November Suggested Journey Topic 2017

Posted on November 2, 2017

It’s a beautiful time in Autumn right now. Spending time outside in this crisp fall air helps clear my head and reconnect me to the things that I’m processing and letting go of in preparation for Winter.

There are some exciting things happening here at Eagle Therapies. As some may know, Earth Centered spiritualities have just celebrated a holiday called Samhain. It is a day which is like the Pagan new year, celebrating new beginnings and the end of a harvest. As we turn into our practices, let us dive into our spiritual practices with a beginners eye.

Simplicities. Let’s start back with the basics. This month during our Journey Group, we will explore the topic of Deepening our Relationship with our Helping Spirits. In that blog post, we explore the topic of our foundation, who exactly we are connecting to. If our connection to our helping spirits is not pristine, then occasionally we can get stuck in loop holes and stunt our personal development. If we are constantly clearing what is on the surface and not deepening our practice, what we end up doing is manifesting a different version of the same thing. Have you ever noticed any patterns in your life? A common example is wanting the same type of lover, and vowing to not pick the same type of lover, but after a fresh new start – you find out you fell in love with someone whose character is the same of what you broke up with before! Hmm… here is where we get into some discernment.

For those that are interested in joining us in person, feel free to explore the structure of our Fairfax Journey Group. For those that want to participate in a Non-Local Shamanic Journey group, feel free to check out our Joining from a Distance post or our video series on the Distance Journey Group.

Here is the Outline for the month of November, as well as links to the Facebook and Meetup events that we will be hosting this month. All opportunities to exploring your connection to Spirit!

Nov 7th – Heart Centered Sound Circle for Fairfax, VA: Facebook and Meetup
A 2 hour long ceremony that helps one explore their heart space through embodiment, song, dance, and drumming.

Nov 8th – Bi-Weekly Shamanic Journey Group: Facebook and Meetup
Suggested Journey topic: Connecting or deepening our connection to our Helping Spirits. See this post for more details. For more seasoned practitioners, it will be exploring the foundation of the relationship and potentially uncovering any blockages we might have to fully receiving the insight in a non-biased way from these helping spirits.

Nov 17th – Heart Centered Sound Circle for Damascus, MD: Facebook and Meetup
A 2 hour long ceremony that helps one explore their heart space through embodiment, song, dance, and drumming. This one taking place at a farm in Damascus, MD. Outdoors under a shelter 🙂

Nov 19th – Ancestral Healing Circle in Damascus, MD: Facebook and Meetup
A celebration of the Ancestors, and discovering the relationship that we carry either consciously or unconsciously. The topic this month will be about the energy of exploitation. There is a balancing act that happens between gratitude and entitlement, and how do we recognize when we are unconsciously exerting our will on those around us?

Nov 22nd – Bi-Weekly Shamanic Journey Group: Facebook and Meetup
Suggested Journey Topic: This is where we actively engage with our helping spirits and begin crafting the real questions that matter about connection. What does embodying mean and how can we create a closer connection to Source/God/The Great Mystery/All that is?

Nov 24th – Black Friday Drum Circle: Facebook and Meetup
Join us for an alternative to all of the crazy materialism and mass consumption out there! An evening of fun, laughter, and community as we stick out as different and come together in joy instead of stress over making someone else happy with gifts.

Nov 25th – Shamanic Journeying Basics Class: Facebook and Meetup
A workshop that takes place before the Monthly Journey Group. Class is $15 and is a brief crash course on Shamanic Journeying.

Nov 25th – Monthly Shamanic Journey Group: Facebook and Meetup
Free group that meets once monthly! Instead of the one journey for the bi-weekly journey group, explore two journeys and practice your journeying skills with other like minded individuals. No suggested journey topic, but extended singing/dancing time as compared to the shorter journey groups in the middle of the week.

Thank you for reading! We hope to see you either digitally or at one of our groups 🙂 Keep in mind that community is always there, you just have to reach out and ask for help. Fly high everyone!

info@eagletherapies.com or call/text 571.306.3197

Strengthening our connection to Spirit Guides

Posted on November 2, 2017

To walk down a true shamanic path, it means to connect regularly to external spiritual help/guidance. This involves having a relationship with a spiritual teacher, helping spirit, spirit guide, or a power animal. It takes time and practice to be able to hear/listen to these helpers, and it is a relationship to cultivate. It is a choice to work with helping spirits, and there are many benefits to doing so. Many people may feel called to “walk the path of a Shaman” but then end up not asking for help in the right way, using their own power and in turn becoming sick. If we are able to engage in these relationships, we can do what we came here to do in a way that is good for all living things – not just for ourselves. We can discover what’s in the way, helping uncover the authenticity that is burning within us, waiting for us to live our life purpose – the God given reason why we were born here on this Earth.

