During my second year at university, a friend and I decorated Easter eggs with a very rude anti-religious joke. I was an atheist and laughed at anything connected with faith.
Ten years later, I recite mantras every day. I have a growing stack of certificates in different spiritual practices, and words such as energy, universe and spirit belong to my ordinary vocabulary. I began writing this after the first day of a workshop in shamanic journeying.
How did this happen? I barely noticed it happening.
First, I opened a chocolate studio beside people who sold singing bowls and hosted tea ceremonies. Sometimes I joined their meditations. They introduced me to yoga.
Six years later, in Kaliningrad, I met an extraordinary yoga teacher. I trusted her enough to try group regression work, despite my scepticism. Buddhist books appeared around the same time. Then I fell in love with a man who meditated every day and began following his example.
Burnout eventually took me to a ten-day silent Vipassana retreat. I went to understand what I wanted from life and discovered much more. Energy became something I could feel. My body became far more sensitive, and I understood the importance of listening to it.
When I later studied psychology, I chose a method that works with the unconscious through mind, body and soul. Then came psychedelic experiences. At first, speaking openly about spiritual experiences with mushrooms felt uncomfortable. Reading the research reduced some of that stigma, and my Tantra teachers placed these experiences within a much older human relationship with sacred plants. They also reminded me to stay grounded in practice.
On Bali, I attended another Vipassana and then one Tantra retreat after another. Goosebumps, altered states and a quiet inner voice all said the same thing: this way.
I waited for a teacher. In India, I completed a month of Kundalini Yoga training, followed by six months of training to teach Tantra. Two spiritual teachers entered my life, along with a spiritual name: Vidya.
Then a drum arrived unexpectedly, and I began learning shamanic journeying. Its rhythm led me into depths that might belong to my unconscious or to a world of spirits. The name mattered less than the full-body recognition that I belonged there.
I never planned this road. I simply kept following the call of my heart.
The path continues. Something guides me, and I move with it. Perhaps that guide is my inner voice.
We are small human beings travelling on a burning planet through endless galaxies. Our knowledge of this world remains wonderfully incomplete.
