Why Soul Retrievals?

Hummingbird Drinking the Proverbial Nectar of Life (Photo from Unsplash)

Living The Beauty Way

In the Q’ero Medicine Wheel I studied under, Soul Retrievals are taught in the North. After passing through the South: where we shed our outer identities & roles like the snake sheds its skin, we then fiercely face down our shadows in the West: clearing out our past imprints & karma, like the jaguar stalks & hunts its prey in the jungle. It is then that we arrive at hummingbird in the North, the place where the sweetness & nectar of life is found! It is here, once we’ve prepared our inner soil & cleared away our weeds & debris, that we can begin to plant a beautiful garden. It is this garden that will become the person we are & the life we want to be living!

We dream this fuller existence of ourselves into being, through doing our work of healing, & thereby, actualizing our fuller potentials. In the East, with the help of Eagle, we prepare to find our highest destiny as well as confront the fear of dying, so that we may live fully in the life we have now before we ever cross over. We must go in this order around the wheel to find & rediscover ourselves. It is a process, one we will do over & over again metaphorically, in bigger & smaller ways, throughout our lives; as we forever sift through the layers of our infinite being & ever changing and evolving universe.

The dance of creation is a beautiful thing... Each part of the process is necessary. Each element & aspect of nature is a crucial part of the tapestry of life and living. When we have gone through our own letting go & clearing away process, we will arrive at Beauty; and from here we can begin living in ‘The Beauty Way’, just like the hummingbird & all of nature.

As spoken about in the teachings of the mythic, the hummingbird embodies living in ‘the beauty way.’

The following quote aptly captures the meaning of hummingbird as depicted in the Q’ero lineage:

“Legends say that hummingbirds float free of time, carrying our hopes for love, joy, and celebration. The hummingbird’s delicate grace reminds us that life is rich, beauty is everywhere, every personal connection has meaning and that laughter is life’s sweetest creation.” (from the Alchemist’s Kitchen)

Retrieving the nectar of life is the reason for Soul Retrievals in the Shamanic Wisdom Traditions.

In reclaiming Ourselves, we repair our vision for Life itself.

(reprinted from my original website, posted July 19, 2019)