“I’m not in it. It is beautiful.”
Everyday Practice; Walking with the Earth and Animals
Grief, Joy and the Wisdom of Trees
There Is Only One Question....
Client Responsibility in Shamanic Healing: This Means Power
When someone engages in a shamanic healing session as a client, they are always the primary mover in what can happen. The desire to be more real, more fully one's self, to be free from old conditioning and wounds; to heal, create and satisfy one's heart; the desire to bring one's gifts into the world and live from a place of balance with the Earth and all relations creates the foundation upon which all the work will build. If a client seeks a session then they are not dead, and so have at least some power, despite how they might feel. So we begin with honoring and working with the power already present that someone brings to their life.
The Word Shaman and the Work : Use and Mis-use, a prologue...
The Word Shaman and the Work: Use and mis-use... a prologue
This is a contentious topic in some circles and I tread here with some hesitation. But I am asked about this a lot and so I like to approach it with respect for all of us and our many different perspectives, backgrounds and understandings as well as respect for both the benefits and failings of language and the varied cultures from which this all arises.
There have always been medicine people in every culture we know of. The names given to these people befitted the culture and conveyed among their people what was needed. In present time, all over the world we still have medicine people who are now often called by the singular term shaman, especially by those outside the specific culture.
(Art: “White Hummingbird” in memory of great southwestern artist Frank Howell who featured beautiful images of original peoples and their great dignity. www.frankhowell.art)
Grace
GRACE
I wake in the morning. My intended first impression is to note, did I wake up on my in-breath or my out-breath? Well...sometimes that happens. Often it is minutes or hours later that I remember my daily morning intention. So I ask, when I remember, do I remember on my in-breath or my out breath?
Remembering.....
What Is Shamanism?
Medicine Person as Activist
The Very Ordinary
Last evening at dusk I closed up the dogs and walked down by the creek to look for a small body. The day before, hearing my four dogs barking in that high whining frenzy that triggers alarm, I left my tasks to go check, additionally discomfited by the helplessness I always feel since my injury now insists on slow caution. Closing near I saw two of my precious dogs out on the jagged ice, one of them with something black in his mouth.
How Do We Begin?.....
What does it mean to live a shamanic life? This is an inquiry I'll be approaching in many different ways throughout my blogs and podcasts. For me, it's akin to asking what does it mean to be fully human. Through these writings, navigating both the opportunities as well as limits of language, I invite you to explore a state of consciousness and way of being in the world that has been fundamental to humans living in sane balance across the planet for many tens of thousands of years.
The core of shamanism: the helping spirits
Shamanism is based on the ability of someone to go into an altered state, form reciprocal relationships with beings of spirit, and gain guidance about how to embody greater balance in life and the best ways to maintain that balance, either for self or other. It is also a way to provide a conduit for the helping spirits to effect direct healing either personally or within the collective by moving energies in the direction of harmony. This is somewhat simplistic.. but will do for now.
Liminal Spaces
In the now seemingly never-ending wake of violence and tragedy we currently witness and experience, I find my body moving spontaneously out of the pounding glare of description, fact, comment and opinion and into a repose of stillness and merging with the heart of the Earth. After petition signing, phone-calls, protests and protections, sending aid, tending hurts, there comes a subtle, oceanic movement guided by my body intelligence to turn from the polarized world of event histories --for awhile-- and enter the subjective, timeless mystery of the Dreamtime.
Shamanic Initiation: Dismemberment
Shamanic initiations aren't usually what one focuses on in an early exploration of shamanic practice. However, it seems more people are experiencing initiations that they often are unprepared for and do not understand; hence there is more difficulty with integration and making good use of such a profound event. One such initiation that can be disorienting is that of dismemberment, especially when it is full-blown. As a companion to you on this path of direct revelation, I'm sharing one early part of my own on-going initiation.
Resting With Mother Earth
Sometimes on the spiritual path it seems like we feel the only valuable and true way to understand Reality and our place in it is to create complex theories, practices and vast spreading hierarchies of deeply embellished belief systems. These abstracted thought forms become such easy places for the mind to hide from itself, from true awareness; and within these labyrinthine circles the dear, intelligent body can also become forgotten and bereft of its needful and natural companions.
The Poetry of Consciousness: Crossing Thresholds
Crossing thresholds---dying to old ways of being and coming alive to new visions and aspects of awareness--- are common themes in a shamanic life. Working in close, consistent relationship with the helping spirits attunes you to their vibration, which is unconditioned. Because we tend to live mostly from conditioned thoughts, habits, emotional patterns and dogmas, becoming more detached from conditioning is revolutionary and tends to introduce a sense of free-fall and sometimes chaos into one's life. Who am I now? is often the underlying sense...