Holding Space

I love the phrase “Holding Space”. I love the way it makes you think about space as something tangible and weighty. I definitely think of space this way—substantive, tangible, having its own energy. I walk into places and feel my energy rise and feel joyful and other places that drag me down and creep me out. The lovely side effects of being a highly sensitive person, neurodivergent, psychic, weird. Whatever you want to call it. I also feel that from people. Authenticity. The energy signature of each person is a bit different. It is how I feel my father with me even though he died five years ago. I feel his energy.

When I studied with my mentor, Pixie Lighthorse, we covered holding space—creating a safe environment for our clients and for ourselves. Of course, all my teachers cover sacred space and how to create an energetic neutral environment, but this was different. We talked about how to HOLD space. How to create a vessel for safety and trust. How to honor our clients. How to respect ourselves. We talked about psychological terms like transference and counter-transference. I can hear you say, “But those are psychological terms, Angie, and you aint a psychologist.”

True dat.

But the psychological model can be very useful for all of us who hold space for other people. Without a governing body, energy workers, Reiki practitioners, tarot readers, yogis, spiritual coaches, all of us really can get lost on our path. We burn out from working on people. Boundaries get crossed without us even knowing their should be a boundary there. Most of us need some guidance or guideposts on the way. A kind of moral compass and guide book for this landscape of energy.

When I got my first certification, I hung a shingle. I saw friends and colleagues, expanding my business online and in-person. I loved it. I held Moon Circles with no qualification other than I had been to Moon Circles. And as I got deeper into the work, the clients came to me with complex issues that needed a multi-pronged approach, and I had no idea what to do.

This is me saying—I made a lot of mistakes in my practice and my circles.

I let myself get triangulated. I became friends with clients and then had them calling with at all hours with Tarot emergencies. I tried to do everything for clients. I had my work and classes stolen from me by students. I let people not show up to appointments or come in late and got more and more resentful without talking to them. Truthfully, I was just a person in over her head in a community that were searching for more than I was trained to give.

Studying with Pixie changed my perspective. I am a professional and holding space is the most important part of my job. For my sanity and for the wellness of other people. I love research. I call myself a research monkey (though, honestly, the more I think about that, the more it sounds like I let people experiment on me). When I began my healing journey, I found called to work on others. When I began my healing trauma, I went down some really important rabbit holes for being trauma-informed in my practice. I felt I had unknowingly allowed my own privilege and bias not inform my practice. I have always taught ethics and boundaries in my circles, but through the years, it deepened and expanded with the core of my beliefs residing in love, kindness, and compassion. From there I rebuilt my approach to not only be loving, kind and compassionate to my clients, but also loving, kind and compassionate to me.

As I have said before, my philosophy can be summed up as “Do no harm, but take no shit.”

Ethics + learning how to hold space were the cornerstones of my successful energy healing practice. They’re the North Star that guides you to successfully have a thriving practice and honor your precious clients and protect your energy.

I am very honored to bring you the full scope of holding space, ethics + trauma-informed crystal therapy. My goal with this class is to EMPOWER you to have a practice that fulfills you, brings out the best in you, and serves your client’s highest needs.

I originally taught this class at Hibiscus Moon Crystal Academy, and am offering it here. Read more about it here:

understanding the medicine, even when it is disturbing

Friends, this is an essay I wrote a few years ago on my newsletter. I thought I would revisit it on my podcast and blog today as it ties in with the Deer Medicine of this month’s Guided Shamanic Journey. If you are interested in receiving my readings at the Full Moon and/or New Moon, which are collectively pulled, but surprisingly personal, or if you are interested in received an audio guided shamanic journey with an animal each month, which goes in depth with the medicine of the animal, then has a 15-30 minute guided shamanic journey, I can read more in-depth about it under the membership section of my website: MEMBERSHIPS. Several of my journeys are available on my website, and I am working on getting them all up there with three years of guided shamanic journeys for my memberships, which have so many amazing journey including frog, horse, butterfly, bee, beetle, whale, vulture, panther, great blue heron, fox, cougar and more.

On the way to one of my mentoring circle, one of my students hit a deer. She was devastated. The deer most certainly will die, or already had died. She asked me, “What does this mean?” As a circle keeper and an earth medicine walker, I found myself stumbling over my words. Why does this happen to us who walk an earth medicine path? Others chimed in with their thoughts—the deer knew you could hold space for its transition; it was destined to die; better you than someone else.

