Reflections On World Soul Retrieval Day
By Jim PathFinder Ewing (Nvnehi Awatisgi)

What we are doing today is building an altar - to the Earthly Mother, to ourselves, for all beings, the Earth included.
We are touching and celebrating that which is within us, by honoring that which is without us - joining in sacred ceremony the spiritual essence that binds us, connects us, makes us one.
By recognizing the Divine Spark within, and the eternal light within all around us, we exalt and celebrate that which is eternal, which makes us One, and carry it forward into the world as a living process of rejuvenation: the return of lost power, giving impetus to new realities.
This weaving of the world around us is essential for Healing The Earth/Ourselves, giving our lives and those within our Sacred Circles new hope, new vision, manifestation of a new world - of love, of compassion, of forgiveness, of empowerment toward a better way of being.
Below are some reflections by those who have set the intent of World Soul Retrieval Day/Weaving Worlds.
Carry them in your heart this day… and in days to come.
The path has just begun.
Aho.




That Which Nourishes,
That Which Holds Us Up:
A Shamanic Reflection on Altars
For Those New To Shamanism
by
Eolaí Frank MacEowen
"The hearth was the first altar
in Celtic tradition."
--Caitlin Matthews, Celtic shamanic guide & author
Since the announcement of World Soul Retrieval Day, we have received a variety of letters from both those individuals new to shamanism, as well as some shamanic practitioners who have not really worked with altars before. Because one of our "practice suggestions" is to establish a World Altar I thought I would take this opportunity to offer some thoughts about altars and for working with altars. These are simply my own reflections as a practitioner of a shamanic spirituality; others may have differing ways of perceiving of altars, or working with them. If people are so inclined I encourage further discussions on this topic, and any others, in the discussion board on the Luminous Weavings page.

