Wake Up, Human
Wake Up, Human is an exploration of the native powers of the human being. This podcast examines the ways we humans have become disconnected—from our innate wisdom, from each other, and from the natural world—and explores practical strategies for reconnecting to wholeness. Drop in for information and inspiration to help us reawaken and heal ourselves, our relationships, and our planet.
Wake Up, Human
Ep.14: The Ancient Language of Animals | A Conversation with Rose de Dan
What if the wisdom we're seeking has been speaking to us all along, but we've forgotten how to listen?
Rose de Dan's journey from disconnection to animal communication began during what she calls her "black and white Kansas" period – a time of feeling lost and questioning life's purpose. Through a profound Reiki experience, she awakened to dormant aspects of herself, transitioning into what she describes as the "technicolor world of Oz" where everything became alive with meaning and connection.
This episode explores how modern humans have become disconnected from an ancient birthright – the ability to communicate with the non-human world. Rose shares powerful personal stories, including a transformative encounter with a bobcat spirit guide and a heart-opening moment with a cat in the woods that appeared precisely when she needed connection most. These experiences demonstrate how shifting from head-centered to heart-centered awareness opens doorways to deeper relationships with animals and nature.
Rose challenges us to reconsider our approach to global crises like climate change. Rather than relying solely on technological solutions – products of the same head-centered thinking that created these problems – she suggests collaborating with the more-than-human world. "It isn't a matter of us protecting them," Rose explains. "It's a matter of they're going to need to work with us, because together we are strong."
Perhaps most importantly, Rose reveals how personal healing and ecological healing are inseparable journeys. The more we heal our own wounds and release what no longer serves us, the more clearly we can hear the wisdom of the natural world. As Rose powerfully states, "With the help of all my relations, your shamanic allies, and holding space in balance with a foot in both worlds, you are not powerless, you are power with."
Ready to reconnect with the wild wisdom all around you? Listen now and discover how dropping from your head into your heart might just change everything.
Hello everyone and welcome to episode 14 of the Wake Up Human podcast. I'm your host, shannon Wills, and in this episode, my guest and I will drop from our heads into our hearts and remember how to listen to the wisdom of the animals. Welcome to the Wake Up Human podcast. I'm Shannon Wills, a curious wanderer with a passion for digging into life's mysteries and mining them for wisdom to apply to our modern lives. This podcast explores the ways we humans have become disconnected from our native ways of knowing what we have lost and what we can gain by coming back into wholeness. Each episode will explore this theme of reconnecting with our innate human power in order to heal ourselves, our relationships and our planet. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let's jump into the latest installment of Wake Up Human.
Shannon W.:My guest today is Rose Dedan of Wild Reiki and Shamanic healing. Rose is an animal communicator, reiki master, teacher, shamanic energy healer and author. Her classes and sessions, ceremonies and storytelling are inspired by wild and domestic animals who have issued a call to action for personal and global healing. Rose teaches virtual mentored Reiki and shamanic classes and is honored to have been able to share these paths with students from all over the world. Her book Tales of a Healer that's T-A-I-L-S, features heartwarming stories about animals and their role in Rose's evolution as an energy worker and shamanic healer. In addition to her teaching and healing practice, rose also posts YouTube videos of interactions with her wildlife friends at the Wild Reiki Spa and Wild Rose Cafe, otherwise known as Rose's home office. And Rose is also a photographer, combining her love of photography with her animal communication skills in inviting animals to show us who they are on camera. Her photos are available on Fine Arts America. Side note, my favorite of Rose's photos is the photo called Raccoon Buddha. Definitely check that one out. Rose lives in Seattle Washington with her two wildly different, charismatic cats, manitou and Night Sky. Their antics keep her on her toes and stories about them always garner more likes than any others. Rose says she doesn't mind being upstaged by the cats at all.
Shannon W.:So what on earth is this episode going to be about? Well, I initially reached out to Rose because I thought I wanted to have a conversation with her about Reiki. Reiki being a form of energy healing that involves the transfer of universal life energy through the palms or hands of the healer into the energy field of the recipient or the client. Rose is my own Reiki teacher. I studied with her a number of years ago and I learned a lot, not only about Reiki, but about myself. But then I thought, no, this episode needs to be about more than Reiki, because the work that Rose does encompasses a much wider and wilder world than that.
Shannon W.:Rose is a healer who's tapped into an ancient, rooted conversation that involves not only the human world but also the world of the non-human animals, the world of nature, the spirit world. Her skills and experience link back to a time when we humans were more attuned to the conversations happening around us in nature, and though she's developed some unique abilities, rose is quick to remind us that those abilities are available to all of us if we are willing to listen. So we're going to talk a bit about that listening today, what it is and how we can connect to it in our lives. We'll talk about what animals can teach us when we listen, about living in the moment and about letting go us. When we listen about living in the moment and about letting go, we'll reflect on the importance of doing our own personal healing work before we can truly do healing work for animals, and Rose will give us a piece of advice we animal lovers need to know if we really want to help animals in the most effective way. We'll explore how working in collaboration with other species might offer solutions to global-scale problems like the climate crisis, even if at times we feel helpless to make a difference individually. And, of course, rose will also share some personal stories from her own journey of waking up to her powers and her place in the wild conversation of life. Powers and her place in the wild conversation of life.
Shannon W.:This episode is, in many ways, about unlearning the modern world conditioning that has separated us from our native ability to hear and understand the non-human languages of life. I hope you'll join Rose and me as we explore the potential for relearning that connection and the power it offers us to heal ourselves and, potentially, to heal the world. You can learn more about Rose and find info on her healing sessions, classes and other work at her website, reikishamoniccom. That's R-E-I-K-I shamaniccom. And now for the interview. Dear Rose, welcome to the podcast and thanks for joining me today.
Rose D.:Thank you for inviting me.
