All my life I have known that I was somehow different.  I fitted in everywhere but fitted in nowhere, as if I was from another race or another planet. From being very young I saw visions, but assumed that everybody could.  As an adult I put it down to a creative and fertile imagination.  I also had a 'knowing'.  I knew what was going to happen to people, good or bad, and it did.  Throughout my life I have been called a witch.  I was not a witch at all.  I just knew things.  Mostly I knew good things which reassured people, but sometimes I warned them of other events, but I learned to keep silent about it.

This happened many years ago when I told a local landlord to be careful going to the bank or he would be mugged.  He laughed and told me that he had done it for years without coming to any harm.  The next day he was mugged outside the bank. My partner at the time went mad.  "You are a jinx, Eve, and an absolute hex on people.  Every time you say something it happens."  It did and, having no knowledge of these things, I assumed that I had willed it on them.  I really shut it down and still do because I do not know what to do with it.  In truth, I have no wish to do anything with it.  The past has gone.  My future lies in the Void of the Universe.  Why should I be anxious or concerned about it?  I know that I am loved so what is there to fear?

Shamanism is a mystery to me.  My contact with Western shamanism was short lived.  Although I found it full of magic, there was something fundamental missing.  I found the same with psychic groups of all kinds..  They seemed to be full of 'mystic Megs' and gurus, each competing with the other for power, and seemingly exploiting the gullible.

How can you charge so much money to give someone a spiritual experience, or find their power animals, or journey to another dimension for them or heal them when the Great Spirit or source of Universal Love gives it so freely to us?  These gifts are only gifts and, I believe, are given to challenge and test our integrity.  The only relevant question is, how will we use them?  My encounters with these  groups is yet another story.

I had wondered if I was feeling just a little bit arrogant or superior till I read what Robin Norwood had to say in Why Me, Why This, Why Now?:

In this present age when so much glamour is ascribed to psychic gifts we tend to assume that anyone with such abilities must therefore be very elevated in consciousness.  This is no more true than saying that everyone with an innate gift for music or art or higher mathematics is highly evolved spiritually.  Every gift that sets us apart - great beauty or talent or intelligence or athletic prowess or whatever is, in fact, a test.  The greater the gift, the greater the challenge to use it responsibly in spite of the opportunities to do otherwise.

That was why I valued the writings of Brian Weiss MD, Brian Redfield, Robin Norwood, Bernie Siegel MD and others. Their underlying message was that we are here to evolve spiritually and that only love is important.  After all, Rasputin was one of the greatest physical healers of this century, but you would not have wanted him to take your children on a picnic.

For now I will stay with Two Wolves.  The visions started when I was a very young child.  My first one came when I was about three or four.  I could see beautiful meadows full of flowers where I could go and play happily but that was not for me.  There was another path that was mine.  It was narrow and steep with rocks and boulders underfoot.  It was also overhung with thick, thorny bushes and brambles but I had such an urgency to find it.  In my forays into the wildness as a child, I went looking for it.  I had to find it as I knew that God was at the end of it and I had to get home.  This was despite coming from a non-religious family.  I can see it yet.  I realize now that is was the path that I would have to walk on this earth journey.  Nice one, Great Spirit! Had I realized that I would have opted out.

The other thing I can see is someone's 'inner child'.  I will write about these in another story as they are very vivid and always about healing.  I found out that this is also shamanic and called soul retrieval.  They just appear when I am in the bath or about the house somewhere.  I don't seem to have any control over it.  It just happens now and again.

The visions started in earnest about three years ago when I became critically ill with a bacterial infection, the nasty type that can escalate into septicaemia and death.  The doctors wanted to pack me in ice and I was put on massive doses of intravenous antibiotics.  It was bad.  My veins became swollen and broke down and the drips had to be removed.

It was then that a friend brought a healer to me.  She said very little only that she had never felt so much love coming through for anyone from Spirit and that it wasn't my time.  I did not even know what Spirit was then.  She also said that a patch of it would be left for my protection.  How prophetic she was.  My job had physically and emotionally broken me.  I was released on health grounds and given  enough to pay the mortgage off completely  and some to spare. Later I was diagnosed as having M.E. which gave me a new lease of life.

