A Soulful Cure

Since time immemorial, certain men and women have felt called to heal the sick, to safeguard knowledge, to guide the lost, and to commune with the spirit world. These unique individuals, known as shamans, were mystics and seers, repositories of wisdom, and keepers of herbal lore. During those periods when ignorance loomed large in the world, shamans across the globe bided their time, peacefully practicing their practical yet refined arts in the jungle, mountains, deserts, and tundra that protected them from those who misunderstood shamanism. Today, however, shamanism has reemerged, as modern men and women feel the same call to service that their ancestors felt long ago. Also, as more individuals explore the notion that healing necessarily involves the soul as well as the physical self, people are consulting shamans in their search for wellness, wisdom, and guidance.

The word shaman literally means “he or she who knows.” Shamanism is an art that has not changed in any quantifiable way for millennia and is not bound to any particular form of spirituality. It is grounded on the principle that the visible world is saturated with unseen forces that influence the lives of human beings. Shamans, in addition to acting as fonts of wisdom, are dedicated to diagnosing and curing human suffering—whether emotional, physical, or spiritual. To treat an illness, a shaman may communicate with the spirit world in order to connect more directly with the soul of their patient or with the force causing ill health. They often work closely with animal guides, plant and earth spirits, or your spirit guides, and may make use of use of herbal remedies to supplement other forms of treatment. Shamans, as intermediaries between the physical and spiritual realms, recognize that all objects are in manner alive and retain information that can be utilized to heal.

Shamanism is powerful in part because its practitioners tailor healing to the individual needs of those who seek them out. A shaman manipulates energy, giving you power where you have lost it and removing misplaced energy lurking within you. When you seek out a shaman, they will endeavor to know and understand you before treating you. In this way, they can provide you with therapies that act on your whole being, positively influencing your body as well as your soul.(Daily OM)

What Is Shamanism?

 What is Shamanism? Shrouded in mystery and often misinterpreted, shamans practice one of the oldest professions in human history.

Known as a healer / priest, shamans are capable of harnessing, at will, the invisible forces at play around and within us to aid in great healing and to gain wisdom.

In our modern world, we’ve become blind to these deeper realms of consciousness in and around us…but they still exist.

More people today are waking up to shamanism. They’re remembering our innate and intuitive connection with the cosmos and the natural world that is an unshakeable part of who we are.

And they are using this connection—this superpower—to create modern-day miracles, to heal unhealable wounds and illnesses, and to reclaim their lives.

While every shamanic culture throughout the world has its own belief system, rituals, tools and techniques and other differences, many share some central principles and elements...<<<Read More>>>...

Shadow Work: The Ultimate Guide

[Wake Up World]: All of us carry demons inside.

Sometimes we catch fleeting glimpses of them, sometimes we witness them in full frontal chaos, but for the most part, we ignore and bury their existence either out of fear, guilt or pure shame. However, discovering and owning our demons is a vital part of our spiritual journey.

As author and psychotherapist Steve Wolf noted:

“Beneath the social mask we wear every day, we have a hidden shadow side: an impulsive, wounded, sad, or isolated part that we generally try to ignore. The Shadow can be a source of emotional richness and vitality, and acknowledging it can be a pathway to healing and an authentic life.”

In other words, the Shadow isn’t just the wounded part of us, but it is also the path towards a more authentic and fulfilling life. In order to repair, heal, and grow on a mental, emotional, and spiritual level, we need to practice Shadow Work.

Shadow Work is a practice that helps us to become whole again. It works on the premise that you must 100% OWN your Shadow, rather than avoiding or repressing it, to experience deep healing.

This daunting and often frightening task is a requirement of every person. But you don’t have to go at it alone....<<<Read More>>>...

Shadow Work: Transforming the Shadow into Sharpness

 [Waking Times]: Everyone has a dark side. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either selling something, or they’ve repressed their shadow. Or both.

Your dark side, your shadow, is hidden behind your persona. Your persona is your surface front. It’s the mask you show the world. It’s the mask you wear to appease the world. It’s the mask you wear to convince yourself, and to hide the fact, that you are a dangerous animal. It hides the primal aspects of the human condition.

Shadow work is a process of integrating the primal self (shadow) with the practical self (persona). It’s a journey we must each take to discover what unique value we can bring into the world as an integrated human being. It’s a journey behind the persona, behind the mask. It’s a journey down deep into the primal. Into the inner darkness. Into our unrealized potential.

Shadow work is mortal sincerity. It’s radical honesty. It’s vital authenticity. But, foremost, shadow work is not a sprint; it’s a marathon. It must be deeply felt, carefully thought through, and meticulously meditated on....<<<Read More>>>...

Liberate Yourself in Any Given Situation

[Wake Up World]: Fear is what so frequently holds people back on the spiritual path. Fear of what might happen if you take a certain step. Fear of completely letting go and where that might lead. Fear of hurting others by being truly authentic. Fear invades the mind, emotions and body. 