Shannon W.:It's a real pleasure to have you here. I see you as a woman with a most unique combination of skills and passions, which you've woven into a pretty inspired, connected life, and I look forward to delving into your work and your teaching a little bit today. Thank you, yeah, so you describe yourself as an animal communicator, a Reiki master teacher and a shamanic energy healer, and I have to say even just one of those titles would be enough to pique a person's curiosity and provoke questions. But to work with all three of them together in combination just feels very rich and unique, and listeners may be familiar with Reiki or with shamanism or animal communication. But for those who are not, or or for those who are wondering how on earth do all those things fit together, would you start by sharing briefly what is the work you do and what do these elements look like when combined together in practice?
Rose D.:Oh, you want me to be brief. As brief as you would like brief, as brief as you would like, yes, um. So it's a complex question and I'm going to try to simplify the answer. Essentially, what I do is listen, and so that's coming into an internal place of balance, which reiki and shamanic practices have helped me with, and that enables me to listen to the animals and listen to the energy, and in listening to the energy, I'm guided to where there's blockages in the flow. Okay.
Rose D.:And that applies in sessions that I do for the animals and the people, but it also applies to setting up ceremonies for bringing the people and the animals together, because it's a matter of finding the pattern and tracking, and they talk in shamanism about stalking and hunting the energy, basically. Okay. And I don't think I've ever described my work that way before.
Shannon W.:As hunting the energy.
Rose D.:But I get very. They would prefer I don't say bloodhound because I don't have guides that tend to the canine, mine are more feline, but it's very much on the scent of the energy, and this applies to the classes I teach as well, because I try to customize them according to the students as well as the group, and teaching people how to come from that place as well, that place as well, so it's less about. I mean, I definitely teach you know Reiki, the steps, et cetera, but I'm also trying to teach the students how to come from that place themselves so that when they walk in the world.
Rose D.:It's a dialogue between all our relations. You know the energy in themselves, so I don't know if that was brief and that's definitely not a website definition.
Shannon W.:It was brief and it's not the definition I expected.
Rose D.:And I love that.
Shannon W.:I love that. Yeah, and what I'm taking from that is that you are working as a practitioner providing sessions and also teaching students. What you know, and what I'm also taking from that, is that you are working with animals, but you're also working with humans.
Rose D.:Something I did not expect, yes, when I first started in Reiki you did not expect, because you were expecting to work solely with animals when I took my first Reiki class, I wasn't sure why I was there, except that I had been feeling very lost Some people call it a midlife crisis. Okay, not really sure why I was here, you know, feeling like there wasn't any meaning or purpose to my life. And then I read something that someone I knew had written about her experiences taking making and something about it made me say I need to check into this. And I signed up for the course with real, not really no idea.
Rose D.:you know what I would do with any of this uh-huh it was during the attunement process where they open the reiki master teacher basically opens your energy channels and connects you more strongly. I guess you could say with the Reiki, the universal life force, energy. And I had. Every human experience is different for every student Mine it was like they've been waiting for that moment to jump on me with all maybe four feet and I had this huge epiphany All of a sudden. I knew that all my life I'd wanted to be a healer. I knew to the core of my being. I mean, it was like finding yourself and I knew that I would work with animals. And I came out of that with like, okay, and I was, first of all, I was extremely revved up and excited because I bet, you discover why you're here yeah.
Rose D.:Yeah, but it's like my teacher wasn't. She was a human massage therapist and so her experiences were obviously with people and pre-internet. So I asked around and around and around. You know, is there anybody who can teach me how to work with animals? I didn't find anybody, so I was left to my own devices. Well, except I put a plea out to the spirit world please send me a teacher, please, please. And it took me a little while to realize that my prayers had been answered, but not in the way I had expected. Okay, that my prayers had been answered, but not in the way I had expected. I got a spirit teacher in the form of she Walks the Bobcat. So Bobcat helped.
Rose D.:And I wasn't. I mean, I didn't know why she was with me at first. It took gradually feeling my way into this because I had no background in chamanism, not formally, apparently. I apparently had plenty of past life stuff, um but she, we worked together for a little bit quietly and then my guide said you have to go out in the world with her. And I was like, oh god, I have to walk down the street, you know, with her on my shoulder, with a bobcat pelt on my shoulder, like no appropriate places, and I said, well, what's appropriate? And they're like we'll take her to a Reiki chair. And I was like, so yeah, there were places where we weren't welcome. I didn't take it personally. I understood, because this was new to me too. I mean, I had been an animal rights activist.
Rose D.:Yeah new to me too. I mean, I had been an animal rights activist. So to suddenly have the universe present me with about cat pelt when I've been anti-fur campaigning took a bit of pivoting from a mind perspective. Deny the energy, you know it was real, and so I had to put that aside and go okay. And I did fortunately know that there was a Native American perspective where spirit allies in this form were part of the tradition.
Shannon W.:Yeah. I didn't have any experience in that and I'm not native american, um, but I at least could file it for that category yeah so it does sound like it was just quite an awakening for you, that attunement, and then all of that which came after it was a lot. Yeah.
Rose D.:They piled them on the experiences. I found myself dropped into like a whole new world of awareness and I would tell people the stories of what had happened and they'd look at me Reiki people, you know and they'd look at me like I don't have experiences like that and I'm like really, like I don't have experiences like that and I'm like, really. So then I started talking to people who weren't Reiki but were connected to the Native American community and they're like, oh, let me name you. And I was like you know, and I'm like no, I don't.
Shannon W.:But they were like oh, we know what you're talking about, we.
Rose D.:This is not new to us, this is not outside our realm of experience yeah, it was gradually dawning on me that I, you know, they're like oh, you're, you know you're a shaman. And I'm like oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, not going there scary stuff. No, that's not what I am so you pushed back um ran away maybe okay okay it was uh.
