What was your first indicator of what you would become?

[MonSno_LeeDra]

Many times it seems there is some event or occurrence that serves to show to others what we as children shall become or are destined for.
To those upon a shamanic type path is seems many have the death experience that occurs in their youth. For me it was near my first birthday and being given penicillin, I stopped breathing and luckily an elderly doctor was present and caught it.

Yet these death experiences are usually quite and little known for the most part. My parents as a norm did not go around telling people that I had died or numerous occasions would have died had something drastic not changed the course on the given day. Nope for the most part unless it was immediate family no one ever knew of those things.

Yet there had to be external clues visible to those that might be watching. For me from what I recall and have been told it was plants and growing things. At the age of 5 or 6 I was identified as having a green thumb and a neighbor took a proactive stance on teaching me things about the land and plants. Yet much of it I seemed to know before hand and he guided me in using it. Things like pulling energy to the roots to help it grow or talking to them and even feeling how they felt.

Other's said it was all the darn creatures that I seemed to find and raise. Turtle by the dozen's in the enclosure I built. Snakes I would find in the middle of winter. Animals that would walk up to me without fear. Nothing amazing really, not to me anyway, but things that they did notice and make comments about. Things that brought people into my life that might not have happened otherwise.

Yet even as I touched nature and it me other things caught peoples attention. The dream I always had of being in a tank in battle and dying or the notion of being on a B-17 bomber and getting hit and dying. Even the notion that I would go into the military when I was older. Nope, never a I might do it but a definite I would as I had done before.

Many would tell me it was the duality of my pathwalk to be taken. On one hand the warrior upon the pathway of conflict. On the other hand the counter balance or the grower and healer. Hands to be used to kill on one side yet to pull energy together to cause growth and touch on the other.

A few claimed it was the particle veil I had at birth. Other's claimed it was the fact my birth was predicted before my mother even met my father. Some said it was the constant search I was always subject to to find some object I knew but could never find though search I did. Heck years later a few would say it was because of the man how I saw years later upon the road that died the day of my birth.

But no to me I think it all started visibly way back when I was 5 or 6 and placed my hands into the dirt and made the energies come together to make that Azalea grow. Not only grow but also change from what should have been a red blossom to a white one. It definitely was the act that made others starts to watch me and take an interest in me.

Not a Witch, Not really a witchy person under the family traditions or even a practitioner of Stregia which would be introduced to me a few years later. But all would serve as the base upon which I would build.

My grandfather said I was chosen and other's saw it and guided me as they had done to others in the family. But I wonder what it was they saw for all I can see in reflection is that first time of helping or making something grow.

[cydira]

I think this is an interesting question. I haven't posted in here but I find a lot of similarities between shamanism and my own practices. As such, I feel that replying to this thread may be useful to someone else and possibly enlightening for me. :)

The first indicator to others is quite possible the events of my birth. I was born 3 months prematurely, almost died multiple times in my first few days of life, and demonstrated apparent complex knowledge that a newborn doesn't typically show. I pulled my feeding tube out several times with a hand-over-hand motion, to the point where they had to tape it down quite securely.

For myself, I think it was when I realized that there was a purpose to my having been in a monstrously abusive relationship, a purpose that I could claim and transform the long term results of that event to help others. I hadn't really comprehended the power inherent within myself until that moment.

As a person who has essentially lived all their life with psychic gifts and around people who are involved and actively apply occult practices like magic in their daily lives, I hadn't considered any type of special meaning to things like flowers opening around me weeks earlier then they were due to or how easy it was for me to comfort others who were not well, often bringing a measure of healing with touch.

I see that I am still in the process of becoming what I should be, drawing close to the end of that 'beginning' process that comes with repeated times of challenge and testing. It's probably something that will finalize over the next few months, for it seems that by the end of your 30th year walking this Earth, that beginning process of spiritual development completes and you move to either an intermediate process of learning or active work in what you are inclined to do. Mind you, this is just something that I've observed. I may be wrong, which can be the case in spiritual matters because not all of us share the same perspective. *shrugs*

[Shanti]

I died when 23 and had to be revived by a med team. I came back with gifts I did not want nor understand but didnt have a choice.

I have since learned and its all apart of me. Without I would be blind.

[GEBS]

grrr... I just had a post all typed out ready to share. Then I dropped my mouse which somehow deleted the entire thing. I'm too frustrated to retype it.


I really like this thread. It has helped me connect some things that I never considered. Thank you for sharing.

[KC Destroyer of Worlds]

I don't think I've had any near death experiences, at least not that I can remember. However, my childhood kind of brought me up to be more sensitive. My step-mother was insane. Not in that Cinderella complex kind of way, she was 100% tried and true bat sh*t crazy. Without going into details, (personally it's not fun) I was conditioned to feel what others were feeling as a self defense mechanism. I would feel her coming, and run out of the house and up the creek until it was time for her to leave for work.

For a long time I thought it was all in my head, the same thing started happening with my mom's bad boyfriends, and my step-father. I could feel what they were feeling while they were hurting me. It was something that I fought for a really long time. I still do on some occasions. I second guess myself, I hide from myself and others. For a long time I just lied about everything. I was and still am very afraid.

I'm just starting to get into the swing of understanding what I have been given, turned into or whatever. I'm just starting to understand what this means for myself, my family. I don't know what I have become. I know that my choice was to be this way, or die.

