Shamanism I – How I met my future husband in a feather…
How I accidentally discovered shamanism
I have been an artist from an early age. My artistic
work charts my spiritual journey, as I have used it to explore
and understand myself, and the universal laws. With
paint, clay, paper maché, I mould and shape my understanding
of my life, and through these media, find ways of transforming,
changing and growing.
At first, this was an unconscious process – even, a
survival mechanism. I discovered it quite by accident,
through my artistic work. Now, it’s more like playing,
and exploring consciously. In fact, it’s a gas!
Self Discovery in a clay blob
For example, in 1997, casually moulding a piece of clay, I
was shocked to find that I had made “Steel Woman”
– the image of myself at the time – strong, unbending,
inviolable, never asking for help – yet – brittle.
Fluffy Woman emerges at last
In making my next piece, “Fluffy Woman” –
a smaller, lighter figure, with frilly rainbow energy emanating
from her, I recovered a lost part of myself – and found
myself quickly transforming into this person! I became
slimmer, almost overnight, freer, more feminine, learned the
power of crying in front of others and gaining their support,
and began to have a whole lot more FUN!
What is Shamanism?
Shamanism is global. It is the ancient spiritual craft
that has been practiced by original civilizations since time
immemorial. It is an understanding of the original energy
of the earth. There is a belief in the positive energy
of the universe, and an understanding of how this can be tapped
so that an individual or tribe can flow with the universal
flow of energy and be supported and nurtured by it, rather
than struggling against it.
A shaman is usually someone who has been initiated into an
ancient line of tradition by an elder. This is often
triggered as the result of an accident or ‘near-death
experience’ on the part of the prospective shaman, or
occasionally, they choose their own path.
Shamen can be priests, healers, guides, or a combination of
all three. They have knowledge of other realms of consciousness
and may travel outside the body and in dreams. They
can practise alone, or a group can practice shamanism jointly.
Test drive your dream car – in your imagination!
Shamanism is a set of tools and techniques for accessing the
‘dream world’ above us and helping to ‘bring
down’ something in to the real world ‘down here’.
Before anything can manifest in the real world, it must first
exist in the realm of dreams.
For example, if you wish to buy a new car, you must first
create the idea of the new car in your imagination.
In your imagination, you choose the model, make, colour, and
features. Only then can you go out and find the car
that fits your specification! The action of getting
really clear on what you want creates a ‘metaphysical
image’ of your desired car in the ‘dream realm’
which will then allow it to manifest easily in reality.
Shamen are masters of manifestation, and can help the process
for themselves or others, perhaps by visiting the ‘dream
realm’ to see what is up there, or by creating rituals
that help to make the ‘metaphysical image’ of
what is desired, stronger, and clearer in order to cause it
to manifest in reality more quickly.
Visualise the process as a ‘mobius band’ –
a continuous figure of eight lying on its side, where one
loop is the ‘dream world’ and the other loop is
the ‘real world’. If you change something
in the ‘dream side’ it will manifest in the ‘real’
side. It is actually far easier to affect what is happening
in the real world in this way (ie dream world first) because
that is flowing with how things actually do manifest.
I always say “Do the inner work, and the outer world
will follow”.
Shamanism is practiced by many indigenous people, including
the Inuit Eskimos in the frozen North, the North American
Indians, the jungle Indians of Peru and the Amazon, the aborigines
of Australia, the Maoris of New Zealand.
My shamanic journey begins…
I first witnessed the evidence of shamanism in Peru in 1985.
The ‘Nasca lines’ are great, ancient animal drawings
and lines etched into the hard dry gravel of the Nasca desert,
high in the Peruvian Andes. There I met Maria Reiche,
the eccentric German mathematician who has been studying,
recording, and measuring the Nasca Lines in a very scientific
way, for almost half a century.
The designs include birds, lizards, a monkey, and other animals.
They are rather like the ‘green men’ cut into
the chalk hillsides of England, except there are many –
more than three hundred - in one place. I differed from
Maria Reiche - her interest was scientific rather than ‘new
age’, though she did see them as possibly being linked
to astrology – I preferred the interpretation of our
tour guide, Dilwyn, a jovial bearded Welshman in day-glo cotton
trousers who was perhaps ‘new-age’ before the
term had been coined.
