August 28, 2009
Venture Fourth Fall Intensive

Friday AM part 1, Aaron and Q&A, part 2 with Heather, journeying

Keywords: guides/higher self/teachers, four bodies, densities

Aaron: Again, my blessings and love to you all. All these electronic tools... I hope you have slept well and are enjoying the rain. The sun does shine in Michigan, but not today. Perhaps to phrase it differently, the sun is shining, there are just some low clouds that are blocking our view of it.

There is some confusion about who the guides are, to whom you might be opening, and discernment of the difference between the higher self and the guide. Each of you has a higher aspect of your being. We use the simple term "higher self". You have a physical body, you understand what that is, and a mental body, an emotional body and also a spirit body. Each body has different levels. There's the physical level of the physical body, there are etheric and astral levels, and the same with the mental and emotional bodies.

The highest level of the physical body is what we might call a template for this present physical body. It is the expression of the ever-perfect level of this physical body out of which this outer expression comes.

The same is true of the other bodies. There is thus a highest expression of the spirit body which we would call the higher self. It's the deepest essence of what you are, and it moves with you between lifetimes and into lifetimes. So this highest expression is part of what you are now.

If you look at the bodies in the room, you can't see the heart but you know it's there. Without the heart, the body could not be alive. You don't have to see the heart to know it's there.

This will complete the totality of what you are. Without the higher self, nothing would be here. There would be nothing to hold you together. But you often do not have contact with that highest expression of your being. You touch on the emotional and mental bodies, even on different levels of consciousness, and you think "Ah, that's it!" But consciousness is not the spirit body, consciousness is consciousness. The spirit body uses consciousness as a tool, just it uses the physical body and the mind.

In between your lifetimes this highest level of your being is more accessible because you're not caught up in the heavy density of this plane. There's more sense of knowing who you are, although there's still not perfect connection with it.

This higher self can serve as a guide to others, and others' higher selves can serve as your guide. You ask, "How could I, who am ignorant, ever be a guide to another?" I'm not talking about this present incarnate experience that you're having.

Picture yourself with a friend about to walk into a lake. There's a course set underwater, a clear track on which one my walk, and if you go off the course you could stumble into dense, thick ooze, but there's a firm path and on the surface there are small buoys that mark where the path is.

The two of you wade into the water. You can see the buoys but the water is rising. Once you're underwater you won't see the buoys anymore. You stop and look at each other. What are we to do? And one of you says to the other, "I'll climb on your shoulders and then my head will be out of the water and I can see the buoys. And I can turn your head a little bit one way or the other to help guide you so that you can follow the track. You're going to have to trust me. I'm just going to sit on your shoulders but I'll be able to see all the buoys. I'm going to have to trust you because if you go off the track, we'll both fall into the mud."

So you climb on your friend's shoulder or your friend climbs on yours, and you walk through this path. Your higher self is guiding you in just this way. But with you were on the bottom and the friend sitting on the shoulders, the friend was turning your head this way and you can say, "No, I'm supposed to go that way, I'm sure!" So you ignore the friend on your shoulders. How often do you do that?

The guidance is there and you have within you the capacity to hear that guidance, and what we call spirit guides are there. These guides, ... I think Barbara mentioned my description of the university system yesterday. When I first came to Barbara consciously, when she was first conscious of my presence, she could not hear me in words–not a lot of words, a little bit but not much. She had to tune and bring herself into a vibration that was high enough to hear me, and I had to learn to tune my vibration to hers.

So she worked with several intermediary guides. One she described was her grandfather. Another was simply a beloved friend who she perceived as a Native American woman. They gave her tuning exercises, especially to focus on certain colors and lights, to do certain exercises to raise her vibration. Meanwhile she and I just sat together and shared our energy together. And gradually it became possible for her to hear me more precisely and to trust what she heard.

You have a family of guidance. There will be the beings that are 3^rd density beings like yourself who sit on your shoulders, figuratively speaking. But if there's something deeper that you need to understand your guide will bring you to his boss, so to speak, to a next rank up, the person who knows a bit more. If they determine that you still need a higher level of guidance, it goes up and up.

We talk about the densities and that you are 3^rd density and moving into 4^th density. Fourth density is a density in which you will be telepathic and compassion grows. And in 5^th density, wisdom deepens. Sixth density is, let us call it a density of service. Each of these densities has a broad range. We talk about children in school but they go from kindergarten to 12^th grade. Then you have graduate school, several years of graduate school.

So there are beginning and middle and end 4^th density and 5^th density and 6^th density beings. You will find the level of guidance that you need is always there. Some guides may surprise you. Once in a deep meditation, Barbara found herself talking to a tree, and she later asked me, "How could a tree be talking to me?" Well, trees are sentient beings also. So it was sharing its wisdom with her. She had back pain and the tree did not just communicate thoughts but actually talked to her about how she was holding her body rigid, and how to move like the tree, how to be flexible. So the tree had an important message to impart. It came as a friend and a teacher. It was not a primary guide; it was a teacher.

There's a difference also between guides and teachers. A guide is a being who has determined to be with you and guide you for a period of time or sometimes through the whole life. There may have been a decision before the incarnation, "I will be your guide, and while you are incarnate I will not take incarnation. I will be available to you in this form through your life."

I don't want you to suppose that a being who is incarnate cannot also be a guide to others. It's rare but it can happen. In other words, a great wise being who is very mature can come into the earth plane and be incarnate and still on the inner planes serve as guide to others. But for most of you third density beings, you don't do that--- you're either incarnate or you may serve as a guide to others.

A teacher is not someone who is committed to be with you through your life but to whom you turn for whatever period of time. It might be lifelong or it may be very short, maybe even just one meeting. That person comes as a teacher. So the tree was not really a guide for Barbara, the tree was a teacher. But the other beings I mentioned, her grandfather and this Native American woman, these were guides.

Having helped her raise her vibrational frequency so she could speak to me, they stepped into the background. She still experiences their loving energy now and then, they're still with her, but they're not the most primary guidance–I am.

So there are guides, there are teachers, there is the higher self. And they are not different, they are all the highest spiritual level of being. How can we say there are separate beings? Your ancestors died and presumably are buried somewhere, or their ashes lie somewhere. And they've infiltrated into the soil. Food grows from that soil and you eat the food. The food becomes part of your body. Can you say you are separate from your great-grandmother? Everything is part of everything else. Nothing is separate.

Your guides seem to be separate. I'd tell you I am separate from Barbara but I am here to teach you that nothing is separate. You'll have to deal with that seeming paradox! There are no paradoxes either.

You've come to know me with a certain personality. This is not who I am, and my true name is not Aaron. "Hey you" was not useful for Barbara, she needed a name. Aaron was a being that I was in a lifetime about... let's see, the lifetime of Aaron ended just less than 2000 years ago and began about 2400 years ago and he lived about 400 years. He was a very wise and loving teacher. So I felt this was a useful personality on which to base this being that I bring to you.

You feel my energy strongly. You think you know my energy field, as Barbara does. There was a time, once, when Barbara questioned something I said, thinking to herself, "Oh, it's just Aaron." She thought of me as this kindly grandfather figure. It was not that I wanted to have my way or push her into accepting my way of thinking, it was more that I wanted her to understand that there's more to me than meets the eye. Not necessarily to be respectful to me but to serve herself by listening more carefully to me and then deciding, "Is this useful?" So she doesn't have to accept everything I say and we do disagree on occasion.

But I came to her with a burst of energy using, not the maybe 1/20^th of my energy that comes through now but a quarter of my energy, perhaps. She suddenly experienced me as an immense being. Her whole body trembled with that power for just a moment or two and then I backed out. And I said, "Now, do you want to think that out again? Please consider what I just said without the, "Oh, it's just Aaron.""

"Please think that out again and consider what I've just said." Not on the basis of, "I'm Aaron, I'm powerful, therefore I'm right," but also not on the basis of, "Oh, it's just Aaron." If you respect me and the power I have, you will respect yourself and the power you have. If you disrespect me, you will disrespect yourself.

So what I come to you as is simply the personality of that being who I once was. We had a friend 20 years ago who wanted to work with me but said she had a problem working with a male teacher. So I shifted my energy a bit. Not sure if I can do it easily right now...

(shift to gentle feminine voice and energy)

... and I said to her, "Shall I come as Arianna? Shall I be a female? Would that be easier for you?"

I'm not fully making that shift but I'm not male or female. Neither are you. In this particular incarnation you're coming as a male or female but all of you are a balance of both.

We are not asking you to become mediums, emptying yourself so that a spirit may incorporate in your body and speak to others, we're only suggesting you have the capacity to hear your guidance. That's a difference, maybe just a difference of degree, but there's a difference. So the work we're doing here this weekend is to help you communicate more fully with your higher selves and with your guidance.

Thus far I have been the incorporated spirit in this room. A friend suggested that he pay a visit to give you a sense of a different entity. So we're going to do that.

(pause; Aaron leaves and a different Entity incorporates. )

Do we need this electronic device? Can it go in the pocket?

(visit not recorded, continuing with next file)(aside from Barbara: interesting that while we did have the recorder on, it did not record! Recorder was in the pocket and mic attached to shirt.)

Aaron: Are there any questions? Do you feel the difference between these entities? (Group: Yes!)

