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The Seven Aptitudes

The Seven Aptitudes are a set of mutually interacting natural abilities — talents, or potentials — that manifest in many individuals (although they are usually unrealized). Once realized they may need intense discipline and hard work for some people, while in others they simply flow forth when attention is given to them. Regardless of natural aptitude, they all still have to be accessed, developed, and usually need to be attuned through dedicated inner work.

A Simple list would be as follows:

  1. Working with Water
  2. Working with Stones
  3. Working with Allies and Co-Walkers
  4. Working with Plants and Herbs
  5. Working with Living Creatures (Animals, birds, fish, insects)
  6. Working with Touch (using the hands, or sometimes one hand, the palm of the hands, a specific finger, or just the fingertips)
  7. Working with Signatures (powerful patters in the surrounding environment)

There is no order of superiority to list. It is not a checklist, either. The Seven Aptitudes are simply inherent abilities that may be awakened through intent, through initiation, through practice, or (as sometimes happens) spontaneously; the way in which the Aptitudes surface caries from person to person. There is a simple visionary method which anyone can follow, preferably working outdoors, for finding your Aptitudes, however.

  1. Find a quiet outdoor place.
  2. Spend some time in silent meditation, vecoming still
  3. Attune to the four Elements, Above and Below, then return to stillness at the center of the seven Directions.
  4. Let your Aptitude surface from deep within you. Do not choose anything; let it come spontaneously into the stillness.
  5. When you are ready, return to outer awareness.
  6. Write some short notes on your experience.

The Aptitudes may come to you as visions during your silent meditation. They may arise as physical sensations. The Aptitudes may come as Elemental Intuitions. They may become apparent in dreams, if the meditations on the Aptitudes do not produce obvious or early "results". The Aptitudes may be revealed to you by an Ally, Cousin, or Co-Walker. They may present themselves to you in the natural world. However they present themselves, though: Do not allow sentiment or wishful thinking to trick you into making false identifications. An expression or manifestation of the Aptitudes is always accompanied by an enhanced awareness, a heightening of the vital energies, and / or a shift of perception. It is not merely a synchronistic or coincidental event.

This deceptively simple meditation may not work immediately or easily, so do not become impatient. Try the meditation regularly, but no more than once per day; too much effort is always counterproductive [to] inner work ... Finding inner powers is like tightrope walking: A delicate balancing of consciousness will see you through to the other side, but no amount of intense concentration, will power, or determination can find the balance for you. Your self-motivation must be suspended in order to stay poised.

After some familiarity with the basic Meditation, you might like to seek insights into one aptitude per day for seven days. Begin your meditation with a simple intention to meditate on the Aptitude for that day, but not with any forced desire to "get" that Aptitude. This refinement of the Meditation may help with surfacing the Aptitudes, and will also allow many insights and inner awareness of the Aptitudes to develop. Make short notes after each meditation.

Remember that It is likely that some of the Aptitudes will be closed to you. Do not let this worry you. There is plenty of work to be done with any one Aptitude, and each of them is sufficient for any healing work that you are called to do.

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