Encounters with Power: Adventures and Misadventures on the Shamanic Path of Healing - José Luis Stevens 2017

In Closing

When I first decided to write these stories down, I looked forward to great enjoyment revisiting the many remarkable places and events I have chronicled here. That is exactly what happened, but so much more took place as well. Little did I know that it would be a major experience of healing and completion for me. In recalling these stories, I have had the opportunity to learn an amazing amount that I had previously failed to see. Many of these experiences brought me to tears, not once but each time I read them over. Perhaps some of these stories have affected you in the same way. Whatever the case, I had the opportunity to grieve in ways I did not at the time and to feel enormous gratitude for the experience, even if it was sad or painful. There were also stories that made me laugh out loud or chuckle every time I went over them. Over and over again I experienced the big three: Gratitude, Love, and Awe, the three vibrations that fertilize the seed of awakening. As my students all know, they form the acronym GLA, a silly non-word that I use as slang to reference the road to self-realization.

These stories represent only a tiny fraction of the numerous adventures of my life but in many ways these are the ones I like to tell the most. None of these stories is from my childhood. I have many of those but I chose not to dwell on them in this book; they are perhaps for a different volume of stories to be told another time. Maybe I left them for later because they are very painful and I am still healing from them. I did have my share of magic as a child but this was often overshadowed by difficult events, difficult people, a high degree of sensitivity, dysfunctional family patterns, and great frustration. That set of stories, when I tell them, may be even more healing than these.

It is my wish that you were entertained by these stories and that you learned something of value from them for your own process. You see, in many ways these stories are as much yours as they are mine. I truly believe that the refined virtual reality experience that is my life is also part of everyone’s experience because in the end, when the games are over, we are all one. Your stories are mine and mine are yours, so you can learn what you need to. In the end they are the dreams of either a lunatic or a very wise old soul. Take your pick. Or then again, perhaps they are both.

Many Blessings on your journey, from one adventure traveler to another.

José Luis Stevens