A few years ago, after a circle, I was driving home. I live in the boonies, as we say, out in the sticks, where I worry about hitting deer. Pennsylvania ranks as the second most deer collisions in the country. So, I drive slowly, cautiously through the fields, and frequently stop for all kinds of wildlife. But I was still in the city, headed home, and bam, a deer ran into my car. It hit my front quarter panel. I pulled over and the deer laid on the side of the road, panting, clearly injured. I called the police and sent Reiki. I envisioned the Reiki energy repairing the deer’s legs and head, and strengthening it. I did this Reiki for almost 15 minutes, and the deer stood up, steady and whole, then ran right out into the street to get demolished and killed by a massive truck.

The truck tore the deer apart. I shook and cried as well.

What does this mean? Is it still medicine for us if we see our medicine dead on the side of the road? And how do we interpret it?

As I meditated on the death of the deer, I could see this interplay between the deer’s medicine and the encroachment of humanity. The medicine of deer resides in its deep vulnerability. When deer interact with humanness and urban environments, we begin to see just how vulnerable these magnificent creatures are. Humans have disrupted the balance of the predator and the prey. Our ancestors decimated the predators—wolves, mountain lion population, the bears—who would have hunted the sick and weak, keeping populations down. Massive deforestation also affects deer populations. Whitetail deer flourish in edge environments, right where the forest meets the suburbs. Streets and cars encroach on the delicate ecosystems. And hunting is down around the country with the ease of shopping for meat in the supermarket.

So, deer medicine is not only a medicine about the individual deer’s vulnerability to predators but the species. Deer, particularly those with antlers, have a strong connection to Spirit. Their antlers are said to reach high to our guides and angels as antennae for messages. Deer connects with the subtle energy system and has heightened senses from hearing to vision to smell. They are always sensing the disruption in the force.

I could not help thinking as my student told me about the deer and her accident that this was part of the critical message for her. Knowing that she is going through a beautiful spiritual opening, deer medicine can come in this way to remind us of our vulnerability during our spiritual opening. When we experience all this light and love that begins to channel through us from Spirit, we live in a bubble of good vibes. When I started opening, I just was always blissed out and only able to tolerate other lightworkers. When we take all this gentle light and vulnerability into the real world, our first encounters with the sickness of our society, the toxicity and negativity of people, the harshness of the news and the suffering of others, we experience this world just like the deer, hit out of nowhere by real life. This modern world is cruel to the vulnerable. Deer medicine embodies vulnerability, quiet, and gentleness. Nothing is more profoundly indicative of the imbalance then when nature interacts with urban life. Where we see how pollution hurts wildlife, or cars kill deer.

This grounded, counter energy to very high vibrational work is part of the medicine lightworkers need to carry as much as the light message of our power animals. When you open in profound ways, you are, of course, more susceptible to those deep wells of grief and compassion. But it goes deeper. There is nothing natural about carrying vulnerability or being an empath in a narcissistic world. We also have to experience and learn about the shadow medicine of our animals. Shamanic work is not always easy or light or fun. It is mostly about challenging ourselves to go beyond the surface, to experience the more profound message, to become stewards of the Earth, spokespeople for the Mother. When all of this starts, we want to live in that amazing Other World of Spirit. When we practice earth medicine, we become intrinsically tied to Mother Earth and Grandmother Moon, and their incredible cycles. Life and death, happiness and grief, masculine and feminine—this delicate balance becomes second sight to us We can see it without trying. Impermanence and suffering of life and of the human condition is part of our medicine and the spiritual experience. We must hold space for both light and darkness, birth and death. As we begin our opening, this can be a harsh reality.

If this happens to you, or you are driving and notice an animal sacred to you, dead on the side of the road, my suggestion is to begin asking what is the medicine for you—both in the animal’s living experience (how does it live, love, eat, hunt, raise its young, etc), then as your medicine interacts with the brutality of this world.

If you are able and feel up to it, take the hair or an item from the animal that was killed (always remembering that if it stinks, it will always stink. If it has bugs, your house will have bugs, so only newly killed animals can be harvested, but that is another post) and use it in ceremony. As medicine keepers, we need to honor the medicine and the allies and giving them a good death is part of this process. You can use that medicine you harvested on your altar or in a medicine bundle.

One thing I know is that none of us aim for the deer or squirrel or bird, so release guilt. Guilt is the illusion of control (if I did something different, it would have changed the outcome). Just be with the profound grief. That is enough suffering. Create a ritual of honoring the medicine of the deer. Sit in the discomfort of your humanness and the ways in which we can mitigate the harshness of our living on the earth. Allow the tears their flow. Fall into ritual and ceremony.

