Referral to the Divine
By C. Allie Knowlton, MSW, LCSW, DCSW
Co-Editor
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At seventeen, I was a student at Bangor Theoolgical Seminary. There was no prayer goup there so I started one. Sitting in that small group, many years ago (what I call one of my many lifetimes in this lifetime) I heard a story I have never forgotten.
One of the participants shared a true experience which I remember in difficult times in my life even today. He was a hospital administrator in Katmandu, Nepal. It was at the beginning of the Chinese invasion of Tibet. He and his large family were living in a protected compound, soon to be deported back to the United States for their safety. He heard that a dear friend of his in a village some miles away was dying and he wanted to say good-by to him. Even though the village was a long way off, his only mode of transportation was a bicycle. On his return trip he very suddenly felt ill and could not continue his journey. He crawled into a ditch hoping he would not be detected which would mean capture and certain death. After several hours as quickly as he had become so ill, he equally abruptly felt well enough to continue, as if he had never been sick.
When he returned to the United States, he received a letter from a woman in England asking what he had experienced on such and such a date and time. He had met this English woman on a boat on his return trip to Katmandu after a well deserved furlough. She was aware of the political climate in and around Tibet and said that if he ever needed help, she had a prayer chain in London that she could activate at a moments notice. On that day as he lay in the ditch, he did ask his God for help so that he would not abandon his large family who depended on him. The children had already lost their mother to an illness and were beginning a new life without her.
In London, at that same time and day, the woman with whom he had such a brief encounter, was suddenly moved to initiate her prayer chain on his behalf. She did not not know why such a compulsion came to her, but trusted in her past experience to follow through even if she never knew the outcome. She activated the prayer chain with very little information other than she knew it was the right thing to do. Of course, this coincided with his request for help as he was lying so ill in the ditch, and it was answered in a way that the mind could not have imagined!
A few years later I was awakened in the night also with a compulsion to pray for someone, not knowing who it was at the time. I prayed for two or more hours until the compulsion left as suddenly as it came and I went back to sleep. A few days later I was invited to supper with friends. The father had been “away” for a few days and had returned home. He was a recovering alcoholic who I had met at AA meetings, which I was attending to understand my alcoholic mother who was not yet choosing to ask for help. I needed to understand what was and was not helpful in supporting her. (Years later she also began the AA program and had several years of sobriety and healing before her death). At the time I was awakened in the night he was deciding to leave this planet. He said he was in a motel room in a distant city with a gun pointed to his head to end his life. Then he felt a warmth fill him with a courage he had not previously possessed. He put the gun down and decided to return home to begin again.
I am awakened many times on many nights to pray for whoever or whatever I am being summoned to respond to, and I rarely know where that prayer energy, vibration is traveling. With life experiences such as these, my greatest sorrow is when someone holds the belief that they can not change, that things can not change in their life. As a social worker and shamanic practitioner, I hear many stories from people who clearly state they want their life to be different. They want to believe that they can heal, move out of depression, feel hopeful about life again, and offer the love to others that they are receiving but do not have the energy or motivation to reciprocate. They carry their pain like an armor to shield them from more pain and even when they realize that this draws more pain to them, they feel helpless to move forward. I have come to understand that physical, emotional spiritual pain is so woven into the fabric of their identity that they are even more fearful of who they would be without that pain. They feel they would be giving up the only sense of self they have ever known. They believe they would fall into an abyss and be lost.
I have spent many years studying varous methods to support people to move out of this place of resignation. This includes referring them to others with specialized skills not in my tool kit. In addition, I always include them on my prayer roster. Some people do make the choice to stretch themselves into the place of unknowing in order to shift their very perception of themselves and begin living from that newly evolving perception. One of our Spirit Teachers says that for those who cannot seem to make that choice to “stretch themselves into the place of not knowing who they are or can become, we are to place them on our prayer list. Many may only know of their preciousness as they release their personalities with their physical body on their way into the Light, being fully received by the Divine."
I remember being called to a home where the family were frightened by a stuck spirit, someone who had died and as a spirit was living in the cellar of their home. When we asked this spirit to think of someone who loved him, this grumpy old man, said there was no one and to leave him alone in his misery. We explained that his misery was frightening the grandchildren in the house. He was not impressed. In time as we and our Spirit Helpers sent love to him, he remembered that his grandmother did love him but she had died when he was a small boy. We asked him to look up and as he did so, he saw his grandmother in the Light reaching out to him. On his way into the Light he became a small child again! His personality could not let the love in but his soul certainly could!
The concept of using prayer as a referral to the Divine even when all other forms of support seem closed or unchosen invites a caring person to hold someone in love and be free to take care of themselves. It is exhausting to hold hope for someone lost in hoplessness without additional resources. What better resource than an referral to the Creative Source of All that Is?
As my Teacher concluded the session on how to support the people I have concerns about, she ended with a passionate note, “Do not allow people to give up on the earth!"
When environmentalist Paul Hawken (author of the book, Blessed Unrest, How The Largest Social Movement in History is Restoring Grace, Justice and Beauty to the World) is asked if he is pessimistic or optimistic about the future, his answer is this, “If you look at the science that describes what is happening on earth today and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t have the correct data. If you meet with the people in this unnamed movement and aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a heart. What I see are ordinary and some not-so-ordinary individuals willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in an attempt to restore some semblance of grace, justice and beauty to this world.”
