be divided into two main categories: external v. internal and collective v. individual.

External v. Internal

Are animal guides (or any spirit guides, for that matter) external entities with an existence outside of our own, or are they internal psychological constructs which we interact with as if they were external? It is my opinion that the spirits exist outside of our minds, but I also don't think that the question is terribly relevant. If the spirits give good advice and bring me closer to their animal children (for animal spirits, anyway) then that is enough.

Collective v. Individual

When working with a totem, am I speaking to an individual animal or to the archetypal representative of the species? This is the question which I have the most difficulty answering. I've always assumed the latter, but lately I have begun to wonder. The animal spirits I interact with tend to seem, well, smaller than I would expect if that were the case. They aren't grand or domineering, but instead rather unassuming, for the most part. The problem may well be one of false expectations, but it is enough to make me wonder.

Some people get around this problem by saying that totems are the archetypal representatives of their species, while animal spirits are individual animals. I like this explanation, but it doesn't seem to work in my experience. Squirrel gave me a personal name to call him when we first began interacting. If he is the representative of all grey squirrels, then why give me another name? He is very firm that he is my totem, so it can't be that I have him wrongly categorized.

To a certain extent, I suppose that it doesn't matter any more than the internal v. external question. If my work with them is rewarding for everyone involved, then I suppose the precise nature of animal totems is irrelevant. But this question seems more important to me, for some reason.

Connection on a tired day

The intense focus on working with my spirit friends seems to be making difference. Despite having had a very busy day and not feeling terribly well, I did manage to maintain a connection to squirrel (one of my main spirit friends, and what most would call my totem) on and off during the day. It didn't work any miracles -- I was still tired and distracted -- but squirrel was there with me, and I could feel it.

That said, I'm too tired right now to make a substantive blog post. Sorry!

I'll be the first to admit that I tend to become infatuated with new ideas. Case in point: after finishing DIY Totemism I placed interlibrary loan requests for three books the author recommended. Not surprisingly, they all arrived at the same time, and now I am staring at a pile of three books to work through. If I can get renewals on all of them, that should give me two months, which is plenty of time, but renewals can't be guaranteed, and I can't predict which one(s) will end up with requests on them (thus rendering them non-renewable) and which I should thus read first. I'm just going to have to hope for the best.

That said, I am very much looking forward to diving into those books! In order to avoid overwhelming myself with too many exercises to try and avenues to explore, I intend to read with a notebook nearby to scribble down any ideas. Then, when the first flush of obsession has passed and I am no longer drowning in a sea of ideas, I can go back to my notes for more leads to follow.

Scattered thoughts (this may become a trend)

We did it! I felt a profound sense of relief when I woke up this morning and found out that it hadn't been a dream -- Obama really did win. I can have my country back!

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I'm still excited to deepen my spiritual practice, but I'm already getting overwhelmed. I need to create some sort of structure, rather than running blindly from one inspiration to the next. Meditation is yielding all kinds of interesting ideas, and I'm trying to follow them all at once, which won't work. I've been down that path (so many times!), and it leads to discouragement and eventually giving up, which would be a shame after I've made so much progress. I don't have the energy tonight, but tomorrow I would like to sit down and, with the help of my spirit friends, draw up some sort of plan or outline for how to approach all of these ideas.

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One thing I need to deal with, preferably soon, is grounding/closing ritual. With all of the spirit work I've been doing, I've been even more spaced out and distracted at work than usual. There has to be some way to signal that the magic/ritual/meditation is done, and that it is time to return to normal consciousness, because that's not happening right now. One of my spirit guides suggested a bell, but I don't currently own one. I use a rattle to go *into* trance, so that's out. Some sort of sound would work well, but I'm having trouble thinking of one.

Perils of the indoor altar

I'm having trouble adjusting to having my altar indoors again. There are too many distracting noises! For instance, my altar shares a room with my computer, which is rarely turned off when I am both at home and awake. But the sound of the computer running, quiet as it is, serves as a potent distraction. So if I want to do any kind of spiritual work, I need to turn that off first. This evening a discovered that the dishwasher is also too distracting, which is much more difficult to turn off on a whim, since I need clean dishes! And my husband is a musician, so I have to negotiate time when he isn't playing, too. I know that I need to learn to concentrate around distractions, but it's tough in here!

The presidential election going on in the U.S. today isn't making it any easier. I'm on edge waiting for the results, and have been all day. And I seem to have done something to my shoulders, because I woke up in a dull agony late last night, and it hasn't gotten much better since then. Yes, I am full of complaints today. With luck, I'll be feeling more celebratory tomorrow!

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Hey, if I put the new pagan chant CD* in the computer and turn the volume way up, it drowns out a lot of that noises I was just complaining about! I bet I can use this information to my advantage. I doubt that I can meditate with my spirit guides while listening to "Weavers," however cheerful, but I bet there's something I could listen to instead that would work...... Yes! The extended track of "We are One" is perfect! I was able to sing along enough to get into a trance state, and then the chanting in the background was enough to keep me there. I didn't stay long, but I suspect that had more to do with shoulder pain than anything else.

*Weaving the Web of Life, by Mothertongue

Freedom!, and projects

One of the side effects of my recent resurgence of spiritual practice is that I have given notice at my job. It's amazing how difficult it is to remain in an unhealthy, counter productive situation while spiritually revved up! I'm actually wondering how much of my spiritual lag was due to the ennui generated by that job. Probably more than I would like to admit.

