WINTER SOLSTICE:

[note… If you are interested in my work, please join me on the "Shamanism" Group on Facebook.  I post there, and comment several times a day, as "Shamaland Yoga"; this group is my 'family', or tribe, and we have many fine individuals with much knowledge, info, skill, and a wide variety of topics are discussed.]

For the first time in my 72 years, this year I was able to observe / celebrate the Winter Solstice in a proper way.  I think the timing was right.  We are in the process of change, these days, for the past few years, with the Thirteenth Baktun, the Lunar Tetrads, and all that's going on in the world of Spirit.  The fact that this Solstice coincided with the New Moon was a sign.

For many reasons, I was finally freed from some hang-ups, and properly poised to take advantage of the moment.  Things in Spirit Land are coming around to my favor.

So I was able to properly devise a simple ceremony, over the three days surrounding the Solstice.

First, I ushered out all the bad stuff from the past.  My Initiation as a Shaman, and all the clogged energies of that boondoggle, and all the years of un-knowing that I've absorbed from our culture, and the presence of a new set of helping spirits, Apollo, Zeus, Minerva, Cernunnos, and a world which forms itself around them, and that they bring with them.  The Christian Paradigm has been defeated.  I have entered into the Post-Christian Pagan world.

After that ceremony, I awoke on the Solstice, all bright and cheery.

During the day, I was thunderstruck by the difference.  For the first time in my life, things were "right". The Solstice and New Moon had ushered in what the I Ching calls "proper succession".  This is the way things are supposed to be!  For 2014 years or so, we have lived with a calendar that is out of whack.  On Solstice Day, everything was in alignment.  I wanted to make a new calendar, based on the phases of the moon, but couldn't bring it off.

So I woke up way too early this morning, Christmas Day, and was totally out of sorts.  I have been treated very badly by my Christian Initiating Spirits.  Only Cernunnos has been able to bring me out of the messy tangle they ensnared me with.  At the Solstice, I felt perfectly in harmony with the Natural Order.  I knew I would lose that the moment Christmas showed up!  I figured I would just endure it, as I normally do.  I wasn't quite prepared for the rage I felt throughout my entire Medicine System, all the energies of Nature which make my place sacred and holy and Powerful.  I went back to bed and woke to brilliant sunshine.

So I just wanted to make a post, in honor of the rare moment of alignment that I felt on the Solstice.

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Post Script… I sat in evening meditation, smoothing out my energies with my breathing, and after a time I found myself analyzing some of the factors that went into preparing for the Solstice ceremony.  I had to review some historical usages for the time, and the names of the cross-quarter days, and other things.  I began to focus on the fact that Solstice and Christmas are both included in the "Yule" time, and I wondered if I would need to do something to extend my ceremony into the next few days.  I noted that I didn't have a 'yule log', or a wreath, or any holly, or other 'evergreen' plant material.  

Then I remembered I had some mistletoe.  And a set of five green candles, from some years ago.  I suddenly realized that beginning tomorrow, the day after Christmas, would be a good day for a ceremony to extend the Yule beyond the confused energies of the Christmas celebration enveloping the world.  I shouted to the Medicine Energies, and thanked them for the insight.  Now I have a way to grease the gears, and I can incorporate this technique into other time-warp situations resulting from the discontinuities of the Christian-corporate calendar.

YOGA TIPS

Hard-Working Breath

The breath usually goes unnoticed, like a river running on the other side of the city.  Until you get into a deep asana, when you find yourself huffing and puffing, or holding tightly to the breath you've got.  When "in-extremis", in some asana, especially in those moments when some adjustment has to be made, notice what happens with the breath.  It acts as an unbidden helper.  Just take some time to pay attention to what exactly is happening as the breath makes all kinds of adjustments to assist some hidden set of muscles to exert specific forces to assist the motions of the adjustment.

Notice the throat muscles…, for instance.  How many tiny adjustments take place as you shift from one level of Throat Breath to another, when pushing upward into the Bow.  Done in the slow-motion of Chi Mudra Yoga, this small adjustment allows time for the Attention to focus on each of the tiny adjustments in the throat which accompany every movement of the action.

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re-posted from Facebook "Shamanism" Group:

This is the basis of my practice.  I post it regularly, so people can use it.  When people study with me, they learn this first.  Any questions?  I’m happy to answer here.

