September 01, 2019
Soul Work, the Evolution of Consciousness
Tags: Beyond shamanism, Mystical healing, shamanic soul work, Healing from the soul, magic pills
We understand, intuitively, that the soul is the deepest aspect of our being. When we have been emotionally wounded we feel it is “sick”. Sometimes this manifests as physical sickness as well. To heal our soul is not just a lighthearted jaunt though a well groomed garden, plucking dead blooms from their stocks, it is hacking through the densest, darkest, jungle to find our light again. It’s looking into the abyss of who we truly are, claiming the darkness these wounds have generated, and its reclaiming our divinity.
As our souls heal, by our transcending and integrating our dualities, they evolve. In the Andean traditions this is called increasing our state of ayni, our highest state being when we are congruent with Source. It doesn’t work to emphasize our light aspects, while burying our darkness through negation, that fuels more separation and duality. It is about taking ownership of what we externalize. Whatever we perceive happening outside is happening inside first. Perhaps we are in scarcity, for example. Were we cursed by some angry or jealous family member, or is it because we are unconsciously punishing ourselves for things we have not yet forgiven ourselves for? Perhaps we are blocking abundance because we are uncomfortable receiving, or we believe we are unworthy or undeserving. We cannot heal when we externalize these problems, putting them at the feet of others, instead of owning them.
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May 01, 2018
Mystical Shamanism
Tags: Michael Harner, Core Shamanism, Alberto Villoldo, Q'ero Indians, Andes Mysticism
Many people with varying trainings, lineages, or "calls from Spirit,” refer to themselves as shamans. It is hard to know who is legitimate and who is not, and what a shaman really is. In Cuzco, Peru, for example, you can find “shamans” all over town selling mystical experiences. Many have access to medicinal plants, but few have training in how to hold space for a client, or even how to speak to the medicinal plants in ceremony. There are others that say no one can call themselves a shaman or be trained as one; it is an honor only bestowed upon one by others.
The actual word “shaman” comes from the Tungusic Evenki language of North Asia. According to anthropological documentation it is the word the Tungus, in particular, used to refer to their medicine person. Spirits inhabited their shamans, affecting others positively, and negatively, and shifting circumstances on the material plane. Some believe that this manifestation of shamanism is the only legitimate form that can claim to use the word “shaman.” Technically, they are correct, as it is a word specific to this one tribe in Siberia. Every other tribe has a different language, and therefore a different word, and each tribe’s practices also vary. While some use use spirits to do their bidding, and others do not, most tribes do have mentors helping young initiates refine their skills.
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March 01, 2018
Following the Shamanic Path, After the Colors Fade
Tags: Ayahuasca, PTSD, Shamanic Path, Alternative Therapy, Ecotherapy
The main principle behind shamanic healing is that our physical and mental/emotional realities are orchestrated by our multidimensional spiritual selves. This self carries all our true capacity, but it also carries the imprints from all of our unresolved wounds, from this lifetime through to the ancient past, in shadow. When our minds do not know how to process hurtful events they become imprinted on our souls, directing the way our lives unfold at the physical. Once our multidimensional selves heal, our bodies and minds can finally express our true capacity.
Shamanic healers can help us shift, grow, and heal by connecting with our multidimensional selves. They are distinct in their capacity to bridge the physical and the spiritual domains, aiding in this evolutionary process. One of the main tenants of shamanic healing is that the client must be put in a trance state to let go of the wounds locked into the fear based mind. Only in trance will the mind let go of its defenses enough to effect change. There are many different kinds of shamans, and many ways to achieve these trance states. Some tribes use drumming, or dancing, while others use breath work. Others, still, use psychotropic plant medicines. While methods vary from tribe to tribe, shamanic healers share in common the idea that our dysfunctional physical reality is a projection of the imbalances in our spiritual selves.
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June 01, 2017
Beyond Talk Therapy
Tags: Shamanic Healing, Imprint Work, Soul Healing, Energy Medicine, Psychological Counseling
A psychological counselor can be an invaluable ally when we are sorting through our emotions and looking for ways to better cope with our wounds. It is comforting to have a neutral, anonymous person to talk to, and someone who can help us root through our stuff to get a better handle on it. Why then, would you see a shamanic healer? The short answer is, you still feel wounded. Counselors work mind to mind, using their minds to interact with yours. If the root of your problem is imprinted on your soul, talking about it has limited effect.
Shamans believe soul sickness is the origin of all mental and physical illness. They operate from the principle that your body and mind are connected to, and informed by, a third body of consciousness. It is a membrane of light that surrounds your physical body, perceiving the world independently of it. People who have technically died, but who have been brought back to life, report still being very aware of their surroundings, despite their complete loss of neural activity. They also report seeing the whole event from a position outside their body.
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October 01, 2016
Soul Contracts And Curses
Tags: Poverty Vows, Ancestral Curses, Shamanic Tools, Soul Contracts
Have you ever wondered why, try as you might, you cannot shift your financial status from living on the edge, paycheck to paycheck? As soon as any windfall comes your way your car breaks down or your roof needs repair. One thing after another keeps tugging at that hole in your wallet, pulling through it anything that sits there for very long. While it may seem like you are cursed, sometimes this is the result of a contract you made with your soul, long ago.
