In a recent beginning…
I’ve been thinking about that first year of teaching the spirit guide workshops. It really impacted me deeply. I was extremely busy in my life, and deciding to teach an additional different workshop each month was kind of crazy. Every month was a different animal, a different energy, a different animal card to create, different practices to develop, altars to plan, inquiries to attend to - and for the first year of workshops I included a month-long exploration of practices so students could dive into the energies too. These were pages and pages and pages of information and practices. I felt strongly about having the additional offerings because there is no way you can build a relationship in 2 or 3 hours. It was a lot of prep work. I often asked myself - why? Why am I doing this?
The answer? These classes needed to be birthed through me. There was a creative energy at work that was so powerful, no force of reason (ummm, look at your packed schedule and million responsibilities) was going to get in the way of them being manifest. I was on a deep personal journey that would strengthen me in powerful ways.
I immersed myself in connecting with them. Every spirit was one I had experience with, but it felt important to pour my attention intensely into our relationship in order to teach from an embodied understanding. No two workshops were the same - I set a relatively low cap on the number of people who could register - and people who hadn’t made it in would ask, “when are you going to teach Hawk or Owl or Panther again?” And I knew that I wasn’t going to. The energies needed to move through me and though it would be “smart” of me financially to teach them over and over, I mean I’d invested hours and days and weeks on each experience and going forward everything would already be prepped and planned. If I taught any of them again, I could really just show up and teach. But my gut said: No way. No part of me was interested in that. Something about the immediacy of the experience, the rawness of it was important.
And they were very real. Some were a fantastic success and some were a complete struggle, but that was okay. Life wanted me unfiltered, unpolished. I look back and shake my head (ohhh, I would do xyz thing so different now!) But they were very true and sincere offerings of me doing the best I could at any given moment to share the message I was meant to express. The true reason they happened was because the guides wanted my full attention and I believe they also the attention of some of my students. Each spirit had something important to show me or remind me of or protect me from. Up to this point, I had done quite a bit of inner work - years and years actually and I have had strong connections with unseen guides and teachers for a long time. Something about exploring life with these particular guides, with such a concentrated focus over that first year opened me in new and different ways. I was ready to do the work and they were so available to help.
I know that these helping spirits are available to everyone. My sense is that they very much want to assist us. They want to see us grow and flourish and do the work. They are calling on us to experience life in a different way. To trust the longings of our hearts and to move into the aliveness that is offered to us in each and every moment.
I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my human teachers. The women who threw the rule books out, refused to be gurus and instead asked and insisted that I trust my own experiences. I share this with you to say that I offer some ideas and guidance here, but I am not an expert on YOUR relationship with the energies. They will reveal themselves to you when the time is right, don’t trust any book or website or teacher over your direct experience and insights - you’ve got this. Do the work and have lots of fun!!