Whispers from Eagle

In the traditions of my matriarchal lineage, Eagle is the messenger. Eagle flies the realm of Spirit, between ourselves and creator, delivering the messages and our prayers. Eagles bird's eye view is meant to hint to us to see the bigger dream unfolding. Eagle represents the higher truths that go beyond the constructs of human kind.

It was when I moved from the prairies to the lush west coast of Vancouver Island that I received the teachings that here, Eagle represents TRANSFORMATION. We are reminded that just like Eagle we too can take flight and transcend who we thought we were and all that we thought we knew. Journeying with this teaching touched ancestry, identity and the great mystery of origins. For those that are willing to lean in to that last sentence, there is star dust sprinkled to guide the way to a much deeper dream, but for the rest, let us continue on with this dream at hand.

You see I am a Nomadic Dreamer. I see and feel the earth shifts, sensing the dreams unfolding around me. I see the connections between stories and experiences, bridging them together. This is why I am able to guide others so well in their stories to see the bigger meanings that are unfolding.

It was January of 2019 that I came upon a story about the Eagles across the island being affected by a respiratory virus. This story vibrated through my space. I could feel the urgency and the importance in this story that was asking us to take note. With the great importance of this bird as the sacred messenger I wondered what this meant and knew that it may be a prophecy unfolding, without the understanding of what was being shown. I looked towards my own story and the over lapping of dealing with my own sudden lung issues. I knew I was being guided to go on a Shamanic journey.

I delved into my lungs and began to feel into what was behind the symptoms. It took me to grief and I went into the story of my fathers death when I was five years old. I explored this story and connected to his own medical journey before his passing. I allowed myself to grieve here today from something that I was unable to grieve the yesterdays. I journeyed to my teenager years and watching the loss of my brother to a world of addiction and a transient lifestyle. I allowed myself to grieve the loss of the brother that I had known and looked up to. Acceptance was a big piece of this story, to accept that he came here for a human experience and that his journey was his own. I laid in bed for days feeling the grief wash over me. Allowing the tears to flow and the pain to wash up and release. I then made way to explore my identity and began to transcend who I had known myself to be. I remind you that the stories that unfold in the form of our daily experiences are meant to give us the journey of where we are being guided to learn, to grow and to heal, this is what a true Shamanic Journey is.
Shame and guilt... this is where I was guided next. I delved deep into the depths of my experiences and was asked to shed shame and guilt and to heal the core of my experiential stories, the depths of my darkest shadow. This was among the most difficult experiences, yet freeing, that I have journeyed through.This touched the deepest shadows of my family's stories, tied together like a string on an explicit and intrinsic web. I was diagnosed with COPD, a degenerative lung disease and I knew that I needed to go deeper so that I could heal to the depths of the stories of my ancestors.

I delved into intensive breath work with a trusted facilitator and went deeper then I had ever gone before while opening my heart and breathing into my cellular memories. I released so many, I could feel them bubbling out of me. I touched the healing of my Ancestors, releasing cultural genocide, the trauma of residential schools, loss of identity, the death of ones Spirit. I breathed life back into me, connecting deeper to myself and Source then I had ever connected in this lifetime. I touched the essence of my true self and allowed myself to feel the depths of the grief that I carried in my lungs, the loss of the deep connection to the essence of my Soul. I excepted, I released, I connected. My lungs began to heal and today I live symptom free, and perhaps disease free.

Spirit said "Go, guide others now" and I set off. 

These past five months I have been a guide to a group of Women on a private healing Moonlodge journey where they have shifted their lens of perception, they released their guilt and shame and they too touched the essence of whom they are. This journey comes to a close this month as we end in the cycle in Metamorphosis, the moon of transformation. This moon is about a willingness to change and transform, it's about reaching a new season of our life. 

Just as when Eagle, the messenger, showed up a year ago to bring us a prophecy, my Dreamer is once again seeing the bigger story unfolding in the dreaming, seeing the connections on the great web and weaving them together. So what is it that this prophecy is saying...Transform the condition that is shame, guilt and regret. You see when we live in shame, guilt, regret, we punish ourselves, we punish others. We create separation and division, we live in fear. When we free ourselves from these conditioning we except our experiences, allowing the motions of grief and ultimately returning to a place of connection on the great web, in balance with nature and in true connection to the essence of who we really are and what is truly important, connection to Source, as Source. We know that it is in isolation that we touch silence, all of the teachers before us and around the world speak to the importance of a practice of silence... because it is through silence that we touch connection and live in connection. 

So except isolation and silence, Walk in nature, breath, meditate, drum, sing, dance, dream, chant, garden... whatever it is that brings you to that sacred space, touch it and then come and connect. 

Dream beautiful dreams my friends.

