The North, The Space of Ancestral Guidance and Medicine - The North: The Space of Ancestral Medicine and Guidance

Curanderismo Soul Retrieval: Ancient Shamanic Wisdom to Restore the Sacred Energy of the Soul - Erika Buenaflor M.A. J.D. 2019

The North, The Space of Ancestral Guidance and Medicine
The North: The Space of Ancestral Medicine and Guidance

For soul retrievals, the North is a space to commune and connect with ancestors for medicine and guidance. Feeling rooted, grounded, and supported by divine forces can be incredibly motivating and reassuring during the soul retrieval process. The ancestors of the North can be our actual, cultural, or cosmic ancestors, as well as any others to whom we feel a divine connection. Here we are developing a connection to divine source that grounds us in our heart and makes the soul retrieval more graceful. The ancestors’ messages are medicine, wisdom, and guidance. They help uplift us and kindle or rekindle a sense of awe and wonder.

When we open up to ancestral wisdom, we remember and feel gratitude for the fact that the divine is always watching over, aiding, and loving us. Any blocks to opening up to this medicine may need journeys and work with both the West, to release blocks, and the South, to understand why we may have blocks.

I recommend beginning by working with one to three ancestral guides and getting to know them. Pay attention to the circumstances of when they come, how they come, what their powers are, how they bring messages, and what gifts they bring. The ancestors of the North are not limited to Mesoamerican or other cultural deities. The North serves as a metaphorical portal to “ancestors” we may have seen pictures of—saints, angels, goddesses, avatars, or cosmic beings. Set the intention of connecting with an ancestor who will provide messages, insight, gifts, and medicine to retrieve soul pieces with divine grace.

Image Journeying into the North

Begin by cleansing your space. You can use sage or place some copal on a charcoal burner. Thank the wise teachers and spirits of the North for welcoming you into their sacred space and providing you with insight, gifts, and medicine so that you may retrieve your soul pieces with ideal and divine grace.

Image Releasing Foreign Energy

This exercise is helpful for becoming a clearer channel for messages, wisdom, guidance, and medicine from the North’s ancestors. It is also helpful for moving any stuck energy. You can also engage in other exercises previously discussed that help move and release energy.

Sit in a straight-backed chair with your hands and feet uncrossed and separated. Allow your hands to rest easily on your lap with the palms facing up; this will close off your electromagnetic circuits from receiving external information and energy and will also help you to become more centered. Close your eyes, let go of all expectations about this exercise, and relax your body. Tune in to the ebb and flow of your breath so that your entire being is at one with your breathing. Deliberately hold your breath a few seconds and exhale; this will help you to maintain your focus.

Take some time to acknowledge yourself for loving yourself enough to do this work, regardless of the result, and allow your heart to open up to you. Acknowledge yourself for moving forward toward the discipline of self-love—remembering that self-love is a discipline, and that it is a beautiful discipline to have. Open your heart to yourself more and more, and thank yourself.

Once you have allowed your heart to open up to you, visualize a beautiful emerald light streaming out from the center of your chest. At the other side of that emerald light is a mirror reflection of you. It is the you that is always inspiring you to engage in loving, healthy, nurturing, and nourishing activities. It is the you that knows how truly magnificent you are. It is the you that is pure love, the real you. As if you were looking into a mirror, look at this ideal reflection of yourself, and allow yourself to fall more deeply in love with you. This is your I Am presence, the divine presence within you.

Now visualize your I Am holding a golden chalice in its hands. This golden chalice contains your pure sacred essence energy as it was before you entered the body you reside in now. This sacred essence energy is pure liquid light, pure liquid love. Your I Am is now levitating above your head, asking you for permission to pour your sacred essence energy into you. Please accept this gift. Allow this liquid light to come into your crown chakra, into the top of your head, tingle down your neck and spine, and course through all of your meridians, your energy lines. Moving down your shoulders, arms, and hands. Coursing down your chest, abdomen, hips, thighs, knees, calves, and feet. Take some time just to be in your own pure sacred essence energy as divine love and light.

Picture a ruby grounding cord coming out of your tailbone. This cord drops down as a beam of energy from the base of your spine through layers of soil, rocks, water tables, crystal caves, and molten lava into the center of the Earth’s magnetic core, her heart. You are now invited to release all energy that is not yours, whether it be your job, bills, stressors, to-do lists, and even loved ones. Allow yourself just to be in your own pure essence energy. Once you feel complete release, bring your ruby grounding cord back up into you, and thank the Earth for helping you on this journey to release energy and transmute it into Light.

Image Navigating

Decide whether you will navigate your journey into a specific nonordinary realm or you will wait and see where your lost piece is. If you want to choose your destination, you can apply any of the shamanic tools.

Image Going Deeper into the North

In a slight trance state, set the intention to journey into the North through your sacred heart. You can state the command, “Stand aside, ego, in the name of God: I am that I am.” See yourself immersed in the violet fires, throwing fear, doubt, toxic emotions into them. Then see yourself enveloped in the white fires of purification and resurrection, allowing them to cleanse you more deeply and open you up to your full potential.