Rose D.:it's hilarious in retrospect because I look at all the experiences I'm having or had then from the lens of, of course, what I, what I know now, and I go oh my God, Rose, you were so shamanic, you were like they just took the door. You know, you went in through Reiki, which I still absolutely love and adore, you know but they just jumped on you and said okay, we got her.
Rose D.:Yeah, I mean, it's like all of a sudden everything was alive and I'm talking to spirits, you know and not from a channeling perspective, but from a connection with the animals perspective.
Shannon W.:I wanted to ask you when, when you were talking about coming to Reiki, feeling lost as maybe part of a midlife crisis, but just wondering what is my life for and you found Reiki.
Shannon W.:And then you talk about how that opened something up in you and how it awakened you to communications and messages and understandings that hadn't been there before.
Shannon W.:And that connects so intimately with the purpose of this whole podcast, which is really to explore these native powers of the human being, to deep dive into the question of who we are and what we're capable of when we really open to the possibility. And the reason I'm exploring this question is because I believe that so much of the suffering that we feel whether it's suffering of feeling lost in ourselves or in our lives, or whether it's the suffering that we inflict outwardly in the world through our choices I think that so much of that suffering comes from forgetting who we are, from being disconnected to that true nature, and that we're part of nature, we're part of the web of life and, based on what I know about you and also what you've just said, I see you as someone uniquely positioned to speak about this phenomenon of forgetting and remembering, to speak about this phenomenon of forgetting and remembering. How do you see? What would you say? That is human's place in the great family of life? And if we've forgotten our way, how do we remember? Can we remember?
Rose D.:About nine jillion stories. Just don't mind. I'm like okay, which one do you want me to start? Um, so the first thing that jumped to mind is a story that speaks exactly to what you just described. Okay, and it goes. It kind of follows along another piece of the story that we were talking about earlier. I was guided to go to this event in.
Rose D.:Massachusetts, where I was living at the time, and it was an event where they were bringing the New Age community together with the Native American community. Oh, how interesting with the Native American community, oh how interesting, though it was, I believe, groundbreaking for its time, because there had been a lot of animosity on the Native American community towards people who were viewed as stealing their traditions. Oh, okay, yeah.
Rose D.:Non-Native people who were hungry would be the word I would use for those lost connections and were turning to more ancient ways. Yeah, but without having the traditional lineage-based training. Ie Native American community and Spirit of Change magazine in Western Massachusetts bravely published some letters from a Native American woman who was, and so there was a dialogue. They thought going, and Spirit of Change actually set up a harvest gathering in Western Massachusetts for the first time to bring those two worlds, if you will, together. Wow.
Rose D.:And I knew enough at that time to know that this was important, and I also knew that I felt that I needed to be there just to witness. Yeah.
Rose D.:And she walks, said to me you're going. And I said, well, yeah, I am planning on going. Said to me you're going, and I said, well, yeah, I am planning on going. She said no, you're going. And I said, yes, I know I am. And she said, no, you're going, and I was like dang it. You know, if I'm you know, absolutely positively supposed to be there, then I guess there won't be any impediments to my going out well, there, she wanted to make absolute sure you were going to be there.
Rose D.:I was admitted, so I showed up. Didn't know why I was there. It was a very lovely event, a lot of really heartful people from, shall we say, both sides, and they had set up everybody got to speak that were leaders in their community.
Rose D.:But there were also seminars being offered, like an hour, hour and a half, with this person on that topic and that person on that topic. And I looked at the list when I walked in and I'd known ahead of time who was going to be there. I didn't know most of these people, who they were or what they did, and I thought I was going to take the seminar on trees. That was my idea. When I walked in and I looked at the board and it was like there were big red X's out across everything, except for shamanism, sorcery and black magic by this guy I'd never heard of and I went this is my nightmare come true. You know, this was the scary stuff. And I was like no, oh no, what did you guys sign me up for? I'm just a reiki practitioner, you know, but it was as clear as to be that I was supposed to be there.
Shannon W.:But that was your only option. There was no nothing else available.
Rose D.:Yeah, it was like no, you're not taking any of the rest of these. You're going to be at that one.
Shannon W.:Wow, so you were dropped in to the course on shamanism? Yep, okay.
Rose D.:And that's where I've had my first introduction to Peruvian shamanism and the healing stones, the healing bundle, and they had us doing exercises. First they talked about the history of the Mesa and the importance. You know the stone people that are in there, the healers that they are, and some of them have been passed down for generations from one practitioner to the next. So I'm feeling, suitably, that this is very sacred. And then they're like hey, we're going to do an exercise, pick somebody that you don't know, which was easy, I didn't know. So the woman next to me, we both decided to be partners and they're like okay, so now we're going to have one of you come up and you'll be handed a stone from the mesa and then you're going to work with your partner to give that stone a voice. You're going to tell your partner what the stone person tells you for that. And I went into complete and total panic mode because, of course, you know A-type personality. It's like I've never done this before.
Shannon W.:Oh my God, I don't know how to do this. I'm going to do this wrong, yeah exactly.
Rose D.:And, of course, my partner opted for me to go up and receive the stone person and I'd been feeling the energy of these people, the people before me, you know as they received the stone, there'd be like this huge surge of energy. So I was expecting something. When they dropped the stone in my hand and I got nothing. Like Charlie Brown, I got a rock and I was like, oh no, he's not going to work with me. So I go back to my partner and we decided to go outside and I had two walks on my shoulder. Oh, okay.
Rose D.:Yeah, yeah. Well, I figured if there's one place where she walks and I could be, it would be this event. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So. I said to she walks, you know, mentally you got to help me with this. And she said nope, I'm out of here. And the pelt literally went flying off my shoulder and I'm three feet away. Oh, and I went. I feel like I've been abandoned. And of course my partner opted for me to go first, of course.
