Gaining a Shamanic Spirit Partner, Part 1

The Emperor

This convoluted story unfolded in what felt like an ongoing series of shocks to my system in 2024 and 2025. I was never prepared for any of the events that occurred, and it was only in hindsight that the larger picture began to be understood. While this is true of all my shamanic experiences – I never get a heads up before going through radical change – the degree and level to which I experienced extreme change around my spirit partner in 2025 was like nothing I could have imagined. Much of what I know now, I didn’t have the benefit of knowing at the time, so it was confusing, and sometimes misunderstood.

The end result has been a male spirit partner, my energetic twin flame, who is bound to my physical and energetic bodies, aiding my personal healing and shamanic work.

This is a long story, broken into several parts. This first part takes place in 2024; it introduces my spirit partner, US Army Major John Greene, all the things I first learned about him, and the lessons I learned from loving him.

Part 2 takes place in 2025, when John was bound to me for the healing of us both, and explores my evolving understanding of gender and shamanism.

Part 3 explores the deepening of our connection and gender-shifting. Part 4 (coming soon) will share John’s departure and eventual return, and the lessons learned from being apart.

Related but not directly part of the series is my article on meeting Odin, who is connected to John, and began working with me when John was taken to pass on at the beginning of August 2025.

Meeting and Working With the Emperor

From my journal, May 11, 2024:
In class last week, we energy-tracked with no prompts, other than beginning by looking at ourselves in the dreaming. When I looked down at my feet, I was wearing my Doc Martins, but after seeing them, the words combat boots popped into my head. As soon as they did, I realized I was indeed wearing combat boots, and as I began looking up my body (from my own perspective, not outside myself), I could see that I had camo pants wrapped and tucked into my boots. I had a black utility belt around my waist, and a camo top with 2 bandoliers for bullets crossing my chest. I held the stub of a cigar in my teeth, and in the reflection of a nearby helicopter (Vietnam War era), I could see that I had grey stubble on my face. I wore a red cap or beret and was barking orders. I hadn’t gotten far up my body when I began crying – a sign that I am super aligned with whatever I’m experiencing. 

Over the next week, I journeyed 3 times to try and work with him. The first time I didn’t get much. He didn’t seem to want to talk to me, other than to let me know that he held himself away from others (from fully leaving this lifetime) because he believed himself to be unforgivable. In this journey, I was separated from him, and while standing in front of him, I was moved to put my hand on his chest. Doing so, I felt an all-encompassing love fill me. I loved him so much and so completely that I knew there was nothing he could ever have done to change that. I shared this with him before I left.

The second time I saw him, he let me see some of what occurred after the point at which I found him. He was barking orders to get other soldiers onto the helicopter that was waiting for them. There was a badly wounded soldier being carried on a stretcher, and once everyone was in the chopper they took off. They landed on the roof of a hospital where the injured soldier was taken to be treated. I didn’t see his wound directly, but in the mind of my soldier, it was a gaping chest wound – unthinkable that he was even still alive. My soldier was being careful to not think or feel anything about the man on the stretcher. 

The scene shifted to him waiting in the hospital, which shifted again, and I saw him no longer in camo but dressed in blue, walking in an airport. Wherever he was going, he didn’t want to go. He was leaving the military, but it wasn’t voluntary. 

What I understood from him after this second encounter was that he was a career military man – the epitome of such in the 20th century. Hard, seemingly emotionless, but deeply committed to his work. He served faithfully and honorably, despite whatever occurred to force him out of the service. 

I did a tarot reading before my third journey, to get guidance on how best to work with this man. I felt like I was missing something – some way of connecting with him. A card with the keyword Accomplishment came up, and what struck me most about it was the sunset in the background. I knew that my soldier needed a new way of looking at his life. A look back at his accomplishments (the phrase ‘career retrospective’ came up). The 10 of Horns (Cups) indicated a need for connection, and the bottom card held an owl. Which immediately made me realize that I needed to approach him in owl form. He was partly resisting me because I was clearly a powerful female figure, and it was off-putting. 

I appeared as snowy owl on my third journey and was able to convince him to come with me. With no thought of what I was doing, we ended up in a funky, fantasy-like library. This somehow represented the larger me – like a personal Akashic records center that held information and stories from all my lives. I told him that his story was important and would never be lost. That it could be recorded and kept here, and it would live on within this larger library. We went into a nook, which turned into a library/study. The type of room a successful 20th-century man might create as his retirement study. A place to recall his accomplishments: large, dignified, with lush carpets, a fireplace with armchairs in front, a large desk, and a floor-to-ceiling wall of books. Some of which were blank for writing in. 

While I encouraged him to consider recording his story in that space, I assume I will eventually be the one to ‘record’ it. To hear what he needs to say – why he feels unforgivable. I hope the change of environment might help him shift into a place where he can do that. 

The Emperor’s Story

Warning: This portion of the story contains recollections and trauma around war and war atrocities. Please skip to the next section if needed.

From my journal 5/13/24. I journeyed to follow up with the Emperor and see if I could find out more about his story. Wolf showed up early on and I knew he had a strong connection with the Emperor. I was in Snowy Owl form and eventually found myself with the Emperor who I think might have been called John or Scott. 

