From a Novice: Issue #2

From a Novice

Quotes

Some of my favorite quotes I’ve come across recently in my reading, enjoy!

Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional

- Unknown

(gathered from ‘The Way of Integrity’ by Martha Beck)

Pain comes from events, while suffering comes from the way we handle events.

- Martha Beck in ‘The Way of Integrity’

The outer teacher is merely a milestone, It is only your inner teacher that will walk with you to the goal, for they are the goal.

- Nisargadatta Maharaj (gathered from ‘The Way of Integrity’ by Martha Beck)

Fear veils itself... It mimics the sound of rationality and reason, as it is so sure we will never find our voice, that truth will never reveal itself.

- Christopher Marmolejo in ’The Red Tarot’

Guilt is a teacher when it guides us, but a demon when it binds us... There is a healthy place for guilt: as an [emotion] that allows us to examine our behavior before, during, or after our actions... and [in] its appropriate place as feedback, guilt is not a demon, but a guide.

- Anodea Judith in ‘Eastern Body, Western Mind’

Transformation is not accomplished by tentative wading at the edge

- Robin Wall-Kimmerer in ’Braiding Sweetgrass’

There should be a trigger point where if there is a certain amount of tension accumulating, release & move.

- William Hurley (my viola teacher)

Our resistance is an invitation.

- Nancy MacPhee during a workshop on Shamanism & Shadow

Her value doesn't decrease due to your inability to notice it.

- Hotel Portofino (a show on PBS)

Meditations

I sit every morning – I don’t call it medita ng, its more aligned with the shamanic prac ce of journeying. When I sit, I visit my companions, my guides and teachers, and I o en leave these visits with some lesson or new understanding. I will occasionally share some of these take-aways here.

Living in fear means you'll never be the beacon that you are.

‘Tidying

-up’ (or how to live a more aligned life)

Align the threads

General cleaning up: work out knots, put everything in order, make it all look nice & neat.

Deliberate permissions

Cleaning house, removing anything that no longer belongs and not allowing in that which is not welcome.

Presence and persistence

Be gracious , know this is hard work, takes time, and there will be times were you just don’t have the energy or you’ll miss something. That is okay, when you’re ready come back and continue where you left off.

The River of Truth is all there is. Unknown in its fullness. Combining the seen and unseen. May my roots grow in its fertile soil, May I build my home upon its banks, May I breathe the air that lifts from its water, May its mists land upon my skin, And when I wander, May the sound it its waves lapping guide me back.

“Where are the Roots of Your Belonging Established”

An Essay on Truth

“The River of Truth is all there is.” - Riverkeeper (one of my spirit teachers)

What is Truth?

What does it mean to be true to oneself? I’ve been wondering about this a lot lately. Often afraid I’ve gotten it wrong, will get it wrong, or worse get it right but will be unable to ‘stay true’ because of the demands of society and culture. Growing up, in the economically driven US culture, most of us are primarily taught how to ‘fit in’. This becomes paramount to knowing and being true to oneself. And the arguments for this are tight. Existing in this culture without ‘following the rules’ is difficult and rather frightening, especially if you were also taught, as I was, a certain definition of what existence means.

At home, those of us who grew up with parent(s) and/or guardian(s) who were able to give us time and attention, were likely taught how to have a healthy and happy life according to the understanding of our guardians. I think of my parents and what a ‘happy and healthy life’ means for them - a certain income with a stable job (that includes health insurance and retirement benefits of some sort), a predictable life, and of course existing within the bounds of the socially acceptable norms of our culture (norms I constantly pushed, and occasionally still do, to the dismay of my family). For those whose guardians taught listening to your true self as the base line of a happy and healthy life I congratulate you, but it is safe to say that this is far from what many of us learned at home.

In the US most of us spend roughly the first quarter of our life, pretty significant developmental years, embedded in the public education system whose primary goal is to produce valuable contributors to society. In attending public schools, funded by state and federal governments, this means that government has a stake in our education. So, what does our federal government consider as valuable? According to the US Department of Education its mission is “…to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.”

