More on soul retrieval: response to a client’s inquiry

I had a client email me the other day with the following concern:

“I’ve been doing some reading regarding soul retrieval and it seems that the missing soul parts are frequently not willing to come back but during my session all three seemed quite willing – do you know why that is?  Also, was there any story to go with when the soul loss took place?”

My response to this:

I have NEVER had soul parts that were not willing to come back to any client. Perhaps I am not working with people who are as lost or ill as the person who has made that remark in their writing.

Soul parts are perfect and all knowing. They present themselves in response to our prayer that ones that are retrieved are the ones that most need to come back at this time. This prayer is very important in the intention of the ceremony, and it is possible that the person you are reading soul retrieval stories from may not state this formally.

When my spirits bring back the soul parts, they usually highlight the qualities that that soul part brings potency to for the whole of the soul. Too often people are stuck in their stories, so my spirits have chosen to highlight the qualities the soul parts impart an elevated level of in the person, and NOT the story. Too often the story is painful and is the reason the soul part left in the first place. It is the way the soul part has persevered in its perfection that is most important, and the tender aspects of the soul it was seeking to protect in its leaving that is most important. Listen to your s.r. recording to find the qualities, not the story.

Also,   the medicine the power animal brought back for the integration and weaving of the that soul part into the whole of the soul, tells its own story of strength and power. As you listen, align with the energy of those power animals, as they will tell you what it is that is most important for you to hear. Meditate on each animal and open to its messages. They will amaze and astonish you !

What is Soul Loss? Soul Retrieval?

We all experience soul loss in our lives.  During trauma or illness, surgery, accidents, or some other jarring experience, a piece of our soul essence gets “chipped’ off from the whole of our soul. It gets “parked” in another space-time continuum, usually without our direct conscious awareness. Relationships with people can cause a slow drain of soul essence, whether the people are aware of it or not.

This soul loss can accumulate over our life time. At some point we reach a critical level of loss when our well-being–physical, emotional, mental–begins to be impaired in some way by this soul loss. We begin to notice that we don’t feel like our old selves anymore. That something within us is missing. We begin to notice and confront that we have behavioral patterns (addictions), or reoccuring pain or thoughts that do not respond to other forms of therapy or treatment. Sometimes we have “tried just about everything else.”  Believe me, I have been there, too!

This is the point where people find me–and in partnership with my helping compassionate spirits–I can help them. Through soul retrieval.

Soul retrieval is a beautiful ceremony taught to me by my teacher Jan Engels-Smith. Its roots date back to Isis and Osiris in the Egyptian pantheon–when Osiris was cut up and scattered about the landscape by his brother, Isis called on the powers of the universe to retrieve and reassemble her beloved, in the original soul retrieval!).

Using shamanic journeying, we travel to non-ordinary reality, where our spirits help locate lost soul parts in that time-space continuum in which they were parked. We bring the soul parts that most need to come back at this time, back into ordinary reality and blow them back into the person in need.

During the journey, we also retrieve a power animal for each part that assists the person in welcoming that soul part back into the whole of the soul. That power animal helps the person learn about what that soul part needs to weave completely back into the whole of the soul.  It is really quite beautiful, and often sets the person off on a new line of inquiry and growth that may incorporate shamanism into their lives. In a subsequent 8-session series, I work with people and teach them how to journey and access the wisdom from their power animals to gain health and mastery over their lives. This training puts the person in direct contact with their helping ones and gives them the tools for self-healing.

Soul retrieval is always accompanied by a related ceremony, extraction. The voids left when the soul parts leave get filled with dense energies, energetic gunk–what my spirits call “spiritual plaque”, This gunk can exacerbate the lack of wellness, and can cause illness (”dis-ease, the lack of ease). Extraction is a ceremony whereby my spirits help move that dense energy out of your system, transmuting it and sending it “home” where at its native frequency, can do its original work, elsewhere.

This, in shamanism, we are either taking out the stuff that does not belong to your spirit/ soul/ energetic system, or putting stuff that does belong back in, and usually both!!!!

Late night satisfaction with life

the spirits come dancing when singing to them
a gateway opens and succulent benevolence comes streaming in
a wish a hope a yearning a pleading
is food for the beloved unseen compassionate ones
who wait for us to call for miracles
applauding the courage, licking in the tears
the change so desired unknown
earned
reveled in
unfurling
the healing ripples out into the universe
one soul at a time

thank the gods for this way of shamans and love, sound and song

thank the gods for this good day, awakening, divine, luscious life lived

through sight in the dark from the heart

True self

I have had some experience with the true self as a concept and an experience over the years…some vague, so not so vague.  Sometimes i felt like it was a cliche-like topic circling my periphery. But then a deeper truth pushed in to me the other day.

I was doing a soul retrieval with a client the other day. What was revealed to me was that the true self is that self of ours that is absent of soul loss. When we have soul loss, the personality develops coping mechanisms that mask the true self, often beyond conscious habitual recognition.

