In the world of the shaman, guidance, wisdom and insight is garnered through journeying into the spiritual realms to meet teachers and guides. These compassionate spirits work in partnership with us to facilitate healings, divine hidden information, provide perspective and offer support in many other ways. For seventeen years, I have been fortunate to have one of my ancestors as my primary spirit teacher. My great, great grandmother–Grandma Henderer, known simply as “Grandma”–has been a faithful and consistent source for spiritual wisdom. After so many years, I cannot image how my life would be without her steady and heartfelt support.

Although Grandma passed “into the Light” before I was born, she has retained memories of her life here and so has a profound understanding of the stresses we experience on Earth. She raised seven children and at least two grandchildren, ran a rooming house and did much of this alone as her husband was an alcoholic who was absent from the scene. As a single, working mother living at that time, she certainly had her challenges! Though she must have been an enormously busy woman, she also practiced herbal medicine, which she made available to all who knew her. She is remembered as someone who was very tough–my father remembered her as “mean” but paradoxically would help anyone, “even those who weren’t her people.” What my father meant by this statement that she shared her knowledge regardless of a person’s status, class or ethnicity. This was certainly very unusual, as early twentieth-century New York City was comprised of a collection of distinct ethnic neighborhoods with clear boundaries. Typically, people rarely strayed from their ethnic enclaves and seldom interacted with anyone who was from another “group.” For some reason, she was one who did things differently.

Whatever the reasons, the circumstances of her particular life infuse her guidance with an extraordinarily compassionate perspective that is well grounded in physical reality. In other words, she has gained the expanded perspective of Spirit while retaining the knowledge of this plane of existence. It gives her wisdom a unique twist that makes it much more accessible.

For many years, we shared Grandma with groups of people in salon-like evenings. We did these first in our home and over time, in many diverse settings across the country. * In these gatherings, I typically journey to Grandma, merge with her and allow her to use my body to speak with those in attendance. She generally answers questions, gives a spiritual perspective on what happens to us here on the Earth and offers us her teachings. Over the years, she has been an incredible resource, not only for my own life issues, but also for many hundreds of people. Since the focus of this issue is about elder wisdom I thought is would be useful to actually have her contribute her “voice” to my column.

In a journey, I asked her to offer some insight about the year 2012. As the looming “end of the Mayan calendar” grows nearer, it seems to be generating quite a bit of fear. For some people, there is a perception that this time frame will somehow be apocalyptic. Since Grandma regularly teaches us that fear is a feeling that can actually generate difficulty for us in the physical realm, I thought hearing her perspective might be useful. I asked her the question, “What is important for us to know about 2012?” What follows here is her reply.

“Dear Ones,

First let us say thank you for the opportunity to share our perspective with you. It is a gift for us to be able to do so. Those of us in the world of Spirit require assistance to be able to communicate with you on the Earth plane. We no longer have mouths to speak, or fingers to type! We need to work together with one in a body to be able to assist. As we provide you our perspective, we too are nurtured since we are able to share in the physical world a bit during the process. In addition, since we have committed ourselves to helping others, our interchanges with you give us opportunities to continue fulfilling our soul’s purpose. In other words, the benefits are quite mutual!

My great, great grand daughter has asked my about this date over which there is a great deal of energy being expended. Many of you are fearful about this year being an end time. What we would like to say about that is several-fold.

Firstly, we will talk to you about your feelings and manifestation. Your fears, Dear Ones, are a source of great turbulence! Fear energy is a disruptor whereas Love and Gratitude are fundamentally creative in nature. These vibrations are in harmony with the vibration of All That Is. They put the person feeling them AND the world around them into sync or alignment with the universal flow of energy. As a result, intentions flowing in harmony with the energies of Love or Gratitude can actually manifest those intentions in the physical plane. Contrarily, the energy of fear produces a disruption to this flow–within the person, which can cause harms to the person’s body and psyche–and the surroundings of that person, as well. A constant bath of fear produces distress in the immune system, limits your brain function and this disruptive energy ripples out from you. Fear actually creates similar disturbances in the body of the Earth. This occurs because you live within her body. While you may think of yourself as existing on the Earth, she is more than her surface. You are swimming through the currents of her atmosphere and bathed by her magnetic field. Therefore, you exist inside of her.

