Mind, Body and Spirit

Not so long ago I wrote about some of the changes I had set in progress in my life.  As one phase of those actions has now ended I thought I would reflect a little on what has taken place.

Mind

I have now finished a second short course in Gàidhlig, a nine week long course of hour long lunchtime sessions.  I can understand a bit of written Gàidhlig now and in theory I can have a basic conversation.  I say in theory because my pronunciation still sucks and I have a lot of trouble understanding what I hear.  I have learnt some bits though and I have enjoyed the course.  I’m hoping that there will be a further course arranged for next session but I’ll need to wait and see.  In the meantime I do intend to work through some of the BBC materials at “Beag_air_bheag” in the hope that I will gradually start to understand a bit more. Languages are not my strength!

Body

Last week saw the last sessions in eight week courses in Belly dancing and Body Balance.  New classes start up in late April and I’m going to continue with both.  Belly dancing is great fun.  The variant I’ve been learning is vintage oriental belly dancing.   When I started Body Balance I thought I’d made a big mistake, I was literally in tears at the end of the first session!  The instructor was great though and very encouraging.  I kept going and by the end of the 8 weeks I was able to complete the hour long sessions and come out feeling tired instead of exhausted and at the same time  energised from the exercise.  My fitness levels have improved dramatically over the last eight weeks and I am really feeling the benefit.  I’ve also been continuing to lose weight, little by little and that too is feeling good.  I’m still overweight but I’m getting healthier.

Spirit

When I last wrote on these topics I had been reading Harner’s “The Way of the Shaman”  and thinking about some of my past experiences but not come to any conclusions.  I have finished that book and have now read another two books on shamanic practices, one by Sandra Ingerman “Soul Retrieval” and one by Jane Shutt “The Spirits are always with Me“.  I’ve also been in touch with a very experienced practitioner of Seidr in Scotland by the name of Malcolm about some of these things.  The outcome of all this reading and the discussions I have had both on forums and via email is that I have come to feel that I need to learn to journey in a shamanic fashion.   I have a few reasons for this decision which I’m not going to go into here.  Fortunately for me Malcolm is willing to help me with this.   It’s going to take a while because even finding the time to meet up will be difficult.  I know Malcolm will be a good guide for me in this phase of my learning even though we walk slightly different paths.

The other thing I wrote about under this heading was lunar rituals and I have written about these already recently.