(The beginning dates listed here have been changed from Spring 2024 to Fall and are presently approximate. Actual gathering dates not chosen yet.)
Author and intrepid dream explorer Robert Moss once wrote: “Poets are shamans of words, and shamans are poets of consciousness.” In that light…..
……..when you begin to pay heed to the language of birds, and sense your body re-aligning with the heartbeat of the earth through the whispering in your blood and the dreaming of your bones; when the singing of night stars thrills you and the wise trees guide you; when the winds wrap around you with their far-sensing secrets and you witness and receive with heartbreaking wonder the beauty of this Earth that nourishes you; and when you encounter the myriad touches of the unseen in your life and sense your spirit sap rising in trembling response, ..... then I invite you to reflect on the landscape you might find yourself in if you’re drawn to a practice of Earth/Spirit tending.
Consider that your life exists simultaneously as matter and spirit., although there are other expressions of consciousness. Then imagine existence as a vast web of life. Consider each warp and weft thread of that great web to be like the strings of a musical instrument with their own pitch, tone and frequencies; vibrating and resonant. You are one of those uncountable strings. And imagine then each string traveling on infinitely and in ways we can’t track. Consider the pulsing, unknowable vastness of all those points of connection, how powerful and mysterious! Envision how the sound waves that occur at those intersections carry on down the threads and consider also that time and space is very undefinable in the spirit realm especially, and so you can’t explain or predict just how far your sound-waves might travel or for how long and with what power; or even what sound-wave is yours and what is another’s, for they make one vast, glorious music together.
And then envision yourself and all others and how each thought and feeling, each sensation, how each belief and action that rises out of you sets your string quivering with unimaginable results. And this is simply from the human realm. Add to that the inconceivable sound-waves from each string of life of every other species and each being in that species, planetary and beyond, and the complexity of this web of creation. And so… it matters, doesn’t it, how we dream in this web of life, what music we make? It matters what we value, how we act on our values and what we envision to be the original substrate of this entire Web, which is also our own original template, and how we relate to/from that. Is it a web of original and mysterious Beauty or is it a web of ….what?
It is from this consideration and inquiry I am offering “Poets of Consciousness: A 3+ year Earth/Spirit Tending mentorship” for those who feel called to work in dedicated, loving, engaged partnership with the Earth and spirit realms in relational, creative ways.
This medicine walk, which some might define as shamanic, is a critical and powerful immersion of learning, practicing, applying, tracking and refining for those who are possibly being called to tend their relationships with the Earth and the formless realms; for those who want to update, challenge, expand and deepen the work they may already be doing in this way; for those who engage in practices/professions/expressions who want to better perceive, understand and work with what is occurring on the spiritual/energetic/ancestral levels of their populations; and it is also suitable for many who are doing creative work of any kind who wish to include an inspired, practical, creative consideration of the spiritual, energetic dynamics that give rise to and are interwoven through physical reality and vice-versa, so as to more fully understand the nature of and thus inhabit the true range of our humanity with expansive skill and awareness.
So if you experience a deep call to do this tending on behalf of others; if you already do this but realize there is always more to learn and wish your work to remain alive, flowing and grounded in intelligent active, earth-based spirit community; if you are a psychotherapist or body worker of some kind, a Reiki practitioner, sound healer or any other kind of energetic professional; or if you’re an artist, musician, entrepreneur; tend a farm, a business, a family, a political district, or a school, etc. this mentorship can help you better perceive the context in which our culture operates and then critically navigate both the discrete as well as holographic, always changing landscapes of the spirit realm in relationship to what is created and experienced in the material world. Even if you never intend to engage professionally as a practitioner in this specific way, which is a choice I deeply support, learning how to accurately perceive and understand how the energetic realm is moving and its ways and paths of influence can greatly enhance your own general awareness and well-being as well as support whatever life endeavors and purpose you express.