Although you may not realize it, I call the Earth, 'her' because the Earth is a being, a living entity. As all living beings who are alive during this time window, she as well as you have the opportunity to raise vibration and experience a shift to a higher frequency. Just as individuals can become Ascended, so too can your world. For the Earth, this means a potential transformation of the physical reality to one that can provide an environment for a much higher plane of existence for all her inhabitants. Imagine a world without the dense energies, which plague human experience! It is possible. In fact, you have been 'wired' to be able to do this, your biology not only permits this shift, it supports it! Because you live within your world, you are in relationship with her. For many of you, this relationship is rather one-sided and largely unconscious. This is the time to make your relationship with the Earth conscious and positive! To do this requires you to focus on your own inner environment.

Within your wonderful laboratory of self, you must scrutinize your self and your actions–doing so without judgment! Locate the sources of your fears so that you can begin to release their hold upon you. In this way, your actions can become more conscious and less reactive. Once conscious, you can begin shifting your way of being in the world to one that is in resonance with the creative energies of transformation and manifestation. You do this by learning to live more and more of your days in the energy of Gratitude and Love.

It is imperative for individuals to work within themselves to diminish fear and promote gratitude–not only for the benefit of you who experience these feelings, but for your beloved planet as well. You see, much in the way that your immune system is beleaguered by the energy of fear so the planet is affected in a similar fashion. In addition, the denser vibrations of fear cause ripples of disruption not only within the family of humans, but to the health of the larger environment. You see, it is not only industrial advances that have jeopardized the health of the biosphere; it is the impact of so very many people generating fear vibrations!

Many people living in the world today do not have the 'luxury' of being able to become more conscious. Too many people spend every waking moment scavenging scraps of food from trash heaps or running from bombs and bullets. You, however, can make this the focus of your spiritual work. You are so precious! It takes such a relative few people being willing to change themselves to completely transform the entire world. The ancients knew this opportunity was coming. They also knew this time had the possibility to change so radically that the perceptions of ordinary reality would be forever different. The old rules simply wouldn’t apply. It is for that reason that the Mayan calendar ends in 2012.

For this reason, we wish you to see this date as a reminder. Instead of thinking of 2012 as the 'End of Time' see it as 'The Great Mayan Sticky Note!!' Think of it as a reminder that you can participate in creating a Great Shift to a higher plane of existence. When you so choose, you do this work not only for your own well being, but for all those souls that cannot either understand or focus on such an undertaking. You have chosen to be alive NOW to support this shift. Your soul has longed to be free from suffering and to free others. You came into a body this go ‘round to be here at this pivotal juncture.

Dear One, you are a precious part of this miracle–no less important than any other aspect of Creation and perhaps more needed for your willingness to participate. We honor you, as it will take courage to rummage through your psyche to eliminate Fear. However the prize is more incredible than you can imagine. Your entire world can become a true paradise–not looking backward to some illusionary past Eden–but forward into an entirely new way of being.

Spring is coming and let it remind you of your commitment to renewal. Allow the rising sap to remind you of your purpose. Let green shoots of Gratitude grow inside you as the growing season begins its return to the North. Keep focused on the importance the work of changing your inner environment. Notice the changes inside of you and be patient and compassionate with whatever these changes stimulate on your way to your own shift. Through nurturing gratitude and love, you bring yourself into coherence with the divine creative energies of transformation. You become a divine instrument of change and healing.

As your being changes, your “doings” will be in alignment with the flow of source energy and so become very powerful. Becoming aware of this you will need to be mindful of only taking actions that will benefit the Whole. As all is changed, you will benefit so it is not completely altruistic! Dear One, you are a part of the Whole that you support and transform! There is no separation.

There are many of us in the spirit world who have also committed ourselves to assist at this time. Allow us to share our perspective, which can help to put what you experience into a larger context. However, remember that we in the spiritual realms cannot make the Great Shift. It is only you who are physical who can make the transformation possible. So, Dear Ones please come to us and get the support that you need. Let us inform, assure and encourage. We stand at the ready and love you more than you can imagine.

We send you off now with our blessings to focus on your part in the Great Shift!”

Thank you Grandma!

*For those who’d like to meet my spirit teacher “in person,” an Evening with Grandma is scheduled for 6:30pm on Thursday, February 7th at True North. Reservations may be made by calling (207) 781-4488.

© 2008 Evelyn C. Rysdyk

Evelyn C. Rysdyk, author of the book, Modern Shamanic Living, is a nationally recognized teacher of shamanism, healer & artist in joint practice with C. Allie Knowlton, LCSW, DCSW as Spirit Passages.

Since 1991, they have offered workshops across the US and Canada. In addition, they have worked with hundreds of people in their private shamanic healing practice at True North in Falmouth, Maine.

Featured in the book, Traveling Between the Worlds, interviews with 24 of the world’s most influential writers and teachers of shamanism, they may be contacted at: www.spiritpassges.com.