Ancient Journeys & Creativity

For me, when October 31st is over, it is a marker that the Season of Endings has begun in full. I breathe deeply as I reflect on the time passed. Reviewing my life from a gardener's perspective, I am reassessing my intentions as I witness the seeds I have sown for this year's growing season and the subsequent harvests that have been gathered.

The final paragraph of the last post reads...(this is)..." a time of adventure, bravery, courage, and a willingness to stay on that Horse of Resistance until we reach the end of our journey. May this time be filled with silver linings that reveal the Truth of Who We Are Becoming. May this Time of Great Changes result in natural Creativity that transforms our world for the better."

Over a year later, it continues to be a Time of Unknowns and Great Changes in my life and in the world. In so many ways, both subtle and outright. I focus on my inner Cauldron of Creativity that is slowly being stirred, simmering with its ingredients of the past year's rituals, practices & journeys.

I have been exploring ancient art and myths for longer than I care to admit. Studying humanity's artwork, myths, and legends is a passion kindled in childhood. From this fascination with the Creative Mysteries, I have come to my own interpretation of what an artist's, a scribe & a storyteller's purpose and role in humanity's existence is to me.

As a spiritual person and visionary artist, I am gifted with the ability to be inspired by life, remain curious, and invite new ways of perceiving my consciousness through my creative practices. In my "shamanistic" ritual healing arts journeys, I connect with cosmic energies, forces of nature, deities, archetypes & totemic spirits from the Unseen realms regularly. I reach into the space of our collective consciousness and the multidimensional realms of our Universe, beyond the concept of time.

During the Autumn harvest season, I explored the Egyptian deities Seshat and Thoth's mysteries, myths, and art. I cannot imagine a world without creativity and these two Egyptian ruler's myths are filled with the magic of their creativity expressed in all of their accomplishments. And there are many.

I practice an ancient technology for exploring my inner realms. It is derived from a deep study of universal spiritual teachings, ancient artifacts & the arts that have been gifted to us by our ancestors. One particular aspect of my practices is found in ancient artifacts from around the world and was reinterpreted for today's "shamanistic" practitioners by Dr. Felicitas D. Goodman, Belinda Gore, & the practitioners of the methods introduced by these women and those who follow in their sacred footsteps.

I have been practicing these particular ancient technologies for over two decades. In the past 3 & 1/2 years, I have been fortunate to explore the inner realms with some of the most powerful and wise souls I've ever had the privilege of practicing with, and I am overwhelmed with my sense of gratitude and good fortune. It has allowed me to define, sharpen, and hone my own techniques, and unique approach to the art of inner exploration as I forge a multidimensional comprehension of my life in relation to the whole of the cosmos.

I prefer these practices because I can journey safely while maintaining a sense of conscious presence, centered in my whole self, and in connection with the Greatest of Mysteries. These practices have allowed me to explore my consciousness naturally and without the use of psychedelics. I found these substances too harsh and overwhelming for my body's heightened sensitivity.

I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s when the counterculture was exploring expanded states of consciousness with the assistance of psychedelics, both natural and synthetic. I watched as adults lost themselves to these altered states and later to addiction to the substances that took more and more to achieve the same results.

It was a lesson I took to heart. I knew that our Western culture has tried to eliminate the teachers of the ecstatic experience. So I investigated the oldest sources of human spirituality. Ones that were based on an Eco-centric, earth-reverent foundation that honored humans as part of the Web of Life. Before we lost our wild wisdom.

I knew as I continued to explore my inner realms, that I would find practices that allowed me to expand my consciousness without any need for a psychedelic stimulus or a mediator for the divine. I have the utmost respect for those practices. I just knew that I was too sensitive and too uneducated to safely explore any kind of altered state that opens us up to the ecstatic experience.

This was a major breakthrough, as I was averse to experimenting with sometimes dangerous substances, due to my commitment to staying present while I was in an altered state and for keeping my brain and body healthy. The answers to all of my questions were within and I was determined to find them. And find them, I did.

It's a challenging experience to try and share in words or even in images, for that matter, what these "shamanistic" journeys symbolize. It's because Mystery has no words. The most I can share that makes any sense is that during a recent journey asking for Thoth's spiritual initiation for help with the resurrection of writing this blog, here I am writing again, after over a year's pause.

During this Time of Unknowns and Great Changes, I wonder how our inner realities will dictate our outer realities. If one pays close attention, one can find the threads that connect these realms with or without tools and practices to point out all the threads. The possibilities become quite profound when that happens.

Creative expressions such as storytelling become our way of weaving the threads of our inner realities with our outer ones. We tell the stories of who we were, who we are, and who we are becoming. I wonder what kind of creativity we can share that could change the world for the betterment of all creation?