So, in a society where many, if not all, of us are reared to fit an external definition of what it means to be a person, how do we know what it means to be our true self? What I’ve come to understand is that it takes significant effort to 1) identify where our ear trumpets are

pointing when we ask, “who am I?”; and 2) point our trumpets in the ‘right’ direction or keep them pointed in the ‘right’ direction if they already are. So, what is the ‘right’ direction? With a lifetime of being told ‘who we are’ coming at us from external sources, teaching us, in turn, to seek external validation, our truth’s only endorsement is the voice that comes from within.

“…listening to our inner teacher is the most important skill we need to follow the way of integrity”

-Martha Beck in ‘The Way of Integrity’

The Orchestra of Self

When we ask the question“Who am I?” we are often referring to our self-concept – the orchestra of the self, which is made up of various self -schemas. Self-concept is a phrase coined by psychologists Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow in the 1950’s (though it was built upon the ideas of philosophers before them). In short it is“what we know or can know about ourselves… an idea or set of ideas of who we are.” (Oyserman, 2001)

One’s self-concept is comprised of multiple self-schemas, which are “categories of knowledge that reflect how we expect ourselves to think, feel, and act in particular settings or situations.” (Cherry, 2023) Our self-schemas are developed in response to interactions and feedback starting in early childhood and continue to be defined and redefined throughout our lives. I like to visualize the settings of self-schemas as a hierarchy of concentric spheres starting with (and in order) society, community, friends, family, and soul. Inside these spheres are smaller spheres (which often overlap the larger groupings) that further define the setting. Notice how all but one of the schemas are external, the core being the soul (the true self, the inner voice), and you

(Example of Self-Schema Settings)

are (I am) the only one there. All of these settings and how we define ourselves in each of them (schema), all of these together make this amazing orchestra we call ‘the self’.

As in any orchestra, instruments must be in tune with each other for the music to be what it was written to be. When the first violin stands up and plays an A440, a moment is taken for all the instruments, the entire orchestra, to align their A to that of the first violin (and then subsequently tune their instrument to that A). Your true self (the soul) is that first violin. When there is conflict between your truth and any of the other schemas, it is not dissonant – dissonance can be purposeful and rather lovely, it is out of tune. When a schema is out of tune, depending on how trained you are to ‘hear it’, you may not notice it right away but over time that slight variation in pitch will grow and become obvious.

Out-of-tune schemas can appear in any variety of ways, I notice them primarily though emotions. I’m not shy in saying that I love being a woman because of my hormonal cycle – it is unforgiving and by demanding that I feel my emotions, especially when I am trying my darnedest to ignore them, my female cycle will not allow me to ignore a truth - as frustrating as that might be, and as painful as it is to work through. (I am forever grateful for this superpower of being a woman with a fully functional menstrual cycle). What I’ve found is that emotions don’t lie; in fact, when they appear it is likely they are telling me to stop lying.

“This language [of the soul] is spoken through the body. We can think of sensations as words, feelings as sentences, and emotions as the paragraphs.”

-Anodea Judith in ‘Eastern Body, Western Mind’

There are many who have spent a lifetime training themselves not to recognize their emotions (and often then teach their children to do the same). For them, and their children, it takes a more deliberate approach to be able to hear what is ‘out of tune’. If you are one such person, below is a short list to help kick-start the ability to identify when your schema is out of tune with its core (gathered from a variety of sources).

· Lying

· Guilt

· Black and white thinking

· Illness and body pain and/or aches

· Contradiction between actions and values

· Anxiety and/or depression (or tension manifesting in other ways)

· Anger towards others or self

Fear, What Fear?

As I mentioned earlier, this is scary work. I have so many fears and questions in my determination to be my full true self; for example: What if my true self means I am a homeless self? What if it means I lose my family and/or friends? I am so scared, but I also recognize that I have no choice. My true self will not be quiet, and besides , the ‘truer’ I am, the more liberated I become. Not having to hide or otherwise restrict myself is absolutely amazing. As I have corrected (tuned) my schema I have noticed this amazing liberating feeling firsthand.

