by Sandra Ingerman: Let us join our hearts together to wish everyone in our circle all the best for the New Year!

I know so many of you had a challenging year in 2016 and could not wait for it to be over. Well I feel like that myself. But the truth of the matter is the changing of the year does not mark the end of a cycle as time keeps moving on.

But from a shamanic point of view change happens through intention. So instead of waiting to see change happen magically,  without taking any action, we can be more proactive with the work we do.

This is a time to reflect on the events in our lives and in the world that occurred in 2016. It is crucial to set your intention for what you would like to see manifest in your own life and in the world. And as we have been doing for years it is important for us to keep doing our dreaming work and keep strengthening our intention as well as standing strong in our collective so that we have more spiritual power to bring through from the invisible worlds to manifest our intentions and dreams in the outer world.

One of the complaints I hear from so many shamanic practitioners from around the world (including myself) is that we are overloaded by clients seeking help because they feel they have been cursed. When I examine this I think that in most cases (not all) people are feeling the negativity in the collective field of energy and feel that anger and hate is being directed at them. And on one level this anger and negativity is being directed to everyone because we are all connected. What gets sent to one person gets sent to all. I have written about this many times.

As we deepen our spiritual work we first learn how to set boundaries to distinguish what is the energy I am feeling from others or the collective and what is my own. And as we continue our spiritual work we can separate from the denser collective field and shift into the field that is holding a higher vibration filled with light and love.

I think with so much hate and anger being sent into the collective we really need to focus on clearing this energy up and transmuting and transforming it.

And of course this begins with us as what we feed grows. It is so important to perform our spiritual practices that help us return to our own center, express our feelings truthfully as we also make sure we are transforming the energy behind our emotions so we are being a light in the world.

This is the work I suggest we do to bring in the New Year.

Pick a day where you can perform some personal spiritual work. You might even decide to do this work with friends, family, or members in your community.

Travel within and experience a disappointment, a hurt, a betrayal, a fear, something you are angry about, a sabotaging belief, etc. that you are willing to sacrifice and let go of so that you are participating in the healing of the collective. You can certainly journey to your helping spirits to ask for some advice about what might be good to let go of at this time.

Next journey or meditate on a physical ceremony you can perform at home or in nature to release this challenging emotion or belief into an element – air, earth, water, or fire.

There is more power if you physically perform this ceremony rather than performing it in a journey or meditation. In performing a ceremony in ordinary reality you have to take physical action towards your own healing and that of the collective. It takes time and energy to do this which ends by being rewarded with powerful results.

As you release what you are letting go of remember to transmute the energy to light and love so you are not just releasing more negative energy into the elements. And if you burn something, or leave something on the earth, or release something into a body of water, or into air please remember to use only natural materials so that you are not polluting the environment. Use your imagination to guide you to a ceremony to perform and an object you can make that is empowered with what you are releasing.

I always have to state this or I get emails and letters from some readers. Having emotions is good. We came here as humans to experience a range of emotions from joy to hate and anger. I am not suggesting it is unhealthy to express your emotions, just transmute the energy behind your emotions so that what fills the collective is light and love that embraces all of life.

After you have performed your ceremony you want to journey or meditate to travel to the River of Life. Use your intention to find this place. Once you have arrived at the River of Life step into this healing, vital, and clean water. You might even come to a waterfall. Ask the River of Life to cleanse you so you feel you can begin again as we all welcome in the New Year. Once you feel complete step out of the river feeling refreshed, revitalized, and ready to step into the New Year leaving behind your old history that anchors you to the past.

We will be performing these journeys, meditations, and ceremonies in our own time, but time does not matter in doing shamanic work as we work outside of time. So the power of our global community doing this work during this month, when the time feels right, will create a tangible difference in the collective energies we are all connected to.

The full moon is on January 12. May you take the time to cleanse yourself spiritually, mentally, and physically before performing our full moon ceremony to create a human web of light. And from a place of newness and hope let us travel within to our exquisite spiritual light that shines like the stars above us or the sun that reminds us of the passion for life. Absorb that light throughout your body while your own frequency raises as you do this. And then let this light radiate out and connect with the light of our global community.

Imagine yourself as a giant star whose arms of flowing light reach all the way out to the ends of the Earth. The light coming out of your feet flows to the core of the Earth, and from your crown the light flows into the heavens. Let this light flow through you and radiate that light and love within and throughout the Earth.

For those of you who are new readers of the Transmutation News please read “Creating A Human Web of Light” on the homepage of this site for instructions to our full moon ceremony.

Carole Laplante is our new French translator. Let us join together to give her thanks for her generosity of spirit!