This story we are about to tell you is about a Shaman. LAPAL was her name.
This was something that she discovered in her transformation from, what can we say – from an ordinary human to Shaman. Can you say it like that?
And it’s possible that many Shamans before her had this experience, but for her it was such a part of the transformation from one set of beings to another and she saw the possibilities within that for everybody, not just for Shamanic transformations but for the general people, but for other kinds of transformations.
And so, she was compelled, it had such an impact on her, she was compelled to tell this story and then make it part of Shamanic practice.
So Lapal like many Shamans when they go from their ordinary life to their transformation to a Sharman became very ill and the illness for her was what you would call now, was fever. She was like fire herself. She was to touch from the outside people looking at her, they couldn’t touch her, they burnt their hands. It was so intense, it is said it was so intense her skin temperature that they blistered, the other people when they touched it. She did not blister, but they blistered when they touched her.
So, they could not help her, they could not keep her cool. They could not assist her in any way. She had to go through this moment herself.
But in this space Lapal was in her spirit world conscious. Even though her physical world she was not conscious, so the physical world she was conscious. And she realised that she was on fire and she stood back to look at what was happening and she say that the fire was in her blood and in her blood, it was bubbling it was so hot it was bubbling. It was so hot, the fire was in there and as it was racing through her body, she could feel that it was cleansing every part of her body. It was ridding her body of any diseases. Any what you call – toxins. Anything that was not meant to be in the body that inhibited the body from running, from its equilibrium, from running properly, the fire was burning it off.
So, she could see the fire in the blood and the veins. It was going around through the heart, it was through the lungs, the brain, all of the organs. The stomach, the intestines. Every part of her body was being cleansed by the fire in her blood.
And then she saw that the fire died down as the work had been completed. The fire died down. She was still very hot however.
From the end of the fire came the smoke and this interested her greatly because she could see that her whole body was filled with smoke. A grey/white smoke and even in her physical state she could smell this smoke in her nostrils and she knew that she could smell this smoke in her nostrils and she could feel it in her lungs. It was making breathing a bit difficult.
And she wondered why, in her spirit world, why it would be there – this smoke. And then she started to see something rather miraculous. She started to see that the smoke. the wisps of smoke some of them started to make forms and they were forms of people perhaps, individuals. You could call them that and also there were animal forms. And she realised that these forms were spirits that were within her.
And some of these forms were clutching on and they were fighting and screaming, they didn’t want to leave and they were clawing and making a very big deal about going and she realised that this smoke was actually smoking there, if you like the spirits that were not beneficial for her. The smoke was literally smoking them out.
So that she was cleansed physically by the fire in her blood, but now she was going to be purified spiritually inside her and then the spirits were smoked out and then they disappeared.
And she could see that her body, in her spirit itself, could see that her body had calmed down completely. She was no longer burning. She was no longer finding it hard to breathe. But she was still unconscious, but she was conscious in her spirit world.
And now she realised that she had to go on her spirit walk to find out her path.
So, she turns away from the body. As she turns away from the body, she is completely engulfed in smoke from a fire that is yonder. Completely engulfed in it and she can’t see anything. She can’t, it’s like it’s dense, it like she can put her hand through it, it is so, but she can feel it when she puts her hand through it. It is so dense around her. And the smoke it swirls around the body.
Swirling around the body and the smell is in the eyes, in the nostrils and she is at the point of collapsing because she thinks this is going to kill me! This smoke is going to kill me outside my being and then it comes to her that she must blow. She must blow through that smoke. She must get everything that is inside her, that’s within her, all that strength. All of that cleansed and pure being that’s in her and blow through this.
And so, she gathers up everything that is inside her and she takes and she breathes out the biggest breathes that she can and it and clears a space in front of her.
As that space is completely clear in front of her, it is like a miracle. All of the smoke – it disappears. The smoke is gone and she can see. She can see the fire in front of her and she makes her way to that fire.
And she goes to the fire and she stands in front of the fire and she looks very intently at the fire, she looks around the fire, she walks around it and she sees that the flames as they come up, it’s like they’re giving her a message.
One flame, one flame and it’s like each one is trying to attract her attention. Trying to attract her attention. And she becomes so entranced with this. So, besotted by what is going on that she falls into the fire!
But interestingly, she does not burn up. She does not disintegrate. She does not end her life when she falls into this fire, but she goes into that fire and there the flames are licking her and as they lick her, they give her, it’s like they are giving her information. Giving her knowledge. Giving her vision and so she understands that the fire itself, with each individual flame that pops up, that moves around, that tries to get your attention is actually a little bit of knowledge. Something that is coming up to you and only to you because the fire will never seem the same to any two people. It will always seem different.
You will be fixated on one flame, but someone else will be fixated on another. So, every flame, every wisp of smoke it is going to for an individual person completely different to the one that’s next to them.
And what she realises when she is in this fire is that this fire can give her vision by being as one with the fire. Completely focused on the fire. In the fire. A part of the fire. The fire itself gives her vision.
When this realisation occurred to her, the fire disappeared. There was no fire. There was no smoke. There was just her in her spirit world and there she was as well in the physical world.
And she realised this is what her journey was about. That she was to bring this idea of fire into the lives, into her life, if you like as a tool, or a part of her life and bring it into the lives of others in the Shamanic Tradition and to make it part of Shamanic Practice.
So, she enters back into her body and after some time she comes back and she awakens and she can give this information to people.
So, you can see from that story for us in my group that is how for us we visualise fire. The sacred fire.
So yes, we acknowledge that fire itself is sacred but, when we use it in the way that we do in the Shamanic world, in the Shamanic Tradition then it becomes this sacred fire. So, there is a slight difference in terminology there.
So, what we are going to talk about from that story it gave us several things:
One was the idea of Transformation from one set of beings to another set of beings.
It also gave the ideas of Cleansing, Purifying, Clearing and Vision.
Thank you,
Brad and Caroline.