Serena Winterburn

Source, the place of origins

In this world of mass information at our fingertips and being surrounded by such a diversity of culture and spirituality, I find that I often bare witness to the time old saying "this is the right way".
I grew up in a family of diverse heritage, my mother being First Nations with a strong Catholic upbringing intermingled with First Nation beliefs and culture. My father was a Muslim with traditional Islamic views intermingled with a more lenient expression of them. During my childhood I explored various avenues of Christianity and my adult hood brought me down the path of traditional First Nation culture and ceremony as well as Shamanism from a First Nations perspective and from a New Age perspective. You dont have to have lived a multicultural, spiritual and racial upbringing to  find teachings on these various perspectives. One just needs to type their inquiry into any search engine to peek into these many views.

Today I found myself in conversation with a friend who comes from a Christian background. Later this evening while visiting with my sister she brought up the controversy between traditional First Nations spirituality verse New age Shamanism. I found myself reflecting on these two exchanges. Its so easy for any one religion, culture or even teacher to claim that their way is the one true way, any deviation considered a bastardization of the teachings.. If my experiences have taught me anything it is that all things stem from the same Source. Regardless of the name given, it comes from the same origin.

When I quiet my thoughts and listen with my heart, I find that I can feel and hear so much more. My thoughts of what is right or wrong, what I have been told or learnt step back and I can hear truths in many things. These truths can be felt moving through river stones, trees, animals, ceremony, spirituality and even organized religion. If we quiet our intellectual thoughts and egos, and we let what I call our human condition go still, this makes room for Spirit to speak. Spirit does not speak to just one people or region. There is a whole planet filled with many lands and many people. Spirit speaks in each of these places. It feels quite arrogant and naive for me to assume that what is spoken to me is but the only way. Spirit spoke long ago before the birth of religion, there has been and still is expression of these sacred whispers. Each of us but a vessel filled with our own human ego and experience uniquely expressing these whispers.

Often when in session with clients they bring up messages that had been delivered by other practitioners, or spiritual advisers. They often ask, how do I know who to listen to, or who is right? I explain that all things come from the same Source. Each religion and spirituality is but an expression of this source, and each individual yet an interpreter of the message. When looking at where the message is coming from, look at the vessel delivering the message. Each of our issues, wounds, experiences, lessons, and perspectives touch the message. We are the filter that this message comes through. How do we filter it, shape it to fit our beliefs and understandings, do we taint it with our reactions and wounds?  When I look to other advisers and healers I always look at their journey and ask, have they done their own journey of healing? Have they faced and continue to face their own egos? Are they confined within a box that they hold onto under the name of tradition or religion? These are bold questions, but in a world of many expressions these questions need to be asked.

I leave you with the image of an egg newly laid and in time hatching, in the kingdom of animals new life is birthed and the transition from child to elder to dust continues. Earth, she spins. Each rotation brings the passing of day into night and seasons too pass from Spring,through Summer and Autumn into Winter. As the earth spins our view of the night sky shifts, our eyes falling on different constellations, and yet the night sky we peer upon tonight is different then the night sky that our ancestors looked upon. Some stars long ago extinguished, the moon further from earth then she once was centuries ago. All things are constantly in motion and change. An Elder once told me that our ancestors followed the stars, based the teachings of the medicine wheel on the constellations.  They understood that all things cycled and were in motion and they too allowed for this change. They followed Spirit, not just the way of their ancestors before them, so that they could continue this natural evolution that all things follow. If you find yourself asking, or perhaps boldly claiming that your way or belief is the "right way" then ask yourself if you have anchored yourself within your views. Are you learning from those before, yet allowing for Spirit to speak today? Are you listening with your heart? 

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Dreaming with the Land & the Ancestors

An Elder once told me that we dream with the land.
I remember when I first journeyed from the prairies to the majestic west coast. The scenery was awe inspiring. On our journey home we drove across the province and made our way to the interior of the Okanagan, I became aware that there was a shift of energy that had taken place. We continued our journey making our way through the Rocky Mountains, again the energy completely shifted, until we made our way to the land of the Prairies. A feeling so familiar that it resonated as home.  In the weeks that followed I reflected on the shifts of the land that I had felt.

It was while I attended a workshop in Montreal that I was brought back to explore the energy of the land and how it speaks to us. This energy was felt instantly as I left the airport and made my way across the country side of Quebec. My gaze was drawn to the trees as I found myself wondering who planted those trees, were they native to the land, who were the settlers who first farmed this land, and the First Nations that tended to this land as their Ancestors before them. I could feel the stories and history just beyond, as though somehow the veil between the worlds was thinner here.

