Markdown lines 485–632 · Part 4 of 5
things aren't going the way our willful would want them to, is to say, he was like the old joke
with a kid whistling was he shoveling more, you know, slack with all this shit around? There's
got to be a pony in here somewhere. You know, it's that sort of attitude of? Well, I don't know if
there's something new for him here. But by God, I'm gonna look for it. What's so wonderful is
that you can if you approach a lot of your experiences in life in a divinatory way, I think you will
mine a lot more riches than if you wait for this unbelievable synchronicity to hit me in the face,
you know, the Horned Owl can fly out in front of us, although we have been working in a
divinatory way has been very, very helpful. And I actually encourage encourage patients to to
begin to play with the mouse not to have to take it on with to begin to experiment or begin to
wonder with me maybe even wondered before the experiment. So you talked about
synchronicity is meaningful coincidence. So like, for me, it's like when worlds collide. And that
one of the forms of synchronicity is connecting with nature. I mentioned the the owl I've had
I've had a lot of people will see if you get a reputation for being a little different. I've had people
tell me more things without my even asking for them. People come in well tell me these
dreams that they've had, I will tell you this, can you believe such and such I saw on TV, there's
just this willingness to make connections. And from a shamanic point of view, was a helping
spirits are guiding us all the time. And it's for us to take the focus off of our eyes and see more
clearly, if that's happening. You can do it by meaningful coincidences, you can also encourage
it in projective kinds of activities in the labyrinth. Now behind one of the buildings here, this is a
labyrinth at my retreat site, which is a virtual labyrinth, in which you step in, in a sacred way,
and you start walking in a spiral. And you can make as many spells as you want to, to get to
the center of what your issue or question or concern is. And when you've done that, then you
start walking out in a counter spiral, to integrate that in your life. Maybe many forms are people
who rocks people look at patterns of the clouds in the sky. So nature is a wonderful source for
that. You can also journey. This is somebody's journey in a check unit. But we don't know if
there's a drilling tape or a Hemi sync tape, but it really doesn't matter. Because to me, it is and
it is an act of divining to find out from from our non from our whole brain rather than our left
brain or from our non local mind, what what we need to be about. And obviously your
shamanic practitioner doses to monitor dreams. In many cultures, the dream states considered
an active part of one's life. And usually people can distinguish between the garden variety of
you know, anxiety, dreams about leaving your baggage and, you know, behind or not being
able to pack the suitcase before catching the train or whatever. And big dreams, which are
ones where you can't believe when you wake up, that this is the reality and the other one
wasn't another way, the big dream is a dream that keeps reoccurring to pay attention to the
third one is when people dream about you. And it doesn't seem to be about them. But it's not
just that you're in your dream, dreaming about new, and they bring it to you. There's a nice
technique of journaling on dreams are you can go back and enter that dream state and either
continue to dream. Or you can go back and into the dream state and ask what this is about
what's important for me to know about this. I use all of these in my work with patients. In
shamanic counseling. This is a technique that Michael Horner developed, of teaching people to
journey for themselves to get their own answers. And it has a particular form where you hook
up the microphone, much like in the check units and the person reports what's happening to
them while their journey and the the practitioner can be with them recording that or can be with
them as a witness. But But paradoxically, as you speak your journey, it helps you stay more
focused on it rather than being distracted by it. So it's been a rich source. And I want to share
with you an experience that I had in shamanic counseling with this woman, this woman see
who had a 16 year old son killed him in an auto accident three months before, she'd been
hospitalized for depression and attempted suicide after her son's death, and he had been
unable to return to work. At an initial consultation meeting with me, she reported feeling her
son around her at times, and longing to open to him. But she was afraid that she wouldn't want
to come back. I assured her that I could get her back if she wanted to experience the content
more deeply. at our next meeting, I use the inner journey meta music, with suggestions to her
to relax to open and to allow herself to experience any energies or wisdom that wish to make
contact for her healing or learning. So this was the most broad, most broad kind of suggestion,
because in reality, it's what's out there. It's what I think in this work, we're about opening doors
not telling people what they what they need to hear. So anyhow, shortly after she relaxed into
the music, she was in a recliner in my office. Her body gave a small jolt. Her face flushed in
tears began coursing down from under the blindfold. After a few minutes, I invited her to return
to ordinary reality. She was radiant. As she took the blindfold off, I like to tell you this, she took
the blindfold off. And she looked at me and she said, Cool. And then she said, he's changed so
much. She said, he's fine and so much wiser. And that was a revelation to her. She did not
expect that in any way. She felt so good about that experience. She went back to work the
next week. And then she asked me how she could learn how to do this herself. She said, I
know there must be some reason why I'm still here. And I want to find out. So what this has
done for me, while I'm still doing the shamanic work, what I found is that I don't feel compelled
to use the drum on a fun project pragmatist. And I really use whatever works. And I'm also
willing to, we're not willing to I find myself getting excited by what people's the resources that
they have for their own healing and how to get them hooked up to that, whatever form it takes.
