I realized that I wrote about one of my shape shifting experiences but didn't describe how it can be done. My medicine teacher would shape shift into a bird which would then fly around my head dive bombing me until I would get angry. I wanted to smack it silly but knew if I killed it, I might kill my friend. At first I couldn't believe this was a 6'4" man "inside" a hummingbird. There was no logic in any of that. I thought that I was being hypnotized. Then I thought that he must have some kind of friend who was in cahoots with him. But after he shapeshifted repeatedly over many days and at odd hours of the day, I began to believe it was real. One day he asked me if I felt it was time for me to learn the skill of shape shifting and I said yes. In truth I was completely skeptical and didn't believe for one moment that I could do it.

We began by going into a deep meditation in which I looked into quite a good size crystal ball. (yes, I know, but looking into that ball helped me move into another level of awareness). I began to still on the inner levels and imagined myself as a pool of light and a pool of unlimited energy. I then imagined myself becoming that pool. I imagined myself melting into the pool of unlimited potential so much so that I began to lose sensation of my physical body. I was completely becoming that pool of energy.

My ideas of myself as Marilyn in her physical body began to leave me and I started to identify myself as an energy field only. There were no boundaries, no limits, just pulsing, warm, intelligent light. I could hear Dreaming Buffalo's voice from a distance. He asked me to begin to imagine my power animal. There was no hesitation as I began to see clearly a sleek, powerful, black jaguar. This jaguar was intelligent and not only knew of my existence but had been waiting for me. A deep communication happened between the two of us and I merged my consciousness with his. We became as one thought, one point of light and one heart.

I began to feel nature in a way I had never felt it before. It was a conscious living entity who knew of me as I knew of it. I could smell the earth floor, the bark of trees, foliage of all sorts and other animals. My sensing seemed multidimensional and connected to everything on the mountain and beyond. I could feel a type of power or awareness surging through me and I wanted to move outside and run. There was no where I needed to be. There was only the idea of the earth and sky above and me in between. Somehow just a part of the whole picture.

My shoes were off and I began to feel "fur" growing on my body and my arms and legs
developing powerful muscles. My instincts were acute and I felt totally alive in a way I haven't experienced since. I was jaguar and Marilyn was like a distant memory. My eye sight was keen and I could feel my power as I began slowly to walk the forest. My paws felt enormous and helped ground me to the earth. I could feel the strength in my claws and had a strong desire to climb a tree. I proceeded to do so, quickly and easily. I dug my claws in and used the power in my legs to climb. Once up I sat in the crook of a branch and looked around and down. Somehow I felt at peace and ease with the environment. There was a mutuality of some kind, a linking with everything in the woods.

I climbed down as my jaguar self and steadily explored my surroundings. I used my "sensing" abilities which felt like some kind of radar system. Somehow, during this experience, I, as Marilyn's consciousness came flooding back in. That is when I realized I had travelled quite far up the mountain, was in my bare feet and I couldn't walk over the spiny cone type things that littered the forest floor.
I am not recommending that anyone needs a crystal ball to shape shift. But we do need to have the ability to go deep within the all, to stand in the pool of energy that we belong to and to surrender the "idea" we have of ourselves and the attachment to it. One skill Dreaming Buffalo had that I didn't accomplish was the ability to become invisible. I could be walking or just sitting outside and then suddenly he would suddenly materialize from mid-air. It never failed to scare the crap out of me. He would laugh hysterically because he said that if I was "awake" I would have felt his presence before he physically appeared. He was quite well known for this act of his. I asked him to teach me how to become invisible. When he asked me why I wanted to learn this, I said that I thought it would be fun to scare the crap out of people. He said "well, then, you are not ready." I left New Mexico before I was ever ready to learn how to do it. I know from first hand experience that it is possible and that there is no trick to it. It is more knowing who we are that does it.