But to simply ‘over-write it’ with positive intentions or infusing ‘love and light’ can lead only to more layers of identity. The liberated flow of the soul is not something to intention, or create by a veneer of gloss. It just is, and it simply arises when we open the space for it. When the soul invites authentic choice, fear can often also arise. 

So how do you deal with it most effectively?...<<<Read More>>>...

Signs You’re Called to Be a Shaman

[Wake Up World]: At its most basic level, shamanism can be understood as a collection of ancient techniques that help to awaken and expand consciousness, as well as heal humanity’s inner wounds.

Shamanic practice is the earliest known form of religion that our ancestors experienced. The different number of spiritual techniques used to expand our conscious and provoke mystical experiences was astonishing. These techniques ranged from chanting, fasting, and nature immersion, to incessant trance dancing and ingesting hallucinogenic plants.

Unlike most religions where the main concern is finding answers, the Shaman is more interested in provoking you to ask the right questions that will lead you to experience truth. The Shaman doesn’t pursue meaning: he or she creates it by bringing the sacred to an otherwise mundane reality.

The word “Shaman” first originated in Siberia as the word “samarambi” meaning “to excite oneself,” and “sam-dambi” meaning to dance. The shaman, therefore, excites himself into a divine frenzy or ecstasy through drum beating and dancing, until he passes into a trance when his spirit leaves his body.

The scholar of comparative religion and anthropologist Mirca Eliade gave us the most simple shaman definition as “specialists in ecstasy,” with an impressive list of abilities including thought-reading, clairvoyance, firewalking, and spirit interaction, just to name a few.

It’s these moments of ecstasy, of ego death, that provide an experience of reality that is larger, deeper, and infinitely more exquisitely beautiful. Shamans worldwide know that in order to understand society and live more fully attuned to reality, they need to go wild, travel out of their normal minds, and visit the invisible world of Spirit, which is the undercurrent of the visible world.

By accessing the invisible realm, Shamans can tap into a powerful way of guiding their lives and the lives of others....<<<Read The Full Article Here>>>...

Before Every Bright Day Is a Dark Night

[Wake Up World]: Humanity is going through a collective Dark Night of the Soul right now. There has been a lot of gunk in the collective unconscious for so long, that it has come to a point where it has to come up and be addressed.

This is a natural purging process that has to happen sooner or later, so we can be grateful that it has finally arrived. The sooner we address the shadow aspects we have on a personal and collective level, the sooner we will see the dawn of a bright new day for humanity.

After every dark night there is a bright day, and it may appear darkest just before it comes. We are at the dawn of the Great Unknowing for our collective consciousness. What will we redefine our destiny and future present as? Since nobody is an island unto themselves, this is going to be a collective decision that mobilizes the collective consciousness towards either a balanced future or an unbalanced one.

Only those who are strong in their willpower will endure the present and future psychosis experienced in the collective consciousness. We can see just how unbalanced some people have become today. It seems as if there was never more imbalance, uncertainty, hostility, and suffering. However, if there’s one thing humans have proven ever since they existed is that they are incredibly resilient and able to overcome anything. We will get through these challenging times, and we are currently addressing the shadow aspects within us.

The assignment each one of us has is to tend to our gardens and pull out the weeds. We need to do this before we help others tend to their gardens. Otherwise, we will end up causing more weeds to sprout up. To see a bright future for ourselves and humanity, we need to all address the darkness within us first....<<<Read The Full Article Here>>>...

Working with a Shaman

[Daily Om]: The word shaman literally means "he or she who knows." Shamanism is an art that has not changed in any quantifiable way for millennia and is not bound to any particular form of spirituality. It is grounded on the principle that the visible world is saturated with unseen forces that influence the lives of human beings.

Shamans, in addition to acting as fonts of wisdom, are dedicated to diagnosing and curing human suffering--whether emotional, physical, or spiritual. To treat an illness, a shaman may communicate with the spirit world in order to connect more directly with the soul of their patient or with the force causing ill health.

They often work closely with animal guides, plant and earth spirits, or your spirit guides, and may make use of use of herbal remedies to supplement other forms of treatment. Shamans, as intermediaries between the physical and spiritual realms, recognize that all objects are in manner alive and retain information that can be utilized to heal.

Shamanism is powerful in part because its practitioners tailor healing to the individual needs of those who seek them out. A shaman manipulates energy, giving you power where you have lost it and removing misplaced energy lurking within you...<<<Read The Full Article Here>>>...

Discover the Power of Puma Medicine

Waking Times: Shamans of every ancient culture have opened the portals to a deeper wisdom that can reconnect you with the sacred web of life. However, shamanism isn’t just for the ancients!

