Biography of Alison Stormwolf

My name is Alison ‘Stormwolf’ Bunker, a Scottish Highlander by birth having been born into this life on 4th June 195 3in in a town called Nairn, on the beautiful Moray Firth. I am the mother to three grown children all talented in their own areas (see picture gallery).  I have a sister and mother who still live in the Highlands and my father Jackie Bunker who is in the greater reality.

I am a healer and poet walking the path of spiritual development and self empowerment. Although I trained as a nurse my interests were always in alternative health and spirituality. I am a crystal healer and Reiki practitioner, natural empath and spiritual sensitive.

My calling is to serve and enable others to realise their inherent gifts and abilities, to free them from constricting thoughts and self doubt and allow them to realise fully their spiritual natures. To raise up those depressed and worn down by feelings of joylessness by allowing them to access the magnificence in them , their birthright as creators born in the image of the Creator.

The first half of my life was spent making mistakes and learning, now I am in the second half of my life… making mistakes and learning. ("Before enlightenment we chop wood and carry water... after enlightenment we chop wood and carry water")

 

Why The Name 'Stormwolf'?

Several reasons...
Names, like everything in the universe, have energy attached to them. It was following a very 'dark night of the soul' (see Healing & Coping With Depression in my Spiritual Philosophy Articles section) that I started to write poetry. The wolf is my totem animal from childhood. It was the energy I needed to fight my way back to my rightful place as a strong woman, and so I hold these creatures in very high esteem.

Wolves
At one time, I was a member of a sorotity of women who had all read and been inspired by the classic, Women who Run with the Wolves, written by author and Jungian psychologist Clarissa Pinkola Estes. We all have wolf names chosen by ourselves. This was the name I chose, the name I write under, and it has become an integral part of 'who I am.'

Storm
The storm is symbolic of the huge energy manifesting on the Earth at this time. This name has power attached to it for me. I wear it with a mixture of pride, humilty and thanksgiving. In adopting this name I mean no disrespect to my Native American brothers and sisters. Their naming ceremonies are sacred and very meaningful. It is an act of total empathy to their knowledge and understanding of our connection to “all that is” that allows me to align myself with my animal totem in this way. See Wolf Totem.

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My Beginnings & Ancestral Line

I am descended on my father’s side from a line of Highland ‘wise women.’ Women who had the gift of second sight, able to communicate with animals and offering services to their community. My great grandmother could set broken bones, human and animal. She used the skin of a certain fish in place of a plaster. She also attended births and deaths. I have inherited certain abilities from this lineage and so has my daughter.

Although aware of the spiritual dimension all my days I had a major awakening at age eighteen when I had my first out of body experience. I realise now I am a lucid dreamer and astral traveller.

This was a precious gift from the higher realms showing me my way was true and that I was in fact spirit inhabiting flesh and bone for a finite period only. This revelation was not only life changing…it was also alienating at the time. I felt unable to share with anyone what I had been shown.

And so my education began…

I studied all the major classics of spirituality. I took what resonated with truth and discarded the rest…until maybe later? For we all have our peaks and troughs of acceptance and understanding according to life experience.

The Gift of Suffering

I have learned the place and purpose of suffering. No suffering comes without a hidden gift attached. It usually comes in deep disguise and is one we would never in our earthly minds have asked for, but there is a reason behind all pain.

When we inhabit a world of duality we have to embrace the shadow side of everything in order to know completeness. This may sound nonsense but in fact it is grass roots living and soul food learning.

An old saying is “never envy anyone their life…you do not know the price they have had to pay". Very true, and something to be always aware of. No person’s journey can be yours. Yours is unique to you.

I have had to learn many very hard lessons. These have ingrained my soul with such power that although I could curse them I never will. Neither do I love them for suffering is painful, demoralising and in my own case almost life extinguishing. Yet I recognise the teachings in it all. I am no New Age preacher…All I speak of and want to put forth has come from the belly of personal loss and suffering, experience and hopeless despair.

Everyone has their “own story” Its what we do with the realisation of it all that matters. Do we sit and stew? Curse our lives and all who crossed our paths? Or dust ourselves down and look for the teachings?

"Pain by itself is merely pain,
but the experience of pain couples with an understanding
that the pain serves a worthy purpose as suffering.
Suffering can be endured because
there is a reason for it that is worth the effort.
What is more worthy of your pain than the evolution of your soul?"
~ From 'The Seat of the Soul' by Gary Zukav ~

To those who chose the better path…

I offer my inspirational philosophy

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Who Am I?

