Doc Dave: I would like to attempt to journey and find my Power Animal and make sure I've got that. I've been wondering if to do this I need to separate from my body, maybe into the astral body or some other body and leave this physical body as I attempt to journey. That sounds alright to me, maybe it takes place automatically, but so far I haven't been able to enter the tunnel and feel like I've really done it without imagination of some reality.

Mary: So that you are experiencing the animal come to you, not one that you've just thought of or just had an affinity for or just pops in?

Doc Dave: Yes, not just imagination, although imagination is important.

Mary: Imagination is vital, it gives you inspiration, and when you breathe you know you are here. The question you have really asked is "What do I do with the body while I journey." 

The body is present with you in this sense: That it supports your life systems, it continues on with its work. It has its own automatic functions, it is a bio-transducer-subsystem-computer that is programmed by you, and by all that you have been, so that you very naturally know all the automatic things that occur within the body. You have control over your heart, your breath, all of the systems of all of the fluids that flow through you, and essentially what you are doing is asking them to continue on with their job.

That you are going to take a journey, that you acknowledge to the body that you are about to - it's like being very nice and saying "I'm going now", it's recognizing that you're not alone, and loneliness is certainly a difficult problem to deal with. But knowing that you're not alone but that you have companions with you all the time, and from that loving sense of the affection that you have for your body and for yourself and the respect that you have to acknowledge to the body "I'm leaving, I will return".

To have both these be within the drumbeat, within the heart-beat "I am leaving and I will return" the time with the excitement of the body saying "You're leaving, but you're returning, oh! I will keep your temple waiting for you". It won't go into disrepair because you've gone, it won't be like the times you have left me before, alone and sad, and I don't have to worry about being punished while you're away because you've protected me, your body." And then as you leave and go forth on your journey, your body remains there, holding that space.

It sends you messages, it enables you to continue breathing in many worlds so that the inspiration is a continuum of consciousness. There's no need to worry that if I take a deep breath or need to scratch my face in the middle of a journey, it's OK, it's not going to disturb the journey or the body. Everything will be in order because I live in an ordered universe. I have come from chaos, I will go to chaos, but I also know order; I know the balance, I am excited in the presence of either chaos or balance. It is essential stimulation and imagination is an aspect of your own creativity.

As you feel more comfortable with being creative, which comes from this second chakra energy that we have been dealing with, that you have been healing -- and as you prosper and feel the richness of the healing experience and you know yourself to be healthy and strong � and the child within you can say "I remember when touch was fun, when it was new, when I was fresh and vital, and I can retain that sense of vitality at any age."

We have moved into a space of timelessness, and in that timeless space, in the presence of your Higher Self, all of you, the wisdom of you, your master, you may move freely to circumnavigate freely in any direction you choose. WHAT IS YOUR DIRECTION?

Now that you have created this space, what is your direction? Where would you like to move, what type of journey would you like to take? What are your interests? I want to HEAR it from you because it stimulates your 5th chakra to begin to move your voice and you hear yourself. You are most entrained to the sound of your own voice!

Doc Dave: In the last 17 years I knew that there was some place I had to go and my mind has been on it more than anything else; I see fruition now where I can least get a grasp on something. It has come to a point where I feel more gratification thanks to you people these last couple of weeks. My goal is to try to be of service without remuneration, just to be of benefit, that's all I care about.

Rowland: In the space you are now in, you can give us a higher formulation of that. Without reference to past beings or without thought of needing someone to have brought you here; you have yourself in this space, now speak of your creative direction: Doc Dave: I'd like to have that feeling of traveling the universe, of feeling strong, vital, not feeling like something is tugging at me, strapping me down to the Earth. It has been a constant battle.

Rowland: So keep on the positive: "A feeling of traveling the universe..."

Doc Dave: I absolutely know now that we're spiritual creatures and probably eternal, we are eternal, and I want be a part of all that with that knowledge working for me and I have just got to break some chains that are binding me, and I think I'll be able to do that. I feel something always cuts the hamstring, and I get excited, but by the time things get rolling the bottom falls out of everything. Maybe I've been bringing that on myself.

Mary: Ah! You are hearing yourself.

