Integration: Anchoring the Mystical to the Mundane

“Enlightenment must be lived in the flesh. It’s not enough to know the truth; you must become it.” — Jack Kornfield

Over Labor Day weekend, I held a four-day Shamanic Healing Journey up in the Kanimbla Valley of the  Blue Mountains. Even though Kanimbla in Gundungurra can mean fighting ground, it also has a meaning of being the hidden valley. Through the 4 days of deeply connected work, it was as if we were gathered together in this ancient valley to unburden all the hidden secrets and offer them back to the land again, so that these stories did not drain our lives any more.  As we stepped into long shamanic ceremonial processes, people traveled to the Underworld, met their ancestors, their pain, and parts of themselves they didn’t know were still waiting to be seen. But integration is really where the true ceremony begins.

If you’ve ever returned from a retreat glowing with insight only to find yourself snapping at your partner a week later, you’re not alone. It can feel like an angel crash-landing from the heavens back into traffic lights, emails, and family dynamics..

The Well of Tears

We got to use a draft of my new Sage Oracle: A Mythic Medicine Wheel Journey deck for inspired inner guidance. A couple of people drew the Well of Tears card at different times before ceremony. This card speaks about a young Zulu mother whose only child was slain by hunters. Struck silent, she wandered the dry savanna until her grief breached her heart. Her overflowing tears became life-giving and nourished the green grass of the land.

Whether it was a hesitant apology of holding onto the grief of a parent passed away, or the grief of heartbreak from an old relationship, the people who selected this card thought they had already grieved. Nausea, tearful memories and tremors crept up into the ceremony space and caught them by surprise. 

What many people misunderstand about grief is that the mind can comprehend it long before the body metabolizes it. It is not a linear process. Their tears did not come from a thought, but from a cellular memory of love and loss that simply needed to be felt and honored. Their experience showed how healing and moving forward from grief is not just a mental event. It happens through conscious moments of stillness like the Zulu mother who wanders the desert in silence which eventually erupts into a well of tears. And in you afford yourself that sacred time and space, you will allow the nervous system time to catch up with what the mind thinks it already knows.
 

Chronic Pain as a Messenger of Power

The body is like an intelligent archive that mirrors consciousness as we see in another participants had chronic pain tracing a line down the right side of her body from the eye, shoulder, arm, leg. Her pain pathway ran through the Pingala Nadi, the masculine channel of energy in yogic philosophy. I also noticed she had scoliosis of the spine which is the unconscious pressure of trying to fit into molds that were never hers.

The energetic imprint of a horrific childhood violation had woven itself into her posture: overextended through pleasing others and avoidant of confrontation. During her ceremony, she received clear messages from her guides to use her voice, stand in her power and confront her perpetrator. Out of ceremony, the mind returned its doubtful pattern, and asked, “how do I actually do the confrontation?”

The wisdom was downloaded from Spirit; and the embodiment piece was waiting to catch up through conscious action. In this case, she eventually decided that to take on the task, she would need support from her tribe. 

Matter mirrors consciousness. When trauma lives unexpressed, it is scripted into body. Chronic pain can become a nagging messenger to remind you where your power was silenced. In my years of doing this work, I have witnessed chronic pain dissipate when the burden of heavy secrets is shed to one’s truth reclaimed, no matter how difficult the task is. Spirit can whisper all it wants to you through your visions, but at some point you have to move your feet to tell a new story.