Any questions? Let me phrase it differently–any questions that we can answer <inaudible> (laughter)>

Q: During the processes yesterday <> been contacting my guide. I was able to see, I don't know what to call it, sparkles of light,... that kind of thing, with my eyes closed. Not much felt sense. And I was frustrated.

Aaron: You're trying too hard.

Q: Yes, I was. This morning after meditation I sat and sensed a being, a tall, blue-white form, or column, just very gently being with me. And I invited them to be with me, to kind of overshadow my meditation and show me their meditation. It was quite beautiful.

Then later after the breakfast time, I went outside, they seemed to be with me, I asked them to be with me and show me this scene through their eyes. It was non-conceptual, very beautiful and very connected. Non-cognitive, very beautiful, and very connected, a sense of oneness with the lake, the rain, the trees, the earth, the space.

Aaron: Good....

Q: The question is, was this my guide, my higher self, and how do I attune sufficiently to have more... like question and answer communication?

Aaron: First, you do not need to know right now whether it is a guide or higher self; it is simply a high energy with which you wish to establish deeper communication. Come into connection with it, as you have, and then ask it, "How can I tune to hear you better?" What you receive may simply be in visual images or harmonic sounds. There may be an impulse to tone with the harmonic sounds or to move into a color and merge into that color. There may be a feeling to work with the elements to better balance them. It may seem as if it's coming just intuitively. But in some way this guidance is conveying what it feels will be most supportive to help you tune. It's highest intention is to support you, and in order to do that you need to be able to communicate. So its intention is to help you communicate.

What you are seeing – you are transcending the form level and seeing the entity simply as its deeper level of light and energy. And this is wonderful. I think yesterday you were trying too hard to see a form because the meditation was led toward seeing a being, seeing a face, and you were not seeing a face, you were seeing the sparkling light. And today you let it settle into simply energy.

I don't know if any of you have seen Barbara's sculpture. Many years ago in her studio she simply saw forms that seemed to move so she made bronze portraits of them using, she used the copper tooling that's the unwound, and coated it with bronze, and made very light, airy, moving forms. She asked when she finished, "What should this be named?" "Ariel, Lael," different names. Only years later in meditation did she meet these beings and realized she truly had been doing a portrait. She was a sculptor, she sculpted. What did she sculpt? Her deepest spirit friends.

So it's good that you're seeing beyond the form level. Just keep working with this guidance and if you have a question for it, ask it. And don't expect to receive it in verbal form; receive in whatever form it comes.

Q: I want to thank you for the experiences of love. It's difficult for me to feel love(d). And when I met with you yesterday, I felt love. It causes a lot of emotions. And I'm very grateful to feel loved. I feel it had a profound effect on me in some deep way I don't understand. I appreciate knowing there is you and other beings I can be with and feel loved. And I want to know if you have anything to say to me about the question I asked you in the journey.

Aaron: Daughter, only to trust yourself, to trust your own experience.

There is the human heart that is afraid, and there is that which knows no fear. That aspect of you that knows no fear, you know it's there but it feels foolish at times from the human perspective to trust it.

This is a process of learning who you are, learning to trust the deepest aspect of yourself, both the capacity to give and to receive love, and the power that you have. Much of your fear is about that power because you understand that you have the capacity to do harm, because negative emotion still arises. Therefore you choose to limit your power rather than moving through the negative emotions and finding that which is so pure and radiant beyond it. So what is so important is to begin to trust that purity and radiance. I'm not denying that there is negative emotion, but stop self-identifying with it, stop being afraid of it, it's just part of the human package.

It's after 10 and I want to leave Heather plenty of time... so perhaps enough talk for now. Does that sound suitable?

Heather: Wonderful, come back later!

Aaron: I will not be far! Thank you all for sharing with me and good journeys to you all. I'm very happy that you're having the opportunity for this process. I'll release the body to Barbara.

(Heather whispers to Aaron)

They (the Entities) hear your thanks and they are grateful to you for being willing to receive them into your circle.

(pause)

The Brother has said as he walked in this body around the room that he was not so aware of the extent that the human still lacks balance. The balance is improved but not as much as it might be. Please tell her that there will be assistance to improve the balance.

(session with Aaron ends; Aaron leaves the body)

August 28, 2009 Venture Fourth Fall Intensive Friday AM, Heather

This transcript has not been reviewed by Heather.

Keywords: shamanic journeying, energy, grounding, transfiguration

Heather: I'm a little lacking in words after all of that! I'm very grateful to Aaron...

(pause, Barbara asked what just happened and someone might be signing to her)

I talked to Barbara about a little bit of questioning you were having about whether it was higher self or guides and trusting (the experience) in that way, and Aaron offered to come through and bring some other entities of light through. When we use the word "entities" we are referring to entities of Light. For me it was a truly heart-opening experience, and I hope that it helped you all to have that understanding that we have spiritual guidance and we can trust that, and we don't have to work so hard, even accepting that aspect of love that is willing to come to us, to teach us, to nurture us, and work as our spiritual guidance. It's not so important to know, I believe, whether it's our higher self or whether it's spiritual guidance of another being guiding us.

So without diluting this with lots of words, I would like us to go straight in to a journey, to merge, this time--I will guide you--with your guides you have been working with. Or you could merge with the Sister of Light aspect, or Brother of Light aspect, that were just present.

If you have clarity with your own guides I suggest you merge with them, but feel free–you have the choice of all 3 to work with now, so that you can experience merging with your energy field, and I'll guide you to that point, in the form, after which you're going to drop the form and get that contrast. Okay?...

(break followed by 10 minute journey to spirit guides or other guidance)

(sharing)

(regarding not being able to hear very well immediately post-journey)

Heather: You're just transitioning back from that reality into this reality, so part of your hearing hasn't come back but it will come back. It's just you're bringing yourself fully present back from that journey, back into this present reality.... It's probably just your energy field still a little dispersed.

(sharing)

(regarding feeling ill later after journeying)

Heather: Sometimes... this is a vast energy field that we're working with here, we have Aaron, we have these Light beings too that are coming through, and Aaron is such an enlightened being, so there are huge energy fields. And this (experience of high vibration) is an opportunity that our body sometimes takes to detox, so that's why. Remind yourself to let anything that no longer serves us go into the core of the earth, to be transmuted into healing light. You've also done some dismemberment journeys, dismembering that which keeps you separate from your radiance, and being re-membered in a more light, radiant, illuminated way, sort of stepping into your illuminated essence. So there's often some emotional stuff, heavy-leaded consciousness that gets dispersed. So we always want to send it down with that intention whenever we're doing any kind of work because, as Einstein said, energy once created can't be destroyed. So we don't want to detox ourselves spiritually and leave it there for somebody else to pick up, you know, like a burr. So there's no fear of it, you're just sending it down. Especially if you have healing practices or psychotherapy practices, filling with light, washing through, and going down into the earth to become nutritious for our planet.

At the Casa when we finish, at the end of every session, the entity will choose 2 or 3 of us to do a closing. And he always says, "I don't want anybody to leave here with a headache or with pain." So it's in the those few minutes, 5 minutes that we give a closing prayer, we ask, we visualize the room filling with light, all the rooms of the Casa. That all the mediums, everybody present be filled with light and cleansed, and sending to the earth. And Medium Joao's room, everything to be filled with light, all the hotels and pousadas. And then we ask for that light to go to all 4 corners of the Earth, this current of light that is created.

It's something that's very important for us to do in our daily practice because you can fill your house with light, your offices with light. And especially if you have clients coming in and out, I think there are quite a few of you psychotherapists, as they're dropping off their emotional energy, emotional, mental, physical bodies, that's energy that's getting dumped in your office. So you just want to set up, I do this with each client. As the energy comes out it just goes straight down and the next client comes in and says, "Oh, it feels so clean in here, so good." Just filling up, remembering to ask for the Light to fill it. And at the end of the day as well...also fill the house with light and all the gardens, always connect to the spirits of the garden and the Light and the Earth and the elements.

And you know, this sort of carries on from yours as well, I think, I hope that was helpful, so you are detoxing probably at quite a powerful rate, wonderful energy that we experienced with Aaron and his friends today, very powerful, Aaron's is always such pure love. So we are healing, we are becoming more light bodies. It's always important just to be filling ourselves with light and releasing it...

(sharing)

Heather: ... I'd like to continue our conversation that we were having yesterday. I think it's one of the reasons I had asked Aaron to explain the difference between holy spirit and all of that-- I think when you feel comfortable now, for you to say to your spirit guide, "You know, I'm comfortable with your power, I accept it and I'd like to merge with you," you know when you're talking with people and some people you can go and embrace, like I feel I could always embrace Barbara, she's always so present with a big hug. Some people, I feel there's a distance there, that I wouldn't go into that field. So I respect that. I'm not going to throw my arms around them. I'll perhaps offer them a hand or, just looking into their eyes. And the same thing with our spirit guides. He's perhaps sensing that from you, a little reticence, so building that confidence up. When we meet somebody for the first time we spend time before we're hugging them.

In South America we're a little bit more effusive, I would say. My British background was very much different to that. And some of that comes through sometimes, people find me rather Scottish and aloof, and I'm not aware of it but I try and work with that too, so I'm not putting up a barrier. I don't think you're putting up a barrier; I think you're just beginning to trust that guide, so I think within the next couple of journeys you'll say, "I'm ready for this now, let's just go for it." Does that make sense?