Now set the intention of journeying into the space of the North to connect with ancestral medicine, wisdom, and guidance, and state the intention that these gifts will aid you in understanding what you must do to facilitate a graceful and ideal return of your soul pieces. Allow your consciousness to fully move into this intention and space, the space of the North, and be open to divine guidance.

Once you sense that you have come across a divine presence, shine the love-light from your heart to them and ask them for guidance so that your soul piece may return to you with ideal and divine grace. If they agree, ask them to tell you more about themselves as well, so you can understand who or what is coming forth. They will usually agree, especially if you have radiated love-light from your sacred heart. Get to know them. Questions may include:

Image What is your name?

Image Where do you come from?

Image What kind of ancestor are you?

Then ask them kindly what messages, healing, or medicine they have for you. These questions may include:

Image Why did you step forward to help me?

Image What message do you have for me?

Image Do you have medicine for my soul?

Image Can you offer my soul healing?

Image What do you recommend I do to facilitate a graceful soul retrieval?

Invite the soul pieces you have been working with to receive any medicine, guidance, and healing. If a piece is ready to return, shine a love-light from your sacred heart to help this piece find its way home to you. Make sure you go to the East, either within the same journey or preferably in a later one; remember that the East has sacred essence energy for you that will help infuse your soul piece with more sacred essence energy and empower it and you to move forward on a path of ideal new beginnings. If the piece is not yet ready to return, maintain a connection with it by shining a love-light out to it from the sacred heart. Thank the spirits of the North, and more specifically the guides you connected with, and ask them to infuse your soul piece with ongoing healing, medicine, and guidance so it may be inspired to return to you.

Before you leave the North, ask the North and the nonordinary realm to continue to help you understand the messages that were given and provide you with others as the days go by. When your consciousness is ready to leave, go out through your sacred heart, seeing yourself immersed once again in the sacred white fires of purification and resurrection, and then in the violet fires. Take 6 deep inhales through the nose, exhaling out the mouth. Now allow some time to reflect on what you saw, heard, felt, or knew.

Contemplative Exercises to Develop Your Intuitive Senses in the North

After journeying to the North, engage in any of the contemplative exercises mentioned in the chapters for the South and West, or develop others that will allow you to reflect and integrate the lessons and medicine from your journey. As you integrate the lessons, you will often have a soul piece or more return to you and will consequently feel a resurgence of sacred essence energy. The breathwork exercises are helpful for grounding this return of energy.

This exercise will help you develop your intuition and fine-tune your abilities in receiving divine messages from the North. This exercise is called “Intuitive Walking.”

Image Intuitive Walking

Start by choosing a specific location. It may be a ride up an elevator, a walk down a street, or a time in line at the grocery store. Preferably it is a location with not too much stimuli. Before you go to this location, set an intention that you will observe and absorb what is seen, felt, smelled, heard, known, or touched here, and that you will do so with the candid eyes of a child, free of judgment. Go to the location and take at least five minutes to simply observe and absorb your surroundings.

That evening, take some time to relax. Engage in whatever activity you do to relax. I recommend some breathwork exercises, which induce a soft trance state. Maintain this relaxed state, and write down everything you can remember from the locality you chose. What did you see, sense, hear, feel, smell, or know? This process should be automatic rather than analytic. If you can only remember one or two things, that is fine. Continue practicing, bringing what you unconsciously processed to the conscious mind.

Do this for a month, preferably every day, or at least 3 to 5 times per week; just try to be consistent. After a month, go back to your notes and notice if there were any changes and if you had a greater propensity toward one of the senses—sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste, or simply knowing. This exercise is an excellent way to become more conscious of your intuitive senses and utilize the ones that are more developed while you are journeying.

When you feel more comfortable, focus on developing your other senses. This exercise will also help develop your intuition by inspiring you to become more aware of your surroundings. As you do, you will notice that seemingly normal thoughts, emotions, or sensations are confirmations of divine messages. You will also notice that synchronicities and divine guidance are constantly happening, because you are permitting yourself to become a more open channel.

Energizing and Working with the Sun

During the soul retrieval process, I highly recommend recharging your energy with the sun and contemplating divine guidance, medicine, and healing for your soul. As the ancient Mexica and Maya knew, the sun is an amazing resource for restoring our sacred essence energy. This energy is incredibly helpful for moving forward with soul retrieval and practices of self-love. This exercise draws in sacred essence energy from the sun.

Image Drawing in Sacred Essence Energy from the Sun

In the morning, when the sun is visible, go outside, face the sun, and thank it for charging you with pure sacred essence energy. Set the intention of drawing in the sun’s energies with this exercise. Take a slow, deep inhale while extending your arms out to your sides. Have the hands meet above your head in prayer position. Hold your breath for a few seconds, and bring the hands, still in prayer position, straight down in front of you while exhaling. After doing this for a few minutes, sit down for 5 to 10 minutes and contemplate any divine messages of healing and medicine you have received while working with the North, as well as everything you have done to heal and love yourself. Thank yourself for any and all work that you have done.