
“I'm tired, completely exhausted,“ I muttered while stretching out my hand to reach the train tickets. Finally, the school year was over and I was going to leave soon. I always felt content and elated when I had to change the environment, escape from routine and go somewhere I had never been before. In the summer of 2018 I was going to head towards North Karelia.
A long tiring two-day journey by bus and train until I reached a small village having just several wooden houses surrounded by vast forests at the bay of the White Sea. At that time I didn't realize that it was just the beginning of a real journey. The final true destination which everyone should reach.
A long tiring two-day journey by bus and train until I reached a small village having just several wooden houses surrounded by vast forests at the bay of the White Sea. At that time I didn't realize that it was just the beginning of a real journey. The final true destination which everyone should reach.
Practices and workshops started at an intense pace: dynamic meditations in the morning, long tiring hikes through the immense forests to the quartz quarry and wading shore of the abated sea in the heatwave of thirty degrees in the north. Although I was accustomed to physical exercise, some practices like walking a few kilometers backwards seemed to awake the following morning all the muscles that I didn't even know they existed.
I was going backwards quickly and with confidence as I relied on intuition. It wasn't difficult since I was accompanied by two forest spirits on both sides and a spiritual guide in the front. They showed the way which wasn't seen to me by my eyes.
"Lina's got the eyes at the back of the head," somebody from the group uttered when I was outrunning my group fellows. Just before the end of the trip when a few meters were left, a thought came to my mind that the assigned homework had to be done for that night. The thought brushed the intuition away, my invisible guides disappeared, and stumbling over a big stone, I heavily fell down with a full backpack of quartz. I smiled, though the pain was piercing the palm of the left arm, which was turning blue at tremendous speed. Unfortunately, I also managed to strain the ligament of my right leg.
“Okay, I got it!” I said to myself, “I came to develop my intuition but cannot control my thoughts. I'll do my best to improve.
The pain seemed not to be a problem as there were several Cosmoenergy Magistres in the group who could definitely help me. I came up to one lady, then asked for help the others, yet, nobody could allay my pain. The thought that it was the lesson to cope with the pain myself stroke my head. At that time, I was a Cosmoenergy Master and had some channels for curing my leg and hand, but it was futile. In the evening I worked according to the method of clairvoyant and bioenergist Juna Davitashvili, I let Reiki flow, but the pain was still intense.
The next day we went to the shamanic hill to perform a ritual. I was limping. Everybody was given a task to go the "power walk" a few kilometers. I tried to stifle the pain and accomplish the task. I realized that I had come to work with myself that was why there shouldn't be any whining. I walked squeezing quartz stones heavily in my both fists, suppressing the pain. The whole way I was accompanied by Shah. It is a local husky with silvery gray fur and piercing wise eyes of the wolf which used to follow our group every time we went somewhere.
We arrived at a slope of a steep hill that had to be climbed up. After we reached the top, we witnessed a fabulous landscape panorama in front of us. Far away in the distance the White Sea was stretching surrounded by dense green forests and tall trees which tops where decorated with playing golden sunrays. In a small lawn a shamanic circle was made of white quartz pieces in the middle of which we lit a bonfire.
After having walked several circles around the bonfire we sat on forest moss, some of us decided to lie down or lean against a tree.
I decided to lie down. With the first sounds of the shamanic drum, Shah came and snuggled by my right side with all his huge body, putting his head on my painful knee. This way we spent the whole meditation. When the sounds of a charming shamanic flute were heard, an unknown face of a woman appeared in front of my eyes.
"Work with nature elements," she said to me.
After the meditation, everyone was busy looking for sticks and feathers for shamanic poles. I went to the steep slope of a dark gray cliff, stood on the edge of it, stretched my arms sideways and at that momet I wished I turned into a bird and flew into the sky. Just after a few seconds, I felt great speed of the wind and total freedom while watching a gray rock and a cliff on which I was standing from up above. Oh, that sense of boundless freedom and independence!
