Are these “coincidences” a manifestation of a mind primed to look for these things because of my reading? Could these happenings be some sort of synchronicity or message from the Universe or spirit guides that I should be heeding? If so, how do I get clarity as to what it is? Thanks, Belle.

Thanks for your note, Belle. For me, everything is a sign pointing to some deeper meaning of itself, or to some point of power. Why? Because I choose to see events as such. Because I choose to perceive events at all levels available to me, not just the most evident and most pressing. Symbols are miracles we have recorded into language. They are reminders that the Multiverse is alive and aware of each of us. We are aware of miracles when we choose to be active participants. For me, such coincidences are feedback that I live in an animistic reality, that All Things are connected.

In my experience, miracles are natural signals we allow ourselves to perceive. We have cultural signals to which we have ascribed collective meaning, such as weather patterns and interpreting animal behaviour. Through Jung’s work we have the symbolic interpretation of our own unconscious via archetypes marking the places where we as individuals draw from the same shadow pools of meaning. In specific pockets of divination we have collectively accepted symbolism in the tarot or the Runes. Because we are well aware of each of these systems of symbolism, we have assimilated them into a code that has been interpreted and accepted at a collective level.
The basis for what you are experiencing personally, however, is no different. We tend to reject personal signals and coincidences because there is no lexicon for how to interpret them. In essence, we doubt our own ability to interpret not just what the Multiverse is saying to us, but what our own unconscious is saying about our lives.

When you become aware of personal signals, it is up to you to interpret what they mean. Certainly there are books available to tell you what every sequence of numbers means in discrete detail. They may hit on exactly what you need–a signal of affirmation–or they may not. I suggest a more personal decoding approach. Consider what you were thinking at the time you perceived the signal. What was your state of being? How did you feel? What happened immediately after perceiving the signal? What memories or thoughts were triggered? This sentient information is the map that informs you of your personal language to your unconscious, to your spirit guides and totems, to the Multiverse. The more you work with understanding signals in your life, the more signals will come, the more evident their meaning will be, and the thinner the barrier becomes between your unconscious and conscious minds.

While I can’t tell you what you are onto, Belle, I can without hesitation inform you that you are onto something. The fact that you have become aware of coincidence is half the awareness. The rest is creating the language through which you understand what signals are saying. That language comes from within.
Be well.

This story is a fairly sad one for me, though it gives great insight into the kinds of things shamans encounter, and how they deal with them. It also speaks to the myriad sources of support along our paths. You don’t have to know about Saturn–the god or the planet to get the gist of the story, though if you do you will better discern its gifts. Saturn’s Gift.

Max, the Crystal Skull

Four years ago in celebration of The Dead Time I began sharing some of my more creepy experiences of the wyrd. Sooner or later most people experience phenomena they can’t explain, or that occurs outside the bounds of their belief system. What it is and what it means is open to interpretation, and most certainly is in the eye of the boo-holder. Bless the darkness, hold the light.

This story isn’t creepy (well, to me), so much as peculiar. Crystal skulls have been a focus in the mystical community ongoing, though interest in them became more common after the last Indiana Jones film. There are quite a few of them, several of which date back thousands of years. A few years ago one of the most well-known ones, Max, visited my area, hence, An Afternoon with Max, the Crystal Skull.

In this particular story, I was on a business trip to Kansas City, MO, where I stayed at the lovely, vintage Hotel Phillips.  Despite that I traveled alone, at no point was I left to myself in the room…  Hotel Phillips and Murderous Insomnia

Thanks for your inquiry, Katherine. You are wise to consult sources of imbalance on all levels. Indeed, you make important observations about fortifying mind/body/soul/emotional balance. Those are:

1.  We can affect that balance, and
2.  We must know when to seek help maintaining it.

When I work with your guides and a proxy of yourself I see that your hands are very etherically sensitive. You take in a lot of information through them about other people, the things you touch, the way the atmosphere around you feels. As a result they have gotten their “filters clogged,” so to speak. The energetic overburdening of your hands is also affecting energy flow in musculature of your shoulders.

We are all very susceptible to the energies around us, and we take them on in different ways. As a result we have to cultivate an awareness of what we take on as well as a process for how to release it. As an intuitive who has spent much time working with others, I can tell you that we can’t release too much. Most people don’t release enough.

