Magic call of the ancestors

Twenty years ago, in the summer of 2003, my path led me for the first time to the vastness of Siberia.

For the first time I met the elemental power of the spirits and shamans of the Siberian Republic of Buryatia on the island of Olkhon in Lake Baikal.

And for the first time I experienced there the archaic elemental power of their centuries-old ceremonies.

In this first ceremony, where the four highest initiated shamans called upon their ancestors and the Spirits (Ongons) of the land and asked for advice and healing for all of us, each participant could present a request to the Spirits.

And so it happened that for the first time I was crouching in front of a Siberian shaman wondering what kind of answers I would get. As if to release me from my uncertainty, the Swan Mother incorporated by the Shamaness Bairma Baldanova laughed and called me to her at the end of the ceremony to cleanse and bless me with her 'whip' and to answer my questions.

She already knew that I was still inwardly astonished to have landed in Siberia and not in Brazil, the land of my maternal ancestors. Astonished also about the events and fate, unbelievable for me at that time, which had led to this journey at all. And about the fact that I was one of the last participants to receive an answer from the 'highest' spirit of the Buryats, the mother of the people. Most of the participants from my expedition had already gone to bed, as it was almost midnight. The Swan Mother was invited as the highlight at the end of the ceremony and she blessed those present, the land and all the people.

So she laughed and explained that I had asked about my roots, and those were here on the Baikal island of Olkhon, because my ancestors had migrated from here following a prophecy over the Bering Strait through North America to South America.

At this moment, I would have had still more reason to be astonished and doubting, because mentally I couldn't understand anything of it. Especially since the swan mother spoke Old Buryatic and the helper shamans rendered this into Russian, which was then translated into English by the interpreter.

The second part of the message then referred to my second question, what steps I would have to take to find my shamanic teacher. The Swan Mother's words put the local shamans in an uproar, because I was to be initiated, if possible immediately, into Buryat tradition by the highest-ranking female shaman, the very one through whom the Swan Mother had just spoken.

Uproar, probably rightly so, because I was the first non-Buryat to receive this message, and the shamans did not know what to expect or do.

It is true that shamanic tradition and practice were forbidden and suppressed during the time of the Soviet Union. Buryats in Mongolia, however, had managed to maintain their shamanic way of life and since Perestroika have been able to teach it again to siberian students from Buryatia and Aginsky/Chita Oblast (further east).

Twenty years ago and so soon after Perestroika, Buryat shamanism was just being revived and many of the lost ceremonies and rituals, information on their exact procedures and requirements, had to be re-taught and transmitted by the spirit world.

So it is understandable that the shamans hesitated and then agreed that I should come back in the following summer of 2004 and then receive my initiation.

At that time, in the summer of 2003, the second meeting of Buryat shamans from the Irkutsk region on the western shore of Lake Baikal and shamans from the Buryat capital Ulan Ude east of Lake Baikal, as well as from Aginsky/Chita in the Zabaikal region even further east, took place.

How it came about that I was now guided and magically present on Olkhon at this extraordinary meeting, shall be told later.

And one may forgive me here my choice of the word 'magical' for lack of alternatives, but that's how I felt at that time with all events which had led to this journey. Today I rather think that these are just the natural effects on the outside, when we are in harmony with our highest self and with our heart's path and in trust with the guidance of our creation without knowing. In any case, I consider it a great gift and even greater honor. Just like the whole project now.

So it happened that in the summer of 2004, I traveled again to Siberia to participate in the third 'Shamanic Conference'. This time alone, without expedition, without pre-planned English translation.

I was therefore very pleased when I was introduced to the ethnologist and anthropologist Radjana Dugarova (now Dugarov-DePonte) on Olkhon. She spoke fluent English and we liked each other right away. Also after the meeting at Lake Baikal, which lasted several days, she accompanied me with her expertise and her loving, friendly nature to numerous ceremonies and places of power in the surroundings of Ulan Ude and gave me insight into Buryat shamanism with her translation and knowledge.

Most of the time I was a guest of Bair Zhambalov and his wife Nimazhab. Not only they shared with me their small Russian apartment and the unsurpassed hospitality of the Buryats. Everywhere on this trip,
I was welcomed with an open heart and the curiosity on both sides produced many, extremely interesting conversations. If Radjana or another translator was missing, we communicated with hands and feet, my slowly growing knowledge of Russian and a lot of intuition, which again and again led to hilarious situations. Above all, the refreshing laughter of these people was never missing, offering every visitor a richly laid table and entertainment.

During the numerous ceremonies I was allowed to attend, the shamans and their helpers asked the respective incorporated Ongons for details about my initiation ceremony. There were first communication difficulties, because the Buryat swan mother and my, as I was told, Inca high priest also needed an interpreter spirit. The information was collected and in the end it was decided to send me back home so that I could prepare myself to finally perform my ceremony in the following year, 2005.