I was removed from a side ward and put on the main ward, a huge plastic surgery ward. It also accommodated several demented geriatric women who screamed and moaned all night.  I was distressed by the pain of other patients and thought that, if these healing beings had come to me, then surely they would go to them.  I don't pray. I am actually anti-religious, believing that spirituality and religion are diametrically opposed.  Spirituality, for me, releases the power within to link freely with the Universal Energy whereas religion means a hierarchy of priests and gurus who dictate which path you should take.  I have no objection to people sharing their wisdom with me but dictating to me is quite another thing.

However, as I asked these loving beings or spirits to help the people in the ward I saw what I now know to be the luminous beings of light go to four people.  They would not go to anyone else.  Despite my previous visions, nothing was as powerful as this but, as usual, I dismissed it as my imagination and went to sleep.

The next morning I asked the woman in the next bed if she had slept.  She had not slept for six days as part of her face had been removed to get at a tumour.  She could not lie down because of the tubes in her head and was beside herself with pain. Her reply to my question was: "I went out like a light and slept like a log."   Sheepishly I told her that I had sent an angel for her.  How else would you describe beings whose faces are so bright that their features cannot be distinguished?  "I know," she said, "I felt it coming.  Did you send one to anyone else?"  When I told her that I had, she grabbed my arm and we went to the others.

The second woman was gravely ill.  Muscles had been removed from her thighs to be transplanted into her back.  It had not worked very well.  Her body was a mass of tubes, machines and an oxygen mask.  She too had a lot of pain. When asked if she had slept, she replied: "I went out like a light and I slept like a log."  She had not been able to sleep either.

As we returned to the main ward I did not even have to ask the third person.  She had had a tumour removed from her scalp and had metal staples in her head. As she walked towards us she said with a smile: "I went out like a light last night and slept like a log".  I prayed that the fourth one would not say the same but she did.

Confused and bewildered, I went out on to the fire escape.  It was February and I stood in the sleet and snow.  "Who am I?  What am I?" I whispered.  Then I heard the voice: "Keeper of the angels". It repeated it. "Keeper of the angels."  More unbelievable things happened on that ward but I was not euphoric.  I was frightened as it was destroying my whole concept of reality.  I knew about clients with delusions, paranoia and other disorders.  Yet more was to come.

It was such an enormous relief to read Many Lives, Many Masters by Dr Brian Weiss, an eminent psychiatrist.  At least one other person on the planet had seen and heard what I had.  The Celestine Prophecy and the other books written by Redfield reassured me.  In The 10th Insight - An Experiential Guide, he explains about the high beams of loving energy that we can send to others.  "It is an empirical fact that thinking positive thoughts about someone strengthens that person." It was the word empirical that persuaded me.  It could be proved.  He is also a well respected psychologist  Other books followed by authors in related fields.

What I now know is that the luminous beings of light and the voice are only manifestations of the high beams of loving energy that are all around us and that we can send to each other, very powerful beams of physical and spiritual healing.

Shamanism, and my name, Two Wolves, was yet to follow.

A woman phoned me one day and told me that she had seen me in the middle of a group of shamans.  She is the 'mystic Meg' type that I avoid.  I thanked her politely and put the phone down. That was the start of yet another amazing series of events.  Within moments I flicked on afternoon TV just as a programme on Siberian shamans was starting.  I rarely watch TV, not even the news, and definitely not in the afternoons.

I was fascinated.  It was about the mountains.  All my life I have had an affinity with stone.  As a child I played with them. I collect them from beaches. I live in a stone house with stone fireplaces.  I have been reprimanded in museums for touching stone artefacts, especially marble, and I walk in them when the snow is deep, when the heather blooms, in spring and when there are gales blowing.  These Siberian shamans were the keepers of the mountains.

Later that week I went to a friend's house.  A book on shamanism was on her coffee table.  She had no idea why she had bought it and gave it to me. The following week her husband gave me an object to hold.  He had no idea that I had a new found interest in shamanism.  In fact, he did not like me.

