Your Shamanic Awakening

What was your experience like when you first woke up? Was it sudden? Were you always awake and just realized what it meant?

For me, it was a big bang. All of the sudden I saw I was responsible for it all. All the pain, hurting, incongruencies, and uncomfortableness. All of it. And... now I could do something about it.

I came across this essay a few weeks and ago and it has really stuck with me. Here's the first few paragraphs. It is titled "The Awakening" and it is on The Reluctant Shaman's blog.

A time comes in your life when you finally get it…when, in the midst of all your fears and insanity, you stop dead in your tracks and somewhere the voice inside your head cries out

ENOUGH!

Enough fighting and crying or struggling to hold on. And, like a child quieting down after a blind tantrum, your sobs begin to subside, you shudder once or twice, you blink back your tears and begin to look at the world through new eyes.

This is your awakening.

You realize it’s time to stop hoping and waiting for something to change…or for happiness, safety and security to come galloping over the next horizon. You come to terms with the fact that neither of you is Prince Charming or Cinderella and that in the real world there aren’t always fairy tale endings (or beginnings for that matter) and that any guarantee of “happily ever after” must begin with you…and in the process a sense of serenity is born of acceptance.

You awaken to the fact that you are not perfect and that not everyone will always love, appreciate or approve of who or what you are… and that’s OK. They are entitled to their own views and opinions.

And you learn the importance of loving and championing yourself…and in the process a sense of new found confidence is born of self-approval.

You now stop complaining and blaming other people for the things they did to you (or didn’t do for you) and you learn that the only thing you can really count on is the unexpected.

There's alot more to that piece and it has several parts to it where I had that exact feeling and knowing. Great stuff.

HeartWisdom.net takes a look at awakening from a more shamanic point of view:

Shamanic awakening is a term I’m using to particularly describe those who have a shift in their life and become intuitively and intensely attracted to the symbols, stories, and rituals of shamanic earth-based traditions.  Shamanic traditions include those of the Native nations of North and South America , the Aboriginal people of Australia , the Siberian tribal societies, the ancient Celtic traditions of the British Islands , and many more.  Shamanic tradition is characterized by the honoring of the connectedness of all things, beings, and peoples, and the use of all of these animals, plants, ancestors, spirits and personalities to symbolize an aspect of the divine.  Natural elements are honored, and natural tools are used – rocks, feathers, found objects are all holy and hold their own specific energetic gifts.

These are ancient traditions, and they are becoming extinct in their traditional practices due to global industrialization and over-population.  There are very few shamanic cultures intact in our present age, practicing their own traditional form of shamanism in the context of earth-based living.  Yet the symbols and energies that these cultures tend to share are popping up in the dreams and imaginations of modern people everywhere.

It is not rare to encounter someone in this country who would say “I’ve always felt drawn to Native American symbols and rituals.”  And with the memories and haunting guilt of the widespread massacre of native people in this country in recent history, many of those who feel drawn to shamanic symbols and ritual feel as if they are stealing more Native property, as if the gifts of Spirit that come unbidden in the dreamtime, or the lessons of other peoples which are crafted and held by Spirit could be owned and stolen.  So they quietly attend pow-wows and read books and gather feathers, in the hopes they might find a bit of connection with a community they feel is their own, and yet feel completely disconnected and guilty towards.