To have a viable shamanic practice means to have the discipline to strengthening that relationship through physical reality intention and practices. It can get sloppy if we do not set up the right parameters for asking for help, and our intentions become dilute, losing our focus easily. If we don’t commit to a practice, then our efforts or attempts at a relationship will be as superficial as a Facebook friendship, liking each other’s things and not knowing the depth of what the other has to offer. This is an intentional relationship, and it is best to have Ayni (sacred reciprocity) in mind instead of walking into this relationship, demanding what you want. What makes a practice shamanic is to connect and engage with these helping spirits in a mutually beneficial way. When you first meet a person at a party and introduce yourself, then intentionally pour out the contents of your deepest fear and ask for help getting your life back together. Most people would refer you to a good therapist if that were the case. Same goes for relationships we establish with our helping spirits. Relationships take time to develop, and (in the beginning) really concentrating on yourself and one spirit connection are crucial to deepening your practice.

When first trying to make “contact” with spirit guides, it can be confusing, and many people mistake any spirit as “theirs” if they have a moving experience that was particularly spiritual. This is where discernment comes in handy, asking the right questions and not assuming. Mary Shutan covers this in her wonderful post about relationships with helping spirits as well as in this interview with Christina Pratt. There are many ways to get in touch with a spirit, and with varying degrees of success based off of the strengths of the individual. Everybody is different, and we all experience reality and non-ordinary reality through our physical and extrasensory senses. For every physical reality sense, there is a extrasensory sense that our energetic body has.

One of the ways that we can begin to discern is with the technique of Shamanic Journeying. It’s a wonderful tool to add to our toolbox, and it is easy to begin honing this skill. It can take discipline to become good at it, and creating an altar practice is very helpful to solidify your practice. Here are some helpful podcasts to help support some basics of living energetically well from a Podcast called Why Shamanism Now:

• Energy Body Hygiene: First steps in beginning cultivation of your energetic body
  • I bounced off of this topic and created a journey track associated with this
• Energy Cultivation: These are the basics of living well, and essential no matter what spiritual path you walk
• Creating Sacred Space: This goes over the importance of building altars/shrines as the focal point of a practice

Daily practice is something that will help strengthen your relationships in spirit because if you clearly discern what is your energetic baggage and are able to release that which is not yours – you can clearly hear the messages that you are asking to receive. This is also helpful in our physical reality relationships, because if you’re too stressed about what’s going on at work, perhaps you end up projecting some of your stress onto your partner at home – not hearing what it is they’re trying to share because your experience is colored by outside influences and thus affecting your ability to be fully present. If we are not clear with ourselves, how can we expect to establish a healthy intimate working relationship with a helping spirit?

This can be a catch 22 – where do we start? Do we focus on ourselves? Do we focus on this external relationship? Many of us know we are a piece of work (Goddess knows I am one) – but the question is how do we move forward with it?

We can combine some of the tools and techniques and overlap these things. There is no right answer or right formula that fits all sizes/experiences. Perhaps for some it’s a daily practice of yoga, complimented by calling in and sitting in meditation with a helping spirit. There’s no cookie cutter answer, but there is something that helped a stubborn person like me:

Just jump in and do it

I had to blunder through a lot of my own growing experiences, but I know one thing for sure – things became a lot more clear and easier with the assistance of a helping spirit instead of being stubborn and doing it myself. It’s very similar to flowing down the river of life in a canoe with a guide instead of swimming down it by yourself. Some people may be great swimmers, but others might easily be swept away by the current instead of going somewhere of their choosing.

Now, what is this whole helping spirit thing? How do I get one, you say?

One of the easier paths is to explore this with the concept of Shamanic Journeying. You can journey directly to spirit and ask for a guide. If you are in the Northern Virginia area and would like to join a journey group, the Bi-Weekly Shamanic Journey group meets every other week. It tends to be a lot easier for people to journey together in groups, because the energy of the circle offers innate energetic protection that tends to be stronger then just an individual intention. If you are not in the Northern Virginia area, we are just launching the distance Journey Group so you can still join no matter what location you are in. For those that would like to try for a go-at-your-own-pace course, there is the at home Shamanic Journeying outline.

The next step after that is learning to frame your intention. Journeying is a question driven activity, and if your focus is scattered, it will be hard to concentrate – especially if you don’t have a focused intention. A good first journey question for any beginner is to ask, “I would like to meet my non-egoic connection to source at this time”. For more experienced journeyers, it would be good to provide clarity on what type of helping spirit you have.

