For six whole months I worked through a series of exercises based around healing the spirit and inspiring people to be all that they can be in a way that would instigate change on some level.
The course was called Revolution of the Spirit: awakening your sacred medicine in the modern world’ and it was hosted by the amazing Gerri Ravyn Stanfield (http://www.gerriravynstanfield.com/). I attended long distance via the internet and the telephone as the class got together via conference call once a month. Material from the course was worked through at your own pace via an online teaching platform called Ruzuku. Each month contained a mixture of readings, things to reflect on, and actions to explore and bring back experiences to share.
The course was based around several key areas of practice, some alchemic, some shamanic, from which each ‘apprentice’ was asked to focus on one throughout the entire six months and present something creative and healing at the end. I chose to focus on Soul Retrieval.
When I began working through soul retrieval, I was focused on what other people had taken from me. For example, a former boss of mine had bullied me at work over a period of time before they left and I felt like they had taken something from me by their actions. I worked on getting that something back, using shamanic trance as that is one of my strengths. I fought to find and bring back the pieces that were missing, like shards of some precious jewel. And it was hard work, confronting in trance a person I had felt threatened by in various ways.
As we worked through different elements of healing practice and thought, I began to focus on the pieces of my soul that I had broken away. I remembered vividly a scene from when I was about five. Maybe a bit younger. I had a friend who lived down the street from me, and had just made friends with two people who only lived two doors away. My friend from down the street cycled up to visit me on his tricycle, and my new friends teased him about being a baby. I did nothing. I think I even laughed. He cried all the way back, very loudly, and we never spoke again. I always wished I had done something differently, like stood up for him. But I was a kid and wanted to fit in.
The working showed me parts of my self and how I approach my practice that I was strong in, and where I need to work a bit more. I realised that soul retrieval was a life’s work in that we make so many decisions and are impacted on by so much outside of our control. We can’t help but be affected. Soul retrieval was a way to take positive action in a manner that was healing rather than harming but which involved uncomfortable hard work. Confronting yourself, and confronting those who actions are a trigger for you. But in a way that was not going to cause more fracturing of the soul.
Reparation as part of soul retrieval I found to be just as difficult and as important as the seeking and fighting to retrieve the missing pieces. Making something whole again.
So what was my practice? How did I approach it? I created sacred space, called in some allies to hold space for me or to work with me, and placed myself into a trance state so that I traveled through other realms, whatever you want to call them. I would encounter something, usually something I had to fight in some way. I took advice from my allies or felt my way and made choices based on instinct. I felt where the piece of my soul was and what I needed to do to retrieve it. Or I did as instructed by an ally and saw the piece. Sometimes it was in the belly of one I had to fight, and killing the creature meant I could retrieve it. Other times it was something that was in a container that was being guarded. Sometimes the pieces were sparking like jewels, and they were absorbed into me like a warm glow and heartfelt hug. Other times they were a memory that came and which held a key for me to resolve something and through that find my piece.
When we were finished, I wrote a song called Soul Retrieval to express something of how I felt going through this process. To my surprise, the song ended up being happy. The verses never really felt finished, but I loved the chorus. Pity when I recorded it I was suffering from a cold, but it was important to mark the place I was in by the end of the six months. If we waited until we felt something was finished, we may never actually share it. How can revolutionary healing be achieved if we don’t share what we have with others?
Green and Grey 