Teachings For You

By Shaman Elder Maggie Wahls

1.Are Spirit Guides the Same as Totems?
2. What is Faith? 3.Making Good choices,br> 4.How Shamans Make Good choices
5. Perceiving Beauty
6. Lucid Dreaming
7. Medicine Wheel
8. Grabbing HOlding Discarding
9. Living Between worlds
10. The Four Truths

Teaching 1.Are Spirit Guides the Same As Totems?

Spirit guides may or may not also be totem animals. I have a spirit guide who comes to me as a white pelican. I have an elephant who is strictly a totem and not a spirit guide. A spirit guide is a teacher with something to teach you. A totem animal is often a protector, a mate to travel the Inner Worlds with who knows its way around and can get you in, to your destination and out again safely. I can ride my elephant right into the Under World and he will stop at exactly the place I need to be to effect someone's healing. When I have the healing I climb back on and he brings me right back. If anything untoward appears he can step on it with out effort and so he protects me completely. That is a totem animal.

Why an elephant? If you look up elephants you will see Elephant: Royalty, strength, ancient wisdom, patience, careful, confident, education

No wonder I have an elephant as a totem. He represents me. Notice too that he is not a native american animal. That means something too.

Your totems choose you as you are aware. You meet a totem animal, usually in the Inner Planes but sometimes it is an animal you have a special affinity for or have seen a lot lately. I prefer to meet them on the Inner Planes in meditation or such because sometimes those animals you see a lot of in this world are bringing you a message and are not totems for you. It is easy to confuse the two.

Your totem animal can change during your life. As you grow and change your totem animals may change as well. You may have several totem animals at once. But one is a life totem and represents your basic self or personality, your essence.

Sometimes you will have a name for your totem animal. They will tell you what it is. But I don't need names for my totems. Just as my name has been many different things, so has theirs. I am not known by my name but by my essence, my spirit.

To take a tangent here, have you ever spoken to someone on the phone that you haven't met and gotten an image of what they look like? And then when you meet them they don't look like that at all? But which is correct? I think both are correct. I think we look different ways to different people and in different planes. I think we see one emanation of a person when we just know them by phone and it is as good as the physical makeup of that person. We have also lived other lives in my humble opinion and we keep some resemblance of those physical bodies in our aura as well so you might be seeing something more like that. In fact, that is often how psychics tell you about your previous lives, by the way you appear to be dressed and what you appear to be doing and what is around you. How do I know this? Hmmm...

But the totem animals always represent some quality that you already have or that you are growing into.

Spirit guides are teachers. They come to guide you in your education. They teach you things. They may have lived other lives. They may be "ascended" beings. They may be the wind or Father Sky or a guardian angel. They may be your higher self. They may be God. You decide. They can be animals or plants or trees or people. Here is another wisdom nugget, everything has three emanations or faces or appearances. We do and plants do and animals do and everything does.

When I go into the Inner Worlds for a healing for someone, I encounter some being there who is responsible for the sickness. The first face it shows me is really goofy, odd or weird and I know that is not what it really is. So I dismiss that face and ask to see its true face. The next face it shows if it is a not nice being is some ferocious grizzly nasty scary being who tries to bite me or otherwise scare me. But I am not scared because I know that is not its true face. I may have to fend it off or punch it or step on it or catch it but I am not scared of it. I dismiss it and ask to see its true face for the third time. The third time I see what it really is and if it is a not nice being it usually looks weak and small and very lacking in every department. This is the being I negotiate with.

So I know that everything has three faces. Another example is when I sit with a rock and it turns into a lily and then it becomes a butterfly and flies away. When I sit with a river and it becomes a meadow and then it is a bear walking away.

So my totem is an elephant, a white elephant and it does not change its face around me. Why? Because it represents me! It is one of my own faces! How cool! A totem is one of your own many faces. That is why some people call them "familiars".

Can we have more than three faces? Yup! Some people have hundreds of faces. But everything has at least three. And usually the three represent a plant, an animal and a being.

What is a being? A being can be anything incarnate or not incarnate. Many kinds of beings roam the Inner Worlds. Some have lived on this planet and some never have. Some have lived on other solar systems as well. Some from other universes. Some from long ago. Some from the future. But those who have never lived are usually the most difficult and the weirdest looking. So beings can be good or bad, helpful or pesky, even irresponsible and tricky. Although, I have seen beings who looked like the devil incarnate! When I looked under the three faces I have not met anything that my totem animals, spirit guides and myself could not handle. But I have had 50 years of training to get to this point, remember. It takes knowledge to work there in the Inner Worlds. It can be a dangerous place if you don't know what it is and how to work there. It takes emotional control. Some of these beings want things from you and they will try to get it any way they can. If you lose emotional control and that means "the right use of emotions" (I don't mean refusing to show emotion), they can get you to give them something of yourself that you should not give. Bad stuff. And it takes intent, to know what you are there for and not to lose sight of that for one instant. As soon as you lose sight of your intent you forget what you are there for and then you are fair game for any being to play with you or trick you. Bad stuff. But if you take your totem animal it will drag you out of there and get you home safely anyway. It also takes impeccability. You must become impeccable with yourself in all areas and impeccable as a hunter warrior to work within these dimensions. Read my article on impeccability at www.shamanelder.com. I cannot stress the importance of being impeccable enough.

