The golden rays of the new morning sun peek out from behind the mountaintops lending a ghostly orange glow to the thick fog on the lake.
The dawn mist feels damp and chilly, but this promise of a sunny day sends whispers of warmth throughout the wilderness.
The crow caws from the top bow of the mighty virgin pine as the diffuse sunbeams accentuate his black silhouette.
As if signaled by the impending sunrise, the loon who has been fishing quietly twenty yards away from my canoe extends his neck and sends his eerie call out into the solitude.
Shivers run down my spine and my heart aches with a deep soul connection with this beautiful being.
His call travels over the lake and up the mountains, circling around and echoing back down to the lake.
As the sunbeams lengthen across the lake, the mighty pines change from their nightly black dress into their daytime green, and a gentle breeze rustles the bows.
Stretching higher into the clear blue sky, the sun ascends the mountain summit and makes its radiant entrance into the day.
The brilliant power blinds my eyes and I reluctantly turn away, catching the movement of a large bird soaring through the dissipating yellow fog.
A moment later, the mysterious bird sends her eerie call out into the wild and is easily identified as another loon.
Her mate, sitting near me, returns her call and instantly she splashes down next to us.
As the ripples of the clear spring-fed lake calm, she rises up on her feet and dances to fluff and dry her wings.
The two talk back and forth in a laughing chatter and I am thrilled to bear witness to their interplay.
Settling in next to her fishing partner, she too, begins to search the crystal waters for her shiny breakfast.
As the morning grows deeper into day, the breeze strengthens and whistles through the dense forest surrounding the lake.
Soaring high above the mountaintop the hawk cries, drawing my attention upward to watch her embrace the new day.
A low grunting sound moves up the river behind me toward the lake.
The source exposes itself as a huge great blue heron soars in, extends its landing gear, and comes to rest on the beaver lodge.
The beaver, who is gathering leafy twigs on the other side of the small lake, doesn't seem to mind the visitor and continues to go about his work.
I feel an incredible supernatural energy move in my body as I sit in divine connection with these vibrant beings and this pristine wilderness.
I sit in awe, and my body and soul fill with reverence and wonder.
I feel whole and at peace, healthy and vital.
I always feel this way when I am here in the quiet solitude of the wilderness where the song of the universe sings in my soul and in my heart.
Surrounded by this incredible life force, my heart fills with gratitude and I thank the spirits and the creator for blessing me with this opportunity.
By allowing myself to sit quietly and "just be" I realize I have given myself a gift beyond measure, and because of this, the universe has reciprocated.
From a distance, the changing drumbeat signaling my callback sounds, and I know it is time to return back into my body, in my healing room at my home.
I am always reluctant to leave my visits to these awesome places of power, but I am most thankful that I have learned methods that allow me to visit as I often as I want.
Upon returning from my journey, I take a few minutes to journal, sense the subtle shifts in my body, and integrate my experience.
Powerful life force energy flows through me and I am aware that I feel a deep sense of wellbeing.
I am calm, peaceful, filled with energy, and ready to begin my day.
This experience is an example of a daily journey that I take to visit one of my favorite places of power to feel my own power.
For many summers now I have been going to this lake in northern Canada to find healing in the solitude of the wilderness, and I have been blessed with many experiences similar to this journey.
After a day or two of shaking off the everyday world coats I notice that I feel free and wild like the wilderness that surrounds me.
Life force energy flows through me unobstructed, healing my body and spirit from the ravages of the everyday world.
I have always loved the quiet solitude of the wilderness and the soul-full-ness that I feel while there.
If I could live in this place, I would be a direct recipient of this raw, natural life force energy all the time.
However, like most everyone, I am not able to live in a place of solitude that feeds my soul such as this.
Most of us live in a world of busy-ness, tension, high stress, and super-human responsibilities.
From dawn until dusk we are busy working to make ends meet, taxi-ing kids, balancing the finances and contending with a high-pressure society.
The daily barrage wears us down, shuts us off from vital life force energy, and can eventually result in fatigue, depression, physical pain, and illness.
If we are unable, or don't know how to replenish our energy and repair the affects of stress and tension, eventually our immune system overloads and is unable to fight off foreign invaders such as bacteria and viruses.
Our depressed system may also begin to view everything as an invader and we become allergic to our environment and our foods, and in the case of autoimmune disease, the body even turns on itself.
This is what I have been shown causes many of the mysterious syndromes we are now facing that seem to have no sure cause or cure.
Finally realizing this in my own life, I knew I had to do something to save myself.
I had to change the way I lived my life because my body was no longer able to defend itself, and I was slowly dying.
Through my ten-year struggle with chronic fatigue immune deficiency syndrome and fibromyalgia, I discovered the importance of creating solitude in my everyday world.