Egoic and Non-Egoic Helping Spirits

This topic has come up many times in the Journey Group. So much so that I have integrated it into the Shamanic Journeying Basics class that I teach. This concept was brought to me by one of my Shamanic teachers, Mary Tyrtle Rooker and her colleague Mary Courtis PhD. When delving into the realms of non-ordinary reality, it is good to have discernment of the types of helping spirits you run across.

There are two main types of helping spirits you will run across, and many will have a varying degree of a blend. The two types are egoic (ethnocentric) and non-egoic (fully compassionate). Neither one is “better” then the other, and it is healthy to work with a blend.

Egoic spirits are pretty much the same as you or I. They have an ego, an identity, and they have their preferences. They are helpful to receive advice from, however their perspective can be influenced – including being lied and fooled to (thus relaying potentially flawed information to you). In many traditional shamanic/indigenous cultures, it is actually taboo to share your helping spirit. One of the reasons for this is that if the identity of your helping spirit is known, it could potentially be stolen, tricked, or manipulated.

Non-Egoic helping spirits are directly connected to source, are fully compassionate, and cannot be lied to. They view everything as a lesson, and have the ability to give you the universal truth. Variations of Non-Egoic spirits can also be known as the Higher Self, Ascended Masters, or a True Self. However, they can be tricky to work with because they view everything as a lesson. If you have a pattern that is deeply ingrained in you, and you ask certain questions based on assumption, they can give you an answer that can easily be misinterpreted into what you want to hear.

Non-Egoic helping spirits are a wonderful guide for a beginner helping spirit. They tend to be a little more difficult to work with then an Egoic spirit, but that is because you have to frame your questions with focused intention. This can really help with discipline in the long run, and also help improve your discernment even before you get into the journey space (because crafting a question is sometimes a process in and of itself). That being said, there is nothing wrong with working with Egoic spirits. Truth be told, I work with about 80% Egoic spirits in my practice. With Non-Egoic spirits, it’s easier for beginners because they don’t have to tend a relationship as much as they would an Egoic spirit. With Egoic spirits, it’s very common to leave out offerings on your back porch, or to visit a power spot once monthly during a hike in order to strengthen your relationship to that helping spirit. With Non-Egoic spirits, they are completely focused on your personal development, because your Soul’s personal development helps the greater web of life – so therefore just your attention on that relationship and working with the helping spirit is enough to strengthen the bond. Egoic spirits are great for “specializing” in a certain area of personal development that you would like to focus on, but it is great practice to still maintain good relationship with your Non-Egoic in order to ask the question, “What will I learn from this helping spirit” and see if their lessons they offer align with you and your intentions.

Layers of Complexity

If you are a beginner, skip this part unless you want your brain to hurt. With the distinguishment between Egoic and Non-Egoic helping spirits, here is where we get to the blend of the two. For every Egoic helping spirit, there is a Non-Egoic or a “True Self” that is connected to it. This is hard for some people to grasp, but think of it this way. It can be hard for one consciousness to be represented in just one presentation, so therefore you can view an aspect of this greater consciousness with an interface that is cultivated just for you and your strengths. An Egoic helping spirit is simply a facet of a larger consciousness, and we must remember that in a shamanic cosmology, we are all one.

Where we can run into problems, is if an Egoic helping spirit becomes disconnected from the Higher Self. Yes, sometimes spirits need shamanic healing just as much as a human. They can experience trauma that separates them from the greater collective or web of life. When this happens, and one interacts with one of these helping spirits without conscious awareness of this severed connection to source – they can receive answers that can reflect wounds or shadows of the pristine information a helping spirit connected to source would receive. This can stunt personal development and keep you running in circles, when otherwise you could be receiving great strides in self awareness rather then perpetuating wounds in a multitude of degrees.

Biggest example that I can think of, is that Archangel Michael is a popular spirit guide with a large Non-Egoic connection. However, middle world Archangel Michael was the helping spirit behind leading the Inquisition in the late 1400’s with his flaming sword and righteous demeanor. This goes to show you that the questions you ask are directly correlated to the lessons you choose to learn. And when you are only focused on certain areas, without keeping the balance of the whole in mind, what you actually could be doing is perpetuating a state of imbalance because the questions you are asking are coming from a state of imbalance. Which is why maintaining good energetic hygiene and personal development are critical in choosing the experiences you wish to learn.

