Below are some articles for reading.  If you have any comments, please go to eagles blog

I had a quick chat with Tina on the phone today and after our usual banter we tried to indentify the single most important factor in finding one's way on to a path of enlightenment  and spiritual development and we agreed it was meditation .  Looking back it was the key in the start of my new journey. I was living in Ireland , and almost ten years ago I was really lost. I simply did not know what to believe in at that point in time and everything I read or tried had no impact on me. So when I met a man with his own  healing centre at what was the 1st new age/alternative exhibition to be held in Dublin I told him a bit about my lack of direction and he said why don't I go to meditation evenings,  Well I did and at first, had not a clue as to what was happening but something told me to 'stay with it' and after the third session, I felt a shift in my thinking.  The others in the group were, very helpful and kindly and reported all sorts of experiences and encounters from their inner journeys.  Of course most people outside of there thought we were mad or even practising something very dangerous, but I knew it was the right thing at the right time for me.

The Native Americans call it 'entering the silence'. But really all it is; is stilling the mind of any thoughts (chatter) from entering our heads, while we simply sit with ourselves and 'be' .  It may sound strange to some, but it is the beginning process to 'waking up' and going beyond the shallow facade of every day life. Through meditation we can learn how to 'drop our egos' and tune in to our higher selves and more. If you would like to join our regular meditation group, please contact us

By the way that man I met all those years ago was Dermot o' Hara and he and I have followed very similar paths.  He is now one of Ireland's top Celtic shamans and I have reconnected with him recently, and only today I received an email from him.  Watch this space for some projects and workshops involving us all with our celtic connection.  Take a look at his web site www.celticshaman.com

Greg/14th Jan 05    back to article headings

"Are YOU Ready to Be Prosperous?"

Today more than ever people confuse the terms 'wealth' and 'rich' .  One of those words is virtually meaningless and the other is everything.  I have and still know folk who have the thinking that to have and develop 'spiritualy' you must live in a world of frugality .  Putting both 'wealth' and 'rich' in the same terms  is foolish.
To be wealthy is to KNOW that everything you need is available to you now.  There is abundance everywhere in the universe and all we have to do is look around us to see it. It is really all about intent, and yes, we do see a lot of greed, cynism and manipulation when it comes to the pursuit of money.  We all know that money in itself can't buy happiness, but money itself is neutral here.  It is us that are to blame when it comes to the mishandling of it.  In the past, I had trouble accepting the blessings of prosperity and consequently, I was not as abundant as I wanted and needed to be.
 It was because to get the relationship with abundance I wanted... I needed to change how I felt about prosperity, specifically it's effect on my spirituality which was and is an important part of my life.

This went beyond transcending the mistranslations of the Bible which hold so many in their sway. As in it is "the LUST after money which is the root of all evil": money is not evil but the lengths that people will go to get it many times can be evil. As in it is "easier for the PUFFED UP man to pass through the eye of the needle rather than enter the Kingdom of Heaven: the puffed up person is the one who is full of pride (hubris)
which can give them delusions of grandeur.

This meant coming to the astonishing realization that God/Godess wanted and needed me to be WEALTHY to accomplish His/Her work in the world. It would be great if I could tell the power, telephone, internet companies, etc that I
helped people transcend the pain of past lives... so they should just forget about my bills. Yet it does not work that way: I have bills to pay like everyone else and free sites to support unlike everyone else. So I need money just like you and everyone else.
So it comes back to the original question: are you ready to ALLOW the constant flow of prosperity in any form into your life? All it takes are three things: a decision, a belief, and a willingness to accept the consequences flowing from that decision and belief.

So to start getting ready to be prosperous, you need to change your thoughts, beliefs, and emotions around money. To start thinking like the billionaires do, ask yourself this about your dreams: "If money was not a factor in this decision, what would I do or how would I feel about this decision?" You will be amazed at how many answers will come that do not require money to make them a reality.

It is not often that I recommend programs that originate on the internet, but this one FOUND me. It answered so much for me , and I am active in it today because there is always things to learn as it is always growing and updating.  There is a lot of material being offered here, including ebooks and audio files (meditations and interviews). Bob Doyle is very approachable and I have contacted him myself on quite a few occasions and he has been very helpfull.  If you want more information on his course go here now
                                       
If you are not abundant as you would like to be... then you are not ready to be prosperous... it is just that simple.