Learning how to perceive, track, and be responsibly creative both in the physical domain and in the spirit world when allied with fully benevolent beings gives us a way to understand and navigate life with wider, more unconditioned, compassionate perspectives and options; more just and accountable relationship to others and to the signs and circumstances of our bountiful intrinsic diversity; a greater capacity to perceive and move peacefully in relation to the suffering of others— especially those we believe are not like “us”; an enhanced range of choice, and deeply increased effective follow through within all realms. The idiosyncratic and powerful relationships formed through consistent tending of both the spirit and earth realms can bring us home to our innate presence and capabilities as beings who are spirit and body; whose lives are sourced in the infinite realm which teems with a dazzling array of possibilities we are better equipped to perceive and act on when we cultivate the awareness, skills and direct relationships that give us reliable experience in working in both visionary and grounded ways on behalf of our wondrous Earth, who is signifying in countless ways our response-ability to attend to the needs of a living, diverse Earth.
This 3+ year training will look at a wide range of what is currently considered widely acknowledged fundamental perspectives, protocols and skills to reliably practice at this time in the wildly distorted context of capitalist culture; and with curiosity and an invitation to be surprised, we will see what new(or very old) and possibly more expansive lenses we might bring to what I call Earth/Spirit Tending work. We will most importantly delve into incisive self-inquiry, consistent solo and group practice, inspired experimentation, and thoughtful feedback within a stable container founded on the following benefits: a sensual, respectful, reciprocal relationship with the Earth, Ancestors and Cosmos; continuous long-term community; one-on-one mentorship; commitment to personal and group integrity; and the balance between discipline and structure with the wild, feral, ever-changing unique brilliance of the compassionate spirits that evolves through direct experience within sound relationship.
My relationship to you:
One of my primary definitions for what it means to be a mentor in this training is that I am a deeply resourced, proven and accountable tracker, guide and companion; I have the on-going, evolving experiences, skills, beneficial outcomes and perspectives as well as inevitable missteps and misunderstandings, change and growth, all of which arise, are cultivated through and consequent of serious, many decades-long commitment. I pledge to share all this with you in ways that will illuminate knowledge, attitudes and abilities needed by you now and also prompt you to remember sane, healthy ways of being human you already have encoded in your soul and from ancient ancestral and future time to help you develop ways to clarify, synthesize, refine and effectively apply all of this on behalf of Life.
I recognize and honor that you have gifts, wisdom, vulnerabilities, experiences and perspectives to share with me and the group. Together we will create new possibilities for enhanced understanding and action in the world with the companionship and guidance of powerful, compassionate spirit beings. In doing so we help reawaken an innate knowing in the psyche of the human species that has been overshadowed for a long time and thus we help mend a deep rift in the world.
My intention is to provide rich, stimulating, deeply informed as well as continually challenging ground for you to become confidently experienced in navigating the spirit realm and bridging that into daily life through a disciplined and inquisitive learning collaboration as we walk this way together. With each one of you who comes on this journey I make covenant to share the deepest understandings I hold as well as all I continually question about them and myself, and to encourage you to build and grow upon this and to develop your own; to make respectful room for disagreement, doubt, challenge, rejection, the unknown and unanswerable; to express from the greatest vulnerability and sincerity I can access at any time; to be willing to change; to support you through growing pains with warmth and humor; and to offer my passionate love for this beautiful Earth life and all it so generously gives us as the guiding spirit of our time together. This is relationship and relationship is the defining purpose and benefit of our embodied spirit lives. For more than three years we will inhabit a sacred circle of growing Love and Awareness together and we will be changed, together.
The Tending Processes
Listed here are protocols and orientations we will likely get to explore in this training. These can be considered energetic patterns that have been observed to be accessed across certain diverse cultures consistently, each with distinctive purposes. However, keep in mind that this kind of work cannot be codified. Spirit is vast, wild and moves outside all our efforts to standardize. This is our original nature too, present underneath even the most oppressive overshadowing. Consequently in practice, these conceptualized protocols often shed the clothes and language of domestication and take their own unique, wandering path…. thankfully! This work is dynamic, alive, mysterious and will not be contained by concepts, categories and language as much as we might need to use them just to navigate.. The guidance received through this engagement is truly a process of encountering mystery through direct revelation; yet that doesn’t translate into ‘anything goes’. Hence the great value of learning how to read and navigate wild energy through a creative application of the following approaches in tandem with trusted spirit allies, honest feedback and an experienced mentor with whom you will eventually break new, original ground as we travel together.