The members of the group kept walking around looking for sticks, feathers, picking up pieces of white and smoke quartz. I sat down on moss and leaned against a pine tree and at the very moment I merged with a long and straight tree stem. I was just drawn into its long trunk and felt how I reached the green crown of the pine. Peace. Absolute peace and felicity. When I looked up, I heard a voice saying, "You entered into the pine!" Jurate sat next to me.
"I know, it didn't mind," I said with a smile, “ You know, something is very strange. For a couple of days I have been having my leg aching, and neither I myself nor others were able to release the pain. I tried bioenergy, cosmic energy and Reiki.
“Try heeling with birch leaves,“ Jurate offered.
This idea struck me like lightening. That was right! Where else I could be reminded about treating using old shamanic or pagan methods if not on the shamanic hill!
I pulled out a swimsuit from my bag and went looking for a birch tree. Somehow I wanted to find the Karelian birch tree. I heard the locals saying that its leaves were different - more shiny and heart shaped. It didn't take a long time when I found one. Asking for permission I picked up a handful of leaves, put them at the back of my knee and bandaged with the plastic bag.
Going back we split into two groups. Some rushed for lunch with Ingrida, others went swimming to a quarry with Jurate. I went with the first group. The pain was getting worse. The group hurried and I started walking slower and slower. “No worries, I will catch up with the other group.“
I was strolling along the forest road alone. This part of the road used to be strutted by a "power walk" or backwards. At that moment I noticed trees, huge stones that seemed to have never been there before, and I felt as though I was walking that road for the first time. I had to find a stick for a shamanic pole. I went to the left and to the right of the forest looking for the right branch. One was curved, the other was already crumbling or even rotten. Finding the right stick in such a huge forest might seem to be a challenge. Suddenly, on the right side of the forest my attention was drawn by a slim trunk of a fallen young pine tree. I picked it up and felt that it was the right one, only I would have to find a saw in the village to shorten it a bit. I returned to the road and started walking when I suddenly heard a voice in Russian, "Don't forget Baba Katia!"
And it was the second time when I felt as if I had been hit by lightning that day. “That‘s right, my Baba Katia!“ She was my great grandmother from the father's line, about who I accidentally found out a couple years ago when my dad was hospitalized after an unsuccessful oncological colon surgery. I had to visit him, drive to another town and take care of his farm. One day I got fed up with it, picked up all of my incantation prayer books and went to the hospital. When I entered the room I said to my father, "Now lie still."
It was Wednesday. On Friday father had to have an additional operation. While I was reading the magic words, I saw tears in my father's eyes. When I finished reading, Dad said that Baba Katia was treating people and animals using prayers. I was astonished and asked who Baba Katia was. And only at the age of forty I found out that Baba Katia was my great-grandmother who had died before I was born and that she treated people and animals with incantations. Only then I understood who I inherited the art of treating diseases with the power of words from. Well, dad avoided the repetitive operation on Friday, and since then has never returned to hospital.
Oh, Baba Katia! It was her face that I had seen during meditation on the shamanic hill. I remembered that I had a good incantation prayer for special occasions in my smartphone. I took the backpack, sat down on the nearest stump and found the phone. While reading the magic words, a tear ran down my cheek. It seemed that many spectators from the parallel worlds gathered around.
Soon I was caught by another group and chatting friendly together we went for lunch. After I had eaten my meal, I stood up to take the dishes away and noticed that the pain had already abated and I happily headed home.
One more lesson was learnt - no matter how good I was at new technologies, I should not forget the ancient ways of treatment. Moreover, in the evening I found out that on the shamanic hill there was a consecration ritual into shamanism.
The next day we went to the island. I had a fantastic opportunity to get acquainted with the energy of nature elements. How to stop flowing water or how to feel energy of different stones. Some of them emit energy, others take the energy away. I had a chance to touch the information stone and see the vision of the future, then touched the shamanic stone and heard different whispering from all four sides. Moreover, I had to stop the blood for a girl who cut her toe badly while stepping on an open seashell. It seemed that the day was full of experience and emotions.