And the other thing I remembered that I was going to talk about is, sometimes you go to a party or to a room or to a meeting, and the energy is like, "Whoa, that was amazing! It was really nice, I feel full." And other times you can go and you come out and you're exhausted, you know? So you can very easily clear that off. We call it spiritual clean-off. Just imagine yourself under a shower of light, or quick drumming, or, you're all such great meditators that pretty soon you can go right there.

I like to use the drum because it takes me deeper, even though I can visualize it instantly. Oftentimes if I'm doing a seeking journey I'll use the drum for answers, those kinds of things, but use meditation too. If you're coming out of somebody's house and you feel overcharged with energy, just sit in your car for a few minutes and see yourself stepping into a cascading waterfall of light and let that energy be transmuted, go down into the earth. Because you're just picking up, you're sensitive, your energy field, picking up people's energy or fears. As Aaron says–I'm always grateful to Aaron for being clear about this –– that there is a negative polarity in the universe. There's a positive and a negative. There's light and there's darkness but we're here to balance it, to work with the darkness but it's not to be afraid, we're not going to be overpowered by that, but just acknowledging that it exists. It's part of the universe. And we're drawn to the light.

We don't use candles in Brazil, in spiritism in general, because the entities say butterflies are drawn to the light but also so are moths. Not a judgment on moths but maybe just a lower vibrational spirit. And they exist, and sometimes they're lost, and we can help them go to the light. We're not going to be working on that today, but a lot of that happens in Brazil at the Casa.

I have a friend who emailed me last night, a very good friend of theirs passed on in Greece. And one of them feels the presence very close all the time, so is feeling that he hasn't crossed over. We're going to meditate together later on even though we're in separate parts of the earth, and then with prayers help that soul to cross to the light.

Barbara says and Aaron says, we're always working with the highest possible intention and service to the light. Sometimes we go into supermarkets and pick up maybe little dense energy. In the next exercise, going to do a transfiguration into our divinity, a transfiguration into the light. Then rather than separate from it, as you just merged and separated, you can actually carry that up through your experience to lunch. We'll tone for awhile for that, to hold it, and then this afternoon we'll be working more on that higher level, not really want to judge levels but we'll be in a deeper place, let's say.

I'm sure you all experienced the merging; it was a very positive experience for everybody, am I right? So now this afternoon we'll be doing the other experience with your guide where you're going to merge with the light, the radiance. So if you think about, Aaron I think would corroborate this, but you know his energy is compressing in to Barbara's body. As he said he uses 20 per cent or a 20^th of his energy, and so the expansive ever-present is..., When we connect to our guides in a journey, they're compressing themselves as well. And it's freeing when we can say, "We accept you as the radiance that you are." And it's a very different experience.

For me, it was really night and day. For about 2 hrs afterwards I went into the woods and I would look at different leaves and I would see geometric patterns, still merged with this, and this understanding that it could be... the difference for me was really vast because I'd been working with spirit guides for so long. Now I work with their radiance and very rarely do I see their absolute image anymore. But I used to see the faces very, very clearly. Unless I'm doing journeys for other people and then I see all the imagery. But when I'm working in meditation or working at the Casa, I see really the light of the entities and no longer the form compressed. Although sometimes I will just get the face fleetingly if I'm coming by, if I'm to know exactly, some particular reason. And that's always very nice now because I rarely see those details.

The transfiguration journey: when Sandy Ingerman was writing this book, the last part, this was channeled to her, the last part was transfiguration. And she asked her husband, "What does that mean?" And they looked it up and it means shapeshifting, but it also means, when transfiguring into the Light, or Jesus when he transfigured into the Light and people touched his robe and they were healed. So we're going to merge into, shapeshifting is kind of a buzz word but it means merge, become one with. Does that make sense?

This is a wonderful book, Medicine for the Earth. We've done a lot of work with water. While I was studying with her, she was writing this book. I've trained to be a teacher of Medicine for the Earth. Beautiful book. When you read it, I suggest one chapter at a time. Do those exercises and just work one chapter for a week, and then the next chapter. There's a lot of information.

Actually any books of Sandy's are really good. Another one is How to Transmute Toxins, a small book, a great book...

(break)

...Grounded, we're talking about grounding here. I'll show you with my divining tool after lunch, I'll bring it down. I'm a double fire sign, a double Sagittarius. That means I can be really out there, flying off without finishing one project, I'm already on to another project. But I can be really scattered. And so in order to teach or in my everyday world, I have to really ground myself and not be flying around by the seats of my pants, which is pretty much, you know, how I could go through life.

So I'll show you this afternoon my energy when I'm up in my head, my energy when I ground down. So I imagine myself like a tree reaching up to the universe, with my branches going up to the universe, and then bringing down the light through the branches. I just imagine, I don't have to do this, but you can afterwards, bringing it through, right through the center, the core of my being, connected to my essence, connected to the filament of light that I am, let us say, and I send it right down throughout all my being, filling myself with light, sending it right down through all my hips, all my organs, down into the earth and rooting out into the earth.

A sapling can sustain the strongest winds if it's deeply rooted. But if it's badly planted or lightly planted, along can come a big wind and just blow it away. But really strongly grounded in and properly planted, those roots will spread out into the earth and grow into a fine tree that can sustain many storms.

So I bring that energy down and then I feel the energy of Mother Earth coming up and being that, so I'm now flowing the yin and yang together. So not being too feminine, not being too masculine, but bringing the two together, and talking from my essence now. Especially if I'm teaching, I always do that and then I ask my guidance system to be able to teach to this particular group in a way that will make sense for them because each group is different. This group is very much a meditation class, so you embrace this quite easily. So the words flow. If I'm not grounded, I'm constantly searching for words, I can't remember things, I sound scattered.

This journey that we're going to do together is to transfigure into our higher selves and into the light. Then we're going to bring that back down, and we're going to hold that space, and we're going to be that space. Once we bring (it) down we'll start toning to hold it, to really experience that shift in us of really feeling the experience of luminosity within us, radiance within us, the inner brilliance, if you will, all those words... And to be able to shine that in the light and carry that in all we do, not from an egoic place but from serving; but connected to that luminosity so we're not separate, "Oh, now I'm in my personality. Now I'm working..." And now I'm trying to be more connected to our higher selves in all that we do.

I'm going to use Sandra Ingerman's words here. And after you've done it once you don't need to go through all the words, you'll just be transfiguring. And we'll work more this afternoon.

So I'll take you through this journey and then we'll go to lunch, but first we'll tone a little bit here and then we'll go slowly up to lunch, when you feel ready. So some people will leave before others. Just walking up slowly, and holding it, not shifting from it. Trying to hold that space. Does that make sense?

So grounded means grounded, bringing the yin and the yang together, not being up in our heads but bringing all of the energy down and rooting down into the ground. It helps in all our work. If I'm not grounded and I go shopping in the supermarket, I come back with ¾ of the list I haven't bought.

So let's just close your eyes for a second. If it helps you to reach up, you can. If not just do it imagining yourself.

(Guided meditation)

So let's just imagine you're standing out in a beautiful garden and you're reaching up to the Light. Sending up your beautiful tree, an energetic tree of light, sending all your focus up to the Light, to connect to the Light. And then imagine bringing that light down through your arms, through your branches and down in through your crown.

Feel the light permeating through you. Coming down through all your organs. Relieving the tension in your neck and your shoulders, and flowing down your arms, down your spine. You might even feel sometimes a clicking back into place. Just feel the light, this divine intelligence, flowing through in all your cells and tissues, lighting up, remembering this radiance, and then flowing down, inward, outward, sides...

Down through the core of your being, feeling yourself merging with that light that you are in the core of your being. The light permeating out into your field, down your legs, all around your hips like a soothing balm, down your legs and your knees and your ankles and out the soles of your feet. And then imagine sending roots down into Mother Earth, feeling yourselves connected to the earth and the love, that divine feminine love, perfect mother love, the universal mother love, it is unconditional love, not the personal mother love.

Just feeling connected to this loving, divine presence of the feminine that nurtures us unconditionally, and bringing that energy up. So you're sending big roots out, connecting to that, bringing that energy up, so the 2 flowing together, the yin and the yang, flowing in absolute harmony and balance.

And setting the intention that this journey that we're going to do, that this experience that we're going to have, be for the highest good, divinely guided, and our guidance system is present here of the highest vibrations and integrity, and only the divine truth exists.

(a blessing or phrase in Latin(?))

So, is everybody comfy but not so comfortable that you'll fall asleep? I'm going to be turning the drums slightly toward Barbara so that she can have a more profound experience. She feels the vibrations when the drum is a certain way for her.

(drumming begins for journey)

(recording of session ends during drumming)

August 28, 2009 Venture Fourth Fall Intensive, FridayAfternoon with Heather

(This tape not yet corrected by Heather)

Keywords: quantum physics of energy healing, power animal guides, shamanic journeying, guidance, transfiguration/energy session, Reiki, spirit canoe journey, Siberian drum healing

Heather: So how was that this morning? Deep, right? The actual meditation you can get from Medicine for the Earth, page 186. I change it a little bit as I go along depending. You can create your own, which I often do, but I like Sandy's words, they're really profound. You can also buy her CD on Sounds True, called Miracles for the Earth.