For each Egoic spirit, they can have a certain degree of themselves that is connected to the Non-Egoic spirit. It can be a sliding scale of how much one spirit that is connected to source. Usually if you have in your awareness to ask for a pristine connection to source, you will end up with a great start to interacting with Spirit and high degree of self actualization through a Non-Egoic guide. When you deepen your practice and ask for more help, it’s very possible you will enter into the realm of interacting with more Egoic spirits. As your experiences build, remain true and don’t forget your connection to your Non-Egoic. They will always show up in your practice (even if you consciously forget) with a stark realization that’s similar to having a bucket of ice water dumped on you.

Practical Application

Now… we have this picture of Egoic and Non-Egoic spirits in our mind. How do we apply this to Shamanic Journeying? If you are a beginner, journeying with the question, “I would like to meet my Non-Egoic connection to source at this time” is a great way to begin. Allow the journey to unfold before you, and don’t force it. Allow it to happen. For those that are more experienced and the points above has brought up some questioning within you, still do a separate journey with the intention of, “I would like to meet my Non-Egoic connection to source at this time”. Don’t question the spirit help you already have, but instead just enter into Non-Ordinary reality and allow your Non-Egoic guide to step forward. If you’ve journeyed a few times and have gotten a guide or two, it’s very probable that the helping spirit you receive is one that you’ve already worked with. Just be open to what you receive, and if you need help discerning, that’s what a community or a Journey Group is for! If you live in a non-local area and need help setting up a Journey Group of your own, feel free to reach out for guidance via email or phone.

So now… What are you waiting for?! Get cracking! We got a world to clean up! And it all starts with our own personal journey.

To highlight the main points of this blog post, here are the bullet points:

• Maintain good energetic hygiene
• Having some form of daily practice is very helpful in practicing clarity/discernment
• Keep working and inviting your helping spirits into your daily life
• Remember to ask for help
• Keep at it, even if you mess up. When you mess up, you have permission to ask “What went wrong”

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to email at info@eagletherapies.com or call/text 571.306.3197. Please keep in mind that this information is free, please share it. If these posts or teaching move or influence you in any way, consider donating so that we can continue to support other individuals and groups.

If this post resonates with you, but you find it hard to create a lasting change, read this helpful blog post.

Joining the Shamanic Journey Group from a Distance – Video series

Posted on October 27, 2017 Updated on March 29, 2018

Thank you to everyone who has participated and also shown interest in the journey group – whether online or in person. The intention behind this video series is to give people a face to face interaction on how exactly to join from a distance. There are three videos in this series, each about 10 minutes a piece. For more clarity, this is a follow up to the post Joining from a Distance, specifically talking about the Shamanic Journey Group and how to join from a distance.

The first video is a brief overview into what this video series is about, and explains the context of why we would want to join from a distance. Perhaps we do not have access to a Shamanic Journey Group in our area, and perhaps you prefer to be by yourself then with a group of people. That is fine! This series will give you a brief introduction so you can form a sense of intimacy with the group itself.

Another topic we cover in the first video is Shamanic Journeying itself if you are a beginner. For more seasoned practitioners, you can fast forward to the other videos.

So without further ado! Here is the first video 🙂

Some things I talked about in the first video:

• Shamanic Journeying: A Beginners Guide by Sandra Ingerman
• Spirit Walking: A Course in Shamanic Power by Evelyn Rysdyk
• Joining from a Distance – main post
  • Shamanic Journeying from a distance
• Donate to Eagle Therapies – The groups are free, but run by donation. Keep the Journey Groups running!
• Shamanic Journeying Facebook Group
• Sounds True Shamanic Journey Course
• Shift Network Shamanic Journey Course
• Awakening to Spirit: The Shamanic Path of Direct Revelation by Sandra Ingerman and Hank Wesselman
• Shamanic Journeying expanded topic

The Second video is about the logistics of joining from a distance and the Suggested Journey Topics

Items covered in the video:

• Joining us from a distance, Shamanic Journeying distance wise
• Suggested Journey Topic Outline is posted in the Newsletters
  • Click here to sign up for our newsletter
• Journey Outline at Home for beginners
• Follow us on Facebook or Youtube
• More about Altars, Shrines, and mechanics behind tending them from Why Shamanism Now
• Shamanic Shrines and Creating Community from Why Shamanism Now

The third video is about the structure of the journey group, and goes into more detail behind the mechanics of how to join from a distance

Items covered in the video:

• Structure of the Journey Group
• Join us on the forums for interacting with others after you watch the video

Thanks for tuning in! This will be updated as time allows 🙂

Shamanic Healing for Veterans

Posted on October 17, 2017 Updated on February 19, 2021

There’s something to be said about alternative therapies and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Decades ago, it was discovered that this mysterious mental affliction of veterans had something in common. It wasn’t until the mental/emotional/spiritual afflictions of soldiers coming back from war began impacting the way that veterans were integrated back into regular society. It used to be covered up, ignored, and not really acknowledged. Those who don’t experience that type of experience don’t really know how to tangibly understand what it is that these soldiers experience. Perspective is one thing, and it is another to receive validation to have such a concrete diagnosis of “PTSD”… but then what do you do about it?

