Excerpt: A Story from the Soul

It is with love, appreciation, gratitude, and respect that I open myself up to the process of writing from genetic memory. I ask the powers that be to protect me from harm, both physical and mental as I write this story. It is the story of my soul as it has lived through time, persecution, and triumph. Help me to write this story without force and in truth. Allow the words to be written with the passion of the learning, protect my body from those passions so that I can write them without fear of harm. Help me to remember what needs to be told in full. Allow me to learn from this process so that others may learn from it as well. Let the words flow freely, fast enough so that it gets put down, yet not so fast that I forget before I have a chance to type them. I ask all this with humbleness and without constraint.
For those who may at some point read this story, know that it was written for my own education first and with the hopes that others may learn from this story at some point in the future. Please read my words with an open mind, keep in mind that the possibility of genetic memory could be true. As with all things that we say and do, truth is in the perspective of the one telling the story. While you may find what I write impossible, keep in mind that it could be true.
In the beginning, when I was young I knew nothing, and was yearning for knowledge. I thought that if I had knowledge I would be wise. I was young and didn’t know any better. So I struggled to learn all that I could. As a child I was frustrated that my mother could only tell me of what she knew as a mother and as a woman. My father taught me to hunt, that is what he knew. There had to be more, I could sense that there was more. My parents were simple agrarians. They knew how to hunt and keep a garden. I started to observe the world around our home.
I watched the animals that would wander through the woods. I knew hoe to trail them because my father had taught me how to hunt. I noticed that the animals were far from the mindless creatures that my father had said they were. The animals had families, some lived in communities, they had leaders, and they saw what I could not. The more time I spent watching these beautiful creatures the more I was able to see what they saw.
Those that were plant eaters depended on their sense of smell to detect what was around them. They could see what was relatively close to them. They would sniff the air for danger, then for food. At times they would catch a scent and would cry out in such a way that I thought one of them was about to die, yet none fell down dead. When they did this they would all face the same direction, not something that they would do when they smelled a predator. I wanted to know what they saw, and felt, what was it that made them call out in what seemed to be mourning.
The predators would do the same thing. Only they seemed to sense more than their prey. There would be areas that they would avoid, places that appeared to be just fine, yet they would howl and walk around them. The wolves would howl to each other, sometimes next to each other, sometimes I could hear the howling answer of other wolves from miles away. I wanted to know why; I wanted to know what it was they saw. For it did look like they had seen something, even though as I watched I could see nothing.
I kept watching, I learned the habits of the animals I was watching. The animals and birds had richer lives than any of the hunters knew. They watched the migration patterns, not how the animals lived. Because of what I learned, I was a better hunter than my father, and he was the best hunter in the village. I would go into the woods by myself, no one else wanted to go with me, even though I’m sure that others wanted to learn how to be as successful at hunting as I was.
It was at the fall festival that I was honored as the best hunter of the village. There was, of course, a ceremony to celebrate the successful hunts and the abundance of meat that the village would have for the coming winter. The ceremony consisted of a ritual where everyone in the village would gather around in a large circle with the shaman in the middle. He would sing out praises to the god of the hunt, whose name was Mira, and the villagers would repeat what the shaman would say. Then the best hunter of the village would join the shaman in the center, this time it was me instead of my father. A headdress of vines, leaves, and fall berries were placed on my head, and a pelt from an Arok was draped over my shoulders. The shaman then gave me a large staff that signified my hunting skills; it meant that I would be leading the hunts the next year. It was a great honor, and a great responsibility.
The shaman then lit sweet smelling grass, and moved the smoke around me, this was to protect me and thank Mira for his guiding me in the hunts. This time I was the only one to hear and repeat what was said. After this part of the ceremony a bonfire was lit to thank all the gods and to ask for their protection during the winter. Into the fire went a serving of wine, and food, the gods like to know that we are serious about our gratitude and about needing their help over the winter.
Once the gods were fed, the rest of the village began the feasting and drinking. I had to stay with the shaman for the rest of the night. It was from spending the time with the shaman that I learned what it was that the animals were looking at. I also learned that the shaman and others could see what the animals were seeing. I wanted to know if I could learn to see the spirits, for that is what the animals were seeing. The shaman looked me directly in the eyes for a few moments; he seemed to be searching for something inside me. He said that I could be taught to see the spirits and to talk to them.
I never expected to be able to talk to the spirits. This was more than I dared to hope for. What I didn’t realize is that the animals could see them, and knew which ones to avoid and which ones were there to help. I wasn’t even sure that people could even see spirits much less talk to them. This was just the beginning of several lifetimes of learning.
After the ceremony was over, and all the preparations for winter storage were taken care of for my family as well as for the entire village, I began my spiritual journey. The shaman was just the first teacher that I was to have. I am very grateful to him for his patience and willingness to teach me.
