Episode 108

The Path of the Modern Shaman: Healing, Spirit, and Connection with Denise Neveux

The Path of the Modern Shaman: Healing, Spirit, and Connection with Denise Neveux

In this episode we get curious about:

  • Introduction to Denise's Spiritual Journey: How she first encountered shamanism and its initial impact on her life.
  • What is Shamanism?: Defining shamanism as a spiritual practice, rooted in connection with nature and spirit.
  • Listening to Nature: The importance of hearing the voices of nature, animals, and spirits in shamanic practice.
  • Spiritual Healing and Growth: How shamanism facilitates personal and spiritual transformation.
  • Rituals and Practices: An overview of some key shamanic rituals, tools, and practices Denise uses, including journeying and working with spirit guides.
  • Shamanic Wisdom: Lessons learned from ancestors and spirits, and how this wisdom applies to modern life.
  • Balancing Energy: The role of shamanism in maintaining balance between body, mind, and spirit.
  • Interconnectedness of Life: How shamanism teaches the interconnectedness of all living things and encourages harmonious living.
  • Shamanic Tools for Others: Practical ways that listeners can begin to explore shamanism in their own spiritual journeys.

=> Where to find NAME:

Website: https://www.blueheronhealing-tidewater.com/

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=> Learn more about Laurin Wittig and Heartlight Wellness: Healing the light within you!

Bio: Laurin Wittig is an intuitive energy worker, Reiki Master, Shamanic practitioner, and the founder of HeartLight Wellness and the HeartLight Women’s Circles. She also hosts the Curiously Wise: Practical Spirituality in Action podcast and is an award winning author.

Laurin’s non-traditional journey from lots of health issues to robust wellbeing awakened her to her own healing gifts and sparked a passion to assist others to travel their paths with less pain, more joy, and a deeper understanding of themselves and the world around them.

Website: HeartlightJoy.com

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Credits:

Audio Engineer: Sam Wittig

Music: Where the Light Is by Lemon Music Studio

Photography & Design: Asha McLaughlin/Tej Art

Copyright 2024 Laurin Wittig

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If you’d like to know more about me, please visit my website Heartlightjoy.com. While you are there you can book a free call, join my newsletter, find out about energetic healing services, Heartlight Women’s Circles, and my novels. Links to the website, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIN are clickable in the show notes. I would greatly appreciate it if you would subscribe to Curiously Wise: Practical Spirituality in Action, and share it with a friend. This will help spread the information and the uplifting energy that is created in every episode. Thank you for joining me today and stay curious.

Transcript

Interview Episode with Denise Neveux

Denise: [:

Laurin is an intuitive and she's empathic and very psychic. And so is her daughter. So if, if you are, and you have a child, then it's inevitable that your child and then your mom or one of your ancestors. So it goes through like that. Not necessarily, you need to be a shaman, but the gift is, is ancestral.

So just if you're drawn to it, I think it's one of the greatest things I've ever learned,

Laurin: Hi friends, [:

And so Denise. Well, welcome to Curiously Wise. She's here in person and that never happens except with Denise.

Denise: Yes, my name is Denise and I am a shaman. I also am a Reiki master. I teach both of those classes as well as work in esoteric healing, which is kind of like sacred geometry. And I teach that as well.

er they need that particular [:

Laurin: she's an excellent teacher. You were a, a school teacher for a long time.

Denise: Actually, I taught elementary physical education for 32 years. A few years I was middle school, but not for me.

Laurin: Yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't think that was much for anybody, but she, it turns out that she's a really excellent teacher and as well as a healer and she combines the two pretty smoothly and easily and, and each informs the other. I find we're going to talk a little bit about how that kind of overlapped for you.

her to come and talk with me [:

But it's an ancient practice. So Denise, let's start with something simple. Like what is a shaman?

Denise: Well a shaman is somebody who does a journey to either get information for their client or who they, who is. Asking for it we also journey to put things back into the body, like a soul fragment or a power animal.

And then we also take out, which is called extraction. I mean, that's really kind of basic but that's really what we do.

Laurin: So this is something that's been around, like around the world, ancient practices.

Denise: It's been around for tens and thousands of years, which speaks to its potency.

