The Knowing

I had been downstairs being amazed by the hummingbirds at the feeder prior to going up to record this episode, and so it was a wonderful thing to have Allison pull the Hummingbird + Tigerlily card for us to explore today.

One of my favorite cards (and birds) Hummingbird is a reminder of the (sometimes difficult) medicine of cultivating conscious joy, and recognizing that happiness/magic/awe are all available to us if we practice them. Along with this concept we explore a bunch of related topics in today’s episode:

The difference between traditional/Shamanic healing and Western medicine in how we approach ‘negative’ symptoms.

The work of feeling the human experience fully, and why other dimensional beings crave this (and what this has to do with ceremony)

The evolutionary basis of why your brain loves negativity, and what you can do about it.

Being the ocean/sky rather than the waves/weather.

The practice of Tonglen and why this is beneficial when working with so-called ‘negative’ emotions.

On the day this episode was recorded Allison pulled the Snake + Chickweed card from The Knowing deck. Speaking to the energy of transformation (snake) but also the necessity of ‘protecting’ ourselves during and after a transformative event (chickweed), this card felt wonderfully aligned with the rather intense anger and frustration that has been popping up for a lot of people in the last while.

How are they connected? Why does anger happen during or after we are going through transformation? We explore why this happens for all of us and how to develop mastery in attending to these emerging energies and emotions, along with:

The ‘Vortex’ or Portal that we are currently moving through, and what it is asking of us.

The importance of understanding our relationship to both Fire and Water as elemental experiences.

Understanding our relationship to Divine Masculine (Fire/Will/Third Chakra) energy, and the challenging work of developing mastery with anger.

What it means to be nurturing and sweet to ourselves, and why this is essential work during transformation

When we are doing ‘protecting’ work, is it more beneficial for us to focus on blocking out energies or on nurturing and supporting internal energies?

I think we’ll likely do many, many more future episodes on this topic—it’s a big one!—but hope that today’s conversation at least stimulated some reflection and curiosity for you all.

It is a crazy and unprecedented time we are all living through, and yet this moment in human experience places us in an intensified version of what is, truly, always happening for us: we don’t know how things are going to go.

In this episode we explore the idea of ‘Not Knowing’ and how this relates to Shamanic practice, healing, and life as a whole. Join us as we spin some conversations around:

Looking at what we do with uncertainty: Do we move fast or numb out or blame someone to get away from ‘the knife’s edge’?

Terrain vs Germ theory, and how to apply this to whether we are influenced by other peoples’ energies and emotions

The fear that many of us have that receptivity will = complacency

Becoming a good parent to yourself, and why this is necessary

The most simple and immediate way to become receptive to this moment

Welcome to the first episode of The Knowing. In this episode we introduce both myself and Allison Strickland, a practitioner and student based in New York who I’ve been working with the last several years. We touch upon several subjects, including:

Doing the hard work of healing (it’s a shovel, not a magic wand)

Playing big and playing small

What is ‘The Knowing’?

Being a vulnerable leader/healer/human