Rose D.:So I closed my eyes and I thought, god, I hope something happens, you know. And all of a sudden it was like I was watching a movie and I ended up going through these miles and miles and miles of stone tunnels, miles and miles, and I finally said to the stone person what's with the stone tunnels? And the stone person said shut up. I got a saucy one, um, so came out into a clearing, you know, beautiful glade, running stream, etc. And then shot into this hole in a tree, down back into the ground, back to the stone tunnel.
Rose D.:So I just kept relating this as it was happening and then, finally, it stopped and I opened my eyes and I looked at the person and I said boy, I sure hope that means something to you because that doesn't mean a thing to me. And she said oh no, it resonates perfectly. That's how I do my shamanic journeying. She said you know, I go into the hole in the tree in that actual place where you were and through the stone tunnels. And I didn't know shamanic journeying, I had no idea what it was.
Shannon W.:But you were journeying to her places.
Rose D.:Yeah, the stone person was essentially shouting who she was. Shamanically. I guess you could say or what she did shamanically.
Shannon W.:So how did that land with you when she told you I was?
Rose D.:like okay, well, okay, well, I'm not crazy.
Shannon W.:I'm not crazy. There you go.
Rose D.:Yep. And then she took the stone person and she apologized to me afterwards. She said I'm sorry it was so short and I said, oh no, it was exactly what I needed to hear. It wasn't what I wanted to hear, but it was what I needed to hear. And she said that the stone person said three words to her. And she said that the stone person said three words to her and the first was healer, and she didn't know who I was or what I did.
Shannon W.:And the second was nonconformist, which made me laugh, makes me laugh too.
Rose D.:And she said the third word she said was ancient. And she said and I looked at the stone person and I said and I said she said ancient. She doesn't look so ancient to me. Some person said oh no, she's an old friend of the stone people. Oh my god, she's forgotten not forgetting that.
Shannon W.:Just gave me chills.
Rose D.:In that instant I knew that I had to study shamanism, even though I didn't want to. And I knew that they had me over a barrel because they knew me obviously well enough they being spiritual to know that I might have swept it under the rug previously. But they just peeled the corner back and showed me what I'd swept under the rug, because all my experiences suddenly made sense Wow. And it's like they knew me well enough to know that I couldn't just throw the rug back over it, that I was going to have to do what I didn't want to do, but what they knew I needed to do.
Shannon W.:Yeah your work. Mm-hmm. I am struck by the repeated openings. When you talked about your first experiences with Reiki attunement and this epiphany that came upon you I am meant to be a healer. I am meant to work with animals. It was just very clear. And here again, in this workshop, this message that came through to you so strongly I am meant to study shamanism. Everything is making sense To me. It sounds like such a gift to have messages come so strongly that you just can't ignore them.
Rose D.:I'm feeling a little emotional myself because it's like I have a before and after. Like before Reiki is and I've used this analogy before but it's like. The Wizard of Oz is one of my favorite movies and for me it's like my life was black and white Kansas, and then afterwards everything was in technicolor and alive and and I I never went back to Kansas.
Shannon W.:No offense to Dorothy and her family oh yeah, good for you, and of course not.
Rose D.:But so, like the Wizard of Oz, there's, you know, there's. There's good and there's there's Sami and Hoochah. In shamanism, Ketwa, Sami is light, Hoochah is heavy energy. There's no judgment about, you know, good and bad. Okay.
Rose D.:Yes, so it's like the analogy works in the Wizard of Oz as well, because of course there are people that carry heavy energy and people that carry light energy in the reality world and in the realm of the Wizard of Oz. You know Oz, you know. You see that in a much more I guess you could say symbolic and mythic.
Shannon W.:Yeah, and that's really the world of shamanism. It's such an analogy because I can just put myself right in that world of Oz and the way everything lights up, everything full of color, everything and there's talking lions. There's talking lions. There's talking scarecrows.
Rose D.:There's talking trees talking trees.
Shannon W.:There's flying monkeys there's a, there's a lot going. There's witches, there's the good witch, the bad witch. Um, in going back to this idea of forgetting who we are and wanting to remember, I think so many people are longing for that technicolor, for that awakening into technicolor, that the modern merry-go-round of life can be so dry. And people are many people, I think understand that they are missing something.
Rose D.:We're in our heads in thinking about this conversation yesterday that we would be having. They were like you have to tell this story, you have to tell this story, you have to specific story. Okay, and they're like right now. They're like you have to tell this story, okay, okay. So I'm so curious.
Rose D.:People are in their heads a lot and that prevents us from connecting with our bodies in our hearts, which is where the animals are. They live in the present moment. They live from a place of physicalness and emotion. You know whether emotion is an experience of the wind on your whiskers, example, versus? You know I hate that dog. You know, um. So I'm going to tell the story and then we can tease it out, I guess because it's like stories are a little more effective when you don't put a lot of words around them. Okay, so, moving forward a year or two, and I was at a 10-day shamanic training, which I will say I will never do again in my entire life. Oh, intense, 40 or so people, and let's just say that the person leading this was not holding space in a balanced way.
Rose D.:Okay, holding space in a balanced way and I can look back and go. That's why why, why? Why all of this? But at the time, what I was experiencing was chaos, chaotic energy. I mean people emoting and their puja, their heavy energy, their Samsonite baggage is just flying everywhere. Their heavy energy, their Samsonite baggage is just flying everywhere and it's like being. It's like, you know, for someone who's used to being with more with animals than with people, it's like an onslaught of like oh my God, duck, here comes a flying suitcase, you know, yeah, and it was a beautiful place. We were at. It was. I was in California and it was this like wilderness sanctuary in the woods with this beautiful lake just magnificent and there was wildlife. I didn't see the wildlife at first.
Shannon W.:Were they hiding from the chaotic energy? I don't wait for it.
Rose D.:Were they hiding from the chaotic energy? I don't wait for it. So, and my roommates were hot mess. They were just falling apart energetically. It was like their issues would come out and they were tap dancing all over the place and it's like you know who should have the left of you, who should have the right of you, who should have your face. I mean, I couldn't get away from it, obviously with my roommates. And normally when I'm feeling overwhelmed.
