Non-Independence and Circle Discernment

In my shamanic journey practice I move through portals into the Unseen World to seek the timeless and ego-less wisdom of that realm. The creatures, teachers and guides who I meet there are helping spirits, who each take on a form to aid me in our relationship. But I must never forget that they are also expressions of my innermost being, for all is one throughout time and space.

As I begin this new year, I am feeling the invitation to write as though each message is a love letter to our beloved Descendants. I’m not quite sure what that means, but part of it is that I write from my “right mind.” All that I write from clarity and compassion, tenderness and connection will ripple into the future as grace and peace. It does not matter if anyone ever reads these words. That they take tangible form on this computer as I type is enough. They set up the resonance around which something will coalesce in whatever way it is intended to, for whatever generation it may serve.

So, here it goes.

I was part of the our local drumming circle last night we were invited to set our intention to journey to our Beloved Descendants. For me, this is not a tangible linage, but those yet to be born who are somehow touched by my life and how I live it.

In the journey, I went through a particular portal which I sense here on our property. I move through it when I want to be in the company of the Helping Ancestors and Beloved Descendants as archetypal wisdom keepers.

At first, I was uncertain if I had even made it through the veil between Seen and Unseen worlds. It is tricky for me, when I do a Middle World journey in a landscape where I walk every day, to know if I have made that transition. For a while, the images of those waiting there remained very vague, and I worried that the words coming into my mind were simply those I have been considering over the past week. It is easy to anticipate what the Ancestors and Descendants will say — or to know that they are always dropping in ideas as I contemplate new ways of perceiving the world.

I was told to drum for myself and to break away from following the beat of the circle leader. As I did that, there was a shift from “keeping track of the beat,” to letting its energy move me. I am finding that a more driving beat sometimes helps me break through my mulling mind and open to what is beyond.

Finally, near the end of the journey time, I received several words/phrases:

Non-duality, Non-independence, and Circle Discernment

Non-duality has been a strong theme for me for months now. I have been spending sacred time envisioning healing moonlight moving into and through the Being of Humanity to restore health and balance. In all of these journeys there is the theme that to see humankind in dualistic terms continues the disintegration and breaking apart of the unity of our culture, community and world. To see all of humanity through the eyes of compassion as the “Being of Humanity” which is suffering like a fevered child, sets my heart and mind in the right framework to be part of the healing and transformation of my species.

Non-independence resonated with our drumming circle leader. She knows it from Buddhist teaching as a way of speaking about the way in which all things are dependent on one another. She spoke of a non-independent arising that I will need to read more about.

This is not encouragement to become dependent or co-dependent in our relationships. This is a much deeper, element level truth. We are all made of the same basic elements of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water through the Sacred Mystery which gives us all life and form. We exchange these elements with all the tangible expressions of creation – soil, food, body, breath, flow of fluids, energy of life. In addition there is the Spirit or connection of individual life force energy with All Energy or Chi. We are not isolated, skin enclosed physical beings. Life and energy course through and among us, within a container of air, spirit, the vast diversity of the cosmos and timeless reality.

Circle Discernment seemed in part to be a way of checking my own mental patterns. If I sense that I am receiving a message from the Unseen, I need to listen and see if it is echoed in some way by others who are sharing in this spiritual journey practice. This may be my near circle, or it may be through synchronicity in something I read or hear in the coming days. Messages are not individual and the echoes are sent not to relieve me of my calling to share what I see, sense and experience, but to feel some ground coming up to meet my feet when I do.

I will end here for today. Wishing all a Light-filled, Love enriched New Year.
Peace along your path,
Nancy

(I invite you as part of this circle, this community, to share your reflections and comments. If something I write resonates with you and leads to a “next image” within you, please consider sharing it in the comments section.)