Written by: Bill O'Brien, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
In my last article, I wrote about a profound spiritual experience I had many years ago as a Jesuit Novice. It set me on the path of consciousness-raising that I am still on today. Along the way, I have experienced many more visits from non-ordinary consciousness and today I would like to tell you about one of them, my initiation into shamanism.
When I left the Jesuits after twenty years, I said to myself, “Now what?”. The answer that came back was “shaman”. Well, I had no experience of shamanism other than reading a few books like Black Elk Speaks and Lame Deer: Seeker of Visions”. I did not know where to turn to find shamanism so I continued to be a spiritual guide for people and I started my own Center.
One day I noticed in the paper that there was a new movie out called Wolf starring Jack Nicholson. My right brain (intuition) was very drawn to go see it but my left brain (logic) raised objections. It would say things like “You shouldn’t be wasting your time on horror movies” or “how will your public react if they see you coming out of a weird movie like that”. “Better not go”.
My left brain won for a time but Wolf continued to play at the local theater. This was 1994 when movies stayed around longer. My attraction to the movie continued to grow so finally I went to a Sunday matinee hoping nobody who knew me would be there. As it turned out there were maybe six people there and none of them knew me.
As I settled into my seat, the movie began and almost immediately an eerie scene came on the screen with Jack Nicholson driving through woods on a snowy night. He sees a wolf lying by the side of the road apparently wounded.
Jack gets out of his car to see if he can help. Maybe he thought the animal might be a dog. As soon as he gets to the wolf, a whole pack of wolves emerges from the woods and descends on him.
What happened next I was totally unprepared for. I did not know such things could happen. The sight of all these wolves generated what felt like electrical current going through my whole body. I have never felt that energized in my life before or since. When I left the theater at the end, I found I was full of energy. I accomplished more that evening than I usually do in a few days.
This experience lit a bulb in my brain reminding me about shamanism. I did some research and learned that shamans have these entities called Power Animals. I looked up Wolf and discovered that its charism was that of the Teacher. That certainly fit my sense of myself. I kept Wolf in mind.
A few years later I attended a long class on shamanism. It was twelve weekends spread over a year. One day the teacher said we were going to journey to find our Power Animal. I thought to myself that I already knew mine was Wolf but I suspended judgment and opened myself to the teacher’s guidance to see what would happen.
Well, sure enough, Wolf was my Power Animal but there was a problem. He was blue. In Wolf, there were no blue wolves. I had never thought of my Wolf as blue…but there it was.
More years go by, and I am browsing in a bookstore. I see a section on Genghis Khan. A psychic had once told me that, in a previous life, I had wrought a lot of destruction and laid many towns and people to waste. He had said it was so much that it was on a level with Genghis Khan. He did not say that I had been Genghis Khan but his words stayed with me.
So, I decided to explore the Genghis Khan shelf. I am browsing through various books there when my eyes fall on a chapter about Genghis Khan’s spiritual understanding. It said that he had a “familiar”, i.e., a spiritual guide, named Blue Wolf.
This was of course astounding to me standing there in a bookstore in Bethesda MD USA. It felt cool that the mystery was resolved but I was not sure I was comfortable having the same entity as Genghis Khan giving me advice. After all, “spiritual” is not the first word that comes to mind when somebody thinks of Genghis Khan.
It took quite a while to integrate this experience. Finally, a shaman told me to ask Blue Wolf how this all added up. I did so and the answer was that Blue Wolf was my Power Animal to advise me about being a spiritual warrior. Spiritual warriors take on the powers of darkness wherever they appear, such as wherever injustice is found.
Still more years later, my wife and I spent 28 days at Joshua Tree Retreat Center in the Mojave Desert in California. There we experienced a very intense training in the art and practice of shamanism.
Today, among other services, Blue Wolf serves as my guide when I perform a shamanic ritual called Soul Retrieval which sometimes occurs during my Consciousness Coaching.
This adventure with Blue Wolf was yet another chapter in my lifelong fascination with the infinite dimensions of our human consciousness.
Bill O'Brien, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Bill O'Brien has decades of experience helping individuals and groups expand their awareness of the capacities of their inner selves, their full, or divine, potential. He utilizes a range of methods to expand consciousness from meditation to self-knowledge techniques to guided imagery to shamanic healing methodologies such as Illumination and Soul Retrieval. With his Consciousness Coaching, experience is the touchstone. The goal is drawing up into conscious awareness the infinite contents of the individual unconscious. Bill spent twenty years in the Jesuit Order before launching out on the great adventure of the discovery of the Self. His Wisdomkeepers reach a worldwide audience. He is the author of "Wise Guyde: The First Forty-Five Columns" available on Amazon. His mission: feeding the spiritual hunger of the world by healing and elevating human consciousness.
