A silvery voice, a marked moon

When I first started out, as a pagan, I was in highschool and I was one of those kids who did tarot readings for her friends, made her own Book of Shadows, was very interested in all kinds of energy work and healing (including Reiki) and basically starting to become obsessed with animal symbolism and so on. By the time I was 17, I was in an Alexandrian Wiccan coven. I thought I was dedicated. I meditated every day, I ran a meditation group for friends, I did rituals and spells, I had my own huge altar, I burnt a circle of salt into the grass in the back garden (sorry Mum!) and so on...

So, on the outside, I was a dedicated young spiritual pagan. But there was a problem. A big problem. There was a huge divide between my spiritual work, and my real life. The person I was spiritually was more ethical than the person I was on a day to day basis. A lot of what I learnt in meditation, I didn't apply to my 'real life.' The animals I worked with taught and said interesting things, but I didn't really know how to bridge the gap. How did I take the problem solving skills of raven and apply them anywhere? I didn't. There was a big divide between what I did, who I was, the lives I was leading.

It wasn't until much later, when I split away from Wicca, and embraced shamanism and animism, that I started to see very clear ways that my spirituality could assist my 'real life.' And around that time I started realising that there's no point to a spirituality that doesn't assist your real life. And absolutely no point in any spirituality that lowers your quality of life. If you're in any spirituality or belief system, no matter WHAT it is, that lowers your quality of life; get out!!!

These days, I don't meditate every day. I don't have a great big altar (I have a few shrines). I have no circles of salt burnt into the grass behind our house (we have no grass, so...), and I don't run a meditation group. But it doesn't matter, because I live my spirituality. In my work as a spiritual artist. In my mental health and therapy where I now see a therapist who will actually bring up the totems I'm working with as a way to communicate assistance.

An excellent example of this unification was recently I experienced a great deal of anger over a serious betrayal. I am very dysfunctional when it comes to anger, I'll be the first to admit it. I rarely feel it, let along anger that is so strong that I shake from it, and feel my heart pounding and my face heat up... I had no idea what to do. So I reached out to my perevrjni, my spirit helpers, and I said 'what do I do? Help me.'

One of my spirit helpers, a grumpy old man who is partial to wolverines, came forward around me and brought another one of my spirit helpers, a water-horse (a horse that lives in the sea, with a mane and tail of fire) with him. He took a jar and said 'pour your anger into this jar.' I did, and it filled up quickly. He grabbed another jar, and said 'pour your anger into this jar.' And so we went, on and on, pouring out white, and then red, and then blue and purple and green shades of anger, until my water-horse was covered in clinking jars of anger that shone with energy. I was grounded and more calm, and I had a stockpile of energy to use for later.

In 'real life' it gave me the ability to respond to the person who had betrayed me from a rational and honest place. I stood up for myself, made healthy decisions for myself, and essentially got out of a very toxic situation with most of my soul intact and a gratefulness in my spirit helpers, and a proudness in myself for being able to manage serious anger in such a way for the first time in my life.

Those anger jars came in handy. I use them in energy work, to protect myself against being attacked by two spirits, and as offerings to other spirits (including a local crocodile god, who now has all my anger jars, and I have to wait again until I'm very angry to make some new ones). It wasn't a psychological technique I was using, taught to me by a therapist; but a spiritual one with psychological and real life implications. It was taught to me by a spirit helper named Aka Oslo, who lives on a house, on a rock that reaches out of a rough sea, that smells of salt and fur...who may or may not be a figment of my imagination. It doesn't matter if he is; because any figment of your imagination that teaches you spiritual and therapeutic tools that keep you safe and true to yourself, is a wonderful, helpful figment. Of course, I think he is real. :)

Not only that, but a couple of other people who heard this story are using anger jars themselves now. This is a technique that can be very helpful. It reached into other 'real lives,' because of its practical implications. It allows you to keep your anger, which means you're not 'getting rid of it' (don't get rid of your emotions, they're valuable!); but it also allows you to take a step back and see exactly what you have, what the energy looks like, and how beautiful it is. Anger might be overwhelming, but when it's shining out of many many jars, it's beautiful too. And colourful! And mostly, practical and helpful as well.

So how does your spirituality translate to your every day functioning? Do you have problems making connections between your spiritual practices and your 'mundane' life? When you work with animal totems, where are the real life results of that? When you walk or commune with the land, what do you take back to your workplace or your other environments. When you are in crisis, how does your spirituality assist you?

...I have very little life at all.

Welcome to another ramble on shamanism and my footsteps upon this path!

It took me a little while to understand the statement: 'no spirits, no shaman.' I thought 'but I can do it without them!' And I am grateful that I know differently these days.

I have a few spirit helpers who are willing to walk with me on my spiritual journeys, a few gods that I visit, or who visit me, and a few 'acquaintances' in the otherworlds who, for trade (usually), will offer a wealth of knowledge, access, wisdom, growth or simply offer of themselves so that I may learn, grow, move, and so forth.

We live in a world where independence, at least in many of the circles I walk, is praised almost above healthy interdependence within a community/communities, friends, family, and the friends and family that the spirits can be. And so I feel an offshoot of this is a proliferation of solitary pagan paths that are praised almost above group and community-based faiths. Solitary paganism, Solitary Wicca, Solitary shamanists, and so forth. And many proponents of solitary paths will state 'I can do what I want, I like the independence it gives me.'

But is any path truly solitary, if you are walking with spirits and gods in your life? If you say 'yes,' then how much substance are you awarding these spirits and gods? How 'real' are they to you? If one accords spirits and gods with the respect I feel they rightfully deserve, then any path that involves these spirits and gods can never be 'solitary' truly. Unless of course you believe all spirits and gods are archetypes, and have no more substance than that. But this is not the sort of spiritual practices I'm personally referring to. It is difficult to practice shamanism with archetypal spirits. ;)

Can any person on a solitary or community-based pathway truly do 'what they want,' when it is balanced against the wisdom of the spirits, the gods, their own conscience and their will when it comes up against the will of others?

The spirits and gods in my life inform me, and therefore inform my path. Just as my friends, my family, my 'fremily' (...I think I hate that term), any therapists, co-workers, colleagues and acquaintances inform me, and therefore inform my path. I am no shamanist without the spirits and gods. I am no shamanist without the community around me, the people in my life, my animal companion, the plants, the land, my clients, the rocks that bear my weight as tiny grains of sand in the structure of this house.

I used to think it was a sign of weakness to essentially say that I was nothing without the spirits, but now I see it as a sign of strength. I do not have to surrender my will, my ability to discern, decide, and see the truth of a matter, in the recognition of my interdependence on the spirits around me. They enrich my existence, my perspective, bring me to greater state of health, just as the people around me - through their support, and love - also do.

What are the spirits and gods to you? Are they archetypes? Are they integral to your practice? Are they an afterthought? Have they helped you to grow as a person in all aspects of your life? Can you apply wisdom or knowledge that spirits and/or gods offer you in the 'real world'? And have you applied the wisdom or knowledge of friends and/or family in places like the otherworlds?

Right now I am mostly all about gratitude, and the gentle warmth that comes from knowing that if these spirits and gods, friends and family, choose to walk in my life, maybe they get something out of my existence, just as I very much get something out of theirs.