As I started my shamanic internship I was certainly the newbie when it came to anything spiritual or metaphysical. Except for the feathers that occasionally appeared in my house, if couldn’t touch it, see it, smell it or taste it - it didn’t exist. I was very scientific in nature and curious as to how and why everything works the way it does. At the time I was a dental ceramist and worked 40 hours a week in the heart of the city of 250,000+ people.
I had been receiving feathers in my house for a few years but really had no substantial explanation for them, other than I thought my beloved dad was sending them for me. They mostly came after I had been struggled about something . . . had a big life A-HA . . . and a large feather would appear. I had no feather clothes, comforter or pillows in my home that would even shed a small feather let alone the size of these.
So, as I continued to gain an awareness of non-ordinary reality learning shamanism I finally shared with my mentor about the feathers I got. She looked at me like I was a bit daft and said that I could not manifest a physical feather out of non-ordinary reality. I (sort of) agreed but still continued to get feathers at home.
About four months into our training we were sitting on the floor in a circle holding hands while our mentor was walking us through a spiritual exercise. It had something to do about forgiveness and I got very emotional as I fought to forgive my mom for her abusive nature. The tears rolled down my face and snot dripped out of my nose and down my chin as I tried to keep silent until we were finished. I followed the teacher’s instructions and never let go of the hands of the woman on each side of me or opened my eyes until we were instructed to do so.
Much to my surprise and then the mentor’s – there in the middle of this group of “Baby Wise Women” was a huge white feather. I started to cry more as I thought perhaps my mother sent this one. She asked if I put it here. I told her no, I was holding hands the whole time. She looked at me with new eyes from that day forward.
Another time I had gone to her for some private energy work and shamanic coaching to work specifically on my “mom stuff.” We used imagery, energy work, cord cutting and plant spirit medicine during the treatment as I laid on her massage table. When finished, she went off to get me some water and I went off to the restroom. When I came back she was laughing and pulled up the blanket covering her massage table. There underneath was a huge white feather. She knew better than to ask me if I put it there. Then she pulled a book out of her library written by a psychiatrist from our city. He was also a shamanic practitioner and she thought I might enjoy his stories.
In one of the chapters towards the end of the book it talked about “his drawer of feathers” that have come to him spontaneously – just like mine. His came at times of special healings, his own personal work, or for a client during a shamanic session. I was glad to learn that I was not going crazy getting feathers.
One day I was talking with my sister in Ireland about my shamanic training. She was interested and happy I had found something that seemed to bring some peace to me about our mother. Then I confessed to her about getting feathers in the house. She got very quiet, I could tell she was crying. Then she sort of laughed and said in her Irish brogue, “Awe geez Pom, I was tinking I was goin’ nuts! I bin gettin em too.” We cried and laughed as we spent another hour talking on the phone telling each other our feather stories. Both of us became convinced they were coming from our mom and dad.
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