I remember when I was first [:

But so I, and it's been around for, yeah, a long time, long time, long

Denise: time. Yes. And somewhere in the, I don't know what years where people started to question their belief system and found that it wasn't working for them. Not everybody, but a lot of people. And they decided to try out shamanism. When you begin your how to journey to the lower world or the middle world or the upper world, you get some just wonderful answers.

u. So I think that's, what's [:

Laurin: There's a philosophy to it, but that is pretty universal as well. Yeah. So there's like, what, five points of that philosophy?

Denise: Well, all shamans, no matter what tribe, no matter what you do, we all believe everything that is. Is alive and that's how I learned to talk to trees and talk to rocks and animals and so on. And actually they've already probably been talking to me the whole time. I just wasn't listening because I didn't know that was possible.

But 1 of the the main person that I trained under was the Michael. Michael Harner school of shamanism and in every class, we're always taught to bring in the energy, the intelligence, the ethics, and the love. And I think that's just really a good thing to bring into any type of energy work that you do.

It's funny cause

Laurin: I [:

Not every culture is going to use the same way of getting things done. Into that state. I know in places like Peru ayahuasca is often used, which is a psychedelic. But for the kind of shamanism that Denise and I practice, it's drumming. And it's and that's how we get into those greater States back to ethics.

know, a neighbor who had an [:

Can I do this for you? And so I asked. I took a journey to ask, can I journey for people without them knowing about it? And the answer was no. But the the other part of that was that I could ask their soul. And so I began to do that and I would get yeses for some and definite no's for others. And I had to learn to honor that because my, my, my, I want to help everybody kind of energy was like, but I could help, but I could help.

And and I really had to learn that to ask permission that it wasn't ethical. That's right. To work on somebody without their permission. That's right. And that was my first introduction to the ethics of shamanism, but it's really an ethic for life.

even channeling, it's always [:

Laurin: Yeah. Yeah.

Denise: So it's

Laurin: that's, that was, I loved it when you brought that up. Cause like, oh yeah, I had to learn the ethics of shamanism. This was before I knew you. And I learned it by journeying and getting the answers from, from my guides there. And so that's, that's, Something I'm not sure we talk about a lot in our modern world is ethics, maybe if you're a philosophy professor or something, but it's not something that came up in an overt way in my life until I started down this road.

Denise: Yes, and I think you're really right about people who are new to this and they know they're different and they know there are some kind of energy worker, light worker, and they want to try so hard to help everybody. But the bottom line is they, the people want to heal. They need to ask you. Asking is.

key to them [:

Laurin: Yeah. One of the hardest lessons for me with the, after being, becoming a healer or what, stepping into my healing gifts is that I want to help. Yes. I want to help. And people are just not, some of them are like, yes, can I come have a session with you?

I need a soul retrieval, whatever it might be. But others are just like, they don't even want to hear about what I do. I was like, that's too weird for me. And I've learned to go, okay, well, it's not for that person. But it's, it's been a journey to, to learn that different kind of journey than we were talking about earlier.

Denise: And I don't speak to too many people about what I do, how I do, what I see, what I feel. You know, I don't just go out to dinners, how, by the way, I talked to trees, you know, most of my family does not know. I do have a couple of close family members that will, that some of them listen, just look at me funny.

And the [:

Laurin: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Denise: So.

Laurin: And yeah, and I have family members on both sides of that divide in my, just my immediate family. So, so yeah, but you do, I've had to learn that and it's been a good lesson to about boundaries, you know, honoring other people's boundaries, but also creating sort of a boundary of my, for myself so that I don't feel like I have to help everybody.

And that's something that the shamanism really taught me. Yes. And it, It might even scare some people. Mm hmm. So, yeah, I mean, when I started that work, and I saw even the word charm, it scared people. the bejesus side of me. Can I say that? Yes, you can. You certainly can. Well, and, and when I first found out about shamanism, I had, I had a cultural anthropology degree, so I understood, you know, that, but I thought that was ancient lore.

It was not, you know, it's [:

Which totally resonated with me, but then he said, and I think if you wanted to in about a year, you could be a shaman again. And I totally shut that down. Like, Oh, no, that's not happening. That was too weird for me. And it was, it was a number of years later before I went. I'm still curious about that. Maybe I'll get a book.

ve learned over the years is [:

They said, you know, you need to talk, you need to share.

Laurin: Yeah. Yeah. And that's, I mean, mine is all about get your voice out there, which is what we're doing today. So tell us how you got involved with shamanism. You know, I just told my story.

