This is a guided journey I took not soon after I started training with Christina Donnel, PhD. I posted this on a yahoo group, so this is a copy and paste of what I wrote there.
Ok, many of you know that I've been going to monthly shamanic study
groups. This particular shamanic study group follows the Incan
Mystery path of the Q'ero of Peru. One of the primary animal totems
they work with is Antarugo (sp?) or Jaguar, who is the Illumined
Warrior and prime Power animal of the West. The direction where one
on the path faces their fear.
Two weekends ago, they had the West 3 day workshop (of which I did
not participate as it is the 2nd direction in the path, and I want to
start with the 1st in the South, and will be starting my 2 year
training in May), and so this week's study group has to do with
things they worked on during the 3 day workshop.
One of those things is the difference between primary and secondary
senses. Secondary senses are those we all use every day,
specifically Americans use them. We see a chair or a table, label
it, move on. Primary senses are where we actually interact with our
environment. We look at a chair, explore how it makes us feel, what
it looks like, what color it is, how it smells, how it feels, maybe
even how it tastes (if we wanna put our tongue on it anyways <G>).
Even explore how the chair feels about us and how it sees us.
Energetically interacting with the chair, so that it becomes part of
our energetic reality, and we can actually sense this.
So to help us open our senses to primarily sense the world around us,
we did an excersize today called Dancing with our Jaguar Bodies. In
shamanic Tradition, when one goes into an altered state of
conciousness and travels or journeys, they are often considered to be
using or in their shamanic body. In the Incan Mystery path, this
body is called your Jaguar body.
Our Shaman, Christina, had some very very cool tracks of music, and
we shut off all the lights.
We were supposed to call Antarugo (the archetypal power animal
Jaguar) to us, and explore how he appeared to us. Male or female,
young or old, black or spotted, etc. Run our hands through his fur.
Smell his scent. Scense him. Then merge with him, become one with
Antarugo and feel what it is like to be Jaguar. See through his
eyes, and feel how it feels for his muscles to tense and relax.
At this point, I was standing and fully into Antarugo. I could feel
my body twitching and hunching as though I were a great cat. I was
engulfed with the feeling of being a Jaguar.
In the past I have had a Black Jaguar come to me in meditation and as
a power animal (recovered for me by a Shaman who once helped me
during a deep depression.) I've always associated my Jaguar body
with a Black Jaguar. But since studying with Christina, my Jaguar
body has been golden with black spots.
Tonight, Antarugo revealed himself as a beautiful golden with black
spots. He was adolescent and wounded. I wanted to heal him, but
Antarugo would not let me. His fur was course, and he smelled like
an animal. He was calm and happy. Content. He'd just eaten from a
kill. I believe he was wounded during his hunt. He came to me
running across a savanah of tall grasses and dried ground.
As the second track of music started, we were to allow Antarugo to
take us somewhere, wherever Antarugo deemed we needed to go. So I
allowed him, and we ran across the Savanah, and into the Jungle.
Through the Jungle we ran until we came across a body of water. It
was both big and small, deep and shallow. We waded across and walked
on the surface, and in the center was a Great tree, I think it was a
Willow, but that may have been my personal impression upon my
perception during this journey, as I am very attached to a Willow.
But considering that my healing invocation includes a Willow, and I
become one with the Willow so that I am both grounded and connected
with the Celestial realms, I believe it was a Willow.
The willow was rotting inside, with worms and grubs. The willow
represented me. But all was not bad, as new roots were growing and
new and healthy bark was growing. Buds were sprouting from new and
healthy branches. But deep seeded disease still persisted in the
tree. These were my issues, my problems, my things to work on, fix,
and purge. But the message wasn't that I had a long way to go, but
rather that I was on the right path, and had started the healing
process.
Now here is where things got REALLY emotional for me. And those of
you who know me well, know that I don't show my emotions very often,
or that strongly when I do. At least not my vulnerability anyways.
And here I am, experiencing this in a room full of women, and all I
want to do is break down and cry.
I don't remember the specific order of the next events, so I'll give
you some snap shots.
I climbed the tree as Antarugo, and saw healthy branches. I also saw
healthy new trees sprouting up around me. My healthy influence on
that which surrounds me.
Antarugo told me, "Don't be afraid to hunt for getting hurt, just go
hunt, that is your lot in life." (My own words back on me, as I told
a young 14 year old in my Karate tournament yesterday, "If you see
it, go for it, don't be afraid to get scored upon or to get hit by
being aggressive. You won't score if you don't go for it.")
I hunted as Antarugo, and we feasted on Zebra. It was bloody, and it
was delicious.
Antarugo showed me myself, first in a pool of water. I looked down,
at the base of the tree, in the body of water it was the center of,
and saw my reflection, or rather my reflection of my Jaguar body. I
looked so powerful, and yet peaceful. Tense, yet relaxed. I was a
great cat, ready for anything. My own face, that which I know when I
look in a mirror in the physical world, sat as a watermark,
transluscent and behind that of my Jaguar face. And Spider Monkey
sat on my shoulder. Fancy that eh? Even when I'm in my Jaguar body,
Spider Monkey is looking out for me. Or perhaps he wanted to
experience it too. Spider Monkeys are notoriously curious after all.
Then Antarugo wanted me to meet myself. So another Jaguar, this one
black, came nose to nose with My Jaguar body. And I looked deep into
the soulfull depths of myself. And I was scared. Antarugo said to
me, "Do not be afraid of yourself. You have power, and you are
power. You will do good with your power. Do not let your fear of
yourself overcome the good you can do. You have a choice, choose to
use what you know, rather than sit on it. Hunt."
As the 3rd track of music started, we were to ask Antarugo what we
could do for him. So I asked, "Can I heal you?" And he
replied, "Heal yourself, and I will be healed."
This was by far, the single most powerful spiritual event I've ever
experienced. And I'm still very emotionally sensitive and
overwhelmed right now. I may cry myself to sleep, if my ego will let
me.
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