Stairway to Heaven

We all have those days when it seems we are climbing an endless staircase. The journey has already been exhausting and we are dead tired, but we can't stop now so we plug away at the staircase, unsure of where, exactly it is headed. When I have those days I go to my Portal Portrait and sit and gaze at it. As you can see from the photo, it has the set of stairs. I have titled this one Portal Portrait #1 Stairway to Heaven. Along the edge of the stairway are pillars. It felt right to have them there for support. But the top of the stairway leads to....who knows? A Portal Portrait helps us to bridge the gap between this dimension and other dimensional consciousness. This one in particular always inspires me to lift myself up to a higher level of consciousness and to see things from an overview perspective.

I am reminded by it as well that there is only so much we can do all on our own. So if I can be of service in someone else's climb, then I will be one of their pillars. And while I am doing my own climb I am grateful for those who have become pillars for me. Perhaps when I reach the top and look down upon everything I will notice that it all seems so small now. Perhaps with one more step I will discover that I can actually fly and will never again need to take the journey step by step but instead with soaring wings! Either way, I know that every step that has thus far been taken is an important one. Each step along the way has taught me something and inspired within me some aspect of myself that was before unknown. I have, as a result of the journey become something more than I came into this world originally being. Whether I change the world with one big glorious act or with one simple kindness at a time, my presence will not go unnoticed. I will remain grounded and secure while at the same time reaching new heights.

Where are you at in you journey today?

Blessed Be
Trent
www.deerhornshamanic.com
http://www.youtube.com/trentdeerhorn

Building on Inspiration

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea." Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

When I teach shamanism to people, sometimes I will talk about and demonstrate techniques. More often, however, I will work at inspiring the students. Inspiration is the key to all drive for knowledge. When we inspire we infuse a person with the spirit of the subject matter. Sometimes we inspire when we don't even know we are doing it. Sometimes we know we are setting an example and follow through for the sake of not just ourselves, but the ones we are inspiring. Both do benefit.

I have always been an avid believer in the right to a free mind. Free thinking is what leads to innovation, invention, and true progress. If we don't progress we are doomed to stagnate and fail. This is why I also am very able to learn from my students in turn. I don't see myself as the big kahuna from whom everyone must learn and to whom everyone must bow down. My students are my best teachers. They are able to look at life and see possibilities that I have not even thought about. As a result, I quickly grow to catch up to them and then we are all that much better off. In fact, I don't even like calling people my "students" and only do so for a frame of reference. I see all of us as teachers and learners in life.

Once inspired, we are able to take quantum leaps into the previously unknown territories and make our way to new understandings of the world in which we live and the universe of which we are all a part. To do this, we most often have to discard our previous thoughts about the way things are and embrace the way they could be. It's a big universe out there. Why would we ever want to limit it to only what we think we know?

Blessed Be
Trent
www.deerhornshamanic.com

Many People

"The truth of life is only revealed through exchanges between many individuals." Francois Cheng.

I think often about how many people I have met along my earthwalk. The faces seem endless and the memories varied. What has always stuck with me is how often there are similarities in consciousness between individuals that haven't even yet met each other. Someone says something to me and I realize that those very words could easily have come from someone else that I know, or even from myself. It is amazing to me how a single seed of thought can grow through simple exchanges between people. This is why those who are considered to be totally wacked one minute become geniuses the next minute. What is inspiration, when spoken out loud, soon becomes criticized and then condemned until, finally, it becomes common knowledge. As it becomes common knowledge it becomes known as "truth".

This is also why one person's story can resonate so much with that of another person. We have common ground in our stories. We learn similar things in similar ways, even if the specific situations and the people who were involved were different. When I tell a story of my life in a group I am always pleased and astounded by how many people can completely relate to the story as if it were their own because of the similarities and the lessons that we have gleaned as a result of the situations. As these truths mingle in the soup of humanity, the flavours deepen and the aroma becomes exquisite. And we are all fed by that soup.

Blessed Be

Trent
www.deerhornshamanic.com

Good Relations

A person should never feel caged in a relationship. Relationships are meant to be learning experiences, but the experiences are better learned in an open and loving environment. When we are in situations where we feel smothered and isolated, we not only have huge rushes of adrenaline that make us feel like bolting for our lives, we also develop respiratory issues on a physical level. This is because of the extremely close connection between the body and the emotions. So it is extremely important to make sure that when we are in relationships we are not being manipulated or controlled by our partners and that we are not manipulating and controlling them.

The most beautiful relationship is one in which both partners accept and love each other and are able to support each others' growth and development. It is one in which just thinking about the other brings a smile to your face and a warm feeling in your heart. It is one in which we become inspired to thank the powers that be, on a daily basis, for bringing us to each other. We may not know what tomorrow brings, but we can be happy and caring today and nurture each other in ways that strengthen each other for whatever may come to us tomorrow.

Spirit would not want anything less for us.

Blessed Be

Trent

Living Vicariously Through My Friends

A friend of mine just emailed me another quotation, again I don't know who the original creator of this saying is, but it goes like this, "Life is God's gift to you.....what you do with your life is your gift to God."

