The Journey
It all started with a smudge bowl. In the early 90s, I had been helping housesit in Ontario for some very good friends. As it happens, another couple, also helping out at the house, would frequently burn something pungent and mysterious in a bowl. When I asked them about it, they explained it was a mixture of herbs — they called it a smudge mixture — including cedar for balancing, sage for banishing negative energies, lavender to bring beauty and sweetgrass to offer a blessing. I was intrigued and asked many more questions. That introduction to smudge subsequently opened a door and beckoned me onto a spiritual path of learning and discovery that continues to this day. It was also the beginning of my journey to heal my past.
I have been studying shamanism for the past 18 years. Throughout those years, I have been extremely fortunate to work with a number of wonderful teachers and I am grateful for the wisdom and knowledge they each imparted in their own unique way. I am also truly grateful for the many transformative experiences I have had that I will never be able to explain through logic. Those experiences called for a leap of faith and an opening to a world infinitely more magical than our status quo "reality." As a life-long student of shamanism, my perceptions of reality have been transformed over and over again and I have often hung like the proverbial "Heyokah Grandmother" between two worlds. I can't remember exactly when I definitively chose the road less travelled, but my life has never been the same since. And for that, I am full of gratitude. |
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