ALTARS: They Hold Us Up, They Nourish Us
A variety of indigenous traditions around the world work with altars, from curanderos and curanderas in the Central and South American context, to the mudang shamans of Korea. Similarly, we find that many contemporary practitioners of core shamanism also utilize altars in their shamanic practice. Altars are many things to different people, but in all cases they are a centerpoint of consciousness and activity in a shamanic spirituality, or shamanic practice, whatever the tradition.
There is nothing supernatural or superstitious about an altar. I have heard it said before that nothing is supernatural; only those natural things that we do not understand. For Westerners standing outside the sphere of shamanism altars may seem "exotic," "strange," or perhaps even something humorous. One comment I remember hearing years ago was, "You people sure make a big deal about a pile of rocks."
Within an animistic spiritual path "piles of rocks" and other objects are not perceived to be "dead" or "inanimate things." Instead various items on an altar are imbued with particular energies that link the practitioner with a multidimensional weave of cosmologies, teachings, and sacred sites. The Peruvian shaman don Eduardo Calderon expressed the notion that sacred objects on an altar are the dwelling place of cuenta. Cuenta is a difficult term to translate in English, meaning roughly "power" or "spirit," similar in some sense to the way some First Nations people use the term "medicine."
Altars are a condensation of these powers or energies, and by working with an altar we find that an invitation is extended to us. This invitation is to embody the energies of integration, healing, and a sense of both focus and groundedness.
In the traditions of don Oscar Miro-Quesada and don Alberto Villoldo the altars are known as the mesa. Mesa literally means "table" and through very little exposure to sitting beside an authentic mesa one can truly feel how this "table," so to speak, "holds up" the practitioner and the community that is oriented to the mesa. For the altomesayoq shamans and shamanists within the Inka tradition the mesa is a mandala of power; it is heavy-laden with very specific alignments, representations, and energies that aid the practitioner in walking the Path of the Sun.
In my own Irish and Scottish traditions the altar is inseparable from the hearth. As Caitlin Matthews reminds us in the quote above, in the Celtic traditions the first altar was, in fact, the hearth. In the Gaelic language the word for hearth is teallach, a word related to another Gaelic word teallagh, which means "family." The hearth is the heart of the home. It was and is traditionally a place of physical nourishment in the Irish and Scottish traditions (the food was traditionally prepared at the hearth), as well as spiritual nourishment (the stories, practices, and prayers of the tradition within the home have always been oriented toward the hearth). This is true of some of the other Celtic cultures as well, namely the Cymric (Welsh), the Kernow (the Cornish), the Manx, and the Breton.
In the same way that the mesa "holds up" the mesa-carrier and his or her ayllu (community, family, clan), the teallach nourishes the Celtic shamanist, whether it is the actual altar within the home, or a traveling bundle of objects that travels with us.
Within a variety of traditions the altar of the shaman or healer is a luminous weaving of influences. Spirits, ancestors, animal powers, saints, the four elements, the four winds, certain food offerings, such as the Inka despacho or Irish offerings of milk, butter, and whisky to the spirits of the land. Likewise, in many cases we find that the actual altar of a shaman, seer, or diviner may be both a cosmological-geological template of the region in which they live.
It is far beyond me to instruct anyone how he or she "should" do an altar. This is something that evolves over time. Probably the swiftest way to expedite the process is to immediately begin considering your altar not as an object or collection of objects, but, really, a being, co-walker, or friend who supports you. Many shamans I know, upon waking in the morning, will say hello to their family members, any guests staying with them, but then they will say, "Good morning," to their bundles, altars, rattles, and other sacred items within the home, including the spirit of their home itself. Rather than a one-dimensional, "flat-liner" perception of your altar try approaching the task of building, consecrating, and working with your altar from an animistic, multi-dimensional, and multi-sensory way of relationship. You are creating a dwelling place for the helping spirits.
My primary recommendations are to begin gathering to you the many strands that influence your soulscape and "weave them into your altar." You may want to honor your ancestors or ancestral heritage on your altar. You may feel an immediate inclination to include representations of the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water-a near universal practice. Similarly, you may find yourself naturally drawn to a four-directional orientation, or creating an altar that expresses your relationship to the specific bioregion in which you dwell. Some altars, regardless of where they are, may also be oriented to various original places of power in the traditions, such as some altars in Ireland that are arranged in orientation to what we call the Five-Fold Division of Ireland. In each of the four winds of our traditions there are very specific associations and teachings which aid us in walking the path, and refining the path of our soul's journey.
In the end, you are your altar. As you work with the altar you begin to integrate its powers and radiating these energies. The altar becomes an expression of us, and we become an expression of the altar. In this way, we are held up, we are nourished, and we can be about the work of holding others up and nourishing them as well.
As we approach the work of World Soul Retrieval Day what I have been encouraging people to do is really consider their world altar--which is an altar separate and distinct from your mesa, teallach, or other altars you may work with--as an altar that is a "transpersonal" altar, rather than a personal or cultural altar. It is an altar where we seek to acknowledge and give expression to our shared planethood, and both the actualized and shadow dimensions of our existence.



WORLD SOUL RETRIEVAL PROCESS
The following elements are suggestions for orientations of practice based on the original visions that guided us to create World Soul Retrieval Day on June 21, 2003. It is offered as a general guide for working with World Soul Retrieval Day from year to year.
On June 20, 2004, some of you may find yourselves in your traditional communities, or attending other gatherings of prayer and focus. The following is not intended to compete or to distract you from your traditional work, or from other ventures that you may have aligned with.
Instead, the invitation of World Soul Retrieval Day is to align your individual or community shamanic practice to a spirit, and to carry this spirit with you into your traditional ceremonies; to hold and work with these energies how you see fit.
Likewise, some of you may find yourselves facilitating retreats, teachings, or trainings on this day. Again, the following is not intended to compete or distract from your sacred work. It is an invitation to weave this vision, what is truly all of our vision, into your circles.
The following information will touch on certain points: sacred fire, altar work and the world altar, linking-up, spirit-journeys to address fear and grief, spirit-journeys to influence a reharmonization within the soul of the world, processing the work, celebration, and sharing return accounts and experiences.
SACRED FIRE:
Fire is sacred to all earth people. It is at the core of the transformative process in many shamanic traditions. At the apex of the noonday sun on June 20 2004, people working with the energies of the World Soul Retrieval vision are invited to light a ceremonial fire, or a candle, to acknolwedge our luminous connections and our common aim to promote healing, purification, and soul-retrieval. It is also an ancient way to pay homage to the life-giving Sun, on this the eve of the Summer Solstice.
As we do this we remember the Old Ones; those who came before us; those who lit the ceremonial fires before us; those many generations who also knew soul loss and who also gathered in ceremony to call the soul parts home.
We are also calling to the spirit of the sacred fires of the future; the fires of our descendents, even the fires we will one day stand around again thousands of years from now. We, who are the ancestors of those to come, are kindling this flame for those who will, in time, remember us in ceremony; who will, in time, be seeking our guidance for the challenges of their time. On this day we commit, or re-commit, to a path of becoming good ancestors for them.






