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Mellissa’s Journey: Catholic Lawyer to Shamanic Priestess
Copyright
Mellissa Seaman 2006, All Rights Reserved
Six years ago, I was living a contented life as a Stanford-educated lawyer and a practicing Catholic. Today, I’m living an ecstatic life as a practicing shamanic priestess: shaman, healer, psychic, and channel. How did it happen? Here’s my story.
I’ve always been intuitive. As a child, my pediatrician, who was also a child psychiatrist, lovingly characterized me as super-imaginative and gifted. I moved the toothpaste across the counter once with a thought. Scared the heck out of me. Didn’t tell anyone. I saw lions in the bushes that no one else saw. I knew they were real.
My faith life was always nurtured and strong in the Catholic Church. God and Jesus and the Virgin Mary were always accessible to me. I talked to them often, and always felt the warmth and acceptance of Divine Grace.
I heard God talk with words for the first time when I was seven. I was in the mountains at church camp, alone in a meadow, chasing frogs around a pond. I was overcome by a strong Wind that did not move the trees or the grass – but it moved my heart. I felt completely loved, and I also felt an overwhelming sense of awe. I heard God call me by my name. I answered, asking what God wanted me to do. God said “Just Love.” After that day, I never felt out of contact with God. And the contact was always stronger outside in nature than anywhere else. It always seemed to me that God lived outside in the trees and the sky. Church felt comfortable for group prayer and ritual, and it held its own beauty in tradition, but when I wanted to really talk personally with God, I went outside.
I loved being the Campus Minister of my Catholic high school. I led retreats. I planned liturgies. I spoke freely about my relationship with God, and my deep love and admiration for Christ. I studied the Catholic Church. I learned to constantly explore my Faith using my whole self – my intellect, my reason, and my intuition. I was an extraordinarily happy and involved Catholic.
At Stanford where I went to college, I studied other religions and traditions, lived in a co-operative house, and started practicing meditation and doing improvisational theatre. I began finding God everywhere!
After college, I went back to San Diego where I got involved in my local Catholic Church again, and entered law school. I met my husband, Mark, and began planning a family. I founded and ran an improvisational theatre, teaching and performing improv with San Diego Theatresports.
After law school, I was a mess. I felt de-feminized, hardened and resentful. Feminine ways of negotiating, of communicating, and of acting were not encouraged in law school. I was suffering with chronic and severe yeast infections and bladder infections that kept me in pain. My doctors – all intelligent specialists – were stumped. They offered only that I could go on anti-yeast medications for the rest of my life.
Desperate, I treated with a Chinese herbalist and acupuncturist practicing in Carlsbad. Within three weeks of herbal treatment, I was comfortable again. To access the root of the issue, though, I was led on an 8-month-long fasting and raw foods program with an extraordinary healer, Dr. Gerald Benesh. This incredible time showed me the healing power of my own body, and taught me a lot about the naturalness of miracles.
Two natural births and a couple of adorable kids later, I had everything I ever wanted: perfect health, an amazing husband, two healthy incredible children, a big comfy house, a well-paid part-time lawyer gig, a comfortable faith life within my Catholic church community, and my own improv theatre troupe. Wow! It was the life I always wanted.
What more could I want? God answered that question for me in the year 2000 when I got my call to action – my psychic awakening. Tingling in my hands, constant messages coming through me, and a strong sense of Calling drove me to a deep and profound change of focus. I dedicated my life to exploring and opening this Calling, offering myself as a tool for Spirit in whatever form was in the Highest Good. It was difficult to walk this path, as I felt very alone, alienated from my previous community, and grieving the confidence I held in my Catholic belief structure, and yet my connection to God was clearer and more fulfilling than ever.
With the support of my a close friend, Alora, who was also awakening in a similar way, I came out of the shamanic closet. Knowing it meant I might lose my house, my livelihood, and my sense of peace in my family, I gave up my law practice entirely in 2002, and began to work openly as a shamanic healer. Alora and I opened a shamanic healing arts center in San Diego, welcoming others who were intuitively awakening.
Since then, I’ve been following the flow of Spirit as best I can, facilitating energetic healings for hundreds of people all over the world, and leading channeled classes in shamanic practice, the arts of the temple priestess, and holding space for others to experience Divine Ravishment.
The shamanic path requires that I am constantly healing my own imbalances and negative patterns. I am not perfect. I am an instrument. And I am called to continually heal and perfect this instrument, my Self. It is hard work, and it is humbling work. But I have found that by re-examining the patterns in my life that I thought I could never change, accepting Grace from God, and taking the leap off of the cliff into the unknown of a healed existence, I can access healing for my Self that I never dreamed possible.
Now, I am more confident and joyful in my vocation that ever before. I am privileged to feel the healing power of God coursing through my body on a daily basis. I am honored to help my clients wade through the deepest darkest scariest patterns to be released into healing Light. I am awed to be a part of the ongoing healing of the human race and mother Earth. And I am so grateful to Spirit/God/Goddess for leading me on this path of healing and wholeness: my personal journey, my healing work, and the community that holds me. The last time I thought I had everything I could ever want, God gave me More. I can only imagine where my path will lead from here. Lead On, Spirit!
Aho!
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Mellissa Seaman is a co-founder
of San Diego Circle
and founder of Heart
Wisdom and Divine Ravishment. She provides
profound energetic healing sessions, teaches
workshops, leads rituals, and writes articles on spiritual awakening, healing,
and sacred living. Reach Mellissa at info@heartwisdom.net.
click
here to read more about Mellissa
click here
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