The object was a shaman's wand and was several thousand years old.  It was carved from gold flint and very beautiful.  My heart jumped.  I 'knew' it.  I had held it before.  Without thinking I put it up my jumper to keep it warm without knowing why.  I just felt that it was a sacred object that should not be in dirty hands and I wanted to cleanse it.  I also knew that it would come back to me soon.  This again was my 'knowing.'

The probability of this was like winning the national lottery as he collected antiquities from ancient cultures e.g. shaboutis and other artefacts from the tombs of Egypt, pre-Colombian pots from the Mayans and many other objets d'art.  His collection was his pride and joy.  He never parted with anything.  Very soon afterwards he and his wife decided to separate. It was part of her negotiated settlement.  One night she arrived at my house.  "This belongs to you," she said simply.  "Have it with love."  It was back but only on a temporary basis.  I am only its keeper until I find out which North American tribe it belongs to.  Then I will send it on again with love.  When the time comes I will know.

The clues were becoming more than coincidental. One night, whilst in the house of a friend, something strange started to happen.  We were in the kitchen making tea.  I became aware that I was walking down some highly polished, wooden stairs.  The walls were also of polished wood like you might find in a castle.  As the stairs descended and turned, the walls became white marble.  At the bottom was a huge door.

I started to give my friend a running commentary.  He looked confused as he was quite a reserved Catholic.  I pushed the door open and was amazed to find myself in an incredible white place full of snow.  It was so peaceful.  The ground was covered in snow as were the trees and mountains. Small crystal snowflakes fell around me but it was not cold.  By this time my friend was becoming somewhat anxious and told me to stop it but I could not.

Suddenly, two wolves appeared.  I was frightened.  They were huge, had thick black and grey ruffs of fur round their necks and enormous amber eyes. The wolves approached me on my left side.  I stood still hoping that they would go away. They moved in close, their amber eyes still on me, till I could touch them and the fear started to evaporate.  I knew that they were there to protect me.  Later, two white buffaloes appeared on my right side.  These were indescribable.  It was their eyes - soft, brown and so full of love.  I just could not get away.  In truth, I did not want to.  The next day they were still there. I could feel their presence very strongly for days after it.

That was not the first time that I had had an experience like that.  A few weeks before I had been at a disco for a friend's birthday.  Charlotte and I were standing at the edge of the dance floor, deep in conversation, when I became aware that I was standing in the middle of the night sky.  Again, the peace was very deep. It was like navy blue gossamer with gold translucent stars.  I could see the earth far beneath me.  Charlotte was intrigued.

Again it lasted for hours.  As I walked round talking to friends, I realized that I was in two places at once.  Since then psychics have tried to explain that it was astral travel, whatever that might be, or an out of body experience but, for me, it most certainly was not either of these things.  It was nothing like they try to describe.  It is two realities merged into one.  My eyes are wide open. I wasn't drinking or had taken any drugs.  This happened whilst talking to friends and was quite spontaneous and beyond my control.  And I am certainly in my body and know exactly where I am.

However, there was a list of names and addresses in the back of the unread book on shamanism that I had.  A shamanic counsellor, who was also a psychologist, lived on the other side of the hill.  By now I had started to dismiss or try to rationalize what had happened in hospital. He knew exactly what I had seen.  I had been taken to the North of the Medicine Wheel.  Everything that I had seen was documented in books that I had never read.

I had never heard of a medicine wheel and knew nothing of North American culture.  The only affinity that I had had with them was in childhood.  I never wanted the cowboys in films to win.  I was always an Indian riding my imaginary horse over the 'prairies' of Scotland!  There was much more to follow.  The wolves stayed with me constantly and seemed to become an integral part of me.  That is how I got my name Two Wolves.

The white buffaloes did not stay for long but, while they did, I felt so nurtured.  I miss that.  She often nuzzled the right side of my neck and I could touch her.  However, I found the lesson from the North of the Medicine Wheel hard at first.  ''Certainty is the enemy of Spirit.''  Certainty is about control and fear, controlling your life to such an extent that you take few risks and leave little flexibility for new experiences or the magic that comes from the unknown.  It is also about trust that the loving forces in the Universe will never let you down.  Even what seems a bad experience is, in the end, just a lesson to be learned.

