There is a particular gravity that comes with stepping into ancient spiritual practices.
I am currently in my Shamanic Reiki Master Teacher apprenticeship, and there is a lot to learn. Not just intellectually, but energetically. The practices I am learning have been shaped by thousands of years of lived relationship with the natural world. They carry ancestral memory, lineage, reverence, and responsibility. There is a felt weight to them. A vibrational echo across time that can be sensed in the body as much as understood in the mind.
That gravity matters. It deserves respect and care.
And still, I have noticed how quickly seriousness can take over…
I felt it in myself as I began this apprenticeship. I have been bringing a studious posture, careful attention, and a quiet solemnity to this work. I want to honor what has been passed down, and I don’t want to trivialize anything that has been sacred to Indigenous peoples across the world for centuries.
At the same time, my teachers and mentors keep offering a simple and disarming reminder:
“All of you is welcome here.”
Not just the reverent, ritual facing part. Not just the careful, serious student. All means all.
That has been landing somewhat slowly, to be honest. Because when you’re learning ancient practices, reverence can subtly morph into restraint. Respect can creep into self-editing. Responsibility can quietly harden into rigidity.
With all of this swimming through my heart and mind, I recently took a shamanic journey to meet my Shamanic Reiki Spirit Guide.
I work with spirit guides for different aspects of my path. I am supported by power animals, plant spirits, elemental spirits, and guides in human form for mediumship, general healing practices, etc. And for a long time, there has been a presence connected specifically to my path as an energy healer. This guide is familiar, persistent, and very patient. This is a presence that I sense is at least partly responsible for calling me toward the path of shamanism in the first place.
Until now, I had never asked this guide to take form. But this time, I did. Explicitly. And before the journey, I made my intention very clear: I would accept whatever form this guide chose to take.
As the journey unfolded, what came toward me first was a neon pink light approaching from a great distance. It was bright. Almost blinding. As it moved closer, it resolved itself into…
Wait for it…
A FLAMINGO. 🦩
Not a majestic flamingo.
A silly one.
Ultra feminine. Jewel encrusted. Long, thick, cartoonish eyelashes. Completely unapologetic in her own absurdity.
She fluffed her fabulous feathers, blinked beguiling at me, and with what felt unmistakably like a smirk, she insisted that I call her Daisy Mae. 😳
The teaching arrived immediately:
“Darling, don't take this too seriously.”
Yes, it is sacred. And sacredness includes lightness. It includes laughter, joy, play, and merriment. There is room for all of it within ceremony, within ritual, within devotion.
When the wise ones say, “All of you is welcome,” they mean my humor too. My zest for life. My smile and my laughter, not just my solemn sacred self.
That was my guide’s transmission, and it will stay with me.
This doesn’t mean turning ceremony into comedy. It doesn’t mean disrespect. It means remembering that life itself is the ceremony. And life includes laughter. Right?! Holy crap, I hope so! 😅
There is room for lightness.
There is room for play.
Even in sacred space.
So, bring your whole being wherever you go. Let your spirituality be spacious enough to hold your full humanity. If a practice feels constricting or puts you in a box, it is worth gently questioning whether it is aligned for you right now.
For me, the most honest expression of spirituality is one of non-separation. Oneness. Wholeness.
And apparently, sometimes that wholeness shows up as an outrageous pink bird who calls herself Daisy Mae. 🦩❤️😘