Heeding The Call: A Personal Journey to the Sacred

By Jaki Daniels

Within the pages of Heeding the Call you are invited into a sacred circle, where the intimate and personal details of the author's journey to a world of ancient healing practices, shamans, ceremony, and the powerful forces inherent in nature are revealed. Let yourself be carried along as she shares her six-year quest, catalyzed by a mystical experience in Alberta's Rocky Mountains, followed by travels in the US, Mexico and Peru, and culminating in accepting herself as a modern-day medicine woman, willing and able to offer the healing gifts she has been given. As you enter into the events of her story, she gently leads you on a journey of your own in a workbook section offering detailed instructions and drawing on time-honoured indigenous teachings. Step outside the ordinary. Learn how to venture into these otherwise hidden realms and experience for yourself how the shamanic spiritual ways can be a personal doorway to the sacred.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Mar 20, 2014
• ISBN: 9780978463649

Jaki Daniels

Jaki Daniels lives in Calgary, Alberta, near the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, with her husband Chris. She offers her services through her healing practice, practitioner training program, workshops, and ceremonies, which draw from a life-long passion for healing, and a deep relationship with the natural world and the medicines it holds. She is recognized as a Spiritual Elder in her community, and combines her own experiences with Nature and Spirit with more than 20 years of training with a traditional Cree Elder. Her first two books tell the story of her incredible venture into the medicine-woman style healing ways: Heeding the Call, published in 2007 and The Medicine Path, published in 2014. www.jakidaniels.com

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Mountain

Acknowledgements

When I first started working on this book I imagined it would be a rather solitary process, and for many of the stages of writing and development that was true. However I also learned that to fully bring a book from conception to birth, it takes many hands, and many more hearts. I could never have done this alone.

To Eliot Cowan, my Plant Spirit Medicine teacher, whose timely advice and careful considerations went above and beyond the course I signed up for. There will be a place for you in my heart, always.

To Fishwoman (Pauline Johnson), who was not only willing to take on a naive white woman, but was willing to look beyond the colour of my skin and the history of the abuse my people forced upon hers. You took me under your wing, embraced me as your apprentice, and accepted me into your lineage. I thank you for being able to see my spirit and trust it with your teachings.

To Christopher Hansard, for being critical and honest with the early drafts, for supporting me with resources and encouragement, for being a friend and teacher, and particularly for writing the Foreword to this book.

To Marilyn Geddes, whose unwavering and heartfelt support gave me the confidence (and sometimes a needed boost) to follow through, whose editing suggestions helped me see my own writing more clearly, and whose friendship helped me to remember how to have fun and still get my work done!

To Mica (Miranda) Smith, who was the first to read and edit the original manuscript. I never imagined there could be so much laughter while being shown where the book needed improvements. Because of your lovely nature, that process was a joy.

To Patsy Dackewich, who cheerfully and pleasantly was always (pronounced AHHH wees) willing to go the extra mile to make my life easier, so I could dedicate myself to my healing work, teaching, or writing, even though her life was as busy as mine.

To Michelle Shaw, whose ability to vision helped me to see what was possible, and to the contagious excitement she held for seeing this book through to completion.

To Louise Berliner, who inspired me in so many ways, helped tremendously with the original book proposal, created opportunities to hone my skills, and stayed my friend throughout difficulties and distance.

To Cynthia Mackenzie, a gifted artist who was able to capture the essence of my story in the beautiful painting she created for the cover of this book.

To Scott Weiler, for the generous amount of personal support and for making some potentially difficult practical matters easy and effortless.

To Marilyn Geddes and Ariel Learoyd, for their contributions to the section on Shamanic Wisdom. Thank you for your efforts and your time.

To those who were willing to review the manuscript and offer their feedback, Mica Smith, Ariel Learoyd, Marilyn Geddes, Kate McMaster, Michelle Shaw, Claire Cummings, and Chris Daniels. The entire time I was writing the book I kept wondering whether it would be worthy of being printed, worthy of the trees that would need to sacrifice their flesh for so many sheets of paper. When Ariel was finished I asked her Do you think the trees would be willing? to which she answered, Jaki, I think they’ll be lining up.

To students, friends, teachers, and clients who were willing to let me put excerpts of their journeys and other personal experiences into the text: Kari Johansen, Hanna Bracken, Denise Gagné Williamson, Sherry Sweet, Stacey Rayment, Tere Mahoney, Marilyn Geddes, Lynda Boesenkool, Diane Timothy, Jay Daniels, Dr. Anastacia Daspit Samson, as well as Penn, Deborah, and Shannon.

