The Red Beads

This happened when I was fairly new to shamanism. I had only taken a few workshops, and I was fairly unsure of myself. I mention this because I believe that in many ways, experience doesn't matter - it's more about how connected you are with yourself and the helping spirits. There is a thing called beginner's luck, and this might be an example of that.

A woman in a circle I had attended emailed the whole group - everyone that had attended the circle - and she asked for help. She said that she was having "trouble" with her teenage daughter (let's call her 'X'), and wanted someone, anyone, to do a journey to the helping spirits, like we had done in the circle, and ask for help with her daughter.

This woman was quite open to this sort of work. She said that she had obtained permission from her daughter for those of us that had attended this circle to do shamanic work for her, and also for their relationship with each other.

I waited a few days until I had time to do the journey. I watched the circle's email list, and no one had offered anything. So I decided to try. I put on a drumming CD and lay down with headphones to journey. As it turned out the journey felt really muddled and sketchy compared with some of the journeys I had experienced in the workshops.

I got two main things. One is that I heard a voice, kind of like when you talk to yourself, say "She has to give back the red beads." The other was that the woman had to be sure her daughter understood that she would always have unconditional love for her.

I was pretty hesitant to email this woman, but I finally did. I put lots of "framing" around the message about the red beads, since I didn't know if it was literal or a metaphor or something from my own head! Anyway, I took a deep breath and sent off the email.

Several days went by and I didn't hear anything back from the woman. Then I got a short email:

I talked to 'X' <the daughter> about the red beads. She said maybe she should give them back to her friend 'Y'.

I again took a deep breath - there were red beads! So it was literally true. I still didn't know what was wrong with the red beads - maybe there was a curse on them or something.

A few days after that I got another short email:

About the red beads. 'X' and I took them back to the store in the mall where she had shoplifted them. Thank you!

As it turned out this was a turning point in their relationship. They subsequently worked through a lot of their issues and became very close friends. The daughter went on to excel in college.

There is a little more to the story that I'll tell another time.