Rose D.:I turn to the animals. There weren't any. We're in the middle of the woods, there's no domestic animals, and I just felt like I was completely alone. There wasn't anybody that I could ask for help, and I was walking down. It was about three days of this and I thought I'm going to go bonkers and yes, this is a descent into my own issues. So I just reached the breaking point. I was walking down this dirt path through the woods, it's dark, and I'm just thinking to myself. Actually, I wasn't thinking, I was just feeling, and I was feeling like I couldn't take one more step. I didn't have the animals to turn to. What was I going to do? And I even had the thought of. I knew that there were bears, I mean, there was wild. Literally there was every kind of wildlife you could think of, you know, in that area, and I thought I would welcome a bear right now. It would be, you know, an animal, even if it was a wild one. Yeah, um, maybe he. Just let me say hello, you know. Yeah.
Rose D.:I didn't have to touch him and I felt my heart just crack and I just had an emotional meltdown and I just said, oh my God, I would give anything for a cat right now, you know somebody that I could hold and love. And out of the darkness came this cat A domestic cat Running Running. I fell to my knees and he piled into my arms and he was purring and I cried all over him. Oh because he answered my call. Yeah.
Shannon W.:Yeah, there's an animal as a healer right there.
Rose D.:Oh yeah, and so we had this huge love fest and I told him which cabin I was in, if you wanted to come visit, because I thought I don't know where you came from. Did you drop from the sky? I don't know, I don't care, yeah, from the edge of a forest from out of the woods from out of the woods from the domestic cat in the middle of nowhere.
Rose D.:Um, so I went and I talked to the camp people the next day and I said do you have a domestic cat on the property anywhere? They said, oh yeah, we have charlie. He's the camp cat that he doesn't hang out with the, you know, with the visitors he's not very friendly. Oh, really. Well, let me tell you what happened last night. And they said oh my God, so Charlie was the gift. And I mentioned this story, I think, because all I was was heart. In that moment, you know I reached that point, that wall. You know all I could was hard. In that moment, you know I reached that point, that wall.
Shannon W.:You know all I could do was feel and surrender was such a touching story and beyond touching, and it reminds me of something I heard or read that you said, which is that, in order to connect with animals, we need to listen with our hearts and not our heads.
Rose D.:I think that would have been Don Manuel Quispe, a wise Peruvian shamanic elder who said stay out of your heads, perceive with your hearts.
Shannon W.:Ah, okay.
Rose D.:And he put into words, you know kind of what my experiences were, my evolution. I'm not formally trained as an animal communicator, really I've only taken two basic animal communication classes in my life and what I discovered was I had been doing it all my life.
Shannon W.:I hadn't realized it, but it's more subtle than Dr Doolittle Well and we often hear of animal communication as being something that's a particular practice to learn but it awakens you to the fact that everybody can do it well, yeah, and what I was just thinking is that, by immersing yourself in shamanism, that ability that was already latent was was awakened. Not that animal communication had to be a separate thing that you had to study.
Rose D.:Yeah, I had put all of that aside when I was a teenager because I started to have very my intuition awoke. As I understand it can, when you hit puberty and living in a very small 6,000-people town, having grown up catholic, suddenly having uh psychic experiences, you know, or knowledge, that sort of thing, visions you may not have had much of a container to share that with them you didn't have anybody to talk to about that and the little little one room schoolhouse public library was definitely not didn't have anything that was helpful.
Rose D.:So I you know I found it unnerving, had some experiences that were scary and they fell into the shamanic realm and I just shut it down. So I closed the door, basically on a part of myself close the door basically on a part of myself, so that's why it's so significant.
Rose D.:When I hit, you know, when I decided to take that Reiki class, they basically said, okay, she's opened the door, crack and they went boom and blew the door, and that's why I was unhappy because I'd set away a part of myself and my connections to the natural world. It affected my relationships with animals. They grew exponentially by moving from my head into my heart, into who I am, into my connections.
Shannon W.:So, in your case, not only was there forgetting, or maybe, rather than forgetting, there was a a conscious closing of that door.
Rose D.:Well, I consciously closed it, yeah, and I was starving that side of myself.
Shannon W.:That's why I felt like life didn't have any meaning or purpose I think it's a good point to make that it isn't always this doesn't always come just from from people's forgetting or not knowing. It can also come from painful or, um, scary yeah, experiences that that cause us to shut down, um, especially when there's no cultural reference for it or there's no community to support us in those experiences, whereas if there had been, you may have nourished those and from suburbia.
Shannon W.:Yeah, yeah, exactly, um, this, uh, this makes me think of something else I think you said no, I'm sure you said this which is, um, you mentioned that when people, we bring things into our homes like stones, plants, crystals or animals, companion animals, and that in doing this, it can actually be a way that we are attempting to sort of strengthen our connections by bringing them into our lives.
Rose D.:Yeah, well, I mean, if you think about it, shamanism, just as an example, is the man's oldest way of connecting with the natural world around him.
Shannon W.:Yeah, talk about ancient Right, exactly.
Rose D.:And so all of our ancestors, no matter where we hailed from originally, we all had indigenous ancestors, because we didn't start out as civilized Western Europeans, so somewhere in our bodies, I mean, we're born of the earth, we're made of the earth. Yeah.
Rose D.:The stone people. They're the bones of Pachamama. They're the closest connection if you will, portable connection, I guess you could say to Pachamama. They hold the ancient wisdom, wisdom. They were the people that were here before, before. The tree people, the plant people, you know, the animal people, I mean stone people. They've seen it all and so, on some level, as children, we feel that connection. How many kids come home with stones in their pockets? Oh yeah, like all of them or in my case you know, living beings.