I will be at that job for another month, but I am already feeling heady with freedom. I plan to enjoy my unemployment for at least a little while. I can put that time into continuing to recharge my spiritual practice, working on my etsy store, and possibly initiating a project which I have secretly been nursing for more than three years now: the internet pagan library. The plan would be to use create entries for books and websites relating to Neopaganism (classified using the Neopagan Subject Thesaurus I wrote for a class, naturally!). Each entry would link to as many reviews of the book as I can find, it's page on Amazon, and a discussion board. I think it could really be a valuable resource, but I'm not sure if there would be any demand for it, or even if I have the skill and dedication to pull it off, so it's still very theoretical at this point, but I would be interested in hearing what other people think of the idea. So please, give me your thoughts!

Meet the cowrie!

While reading random posts from the author I was telling you about yesterday, I encountered a description of how she words with the spirits of the animals in her drum. I can't find it right now, or I would link you all directly to it, but I found the idea fascinating, and surprisingly obvious. I'm ashamed to say that the idea had never occurred to me. So today I decided to try that myself. One of my most prized spiritual possessions is a cowrie shell rattle which I use every single day -- isn't it about time I gave some recognition to the spirit of the animal who died so that I could have it?

I thought that it would be best if I went into this knowing a bit more about who I was contacting, so I started by researching what sort of animal a cowrie shell actually comes from. This turned out to be much more difficult than it looks! It was easy enough to use wikipedia to find out that cowrie (or cowry) is the common name for a group of sea snails. But there are over 200 species, and I wanted to figure out which one, specifically, my rattle was made from. More Google research turned up the "purple top tiger cowrie," but I could only find biological information on the tiger cowrie, not the purple top variety. Mine very clearly has a purple top, so I wanted to get information on that variety, not the generic tiger cowrie! Yet more Google research led me to the realization that tiger cowrie shells have a solid purple layer under the top layer -- purple top tiger cowrie is made by dipping the top in acid, so it eats through to the purple layer. Mystery solved!

In doing the meditation, I contacted both the individual tiger cowrie spirit of my rattle and the totem tiger cowrie. Shell cowrie seems somewhat surprised that I had taken an interest in her (I think it was a her) after all this time. She was miffed that I hadn't thought of the shell as having once come from a living, breathing animal, but was willing to forgive me when I apologized, as it is a common error among humans. I asked if there was anything I should do to honor her, and she asked that I periodically rub essential oils onto the shell. Then I asked to speak to tiger cowrie, the totem, who was more prickly. S/he is irritated at mankind for using cowrie shells as currency and decoration for so many years without even knowing, in most cases, what kind of animal is comes from. My attempts to work with him were met with some hostility and disbelief. I said that I would try to encourage more people to look at cowrie shells as more than just a pretty beach souvenir, and s/he agreed to work with me. However, I need to come back in a few days, as s/he can't think of anything to tell me right now.

When I finished my meditation I went through my essential oils to find something appropriate to rub into the rattle. I selected ylang ylang as a nice, sensual, loving sort of oil. I think she liked it.

The experience seems to have gone well. It was my first time contacting the spirit of an individual animal, or the totem of an invertebrate, so it was a new experience for me!

Shamanic Kick-Start!

Since getting back from Twilight, I've been wanting to deepen my spiritual practice again. I got off track over the summer, but now that we are well and truly into the fall I feel called to start moving again. This was confirmed in both the rune reading and journeying I did last night as part of my observation of Samhain. It's time for me to renew my commitment to this and have a new start (the rune reading said other things, too, which I may discuss at a later date). I received some practical advice on how to do that, but not much. I never do get much practical advice from my spirit friend; I think they prefer to force me to work things out on my own.

Anyway, to make a long story short (too late!) I am focusing more on my shamanic practice. Not only did I get a jumpstart in that direction with my work in Eagle Clan at Twilight, but that has been a central aspect of my spirituality for a long time now. I've deviated some from Core Shamanism in that time, which I don't think is a bad thing, but I've more or less been in a holding pattern in regards to my shamanic practice (among other things). I need to start moving forward. The obvious way to do that is the talk to the spirits themselves, ask them what I need to do. However, in addition to rarely giving me practical advice, I find that my spirit friends rarely respond well to open ended questions. I need to go to them with more specific ideas of where I want to go, but I'm coming up short. Thus, I turn to books.

I started by rereading parts of Shamanism: as a Spiritual Practice for Daily Life, which I had enjoyed previously. I still have some issues with the book, but it did give me a few interesting ideas to explore regarding the Middle World. Normally I do all of my work in the Lower World, but it seems that exploring the spiritual aspect of the world we live in can only do me good. Not that I've gotten around to this yet.

Then my newest book purchase arrived in the mail: DIY Totemism. I read almost the entire book yesterday; it's that good. Then I found the author's blog about creating her own shamanic tradition. Both of these resources -- the book and the blog -- have given me much to think about! Aside from seeming to share all of the same pet peeves about neopaganism and neoshamanism, it is refreshing to read about shamanism from a perspective that is neither straight Core Shamanism or Indigenous Shamanism. I was surprised by how well some of what she has discovered fits with my experiences. For instance, that you can talk to totems/guides/spirit friends in meditation/trance or journey. I've always done that, but felt like I was doing something wrong, since I'd never heard of anyone else being able to contact their guides outside of the Other Worlds. I've always felt that it was safer and easier to have a conversation in trance than to go on a full out journey. I'd rather save visiting the Other Worlds for, well, visiting the other worlds! I'll be very excited to start working on the exercises in the book. You can probably look forward to reading about my results as this month progresses.