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One of the earliest intuitive abilities I recognized in myself was the ability to interact with the dead. As a child I was terrified of them. They woke me from sleep, made noises in my room, touched me, gave me visions. Nothing in my belief system had taught me how to communicate with them well, of the graphic ways in which they can communicate, or even about what death is. As an adolescent I realized not all spirits I saw were products of a completed life in form. Some were spirits of trees, living animals, or beings that have never been in form, though nonetheless influenced the lives of those of us in form. In forty years of communing with the world in this way, several universal messages have been conveyed. The unifying concept in these messages is that what happens in consciousness stays in consciousness, and I distilled them to six general observations:

• How we live now is the state of the afterlife. While the body ceases to be, the mind and soul carry on. The state of our consciousness in life is the state of our consciousness in death. If we foster worry and anxiety now, that’s our mode of operation after. By focusing on negative or hurtful aspects of life, we stew in them in death, causing consciousness to stagnate. If we are mindful and live in the present in life, in death we continue to broaden consciousness, further opportunity to make choices to support that awareness.
• There is no magickal place of punishment or reward. This insight garners strong emotional reactions from many people. Most of our world religions are built on the idea that regardless of the plight of our lives, we are destined by our actions to spend everafter in torment or joy. Again, what the dead indicate is that what comes after is based on our perspective in life. How one behaves in life is what one experiences after life.

Bird Girl

• Everything lives on. In some guise, form, or unform, the essence of every thing remains and becomes some other manifestation of itself and All Things.
• Spirits aren’t wise or moral just because they are out of form. Our culture perpetuates a myth that upon death souls become penitent and/or enlightened. In my experience, wise deceased were so in life. Souls that were confused, frustrated, angry, etc, are so in death.
• What we don’t heal in life stays with us in death. Thoughts, habits, or beliefs that don’t support us or undermine us, such as lying, using others to further ourselves, or denying our true natures do not magickally vanish when we leave form. For this reason, when we seek to release harmful dynamics from our lives, we are also assuring peace in death. We assure ongoing tranquility.
• Working with trance states affects knowledge of how to die. By accessing the imagination via ecstatic trance, dreamwork, or other method of altered consciousness, we experience life without the ego. In this pure space and consciousness, we catch glimpses of what it feels like to be out of form, to be our undaunted wild selves.  The more we connect with our true nature our quality of life improves.  The better we live, the more comfortable we are with the truth of mortality.

While my experiences with the spirits now are more balanced than those of my childhood, the prevailing message is that spirits do affect our lives. By living well we die peacefully, which means that we have no need to disrupt the living. By living well, everyone’s experience of consciousness is improved.

If you love reading true stories of the wyrd, every year for the Samhain season I share several in my column, Intentional Insights.  Check the archive there under the ‘Samhain’ and ‘paranormal’ tags.  If you want to learn more about shamanism and deathwalking, visit Soul Intent Arts.

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 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.

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.

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

I first met Janet through the chance joining of our work in Terry Laszlo-Gopadze’s anthology, “The Spirit of a Woman – Stories to Empower and Inspire.” Inspired by her words and vision connecting through art forms and with people, I consider her passion necessary to pass on to my readers.

Twisted Arms, by Janet Riehl

Goddess in the Clay Amphora
by Janet Grace Riehl

There she is.
The goddess in the clay amphora.
The genie is the bottle.
Her torso only. Head, arms, legs left to suggestion.
Her little breasts. More belly and triangle next time.
Buttocks with a slight cleft. No tools. Just smooshed by fingers.
I’ll leave her here surrounded by the finger crunchies
that look like vertebrae or mud dauber nests.

The dousing rod twig, flipped. Which way?
The question becomes a container…a womb for an embryonic soul.
Being born out of this cocoon time.
Thumbs and forefingers enclose a womb.

I made all three of these clay sketches with my left hand.
They vary by size of clay.
Amount of pressure.
Slight reworking.
Look at the little cave and the little knot at the top!
The backs, the palm sides are more still. They hold the imprint of the lines of my hand.

Clay knuckles, not brass.
Knuckle down, Janet, get to work.
What would you have me do, Goddess?
I hold her like a talking stick and she speaks:
“Worship me.
Adore me.
Do my work which is your work.”