I recently left a job with the ‘best’ income I’ve ever made (non-profit, so, you know, it still wasn’t much, but it was the most I’ve ever made) and with no other job lined up, a normally absolutely frightening situation. I left this job because it was mentally and emotionally unhealthy: capacity limits were met and exceeded time and again; support services were minimal and, in many cases, non-existent; inter-staff communications channels were broken; the list goes on. In a word, it was stressfulI didn’t like it, I didn’t like who I was becoming, and I didn’t’ like the ‘me’ I was able to give to people and situations I care about. I tried looking for work while employed but didn’t have any success. Meanwhile, I was continuing to be depleted (my orchestra was out of tune with my soul). So, I decided that enough was enough – actually my true self was screaming at the top of my lungs that I needed to get out even with no job lined up. I also heard this same voice say, “trust me, we’re going to be okay.” The decision was remarkably easy, and once it was made (and announced) I literally felt a weight taken off my shoulders. I was suddenly able to breathe and after a little time of emotional and nervous system recovery I felt my full self once again; better even, I felt more myself than I ever had before.

There is one moment in particular that I recall being most liberating, telling my parents. My parents who live by the book that says that being a fiscally responsible adult, a.k.a. a successful member of society, means continued employment and not leaving one job until another job is lined up, whatever the cost. For most of my adult life I was fixated on ‘making my parents proud’, by attempting to live according to the rules they had shared with me (this is after my ‘rebellious’ teens and early 20s). I thought that telling them that I had not only made this decision but had also enacted it was going to be frightening – but oh how liberating! How amazing it was to respond to their statements of concern with “I know this isn’t what you would choose for me and that this decision is frightening for you, but it is the right decision for me and aligns with my truth.” There was no hemming, no hawing, no skirting around to try to avoid or delay the announcement and it was freedom. It was saying– no owning– that ‘this is me, this is my truth, and this is how I must act to align myself with my truth’. Full Stop.

When I stop to listen, and if pointed in the direction of these external settings, my ear trumpet can still pick up the sounds of the scared voices coming from the society and family. The voices that ‘believe’ a certain set of conditioned rules. I can also feel that they are conditioned rules and are not my truth or my values. There is a very clear difference between these (my true self versus one of the other schema and my truth versus conditioned rules). The voice of my true self just feels ‘right’. My truth just feels right. Martha Beck described it best when she said “When we grasp the truth - any truth - all our ways of knowing align. We recognize this alignment as our ideal state of being. It feels calm, clear, still, open. That feeling is the inner teacher saying yes.”

Going to the Gym

It takes strength to know and live your truth. According to Janelle Pica (a personal trainer who has been featured in Whirl Magazine, CBS NY, and Experience Life), strength is “the quality or state of being strong…” she further defines strong as “… able to withstand great force or pressure.” I would absolutely consider what we experience as external demands and expectations (real or ‘imagined’) as both external force AND pressure, and the weight of these external forces and pressures are reinforced by our upbringings of attending to external validation.

Strength is the quality or state of being able to know and live your truth while withstanding the great force and pressure of the external voices, past & present, that pervade our lives.

Similar to how once we build the muscle necessary to open that stupid jar, that jar doesn’t seem so stupid anymore (meaning opening it becomes easy), once we build the muscle to know and live our truth, knowing and living our truth becomes, well, the only way we know how to live.

In this we are lucky: we live in a time and place where there are many ‘gyms’ to build strength in knowing and living truth. One can never overlook the value of a good therapist; there are many great books (I highly recommend ‘The Way of Integrity’ by Martha Beck); if you like the idea of working with along side others using open & honest engagement I encourage you to check out opportunities from the Center for Courage and Renewal; my personal

favorite - okay an even tie with working with my amazing therapist - is working with my spirit guides and teachers (connecting directly with the inner voice through imagination-based meditative engagement - some Shaman traditions call this journeying; I also use tarot to deepen the discussion/conversation). These are just a few I am familiar with and am a witness to their indispensable value in growing closer to my truth.

If you are in the Ithaca, NY area, sometime this winter I will be starting a monthly journeying group where we will also utilize some of The Center for Courage & Renewal’s Circle of Trust practices to further our understanding of what we uncover in our sittings (a.k.a. journeys). If you are interested in joining us feel free to contact me for more information (contact information is on the back cover).

“There is a communion in letting the project of life grow into what it wants to. This is relating to the land with respect rather than entitlement. For despite our best planning, hoeing, and toiling our crop is susceptible to forces beyond our being.”