Well, nothing came of it for the time being, because in June 2005 my wonderful son was born and took all my attention.

Only in 2008, with my son in the baby carrier, I should see the shores of Baikal again and receive my double initiation. I will be very happy to report on this later as well.

In any case, in 2004 I gained experience and knowledge in all the initiations, family and healing ceremonies.

With Vladimir Zharov the idea was born to explore the travel route of my ancestors. With a backpack and a camera, we could simply set off, let's see how we would manage the individual stages, whether on foot, hitchhiking or with reindeer, somehow we would certainly be guided, so the crazy idea.

But of course nothing came of it at that time, since I pursued other plans with my son.

The memory and the regret around this unique missed chance came up now and then. Life, as it showed itself to me, had a different course. Many paths had to be taken first, as I only understand today.

It all served to prepare for the right time for something far greater than a road movie.

Like puzzle pieces more details were added. Along each of these paths.

Many lessons were still to be learned, especially patience. And my darkest shadows walk, in still deeper levels.

Whether I am ready now, I often still doubt. But the spirit world seems to have this plan and I wish only one thing: to let myself be guided, to take a step back myself and to receive. The steps to take, the means to do it and the helpers, supporters and doers it takes to realize this journey and the film that goes with it. And most of all the group of lightworkers and shamans who feel called to this journey of earth healing. 

I was allowed to receive some of the received pieces of the puzzle at the other end of the world, in South America, on Moon Island in Lake Titicaca and of course in numerous ceremonies on the Amazon with my longtime shamanic teachers Don Agustin and Dona Marlene.

My first trip to Lake Titicaca in 2011 was to go to Moon Island. When I read the book 'The Serpent of Light' by Drunvalo Melchiziedek some time before, a shiver went through me already when reading the name of the island and the desire to visit this island had become stronger and stronger. Since of all days I had arrived in Copacabana at this beautiful lake on the Bolivian national holiday, it seemed impossible to get a boat. Anyway, on this day no tourists drove to the moon island, since all visitors of the festivities  were on the way to the sun island, so was I told everywhere. As every year, people from all over Bolivia and from all over the world had come here to celebrate the day and receive the blessing of the Blessed Virgin of Copacabana.

But just as the journeys in Siberia were always full of guided occurrences, my Spiritual Helpers assured me that I need not worry about a boat, there would be one ready for me.

And so it came to pass that I was able to make the magical crossing to the island alone with a boatman and his boat.

As I set foot on the pebble beach of the island, I spotted an old man in the distance coming towards me. As if arranged, we walked towards each other at a leisurely pace. I was not surprised and I could not take my eyes off him until we were standing half a meter in front of each other, greeting and introducing ourselfs in a friendly manner. He wore a black hat and, amazingly, had gray-green eyes.

During the next half hour that followed, I told him about the history of my ancestors and politely asked if I could do a little healing ritual for them in the ruins of the Temple of the Virgins. It seemed clear to me that he was a placeholder here.

He, in turn, told me about all his experiences and about his knowledge of the island and the lake. He didn't talk about facts and figures and known Inca legends, he talked about ufos that he himself had seen many times rising from the lake and flying into it, about underground tunnels under the lake and entrances into the Earth's inner world.

And I was not surprised, it was all obvious and natural. As if we had arranged eons ago to have this conversation. At the end, he told me how important it was that I had come and asked me to do my ritual for the island, the lake and the people.

Almost in slow motion, I wandered on to the temple ruins of the Virgins of the Sun, absorbing the magic of the island with every fiber of my body.

Even as I toured the ruins, I received messages about the virgins and their lives back on the island. 

But that is a whole different story.

A little above the large temple plaza, I found a suitable spot for my ritual. Overlooking the snow peaks on the Bolivian eastern shore of Lake Titicaca, I smoked my pipe with Amazon Mapacho tobacco for my ancestors and the spirits and people of this place at literally dizzying heights, offered small gifts and prayed.

The power of this place, yes, of the whole plateau, is so highly vibrating that until today I have the impression to have opened a dimensional gate with my work. In unbelievable speed, or rather at the same time, I received numerous downloads from other planes. 

In the process, I was also given a vision of my ancestors:

I saw or rather experienced how my ancestors came over the snow peaks and saw Lake Titicaca and they knew that they had arrived at their new homeland.

I felt all their hardships and sufferings that they had experienced during their great migration. There were only a few survivors or maybe even the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those who had set out from Lake Baikal.

How long might this migration have lasted, decades, centuries?

Many relatives stayed behind in North America and elsewhere to find their fortune there or left their lives under the hard conditions of the journey. But those who saw Mother Titicaca were full of happiness and joy to have finally arrived and to be allowed to fulfill the prophecy.

All this and much more, I could experience in a short moment of my little ritual in the ruins of the temple of the Virgins on Cuati (Moon Island) before my inner eye and could feel it in my heart.

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