Shamanic Journey with a Skull

Through my time as an earth medicine practitioner, I have developed intimate relationships with the crystals and tools that have come to me. I consider myself an Earth Medicine Keeper, meaning that I often will find medicine of the Earth, like feathers, bones, skulls, crystals, tools, artwork, and altar pieces. I am exceedingly good at hypervigilance when I am out and about in the world, probably one of those residuals from trauma that serves me in my field. I notice small movements, like animals on the forest floor. I point out the toads, salamanders, birds, feathers, and animals camouflaged in their natural habitats. I find patterns in the things, which is an excellent skill set for finding a four-leaf clover, which I am also very good at. This isn’t even a humble brag, this is a brag brag. Because, let’s face it, sometimes it is good to know what you are good at. Being able to see a discrepancy in the force offers me a opening to gather medicine for my clients. Side note: I am also awesome at this at Yard Sales, Thrift Shops and antique malls for all those interested in a buddy or shopper.

I find many pieces for my work in the most unlikeliest of places. I take them home, and clean them. I house them, and consistently cleanse, clear and clean until they are ready for meditation or journey work. Then I journey with the piece to find out how I can best work with this medicine and how it wants to work with me. Sometimes I pass the medicine on, if it was meant for a client. I actually am starting to resell, recycle, and upcycle my finds for my online shop.

So, what is a shamanic journey? Well, journey is a practice best described as a lucid trance state. In the alpha state, it's akin to meditation. In the theta state, the deeper level of transmission, more akin to the dream state. In this way, we visualize and communicate with our medicine and guides much more easily. Intelligence comes through the sensory processes and is later interpreted cognitively.

My questions are often the same ilk—why did you come to me? Are you personal medicine or medicine I will use with clients? What messages do you have? How would you like me to work with you? How can I best honor you and keep you?

In Spring of 2023, my bestie Sharon Muzio and I took a trip to Columcile Megalith in Bangor, Pennsylvania. It is a standing stone Celtic park that is not only beautiful, but sacred and holy. It was an awesome weekend away, and we decided to check out a few crystal shops in the area, as you do when you are witchy bad asses with a rainy day. I found this incredible shop called Celestial Journeys in Stroudsburg, PA. It seems to be permanently closed now, which is so sad, because she had an incredible selection of crystals and offerings.

I went in there looking for nothing, and then we made eye contact with a skull that was white. It looked like bone, almost. When I saw it, I thought it looked like Ocean Jasper, definitely in my top five crystals of all time. One of the things I love about Ocean Jasper is its connection to the Earth, and healing work. Each piece is entirely different from another, but they often have markings that  look like cells almost. I kept walking back over to it in the case, not touching it yet, but just watching it. The consciousness of it felt palpable. I couldn’t not think of this skull as I walked around the store. Finally, I went back and asked the owner Janine what it was. She told me it was fossilized coral.

Hmmm…interesting.

Fossilized coral skull. Of course, the little corals are going to look like bones. I assumed it had limestone with it, and my goodness, it was so cool. I decided this was Spirit urging me to connect with a Crystal Skull.

Now, I did have a skull at the time—a black Obsidian skull that I worked with for ancestral healing work, and my altars for Ancestor. My beautiful friend Lisa D’Arrigo sent me a gorgeous little Cherry Jasper skull that I worked with when I was healing from my double mastectomy in 2021. But this Skull felt different, like it was here to teach and work with me.

I didn’t immediately jump into journey with the Skull. I spent the days preceding my journey day prepping. I made baños. Cleared and cleansed with skull with drum, rattle, and burning herbs. I set aside a whole day for journeywork, and this was part of that day. I took a long ceremonial bath in dead sea salt water and prepared for a long journey with the Skull. I brought it to my bed, and set myself up with pillows and Icaros, the Central and South American songs used during Ayahuasca and other medicine. journeys. Now, one of my goals was to develop a relationship with the medicine—specifically with the skull.

Every skull keepers I know who have deep meaningful relationships with their skulls seemed to know their name, their medicine, channeling the wisdom of the Crystal Skull. So, that was one of my questions: What is your name? Then deeper:

• What work do you want to do through me?

• Why did you come to me?

• Are you personal medicine or medicine I will use with clients?

• What messages do you have?

• How would you like me to work with you?

• How can I best honor you and keep you?

