I look back on that night with curiosity because I don’t
know if I dreamt of the bear in the closet or if I’d imagined it in the dark or
both. The memory didn’t emerge until
decades later when panda spirit showed up as a power animal during a shamanic journey
at a workshop and shared that he had been with me as a protector ever since
that night.
My Dad had just returned from a trip to Hong Kong and gifted
me a stuffed panda that I still have to this day. I’d kept the panda all through the years even
though I’d gotten rid of most of my other childhood toys and relics and now I
knew why I was drawn to keep it. Panda spirit
is very playful and fun loving, sensitive and compassionate, but also needs solitary
time and sets strong boundaries.
Children are often able to observe unseen worlds, which is why it’s common for parents to be awakened in the night by their youngsters who are convinced something is there that doesn’t exist in this 3-D plane. However, these interactions with guides visiting from other dimensions can be experienced by any of us when we’re in a theta brainwave state and young children usually spend most of their time in a theta state.
Unfortunately, this connection to both the unseen world and
imagination subsides as children get older and are expected to fall in line
with the collective tribal conditioning of being realistic and sensible. It’s all rooted in an ever-evolving
expression of survival coping mechanisms, but it’s also a reason for so much of
our untapped potential to be left sitting in the shadows. While yes, human beings need to adopt a
skillset for meeting the practicalities of life, it’s also empowering to maintain
a connection to the mysteries of the unknown.
It’s easy to not bother with remembering our dreams, taking up a creative
project just for the sake of engaging our imagination or taking a moment once
in a while to acknowledge our natural intuitive nature.
There’s a default tendency to process what happens in life
through the lens of what we already know instead of perceiving life through a
symbolic lens that offers a rich landscape of wisdom and understanding. To play with our imagination and intuition
means dancing in the dark and allowing clarity to come later. It’s about observing something that doesn’t immediately
make sense and instead allowing the meaning to be revealed in right timing, even
if it takes years or decades.
When a shaman travels between worlds to retrieve healing wisdom,
they begin with the steady rhythm of a drum or other instrument and sit in a
dark space that supports them entering a theta state to commune with spirit. We all have a healing shaman in us that can
travel between worlds to receive support from unknown realms, just as a child
sees their spirit animal coming out of the closet in the middle of the night. While you don’t necessarily have to take a
shamanic journey to the steady rhythm of a drum, it does help to be engaged in
an activity that gives the logical brain a break and offers the symbolic mind the
internal mic.
As the days grow shorter this time of year, nature creates
the circumstances for us to commune more easily with the spirit realm. This is a great time to start a dream journal,
begin a new creative project or take a nature hike to see what spirit animal
shows up. In fact, you don’t even need
to be in nature for a spirit animal to show up.
Just the other day, as I got turned around at a subway stop while
meeting a friend in Brooklyn, a large yellow butterfly appeared and turned down
the street in the direction I needed to go.
There’s no right or wrong way to engage the part of you that
understands the symbolic nature of life.
You just need a willingness to dance with the unknown and see where
spirit takes you.