Many things happened to me in that period. I could touch people and they got well. I could see things but something was missing.  My encounters with psychic groups felt empty.  I was lost somehow but that was to teach me a lesson.  I wanted to be able to do all these things so that people would think that I was wonderful. What an ego and what an arrogance and what a weakness.  I know now what I am here to do.  I'm just a storyteller.  That seems to heal people's spirits and give them hope.  That is enough for me as I have also got my own shadow side to work on.

However, keen to expand my knowledge, I went on a shamanic weekend with a Western shaman type guru.  In many ways it was beneficial.  I met psychologists, social workers and other professionals who could enter these other dimensions.  That was important for me at the time because I was desperate to know that I wasn't delusional or suffering from some other mental disorder.

The shamanic leader was amazed that I had seen the white buffalo and that I could journey spontaneously without the use of drums or rituals.  I didn't journey.  I just seemed to get taken on them whilst washing dishes or in the bath.  When I told him about seeing people's 'inner child', he told me that this was the shamanic practice of 'soul retrieval'.  This seemed to happen spontaneously too.  I was intrigued but it was also a humbling experience.

On one journey during that weekend, I slid down a crystal chute into an eagle's nest.  I was thrilled.  The eagle came and flew off again but I was happy to sit up there viewing the world beneath me.  Then a magpie appeared and insisted that I came down with it as I belonged on the earth.  My feet had to be on the ground or in the branches of trees, not sitting arrogantly on a mountain top.  I was disappointed as all my life I have had an affinity with eagles, especially the eagles of Glencoe.

I was really disappointed but the spirit of my beloved magpie has served me well.  I would not go anywhere without it nor would I trade it for gold.  Ounce for ounce it has more courage and tenacity than any other bird.  The magpie will drive cats out of trees and take on hawks who invade its territory.  No fear! What about the thieving magpie that darts through open windows to take diamond and gold rings?  The magpie never touches trash!  What a combination - the Wolf and the Magpie.

I have been asked if I 'trip' when I see these things.  The answer is 'no'  I don't have to.  I have never taken a hallucinatory drug in my life.  I rarely drink either as I had hepatitis as a child and it doesn't agree with me.  I get high on orange juice and Universal Energy.  It's better for you and it's cheaper.

Other journeys followed but the next significant one came soon afterwards.  I saw something quite disturbing.  I saw a new born creature stained with brownish flecks of blood on its coat.  It still had an umbilical cord hanging from its belly.  I thought that it was a baby sheep or a goat.  When I looked closer it had my name branded on its side. I didn't like it.

This time I journeyed with intent.  I had to know what it was.  I made my way to the North as I felt safe there but found myself in a brown earthy tunnel.  Ahead of me was a dark-skinned man.  Instinctively I knew that he was a tracker although I had never read or heard anything about trackers.  I followed him for ages then we started to make an ascent up through the roots of a tree.

The figure stopped and started to hack a way through with a small tomahawk till we crawled out into the brilliant sunlight. As I stood up, my mouth dropped open with amazement.  The tree stretched up into the heavens, its top branches disappearing into the clouds.  On its branches was every conceivable bird in the world.  I turned in excitement to tell the tracker, then froze.  It wasn't a man.  It was a man with a crow's head. I was scared.  He beckoned me to follow him and disappeared into a bank of clouds.

I lost him in there but he was waiting at the other side.  From there we went through the sun and beyond that was a low cave.  Draped in front of it was the roughest hessian type sackcloth that I have ever seen.  He pulled it aside and I had to crawl through after him on my hands and knees.  On the other side was the night sky.

What a relief!  I knew that place.  To my delight, the white buffalo was standing waiting.  I was so pleased to see her again.  This bit might sound ridiculous but, as I touched her, I went into her mouth and slid down through her intestines.  They were like red and gold satin and I curled up in her belly, totally safe and at peace.  The next thing I knew, I was being 'born', but I wasn't me any more.  I was the bloodstained calf.