Dilwyn related how he and some friends took mescal, from a
naturally hallucinogenic cactus, and then camped in the desert
all night. Dilwyn described how they saw huge three
dimensional animals of light, moving around in the desert.
Dilwyn believed that this was what the ancient Peruvian Indians
had seen, and then recorded in their desert scratchings.
The ‘Nasca Lines’ are not just animals but lines
– actually rather like landing strips – some comprise
several stripes maybe a few metres wide, and 500 metres or
more long. Some are straight, some are vast ‘wedge
shapes’. They can only be fully appreciated from
the air.
Flying high in a little propellered aircraft on a dry and
sunny January morning, we saw the lines and animal designs
stretching into the distance in all directions, and banking
around, suddenly saw what is perhaps the most intriguing –
the figure of a massive spaceman, more than thirty metres
high, drawn on the side of a hill. With big boots, goggles,
and what can only be described as a spacesuit, it was fascinating
to wonder whether the lines were perhaps ancient space-strips
for landing craft from another star system.
See photos/more: http://www.crystalinks.com/nasca.html
I meet my soulmate in a feather…
Back in London, I visited Vie, a shaman and crystal healer.
She is a beautiful Frenchwoman who seemed to be in her thirties,
though I suspect she may be older than her youthful appearance.
Tall and slim, she has soft shaggy blonde hair, piercing blue
eyes, and an infectious smile. Vie led me through into
her temporary treatment room (the roof had suddenly fallen
in on her home treatment room – an indication of her
powers, perhaps!) She asked me to lie down and relax
in the quiet, darkened room.
Using psychic powers she was able to quickly see the ‘characters’
I was experiencing in my life and to explain who was representing
what – a great help as I struggled to make significant
changes in my life and relationships, and move on to something
new. She explained how the people in my life were reflections
of my inner characters (‘we are multitudes’ as
Walt Whitman said), It was great to have someone understand
so fast – I only needed to say a few words and she seemed
to be able to pick up the whole picture in an instant.
Then Vie simply laid her hand on my back, and asked me to
connect with how I felt in my body – and immediately,
I spontaneously went into something like a ‘trip’.
Everything flashed before me in one and a half hours –
like the experience of a drowning man, my life passed before
my eyes. I remembered my sister being born, and how
happy I was (I was one year old at the time). And my
brother coming too and the joy I felt. I also re-experienced
every pain I’d ever felt – it was like something
from Raider’s of Lost Ark, when they open the tabernacle
– energy and light were whipping through me and I could
only watch and wait.
It could have been scary, but Vie was a reassuring presence,
and I knew that this was what I needed to do.
During the healing, I could feel the energy from crystals
that Vie placed on top of me cutting in to my body –
one in a distinct shell-like pattern – I could
feel the energy bubbling like fizzy mineral water. The
other, a small, shiny round pebble of black obsidian, became
improbably heavy during the healing. The crystals are
used to accelerate the healing as they resonate at certain
energies and support theprocess. At the end of the session
I felt cleansed and reborn, as if I had released a lot of
unclean energy. I felt new, and free! In something
of a daze, I went to lie on the soft green grass among the
flowers in my friends idyllic Hampstead garden.
In a later session,Vie also told me that there was a ‘new
life’ for me already created ‘up there in the
spirit world’ but she couldn’t understand why
it wasn’t ‘coming down’ and manifesting.
Later all became clear – I had to move to Bali first
as that was where my destiny lay!
She also told me that I would meet and marry an artist, and
she said ‘he appears to have the ability of a shape-shifter
(someone who can travel outside of their physical body)
– he just flew into my feather during the healing!’.
(Shaman often use a special feather to waft incense or sage
‘smudge’ around their clients, themselves, and
their environment for cleansing and purifying). I did
later meet and marry my husband, Putu S, a wonderful artist,
and once saw him in our garden in Ubud, Bali, making offerings,
when his physical form was actually far away in his Tabanan
village! So Vie was right…
NEXT ISSUE: How I healed my ‘inner bride’
and found my Bali soulmate.
ASHRAM of SPIRITUAL JEWELLERY & ART is at 1 Sukma St,
Tebesaya, Ubud (Oppositie Jazz Cafe). Tel: 081
239 43354. Open 10am-10pm (to 5pm Sun/Mon)
Jeli welcomes comments and may be contacted on:
Email: jelila@jelila.com
Website: www.jelila.com or www.imagine-retreats.com