Remember anything, all of our human experience, can become our medicine. To ignore the death, suffering, and violence inherent in our animal medicine is to ignore the full power of its medicine. May you walk gently on the Earth, friends.

crows and other things we wait for

I have been trying to make friends with the crows in my yard. I watch videos of people slowly drawing them in with peanuts and other food. I talk to them, “Good morning, Crows! I have some peanuts for you.”

Sometimes it is just like that. You put out the call. And you wait. This morning, after I put the peanuts out and welcomed the crows in, I saw one land on the porch and look in the window. Later, I noticed my dogs eating every peanut they could reach. I just watched them as I drank coffee and laughed. Sometimes life is just like that and you have to laugh.

Today is exactly six months since the day of my double mastectomy.

I woke that morning, September 15th, like always, sitting with the children while they got ready for school. I just wanted to feel normal one last time, because I had no idea what life would be like after surgery. I wondered how I would feel 24 hours later, or even a month after. Would I like my body? Would I be in so much pain I couldn’t sit up? Would my cancer be invasive after all? Would I need chemo and radiation? What was my life going to look like? I remember thinking, “By the end of the year, this part will be over.” That didn’t seem that far away. The end of the year. I had endured so many things in my life. Three months didn’t seem that long.

And yet as I went through those three months, it felt long. I couldn’t remember not being in pain, not being totally fatigued or experiencing tightness and discomfort, not having open wounds. I had the surgery, then developed an infection in early November and had to have my wounds reopened to drain and drain and drain and drain, packing my own chest wall with gauze. I felt faint the first time I did it. Not from the pain, but the idea of it—stuffing my heart chakra with soft things so it would heal. It sounds like a metaphor. Maybe it is a metaphor.

There is something profound about opening the chest. I can remember in one of my Medical Anthropology courses at university learning about heart surgery and the profound changes people went through after a doctor “fixed” their heart. I thought about that a lot in the last eight months, about how my doctor was taking the small hard balls of cancer out of my body and what’s more, she was taking out these large breasts only really here to serve others—my babies, my lovers, strangers who gawk on the street. She gave me a body that was healed of cancer. A flat-chested, Buddha-bellied and healed body.

I have often said that this surgery felt like the end of the work, not the beginning. There is a freedom in the idea of being healed. My cancer was so early and contained that taking the breasts quite literally cured me of cancer. “If only emotional healing were as easy as this,” I thought many times. And truly, removing my breasts, while incredibly painful, exhausting, and intense, has been so much easier than trauma work.

Healing and uncovering trauma felt endless. Trauma laid in wait in my body, readying for a time when I felt safe enough to see it, when I had done enough work to really reparent myself in a healthy ways. In the last six years of discussing and working actively on my trauma in therapy and in my spiritual work has been so exceptionally difficult. I never had a moment where I thought—one day, this will be over. Healing trauma seemed to be a never-ending cycle of uncovering and uncovering and uncovering I felt stripped of all ego, of all identity, of all that made me me. And Me, it seemed, was simply a conglomeration of defenses, disassociation, and survival, which, when pared away, simply left me a wounded child who needed parenting.

The word I chose for 2021 was Healed. It was the process of being done with reliving and understanding my trauma and their responses, of being actively engaged in the processing part. I was ready to be in the moved-on part. I thought I might be there, but I wasn’t. It wasn’t until I got the call that my biopsy was positive for cancer that I had to reckon with what healed meant. Because it was at that moment that I said, “How do you want to approach this thing?” And I thought about my clients and what I tell them when life falls apart. It’s not one thing to do. It is an entire mindset shift and a reframing away from “This is happening to me” to “. Gratitude. Ritual. Asking for help. Energy work. Prayers. Herbs. Grieving. Connection. Community. Laughing.

And I laughed so very much.

I had appointments with my breast surgeon every week for two months after I had developed the infection in my chest. I asked her about her life and her education. While I lay back on the table, she tended to my wounds. We are the same age—the surgeon and I. And I developed a deep feeling of kinship and love for her that I never felt for a healthcare provider. Maybe it was because she is so kind, patient, non-judgmental. Or maybe it is because I trusted her and trust has been a hard one for me. Or maybe it was because she wore a Blue Kyanite and Amethyst pendant at the appointment before my surgery. I told her then that I was a crystal healer and Reiki master. She said, “You are? Great. You will be fine. You will have no trouble healing then. Do you want me to wear this for your surgery?” And I nodded, tearing up. And she wore it. She believed I could heal. I believed I could heal. And now I have healed.