I was on rounds the other morning with my camera and caught this wonderful moment of, of
the intern, checking sky with with emphysema, and there was Jesus on the windowsill. And I
thought, I thought what a wonderful health care team that are caught in this picture. There's
just this, this great thing. The other thing is this is a woman with metastatic breast cancer was
in a small group with me. And we were crafting what are called medicine objects, things that
help you remember who you are. She was literally the live wire of the group. And so she got
this Duracell battery body and found this piece of wood that had been struck by lightning, she
painted it and put this pipe in the head, the stars on her legs and in her head. And she kept
that she died about six months later that she kept that on her refrigerator. I spoke with her
husband after her death. And he said that that was immensely helpful, immensely helpful to
her is enormously helpful to the family to win help remember who she is? Or was at that time.
58:02
People in groups making masks, you know, what is the Who are we in terms of the face that
moves that looks out, but also having some of my groups of people pink, the inside of the
mass to what is the more intimate view that you may or may not put out there? And how much
difference is there between the two? And what does that say about where you are in your life?
What are the four things that people can discover about themselves and I see this as I don't
like this is tricky for me, because I don't know whether to I can't I can no longer say it's just
written or resources, because I've had too much experience with direct manifestations of spirit
of ordinary reality to say that, I mean, I've seen the spirit lights in the darkened room and it was
no moving over was not the it was not streetlights outside of cars moving down or anything.
And I have I've, I've seen too much now to not know that there's some phenomenon that is
beyond this skill. This perceiving the five senses that even when I'm stone cold, left near reality
that I can still perceive this, this interaction so I can't say it's only inner stuff, but to some
degree, it doesn't matter. What you guys like this is a friend of mine who's an artist in New
York City. And this is the lover that her painting went to after she worked with Gateway tapes.
She's never been here to TMI, worked with the tapes and found her work transforming. She
used to do work that was more flat and two dimensional. And this is her pet Even Angel I
actually now have it, she put it she has a website and I've downloaded the picture from a
website and put it as background on my computer. So I see this every day when I when I
interact and and here's this angel and the title of this picture is precious one. And I think that
it's not only about this precious one or the preciousness of that other dimension, but also about
her sense of her own preciousness in there.
1:00:41
So the long and short of these is I don't think someone needs to be a shaman to do so level
work to do these to be and do some level work with oneself or with others. But these are forms
that I have found very helpful. And I'd like to stop now and just find out what your response to
this is in your questions or things that we want to share.
1:01:21
Everybody likes more like?
1:01:26
I could you possibly touch on more on how to read your dream? Or? Because I think
everyone's got some significant dream, they think, good lord, what did that mean? Whatever
else? And how do you know what's the process that would be helpful to get the maximum
benefit from it? Okay,
1:01:47
there are so many ways you can do your do your expansion of conscious use, which will have
choice. Whether it's going out to free flow 12 or listening to a drumming tape or a particular
piece of music that you feel really moves you into an expanded state of awareness. You can
set your intention to go back to the dream in several ways. One is, is you can ask to be taken
back into the dream itself. And watch it unfold. Which would be sort of like a lucid dream would
be one way. Or another would be if you have some kind of inner self helper or some kind of
power animal or guide or whatever. You can expand your consciousness and call to that
helper and ask your question, what do I need to know about this dream? You know, whatever,
however you want to form your question. So the two main ways of doing it are going back into
the dream. And the other would be to ask about it by through some guidance. There's actually
a I'm going to hand out a bibliography here, which has some references. And one of them is
Rob or Richard Moss, his book called Conscious dream of a spiritual path for everyday life.
And he outlines this very well in here. So there'll be some
1:03:33
seal in, in cultures in which shamanism is well accepted it it seems to be, I guess, an
acceptable practice to allow someone else in a sense, maybe not control but to intercede on
your behalf. Do you run into any? You know, how do people ask you to do this? I know, you
know, as a clinician patients come in to be helping to be treated, or I feel part of our role is to
really empower them to do what they need to do. And how do you handle that in the
shamanistic view where it seems you travel on their behalf and you do it for them?
1:04:12
That's a good question. That really ends up being a little bit of both as much as I can. I try to
teach people to journey for themselves. But there are some where I know they're working on