October 2016 Outline

Posted on October 9, 2016 Updated on September 3, 2017

Hey guys! So I admit, I’m a little behind the 8-ball this month. With that being said, a few announcements for the people that follow me on Facebook and Meet-up. I’m taking a mini-break because this is my graduation month. I’m graduating from a two year shamanic training program, and for those that aren’t familiar with shamanic initiations… well, let’s just say I’m having a “turbulent” time. This makes me smile, because even though it’s hard and it’s chaotic, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m glad and grateful for the challenges being brought my way.

That being said, I’ve decided not to host the satellite spot for the year of ceremony this month as a public event. And also for next month, the Heart Centered Sound Circle is pushed back a week to November 13th since I will be in New Orleans for an event.

There is this really awesome event called the 1000 Goddess Gathering! I will be holding space at the air altar all day for ritual, and I will also be leading some chants on stage for beginning ceremony. Come be with us on the National Mall on October 22nd 🙂

Now that logistics have been taken care of, we move on to the Journey topic of the month! Which is the Warrior energy. We’ve been exploring the archetypes of the Open Heart Path, and all of us have these energies in us. They are the energies of the warrior, healer, teacher, and visionary. These represent archetypes, and the purpose of these journey groups this month is to hold space to explore our relationship with our inner warrior. Prior knowledge about the archetypes is not needed, just come with an open mind. Is this your first time journeying with us? Follow this link for more information about journeying, or follow this link for the structure of our journey group.

October 3rd – No Journey Group

October 10th – What exactly is a warrior and what does it mean? This journey group we explore the energy of the warrior and trace it back through different cultures and histories. How can we bring about the warrior energy in our daily lives and what does our relationship with the warrior look like?

October 17th – Here we explore our relationship with the Warrior energy. This week, we dive into standing up for our boundaries. This week we explore who we are, what we stand for, and why do we stand for it. A lot of these questions we will be asking ourselves, but the true role of the warrior is to be fully present in the moment with just our experiences/training in hand. If we are stuck in the past or thinking about the future, that can sometimes blur what we see in the moment.

October 24th – Every month we always have to talk about the shadow. The shadow is that aspect of us that tries to do good, but it is that part of ourselves that is operating out of fear. Today we explore some shadow patterns of the warrior, and what happens when we try to stand in full warriorship but instead fall short and into these patterns. We explore the rebel, disciple, the victim, and discuss invisibility.

October 31st – No Journey Group – Blessed Samhain!

Have a great month you guys! And see you at some of the wonderful events going on! Newsletter will be coming out this week.

September 2016 Outline

Posted on August 30, 2016 Updated on September 3, 2017

It’s the Month of September and we are heading right into fall! The first day of Fall is Sept 22nd, so make sure you get your last bits of Summer in.

As I’ve outlined in the quarterly planner for the Journey Group, the next four months are going to be diving into what I call the “Open Heart Path” medicine. This has been taught to me by one of my teachers that I will be studying with in person beginning next year (I’m very excited). If you are at a distance and would like to journey at home, you are more then welcome to use these guides to help create structure for yourself to follow at home if you can’t make it to the Shamanic Journey Group. If you’re new to Shamanism and don’t know what journeying is, then no worries – click here to begin on this path.

The Open Heart Path is something I always delve into once a year, and it’s good for old timers to repeat/deepen their practice. I don’t believe in superficiality, there are always more layers to be unfolded, and everything that unfolds always unfolds as it needs to. Trust in what you’re receiving. Funny thing, Trust is something we will be talking about this month 😉

The Open Heart is made up of four chambers, and we will be exploring each chamber in depth every month. For those that are busy and can’t commit to a long term lay out – that’s okay! Every topic is a stand alone and is completely okay with walk ins. For those that choose to see the bigger picture and grasp a greater understanding, this is the full month’s outline so you can follow along in your own practice, whether you choose to do it in person or in spirit with us.

Outline for September! Hyperlinked to the date is the corresponding Meetup or Facebook event

September 4th – Sound Circle in Fairfax, VA. For those that wish to just participate in embodiment and practice being in their heart space instead of in their heads, this event is the event that’s for you.

September 5th – NO JOURNEY GROUP (Labor Day)

September 11th – Sound Circle in Brandywine, MD. For those that wish to come to the earlier circle but either can’t or they’re too far away.