To Jeremy Drought and Sandy Gough, for helping with the technical side of bringing a beginning author’s manuscript to life.

To my sons Colin and Jay, who for some reason always believed that no matter what I tried to do in this world, I would do it well. They never doubted me for a second.

And most importantly, to my husband Chris, who always believed in me, always supported me, and always loved me. In all our years together, it never occurred to him to say no to one of my adventures. With that kind of loving trust, I was free to grow into whoever I needed and wanted to be. I believe there can be no greater gift between one human being and another.

Jaki Daniels

Calgary, Alberta

September 2007

Foreword

by Christoper Hansard

Mountains are not particularly good at conversation; they like their own company. They are not too keen on holding friendly chats or witty exchanges, especially with people. However, the author of this book found an exception, a chatty mountain that likes people. Mountains are libraries and some of them librarians, but not the stereotypical, unemotional stern librarian, saying shush quiet! to everyone; they are libraries who remember and hold the history and the future of life. Jaki Daniels stumbled upon what the natural world has wanted humanity to know for a long time, ever since there were people.

Human beings are spectacularly good at ignoring what is going on right in front of them. So we need other people to come and tell us. You know the saying from the gospel song, Go tell it on the mountain, well the mountain came and said Go tell it on Jaki.

Shamanism has become a word for anything dimly related to the forces of the natural world, indigenous teachings and new age philosophy. Mountains know nothing of this; they hold what they are, which is the waves and patterns of the Earth, in flux, growth, stasis, beginning and endings. They are islands of connection between the highest dimensions of material energy and the basest aspects of human activity.

Jaki Daniels was a shaman but forgot it, and then slowly her memories, which were really connections, started to come back. Her husband, Chris, acted as her human mountain, strong and solid, while she traversed the spiritual world. She really has become what she is, a shaman, a teacher and a human being.

You need to be all three if you choose to carry the mantle and the burden of shaman. It’s not a glamorous life; in fact it’s very ordinary. Jaki is a good example of that, an ordinary woman with an extraordinary connection to the inherent wisdom that is constantly speaking in all of nature. Mountains though love to hum and sing. If you have a chance to sit on a mountain, listening through the silence, it’s a bit like a herd of landlocked whales, the rotation of the earth and all life resonates through them, and Jaki has had the privilege of connecting to that.

Jaki is sharing with you an experience of becoming, and if you are reading this book, it’s because the essence of your soul is wanting to make a similar journey.

When I met Jaki, introduced to me by my partner, Riadh Falvo, I said to her that she was a junior shaman. In fact, I was at first more interested in my meal, but Jaki impressed me not with her earnestness or sincerity, but because she was carrying what she had learnt not just within her but also around her. I could see the mountain that teaches her within Jaki, and the two of us had a conversation about her. Jaki is a genuine student of this way of learning; she is humble but still her own person.

If you read the book thoroughly you will see what I mean. She has graduated now. Not because of this book but because she has found her place in the worlds of energy, form, changing truths and old voices, in the world of the natural cycle, the slow world that trickles on underneath the manic rush of the manmade world.

When there are no more humans, no more shamans, that trickle will be there, there will still be mountains and even when they fade away, the songs that they sing will continue on, waiting for another to hear and go tell it on the mountain. Within each of us is a mountain, far from all time and space, sacred, full of grace; do you have the courage to climb it and learn?

Christopher Hansard

London, UK

September 2007

Christopher Hansard is the author of The Tibetan Art of Living, The Tibetan Art of Positive Thinking and The Tibetan Art of Serenity.

How to Use This Book

The majority of chapters in this book are divided into three sections: PERSONAL JOURNEY, SHAMANIC TEACHINGS, and SHAMANIC WISDOM. Chapters 1 and 11 intentionally have just two sections, and Chapter 12 just one.

Hand_hires.png The first section of every chapter, entitled PERSONAL JOURNEY, is my own story, which follows a chronological timeline consistent with when the events occurred. These sections are denoted with the symbol of the hand.

