Shady Shamans.

This morning I woke up with a heavy heart. I am grieving, it's obvious. 

Grieving the collective pain, my own sorrow, and just versions of myself that i've had 

to let go of. 

Every specific period in my life has required a specific version of myself, to go through whatever it was that time wanted to teach me. 

And while I was going through these trials and tribulations, the version that I needed to get through them was simultaneously dying. So not only did I wake up a few days later in a completely new timeline and reality but also in a different version of me. 

The constant transitions of death and rebirth have been something that I am used to, and still, lately it can feel like I am not trusting the process. 

Im looking over my shoulder to see when the other shoe is gonna drop. 

Life is good and I feel good, when is the shit coming? 

However, I did not wake up this morning with a heavy heart because of this movement in my system. I recognise this behaviour and these thoughts as what I call; the adjustment period.

You know, that space between what was and what will be. Just floating and getting used to the place where I am now. Who can relate?

Anyway, I got up, cuddled my son who was watching cartoons in the living room, put on the water for tea and went to my altar.

I lit up my ‘free all oppressed peoples candle’ that is resting on a little plate with a watermelon design, and started to pray. 

This is my ritual in the morning to connect with my breath, my body and to bring myself back from the astral realm to this reality, while connecting to my relatives all over the world. 

And as I sat there I felt my heart, it hurt.

A heaviness that I also recognise. 

It's the kind of heaviness that feels like carrying a sofa up the stairs, through a halfway that is curvy and a bit too small, and you're unsure if it's all gonna fit, but you're already halfway there, and going back is also no longer an option. You know…

I have been going through this process of letting go of the past, and trusting all the wonderful things that I call my life. I have never been this happy and I have never loved myself in this way before. It has been quite the adjustment. And to be able to rest in my here and now I have been writing, painting, teaching, creating and sharing. It has been really helpful to anchor myself. 

Maybe you can also relate to this; when I am aware that I am in a new timeline I look back to see where I've been and how I got to where I am now. 

And I have been writing it down, to make an overview of all the events that brought me where I am today.

And this weekend there was a full circle moment for me, which is probably why my heart felt heavy this morning. The bittersweetness of it all is as poetic, as it is just brutal. 

You see, 16 years ago, when I was young, naive and lost. I found myself spending more time than I like to admit in a cult. 

This was/ is an organisation based in Amsterdam that was/is teaching self development classes. 16 years ago these classes were full, like 40 people, and stories told me that years before that these classes filled closer to the hundreds. 

Many people chose to go to this place and I was one of them.

Back then i was severely depressed and suicidal, i was desperate to find answers. 

This place provided the illusion of what I was looking for and I got hooked. 

This place ended up taking my money, friends, family and well lets be honest all that was left of my mental health.

They abused people and tried to sexually abuse me too. 

Very bad situation. 

But! I got out and it taught me the lesson of a lifetime. 

Finding something like this cult was such an eye opener for me, in so many ways and for so many reasons. 

When I finally got out of that place it took me years to recover and to find myself again. 

It took me another 10 years to  fully come back to myself, and I've spent the last 6 years fine tuning what kind of teacher I was going to be.

Because this has always been clear to me, I was going to be a teacher.  

When I was a little girl it has always been very clear for me that I was going to help people.

I wanted to be a teacher, I wanted to take care of others. I was only 8 when I started my first community, based on the love I felt for jesus. True story. And every choice I made until now confirmed this belief, I was made to lead and to teach. The place where this was coming from varied, but the essence has always been the same. 

Helping people, connecting, growing, breaking down dysfunctional systems, freeing the community, and evolving as a people, this has always been my aim. 

After this cult experience, I feel I dare to say that my antennas are fine tuned. 

I never just take anything from any teacher, check all the places I want to go to educate myself, and protect myself energetically whenever I step into a teaching space. 

So imagine my surprise when yesterday I found myself in a space with a shady shaman. 

