Shamans are the original performance artists, healers, dreamers, mystics, and spiritual technicians.  Though tens of thousands of years have passed since our ancestors first journeyed to the spirit world to aid their people, human beings have not changed all that much.  Despite our science and ability to manipulate nature to make our lives more comfortable, we still don't know a lot about how life "works!"  The closer we look at ourselves and the materials and forces around us, the less we know.  Especially mysterious to us is the mind-body-spirit continuum, and the stressors that weigh upon us eclipse modern medicine's ability to make us well. 

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Michael Harner, an anthropologist, developed Core Shamanism in the early 70s as a way to teach the basic universal practices that most shamans share.  He taught Sandra Ingerman, who taught my teacher, Michelle McKinney.  Lineage is important, because this is work that ripples through time and space to connect us both backwards and forwards, to the dreams of our ancient ancestors as well as to the prayers of our descendents who will one day call upon us for our support, wisdom, and guidance. 

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Shamanism celebrates an animate universe.  We dance from the center of the sacred circle, composed of the directions, the elements, the web of life, and the spirits of earth and sky.  As a shamanic practitioner, I work as a "hollow bone," partnering with my spiritual allies to restore balance and energetic integrity.  We remove the forces that do not serve our best interests, the ones that create the static that keeps us from being the person we desire to be.  We restore the qualities and powers that were hiding away, waiting for the time it was safe to return.  The work of integrating these energies continues after the session and requires your active participation and receptivity. 

 

If it seems difficult to believe that spirits are doing all this healing work, or that many of us are walking around with spiritual "hitchhikers" sapping our vitality and intention, perhaps it is easier to frame them as the stifling energies and patterns that layer upon us, draining our life force.  These do us harm by limiting our imaginations of who we might be; they keep us from living empowered lives of choice.  Possessed by them, or by other ghosts from the past, we are unable to shine our true light.

 

Extraction, cord cutting, and depossession are some of the common clearing practices to remove unwanted influences.  There are also many technologies to return original vital essence, including: soul and power animal retrievals, ceremony, and restoration of relationship with healed-and-whole ancestors and guardian/teaching spirits.   After a healing session, there is a period of integration that requires the client's active participation and intention so that the healing can take root.    

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