Our work working with transmutations of water was done with this using the principles of Medicine for the Earth to, as I talked about yesterday, using case studies actually polluting water with, I forget the name. I'll tell you afterwards. But it's a strong toxin–ammonium hydroxide, yes. It usually takes about 6 or 7 days to evaporate. So we had scientists on site polluting the water, bringing it from a pH of 7 to about 14. And after we would transfigure and send the energy to the water, seeing the water as divine and perfect. We would transfigure into our divinity, like we did today.

But we don't need to do that long journey because now you can actually either transfigure or merge with your spirit guide, asking them to drop their form, and merging with their light and asking them to merge you with your higher self, if you wish, or just merge with your higher self or your divinity. Because you've done that one journey. So you have it within you, like riding a bike.

So we're going to practice that this afternoon, merging with our spirit guides, with their light. We will work in pairs. So once you've transfigured, you'll sit up and just send energy to the person. You're not sending or pushing energy to the person and you're seeing them as holy, divine, and perfect. And from a quantum physics point of view, their cells will come up to match the vibration of the light, and remember their divine state of wellness.

So when I am working with clients now, my focus is always on their absolute wellness. I set the intention that they remember, their cells and tissues remember their divine code of wellness. There have been studies done, one particular one was by Fred Alan Wolfe, who wanted from a quantum physics perspective to show or prove how energetic healing takes place.

So he went to Peru and studied with a shaman. He writes in a book, something to do with eagles, I forget the full title of it, basically his conclusion is that when a practitioner, whether it be Reiki, healing touch, Qi Gong, or shamanism, is channeling the light or bringing the light and sending the light, the person's own divinity comes up to come into coherence with the divine code, on the principle that illness or imbalance is created because we come out of resonance with our divine code; we lose our divine coherence. And so by journeying, meditating, these modalities help us to regain that coherence with the light from which we're all created, and then our cells and tissue remember and light up.

I like that visualization when I'm working with people, and so I don't get caught up in what their illness is but rather their perfection. So when sending the light, I merge, because you become quite quick at it, going to that merged state. Merging with your teacher is easier sometimes, I think, because you've got an intermediary. So journey to your teacher, your guide, and ask them to drop their form and be in their divinity. So you have that expansive ever-perfect energy and you merge with that. And then just sending the energy; don't push it; not trying to make anything, just sending the energy like I'm sending you now, just seeing you, honoring your divinity and your perfection and holding that and the light coming through and out for the person. Does that make sense?

That's how we worked with the bodies of water as well. When we focused in the room on the water there'd also be a hidden bottle, the same pollution, hidden from us that we were not focusing on. So the one in the room would change, the hidden bottle wouldn't. Or we'd have a bottle out of the room which we would focus on, which would change because we were focusing on it and with the intention.

So, marrying in with the time when Sandy was doing this work was sort of when Emoto's work was coming out as well. When you have the lake, for example, you can just meditate on seeing it divine and perfect and well, and whatever toxins need to be transmuted will take place. So great work that she brought through. This whole book was brought through by the spirits for her, as was Soul Retrieval, other books she's written. And she's written a smaller version of this but if you would like a CD, it's nicer and easier because you can just play it, listen to it, take it piece by piece.

There are a lot of wonderful exercises in here, and the whole idea that we must be centered in union with our divinity, focused intention, love, creating that formula, and then we can transfigure into our divinity. Jesus transfigured, or shape-shifted into the light. He was able to very easily carry that light, the divinity, and so people would touch his robe and become healed because he carried so much light. He was able to do it in such a profound way. And Sai Baba carryied that light.

One of the things that shamans and shamanic communities use to carry the light – you could see it in their eyes, you could see a shining in their eyes. And it's important for us to do as meditation, you can get to it through meditation, just shifting your focus. Because you're such powerful meditators you can go to these places now without the use of the drum if you don't wish to, and go to your sacred space and take off from there. Call upon your guides to meet you or your animal spirit guides, and make that your jumping off space, and keep practicing. Because the spirits love playing with us, they love us doing things to help in any way, to help the planet and help bring joy into our lives.

I'm sure you all notice when you look at people who don't meditate, you all have a shine in your eyes. So it's about us carrying this light out into the world, going into supermarkets shopping and radiating the light out. Like the hub of a wheel in a great cart wheel and going out into that whole area, so it helps as well. So then supermarket shopping doesn't become a chore but we know we're in service to the light as well.

We're going to start with a power animal journey to connect with our spirit animal guides. You know, sometimes people go, "Oh, a power animal, right." Some people love it and some people have an issue with it. From a shamanic perspective, it's from our heritages, living in tribal community where animals were very much part of our everyday life. I grew up with that so animals were my closest friends. When I was upset with my mother I'd jump on my horse and tell my horse all about it.

One time I remember my horse stopped and I sort of fell around his neck, because I was so into my issue that I was too far away and my horse turned me around and brought me back. But there was a synchronicity with animals, and people who ride horses or breed dogs, you all understand that synchronicity that we have with the animals very close to us.

So for some the spirit guide is easy, for some it's not so easy, but you'll figure it out. As some of you found it easier to get a teacher, maybe you find both easier. It's a replacement of power as well. When we are losing spiritual power, symbolically we blow back in. We journey for an animal spirit guide and blow back in that power for the person. The shaman journeys and he has 4 different times that he sees the same animal spirit guide who communicates to him or her why they're coming back to help that person, what power they're bringing that person.

So I don't get too caught up with animal-speak, or these books, "What does butterfly mean?", I ask butterfly, "What are you bringing me? What are you bringing to this person? What qualities shall I tell them that you're bringing to them?" because it's always unique for every person.

Sandy Ingerman herself was in great pain and she could not get healed, about 20 years ago when she was studying shamanism. She eventually just journeyed to her animal spirit guide who brought through power for her, connected her to a different spirit guide. She prayed for a dream and after about 3 weeks the dream came to her and an animal spirit guide came to her in a dream and took away her pain in the dream, dismembered, took away where the pain was, as we have been practicing. She never had pain again.

Think of it as spiritual power that's coming to you in the form of an animal spirit guide. Again, I don't see Ed the Talking Horse but I receive the information, I'm sure similar to Aaron downloading the information to Barbara. Some people see, some people hear the information. Or sometimes it sort of comes across like tickertape on the screen, all different ways that you can receive, if again you want to ask the animal spirit guide to fine-tune so you can have that information. Don't think of them as being speechless, they have great information to impart to us. It's the way that you receive it that you'll practice, okay?

One other thing. Usually in journeys we get symbols, you know, it's metaphors. If I'm doing a soul retrieval for somebody and I don't understand the metaphor, I'll say, "Not getting this, can you give me another one?" And immediately there's another metaphor that comes. "Oh, do you mean this?" Yes. And then I can check on that. I often check by doing a finger yes or a no, or I can just have that feeling.

A great film to watch again, if you haven't already watched it, it's a great film to watch, it's about 10 years old, Il Postino, The Postman, a great film about the Chilean poet, Pablo Naruda. A great film. It's beautiful about Italy, and Pablo Naruda is all metaphorical poetry so it's all about metaforo. He keeps talking about this. It gives you great ideas about the importance of metaphor.

One time 80 of us journeyed to our spirit guides and asked them why do they communicate to us in metaphors? And the answer we all pretty much got back was the same, that it's the language of the soul. It's the language that the soul can read because it doesn't need words, you know, it's images and metaphors. So we can get that language very easily. A lot of times we'll get metaphors when we journey, and just asking, "Do you mean this or mean that?" Then you might get another metaphor.

Q: Can you just go back over the yes/no finger thing?

Heather: Yes, actually I'll give you another, do you know dowsing? I do use this finger, so this is my yes, "Is my name Heather?" so it's strong, right? "Is my name Tom?" it slips through. But you can use others. I've been using that for a long time, you can use this finger if you want or the little finger. There's less power in the little finger to override it. So this is my yes and this is my no, slipping through. I'm holding the thumb and the little finger. Do the little finger because you have less power to resist in the little finger. So this is the yes, is strong, and it slips through when it's not true.

Here's an example. If you all close your eyes...I want you to tell yourself the truth and see the body feeling. This is how I use it in journeying too... Closing your eyes and think about something you really, really love. Something you know is an absolute truth for you. It can be chocolate, dark chocolate. If you prefer dark chocolate to milk chocolate, make it the one you love the most. It could be... I love yellow roses so I'm going to say to myself the truth, "I love yellow roses." You say your own truth, the thing that you love. Not a person because you don't want to, you know-- make it something in nature that you love. Just say to yourself that truth quietly and see how you feel, see that energy state expanding inside you...

So you all got that feeling, right? Just open your eyes to shift the energy for a second. Did you all feel that? You can sort of feel an expansiveness. A nice feeling, right? Exhilarating, because it's your truth. So this is your yes.

Now you're going to do the same thing, and I want you to use the same object, "I love," for example if I say, "I love yellow roses," I'm going to say, "I don't like yellow roses," which is not true, and see how it feels for me. And you see how it says for the issue you said was your truth. "I don't like..." And you can feel the contraction, can you feel that?

Okay, so let's eradicate that by saying, "No, no, delete, delete, I love yellow roses," so you can go back to the expansive state. Say whatever it is that you love.

So that's a good way of checking when you're journeying, "Is this true?" This would have been great for yesterday when you asked the person, "Is this the truth of this person?" You could tell, you actually felt it in the body sense, right? So that's another way of doing it. You can either use your little finger like that, yes/no, okay? Or you can use that feeling sense. Does that make sense?