The department of Veteran Affairs and our government officials have slowly begun to recognize that the effects of this mental/emotional/spiritual affliction was big enough that the National Center for PTSD was founded in 1989 to help aid in the support of Veterans coming back from duty, integrating into a life apart from the military. Until then, this unknown affliction was treated with drugs and small support groups. It wasn’t until 2009 that more treatments were being discovered for Veterans besides just drugs. There began an interspersion and experimentation with psychotherapeutic and pharmacologic intervention. Because it was becoming a larger epidemic (that many with Veteran relatives or loved ones can testify) and psychotherapy/drugs were only making marginal improvements, there has been more exploration into “alternative therapies”. Of course, in our modern every day society, clinical research and data needed “proof” before commenting and providing evidence that “alternative therapies” really worked. Even in 1992, they still considered cognitive therapy, psychodynamic therapy, and hypnosis “alternative therapies”. It became a blur when things stopped becoming “alternative” and slowly started integrating into Western Medicine. In 2012, the National Center for PTSD even admitted that  “alternative” refers to their use
in lieu of conventional practices within the branch of Western Medicine, and it’s changing all the time. The latest that is considered “alternative” that is getting recognized is Acupuncture, Relaxation, and Meditation. If that is the case, why don’t we try exploring some other options? There’s already some experimentation by Veterans who are not documenting their progress with mainstream because it is not openly acknowledged or talked about as commonly. Here’s an article by Social Work Today that indicates that while it’s not acknowledged, there’s definitely hope. However, alternative therapies should not solely be used, but can be used in conjunction with Western Medicine to have a more balanced approach.

There have been any number of accounts, from yoga to scuba diving and yes – even to shamanism. PTSD is not a mental illness, and should not be treated as such. Shamanism is a very old form of diagnosis/treatment for diseases of the emotions, mind and spirit. It actually encourages one to not look at oneself as having something “wrong” with them, but finding a way to balance out the extremes of imbalance in ones life. When we are not given the support for mental wellness, then our foundations crack and what is labeled as mental instability/illness by our modern day society is a natural occurrence.

As many well known modern day shamans acknowledge, PTSD is a strong symptom of a spiritual disease known as soul loss. When we experience something traumatic, a part of our soul steps out of our body, and there is a common feeling of “emptiness” that happens. Some may just feel “not there” while the experience is happening, just running on auto-pilot. Others may go to the degree of watching things happen on a movie screen, or feeling like they’re just watching things happen to them, or (if really traumatic) they can blank out completely and not remember anything at all. Modern day psychology labels this as dissociation but no one in academic science really talks about what happens to the soul when it’s outside of the body because it cannot be proven/measured. This is the realm of the energetic/shamanic practitioner, who is able to see/interact/help heal those realms of the unseen. When the soul temporarily displaces itself out of the physical body, a piece of itself breaks off during the traumatic event. When the traumatic event is over, the soul returns back to the body, but without the piece that broke off. If traumatic events are seen/witnessed/experienced repeatedly, then these pieces of the soul accumulate to a large degree of what is called “soul loss” which is where people with the diagnosis of PTSD normally fall.

We can see how the predicament of having large amounts of ones essence or soul missing can lead to emotional, mental, or spiritual handicaps. Again, it doesn’t mean anything is wrong with the individual, and there is no hope. A soul retrieval is a simple procedure that can be done by many Shamans and Shamanic Practitioners. No, Veterans are not the only individuals that have PTSD, but they are a large population of the homeless, diagnosed as mentally ill, and some individuals have PTSD so bad they cannot function in a full time job. If we turn our attention and support of those who fought for our country instead of focusing on expanding our military, perhaps we might be a more well balanced society. If you happen to be an auditory learner and would like to listen to a series of podcasts on these thoughts, a good resource is Why Shamanism Now.

This is one of the many reasons why Eagle Therapies is going to host a Shamanic Healing Ceremony on October 22nd. It is a firm belief held by many that mental, spiritual, and emotional support to Veterans and others with PTSD is crucial at this juncture to help heal. It doesn’t take one therapist. It doesn’t take one drug or cocktail of drugs. It doesn’t take one Shamanic Practitioner to do one big soul retrieval. It’s a fact and a reality that recovering from post traumatic stress disorder involves a community and team of people who support the individual affected. The worst symptom of PTSD is death by suicide. This usually happens when a Veteran is feeling isolated, alone, and doesn’t have people around them to help them (i.e. a community). According to the US Department of Veteran Affairs, there is a 22% increase in suicide of adults in the US population that have been in the military.

