With Beltane—the midpoint between Equinox and Solstice—just past, and a full moon coming, let us believe that the light is returning!

The turning over of the world, the Pachacuti, has begun. Ancient and modern wisdom keepers have felt it coming for a long time, yet the sudden massive changes still feel overwhelming. 

We're all of us struggling with imbalances in our spiritual and energy bodies, and our lives as we knew them. Some days it feels like slogging through mud. Other days through grief. Always the hyper-alertness: what's the latest? How do we keep sane? How will we survive in the long run?

As Antoine de Saint-Exupéry says in The Little Prince, 'It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

Seeing with Your Heart

Two essential practices for seeing with your heart and coming back into balance—shamanic journeying and meditation—are what I draw on. I don't want to sound like a broken record, but, truly, they are the practices I use daily, hourly, nightly. Let me tell you why and share some links to help you float the rivers of change more easily.

Shamanic Journeying
Divination, through shamanic journeying—asking questions, reading signs, getting guidance from spirit helpers, tracking past and future—is known as “seeing in the dark”—seeing what is not normally visible—and seeing from the heart.

Journeying is a way of bringing heart and spirit help into your life. It offers you body knowing and soul knowing. That, in turn, can affect your healing at cellular levels and change the trajectory of the world.

• Spirit provides insight, guidance, answers, direct healing, and prescriptions.
• You bring intent—what you really want to heal and change, what you want to know, what you want help with—and your willingness to participate in your healing.
• If you have a human teacher, guide, or journey group, your shared energy field will facilitate your sacred relationship with the spirit in all things, the power to transform, a deeply rooted connection with nature, and deep love that supports shared inquiry.

Meditation

Meditation at root is a way of focusing, listening, slowing down, breathing consciously, and being present with all that is. On good days, meditation helps us open our hearts into the vastness of the universe, outside space-time.

There are many methods, teachers, and pathways into meditation. It's not just sitting on a zafu! 

My own introduction was indirect and active: as a potter I had to keep focused and concentrate, holding a balance between my hands and the clay. If I let my head rule and stopped paying full attention, the pot would begin to wobble or even break. A famous book, Centering, called people's attention to the similarities with meditation, and drew me in.

Now I see many of my spiritual ways—yoga, qi gong, gardening, visualization, Vipassana, despacho ceremonies—as aspects of my meditation practice. 

Once you've learned to meditate, you have the potential of a lifelong way of exploring focus, presence, breath, and opening your heart.

 

Resources for Exploring More

Choose what fits for you and what your heart seeks!

The Inkan Prophecies and the Return of the Pachakuti: Begins May 6

This class will help you understand the Inca prophesies and the Pachacuti. Taught by Tito Condori and Adolfo (Tupak) Condori, Altomisayok of the Q'ero tradition. Learn more and register.

Online Mindfulness and Meditation Summit

During Shift's 4-day heart-centered event, you’ll discover:

• How mindfulness can help you alchemize rage and glean the spiritual gold that lies beneath it
• Restored peace, renewed compassion for yourself and others, and greater tolerance of uncertainty and the unknown
• How you can use mindfulness and meditation to unhook from the habit of self-attack
• The beauty of the “Indigenous Presence” meditation, which overlays the fundamental wellbeing qualities of Indigenous ceremony onto mindfulness and loving-kindness meditation. Register here.