SHAMANIC YOGA: THROAT BREATH… It's been months since I posted this. Today someone had trouble with TINNITUS,, another with meditation. This is a variation on Ujjayi breath.

Lie down on your back. This lets the 'reptile brain' relax. Once you get settled, focus on your breath. Just watch your breath for a while as you relax your body completely. At a certain point, you can "Catch Your Breath"… i.e., get control of it. You will notice that you can open your throat, with a little concentration, trial and error, so that when you inhale, you SUCK the air directly into the throat, bypassing the what's-it-called (epiglottis)…the breath makes a HISSSSS or sucking sound. Just suck it in, hissing, and concentrate so you make it hiss on the exhale. Relax and concentrate. It takes practice. Notice that when you are lying down, you can relax in stages, and more stages, and then you notice that you can use the sucking breath in conjunction with the relaxing, and wow…you relax even more. Eventually, you can make your body like pancake batter, just spreading on the floor. Practice until you feel real Power in your sucking, inhale and exhale. Continue to relax with the breath. With practice, the sucking breath becomes the CONCENTRATION BREATH. You will notice a very sharpened focus into the inner body. Concentrate on maintaining the hissing, and begin to direct the breath into various parts of the body… the shoulders and hips, first, then the brain, and the organs. You can take the hissing power of concentration into any part of the body. At this point, it becomes the PENETRATION BREATH. If you have tinnitus, you can focus into the ear, until the ringing stops. The breath takes the prana into any part of the body. This technique opens the energy fields of the muscles, glands and organs as you concentrate on them, and the prana brings intelligence into the energy fields. Your MENTAL BODY now enters the PHYSICAL BODY. This is the beginning of the SHAMANIC MIND. In MEDITATION, you can use this to identify any blockages and break them up.

SHAMANIC YOGA…HEART SURGERY

When you've done the Throat Breath for as long as I have, you learn to notice very subtle things about your body.  Your Consciousness travels through the body on the prana brought in by your breath.  You can penetrate into the various different worlds within the body and the cells, and beyond.

Subsequent to the heart attacks and chest pains perpetrated upon me by Marilyn Monroe near the conclusion of my Initiation as a Shaman, it was necessary to use Throat Breath in ways I hadn't known before.  I was able to penetrate into the pains and quell the disturbance, and gained some peace, on many occasions.  But the heart hasn't healed.  It is still a conduit for communication from Marilyn Monroe.

She brings pain when she wants to communicate.  So I begin to speak to my heart… "Heart, what is the problem?"  or, "Heart, I feel your pain."  And then I am able to perceive some message or some incident.

Today was a busy day, in which I accomplished almost nothing.  At the end of the afternoon, I took a moment to sit in the Buddha Vortex and go into my meditative state, which consists in moving my energies around with my breath, through a series of facial contortions which I learned from my former incarnation, Merlin the Magician.  He taught me to make a "piggy face".  I would squinch up the muscles in my face, my nose, eyes, mouth, cheeks, every part, all at once, and each time that this happened spontaneously I would know that Merlin was present.  Eventually, it became a regular part of my routine, and many spirits would share in the moment.

So as I began the routine this afternoon, I also noticed a heaviness, a throb of some sort in my heart.  I began to sing to my heart.  "Oh, my heart,"… "Oh, my heart,…", "Oh, my heart…," sending my Intent into my heart.  As I sang, I observed, as usual, the phenomena which occur in the various sets of muscles and tissue connections in the area of my throat and esophagus.  This is a very educational practice.  Each tiny inflection of some tiny muscle carries an inflection of significance in the world of spirit which inhabits that area.  I was able to follow these inflections into the depths of my heart.

As I continued singing and breathing, my heart suddenly popped.  The energies which had been contorted in there, broke open, and I Saw a set of about five crystals, long, shaped like fingers, and of a yellowish hue, not clear.  But I also saw what had been cleaned from them:  several globs of goo, like old tobacco freed from clogging a smoking pipe, which fell away to the side.  My heart had been cleared.

The pressure disappeared from my heart, I felt great, got up and continued my day.