However, when I sat down on a stone surrounded by clear waters of the White Sea, emotional cleansing began ... A huge childhood trauma arose. The heart was overwhelmed by the unbearable emotional tsunami. Again and again the same situation repeated... I got up and went to the woods, had to calm down. Tears were streaming down my face and the heart was crying as well. I sat down on the moss, leaned against the pine and didn't want to see anybody. My power of thought made such a protective circle that even those who wanted to come closer and ask what had happened, didn't dare to approach. Unfortunately, I didn't realize at that time that the reluctance to see people would resound with a puck wandering in the forest.
As I was walking home, I felt that I was not myself. My emotions and thoughts were different as if it was not me. Not the first time, but every time I felt differently. This time the power of scent, hearing and vision had sharpened. I seemed to feel like a beast whose senses were many times stronger than the ones of a human. I saw and felt that more sensitive people could not get closer as though I was scoffing at them. It was a little frightening because of anger, hatred and aggression inside. I wondered who was inside me.
When I returned to my room, I looked into the mirror - my eyes were not mine. The pupils of the eyes kept changing from the ones of a wolf into a snake‘s or somebody‘s else which I couldn‘t recognize.
“Who are you?“ I asked the reflection in the mirror, but I did not get any answer.
That afternoon I did not go for lunch. I went to the sea and sat down on the stone. I turned myself into a wolf and for the first time I saw Ingrida's totem wolf. We came cautiously to each other, sniffed and I said, "Help, I don't want to hurt anybody."
In the afternoon everybody gathered for meditation. I sat next to the fireplace. My hearing, vision and power of scent were growing stronger and sharper. Intuitively nobody wanted to sit close to me. It was interesting to watch. Ingrida and Jurate entered the room.
"I won‘t be able to sit here," Jurate said while standing not far away from me.
“Go to the other side of the room,“ Ingrida advised.
So clearly I heard their whisper that it looked like I was standing in between them.
“They see it. Great! I'll be saved,“ I thought and prepared for the meditation.
During the meditation the time for driving the beast out began. During the last stage of the meditation, when the wicked was leaving my body, my head leaned to the right. After the meditation I stood up and felt that my glance hadn't come back yet. Ingrida suggested that I should be initiated to Cosmoenergy Magistre that evening. I realized that new channels would aid in protecting myself and, if necessary, send the creatures to their own world by myself. As I was leaving, I heard from far away how Jurate asked Ingrida how everything had gone, and Ingrida responded that everything had gone well even my head leaned to the right at the time the creature was leaving. These words confirmed that it was not my fantasy.
In the evening there was an initiation to the Cosmoenergy Magistre. One more strong and mesmerizing experience. Powerful streams of energy flowed all over the body and a spiritual guide descended from a pyramid by a golden staircase. He introduced himself and stood on my left. A huge full moon appeared and a howling wolf at the top of the stairs. Only after a while I understood what had happened and what it all meant.
In the morning I felt that everything had changed. I felt happy and elated. That morning we went to the pier to clean the mussels. The divers had gathered them from the seabed in order to show us how to clean them and cook. We were cleansing the mussels from the sea weed, the newly born corals and were putting them into a huge bag. It was great fun and new experience.
Later in the afternoon we were making our shaman poles. We wrapped them in a red cloth, sewed bags for crystals, knotted feathers, and brought the beauties into the charging ritual. There was a meditation to call spirit animals with the help of the shaman drum.
I was holding my stick in my hands and was listening to the sounds of the drum.
A jaguar introduced himself first.
“I know, you are my main and faithful spirit animal from birth,“ I said to him.
Then a cobra wound itself round elegantly from the bottom to the top of the pole, an eagle landed on the top, a wolf appeared on the left and a bear on the right, and the crocodile crawled under the pole. Then a lot of animals surrounded me - squirrels, hares, deer, various birds flew in and even the giraffe bended its head. A shaman showed up clearly and brightly, with a long crown of feathers touching the floor. The mountains appeared on the left, the sea on the right, a small island covered with trees raised in the middle and an endless blue sky sparkled over the head. I realized that all the elements of nature were with me. Welcome to the shamanic world.