Shannon W.:Thankfully, my mother was very much of an animal person, my grandmother not so much, but we bring things home as kids yeah, there's something in our child, in us as children, that's maybe still awake to those connections and longing to be closer to them, longing to be experiencing them or we're taught no, you don't have an imaginary fringe.
Rose D.:No, you can't talk to animals, yeah, no. Um. Well, I mean, how many kids grow up afraid of dogs because that's what their parents teach them? You know, it's what we're taught, or what society, culture teaches us. It's a head thing. Kids go straight from the heart, straight from the body, straight for their natural connections. So it's a matter, as an adult, of unlearning all of that and letting it go. It's a matter, as an adult, of unlearning all of that and letting it go.
Shannon W.:It's really at the heart of animal communication and healing, whether it's Reiki, shamanism or some other form. It's our way back. You mentioned a few minutes ago that anyone can do this. You said this is available and I think there probably are people who say I would love to do this, I'd love to be able to do this, but that's something other people can do. This is not something that I can do. What is the entrance door?
Rose D.:for someone who wants to, wants to step in that direction and become more connected. Well, my first impulse is to say come take a Reiki class with me. But if you believe that you cannot do something, then that is an impediment to anything. That you cannot do something, then that is an impediment to anything. You have to at least be open-minded that it might be possible.
Shannon W.:Yeah, so you can't have that belief. I can't do it.
Rose D.:Yeah, it's not a matter that you have to believe, for example, in Reiki or shamanism or anything, but you have to be like there's a way to get there. You have to believe that there's a way to get there. You know, you have to believe that or be persistent, I guess you could say, in knowing that there's a way there, you just haven't found it yet.
Shannon W.:That's very different, isn't it?
Rose D.:Yeah, I mean it's. I love Reiki and it's got. I've seen powerful things happen in healing for many people my students, et cetera but it's not the only answer and it's not the answer for everybody in personal healing. That's why there's a lot of different healing modalities in the world. There's lots of different ways to get to the same place, but I think the thing that they ultimately all share is that you have to be willing to listen, and we can't listen if we're going yada, yada, yada in our heads.
Shannon W.:So true.
Rose D.:I mean, it's like things like tai chi and qigong bring you into the breath, bring you into you know, an inner beingness and inner awareness. It's another way to get there. Um, they all share. I think that basic underlying must be grounded, balanced and centered for whatever practice it is, so I can teach people how to step towards that. I can't do it for them, obviously, but it is. It does require that they be willing to open just a little bit so that there's some some emptiness that can be filled.
Rose D.:Yeah, not for me Some space. And I think that was going back to the story about the cat in the woods. I think for myself it was important that I reach that point of self-awareness that you know I needed to be more open, I needed to be cracked open just a little bit more to reach that point of pain, and also to recognize how strongly I relied on the animal world, because, you know, I should be able to walk in the world without leaning on them like a crutch.
Rose D.:So that brings me to the point where all the animal people will hate to hear this, which is that in order to help the animals, in order to support them, when I first started in reiki and I wanted, I opened my practice to animals, what I didn't realize was that they came with people and so I had to learn how to talk to the people, support them, help them understand where the animal was coming from.
Rose D.:That meant that I had to connect with the people, and the animal said to me you know, they demanded something further, which was we love what you do for us, but we love our people. I want you to do this for them too. So I ended up opening my practice to people and animals.
Shannon W.:At the request of the animals.
Rose D.:And in the process of doing my personal healing work, because animal people are usually the people who have been hurt early in life. They don't want to trust people, so the healing journey is often one of personal healing from a trust standpoint. And so the more personal work that we do, the more we open ourselves to everything, the more we open ourselves to everything. But it also opens our connection to the animals, because if we're closed down in one aspect, it narrows the pipeline, narrows the amount of information or connection that can come through. So you know that thing about the web it's like, and the more personal work we do because we're part of the web, the more it shifts things on a global scale. So those of us who feel helpless with everything that's going on right now especially, yeah doing your work around fear, around anger, around feeling alone, feeling different, whatever it is.
Rose D.:All of that personal healing work helps to make it possible on a larger scale, if enough of us do it, for shift to take place. Healing is microcosmic and macrocosmic.
Rose D.:Yeah, like so many things, starting with ourselves can be the first step, yep toward participating in healing in the world yeah, and you know, it's no wonder that I didn't get a teacher a human teacher, I guess, way back when, because I might have like run for the hills if I'd known you know what the journey, how much personal work I had to do, but it's ultimately made me, you know, a happier person. That doesn't mean it's, you know, there are definitely points where it hasn't been easy, but what keeps me going is the feedback from the animals. The more personal work I do do, the more amazing experiences I have with them and then you're able to share these with other people, as your students as well.
Shannon W.:So your own experience and healing is rippling out.
Rose D.:That's why I'm a storyteller yeah because it gives the intention of the stories is not just me reliving that amazing moment, whatever it was. It's to inspire people as to the possibilities and, of course, I tell plenty of stories of the grand mistakes I've made as well.
Shannon W.:We get to learn from your mistakes. Yeah, exactly we get to learn from your mistakes. Yeah, exactly Something that I wanted to ask you about, and we just touched on it a bit. In talking about wanting to contribute to healing on a grander scale. You were talking about the microcosm and the macrocosm, and one of the things that's been really on my heart, and probably on the hearts of so many people, is, as I've been watching the conflict that's happening in Ukraine. Yeah.
Shannon W.:And just feeling the pain of the humanitarian crisis that people are going through Right humanitarian crisis that the people are going through and then learning, reading stories about the animals the animals who are in zoos, who can't be evacuated, not to mention the many, many thousands of companion animals who are um either being left behind or evacuating through these terrifying circumstances with their people. Mm-hmm.
Shannon W.:And it can feel. There's the pain that feels very real and large, and then there's also this feeling of I don't know if I want to say helplessness, but it's certainly a feeling of wanting to help and not knowing how. Right.