Earth Relations
Ceremony/Ritual
Divination
Power Recovery: teacher, Ancestor, animal, elemental, other
Soul Essence Recovery: present, past and future lives
Body Essence Restoration
Elemental Balancing
Transfiguration and Transmutation
Extraction
Cord Dissolving
Past Lives Resolution
Deathwalking (psychopomp)
Ancestral Healing
Land and Space Balancing/reinspiriting
Non-dual Decoupling
Curse Unraveling
Practitioner/Client relationship
Schedule of protocols somewhat dependent on make-up of course participants: Likely the following:
YEAR 1
Earth Relations:
Ceremony/Ritual:
Personal Medicine Council/Power Stacking/Merging/Diagnostics
Power Restoration: teacher, Ancestor, animal, elemental, other
Soul Essence Recovery: present, past and future lives
Body Essence Remembering
Extraction
Year 2
Deathwalking (psychopomp)
Non-dual Decoupling(depossession)
Curse Unraveling
Ancestral Healing/Time Spirits and the Ancestral Weave
Year 3
Cord Dissolving
Land and Space Balancing/reinspiriting
Elemental Attunement
Past Lives Resolution
Divination/Mediumship
Transfiguration and Transmutation
Practitioner/Client relationship
Learning these orientations and protocols as if they are separate from one another isn’t how experience tends to pan out when doing this work, and so during the first three years we will explore them through the lenses of what I consider relevant fields of life experience to help seat them in your practice more fully as the poetic nuances they actually are. These orientations will likely be among the following:
Songs of the Earth
The Beautiful Story
Power/Authority
Beauty, Wonder, Mystery
Distortions from Colonization
Longing and Fulfillment
Paradox
Love/Awareness
Death/Dying
Self/No self/Communal Self; Self/Other
Loss and Dismemberment
Grief
Ethics
Worldwork
Once the three years are complete there will be an elective opportunity to explore World Work/Service as a separate and critical module wherein you will have the opportunity to walk your talk in service to others. This module will give you the opportunity to be more self-directed as a group of whomever chooses this action. I will be in a consulting supervisory role but the group itself will determine one or two acts of service to collaborate on. For example, this may take shape as undertaking a form of re-inspiriting an area of land that has been affected by human created violence and/or disregard somewhere or it could be taking on work on behalf of a group that desires your services in the unseen realm to create beneficial change in an otherwise stagnant or hurting system. It will be up to you to determine together what these actions will be and how to proceed in a way that has integrity, humility, diligence, creativity, respect and accountability. It will be up to those who participate to clearly define the intentions of each work; to determine obstacles and allies; to receive the necessary guidance from the spirit world; to determine what will be decided through human creative thought and intuition; to elicit necessary permissions and cooperation from anyone involved on the receiving or cooperating end; to determine what specific actions will be undertaken in both the seen and unseen realms and to document each step of the process beginning to end, including consequences and follow-up for what worked well, what didn’t and what might have been done differently. This world-work will require dedication and self-directed persistence. And it will teach you in ways nothing else can.
During the three+ year period we will meet in the following ways:
There will be 3 in-person 5-day gatherings each year
There will be 4, 6 hour Zoom practicum sessions each year and 3, 2 day instructional Zoom sessions each year
There will be one voluntary zoom call each month for those who wish to drop in and share their journey experiences, the work in their pods and relationships with the spirits, to ask questions and just generally touch in.
There will be one on ones as needed but not to replace full participation in group and solo practice
There will be inspirations, assignments and complementary practices sent to you by email every other week for your daily and weekly practice, either singularly or with a partner or pod and tutorials and audio files, available for you to access.