September 11th – Shamanic Journeying Basics: The class that’s the introduction to Shamanic Journeying in case you need a refresher or in case you’re completely new to it.

September 12th – What does the Open Heart Path mean in today’s society? How does working with archetypes factor into how we view the world? How does our perspective color how we interact with the world? What’s stopping us from healing ourselves? Your healing should be an excuse to live your life more fully, your life shouldn’t be an excuse for you not to heal.

September 19th – Roles and vehicles: Many people confuse their life purpose with their job title. No, you’re not “just” a parent, school teacher, engineer, etc. What is a lifes purpose and what does all of this manifestation mumbo jumbo mean? What happens when we identify ourselves as our job title instead of who we really are as people?

September 26th – Shadow aspect of the Healer: The Martyr and the Addict. We will begin exploring the concept of the shadow archetype, what it means in this cosmology, and how to begin working with these concepts in a way that’s applicable for you.

See you guys in circle! Whether digitally, in person, or in spirit <3 If you are doing this at a distance, I would love to hear from you and how this has impacted you. I secretly love receiving those emails and will respond just as genuinely as you sent them. Please remember that all of the events that Eagle Therapies runs is done by donation and are free to the public or anyone that wishes to try and enjoy.

Fly high, everyone.

Energetic Bucket Meditations

Posted on August 26, 2016 Updated on August 26, 2016

This is a companion to the Energetic Health post I did back in July. For those who are interested in pursuing a guided meditation to exploring energetic health and hygiene.

It would be helpful if you were in a quiet place where no one could disturb you, with your phone on silent. It might also help to have a pen and paper ready to take down any notes right after you get out of the meditation.

This first one is an introductory, and a summary of the post mentioned above.

After listening to that one, here is where we get down to the nitty gritty! These are broken down into the three main things that are vital to an energy bucket:

1. The container – Looking at what your energetic bucket is made of, and how this impacts your ability to hold your vital life force energy

2. The contents – What is your container filled with? Is it stagnant or flowing? What type of things can refill your bucket so that you’re not running low on energy all the time?

3. Stability – What kind of ground do you have your energetic container placed on? What type of situations make you ungrounded and what can you do to protect yourself from that?

As a follow up, or in case you are already know how to journey, click this one to have the standard shamanic drum beat.

If any questions arise, email me at eagletherapies@gmail.com or call/text 571.306.3197

What are the Four Main Wisdom Bodies?

Posted on July 18, 2016 Updated on November 2, 2017

The four main wisdom bodies are a simple way for me to describe the four planes of energetic/physical reality. It means different things to different people, but in the context of this website/blog I’ll provide a short definition so you can understand my colloquialism.

The four main wisdom bodies are:

The Physical Body

The Mental Body

The Emotional Body

The Spiritual Body

The physical body is what we use to access our physical reality, while the mental, emotional and spiritual bodies I tend to lump together into the “energetic body”. The senses we experience in the physical body are tied to the energetic body. The process of getting more in touch with our energetic body allows us to have conscious connection to

• Sacred sight: clairvoyance – the ability to consciously dream or have visions
• Sacred hearing: clairaudience – hearing the voices of spirit, or hearing the thoughts between the words
• Inner knowing: claircognisance – that unexplained experience of “knowing” something as it drops into your awareness
• Sacred touch: clairkinesthetic – where we feel things happening to our body as if in physical reality
• Sacred smell: clairolfactory – sometimes smells can be associated with certain experiences or spirits. For example smelling fear in someone, or thinking of old aunt Maybelle and smelling her perfume
• Sacred taste:  clairgustance – this is less common, but it happens in some spiritual experience where we can “have a bad taste in our mouth”

Here are some links to some other blog posts which talk about energetic basics to get a more well rounded understanding of how they play into a whole system.