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tbc

I am not talking about you deliberately searching out any kind of creature. I am saying have you been surprised by the sudden appearance of an animal in your midsts?  It can happen anywhere , town or country , night or day and how have or do you feel when it happens ? Do you think it is just coincidence and quickly forget about the encounter ?  The reason I am saying this is because I do NOT believe in coincidence.  This creature has chosen (or has been drawn to your energy) to show itself to you at exactly that/this time on your journey through life and it HAS something to tell you. The more conscious we are of our surroundings , our enviroment,  the more we will notice our friends 'being' there.  We share the earth with them and we can connect with their energy in the same way that they can ours.

Tina and I were very fortunate to witness a deer falling off a 50 foot high cliff.  How was that so fortunate for the deer , I hear you ask ?  Well it did not die !  Amazingly, it (being very unusual for a deer to loose it's footing), had it's fall broken by foliage and small shrubs growing out of the chalk face.  It was in obvious distress but it found a way of using it's legs to prevent it from falling straight down, although it tumbled over at least twice.  We watched in awe as it had to make it's final leap to the ground probably some 20 feet.  Finally it decided to jump and landed on it's four legs, really shaken. For at least a minute it simply stood there in shock, then it just bounded off into the woods. Wow ! what a site .  And definately not an every day occurance either for deer or humans to see it happen.  Coincidence, no  at that point in time and space this deer and the two of us were all party to this experience.  I have thought about this encounter and I know that deer was showing me something special for me to learn and I have made my own interpretations.  You may have some ideas yourself but what an incredible encounter. Greg - Feb 05  back to article headings

It is not cool or spiritual to feel anger .  This is not true .  You must feel and express anger or it will eat away at you and destroy you.  But ,,,, I hear you say ' I am a warrior for peace , a gentle soul that abhors violence and dislikes angry people'.  Yes fine, but I can tell you that anger can and does shift stagnent energy and as long as we do not direct it towards others and CHANNEL it correctly then it is necessary.  When anger turns inwards and is not expressed fully then it is very unhealthy.  If we try to deny angry feelings then we are denying a part of ourselves. The shadow part.  If we think that we are only light and good then we are out of balance  There are times when we need to defend ourselves, our rights, our children , and so on.  I believe that in previous incarnations most of us have been killed or have done the killing.

Part of our work is to aggressively cut away at the parts of ourselves that no longer serve us.  This is using our anger in a positive way to get rid of our useless stuff that is holding us back. It is not an internal battle of light and dark (duality) or good and evil. It is a conscious decision to be released from past 'stuff' so the way is clear for us to move on . Then we can feel the peace we long for in our lives.  This should become a ritual, a discipline forever, because we are always being tested and lets face it there is a lot we could get angry about.  Indeed if we did not feel anger then we could not instigate change. I would even go so far as to say that we would be dead like zombies and have no opinions about anything. Of course the key here is to keep our light and shadow in balance (our duality) so the path (our freewill) is clear to take the middle way (spiritual path)

Have you noticed that if you are angry then you attract angry people?  This is how wars start or even how resentments between people or countries continue to blight or rise up again into conflicts. Anger here is were people look outside of themselves to project their hatred on to others.  We must learn that it is within us all to defeat (the enemy within) the causes of conflict and disease. The more 'inner work' we do the more we can learn to deal with and accept our own shadow. We become aware that the more we work on ourselves the more we learn to love ourselves and others will respond to it. We learn how to avoid angry people and gravitate towards happier folk. The path becomes easier because the friends you have are doing the same.  They have learnt not to project their 'stuff' onto others. They are evolving into spiritual warriors of the heart.

