|
A Journey to the Spirit of Illness
Seasoned greetings!
Our past several columns have explored our sacred garden—our personal place of power in the inner levels of reality that shamans call the spirit worlds. I have revealed much about this place and how it works in my small book The Journey to The Sacred Garden: A Guide to Traveling in the Spiritual Realms.
The account that follows is adapted from its “companion book”--Spirit Medicine: Healing in the Sacred Realms—one of many narratives about how we can utilize our garden as a place of healing and personal restoration. It’s my gift to you during this holiday season—a time when many of us encounter “the spirit of illness.”
Many years ago, a woman in one of my workshops selected a particular place she knew well to be her sacred garden. When she returned from her first shamanic journey into the dreaming of this place, she was puzzled. The locality was not as she remembered it. For starters, it had thorny, unfriendly-looking vines growing all over everything, choking the trees and blanketing the elements that made the place so charming.
As I listened to her account, a message suddenly arrived in my mind—my mental soul. I perceived it as a download from my oversoul, and on impulse, I turned to her and asked if she had cancer. Her eyes widened as she confirmed my intuition. She had recently been diagnosed with this dread disease.
The first rule of the garden is that everything in it is symbolic of some aspect of ourself or our life experiences, so from this perspective, the unrestrained growth of the vines in her garden was symbolic of the out-of-control cell division manifested as cancer in her body.
I asked her another question, and again, her answer confirmed my suspicion. A series of recent life losses had created a profound sense of disharmony within her. "What shall I do'" she asked me with fear growing in her eyes.
"Well," I responded lightly, "you could sharpen up your metaphysical machete and start chopping the vines out of your garden. Or you could do what I do. I'm great with plants in pots but I’m not skilled at full-fledged landscaping. So when something really big needs my attention, I invite master gardeners into my garden to help me.”
She laughed as I suggested that she do the same--invite a team of spirit gardeners to help her chop all the vines out of her garden. She followed my advice in the journeys that followed, yet when the weekend workshop came to a close, she and her gardeners were still chopping. The vines were still growing, and they had barely made a dent.
I suggested that she go to her garden several times each day from then on, as time allowed, and that she continue to remove the vines with help of the spirit gardeners. Remember the third and fourth rules of the garden, I told her. #3 --You can change your garden by doing gardenwork; and #4 --When you change your garden, some aspect of you or your life experience will change in response.
She followed my advice (in addition to her chemotherapy), and when a letter arrived from her several months later, it contained good news. She and her spirit helpers had finally succeeded in removing all the vines from her garden. Not a sprout or shoot remained. Not surprisingly, when she next visited her oncologist, it was discovered that she was cancer-free.
From the shaman’s perspective, this woman had confronted the spirit of her illness in her garden, defeated it with the assistance of her helping spirits, and in the process, she had removed the illness from her body.
If you, or someone close to you, are struggling with a serious illness or chronic affliction, you might take a more active role in your own healing by following this example—by meeting with the spirit of your illness in your garden and confronting it directly. This can be accomplished through active shamanic journeywork, or it could also happen spontaneously as a healing dream.
For instance, I remember a healing dream that I had more than 30 years ago--an extremely vivid dream in which I was out in Africa, wading along the edge of a shallow, jungly river, looking for fossils in the eroded river bank. Suddenly, I found myself face to face with a crocodile. It was a real monster, and it was much too close.
After a moment's hesitation, it began to close in. I desperately tried to escape up the steep riverbank, but the sticky brown mud impeded my progress, and the croc was almost upon me. Perhaps the shock of knowing that I could not possibly get away triggered what happened next.
While my physical body continued to sleep, I "woke up" in my dream and realized that the whole scenario, the African river, the mud, the crocodile, were all a dream. With that understanding, I swiveled around, and raising my arm, I pointed at the giant reptile and shouted "STOP!" The croc slid to a halt an arm's length away.
I stared into its yellow eyes and demanded to know why it was pursuing me. A telepathic response came immediately, "I am your tobacco addiction..." Stunned, I stared at the creature and noticed for the first time that the brown mud caked all over it looked like the tar I cleaned out of my pipes. Suddenly, I smelled that familiar, rancid tobacco odor emanating from the croc.
Then something unexpected happened. The reptile shifted somehow, transforming itself from pursuer into pal, appearing more like a pet or a harmless circus animal. But it was too late. I had seen it for what it really was. My resolve formed, and I proclaimed with absolute authority "You're outta here. I no longer need you in my life," and instantly, the croc was gone.