On other days we did a variety of meditation practices, drove to a quartz quarry, covered ourselves with some blue clay dug from the White Sea and we tried the iodine-saturated sea cucumbers.
During those nine days in a small Russian village I was able to purify my emotions, recover physically, learn a few life lessons and experience as much as others do not experience throughout their entire life. And most importantly, I returned to my early childhood, when the heart was wide open, the masks were alien, lies were unfamiliar and the life was filled with infinite love. I returned to the depth of my soul, to the place of my true nature.
I was going backwards quickly and with confidence as I relied on intuition. It wasn't difficult since I was accompanied by two forest spirits on both sides and a spiritual guide in the front. They showed the way which wasn't seen to me by my eyes.
"Lina's got the eyes at the back of the head," somebody from the group uttered when I was outrunning my group fellows. Just before the end of the trip when a few meters were left, a thought came to my mind that the assigned homework had to be done for that night. The thought brushed the intuition away, my invisible guides disappeared, and stumbling over a big stone, I heavily fell down with a full backpack of quartz. I smiled, though the pain was piercing the palm of the left arm, which was turning blue at tremendous speed. Unfortunately, I also managed to strain the ligament of my right leg.
“Okay, I got it!” I said to myself, “I came to develop my intuition but cannot control my thoughts. I'll do my best to improve.
The pain seemed not to be a problem as there were several Cosmoenergy Magistres in the group who could definitely help me. I came up to one lady, then asked for help the others, yet, nobody could allay my pain. The thought that it was the lesson to cope with the pain myself stroke my head. At that time, I was a Cosmoenergy Master and had some channels for curing my leg and hand, but it was futile. In the evening I worked according to the method of clairvoyant and bioenergist Juna Davitashvili, I let Reiki flow, but the pain was still intense.
The next day we went to the shamanic hill to perform a ritual. I was limping. Everybody was given a task to go the "power walk" a few kilometers. I tried to stifle the pain and accomplish the task. I realized that I had come to work with myself that was why there shouldn't be any whining. I walked squeezing quartz stones heavily in my both fists, suppressing the pain. The whole way I was accompanied by Shah. It is a local husky with silvery gray fur and piercing wise eyes of the wolf which used to follow our group every time we went somewhere.
We arrived at a slope of a steep hill that had to be climbed up. After we reached the top, we witnessed a fabulous landscape panorama in front of us. Far away in the distance the White Sea was stretching surrounded by dense green forests and tall trees which tops where decorated with playing golden sunrays. In a small lawn a shamanic circle was made of white quartz pieces in the middle of which we lit a bonfire.
After having walked several circles around the bonfire we sat on forest moss, some of us decided to lie down or lean against a tree.
I decided to lie down. With the first sounds of the shamanic drum, Shah came and snuggled by my right side with all his huge body, putting his head on my painful knee. This way we spent the whole meditation. When the sounds of a charming shamanic flute were heard, an unknown face of a woman appeared in front of my eyes.
"Work with nature elements," she said to me.
After the meditation, everyone was busy looking for sticks and feathers for shamanic poles. I went to the steep slope of a dark gray cliff, stood on the edge of it, stretched my arms sideways and at that momet I wished I turned into a bird and flew into the sky. Just after a few seconds, I felt great speed of the wind and total freedom while watching a gray rock and a cliff on which I was standing from up above. Oh, that sense of boundless freedom and independence!
The members of the group kept walking around looking for sticks, feathers, picking up pieces of white and smoke quartz. I sat down on moss and leaned against a pine tree and at the very moment I merged with a long and straight tree stem. I was just drawn into its long trunk and felt how I reached the green crown of the pine. Peace. Absolute peace and felicity. When I looked up, I heard a voice saying, "You entered into the pine!" Jurate sat next to me.
"I know, it didn't mind," I said with a smile, “ You know, something is very strange. For a couple of days I have been having my leg aching, and neither I myself nor others were able to release the pain. I tried bioenergy, cosmic energy and Reiki.
