SJG: Nurture
The journey topic for tonight is Nurture. I know i did say we were going to explore the elements, but it didn’t feel like it fit any more. We will be having a discussion around what does nurture mean, and formulate journey questions based off of our needs so that we can nurture ourselves during this time of transition into summer.
Please post your comment if you wish to share what you received in journey space. If you would like to join this discussion on Facebook, join our Journey Group on Facebook.
Some helpful references:
- What is Shamanic Journeying
- You watched the video below, and now you want to journey at home. What’s a suggested protocol on how to do that?
- Why is Energy Body Hygiene important when journeying
- Crafting a good journey question
- Deepening our Relationship with our Helping Spirits
- Journey Group Archives
Link to download the audio
Link to download the video
Update to the Soul Compass Path
I know it’s a bit late in the game to announce the changes coming to the Soul Compass Path, but it felt necessary even though we are a little over a week away from this 9 month program taking off.
The first big change is that I will be breaking up this 9 month program into two sections.
- Part 1 – The Foundations: Months 1-4
- Part 2 – Coming Home: Months 5-9
Part 1 will pretty much be the same, where it’s the first four months of discovering and practice using shamanic tools so that we can be ready for the second part of the program. It will still include a group soul retrieval, void ceremony, dancing, divination, and shamanic journeying skills.
Part 2 will be crafted out of my own experiences as a shamanic practitioner to help one come back home to themselves. In my own shamanic community, the Last Mask Community, we are undergoing a community wide death ritual. You can read a little more about how it’s affecting me here. But one major shift is the changing of my identification, choosing to go by my first name of Chenchira instead of Stephanie in celebration of coming back to my roots. The second half of the program will be a reflection of this shift.
My year of living on an off grid organic farm have truly changed how I look at the world. We, as a culture, have grown so far away from our sources of food that many don’t know what the plants look like that grow our food. We only see the results of the harvest on the grocery shelves instead of helping with the harvest. It’s hard to feel gratitude for something we give a monetary exchange for, but as all gardeners know – there’s a sense of pride that comes in knowing where our food came from.
America was founded on uprooting homelands, both the migration from many ancestral homelands, as well as the displacement of indigenous people already living in harmony with the land. This sense of distance from our ancestors constantly migrating, or having set down roots for only a handful of generations can sometimes generate a sense of not belonging. The second part of the program is specifically designed to address the lack of belonging, lie of separation, eco-justice, and bringing grounded practices into our contemporary lives with a framework of living in harmony with the earth to support a framework to position ourselves to better handle changing the wider systems of oppression without drowning in overwhelm or numbing out.
There’s a growing sense of hopelessness that arises, and the grief that bubbles out of the heartbreak of our broken culture. As we feel the effects of the pandemic still within our culture, the effects of climate change, and the harsh reality of internalized racism – a need for change is calling to us. Not just a temporary change where we can feel okay with marginal improvements – but a true transformation that can fuel a regenerative change in a grounded way.
There is a change that is coming, where we can no longer look towards “sustainable” as a way of life. If we settle for being “sustainable”, then we will have already lost the battle before it has begun, sustaining a broken culture. We need to look at practices that are regenerative, repairing the damage or bridges we have burned to come back home to ourselves.
For those who have already registered and paid their deposit, no changes need to be made to your registration. For anyone interested in just the second part of the program either need to have completed past iterations of the first four months of the program, or their equivalent.
- Link to Soul Compass Path Landing page
- Link to updated course outline
- Link to sign up for orientation on March 20th
- Form to sign up for both sections of the Soul Compass Path
Any questions? Feel free to email me at chenchira@eagletherapies.com
Coming Home – Power of Names
It’s been a week, and I have slowly started to allow this shift in identity to become more public. I have decided to change the name by which I go by. I’m not changing my name, because I’ve actually been going by my middle name – which is Stephanie.
Why? In my preteens and well into my twenties, I was known as Skwerl because I was hyper, full of energy and scatterbrained. I also was so deeply afraid of myself and committing to things that I had so much stuff on my plate to distract myself from what I truly wanted to do. It’s why I decided to go back to my real name, because I knew something was wrong when even my closest friends forgot my name was Stephanie.
