Wow! I just returned from Edmonton, Alberta where I and nine women went on a powerful journey with the Oracle. We began by asking a group question so each of us could receive both individual as well as collective guidance: How is the Journey Oracle coming to help me? Each woman drew a card and described what she saw in the picture, and what she understood of its phrase or question. This was followed by the rest of us each describing that card as if it was our own. In this way we each collected nine additional comments about our card, and so enriched our connections and insights with it, as well as gained experience with the deck by reading a total of ten cards!
The big experience was during day two when I drummed a trance journey so each woman could travel into the alternative realities to visit her personal Oracle. My first experience with journeywork was in 1984 with a woman who had trained with Michael Harner. Since I also began making drums at that time, I have spent years helping others travel on vibration into other realms. Some women went under the ocean; others rode swirling smoke into the sky. Several crossed wide meadows to arrive at distant temples, while some dove into fire or the earth itself. Some women were greeted by human figures; others were met by animals, birds or sea creatures. Before returning, each woman asked her Oracle: “What do you eat?”
Once back in this reality, we helped each other translate the process of finding and meeting the Oracle into an individual procedure for laying out and reading the cards. Some women discovered they were to read only one side of several cards and then draw a story not belonging to any of these. Others were shown to name cards as part of a journey, such as “Where I am now,” and “where I am going.” One woman was given a circular layout that involved 10 cards! We finished our workshop by translating the food each Oracle ate into something we could bring as an offering each time we went to the Oracle. We understood our gifts of water, sweet smoke, dance and song, drawings to be eaten by fire and poems to spin in the wind--would carry our requests into the realms of spirit. What a joy it was to learn how to give food to the Oracle, as well as to receive it.
Let me help you discover the unique presence of your own Oracle during a workshop gathering with your friends, and together we will ride a good horse into the spiritworld with our hands full of gifts.