Bear.png The SHAMANIC TEACHINGS sections, denoted by the symbol of the bear, introduce methods and techniques that will guide you in your own exploration of shamanic experiences. Collectively, these instructive sections represent the curriculum of a course I developed called The Shaman’s Path. In the early chapters, the lessons I am learning and experiencing in my Personal Journey are closely reflected in the themes of the training I present in Shamanic Teachings. As you move further into the book, those themes diverge. While we all need to start by learning the basic methods, ultimately the result of shamanic work and practice is that each of us will find and develop our unique gifts and talents. The goal of Shamanic Teachings is to introduce a variety of safe and effective practices that illustrate the scope of learning available through shamanic studies. If you discover one or more areas of study that hold a special appeal which you would like to pursue in greater depth, then you will have begun your own personal journey to the sacred.

Shaman_hires.png The SHAMANIC WISDOM sections, denoted by the symbol of the shaman and a grey background (for journey text), provide examples of the wisdom teachings I have received through my shamanic practice and the relationships I have developed with various teachers and guides. The topics selected for inclusion in Shamanic Wisdom sections are not intended to follow the chronology of the other two sections. Rather, they have been carefully chosen to provide additional context and background for those embarking on their own path of shamanic studies. The topics evolve in complexity in accordance with your anticipated advancing study and growing interest. It is my hope that these spiritual teachings help both to broaden your understanding of the nature of the spiritual realm and enhance your shamanic practice. Occasionally, I have also included additional teachings received by two of my former students, Marilyn and Ariel. In sharing responses from three different practitioners seeking answers to the same (or similar) questions, I hope to demonstrate for the reader that beneath the diverse nature and content of an individual’s journey experience lies a consistent truth.

These three sections have been designed to work together or independently, depending on how you choose to read this book. If you find yourself inspired to experience shamanism, you can work through the Shamanic Teachings sections, using the accompanying audio tracks, which can be downloaded at www.heedingthecall.ca

It may interest you to know that shamanism is not an organized religion, rather it is more of a spiritual philosophy. It is a way of experiencing an otherwise hidden component of the natural world around you. Shamanism takes you back to the innate abilities of your childhood, when you escaped into the world of invisible playmates and other imaginary friends. Now, as an adult, the ability to day-dream and use those inner senses to discern other realities takes on a whole new meaning.

In my introduction to these realms, and with the people who were my first teachers, the terms shaman and shamanism were used to describe the art and practice of these explorations. Later on, as I learned directly from aboriginal and indigenous people, these terms were replaced with some variation of their own word for medicine person. It seemed that when I was learning directly from white people, they tended to use the word shaman and the indigenous people themselves preferred medicine man or woman. In this book I use the terms interchangeably, as I believe they are both accurate descriptions of people who devote their lives to the refinement of skills in this area and their ability to draw upon those skills to be in service to others.

Audio Tracks

Audio tracks for the Teachings sections can be downloaded from

www.heedingthecall.ca

Preface

2006

It is time to begin. I gather the four stones from their handmade leather pouch. I hold each in turn, taking a few moments to remember all that it represents. Each stone is an aspect of The Mountain to me. I am the yellow stone, the novice and the apprentice. The black stone is Grandfather Mountain, aloof, serious, and powerful. The white stone, the pure white stone, is Grandmother Mountain, my teacher and guide, and my becoming. The grey stone is the Mountain Wizard, the healer.

I set them out carefully, one in each of the four directions. I place a candle in the centre, to represent fire. With the foundation prepared, and my incense resins burning gently in the background, I take a deep breath and begin:

It is time for me to tell the story. I have completed my first six years of training and am moving on to the next level. I need to capture the experience and teachings of that time, while they are still available to me as words and memories. Soon they will dissolve out of my conscious awareness and sink into my being, just another piece of who I am. I ask for your blessings and guidance.

I close my eyes. I can see myself standing on the viewpoint ridge just below the mountain peak. A beautiful, gentle snow is falling. I realize I have a heavy coat on to protect me from the cold. The mountain is so close, yet I feel like an outsider, an observer. I wonder Why am I out here? How do I get inside? Surely I need to be with the mountain, to take my place among the Mountain Spirit Beings to capture the heart of these teachings.

A long time passes. The scene before me does not change. Slowly, gradually, the reasons become clear. In this writing I am the apprentice, rooted in the physical world. It is from this perspective that I tell the story, as an outsider and ordinary human being, yet one who began her shamanic training with a mountain as her teacher. Each of my lessons I received from this viewpoint ridge, both physically and in spirit journeys. This was my experience, and this is the story...