A recent move to the West Coast has me once again journeying with the land. In the first few months here I found myself mourning the familiar grounding feeling of the prairies. Its not only the grounding signature of that land, but also the Ancestors who walked there before us. We touch these stories in our day to day, often unaware. These stories help to create the culture of our society and every so gently impact our attitudes and way of being.

The land has a unique energy signature that is different from place to place. Some say that it is the lay lines that run through the Earth, creating vortexes where these lines come together. Our Ancestors may not have called them lay lines, but they were aware of these energy signatures in the land. It is no coincidence that most sacred sites are located where these lay lines meet.

These energy signatures are not only felt physically but also have an impact on our dreams.
My new venture has me once again exploring the land, how it impacts me, where I feel it in my body, the stories I feel here, the history of the land, and the subtle shift in my night dreams. The energy of the land speaks to us, whispering her story through the stories of the people here. She always has, if you look into the history of the peoples of the land you will find her whispers echoing.

In the same way that the land impacts our stories, our stories impact the land. She absorbs them and they intermingle with her signature ever so subtly flavoring her story as salt to cuisine. If we pay attention to our night dreams we see these same shifts as we dream in different landscapes. The energy in our dreams shift, the places we go to while dreaming, and the ancestors who visit us.

There is much to be learnt from the land, and there are dreams that we have access to that we otherwise may not have. Dreaming with a Cedar tree on the west coast will give you access to different dreams than dreaming with a Pine tree in Alberta.

What is the land whispering to you, what Ancestors may come visiting or be showing you their story through impressions, history and dreams?

Soul Retrieval

Deep and meaningful experiences touch our Soul. The same can be said about experiences that bring hurt, pain, trauma, stress and abuse. In some sessions with my clients we journey back to parts of their stories that impacted their Soul, questing to bring back these parts. You see when we live experiences such as abuse there are parts of who we are that are unable to express themselves. Perhaps repression is the reality that they lived, or a sudden trauma that has literally jolted a piece of the soul free. Sometimes it is the lack of living with soul and meaning that can cause parts of our soul to fly. I often see clients who are not following their inner knowing, or their guidance and dreams. This too can cause parts of our soul to leave.
Are you seeing a pattern here? Our soul has desires and dreams, our soul has purpose, and when that soul is supressed, wounded, or not being honoured it causes parts to leave, or to be left behind.
We find ourselves feeling drained, disconnected, have fears that are bigger then us, we see parts of our personality left behind that we mourn and wonder why we cant access this part of who we used to be.
But we CAN.
Sometimes we journey back, beyond our childhood, beyond this lifetime to lives we have lived previously. In one session with a client we returned to a life where she mourned deeply for the sudden loss of her husband. Her soul couldn't understand how he had left her and the pain was too great. She left part of herself there, in a sort of purgatory. It took us exploring, asking her some questions and helping her move beyond that moment to bring that part of soul back home, to the hear and now.
There are many different reasons for soul loss to occur, but we can welcome back those parts of self to move us towards wholeness.

If you are interested in a personal Soul Retrieval session or about upcoming Soul Retrieval online workshops, be sure to check out upcoming events or contact me to book your session.
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Animal Spirit Guides

Spirit Animals, or Animal guides although similar to totems, are different. Keeping in mind that our totems are our kin, and are a part of us, Spirit animals and guides are outside of ourselves and are there to teach and guide us. In dreams and shamanic journeys we embark upon a journey to call in, or discover what animal spirit guides are there to travel with us. They come to us because they are drawn to our space, magnetized by our stories. It is no coincidence which guides present themselves as their medicine resonates with our stories, the growth and healing that may be required in our lives, and the lesson that are needed for the next part of our journey. 

When we go on a dream journey it is sometime necessary to call upon a guardian to walk with us. Other times we need to shape-shift depending on what the journey wants to show us. Shape shifting allows us to be able to expand upon the limitations of our humanity. Have you ever had a dream where you were flying? Or perhaps you found yourself falling from a cliff, or standing upon the edges of it. What possibilities would await you if you knew that you could take flight!

Sometimes in the dreaming we are faced with obstacles that bring us experiences that we are meant to face and go through. Perhaps these types of journeys are bringing the potential to heal a past trauma, or to face a debilitating fear that acts as an obstacle blocking us from moving forward in our lessons. It is a journey such as this that would require us to call upon a helper, an animal spirit guide. This guide brings us the reassurance of safety and protection in this space. It is just this type of guide that would be there to teach us something of ourselves. Nudging us to grow, adapt, and perhaps adopt characteristics from our guide. What characteristics may this helper possess that would bring the type of movement we need in our lives or for the healing we require?

If you would like to learn more about dreaming, animal spirit guides and animal totems, be sure to take a look at upcoming online workshops and dream classes.

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