Denise: So, you know I guess. I do everything hard because I don't listen.

ppened. And one of my really [:

So I quietly brought it over because I didn't want to, you know, make fun of her in front of all the kids. Oh, you don't do that. So I sat her down and I said, Hey, you have your shoes on the wrong feet. And she stared me right in the eye and said, I know. And I'm like, okay, what the heck was that? And I didn't have time to go deep in my head to figure it out.

So I ended up teaching the class and I did take her hand you know, so. There's an important reason why I tell you that part. And so by the time I got home from teaching, I started to feel sick and it got worse overnight. And then the next morning I still went into school cause that's what teachers do.

the worse. And she was in a [:

So I, you know, luckily my doctor took me in and she, she just checked me for strep. Well, I didn't have it. I would test a negative. I'm like, well, that's, that's good. So I ended up going home that Wednesday. I was still pretty sick. I had a high fever that night. Wasn't fun. It felt like I had it. I thought the test was wrong.

Got up the next morning, still feeling kind of yucky. And as the morning went on, I started to feel better and better and better. And just before noontime I called the school and I said, look, I am much better. You don't have to get a sub for me tomorrow. I'll be in tomorrow. And I said, by the way, Bethany's doing good now.

illness, put it in my body. [:

So I went to my Reiki master, who's fabulous, I got, I was very lucky to have her. And she just looked at me, she goes, Denise, this is beyond my purview. You need to go see a shaman. So I did. Her name is Neva.

And I went in and told her what had happened and that it is scary. The word scary to me. And she goes, well, let me take a journey and find out what you need. And when she did that, I was like, wow, she didn't just pop up an idea what to do. So she took a journey and when she returned, she went to her Lower world talk to her power animal and came back with the information and they said you need a solar retrieval and I looked at her.

I said, what the heck is that?

ke, sure, I guess. I mean, I [:

I was bearing a doll. I don't know why I was doing that. And some other thing I can't remember. I was bearing everything. I, that's where I just, I'm not doing this. So she brought that fragment back and you know, blew it into my heart chakra and went into my soul. And I didn't get much of anything.

me. And it flew with me over [:

And so I got home, I called Neve up. I said, you're not gonna believe what happened. And I told her, and so it was actually, it was actually quiet at the other end. And I said, hello. And she says, well, I have been doing sore retrievals for 30 years. And I have always used the same power animal to help me do the sore retrieval always.

And she goes, this time was different. Just time it was a blue heron. How crazy is that? So I, you know, and that's why I call my business blue heron healing. So that's why. And that was pretty amazing. But what, what I will tell you after that for the following week, when I looked at the word shaman, I wasn't afraid anymore.

mness. as opposed to fright. [:

Me too. So that's how I started. And I decided to start taking classes. Well, at first I read a whole bunch of books and mostly under the two authors Michael Horner and Sandra Ingerman. And Sandra Ingerman actually was, was You know, went to Michael Harner school of shamanism and sorry, Sandra, if you're listening to this, but she has a book out and I call it, you know, shamanic journey for dummies.

en I started taking classes. [:

Absolutely fabulous. And he worked under, directly under Michael Harner. I took all the core classes I could, I was like just sucking it all in. And and Dana even had some of his own, you know, shamanic workshops that were not core from Michael Harner and I loved them too, so that's what I did. And I've been going strong and so I didn't teach my first shamanic workshop until.

Like I don't know, I think around 17, 18, somewhere around there and but it is a mixture of. Michael Harner and a mixture of Sandra Ingerman and from my own personal guide that I work with when I teach shamanism or when I do drum circles. Yeah. Yeah.

Laurin: Yeah.

Denise: He's a,

re good at it. I'll say he's [:

Yes.

Denise: So that's, that's it. So it's blue heron healing shamanism. It's a, it's not a big school, but I love teaching all the people in this area. And If you're interested I don't mind you zooming in for a class

Laurin: and we'll of course put all the links to where you can find her in the show notes and we'll get some the name, the actual name of that Sandra Ingram, put that in the, in the show notes as well.

I read a different book by a different shaman and that's what got me started and I can't remember the woman's name, but she was up in new England somewhere and pretty much, you know, just, she. Taught me the basics of journeying and she had online videos of her drumming so you could drum to that.

Now, since then, I've found a track that I like I can never remember the guy's name, but that's the one that I became when I started really journeying a lot. I use that one all the time. And that's, I think that sort of is, you have a particular drumming. Yes, because it's

ame, you know, the, it's the [:

It helps me once, once I started drumming, it doesn't take long for me to get the alpha theta wave brain place because I've been doing it for so long. And it has the, a specific callback and a callback means wherever you went to the lower world, the callback says, it's time to come back. Because you don't want to stay there.

