transformation

Navigating Change

Claire death, grief, transformation , , , ,

I can’t believe it’s November! Halloween has come and gone and a historic election day is behind us, but I’m still wondering where September and October went!

October was a busy month with the release of The Deep Water Leaf Society finally becoming a reality. I attended a writer’s conference in Tucson the last weekend in September and that marked the official release of the book as I received my first box of printed copies just in time to take them with me.

Most of the workshops I attended were about marketing, promotion and branding. One of the workshop leaders began by saying, “Once your book has been written, your fulltime job is now marketing.” Not exactly what I wanted to hear as I much prefer writing to marketing. I left the conference with a list of about 50 “must do” items and a feeling of overwhelm.

Once I arrived home, it was time to ship out all the pre-orders. A GREAT BIG THANK YOU to all of you who ordered the book in advance. I had shipped out or hand delivered nearly 70 copies of the book by mid-October.

I even managed to get one or two items checked off of my “must do” list for promotion and marketing, one of which landed me a feature article in the East Valley Tribune’s Spiritual Life section.

Then it was off to the El Rocio Retreat in Mission, Texas, to present a workshop and hold my first “official” book signing event. This was really special because El Rocio is the home of the Creative Journal Expressive Arts program, which was my lifeline during my journey through grief.

My workshop, “Altared Futures,” focused on the process of transformation. Each participant created an altar in three pieces: the first piece expressing and exploring a current loss or challenge, the second piece identifying and honoring whatever means of support might help them through the change, and the third envisioning the positive transformation that would come from the experience.

The essential message of “Altared Futures” is that no matter what kind of change we are facing, and no matter whether that change was one of our own choosing, we do have a choice about where and how we go forward from the change point.

There was a point in my own healing journey, after losing my oldest son to a drug overdose, when I realized very clearly that I could choose to allow my grief to define me for the rest of my life, or I could choose to define my experience in a new light. I could choose to remain angry, bitter and depressed, or I could choose to reclaim joy. This choice is very much at the heart of the story I tell in The Deep Water Leaf Society.

Here in the U.S. we find ourselves at the doorway of change. Last night, Barack Obama, was elected to serve as the first African American president in our history. For the first time in eight years, a democrat will once again lead our nation. For some of you, this change came by choice – you voted for Obama. For others of you, this change came against your will – you voted for his opponent. For yet others of you, this change arrived by default – you didn’t vote, by choice or because you weren’t eligible to vote.

Regardless of your choice status in the election, the change has arrived. It’s up to you how it comes to affect your life. Senator McCain set a wonderful tone in his concession speech last night. Obviously, Obama’s victory came not by choice for McCain. And yet he immediately began to quiet the “boos” of the crowd and to emphasize unity, cooperation and support for his former opponent. He envisioned a positive future for himself, for his supporters and for this nation. He emphasized moving quickly past the inevitable disappointment into positive, future-oriented action.

Change is a challenge, even when it comes by choice. Obama will certainly face major changes in his personal life as he works to implement the changes he wishes to bring to our country. Serving as president is a huge responsibility to shoulder and carries with it an enormous amount of stress. Obama’s acceptance speech was equally positive and hopeful. Like McCain, he immediately sought to put divisiveness behind us and begin to envision a brighter future.

This is a choice we can all make in the face of ANY change. This is what my grief taught me. Certainly the loss of a loved one has a different quality of pain than the loss of an election. I am not suggesting that you can or should put the pain and grief of the loss of a loved one behind you in a day’s time, or a week’s time or any specific timeframe. Yet, at some point, you will begin to recognize where your choice points are. Every day, you will have the opportunity to choose between focusing on a past that’s gone or focusing on a future that is yours to shape.

Whether this election is a “win” or a “lose” for you, is totally up to you. You can make of it what you will. And whatever losses you have experienced in your life, your future is up to you. Dream big. Choose joy. And to paraphrase Obama’s tag line: YES YOU CAN.

Wishing you peace on the journey. . .

As always, I welcome your comments and invite you to visit my website, http://www.deepwaterleafsociety.com/.

Transferred Visions

Claire dreams, grief, healing, transformation , , , , ,

Recently I spent a week in Dream Teacher Training with Robert Moss at the beautiful and peaceful Mosswood Hollow retreat center in Duvall, Washington. It was so great to be able to step out of the pace of everyday living and immerse myself in the dreaming for a full week. To reconnect with nature. To reconnect with my deeper self. To reconnect with friends made last year and meet new friends. And to remember and remind myself how important dreaming is.

One focus of our week was to dream new ways of healing. We practiced vision transfer, a process in which one journeys via the shamanic drum and retrieves a healing vision for another. I reconnected with my friend from an earlier dream workshop who had gifted me with a powerful vision that helped me to write The Deep Water Leaf Society. Without that transferred vision, I don’t think I would have completed the book. Here’s how it happened, about a year and a half ago . . .