There will be a residential initiating celebration and ceremony for you to name the nature of your medicine blossom at the end of the 3 years.
I will share personal energetic hygiene practices with you to conform to your needs and temperament.
All processes and inquiries will be stored in a shared Google drive
There will be a private media page to provide another forum for sharing experiences, questions, topics of interest and what you consider to be supplementary beneficial practices you wish to share..
Participation is limited to 8-10 in-person people'; 4 people on-line*
.*There will be a full online option offered only for International attendance and for those in the western US although local attendance is recommended whenever possible. For possible participants living in the western US, I ask you attend one of the three gatherings in person each year.
The location of this training is TBD but likely will be somewhere between the Cleveland, Ohio area and Virginia, USA. This is a non-residency training.
This training will LIKELY begin late August/Early September of 2024. Exact dates will be posted when known
Cost of this training:
$4200.00 per year for three years; gifting of something non-monetary that expresses your medicine for the world work module if you participate.
Payments made in full for each year are due at the beginning of each term. Monthly payment plans are available for anyone when worked out with me. Payments likely range from $300-$350 per month. Monthly payments are always due by the 5th of each month.
A $300 deposit is due upon registration and will be credited towards first year tuition.
One point I also want to make about this particular training: much spiritual work is now done focused primarily on individual well-being as currently defined by an oppressive, extractive culture and its notions of success and also on a constantly increasing sense of self-improvement.. However, a person who seriously and effectively works with the earth and spirit realm recognizes that any individual’s need is not simply something that arises in an isolated way nor do we continually “improve” all aspects of ourselves in some concrete, linear way. To perceive or speak about “healing” as if it can be some sort of fait accompli, a commodity dug out of the earth and swallowed whole, is a mistaken notion based on so much of our misinformed conditioning. We humans do not have just one causal life nor are any or our lives enclosed in unchanging and rigid barriers as to what we define as human. We are always weaving in and out of other beings and “times” and they us; not in invasive possession type ways but as collaborating aspects of a multitude of creative forces who sometimes harmonize and sometimes present challenge. Many life expressions we wish to “heal” are seated in a complex network of often unidentifiable relationships and a more vast timeline than one life and even in a more collective organism and place and may not be able to reach the types of complete resolutions we’ve learned to wish for and define as “happiness” in one lifetime and indeed which may not be even desirable from a greater big picture. However, even this we can often learn to relate to in ways that maintain communal peace and keep our energies in good flow. The intention is to enhance awareness and clarity and experience the awe, wonder, beauty and deep joy inherent in that state; to reclaim the power of original nature in order to have greater options of choice in life and to align most deeply with the nature of the Earth who birthed us in form.
Medicine people work as part of the continually ongoing Weaving of Life, and recognize that personal challenges are interwoven and related to what has occurred ancestrally, what’s shaping the arc of lifetimes, what’s currently occurring within the greater human community as well as within the other-than-human and environmental gestalt of the times, and are not simply indications of disruptive individual histories. Consequently, any committed practitioner must also be a type of committed animistic activist, aware of the greater patterning in the world, and will be attuned to how to observe and engage with this greater community of beings as well as with individuals, for the initiating patterns lie in that greater fabric of life whose full nature we don’t even know.
Additionally, I like for people participating in this endeavor to understand your training is not complete at the end of three years. It is ongoing as you practice, receive feedback and gain life experience. There are some things you’ll be prepared to engage with and some you won’t. Your relationships with the spirits with always be evolving, sometimes in huge ways, so please be aware of the ongoing need to learn, change, adapt and reorient.