Shannon W.:You know, we can donate to a cause, we can donate to a zoo or to an organization that's helping the animals in Ukraine or helping the people, but somehow that doesn't feel like enough. But somehow that doesn't feel like enough and I'm wondering, from the perspective us, of us all being connected in this web, this energetic web, what can reiki or shamanism offer us? Is? Is there something they can offer us as tools that could help us to feel that we could contribute something?
Rose D.:you know, I mean it's, it's a very obviously big event on people's minds right now. Conflict, conflict in ukraine, is it's not called a conflict, it's called a war. Yeah, it's terrible Not to get too, too political, but it's particularly terrible in light of the fact that most of the Russian people are being lied to and don't know what's really happening. It's not their war. Yeah.
Rose D.:You know, and I've been watching reading the news I do my morning tobacco prayers, which are shamanic you know I include whatever comes up with respect to the day. So prayers, whatever you know, might happen to be shamanic, but everybody can pray and even if you don't have a particular belief system, wishing them well is a form of prayer. Positive energy, Not controlling energy, and this is where it comes into. I think you might have read my article about the fire ceremony for the animals at the Tia Zoo.
Shannon W.:Yes, I did actually.
Rose D.:Okay, yes, so I hadn't expected to be doing ceremony at all. You know, part of my work is going into zoos a lot of times with other people collecting the prayers of the zoo animal ambassadors. They are ambassadors for their species. It is something that they believe. It is something that the zoo believes.
Rose D.:This makes it powerful, a powerful connection to their wild relatives, and so, in doing ceremony with the animals and the people, brings the prayers of both together so that together we can walk in harmony on the earth. So in that article that I wrote, I talked about Reiki and I talked about Shamanism. And I started with Reiki because I said, okay, send some Reiki to the situation, but you must, before you do this, when we send Reiki to the situation, reiki level 2 for those, distance Reiki, for those who might not know we aren't sending it to anybody specifically, it's to the situation, because we don't have permission to send to 4 000 animals, um or people and we must let go of attachment to the outcome yeah and as a healer you know it's like we're supposed to take whatever we think might be for the highest and best good and put it off to the side and be the straw for what's for highest and best good for the situation in this case.
Rose D.:And I said to me you have to be willing to accept even the worst, you have to be able to embrace the worst. And I thought, oh my God, the worst is unimaginable. I don't even want to give it words right here. But they said you have to let that go. You cannot control, and what they made apparent in how the story, the guidance that they gave me for the ceremony, unfolded we cannot control, but we can ease. It was essentially what I got out of it. So I know that even if the worst happens, it will be okay, not what I want, but what they need.
Shannon W.:Yeah, yeah, thank you for that. The reminder that we cannot control but we can ease, we can do what we can do. That eases even my heart a bit.
Rose D.:I'm glad.
Shannon W.:Yeah, just in sharing that. And you know, we know this, it's not just Ukraine.
Rose D.:No.
Shannon W.:It's climate crisis, it's mass extinction, it's violence, it's pollution, it's our disconnection from each other and from nature, yeah, and whatever way that might be manifesting and whatever way we might be feeling the hurt from that, but that message that we need to be able to let go and allow for that highest and best good, that we are not in control of the outcome in control of the outcome and we're not dragging down by hanging on to.
Rose D.:You know, it has to be this way. It's like what. There are things that I've discovered. There are outcomes that I could never possibly imagine that were absolutely perfect and beautiful, you know ah, that you would never know you would have never thought of.
Rose D.:Yeah, and it may not always be. I mean, you know, a lot of the work that I do is geared towards trying to rebuild those connections, which is what's the lack of those connections is what's caused us to have, you know, climate crisis yeah, we wouldn't be causing this to happen to our planet if we saw ourselves, our lives, as interconnected to all life.
Shannon W.:We would never, never, do this. Nope, we're doing it to ourselves. Yeah, we are burning down our own house, yep, and bringing all of the other lives along with us, so sadly.
Rose D.:And bringing all of the other lives along with us, so sadly. And that's where people looking at the war in Ukraine and the impact on the animals, well, you're seeing the aspect on a smaller scale, shall we say, of exact. You know, it's the same pattern. It is. It's the same pattern.
Shannon W.:Disconnection destruction.
Rose D.:Even the conflict we have with our neighbor. Same pattern.
Shannon W.:Yeah, because doesn't that conflict come from feeling separate from or disconnected from our neighbor?
Rose D.:Or that person on Facebook that you're arguing with, that you don't even know most of the time. Yeah. And so that's why it comes back to the personal clearing work. I was just revisiting the reiki precepts the other day, and it's um the translation that I'm familiar with. One of them says you know, do not anger. Someone else was reading said another translation is do not hold on to anger, and I think that's more accurate there's that clearing again absolutely healing is about choosing to not hold on to it because it doesn't serve us.
Rose D.:and once you let go of that, whatever it was that you took personally as a personal attack, which it's not then your perceptions open and you're able to look at the situation from a different shift. That's what the animals are trying to get us to do to listen, to see through their eyes, to experience the world as they I mean in shamanism you literally do so when you you know connect with your power animal, but just I sit and or stand and listen to my local wildlife the crows, the birds, the squirrels, the hummingbird.
Rose D.:You know it's possible in our backyards? Yeah, it is. We have teachers everywhere.
Shannon W.:Yes.
Rose D.:And you know they don't. They don't do that, they don't hold on to stuff. Okay, yeah, maybe crows do a little bit If you get on their bad side. You, you, you know it can be hard to get on the good side again, but it's more of a.
Shannon W.:They're not angry about it maybe that's one of the things that they are able to teach us. Is that way of letting go and not carrying?