Okay, so I'm going to guide you on a journey to your sacred space again. And we're going to ask in this moment, we're just going to take a moment to call in the spirits again and welcome them with your rattles for a few minutes.

(rattling begins, drumming begins with calling in the spirits, 10 minute journey not transcribed DS20105)

(sharing, symbolism of snake and bear)

Heather: Just a little aside on owls. The more shamanic we become in seeing the omens, omens come to us all the time. And in shamanic communities we learn to read the omens. So for example if you see turkey crossing your path, it's like, "Oh, that's a spiritual being, wonder what..." or hawk, I say, "What a great gift! Thank you for bringing me that vision."

In Brazil there used to be a field in front of the hotel and they were grazing cattle there. And then that was lotted off . I didn't have spare cash at the time but managed to get 3 of the lots. Somebody helped me with one and we managed to preserve it. My intention was to preserve those lots into a field. So I gave free grazing to a cart man so his horse could be in there at night. And that I wanted the owls to return. We're into the 5^th year now; the owls breed in there. They came back and then they teach the young to fly onto the ground, and delight us all. We can even get quite close and they look at us, you know, that 360 vision.

baby owls - photo from Barbara

As we connect in that shamanic way with them, with our intentions, nature responds. It's healing for the groups that come, it's healing for me, it's delightful, and hopefully we're giving them safe place. I will never sell that land for building so it's nice and quiet and lots of land for fruit trees we planted, and provided water for them. So every year they come.

(sharing)

Q: I found myself getting a little hung up on how much these things come from the mind and how much they're actually coming from beyond the mind in the non-ordinary reality, it's so easy for the mind to imagine things...

Heather: It doesn't matter if it is or not, you're still having the experience, right? It doesn't matter to me, I don't get into an argument with the mind, I go, "Yes, I'm on a journey of the imagination. I'm enjoying this." Because imagery is healing anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

Barbara: Twenty or more years ago when I was first channeling Aaron, I said, "I think I'm making it up. I'm imagining it. How do I know it's real?" And a good friend who had been channeling for many years, Carla and the Ra Material we spoke of earlier, said, "Wait a few years until you've got thousands of pages of material–you could never make all of that up!"

Aaron has said, "Of all the animals that could come, why would your mind choose this one?" So even if it is just from the mind, or even if it is partly from the mind, there's something else that's happening there. For some reason, this animal is coming forth, or this guide. It's not just chance, it's not just egoic mind saying, "Now I'll do this."

(sharing)

Barbara: Within this tradition, what distinction is made between power animal and teacher? When I first began to journey just now, immediately the power animal with whom I've had almost a lifelong contact, appeared. I didn't expect it or not expect it, but that's what appeared, a powerful silver stag. So I felt my energy with it and gratitude toward it, and then it indicated I should look down.

When I looked down there was a small turtle. The question I had asked is simply, "How can I become a more clear medium?" The turtle, I can't say it said it in words so much that it simply communicated, that when its limbs were pulled in and it was in its shell it could not swim. But as soon as it came out of its shell, it could swim and move freely. And it had power and speed. Then it just swam away and the stag came back and said, "Be a turtle."

So it seemed to me that the stag is my power animal and the turtle is more a teacher. Correct?

Heather: Yes, the stag brought you, the turtle came to you as a metaphor to show you, and I would say that also turtle medicine for your back and shoulders, to give you strong back and shoulders, because you've been experiencing some pain in your back and shoulders, I believe. So that would be more as a medicine. It has a strong back shell, bringing you strength.

So later on when I do the power animal retrieval for somebody who would like help, that will be bringing back the medicine and the power of that. A power animal can be a butterfly because they are all-expansive, they are everything. So it doesn't have to be something large, you know; it can be small, it can be big. But I would say that the turtle was bringing you also the strength for your back, spiritual medicine. Swimming, and you can ask it to expand and hold on to its back and go through the healing waters. Ask him to take you to healing waters.

Barbara: So go back to the turtle, don't just think of him as a one-time teacher?

Heather: No, I'd go back and say to the stag, "Can you take me to..."...So, go to stag. I was asking for light to come through the drum for her shoulders as I was drumming behind her.

(sharing and Heather's comments)

Barbara: We'll talk more about this tomorrow but now after this intensive your home assignments are going to change a bit, your vipassana practice and the practice with the quality of the week, and also some time journeying or working with your guides. They're kept separate. You work with your guides and then you move into silence and are just there and present with whatever arises during choiceless awareness practice.

Then you might spend some time reflecting on that quality of the week. We're not trying to mix these all up into one lump, but on a daily basis, to be doing them all. Now some of you are going to say, "I don't have time." You'll work it out. We'll talk more about it.

(break)

Heather: (is working with P) So I'm going to be transfiguring, and the way I do this is I go to a spiritual guide, and I'll ask my guide to drop his form and allow me to merge with his divinity, his formless expansive divinity. And then from that merged state, for me that sort of takes me to merge with my own divinity, but I come up and I'm going to sit up and I'm going to be, not pushing energy into her, I'm just going to be holding this transfigured state, being transfigured or merged with the divinity of my guide.

I'm going to ask that my guide then is radiating or sending the light to P. I'm going to focus on seeing her divine, whole and perfect. And the energy will just be coming out of my hands, I'm not going to be moving them up and down, I'm just going to be sending it. This is divine intelligence that will be going wherever it needs to go. I don't need to push it, direct it, or anything else, I'm just holding the space, holding the merged space, transfigured into the light quality of my spiritual guide.

(removes watch and glasses) The metaphor that I'd like you to think of, P, is how about one of these, either a sponge–you know how a sponge is dry, you know the little sponges and you put them in and they just (poof! expand). So you're just going to soak up the light because the light is healing, the light is where you come from, and your light will just come up to meet the light.

You don't have to do anything, you can just imagine yourself as a sponge, or you can imagine a plant., You know when a plant is needing water and then you give it water and it just sits up. How's that? Either one.

Q: When you say you're inviting your guide is there a specific one or you're just going to say, "Whoever ..."

Heather: No, I'm going to a specific one and you'll be going to a specific one today, too, that you've been working with. You're not going to invite in one that you haven't worked with yet.

Q: So it's going to be one of the guides that we've (worked with), it could be the animal one, or the higher guide...

Heather: Yes.

P: My intention is just to...

Heather: ... to soak up the light. Not mine, The Light. Because I'm not sending my energy in, my energy is--each person has their unique code. So if I try and give my energy to her, first of all then I'll be losing my energy. Secondly, it's like putting an overcoat on her that's not the right size. It would be like putting, it's just dampening her, it's not helping her. My energy isn't going to help her. It's always never what we do, it's the light coming through and out our hands that's coming through. So it's the light of the spirit guide that I'm transfigured into, that I'm merged with. Does that make sense?

Never what we're doing. When you're doing Reiki you're never healing the person, the energy, Reiki is God's energy. Rei, God; ki, energy, in Japanese. So it's never us doing the work.

Q: So this is the same model that we'd be using, say, if you had a client come for a Reiki session.

Heather: Right. When I'm doing Reiki I go to that place and I will place hands on and do the Reiki because people come and they want to have hands on, and after awhile I'll push back and then I'm going to be sending you energy. You're just holding it, sending energy. We call it magnetic passes in Brazil, but it's divine light because it's coming from the spirit guide who is coming from a higher source and he's generating it down, but we're merging with his formless divinity. So he's not having to compress into form, he's able to be Light...

So I'm just going to drum for myself, here... (a couple minutes of drumming, then quiet during the session)

So I continue to focus on seeing you divine and perfect, and your light body just coming into alignment or coherence with your divinity.

...

P: You want me to tell you what I experienced? I had my eyes closed so I don't know what you were doing, but...

Heather: I went out for a walk, actually! (laughter)

P: ...The vibration of the drum is very powerful and seems to just expand vibration of <background noise> anyway. And when it stopped, there was sort of a lessening for a very short period of time, and then it seemed like, maybe because of the suggestion of the left side, I felt much more vibration in the hand, the left hand, and then it seemed to be streaming through a muscle that I've had pulled in the back and neck. And then that relaxed and then there was just a sense of the energy expanding more and more and kind of merging and feeling the energy in the floor and feeling the rain and energy of the rain, just sort of all melding and just going out. And then when you touched my hand, I thought I was supposed to come back into my body more to consciousness, so I just kind of let go of...

Heather: That's interesting about your neck because the image I got was, your neck was kind of on a rubber band pulled up, and then settled back into its place. It sort of shifted and then your body stretched out.

Thank you, thank you very much.

Afterwards, if Barbara is willing, I'd like to demonstrate a Siberian drum healing, on you. Bringing the light through the drum for your shoulders. (Barbara has spoken of shoulder pain caused by arthritis in the shoulders) Through the beat of the drum rather than through the hands.

Barbara (off mic): As you were drumming and working, an experience, which I often have when working with people, of, it's not spirit incorporating in my body but more just present as when I'm paraphrasing Aaron. And to hold my hands out as you were, and had feelings of spirit's energy moving through. The experience was different in that it was not... it was different than what you described. It's what I often experience, though, that as spirit is moving through me to offer support to another, I also feel their energy moving in me. I was experiencing healing...

Heather: ... as it came through.

Barbara: I think we're inviting the highest expression of wholeness of P's body down there. I was feeling as they moved through me that they were inviting the same highest expression of wholeness in me. Is that accurate?