Moving to the wilderness would have been one option, but then bringing the soul-full-ness that I feel in the wilderness to my everyday life was another.
Nature is a healer because nature is life force energy unfettered and this amplifies the natural part of us, our soul and life force energy flow.
How can we accomplish this here in our own self and life?, I wondered.
In my search for healing I found what first seemed to be a technique (journeying) but is really a way of living and being (shamanism) that creates the pathway to inner solitude, the divine guidance that moves within us, and life force energy flow.
The cross-cultural, time-tested technique of journeying entails entering into an altered state of consciousness and allowing the soul to travel along a central axis to alternate realities often referred to as "otherworlds", "inner dimensions", "Spirit worlds" or "Spirit realms".
These realms exist within and around us, just outside of our daily perceptions.
They can be accessed through doorways, gateways, vortexes and tunnels, known as portals.
When the journeyer passes through a portal they enter the central axis.
The central axis isn't a place, it is sacred space that is the center of the worlds and links the worlds together.
It passes through every dimension and has openings into each of the otherworlds.
The central axis acts like a vacuum or an elevator transporting the journeyer to the otherworld entrances.
Those looking to find parallels in nature can look to sweeping energy conduits such as the jet stream or the trans-Atlantic current.
Representations of the central axis appear cross-culturally with varying depictions.
It is commonly symbolized as a center pole or sacred pillar that can be ascended and descended, and is known by such names as the World Tree, Tree of Life, Golden Pillar, Middle Pillar, World Pillar, and Celestial Column.
The Cosmic Mountain is another common representation of the central axis, and castles, churches, temples, and pyramids are built in its likeness.
In most cultures throughout history the intention of learning how to journey has been to become a shaman to help others heal.
Today, the power of the shamanic journey can be harnessed for oneself as a potent technique for many things including self-healing, spirit connection, divination, restorative relaxation, energy movement, and deep personal healing on all levels.
A strong healthy body is but one of many rewards that journeying on a regular basis delivers.
Peace and calmness seep into everyday life from this connection of soul-self with spirit.
It is a joy to meet the many Spirits who avail themselves to help us live life to the fullest, to explore new worlds, to query deep into the inner self, and to personally connect with the divine.
Journeying often feels like "coming home" because it re-connects us with our Soul-self and soul agenda.
When we are born, we are a pure soul, uncluttered and pristine.
Psychologists call this the Tabla Rasa, the blank slate.
Throughout our life that slate gets drawn on and colored in by the imprints, shaping and conditioning from things such as experiences, parents, siblings, school, church, extended family, friends, and peers.
All the stuff from all those sources collects in our body, energy field, and psyche and sits on top of our pure soul.
Often, the imprints stamped into us by the world are what we express as we operate in the world.
In many instances these imprints run our lives and block and drain life force energies.
The pure soul, quietly glowing underneath all this, whispers so softly it cannot be heard above the drone of the world and our own mental chatter, or if it is heard, it's message is garbled as it passes through the resident clutter.
Even more simply put, until we get underneath the imprinting, we are not ourselves, quite literally.
The only way we can get to the soul, our true self, so that it is able to express in the world, is to get underneath all the stuff that sits on top of it.
Another reason why we journey.
By stepping around the everyday ego to travel deep into our own psyche, we bypass much of the imprinting that lies between us, our pure soul and the spirits to come close enough to these clear energies that they can vividly express through us.
In addition to phenomenal physical, mental and emotional healing, journeying connects us to the vast world of knowledge, wisdom, and the intrigues of the great mysteries.
Here you can find your soul-self, your power, your health, and your passion for life.
Journeying is like taking a ride on the magical mystery tour bus of truth and the profound, as the vastness of the otherworlds and inner worlds open your eyes to new ways of being.
Journeying stretches the limits, broadens your horizons, and reveals mind-blowing realities outside of human illusions.
If you have seen the movie "The Matrix" then you know what I mean when I say that journeying can be a way out of the matrix of our human-created world.
Journeys help us discover places of power where we can harness strength, wisdom, and power to manifest our dreams.
What the world needs most right now is wisdom, and journeying is the worlds most ancient and effective wisdom tool.
In journey we travel to within and to the otherworlds to make a difference right here at home in this world.
Journeying is not an escape or a trite practice.
It is the act of gathering energy and power to make changes to real problems, issues and imbalances that cause such things as illness, disease, pollution, stagnation, dissention, war, and intolerance.
By harnessing and applying the power and wisdom of our soul-self and the otherworlds we have a direct line to the heart of our issues by discovering and resolving them at the root cause.
Now that's real power! So, the moral of the story? Learn how to journey and then journey, journey, journey.
Journeying will change your life because it will change you.
Many Blessings, Colleen By Colleen Deatsman Copyright © 2009