It’s been about ten years, but I’m really going back to my roots for my naming identity on this one. My first name is actually Chenchira. I’ve shied away from it, dreading being called it in school because after the teacher did the inevitable pause in roll call, mouthing my name a few times before trying it out and normally butchering it, the most common thing people confused me for was a either a chinchilla or a chia pet. Besides that, Thai is a tonal language and I cringed hearing the American version of my name since I was so ashamed that I didn’t even grow up with Thai in the household because my mom didn’t want to confuse me with being bi-lingual growing up. Heck, half the time I can’t even pronounce my sisters name right (sorry, Sis!), even though it’s one syllable.
I’m processing for a big ceremony coming up in my shamanic community, and one of the things we are asked to do is really ask what part of ourselves is standing in the way of us being this manifestation of us living/expressing our gifts fully in our lives. One aspect of me that I am putting to rest, is this part of me that’s okay with having “enough”. It’s this part of me that’s okay with the status quo and just gets by with contributing and doing “enough” so that it feels like I’m making a difference instead of actually giving it my all and not settling for less until all of my brothers, sisters and siblings have equality. It’s this same part of me that didn’t even want to try and correct people when they mispronounced my first name, giving up by choosing to go by my white presenting name so I can fit in better and not have to deal with what uncomfortability my first name brings. Obviously I have grown a lot from that uncomfortability, so I feel that I can now embrace my first name in a way where I won’t mind if people mispronounce it as they are learning it. In the week of practicing with close friends and family, I find that this transition has brought more smiles as people try to remember the pronunciation, honoring my choices and reclamation of power. I have also felt a significant shift in my relationship with my ancestors, since I’m acknowledging and claiming my half Thai heritage from my moms side, when I’ve been avoiding it practically my whole life.
Names are power, and I feel like skirting around my first name in a weak hearted way for decades was my avoiding stepping into power. So I’m sacrificing “Stephanie” to the fire in exchange of the possibility of who Chenchira can become.
I’m not changing my name. I’m just changing how I identify. Chenchira is my birth name. I’m coming home.
Please call me by Chenchira (pronounced Chen-cheer-ah) from here on out. I’ll hold you with compassion if you slip up and call me Stephanie, I’ll just correct you 🙂
Thank you for taking the time to read this update. Many blessings to you and your family. May your ancestors be proud as we take new actions in this pivotal time in history.
SJG: Tending Shrines
The journey topic for this meeting is tending shrines. We will talk about the pitfalls and challenges around manifesting our relationship with spirit and what that looks like in daily life. I loved that we explored how we all each individually tend our shrines, as well as possible ways that we could tend it. It’s a lot simpler then you may think! And it really is about being more mindful about our actions in the physical world, not what goes on in our head.
I mentioned a podcast during the group, it is this one by Christina Pratt and Why Shamanism Now. Some different shrines or altars one could tend could be the main working altar if you are just starting, to an ancestral shrine, an earth shrine, water shrine, or even a spirit of the land. The options are up to you, just make it sacred and make it beautiful!
Please post your comment if you wish to share what you received in journey space. If you would like to join this discussion on Facebook, join our Journey Group on Facebook.
Some helpful references:
- What is Shamanic Journeying
- You watched the video below, and now you want to journey at home. What’s a suggested protocol on how to do that?
- Why is Energy Body Hygiene important when journeying
- Crafting a good journey question
- Deepening our Relationship with our Helping Spirits
- Journey Group Archives
Link to download the video
Link to download the audio
SJG: Friction/Ease
The journey topic for this go around is friction and ease. This is a very tight time when many things in our lives are simply not working like they used to. We know that things must change, but how can we navigate this friction with grace and ease? Today we will discuss and come up with some good journey questions together.
We did talk after the journey group and we discussed that the next few journey groups that we will do are around shrine tending and working with the elements.
Please post your comment if you wish to share what you received in journey space. If you would like to join this discussion on Facebook, join our Journey Group on Facebook.
Some helpful references:
- What is Shamanic Journeying
- You watched the video below, and now you want to journey at home. What’s a suggested protocol on how to do that?
- Why is Energy Body Hygiene important when journeying
- Crafting a good journey question
- Deepening our Relationship with our Helping Spirits
- Journey Group Archives
Link to download audio
Link to download video
Soul Compass Path 2021
It’s that time again! For those that are not aware, Eagle Therapies will be starting up the Soul Compass Path in March of 2021. The last cohort that went through this course did find it a bit more challenging to navigate with this virus, but we got through it!