Heather: Yes, perfect. Because you are transfiguring into your light, your highest expression of your being. The light is flowing through, if you will, so you are healing as that light comes through you.

Barbara: And as that makes it available to others. Aaron just said, no self or other! Just one healing light, one body.

Heather: And everything comes into coherence, everything comes up to match.

(informal break)

(sharing)

Heather: So the black goo is just showing you images that it's working. I never get freaked out by things like that because it's just showing you... otherwise I'd get bored, "Oh, nothing's happening here, what can I do now?" It's the universe just showing you images saying, "Keep focused there..."

Okay, Barbara, this is from Siberia...the idea being that I'm connecting to source, God's light, and asking the light to come through the drum. Sometimes it will be close, sometimes it will be far, as I'm guided. I will let the guidance take the drumbeat. Barbara's just going to receive, just opening up to receive the blessings. To come into coherence with her divinity and perfection. Aaron can help too; he's part of the Light!

(drumming followed by long silence)

Barbara(off mic): That turtle was back, a tortoise, not a turtle. I think it was from a past life. It had something lodged in its shell. Just here, where the shell comes up by the neck, so that it could not move the leg, cold move just one leg. The other leg, from doing all the work, was also very painful. And this side was so painful it could not move it at all. And I was able to remove, it was a rock, I was able to remove it for it and feel the release of it, and feel how I was still carrying that in my shoulders. Just to let go, to give him the blessing of release of that rock or cracked shell particle and to feel that shift in my own body, and the potential for that shift.

Now, I still have severe osteoarthritis in my shoulders, but I know that the perfect shoulders are there along with the osteoarthritis, and are capable of healing.

Heather: What I saw was, especially on this side, that as I drummed it was first like shards of, looked like shards of glass. But it was like gold-colored, hard, sharp energy. So to give me a feeling that it was hard and brittle energy. And as the drum was releasing into that it eventually just released, and then all this inflammation came out. Lots and lots of inflammation.

Barbara: It felt like the drumming, like I said I reached in and pulled out the rock, but it felt like the drum's energy was drawing this out.

Heather: It was like inflammation and stagnant energy, a pus-like quality, and then it just became like a beautiful flower, closing and closing and closing until it became smoothed over. And then I just kept focusing on the divinity coming back, of your shoulder, remembering its divine code of absolute perfection. So for a day or two it might be as if it's being manipulated, painful, too. Use some Casa water, too.

Barbara: When I swim every day it's less painful. This week I have not been swimming, so it's more painful.

Heather: Use a poultice today with Casa water, with a washcloth, leave it on for 20 minutes or so.

Barbara: I could feel just what you described. I could feel... the drum and my intention dislodged this. And this tortoise was so patient but in so much pain. And I had the sense he had been in pain a long time. I had the sense he had borne this pain for a long, long time. And there was just such a sense of gratitude and release. And I could feel myself as him, the whole thing just opening and releasing.

Heather: And that would feel like a stone, hard. Symbolically they're very similar, the metaphors. One was sharp, metal-like, hard, brittle, and then yours was a stone, hard, and really under the casing of the tortoise, would be rubbing, rubbing, creating inflammation. The metaphors are slightly different but they're actually the same story, because everybody has their own imagery.

Thank you.

Okay, so you guys are ready to work on each other, now. We don't need to do anything, the spirit guides do it all. We're merging with them and then their light comes through. How's that sound?

(group arranges themselves and prepares for healing session)

Heather: Take a deep breath. Feel yourself fully present. And just go over that meditation again. Just imagine yourself drawing in the light, coming down your branches, down through your crown, flowing down. Down your body, inside and outside, connecting to your light body. Feeling the light inside your core permeating out. Connecting. Washing through all your organ cells and tissues, feeling them lighting up.

Light running down through and out your feet, rooting down into the ground, so the light is coming down through your crown, connecting through the filament of light within you and permeating out. Expanding out. And coming out and flowing out into your field, expanding your field out, grounding you down into the earth. So lightning is to be grounded and you're calling in the light to ground down into the earth, to ground you, focus you. So it is with focus, union with our higher selves, the intention, the highest good in the divine right order, to merge (light drumming begins)...I'm going to take you in the journey to your spirit guide. If you feel drawn to go to your power animal, if you feel close enough already, ask your power animal or the spirit guide you've been working with if they will please drop their form and let you merge with their expansive divinity.

And then to bring the healing light through you, through your hands, for the person you're working with...

(drumming, partners switch, tape running during informal sharing and chatting)

(continue with spirit canoe)

Heather(off mic): Spirit canoe is from the Salish community, from out west. So what we're doing... you're going to be rowing (all using paddling motion as in a canoe), this is the community (something about the shaman) and this is the person who needs help, down the river of Source, if you will. You don't want to be rowing like this, because we're going to be putting our intention in it. So you're going to imagine you're rowing in water <lost to background noise>. And you'll build up a sweat doing this. <lost to background chatter> You're the drummer,... the drummer is at the back drumming us along. ... So you're rowing with intention, the idea is, the intention is, <lost to background noise> so that I can bring back <> spirit guides <> highest healing. So that when I rattle, the drummer who will change the beat of the drum... (not able to follow for several minutes, Heather is adjusting arrangement of people, can't hear her over chatter)

<This is a community> going in search of healing for our beloved sister, here.

(new recording file, Heather on mic)

So we're rowing down the river of non-ordinary reality in search of healing for our sister. And I'm going to be journeying to bring back an animal spirit guide. It will be a power animal to bring her back medicine for her highest healing and well-being, in divine right order. So you're journeying down the river and rowing. You're rowing like this... (group says "paddling")–paddling, okay. But you're really putting your focus, you're in focus, in harmony, in union with your divine essence. Okay?

Then when you hear me rattle, then this side will raise your oars. This side will continue to paddle so we turn, right? We're going to turn the boat around. Just for a couple of minutes, it's symbolic, and then you'll start rowing again and bring the canoe back to land, back to the home port. Okay? So you'll hear this, she'll change the drum beat, really fast for about 30 seconds, and then you'll carry on rowing again. When you hear her doing a fast drumbeat, the right-hand side raises the oars and the left-hand side continues to row, paddle.

And by the time you get back to port, I'll be long-gone. I'll be having dinner! Now I have to find the power animal for you and I'll be bringing back, if it's all right with you, blowing it into your field...Okay? Alright, are we all set?

(spirit canoe journey)

So thank you, great crew...

So we give thanks to the helping spirits for this canoe that has taken us down the river of source, to restore health and vitality and healing, the right way. And to all the crew, the spiritual, the seen and the unseen, we thank you...

(break)

So first of all I was taken to a scene of a waterfall and something that I'll explain to N afterwards, when I've got clarity with her, I'll speak to her in private about it. And then down the river, carried on down the river looking for the animal spirit guide. Then I was taken up off the canoe, the canoe stopped, taken up right into the high trees. Then there were like 15 or 20 of these big blue morpho butterflies...I've actually never brought one back before in all these years. They were all up there. Then just one big one came down and this was your butterfly.

She had a soul retrieval and butterfly–when you have a soul retrieval an animal spirit guide comes to fill you with power. So then I brought the 2 back in...

(further dialogue about the canoe journey)

I think what would be nice for us to do now is create the circle, we'll close, we'll thank the spirits. We'll thank them for this because in the evening Aaron is going to take over. I'd like to show you a Quechua namaste that we could do, the light in me honors the light in you. Or, from my heart to your heart. If you'd like to learn that, I think Barbara already knows it.

(sharing about canoe journey)

Alright, shall we create the circle, then?... Let's hold hands...

Beloved spirits of light, entities of light, compassionate spirits, our power animals, teachers and guides, angels and archangels, the spirits of nature, compassionate spirits of this land, keepers of this land and home, the orbs of light, the faeries, Mother Earth, Father Sky, Grandmother Moon, Grandfather Sun, and all the stars and the planets of the universe, to all the winged and animal creatures, all the sentient beings that have been helping us, we thank you.

We thank Aaron and all our power animals, teachers, and guides who have been so palpably present with us, and Aaron's 2 spiritual friends, the Brother of Light and the Sister of Light, our higher selves and our personality selves for being willing to go through this process.

Thank you for all the dolphins, the lake, and all Mother Nature's beautiful beings, the plants, the trees. Thank you for reminding us that we all come from one source, one creator. And remember that we can go to the trees and the plants to get strength and energy, choosing a nice tall straight tree and embracing it, or putting your back against it to give you strength down your spine.

We thank the owls that greeted us last night. We look forward to hearing you tonight. And the work is done for today. Help us to continue our search as we seek to evolve, to serve the light, to become compassionate and loving in all that we do and say, in every moment. Radiating the light within us, letting it permeate our being, coming into our fields so we can shine like the brightest star in the sky. Because nobody tells the stars not to shine brightly.

So let your essence envelop your whole being and guide you through the joyful, healthy, exhilarated life, feeling absolute gratitude, appreciation, and joy in every moment.

We thank also the compassionate ancestor spirits and the compassionate descendent spirits for all your wisdom and grace. Thank you for hosting us.

OOMMMM....(group chants)

And so we're going to do the Quechua (shungu/sounds like shoongoo). So I'm going to have you hold hands so I can help you do this... We'll start with Barbara. Would you hold your hands together? Barbara is going to put her hand here (on the heart). And, from my heart to, shungu, the word is shungu. Keep it here, say shungu. Looking into each other's eyes. That means from my heart to your heart, namaste...