As I began, I seemed plunged into a world with many layers and levels, different outlooks, but it was all fluorescent and changeable. And I continued to try to be grounded in a journey on the land, but it was somewhere between ether and space. It reminded me of the movie Tron. But as I explored, and frustratingly was trying to direct my journey, I kept asking the question, I am here to know your name. Tell me what Medicine you have for me. It was just the Icaros and the place that could be very large or very small.

Why are you asking me my name?

The Skull began speaking. And it continued as colors and shapes, nebula and sacred geometry was all around me. “I used to have a whole universe in me and you are asking if I have a human name.”

Suddenly, I could see all this nebulous color and shape come into focus. It was a coral reef, so deep and long and intricate. It was like watching a movie on speed 4x, except the 4 were years, millennia, really. I could see the life cycle of plants and anemones and fish—their babies, their babies’ babies, birth, life, mate, death, and then birth, life, mate and death, over and over and I could see the eating of fish my other fish and the gentleness of the animals in and around the coral. The whole of the coral reef was a universe where certain fish and plants spent their whole life. The Skull repeated itself, “I used to be an entire universe. You can never fully grasp what that means. You can never understand with your ways unless you want to. You humans just want to possess things. You take me out the Earth, cut me out of the womb again, after my life cycle being a universe, from the place where I lived, and then you take me and carve me into your image and ask me my name, like I am happy to be here looking like a human.”

“You shaped me to be you. You carved me in your image, to look human, but I am anything but human. I had a universe in me and around me the likes you will never understand and you dare to ask me what my human name is. I am everything. I am the Earth. I am the universe..”

At first, I had that sarcastic defeating Gen X voice in me, “Figures I’d get the angry little skull.”

The Skull continued to talk, “You are asking the wrong questions. You are asking me my name. How you work with me? These are petty human concerns.” I could still see the coral extending out into the sea, and housing all the life cycles.

What the skull taught me is that Earth Medicine isn’t us, we cannot project our humanness onto the Earth. It doesn’t have a consciousness like ours. The Earth doesn’t pull things out of its environment and expect it to thrive and teach and be wise and understand humanity. The Coral taught me about community and interconnectedness, and showed me, more than meditation or writing about (which I had to do for my Level 3 shamanic training) ever could communicate—we must dismantle the myth of separation. Not only is the Coral the Sea, but it is also the Earth. It is the fish it housed. It is the salt, the plants, the limestone. It is me. It is you.

My line of question was very me-centeric. I was asking the questions about what I had just bought, That in and of itself was problematic to him. When I asked, what's your name? How do you want to work with me? It was all me, me, me, me. I wanted a cool story. I wanted to channel the medicine. But the Skull was like, all righty, well, let's get you in line here. And it was interesting. He showed me the universes that exist on the Earth, and that right now, you are no different Angie. There are universes around all things.

I am a human. I wanted what I wanted when I wanted it. And he was basically saying, this is how you work with me. Learn about me, learn about the earth. I am the medicine of the earth. So, in the end, this tempermental coral skull was not moody at all, but honest and wise. He teaches me every day about how to work with the earth medicine and not how to possess it or use it and be an ally to it. We are in service to the medicine, not the other way around. Humility and walking the beauty way can help soften tough relationships with the medicine and the Earth, which continues to struggle with heat and climate change. I was asking its name, but that was decidedly the wrong question. The question I should be asking is Would you please show me the way of the Earth?

In the end, that is what I do. I'm an earth medicine practitioner and I was asking a Coral Skull, “In what ways are you human? How do you be more human? What kind of human ways can you help me with?” But that is not the medicine of the Earth—it about the wisdom of the animal, the plant, the plant.

As I have explored my unnamed Crystal Skull, I researched coral, because of course, I did. Cool Coral factoids:

• Coral grow by biomineralization, a process that starts when the young coral polyp uses seawater to create calcium carbonate crystals.

• Corals worldwide, no matter if they live in the ocean or in a tank, bloom at the same time. They communicate no matter where they are in the world.

• Coral reefs only take up 0.0025 % of the earth's surface but they, along with other marine organisms are responsible for producing 50% of the earth oxygen.

• They also absorb nearly one-third of the carbon dioxide generated from burning fossil fuels.

• Synchronized mass coral spawning typically occurs several days after a full moon once a year.

I bought my Skull and continue to build a deep relationship with its medicine. He comes in one form or another in every session I have. I mostly keep him on my altar and honor his medicine. As we have softened and taught me more about working with the Earth, our work together seems one of the most important medicine journeys ever.