This was the turning point in my battle to give up smoking. From that day forward, I never had another cigarette... and I never looked at crocs in quite the same way either. From the perspective of spirit medicine, I confronted the spirit of my addiction in the dream world, did battle with it, and won. Even though it tried to turn itself into an ally, I saw it for what it was and remained steadfast. I have not smoked tobacco since that dream.
If you are dealing with an addiction or an illness, here's a suggestion for a journey to its spirit. While listening to the CD of either of my small books, go to your garden and practice relaxation. Feel the tranquility of this wonderful place. Allow it to calm you.
When you feel settled, call for your most powerful spirit helpers to come. If you are not sure about who your spirit helpers are, you should journey to find them first—a procedure outlined in The Journey to the Sacred Garden.
When your spirit helpers arrive, tell them that you plan to confront the spirit of your illness and that you need their help. We are not meant to go through things like this alone. Ask them to provide you with power to the max, as well as protection and support. And then, with your spirit helpers’ assistance, power up. You can use the breathing method, outlined in the September ‘05 column (see the Meta Arts archives), while "seeing" the energy streaming into you as beams of light from your spiritual allies.
When you are power-filled, find a trail at your garden's edge, one that leads off through the foliage or trees or grasslands down into another lower area that is clearly separate from your personal place of refuge. This will be your battleground. Ask your helpers to accompany you, and then go there.
When you arrive, pick a spot that appeals to you in some way, a place of advantage, perhaps a large stone with a flat summit upon which you can stand high up above the ground. Then, call for the spirit of the illness to come. Remember, everything that has a physical aspect here in this world has a dream aspect there in that other world, and this includes illness.
When the spiritual aspect of your illness appears, observe it closely. What is it? How does it look? Does it seem threatening? Friendly? Remember, your helping spirits are with you, and so there is nothing to fear. You are safe and are just about to reverse the course of your illness.
You may enter into brief conversation with it, just as I did with the crocodile, but don't be fooled if it shifts to appear charming or amiable. This is not a good guy. This is not someone you want connected with you. Think about your spirit helpers, and how they have filled you with power, and allow your inner director, your inner chief, to emerge.
Then bring up your full power and confront the illness spirit. Order it to leave you. In your mind’s eye, see it diminished, beaten down, defeated, and banish it from your life forever. If there is any resistance, ask your spirit helpers to do battle for you, and they will. Don't be surprised if someone unexpected shows up to assist. If your illness spirit has chosen to manifest itself to you as a crocodile or a dragon, the new ally could be St. George... or even Archangel Michael with his sword of light.
This doesn’t mean that crocodiles or dragons are evil, by the way. It is simply a form that your illness has chosen to take in confronting you. The spirit of your affliction could appear as anything, even as a sacred being, a saint or a prophet or an angel. Your task lies in seeing through it’s shape-changing trickery—in seeing it for what it really is, and remaining firm in your resolve.
When the sickness spirit has vanished, return up the trail to your garden. Does anything appear different? Ask your defenders to join you and have a talk with them. Express your gratitude and ask them to remain on guard until all vestiges of the illness have left your body.
There is one more aspect of this healing dynamic that needs to be considered. Since your body soul is the self-aspect through which you journey into your garden, it has witnessed all that transpired. While still in your garden, address your body soul directly, in the same way that a kindly, wise chief might speak to one of their servants. Ask your body there is anything it needs or wants. You may get a surprise. It could be an expresso at your favorite cafe, a cuddle with your lover, a swim at your favorite beach, or even a hot fudge sundae.
Use your mental soul to create a thoughtform—a visualization of whatever it is your body soul has asked for and offer it, right there in your garden. Take your time and allow the experience to be savored, like a fantasy. Remember, your body soul does not distinguish between reality and illusion, but takes everything literally. So from the body's perspective, the visionary experience that you have just had is real, as well as the thoughtform of the gift you have created for it.
Then, when your body soul is sparkling happily, instruct it to start restoring your energetic matrix to its former undistorted state. One of the primary functions of your body soul is memory, and it can remember and rework your energy field now that the illness intrusions have been removed. As the blueprint is repaired, your inner healer will go to work once again with a clear pattern to work from and health will be restored.
In this way, utilizing the shamanic journeywork method, you can infuse your own inner healer with an enhanced sense of purpose, as well as with power and support from your helping spirits. Knowing this, you might adopt a healing meditation, repeated at regular intervals, to reinforce your command--to heal the body.
Until next time, indeed until next year, allow me to invoke the spirit of my great Hawaiian friend, Kahu Hale Makua, and extend to each of you in this holiday season, the Light and the Love of the Ancestors, the Source of Life, rejoicing in the Power and the Peace, braided with the cords of Patience, revealing the tapestry of the strongest force in the Universe, your Aloha.
--with warm thoughts--Dr Hank
|
|