(shungu around the circle)

Shungu Pachamama! Pachamama means the earth and the universe and everything in between. It's from Ecuador, Quechua...

(session ends)

August 28, 2009 Venture Fourth Fall Intensive, Friday evening

Keywords: crystals, Lemuria, guided crystal meditation

Aaron: We're going to do one more, I hesitate to call it a journey, but adventure, tonight, and then have some time to ask questions to me and Heather. Heather will be with us for a short time tomorrow morning but is leaving before 10. Then we will pick up our program from there... (scheduling changes)

Heather, I am so grateful to you for what you have offered here. It has been a true blessing to have you here. Thank you.

We talked about this last January, I shared my vision with Heather, and these days were just what I hoped they would be. I think it has opened many doors for all in this group. We of course welcome you back at any time if you'd like to come and participate and just visit the program, not to put you back to work but just to visit.

You have all had the experience of meeting your power animals, guides, your higher selves, and have opening to your own power. Some of you have met these blessed companions, some of you have not yet fully connected with them, and I know you will because they are there. They want nothing more than for you to be aware of them. They want nothing more than to be able to assist you, as I do.

People ask me, "Why do I incorporate in Barbara? What do I get out of it?" My joy is service. My joy is to help alleviate human suffering and to bring forth peace, happiness and understanding, to help you be a little less confused with this whole human experience.

You've had a meditation connecting with the lake. Many of you have done meditations with me before connecting with the elements, and we did a bit of that this week. The tree, here (pointing out the window to a large tree . I've noticed a lot of you connecting with this tree. A lot of love is going out to that tree and coming back to you.

Trees, of course, are sentient beings, as are butterflies and whatever other animals you connected with. You don't normally think of a crystal as a sentient being, but a crystal has intelligence. It's awake. It does not experience emotion in the way you know emotion; it's really a Lemurian object. It has a physical structure, a physical body. It has an intelligence that I would hesitate to call a mental body. It doesn't think and plan in the ways that you think of as mental thought, but it has intelligence, and it has the ability to communicate its intelligence. It does not have an emotional body that suffers through emotional upheavals, but it's capable to experience love, and to generate love.

If by accident it fell on the floor and shattered, it would not experience pain, but if somebody in anger threw it with the intention to destroy it, it would experience sadness. Pain of a sort, not suffering, but pain. Pain for the emotion that was so overwhelming that it brought about its destruction, and that it could not communicate its love successfully and help heal that anger and fear.

So these crystals are alive (pointing to Barbara's tray of crystals). There are many kinds of crystals. Some are very clear. This is not quite clear one... (holding a crystal). This one is very clear; there is almost no grain in it. It has certain qualities because of its clarity.

Some have what we call rainbow light in them. When you hold them up they reflect different colors of the rainbow through the texture within.

They are different kinds of quartz. Here we have rose quartz, and a smaller, more pale rose quartz. Rose quartz has many qualities that connect with the heart chakra.

This more lavender colored crystal has a lot of rainbow light in it. It also connects with the heart chakra but also a lot with the third eye. Many of them connect with all the chakras. Some are more powerful with one chakra or another.

They have different shapes. This one has a large flat plane coming up to a point. It's a very useful crystal if there is a place where energy is contracted, to help to release that energy a bit. Like an eraser, almost. And then the point can be used to bring energy in, in that way that you hold the crystal against your hand so that the energy is coming through you and in. When working with the flat plane to release, I don't hold it against my hand, I don't want it to release into me, I'll hold it this way (demonstrating) inviting it down into the earth. It soaks up the energy, the pain, distorted energy, and then releases it.

This one has a double point. Usually there's a male and female end with a double point, and when you hold it, the one end gives off more female energy and the other way more of a male energy.

This one is very neutral in its polarity, no strong male or female end. But a crystal like this is often very good for healing because you hold the point into your hand, and your hand, instead of being a flat surface at the base, there's a point, the point is more able to collect the energy that's coming into you–not your energy, the energy you're opening to. Flowing into and then out toward whatever it is that is seeking healing. So it serves the way a magnifying glass serves when you have the sunlight shining into it, and then the magnified light shines down on a piece of paper and it can become very hot.

This 2-pointed crystal has a special ability to give off more energy for the being who is capable of drawing in that energy and sending it out for healing purposes.

I don't know the names of all of these in English. This one with yellow light is especially good for healing illness, especially supportive of the one who is, let me phrase it carefully–all of you have distortions of the physical body, but for one who has distortions that are of greater concern, not just a temporary distortion of overcoming the surgery but something like abdominal problem or heart problem, this can be a very powerful healer.

The blue crystal can be very helpful with the throat chakra. There are different kinds of blue crystals but any crystal of this particular energy helps open the throat. The predominant color of the throat chakra is blue. This energy helps to support the throat chakra.

Many years ago Barbara had a blue pendant, not as big as any of these, but on a chain. It was the first year when she began to channel me. She was learning how to open the throat chakra and use the energy of the throat chakra, and she literally leached all the color out of the blue crystal! It became white. It lost all its color. Of course the throat chakra was energized. It was a small price to pay.

This (one) has a lot more rainbow light in it, like this crystal does or some of these. Here's one with a lot of rainbow light in it. Not sure if you can see it... Can you see the rainbow light in it at all? You really have to hold it up to the sunlight... So this has the lavender color that supports the third eye and it also has rainbow light which is especially strong for healing.

This crystal has different qualities. It has some rainbow light in it, quite a bit, small sparkles of rainbow light, good for healing. But it's not a lavender-colored crystal in the same way that supports the third eye, it more supports the solar plexus chakra and the opening of the solar plexus.

Take a look at this one, Heather, it's very interesting. Can you see the little specks of rainbow light in it?

Heather: Oh, yes I can... Very warm, here's lots down here, rainbow light...

Q: Are diamonds crystals and do they have this energy?

Aaron: Diamonds are a form of crystal, yes. They are crystals. These crystals are cut, very much cut, but they are not as highly shaped as a diamond. A crystal likes more to be left in its natural state. Sometimes it's cut at one end and left natural at the other. Different crystals have different work to do in the world. People tend to like the appearance of the ones that are cut. They are not always the most powerful ones.

Each crystal has its own story to tell and its own work to do. So cut ones can be powerful. The diamond has often been so severely cut and manipulated that it loses some of its power. So it's a crystal but it's been deprived of its power in the attempt to beautify it.

Green is good for the heart, as is the rose quartz. Green is also helpful with the abdomen and spleen. Finally, for those who are deeply connected to the outdoors, a green crystal can help you connect to the environment.

I'm glossing over this really very quickly. I'm not a crystal expert. I don't even know the English language names of most of these. Clear quartz, yes, and rose quartz. But I don't know the English language names of them–do you know the English language names of them all?

Heather: This is smoky quartz... citrine... amethyst... (informal discussion of names)

Aaron: We'll show you a picture of a large uncut crystal or partially cut crystal. Sodalite is a very calming energy. I said it's good for the throat chakra, which is so, but it also has a very quiet, calming energy, good for somebody who is experiencing agitation.

Q: Can you explain "all crystal is intelligent"?

Aaron: Perhaps not in words but we're going to do a guided meditation with these and perhaps you'll discover the answer for yourself. I'm not sure I could articulate it. Can you, Heather?

Heather: I connect to them, I believe as Aaron does, by connecting to the essence, to their divinity, and then hearing them... (inaudible) ...You can connect to the divinity and then feel the energy and divine presence.

Aaron: There's more, though. That's helpful but there's one more part to it. You know from your experience with the study of karma that the cells in your body, the individual cells carry a karmic pattern, and that karma is passed literally through the cellular structure of the body.

For example, Barbara had bad damage to this foot in several past lives. She came into the incarnation not with an apparently damaged foot but with it more prone to damage. Some of you literally seem to have been born with a bad knee or bad back. It started to ache at a young age. It was always troublesome, maybe before you were 10 or 12 you kept spraining one knee, or kept finding you had headaches or stomachaches.

This is the cellular message being passed literally into the body, the flow of karma in the body. The being who has stomachaches in one lifetime after another has the opportunity to bring healing not only to this lifetime's stomach ailments but to the whole history that brought forth these stomach ailments. For example, a tendency to hold anger in the belly, tighten the belly. So one begins to look at that pattern and see how it can be released. And the healing of it in this body heals it back through time.

Now, in the same way, crystals carry an imprint literally from the time of Lemuria. They have a memory, so that if you hold the crystal, and much in the same way as you went to your power animals and asked for help for some kind of question, and received an answer to some kind of question, if you hold the crystal and ask the question, you begin to get an answer, after you've become friends with the crystal and get to know it.

So it's hard to explain the intelligence but you will start to feel that the answer is coming from the crystal. Now the answer is not specifically coming from the crystal, it's coming from your interconnection with the crystal, and the force of that energetic connection. But the crystal does have a memory of what the Earth was like in these days before there was the forgetting of your deepest truth. When you work with the crystal it helps you to remember who you are.

So it's that kind of intelligence. It's not the kind of intelligence that can do algebra. It's the kind of intelligence that knows your highest being and can remind you of it and steer you back to it. But it can, I would not say communicate in words so much as in feelings and images, though sometimes in words.

