Renee Baribeau, The Practical Shaman (00:00):
Hello, I'm Renee Baribeau, the practical shaman. Happy to be here with you to talk about a very serious topic.
Sandra Ingerman (00:10):
I'm Sandra Ingerman and welcome to the Shaman's Cave. And we do have a very serious topic. The topic is actually, the topic is metaphorical, but you'll all understand what I'm talking about of how do we keep on with our lives while the world is on fire. And I know people are really being affected by the fire in Maui right now, but that was actually not the seed that got planted around this topic because this topic was actually planned before the Maui fire even happened. Every single day we're learning news that showing that the world, whether it's an earthquake, a flood, or whatever we're using, the metaphor of the world is burning up and in a lot of places, the world is burning up. So the question is how do we maintain our sanity and how do we maintain our lives and keep moving forward while this tragedy is always coming at us?
(01:30):
How do develop the resiliency, the tools that we need to be able to keep moving forward during these times and not go down, and the lesson is to be resilient and not go down so that we can all walk through this place of fire. The spirit showed me this tunnel of fire in the middle of the night the other night, and it was my tunnel of fire that I had to walk through. And the spirit said to me, breathe through it. Breathe through it, and get through it. What do we do? What do do to get through these times with our sanity intact? That's what our show is about today.
Renee Baribeau, The Practical Shaman (02:24):
As you were speaking about getting through it without going down, I had the vision of Al the Wind, God, and that you might go down, you might go down into, in the Aztec tradition, there was five, I think in the fifth or sixth world. Let me, I don't want to screw up the history, but that we do go down and we burn, and it's making something from the ashes that do burn and a forest can regenerate itself and grab up those nutrients from what's left after the devastation. I've talked about that. I'm writing this new book, and my editor last week says to me, Renee, I thought you were writing a simple book on practical shamanic tools, and here you are talking about the world's on fire that people can't drink the water. All of these topics. And I'm, they're like, well, that's the reason people need this book. And what it is though for me is that, yes, this is where we're at in the world and nature-based tools are the simple way through to breathe through the fire of what Sandra was just talking to like that if you practice and practice and practice and practice your tools, that when there's an urgent windstorm out your window and your neighbors need help, it's second thought. You just move into using your tools to get through whatever's put in front of you.
Sandra Ingerman (04:07):
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And what I just wrote, I wrote my September transmutation news and what I wrote in it is that I basically have said everything that we need to do for 20 years now. And the point is, how deep did we work with our tools? How deep did we work with our tools? And so with the world on fire and with the initiation aspect of this, it's absolutely true that we all go down. But did you practice your tools enough? Did you practice your tools enough so that you remember what they are when you really need them? So it's really important. I think it would be really important to reflect in some way, maybe even making a list of what are some of the practices that you have learned that can take you through the coming times. And so I did that. I did that the other day having a bit of a hard time, but personal, not in the world.
(05:38):
And so I wrote down what were my most healing tools and really simple things like walking into my office every morning and starting my day with Saging myself. I mean, how long does that take? How long does that take? But I've become like the rest of the distracted world. I stopped. That was my life. That was always my life. Every day I started with a journey and saging myself and starting with spiritual practices until the internet came. And then I started noticing that I started checking my emails before I started doing my spiritual practices to now where I found that I don't do my spiritual practices except what I call sacred times. So I'm moving back, just walking into my office and burning this wonderful plant that the creator gave us to cleanse ourselves and to be able to start a beautiful day. What tools, what simple things do you have that you can bring yourself back to center and be able to move from a place of center, from your solar plexus, from your energy being expanded instead of contracted in fear? What practices help you open to life instead of close down to life?
Renee Baribeau, The Practical Shaman (07:21):
That's a great question. I've added one recently too. My new home is on the second floor, and so every morning the cat has her routine where she wants to go out. So earlier I would just mean up and down the stairs 10 times a day I would go down and I'd let her out with a little, I'd give her a little pat, but now I actually open the door and I go out with her and I greet the day. I say, Sammi, isn't this a wonderful day? And I open up my arms and I let the light because I'm facing east into me and into my day and acknowledge that, wow, it's a beautiful day.