What I see being critically important is for you to restore or beef up your connection with Nature through your hands. They need to feel direct connection with the Earth for a while. It’s time for what I call a daily “dirt meditation.” For twenty minutes or so each day, allow your hands to connect as fully as possible with the Earth. This can be in grass, dirt, clay (not water, and at first, not rocks). Get your hands as flat on the ground as you can, and be with that connection. However it manifests, just be with it. Don’t try to talk with it, affect it, or intentionally alter your life force in anyway. The planet can do this work for you, just allow it.

How many days you do it is up to you. I suggest doing it for a week, rain or shine, at different times of the day, and re-evaluate. This need isn’t just about healing the physical characteristics of your hands or bringing balance to their etheric sensitivity. Your hands are barometers indicating greater need for etheric reconnection in how you experience your cosmology at a deep level of being. There is information that will be transmitted from the ground to your hands, through everything that you are, about who you are, about what you do, about how you see the world and care for it, for yourself. Stick with the dirt meditation until you get those memos. My guess is that once you start getting them, you won’t want to stop. They are messages directly from the First Mother to you. Be well, Katherine!

Through my shamanic practice, Soul Intent Arts, I’ve done distance Soul Readings for clients for thirteen years.  This one-hour reading allows me to present your intention in a shamanic journey to your spirit guides and gain a general overview into present life dynamics. Once payment (PayPal only) is received I will contact you via email to learn your intention for the reading and to schedule it. A writeup of the reading will be emailed to you within 3-4 days after.

Get a better idea of what insight comes up in a Soul Reading by checking out my shamanic Q&A column, Intentional Insights. More info on the logistics of readings is available at How to Prepare for a Distance Soul Reading.

Bidding starts at $60. However, if bidding goes above $90, I will also include a followup interaction, allowing in-depth questions and intentions to be addressed.  Bid by commenting on this post.

Bidding will end at midnight EST on Sunday 21 August 2011, and winner notification will be emailed Monday. Please be sure to leave your email when you bid. Your email will be visible only to me.

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If you’ve been curious about shamanism or Soul Readings, or if you’ve had one before and would like another, this is a great opportunity for a deeper experience of yourself and to support a wonderful publication.

Midsummer's Eve by Edward Robert Hughes

Thanks for your note, Isabella. The overarching impression that I have is you are craving an experience of the Divine that is not above you, but includes you. This need feels like a departure from the cosmology that is presented in your current dwelling, a shift that has contributed to your unrest in that space. I applaud you for realizing that you need a change, and that you are willing to do what you need to feel balanced in yourself. You are very connected into All Things and are at peace with that spiritual bond. You want more expression of it and a way to experience it that puts you in new spaces, new energy, new movement. “Movement” is the keyword. Your life force is very healthy and thriving, but it’s very close to your body. This state is neither good nor bad. When we need to be insular, we hold our life force close. When we need to connect and share, we expand it outward. Where you have been living has required you to keep your life force close as a means of connecting with the Divine. You have mastered relating to the Divine in this way. You are ready to extend your life force into new experiences and spaces, and to find Divinity in new ways. For you to meet this need you must gradually extend your life force out, as well as physically relocate.

My overall feeling is that you have gone as far as you can in personal and spiritual development at this monastery. Staying there past this point will dull the gifts you bring it. Whether you remain in robes or completely step away from the identity you have created as a nun is your choice. Your thirst for knowledge and connecting with the Divine in everything is leading you into the world in a new way, and tells me that you will never be a layman at anything you do.

Be well, Isabella.

The Harry Potter story presents a strong, modern archetypal connection to Jung’s hero’s journey. As my studies of the Runes clarified–the obscure, ancient Norse symbols Odin brought back from his time on the World Tree–I began making connections between the progression of their story and characters of the Potterverse, not just between personality traits and the meaning of the Runes, but in how the characters represented stages of Harry’s hero’s journey through the progression of the Runic aetts. My study of the Elder Futhark has been eclectic, though I approach them from the old Icelandic and Norse runic poems as interpreted by Kate MacDowell. I thought to intuitively draw Runes and see what came, as is common when using them for divination. I’m so moved by the series and have a smooth enough rapport with the Runes that I trusted myself to assign them.