When I connected with him he was in a forest, running with his unit of men. Bombs were falling around them and bullets whizzing past. His troop was getting decimated by the bombs – he watched a number of them get blown to bits as fire rained around them. It was awful, terrifying, and unexpected. An ambush. The carnage and loss of life were hard to process. The remains of the unit pressed on through a swamp and back into the forest, eventually leaving the enemy fire  – and their fallen comrades – behind them. 

In a clearing, they came upon a few houses, perhaps a small village, of the enemy. Enraged by what had just happened to them, they wanted to destroy the village. More than that, they wanted the villagers to pay for what had happened to them. They directed their horror and anger at these people and began pulling them from their homes, so they could kill all of them by burning them alive and then torching the village. John stood at the center of the destruction they wrought, feeling like he was in hell. 

We were in hell, and I was its leader.  

They burned the villagers and danced around the flames, waving their weapons like savages (his word). As choppers came to rescue them, one last horror took place. Running for the choppers, a villager, hiding when the soldiers came through, ran out and impaled one of the men through the gut on a spear. This soldier was the man I saw on the stretcher in the chopper in a past journey. John knew this last fatality was completely his fault. He had stayed there, ordering people to be brutally killed, missed someone in hiding, and now was paying for it by losing someone close to him. 

After, the blame for the entire incident was put at John’s feet, and this was the reason they forced him out of the military. Despite his years of brave and loyal service, despite giving them everything he had and was, he was dismissed. The pain this caused was too much to bear. 

I only did what you told me to do. I always did what you told me to do. Without question.

There was nothing left for him. No way to look back on his career without crippling shame and pain. After the funeral of the impaled soldier, I believe John took his own life with his service pistol. And then put himself back in that moment – the moment he understood that he was paying for what he had done. He didn’t deserve to pass on and heal; he deserved to stay in hell and pay for his crimes. 

After some time together, we were back in the library I had brought him to, though not in the study. I helped John understand that his whole story – not just that night – would be kept here. And that he would live on in that way. His whole story would be understood, and here he was never judged. I told him that I love him and that we belong together. We are better and stronger together. 

At some point, I realized that Wolf is connected to John through male warrior energy. Wolf is definitely a power animal for me and represents my male aspect. Snowy Owl represents my female aspect, which is more dominant in this life. But the two of them are connected in balance – yin and yang. 

John eventually shifted into wolf form, and I moved into owl form, and we traveled through a forest together. Later, owl and wolf began circling each other, with me in the center, until we all blurred and came together. I could feel an energy shift as I welcomed Wolf and John’s energy into my present form. My left side felt more affected; my right side already resonated with male energy. It was a lovely, centering, buzzy feeling, and I know I aligned and balanced some of the energy that was lacking in this lifetime.

Lessons from the Emperor

From my journal 5/14/24. (added to on 5/22).
In the first week of connecting with John, it occurred to me that there was another reason I needed to work with him. The Emperor card coming up in a reading right before meeting him speaks to this. John is the embodiment of men I’ve been angry at for a long time. They have caused significant pain over many lifetimes as a woman. The oppression and brutality that’s been carried out by men over the last 2000+ years is enraging, and women the world over have a right to be angry. 

But to move forward in a way that bridges the gap caused by patriarchal rule, we cannot stay angry at them. Staying angry only fuels the fire of divisiveness that rages across many countries right now. The answer is always love – it was just really hard to feel into that for a long, long time. Right up until I met John and realized how deeply I love him, and all he stands for. He is beautiful and is also a victim of the patriarchy. His specific experience, of buying into what he’s supposed to be wholeheartedly, and then being discarded when his actions, guided by his given directives, were condemned, is heartbreaking. He and his story make the archetype of the men he represents more emotionally accessible. I can put a loved face on them and see them for who the world shaped them to be. 

This doesn’t mean people shouldn’t be held responsible for their actions. But unless you’re in the actual role of judge or jury there’s not much you can do (short of education or activism) about crimes someone else committed. it’s normal to feel helpless, and therefore angry, in the face of wrongdoing. But harboring those feelings only hurts us in the long run. They keep us in fight or flight mode, slowly ratcheting up stress levels. When we exist in that state for long periods, our health suffers.

But moving to understanding, compassion, and forgiveness frees us. We don’t have to condone someone’s actions to try and see from their perspective. It can seem repugnant at first – trying to see from a perspective that feels wrong or alien to you. But once you do, you begin to understand the human being inside the ‘other’ you perceive. 

That’s how we change the world with love. By seeing and understanding those who stand across whatever barrier we think exists. In truth, there is no barrier, and when we can love and empathize with ‘others’, that’s when we realize that the barrier only exists in our minds. The other side of the aisle, wall, fence, or ocean, is no different than our own. We just have to open our hearts up wide enough to feel that. 

This is the hardest to do when you’re hurting. When we hurt, we want to turn inward and protect ourselves. Reaching out to understand and empathize with the person or people who hurt us is the last thing we feel like doing. But who wants to live with pain for the rest of their lives? I’d rather live with love. It makes me feel better. 

In Part 2, I’ll share how John was bound to me in 2025, and explore my evolving understanding of my relationship with him, and of gender and shamanism.

This article is part of an ongoing series that follows my journey of Reindeer Shamanism. If you’d like to read more articles in the series or follow along from the beginning, they are collected under the blog category of ‘My Shamanic Path‘.