When I ask the spirits to have the client merge with their true self during soul retrieval, a deeper healing unfolds. The true self helps teach the soul and the rest of the being what it is like not to have soul loss, and what it is like not to have the personality/behavioral/thought form patterns that have arisen due to soul loss…Cool I thought. Now I get it…

Reports of Shamanic Healing

Shamanic Sound Healing at Hidden Lake

At the beginning of 2009, I heard from Spirit that I was to begin offering free soul retrievals. I announced it in Hidden Lake’s e-newsletter. WOW! What a response. I knew it would be a gift, but I did not realize the magnitude until it began unfolding. It was a wake up call about how much people would love to experience the work, and how, perhaps, finances are allowed to stand in the way of healing. What I also noticed was just how much grace there was in the room for these people who began coming. And while I like to spend more than one session with people, our time together was potent.

Here is what my first of a series had to say when I emailed to follow up to see how she was doing–

“Hi Lauri- I noticed a very significant “lightening”. It felt as if a large weight was lifted from me. I could physically feel the difference. Also my left ear that I had been having trouble with for 6 months and went to the doctor 3 times for was completely healed up the evening of the soul retrieval. My right knee is doing great too.

Also a couple of days after the soul retrieval I was asked to teach a class for our local community schools in my home town. This was just out of the blue so I knew that it was one of those soul path things where you needed to pay attention and say yes. So I am creating the class and writing the curriculum for the class. (Even though a large part of me wants to stay home and hide out:)

I know I really need to come and do the constellation work that you had mentioned. I still am very big on being secretive. For instance I don’t feel that in the  class that I can just come and out speak about what I really want to say, I feel I have to water it down to make it acceptable.

My new mantra is what you had said to me: “What if being on a spiritual path was easy.” I keep saying this to myself when I feel like bagging it. I have also noticed how protected that I am in EVERYTHING… even when I have no clue or make a snap decision I am later shown how it was the best choice I could have made even if I had labored over the decision for months and researched every detail.

One last thing … I think my guides are joking with me. I have been asking them for a million dollars. Yesterday, one of my husbands customers wrote him a note on a piece of note paper and the note paper had on the back of it a million dollar bill. (It was a picture, I don’t know if you have seen them in some of the advertising gimmicks where they send you a million dollar bill). I told them thanks and I am wanting the kind I can put in my bank , please. Thank you so much for the gift of the soul retrieval. K “

On Alleviating Pain..or…I love reporting shamanic success!

I just received an email from a recent client i had…after 10+ years of doing shamanic work, i still am amazed and buoyed by hearing stories like this. I am a science geek turned shamanic practitioner. the need for observable results has never left this scientist’s mind…

so i loved getting this email the other day from a client who is also a science geek! H from Portland writes:
“Ok maybe miracle may be overstating it. But.. I went and saw Larry (chiropractor) yesterday (he says hi btw) and while I was laying on the table I realized that my chronic sacriiliac pain (literally a pain in the
butt) that had ranged from mild to severe was _completely_ gone! I hadn’t noticed it since our session I realized.

It never occurred to me that pain was caused by anything other than my having been a computer geek for 15 years and not getting enough exercise. But it must have been related to the extraction or soul retrieval cause the pain is completely and totally gone. I still know I need to get more exercise but at least I don’t have pain when I sit.

Larry said that the level of tension throughout my body was reduced significantly as well. I have no recurring images or thoughts in my head that don’t make sense (actually none now). My mind feels clear for the first time that I can remember. Even my therapy is reaching a new phase since the soul retreival has resolved the issues I had been working on (it did take me 2 years to get to this point and I’m sure all the therapy helped get here).

I can’t thank you and the spirits enough.

I just wanted to let you know some of the other great things that have been going on since our session.

Thanks again and have a great day.

H
—-
I too have recently experienced what i call a miraculous healing at a physical level in my back, doing a Celtic style of soul retrieval taught to me by Tom Cowan. Like, wow, we really are not making this s___t up!

For more about shamanism, see:
www.hiddenlakeretreat.org/shamanism.htm

Grief and Gratitude for the Whales of Southern Oceans

Whale graveyard in Antarctica

I just returned from the largest, last pristine expanse of wilderness on the planet–Antarctica. While I was there, I had an overwhelming sense of grief and gratitude about the whales that were summarily slaughtered over the last two and a half centuries. Piles of whale bones caught the eye almost everywhere we landed. I realized after a while that that was one of the reasons I was there—to be an ambassador of light, forgiveness, thanksgiving. To say “we are sorry as a species for your demise”. And I realized too that those who killed these mighty animals were also being true to their nature as well. We are an industrious species.

I sat high on a hillside and prayed. Then, I could feel the power of forgiveness, love and light of all of the sundances I have ever been to, come through me. I was a beacon, a crystal, an emissary of light moving around the world to bring the spirit and power of love—today it was to Antarctica, and the whales. In the past, it was South Africa. That is what we as lightworkers do.

a mere glimpse of humpback whales...