I have decided to do this in a mixture of both virtually and in person. It is hard to convey some of these teachings and participate robustly amidst the inevitable technology challenges, and breaks during lunch. While convenient to do it in the comfort of your own home, the experience is much more in depth in person. I have my COVID vaccination on board, and since we have a variety of community members scattered across Maryland, DC, and Virginia, we will take a poll of students interested before we decide on a final location of those who wish to participate in person.
Below is the information for what the Soul Compass Path is, and why someone would want to take it. For more information, you can click these links:
- Soul Compass Path Landing Page
- Update to the Soul Compass Path
- Dates for 2021
- Course Outline
- Already know you want to do it? Application Form
- Sign up for the orientation to get the Zoom link
- We live in a time that is challenging. How do we become the people who can create a sustainable change and transformation in this world? Join Eagle Therapies starting in the Spring of 2021 on a 9 day program stretched across 9 months, with 2 week online-only check ins between classes.
New to Shamanism?
Don’t worry! This program will teach you all the basics you need to get you started.
Seasoned Shamanic Practitioner?
This 9 month program will meet you where you are. The purpose of this program is to help give you structure, solidarity, and a community to measure your discernment with. How many times have we stumbled in the dark, questioning if the message we received from a guide was accurate? This program is meant to challenge our perspective and deepen our relationship with our guides in a group setting by experiencing healing ceremonies and journeys together.
About the Program
This program was specifically crafted and co-created with Spirit to help bring people the basic foundational Shamanic Skills necessary to engage with the world around them in a good way. It doesn’t matter if you are new to this path or have been down the road of several spiritual traditions for decades. Using ancient Shamanic techniques and honoring the ancestors of the worlds traditions, we will engage with Spirit in an age old fashion that has been specifically crafted for this time. You can read more about the recent changes/updates to the program here.
Chenchira Seger has graduated from Mary Tyrtle Rookers 2 year Shamanic Training program and is a current student of Christina Pratt, Shaman, Author, creator of the Why Shamanism Now podcast and Director for the Last Mask Center for Shamanic Healing. Through Chenchira’s vast life experiences and training, she strives to bring her best to giving her all to this program.
The Soul Compass Path is 6 hours once monthly stretching over 9 months. There is an optional halfway “check in” that meets over Zoom about 2-3 weeks between classes to help support any questions that come up while sifting through the material. Recordings of important class material as well as the Q&A will be provided.
This program delivers a practical set of tools, techniques, and a way to engage with the more intimate aspects of yourself. If you are new to any type of spiritual exploration, this will hand you the basics. For the more seasoned practitioner, it will provide the framework to deepen your connection with your inner guidance and allow yourself to hear the song of your soul ever more clearly. This program is dedicated to helping one get out of their own way and step into their power with authenticity, integrity and sovereignty. Learn how to find your own life’s purpose and be able to live it in the world.
Payment is based on sliding scale, negotiated between your own heart and Spirit. Eagle Therapies is just the vessel to deliver this program of self transformation. What is the sacrifice you are willing to make? Suggested sliding scale pricing is $75-$200 per class. Payment due at time of class. Orientation and first class considered “one class”.
What might be a comfortable set of finances for one person might be a large sacrifice to another. Is $100 a night on the town, buying movie tickets and a couple of drinks? If so, then $100 is not a sacrifice, it is a simple commodity. This is an opportunity to put meaning to the monetary exchange and intentionalize it, not blankly pay with a consumerist mind. The sacrifice should not produce guilt, it should feel right in your heart, and pocketbook to offer.
The Spirit world understands the language of sacrifice, and it is up to you to decide what is the right price to pay within your own heart. Use your intuition and measure it with your own truth. It is possible that one month you can pay towards the higher end of the fee, while others it is the lower end. It is also possible that money is no issue at all and $200 per class does not cover the value of what is within the course material itself for you.
*reworded, but basic concept of language attributed to Christina Pratt
If you feel very drawn to this course but do not think you can commit to the first part of 4 months or the full 9 month program, then you can choose to be present for as many classes you feel comfortable taking. Payment is due before the start of each class, or you can choose to pay in one lump sum. If finances are a challenge, there is always delving deeper into the material learned and then hopping on to the program next year (yes, we are planning for this to be a repeating yearly program). Once you take the class, the materials and resources from that class will be shared with you, and you can still choose to communicate with your fellow classmates.