Six months ago as I lie in my hospital bed, only a nightlight illuminating the room, I allowed myself to be surrounded by the love and prayers people were sending me. I could see the faces in my mind’s eye and I felt like I was floating, absorbing love into my cells. My chest felt like I had an iron bra on and constricted in a way that was both comforting and disconcerting. A very clear voice said:

Angie, there is going to be a time when you feel no pain and simply have a scar. You will be healed.

It was a mantra I said to myself this autumn and early winter. When I developed an infection, I thought:

Angie, there is going to be a time when you feel no pain and do not have open wounds. You will be healed.

When I developed COVID in the midst of the open wound situation, I thought:

Angie, there is going to be a time when you feel no pain and no illness. You will have closed wounds and no cough. There is going to be a time when you feel no pain and no illness. You will be healed.

So, I wanted to share this on the anniversary of my six months post-surgery if you are struggling. There will be a time when you will feel no pain and have no illness. There will be a time when your trauma work is done or when your depression has lightened, or your addiction is in remission, or your heart is not so broken. There is going to be a time when you feel no pain and do not have open wounds. You will be healed.

Until then, watch the birds come back to the feeders. Cry. Create a ritual. Use some crystals and herbs. Write about it in your journal. Scream in the woods. And laugh.

prayers

Gratitude needs to be the root of all my practice. When I wake in resentment, anger, fear, my entire day feels off. It’s not often that this happens any longer. I have reoriented myself toward gratitude. I start gently with a simple prayer of thanks, as my stiff joints shuffle to the bathroom. I use the beginning of the e.e.cummings poem.

I thank you God for most this amazing day.

I watch the sun come up over the snow. The first blush of dawn highlights the waning moon flanked by Venus and Jupiter in the clear winter sky. The beauty betrays the bitter cold of the morning. 10 degrees. I sip my warm lemon water, snuggled in a blanket.

God, thank you for the warmth of my home, for the ability to build a fire.

The beauty way seeks to find beauty in all the things and also to be the one to bring beauty. I cringe at the toys I can see poking out from under my couches, and the clutter that small children bring, and yet their smiles, the warmth of our home (not just physical warmth, but the warmth of love and acceptance), the laughter, the artwork created by big and little hands hanging everywhere radiates beauty.

Great Spirit, may I walk in beauty. Great Spirit, I offer myself to thee.

I am most thankful that I get to do this work of honoring Spirit and tending to the Spirit of others, helping others live in a way that is harmonious—gentle consumption, stewardship of the Earth, sacred living, self-care, and self-mothering. Through my practice, the work I have offered has evolved. From my first circle of psychic development to now, I can see how much I have deepened in understanding and practice. How each moment is a moment of living in shamanic ways. I continually deepen my practice, so this makes sense to me. I have been blessed with many teachers and mentors who continually teach me how to show up despite adversity and grief and life.

Great Mother, thank you for the women who walk before me, who reach back, hold my hand and show me the way forward.

Last year, I experienced deep loss from the death of my beloved father to both of my animal companions (my dog Jack and my cat Magnus). The tenth anniversary of my daughter’s death amplified the grief. I had physical challenges to my health, and emotional challenges to my worth. I have had all my stories rewritten. I have had friends step away. Institutions shaken up. I have had every solid tower in my life brought down to its stone foundation. Thus is the Tower year, the one that brings it all out. Kali, the Dark Mother, helps destroy and rebuild. I honor her way, though it is hard. I honor her.

Dark Mother, thank you for the destruction of lies, and for the solid foundation to build again. Thank you for steady hand on my back as I move forward.

I am in the process of truth-telling about these incidents, and the process of truth-telling about my past and my history, of seeing things with clear eyes. There are stories that I had come to believe down to my core that just aren’t true. I watch and observe and take notes now about what is true and what isn’t. It is powerful work. Challenging, humbling, but good work. This is what we are asked to do as medicine keepers—continually do the deep work we ask of our students, clients and mentors. 2018 watched the Tower tumble. I used Snake for this work, as my guide. Snake sheds the skin. Releases. Transforms. Transmutes. Heals. Regenerates.

Thank you, Snake, belly on the earth, for showing me the process of shedding my old, torn skin. Thank you for rising from the earth to open a way forward for me.