Today, anyone who chooses can benefit from this wisdom that can powerfully and intimately connect us simultaneously with both Earth and Sky, bridge inner and outer worlds, and expand our capacity to heal our lives.

If you’d like to discover more about shamanism and explore putting it to work in your life, we have a very special invitation for you…read more>>>...

The Eightfold Path to Altered States of Consciousness

NorthernShamanism: One of the differences between shamanic work and other sorts of energy work is that sooner of later, altered states of consciousness are required. This is partly because shamanic work is not only working with energy (like thaumaturgic magic) or with universal paths (like theurgic magic) but working with entities. In order to properly perceive and deal with the wights, you need to go into a state of consciousness that brings you closer to them.

The more dramatic and serious the work, the more extreme the altered state needs to be. Even people who are good at going into mild altered states - the sort who trance out easily - will sooner or later find that they need to go further and deeper if they take up shamanic work.

A large part of the "basic" shamanic training is learning how to control one's state of consciousness at will, whatever that takes. Fortunately, our ancestors spent thousands of years working out a wide and varied array of altered-state technologies; much of the research work has already been done for us. These techniques have been sorted into a system referred to as the "Eightfold Path", or eight groups of similar techniques...read more>>>...

Shamans 'astronauts of inner space'

S.O.T.T: Shamanism is as varied as those who practice it. Its practitioners range from indigenous lineages who have passed down their craft over thousands of years to the modern 'plastic shamans' (a.k.a Urban Shamans), who represent no specific culture but have adapted shamanism to meet the demands of metropolitan markets.

However, there is a common theme to shamanism wherever it is practised: the use of spiritual (or shamanic) trance to facilitate journeys to a non-ordinary reality. Here, in this non-ordinary reality, the shamans do their work. According to the historian of religion Mircea Eliade writing in 1951, shamanism is the 'technique of ecstasy', involving the purposeful invocation and use of dreams and visions to solve problems.

By this definition, shamanism is the landscape of the spirit-journey, populated by good and evil spirits and the souls of the deceased and yet-to-be-born. It is the place where mountains speak and Grandmother Skeleton points out which plants to eat when the dry season lasts too long. In this form, shamanism is everywhere in the old ways of humans. Every tribal culture - alive or dead - has some broker of spiritual capital. The Indonesian Mentawai have their sikerei. The Inuit have their angakok. The Columbian Desana have their paye. The Mongolian Buryat have their böö. The American Sioux have their heyoka ... read more>>>...

Ignite Inner Guidance through Shamanic Journeying

Waking Times: The modern-day shaman has evolved from one of the oldest known spiritual practices of humankind. Shamans go back at least 100,000 years. It is prevalent in Northeast Asiana and Arctic cultures, but spread around the world, and is perhaps most familiar to the average person today in the form of South American shamanism and the use of Ayahuasca which uses plant medicine to aid the shamanic journey. Utilizing a potent psychedelic present in the plant compounds called N,N-Dimethyltryptamine or DMT, an individual seems to be able to access layers of his subtle body and etheric consciousness which allows profound growth in a very short time. This is one of many shamanic practices that have evolved from the first mention of the word “shaman” coming from the Tungus tribe in Siberia...read more>>>...

The Rune Ac

The Rune AC is associated with the Oak Tree.and the oaken stave. Oak was one of the trees referred to as "iron wood" because of its strength and endurance, and also because it was frequently struck by lightning and exploded in fire. Oak trees are poor conductors and the lightning tends to blow them up rather than run smoothly down them.

Because of this, they are revered for bringing controllable fire to humanity.

The Rune Ac is the lightning rod for the fears and anger of others, whether or not it is deserved. With Ac, you will have to stand as strong as the oak tree, and endure the blows and flames.This is a strengthening process ... like the molten sword blade being sudden cooled by water to make it ready for battle.

Ac as the keyword of 'Endurance'. Ac is the rooted tree and the high mountain. (Northern Shamanism)

Soul Retrieval

The shamanic practice known as soul retrieval is perhaps the most important level of healing in spirit medicine because once the spiritual-energetic nature of an illness-causing intrusion has been addressed, the cause is still unresolved, namely the tears in the fabric of the sufferer's soul cluster that allowed the intrusions to enter in the first place. As long as these empty spaces remain unfilled, there is no guarantee that the intrusions will not reinvade given an opportunity to do so because those holes are like open invitations.

All of us, in every culture everywhere, had ancestors who were hunters if we go back far enough. In doing soul retrieval work, the shamanic practitioner teams up with the spirits who assist them, then they go to work together, tracking the lost soul parts much like hunters.

And this is where spirit medicine has something important to offer the psychotherapeutic paradigm. Psychologists and psychiatrists know about dissociation, but where do the dissociated parts go? In doing soul retrieval, the shamanic healer and their spiritual assistants locate the lost soul parts in the Lower, Middle, or Upper Worlds of the Spirit World....read more>>>...