A Shaman Walks this Path - The Healing Path Back to You
A Shaman Walks This Path: The Healing Path That Led Me Back to Myself
There is a healing path I walk regularly.
It's an actual place—a paved bike path winding through a small patch of woods in the middle of town. Industrial buildings, railroad tracks, busy roads, and traffic surround it, yet somehow, when I step beneath the trees, it feels like another world. A little slice of magic tucked quietly inside everyday life.
I first found this path during a season of grief. I was carrying heavy thoughts, trying to walk off emotions that felt too big for words. I walked, and walked, and walked through one season to the next season. One day when my mind was racing, looping through worries and questions, when something shifted.
My attention moved from the noise inside my head to the world around me.
There, tucked inside the hollow of an old tree, was a small bundle of flowers someone had carefully tied together.
A little farther along sat a painted rock resting on a tree stump with an encouraging message.
A child's tiny toy hung gently from a branch.
Without thinking, with a gasp and realization that made my hand fly to my heart:
"A shaman walks this path."
Someone tends this place.
Someone leaves reminders that beauty matters.
Someone quietly cares for the land and for the people who pass through it.
At the time, I had been immersed in a two-year Peace Medicine program studying the Incan Medicine Wheel and learning about shamanic traditions. Those teachings had deepened an interest that began years earlier through my travels in South America and my experiences learning about Indigenous healing practices during graduate school.
Whether these small offerings were left by artists, children, neighbors, or complete strangers - or perhaps there is a another shaman among us in this small town (although I tell my girls they are left by the Fairies).
What mattered was what they awakened in me.
For the first time in a long time, I didn't feel alone.
Nature became my guide.
The path became medicine.
Every walk invited me to pay attention.
Some days I would discover a feather lying perfectly in the middle of the trail.
Other days a mushroom appeared overnight, or a butterfly landed close enough to admire.
Sometimes it was simply the sunlight filtering through the trees at exactly the moment I needed to lift my eyes.
Each felt like a quiet whisper:
Keep going.
You're here.
You're supported.
The path slowly became sacred—not because it was untouched wilderness, but because it reminded me that sacredness isn't found in perfect places.
It's found in presence.
It's found when we begin noticing what has always been here.
Perhaps that's what feels so absent in our modern lives.
We are flooded with information, notifications, opinions, advertisements, and endless distractions. We move quickly from one obligation to the next, often forgetting to wonder.
Wonder is medicine.
Curiosity is medicine.
Imagination is medicine.
This path is especially magical around midsummer.
As the sun begins to lower behind the trees, golden light spills across the trail. Cottonwood drifts through the air like tiny pieces of fairy dust. Then, just as dusk arrives, hundreds of fireflies begin illuminating the woods.
Every single time, I stop.
No matter how heavy my heart feels.
No matter how busy my mind has been.
Wonder interrupts worry.
Nature gently reminds me that life continues creating beauty whether I remember to notice it or not.
That feeling inspired me to create my Midsummer Yoga Nidra & Guided Journey.
This meditation isn't meant to transport you somewhere imaginary.
It's meant to help you remember.
To walk your own inner path.
To discover the gifts that have been waiting quietly within you.
To reconnect with your guides.
Guided meditation and shamanic journeying have become some of my most trusted companions during seasons of uncertainty. They help me move through grief, sitting in the unknown, and transition by returning me to the place beneath all the noise—the place where my own soul can finally be heard and I can feel the presence and comfort of Spirit, of God.
As the saying goes,
What you are seeking is also seeking you.
Perhaps the treasure waiting along your path is courage.
Or forgiveness.
Rest.
Joy.
Peace.
Or simply the quiet knowing that you are never walking alone.
I recorded this journey for my yoga students, but truly it is for anyone longing to slow down, reconnect, and remember the quiet wisdom already living within them.
I hope you'll listen, settle in, and discover what is waiting for you.
You can find the Midsummer Yoga Nidra & Guided Journey here, or explore it anytime inside my Rest Library.
If you do listen, I'd love to hear about your experience. What gifts did you discover along your path? What message stayed with you?
Thank you for walking this path with me.
With gratitude,
Kinzie
Namaste.