You want to come back into your body. I don't really have not, I'm not drawn in to take any ayahuasca or peyote or mushrooms. People ask me that all the time. And I get clear information, the way things are going right now. So, Yeah.

Laurin: , for just, I was just thinking that a, a nice way to, if you're, if you kind of want to play with this deeper kind of meditation, cause that's what it feels like to me.

while you're doing it. Yes. [:

It's, and music is always very I mean, we, you watch little kids, they're going to move to the beat of, of the music. Right. Without anybody teaching them how to do that. So it's a very natural thing for our body to kind of start to, to be in sync with that that rhythm. And and I'm like you now, I don't have to listen very long before I'm, I'm totally immersed in what I'm doing.

stuck. But I'm going to talk [:

So I'm like, okay, I'm gonna take a shamanic journey. And I started drumming in my same power spot in, in my healing room. And almost as soon as I started drumming, even, I mean, it was maybe 30, 30 seconds to a minute, a huge male deer appeared in the room. The amount of. Points on his antler was, was like really big.

And so I looked at him and I thought, you know what? I still want to go to the lower world and go say hi to my power animals. So I'm going to do that. If you want to come, you can come. So I went through my port, I know that's me, went through my portal. He followed me all the way in there and I, you know, had a conversation with them.

kay, so I got, I got to him. [:

You can fly on anything, even though it's tiny, tiny it's kind of a, yeah. Although maybe a bit, a little bit of a fantasy world. But, but so he brought me up to the upper world. I can't remember what level it was, but we he walked me down this long hall and at the end of the hall there was a, a space that would have been a door and it led to space.

oating in a gelatinous stuff.[:

And so I really wasn't going anywhere. And I looked to the left and there was this really tall being who was the keeper of this place. And I'm like, okay, you're the keeper of what? And so I looked and noticed that all of those little stars weren't actually stars. They were different levels of growth for Menembrio.

and it got right in front of [:

And I looked up and the being said, this is yours. And I'm like, mine. And I looked at it and it was my twin. And I thought I was going to break down crying. So I did not know that I had a twin. Both my parents are twins. You know, it was likely or unlikely that that would happen and it was a male and he said this was our contract.

We were both, you know, created at the same time. And what I did was. I gave you my light and then I went back to the spirit. So the light that I had mine plus his. So I found that out and that also shifted things and that just happened about two, two, three years ago. So, and that illness or the whatever uncomfortable feeling I had for that month.

and I talked to people about [:

Laurin: Yeah, there's always, there's always a reason behind these things. And I know for me, often when I'm not feeling well, I just, I more often ask my guides rather than take a journey, but I'm moving more in that direction as I go. Practice my shamanism more, but but it's usually for me that I'm like trying to force things to happen and they just kind of go, yeah, and you know, and once I give into that.

eophyte. I don't do it well, [:

That was the first thing, first being that I learned to talk to and to hear. And I still have conversations with trees all the time. I live in the woods basically. But this garden that I have is, it's really reconnected me with the dirt, you know, in a very different way. And And so I'm finding that I talking to the plants.

Yes. Because they're living beings. Yes. They have personalities. I mean, I haven't discerned all my beet plants, their individual personalities, but I have, I have some tomato plants that I are dear to me because my dad used to always grow tomatoes and I miss those like garden grown tomatoes. And and, and there's been a varmint, probably a squirrel who's been.

I should have a conversation [:

And there have been no missing tomatoes since I did that. I would not have thought to do that. I would have been looking for ways to, you know, like do something, protect the tomato plant. Yes. But one of them had gotten pretty damaged when, when the first. Fruit was taken. It was a small, the smallest of them, and it actually got knocked over and I put it back in place and I planted it, you know, back and I was just, and I gave it a little support thing to lean on.

eah. So that's a combination [:

And so are the squirrels. And maybe if I ask nicely, they would cooperate or they would, we'd find a compromise and, and then bringing in other modalities to support. You know, the damage that was done.

Denise: Yes.

Laurin: And it's really fun to kind of weave these together. It has also made me a lot more aware that if I'm clearing something in the yard, even the weeds.