The crow-headed tracker picked me up in his arms and made the return journey through the cave, the sun, the clouds and back to the base of the tree.  The din and noise from the birds in the branches was deafening.  They seemed to be cheering.  The tracker then made his way down through the roots of the tree but - here is the strange bit - we didn't go back to where we started.  We arrived in the North of the Medicine wheel and I was already waiting there.

I'll have to explain this bit.  Some time previously I had seen my own 'inner child'.  I was about seven and was wearing a white sleeveless cotton dress that came to my knees.  I had bare feet, no jewellery and I knew that I had no underwear on.  The plain shift dress was just enough to keep me modest.  I stood quietly in the middle of a gold circle. When the tracker reached the North I was there as that child.  As he handed the calf to me (he was actually handing me to me, if that makes sense) the calf and the child integrated together. An owl appeared above the child's head.  Then the vision vanished.  I couldn't journey or 'see' anything for many weeks after that.

Many will believe that this is delusional.  Is it any more delusional than the millions of people who truly believe that a man was born of a virgin?  Even our state of the art scientists, those whizz kids of genetic engineering, can't pull that trick off yet.  What about the woman, Sarah, who conceived when she was 100 years old?  You get a telegram from the Queen if you reach 100, never mind conceiving at that age.  I think that you would get a firework display if you could have sex at that age. Conceiving a child would give you two firework displays and a gold watch!

And there is the man, Moses, who parted the Red Sea.  Whoopy do!!  That would save our civil engineers a fortune in building dams and bridges.  Watch this space, friend!  Armageddon is still to come.  Dare sneer at christians for their beliefs and you would find yourself thrown up on a lump of wood just like their namesake!

All this symbolism of shamanism is supposed to be significant but I don't understand it.  Those in the West who claim to be shamans cannot explain it for me either.  I think, personally, that they have latched on to something that can make them a lot of money if you are daft enough to follow them.  All it taught me is that I am loved.  That is all I need to know.  If the white buffalo is the Great Spirit, and I am part of that Universal Love, then what have I to fear?

With no religion or any other type of God to relate to, how else can I conceptualize it?  I see the Great Spirit like a huge ball of mercury.  If you drop a big ball of mercury on the ground, millions of tiny balls scatter.  Some roll in the dirt and the filth but, when they are all gathered back together, you have the same ball of mercury, whole and complete.

I am only a spirit on an earth journey, a very small part of the Great Spirit, here to learn lessons and evolve.  The quicker I do that, the less I'll have to roll in the dirt of pain, shame, regret etc., then I can go back home.  That is God for me. I am part of that energy source.

Another more salutary journey started.  A huge dragonfly appeared.  Beside me was a dark, fast flowing river.  The banks were very steep and there was no way out.  I am not a swimmer but I had to get in.  As the current swept me away I became aware that I was going through a snake's belly.  I could see the bones.  A real fear gripped me.  I couldn't turn back as the water was too powerful.  I was swept through the mouth of the snake and dropped into a deep pool.

As I turned round the snake smiled.  "Why are you afraid?" it asked.  '" am afraid that you will bite me," I replied.  "Why would I bite you?  I won't bite you."  It smiled again.  I did not know.  I just thought that it would.

Reassured, I looked to my left.  A huge golden horn, like an alpine horn, reached up into the sun.  I climbed up to the top, went through the sun and there she was, the white buffalo again.  I was ecstatic but, as I ran to her, the smile dropped from my face.  On her right hand was a sheep.  I could feel the indignation rise.  What, I thought, was that thick, stupid creature doing there?  I asked her why?  "I love this sheep," she said.  "But I am your calf," I replied, wanting her exclusively to myself. "It is me who should be there!"  She wasn't impressed.  The indignation did not abate.  I was angry.  I sulked.  I did not want to share her with what I thought was an inferior animal. "But you must learn to love this sheep. I love it."  The white buffalo sent me away.

Sadly, I went back through the sun.  The golden horn had disappeared.  Instead there was a mossy bank.  From it poured a stream of pure, crystal water.  I was at the top of a waterfall.  The water sparkled with diamonds.  Somehow I knew that it was the Water of Life.  As I drank it, the green moss turned to rose pink.  Then I realized that love was the water of life.  We can live without food but we die without water.  We also die without love.  Love is the essence of life.