Do you have a skull? Tell me about it in the comments! Also, let me know how you loved Skull Week, and I can’t wait to explore more topics with you. If you love my deep dives, consider asking me a question to cover in my next podcast episode, which is a Q&A episode. Send your question via email either written or you can send an audio file to angie (at) themoonandstone (dot) com.

Skull Tour with Suzanne Pfister + Julie Taylor

I am so pleased to introduce one of my people, Suzanne Pfister of the Midnight Owl. Suzanne has served as a Moderator for the Moon + Stone Healing FB Community and the host of our monthly Craft and Tails night, which is a virtual craft night—bring your own cocktails. (I mean…come on! doesn’t that sound like the best time!) Suzanne Pfister, RMT, ACM, is a Reiki Master Teacher, an Advanced Crystal Master, a yoga teacher and a proprietress of Midnight Owl, a mystical and metaphysical shop of all things fantasy, spiritual and whimsical in Chester, NJ. I am hoping Suzanne will offer more of these tour of her shop. I know I bought some things, and Mama is very happy!!

Skull Tour with Suzanne Pfister Rmt Acm at Midnight Owl. If you would like to purchase a skull you see, please reach out to Suzanne by clicking here.

The Skull: history, iconography, ritual use, and ally

Long associated with death and rebirth, skulls, whether crystal or not, often evoke that deep fear within people, so much so they have become a staple of Halloween and horror movies. However, skulls have been one of the oldest symbols found ritual, religion, artwork, cultural celebrations, and iconography in human history.

In our not-so-distant past, death was part of human life. Humans were not shielded from death. People died at home, sometimes in the streets. Humans, of all ages and genders, saw war, accidents, disease, pandemics, and death. What is left of the human body, the bones, represents the impermanence of the human body. Even before we studied anatomy, dissected humans, or understood medicine, humans held bones as representative of death. They held skulls and bones. Humans understood that these parts of us were all that remains after death.

The Skull, or rather, the human head houses vision, hearing, speaking, and thoughts. It is what we look at when we talk and when we recognize a person—so it holds the seed of identity and spirit for many. Skulls are human-shaped with a mouth, eyes, and nose, but no longer house the Spirit or Soul of the human. The skull becomes an important symbol in depicting the cycle of creation as a whole: birth, death, mortality, and, at times, immortality. We see skulls represented in artwork, mysticism, religion, and spirituality.

The mystical and metaphysical symbolism intertwined with their very real structure brings in a feeling of grounding, the structure of life with the mysticism and mystery of death. Spiritually, we work with the skulls in altar work, ritual, symbolism, and meditation. I do think skulls are some of the most potent symbols one can work with. Shamanically, they are totally my jam.

Use of Skulls in Various Cultures

Skulls have always held a special place in mythologies, legends, and traditions across different ancient cultures. While the meanings varied, skulls carried powerful symbolism and were often considered sacred, sometimes even used as offerings to gods.

Aztecs

For the ancient Aztecs, skulls weren’t just about death—they were seen as something more positive. Yes, they were tied to death and facing the fear of it, but they also symbolized life and the promise of a new beginning. To the Aztecs, skulls represented regeneration and rebirth, emphasizing the natural cycle of life. It was all about humanity and the idea that new life emerges from death.

Celtic Culture

In Celtic traditions, skulls were also considered sacred and were often placed on altars as offerings. For them, the skull was linked to the soul and seen as a symbol of power. The openings for the eyes and mouth were thought to be holy, offering a pathway to wisdom and knowledge. Beyond being a “house for the soul,” skulls in Celtic lore were sometimes symbols of creation and transformation, representing the ever-turning cycle of life.

Ancient India

In Buddhism, skulls were closely connected to the concept of emptiness. The belief was that everything in the Universe, at its core, is neutral, and only loses that neutrality based on how we perceive it. Emptiness wasn’t negative—it was a key part of understanding the true nature of things.

In both Hinduism and Buddhism, skulls were also tied to Munda Mala and the sacred syllable, OM. Deities like Shiva and the Mahavidyas Goddesses often wore garlands of skulls, representing divine power. Skull jewelry symbolized the gods' greatness, showing that they were beyond fear, danger, and even death itself.

Christianity

In Christianity, skulls symbolize mortality. Saints in many religious artworks are often depicted holding skulls, representing wisdom and a higher understanding of life. This act symbolized letting go of earthly concerns and turning toward spirituality, placing trust in the Divine.

