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The Healing Circle

Slowly but surely, important lessons are making their way into my awareness as time unfolds. Well, at least they are important to me. Meditation brings these lessons to my attention sometimes in metaphors and sometimes in more direct form. I attend a meditation group as often as I can because the combined focus of many people seems to increase the intensity of my inner experience. On some occasions it even sparks memories which seem directly related to the formation of a united group consciousness.

One summer evening at just such a meeting, I was treated to such a lesson. I will try to report events as faithfully as possible. Perhaps in the telling, their meaning will become more clear to me.

We generally begin our activities with a healing circle. This takes a variety of forms and shifts often from week to week from a highly focused energy exercise to a more nbebulous emotional focus and contemplation of the heartfelt compassion for the suffering of others. I tend to prefer the former frankly but I admit there are lessons still for me in the latter focus as well. This particular evening, the group appeared to want this more diffused approach.

As we became more intimately linked in the circle, I was a bit surprised to feel the energy surge passing through me in wave upon wave as strongly as I might have on an evening when the intent was less personal and more technical. Perhaps we were finding our heart centers more accessible than usual. The feeling of love in the room grew more palpable with each passing wave. I was not about to complain. Sometimes, I have had a strong perception of the energy this exercise generates as the streams from each participant pour into the center of the circle, forming a geometric figure of varying dimensions which spins in our midst. It appears to rotate in the opposite direction from the waves of force which pass from hand to hand around our circle of friends. As this spin increases in speed, the form in the center will begin to throw off energy in concentric waves like ripples on a pond.

But I digress. This evening our focus was more personal. There were those present with more personal agendas and something so esoteric was just not appropriate. My comfort with this grew as I opened my heart to the connection which love empowers. Suddenly to my inner vision there appeared a shimmering form in the center of the circle. At first it was only a bright and shining light like a small and distant star. It was shaped a bit like the form which appears in a science fiction movie when a spaceship goes into faster than light (warp?) drive and disappears. "Cool!" I watched as the form began to rotate and its shape become more distinct. Though the image was three dimensional, a double pyramid crossing another with the vertical much longer than the horizontal, I had a sense of other dimensions which was eery at best. I felt some shock as this form began to take on a more organic shape. Elegantly tall and almost humanoid, I wondered how much of this image was my own projection. The sense of a distinct identity involved with this image grew in me though. I became convinced that I was observing something odd but definitely not me. There was another being in the room with us. Its radiant and loving touch was palpable. Rarely at a loss for thought, I offered it welcome and gratitude as its healing touch became more distinct. At that gesture it began to engage me in a kind of conversation similar to those I have had with objects of nature, trees, plants and animals. Impression passing through me in waves and very emotional in kind. Concepts coming in whole bursts which were beyond my ability to break down into thought. Only a few details linger still. It told me that it was drawn by the group consciousness we were forming. Our united intent to open up and share our love and compassion resonated with this beings' own nature.

Engulfed in the radiant love coming from the center of the circle, I simply couldn't argue with this conceptualization. The sense of connection to all the others in the room was as strong as I have ever felt before or since. I asked this entity (for lack of a better description) how we might achieve this state more clearly and more often. The response I got was as unsatisfying as can be. "It will unfold as it will." Boy, this shoved me right back into the moment as nothing else could. I left the future to its own devices. Still a bit of a struggle though. I really did try to come up with questions for this being but each question seemed to hold its own answer within it. The impressions poured through me with a strange wholeness and I just can't remember them with any clarity now. Sigh!

Slowly and singly, we broke the circle apart and each person made comment in their fashion at the love they had felt throughout. I noticed that the being did not leave its place in the center. The conversations following the healing exercise revealed that a few group members that night were experiencing crises in their lives. One story of a serious physical illness had us all to the point of tears. Several of the group gathered round this one to do reiki while the rest settled into meditation. I headed into trance to commune with this presence once more. Its focus was on this member with the illness and I shifted my inner gaze as well to obserrve.

I perceived a number of shimmering lights around her energy body, moving like firelies in very small patterns. With no conceptual hook for this perception I was surprised to hear the thought "angels" bubble up into my mind. As I peered at her form (quite differently situated in the room from her actual body), I saw two foreign looking growths on either side of her neck. They were squarish and dark with tentacle-like projections from the corners. Sort of like the axons from a nerve cell. These projections penetrated deeply into her body. It was strange for me to see such a thing but I was certain that this aberration on her described somehow her disrupted health. I asked the being how I could help her and was told to imagine these forms dissolving. This proved more difficult than it sounded and has become a long term project.

At this point I went more deeply into the trance state and eventually lost consciousness. This has been happening with fair frequency of late and did not alarm me. I do wonder where I wander off to when it occurs though. I come to with none of the symptoms of having fallen asleep (an no reports of snoring). When I have asked for information about this state, I have been told that my nervous system is being exposed to higher frequencies of energy than my consciousness can process, so I black out. As good an explanation as any. As there is no way to prove or disprove this idea, I reserve judgment.

I was surprised to still be able to feel this being in the room when we broke up the session. Our closing chant/group hug brought us into even more contact with it and I could feel it rising in our midst as we chanted. It was exhilirating to be sure. We wandered off then for tea and treats and conversation. I listened with great interest to the others speak of their experience, looking for clues to explain my own. One woman had arrived late, after the healing circle. She complained of a growing nausea as she entered meditation which intrigued me. Others spoke of the profound feelings of love they'd experienced. Still another had gone beyond feeling the love to experiencing her own personal response to those feelings in a fairly dramatic way. (Not everyone responds to love with positive emotions). Still others used the word connected. None of these reactions were all that unusual but there were a lot more of them than usual.

Personally, I felt a lack of the normal compulsion to describe my own experiences and was content to observe. I drove home feeling remarkably complete and satisfied though. I never cease to be amazed at how different each week at this meeting is for me. Since this event, I have been a little (sometimes very little) more sensitive to the formation of group mind experience. I look forward to participating in it more consciously. Even if it boils down to suspending judgement and setting aside my own ego desires in favor of the united cravings of the group, I know I have an opportunity to learn a great deal in the process. Of course, that is a tall order for the gleeful Cappy in me that insists on being RIGHT! Hi Ho!


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