Rose D.:Yes, what we need to release. They have memories, you know, they remember things and they're driven more by instinct than we are. People would be better off if they were acknowledging their instincts a bit more. Animals teach us to be present. They're not worrying about what happened last week. They're not projecting into the future that this is going to be. The spirit world, yes, is concerned about climate change. The animals are attempting to adapt. I've just read just recently that birds and I forget where it was are starting to lay their eggs a month earlier.
Shannon W.:Oh, because the climate is warming yeah.
Rose D.:So they're attempting to adapt to the current state of affairs. Can they adapt quickly enough, God? I hope so.
Rose D.:I hope so, um, I hope so too, but the message that I get from all of my guides still, despite all of the scientific bad news you know about, this is going to happen by 2050, you know, with respect to climate change is that if people and all our relations work together and by that they mean call on us, you know, find out what we can do. I mean, the example that jumps to mind is the thing I read on Facebook the other day. It was a little video about in, I think, sacramento, california. They're bringing back goats. A horde of 400 goats and their herd dogs are working together to clear the underbrush to prevent wildfires. Okay, so another example is trees. I've read that trees are now working harder to sequester carbon, you know, to convert carbon dioxide I don't.
Rose D.:I don't know if the scientist has ever projected this, but if we planted like trees everywhere, how much of a shift could we co-create? And we would go to the tree people to ask will you do this? And I know they'd say yes, but they might also offer us guidance in how best to do that. We haven't asked them.
Shannon W.:Yeah, I was just going to say that would come back to that listening.
Rose D.:Exactly. What's the harm, you know, in asking, I think people are putting aside our arrogance that we're the only ones who can figure this out, but our heads have gotten us into this mess. Why couldn't we balance head with heart or spiritual? Yeah, not one or the other, it's everything working together and we've shut the door, as I did, you know, in that spiritual aspect yeah, and if our heads got us into this mess, what makes us think that our heads can get us out of this mess?
Rose D.:We're good at figuring things out, but they could lead us to exploring, and I'm seeing more and more of that. I'm seeing more scientists, naturalists thinking, shall we say, outside the box. We need to move so quickly that we're not going to have time to test a lot of things, as we did in the past. We're gonna have to trust. We're gonna have to trust the natural world because, yes, there are some things I've seen some amazing scientific things about. You know how they can remove more carbon from the atmosphere and how we can live differently on the earth and recycle, etc. Those are all great things, but the piece that's missing, the piece that's everywhere, is Pachamama. It's all our relation to a part of Pachamama, our relatives. It isn't a matter of us protecting them. It's a matter of they're going to need to work with us, because together we are strong. We're not standing alone. We don't have to.
Shannon W.:I was going to ask you. I'm looking at our time and I recognize we're coming. We're basically at the end of our time, and the last thing I wanted to ask you is is there a message that the animals may be asking you to share? I feel like you were just sharing that message.
Rose D.:I feel like it just sharing that message. I feel like it. I guess, for the more, for the direct message, I guess I would suggest that people read Wind Walker's message for the world.
Shannon W.:Yeah.
Rose D.:Wind Walker is, for those of you who don't know, was a mountain lion. He used to live at Earth Fire Institute, was an ambassador there at a sanctuary, who transitioned into spirit, but he was a teacher in physical world and when he transitioned into spirit he became a teacher there as well or he was, is a teacher there and he took me on a shamanic journey where he basically laid it all out in there as to what our path is, what their guidance is, as to how we find our way back into balance worldwide. He specifically speaks to at the time global warming was the phrase, now climate change and what each of us as an individual can do and how that fits into the big picture, and I think he did it beautifully, or Spirit World did it beautifully.
Shannon W.:I think so too, and I will share a link to that story so anyone who's listening can find it, because the words that it's told in are probably the way that it's meant to be received.
Rose D.:Walker approves, because he just kind of kind of heard whiffled in my ear.
Shannon W.:Wonderful. Thank you, wind Walker. Thank you for being with us today as well. Rose, I wrote down a quote from you that I wanted to read here at the end. I thought it was so powerful, and it's along the lines of what we're just talking about the need to work together humans, animals and nature for the reparations that we need. Um just like to read that quote. It was from your, from your newsletter. I saw it and it says with the help of all my relations, your shamanic allies, and holding space in balance with a foot in both worlds, you are not powerless, you are power with. Yes, there's so much power when we allow ourselves to connect with that web of life and the power of. We don't have to do this alone, and that is a message I hear from you again and again, so I thank you for that.
Rose D.:Thank you. That's a message they've managed to drum into my head.
Shannon W.:Well, I'm thanking them for that as well, for drumming it so forcefully and beautifully that you've been able to share it, for I mean, for many, many years now you've been doing this work and sharing the messages of the animals, and I'm so grateful to you for what you're doing for so many people, so many students, and for the animals and for Pachamama.
Rose D.:Thank you for giving us all this platform Now.
Shannon W.:if only we can honor their requests and do the work we're being asked to do.
Rose D.:Amen.
Shannon W.:That's it for this episode of the Wake Up Human podcast. To learn more about my guest, rose Dedan, visit her website at reikishamoniccom, and to learn more about me and the Wake Up Human podcast, visit my website at shannonwillscom. In the liner notes for this episode, I'll link to some resources for further exploration of the themes of this conversation. For further exploration of the themes of this conversation, that will include Wind Walker's Message for the World, an audio interview with Rose that includes not only Wind Walker's message, which she referenced, but some interesting background on Rose's work. I'll also drop in a link to the work of Diana Beresford Kroger.
Shannon W.:When Rose said, you know, I don't know if any scientist has studied this, but what if we just planted trees everywhere? I thought of Diana. She is a scientist and she has indeed studied this, and she has a simple proposal for how we might work together with the trees in a similar way to heal the climate crisis that now threatens all our lives. I'd say it's her mission, actually. So you can find the episode page with these links by visiting shannonwillscom and clicking on the podcast link in the menu. Now, that's really it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Wake Up Human Podcast podcast.