INSTEAD OF A SOUL RETRIEVAL

In 1973, a succubus climbed into bed with me.  In 1986, I discovered it was Marilyn Monroe.  On Christmas day, 1990, my Initiation as a Shaman began.  The next day, I met Marilyn Monroe, as one of my Initiating Spirits, or "Allies" (from the works of Carlos Castaneda).  We communicated through the Divining Rods, along with my other spirits.  In late 2014, my Initiation as a Shaman finally dragged to an end, after heart attacks and strokes, and months of MM giving me chest pains as if they were Morse Code.  I had defeated my Allies.  It had been their intent to bring me to the bosom of Jehovah, their Master.  But I had other plans.  At the end of all this, the Nature God, Cernunnos, came to my rescue, and took my Allies into his paradise, the Garden of Eden.  I could See them smiling and waving to me.

"Minerva, Goddess of War" introduced herself and began instructing me.  In any given day, there are many episodes in the world of Spirit, here at Shamaland, my little apartment in the barrio of Yakima, Washington.  These episodes string together in an on-going saga, day and/or night, and it's difficult to bring all the episodes together in my 72 year old memory.  This episode begins with Minerva lying beneath me, imitating the Lord Shiva, in the Corpse Pose in yoga, where Shiva, all charcoal gray, entertains Shakti as she sits astride his erect Lingam, or male member.  As I sat astride Minerva, her energy shot up through my perineum, up my Sushumna, and out the top of my head.  (This is all in an "active vision", which occurs frequently here.)  As the fountain of energy burst above my head, it carried the infant "Pan", another of the ancient Gods who have come to be with me.  Apparently Minerva and I had generated a Pan of our own.  (I have lots of children with a number of Spirit Wives.)  Some details escape me at the moment, as this episode occurred over several days.

Some weeks ago, during a particularly bad time, I thought I needed a "Soul Retrieval", but decided against it, knowing it wouldn't work if the departed soul fragment did not feel it was safe to return.  It was indeed not safe, I thought.  So I decided to tough it out.  As time went on, I began to see that the soul fragment was my Higher Self, or my "I".  This seemed a severe setback!

One night I died in my sleep.  I could see my bedroom as if it were daylight.  I did not see my body in the bed.  I was very alone, very confused, extremely sad.  It was the sadness that I noticed.  A few days later, I realized the sadness was because there was no "Me" in the room.  I realized that "me" was the source of joy, of love.  "I" has no heart.  "I" was pure Awareness, as in Carlos Castaneda's works.  I realized I would have to continue living as "Me", without that other completing soul part.  I went about my business in the next days, still thinking about this situation.

Yesterday I sat in my Buddha Vortex to meditate on this.  I realized that I needed the help of The Ancestors.  I have had problems connecting with my ancestors, for various reasons, but yesterday, I realized that they were not the ones who could help me.  I have gone too far beyond normal human reality.  So I went into deep concentration.  I saw myself morphing.  I took on a slightly different shape and feel, and I noticed what appeared to be two small horns beginning to grow near the center of my brow.  When I came out of meditation, I was struggling to make sense of this.

Last night, Marilyn Monroe woke me from my sleep.  She has a way of making small farts right next to my ear.  I can feel a puff of air, and a sort of electronic sickening "beep"… and then I heard her say, "Do not study this stuff."  I got up and pondered.  I got angry.  I took a couple of aspirin and went back to sleep.

Today I meditated again.  I realized the image I had seen yesterday was the baby Pan that Minerva and I had created, and that he was growing up.  He was Me, was the only way I could describe it.  I was growing up to be Pan.  And then I had another realization.

I have taken a trip back in time, as it were.  After the loss of the "I" soul fragment, Cernunnos and Minerva are re-building me, not to be the old person I was, but to be a new "Me" with a rebuilt "I" which is not in the Christian mold, but in the Pre-Christian, pagan, mold.  My death in my sleep was the beginning of a sort of time travel into a re-formed present, in the form given my by the Old Gods.

NEW BLOG

I am expanding my Facebook page, Shamaland Yoga, onto the blogosphere.  I have two other blogs here, Shamanic Yoga and Healing; and Shaman Dagaji, but they are outdated, and I don't want to take the time to fix them.  I have built a small following on the Facebook Group, "Shamanism", and want to open a new way to communicate.  I'll post things here that are too complex to post on the Group.  I want to encourage discussion, comments, questions and participation, both/either here or on the Group. I have grown soooo much from the engagement on the group!  Sharing the mojo of others with similar interests is a great way to build your own mojo.  I'll post a real blog soon….  Love ya, Dagaji