The Energetic Bucket

The Element System

December Journey Group Outline

Posted on December 7, 2015 Updated on September 3, 2017

I am so blessed to have the friends and community that I am surrounded with! The artist that created the work above painted my main three power animals (although they are not my only ones) and I will start using them for the Journey Group events on Facebook! It also matches one of my songs I sing to “Power Up” to honor my Bear, Eagle, and Otter. If anyone has interacted with me for any duration of time, those personality traits are obvious in me haha. Thank you so much K. Hansen! You and your farm are an inspiration 🙂

Announcement! The Journey groups are now digital! I have officially figured out through trial and error, and MANY MANY wonderfully compassionate (and patient) people. I feel like we have comfortably worked out some of the major kinks as well as the technology learning curve that I had. Please bare with me as we continue down this venture. Personal thank you and gratitude go out to Laura K., Melissa F., Julie F., both Ashleys (In New York and Baltimore), Nancy F., and Lisa B.! I’m sure I’m missing people, but know you’re in my hearts <3

If this is the first time you are clicking on this and are just being introduced to the concepts of journeying, please visit this page for more information. If you have not been to one of the journey groups and are interested in finding out about the structure, click here. Since now this is digital, I look forward to seeing more people online for those who resonate with these teachings.

Now let’s dive into the nitty gritty!!! The topic for the four months we are currently in are inspired by the lovely Angeles Arrien. She wrote a book called “The Four Fold Way” and if these teachings resonate with you, please read the book – it is much more extensive and can help broaden your senses. This has quickly become apart of my cosmology and has made mine a more complex cosmology with deeper symbology.

Last month we talked about the love of the healer and how we figure out what is in our path to discovering our own self healing – eliminating what stands in our way of being who we truly are. This month is about the warrior and about how we stand up for who we are, what we believe in, and take our experiences to turn them into wisdom. Join us this month as we explore what the warrior means to us.

For a more in depth summary and support structure for more information on the Warrior, click here.

For right now the journey groups are run by donation. Suggested donation is $5-$10 per person. I have made the decision that starting in January I will begin charging for them. More information to come, and if you feel these journey groups would really help, then I will not turn away people based off of price – Please reach out to discuss bartering. To be discussed on a case by case basis.

December 7th – Exploration of the basics of the warrior, and the warrior archetype

December 14th – The Shadow aspect of the warrior, and do we recognize when we’re living out the shadow?

December 21st – This is the Pagan holiday of Yule! Bring your own journey question, but the theme will be based off of the Winter Solstice and what the longest night of the year means to us.

December 28th – Addictions and the need to know – What are we addicted to? How to overcome addictions and how to feed or nourish ourselves in a healthier and more holistic way.

As always: any questions or concerns, or to suggest journey topics for the next month, please call/text 571.306.3197 or email eagletherapies@gmail.com

Labyrinth Walking

Posted on November 5, 2015 Updated on November 5, 2015

The quiet of peace floats through the air. A beautiful labyrinth before me. Bare feet on the cold ground. A deep inhale and a gentle closing of the eyes. Where there was once mind chatter, there is now a settling. As the eyes slowly open, a deep inhale starts pulling up the energy from the Earth to settle in the gut. One thing rises to the mind.

Gratitude.

As we enter into the month of November, this is the beginning of the hectic holiday season. Amidst the chaos of seeing family members, going to social events, we extend ourselves outward in order to connect with others. Some may feel drained, others may thrive on this chaos. In the Chinese culture, the written symbol for chaos means both danger and opportunity. There is a danger of extending ourselves too far outward, and depleting ourselves in order to make others happy. But there is also an opportunity to thrive in this same situation as well. Going to labyrinth walks is how I find my center, it’s how I “refill the cup” so to speak. It’s for my quiet and my peace of mind that empowers me to want to do a walking meditation. For me, since I find this opportunity to find peace, I choose to focus on the gratitude this holiday season brings up. The family (both blood and chosen) I have not seen in a long time, the food I get to eat, the good memories shared – all of this mulls through my mind as I walk through the labyrinth. I may not always have the opportunity to go, but sometimes I find myself slipping back to the labyrinth in my mind whenever I need a break to recharge.

What is a labyrinth walk, you say? For more information about labyrinths (in case this concept is new) then visit this wonderful and beautifully written blog post by my friend Irene Glasse who hosts once monthly labyrinth walks in Frederick, MD at the UU Church. One of the reasons why I love labyrinths is because it’s a simple walking meditation to get me out of my head. I admit I tend to have a lot of things going on in my head at once, but it’s good practice to empty them. Emptying/Releasing them helps clear the pressure, because thoughts carry energetic weight. There is only one path in and one path out with a labyrinth. Unlike a maze, I can just let my feet follow the path, and allow myself to be in my body and appreciate the thoughts of gratitude that surface. If there is a bad thought or a negative thought, I slide it aside and replace it with something I am grateful for. This helps empty my head, and it helps fill my heart with joy.