Is this program right for you? Read more about it on the Soul Compass Path landing page to check out dates, the syllabus, and other tidbits you might find interesting.
Already feel that this resonates within your bones to take this course? Fill out our application form and register for the online orientation!
A good resource if you are anxious to get started is through the free, listener supported podcast, Why Shamanism Now. There are over 400 archived hours, and a teaser to what is available both within this course and beyond. A great place to start is the Basics of Living Well series and the specific podcasts below:
If you would like an in-depth resource, there is an online course by the Last Mask Center called Energy Body Mastery. We cover similar things in the Soul Compass Path, but for a more in depth exploration, we highly recommend the course.
An excellent book which talks about this process mentioned so often in this course is by Langston Kahn called, “Deep Liberation: Shamanic Teachings for Reclaiming Wholeness in a Culture of Trauma“. Highly recommended.
Other material to get you started that is on this website:
You also have access to the archived recordings of the Bi-Weekly Shamanic Journey Groups.
The song of your soul is calling you.
Now.
The world is waiting for your gifts.
Growing
How does a tree grow?
Simple. From the air. No, seriously. Literally from the air. Trees breathe in carbon dioxide, and through the process of photosynthesis they take the carbon and make plant material out of it. The soil is more of a sharing of nutrients that the plant needs. It’s designed to be this network or web where the different plants and microorganisms talk to each other to share resources. The actual composition of what the plant needs to grow is literally taken from the air through carbon dioxide. Carbon is the building block of life and is how the tree grows roots, leaves, and branches.
In my cosmology, air is related to our mental wisdom body. Our society rewards people for pushing themselves and overthinking, to the degree where many people have developed either a low tone generalized anxiety, or an intense expression of worry/anxiety that can be paralyzing. Isn’t it interesting that one of the contributing factors affecting climate change is the excess amount of particular gasses in the air? Overthinking is crippling us.
As I’ve sat with the wisdom of the earth through my recovery process of getting hit by lightning 5 months ago, I’ve deeply connected to my own foundation and what makes me tick. I have realized that I haven’t been breathing in deeply enough to set more roots in the ground. I’ve just been cycling in that pattern of anxiety of how to get my sh*t together to make it look like I’m a functional human being. I really sat with how self destructive I’ve been my whole life, being motivated by the expectations of other people instead of from my core values and beliefs. Sure, I *thought* I had done a lot of work around that… But as most people who have had a surgery or broken bones can attest, there’s nothing like a good ole injury that sets you down on your ass for a few months to have you question why you do everything in your life, and why it matters that you do it.
One of the biggest ways that I’ve been cycling is that I’ve been trying to make a business of separating my spiritual life from my everyday life. I overidentified with being a healer, and even though I have helped a lot of people, I wasn’t really helping myself the way I needed to. A lot of my focus was going out instead of in, and the past few years I’ve really had to put the brakes on a lot of it. To my clients, thank you for your patience while I took these past few months to really focus on me and what I needed without interruption. To my friends, thank you for your support and letting me crash at your places while little dude played and I rested. To my community, thank you for giving me the space to be messy while still holding me accountable for my actions and behaviors.
As I sat in the stillness and worked with my body, doctors, new medicines, herbs, acupuncture, and qigong over the past 5 months – I found some things that I am really passionate about and I’m excited to start exploring in 2021. One of them is soil health and regenerative agriculture. I’ve started taking herbalism classes again, glad to be learning so much from the plant world around me. The other is that I’m studying an online course to become an electrician. I won’t go as far to becoming a journeyman electrician, but I want to learn enough to be able to install these DC Microgrids comfortably without asking for help, and helping people transition to an off grid lifestyle. And safely. Because we all know how much electricity loves me (thanks, lightning!). Talk about a “grounded approach” 
Last but not least, things have been slow moving but I’m co-founding a new intentional community that is turning into an education facility and integrates how to live in right relationship with that land with a restorative agriculture point of view. Right now the magnolia house is set to being straw bale wrapped next week. It will serve as a demonstration of these off grid technologies that are more easily accessible for people with mobility hinderances, and also serve as a mini connection hub for Living Energy Farm and possibly some other communities in the area.