At the same time, the skull, being part of the human body, also represents the link between the spiritual and physical worlds, connecting life and death, the seen and the unseen.

Día de Muertos and Skulls in Latin American Culture

As a Latina, I have consistently grown up with ghost stories, skeletons, and the honoring of ancestors. My mother kept and still keeps a fancy-cut crystal glass with water for death, sometimes putting food next to it on a window sill for the dead who may visit our home.

Skulls have a significant role in Latin American culture, especially in the context of el Día de Muertos or the Day of the Dead.

Day of the Dead

Of course, there are pre-Hispanic origins of el Día de Muertos.  Aztecs and other Indigenous peoples in pre-Columbian Mexico celebrated death as a natural part of life. They believed that the dead were not gone, but rather that they had a relationship with the living. The Aztecs celebrated the death of their ancestors with a festival that lasted a month, honoring the goddess Mictēcacihuātl, the Queen of the Underworld. Mictēcacihuātl was known as the “lady of the dead.” She ruled the underworld, and watched over the bones of the dead, which the Aztecs believed were a source of life in the next world. Her grinning skull face is strongly associated with Dia de Muertos.

Spanish influence

When the Spanish arrived in Mexico, they brought Catholicism and forced many Indigenous people to convert. The holiday was moved to coincide with All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day, which are celebrated on November 1 and 2. But are these two celebrations the same?

Both are centered on remembering the dead, but they approach this remembrance in different ways. All Souls Day focuses on praying for “all the faithful departed,” while Día de los Muertos invites the spirits of loved ones back for an annual family reunion.

All Souls Day has been around for centuries. By the 9th century, monasteries were setting aside a day to pray for the dead, and it was a Benedictine abbot who first established November 2 as the official day to remember the departed. After the devastation of World War I, Pope Benedict XV extended the observance to the entire Catholic Church in 1915. On All Souls Day, people of faith remember those who have passed and pray for their peaceful journey into the afterlife with God.

Día de los Muertos, on the other hand, is not only about remembrance—it’s also a celebration of life. Families gather at gravesides, turning them into festive picnic spots where food, drinks, music, flowers, and fireworks are shared with the dead. It’s a joyful gathering that celebrates the memory of loved ones. Altars are set up in homes, adorned with flowers, photos, and offerings like food to welcome the spirits back and honor their presence.

Many offerings are sweet treats, like candy skulls, coffins, and sugar rolls called pan de muerto. The celebration also includes playful elements like toy skeletons and papel picado (colorful tissue paper cutouts of skulls and bones). These joyful touches bring a sense of sweetness and lightheartedness to the otherwise somber concept of death.

Whether through prayers on All Souls Day or the lively customs of Día de los Muertos, the past is brought into the present. Families, along with the broader faith community, gather at altars and gravesides to celebrate life in the midst of death, finding joy in sorrow. In these celebrations, memory becomes a living hope for eternal life.

Modern celebrations

Today, Día de los Muertos is celebrated in many ways, including building altars, dressing up, and sharing food. Every year, families and communities celebrate Día de los Muertos for three days. We think of this as a Mexican holiday, and yes, some of the largest, most elaborate celebrations are in Mexico. Still, El Día de Muertos is celebrated all throughout Latin American. In my mother’s hometown of La Chorrera in Panama, the procession came down in front of her home, as she lived across from the cemetery. According to Google, the states of Oaxaca and Michoacán have special traditions for the holiday. In Nejapa de Madero, Oaxaca, preparations begin a month before the celebration, including choosing stalks for altars, preparing food, and buying mezcal.   In cemeteries and homes, families gather to honor and remember their loved ones who have passed. Celebrations vary by region and cultural influences. For example, in Guatemala, people make kites to reach their ancestors, while in Bolivia, processions involve the actual skulls of ancestors.

Skulls, or calaveras, sit at the center of Day of the Dead festivities. It would not be el Día de Muertos without brightly colored skulls. Everything, brightly colored and light, shows skeletons, skulls, and representations of death, like Monarch Butterfly, the carrier of souls. We see skulls made from sugar paste, wood, paper maché, or carved bone. Sugar skulls are given as gifts to family and friends to honor and celebrate the lives of the deceased. The decorations on the skulls reflect the likes and desires of the deceased. They are placed on altars and on the gravesites, and then left in the rain to melt into the Earth, mirroring the decomposition of the body after death.