What a lesson to learn.  It was about humility.  Maybe I will see the white buffalo again when I have learned this one properly.  No one is greater than me and no one is lesser than me. I must learn more about respecting others and treating them equally even when they are not on my vibration.  Arrogance is part of my shadow side but that is why I came to the earth plane - to evolve and grow.

The question 'Why am I here?' came through other shamanic journeys.  I was given my third name, Sanctuary.  I found myself in a dense rainforest.  It was thick, tangled and dangerous and made me scared.  I knew that there were poisonous snakes and insects in the undergrowth.  I had come to help a friend who was in a real mess both physically and spiritually.  It took me ages to fight my way through it.  Eventually, I came to a mossy clearing. It was peaceful and sunlit.  As I am writing, it has just dawned on me that it was the same as the top of the waterfall where the water of life came from and the ground at the base of the tree with the birds on all the branches. There must be some connection somewhere.

However, a young Indian girl, about 16, wearing  buckskins stood stroking a trembling rabbit.  She did not speak but continued the rhythmical stroking completely ignoring me.  After some time she walked over to me, placed the rabbit in my arms and vanished into the rainforest.  I panicked. The rabbit trembled more.  I knew that I was safe but the rabbit wasn't.  It would be killed and it was my responsibility.  I had to get it to a meadow where it could live and breed.

I knew what the rabbit was.  It was C, my friend, and his fears.  Strapping the rabbit tightly to my chest with creepers, I made my way back into the undergrowth and came to a small waterfall and stood under it but I had to go on.  I could not afford to put the rabbit down even when bathing in the water.  Nor could I strap it to my back.  Something would get it from behind.  I came to another very small clearing filled with beautiful orange and pink flowers but, by then, I was exhausted and needed to sleep.  But I couldn't.  I had to protect the rabbit.

Suddenly, a huge tiger appeared.  I know it well.  When I see it I know that I am in danger particularly if I stray into psychic groups.  I am placed in the centre of a ceremonial fire and the tiger constantly circles round me.  That is how I know that I am being protected from negative energies.  When that happens, I don't hang around.  The heavy brigade doesn't come in for nothing!

The tiger lay down beside me.  I wanted it to take the rabbit from me but it didn't want it.  The rabbit is about fear.  Why would a tiger want fear?  I then wanted the young Indian girl to come back and take it.  She didn't want it.  She had given it to me.  What a lesson I was about to learn.  I wanted to take the rabbit to a meadow where it could be safe and go on and breed.  Did I really want to nurse his fear and allow it to increase and multiply?  And where was I carrying it?  In my heart chakra!  No wonder I was afraid and exhausted.

I was told to kill the rabbit and to put it down in the rainforest for the boa constrictors to get.  Only then would both he and I be free.  I was taken back to the sunlit clearing and told what my job was.  The clearing was a place of safety.  The rainforest was the world full of dangers and fears.  People would bring their fears, their rabbits, to me and I would destroy them.  What else do you do in psychotherapy, for God's sake! How simple! My name was Sanctuary.

That taught me what two degrees didn't.  Firstly, I had to deal with my own fears and shadow side.  Secondly, it is not my job to carry fear for another in my own heart and take responsibility for their lives.  That is rescuing and controlling and a gross sense of self importance. Others never get the chance to grow if you do that.  The dictionary definition of sanctuary is:  'A place of safety for someone, often someone who is being chased or hunted.'  Please God, I can live up to that one.

The second one makes no sense yet.  Again I was following a tracker down a forest trail.  As he climbed up a ladder made of creepers, I saw the black and white feathers on his ankles and wrists.  He was carrying the colours of the magpie.  I was safe.  At the top was a huge tree with a gold cave at its base.  I couldn't see the roots or how high it went - only the base of the trunk with its cave.  The entrance circled round tighter and tighter but was still bright gold.  I stopped and laughed.  This one really throws all credulity up in the air!  I was in the middle of an ear, a bright golden ear! I just couldn't stop laughing.