Janet is an award-winning author, blogger, and conference presenter living in St. Louis.  Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary, told in story poems, was recently made into an audio book  Sightlines: A Family Love Story in Poetry and Music.  Twice selected as finalist for Poet Laureate of Lake County, California and a member of Authors Guild, her poems, stories and essays are published in national literary magazines and several anthologies.  Visit her website, and find her on Facebook and @riehlife.

Hi Kelley, I’m hoping you can tell me if you see someone special entering my life. I’d love to know what it feels like to be in a loving relationship. It’s taken me a long time but I know I’m ready to love someone again. I’ve never been lucky enough to find that type of relationship. My kids are grown and before I leave this earth I’m hoping to see what it feels like to really be with a soulmate. Blessings, Cindy.

Thank you for your note, Cindy. What I see in your need to find a soul friend is a general need in finding a spiritual tribe. You have not consistently been able to surround yourself with like-minded people, or with a tribe that carries your passion for all things soulful. Rather, you’ve kept your ideas around spirituality to yourself out of fear of judgment. This is in part the reason that a close soul friend hasn’t been able to come. Allowing this group connection requires opening up more about who you really are inside, so that you can attract and find a tribe to support you and allow you to contribute from a more authentic place in yourself. You have to invest your true self externally for the Multiverse to invest in you authentically.

Holy Ghost and Attendants, Horseshoe Canyon - Canyonlands National Park, Utah

Creating this deep, personal sense of community is what brings the potential for soul love, and the investment in such a group must be to truly immerse in spiritual community. It can’t be for the sole purpose of allowing this soul friend in, as that purpose alone isn’t addressing your deeper need for tribe. This group feels like people with a shared common interest in spiritual studies or a particular spiritual approach. Your involvement with this new group leads you to a new relationship in a little over a year from now. The group is what creates the opening for this relationship to happen. Your submission to be who you truly are across the strata of your life is what allows it to happen.

Be well, Cindy!

Through some mix of leaps and clicks, I found Terri St. Cloud and Bone Sigh Arts a year or so ago. The feelings her work evoked slid between words and dodged their usual emotional barriers, and I found her imaginative agility profound.  On her site she describes her art as “sighs from my depths, sighs from my very bones.”  I knew exactly what she meant and the pain that can come from being that reed.  Social networking kept me abreast of new artistic releases, but a wild little twist of fate introduced me to her formally a little over a week ago. It is my pleasure to gift her to my readers now.

When Kelley asked me if I’d be interested in writing a ‘guest insight’ dealing with the spiritual nature of my work, I was intrigued. Did I even have any insights? I toyed with the idea a bit. How do I explain my heart stuff? And then I thought of something I wrote once:

“i want my heart to open, and open, and open, ’cause i think god’s in there.’

Yeah, that’d probably be my insight. That whatever happens inside my heart, when I connect to it and open it and offer it–that’s where I touch the sacred. It happens when I create my bone sighs, the name I give my creations. And it happens when I offer them to the world. There is as much power in the offering as there is in the creating. And I’m thinking that deal is probably the same for everyone.

Holiness by Terri St. Cloud

I stumbled into this whole way of life in the darkest time I’ve ever experienced. I wrote to stay sane, adding art to the words was my way of honoring them.   That’s another insight I have at times and then I lose again–in the darkness, there is gold. We don’t need to be frightened of it. That truth slips out of my fingers too often, but I believe it and I’ve experienced it. There’s magic in the dance, even the dark parts. Maybe especially in the dark parts.

Those two thoughts mix together in my work… and my life.

terri st. cloud is a woman on a journey to find real.
you can find pieces of her journey at Bone Sigh Arts.  her latest release is her white tree,  sharing words and symbols of regrowth to women who have suffered trauma.  follow terri @terristcloud and on Facebook.

Kelley, Two years ago I developed a skin condition on my fingers–mostly on my right hand.  Doctors examined all sources though the final diagnosis has been psoriasis.    I am a believer in the body-spirit connection and have consulted “Heal Your Life” by Louise Hay.  I have tried to release all past “junk”.  The condition has improved, but it is still there. Can you give me any more advice so I can have my beautiful hands back? Katherine

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!

As a long time reader and contributor to SageWoman, with your help I’d like to make a Rebound Donation to celebrate 25 years of trailblazing in the literary Goddess community, and to help them rise above the financial ramifications of Borders closing.  For this donation I am auctioning a 60 Minute Distance Soul Reading.

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.