The preliminaries to address include: there be spoilers here. If you don’t know what happens to Harry and his series or don’t want to, stop reading now. That’s your only warning. Rabid Potter ficcers beware–archetypes abhor chronology. Just go with it. As well, this is all subjective, so all of you Runic academics put down your Hávamál and just read. This is my modern take on an ancient story.

The Runes are divided into three aetts, or developmental groups, which signify the overall advancement of the journey. The first grouping is Frey’s aett, which explores how the hero comes into form and sustains. We begin the story with Fehu, or wealth that transfers and must be tended in some way. It asks us to think of generosity for what we have been given by our ancestors and in what we will pass on. Sirius is the closest thing to a living ancestor for Harry. Best friend to Harry’s parents, Sirius literally is the most valuable figure to Harry. He cares for Harry affectionately, though in passing on material means for Harry to continue caring for himself, Sirius bequeaths a sense of earthly belonging Harry had not known before. Hence, through Sirius leaving his home to Harry as the hidden base for the Order of the Phoenix, from which Harry could take action in the formed realm.

Runestone

Uruz is the primal nature unmarred by domestication or socialization. The wildest figure in the Potterverse is without question Voldemort. In fact, when we first learn of him he is not capable of forming in the world just yet. His threat, however ethereal, is evident, as becomes his influence to inspire Harry to explore his own depths of wildness.

With Thurisaz comes the thoughtform, awareness of one’s self and what one could become. Young Tom Riddle foreshadows the potential of an unshaped psyche. As he rises to be the most powerful dark wizard in the world, the boundaries he pushes to succeed come to mirror possibilities for Harry’s fate, as well.

Molly Weasley embodies Ansuz, the Rune of taking form. Ansuz reminds us ongoing that we are never separate from what we create, so we must create with care. Molly demonstrated this trait best in ardent tending of her loved ones, her foremost priority. She walked it like she talked it, displaying a devotion to core priorities otherwise lacking in Harry’s personal life.

Where Ansuz is the very personal internal process of choosing what we give attention to, Raidho is the process of culling out what of ourselves we share with the world. No character blatantly displays firmness in telling her story precisely the way she wants others to hear it better than Dolores Umbridge. Despite her misguidedness, her rationale is impeccable. She is an excellent foil for Harry to discern what of his story needs to be heard by others.

Kenaz is the light in shadow. As we begin to share our story we can come to believe our words over reality; thus, having someone or something interject a bit of perspective puts us back on track. For Harry this is an internal process guided by his projections of his mother, Lily. He doesn’t remember her, but the sacrifice she made for him compels him to hold perspective and stay the course.

Gebo is the acquired ally. Along our paths we gain the gift of friends who help us move along. Dobby is the only ally to Harry who has no personal gain in mind, and who ever-expresses gratitude for Harry’s friendship. Subtle and small, Dobby’s gratefulness for their friendship gains Harry significant advantages over Voldemort.

Another important ally is Luna Lovegood, a brilliant embodiment of Wunjo–absolute joy and delight. Luna remains Harry’s best teacher of playfulness and detachment. Though he doesn’t understand her, her lightness always eases him. The glimpses of joy Harry sees in Luna’s fresh way to see the world also moves him forward.

With the completion of what it takes for Harry to sustain, we move into the second aett–Hagal’s Aett. With Hagalaz we begin to distinguish the personal journey from the collective. For this Rune we have Harry, a young boy entrenched between two worlds–literally–and upon whom the fate of the entire Wizarding World rests. As he takes on the mantle of being a wizard, so does he face the fact that an inevitable confrontation is coming.

Nauthiz confronts Harry quickly in Draco. In his nemesis Harry can be exonerated as a half-blood, thus subvert his calling and growth to self-hood, or he can assert his individuality and compassion. Harry’s choice to be authentic leaves Draco wrestling with constraint that eventually calls him to similar action.

Draco exaggerated is his father, Lucius, an icy man dominated by the power of wealth. Swayed by the glittering qualities of Isa, Lucius’ reality and vitality are challenged because Harry will not comply with the Death Eaters. Left impotent, Lucius’ plight foretells the magnitude of Harry’s imminent confrontation.

Jera is Nymphadora Tonks, the pinnacle artist as creator and prophet. Her ability to morph her form as she wishes is Harry’s earliest hint that we create ourselves as we want to be. Thus, culling through the experience shaping him into a young man, Harry creates his own destiny.