Chapter 1

August 1999

Eaglescreened_small.png

Handscreened_hires.png PERSONAL JOURNEY

A Day in the Mountains

Bearscreened_small.tif SHAMANIC TEACHINGS

Stepping Outside the Ordinary: Understanding Shamanism

Hand_hires.png

PERSONAL JOURNEY

A Day in the Mountains

It was a beautiful spring day. The kind of day when I remembered why Alberta is known as blue sky country. In the midst of the Rocky Mountains, the peaks themselves were the only interruption to that vast expanse of blue, dotted with occasional white clouds. Hiking with a friend, meandering our way around one curve, then another, we slowly zigzagged our ascent of the mountain trail. It seemed like any other day, except that I was especially grateful to be outdoors, to be in the mountains, and under the warm shining sun.

I was quiet, lost in my own thoughts. My friend Donna is one of those people who are comfortable with silence. I felt no need to fill the empty spaces with idle chatter. Watching my feet, taking care with each step to avoid any loose shale or protruding tree roots, I became acutely aware of the many hundreds of small stones and pebbles that dotted the trail. Marvelling at their subtle yet undeniable beauty and individuality, I contemplated picking some up or stopping to get a closer look, yet our pace was solid and I didn’t want to disrupt it. We continued on. I looked up at the trail ahead, looked down at the carpet of stones, over and over. At one point, something in my awareness must have shifted. I don’t know how. But the next time I looked down, I heard words echoing in my head like whispers, I have a story to tell. I have a story to tell. At first, it was difficult to know if those were my thoughts, as they seemed to be coming from both the inside and outside of me at the same time. But when I looked again at the stones, I could almost detect them waiting...waiting to know my response. A small flutter rippled through my stomach as I realized something out of the ordinary was happening. Curious to determine if the state I found myself in was real or imagined, I tried experimenting by closing my eyes briefly then opening them again. I watched carefully to see if the stones reverted back to normal. They didn’t. I noticed that my senses were heightened, everything around me appeared brighter than usual. The trees seemed to be reaching their branches toward me as they swayed in the breeze, the green of their leaves more vibrant than ever. It was as if the rhythm of my step had been altered, tuned to fit with another, more primal rhythm.

At the time, at the height of the experience, it seemed impossible not to accept it as real. It was real. But gradually it started to fade, and a few minutes later when I began to reflect on what had just happened, I wasn’t so sure. I knew I had experienced something. I could still feel the remnants of it, a gentle alertness that carried with it a profound sense of peace and calm. But talking stones? Perhaps I got carried away. To be certain, I decided to share it with Donna. She listened, grunted something unintelligible under her breath, and continued on. After hearing how it sounded when I said it out loud, I decided not to pursue it any further.

About an hour later, a little wearier and thirstier for our trek, we were approaching the end of the trail. Not having been there before it was hard to know exactly where that would be, but I could see that the treeline was very close. Soon we would be able to see over the top and capture the entire vista of the landscape. A few more turns, a steep straight path, and in a step there it was. We had arrived at a clearing where we could see for miles, to the tops of the other mountains, the lake below, the highway winding into the forest like a footpath, and directly in front of us, a massive expanse of rock that was this mountain’s peak. It was close enough that with a few more steps we could reach out and touch it. Yet suddenly, I wasn’t in any shape to do so.

In the same instant that I glanced upward from the trail that had held me captive, and set my gaze ahead at the mountain summit, I heard something both silent and thunderous, a low, resounding voice that seemed to speak directly to my bones, I HAVE A STORY TO TELL. This was nothing compared to the gentle whisper of the stones that had tried to warn me on my ascent. As I felt these echoes reverberating through my body, I started to stagger, losing my footing. I reached out, groping for a tree to steady me. It was like reaching into infinity; I had lost my bearings in the world around me. The realization that I needed to sit down was a welcome burst of sanity. As I slowly eased my way to the ground I noticed my breathing had become rapid; my heart was pounding in my chest. My head felt light and waves of ‘something’ seemed to move right through me, adding to the surreal nature of the experience. I tried to concentrate on the solidness of the earth beneath me, and after a few minutes, the disorientation started to fade. But as my body settled and my mind cleared, the inevitable question rose to the surface, What was I supposed to do now? What does a person do when a mountain speaks to them?