ALTAR WORK: THE WORLD ALTAR
Many of you work with sacred altars, mesas, or medicine-bundles. These tools are but one of the ways in which the spirits hold us, guide us, and help us.
On the 20th of June we invite the shamanic community to activate your altars and to link up within sacred time. This is the real World Wide Web. One suggestion for how this can be done is through the WEAVING WORLDS JOURNEY MEDITATION.
Through this approach, and acknowledging our pre-established connections as one human tribe, we consciously join the luminous energies of our altars, mesas and medicine bundles; we become active points of light in the binding weave, the matrix of energy that is the Soul of the Earth, and the Soul of the World.
In addition to our traditional bundles, mesas and altars, people are also invited to create a temporary "world altar" on World Soul Retrieval Day. This may be an actual altar in the natural world that becomes a shrine, an altar in the center of your ceremonial room, or simply an altar that one "builds" and consecrates within one's inner vision and heart. The important element is to know, consciously, that on this day, and into the night, your world altar links you with all of the other world altars being activated on this day.
The World Altar as a physical altar can also become a dreaming altar. As our dear brother Peem Juan Arcos, a shaman among the Shuar has said, "It is important for us to realize that we are all living within the same dream. Now is the time to change the dream we are dreaming."
Such a World Dreaming Altar acknowledges the nightmare that is the dream of this time, but it is also a centerpoint in time and space where we actively seek to remember our power to change the dream.
On the World Altar we gather images, items, and objects that express and contain the energies of both our sacred medicine (the enlightened aspects of our cultures and our collective humanity), as well as the shadow, heaviness, or darkness of humanity that yearns to be transformed. Because it is a World Altar, all manner of items may be placed on the altar to represent the different peoples, nations, and tribes of the world.

SPIRIT JOURNEY ONE:
TO ADDRESS FEAR AND GRIEF
"The healing of a wound comes from the blood of the wound itself."
One of the stepping stones of World Soul Retrieval Day is to investigate the fear and grief of this time. We invite the shamanic community to engage in a collective process together to address this fear and grief specifically through shamanic journeying.
As we all know, one important element of shamanic work is to address spirit-intrusions through the work of extraction. Such terms as "extraction" can be misleading, however, for the spirit-realities associated with intrusions require us to enter into the wound for an awareness of its cause, not simply to remove it like an invasive surgery on cancer.
The Spirit Journey to address fear and grief is intended to aid us in gaining a more thorough level of awareness about the Spirit of Fear that has "set up camp" in the Soul of the World, and within many people.
Like all troublesome spirits or hungry ghosts, they want to be fed and transformed. We invite people and their circles to feed this Spirit of Fear with their own keening, their own fully embodied grieving, and for each of us in our global shamanic community to "step down" these energies, thus transforming them into a positive current of energy that can be harnessed and directed for life-affirming purposes.