My greatest point of consternation in the series is and has always been that the strongest female character is also the most vile–Bellatrix Lestrange. In Eihwaz is the embodiment of the yew tree, sweet and poison, strong and unwavering, as is Bella. Through every desperate and deliberate act to destroy Harry, Bella is true to herself, a true match for Harry’s own resolve.

Luckily, he has Ron as his personal Perthro. Ever the comic relief and soothsayer of the obvious, Ron’s goofy nature bring calamity as easily as clarity. Ron is the force of randomness that keeps Harry grounded in possibility.

In Algiz is the shapeshifter Remus Lupin. No, that’s not why it reminds me of him, though it fits well. Rather, it’s Lupin’s conviction to protect Harry at all costs, his sense of standing firm on his boundaries, and if necessary to use the boundary as a weapon. He is Harry’s greatest teacher of self-truth, even in lessons Harry doesn’t want to learn.

Minerva McGonagall is Sowilo. Sowilo is the sun shining the light of the Divine on us, so that we may light our lives. McGonagall is the refined, hidden force of strength that encourages Harry, particularly when he doesn’t realize it.

With the final and third aett, Tyr’s aett, we embark on a new order. After completing our journey from the gods to formed possibility, we are now called to reflect back on the Divine. Neville Longbottom is Tiwaz. Neville’s voice sounds the battlecry awakening the second wind in the Hogwart’s students. As Harry wages his battle his way, Neville raises new forces and revitalizes the troops to stay the mission. Without Neville energy and change of course Harry can’t succeed.

Berkano’s trickster, mysterious nature is best represented in the Weasley twins. Chaotic and ever pushing the envelope, they are Harry’s cheerleaders. They blur his lines in a provocative way, keeping him engaged and forward-thinking.

The burden of Ehwaz falls to Albus Dumbledore. Whether he carried it admirably is debatable, though in his role as mentor to Harry Dumbledore is always reliable. He devotes to Harry every spare ounce of energy, and regardless of how Harry’s trust in Dumbledore wavers, Dumbledore’s trust in Harry remains impeccably solid.

Mannaz can only be lovely Hedwig. Harry’s owl familiar is his messenger to the magickal world when he is hostage in the muggle one. Her role as messenger, thus her life and death, signifies how Harry’s stamina and awareness diversifies to survive, if not thrive, in both worlds.

Laguz is Ginny, the water element that is both destructive and capable of taking care of itself. Fierce and independent, she is Harry’s picture of home and life renewed. As he adores her; thus, gives her power. Emotionally she could slay him. Yet she is his touchstone for returning to something known, supportive, reliable.

Hermione is Ingaz, the feminine principle of protection. In many subtly powerful ways Hermione is Harry’s strongest female complement. And no, I’m not an H/H shipper. Often she is the feminine voice of reason when Harry otherwise lacks that balancing influence. Hermione provides Divine Balance for Harry.

Dagaz, the progression of a day, of darkness to light, is revealed in the mystery of Severus Snape. In the end Snape’s wisdom, thus darkness, is Harry’s light at the end of the tunnel.

Finally, we close with Othala, enlightened and capable, ready to transmit the journey’s teaching to the new hero. As Hagrid greeted and led Harry to the Wizarding World, so Harry preserves the Wizarding World to be passed on to all.

With the close of Harry’s story, conflict is resolved and a new order is restored to the Wizarding World, to his personal life. His journey ends. As with the story of the Runes, the fullness of a life manifest is poised to return to the Divine ancestors and begin again.

I was asked by the curators of Books by Women to write a guest blog. Writing Your First Line: The Shamanic Induction of Storytelling is a brief exposé not only on why I read, but why I choose to be a writer and how these dovetail into my spiritual path.

Intentional Insights is a Q&A column inviting you to look inside yourself. Submit questions regarding a brief Soul Reading, spiritual healing, paranormal experiences, or shamanism, to Kelley at soulintentarts dot com, or to schedule a full-length Soul Reading. Intentional Insights is a production of Soul Intent Arts, LLC, © 2011 All Rights Reserved.
Read more of Kelley’s writing at KelleyHarrell.com and on The Huffington Post. Order a signed copy of Gift of the Dreamtime – Awakening to the Divinity of Trauma.