tbc  back to article headings

It is amazing to think that this planet we call home is just one of hundreds, even thousands within this galaxy alone. Then on top of that there are hundreds of galaxies with thousands of other planets in them making billions of potentially inhabitable worlds all around us, and yet there are still those who stubbornly believe that we are alone.  Our species is very complex and contradictory.  We have people with brilliant minds, and we have people who are stuck in the Stone Age.  We are the dominant species on our planet, having killed off all who have rivalled us and yet we are still intent on killing the only place we can live on.  Planet earth is dying because of us, but if she dies so do we and it won’t be pleasant.  Looking from an outsiders point of view, we, the human race are parasites who over populate the planet, destroying rain forests, the oceans an the very air we depend on to breathe and do nothing but count our money and congratulate ourselves on how clever we are.  Any visitor from outside our solar system would surely be disgusted with our behaviour and quite rightly stay away from us and our inferior ways.  People often say if there are ‘spacemen’ out there why they not land a ship on the White House lawn. I ask why they would do that; for a start they’d get shot at, but if they made formal contact, they’d be liable to get sucked into our policies and problems.  Surely it is up to us who made the mess, to sort it out.  I believe that we are not alone and have not been for centuries. Our cousins in the sky are far more subtle about how they operate and observe us and our warlike ways.  They are curious about us as many of us ‘earthlings’ are about them. You only have to see the number of TV shows, movies and books to understand that.  We are fascinated, but also scared of them and they know and understand this, so landing on the White House lawn is probably not going to happen. Our record of killing all we fear is a long one, with the genocide of Jews, Native Americans, Aborigines, gypsies, Mayan, tribes in Africa and different groups of the same religion, like in Northern Ireland and the Middle East.  I am sure aliens know of this and do not want to be added to the list, so they learn about us by living among us, not by setting us of on a killing spree of hysteria. Many great and wise people have come amongst us through the millennia and today we have some that claim to be ‘walk-ins’, but are they human or aliens? Who knows but as long as they are preaching a message of kindness, love, respect acceptance, tolerance and forgiveness they are most welcome and needed here. They understand that the earth is about to move up a vibration level or two and that what happens here has an effect on the universe which they are also a part of.  Earth will survive and prosper when the transition takes place (it is happening right now), whether we, the human species, will, is in our own hands. Life in a golden age or extiction is our choice and our responsibility. Unfortunately our politicians will not accept any responsibility for the past and present, so we lurch from crisis to crisis – with little hope to fill our hearts with love and light.  Without love and light the darkness will win and the human experience will be over. So lets light up the world while there is still time.

Tina – Feb 05            back to article headings

Currently there is a lot of research going on about the healing effects of drumming. To long time drummers this is something that we have always known. We find it all quite amusing to see eminent scientists and doctors now claiming it can help ailments such as depression, anxiety, Alzheimer’s, emotional and mental problems and just general STRESS.

It could be that when we play we tap into something we all used to do thousands of years ago and we have a cellular memory of the event.  Before we are born we spend our time in our mother’s womb and in the darkness we hear the double heartbeat of our own and our mother’s hearts in a double beating pulse. We were safe preparing to enter our life here before negotiating the birth canal. We can connect with Mother Earth’s heartbeat through the drum. That’s why when we feel spaced out and stressed, a little drumming with your favourite drum will rebalance you with the earth’s natural rhythm. This is where we realign our energies with Mother Earth and Father Sky. We come into balance and feel grounded.  It also has the effect of releasing endorphins, the ‘feel good’ chemical in the brain . As a right-brain activity, it increases intuition.

Really recommended is playing with others in a group. Newcomers will quickly learn that sharing the drum rhythms together means dropping one’s ego and working as a team. Some business leaders have recognized this and encourage their staff to participate in drumming workshops that they have organised.

