Shamanic Work

The Foundation for Shamanic Studies www.shamanism.org

The Church of Earth Healing

http://home.frognet.net/~healing/churchabout/about_church.htm

and the Healing Relationships workshop offered by Serge King of Aloha International http://www.huna.org/

Anemone, with four apprentices and one journeywoman, present two trance drumming circles each month. These circles provide training for the beginner and advanced shamanic practitioner, healing, divination, or crisis intervention as needed. They also offer one weekend intensive each year in September. These intensives follow a three level cycle:

I Opening Inner Visions —an introduction to the skills necessary for shamanic practice

II Living Inner Visions —developing shamanic healing and divinatory skills

III Becoming Inner Visions—honing ones’ skills and experiencing merging consciousness with the Spirit World

Shamanism is a cross-cultural practice of working with the energy of the Seven Directions: north, south, east, west, the void at the center, the sky above and the earth below. Its practices are found in any intact aboriginal culture. People in the United States will commonly hear about practices of the North American First Nations because that is where we live, but these experiences repeat in one form or another in Siberia, Mongolia, Australia, Africa, South America and are hinted at in the legends of Europe (although the European tradition is all but destroyed by Roman/western culture). The word shaman comes from the Sammi culture, known as the Lapps of Lapland or the reindeer people. It is a Siberian term, not American at all.

Here are some terms and concepts common to shamanic studies:

The drum is the windhorse of the shaman. S/he travels on the vibratory echoes of the drum to other states of ecstatic consciousness to retrieve information, healing or wisdom for the guides in other worlds, or from different locations in this one. You may choose to travel on the vibrations as the drum is struck or on the spaces between beats where the vibrations extend outward. Try both approaches to determine which alters your consciousness most effectively.

The other worlds are commonly referred to as the Upper World and Lower World, not to be confused by the Christian concepts of Heaven and Hell. We live in ordinary reality or the Middle World. That too is far more changeable and illusionary than we let our selves know.

The Upper World is a dimension of many levels which we may enter as our awareness of spiritual energy increases and our personal being is refined and changed by our study and understanding of the Ways of Spirit. We usually are instructed and protected by one or more spirit guides in the Upper World. Our initial Upper World journeys are designed to meet them, and understand our relationship to them. The quality of the Upper World is more ethereal than this one, and one can perform miracles in that space. To extend your access to the various dimensions of the Upper World, try toning, singing your power song or other chants you receive from your Guides when you are in the Upper World. There are at least 7 Sacred Cities to find and various levels of access in those cities, depending on how fine tuned to their reality you can become.

The Lower World is a dimension of ancestral and natural world energy that closely resembles this world, but you will find the laws of physics bend and change. We are instructed, befriended and protected by one or more animal allies in the Lower World. Our initial journeys to the Lower World are designed to seek them out and retrieve our animal ally who will work with us. Our courage or heartiness determines how far we can explore this world. You can learn fearlessness by experiencing challenges, soul level initiations, dismemberment journeys and the journey to death and back. All of which can be Lower World Journeys. On a different level of experience they can also be Upper World Journeys.

Spirit Guides generally appear in human form but are more accurately understood as beings of light. They may well take a form familiar to and comforting to you. For purposes of our own growth and their choice, they may assume a form that is severely challenging or one that reflects the lesson you most need to learn. They will not harm you, despite what some interactions with them appear to be at the time. They will tell you the truth about yourself, so be open to hearing that.

Animal Allies or Totem Animals are also called Power Animals. I use the terms interchangeably, however I also recognize a totem animal is more properly a clan or tribal symbol as the Spider is for the Web. Some people make distinctions, and some cultures reject one or the other of these terms. Your Animal Guide will likely be a wild animal or bird. Reptiles or insects are less common, but despite the prohibitions made by some teachers, these life forms also can be very instructive and connected to us. However, a vicious and threatening creature is not your power animal and should be avoided. Your animal guide may take the form of an “imaginary” animal like a unicorn or dragon. You may have more than one animal guide at a time, and all of them seek to assist you in your path, and need your attention and assistance as well.

The term “Medicine” in Native American shamanic practice is most like the English world for “power.” However, power often implies holding power over another being, and that is not in keeping with most earth-based religions, though any of them can include people who are enjoying their spiritual gifts at the expense of others. Think of Medicine Power as Capability, Talent, Magic, Healing and Transformation, all rolled into one, and you will begin to see what is meant by the terms medicine and power.

Power Songs are usually wordless chants (mine came in verse form—it happens) that one uses in calling in the spirits to assist in the shamanic work to be done. They are often used in group chanting, when everyone sings their own song as they drum to open the shamanic circle of energy and begin a session. You do not create a power song; you invite it. It arrives fully formed and sings itself out of your mouth. There are healing songs, and a one-time-use death chant when you cross over that will arrive in your consciousness as needed. These may also disappear in between times to prevent copying, profiting or misuse.

Shamanic practices form a spiritual path of service. The practitioner will learn to use these techniques in healing the self or others, to create earth healing where it is truly needed, to offer thanksgiving to all the beings that support and teach us, to retrieve advice and direction or prophecy as needed, and to conduct the dead to the other side (psychopomps). Shamanic practices will inform each of us of our strengths, roadblocks to progress, and challenges or weaknesses. We must always be wise about our decisions and relations to the spirits, for we are the final arbiters of our own conduct. No one in this ordinary reality or any of the other realities is always right. Static immutable Perfection has not arrived anywhere. All of our learning, and that of the guides as well, are in process. I often say perfection is process, ever changing, never the same. Where you are today is perfect for today. Where you will be tomorrow is equally perfect, but it is also somewhere else.

This is a different way to think. It is a different way to live. Humans, rocks, trees, animals, birds, oceans, mountains all have consciousness and the right to be here. None is greater or lesser than the other. All our actions must be weighed to the 7th Generation. All our actions are reasons to give thanks. The four footed, the two legged and winged ones; they are our brothers and sisters. We have not been given dominion over them, nor they over us. Let us all act according to our nature, and the good of all. Let us find our souls reflected in the world around us, and be at peace with All That Is, for that is who we are. Let us understand all creatures are created in love by the energy of the Great Creator, and none were made for unhappiness or evil.