Poverty vows, for example, were a common form of initiation into monastic lifestyles. By choosing a life with few material trappings the initiate is free to develop a deeper connection to Spirit. In not having to invest in the competitive ego, ever striving for success, these vows open people to humility, as they must rely upon others for survival. This brings them face to face with the benevolence of their Maker. In the streets of India you still see Sadhus dressed in saffron rags, holding out begging bowls for rice.
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May 01, 2016
Sorcery
Tags: Sorcery, Ethics, Shamanism, Gossip, Evil, White Shaman, Dark Arts
Sorcery is the darkness that thrives in the shadow of Shamanism. While shamans use their powers to heal, sorcerers, like Darth Vader, take that same wisdom and turn it inward for personal gain. The sorcerer can make an enemy suddenly sick or curse a family for generations. They thrive on having power over others because their wounds drive perceptions of their own shortcomings. Our emotions tune our vibrations. The essential differences between the sorcerer and the shaman, then, is simply the nature of their intent.
In the days of old sorcery and shamanism were often entwined. Using shamanic wisdom to do harm to another was an acceptable form of survival between waring tribes. As humans have evolved many have come to recognize that having power is a responsibility that comes with a set of ethics and a code of honor. There is difference between having power and having ill will. Today’s shaman believes evil lives in the hearts of men and women, not as an independent principle.
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April 01, 2016
The Modern Shaman
Tags: Shamanism, Animism, Archetypes, Power, Nature
Some people believe calling yourself a shaman is akin to saying “I am God.” A Shaman, they say, is a trickster who takes many magical forms, transcending space and time. Only others, they say, may call you one!
If we look at the word “shaman,” we find it is simply the (Siberian) Tungus tribe’s word for “medicine person.” Every indigenous tribe, from the beginning of time, has had a person, or two, whose role it has been to connect with the Creative Force on behalf of the tribe, to ensure their survival. They were everyday people with emotions, egos and even relationship problems to work through, but they were sensitive to energy. Their sensitivities helped them to heal the sick and help track down animals for food. They could see the dead and they could hear the spirits of Nature. Their job was to be an intermediary between the seen and unseen. When their skill sets were first recognized as children, they were pulled aside and trained to be of service to the tribe. There have always been these people, every culture, ours included, has relied upon them.
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January 01, 2016
The Fifth Element
Tags: Ether, Five Elements, Fifth Element, Moderm Shaman, Lao Tzu, Shamanism
Consider a clay pot. It starts from minerals found in the earth. Mixed with water it becomes a malleable substance that can be shaped into a form. Bake it in a fire, stoked by the winds of the bellows, and you temper that object, giving it a strength that can hold up under use. Just as this pot is born of the four basic Elements of Creation, Earth, Water, Fire and Wind, so too are we. But as every alchemist and shaman knows, there is a fifth element at play as well.
From the beginning of time, cultures have broken Nature down into its basic constituents in an effort to better thrive on Planet Earth. Ancients alchemists recognized that there is a visible world constructed of four basic elements. Each one has a different temperament. Water, for example, has the uncanny ability to shift forms. It can move from solid ice, to a liquid, and finally to gaseous steam. Fire, alternatively, has the properties of transmutation. It consumes entire forests, for example, making way for new growth. From the subtle flap of a tiny butterfly wing powerful Winds arise, and of course there is the Earth element, giving us the basis of all structure and form. The fifth element, Ether, they say, is more elusive. It is the consciousness between atoms, the very fabric of the sky.
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December 01, 2014
Catching A Tiger By Its Tail
Tags: Healing verses curing, Alternative healing, holistic healing, shamanic healing
In our conventional way of looking at illness, we see a symptom, like a sore throat or a tumor, and find various ways to treat it so it will go away. This is analogous to hacking off the tip of an iceberg and expecting that it will disappeared because the tip is no longer visible. All we have really done is treat the physical manifestation of something that is much more complicated brewing beneath the surface.
Treating a symptom and having it disappear is considered a cure, it is the cornerstone of allopathic medicine. We have found numerous cures for many horrible diseases in the last 100 years. A drug, for example, can make part of the brain work more efficiently or kill off cells that divide and grow too quickly. A knife can remove a part of the body that is sickened and diseased. Cures work at the physical, on the physical, molecule to molecule. While cures are beneficial on one level, the problem is that they introduce physical change into complex systems with a cascade of related moving parts. To alter one part of the whole often changes others down stream. Removing a sick organ, for example, can create space in the body that destabilizes the location of others, or changing levels of serotonin to decrease depression can cause erratic sleep patterns and sexual disfunction.
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October 01, 2014
Witches, Shamans and the Number Thirteen
Tags: Witches, Shamans, Herstory, 13, Demonizing the sacred
Myths and legends warn us of the wicked witch who lives at the edge of the forrest. She is the green warty creature who brews toxic tonics in her cauldron and bakes little children in her oven. She crafts poison apples to put princesses to sleep and casts potent spells over innocent men and women. But beware… When one culture supplants another, the conquerors create new legends that undermine the powers of their predecessors.
It is well known, for example, that the best way to bring a culture to its knees is to destroy the basis of their faith and beliefs. There have been numerous examples of this in human history. Every culture on Earth started as an indigenous culture, learning how to survive by relying on their intuition and their connection to the planet. Spirituality started with our wonder for the unknown; we revered those who had the ability to see into its mysteries. Visionaries and intuitives have long been the ones who heal and guide our people to food and shelter. They have been fundamental in keeping our connection to Spirit vital and our tribes alive. Whenever a culture wants to gain control over another, however, this is the first person whose power is minimized.
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