Shamanic Work

I've just published two new PAGES about the shamanic work I do - do have a look, contact me if you're interested in doing either.

Shamanic Mentoring
Rainbow Warriors

Elen Sentier
behind every creative woman there's usually a rather talented cat

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My Blog Ancient Zummerzet Ritual …

2010 RW Workshop - Zummerzet Customs

When Fiona and I arrived on the Exmoor we stopped at Wam Barrows for our usual glorious look around the world and at the massive sky overhead. we decided to drum ... and soon had a very appreciative audience. The cows were enchanted. If we stopped they moo'd, asking for more. Eventually they allowed us to stop and moved off. It was a very humbling and impressive experience, I hope we can do it again next year.

Elen Sentier
behind every creative woman there's usually a rather talented cat

Contact Me
My Blog Prep 500 another way …

Madley Pool

From my wordpress blog  

Being a Rainbow Warrior

What are the 144,000 Rainbow Warriors?

You may be wondering why the shaman course I run is called Rainbow Warriors ... there is a very good reason. They are mentioned in various traditions and you may already know prophecies that relate to the 144,000 Rainbow Warriors, two of them are …

· The Book of Revelations says that “the number of the saved” is 144,000.

· An old prophecy of the Native American peoples says “When the Earth is sick and all the animals are dying a tribe of people will come, of all colours and creeds, who will restore the Earth. They will be called Warriors of the Rainbow.”
The Rainbow Warriors are hidden in occult and esoteric lore - the word occult just means “hidden”, occluded. They are the 144,000 “petals” that hold and carry the energy within the energy centres or chakras. You learn how this works early in the course.

As we all contain the 144,000 petals - we all have chakras - we are each of us "the number of the saved". Our purpose is to become conscious of this and able to work with it along with working with Otherworld.

The native American prophecy fairly well describes the times we are living in. Only by being conscious of our place as a vital part of the whole, and one that can - through consciousness - make a difference can we restore the Earth. Our first conscious learning is of how we are made and that we are all made of the same stuff as the rest of creation. Joany Mitchell put it rather well in her song when she said "We are stardust ...". We are indeed and Rainbow Warriors know this and work with it for the good of all.

Herding Kittens

I've been herding kittens (looking after RW students) for near 20 years now, I'm fairly au fait with the various turns they galumph through, especially as they come up to the starting post. I can also see Otherworld having the whale of a time putting embuggerance factors before their cute little ballet-shod tootsies LOL. It is funny, but it doesn’t make the job any easier! I also need to shout "yere be dragons" every now and again or I'm not doing my job.

The latest intake to Rainbow Warriors comes up to the starting post in about 5 weeks time. There may well be a couple more joining us too – I can hear them lurking about in the long grass wondering whether to come down to the water hole and drink. Like a good lioness, I’m crouching quietly and fairly invisibly on the sand coloured ground, melting my sand-coloured hide into it and panting softly.

Meanwhile I still have to keep an eye on the ones already signed on and raring to go. It’s a funny old time that, the waiting to begin. And yet, in some ways, you already have begun. You’ve read your pre-course notes, got your books, begun to learn the mechanics of the journeying process we use, gone hunting for your sacred space, etc, etc. So you feel as if you’re already doing it … but you’re not. Not yet.

And one of the things that will happen to you as a brand new apprentice warrior is that all the skills and abilities you had will fall away from you. You’ll be naked and skill-less, unarmed, vulnerable and … to make it worse … your head is likely to feel like wet cotton-wool! What happens to folk who sign on to become awake and aware and useful to Otherworld is that they have to go through the Butterfly Soup process.

Butterfly soup … ??? You don’t know that one? Yes you do, I’ll bet. It’s what happens to the caterpillar at the end of the summer, like about now-ish. The little wriggly beastie finds himself a corner, or a branch, or a leaf and makes himself a cocoon. Inside the cocoon, once it’s hardened and dry, the caterpillar completely dissolves – he becomes soup, a soup that will gradually rebuild itself into a butterfly.