I learned these things in a hard way living with some really crazy Shamans and using their methods of journeying that were certainly not safe and sometimes very dangerous. I took journeys to places I should not have been using very strong hallucinogenic in South America and I saw things that would scare the wits out of anyone. I got lost in the Inner Worlds without a totem to pull me out. The Shaman had to reach in and grab me as I was being attacked. More than once my Shamans had to pull grizzly things off my body that were sucking on me. I once got completely lost and wandered around for what seemed like weeks in a dark and desolate place I never want to see again. I teach this course in this way so you don't have to go through what I went through. I am the kind and gentle teacher, I hope.

Your spirit guides will help teach you intent, emotional control, knowledge and impeccability if you allow them to. Remember it is always your free will to learn or not to learn. But don't travel to the Inner Worlds if you have not mastered the skills necessary to be safe there and to do your work there. And never go there just out of curiosity. There are too many discarnate beings waiting for you to come there unaware so they can get what they can get from you. They can be tricky and sly and even devious. They want your gong and will do anything to get it. Not all of them but enough to be very careful. Even one bee is enough to stay away from. It doesn't take a pack of grizzly bears to kill you.

Aho!

Shaman Elder Maggie

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Lesson 2: Warriorship
Lesson 3:Balance
Lesson 4:Awareness
Lesson 5: Meeting Your Guides
Lesson 6 The Universal Medicine Wheel
Lesson 7: The Seven Planes
Lesson 8: Totems
lesson 9:Introduction to Healing Work
Lesson 10: Divination
Lesson 11: The Chakra System
Lesson 12: Working With Allies
Lesson 13: Shamanic Journeying
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Teaching 2.What Is Faith?

Lets talk about faith. It’s a subject that is not talked about very often. IN all my years in the Catholic church I don’t think anyone ever really told me what faith is or how important it is to manifesting my intentions for myself in this world. But faith is the door to manifesting every good thing in your life. And it is the door to walking the path of traditional shamanism.

There are three kinds of faith,
1. Clarity
2. Desire to attain
3. Knowledgeable conviction.

The faith that comes with knowledgeable conviction means the faith you can have when you know from first hand experience that something is valid, real. This is the faith that most of us base our lives on, our happiness on, and our values on. But in this course you find from first-hand experience that what you thought was real, what you thought were valid beliefs are only based on about 5% of all that is here. You are basing your beliefs on only what you have perceived using your outer senses so that means your belies are neither complete nor totally accurate. So what used to be the faith of knowledgeable conviction suddenly is torn asunder and to most of us, that doesn’t feel so safe or comforting at all. This faith is also the faith that you have placed in your values. But again we see that values are based more on “How does this make me feel” than on any other real or true thing. Values are based on what benefits you at this moment. And what benefits you at this moment is not necessarily what benefitted you yesterday. Values change according to what you need and want. So the faith of knowledgeable conviction fails to provide us with security and self assurance yet again! For the Shaman , this kind of faith is practically useless. Yet for the common man this kind of faith runs his life and is the basis for everything he believes and values. To walk the path of Traditional shamanism you have to give up relying on this kind of faith because you do not know all there is to know about anything and you do not know what to value because you have not perceived all there is of value here. Letting go of this kind of faith can be a hard things to do but it can also open you up to living more like a warrior. Free to go where you are called, free to explore. Free to observe, free to embrace new thoughts and new values and new beliefs or to eliminate all beliefs entirely and really find your freedom in this moment now.
The desire to attain, number two kind of faith, means wanting special qualities that you have heard about, such as the compassion, love and wisdom of the guides or your teachers or what the Buddhists call bodhisattvas. It can also mean a wish to be free from struggles and sufferings. This kind of faith is generated not by having any knowledge or ability yourself but by having faith that you can attain what you have seen other people attain. This is the faith of the student watching and imitating her teacher with faith that someday she can be like her teacher.

The faith of clarity, number one, is when you meet a teacher or sensei and you become overwhelmed with a feeling of “Oh, how wonderful this is! How good it feels to be with this person.” This is the faith of clarity, and in this faith one’s mind is clear and active and you are experiencing the feeling of faith inside yourself. You can feel the truth that the teacher is speaking and it feels clear and good and you have faith in it.

Faith is like a wheel, always ready to roll along the road. If you have it, you can make internal progress at any time. Faith is a vehicle carrying you along the path to omniscience, an outstretched hand drawing you to all good things. How well you can incorporate spiritual practices into your own life depends on how much faith you have. If your faith in the teachings and teacher is so so then your progress here will be so so. If your faith in the teachers and teachings is immeasurable, so too will be your attainments.