Sandra Ingerman (08:08):
Absolutely. Yeah,
Renee Baribeau, The Practical Shaman (08:11):
It's little shifts like that that really make a big difference. Then I hustle back upstairs and move on to the next thing. But maybe we don't have all of the time that we used to have to make sure that we did all the rituals and things like that. So what are the simple ones that just could be as simple as when you wake up in the morning saying, I have a mantra that I had forgotten over time to say, so now when I get up before pretty early, I'm saying my three mantras because when I add these things back into my day, my day goes better.
Sandra Ingerman (08:55):
Exactly. Yeah. I'm doing things like during the pandemic when there were 5 million summits going simultaneously, everybody was talking about how humming can calm down your nervous system. I was too busy teaching and trying to help people get through the pandemic, and I can actually say I felt like I didn't have time to hum. So my husband, and we've been together for close to 30 years, and he brings me a cup of tea every morning. That's my time for myself. It's always been my whole entire life. I've had to have time for myself in the morning and then I'm yours for the rest of the day. And I've always said that in my workshops. And so now when my husband's bringing me tea in the morning, I'm humming while I'm drinking my tea. So I found a way to bring a really good humming practice into my life, and I start with a song that I welcomes the sun into my life, and then I do my two power songs. My song I call in to call Isis, and the song I call in to call in my guardian spirit before I do healing work and doing all three songs every morning humming and just really letting my breath go out so long, which I can do. I have this ability to really hold my breath. And I find that just doing that, I've called in my helping spirits that I've been working with for my guardian spirit I've been working with for 40 years, ISIS I've only been working with since the late 1980s.
(11:02):
And imagine how that makes you feel as you start your day. You called in your spirits to be with you and you breathe at the sun.
Renee Baribeau, The Practical Shaman (11:12):
Love that. You always say, oh, we've talked about everything, but you know what? We've never talked about our early morning rituals before. And I'm curious, for those of you who are listening at home, what are your early morning rituals? Do they match ours and make sure you subscribe and do all of that? But in the morning, I'm the same way. I have those two. Well, now I've told the universe that I want to be up. I have to write from six to eight before I start my day job. So sure enough, I'm getting that knock on the spiritual door at 6:00 AM to wake me up. But when I'm not writing and I just get up, I need two hours in the morning before I do anything. So even if I'm traveling early in the morning, like for a six o'clock flight, I have to set the alarm so that I have those two hours before I have to be out in the world.
(12:08):
And I now, I'm really curious, is that something that spiritual seekers need is that time to organize their energy, bring back themselves from sleep and get the day coordinated before they see other people? Because I'm like you, then I'm on for the rest of the day until I drop. So I think that to know what that ritual is for you, and some people, it's at night, they shut down at night and they want that two hours before they go to bed to be their reading time, their coordinating time, their thinking about what they did today and planning tomorrow time. But for me, it's always been morning. And I always made jokes. That's why I work in the restaurant. They don't expect you to be there until 10. I have failed miserably when I ever had a job that I had to be there before 10. It was awful.
Sandra Ingerman (13:03):
That's why I'm always, Renee knows this. I'm always trying to push back the time of every other times. I just don't move fast in the morning. But I'm like, Renee, when I teach in person and I get up at four in the morning and just lie in bed and drink my coffee or drink my tea, whatever, and just relax and I don't think about my day, I don't think about anything. But my mother, every morning she got up and smoked a cigarette before she went to work. And what she said to me was that this was her time because she had two children. We didn't have money. So both my parents worked really long hours. So cooking, cleaning, she had to do all of that and working and taking care of us. So that one cigarette in the morning, it was her time. Nobody came into her space during that time. And that's how I feel for me, nobody comes into my space during that time. So it's a real regenerating time before I start my day and be open to whatever, whoever needs me during the day.