From - Greg Cox of the Soaring Eagles    March 05     back to article headings

Guide to a healing workshop

These workshops don’t follow any particular healing practise, such as Reiki. They are designed to help the student feel and experience energies in the aura’s and chakra’s of themselves and others. Working energetically I believe is the way of the future, following your own feelings, intuition and guidance, is something we all could be doing in all areas of our lives – not just healing. There is no person in the world that cannot give healing but some believe they cannot, so they don’t even try. It is all in the intention. If you want to help someone, you send them good wishes (pray for them) this is sending healing – (absent healing) and if sent in love and light will help them. The only difference to this is when you are with someone, placing a hand on their pain, you have physical contact with them. But before you can give any healing you must get their permission. Once this is gained you must ask the ‘Creator’ for permission to be a channel for healing energy to be passed through. You are NOT the Healer - you are the MEANS, NOT THE PROVIDER, the instrument, not the conductor. Energy can never die, it can only be transformed. So the energy sent through your body to the patient is transformed into the energy needed by that patient at that time to bring some form of healing or pain release. Remember that we have pain for a reason. It is the body’s way of warning us there is a problem. Taking pain killers just delay’s the inevitable, because until the root cause of the pain is addressed the problem will only get bigger and more pain is needed to alert us of that fact. PAIN is not Retribution-Pain is a warning – but one that many people fail to take heed of, until it is too late.  We must also be aware that some people do not want to be healed and that is their right. You cannot help everyone and we must accept this or we’ll get sucked into everyone else’s dramas. To be an effective healer you have to learn how to protect yourself while still being a challenge for others. This is one area that we look into in the workshop – we also feel our own auras and that of other students.  We discuss auras and charkas plus the colours associated with each one. The first practical healing session is a sound bath. Sound, colour and crystals are all forms of energy that can be used in healing. One of my favourites is sound and the ‘bath’ is always a revelation to people who have never experienced the power of it. You will be both the patient and the healer in all the practical sessions which gives you both the patient and the healer both sides of the art. Next we do practical hands on healing and discuss our findings and lastly an aura-chakra healing that is done solely on the etheric body. This allows the student to try both hands on and hands off methods of healing to see which suits them best. We round off the session by discussing our experience.  To attend this workshop and for more details please contact us         by Tina Hobbs -                                                                                                                                                                                            April 2005                                                                                                                                                                                                    

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Where does YOUR stuff end and SOMEONE else’s begin?

This is essential to know especially if you are working with people who have ‘problems’, although it applies to everyone you meet.

We are talking about boundaries and how you keep them intact. 

Many people will try to invade your ‘space’ even unconsciously and try to ‘SUCK’ your energy from you. YOUR  life-force.

Why? Well when some souls are low or lost they will try to take other’s  life-force away from you because they need to boost their own and often you will attract those people by dropping your defence systems or through being low in energy

Sometimes it is difficult to discern just where the boundary between your energy finishes and someone else’s starts, so this is where you can sit and get back to your sacred space.  If you do a clearing and cleansing ceremony for yourself then you can release the unwanted energy from your aura

If you have had or have a complicated tie with anyone (it could be your father, or mother) then there is a ritual that you can use that is very powerful and you can sometimes get almost immediate results. It is called ‘cutting the ties that bind’ and the Native Americans have used it for ages.  Please refer to the article with the same title for more information

Greg Cox

- April 2005     back to article headings

Appologies for the somewhat crude diagram opposite but hopefully it will serve the purpose for this article. This is a very powerful ritual and can have almost instantanious results. If you are suffering from grief,anger,guilt or confusion over someone or some situation that you just cannot seem to get free from then this is for you to try . Repeat it until you feel you have 'cut' the ties that have bound you to that person or situation and you are clear. Within the figure of eight, you can see that I have placed the word mother in the top section and in the lower I have placed 'my self'. I was shown this process by Dermot o'Hara when my mother died suddenly and unexpectedly. I was overwhelmed with grief and anger (that took me by complete surprise). 'Cutting the ties' with my mother was to enable her spirit to move on and for me to find the peace to carry on. You can put any name or situation you like in the top segment but always reserve the lower one for yourself. Find somewhere quite and close your eyes and visualise the figure 8 in your minds eye. It can be as large as you like and I find it is great to see it floating in space - stars and planets in the distance, then ending up on the Earth's surface (grounded) Imagine yourself at the top travelling around the figure in a clockwise direction in the electric blue light. A protective golden light glows brilliantly from the edges of the figure. As you circumnavigate around you will reach the point when the upper and lower circles meet and you will be travelling in an anticlockwise direction until you return to the crossover point again. Make sure that you keep focused on whatever or whoever you have in the top part and you remain in the lower. Just 5 minutes every day will have dramatic results for you and remember do this with unconditional love in ALL cases especially if it is a 'percieved enemy' Greg Cox - April 2005

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Drumming for the Shamanic Journey

What is Shamanism?
Shamanism is the oldest way in which humanity has sought connection with Creation. The origins of shamanism go back at least 40,000 - 50,000 years to Stone age times. All of us have evolved from shamanic cultures, it is our roots wherever we live.

A shaman knows that all things are alive and ‘walks with one foot in the everyday world and one foot in the spirit world’. Contemporary shamanism is the application of these ancient timeless ways to life here and now.

