June 5-7, 2015
Days 4-6
So many adventures! And we hadn’t even arrived at our destination: The Fifth Annual Afterlife Awareness Conference in Norfolk, Virginia.
Talk about back to back Spiritual adventure4s. The Afterlife Awareness Conference featured everything from expanded training in psychic development and after-death communication to teachings on out-of-body exploration, conscious dying, and conscious grieving. The goal was to blur the boundaries between allopathic medicine and alternative healing; between intuitive experience and scientific research; and between religious traditions and a spirituality of oneness, all with the objective of increasing awareness of life beyond the physical body.
The Afterlife website (www.afterlifeconference.com) offers these very accurate descriptions:
- Where mystics, medics, scholars, and spiritualists gather to share their wisdom.
- Where shamans break bread with scientists to create common ground.
- Where sacred ceremonies, and inter-dimensional encounters are an everyday affair.
There were many wonderful experiences to be had at the conference. There are a few, however, that that had the most impact on me
One of those experiences occurred during “Exploring the Shamanic Afterlife,” a workshop led by Linda Fitch (http://lindalfitch.com), a practicing shaman who has studied with the Inka of Peru for over sixteen years. The description of the workshop is what attracted my attendance: “Shamanism speaks of an upper world, middle world, lower world, and many levels in between. Linda will explain the geography of the Shamanic afterlife, and guide participants on a journey to visit those realms.” It was the actual experience, however, that knocked my socks off.
- Linda began by giving us a few insights into shamanic views and practices. Here are a few of her insights:
- Death is like a lover and gives wisdom.
- The drum is used in shamanic ceremonies because it changes your brain waves, taking them from low alpha to the upper levels of theta. The rattles are used to break up energy.
- Are we making it all up when we have these shamanic experiences? “You are,” said Linda, “but we are making up our whole world.”
The rest of the workshop focused on profound experiences. I will tell you about two of them. During the first of these experiences, Linda used her drum to help us create our Safe Place, which is also our Power Place. We were asked to think of a place in our life where we felt very safe and protected. I immediately went back to my childhood days during summers spent in southwestern Michigan. There was a grove of adolescent blue spruce pines near the family cottage. I used to sneak off and go there often. There was a particular clearing that I was fond of. I would lie on a patch of soft, velvet moss and feel like I was becoming one with the wind rustling through the pines. Ah! That is where I went and followed Linda’s instructions as she helped us create the boundaries that secured our Safe Power Places from unwanted visitors or vibrations. It is the place where we can seek help from our guides, handing over our desires and concerns—actually delegating them to these spirits and then letting them go. Now, I find myself going there often.
Linda called our second experience “A Journey with Death.” This was our opportunity to dialogue with death and learn what it had to teach us. During the ceremony, Linda guided us with directions and gentle questions as she drummed. We were told see a house and go into it. There was a hallway and a door with death’s name on it. We opened that door and met death. Linda’s questions: “How does death show up for you?,” ‘What does death want from you right now?,” “What needs to be let go of, pruned away?,” What needs to be born?,” What can you do for death?,” and “What teaching about death do you need to know?” Then Linda urged us to make a request to death and ask about something you want more wisdom about.
My own journey with death was amazing and deep. Here is just one excerpt from the notes I made during that experience:
I go to a Native American longhouse like one you’d see in the Seattle area. I enter and see a doorway with an otter skin curtain. I pull that back. I first see a shaman wearing a fur headdress and robes. He turns into a dolphin and invites me to travel with him. I become a dolphin too. We are swimming through energy, not water. The message comes to me: “Go with the flow. Let go of preconceived notions of what things are supposed to be like. Show others how to go with the flow”… Death gives me a gift, a box. I open it up and see a heart, an actual beating human heart. What is this? The message: “It is a new heart of strength and courage”…
Oh my! This is amazing! Before sitting down to write this column, I was crying a few tears as I struggled with questions about life and why we have to be on earth in the first place. I cried out for guidance and courage. Now my tears are ones of joy. I had forgotten the impact and messages from this second ceremony. Then as I reread my notes, I received my gift from death again. This time I must accept this gift. I must take this new heart of strength and courage and gently place it into the core of my being.
Another profound experience occurred during the “Pushing Over” Ceremony workshop facilitated by Jan Engels Smith, a shamanic healer who assists individuals in gaining their own personal empowerment. The workshop was designed to help participants make contact with and assist the souls of those who have transitioned via suicide. I have been on the edges of suicide lately. The friend of a friend’s son committed suicide; a young friend attempted suicide and an older friend seriously considered it before stepping back from the brink. My own stepdaughter’s death certificate states that she died of heart failure. But, we, her family and friends, know different. Julie was physically handicapped, but the more severe handicap was the Schizophrenia that struck like a blow in College and so clouded her mind. At the age of 41, she simply gave up and stopped eating. We tried to help her, but she slipped through our fingers. This was a good workshop for me to be at.
Jan told us that the purpose of the Pushing Over Ceremony was for us to gain closure. During the ceremony, a triangle of people is formed. Many of the participants had experiences with suicide, but because of the size of the group, only parents of one suicide victim were chosen to be at the apex or focus point of the triangle. This mom and dad were deep grief over the suicide of their son Luke. The rest of use formed slanting rows, fanning out to form the triangle. We put one hand on the shoulder of the person in front of us and left the other free so we could push the energy during the ceremony. By holding each other’s shoulders we were forming an energy circuit. Information then could travel through us and create closure.
We formed our triangle. Jan called in the spirits using her voice and a rattle. Then she drummed, making contact with the spirit of Luke. She brought messages from Luke to his parents and also a sense of closure. Then Jan drummed again and asked us to use our free hands to help push the young man over to the other side. We stepped forward and pushed. We stepped back. Then we stepped forward and pushed again. Then Jan did something she had never done before. She told us that the spirits had told her to continue pushing, each of us calling out the name of our loved ones who had committed suicide. This, she assured, would be of service to them and to us. And that is what we all did. I heard a cacophony of names around me as I voiced the name of my Julie. We ended by toning and wrapping our beloveds in the sound of our voices. Personally, I knew that my Julie was already on the other side and progressing there very well. So, I believe that for her this was a wonderful energy boost—and can’t we all use some of that.
The last profound shamanic experience occurred on the last day of the conference. It was the closing ceremony presided over by Linda Fitch. We gathered in four groups around large rectangles of cloth that were ceremoniously laid down—first black, then blue, then white. Bags and piles of natural materials framed the clothes. As Linda guided us with shamanic prayers, we scattered this variety of materials—rose petals, rice, sage, feathers, seeds, etc.—to the earth, the sea, and the sky; and to our ancestors, all four-leggeds, all two-leggeds, and ourselves. Then each group folded their clothes into large bundles and we walked in silent procession down to the banks of the Elizabeth River where we unfolded our bundles and released our offerings. We ended with a blessing and a song—a perfect end to a wonderful conference!
BUT‑it wasn’t the end of our road trip or our Spiritual adventures. Donna and I still had a long drive home—and one more Spiritual Traveler Experience worth writing about.
Resources:
The Afterlife Awareness Conference
https://afterlifeconference.com
The Afterlife Conference blurs the boundaries between intuitive experience and scientific research, and between dualistic religious traditions and a spirituality of oneness. Our goal is to provide wisdom and support for those dealing with the end of life, and also to increase awareness of life beyond the physical body, through a mystical approach to death and bereavement.
Recent Comments