Month: July 2019

A climate emergency has been announced in the UK and politicians talk of the “great steps being taken to address this emergency”. If we accept that we are in a emergency what action can we each take to respond to this call and what role does something like shamanism offer to this? A memory comes to me as a young child while at my first school witnessing new born mice being drowned in a glass jar. I became so upset distraught and hysterical, it was really my first direct witnessing of the cruelty of humans, the rational for their death was we have to many. It would be easy to see my response as a over reaction from a overly sensitive child which of course is how the school saw it and I became a problem child with issues. However if we go deeper I was aware of a knowing that all life is sacred and as such is to be respected. My reaction came from this truth in me being crushed. It seems clear that humans still see nature as something to be managed as our own natures are sought to be managed by the hypnosis of media and societies conditioning. If we are going to address this climate emergency as a whole, how can we learn to live with nature as a part of nature? How can we become open to think for or like the earth and open up to expressing our own unique nature? Every action we take has a impact the ripples will flow out across the collective. The deeper I go into our inter connectedness through my own spiritual practices the more I feel this to be a reality given to us by time honoured wisdom – so what we do does make a difference! It is a relatively new occurrence for humans to not turn to the spirits for guidance, working  with shamanic ways brings new possibilities and invites an emergence of our own nature as well as a return to this respect of all life and honouring of the sacred. If as a society we each lived this what kind of world would we live in? One where our unique nature is encouraged as a expression of the sacred. These things may well not be resolved in our life time however I believe we have the wisdom available to achieve this, so what is needed is a willingness to try. I do see I am making progress in this and working with shamanism opens me to a more natural way of life one that holds respect and honours the sacred connections of us all. It will push on areas that hold us back from expressing who we are and strengthen the areas where we do. To live this in daily life in our current society I find is a challenge but wherever I go in my daily reactions this is the place I drop back into when I give the space to it in my daily practices my own encounter with shamanism supports and helps me reclaim this. In preparing for my upcoming tree course I have read a number of articles where science is understanding trees are alive in ways they did not know before. This is a move back to a animistic world view and if we are to address our climate emergency then animism surely has a part to play where we see the earth as a living organism that we are a part of and not as a resource for humans to take from. Along with my ongoing sacred activism events I am currently developing some workshops giving opportunities to deepen into this. I was told once there is very little each of us can do so we had better do something.  With the discoveries I am making with shamanism and my connection with our earth what else am I to do! There are amazing things happening in the world currently as we are pushed to move in a new direction and we each have a part to play.