A short while later, recovering, I shifted my attention back to the beauty of the land around me, and to finding Donna. As I turned to look, she was just a few feet away, oblivious to all that had happened. Feeling stronger by the moment, I stood up and called to her. We quickly found ourselves a nice open area where we could set down our packs, lay out a blanket, and feast on the unobstructed view of the valley below. Soon after, I gathered the courage to speak again of the strange invitation, and this time Donna listened intently. I did my best to describe it, but it was difficult to find words to convey the full magnitude of the experience and the effect it had on me. In the end, neither of us knew what it meant. It was one of those strange phenomena that we could discuss over and over without getting any closer to an explanation. While I was hesitant to dismiss it too easily, I had a strong inner sense to drop the subject and not let it spoil the rest of our day. Opening our packs and setting out our food, we had a picnic on the viewpoint of that mountain ridge. It was spectacular. The lake with its turquoise water, the eagles and ravens flying overhead, the sun so comforting I just wanted to lie down and drift off to sleep, feeling its warmth on my face. We easily moved into talking about normal things, mutual acquaintances, work, and the weight of responsibilities. What else would a person do after a mountain spoke to them?

•••

For the first few weeks after that fateful day, I thought about the mountain all the time. But the nature of the experience was so bizarre, so far beyond anything my rational mind could understand, that it left an after effect of unease. I considered filing it away somewhere in the deep recesses of my brain, but even there, there was no category for it. I couldn’t share it with anyone, because I didn’t really know what it was. I had more questions than answers. I began to feel that it was important to set it aside, get back to my regular life, to move through my days working with what I knew to be real and true. So I turned my attention back to my work as a herbalist and aroma therapist, and the healing practice I had established over a decade earlier. For as long as I could remember, I had been passionate about natural healing, natural foods and natural medicines. It was a defining feature of my life and required little effort to devote myself to it fully. The mountain episode shifted into the background and gradually started to fade.

Months went by and I barely thought about the mountain. Summer and fall passed quickly, as they often do in the prairies, and the cold winter kept me focused on home and hearth. By the next spring, as the ground started to thaw and the new shoots of young plants poked through the earth, a small voice started to talk inside my head. It would whisper tauntingly I have a story to tell. Initially I dismissed the voice, thinking that if I didn’t pay it any attention, it would simply go away. Yet gradually it became more insistent—and compelling! I started daydreaming, fantasizing about what the content of this story might be. I imagined myself in all sorts of great situations that resulted from my knowing this special tale. Soon, the daytime wasn’t enough and it entered my nighttime dreams too. Was I going crazy? When I finally sat down and reflected on what was growing inside me, I had to admit that I was intrigued. I really did want to know the story. What kind of story would a mountain tell? How would I receive it? Would I too, become a storyteller, as I shared the story with others? Would I write it down or follow an ancient oral tradition?

As my daydreams, night dreams, and conscious focused awareness all became consumed with the story of the mountain, I knew I had to do something. I couldn’t go on like this. Fortunately, I had met the man who was the perfect person to advise me. He was a shaman and would know exactly what to do.

•••

His name was Eliot Cowan. I had become a student of Eliot’s the previous year, when I had embarked upon a two-year training program in a method of natural healing he developed called Plant Spirit Medicine. I travelled to the United States every few months for a week of intensive study, held at a residential retreat centre in rural Massachusetts. Until I met Eliot, I had seldom heard the word shaman. I vaguely knew what it meant, but it represented an area of interest that held no appeal for me. I couldn’t have offered someone a definition with any confidence I would be correct. Enrolling in Eliot’s course changed all that.

I had been introduced to Eliot’s unique healing work through his book, Plant Spirit Medicine. From the moment I finished it, I knew I needed to study with him. In all my experience as a natural healing arts practitioner I had never encountered a ‘medicine’ like this one. I was captivated with the healings he described. His work reached into people, through their bodies and minds, into their heart and soul. He could heal people from the inside out. He made them whole again. If there was any possibility I could do that too, I wasn’t going to pass it up.

In my own healing practice, I relied heavily on plant-based remedies and found them to be remarkably effective most of the time. But I was also aware that some clients were not getting the results they had expected or hoped for. In many of these cases I sensed an underlying distress or ‘dis-ease’ that was beyond what I or the plants could reach. When Eliot’s book came along, the medicine he described seemed almost too good to be true. Not only did it fill that very need, it was plant based, just not in a way I could ever have imagined.

He taught as we sat in a circle on the floor. No textbooks, no blackboards, no overheads, just a man speaking from his heart and experience. If you didn’t pay attention, it would be lost forever. Each word had only one opportunity to be heard.

During the first week, he explained the foundations of this new medicine. It was a combination of a well-established, Chinese-based system, with literally