One of the biggest mistakes I’ve made in my life was to set up these huge tasks for myself, overcommit to several projects, and not follow through with them until completion. I’ve left a lot of things undone. I gave my time and energy to projects and jobs that weren’t things that filled me with passion and hope for the future. I tried to adjust my business to the needs of the marketplace, and ran events based off of what other people said they wanted instead of what I truly wanted to give. I saw possibilities and ran with them, depleting and robbing from my future energy resources to where when I had a physical body catastrophe, I was laid flat on my ass for 3-4 months. This left a never ending cycle where I didn’t grow roots in the ground, and I spun up in my head without nourishing my very real needs to what my soul and body were asking me to do in this lifetime. This crash and burn mentality is exactly what feeds the broken system we are living in, but I didn’t know any other way to operate.
Until the plants sang to me. They taught me how to be in my body (for better or for worse, chest pains and all), and taught me what it was like to take it a step at a time. Now I see so plainly what all my past actions amounted to, and how there were similar themes to what I was doing all of my life. I just had to slow down enough to hear the songs the plants were singing. Now I’m breathing in the carbon of my old expelled failures of projects, allowing those “failures” to become the fertilizer, and grow new roots and shoots for the projects I feel super passionate about. I’m still going to see clients and teach, but now it’s a more integrative approach on how to be spiritual through daily action instead of separating the spiritual from the mundane.
Heres to activism by planting an organic garden. Here’s to regenerative agriculture, carbon sequestration, reversing climate change through how we tend the earth, and to building new communities that connect with others who want to do the same. We can’t fix a system that is broken if we are contributing the same broken energy to try and “fix” it. The world won’t get fixed by heroic efforts of self depletion. I feel very strongly that it’s through practices that maintain, sustain, and regenerate a healthy embodied relationship with everything around us in a balanced way. I don’t have all the answers yet, but I’m excited and hopeful about finding how I can personally contribute.
SJG: Exploring Cycles
The moon is an ally that would like to connect with us. This was a powerful weekend with a new moon, lunar eclipse, and a solstice (longest day of the year). What does it mean to explore the cycles of nature and join with them instead of against them? This is the topic where we ask ourselves where we are out of alignment with the cycles of nature, and ask questions on how to get in alignment.
Please post your comment if you wish to share what you received in journey space. If you would like to join this discussion on Facebook, join our Journey Group on Facebook.
Some helpful references:
- What is Shamanic Journeying
- You watched the video below, and now you want to journey at home. What’s a suggested protocol on how to do that?
- Why is Energy Body Hygiene important when journeying
- Crafting a good journey question
- Deepening our Relationship with our Helping Spirits
- Journey Group Archives
Link to download audio
Link to download video
SJG: BLM discussion
We’re going to be doing a little switch up this week. We do have a “topic”, but this journey group is going to be more of a discussion and journeying for steps forward in regards to the BLM movement. We don’t *need* to jump into rebellion, protesting, or the like. Sometimes the answer comes from us simply slowing down and being willing to ask ourselves the question of how we can stop contributing to the problem. Bring your compassion and open heartedness to the table tonight.
Please post your comment if you wish to share what you received in journey space. If you would like to join this discussion on Facebook, join our Journey Group on Facebook.
Some helpful references:
- What is Shamanic Journeying
- You watched the video below, and now you want to journey at home. What’s a suggested protocol on how to do that?
- Why is Energy Body Hygiene important when journeying
- Crafting a good journey question
- Deepening our Relationship with our Helping Spirits
- Journey Group Archives
Link to download the audio
Link to download the video
SJG: Inner Strength
The journey topic for this meeting is inner strength. Strength is one of those words that has different meanings associated with it. Strength is not just how strong you are physically, but strength can be expressed internally as well. What does that mean for the individual? How does strength express itself in you? Let’s journey about our inner strengths and see which strengths have been hiding from us that we didn’t realize we had.
Please post your comment if you wish to share what you received in journey space. If you would like to join this discussion on Facebook, join our Journey Group on Facebook.
Some helpful references:
- What is Shamanic Journeying
- You watched the video below, and now you want to journey at home. What’s a suggested protocol on how to do that?
- Why is Energy Body Hygiene important when journeying
- Crafting a good journey question
- Deepening our Relationship with our Helping Spirits
- Journey Group Archives
Link to download the audio
Link to download the video
