Deer knows the forest.

As a hunter, a person of the mountains, I know the forest pretty well. I know where in the forest to find a particular herb, where the springs are to be found, which type of trees grow where, and at what time of day the various animals are to be found asleep and when awake. I know the mountain ranges and peaks, the valleys and streams, meadows and cliffs.

Deer knows the Forest. Each blade of grass, every dewdrop, each and every tree, and the denizens thereof, Deer knows intimately.

When Deer enters the Forest and sees a tree that has fallen, that tree, in Deer’s noticing of it, becomes upright and strong once again. Where a rock has fallen from its lodging, Deer notices it, and the rock returns to its placement; a spring that has dried up flows once more in Deer’s notice. A stream that has overflowed its banks and is flooding returns to its course under Deer’s notice. Clouds, roiling and tumbling, drift their appointed path once again when Deer places attention upon them.

In the Forest of the Celestial Soul, which carries the blueprint of our manifest existence, the tree is a nerve bundle. Spirit Deer, entering into this forest of the Celestial Soul, notices the broken nerve bundle and moves it into wholeness. When Spirit Deer sees a rock/bone that is out of place or broken, that rock/bone returns to its alignment and heals. The spring is a gland of the endocrine system, which having ceased pumping its hormones, flows once again. The stream is a blood passageway, clouds are thoughts.

We are comprised of three Souls or aspects of Soul. They are: the Earth Soul, the residence of short-term memory and conscious mental functions, the Underworld Soul is the place from which we dream and is the reservoir of our Power (Life Force), which itself resonates with thoughts, feelings, experiences, and impressions, i.e. memory, long-term memory specifically. The Celestial Soul is our High Self, the inspirational self through which we receive spiritual guidance and direction here in our daily lives. It is the tapestry, though here I will use the metaphor of it being like a slide-projector’s film. The light of Creation, shining through this film, projects into the manifest world the 3-D holographic projection that we experience as our reality: mental, physical, and emotional reality.

Through trauma or debilitation, we may deplete the resources of Power stored within our Underworld Soul. The Underworld Soul, in order to acquire enough sustenance to keep us alive, might then begin to cannibalize the field of Life Force of which the Celestial Soul is made. This causes damage to the patterns of the High Self, like pinholes or rips in the slide projector’s film. The light of Creation shining through the film now manifests in those places of damage a blankness, lacking creative manifestation. In these places of nothingness, there is no direction given to the Life Force to organize itself. In those areas of life experience, we find instead dysfunction, discord, and disease.  Any condition of disintegration and disassociation from the creative processes of life-positive regeneration is seen to be a result of the disintegration of the Celestial Soul that arises from an insufficient resource of Life Force in the Underworld Soul.

In order to reinstate the wholeness of the Celestial Soul so that we can experience regeneration and wellness in our manifest lives it is imperative that we both repair the damage in the Celestial Soul and recharge the Underworld Soul to a state of empowered equilibrium. This necessitates that the underlying condition that brought about the loss of Life Force, i.e. the trauma and its consequential debilitation, be healed as well. A healing of the Soul must be brought about at the level of the Soul that is injured or conflicted. Mere physical, emotional, and mental rehabilitation, while beneficial, are not of themselves sufficient to the task. Healing the Underworld Soul requires a bringing of the light of Awareness into the darkness of separation and despair that has come to inhabit the realms of our dreams. From there, a thorough transformation of the life-negative forces into life-positive joyousness is then necessary. Once this healing of the wound of the Underworld Soul is accomplished then the implementation of healing and reconstitution of the Celestial Soul is in order.

Deer, as has been mentioned, is capable of going into the Celestial Soul to repair the damage that has been wreaked by the Underworld Soul in distress. Not, however, of its own accord. The intimate relationship between Shaman and Spirit Deer is essential. It is the Shaman’s ability to open the portals between the realms of the Soul that provides access for Deer to leap into the Soul of the person who has requested and is in need of, this particular treatment. In addition, it is through the Shaman’s knowledgeable guidance that the Shaman prepares, in ceremony, to create within themselves the simultaneous opening of the portal within their Soul in the same moment that the Deer is sent forth into the client’s Forest/Celestial Soul by the Shaman.

Still all is not complete until Spirit Eagle flies with and above Spirit Deer through the Forest. Eagle has the function of setting into firmness all that Deer has accomplished. Just as the Shaman must have an existent and well-developed relationship with Deer in order for the Shaman to be able to call Deer forth, so must the Shaman have an equal relationship with Eagle.

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• Release from the grip of long-held fears, tears, grief, sadness and sorrows.
• A lifting of your feelings into a more positive experience of life.
• A surge in vitality, passion, and enthusiasm for life.