Prerequisites to participate:
—A reliable practice connecting with the Spirit realm. What this is and how it works for you can vary, but within the training will need to be amenable to drumming/ rattling/ singing/ silence/ stillness/ dancing/ moving. We will largely be practicing by inviting, recognizing and cultivating loving relationships with the spirits and our bio-regions, often through our deep listening, self-inquiry and generous giving of ourselves as well as with the application of focused meditative/trance work, mediumship, spirit songs/power songs, dance/movement, play and other various earth-based disciplines, although I don’t wish to automatically preclude other forms of connection at the get-go if you feel otherwise called to this. In such a case, we will need to have a conversation to determine if it’s a good fit. All that being said, I will not be coaching you on the fundamentals of connecting to the unseen; you must already have a practice in place that connects you fairly reliably to the spirit realm. If you currently use an entheogen as your way to connect to the spirit realm and hope to do so during the course of this training, please do not apply unless you’re willing to stop long before the course begins and practice to see if you have consistently reliable relationships with the spirits before the training begins, and are willing to continue that way for the duration.
—Another prerequisite to participate in this circle is that you acknowledge that you do not expect this to be a venue for either personal therapy, self-promotion or prioritizing of self-healing—-it is not; it is necessary to have your shit together enough to be aware of your basic foibles and triggers, discern when they’ve been activated, have reliable self-care protocols and be able to move with a fair degree of emotional balance and ownership during challenges, as well as being committed to the work at hand. This does not mean you won’t be supported at all during difficult, unexpected transitions; it means be emotionally aware and mostly capable.
-A final prerequisite is that you acknowledge this is a working practice that needs your consistent diligence and attention; i. e. is at least one of the priorities in your life. Barring unavoidable and challenging circumstances it’s mandatory you attend scheduled gatherings, keep up with the work, and cooperate with the others in the group, as we will all be moving together on a shared path meant to nourish you as well as with the sometimes difficult beauties of such a covenant.
Interested?
I want anyone who feels at all curious about this mentorship and who has any questions to please feel free to contact me at damaris@damarischrystal.com to schedule a conversation. I will walk you through any aspect of this and want you to feel fully informed and comfortable when it comes to a sound decision. I know this is a serious investment of time and resources, for both of us.
If you know you’d like to apply, i welcome you to contact me at damaris@damarischrystal.com so we can schedule an interview.
This is a rigorous and profound training and will ask a lot of you individually and collectively as well as give a lot in return and inexorably change your life in remarkable ways as it has all my students. Although there will certainly be periods of challenge, resistance and doubt experienced during this training, it will also be intriguing, joyous, invigorating, fascinating and full of surprises that will ultimately help seat you more powerfully into the necessary qualities you were born to express and at a time that greatly needs you.. I will be so honored to gather with those of you who decide to come.
Students from the current circle are available to speak with you about their experiences and will also at times join the next circle to participate.
January, 2024
Damaris Chrystal
Testimonies from a couple of primarily mentoring students taken from www.damarischrystal.com/testimonials:
“Damaris is the kind of teacher who works and moves beyond any kind of standard or traditional criteria. It’s not enough to say that you, as a student, will do a great deal of learning. It’s more accurate to say that you will change the way you think, feel and move in the universe. It’s like that. It’s that level of teaching. I am profoundly grateful for what I have received through her guidance, wisdom, and friendship. In short, if you want to understand something better, read a book. If. you want to set your reality ablaze, I present Damaris.”
K. Klonowski, Cultural Foundations University Educator, Independence, OH
“Knowing and working with Damaris has been one of the most important and pivotal experiences of my entire life. I literally could not have fully discovered, understood and embodied my spiritual calling in this lifetime without her healing work, support, and guidance. As a scholar and long-time practitioner of multiple spiritual modalities, I’ve encountered many spiritual teachers and healers; Damaris stands apart. She understands and navigates the spirit world with tremendous sensitivity, awareness, beauty, commitment, depth, and knowledge. She’s loving and compassionate, and able to maintain deep intimacy as a healer and teacher, while also telling important truths when needed. She’s brave and powerful, soft and funny, caring and strong, creative and intelligent, and just brilliant and shining on so, so many levels. She understands that the deepest mysteries can be felt, explored, and engaged intelligently and effectively, while accepting that they can never fully be understood. She is a true medicine woman in the most profound sense, including all of the spirit power and sacrifices that her calling entails; a rarity exceedingly necessary, though too often undervalued, in these times that are both perilous and full of opportunity. If you feel called to engage with the multidimensional magic that is Earth/Spirit Tending, let Damaris be your healer and your guide.”