I asked whose ear I was in and I found myself in the ear of a god, a huge stone Buddha.  It wasn't an Asian buddha.  It was Peruvian or Mayan.  It had a flat face and slanted eyes.  Its ear was full of gold coins. This Buddha towered above the clouds. Beneath it was a rainforest.  I could hear moans from people down on the ground but couldn't see them but I knew that the sounds were prayers and supplications - not words that I would ever use.  It was my job to throw the gold coins down like tickertape.  That is what they wanted.  The supply never ran out.  All I had to do was keep throwing them down.  I just hope I don't get exhausted because every time I turn round the pile of coins seems to get bigger.

I have to stop now because I am laughing.  If I can do this with my eyes wide open and drinking cups of tea, what would happen on a dozen gin-and-tonics or a 'joint'?  I would probably end up flying through a giant black hole in space never to be seen again.  If I could teach others how to do it I could severely damage the tourist trade and put operators out of business.  Bali and the Greek islands have nothing on this!

The last one came recently.  I asked specifically to be shown my path.  As I started up a mountainside I saw a figure at the top.  It was a very tall man in a white robe.  He had huge eagle's wings stretched out as if ready to fly.  His back was to me.  As I got nearer, he turned and faced me. He had the head of an eagle.  I was surprised but not afraid.  I knew that he was there to protect me.

On my right side was a man in white robes and a white head-dress like the arab people wear.  He was a shepherd. In his right hand was an amber crook.  I asked his name expecting a man's name.  "I am the good shepherd," he replied.  I groaned because of the religious symbolism but was glad that the eagle was there.

"What have I got to do?" I asked.  "It is time to gather them in!" he replied.  I looked around helplessly.  How was I to do that?  He had the crook, not me.  "Tell them about God!"

That was it for me.  I really am not religious and never use the word God. I only ever talk about the Great Spirit or the Universal Love.  "I don't know anything about God," I replied defiantly.  "Tell them what you know!"  But I don't really know anything.  I am still in my infancy.  He put me on the back of an ass with big long ears and pointed down a valley, giving me directions.  A crystal river flowed through the centre of this valley which had steep, green covered slopes.

Next thing I knew I was sitting on this ass's back in the centre of a busy medieval marketplace. Crowds swarmed around ignoring me.  "Will I go to a cafe and sit down and wait for someone to come and talk to me?" I asked.  "They will come to you,"  was the reply.  The crowds stopped and turned and faced me.  I did not say anything.  Just then a troop of riders rode in front of me from left to right on powerful, brown horses - huge things like war horses.  The men had brutish faces.  They ignored me but one, I will know him if I see him again, turned and stared at me.  He was a real brute.

Immediately, I found myself in a castle dungeon.  It was dark and dank.  I was still on the ass's back.  I could hear groaning from people in pain.  I knew that they were captives and in torment. "Set them free," the voice said.  How was I to do that?  Instinctively, I put my arms above my head.  As I did so the walls of the dungeons started to crumble and sunlight penetrated the gloom.  Laughter echoed everywhere.  They were free.

I did not get to see any more but was transported to a place of pure white snow, whiter than I had ever seen before.  It was soft and warm like velvet and the peace, the deep, deep peace!  The ass had vanished so I lay down on my back and just laughed.  I was home.  I was safe.

What more do I know about my path from this?  Very little really.  I know what captivity and pain is.  It is unresolved grief and fear.  "Tell them what you know," was the instruction.  Perhaps by telling my story other people might find a way out of their misery.  I don't have any other talents.  It is all I have to give but it brings me so much joy.  What of the brutish horsemen that disapprove of me?  Orthodox medicine would frown on this type of therapy and put me in a locked ward.  I don't care.  People seem to heal when they are with me.  That is all that matters.

Why am I being taught in such an unusual way?  I think that that is obvious.  Humanity has had religious scriptures throughout history and we still have wars.  Protestants kill catholics and vice versa. Jews kill arabs and vice versa.  Need I go on?  Religion breeds hatred and fear.  The Universe is creative and shamanism existed before any of the others.  This way works for me.