“Try heeling with birch leaves,“ Jurate offered.
This idea struck me like lightening. That was right! Where else I could be reminded about treating using old shamanic or pagan methods if not on the shamanic hill!
I pulled out a swimsuit from my bag and went looking for a birch tree. Somehow I wanted to find the Karelian birch tree. I heard the locals saying that its leaves were different - more shiny and heart shaped. It didn't take a long time when I found one. Asking for permission I picked up a handful of leaves, put them at the back of my knee and bandaged with the plastic bag.
Going back we split into two groups. Some rushed for lunch with Ingrida, others went swimming to a quarry with Jurate. I went with the first group. The pain was getting worse. The group hurried and I started walking slower and slower. “No worries, I will catch up with the other group.“
I was strolling along the forest road alone. This part of the road used to be strutted by a "power walk" or backwards. At that moment I noticed trees, huge stones that seemed to have never been there before, and I felt as though I was walking that road for the first time. I had to find a stick for a shamanic pole. I went to the left and to the right of the forest looking for the right branch. One was curved, the other was already crumbling or even rotten. Finding the right stick in such a huge forest might seem to be a challenge. Suddenly, on the right side of the forest my attention was drawn by a slim trunk of a fallen young pine tree. I picked it up and felt that it was the right one, only I would have to find a saw in the village to shorten it a bit. I returned to the road and started walking when I suddenly heard a voice in Russian, "Don't forget Baba Katia!"
And it was the second time when I felt as if I had been hit by lightning that day. “That‘s right, my Baba Katia!“ She was my great grandmother from the father's line, about who I accidentally found out a couple years ago when my dad was hospitalized after an unsuccessful oncological colon surgery. I had to visit him, drive to another town and take care of his farm. One day I got fed up with it, picked up all of my incantation prayer books and went to the hospital. When I entered the room I said to my father, "Now lie still."
It was Wednesday. On Friday father had to have an additional operation. While I was reading the magic words, I saw tears in my father's eyes. When I finished reading, Dad said that Baba Katia was treating people and animals using prayers. I was astonished and asked who Baba Katia was. And only at the age of forty I found out that Baba Katia was my great-grandmother who had died before I was born and that she treated people and animals with incantations. Only then I understood who I inherited the art of treating diseases with the power of words from. Well, dad avoided the repetitive operation on Friday, and since then has never returned to hospital.
Oh, Baba Katia! It was her face that I had seen during meditation on the shamanic hill. I remembered that I had a good incantation prayer for special occasions in my smartphone. I took the backpack, sat down on the nearest stump and found the phone. While reading the magic words, a tear ran down my cheek. It seemed that many spectators from the parallel worlds gathered around.
Soon I was caught by another group and chatting friendly together we went for lunch. After I had eaten my meal, I stood up to take the dishes away and noticed that the pain had already abated and I happily headed home.
One more lesson was learnt - no matter how good I was at new technologies, I should not forget the ancient ways of treatment. Moreover, in the evening I found out that on the shamanic hill there was a consecration ritual into shamanism.
The next day we went to the island. I had a fantastic opportunity to get acquainted with the energy of nature elements. How to stop flowing water or how to feel energy of different stones. Some of them emit energy, others take the energy away. I had a chance to touch the information stone and see the vision of the future, then touched the shamanic stone and heard different whispering from all four sides. Moreover, I had to stop the blood for a girl who cut her toe badly while stepping on an open seashell. It seemed that the day was full of experience and emotions.
However, when I sat down on a stone surrounded by clear waters of the White Sea, emotional cleansing began ... A huge childhood trauma arose. The heart was overwhelmed by the unbearable emotional tsunami. Again and again the same situation repeated... I got up and went to the woods, had to calm down. Tears were streaming down my face and the heart was crying as well. I sat down on the moss, leaned against the pine and didn't want to see anybody. My power of thought made such a protective circle that even those who wanted to come closer and ask what had happened, didn't dare to approach. Unfortunately, I didn't realize at that time that the reluctance to see people would resound with a puck wandering in the forest.