Elizabeth Meacham, PhD. Author at Inner Traditions/Bear & Co., Spiritual Teacher, Healer, Coach at Earth Spirit Dreaming Healing Arts Collective, singer/songwriter. Cleveland, OH
“… What has it been like to resume my shamanic studies 4 years after quitting to write my book with this teacher, both a friend and once peer student?....breathtaking and awe inspiring. We’ve been working together for over a year and I know partnering with Damaris is the reason why there have been so many changes. I’ve shed so much, making way for the new. Much of Earth/Spirit training is one’s own healing and deeper connection with their guides/ helping spirits: the two are intrinsically bound. Besides creating a stronger foundation for ancestral healing, working with Damaris has confirmed again and again that my purpose is that of a Psychopomp and lineage healer.
From the field Damaris provides of incisive inquiry, detailed tracking and deeply embodied relational practices to the Earth and spirit realm, my access to my guides has grown increasingly permeable and spontaneous. Over time I’m able to see clearly just how refined and exact the guidance is that Damaris gives. She is always acting in accordance with what her spirit cohort suggests and are they ever on point! I have been so amazed to engage this work consistently with Damaris over a long amount of time for there have been instances where I haven’t understood the reason for some of the suggestions that the helping spirits, through Damaris, have made, even though they have always been fascinating and emotionally moving in the moment. But over the course of time it has absolutely stunned me to perceive just what they were designing all along and the great interconnected beauty and complexity of it all. How do they do that??
What more, exactly, does Damaris bring to our partnership? She is meticulous. She listens carefully and deeply. She always plans, consults with her guides before any teaching but is able to spin on a dime if the situation requires. Her ability to “hear” and sense what is needed at any point creates the deepest student experience if the student is ready and committed. If you are wanting to move into a novel perspective about establishing/re-establishing your instinctual connection to Life, Nature and the Creatrix, then you will not find a more powerful, creative and generous mentor than Damaris Chrystal. “
—Nova S.; Author “Avonelle’s Gift”/ancestral healer/deathwalker/spiritual detritivore, Chapel Hill, NC
The night after I met Damaris in 2015 I had a vivid dream where she was sitting next to me and teaching me something very important. Since then I have participated in over six of her multi-day trainings as well as numerous journey circles, completed her one-year “Time Spirits and the Ancestral Weave” course, and received many hours of mentorship in my personal practice. And now I am signed up for her 2+year training!
Over the years, Damaris has not only become a trusted mentor and teacher, but also a supportive friend, wise elder, cherished mother, and hilarious sister. Tending her relationship with me with the same love, compassion, and loyalty she has tended her relationships in the spirit realm creates a powerful and safe container for her students to re-connect to self, community, nature, and the unseen world and to responsively meet the unspeakable pain and beauty of being alive. When Damaris takes someone on as a student she becomes a seriously committed ally in their healing and learning with a willingness to share her full and real self.
As a teacher, she stands in the mystery and honors the subtlety and nuance of the spirit realm with a deep moral and ethical awareness and commitment. Navigating power dynamics with integrity, if presented with power given to her by a student, she does not take it as her own, but encourages and supports them in recognizing and re-claiming it over time. Weaving words with rich texture and feeling, she shares knowledge, deeply embodied .Inspirited in her instruction, she tracks her students and adapts to what is most needed in each moment. Dancing between the ordinary and non-ordinary her teaching style requires her students have a commitment to integrating their spiritual healing and skills into their life and community and ultimately a readiness for transformation.
Katie T., PhD Agroforester/community food activist/songstress, Roanoke, VA
Damaris Chrystal
*art credits;
Eagles-Falcon Moon Studio-The Art of Brenda Lyons
Dreaming Fox-Sandra Dieckmann
Bee-Lisa Marquis-Bradbury
The Foragers—Elizabeth Sommerville