Other strange things have happened to me with rainbows.  Some years ago I was out with a group of school children and the sky turned black.  We were bombarded by a heavy shower of hail and sleet and took shelter under some pine trees at the edge of the reservoir.  We were deep in the hills.  There was nowhere else to go.  As the skies cleared we went and stood at the edge of the water.  What happened next took my breath away.  A rainbow appeared and the end of it came across the water and stopped at our feet.  The excitement was tremendous.  We were standing at the end of a rainbow.

Another time, whilst driving along a motorway with a friend, the bonnet of his car became speckled with different colours.  He is very fussy about his car and was perturbed, muttering something about 'bloody acid rain.'  Then I noticed shafts of colour on the roadway.  They were on his side of the car too.  Puzzled, I took off my seat belt, wound down the window and leaned out.  We were right under a rainbow.  It followed us for miles.  We could not drive through it.

What an experience!  I just thought that I had been very lucky until last week.  Whilst relating the story to a friend who is a physicist, I realized that this was scientifically impossible.  But it did happen.  My friend who is a catholic and certainly doesn't believe what I believe, saw it.  The group of children saw it.  From the little I know about shamanism, I know that rainbows stand for peace.  Perhaps that is why I now have it in my life.  I certainly needed it.

Another very strange thing happened last February.  The man who originally owned the shaman's wand phoned me out of the blue and said that he had something for me.  He was leaving the country and asked me to come to his house.  I had not seen him since he and his wife had divorced.  He handed me a package. "These belong to you," he said simply. "I want you to have them."  Inside the tissue paper were four more flint artefacts from a North American Indian tribe.  They were thousands of years old.  I was stunned.  One was in very pale flint, almost cream in colour, and was a buffalo calf.  There were also two flint eagles, a black one and a cream one - the light and the shadow. The final one was an arrow head, again made of flint.  These four make up my life.

On New Year's Eve I go alone into the hills.  I will not carry any known negativity into another year.  I go to ask for help and guidance from the ancestors.  After midnight I am happy to go to parties but that time is sacred.  This time I was given the Arrow to help me on my path.  It means simply, 'Truth is your only protection.'  Unlike the shaman's wand, these will not be returned until I finally 'drop my robes.'  My son knows what to do with them and where they have to go.  I took his gifts gratefully and have never heard from him since.  How strange!

Am I shamanic?  Who knows?  It certainly isn't Western shamanism.  Am I just searching for some means of identification? I have the answers to some questions now.

Who am I?  I am Eve.  I am Two Wolves. I am Sanctuary.  Are these separate Identities or just one?  I feel that they are one.
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What am I? is simple.  I am a spirit on an earth journey doing the best I can to evolve and grow.

What am I here for? is becoming clearer.  The last vision and the instructions fits in with my Kiva spread from the book written by Jamie Sams, an incredible Medicine Woman who wrote The Sacred Path.  The pages flow with love, wisdom and compassion and journeys that she has had to these other dimensions.  How I would love to know what she knows - much more wisdom and harmony than I have found in any scripture - and her generosity to share this healing with other races is so gracious.

"Tell them what you know," the voice said.  My Kiva spread echoes that.  The first card was the North Shield which is wisdom and gratitude; next is Sacred Space, then the Sun Dance.  That was a brutal one but necessary for my growth. The fourth was the Moon Lodge, my need for solitude.  Then Heyokah.  I love that one.  These were followed by the Stone People, Rites of Passage, the Give Away and Burden Basket and, finally, the Storyteller.  What else!

I seem to have had the experiences of many lifetimes rolled into one and it is not yet time to 'drop my robes.'  What else is still to come?  I will accept my gifts with gratitude and humility knowing that they come from the Great Mystery.  The path of the Wolf is mine.  I have gone to many lonely places of suffering and pain and, by finding a way through to peace and healing, may help shorten the grief for others.  Perhaps that is why I was given Two Wolves and not just one.  Who knows?  "Certainty is the enemy of Spirit."  I am certain of nothing except the fact that I am loved, very much loved.  The Universe has the blue print for my life.  I trust that utterly.  What more could I ask?  I am at peace.
 
Love,