I will tell them I need to move you. This is not a good place. I'm going to put you in the compost heap so that you can help to fertilize other plants. And I know somebody's going to say, don't put your weeds in the, in the, in the compost, but that's okay. But I'm having conversations with these plants because I am at the heart level.

a gradual evolution for me, [:

With nature, which I already had a strong connection with, but it's because of that shamanic perspective that everything is alive.

Denise: Yes.

Laurin: And who am I to say you belong here and you don't. Yes. Maybe I would rather you weren't here, but can I politely move you somewhere else? And, and that's actually been the biggest lesson for me lately that I'm still grappling with is if everything's alive.

given their lives so that we [:

And I'm not good at doing that every time now, but it's becoming more of a practice for me.

Denise: Yes.

Laurin: And it's because I was struggling with that. I now know that these beats that I want to eat are sentient and I need to ask their permission if I can pull them up. And sometimes it's a conscious thing. And sometimes it's a feeling for me.

Yes, I just put all our radishes that grew amazing greens and got eaten by all kinds of bugs and never grew any radishes. Oh, look, I got a thumbs up on the screen. I just pulled them all. And I thank them for, for, you know, being in the garden and for feeding the bugs and keeping them away from the other plants.

But it's so there's. It, it's wonderful. I love the shamanic practice, but it does require you to be more mindful. That's the right word. More mindful about we are not the boss of everything as human beings. Right?

know, in the work that we do [:

I shouldn't say my, our group of seven. Well, you founded it. But we did, you know, we, one of the biggest. Messages that we got from the trees was humans. Don't ask us anything. Humans. Don't tell us this is going to happen or that's going to happen. They just cut us down and chop us up and they show no regard for our lives.

And I know some trees have to be taken down. I get that, but there are a lot of nature spirits in there. And usually when I see a whole section, then I bring in. My helpers and help the nature spirits that were living in those trees to be brought to my yard. I call it my healing sanctuary in which they're healed and then they get to go back or to a different place.

So I'm always doing that and I'm happy to do it.

And you taught me that. And [:

And this is after we'd been here for 20 years. So I got used to that woods and I loved going back in there and. I had gone in and at one point early on at your suggestion and greeted the gnomes and the other, the other elementals in there. And the place was full of them. I mean, I couldn't see them with my eyes, my physical eyes, but I could see them with my, my

Denise: mind's

Laurin: eye and I could feel the energy of them because I very much feel energy.

is just down the street here [:

Or if you want to go somewhere else, that portal will take you wherever you want to go. Yep. And that was at your total, you like, laid that out. Here's how, here's what you do. Put the portal together and go tell them. And And it was a very peaceful transition because I had let the trees know at the same time.

So they knew what to expect. I don't know what happened to those trees. I'm sure they went into, you know, be made into mulch, which is what we do around here with our trees. So, at least they're coming back to help nurture what's coming after, but that was a real fun, actually experience because I got to help a lot of, of energetic beings.

And it was in a new way and it was proactive before the danger happened and and it just seemed to be well received. So I still got the portal in my backyard.

ns itself. I got a couple of [:

And so I went out there to see what I could do. And I was on my power animal. We flew close to the river. This hand came out of the water. And I reached down and I put my hand and it was almost as if I was there, it kind of was a little discerning not disorienting. Yeah. Like, really, I can feel this and I'm on a journey and I pulled it up and it was a gnome.

d him off, came back and did [:

So

Laurin: it is, I will say it is a beautiful, calm place. Yard and it's not like she lives out in the middle of nowhere. She's, she's, you know, in suburbia basically, but it's, it's just, I love whenever I've been, I'm there and we're doing classes and things. I always make a point of going out barefooted in her backyard when we're taking breaks and it's just calming.

You can connect with the earth very easily. There's birds everywhere. There's beautiful flowers out, you know depending on the season and it's, it's a sanctuary. It's a sanctuary and it's a, it's a beautiful, beautiful space.

Denise: That's what I do. I think I did that when I was four, before I buried it,

Laurin: but

Denise: that's okay.

I'm [:

Laurin: And now I have them because I met Denise.

Well, I know that you have a message. That you wanted to convey just looking at my notes to see if there's anything else we wanted to talk about. Let's talk about a little bit before we go further about how you, how, you know, you're a shaman or how you become a shaman.

ns are either it's this is a [:

Or they go on a a long journey out in the forest where there's, you know, no food, no water. And what do they call that? Vision quest. Thank you. Vision quest. Yeah. And I mean, I, I don't know all of them because shamanism is all over the world. It's Siberia and Peru in the United States. We've got some indigenous in Australia.