It's not here now but Barbara has a round, sodalite crystal. When people come to see her who are very agitated and sitting there squirming, she hands it to them. She says, "Just sit and hold it a few minutes," and invariably they calm down. It just reminds them of that which is calm and centered in themselves.

So it's this kind of intelligence.

I do not know if I can answer your further questions about crystals but I'm happy to hear them. There are good crystal books that will tell you about the specific qualities of different kinds of crystal. What's more important to me is that you take a crystal and hold it and begin to speak to it, to get to know it as a friend, just as you did your power animals today or your guides.

With that end in mind, when we were last at the Casa, Barbara selected a tray full of crystals. I pointed out this one, that one, that one. Of course, none of you had enrolled in the program yet so I did not have specific people in mind, only crystals that I thought had good, strong, clear loving energy and the ability to communicate, and a variety of types of stones.

So since you've now enrolled in the program, I've chosen one for each of you. And if you will allow me to choose it for you rather than to pass the tray around, I will be giving you the crystal that I feel is most harmonious, not only with your own energy but with your own needs. And with what will be most supportive to you. It might not be the one where you would look at the box and say, "Oh, I like that one." But I would encourage you to work with the crystal I've given you. If anybody truly dislikes their crystal, let me know and I'll see if I can choose a different one for you.

So I'm going to get up...(distributes crystals)

In Lemuria, everything has a crystalline base so the crystals were not used for healing. There was no illness of that sort to heal. If there was distortion, people sang to the distortion. It was healed in imagery or simply holding the ever-perfect. If people wanted to cut blocks of crystal to make a building, a group of people together might sing to a giant crystal stone and literally cut it in that way and levitate into place. If a being experienced some kind of distortion, but very few did, harmonics were used to heal.

So what you have here is not crystals as they were used in Lemuria but crystals that have the memory of Lemuria. In other words, memory of that plane of awakenedness, that plane of power and wholeness. Your crystal can communicate that memory to you.

Q: I have 2 questions about Lemuria. One is, can you tell us when this timeline was? ...

Aaron: Long ago. Your linear time completely escapes my comprehension. I do not function in that linear time. When was Lemuria in existence? Now. Everything is now. But linearly it was an earlier now than Atlantis.

Q: The other question is, can you describe these beings, what they looked like? I'm having a hard time imagining crystal-based life form. Did they look like people with hands and walk around and have kids?

Aaron: Water is a form of crystal. Bearing that in mind, you know that water is fluid. So these weren't rigid beings. It was not crystal in this kind of form; it was simply a crystalline essence.

The beings in appearance were very tall and slender bearing both masculine and feminine energy but not sexually oriented one way or another. They did not have sexual organs in the same way you think of them. They were very beautiful beings.

Q: Humanoid looking?

Aaron: Humanoid looking, very much humanoid looking, but tall and slender. Flowing, graceful. The top of the skull was large, there was a large brain, basically a human face, long slender fingers. An inner glow. Clothing was worn but not because there was some cultural prohibition against nakedness but rather because it was a beautiful fabric or drapery for beauty's sake. So the naked body might be beautiful and the naked body might be draped to accentuate certain flow or colors. There was an inner ability to radiate the predominant color that was desired in coordination with the fabric.

There was no hair as you think of it, but one did not look at them and say, "Oh, they're bald." One would not call this bald, just beautifully patterned, and the texture, the lines of the crystal radiated through the inner skull and the patterns changed, just as this crystal, when I hold it up to the light you can see the colors in it... (pause)

I want to be sure that none of you are thinking, "Ah, I got my crystal just at the end so I didn't get the one he meant for me." (inaudible over laughter) D, do you see all the rainbow light in yours?

D: Not yet.

Aaron: Can you see it in this light? No? Tomorrow in the daylight. That has perhaps the most rainbow light so share it with the others and let them see how that rainbow light looks.

Q: As soon as I sat down with the crystal, I felt all this love coming for the crystal. I felt the crystal loving me. It was so beautiful.

Aaron: I'm very happy to hear that. Truly I chose amongst hundreds of crystals, all of these crystals had strong loving energy. I did not specifically designate in my mind, this is for this person, this is for that person, so much as a cluster of them, one of these for this person, one of the rose quartz for that person. But they're somewhat interchangeable. It would have been fine if I had given you a different one instead and you would have felt the same loving energy from it.

Part of what you're feeling is the Casa energy. All of these, when I say they've been blessed by the Casa entities, I did not pick them up one at a time and say, "Please bless this for me to give it away." But Barbara brought them all into the Current room, a few at a time, and sat with them 3 or 4 at a time, open in front of her, to let that energy come into them and invite the entities to bless each one, with the intention that she would be giving it away.

Q: The crystal showed me Abadiania right away.

Aaron: Good, good! And also just before Barbara came here they all were cleansed with Casa water. So anything that got into them in the months since she came back from Brazil was released.

Before it gets too late, let us now dim the light, not all the way off but dim, and let's do a guided meditation with these...

First I want you simply to hold your crystal and feel the weight and texture of it in your hands. Acquaint yourself with it. Let the eyes be closed. Just feeling the energy. No attention at this point to whether it's clear or with rainbow lights, lavender or rose. Just feeling the energy of it.

Introduce yourself as you would to any new friend. "My name is... Hello. I thank you for coming into my life. I welcome you as a friend. And I know that we will share much together."

Imagine how it might be to sit with a new friend and just look into each other's face and eyes, no talking necessary at first, just getting the feel of each other. Feel your crystal in this way, connecting with it.

Now again thank it for being willing to come to you, and ask it, what do you have to teach me? Why have we come together? Simply raise the question without seeking some kind of articulate answer. Raise the question and let it go.

Whatever images might come, colors or lights, realistic images, just note them. Inviting a language to develop between you and your crystal. It may take some time for that language to develop just as it takes time for any friendship to blossom.

The crystal of course will not answer questions like, "Which job should I take?" Rather, it will respond to questions like, "What blocks my heart from opening? Or "Can you help me break through whatever separates me from knowing my true being?"

Try to trust and follow whatever kind of message you get, even if it sounds a bit silly at first hearing it.

A few of you are getting a message from your crystals, and yes you can trust it, to focus on a certain color or light, so do so.

A few of you are getting messages to breathe in a different pattern, deeper into the heart or into the belly. Try it.

Take your crystal now and bring it up to the heart, with awareness of the heart chakra. Do this regardless of whether it's a clear quartz or rose quartz or green, whatever it may be. Invite it into your heart. Ask it to help you relate to the radiant heart within the self, to awaken that radiant heart.

Feel it begin to melt into your body, not so much to touch the heart but to become the heart. You may begin to feel the pulsation in it.

I repeat that I chose crystals of a very high vibration, a very positive polarity. As it melts into the heart, feel the love it offers and simply love it back.

Feel its energy begin to flow upward into the throat and third eye and crown. And downward into the solar plexus, the sacral chakra, the base.

Let it help support the alignment of this energy from base to crown, inviting it to help you to open the chakras. We've not yet done work with the chakras here, and we will not do so this week but in November or March.

Meanwhile, just hold it to the heart, allowing it to melt into the heart and feel its energy moving up and down, feeling the chakras opening, as the crystal invites opening. The heart is the center.

Now bring the crystal down to the base chakra just above the pelvic bone. Ask it to help support energy coming into the base chakra, life energy, joy. You may feel a throbbing in that area, pulsation. You may feel energy coming up the spine.

Hold it up now near the navel, the sacral chakra, and again invite opening, asking it to support the opening of this second chakra. You may find it helpful to hold the crystal against the sacral chakra point, over the navel, and very lightly with your fingers, to create a small vibration with it, just a very light touch.

And now, bringing it up to the solar plexus. We never force the opening of the chakras, we invite. Let your crystal help you to invite opening. If something feels closed, simply touch it with love, and again, use that very small, gentle vibration.

And up to the heart. Breathing it into the heart. And up to the throat. Depending on your crystal, you'll experience different results with these chakras. Every crystal will support the opening of every chakra but some will be especially receptive to one chakra or another. For example, the blue one that P received will be especially helpful in opening the throat chakra.

Moving it up now to touch the third eye. D, you'll find your chakra is especially powerful here. J, yours also.

Moving it up to the crown. Some of you are wondering if there's any special part of the crystal that should be touching the chakra. It's fine that the point touch but it doesn't have to be the point, whatever feels comfortable for now. As the months go by we'll learn more about how to work with these crystals.

Feeling the energy coming up to the crown. And then releasing out through the crown. Bring the crystal back to the heart and let the chakra feel like a fountain, light radiating out of the crown chakra, releasing, for the highest good of all beings. Offer the intention, "Through my melding with this crystal, may all beings be served. May all beings benefit with increased ease, joy, and peace. I offer this energy for the highest good of all beings and in the service of love."

Now, thank your crystal. You don't really need words, let your heart speak your gratitude for this beautiful new friend.

(bell, bell, bell)

We'll do a lot more work with these in the coming weeks. We'll explore the tones that go with each chakra and how the crystals can relate to and help to invite the opening of the chakras. We'll explore how we work with chakras. Perhaps we'll do a bit of that this weekend, perhaps not until November.

For now, simply get to know your crystal, in the same way you're getting to know your guides, higher self, and power animal. It is part of your support team. Let us pause here.

(recording ends)