SPIRIT JOURNEY TWO:
TO INFLUENCE REHARMONIZATION IN THE SOUL OF THE WORLD & TO ACQUIRE NEW VISION

"Without vision the people perish."--The Bible
We also invite the shamanic community to engage in a collective journey together to actively seek to restore harmony in the soul of the world. Many activists and peaceworkers have been laying down their lives to attempt to restore the harmony within the Soul of the World. They have been working on this within ordinary reality, within the everyday world. As a global shamanic community we seek to work from the other side, from the Otherworld to this one.
Another important element of shamanic work is soul retrieval work. In the context of World Soul Retrieval Day the term "soul retrieval" refers to the act of restoring the balance. We seek to join our energies as a global shamanic collective; to raise these energies, to harness our light, and to beseech the powers to return more fully to the world.
Some have said, "Isn't it a bit presumptuous to think that one can perform a soul retrieval on behalf of the whole world?" Seen through a particular lens it may appear to be an impossibility, but from the holographic crucible of shamanic perception and experience we are simply acknowledging and agreeing to perform our "quantum obligations." We are gathering our power as a community to strengthen the luminous strands that form the great pattern.
The Spirit Journey to influence a reharmonization in the Soul of the World seeks to replenish, restore, and nourish. We are each facets of the wider net, but as the New Physics suggests, this also makes us microcosms of the entire net.
Similarly as a global shamanic collective we seek a shared vision for the times to come; the spark of a vision that will kindle many fires in the future earth culture. There has never been a time when we were not on this journey. And, as the Hopi elders say, "We are the ones we have been waiting for."

PROCESSING THE WORK

People are invited to process their experiences in whatever manner they see fit. Providing time and space for this is important. We are all journeying for each other. We are all journeying for the seven generations yet unborn. We are all journeying to determine our roles in this era of wide-sweeping change. We are all journeying to receive guidance on how to manifest the future earth culture; how to, as Peruvian shaman Oscar Miro-Quesada says, "find a common myth that all people can align with."
Setting aside time to process and share these things within your communities is highly encouraged.
CELEBRATION

Celebration and feasting is a cornerstone of indigenous and shamanic traditions worldwide. Celebrate, feast, honor the richness and abundance of the life-giving earth. In whatever manner is your way, hold a community feast to honor the work we have done. Our hearts are full. We have done good work. We have blown forth from our hearts our prayers on spirit-wind, and blown these same prayers into the earth, to the core where our shared hearth-fire burns. We are vision-holders, and dream-keepers. We are changing the dream with a new dream.
RETURN ACCOUNTS

As a global shamanic collective, people are also encouraged to share this information with your brothers and sisters by returning to the Weaving Worlds website after June 20, 2004 to share return accounts, experiences, insights, or your own particular strands of vision. A message board is provided, a guest book, an Event Announcement tool for those who are creating circles on World Soul Retrieval Day, likewise some letters/comments may also become condensed information that is posted on the website www.worldsoulretrieval.com.
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To summarize, the vision is for individuals and/or communities, to light a sacred fire and observe whatever your pre-existing Solstice customs are, or to send forth prayers in connection with other events, such as World Prayer and Peace Day.
Beyond this, the actual practice of World Soul Retrieval Day that is proposed is to:
--activate your altars (hearth-altars, mesas and bundles)
--utilize the WEAVING THE WORLDS MEDITATION> to "link up" our energies
--perform a spirit journey based on the theme of the collective grief and fear of this time, with attention given to transforming these energies (some may elect to perform grief or keening rituals in addition to this journey)
--perform a spirit journey based on the theme of supporting the vital essence of the soul of the world, collectively harnessing our energies in ceremony for the sake of finding soul parts that have been lost and being shown what else can be done to bring about our future earth culture.
--process the individual and group experiences of your circle, in part on World Soul Retrieval Day, and possibly in follow-up meetings or drumming circles
--hold a simple feast to celebrate our connections and the good work of the day
--visit the Weaving Worlds site and share with your brothers and sisters any insights, experiences, visions, or teachings you have received along these themes that may benefit us all in continuing the path of world soul retrieval into the future.
To conclude, spread the word. This work takes all of us.