2019 brings me to this year of the Major Arcana card XVII, the Star. It is a card of hope, of optimism, of healing, of peace. It brings me to watching the early morning sky for the simple beauty of the cycles of our life. Gratitude reorients me due north, the direction of wisdom and patience, the long view only the ancestors can bring. I am reassured of this fact—every part of my journey is used. No part is wasted on the medicine path.

Father Sky, Mother Earth, I thank you for clarity, for the willingness to see the truth no matter how painful. Thank you for bolstering me in the darkness, steering me to my True North.

Gratitude remains the root ball of the strong, powerful tree of me. The one that bends with the wind, but does not blow over. I am grateful for your continued support of my work and mission.

medicine wheel layout

The energy of Summer is upon us--that fire in our belly. In terms of the Medicine Wheel, we are facing South, the direction of Fire, of mystery, of passion and heat and action and creativity and, and, and....there is so much going on the South, it is no wonder we break a sweat. The South moves us from the airy East into the deep fires of the lower chakras--the root, sacral and solar plexus. This is where we ground, we create, we do. Red, Orange, and Yellow combine to create those flames of  DOING.

Many tribes use the Horse as their symbol of the South. I certainly use her as my Southern Totem. She is the Great Sojourner, the Carrier of the Warrior and the Maiden, the traveler, the explorer, that fearless movement forward. We call in the energy in the East in Spring, and it flies overhead with the energy of Hawk, Eagle, even hummingbird (hummingbirds have been all over my land this year with her busy, fast dance.) These high fliers have the vision to align you, to see the bigger picture, to see the forest, but what that vision does is move you into South, where we actually do the dang thing we have been visioning. When I am in the South, I find myself creating all day, painting, sketching, playing guitar, singing, doodling. My creativity is awakened. Creativity and action begets more creativity and action. I am ready. I call on fire to burn away that which sit stagnant in my energy field. I call on fire to start me on my wild journey.

I move through the Medicine Wheel constantly--we all do...each day, year, and in the cycle of our life, we move through east, south, west, and north. Each morning, in my prayers, I call in the directions for healing and to guide my days. I use this model for my Tarot readings too. This isn't exactly a new layout, though I didn't "copy" it from another source. This is just how I have always intuitively done reading around the Medicine Wheel. I drew it up in a Tarot Layout that is shareable and useable. I thought we could try it next Tarot Share for our group reading.

understanding the medicine

When we see an animal die before us, what are we supposed to interpret and understand from that medicine?

On the way to our last circle, one of my students hit a deer. She was devastated. The deer most certainly will die, or already had died. She asked me, “What does this mean?” As a circle keeper and an earth medicine walker, I found myself stumbling over my words. Why does this happen to us who walk an earth medicine path? Others chimed in with their thoughts—the deer knew you could hold space for its transition; it was destined to die; better you than someone else.

A few years ago, after a circle, I was driving home. I live in the boonies, as we say, out in the sticks, where I worry about hitting deer. Pennsylvania ranks as the second most deer collisions in the country. So, I drive slowly, cautiously through the fields, and frequently stop for all kinds of wildlife. But I was still in the city, headed home, and bam, a deer ran into my car. It hit my front quarter panel. I pulled over and the deer laid on the side of the road, panting, clearly injured. I called the police and sent Reiki. I envisioned the Reiki energy repairing the deer’s legs and head, and strengthening it. I did this Reiki for almost 15 minutes, and the deer stood up, steady and whole, then ran right out into the street to get demolished and killed by a massive truck.

The truck tore the deer apart. I shook and cried as well.

What does this mean? Is it still medicine for us if we see our medicine dead on the side of the road? And how do we interpret it?

As I meditated on the death of the deer, I could see this interplay between the deer’s medicine and the encroachment of humanity. The medicine of deer resides in its deep vulnerability. When deer interact with humanness and urban environments, we begin to see just how vulnerable these magnificent creatures are.  Humans have disrupted the balance of the predator and the prey. Our ancestors decimated the predators—wolves, mountain lion population, the bears—who would have hunted the sick and weak, keeping populations down. Massive deforestation also affects deer populations. Whitetail deer flourish in edge environments, right where the forest meets the suburbs. Streets and cars encroach on the delicate ecosystems. And hunting is down around the country with the ease of shopping for meat in the supermarket.

So, deer medicine is not only a medicine about the individual deer’s vulnerability to predators but the species. Deer, particularly those with antlers, have a strong connection to Spirit. Their antlers are said to reach high to our guides and angels as antennae for messages. Deer connects with the subtle energy system and has heightened senses from hearing to vision to smell. They are always sensing the disruption in the force.