- Christopher Marmolejo in ‘The Red Tarot’

From day one we are borne into a world filled with demands, predetermined roles, and plenty of spoken and unspoken rules on ‘how to live and why’. To find, learn, know, and live one’s truth is a life-long endeavor that takes continuous dedication and work. We have to allow for our truths to be dynamic, we have to give permission to be gracious, forgiving, and gentle on ourselves, and we have to keep going to the gym. But every step you make towards your truth, is a step towards freedom.

“The language of freedom has a taste and texture we cannot know till it is discovered.”

- Christopher Marmolejo in ‘The Red Tarot’

References

Oyserman, Daphna. “Chapter 23: Self-Concept and Identity.” Blackwell Handbook of Social Psychology. Feb. 2012, https:// deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/89946

Cherry, Kendra. “Understanding Self-Schema in Psychology.” Verywell Mind, Verywell Mind, 3 Dec. 2023, www.verywellmind.com/what-is-aself-schema-2795026

Tarot Reading

I recently have taken up tarot and have fallen in LOVE with what it offers in regard to self-reflection and investigation. So, I figured that when I have a little extra space, I’ll include a reading. So, here goes! (I did a four card know/show/grow spread with a theme card)

Q: What would you have us know for our best and highest selves?

What a lovely balanced reading, with the theme card of the 8 of Cups asking us to ‘set ourselves free to the unknown’ (the wild subconscious). So we can be open to new and perhaps mysterious beginnings. This reading has us tapping into our worlds, our souls, and our hearts without the conflict that often comes when the mind gets (too) involved.

The Three of Pentacles in the know position is inviting you to acknowledge that everything is a gift, has value and purpose, regardless of your ability to know or even notice it. Everything is sacred in this way and should be honored as such.

The 10 of Wands in the show position is inviting you to (take a deep breath and then) let go of what is no longer serving you and/or is no longer yours to carry. Take a moment and appreciate the weight that has been lifted; notice the road ahead and celebrate that you no longer will be carrying that weight while travelling that road; then take your first step knowing the Divine is celebrating and rooting for you.

Finally, the 6 of Cups is a card of memory, the kind of memory that is restorative. In the grow position this card is asking us to learn to recognize the value of such memories as we move through this work. Do not push them away but give them light, see them for the gifts that they are; gifts of lessons and/or moments of reprieve.

Welcome! This is the second issue of ‘From a Novice’ musings from my sittings, readings, and meditations. I decided to put this zine together because, well, I always had wanted to put a zine together and as I was writing the essay included in the first issue I thought – well, why not now?!? And then it all sort of came together in my mind of what and how it can be. It will likely change over time as other ideas come and some ideas go. But here we are.

A little bit about me

My name is Dana Michele. I am a Shamanic Practitioner, a Tarot reader, and am in constant search for more ways to study how to be an assistant and guide for others in ‘finding and listening to your inner teacher’. My teachers include my Spirit Guides and Companions, Nancy MacPhee & Katheleen Duggan (core shamanism lineage of Sandra Ingerman); Lindsay Mack of Tarot for the Wild Soul; and The Center for Courage and Renewal; and my amazing therapist who has held the mirror for me more times than I can count. Not to mention the numerous books, articles, podcasts, etc. that I have engaged with to deepen my understanding.

I live in Ithaca NY, I have two cats (Doris & Annette), I love being outside – there is one particular hike I can’t get enough of and is what I call my ‘soul place’. Some might call me spiritual; I call it life. I do my best to live a life aligned with my values. I love to roller skate and I go to a fantastic lil’ rink with a wooden floor and a great D.J. mixing some really quirky tunes almost every week to ‘get my skate on’. This past year I picked up my viola after years away and love it, in great thanks to a really good teacher. Otherwise, I sit, I read, I take walks and sometimes get creatively inspired to try something out and see where it goes.

The theme of every publication will be whatever has come up since the last issue including, but not limited to, quotes from readings, meditations from my sittings, essays, lil’ drawings or other such images, poems, a tarot reading – all collected and/or written by me (words and/or images not written or created by me are/will be cited or otherwise noted). You can call it naval gazing and I guess in some way it is, but I’ll call it sharing what I think are juicy bits I’ve encountered and want to share, with you!

Yours Gratefully, Dana

Want to share your feedback (or join the monthly journeying circle in Ithaca, NY)? email fromanovice@gmail.com