The intention behind the Shamanic Healing for Veterans is to help people who are Veterans as well as those who support Veterans. Community is something that is sorely needed, and feeling like you are apart of something, or feeling like you’re not being judged as soon as you walk in the door is a comfort that most people take for granted. It’s not just for people who have something wrong with them, it’s actually for people who want to see Veterans as human beings; to laugh, sing, and drum with them as if they are whole human beings with an intact spirit. Because sometimes seeing someone with joy, love, and happiness in their being is something the every human being deserves. And being in the company of someone who thinks that someone with PTSD is “less than” can easily be picked up by the sensitive. It’s an attitude as well as a mind frame to look at someone with PTSD is just a regular human being, and we need more sacred places where people who have these treatable ailments can find comfort with others. We need more places where we can be ourselves. And that’s the hope for the Shamanic Healing for Veterans event.

Maybe this event might happen again, and maybe it’s just a “one-off” but the biggest intention is that events like this are not the only one.

References:

• U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs
• PTSD: National Center for PTSD
• Cukor, J., Spitalnik, J., & Difede, J. (2009). Emerging Treatments for PTSD [Abstract]. Clinical Psychology Review, 29(8), 715-726. Retrieved October 17, 2017, from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272735809001184
• Jackson, K. (2014, March 15). Treatments for Veterans With PTSD — Outside the Traditional Toolbox. Social Work Today, 14(2), 18.
• Libby, D. J., PhD, Pilver, C. E., PdH, & Desai, R., PhD. (n.d.). Complementary and Alternative Medicine in VA Specialized PTSD Treatment Programs. Psychiatry Online. doi:http://ps.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ps.201100456
• Solomon SD, Gerrity ET, Muff AM. Efficacy of Treatments for Posttraumatic Stress DisorderAn Empirical Review. JAMA. 1992;268(5):633–638. doi:10.1001/jama.1992.03490050081031 from https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/398882
• Strauss, J. L., PhD, & Lang, A. J., PhD. (2012). Complementary and Alternative Treatments for PTSD. PTSD Research Quarterly, 23(2). from https://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/newsletters/research-quarterly/v23n2.pdf

Distance Journey Group

Posted on September 15, 2017 Updated on September 22, 2021

THIS POST IS CURRENTLY OUTDATED AS OF SUMMER OF 2021. This is still up as archival history of what we have done in the past.

If you have made it to this page, that means you’re interested in actively practicing Shamanic Journeying with a non-local community. Congratulations on these big steps to feeling connected and a part of something bigger. Keep in mind that whatever you put into it, is what you get out of it, and participation is voluntary.

There are a few ways to join from a distance.

• One is marking yourself as “interested” on the Facebook event, so that when we go live you will get notified and you can watch in real time. This option won’t allow you to participate, but you can view what is happening. After we stop the recording, you can participate on your own at home and look for the blog post which will be posted within a day or two so you can post your journey results.
• The second is to join with a teleconferencing app that can be installed on your computer, smart device or phone called Zoom. This allows you to interact with us, and you can dance, journey, and share your journey with us. PLEASE MESSAGE if you would like to participate live.
• If you are not able to make it live, then you can view the recordings in the archives of our blog. You can post or share your journey results if you choose to.

We are currently restructuring how we organize the previous journey groups, it’s coming soon! But the most easiest way to participate is from watching for our newsletters, Facebook event feed or Meetup events.

If you consider yourself a beginner journeyer, I would recommend taking a look at the Journeying at Home page to help you prepare yourself as well as your space. I have a project that I am working on for a Journeying CD to accompany this “preparation” to allow one easier access to altered states of consciousness. If you would like to provide your own music, a drum, rattle, or tapping on your body can help produce the trance like state we are seeking. If you are unsure about doing that, then you can follow this simple layout with accompanying journey tracks.

Here is a helpful video by Sandra Ingerman about journeying, and here is a link to her book, “Basics of Shamanic Journeying”. If you would like further instruction, there is typically a class about journeying right before the monthly journey group (with no suggested journey topic) for practice. Variation may range based on the month, however you can stay in touch with our events via our newsletter archive, signing up for our monthly newsletter, or looking at our Facebook or Meetup pages. If you wish to deepen your studies, there are several courses offered through Sounds True, the Shift Network and the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.