I could not help thinking as my student told me about the deer and her accident that this was part of the critical message for her. Knowing that she is going through a beautiful spiritual opening, deer medicine can come in this way to remind us of our vulnerability during our spiritual opening. When we experience all this light and love that begins to channel through us from Spirit, we live in a bubble of good vibes. When I started opening, I just was always blissed out and only able to tolerate other lightworkers. When we take all this gentle light and vulnerability into the real world, our first encounters with the sickness of our society, the toxicity and negativity of people, the harshness of the news and the suffering of others, we experience this world just like the deer, hit out of nowhere by real life. This modern world is cruel to the vulnerable. Deer medicine embodies vulnerability, quiet, and gentleness. Nothing is more profoundly indicative of the imbalance then when nature interacts with urban life. Where we see how pollution hurts wildlife, or cars kill deer. 

This grounded, counter energy to very high vibrational work is part of the medicine lightworkers need to carry as much as the light message of our power animals.  When you open in profound ways, you are, of course, more susceptible to those deep wells of grief and compassion. But it goes deeper. There is nothing natural about carrying vulnerability or being an empath in a narcissistic world. We also have to experience and learn about the shadow medicine of our animals. Shamanic work is not always easy or light or fun. It is mostly about challenging ourselves to go beyond the surface, to experience the more profound message, to become stewards of the Earth, spokespeople for the Mother. When all of this starts, we want to live in that amazing Other World of Spirit. When we practice earth medicine, we become intrinsically tied to Mother Earth and Grandmother Moon, and their incredible cycles. Life and death, happiness and grief, masculine and feminine—this delicate balance becomes second sight to us We can see it without trying. Impermanence and suffering of life and of the human condition is part of our medicine and the spiritual experience. We must hold space for both light and darkness, birth and death. As we begin our opening, this can be a harsh reality.

If this happens to you, or you are driving and notice an animal sacred to you, dead on the side of the road, my suggestion is to begin asking what is the medicine for you—both in the animal’s living experience (how does it live, love, eat, hunt, raise its young, etc), then as your medicine interacts with the brutality of this world. 

The prayer stick I created for the Vulture I harvested in 2016.

We can also show reverence for the medicine of that animal by creating a prayer stick. This is a way of honoring your deer and helping its Spirit make its way upward. You take a stick. I suggest about a foot to a foot and a half long. I would walk in an area where the animal was killed, or an area sacred to you. Do not take a stick off of a living tree. Forage on the earth for it. Remember to sing and leave an offering for found objects. Tobacco is traditional, but lavender, a piece of hair or other offering is proper. Hold the stick, and commune with it. Talk to it.  Take all the bark off of it. Bark represents the ego, and we take the bark off to humble ourselves before Great Spirit. Sanding the stick, and working with it in some way is important to connect your energy to the tree energy. You can decorate it with red leather or red fabric, crystals, feathers or other offerings. You can paint it with colors, or symbols. Attach leather or yarn to float in the wind. Feathers are traditional because they carry the prayers to heaven, also the soul of the deer or animal hurt.  Take some red flannel and make a little offering or prayer tie to Spirit (tobacco or sage is traditional) and tie it to the Stick. Some traditions use a Y shaped stick. Then place it in the earth. This grounds your prayer and gives it a solid foundation. Also it connects Mother Earth and Father Sky. If you want, you can place it where the deer was hit, or you can place it in a sacred place in your yard. Sing a song to offer its soul to heaven/Great Spirit. I did this for the Vulture I harvested last year, and it felt important and honoring of the medicine and nature.

If you are able and feel up to it, take the hair or an item from the animal that was killed (always remembering that if it stinks, it will always stink. If it has bugs, your house will have bugs, so only newly killed animals can be harvested, but that is another post) and use it in ceremony. As medicine keepers, we need to honor the medicine and the allies and giving them a good death is part of this process. You can use that medicine you harvested on your altar or in a medicine bundle.

One thing I know is that none of us aim for the deer or squirrel or bird, so release guilt. Guilt is the illusion of control (if I did something different, it would have changed the outcome). Just be with the profound grief. That is enough suffering. Create a ritual of honoring the medicine of the deer. Sit in the discomfort of your humanness and the ways in which we can mitigate the harshness of our living on the earth. Allow the tears their flow. Fall into ritual and ceremony. 

Remember anything, all of our human experience, can become our medicine. To ignore the death, suffering, and violence inherent in our animal medicine is to ignore the full power of its medicine. May you walk gently on the Earth, friends.