The Aztecs and other Meso-American civilizations believed in death as a continuation of life, and that the dead would return to visit during a month-long ritual. They decorated their temples with skulls, kept them as trophies, and used them in rituals to symbolize death and rebirth. After Colonization, the Catholic Church often incorporated the local customs and celebrations into Catholic existing holidays. El Día de Muertos began to be celebrated on the Holy Days of All Saints Day and all Souls Day, incorporating and honoring babies and children who have died (El Dia de los Angelitos),

To welcome them, families build altars, or ofrendas, in their honor. These altars often include yellow marigolds, candles, photos of the deceased, cut tissue-paper designs, as well as food and beverages offerings, though these can vary from culture to culture.

Skulls, or calaveras, are often used as decorations. Though these can be made of papier-mâché, clay, wood, metal, cut-out tissue paper, they are often made of sugar decorated with colored icing, flowers, or metallic colored foils.

Interesting sidenote:

After Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821, the newfound freedom of the press led to the publication of many broadsides featuring skulls, or calaveras. These illustrations were a form of popular resistance by artists and writers. Lithographer José Guadalupe Posada's illustrations of calaveras found a wide audience in the new country. His most famous calavera was la Catrina, a female dandy portrayed as a fleshless skull with a wide-brimmed hat.

What a Skull Represents in Spiritual Work

Wisdom

The skull is the “home” of the mind. It symbolizes higher knowledge, truth, and ageless wisdom. Skulls or heads hold two or three chakra centers, depending on your perspective: the Crown Chakra, the Third Eye Chakra and the Throat Chakra (I do see it this way because of the ears and mouth.)

Skulls represent and emphasize the power of the rational mind, willpower, and mental agility. It represents the ability to transcend the limitations of the established systems of knowledge, penetrate deeper truths, and find higher meaning.

Bravery & Fearlessness

Skulls are old symbols of courage and strength. Associated with not simply valor and glory in war or battle, but they are associated with death for a cause as well as OVERCOMING death, which we will talk about more in a bit. Defeat the odds, overcome obstacles, limitless personal power, and the ability to deal with danger bravely and boldly is often seen in the symbolism of skull with warriors, fighters, ex-military and military folk.  

Although it has been linked with fear, the skull represents the ability to conquer fears and rise above them.

Death

To pretend skulls symbolism is not about death would be to completely miss the mean of Skull. Everything in life moves in cycles. Endings inevitably occur as a part of that process. While they represent finite things, skulls also symbolize the start of the new cycle and the birth of new life as well as the end of one cycle and the beginning of another.

A skull reminds us that everything in life is transient and impermanent. The only thing that does not change is the knowledge that everything changes. Skulls urge us to see the beauty of every day, or as the Mexican iconography of Skull in El Dia de los Muertos reminds us, to laugh in the face of death. Skulls represent presence and gratitude, inspiring us to live a well-examined life with purpose and meaning.

Shamanic Uses of Skulls

Skulls have been used in shamanic work in many ways, (literally countless) but including some here that are interesting:

• Ritual implements: In Hindu Tantra and Tibetan Buddhist Tantra, a skull cup called a kapala is used as a ritual bowl. In Tibetan Buddhism, kapalas are often decorated with jewels and precious metals.

• Spiritual adornment: A shamanic practitioner in Bali made a necklace from five individually carved skulls made from water buffalo horn.

• Symbolism: Skulls can symbolize death, evil, fear, and mortality, but they can also represent protection, power, and gratitude toward life.

• Prehistoric Europe: Shamans in prehistoric Europe packed skulls with clay and burnt brains.

• Mesolithic shamanism: Mesolithic shamans used red deer skulls with antlers during rituals.

• Lakota culture: In Lakota culture, the buffalo skull is a symbol of self-sacrifice and is present in all sacred rituals.

• Tibetan Buddhism: In Tibetan Buddhism, skulls are reminders of impermanence that help remove attachment to self and one's body.

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 Whew! If you made it this far through my Skullie research, congratulations! You deserve a little sugar skull as a reward. So, as you know, I love the Tarot and often will create Tarot Layouts with symbols I find resonate or for issues I am facing, and so I took the Skull and asked it—how can you help Tarot readers?