This happens to apprentice Rainbow Warriors too – except they gotta do it without the cocoon! Oh they don’t dissolve physically – at least I’ve not had one do that yet! But emotionally, mentally and spiritually they do. In fact, they become a complete mess *g*. Quite often, students come to Rainbow Warriors with a good set of skills, lots of abilities and a reasonable confidence. They often manage to keep all of this until they arrive at the first journey … then wallop! They find themselves naked and exposed, and all the skills they had gone. It can be very scary. I do try to warn them about this beforehand but, like teenagers, they don’t believe what the Old Fogey (me!) says, not really. Oh, it may happen to others but they will be different, shining, exemplars, able to swan though with no problems at all.

Well, I do get some like that, some who’ve slipped through the lioness’ net. Unfortunately, they’re ones it doesn’t work for, they learn nothing, go nowhere, and leave early. I do try to make this happen before they sign on … but there’s always one, isn’t there *g*. If it all goes easy for you it’s an absolute sure sign you’re failing! If all hell breaks loose then you’re on a winner, if not a roll LOL.

Like all alchemical processes, you have to break down to build up. Otherworld are very keen that you do this and do their best to send you down the shop for a tin of striped paint and box of tappet clearances. And they lure you into the woods where large hairy beasties will growl and chase you … until you stop running away, turn round and ask them their name. And they leave you outside the castle gate in the snow for weeks on end until you learn to ask the Gatekeeper’s name rather than be a clever clogs and find out all by your little self. Le Guin’s “Wizard of Earthsea” (one of the books we use) has a very good story on this. All the nasty tricks of the faery story … that are really the tests to see if you can measure up to the hard training that will come.

And that’s really the first trick all apprentice warriors have to learn … to sit still and ask. However, although Life (& shamanism) is simple nobody ever said it was easy *g*.

My usual advice to the “kittens” at this stage in the game is, “For goodness sake take a cold shower! Clean the kitchen with a toothbrush! Generally learn to slow down. I am serious about that. You miss things at the ecstatic rate you're currently running. Try to sit physically very still and allow the ecstasy to flow through you without any attempt to steer it. You might try giving your brain sixpence and telling it to go play with the traffic !!!”

In fact, I’m going to take my own advice this w/end. Me and two friends, the 3 witches of Endor who look after Rainbow Warriors, are going to go sit in our wood under Dunkery Beacon, by a 4000+ year old sacred stone. We’ll spend the night there in silence and singing, waiting and watching, dreaming and journeying, amongst the denizens of the nightwood. There are always ravens there, and owls, as well as many other creatures. If we are still enough they will come to visit us, speak with us, show us things. But only if we are still. Only if we are focused on them and not ourselves, not off in our heads planning and scheming and generally making a ghastly spiritual noise!

And I’ll come home the next day, refreshed, renewed and able to get on with the work. Herding kittens is like that *g*.

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NB - pic is of the marvellous dancer, Lucy Bethune, superinposed on the Culbone Stone - where I'll be tomorrow :-)

Good work with a friend

Yesterday was good. The weather was good and the company was good too, so was the food & wine *g*. we did the circuit of the sacred sites ... here are some pix.

Our first stop was to see the Lord & Lady. These two are each side of the chancel screen in Vowchurch church and both were "mutilated" in Cromwellian times because they were considered indecent. The goddess was a "sheilagh-na-gig", ie the goddess holding her open vulva, symbolising the cave of the womb and that means to us. The god would have had large, erect phallus. Their hands and expressions tell what they were, as well as known examples elsewhere. I find it wonderful that at least their top-halves are still there and well visible in the church. It is so good to know that -even if not well understood by most folk - the Lord & Lady are still with us.