The first thing I had to learn was how to quiet my mind so that I could be open to the spirits and guides that are all around me. This was a lesson that was easier said than done. What seemed to come very naturally to the shaman took me a long time to just get the basics. Meditation isn’t supposed to be difficult, in fact the theory is very easy. You close your eyes in a very quiet setting, focus on your slow breathes in and out, and let go of what the mind puts in front of you. I found it very difficult to let the thoughts and images go by me. I felt the intense need to not only look at them, but to also examine them very carefully as if I would never see them again. The shaman said that what I was struggling with is very common and that with time I would be able to let go of the thoughts and images without a second of fear.
With time he was right. After several months I was able to let the thoughts and images to just float away without any problems. And I am still able to do that, with only the occasional thought getting stuck for a second or two before it too floats away. These thoughts and images never disappear, they are just filed away for future use.
I still had duties to attend to even though it was winter and hunting was difficult at best and darn near impossible at worst. There were hides that needed to be tanned yet, and fibers that needed to be spun so that simple fabrics could be made. Being the oldest sibling meant it was up to me to make sure that my younger siblings were taken care of and that they were doing the chores that were given to them. This was the winter that my sister, who was the next oldest, was to learn how to spin. It was up to me to make sure that she and out mother had all the roving that was to be spun that day.
My father and I did the heavy part of tanning while my younger brothers would clean the smaller hides. They were also responsible to make sure that all the scrapings were cleaned from the floor to be taken far from the village on the clear days. This was done to keep the larger predators away from our village. It was bad enough that they would come close when the meals were being cooked, the smell of raw meat scrapings would bring them in even closer and more frequently.
Everyday after I was done with my chores I would go to the tent of the shaman. Even though he didn’t hunt, and the only garden he grew was medicinal plants, he always had enough food, clothing, and his shelter was in good repair. Everyone in the village took care of his physical needs because he took care of everyone’s spiritual needs. Keeping the shaman happy meant that the village would be less likely to suffer from disease, hardships and other the other villages would not want to treat us badly. We were rarely invaded by neighboring villages, and we rarely invaded other villages. Because we had a strong shaman we were treated with respect. The other villages would send their shaman to our shaman to be taught by him. This is why I am so very grateful for opportunity to be taught by him. To even begin to learn even a small portion of what he knew was a fantastic privilege. I was determined to be the best student that I could be.
To this end I threw myself completely under the tutelage of the shaman. I was to meditate three times a day, there were times when I would take a couple of more times a day to meditate. What this did for me was to heighten my mental clearing and would help to unlock the potential within me. The shaman was impressed with my dedication to his teachings. Even though I had wanted to learn about spirits, how to see them, how to talk to them, how to take guidance from them, this was to happen later on in my apprenticeship. At first I was upset that I wouldn’t be doing this at first, it did become clearer that what I needed was the control over my body and mind before I would be ready for the spirits. The shaman told me that if I was not ready, great harm could come to me, including being possessed by the spirits. I had seen this happen to some people that were brought to the shaman to cure.
In my apprenticeship I was to help the shaman to expel these spirits, and usually these spirits were mean and ugly. They wanted to live in a physical body, sometimes again, sometimes for the first time. To expel them took patience and time. When the shaman was able to determine the possessing spirit he would concoct several mixtures that would be used to expel that particular spirit. No two mixtures were ever the same for anyone else, each spirit was unique and the procedure to get rid of them was unique. There was a mixture to be drunk by the person possessed and one to be drank by the shaman. Another mixture was made to be thrown into a fire, sometimes these would have a sweet smell and other times they were acrid and would burn the eyes of all in the hut. There was another mixture that would be mixed with oil to be rubbed on the person to be cleansed and another that would be rubbed on those doing the healing. Then there was a bundle of herbs and leaves that would be tied together for the shaman to use as a brush to sweep over the patient.
Before I could see or talk to spirits I had to learn how to tell what herbs, fragrances, oils, and leaves could be used for protection and for control. This part would take time. I would also learn which plants were poisonous and which were good to eat. Because I helped my mother in her garden I knew of several plants that were good to eat and ones that were poisonous. In working with spirits even the poisonous plants have there uses. I would learn how to use them without bringing harm to others.
All winter I studied the different plants, which in some ways was easy for me because my mother was an excellent gardener. I thought I knew as much as the shaman about plants because of learning gardening skills at home, I was very wrong. There are so many more plants that are used for medicinal reasons that are not used for eating. As well as studying about the plants I also learned different ways of preparing them for different uses. My favorite was making syrups, elixirs’ and tonics that would help keep people from getting sick, and if they did get sick there were remedies that could be made and given to heal the sick.