Summer Solstice and Eagle Magic

For the last several years I have taken the solstices and equinoxes as personal holidays. This always includes holding some type of sacred ceremony, and will often involve dancing, camping, fire and meditation. Last weekend, I went out to stay at my friend’s place on the coast for the summer solstice. She lives on 140 acres of beautiful forest just south of Newport. It felt wonderful to arrive in such a natural, sacred place, especially after a few days of hectic appointments. Feeling the need to be sleeping on the earth, I set up my tent in a lovely field near her house.

The whole weekend included many beautiful moments of connection, ceremony and aligning with the vibration of the land, but my highlight experience came on Sunday–the day of the solstice. I had brought my drum with me, and while I had played it the night before during the fire ceremony, I wanted some time alone to drum and sing and pray.

Feeling called to go out to the field where my tent was set up, I waded through the tall grass and flowers to stand under the open sky. I started drumming, and immediately, two birds appeared from over the treeline and started circling toward me. They drifted slowly overhead, and when they reached me I started to sing to them. To my surprise, three more of the same birds appeared and circled to join the previous two! I stood there completely in awe, playing my heartbeat on the drum, feeling the elk hide sing out in reverberating waves and singing my own song to the birds above me. They flapped lazily and drifted across the field, returning again to circle over my head. After several minutes they made their way back over the treeline and beyond my view. I continued to drum and pray, walking through the entire field and marveling at what had occurred.

As I made my way back to the house, I puzzled over what type of birds had graced me with their presence. Their silhouettes against the bright sky made it difficult to distinguish detailed markings, but it was clear that they did not have the white heads and tails of bald eagles. I wondered if they were buzzards or vultures, but they had the fuller-looking feathered heads and flight pattern of eagles, and they were too big to be hawks. In addition, their presence had felt like eagle energy. Still wondering who they were, I entered the house and told my friend what had happened. She told me, casually, “Oh yeah, there are bald eagles that live over beyond that field, and there are five juveniles.”

I felt simultaneously amazed and completely unsurprised to hear that they had been eagles after all. Eagle medicine has been coming through particularly strongly for me lately, and that powerful encounter was maybe the fourth or fifth instance that week (to be followed by another two days later, but that’s a different story).

In musing over my connection with animals (and with birds in particular), I’m wondering why Eagle is presenting itself so dramatically right now. I have cultivated a deep relationship with red-tailed hawk, especially since she gave me my medicine name two years ago, but my interactions with eagle have largely been in the context of speaking with the two ambassadors at the Oregon Zoo. And now I’m feeling silly, because they’re reminding me of all the work I’ve done for them–past life clearing, healing, translating their messages… not to mention they gave me the name of my book (and blog) three years ago. Okay, I guess I do have a connection with eagles. And, as they are reminding me, any representative animal carries the collective energy of their species. Thus, the extensive work I have done with two specific eagles is reflected as working with eagle medicine as a whole.

The fact that they were juveniles also feels particularly interesting to me. Here I am, a fledgling Shaman and healer coming into my calling as a Warrior of the Light, where it feels like my work and energies are shifting around so rapidly that they hardly look the same from day to day. It seems appropriate that these five young birds would reveal themselves to me in their juvenile plumage–on their way, but not quite ready to assume the full decoration and symbolism of a mature eagle’s white feathers.

I hold so much gratitude for these amazing beings, and all members of the animal collective, for guiding me as representatives of Spirit on the earth plane. I am honored to work in service to them and to receive their acknowledgement and blessings in return.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

My Shamanic Qualifications

Something that’s been buzzing around in my brain lately is the idea of “what qualifies me to call myself a Shaman?”

The soul part of me that trusts myself and my guidance knows that I am a Shaman. This is the part that effortlessly receives the messages of the animals, removes energetic blockages, facilitates soul retrieval, shape-shifts, embodies my medicine name, hears Elk sing when I play my drum and channels healing songs and messages from Spirit and our ancestors. This part of me remembers past lives in which I have been a Shaman, healer, elder, medicine woman or man and Spiritual teacher. It is remembering, more than anything else, that has brought these energies to the forefront of my consciousness.

And yet, my ego self always returns to doubt. This part of myself comes up with arguments that focus on me not having much formal training, not being raised in a tradition where Shamanism is taught, not traveling the world to study under Shamans in the jungle, not having gone to Shaman school… you get the idea. (And I include the last one because, apparently, there is such a thing as Shaman school. Hm.)

At this point in the internal debate, my Higher Self always interjects with, “No person can qualify me any more than Spirit can.” My ego has an answer for that, too. It comes back with, “That’s exactly the type of argument used by religious nutjobs to justify atrocious behavior.” Higher Self: “Yes, but I’m empowering people, not doing horrible things.”

In seeking an outside opinion, I’ll run my ideas by people who know me and support my work. Of course they are very encouraging, and yet, I keep asking for validation.

So when I went to the zoo yesterday and asked the same question of the bald eagles, I received a stern lecture. They told me:

Shut up about it already. Every time you ask someone else and look outside yourself for affirmation of something you already know to be true, it comes from Ego. This is the part of you that wants recognition, wants people to pat you on the back and tell you that you are doing a good job. This is the part of you that will get in the way of your work, your purpose and the very thing you profess to want more than anything.

Feeling properly humbled, I asked what I should say to people who doubt me and question my “Shamanic qualifications.” The eagles answered, “It doesn’t matter. The people who Trust will know it to be true.”

I presented the idea to my women’s group this morning (a beautiful group of empaths and healers, whose support and feedback have been enormously valuable) and received a hilarious lecture from my friend, who is also a Shaman. Like me, her knowledge and practice comes largely from remembering. She told me:

My guidance has been that just because you haven’t done it in this lifetime doesn’t mean you haven’t done it before. You’ve been to Shaman School 500 times! You’ve sat in the jungle and eaten the frog 300 times! You’ve had the guy beat you with the stick a thousand times! You’ve pierced yourself, done the ceremonies, been thrown off the ship, burned at the stake and drowned countless times. If you’ve done it so many times already, doesn’t it make sense that at some point you just get to remember and not have to do it all over again?

I agreed–my guidance and past lives have been consistent with that as well. Some of my most potent past life memories have included seeing myself as an Atlantean High Priestess just before the Fall, living as a Lakota medicine man in the 1800s and one particularly vivid memory of being hung for “practicing witchcraft.”

Overall, this exercise in trusting myself, my guidance and Spirit has helped me confront some of my anxieties about the work I do and the way I put myself out into the world. As I prepare to submit some of my writing for publication, I am forced to examine personal insecurities, questions about the roots of my beliefs, fears about criticism and, ultimately, the purpose of sharing my work in the first place.

I can’t imagine a better opportunity for self-examination and growth.