A good reminder this evening how quickly and often unknowingly we can take on the pain of another; especially if we are a daughter and this is our mother and we are trying to lessen the burden.

A clear image of a woman being battered occurred in a session tonight. In the often less than linear world of energy/spirit/consiousness, it seemed this was an experience belonging to the woman on the the table. It was SO much part of her body. 

Generally, if the pain belongs to someone else, it sets up in different ways in the body. In my experience, it generally sits to the side or has the feeling of 'other'. However, this woman's physical and emotional body trauma was so present, so thick and full, I did not even think of it belonging to someone else and was hesitant to even bring it up though I was feeling guided to say something even if I stumbled o
n my words. There was also an element of ambivalence and confusion for me. I had no clear way to approach it and saw an immense wisdom and fight in this woman on the table and did not know how to best say what I was seeing without adding any coloration. I find myself, at times, knowing enough to trust what I am seeing without knowing all the facets of his shape.

But then I think that is the beauty of human experience and consciousness; not becoming trapped in the "knowing".

When I asked her about it, the dialogue soon explained that this physical pain was her mother's. 

So interesting.

I have felt a similar connected-trauma in another woman's foot. In that instance, it was her father's foot. It had a certain other but still so much hers; embodied in a way that pain does not often become if it is not our own.

The immense beauty, I think, of existence on this earth is the way in which we are all connected and by learning from each piece of the whole we unravel ourselves and vice versa.

In the end, there is no separation and no other and no reason not to love one another; the entire self. It is amazing how this often scares us. How interesting for us to be afraid of love; unconditional.

"From a medicine point of view, the most important event in a woman's life is the birth of a child because that birth allows a woman to enter fully into the woman's spiritual community. Heretofore, she could participate in various ceremonies in various capacities, but she was largely excluded from women's secrets, most of which refer to the woman's medicine way. Having traversed the borderland between life and death in childbirth, she is welcomed into the community of matrons and her true instruction in the woman's way begins. In this period she learns the discipline of sacrifice: her body, her time, her nutrients, her psyche, her knowledge, her skills, her social life, her economic capacities, her relationship, and her spiritual knowledge and values all are called into the service of her children. This passage, ambivalent at best, pushes her to reach far beyond whatever limits she thought she labored within, making her stronger and more able to follow the rigors of he path of a shaman when the proper time for that specialization arises."  Grandmothers of the Light, Paula Allen Gunn. 

I have decided to move away from being a doula  and am honoring the many past lives of midwifery and herbal training I have had as a mode of channeling that knowledge and wisdom into other sources: the shamanic side of my work, the online education, and my writing.

Crow Medicine is and has been many things over the years, but first and foremost, it is how I live and walk through this world; shifting and changing and living on the border of transitions.

New things to come.

reprinted from http://ancientpathwaystoasustainablefuture.org/1cancer/648/
by Ken Fischmann, PhD

A Parable for Our Time

         People in a town along a river spotted a person drowning in the turbulent waters and attempted to rescue him. The next day they noticed more and more people struggling in the torrent, and redoubled their efforts to save them. They became experts in river rescue and invented more and more ways to try to retrieve and resuscitate the drowning victims.  In fact, as time went on, they became world-famous for their ever-more innovative river rescue techniques, of which they were quite proud.

         However, don’t you think it odd that in all this time, they never thought to look upstream to find out who was pushing these people in? (adapted from Living Downstream, by Sandra Steingraber,)

         In this article, I invite the reader to walk with me upstream, along the banks of that river.