Preface:

‘Soul Retrieval’ is an ancient process used by Shamanic Practitioners to reconnect a person with the splintered aspects of their soul / psyche caused by trauma. A ‘Power Animal’ is a spirit guide who accompanies the person through the Journey. In this instance, the Journey is a guided, healing meditation process facilitated by the Shamanic practitioner and the Power Animal is ‘Heron’.

This is my own account of a Journey I made, the insights that emerged, and my retrieval and reintegration of a lost part of my soul.

Soul Retrieval

The woman carefully scooped the scared little six year old girl from the caravan couch and tentatively left the grey, damp space.

The people the little girl had stayed there to be with had long since moved on but she had remained, cold and alone for close to forty years.

Fear, relief, love and grief were among the maelstrom of emotion that engulfed the pair as they followed Heron out of the past.

They came to land gracefully on the roadside at the home of the man who had raped and abused their sister. The woman, still holding the little girl (she would never let her go again) asked Heron why they had come here. “You don’t have to keep this secret anymore” said Heron to them both.

The woman’s mouth opened and years of silence poured into the air!

“Now what?” the woman asked Heron.

Heron produced a thick leather coat and together they placed it round the little girl’s shoulders. “We should go shopping” they said.

They bought the little girl a bed and dressed it with drapes and pretty linen. She would need somewhere nice to rest and recover after the journey.

The little girl knew she had been away too long and the woman knew she should have gone back for her sooner but neither of them had known how. They had sworn allegiance to the Queen, disabling them. They had splintered and separated. Their power was siphoned by the Queen to maintain the illusion that everything was normal.

And life has a funny way of distracting a person. The further away the woman had grown from the little girl, the less she remembered her, the less importance she gave her, the less she cared.

You see, the little girl had stayed at the caravan because a lovely family lived there; A family with a mother who made yummy dinners and tucked her girls into soft, clean beds with a gentle kiss to their foreheads; A daddy who built the girls bicycles and a tree house and drove them to town just for fun. The first time she had visited, she never wanted to leave, she wanted to stay forever and for them to be her family. And so she did.

On the day that the little girl had decided to stay with the lovely family, the woman (who was only six years old herself at the time) had felt an awful wrench because she wanted to stay too but she knew it wasn’t possible. That night, back at her own house, she cried and sought comfort on the Queen’s knee. The Queen, in her wisdom, told her that a good night’s sleep would sort her out!

That night, she resolved that such a life of loving, softness was not something she should expect nor pursue; that longing for it was about as close as she should get to it. It was shallow and needy to have or expect to have anything that wasn’t practical or useful. And the Queen agreed.

She never told the Queen that the little girl had stayed behind at the lovely family’s caravan. In fact, quite soon she forgot herself. She was growing up (seven now) and had jobs to do to fill her time – clothes to wash, animals to walk and feed and besides, her big sister was having a ‘love affair’, she needed to do all she could not to let any of the grown-ups find out.

There were times when the longing got too sore and the little girl would make herself unwell, aching and crying. The Queen would rush to her side and research cures for the little girl’s unique maladies. Topped up with nurture, the little girl would recover until next time.

The lovely family moved into a stone farmhouse that the daddy had lovingly restored. She went there on holidays sometimes. She loved it but was always puzzled by the sadness that would creep into her stomach the night before she had to go home.

Within a year, her sixteen year old sister, whom she admired and loved, had to leave home. Someone had found out about the ‘love affair’ and had told their father. “It wasn’t me that told” The little girl pleaded and her sister gave her a glance saying “I know you didn’t”. She sat at the dining table while the Queen and their father spoke gravely to her sister. She would leave by the weekend. The little girl wouldn’t tell the married man where her sister was. “He’s not to know! Do you understand?” their father demanded sternly.

The little girl travelled to school with the married man for another two years until the Queen and their father decided to ‘up sticks’ in the middle of the night to a different country. But the little girl was big by now. I mean ten is nearly grown up!

When she turned eleven, the little girl packed up her dollies and the clothes she had lovingly knitted them and lit up a cigarette. She would be starting secondary school in the Autumn so her childhood was behind her.

But school isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. And it takes a lot of effort and energy to keep both your lives separate. You see, nothing as shallow as the real events of a normal school day would interest the Queen, and the baron austerity of life at home would be too shocking for kids who live in ordinary houses, not to mention mortifyingly embarrassing if they knew!

The little girl stuck it out until she turned fourteen but she was coming unstuck. Her two worlds would collide too often. Cracks were appearing in her stories and she was afraid she was losing control. Her school friends were seeing through her and the walls were close to crashing in.

She asked if she could leave school. “So long as you get a job!” and so it was.

She asked if she could leave home. “We’ve slept on it, yes you can!”