Those are just some, I'll just add quickly. I know that there are some that you have to have a near death experience.

Yes.

Laurin: Yeah. That's, that's their indicate. Oh, you're the next shaman. And then you go into training.

minutes to get me breathing.[:

You

Laurin: started it right off. I started it right

Denise: off. I didn't realize it until, you know, not too long ago that that was a near death. So. Yeah, actually, I didn't really want to be here. But yeah, they said no, honey. You don't have a choice. Yeah, it was the same way Yep,

Laurin: but look where we are and how much fun we're having now, right

Denise: now I told you my story about how I was drawn to it.

You can have your own life event and all of a sudden you don't know, you know, what to do with this and, and where it's going to take you. You can just be a person who's so connected to nature and that's just, we just rather be outside all the time. You could have ancestors in your family because.

and very psychic. And so is [:

So just if you're drawn to it, I think it's one of the greatest things I've ever learned, to be honest, because of the information one other tool I use shamanism for is if I do have a very good friend come to me for a session Laura and I are very close. And so what I have to do, I have to get out of my way.

So that I can be a clear channel for her and friendship can cloud that can You know, so I like you know

Laurin: too much about each other. Yes,

hey give me the information. [:

They already told me You So yeah, that's another tool for this. Yeah. If you want to try hallucinogens, just Make sure you're with a reputable person or persons and you read about it and just be careful. That's what I say to that.

Laurin: Yeah. Be with somebody who knows what they're doing, who will, who will be not draft, not doing the drug at the same time.

You need somebody to, to watch over you. Yes. Yeah.

Denise: Yes. Yeah.

Laurin: Whereas with the way that we do it, you don't, we're not, Doing anything chemical. Nope. So it's not as it's not necessary to have somebody to, you know, drag you out. I do want to, I do want to bring up 1 thing you said earlier when with the drumming that there's a call back.

Denise: Yes,

ur body. Yes. I didn't want. [:

I don't remember exactly why I didn't come back all the way properly, but for about 24 hours, I was really disoriented. And then I thought, you know what? I don't think I ever really came back from that. So I went back into it. I dropped, you know, listen to the drumming. I went back into my, my, I call it my workspace.

And picked up where I remembered stopping and got the, a little bit of help from the person, the. Thing that the person, the animal, I can't remember exactly what it was that was, you know, acting as a guide now for me. But I then, I then backtrack the way I had come in. You always want to come and, and we didn't really talk about the different world and

Denise: how to journey.

create your, your space that [:

Right. But I came back out the way I always go in, which is for me is a path through the woods to a very specific place that has a fog horn.

Denise: We call it a portal and everybody's portal is different.

Laurin: Yep. So and once I did that, I was fine. I felt perfectly fine. So I would, I would definitely say if you're going to if you're going to explore journeying, which I encourage cause it's freaking awesome.

And fun. But just make sure that you have the protocol. I would call it the in mind that you're going to go in a particular way. And you're going to come out the same way and then just make sure you're really well grounded in your body. And if you don't know what that is, look it up, cause there's all kinds of information about how to ground yourself.

That's a different episode, [:

Denise: Yes. So the scenery that she was talking about. Is the lower world. Now the lower world is not hell.

Laurin: You just go

Denise: to a portals like Alice in Wonderland.

If you went, you know, through the rabbit hole, it was beautiful down there. Little interesting characters, but and I find, we all find interesting characters down there. It's called the lower world. It's very scenic. And her low world doesn't look exactly like mine. You know, I have forestry over here.

I have a lake over there or some kind of water body of water. I actually have desert and other rocky areas and you know, that's kind of what mine looks like. And then the other level is called the middle world. And when I describe it, when I'm teaching, if you walk outside, you can see trees and grass and birds flying around.

But shamanic journey to the [:

Laurin: but

Denise: those that in, in the middle world, the moon, the sun and all the planets is part of the middle world.

Laurin: Yeah. For me, that looks very much like, you know, it's, it's not where I live, but it's where I've chosen to put my, my workspace. And so it's it's for, for me, it's, it's a main woods is my, it's my middle world, which is why I have a trail, a trail through the woods to, to come and go. Yeah, it's, it's, it's really interesting.

how it's not true. It's the, [:

Denise: Yeah. I met a group of ascended masters. They said, come on. I said, no. He said, no, come on. And so I did. And that was a pretty amazing experience. Who these ascended masters were, I think it was before I started channeling Bartholomew. So maybe he was, he was there probably. So To dive deeper into the upper world.