I came there because I trusted someone based on my intuition, and then signed up out of curiosity. Also I think it's really important for any teacher to keep on learning. And to always also remain a student themselves. Otherwise…. You know… cult vibes.

The point of the story is, why I had a heavy heart, a heaviness that is a combination of grief and a point of motivation. 

16 years ago, the version that i was, stayed in the place that was bad out of desperation, but also the victim ship that i carried in myself energetically and karmically. I choose back then to put myself in a situation that was going to wake me the fuck up. And however painful it was, it did. And now, 16 years later I had the opportunity again to respond to a bad situation.

And the growth is impeccable. Remarkable. Sensational. 

I was there with my partner and we listened to each other, to the signals that were occurring in our bodies, our heart that was speaking and we put our shields and boundaries up. 

Up until the point where there was a confrontation with the shady shaman of the class and we made the very conscious decision to stand up and just leave. The confirmation got more weight when other people in this class also expressed their doubts, and stood up and left the class as well.

16 years ago it took me almost 4 years to leave. Now it took me 4 hours. 

Absolutely a full circle moment for me. 

So why not take this as only a win and move on? 

Because this cause is so close to my heart. 

I work as a teacher, as a facilitator, as a medicine woman. 

And the respect and care I feel for any one who joins my classes has been cultivated over a time period of far longer than 16 years. 

So when I get a reminder like this, it feels like my heart is breaking all over again. 

I feel my pain is about those that prey on the desperate. Which is ofcourse personal to me.  

How they take the opportunity of this question we have as a collective to make money without actually making a dent in the karmic imprint.

The bypass healing, the cultural appropriation of indigenous ceremonial work, the damage people do with abusing plant medicine, so called guru’s that abuse the sacred teaching of tantra as a free pass to abuse people, and honestly the list goes on. 

It has been more than disappointing, but also in a way completely predictable to hear almost nothing coming out of the spiritual world about the genocides playing out in the world.

I have spent time looking at the teachers I follow, and waiting for them to speak out, and the silence was deafening. How can any person that calls themselves a healer and a teacher, that has a big platform, then not use it to advocate for all oppressed peoples? 

Is your healing and your teaching not for the oppressed, then for who is it?  

And this heaviness is about the feeling in my heart that is grieving for our collective. 

The world is such a crazy place, and people everywhere are looking for answers. 

And looking for it in every way they can find it,  all over the world. 

There is a desperation to find answers, to have someone make sense of it all. 

To have someone to believe in, someone who can guide us.

The collective pain feels at an all time high. 

There is no way around it. We are all living in systems designed to keep us small. 

New generations are trying to save our planet, and the generations before us have to be in a state of reflection about how they raised us. Things have been bad for a long long time, and now the great awakening is here, and it is as brutal as it gets. 

I feel it is time to expose these places that take advantage of the vulnerability of people. 

I feel it's time there is  a new system in place for teachers. 

And I feel it's time for the spiritual bubble to pop. There need to be consequences for those who prey on the vulnerable. And there needs to be accountability taken by those who feed this system by enabling it for their own ego’s to be validated. 

I understand that this system of healing is a system that is rooted in colonial imperialism. And me sitting here in my warm, safe house, writing on my macbook, might not change anything today. At least that is what is has turned into. True medicine in my opinion is a combination of connection with spirit and our earth, experience, culture and calling.

I have never claimed the truth or final answers.

But I believe the universe is listening to me, and I will reach the people that I need to reach. 

And I know it's time for me to make myself known in this conversation. 

So there can be no mistake where I am coming from, where I am, and where I am going. 

Because yes, I feel heaviness, grief, pain, and sorrow.

And  I also feel rage, motivation, and a long line of ancestors that are sick of your shit and we are coming for you. 

The contemplation I had to share with you was the duality of these two sentences.

Don't spend any energy on those people, just focus on you and your community, just let karma come for them. Forget about them.

And.

Hell no! Speak up, speak out, let's get them, we ride at dawn!