If you have trouble journeying, or have tried several times to journey, please do not fret. Sometimes it just takes practice. Going into an altered state of consciousness at will is a learned skill. It’s like a muscle. You cannot expect to go right into the gym for the first time to bench press 100 lbs. Some people might be surprised to find out they can, while other people struggle to even lift up the bar. Everyone is different, with different experiences and skill sets. Some may have a problem concentrating because their imagination runs wild, so they have wild vivid journeys but they make no sense. While at the same time, others might struggle to release the thoughts of their day and keep thinking about things they have to do – thus feeling blank for the journey itself. It all varies, but the only way to keep gaining experience is to do it and see what happens.

If there still seems to be trouble and there are certain blockages that are hindering your progress, it is possible that a shamanic healing might be in order. Sometimes with the amount of disconnection our society is in, vital pieces of ourselves might be missing due to soul loss, or trauma from our past. Shamanic healing sessions can be done either in group ceremonies or in one-on-one sessions. The group ceremonies tend to be done by donation, while the private sessions (either private or you can invite other people to witness) are done by sliding scale. More information can be found on the List of Services tab.

Feel free to contact us by email at chenchira@eagletherapies.com or call/text 571.306.3197 if there are any questions or concerns. Don’t be shy! And happy journeying, everyone.

Journey Group Outline for September and October 2017

Posted on September 7, 2017 Updated on September 7, 2017

Wow! Would you look at that! I have everything all set in stone for the next two months and I have everything scheduled! IT’S A MIRACLE!!

Well, not really. But I have a lot of deep gratitude to a lot of people helping me pull this off. So without further ado – let’s see what we’ve got in store at Eagle Therapies for the next two months!

For those that don’t know, there is both a bi-weekly shamanic journey group as well as a monthly shamanic journey group. The one with the “journey group outline” is the bi-weekly occurring event. The monthly meetup has a class right before hand, so if you’re interested in journeying but don’t feel comfortable doing it – well here’s a class for you! We weren’t able to have a monthly journey for September, but that’s alright. Just come in October instead! The monthly journey is also longer and with two journeys instead of one. There is the option to journey for someone else during the second journey. There is a facebook group for the journey group, and I promise I’ll get better about posting in there. The intention behind the facebook journey group is to have people that are joining in from a distance to post the results of their journeys – or to have members post odd synchronicity of what happened when they applied what they learned in their journey group.

So without further ado: Here is the suggested journey topic for the next two months!

Energy Health and the taking care of our Bucket

I did a blog post about this last year, and we are going to revisit this topic again, because it’s a different set of people, as well as a new location. The basic premise is to explore the blog post, but to give an opportunity to the group to be able to break it down into separate journeys. Here is how we shall break this down:

September 7th

Introduction to the state of our energetic health
Facebook and Meetup

A lot of people aren’t really sure what to make of their energetic health. A lot of people that claim to be “empathic” are sometimes just super sensitive to other people’s energy because their energy body is porous. We will cover this topic as well as explore how our energy body is interacting with the world around us, and what impact is has on our emotional, mental, and spiritual status at any given moment in time.

September 21

The container
Facebook and Meetup

This is where we explore what our container is, as well as what status it is in. Not many people will see it as a “bucket”. People have had this show up as a glass container, a wooden one, a porcelain, and also metal. No answer is wrong, but the type of material it is made of is also a representative of how you interact with the world.

October 5th

The contents
Facebook and Meetup

It’s funny how sometimes we can acknowledge something on the surface, but underneath it can be a putrid pond filled with gross stuff. Is an energy body supposed to have sediment down at the bottom that isn’t touched? Perhaps one can have a sluggish reaction to certain things, but then “boiling over” or reactive when it’s close to the top? What does repression mean and what are the repercussions of it on your energy body.

October 19th

The stability
Facebook and Meetup

Sometimes we can feel as though we are teeter tottering on the edge of a precipice. Knowing ourselves as well as “where our bucket is NOW” can provide insight into our emotional/mental stability at any given moment in time. If we are on unstable ground, or if we feel as though we are about to “lose it”, then we can certainly journey to our energetic body to see what type of metaphoric “ground” we are on, and explore/heal that aspect of ourselves.

Again, there is no class and monthly journey in September, but the next Shamanic Journeying Class is on October 28th, followed shortly by the Monthly Journey Group. If you are familiar with journeying, you can skip the class and come right to the monthly journey group for more practice. For the up to date event listings, feel free to check out either our Facebook calendar or our Meetup Calendar. If you are interested reading our newsletter for the month, visit the Newsletter Archives or join the newsletter.