Rowland: I'll clarify some of that at one level, and Mary will have something to offer on another. Implied in your question was "Do I go to the astral on my journey", and then you mentioned "chains". When people use the term "astral", they can mean two vastly different things. Confusion between the two make it much harder to break the chains. In popular thinking, the most common spaces labeled "astral" are basically forms of emotional residue, which are largely left-over bits of human thought; it's an emotional band close to the physical where you can get cute messages from spooks; basically it's goofy entertainment limited to a certain level.

In a greater sense as used my educated magicians, a journey can be Geocentric; the space you journey in has Earthly or bodily coordinates in order for it to be visible, e.g. to use as a co-ordinate the speed of the Earth's rotation. A journey on a greater scale is the Heliocentric, where the Sun is the central point. Much greater spaces become visible by resonating to the speed and vectors of the Sun's rotation.

"Astral" means "of the Stars"; when the stars are your anchor points, you can have the feeling of travelling the universes, which is what you asked for. Astral, or oriented by the stars.

The popular meaning of "astral" is only a subset of "geocentric", as it is a multicoloured layer of energy in the Earth's electrical field, largely generated by human "waking sleep." This is the band from which most popular channelling operates.

True Astral or star centered journeying is a huge experience, and the co-ordinates used are not "How do I move out of my body" in a body shape, but is a journey into perhaps any form or into any sort of reality by choice of the shape that you choose to shift into. If you journey as a power animal, you have a power animal's co-ordinates, meaning the pure essence of that class of animals on a chosen planet, not a space that you have to journey from in a linear progression.

You will find many ways to journey, feel free to experiment with the lesser journeys, but the true Astral centered journey is the way to achieve the "real thing" you have asked for. Lesser journeys can be undertaken for practice.

Doc Dave: What should I do now?

Mary: I want you to be free of my desires and wants for you. Now what I hear you saying that you would like to do is to take a journey to experience your power animals. In the bathroom this morning I noticed one of my power animals that I have brought down with me, because I love zebras, and because I had that communication already set in and I had already recognized this wonderfully striped creature so much like a horse, it came and sat with me.

As you touch in to the connection with animals, it is your awareness with the animal nature within yourself. This is a part of the purpose of taking the journey with the power animal. As you become the zebra, you feel the strength of your shoulders and your hindquarters and you know that you are about to move the power and to know and to explore and to see through the eyes of the animal where you are going. To feel the hoofed feet as they move beating with the same rhythm as a drum; flowing, the sounds and the rhythms, the smells, the different kinds of foliage that you have touched against your body deepen the experience as you journey as your power animal. They also infuse in you a very direct experience of your own awareness of your ability to shape-shift, to move from one shape or form to another. As we connected in with Sirius which the Egyptians still celebrate; Anubis the god of the Underworld, the awareness of travel or journey, of moving through darkness into the light.

Certainly amongst the Egyptians secrets are how they survived their journeys through the sarcophagus. How did they live? And return to that breath of life as the stones moved away as the initiation was completed. And the initiate lying there takes the first fresh breath in many days without fear, but knowing because he told his body in the beginning: I'm leaving, but I'm returning. I believe we've heard that from another great master. Isn't that not a strong message to the body; are we not the body?

As we connect into other forms of life, even if it be a blade of grass: how simple, how exquisite to be a blade of grass, to experience yourself moving or not moving with the wind, to feel the power of the sun beating on you, to be able to see the other blades of grass, your brothers and sisters. To feed from the same nurturing energy from the Earth, and to do as you have asked to do: to be of service. They are amongst the plants that feed us with that healing oxygen which continues to inspire us.

We, as humans, have a responsibility to know all life, to be in touch with it, and our power animals assist us with knowing the truth. With experiencing the excitement, the capability of being somewhere that we in human form would have never dared to go without that consciousness. It's the same as going to a convention which is really like camp; they sort of swarm all around, connect, tell stories, connect. Animals do that, they collect together.

Doc Dave: About being of service: I've always had that exciting idea that I'll find the secret, the key to magic. That's what I really want to find, and I feel like we're close to it now, if I can work with it, if I can go.

Mary: And you can create magic, and your imagination assists you in being able to create magic. An so feeling comfortable with your imagination allows you to let it flow, to let the energy just move you, so that the power animals that you are working with you will come and speak with you.