For one who has faith, even misinformation within the teachings or from the teachers can bring blessings. If someone has what he believes to be the tooth of a Buddha and he cherishes that relic and honors it, even though it turns out that it is only the tooth of a dog, he will receive as much benefit from it as if it actually was a Buddha/s tooth.

It is within nature that clarity, number one kind of faith, is most easily found. It is not hard to find the face of Creator in a mountain or a tree or a bird or a waterfall. The easiest kind of faith to acquire is there for clarity, when you feel spiritually the truth of the Essence of Creator as it is manifest there in nature. And so we spend our days observing everything around us with both our outer and inner senses so that we can perceive the manifest and non manifested forms of the Essence of Creator and have that faith of clarity to carry us down this path. This is why the awareness practice is so important. It is nurturing your faith that you absolutely must have to commit to this path.

To purify this faith means to regard the Essence of Creator in every created thing. To respect the free will of that chair or that stone or that leaf or that mountain. WE need to respect the free will of Mother Earth as she is just doing what she needs to do to maintain her own balance. She does not need our help. She needs us to stop causing her to go out of balance over and over again. If we would respect the free will of every created thing, there would be no hunger on this planet. There would be no homeless, no war no persecution no discrimination. We need to purify our faith by recognizing that everything that Creator created is a manifest or non manifest form of the very Essence of Creator. How can we look on any of Creators creations and feel that they are less valuable than we are?

The best of all wealth is faith – a sense of clear delight in the path and its fruits. Unless you are motivated by this delight, you cannot succeed in walking this path and growing spiritually. Some people have so much desire and attachment that if there is only a single piece of paper or one pencil left, they feel, “ I must have it, not you”. Their desire and attachment to things is so great that they often fail to take into considerations anyone else’s feelings.

Poor behavior, for instance quarrelling, boasting, trying to inflict your beliefs and opinions on others as if you know what is best for someone else is also a sure fire way to stop your own progress on this path.
Engaging in actions you have identified as not being the actions of a shamanic practitioner is another sure fire way to stop your progress on this path. Just because your non virtuous action may seem small or trivial don’t think that the effects of that action will be small. That non shamanic action or word or though will travel out into the universe and affect perhaps millions of people. You cannot know how far your non virtuous action will go and it will circle back to hit you right between the eyes. In the same regard, tiny acts of loving kindness can have massive good effects, too.

When I think about faith I am forced to remember that it is a real honor and privilege to be having this human life experience. I was looking at the cows grazing in the fields this chilly morning on my walk and I was reminded how that cow will never get to see anything more than he can see from that field. His whole life is limited to just that tiny piece of experience. While we are able to travel the world and see millions of people and learn anything that we wish to learn and have any kind of adventure that we wish to have. It is said by spiritual gurus that the chances of being given this wonderful human life experience opportunity is to think of handfuls of dried peas through against a pane of glass. The chances of attaining a human life are less than those of a pea sticking to the glass. Or, if you drop handfuls of mustard see on the point of a needle, how many seeds would be pierced? There are even fewer opportunities of attaining a human body.

Gamboka a great shaman said that when you first begin to practice this path you must be like a deer locked in an animal pen, or like a prisoner in a jail cell, urgently seeking a way out. He said that in the intermediate stages of doing this practice you should be like a farmer during the harvest. Once he has determined that it is time to reap his crop, he works at it continuously, no matter what anyone tells him. Just as a farmer works to make the most of his crop he has grown, so we who now have opportunities and conditions which are so valuable to our practice, we should use them immediately, understanding there is no time to be wasted. IN the final stages of this practice, you should be like someone whose work is drawing to a close and who is looking forward to the time when he can retire from this world and become non manifest once more.

With regard to how much time you have for this practice, you should be like a warrior who has just been hit by an arrow and who is trying to get rid of it. He does not bother about who shot it or where it came from, he acts swiftly to remove it.
If you remember how short this life is, and how lucky you are to be here, you will find your desires and preferences will be less. Please strive hard to reduce your attachment to all things in your life because their appearances are temporary and so they are neither truly profound, nor beneficial.

"If you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?" – Douglas Noel Adams

Faith is not something hard to understand. But faith is what allows you to stand fully in your power and be the captain of your ship. In Hebrew, the word faith actually means steadfastness. I have tried to show you why you need to cultivate faith in order to walk this path of Shamanism. The idea that doubt would get in your way would only be fooling yourself into thinking that you know enough about anything to be able to doubt at all in the first place. Doubt comes from already having come to a conclusion. What conclusion can you possibly come to in this short life adventure? You can either choose to walk through life doubting or walk through life embracing and observing everything you can possibly perceive around you. One way causes you to struggle and suffer. The other way brings spiritual joy in each and every step along the entire way. This is not a hard choice for you to make.

Aho!

Shaman Elder Maggie

3 Ways to Learn

3 Ways to benefit from Traditional Shamanism