There's a class I teach called dying and beyond or beyond death and dying. And you learn all about the levels. I don't know if you want me to dive into another time. Let's not get too complex. Yes, we can come back.

Laurin: Sorry. [:

All right. So All right. So we're getting a little bit close to the end of our time. So you had a message that your guides had insisted on you sharing,

Denise: you know, they can be really like, you're not, we need to talk to you. We need to talk to you. And they say it over and over. Finally, I sat down and they told me.

So basically the message is, is, I am completely amazed and excited. They are, and I am of all of the, the big shift in this world. You know, the media out there is showing people of different kinds of healing, quantum healing and, and the sort, or what's that new one that that you got from Australia?

Oh Pellewa. Yeah.

Laurin: Pellewa. It's a core. Score source soul. Yeah. It was amazing.

e: It's a lot out there. And [:

Yeah. There's some great stuff coming out there, but first, first, All of those people, you know, use your inner knowing to see how their ethics are and if they are coming from love and compassion. And this is a message from, you know, from my guides that they specifically told me about this podcast today.

use discernment, not just me [:

And if it doesn't feel right, we're not telling you to throw it away, but they're telling you to put it aside for now, because maybe that just doesn't work for you right now. Okay, you know, what red flags are nobody's perfect out there. So check for bragged flags. I think there are wonderful, wonderful people out there.

You know, I'm not saying they're not, but my guys are asking you to show discernment for the people that you're, you're listening and working. And every word they say is also being channeled through them. So there is a little. Human in that, even if I channel, I'm still bringing a little human through that.

appening is the big shift in [:

It just didn't feel right. And it wasn't like it was bad or anything. It's just like, nah, this isn't working for me. And that was 15 years ago. Maybe more. And now I'm reading, I'm reading his books. So and not everything in there is helping me with what I do, but I, he says some things like, Ooh, that's what I want.

And another thing I'll be like, I'm going to put that aside. So I still do that now. Even if they're really famous and have tons of books and stuff like that. You know, really pay attention to that, but that was the, the message message from my guides to you.

t? Everything that, that has [:

I, I. My guides have to do that a lot with me. It's like, here's a hint and I'm going, no, no, no. And then, you know, a year or 6 years later that comes up against like, oh, that's interesting. So just trust yourself and trust your gut. Or your heart, wherever you get that information from and let's see, what else did I want to say?

Oh

Denise: yeah, go ahead. And they did say that the only person that you should trust is yourself. Yeah. Your intuition. How does it feel to you? If I go through something and I'm like, okay, Laurin, let's chat about this and she'll draw out more stuff that I'm thinking about. And then I've got it. I know what to do.

e bottom line was, I made my [:

Laurin: of our human. It's one of our human. Abilities, but we are, we don't even really have a word that we're taught as kids about intuition.

Right. I mean, we learn about the five senses

Denise: now, but not the others. When I used it, I scared the crap out of my mother.

Laurin: Hmm. Yeah.

Denise: I could feel it. So I was like, okay, I guess I must be doing something wrong. Shut down.

Laurin: Yeah.

Denise: Yeah. So it's okay. Okay. To use.

Laurin: Yeah. And, and one of the things I love about shamanism, at least as for me, as the way I began learning about it is it was just playful.

f the anxiety away. It takes [:

And to bring that playful, Hmm, this is interesting. Let me fiddle with this for a while. Kind of attitude. You know, but channel your inner five year old and and bring that to it because both of us were like, no, not interested in shamanism when the first time it came to us. But we have learned to. To really love it.

It's a useful tool, both even if you're just using it for yourself, like, like Denise was talking about going to get answers to things, going to get insight. Or if you are like Denise and I, and you're doing healing work for people, it can be a healing tool as well. And I have to say, I've experienced a lot of soul retrievals.

This, this woman is good. And they have, she was ready

Denise: for it. Yes,

n, in maybe not in a second, [:

It's quite gentle. And that's, I think that's another reason I like it because some, some healing modalities I've experienced were tougher than I wanted. And there's not many out there, but I don't practice any of those that I didn't like. So yeah, so we, we are going to leave you with. If you have any questions about shamanism, I would love to hear from you.

