Within a shamanic way of being there is a very simple cosmology that offers me deep hope. It is a perception shared by many different shamanic traditions. The perception, belief, and experience is this: behind, below, and within all visible matter is a luminous essence. Even on the edge of death I have felt this luminous essence, and realized this essence was also my own essence. I know it is what endures when the body falls like a cloak.
This luminous essence is often an unseen reality. It has vibration and rhythm. Some have even discerned a pulse to it. It has a qualitative energy. It is a tangible power. It can be invoked, harnessed, directed, and, likewise, it can be lost and leak out from any life form that has sustained trauma. Some would call this essence, soul, and yet, on certain occasions I have managed to perceive an essence behind even that which I call “my” soul.
This power is an invisible undercurrent flowing like a deep stream beneath ordinary reality, beneath obvious reality. It supports life, and is the energy behind life. It is the non-visible aspect of life that shapes life. Indeed, as my kinsman Tom Cowan is fond of saying, “It is the Shaper, the Shaping, and the Shapes of Life.” Other thinkers, such as David Bohm, have more complex terms to express this same quality, which he has called the implicate order. Indeed, shamanism and the New Physics are beginning to drink deep draughts from the same well.
From my own place in the great circle of living beings I perceive and relate to this luminous essence in a very particular way. Like all people who perceive life I perceive this luminous essence through my own personal “filters.” These filters are informed by personal experiences, as well as from a primal-yet-emergent spiritual reality that I associate with my own spiritual traditions and beliefs.
From my place in the circle I call this luminous power, Dana, which is both a primordial goddess within the Irish tradition, but also a word I use for the life essence and spirit that flows through all things. Dana, for me, is the mothering power behind all life. Dana is a harmonizing principle. Dana is a creative and restorative force.
There are many that perceive this luminous energy, and the luminous cords that weave us together. I have heard my uncles, aunts, brothers, and sisters of various indigenous traditions speak of this same luminous reality—of assemblage points, luminous filaments, glowing strands, and a vast “core of light” below the surface of the earth that sustains us just as much as the Sun.
In the Weaving Worlds Journey Meditation, I offer the idea that we work with these luminous filaments, and this vast domain of light below the earth, to promote a weaving of our energy and intent on World Soul Retrieval Day.
I began working with this specific meditation/ritual beginning on June 21, 2002. At that time it was a way for me to send my energies and prayers of support for certain people connected to my hearth-altar. I then received this vision of “weaving the worlds” shortly after, realizing then that it had other potential applications.
I offer it merely as a suggestion to augment your work on World Soul Retrieval Day, and as a way to “link up” with the rest of us who will be meeting in the deep domains of primal earth to weave our light together. This can be performed by an individual, or by an entire group doing focused work. It can also be performed at any time on World Soul Retrieval Day, as at any given time there will be people and groups performing this ritual.
Best Wishes,
Frank MacEowen
PERSONAL COSMOLOGY STATEMENT
Orientations: Breath, Heart, Light
Step One—If you work with an altar, bundle, or mesa, activate and prepare this where you will be sitting.
Step Two—Create and consecrate a World Altar (see explanation at: World Soul Retrieval Process)
Step Three—Connect with your breath, taking in ten very deep and slow breaths. Open your heart, connecting with others who may be with you, or holding the faces of friends and loved ones in your heart. Try to really “see” and “feel” them.
Step Four—Visualize the realm of energy below the surface of the earth. You might see this in a number of ways: the core of the earth as our planet’s hearth fire, a vast landscape, or a reservoir of light.
Step Five—Begin a steady rhythmic breathing that you will sustain for several moments. You will inhale a deep breath, hold for the count of three (1,2,3), and then exhale, all the while continuing to hold the image of deep earth within your mind’s eye.
Step Six—Continue the rhythmic breathing: deep inhalation, hold for the count of three, exhale; deep inhalation, hold for the count of three, exhale. Keep this rhythm going, and when you are ready allow yourself to begin sending your soul energy into the realm below, each exhalation being a small “kick” that propels you downward as if you were swimming. Deep inhalation, hold for the count of three, exhale and send your soul energy deeper, deeper into the world of primal earth below.
Step Seven—At a certain point you will find yourself in what feels like an axis mundi, a sacred centerpoint. Again, this may present itself to you as the fiery core of the earth, as a deep ocean of light, or some lowerworld landscape.
Step Eight—Maintaining your rhythmic breathing, allow yourself to begin seeing the luminous essence of yourself and the others who are journeying to this place in the spirit of this weaving. See the luminous filaments that flow forth from them and those that flow forth from you. Notice that these filaments connect us all, to each other and the earth. Pay attention to any other impressions, sensations, or images that may present themselves at this time.
Step Nine—Consciously see yourself weaving your own luminous essence with the luminous essence of others, strengthening the wider net of connections.
Step Ten—Again, continuing to maintain your rhythmic breathing, feel your connection to the luminous net of the entire world. Continue to breathe, inhaling, holding for the count of three, exhaling. As you exhale, now, send your consciousness, your soul’s energy, through the luminous net and try to feel where the luminous net has been severed, where it may need support, where it may need energy for restoration. Consciously send energy and breath to these places, making note of them for future journeywork.
Step Eleven—When you have made the “link up” with the other individuals and groups who are also rooting their soul’s energy in the light of the earth, slowly begin to travel back up through the earth, sending your consciousness upward. Continue the rhythmic breathing, inhaling, holding for the count of three, and exhaling, each exhalation being like a “kick” that guides you upward toward the middleworld as if you are swimming.
Step Twelve—When you come back into your body, hold your breath for the count of six, feeling your maintained connection and pulsing link with the light below the earth, and the luminous essence of your other brothers and sisters around the planet who are also engaging in this work. After the count of six, raise your arms, palms facing toward your two altars (personal altar and World Altar) and exhale with great force, seeing this light from below the land permeating your ceremonial space.
It is highly recommended that you immediately proceed with the remainder of the World Soul Retrieval Process at this time.
NOTE: Some individuals and groups may elect to run through this meditation one time as a practice to get the hang of it.
Others will be performing this journey a number of times over the course of Summer Solstice Weekend, to maintain their link, to nourish the link, to support others with their own energy, and to strengthen our bonds across time and space.
If this approach does not work for you, leave it by the wayside. If only part of it works for you, take the part that does work, make it your own, and apply to it whatever will shape it into an approach that fits with your own vision, practice, and cosmology.
(c)2003-2004/Frank MacEowen/Solasdana/Weaving Worlds
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