The First Year

The fundamental orientation of this first year of training has always been to bring a student to the place of being able to guide another person one-on-one, not through imitating someone else and not through having learned an intellectual formula, but through the process of having undertaken their own growth work in relationship with the animals in a profound and serious way. Respect for the animals and for the individual being guided are essential precepts. And the manner in which this is accomplished is based on non-intrusion on the part of the guide and on knowing how to recognize when they have been snagged by the journeyer's process and what to do on such occasions. The guide is essentially a sherpa, who knows the trails and the weather conditions and is available to the journeyer, but does not confuse the person's journey with their own.

Issues of the First Year

Chakra animal journeys
You will use deep imagery to encounter an animal in each chakra. When all the chakra animals have been reached they are brought into a council in which they work toward each others growth an health. In doing so they typically raise issues which the person has not adequately faced, but is now supported and even coached in doing so. The animals grow and come to be more supportive of each other and the individual feels a growing harmony and centredness in his or her own life.

The inner support of the chakra animals comes to be deeply appreciated and richly felt. The work is deeply healing and transformative as the animals know how to guide us with precision through the sequence of experiences that lead back to our own original wholeness.

Polarity journeys
We learn very early to think in polarities and to split our perception into two poles: good - bad, light - shadow - male - female, etc. We are kept in an area of tension of these inner polarities. In the core they tend to return to their original oneness. In polarity journeys we call an animal for each pole. We get to know how it came into our lives, what it wants to show us and what it needs from us. We stay with it as long as it needs. Then we ask the animals of both poles if they are ready to meet each other. These encounters are often very interesting and can lead to a final merging of the two of them, if desired. A new being can be born out of that, a being that comes right out of the aliveness in us. And again it is very important to trust your own inner pace and process and not to force anything.

As in all deeimagery journeys the core lies in the respectful communication with the animals. By asking them it becomes clear how far the integration of the two polarities is possible. Polarity journeys are an important step on the way to our aliveness, because often they bring us back to lost or unwanted aspects of our personality.

Journeys into dreams

Sometimes you will experience intense dreams during a training group. They are messages that come out of the inner core of your aliveness. There is the possibilty to journey into a dream using deepimagery. Thus the dream itself is held in respect and not "used" or manipulated through interpretation of our thinking. In such a journey you call a dream guide and ask him what he can show you about your dream in order to understand more of the meaning behind. Journeys into dreams can be very free: some people are guided chronologically through the entire dream while others only meet a certain part of it. In any case the message is clear and present. Dream journeys are a powerful mean to explore the depth of ourselves.

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