I Read the Trees

I Read the Trees

(written on a Wolftree science expedition in 1997)

I read the trees for what they say

of days and eons while we’re away.

How the forest site has grown to be

the stand of tree people we all see.

They stand like sentries and gift me stories

of fire, flood, those landscape glories.

Majestic guides in forest stands

their comings and goings tell of the land.

They whisper legends in the night

and reveal volumes about the site.

If crowds of trees emerged from seed,

and struggled for the light they need.

Or open grown trees with lots of space

grew branches broad and won the race.

When limbs are thick growing down to the ground,

they have had few competing neighbors around.

But when limbs are gone from down below,

they’ve grown in crowds, limbs tell me so.

The struggling small trees start to die

when light is lacking, ‘though they try

to keep up growth with their fellow trees

whose growth is faster, and the light they seize.

I read the trees, they tell me of

the climate and the world above.

In wet spots where the alder grow

to high alpine that hemlocks know.

as grand fir humbles in low lands

the cottonwood tower in riparian stands.

The pine flats of tom brown’s places

To stands that stand on south & north faces.

Did you know the atmosphere sucks

and has control over the gaseous flux-

CO2 in and water vapor out

that affects trees growth when in a drought?

With this special feat, taking CO2,

trees do the miraculous thing they do-

Using the sun to make their food

and passing it on for our fortitude.

Trees catch the sun and suck up water

without their shade the streams grow hotter.

They hold the soil with netted roots

that keeps streams clear for fish and knutes.

Their leaves they add much to the soil

from their gifts they make dirt royal,

fertile ground for seeds to sprout, and

growing fields where greens burst out.

The trees you see they hold the birds,

and chipmunks, squirrels, elders’ words.

Their giving food and sheltered nests

makes rich homes for forest guests.

Eventually they die and fall

creating habitat for big and small

mammals, amphibeans, mushrooms, ants,

these down and dead serve new forest plants.

And as they decay, those fallen ones

create good fire fuel by the ton.

And slow the rivers, making pools

for chinook and coho, salmonid jewels.

And as they die from disease in pockets

their openings make other trees grow like rockets.

And so the cycle begins again

the book of trees I read never ends.

I read the trees, their secrets clear;

come read with me while you are here.

Their stories for you will soon unfold.

Their tales are yours, their wisdom old.

Thankful and Looking Forward

Looking forward to some great retreats and events in 2009.

We will have at least two shamanic sound intensives, a new intuitive cooking and eating retreat (YUM!), soundpod is back (monthly free sound healing sessions), birding weekend (a cross between sound healing and nature awareness).

We will also be having gatherings to explore soul constellation work, two silent retreats…and of course, spring and fall renewal retreats. We will be pouring 4 of the 8 LightSong Community lodges here on the equinoxes and solstices.

For those who want to design their own personal retreat, we will be offering shamanic healing, sound healing, food therapy, soul constellation work, meditation coaching…and oh so much more.

Check us out at Hidden Lake Retreat. Give yourself a personal time out…www.hiddenlakeretreat.org

relax, reflect, rejuvenate.

What are our internal resources that we can draw on at this time?

We have been training ourselves to be grateful, to feel gratitude within our hearts. When we feel stress, are spinning out…this approach has been ratified by Oprah and E. Tolle of late (wahoo! for making this mainstream). Many of us taught by Jon Young know that being in a state of gratitude changes the brainwaves that we are broadcasting. This change in brainwaves actually is picked up by the birds and other animals in nature; observant people will notice a change in bird sounds and animal movement in response to these changes (this is the basis for my class “Bird Sounds, Healing Sounds” offered again in June 2009).

The spirits have been prompting us to go further than gratitude–to take stock, asking what internal, innate resources do I have that I call on? What gifts and skills do I have, that I can track through my life, that serve me in this life, no matter what. These are resources that transcend all external environmental conditions–and are especially important to be grounded in in these shifting times.

In asking this question, we go beyond being grateful for our lives, towards actually tracking some of the “mechanisms of well-being”, which have and will continue to support us in our walk. At these challenging times, when we are wondering about our prosperity, these resources will continue to be the foundation that we can stand on.

So if you are a journeyer, set a simple altar or lay before the one you have already set up. Call in your helping spirits. Ask for your spirit teacher or power animal to guide you on a “museum tour” of your gifts and skills and talents, which form the bedrock, the pool of innate resources that you can continue to call on. Ask them to show you new doorways into which this pool of resources flows for new opportunities for prosperity to grow.

If you are a meditator, you can cast this intention as you sit in meditation.

ask to be taken on a “museum tour” of your gifts and skills and talents, which form the bedrock, the pool of innate resources that you can continue to call on. Ask to be shown new doorways into which this pool of resources flows for new opportunities for prosperity to grow.

I would love it if you can report back anything that may unfold from this…