Melora through Joanna Neff
Shamanic
Symbolism
S: In one of our last sessions, we were
working with the wheel of my different spirit helpers. I remember
there was the dolphin and other members within that wheel. And
this is what I'm getting down to: The disembodiment of me and
the putting me back together again. When I completed the wheel--which
meant there were 12 animal spirits--at 11 o'clock there was a
cougar. Everybody attacked me and tore me apart (and a cobra
was part of the wheel). Two cobras came in, and as I observed,
they spun back around like DNA, in a double-helix, and put me
back together again.
While I was working
with a shaman earlier this year. In his book he talks about the
disembodiment and the observing that goes on. I wanted to ask
you about that and thank you for setting me on that path, as
I recall, to get the 12 and to see what would happen. The shaman
I worked with also said that it is possible to have more than
one of these disembodiments.
MELORA: Something we observed with a friend
of our [Joanna's] will explain how we view shamanic processes.
When this friend received higher-level Reiki attunements from
[Joanna] and another mutual friend, the initiate's experience
was that the Hindu goddess Durga came in and tore her to shreds,
chopped her head off, and all this sort of thing. People who
do not do shamanic work do not experience these translations
of energetic processes in the same way.
In shamanic work,
as we have said, there's a lot of symbology. But shamanic work
also works with archetypes. These archetypes would be of all
human experiences, all possible roles--like specific villain/good
guy, predator/victim--all the possible roles that you could choose
on earth to be and that you are throughout history in your many
lives. We're receiving that your interpretations, your experiences,
your visions are translations of the energies into symbolgies
that represent archetypal experience.
We believe we told
you before that these are not to be taken literally. There is
a danger in taking these literally, and that is that you confuse
the translation with the actual processes that are going on.
There can be distortion. This creates fear, because if you take
the symbols of being torn apart literally, and that creates fear,
then the processes remain incomplete, and you can't move forward
into the integration of what happened. Such confusion between
symbology and actual energetic processes are the basis of supersitions!
And supersitions are almost always fear based.
S: Okay. I thought it as more of a rebirth
or a restructuring--that the witness part of me stepped out of
that and didn't find it humorous but at the time it was a sort
of shock because they all just sort of attacked me.
MELORA: Because shamanic work generally goes
no higher than 4th dimension, or the astral plane--
S: Oh . . . I didn't know that.
MELORA: . . . the work that is done is primarily
physical and psychological. So the restructuring is really going
on in your psychological consciousness--that is, personality
consciousness--not at the Soul level. This is why we find that,
for example, people come to us for higher-dimensional soul retrieval
after shamans have done soul retrieval because the people are
rife with negative entities. It's not that the work itself created
that; it is that the result of incomplete processing of psychological
changes and structures leaves the personal vulnerable from the
astral plane. This is where the negative entities "hang
out": in the lower octave of the astral plane. If the person
is not strong enough in their mastery or in their wisdom, then
they are not really able to participate out of that wisdom, or
out of a higher consciousness, in the work that is being done
by the shaman.
S: Now, can you check me to see how I fit in to the
scenario that you just went through?
MELORA: Give us a moment. Yes. What we're hearing
is that the abilities that you have, not only from past lives
but from this life and the interest that you have in shamanic
work, is like a trap in a way. You can keep using the skills
that you already have, or you can learn some new skills. What
they're saying is "spiritual skills." Can you transcend
your intense personality interest at these levels, and move to
manifesting at higher levels and move to processing at higher-dimensional
levels?
S: I'd like to be able to do that, but
I think I might need some help or guidance.
MELORA: All right. We will do this in the way
of a parable to help you use some more multi-dimensional understanding
of this. One of last temptations of Buddha was having a demon
come to him and try to engage him in an intellectual debate.
In other words, "Let's talk and we'll find out who's more
brilliant." At the personality level, what the mind affixes
on that is interesting to it can actually be a great temptation
that keeps you from coming to higher spiritual consciousness.
S: It's also a very beautiful trap.
MELORA: They are very beautiful traps, because
the mental gymnastics appease and entertain the mind. The problem
is that you keep having to do more of it, because if that is
what your mind is used to being fed, then it's like an addiction.
It has to keep going on and on; it has to keep being fed. If
you're going to come out of the personality mind's need to have
information for its own sake to entertain it, then you can transcend
the personality level of consciousness that is into confusing
symbology with reality.
Confusing symbology
with reality is the trap for you. You can take the same information
and process it in the same way we have described--the intense
emotions of grief and loss that you're going through now--and
ask for that to be distributed among all your bodies and processed
so that you get the real experiential values that those represent.
Make the request of your guides, your Higher Self and your Overbeing
to make that clear of you. Then you will come to a center of
wisdom in which fear will go away, and you will have great clarity
and understanding that symbols do not exist at higher levels.
They exist only in 3rd and 4th dimension.
S: How interesting, because a lot of the
teachers that I've been with in this embodiment have stressed
the importance of the symbol.
MELORA: But why is it important? Is it important
to you spiritually or to you as a being in 3rd-dimensional existence?
S: I think a lot of the reason is that
it's a power source--a power over instead of power itself.
MELORA: Yes. Exactly.
S: I know that for some people the information
became power over and not power itself, and I was trying to keep
away from that, even at that time. That goes back probably ten
years. Thank you. It's kind of nice to hear that come back to
me. It's almost like a confirmation of something hidden very
deep inside.
MELORA: Power over others is always of the
dark, and this can be a matter of degree. There can be "relative"
darkness, if you will. We're not saying that all shamans who
do that, or all white Wiccans who do that, are of the dark. What
we're saying is that you're missing the point spiritually in
your existence on Earth if you don't realize that power over
others is always about fear. And since fear is the opposite of
love, it's going to take you in the opposite direction of your
path to the light, which is the path of Love. It can take you
away from your Self, as you so perceptively put it.
S: I had felt that to be true and have
not been fighting against it but have not quite understood why
so many people are so interested in the power-over aspects, which
again represents fear.
MELORA: Everything that comes forth in a session
is always aimed at your initial, question, central motif, if
you will, that compelled you to have a session. So it's not just
a conversation; it is about the deep question you had in coming
to work with us today. Every single thing that is brought forth
is about that central question.