Our next stop was to visit Peterchurch Yew. She is very ancient, like maybe 2000 years old, and she is hollow, like a womb or cauldron. For me, it is Ceridwen who come when I visit there. we journeyed within her, it had some deep emotional undertones, and then thanked the Lady and went to leave. But that was not to be, not yet! A little old lady was hobbling up the path towards us on her stick, smiling and nodding, determined to speak to us. As good adventurers in fairy stories we resisted slightly, hung back, but she was on us. We would not get past without speaking with her. I was hobbling too, on my pair of sticks and the first thing she said was to me, "Have you had the operation yet or are just about to?" Ha! well that told me, didn't it? this was Ceridwen-in-the-flesh come to us, whether the old lady knew it or not for herself. I am indeed about to have the operation on my right knee on 8 Sep, and the pre-op on this Thurs, so I answered her truly. she was encouraging and comforting, helpful and full of strength - thank you, Lady, I thought to myself inside. we joked and laughed with the old lady, then met her husband (Taliesin ???), finally said our goodbyes and went on to the next place.

Having met the Lady we were now to meet the Lord, at Arthur's Stone. for me, the Lord usually comes as Gwyn ap Nudd up there. Gwyn is a soul-leader and psychopomp, well versed in walking between worlds. The "Stone" is a 4000 yr old tumulus, once covered in earth and turf - Google it for more. The inner stones of its skeleton are now uncovered but the site is alive and vibrant. The way in was a curved tunnel, through which you had to crawl, emerging into a larger chamber ... just like the vulva and vagina entrance to the womb. Only this is more the womb of the god! Confused? Gods don't have wombs? Sorry, but the Celtic works by even more riddles than a Zen master *g*. This god-site, place of the Lord, is certainly a womb. Before crawling in we had to say aloud what we were leaving behind as we re-entered the womb. This is an ancient rite common all over the world - and very effective. As you exit after your sojourn within the womb you say aloud what it is you bring with you, for the good of the world. This sort of rite is never just for you, always for work you can do to help others.

While one of us was journeying the other drummed. to hear the drum while lying within the stone chamber is like being within a drum itself. You are sound, every part of you vibrates, you are sung and pulled apart and rewoven by the sound.

While we were working some other people came to see the site. They were most respectful and didn't come in until we had finished which was very kind of them. I did get my picture taken while I was drumming - hope the man didn't mind, his vibes seemed cool so I think not :-).

We went on to the next place, Moccas Park. this is an ancient Anglo-Saxon deer park, where the legend of our local Merlin-figure took place. His name is Dyfrig. The park is an SSSI and closed to the public so that the wildlife are not disturbed but you can look through the gate and the fence. We did, admiring the ancient oaks. At the end of the 19th century the local vicar, the Rev. Francis Kilvert, also a poet, in his diary of 1876, said this about its ancient trees:"I fear those grey old men of Moccas, those grey, gnarled, low-browed, knock-kneed, bowed, bent, huge, strange, long-armed, deformed, hunchbacked, misshapen old men that stand waiting and watching century after century, biding God's time with both feet in the grave and yet tiring down and seeing out generation after generation, with such tales to tell, as when they whisper them to each other in the midsummer nights, make the silver birches weep and the poplars and aspens shiver and the long ears of the hares and rabbits stand on end. No human hand set those oaks. They are 'the trees which the Lord hath planted'. They look as if they had been at the beginning and making of the world, and they will probably see its end." this is the inspiration for the novel I'm currently writing :-).

These pix on flickr are good. This video on YouTube is good too.

We went next to visit Moccas church. This is the place where Dyfrig built his final school, in the place of his vision. He was told - by the most beautiful woman all dressed in White with long golden hair - to go up the Wye until he came to the place where the white sow was suckling her piglings. The church was built on this spot some 600 years later. Now, the white sow is one of the forms Ceridwen takes, one of her totems. Again, we were working with the Lady in her Ceridwen form. I told my friend the story of Dyfrig - I'll do it again for the blog, maybe even a podcast :-), but not now. My friend noticed the twining ley lines curling up the nave of the church and fond the vortex behind the altar. Another friend, Hamish MIller, called these double, twining, ley lines the "Michael & Mary" lines. Of course, the Moccas church is dedicated to St Michael ... what else *g*.

And the twining ley lines are another representation of the god & goddess, the Lord & Lady.

Our whole journey had been to meet and work with the Lord & Lady, sovereignty and her guardian. It was wonderful, peaceful and enlightening. We came home well satisfied and replete as well as with lots of insights about things we might do to be useful to the Land, in our own small ways.

Blessed Be ...