[Amythyst]

The first indicator of what I was to become were apparent, but probably passed more or less unnoticed by those close to me...dreams and visions at a very early age-- before I was five years old, deja vu moments- and being old enough to understand this but too young to explain to the grownups, premonitions that came to pass, unusual feelings about nature-- listening to the trees 'talk' in the wind when I was very small, acute empathic feelings towards animals, once in a while seeing a wisp of an entity out of the corner of my eye, hearing whispered voices in the dark of night...that type of thing.

[Know Your Rights]

When I was little I would have very clear premonitions (when I was dreaming), I still do.
The one I recall the most is when I was probably 5 or 6 years old I dreamt that I was at a concert, it was very clear, I could see what everyone was wearing, where everyone was sitting, I could see that I had glasses, and I didn't get glasses till I was 9 years old. When I was 9 my class went to a little concert, it was exactly what I had seen in my dream.
I've since learned how to tell the difference (while in a dream state) between a premonition dream and just a dream.

[Adelphos]

For the first six months of my life, I was unable to digest anything. I've been told that I had needles (which I still have an aversion to) sticking out of most of my body, hooking me up to all sorts of IV's and equipment.
Apparently I was kept more or less untouched and isolated for most of that period.

My childhood was full of premonitions and vivid dreams, some of which I remember to this day as if they really happened.

I'm not an animal nut, but people have always remarked about how calm animals get around me (children too.) They always try to rub up against me and show affection. They tend to favour me for some reason.

When I was 18 I nearly died of hypothermia while on a three week canoe trip. I had been fasting as a spiritual discipline during part of this trip. It rained for 2 days straight, and the temperature dropped drastically. Our medic caught on to my condition after a 15km stretch of the river, when I could barely let go of the paddle and needed help out of the canoe. My skin was grey with little orange spots. He got me into a tent, into some warm clothes, and into a dry sleeping bag. I passed out and became unresponsive. The medic said he monitored me closely because he could barely get a pulse and had a hard time telling if I was breathing or not. This was far enough into the woods that I'd have been dead before any emergency medical team could have got to where we were.

I just remember going completely numb, then experiencing what I can only describe as rapid decomposition. It felt like my flesh melted away like thawing snow, and my bones dryed up, turned to dust, and blew away on the wind.

This was the official beginning of my shamanic journey. I had been VERY christian up to that point, but things happened after this that turned my old beliefs on their head. I no longer fear death.

[Kes]

In hindsight, I had early indicators. But it wasn't until my entire life was in shambles - my job was on the fritz, my marriage was destroyed, my family cut me off, I was plagued with unknown physical problems, and I was seriously depressed - that I began to recognize a shamanic calling.

I, too, almost died several times - in my case it was drowning. A bad case of pneumonia as an infant in which I had to be put in an intensive care unit, several near-drownings as a child, and a near-drowning as an adult.

I had a dream during early adolescence in which an animal came to me, presented itself as a guide, and proceeded to go into a rage and bite down hard on my left arm until I fought it into a state of mutual recognition.

My maternal line has had numerous encounters with "ghosts" and what my mother and grandmother call the "dark men" (their religious beliefs don't give them an easy frame of reference to describe these things); I began seeing and having limited interaction with different types of shadowy figures as a teenager.

I had a reputation among family for being able to heal with my hands and was drawn towards herbalism; my family would call me to ask what was wrong with a tree or a particular house-plant.

In hindsight, I can also recognize instances of involuntary traveling, visions, and communications with spirits.

Of course, it took another "death" - the apparently imminent destruction of or separation from everything I cared about - to make me realize I had a calling. I didn't have a cultural background which included shamanic-style practices, so I didn't feel entitled to engage them, since I felt like I would be co-opting. I needed a while to accept that if I'm doing what I'm honestly moved to do, and not claiming to be a practitioner of any tradition, then I'm not doing anything wrong or disrespectful.

[Kraheera]

I can pinpoint exactly when it became clear to my family that there was something 'odd' about me. My grandfather had taken me to Mass, and instead of sitting quietly in the pews, I began dancing down the aisle as the music started.

I couldn't explain it to them. The music was hardly 'joyful'... but I remember hearing it as such. Dancing just seemed appropriate at the time.

After that, I noticed things outside a lot more than I did inside a building. The trees held a strange fascination, and I was obsessed with animals. I must have had over twenty "imaginary" friends, which I have come to believe were spirits of some sort. Fae, maybe. They taught me how to find edible plants, how to play in the woods and build shelters without actually leaving a large footprint, etc..

I learned to keep quiet about all that. After a certain age, catholics don't tolerate that sort of thing in their children. And when I was 13, I met my first pagan... and realized just why catholicism wasn't working for me.

[Tobias]

I was probably about 14 when I first heard my God speak to me. It was in my bedroom, and He called me into service for Him. It wasn't really what I wanted to do at the time (I was dreaming of being a scientist and inventing the light-saber lol), but I had been raised all my life hearing of people's failed attempts at resisting God's calling (I was a missionary kid), so wisely said "yes".

It wasn't until a few years later that my path became more apparent. At His request, I had avoided Bible College, and in response He completely rewrote my spiritual foundations. He showed me how foolish it was to think of the Bible as the foundation like every church teaches, and gave me reasons to follow Him at His word. I kept going to church, but I knew that I followed a different path, one that would not let me be a minister or even a complete part of the Church anymore. I follow a real and living God, while they try to figure out what to do with commandments out of a book.