I am very happy that I have such friends. Not only do they send me such amazing quotations, but some of them actually also visit exotic places around the world and bring me back sand (I collect sand from around the world), shells (I collect those too), and stones (yup, you guessed it...another collection). They bring wonderful stories that I very much enjoy hearing and learning from. When one lives vicariously through one's friends, learning comes easily from their stories of wild and wonderful experiences.

That brings to mind the lady whose hair I was washing (when I worked in a salon.....yup, I used to do that too....a jack of many trades) telling me about her trip on an African safari through the jungles of the Congo. The group stopped on their hike for a rest. She sat down on a rock. Suddenly the tour guide's eyes became extremely big and he told her to very carefully stand up and then run as fast as she could toward him. She had chills run through her, thinking that there must be a tiger about to pounce or something. When she reached him in a nano-second, she turned around and saw that the "rock" upon which she had been sitting was actually a sleeping cobra! Too cool. Oh, yea, and ..... YIKES!!!!

I love stories like that. But I also find stories about how folks contribute to the lives of others to be very inspiring. Like the story that a friend told me about purchasing and making turkey dinner (no special occasion) for a single mom of 6 children who was renting from her. This inspires me. When people see the need and respond, they are contributing to the community and to humanity.

When one contributes and when one lives life FULLY one is utilizing God's gift of life and creating a gift for God. I have so many people ask me to tell them what their life's purpose is this time around. I always tell them that the purpose of life is to live life fully. This means to enjoy it and to contribute in some way. It is one thing to be a good person, but it is an entirely other thing to be a person who is good for something. We aren't contributing by hiding ourselves from others. We aren't contributing by diminishing ourselves or our abilities when we can just let them shine and ripple forth positive energies throughout the world. Spirit would not want us to diminish ourselves. What a waste that would be! So enjoy life and live it fully and contribute what you can when you can. It will bring you back wonderful things. But that isn't the point. The point is that whenever we contribute, we are able to plant positive seeds throughout the world. These seeds will grow and flourish forever. That is eternal life!

Blessed Be

Trent

Helping Hands

As I write this, I am looking at a painting that my first born daughter did when she was 20 months old. It is a finger painting with numerous hand prints all in a swirl of rainbow colors. Her hands were so tiny then. She is 12 years old now. I remember sitting with her as she painted it. She was fascinated by the colors, and amazed at the feel of the paint on her hands. She would put a hand print on the paper, then look at her hand intently. When she was done, she was definitely DONE and wanted her hands cleaned up RIGHT NOW.

So I lent her a helping hand and cleaned her up. She has become one of the most helpful people I know. When bowling a number of years ago, she was very attentive to a 3 year old who wanted to take the bowling balls from the rack and hand it to each of the bowlers. My daughter made sure that, if she was going to be doing that, that she know how to do it properly so that her fingers wouldn't get slammed when the next bowling ball came through the chute. And every time the 3 year old handed her a ball my daughter smiled and thanked her very graciously.

I feel inspired by her in this. I enjoy helping others and always remember to have gratitude for those little acts of kindness that others show me. I think it is important in the balanced functioning of the world for us to lend helping hands and to be grateful to those who do the same for us. And the more grateful we are, the more help is provided. Thus, a prayer of gratitude is one of the most powerful prayers of all.

Blessed Be

Trent

The Wheel Turns

In almost every tradition there are Medicine Wheel teachings. Some of these teachings will vary from one tradition to the next, but each tradition is correct, each for their own valid reasons. So often I have had people complain about the fact that my medicine wheel is set up "incorrectly" in some way, shape or form. What they are really saying is that they have become rigid in their beliefs and think that their way is the only way.

The thing is that the Medicine Wheel teaches us that each way is valid. There are many paths up the same sacred mountain, and they all reach the top. If you were to look at sacred mountain from above the tip if it, you would find that its cone shape creates a medicine wheel and that the spokes out to the edges are many. Each spoke is a different path so that everyone on Mother Earth is able to find their way up the mountain.

My most recent configuration of the Medicine Wheel (there have been many according to what the wheel - a sentient being - communicates it needs) is that of a spiral. This has by far been the most powerful of all the configurations to date. Some folks who are medicine wheel "experts" don't even recognize the formation as a medicine wheel because, again, they have become rigid in their beliefs of what a medicine wheel should look like. It doesn't have to be a circle with 4 or 8 spokes. It can be a series of circles, spirals, geometric configurations and the like. They can resemble mandalas and crop circle formations. They can be as elaborate or as simple as each person can imagine. But they still are medicine wheels. They can be made of stone, of plants, of crystals, of wood, of any number of materials. And they will resonate with the "creator" of them. I put that word in quotation marks because the creator is the Creator, who is infusing us with the information of how to set one up, where and for what purposes. We become "inspired", or have spirit in us.

I mentioned that my wheel is a sentient being. Well, this is true. It talks to me and I listen. It gives me pictures and I see them. It gives me feelings through my body and I experience them. Basically it connects me in a vast array of ways, and for this I am always grateful. This is why I have agreed to be the caregiver of this wheel. Some day, perhaps someone else will be the caregiver of it. But for now, this is part of my job as a shaman. I am the keeper and caregiver of the wheel. And the wheel turns......

Blessed Be

Trent