Shamanic Dialogues

The mind-like the wind- is a hard mistress.  She turns every which way; turbulent, twisty, erratic.  Finding shelter from the storm becomes imperative, especially in seasons of change when the world is neither hot nor cold, and we are neither fish nor fowl. Part of the underpinnings for fall and spring is the Ayurvedic- Vata Dosha, a spacey, creative, un-grounded imbalance that occurs when we are working to shift gears, have intimate dialogues, and anchor new ground.  Vata also increases as we age, adding a steeper incline to its slippery slope of mobility and instability.

As we shape-shift only faster, with old anchors giving way, it becomes a creative time to grow more resilient shelters, to encounter touchstones of reality we didn’t envision before, to spend time with our transformative Shamanic-Self.  Tranquility and sweetness are no longer assumed to follow us all our days, which adds to the anxiety and emotional upheaval, and Fall has the added intensity of being under the direction of death.  It is the last hurrah for the year, a time of accountability.

Astrologically, it is the Scorpio field of deep, dark realities, those of sex, death, and taxes.  Though blithely put, Scorpio tells us how we manipulate pay-backs, who owes, who doesn’t, who has the power, and who will survive because of controlling those issues.  At this time, the ancestors knew whether they would survive the winter.  The old harvest was a visible fruit of labor.  The new harvest is an invisible fruit.  Both bring urgency to see results, to count the year well done.  How are we to assess this if we no longer understand our world, if old structures and lines of power have vanished, if our spirit has not grown to hold the larger need?

Taking care everything above the radar cannot come at the expense of letting below the radar-ground lie fallow. This dark, silent territory is home to Shaman.  In these final days before winter let us feed that mal-nourished Self. Let us link intuitively and intimately to our shamanic realm.  Re-asses the day’s list, and at the top write: “In dialogue with Spirit-Self- creating the necessary alchemy to shift dross to gold.”