In Eckhard Tolle’s book A New Earth, Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose, he gives us his perceptions of hopefulness, “...do to the unprecedented influx of consciousness we are witnessing on the planet now, many people no longer need to go through the depth of acute suffering to be able to disidentify from the pain-body. Whenever they notice they have slipped back into a dysfunctional state, they are able to CHOOSE to step out of identification with thinking and emotion and enter the state of Presence. They relinquish resistence, become still and alert, one with what is within and without.” He continues, “The next step in human evolution is not inevitable, but for the first time in the history of our planet, it can be a conscious choice. Who is making that choice? You are. And who are you? Consciousness that has beome conscious of itself.”
How do we live in conscious relationship with ourselves and the earth? How do we keep optimism alive in the face of the grim facts with which we are bombarded? How do we hold faith when the job we have been in for years is gone in one day, or a medical diagnosis changes our way of life? Our Spirit Teachers remind us that being conscious is a daily choice. Caring for the earth is a daily choice. How do we make that choice when we are in chronic physical, emotional spiritual pain? Each day we have the opportunity to call upon our own soul’s wisdom and our connection to whatever name we call the Divine.
I recently unexpectedly met a woman in all local flower shop with whom we had worked several years ago. She had come for support for her severe physical pain from several surgeries, which though concidered successful, brought her more relentless pain. She was a professional woman with many responsibiities that she could no longer manage. Instead, pain management had become the sole focus of her life. As part of the support I could offer, I taught her the shamanic journey process. This was a stretch for her because of her strong devotion to her Catholic faith. She felt she could not share this resource with anyone she knew. Yet when she was in unbearable pain she would go on a journey to where Jesus and Mary would hold her in their arms and cry with her. For a while she would experience herself as pain free. In essence, these journeys allowed her body to remember what it felt like to be without pain. She initially felt herself to be unworthyof this attention, yet she believed in her own innate wisdom and knew that this was part of her remembering that she was more than her pain.
One day her local priest came by to visit her. He asked her if she understood that the parish was changing. He said it wasn't because of his work, but because of how the parishoners were moved by how she was living her life even with pain. As we connected again, now years later, she was excited to share with me that when her mother (also a very devoted Catholic) was dying, she had told her daughter that a large bear and an Indian guide were in the room with her. These spirits were there to give her mother comfort and would be with her to help her in her transition to a new life without a physical body when she was ready! What a powerful blend of a centuries old spiritual tradition with what we like to call “stone age” spirituality!
The Divine, All That Is, is available as a source for support, guidance, healing, encouragement, course-correction and reflection. It is our choice to focus on that resource in whatever form feels right or makes sense to each of us.
Another major resource for remembering wellbeing, is literally to spend time in the natural world. In our shamanic practice, we often have the opportunity to ask the person we are working with to describe their very favorite place in nature. We can literally witness their body posture, energy system, tone of voice, shift as they describe in detail their memory of their chosen location. They may be transported back in time to when they were a child, or to a new power spot, or a special place in their back yard. As they recall that place, it is clear that they are going outside of time to that location. While there, they meet the spirits of the trees, the animals, the ocean and rocks. They notice the place's smells or tastes, and feel the resulting sensations of peace and a clearing of the mind.
We teach people that by using their imagination to return to those special places in the natural world they are deepening their connection to the earth. When they are comfortable with their own memories, and with the supportive vibration of drum beats or music, they often begin to become aware of other presences. They begin listening to the wisdom of a near by tree spirit, a stone being, or other middle world spirit who tunes in to them. The person rediscovers a resource in that place which can offer daily support. As they get that support for their life it develops in them a renewed commitment to restoring harmony to the earth.
Another way to care for the earth is through caring for ourselves and to make the choice to explore those parts of ourselves that we may be unfamiliar with! When the job we have been doing for many years is suddenly gone in one day, an illness hits with unexpected upheaval of the ordinary pattern of life, a loved one’s life is wiped out in an act of violence, or when our present life is simply not working for us, these are some of the times when we are invited to make that choice.
First, of course, we have to honor our emotions about the situation. Our grief response to the change can have many facets. These many include denial, depression, anger, grief, repression, resentment, “why me”, old feelings of not being “good enough," and others. Along with these phases, we also as co-creator beings have the power to choose to begin looking within to explore parts of oursevles with which we have not yet become acquainted. These may include strengths, talents, latent abilities and other treasures of the unexplored territory of Self. For some this involves the risk of inviting the reflections of supportive people to reflect the unknown of ourselves. Often those that love us can see what we are unaware of.
This can be a terrifying journey and/or an exciting adventure. But we are never alone in this. Our own soul always knows who we are in what our Spirit Teachers like to call “our exquisiteness” or “our magnificence”. People have shared with us that as they walk in nature, they begin to feel like themselves again. They report becoming aware of thoughts, ideas, dreams they had long ago put aside in the course of living. Some share that as they feel connected during their walk to the wind, the sun, the trees, the birds--so too they experience reconnection to themselves. They begin awakening to a deeper Self with whom they were not previously aware. From that place of connectedness, the belief that they can open new doors gets stronger and stronger until it leads to new actions.
A willingness to explore the unknown territory of the Self is an awakening of creative energy that is transformational. In a shamanic healing session, we are sometimes asked by our Spirit Teachers to journey to be shown the original intention of the person's soul. We are shown the original purpose the soul had for coming to the planet at this time. We may also be shown an image or a symbol to represent that purpose and to support their transformational process.
The paths to explore the unexplored territory of the inner self and the paths to participate in the transformation of this planet are both many and achievable. Whatever path we choose to access the Divine for additional support will release creative energy for ourselves and our planet!
-Allie
Note: For more information on Earth Spirit Living by Ann Marie Holmes see this month’s Shamama Bear Review
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