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28 A Journal of Contemporary Shamanism VOLUME 6 ISSUE 2 FALL 2013 I love the soulful story-weaving that comes when we meet in shamanic ways and set our own personal stories free on the wind around the fire night falling stars wheeling. Woven into such personal stories are the defining moments of our lives. In the telling the pattern and flow of our lives make perfect sense. But in the living of those story- moments our logical rational minds strain to understand the unfolding even as the heart yearns to say yes to surrender to whatever is searching for us. What is it that comes in search of us Is it destiny Each of us finds our destiny in distinct and unique ways. In the thirteenth century the poet Rumi said Dont be satisfied with stories how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth. And so in the unfolding of my own myth the visionary realms of shamanism have led me to weave the work of a lifetime on the strings of the Celtic harp in the travels of a professional harper and storyteller. Lifelines My family comes from the Canadian Prairies with a strong no-nonsense work ethic. When I took up meditation at the age of nineteen it threw the family for a bit of a loop. But at the age of eighteen my inner world had imploded. While there were external life challenges at the time there was no understandable cause for the complete absence of joy of vital energy of hope in my life. When I look back upon it now I call it The Bleakness. In my struggle my drowning there came an inrush of certainty that I needed to reach out to the Unseen for assistance. But how And what was this Unseen A university student at the time I wandered into a bookstore. I looked for the most inexpensive book in the contemplation and prayer section. Deceptively titled How to Meditate it cost 1.99. I bought it and took it home. To be honest with the whirling of my thoughts and emo- tions learning to meditate was a maddening experience. I dreaded it each morning but somehow knew that if I held to it I would be able to find my way forward. As time went on it became rich and pleasurable and I began to look forward to the daily practice. I never really knew if I was authentically meditating. But a lifelong internal conversation that had been under- way for as long as I could remember came to the forefront and took on a whole new significance I understood that the Unseen was reaching out to me as well in some sense holding me. In my mid-twenties I encountered the yogic styles of meditation and I was set afire. I traveled to India several times explored different ashrams and soaked up the sheer magic. By the time I was twenty- six I was teaching first grade full time and running a meditation center in Calgary. My double life baffled my family but they could see that I was happy and had a life that made sense in its own way. Then at age twenty-nine another transition occurred this one a bit more difficult to understand logically. By then I knew that my experiences of meditation were not exactly like those shared by others. Although I experienced peace and mindfulness my meditations often flowed into strong imag- ery of landscapes and vivid encounters. Even though I felt that I had found my way I began to be haunted by the sense that there was something else I was sup- posed to be doing. At night I dreamed of long treks through marketplaces into dusty old bookstores hunting and hunting. The most elating and the most depressing dreams were the ones in which I found the exact book I had been searching for the one that would explain it all In the dream I would open the cover and then suddenly wake up before I could read any words After struggling with these dreams for months I knew with- out doubt that I was being called onwards. I began to drive out of the city for long hikes in the mountains every chance I got to clear my head to listen. S H A M A N I C P R A C T I C E Songlines Storylines by Jeff Stockton