I had told Lisa very little about myself or my book at the time. I simply told her I wanted to write a book on grieving. I explained that I was feeling very stuck and feeling as though during any time I spent writing I was letting innumerable other more “important” things go undone. I was conflicted about several other goals and paths and I felt that time and dedication to the book would prevent me from pursuing them. She agreed to retrieve a vision that would help me to get unblocked and move forward with my project.

As the drumming began, I sat quietly, holding the intention of completing my book. Lisa rode the drumming into the place of dreams and visions. The drumming took her to a vision of a large outdoor fire around which many people sat. She saw me sitting at the place of honor, dressed in buckskin and a feather cape. A woman walked into the circle carrying a bundle in her arms. This woman, she told me, was the embodiment of Kachina Woman (a rock formation in Sedona). Kachina Woman dropped the bundle into the fire and smoke rose into the sky. Then she came and stood by me, holding out her arms. She said to me, “My arms are empty now. I can hold for you whatever you feel you might be missing while you write. It will be in my arms, ready for you to reclaim when your work is done.”

I pulled a feather from my cape and began to write words into the smoke. Then everyone around the fire was healed by the smoke rising from the bundle she had dropped into the flames and the words I wrote in it. They came forward, one by one, and dropped their own bundles into the flame. They thanked me and honored me for the healing I had brought them.

As Lisa told me what she’d seen, I was moved to tears. The feather cape I wore in her vision was a cape I had retrieved in an earlier vision that same day, when I’d traveled into space and connected with the Archangel Raphael, protector of humanity and healer of hearts. I had not told Lisa of that vision, and I was amazed that she had retrieved the same imagery. The fire and smoke also mirrored some of my earlier journeying. As she spoke of the smoke rising from the fire, I felt Cameron’s presence with me strongly. It seemed that the fire was my grief and the smoke was its transformation. It seemed the smoke was the remaining presence of Cameron and that he would be helping me to tell our story. I told Lisa all of this and explained to her that I had lost my son and that it was the grief of that loss I wanted to write about.

She said, “I didn’t want to say this before, because it seemed so odd and kind of creepy, but the bundle that Kachina Woman dropped into the fire was a baby.”

We both sat stunned and awed by the power of this vision. When I came home, I found a photo of Kachina Woman on the internet and set it as the background on my computer monitor so that she would be there, holding whatever I needed her to hold, as I wrote the book. I held in my mind the vision of all these other people finding healing from grief, of my story somehow helping them to do that. That is still my hope.

It’s easy to retrieve a healing vision for someone else. Here’s how:

  1. Create a sacred and safe space in which to journey. You can do this by calling on whatever healing and protective powers you feel connected to – God, angels, the Light, your power animals, the directions or anything else that works for you. You might wish to light a candle or use some other ceremony.
  2. Have the person you’ll be journeying for tell you, briefly, about a situation in their life for which they’d like to receive a healing vision. Have them paint a picture of the situation with their words so that you get a sense of their feelings about it. (In the above story, I told Lisa how frustrated I felt about all the other things that wouldn’t get done if I focused on writing the book as well as my uncertainty about the value of what I had to say.)
  3. Have the person you’ll be journeying for summarize and distill what they’ve said into a simple intention they can hold in their mind while you journey for them. (Mine was, “I want help to complete my book.”)
  4. Get into a comfortable position for journeying. Either lie down or sit comfortably with your eyes closed. Hold the intention that you are journeying to retrieve a healing vision for your partner.
  5. Using shamanic drumming (either by drumming yourself, having someone drum for you, or playing a recording of shamanic drumming), allow yourself to ride the drum sound as you pay close attention to what you see, feel, hear or intuit. The person for whom you are journeying simply sits quietly holding their intention. Fifteen minutes of drumming should be an adequate amount of time.
  6. When you return from the journey, take a few moments to write down your perceptions. If you feel like you “got nothing,” then make something up!! Your imagination has been primed by the drumming and you will be able to craft a helpful and healing story. Don’t second guess yourself.
  7. Gift your vision to your partner by telling the story vividly and with conviction.
  8. Ask your partner if there is any part of the vision they’d like to claim as their own. Have your partner retell as much of the story as they wish to claim in their own words. They can add into the story any personal connections they may have felt as you gave them the story. This retelling and saying the words out loud is an important step, because by doing so your partner will be claiming the power of the story as their own. (I claimed all of Lisa’s beautiful story and added to it the idea that Cameron would be in the smoke, helping me to write.)
  9. Ask your partner what action they will take to honor the healing vision. Dreams and visions require action to work their magic in your life. (My action steps were to find a statue or picture of Kachina Woman that I could keep in my writing space and to call on her when I felt distracted by other things or guilty about my writing time.)

It was great to reconnect with Lisa this past week and to have an opportunity to let her know how powerfully her vision had worked in my life. Never underestimate the power of dreams to heal and transform. And never underestimate your own power as a dreamer and a storyteller. Your words can heal others and help them to find their way.

Thank you, Lisa, for helping me to find mine!

Lisa’s business is called DreamSync and she offers counseling and support with dream circles, decisionmaking, tracking synchronicity, imaginal healing and dream journaling. I hope you’ll check out her beautiful website at www.dreamsync.us.

Wishing you peace on the journey . . .