Shamanism is not a belief system. It is a path to knowledge which is gained through experience of life, through rituals, ceremonies, prayers and meditation, trials and tests. Knowledge is something that works, that stands up to the test of time, that is known from the inside.

Cosmology of the shaman
Shamans divide non-ordinary reality into three other regions, the upper, lower and the middle worlds. Each has its own characteristics and whilst each individual traveller experiences initially their own version, once one becomes a proficient journeyer, it is amazing just how connected we all are at these levels.

The Lower world is the place of instinctual knowing where our animal-like powers reside and where we can find practical earthly help and guidance.

The Upper world is the word of spirit teachers, cosmic beings, great wise elders, ancestors who appear usually in human form. Their help and guidance is often perceived to be more general and philosophical.

The Middle world is both the everyday physical world that we live in, the world of ordinary reality, the tonal, and also a parallel non-ordinary version of our world.

It is a CD specifically made for shamanic journeying, and to do this, the drums have to be as monotonous as possible and maintain a consistent beat between 205 to 210 beats per minute. At this specific beat, the brain is stimulated to synthesise natural beta-endorphins which facilitate a person to move into what is known as the ‘second attention’, an altered state of awareness, or shamanic state of consciousness. This state of awareness facilitates the shamanic journey.

A Shamanic Journey to the Lower world.

To begin, find a place that you feel comfortable and will not be disturbed for about 30 minutes. When you are ready, lie down comfortably, and darken the room, or at least cover your eyes. It is easier to journey in non-ordinary reality in the dark. Remove tight clothing, take off your shoes and allow your breathing to move to a gentle rhythm. Relax for a few minutes, focusing on being centred, and grounded.

When you are ready visualise or imagine, a place which reminds you of the Earth, a place which you know of. This place should be a real place, perhaps somewhere you have visited, or seen in a film or photograph, and it can be anywhere, a hill, mountain, grasslands, forest, by the ocean. At this place allow yourself to perceive an entrance or opening into the Lower world. This entrance can be a hollow tree, an animal burrow, a cave entrance, a man-made opening e.g.; a trapdoor, it can any entrance into the ground or water. You will find that the right entrance will feel comfortable to you, take a minute or so to study it in detail.

Now when you are ready, enter into the opening. The beginning of the tunnel may appear dark, it may angle down in a slight incline, or it may incline steeply. The tunnel may appear to be ribbed, and often it bends, sometimes it may become spiral-like, but it will always lead downwards.

Continue down the tunnel until you come out of doors into a landscape. If you come into a cavern, you will need to move outside and into the landscape, there will be an exit for example a door or an opening which will enable you to do this, it should be easy to get sight of it.

Now in the landscape, just look around. It may be daytime, night-time, forest, woodland, or near water. Extend your senses, listen, can you hear anything, the sound of birdsong, the sound that the wind makes as it blows through the tree tops, perhaps the sound of running , flowing water. Feel the ground underneath your feet, feel the ground pushing up against the soles of your feet. Sense the wind, the breeze, sense the movement of air around you. What does it feel like? Have an awareness of being there.

If you want to explore the landscape, remember where the entrance is, keep track of where you go. Just as in any ordinary-reality journey, it helps if you keep a note of landmarks so you can retrace your steps to return.

• Track 1. Solo Drumming (with call back) 20 minutes with Leo
• Track 2. Solo Drumming (with call back) 20 minutes with Howard
• Track 3. Double Drumming 9with Call back) 40 minutes with Leo & Howard

Cover notes

The CD comes with detailed notes describing the cosmology of the shaman, and instructions for a journey.

Technical information

The drumming was recorded live directly onto digital tape at Sync City recording studio in London. The drumming was played in the 'live-sound' studio and no sound modification process was used.

Both drums were single headed frame drums. For the double drumming track, both drums were held facing each other in a position to optimise the natural reverberation.

The recording engineer was Wan Hewitt, himself a professional drummer. He has been dubbed the 'drummers darling' due to the great live sound he gets.

Howard G. Charing and Leo Rutherford are accomplished international workshop leader on shamanism. They have worked some of the most respected and extraordinary shamans & healers in the Andes, the Amazon Rainforest, and the Philippines. They have authored a number of books on Shamanism. The Drumming for the Shamanic Journey CD is available from Eagle's Wing. For ordering information Visit their website http://www.shamanism.co.uk

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Drumming for the Shamanic Journey