She grew to be a capable young mother. I mean, at sixteen she was streets ahead of most girls in maturity. “You always were more mature than your peers” said the Queen, adding “Don’t expect me to babysit!”.

After the birth of the woman’s fourth child, aged 25, the Queen declared “She’s getting the procreation bit out of the way before getting on with her real life’s work!”

Many years later, the woman would reflect on her time as a child, her own children mirroring light into crevices within her. “There’s still a bit of me there” were words that would whimsically leave her mouth whenever she spoke about where she grew up and her mind simultaneously pictured the fork in the road where bamboos grew and a bridge straddled the stream at Glanreed.

Coincidentally, Glanreed was where the lovely family had lived in a caravan while they renovated an old farm house to live in. The woman wasn’t so surprised then when Heron brought her there on her journey to retrieve the missing fragment of her soul!

Miffy Hoad 2014

Shamanic Practice is an ancient spiritual tradition and can be described as 'The path of direct revelation' - your direct experience with spirit is where wisdom and insight emerge.

The Shamanic practitioner facilitates a deeper experience for you through the practices used.

Shamanic healing occurs within the quantum field, also known as 'non-ordinary reality' - N.O.R.

'Ordinary Reality' - O.R. is the physical world we are familiar with, complete with all the human paradigms and constructs, conditioning and belief systems, barriers and limitations we subscribe to in three dimensional reality.

N.O.R. is vast and expansive. It is where spirit exists, and there are many layers and dimensions there. The limitations we experience in O.R. don't exist in N.O.R.

We access N.O.R through what is often referred to as our 'imagination'. There are times when what we 'imagine' feels real - and that's because it is!

It's just that, for the most part, we are unfamiliar with N.O.R. and like to explain it away in OR terms.

A 'Shamanic Journey' is an integral practice used to access N.O.R. It is a way to commune with spirit to find healing and wisdom that we then integrate into our O.R. existence.

It can also be described as a visualisation or meditation. It can be guided by a practitioner, or you can 'journey' by yourself. A Shamanic practitioner can also journey on your behalf in your presence or remotely.

There are some specific details and protocols that make a shamanic journey distinct from other forms of meditation.

• Traditional Shamanic protocols, such as calling in the ancestors, the four directions and the elements, are used to open the space for the healing journey.

• There is a clear intention for each journey that is decided and declared in advance.

• The 'journey' is taken to the background sound of shamanic drumming, which supports you to enter a deeper state of consciousness.

• You enter N.O.R. in your journey through a 'portal' in the natural world, e.g. you can imagine you are entering through the roots of a tree, a hole in the ground, or spiralling up from the top of a mountain. The place can be somewhere familiar in O.R. or a place you imagine.

• You are met and guided by spirit allies. They can appear in human, animal and plant form. You repeat the intention for your journey to your guides, and then proceed on the journey, following the guidance you receive.

• The shamanic drumming has a set duration - typically half an hour - and the drum beat changes near the end which is called the 'call back signal', which is when you make your way back from N.O.R. via the route you entered, returning to O.R.

Power animals and Spirit Guides are also known as our ‘Spirit Allies’ and are an essential part of Shamanic practice and journeying. They are your spiritual support team. In Shamanic traditions, it is believed that we all have spirit guides from all the realms, whether or not we are aware of them.

Our ‘Spirit Allies’ provide guidance, healing and power for different aspects of our lives.

We can lose our personal power and even fragments of our soul. This can be due to adversity e.g. divorce, bereavement, loss, trauma, accidents, illness, shock, abuse, difficult situations, some sort of spiritual, mental, emotional or physical rupture or intrusion. Our spirit allies help us to track and trace the lost parts of ourselves in N.O.R

Power animals have particular attributes that they can lend us when we need them.

Spirit guides often appear in human form, and provide wisdom and healing when we need it. They are always available for consultation and happy to help us always.

They may be familiar or completely new. Some animals and guides are with us for many lifetimes, others only for certain periods of time.

In advance of each session, I prepare myself and open the space, calling in my guides and ancestors, the four directions, and the elements, to support and protect us during the session.

I hold the space for the group, for the session and while guiding the journey through NOR.

Each member of the group has their own direct and individual experience on the guided journey.

You play an active role in the journey by listening to the drumming and following my guidance. This is your journey, and I am holding the space while you have your own experience in NOR. Things you see, hear, sense and know are 'direct revelation' to you from spirit.

You might want to have something from the natural world next to you while you journey - a stick, feather, shell for example - or any object that holds meaning for you.

At the end of each journey, you are given time to write up the details of your experience before any discussion. It is important to capture the insights and guidance before breaking the silence.

I look forward to supporting you to reclaim your truth and power through this ancient and powerful method and practice.