Often I experience the Dove energy, just coming and nesting, being there, very soft, very subtle, fanning my face with the soft feathery wings, removing the dust of the path off of my shoulders. When we remember that in this journey of life that we are taking a journey every day, every day is an adventure. Who are you taking with you on your journey? You are surrounded by a choice of friends.

What is your choice? Let that choice, that affinity, that vibration come to you and resonate with your heartbeat.

Doc Dave: Did you say I say I can take more than one with me on the journey?

Mary: You can take anything, anyone with you on a journey. When you are here in the house by yourself and you have no one's arm to touch to check to see if you are alright, you can check yourself with a new kind of communication, of enabling yourself to journey and see "How may I solve this problem?" I have been solving this problem for many years by this method, but it requires that I have someone else be there with me in the physical in order to do that. And when they are not there I feel lonely, I feel in pain, I feel disoriented and confused. And then you feel rejected when you call someone and they don't come over, which intensifies the feeling of going down, deeper and deeper. Stop � get in touch with yourself as you really know yourself to be and say "Hey, I'm doing it again", I'm feeling that I want to connect with someone else and I'm thinking that it's someone else outside of me, I want to get in touch with my feeling, I want to feel what I am getting in touch with is a true essence, a true part of myself, a companion, a friend, a partner who works with me. The power animals become your partners and your friends, and they can take you on many interesting adventures that no human could ever do.

They will show you ways. If you were a power animal, how would you crank another animal's arm? How would you do that? You'd have to say "Well, I"m here in another body, another form, how am I going to get the answer now?" What kind of answer will it be?

Rowland: A Dance?

Mary: It might be.

Rowland And you would also have to dance the question.

Mary: And then you'd have to know all the symbols and be able to interpret that dance if you were really able to get the information. It could be quite as complicated as all those pages of all the systems and items that you go through in the human form. I imagine that the animals, even though they have all these rituals and these dances, and certainly we have seen their mating kinds of responses and how they call out OHHHH-WAW! and you hear the sound of the wild elk standing on top of a ragged cliff -- wanting to experience the fullness of his maleness, and proud of his male bellowing energy, he sings out again! And down there in that little jungle area she goes "UM, I smelled him earlier, and now listen to his voice; doesn't he sound cute? I think I'll have a little beauty run and get a little closer to where it is that he is, so that I may also experience the sun on my body", know full well how she's spelling the word "SON" this time. As humans we have a specific kind of language form. As animals we have another specific kind of language form. They all run together. When we are praying, when we are meditating, when we are resting, when we are in action, when we are on the hunt in any form, we're still connecting with the same source.

Doc Dave: That's beautiful, I feel so much better.

Mary: So now, should we journey together as animals at this moment? As humans we are shaking hands; NOW LET'S BECOME ANIMALS! I will become the zebra, and I will stand there and wait for you in the glen, and I will watch for you to come. In whatever form, I WILL KNOW YOU, because I know the truth of your being, regardless of the shape. Will you join me here? I go now, I will return.

(Tape stopped as heartbeat drum used.)

Mary then journeyed as Zebra, Rowland as Bear, and Dr Dave appeared as a wounded Lion. Some verbal communication continued as we were shape-shifted, journeying to the sound of the heartbeat drum. Wounded Lion was taken back to the area of injury and to the time just before it happened, and played out the incident differently so that there was no injury. Dr Dave immediately changed to a wounded Elephant, and the same process played out as a game as him. He then appeared as a wounded Eagle, with the healing game played again. We all then returned from the journey healed.

Mary: When you feel lonely and don't have someone there in human form to talk with, go in there and talk with the elephant. Now, what do you think of journeying?

Doc Dave: Very good.

Mary: How did you feel about this journey, was it imagination or real?

Doc Dave: There was imagination, but it had a lot of realism.

Mary: Imagination with realism. How Stunning!

Doc Dave: Well, I could feel the muscles moving, it was very strong, the lion and the elephant came right in, with his proud head held high as he came running. Very nice! Note (Rowland): I hadn't heard of wounded power animals before, but improvements in Dr Dave's health continued throughout the rest of the day. Each power animal presented an injury in a part of the body that was troubling Dr Dave. Should a Power Animal choose to present itself as injured or ill, it seems a vital idea to find out how to heal it.