Renee Baribeau, The Practical Shaman (14:36):
I think it's a really great takeaway for people who are listening to today's show is I think for me, when I don't do those morning routines or if I get a really bad night's sleep, there's really nothing that can alter the trajectory of the day. I had this one client who used to tell me, Renee, you can always take a nap. And it was a catering client, not one of my clients, Renee, you can always start the day over again, take a nap, get up and say, Hey, it's a new day. Now, I've done over the years in my earlier sober years, I used to do that. I'd take a nap and say, okay, let's start again today, Renee and I would do that. But now what I do is if I know that I have had a really lousy night's sleep, I changed the expectations of my day, I say, okay, well, I'm probably not going to do so well at writing. I'm not going to get the rest of the chapter written, but I could do some research. So it's like knowing that maybe sometimes you have to alter your plans and not being so stuck in your plans that you can't shift.
Sandra Ingerman (15:53):
Absolutely. And I have shared this on shows before because I have written 12 books and I love to write. Somebody actually posted, I don't know if it was on the Shamans Cave or Facebook page or another Facebook page. They posted a quote from Carl Young and I usually, I wish people would speak from their hearts on Facebook instead of all these quotes, but this quote, I think it was perfect and I really needed it. And Carl Young said, think about the things that you loved to do when you were a child. Think about your favorite things to do when you were a child, and that's your path. And my favorite thing to do as a child was to write. I used to sit in my room and write. As soon as I came home from school, I was really into sports. I did sports. Then whenever we were supposed to be home or whatever, I sat down in my room and wrote, and I even had this little ritual.
(17:08):
This is how strange I was. I had this little ritual where I had to have a little bit of dinner by myself in my writing desk. And so my mother would actually bring me a little portion of food that I would eat by myself, I'd finish my writing, and then I would go join my family for dinner. This is a strange little ritual I had every day. And so I got off track here. But what I was trying to share is I do love to write, but I don't write like other people. I wait. I wait until I feel a volcano fire. I'm going to burn up if I don't sit down. And I actually said those words to people when I wrote Medicine for the Earth. It was such an intense, energetic book for me. I'd wake up and if it was time to write, I'd feel like a fire was burning and mean.
(18:15):
I'd have to run to my computer and get out the fire as fast as I could, but the fire might not come back for three weeks or a month. So what I learned through my writing and not putting pressure on myself was how to ride the waves of when the time is right to push yourself into an activity, which is part of our topic, because you need to have the energy. And if you're feeling so overwhelmed by what's happening in the world, you don't really have that creative energy. And so as Renee was saying, every day might be different. I got affected by what's going on in the world today. I think I'm going to take some time for myself when I can, when I'm not working and just process, do something good for myself, do something good for my nervous system. And I just learned through with all my books, trusting the process. I never questioned the process. Once magic happens, when you follow what your own ability, what your own energy is leading you to, and as we're talking about in the show, we're talking about when you're really being affected by inner and outer events.
Renee Baribeau, The Practical Shaman (19:50):
Yeah, I think we've said a lot on this. I would really love to hear your feedback of things that you do to stay sane and your process of moving through these events of what works for you and not going deeper into the tragedy of the event, but really what simple techniques can help other people who might be reading down through the chain of ideas to shift them out of that state. Because we aren't very helpful to other people when we're all frazzled. We need to be the firemen in our life who can go into this burning building and pull people out to safety. And so what are the tools that you use for that? And we'd love to hear it. We'd love for you to subscribe. We'd love for you to, what else, Sandra? What's our sales pitch?
Sandra Ingerman (20:50):
We would love for you to comment on YouTube and like us. Those three combinations are what YouTube really looks for. It's not just how many subscriptions, it's how many likes and how many. So there's the cell chemical formula that YouTube looks at. So if you like our show and you find it meaningful to you in any way, please subscribe like us, and comment and blessings everyone. And it is a really tough time for so many of us. And as Renee and I say goodbye and blessings to you, let's all just take one moment to really feel our love for all of life, for every little nature being all of life, all the good, all the challenges that are what's happening. Let's honor the process. What's happening right now. Honor that this is all happening for our ultimate healing and our ultimate growth. And let's just hold each other in love at such a time when our hearts feel like they're breaking. And remember that spirit has a way to fix those breaks in a way that you're renewed in such a beautiful way that all of a sudden you realize that you're the person you've always wanted to be.
(22:27):
Thank you.