Giving and Receiving

Lau-Tzu said,"If you would take, you must first give." This is a very basic law of the universe, yet one that eludes many. I remember being bullied in Junior High and then, later, taking up martial arts. My instructor, also an accomplished acupuncturist and practitioner of Chinese Medicine, asked me why I wanted to learn how to hurt and possibly kill. My response was that I no longer wanted to feel weak and vulnerable around those who would bully me about and possibly beat the bejeebers out of me as they had in the past. He said two things that really stuck. The first thing that he said was,"If you embark on a journey of revenge, you must remember to dig two graves." The second was, "before you can learn to kill, you must learn to heal."

Having been raised with pagan thought systems, the idea of giving before receiving was something that I understood. I was told by my grandmother to always send prayers of gratitude before I received what I desired. Thus, the Goddess would understand that I already have within me that which I desire, and would then respond by bringing more of the same to me. But when it was put into the context of learning to heal before learning how to kill, it quite frankly floored me. Suddenly it all made sense. Had the bullies in my life learned how to heal before they learned how to torment and possibly kill, they would not have even embarked upon the path of bullying! Thus began my training in martial arts. Yes, I had a natural talent because I learned as a young person how to "street fight" and that made me exceptionally resourceful. But my interest soon became an obsession with the healing aspect. I learned many methods and avenues of helping people to heal. Energetically, there is so much that can be influenced in the mental, emotional, physical and spiritual bodies that the results are often profound. At the same time, you cannot learn how to simulate, say, the liver meridian without also learning how to hinder it, causing great pain and illness. Knowledge is the accumulation of information. Wisdom is the appropriate usage thereof.

So I learned how to protect myself. But what was most important was that I learned how to heal myself. I was able to let go of all those aspects of my personal history that no longer served my well-being and embrace aspects that do. I became an energetic adaptogen and in doing so I opened myself to becoming a shaman. That was a title that I resisted for years. It is one that I now wear with great honor. In an age when there are a lot of popcorn elders and shamans emerging from the woodwork, it is important to know that there are some, like myself, who work with honor and integrity. Those who are like myself I embrace with great love and appreciation. Those who are not don't last long enough to worry about.

Blessed Be

Trent
www.deerhornshamanic.com

Past Lives

If we meditate enough, for enough lifetimes, and if we allow ourselves to let go of fear through meditation and trust ourselves as we step into the Void from the Light, then we are able to remember ourselves in many past lives. We may even advance to the point of being able to connect with the mass consciousness and "remember" others' past lives for them.

This is one of the many things that I do as a shaman. I help people to remember. I don't just help them to remember all their past lives. In fact with some there are way too many to remember them all. I help them to remember who they are. We all come to a time in our lives when that memory is essential for our progress from that point onward. I have recently begun remembering some things about myself as well. Yes, the shaman also does his own healing work, as we all must do from time to time. With all of the remembering, I have also rediscovered that it is very important to stay in the moment and honor this life. If we constantly search for ourselves in the past we rob ourselves of our present and our future. So I really don't care if someone was Marie Antoinette in a past life. What I do care about is who that person is now. When I look into that person's eyes, I want to see them for their true divine nature within.

I feel such honor that I have been gifted the opportunity to get to know myself on a deeper level. And I am honored that I have the gift of helping others to do the same. I think that if we help each other to honor our personal divinity, we will elevate ourselves in vibration and, through that elevated vibration, we will be able to heal the world, one person at a time, or by the millions. And why stop at just the world we know? Why not create a whole new world? Or a new universe for that matter? What do you say to taking chances? What could we possibly lose? And how does that really compare to what we could gain?

Blessed Be

Trent
www.deerhornshamanic.com

Praying Rain

The other day I was watching the DVD You Can Heal Your Life by Louise L. Hay. In it there was a story about a Pueblo Indian man who "prayed rain". He would not pray for rain, he would simply pray rain. This meant feeling in his heart the rain falling upon his body and soaking the earth under his bare feet. My wife asked me if this made sense and, of course, the answer was yes.

This is the way of the shaman. We tend to live in the present moment. So if the earth needs rain, we bring the rain into a very real feeling within us and this is the prayer that the Spirits hear, so this is what they provide. When we think about this it makes total sense. the Spirit world is very literal in many ways. So if we are constantly affirming that we want more money, then the Spirit world supports that we want more money. And so we go on wanting and not achieving that goal and wondering why it isn't working. If, however, we completely bring into our hearts the feeling of having total abundance and having all our financial needs met and more, then this is what the Spirit world honors and, lo and behold, our financial needs are met and more.

When I do healing work for someone, in person or long distance, I pray wellness. I don't focus on what the "problem" is within their bodies, emotions, minds or spirits. I focus my energy on their wellness. This might look one way to me and another way to them, but Spirit hears my prayer and understands that the blueprint for their wellness is divinely ingrained in their DNA and that it is now activated. This is why people get well. This really is the only way people get well. We can have as much intervention as we can possibly get from modern medicine and healers, but until we personally work on our insides we will only know the fear that is involved in that illness. As we pray wellness for ourselves and others, wellness occurs. As we pray joy for ourselves and others, joy occurs. As we pray peace and love for ourselves and others, peace and love occurs. It really is that simple. What will you pray today?

Blessed Be

Trent
www.deerhornshamanic.com

Shamanism

A friend of mine emailed me this quote from a link - http://www.petercalhoun.com and it reads:

Today the archetype of the shaman is emerging out of the shadowy past and from the murky depths of the collective unconscious into the clear light of conscious awareness. Shamanism is the most earth-friendly system in existence and, therefore, it may be the most relevant path for our age. It is by far the most practical since it evolved out of the survival needs of our species from its earliest times. It may once again hold the keys to our survival as a species. Shamanism is not another religion or system of belief; it is a way of perceiving and relating to the wondrous world around us. It is the original source out of which all the religions and systems of knowledge evolved. As a path of growth, however, it is complete in itself and can provide a powerful foundation for one's life and spiritual practices.

Wow! What a mouthful! I do think that in our distant past every person practiced shamanism. It was a way of living and relating, not a way of thinking or believing. It is a way of expanding our sensory perceptions to include those things that cannot be seen or felt or observed with the normal senses. It is instinctual. That is why it has helped us as a species to survive.

As an example, think of a shaman in the jungle. The jungle is its own environment. It is interconnected with all other environments, but the people in those environments don't know the jungle well. The shaman knows the jungle well. So the shaman knows what plants to eat, which ones to avoid, which plants heal and which ones produce hallucinations. The shaman listens to the trees and the birds and animals and knows what approaches.

Then picture for example the urban shaman. Yes, there are those of us who are urban based. Even the cities need shamans! So anyway, picture the urban shaman at the mall. His heightened awareness allows him to know which places at the food court actually are selling fresh food. He is able to pick up a mitten on the floor, smell it, and carry it to the person who has lost it by tracking the smell. Now, that part is not so easy. Have you ever noticed how smelly the mall can get, especially before Christmas???

My point is, both shamans are producing from their training and expertise, experiences in different, yet interrelated environments, that help them, and others, to survive. We are instinctual and natural. We have our individual sensitivities, but these all work together to create survival and establish a harmony that can exist for everyone.

We are trail blazers, whether we are in the jungle or in the concrete jungle. We have a way of being that transcends the craziness of the world around us and helps us to stay focused and clear. We are here to help mankind and we are here to learn as we go. We actually are everywhere, and every when. And that is the coolest thing!

Blessed Be

Trent