Shamanism Vs. Alchemy…

The more we bring together shamanism and alchemy (especially through an unashamedly mythopoetic lens) in the work of healing, individuation, and union (as we do at Be Mythical), the more a dichotomy can seem to arise between them.

Very simply and reductively put (overly and maybe dangerously so, if this wasn’t a post only a few rare souls would likely be interested in, let alone have an opinion on!)…

“Where have all the clients gone?”

Many change-workers are realising, in ways that have them question everything, that what used to work well, especially in terms of what brought clients to you, no longer is.

Please know it’s not personal, it’s likely not that you’re not doing something wrong or missing something… This is a collective and necessary shift, which is an aspect of a greater, deeper arc.

And yet, what’s most universal is most personal (paraphrasing Carl Rogers).

Can you love anyway? ♥️

We have just completed the final circle of Liberty Quest, our eight-week shamanic, alchemical journey with the spirit of the Mushroom, and what I learned from this crucible is something that I’ve seen many times before but never more clearly than now.

The nature of this journey and the challenges that it brought were far more intense than would typically be the case in an 8-week journey, some of those challenges were directly related to reactions to Mushroom itself, and some of them were because of the painful depths of what the Mushroom was illuminating.

The untapped power of the Night Self 🌙

“Dreams are the guiding words of the soul. Why should I henceforth not love my dreams and not make their riddling images into objects of my daily consideration?” Carl Jung, The Red Book

A potent way to ‘be mythical’ - which is to say, to consciously enter the world of wild and mythical archetypes, beings, arcs, and symbols in service of living your soul’s unique myth - is to pay attention to the contents of our dreams, this intentional relationship with what I call our “Night Self” is one that grows richer with time and attention.

Is it really an accident.. or is it something very different? ♥️

As I learned during years in shamanic initiation and then in shamanic work since, anything that happens during a ceremony… be that the candle that gets knocked over, the way we’re struggling to light the sacred fire, the friction between people, or the rain beating down… all of these things have meaning are not incidental and accidental as we might normally think of these things, and they aren’t a problem to be solved (perhaps aside from taking action to resolve something that will cause damage). All of these things are part of the ceremony, in fact, a vital part of the ceremony, something to be observed, learn from, and help us to heal.

Is THIS the way? 💎

In the last few days I’ve used shamanic journeying, tarot, microdosing, astrology, dream work, mythology, inner child work, Socratic questioning, guided visualisation, Kabbalah, alchemy, and other traditions and systems in working with clients and students.

Some of these I use because they’re my mother tongue (e.g. Socratic questioning, mythology, and archetypes) some I use because I’ve been guided to do so despite much resistance (e.g. shamanism as a whole, and teacher plants especially), and some I use because they’re the other person’s mother tongue (e.g. Human Design).

WHY WELCOME THE WORST PARTS? 🐉

One of the important lessons of the folktale, The Lindworm, is that the more we push something away because we see it as ugly, unnecessary, disruptive, dark, shameful… The more dangerous and destructive it becomes.

This includes other people who we see as ‘other’, parts of ourselves, such as emotions like anger, pain, shame, grief, longing, and desire, as well as our natural gifts and traits, especially ones that aren’t understood or valued in our culture - neurodivergence being an example.

Working with teacher plants (aka ‘plant medicine’) 🌱

I first began working with plant spirits many years ago, long before I had been trained to do so shamanically (in fact, perhaps before I even knew there was such a thing as doing so shamanically)!

Once upon a time, I devoted a day to tending a dead mole. I was nine or thereabouts and at this point my father and I lived in an old ‘converted’ (slight embellishment, that) blacksmith’s barn set on the edge of the wilds of Exmoor, Devon.

The reasons your partner, family, and (potential) clients aren’t ‘DOING THE WORK’ will often be the same reasons you aren’t (especially if you think you are)…

The tale of the Hunter and Fox Woman have returned to me after their visit a couple of years ago, last time they came via finding a dead fox in my path when I took the “wrong” route home, and this time with a fox’s tail, as well as through the current Mythical Quest in UNIO.

(And I don’t mean magic in a ‘happiness, sunshine & rainbows’ kind of way… I do actually mean real magic as you’ll see as you read on, but if TLDR, Dr Daniel Ingram’s definition “Extraordinary Magick: includes the levels of causal effects that are beyond what most people consider the ordinary world of cause and effect, i.e. the realm that science, with the occasional exception of particle physics, considers mythical.” is a pretty good one for now.)

So many of us are waking up to being bereft of community, something that was a birthright for humans for aeons.

And perhaps those of us who are here to embark on mythical soul quests into dark forests and forgotten temples, meeting dragons and angels - metaphorically and otherwise - feel the lack of it more than most.

📜✨ On World Poetry Day, we offer you 'THE THRONE' - a provocative invitation and reflection by Lian Brook-Tyler on reclaiming your sovereignty and living your soul’s myth. ✨

THE THRONE

Everyone knows that Queens and Kings

are only meant for myths and as figureheads.

If one dared speak of sovereignty,

the call would resound:

who does she think she is?

Throwback Monday to the honeysuckle of Union

🖤🤍

The first photo was taken this week as I sat on the swing seat amidst the honeysuckles springing back to life… the other photos taken three years ago, and shared along with these words:

What steps are you taking to cultivate deep listening and understanding of the symbolic language of spirits or deities?

Jessica Howard, an author and a mentor who has been a practicing witch for over 20 years, joins Lian to explore the experience of feeling a call from a particular spirit, element, deity, or being and the mythical journey it can take you on. Jessica shares her personal journey with water and how she was called to work with the element, and Lian shares her own with the Oak and Rose.

I watched the film ‘Otto Baxter: Not a F***ing Horror Story’ last night – a documentary that follows a film-maker with Down’s syndrome as he makes an autobiographical horror film.

The film he makes is called The Puppet Asylum - it is a reimagining of his own life, from birth as an unwanted, deformed, horned child “The Monster”, through his years in captivity in the ‘Puppet Asylum’ at the mercy of “The Master”, to eventually becoming his own master.

As Jonathan Wilkinson and I were planning the opening ceremony of UNIO, we were looking at our Life’s Work Gene Keys - which is one of the many magical ways we’ll be journeying into the Great Work with our students this month.

One of the tells of an Old Soul that Jonathan and I have noticed is neurodivergence - such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and dyspraxia - it’s not always present but it is more often than not (and when seems it’s not, it’s usually just that it hasn’t been discovered yet).

1. Focusing on searching for new clients rather than whole-heartedly serving the precious clients you already have. 👁️
2. Treating your soul business like a hobby and prioritising everything else in your life over it, and yet, still expecting it to bring the results of a business. 💼