I tend to bring my son to labyrinth walks because he gets so much enjoyment out of them. I have taught him how to walk labyrinths as well as polite etiquette while walking the narrow rings (see post if unfamiliar) at an early age. Now that he is older and more connected with his spiritual guidance, the insight he comes out of the labyrinth with is very powerful. There is no right or wrong way to walk a labyrinth. Often times when walking with Little Bear, I find myself either being an airplane or a dinosaur stomping the labyrinth. It works for him because I spend that time being on his level and we laugh together. This brings forth more gratitude. Gratitude that I can raise him in a way that does not squish his curiosity. He is allowed to be himself in these situations, and I’m not trying to force him into a mold.

If I happen to go to a labyrinth walk by myself, and I have trouble connecting because of a particularly stressful day, or stressful month (which has happened before) then I turn to the help of aromatherapy. I don’t need as much help as I did when I first started, but it still helps shift my thinking from my head to my heart. When we breathe in different scents, they connect to the olfactory nerve, which is connected to the amygdala. The amygdala is the control center in the brain that’s responsible for emotions. It can control things such as heart rate, blood pressure, respiratory rate, and so many other autonomic body functions. I tend to use essential oils more frequently, but nothing beats labyrinth walk with a garland freshly made of picked flowers or pine branches. I tend to go more for the “grounding” scents. When I don’t have the time to go pick flowers or grab a fresh branch off a cedar tree, I tend to go for cinnamon, cypress, cassia, arborvitae, paolo santo, white fir, or douglas fir. I love speaking to the spirit that is behind the essence of these scents, and I love the way putting a drop in your hands and inhaling deeply can change your focus within seconds so you can get a deeper experience. Working with plants has been a passion of mine, and I love being able to share the therapeutic benefits whenever I can.

For now, I breathe this crisp autumn air and await the next time I get to enact on walking the labyrinth again. For now I walk it in my head filling myself with gratitude for the blessings in my life, but I long for my feet to walk it in order to solidify my practice.

If you are interested in coming to the next labyrinth walk in Frederick, MD – follow this link and I will see you there 🙂

November schedule for Journey Group

Posted on November 2, 2015 Updated on September 3, 2017

I am very excited to be able to present this months topic for journey group. For anyone who has not attended this journey group or this is your first time being introduced to this concept, visit this link. Once again, you can bring your own journey topics, these are “suggested” journey group topics that go with a theme. You are more then free to journey on your own at home if you cannot attend the group. In a group, it is easier to transition into that “receiving” head space because there are others there with that same intent. When journeying by yourself, it can be hard because it is easier to get distracted. Visit this page, or feel free to contact us for more information.

The topic for this month is going to be based off of the book, “The Four Fold Way” by the late Angeles Arrien. I highly recommend this book (especially if you are intrigued by the topics being brought up in journey group), and there have been many different interpretations and good reviews on these concepts.

The Four Fold Way means to live your normal every day life with a courageous heart. In general, there are four major archetypes which make up the open heart. When moving through life, life calls upon us to act in one of these four main archetypes. If our heart gets clouded with fear because of our wounds or the shadow aspect of ourselves, then the open heart shuts down. Having good intentions is not enough when we are being clouded by fear. Each week we will be moving through these four archetypes to see what exactly they mean to us and how we can heal what’s in the way so we can live courageously. When we live our lifes purpose, we are asked to bring courage to the table every single day. It’s how we over come our fear and live in those archetypes in a good way which helps bring forth our true lifes calling.

Click here for the blog post to go more in depth on the Healer

Journey Group Outline:

Monday November 2nd – The Healer: Finding the right vessel to live our lifes purpose

Monday November 9th – The Healer: Shadow aspects, how they prevent us from healing ourselves

Monday November 16th – The Healer: Life processes

Monday November 23rd – The Healer: Since this is a holiday week, open suggested topics in regard to the healer

Monday November 30th – The Healer: How do we live the Healer archetype when it is called upon? What’s in the way of that?

More blog posts to come to fully describe each archetype before the actual date 🙂 Any questions or concerns, or to suggest journey topics for the next month, please call/text 571.306.3197 or email eagletherapies@gmail.com

Journey group is free, but donations of love accepted <3

Artwork by K. Hansen