Shopping Cart

You have not added any items to your cart.

$0.00
Shipping & taxes calculated at checkout.
View Cart
CHECKOUT

OUR BLOG

By Deer Tribe / In October 15, 2024

Ask an A Road: Apprenticeship – A Roadmap to Evolve your Soul’s Destiny 

The Sweet Medicine SunDance Path (SMSD) is a ceremonial lineage that provides a vehicle with a clear roadmap for the evolution of our Soul. Apprenticeship can guide us from who we are today, into who we are becoming, and all the way to our fullest potential toward enlightenment.  

Truthfully, when most of us choose to become an apprentice to the Path we are typically not seeking enlightenment as our endgame. Most of us assume that enlightenment is “out there” too far to possibly attain as an “ordinary” person. We don’t know what earlier incarnations looked like for Jesus, Quan Yin, or Buddha, but they each certainly had a path that led them to enlightenment. In this era of the Fifth World, there is a quickening that is speeding up the pace of spiritual evolution for all of us “ordinary” people.

The Gateway Process is a series of steps designed for us to embody knowledge and experience powerful alchemical ceremonies that support our personal healing and the awakening of our Natural Self. The teachings facilitate our full engagement with ceremonial alchemy to address our dark pain tapes and rewrite how we express our individuality into the world.
It is a process that supports and guides us to shine the light into our inner darkness, explore and find the light within the dark, shine the light to find our light, so we can glow even brighter. The alchemical process experienced through ceremony is like personal self-growth on steroids; there is a rapid, deep transformation of our awareness and energy vibration.  

Engaging in the gateway process is like training from a white belt into a black belt in Martial Arts. There is training and practice with much testing and challenge along the way to become a black belt. A white belt transforms into a black belt by meeting their edge over and over again. We need to show up consistently to train and grow by engaging in the opportunities to advance our belt to a higher level. In some martial arts there are contrasting stripes added to the belt color that represent an achievement within each belt level, this can be likened to the 22 degrees built into the 15 Gateways.

The first step to becoming an apprentice is hearing the call from Spirit, “What’s in it for me? Why now?” The call awakens a realization that for us, right now, the Sweet Medicine SunDance Path is the path where we feel a desire to commit to our personal healing and self-growth. This is expressed as “our path with heart” meaning that it is our heart’s desire to dedicate ourselves to our spiritual evolution journey. 

Once the decision is clear that we are ready to become an apprentice, we seek someone who has the appropriate qualification level to support us as an Apprentice Guide (contact the DTMMS office for more information). This is a person who has walked the path before us, someone we resonate with, we are clear they have our back and who agrees to guide our progress through the Gateway process.

We sit with our guide in a ceremony to make agreements for how we will journey together in co-empowerment, and we offer them a physical blanket to hold for the duration of our apprenticeship. We are not apprenticing to the guide; we are apprenticing to the SMSD Path and our Higher Self.

The physical blanket represents or symbolizes the Nagual Blanket of Protection. The nagual or spiritual blanket protects us as we engage in higher and higher levels of alchemy. 

The ultimate reason to apprentice to the SMSD path is to evolve and grow in alignment with our Soul’s destiny. Our Soul is immortal – it has no body or physical form. We are our Soul’s feet on the street to physically experience life. We evolve and grow throughout our lifetime to support our Soul’s journey and stay the course toward enlightenment. Our Soul is encouraging us to wake up, become aware, make new choices to heal and expand.   

As apprentices, we sit in the South of the Leadership Wheel. All apprentices are recognized as leaders because we have assumed authority for our own dedication to grow and evolve.  We apprentice in trust and innocence to answer the call of Spirit to be part of the solution on Grandmother Earth. As we journey through the gateway process, gaining more self-awareness and experiencing deeper levels of healing, the more we can lead the way for others to find their connection to Spirit and discover their path with heart, so they can also heal and grow within the Gathering Together Circle of Humanity. There are many paths to enlightenment. This Path is one, where as a SMSD apprentice, your Soul has guided you to awaken to your Dharmic Destiny, the dream of your Soul.

by Sara Regester

Sara is the founder of Directions 4 Wellness, an international health and lifestyle-coaching practice, and the author of “Courage to Shine, How to Feel Confident Outside Your Comfort Zone”. 

Based in America, Sara apprenticed to the SMSD Path in 2003 and is currently a Red Lodge teacher in Australia and a founding member of the Inspired Leadership Steering Committee. She offers a unique combination of integrative medicine with shamanic teachings and alchemical ceremony to support rapid, deep transformation to create a Dharmic Lifestyle. 

www.directions4wellness.com 
sara@directions4wellness.com 

© DTMMS. All Rights Reserved. Material cannot be used without explicit written permission.

Hello, Sign In
Find A Lodge