Initiation, Bones, and the Cosmos
A call to the path.
First, I must acknowledge that the resistance to our awakening and spiritual empowerment is real.
And in my case, getting to my very first shamanic class felt like resistance in full force.
That day, I woke scattered and anxious. It was hard to leave the house.
Once in the car, I realized I didn’t have the address.
Pulling out my phone, I found the email, typed in the first location I saw… and started to drive across town.
I arrived at the wrong place.
I sorted through my app and pulled it up again, redirected my GPS, and finally—finally—arrived.
An hour late, feeling frazzled and insecure, I knocked, and everyone was in deep discussion. Thankfully, I was greeted quickly at the door by Pamela Rico. She was luminous. Truly glowing. One of those humans so full of divinity that you feel it and see it. She met me with kindness and steadiness, exactly what my nervous system needed in that moment.
As I found a seat in the circle, just two people from where Jan sat. I could feel the energy around her commanding the space. I sat next to a lovely man, mmediately, I felt the presence of fairies around him. (Later, I asked. If he worked with them. He said yes.)
There were about 30 of us. All different types of people. I made two friends that I am still in contact with today.
That weekend, Jan guided us through the shamanic journey method, spiritual practices, and the first introductions to our allies. And something unexpected happened.
I excelled.
I had never been someone who felt like a good student. If it weren’t for extra credit and night classes, I wouldn’t have graduated high school. Yet here I was—dropping in easily, naturally, and excelling like I’d done this all before.
Every practice felt intuitive. My mind was blown by how much was being confirmed, validated, and remembered within me.
But nothing compares to the first time I met my power animal.
As Jan guided us to the Lower World, I started seeing so much so quickly. There were so many beings, moving around me, vivid and alive. I kept asking, Who is the one? Is it you?
Then suddenly, I dropped deeper, through the soil.
Down into darkness. Into a cave.
The air felt thick. Ancient. A silence fell all around me.
As I walked, I heard a sound beneath my feet—bones? I looked down and realized I was walking on human bones. Clean, polished, gleaming, countless.
My first thought was very human:
Oh no. I’m in the den of something that eats people.
And then I saw her.
She emerged from the darkness above me—massive, radiant, cosmic. Eight long legs. Many iridescent eyes, shimmering like the starlight.
She descended quickly. And before I could react, she began to eat me. My worst nightmare unfolding.
But instead of dying, I moved into her—into her belly. Merging.
She told me she was the Keeper of Bones. That she knows the history of every human. Every life lived. That no one is forgotten. Every single one of us is honored. Every story kept. That our bones—our essence—are tended to, throughout time.
It was exquisite. Sacred. I started crying.
She spoke to me about life, incarnation, and the laws of the universe—truths I had sensed my whole life, now spoken aloud. I cried harder.
Then she spit me out.
I was thrown into the abyss—falling, falling, falling. Each time fear rose, I’d be caught in a web… only to be dropped again. A wild ride of terror and surrender.
Finally, she caught me, and this time she wrapped me in her silk. It felt like she was sucking the marrow from my bones—but later I understood this as a blessing. Healing. Initiation.
She was clearing what was never mine to carry. Breaking limiting beliefs. Removing what was overshadowing my light.
When she set me back on my feet, she showed me unity consciousness. The divinity within my heart. She initiated me onto a path I didn’t yet know I was walking.
The shamanic path.
The healer’s path.
And years later, I would understand—also the teacher’s path.
The drumbeat called us back into the room.
Even with a mask on, tears streamed down my face. I sat in a small sharing group with five other students and an assistant teacher—still raw, still open.
When it was my turn to share, I broke down completely.
The assistant smiled lovingly. The fairy man, of course—he was in my group.
Jan came over, knowingly.
As I shared, Jan explained what I had experienced: a dismemberment. A powerful healing. A profound first meeting, the arrival of a potent ally.
The rest of the weekend cracked me open and rounded me out.
I came home tender-hearted and wide open, with the unmistakable feeling that I had found something I’d been searching for—for years.
I told my husband, “I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know how much it will cost. But I have to continue. I need Level Two.”
I bought a drum.
And for the next week, I sat in my garden—drumming, integrating, listening—beginning a relationship that would quietly, irrevocably change my life.