And Denise's contact information will be in the, the show notes as is mine as always. And Denise does teach regularly, so you might want to keep tabs on her. I don't know. Do you have a mailing list? Oh,

just I have a schedule and I [:

The 1st sometime in September, I

Laurin: believe. And I usually try to to promote those on my mailing list. So if you're not on hers, you know, get on mine and cause I like to pass that information along as well. And I also usually do a little ad at the beginning of the, of the episodes during the time that that's coming up so that you can get a little hint that that's right here on the, on the podcast.

So you can get a hint that there's stuff coming up that you might be interested in. And I cannot tell you how much I revere. Denise's ability as a teacher because she's she it's always easy. It's always I don't know. It's just it's fun. I always have fun in her classes. Yeah, because the energy is very high.

r because she's got a lot of [:

Denise: So my philosophy of teaching is I don't. Make people do it exactly like me. What I do is I give you the basics and then I want you to make it yours. So when, when Laurin took Reiki, I said, okay, now you have all these tools.

I want you to do Laurin healing. You have this and this and this and this make it yours because my brain connections and her brain connections and experiences are different. So that's how, that's what I do. I have a student that will go to their job and they do healing. They heal people's bookkeeping.

ur world. The house may need [:

Laurin: Yeah. Yeah. It's becoming for me, it's becoming just like anything else that I have in my day to day life. And I I mean, I even Reiki'd the water that we're drinking today, you know, so it's just, it's become, Oh, I could do this with that. I could use Reiki here. Reiki is a particularly easy one to use in lots of different ways because it's, it's doesn't require that you be in a trance or anything.

Denise: No. And the universal energy is Reiki, is Reiki and it will, it has its own intelligence. It does what exactly it needs to do for the person or for the water or whoever you're

Laurin: doing. Yeah. Or the tomato plant. So I would just say, this is, this is a little off topic, but shamanism is awesome. And if you're interested in it by all means, follow that.

thing for people who are not [:

Denise: is, it is, it is the easiest. Good way to start, yeah. I think, though, that one of the keys of how I teach Reiki is I give you four attumas.

Laurin: For

Denise: Reiki one, you get two in the morning and two in the afternoon. And I, I just can watch people's energy shift from one to two to three to four. And it's you can see it's right, right in front of my eyes. And that helps you become a clearer channel and to channel the universal energy. I know, I think I've said this before, Reiki doesn't own the universal energy is one form.

So let's say if this woman does quantum healing, she is channeling the universal energy. Just two different names.

eah. So I just wanted to add [:

But Reiki, I think is one that if you're not sure you can feel energy, or you have any of this ability, it's a really easy place to start. And it's, it's and then you find it useful.

Denise: Yes. One of my students texted me yesterday. She goes, I really feel different. I don't feel like me at all. And really how she's feeling is her authentic self.

Mm-Hmm. and everything else just kind of got muddled and clouded around from whatever she's been through in her life. And then dealing with the earth's energy to some tough energy out there.

Laurin: Yeah. But we're getting there. We're getting there. We are getting there. Believe that we're really getting there.

at place for us to stop. I'm [:

Transcribed All right. So I want to thank the listeners for being here today. And and I hope that you will go into the show notes and find the links. Actually tell them the name of your website again.

Denise: Oh, blue heron healing tidewater. That's the name of my website. I think there's a hyphen between heron and tidewater.

Laurin: Okay. We'll have it in the show notes. I want to thank you for being here. I know I did that already. Go into the show notes. If you want to get in contact with Denise, if you can't figure out how to do that, you can find me always in any show notes that you go and look at on the podcast or at heartlightjoy.

stuff coming up in the fall. [:

You'll also find all the podcast episodes are shown in those newsletters.

Denise: But I want to thank Laurin for doing this. I mean, her abilities to bring in the. best part of whatever practitioner comes in, whatever they're doing, it's fabulous.

You're good. Well, thank you. And I thank

Laurin: you for your work when you do this.

Denise: Thank you. It's, it's definitely the work of my heart. So it makes it easier to do it.

Laurin: All right. On that, we will leave you. And I would like to invite you to come back next week for another episode of curiously wise. And in the meantime, I invite you to stay curious.

About the Podcast

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Curiously Wise
Practical Spirituality in Action

About your host

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Laurin Wittig

Laurin Wittig is a Holistic Light Worker here to help others on their ascension journey. She is an intuitive energy healer, spirituality mentor, founder of HeartLight Wellness, host of the Curiously Wise: Practical Spirituality in Action podcast, and channel of The Circle of Light.