From birth I was always extremely sensitive to my surroundings and nature, the Moon in particular. I always loved her and would ask my mother if I could stay out really late when the moon was full just so that I could enjoy and bask in the unique atmosphere. This was the start of a life-long connection for me.

Lunar Child    Softly, and gently    I surrender the day,    And with it another day's failures As night brings his cloak of sleep And willingly I run for cover!    I pray for damage limitation    To this spirit, caught in human frame;    Maybe tomorrow    All things will be well, But meantime, I need to hide, disappear Into his soft folds of comforting cloth. My parent's failed Though well meaning Did not begin to know or understand My wild and restless nature, my longings; And so I look to Mother Moon And cry out like a wounded wolf "Do not forget your daughter here below!" "I find the pathway hard and cruel! Shine your silver light of understanding! Illuminate my dark and brooding nature See me safely home!" © Alison Storm Wolf

Somehow, in a way I cannot explain, I am strangely comforted by her and always look to the skies for reassurance, as I have done from the time I was an infant. Even during my darkest times I have always felt a cosmic relationship.

I feel that deep in our souls we are aware we are not of this world and that sets up a certain homesickness that manifests in us from time to time. I have brought my children up to believe as I do...that God wipes our memories clean of our spiritual home lest we yearn to return too much. This takes much of the fear of dying away as we now view it as a joyful return. Also the Bible tells us that God "did not leave us as orphans" I know that to be true. We have spirit guides around us all the time...angelic support...many invisible friends.

Read the words of William Wordsworth (1770-1850) who explains this far more eloquently than I:

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere it's setting, and cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come.
From God, who is our home."
~ William Wordsworth Longfellow ~

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Faith and Surrender

I have faith that as we have to run from a burning house with only what we are wearing to survive, so I was forced by a higher power to lose almost everything which gave me joy and security in my life, in order to unveil the potential of a richer, more fulfilling and authentic life waiting for me just around the corner.  I was stripped to bare bones.

"Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself
He threshes you to make you naked
He sifts you to free you from your husks
He grinds you to whiteness
He kneads you until you are pliant
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire,
That you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast."
~ from 'The Prophet'  by Kahlil Gibran ~

It has been far from easy! Everything I had to surrender was not sacrificed willingly, but taken from me kicking and screaming!

Even when, on a spiritual level, I could recognise what was happening to me and why, I still fought against the process and hoped that God would at least leave me with something! ... It was not to be.

Although I did not submit meekly to my pruning.... I learned to trust 'The Gardener.'

Our only true security lies in the realisation of who we really are and in developing our spiritual natures. We need to to embrace our Authentic Power and realise our position is not one of victims of fate but manifesters and creators. Yes, we are that powerful!.

We are being called to return to our rightful place in the whole web of life. To live in harmony and respect for the natural world around us. Technology is NOTHING in the face of nature. We need to walk in balance and mindfulness of the wonderful planet we inhabit and have reverence for the entire created Universe.

We are being called to return to our rightful place in the whole web of life. To live in harmony and respect for the natural world around us. Technology is NOTHING in the face of nature. We need to walk in balance and mindfulness of the wonderful planet we inhabit and have reverence for the entire created Universe.

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Present Position on The Path

I am called to the Shamanic way of viewing the created universe as being all infused with consciousness. I also believe wholeheartedly in the animals and their teachings to us. I give thanks that one of my inherited gifts was the ability to communicate with animals. They were and always will be, a major passion in my life.

I have lived in seclusion for two years recently where I learned more about Shamanic Practice from my friend Jason Shroder of Sacred Ways. Although this time in my life was hard and challenging I also knew tremendous opening up of my spiritual nature by having allowed myself to retreat from the world at large and gain many new levels of fortitude and self reliance.

This was a time of not only deep introspection and oft times major hardship, but also great creativity and endless enjoyment of nature. In some way it was a 'vision quest' with a few luxuries…

Then my inner voice told me it was time to rejoin the world I had turned away from and so I have moved to the beautiful city of Edinburgh, Scotland, where I live in a little place near a river and am to set up my healing practice and continue with my writing. Crossing the Forth road bridge by car I was aware of the transition to a new life uncharted and yet to be lived.

Aware that we create our own realities, I decided to create mine in a new place of great atmosphere, history and potential.

Only in the constant pushing of boundaries
Does our greatness lie.
Leave your comfort zones
Spread those wings of flight
Soar high
Dive deep
Live!

© Alison Storm Wolf

Wishing you light on your path, clear signposts, wise guides
and good companionship on your journey.
Blessings to all who take the time to read even one poem.


Alison Stormwolf
Mother of three,  Sister of many

Namaste!