As I was walking home, I felt that I was not myself. My emotions and thoughts were different as if it was not me. Not the first time, but every time I felt differently. This time the power of scent, hearing and vision had sharpened. I seemed to feel like a beast whose senses were many times stronger than the ones of a human. I saw and felt that more sensitive people could not get closer as though I was scoffing at them. It was a little frightening because of anger, hatred and aggression inside. I wondered who was inside me.
When I returned to my room, I looked into the mirror - my eyes were not mine. The pupils of the eyes kept changing from the ones of a wolf into a snake‘s or somebody‘s else which I couldn‘t recognize.
“Who are you?“ I asked the reflection in the mirror, but I did not get any answer.
That afternoon I did not go for lunch. I went to the sea and sat down on the stone. I turned myself into a wolf and for the first time I saw Ingrida's totem wolf. We came cautiously to each other, sniffed and I said, "Help, I don't want to hurt anybody."
In the afternoon everybody gathered for meditation. I sat next to the fireplace. My hearing, vision and power of scent were growing stronger and sharper. Intuitively nobody wanted to sit close to me. It was interesting to watch. Ingrida and Jurate entered the room.
"I won‘t be able to sit here," Jurate said while standing not far away from me.
“Go to the other side of the room,“ Ingrida advised.
So clearly I heard their whisper that it looked like I was standing in between them.
“They see it. Great! I'll be saved,“ I thought and prepared for the meditation.
During the meditation the time for driving the beast out began. During the last stage of the meditation, when the wicked was leaving my body, my head leaned to the right. After the meditation I stood up and felt that my glance hadn't come back yet. Ingrida suggested that I should be initiated to Cosmoenergy Magistre that evening. I realized that new channels would aid in protecting myself and, if necessary, send the creatures to their own world by myself. As I was leaving, I heard from far away how Jurate asked Ingrida how everything had gone, and Ingrida responded that everything had gone well even my head leaned to the right at the time the creature was leaving. These words confirmed that it was not my fantasy.
In the evening there was an initiation to the Cosmoenergy Magistre. One more strong and mesmerizing experience. Powerful streams of energy flowed all over the body and a spiritual guide descended from a pyramid by a golden staircase. He introduced himself and stood on my left. A huge full moon appeared and a howling wolf at the top of the stairs. Only after a while I understood what had happened and what it all meant.
In the morning I felt that everything had changed. I felt happy and elated. That morning we went to the pier to clean the mussels. The divers had gathered them from the seabed in order to show us how to clean them and cook. We were cleansing the mussels from the sea weed, the newly born corals and were putting them into a huge bag. It was great fun and new experience.
Later in the afternoon we were making our shaman poles. We wrapped them in a red cloth, sewed bags for crystals, knotted feathers, and brought the beauties into the charging ritual. There was a meditation to call spirit animals with the help of the shaman drum.
I was holding my stick in my hands and was listening to the sounds of the drum.
A jaguar introduced himself first.
“I know, you are my main and faithful spirit animal from birth,“ I said to him.
Then a cobra wound itself round elegantly from the bottom to the top of the pole, an eagle landed on the top, a wolf appeared on the left and a bear on the right, and the crocodile crawled under the pole. Then a lot of animals surrounded me - squirrels, hares, deer, various birds flew in and even the giraffe bended its head. A shaman showed up clearly and brightly, with a long crown of feathers touching the floor. The mountains appeared on the left, the sea on the right, a small island covered with trees raised in the middle and an endless blue sky sparkled over the head. I realized that all the elements of nature were with me. Welcome to the shamanic world.
On other days we did a variety of meditation practices, drove to a quartz quarry, covered ourselves with some blue clay dug from the White Sea and we tried the iodine-saturated sea cucumbers.
During those nine days in a small Russian village I was able to purify my emotions, recover physically, learn a few life lessons and experience as much as others do not experience throughout their entire life. And most importantly, I returned to my early childhood, when the heart was wide open, the masks were alien, lies were unfamiliar and the life was filled with infinite love. I returned to the depth of my soul, to the place of my true nature.