Make a direct donation by visiting SageWoman’s Rebound Donation page.

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.

Kelley, I’m at a crossroads. Do I leave my role as a nun and go back to laylife, or stay in the robes going it alone, or continue to stay in this monastery? Thanks, Isabella.

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.

Kelley, my husband and I are taking care of his mother in our home. She is not well and on hospice. He is barely working due to the economy and is having an extremely hard time coping. I rely on my deep faith and metaphysical beliefs to keep going, and try at all costs to inspire my husband. Is there anything about this situation I need to know to assist him with all of these life transitions? Thank you for your insight. Deborah

Thanks for your inquiry, Deborah. When I look down over this dynamic, I see that you are keeping a good bit of etheric distance from your mother-in-law and husband, and keep to yourself a lot more than usual. You aren’t avoiding anyone, just creating a wide berth for everyone else to have space they need in your home and to keep intrusions into your own space a minimum. For you, allowing others their space is a gift, partly because you treasure solitude and space so much, but also because you understand what growth can come from time alone. Your mother-in-law is not etherically capable of that kind of self-work right now. All she can do is hold it together, and that’s a big drain on you, your husband, and your space. Get others involved in keeping her entertained and engaged. Ask loved ones and your community to come have a meal with her, or read to her. Find volunteer groups if you have to, pet services who visit people who are house-bound. Spread this need around as much as you can, not just for your own sanity but because your mother-in-law needs diverse healthy life forces around her right now. Schedule weekly visits from friends so that you can have your alone time and reboot.

Personal Sacred Space

Your husband needs others to help, too. He is taking so much on himself and feels it’s his duty to be everything his mother needs. While understandable, it’s not possible. One thing you can do to help him is get your loved ones and community involved, ASAP. Like your mother-in-law, he isn’t able to lift the household vibe right now. He can, however, be more active in how he holds his mindspace, and that may need to be addressed. Regardless, he doesn’t have the etheric ability to support the collective. It’s right that he focus on maintaining himself right now. You have an emotional reserve to draw on, to feed you, and right now he doesn’t. Even under sunny skies, you are the emotional trendsetter in your household. Where you are is where everyone else is. You have the ability to set the pace for all involved, which to large degree means you have the responsibility to.Particularly right now, when you aren’t feeling the direct blow that your husband is. The balance for you lies in finding how much you can cheerlead and knowing when you need to step back and give yourself a break. I’m not suggesting you be quiet or demure, just remember that your strength is in how you hold and create your space. And as you get familiar with that you sill start to see how personally empowering working with your etheric space is.

Your husband doesn’t have a solid foundation to process the things happening in his life now, but he’s not going the route of the stoic. He is actually questioning from where he draws strength and faith, and is shifting his beliefs based on this experience. As well, he will rise to your emotional status. He learns from you, even if he doesn’t express it as so.

Your power lies in exerting your etheric field instead of withdrawing it. Now is the time for your intuitive gifts to come to the fore, not only for your own sanity’s sake, but for the benefit of the group dynamic, too. I see the center of your home is very active elementally. It would be a great place for you to work with your space, to invite the land elders, Nature spirits and any other light creatures who wants to help your household. Make your home sacred space. Always remember that you have etheric help to call on as much as friends and loved ones. Ask these beings to help you hold the space. Ask them how to arrange your space to better facilitate the changes in it and your lives right now. Ask them what plants or stones can be allies in your space right now, and in what rooms they should go. Revisit this bond with your home spirits a couple of times a week and keep that relationship active and manifesting in your home. It will do wonders to alleviate stress and move you all closer to needed improvement. This ritual of observance and awareness will also radically strengthen your intuitive skills and your marriage.

Along that line, your husband and yourself need to take time, alone. If it’s not possible to do over night, at least go on a date together. This partner alone time needs to be a priority on a regular basis. He really needs to feel and stay bonded with you, even if his earthly consciousness acts or speaks otherwise.

Hang in there, Deborah. Remember that you can ask help of your allies, physical and spiritual. Your intuition is great. Go with it. Your space and your family are demanding that you come out of the broom closet.

The Story of the Boy Who Lived Told Through Runes

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.

Michele Rosenthal of Heal My PTSD asked me to write a guest blog. PTSD and Soul Retrieval to give a glimpse into how PTSD works at a soul level and how it can be healed.

What Dreams May Come

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.