Happy September! So many kids going back to school 🙂 Blessings to those children starting their new school career this year <3

New Wave of a Birthday

Posted on May 25, 2017 Updated on March 21, 2018

It is one thing to celebrate one’s birthday with parties, balloons, presents, and gifts presented by loved ones.

But what about the loved ones with no voice?

The Earth doesn’t have a voice that we can hear with our physical senses. To me, it’s something that I feel, and I usually feel this union in my heart. Whenever I look up at the sky when it’s thunder storming, whenever I look at the ocean, or when I’m in the woods listening to the wildlife around me… I don’t necessarily hear a voice, but I feel a deep thrum in the pit of my belly. Sometimes I hear an invisible song that brings me deep joy and peace. From this deep gratitude that I feel, I wish to give back on the anniversary of my birth.

I have been named strange more times than I can count in the 3 decades I’ve been alive. And this is something that I am completely okay with. I actively choose not to participate in the gift giving habit this year, and I am hoping that those who know me well enough to want to gift me a present will do the same. As many know, I care deeply about the Earth, and the astonishing atrocities that are being committed now are things that would leave me in tears for hours if I slowed down enough to process all of it. Instead, I do what I can, pick up trash when on hikes, have vowed to take shorter showers, and have helped with recycling programs/dig through trash both at home and at work to help clean/support Mother Earth. This year, I don’t want my birthday to be just about me – I want it to be a celebration of life in general. Honoring the Earth and being in gratitude for the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat are simple pleasures many take for granted.

The Standing Rock movement was something that helped enlighten a lot of people to the dependency that we have on oil, and we have marinated again and again in spiritual awakenings. More people are becoming aware that the way we are living now is not sustainable. For example, the Dakota Access Pipeline that was promised not to leak began leaking even before it was complete, and now has leaked twice after being officially “open”. I, of course, encourage you to do your own research and fact check. There are plenty of articles available on this subject matter.

But this brings out the point that we can’t focus all of our energy into what is not working. We can, however, focus on things that are working. There is an epidemic of trash for many reasons such as human nature (read laziness), privileged people and the overflowing landfills all across the world. Humans are constantly consuming and creating more refuse that is affecting our wildlife. One of the biggest results is the accumulation of “Garbage Patches”, where there is a concentration of trash due to debris falling off ships, or careless tourists that end up forgetting their trash on the beach and it washes away. Plastics comprise about 80-90% of this. There’s an interesting thing about some plastics – that they never really “degrade”. They actually just break down into smaller and smaller pieces, hence causing mass deaths. Thankfully, a lot of awareness has been brought up in this regard, and there are many efforts to try and clean our oceans of plastics, as well as to help create happier environments for our marine life.

This year for my birthday, I want to be able to support causes that I know where the money won’t go into corporate hands and actually make a difference in this world. This bracelet really spoke to me, because this bracelet is made from 100% recycled material. The beads are recycled from glass bottles, and the thread is recycled from plastic bottles/bags. This company named 4Ocean is putting out there that for every purchase of a bracelet, one (1) lb. of trash is cleaned from the ocean. You can watch this video for a brief introduction to it.

This really spoke to me and my heart, because I’ve been a big fan of the ocean for a long time. Whenever I hike, I make sure to bring a garbage bag with me so I can pick up the litter. I also find that somehow getting a memento from others picking up the trash and being able to do something with it, is like a reflection and friendly reminder of the times I’ve already done it. And it gives me hope when I see my son doing the same, and helping me pick up the trash on his own, instead of me having to ask. I hope that this trend of good stewardship for the planet keeps picking up, and I wish to invest my energy into something that means a lot to me. And if you were thinking of giving me a present, please consider donating to this instead, and sending me a nice message saying that you got a bracelet and helped pick up one (1) lb. of trash from the ocean. And even if you weren’t and happened to stumble across this post – then please, to help fulfill my birthday wish, consider donating money to this wonderful cause.

As an added bonus, if you do happen to get a bracelet and send me an email, I’ll be more than happy to send you a blessing over the phone to activate your recycled bracelet.  It will be a short diagnostic journey and then a personalized blessing. If you are not familiar with Shamanic Journeying, here is your chance to test out the results of it! If anything, you get a bracelet which helped clean up a pound of trash from the ocean. I would love more stuff like this to be a thing of inspiration, so many people can see what harm is being done to the world around us. And may this short little blessing be enough to help reverse what harm has been done, in what little way it can.

Every effort of the heart matters. When something moves you in the heart, please do something great or small that is a reflection of how you are moved in this world. And performing a blessing into that bracelet for you is the least I can do.

My birthday is coming up on June 8th 🙂 Please send me some emails! The blessing promotion will continue for the whole month of June.

Contact: info@eagletherapies.com