And I held my own Crystal Skull asking the questions. Immediately, my eyes went to that midway gaze between focus and unfocus and I could see the blackness of the eye sockets, the nose, the mouth and the ears as places to tap into. Not our eyes, but what is left is the eyes of our eyes, the nose of our nose, the ears of our ears, and the voice of our voice…the spiritual, wise parts of us that exist before consciousness and will exist after the body dies. And so I present The Skull Layout

Spirit Journey with Skull

I am so honored to welcome a piece by Julie Taylor, ACM. Julie and I got to know each other through Hibiscus Moon Crystal Academy. Later she studied Tarot through the Moon + Stone Healing Academy and joined my weekly circle. Since then, she has become one of the moderators at the Moon + Stone Healing Academy’s Facebook page and one of the contributors here on our site.

Julie is a certified Advanced Crystal Master and Reiki Master. She's a lover of words and moon magic. She received her bachelor's in professional writing and associate's in early childhood education and practices crystal reiki on herself and with others. She lives in sync with moon cycles and seasons and practices her witchery in the Las Vegas Valley of Nevada. She's the author of the children's book, Blue Hissy Highness and the Shiny Stones, founder of StoneSpelling.com, a new community for sharing witchery, curator of the Private Facebook Group, Stone Spelling & Witchery, is a moderator for the Moon + Stone Healing Academy Facebook group, and is a contributor here at the Moon + Stone Healing Academy.

Follow Julie Taylor on Stone Spelling

Trigger Warning: Touches on topic of death

Skulls, the spirit of them, have called to me. In years past, I’ve noticed them in crystal stores, seen them around Halloween time, and noticed them around Day of the Dead. But I hadn’t yet felt the urge to buy one or spend time learning about them enough to open to what they might mean to me--until this year. Now that I think back, I think skull spirit started calling to me late last winter.

More and more my eyes landed on crystal skulls as I shopped stones but I couldn’t land on any that felt a right fit for me. I started to wonder why. I started to think maybe I’m missing something. And then I thought that if the universe was speaking to me, sending a call to connect with skull spirit, that maybe I’m meant to learn before I leap.

So, this summer, I started a quest to find out what skulls represent for me in a spiritual sense. I began with the dictionary. It’s one of my favorite books. It’s like a marker at the beginning of the trail, a spiritual reminder to keep me from falling down too many rabbit holes or from traveling astray of where I want to go.

The first definition is what one might expect with its description of the skeleton of the head.

And even definition 4 with its “emblem of death” seemed expected considering celebrations around Halloween and el Dia de los Muertos. But definitions 2 and 3 sparked something new for me.

Definition 2: the seat of understanding or intelligence: mind

Definition 3a: the crown of the head

Hmm...my eyes paused over “seat” and “understanding” and “crown,” and my intuition translated “seat” to the root chakra and connected “understanding” to the “crown.” My thoughts started running ahead, following the ideas popping into my imagination, sparking for me the sense that I’m meant to connect special meaning between earth and skeleton with crown and skull.

They’re interconnected but there’s emphasis on the journey up to the skull...starting from the root charka, building air in the belly, moving up through the heart, and signaling to the crown.

And I take in that mindful, deep breath, and as I let it out, I feel the Element of Air moving in me to connect body, mind, and spirit.

Whoosh

Ahead of me on this spiritual path, a rabbit hole appears, and I’m spiked to go down it. The Element of Air is wafting and saying to me, “when breath becomes air.”

Wait, what? My mind’s eye feels an almost mental shake of clarity, because I know those words. I ask myself, “Where have I heard those words?” And I remember.

I attended a Death Cafe last year, and I saw a book titled, When Breath Becomes Air, by Paul Kalanithi. Poetic. Four words that conjured in me a sense, a feeling about life after human death. That when a last human breath is taken, the soul enters Air, moving into spirit, wafting through realms, and at times keeping me company with their essence.

Air is moving in me. In through the nose, out through the nose. The skull represents that for me.

The sense that with every breath I take, I connect body, mind, and soul to spirit, and my heart guides me to who and to when. The air I breathe is air my ancestors once breathed. Skull spirit helps me connect to air of loved ones--loved ones who have crossed to a place so close yet so far that I ache to translate all they have to say. Dear ones whose breath became air speak through skull, waiting patiently for me to understand, willing to return again and again, to sit with me, to come closer and to place signals in my path until my imaginings light up in my mind’s eye. And I breathe in the spirit of connection to spirit.

Now the next step in my journey is to find the stone skulls meant to be with me.