Shamans live in multiple realities, bringing balance, harmony and expanded awareness to themselves and others. This CD is intended to move you past the intriguing but distracting elements that we’ve heard about in Shamanism, and into a meaningful personal exploration, where reality expands and brings solidarity, groundedness, and appreciation for all states of awareness, none better than another - just different. We miss the value in this work when we are mesmerized by aspects that appeal to ego yet not to Soul. Shamanic practice can bring insights not usually accessible from ordinary states of consciousness, and an emphasis on connectedness to the Earth and human aspects that help us integrate expanded awareness in our everyday lives.

Instructions for a Shamanic Journey are included along with a special drumming-rattling section, designed to help you deepen your journey. (Please do not play it while driving or using machinery.) I hope this cd assists you in your spiritual growth.

1. Lecture: 40:38
2. Drumming-rattling: 32:40

The material on this cd was born as a result of my father’s death in 1987. I had no conscious awareness, as I guided him through the stages of letting go of his life on Earth, that I was drawing upon ages-old traditions. I didn’t know until later that what I had done was the work of the psychopomp, someone who leads the dying through the process to the other side. What I did for and with him was shamanic in nature, moving with him in an altered state of reality, so that I could guide him to the light. To do this, I had to move beyond my ordinary reality, otherwise my emotions at being with a dying parent would have overwhelmed and immobilized me. (As you will hear on the recording, this actually happened months later, incapacitating me, but leading me into a powerful initiatory experience.)

Included is a special drumming-rattling section, designed to help you on your own Shamanic journey. (Please do not play it while driving or using machinery.) I hope this cd assists you in your spiritual growth.

1. Lecture: 44:51
2. Drumming-rattling: 32:40

A shocking dream pitches Alex Wilder into a chain of events that generate unforeseen and astonishing changes in her life. Little does she know when her employer suggests some time off that she will meet two peculiar strangers who cast her into unfamiliar territories that will eventually open her heart.

Alex Wilder is introduced as a character with very little awareness of her true feelings or motivations. She is a workaholic from a dysfunctional family whose fears she passes to Rosie, her seven-year-old daughter. She feels victimized and powerless, doesn’t trust others, and is terrified to look deeper within herself than surface level. She perceives her reality as if blind and is unable to acknowledge her limitations until she is thrust into mindboggling and emotion-catalyzing experience that transforms her perceptions.

Her interactions with Betty and Mack, who become her spiritual initiators, require that she must stand face-to-face with anything that creates a false reality in her relationship with herself as well as with others. At first, she resists their many attempts to help her, stubbornly opposing them and fiercely defending her limitations. But by being thrust out of the life she knew into the physical, mental and emotional challenges presented by her teachers, her authentic self begins to emerge.

One after another, her experiences intensify: she gets lost in a mountain forest where she meets Mack, a strange man who forces her hands into his campfire and shows her a foreshadowing of her potential as a caregiver; she has frustrating interactions with Betty, an equally strange woman, who teaches her about her life using the designs on a handmade quilt; and she has an astonishingly revealing dialogue with a powerful aspect of her own personality that leads her to a life-changing understanding of her devastating impact upon others.

Finally, during a vision quest, her perceptions of reality are expanded by the physical deprivations created by the experience, and she feels herself being ripped apart by wolves. This adventure is torturous and she believes she is dying until, in her altered state of consciousness, she perceives Betty returning with her body parts and putting her back together. As Betty offers her back her heart, Alex is transformed and understands the impact her two friends’ teachings have had on her.

Alex is now able to return home a hero, having conquered her greatest fears and reclaimed her true self, ready to share the gifts she has gained with Rosie, David, her husband, and the others in her life. Having been led into deeper levels of awareness by the two shamanic practitioners, she is finally able to face the beast in her dream and she eventually reemerges, having redeemed her power, enabled to develop her true potentials as a healer and server of humankind. The story concludes as Alex begins to actualize her purpose.

In Hero With A Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell writes: “A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.”

The Quilt is a novel as well as a metaphor and a map for personal spiritual awakening. Alex Wilder represents anyone who is called to discover an authentic self. The story is based upon my own experiences as a lifelong seeker of spiritual truths as well as those of my Mystery School students. Its main purpose is to entertain, but to those who are drawn to its seeds of possibility, it may offer assistance in understanding and integrating the birth pains that always accompany the transformational process.

Click here to read an excerpt from The Quilt.

I believe the primary reason people rarely fulfill their total potential is fear of repeated rejection and abandonment. The Sacred Outcast addresses how we can expand our experience of reality in order to heal our past and empower our present and future.

The book presents psycho-spiritual and Shamanic methods, tailored to contemporary needs, through which to accomplish this. I have found most people just accept their sensitivities to rejection by friends, loved ones, and coworkers as something they have to bear, whether they are consciously aware of the processes involved or not. They will either hide their feelings when rejected, or they will try feverishly - and usually unsuccessfully - to guarantee no more rejection. They may do this by clinging to others, becoming workaholics, or by being so "strong" that no one can reach inside them.

Most of us are not aware, however, of how the very experience of being rejected and abandoned, although extremely painful, can be a gift of freedom because the isolation can allow us a fresher and more encompassing perspective of life.

This book offers methods to heal wounded feelings, accept our unique sensitivities, strengthen the core of selfhood, and develop the power within to transform past pain. We can become Shamans, not necessarily in the traditional mode, but in terms of being able to move through life in the expanded states of consciousness available to those of us who are unique, set apart from others, not running with the crowd. We learn we have more freedom of choice than when immersed in only the painful aspects of being ostracized and neglected.

The book address both women’s and men’s issues, and is meant to ignite and heal the feminine and masculine within us all, no matter what gender. It book gives hope to anyone longing to be accepted and loved, for the main theme supports acceptance and development of the very things that we were rejected for - and therein lies true strength and happiness. It is only when we agree with others' assessments of our "rejectability" that our lives become dark and hopeless. In learning to expand our perception of our experience, we move out of narrow and limiting beliefs and attitudes, and into our real abilities and potentials as powerful, loving, creative, and spiritual beings.

Click here to read an excerpt from The Sacred Outcast.

Flying over Sacramento, I was entranced by the vivid colors and contrasts of the river and surrounding fields. It was breathtaking! This was my inspiration for this quilt, whose varied fabrics depict the textures of the land. I was particularly moved by the sparkling, iridescent colors of the water in the rice paddies - I never knew the rice we eat begins in such an exquisite environment. I used fabric with gold threads to represent California’s historic gold mining industry, and included a Chinese influence in design to honor the contribution of that culture.

The aerial view I had from the plane gave me pause to reflect upon how rivers are the arteries of the Earth’s body and such an essential part of what keeps our beautiful planet alive. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this quilt will go to river preservation organizations.

Size: 38"W x 56"L
Weight: approximately 6 lb. (rods not included)