need a (bear) hug? part one

a winters tale about massive love from the unseen

Happy New Year lovely ones!

I love all the day-one-kick-off’s, the productivity and the youbetchaImgonnabebetter feeling of this time; and also? I find it overwhelming and most years (like this one) I’m guilty of thinking I’m doing it wrong. Not enough meditations, goals or happy optimism for the year, no fresh feelings of commitment. Due to the state of things in the US and my own inner state - there are just not enough new office supplies to give me the courage to meet this shiny, spanky new year.

On that shame spiral note, I did not publish the essay that follows last week because I became overcome with that feeling - due to the fact that it’s in the realm of the shaman which I never know if I’m allowed to hang around in. See as a whiteywhitehwhite lady; it always feels not quite and uh-boy to share any experiences with shamanism. The last thing I want to be is disrespectful or in any way co-opting another’s traditions or the rights to their gorgeous gifts. But what I can offer is that an incredible man was my teacher, and because he got an invitation from a Hawaiian shaman to share in ceremony - I do feel like he was good lineage.

So here is part one of my most recent shamanic adventure.

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The drumbeat started and off we went; it only took about 8, maybe 9 thumps of a little hand held drum for me to be flying off into some fancy never-never land.

My primary teacher of shamanic tradition was a brilliant human named Hank Wesselman - he taught us how to journey into other realms on the back of a drum. Very much like my very first journey I re-shared a few weeks ago, I found the multiple courses I took with him invited the most ecstatic adventures filled with creatures and sights that I’ve never met in this reality; each one so vivid and like a dream, but even better. Let’s call it Dream 2.0 because enough of my conscious brain was available to take notes and bring back what I saw and experienced; I remained lucid, as do most people when they journey.

Dr Wesselman was an anthropologist and a very interesting fellow because he didn’t seek these experiences, they found him. He was spontaneously initiated into shamanic adventures, and his big, fancy scientist brain made him an incredible human to catalog the experiences - in fact he turned many into a three book series. It’s an incredible trilogy but back in the 90’s publishers refused to sell them as memoir despite the fact that it was all true. He was embraced by and became dear friends with a kahuna named Hale Makua who invited him to share the spiritual teachings he’d been given in his visions with the blessing of the Hawaiian elders - even though I believe it was unheard of for a haole to be invited in this way. (Haole is foreigner or visitor to Hawaii - often synonymous with white people).

So, when my professional mentorship course offered an additional class with a guest to discuss shamanism, I was intrigued. Admittedly I was unsure how the two traditions would mix because spiritualism, the religion that practices mediumship right inside their church services, feels a bit more rigid and rule oriented (most of the women mediums wear stockings and sensible shoes!); which is all quite a contrast to the earthy fire of my previous shamanic experiences with Hank.

After a lecture about the two worlds and - yep, how they differ - the guest teacher offered to take us on a shamanic journey. She instructed us to go meet our ‘power animal’* and had some specific notes about how we would know it’s our animal. She specified that the animal would have to let us know three times so that we were sure to find the right one, then we could ask them what they wanted us to know.

But first, she said, as you head into the underworld - imagine a portal that you can use to get down there.

bom

bom

bom

bom

bom

bom and whoosh I was down the rabbit hole….and that was easy cause look there’s a hole just under that tree root, I slid right through there into a cavernous darkness. Luckily the laws of physics or my 53-year-old-body-laws didn’t apply, I found I was perfectly agile and skipping on a tricky stone path. It was happening as fast as my mind and whatever other helpful force could make it up - cruising through the underworld.

Quickly I found an owl, it flew right toward me and since that’s the sign my father on the other side uses to get my attention, I wondered if Owl was the correct animal, but nope! The owl signaled the answer to my questions with a Nooooooooo by turning its head around - 360. That’s a big No.

Ok! I nodded my salute to one of my favorite creatures.

Next, I found a coyote drinking from a beautiful stream that I was walking in, it looked up and immediately looked away like a hipster in an LA bar. If that coyote wore skinny jeans I would not have been surprised, he didn’t want anything to do with me. So I kept walking; noticing that here in the underworld there was sparkling afternoon sun and that my feet didn’t feel cold or wet as I splashed along. Also, what feet? It was all pleasantly confusing.

Next I came into a new scene where I was walking right toward a GIANT bear, black bear? Grizzly bear? I don’t know - the main note was - BEAR! It was huge - just massive. It reminded me a bit of the Jabba the Hut scene in Star Wars, I offer that image only for scale.

The bear opened her arms very wide, using massive paws to gesture to me to come forward. I ran into her giant, furry embrace. It was literally a bear hug that enveloped me, as if I was no longer visible, I was buried by fur, fluff and good. It was so deeply special as I was held with the love of mother, the love of infinity, her warm breath and snuffling so humid and soothing - I didn’t want to ever pull out of that embrace.

(next week more on the bear story….in part 2)

*Again want to note that I’m super aware that a white woman telling us to go find our spirit animal could be conceived as cultural appropriation; and I’m not saying it isn’t. I’m just sharing the experience as it happened for this lil medium in a class, and I do feel it’s important to acknowledge.

**This is an excellent introductory article to Hank and his work.