Over the last decades our world has sought and heard the call for more and more spiritual practices and healing modalities to support us as we collectively go through what seems a clear re-alignment of society or dismemberment as we shift into a new way of being in our world.
When I first begun shamanic practice and learning it was something of an unknown way within the spiritual community. Today Shamanism is very much part of this emerging and has returned to the collective consciousness of this process.
Each culture has practiced in some form at some time what we call shamanism so it belongs to us all. It is spoken off as the first spirituality and one of its purpose has been to live well, in connection and with harmony.
While we need to be aware and respectful of cultural appropriation and not use practices outside of cultural context. This however is a human issue and if the spirits engage and work with us then its for us to decide to do this with there blessing.
Shamanism and the ability to engage with helping spirits is something that belongs to us all from this we can remember our ancestors ways or create new ways for this time.
The actual word shamanism belongs to the Tungus peoples of Siberia and Mongolia and roughly translates as “the one who knows the one who sees the one who sees in the dark” what is it they see well it’s the spirits.
Shamanism then can be understood as a set of methods to engage with these helping compassionate and wise spirits whose come to offer us to help us to live well.
The role of the shaman was simply this, to help the community as part of it to live well and thrive and this can still be its purpose. As we are still returning to the need for community which shamanism has always been seen as a community activity, while today it’s more for individuals that seek the healing.
However when I am working there is always a thread of awareness back to the community this person will return too and I include in this the land and other beings they share this with. I always offer that someone may bring someone from their community to the sessions if they choose.
We are wounded in relationship and need to heal in relationship it also offers a great power to the healing to have someone that loves them there to support them.
One of the direct consequences of practicing shamanism I have observed and personally experienced is that we can become acutely aware of the inter-connectedness of us all. If we actually allow this experience it will in itself change us and ask us to question how we are living for we come to understand the ripples from our lives?
So, in this the practice of shamanic methods and engaging with loving compassionate spirits that wish to help us changes our perceptions of our world so shamanism becomes a way of life.
Shamanism as a methodology is not then a belief system but something that is directly experienced through the practice of these methods.
In this our journey to how we make sense of the spirits that we engage with is something for us to make, some people see it as their inner world some as other realties or symbols. The term Non ordinary reality is a useful one for me as it invites us to consider other realties and a more than human world as David Abrams spoke off.
As a culture we are re-claiming our knowledge of shamanism. When I have worked with people who grew up with these ways their engagement with the spirits is absolute just as it was for us not so long ago.
The more important aspect of this work and a question to ask is, has it helped my life by my engagement with the methods and process? In this then it becomes empirical as the proof is in the living of it, as is true with any spiritual practice perhaps.
My own current understanding of spirit is it offers the divine intelligence and wisdom that supports life and shows itself in form that we can make relationship with.
How are we to understand the divine and sacred there is a mystery and a knowing without knowing I feel in the growing of this relationship and in this process comes to be simply something we know.
I was once teaching a group of academics from across the world online, I wondered if they would ask me to define the sacred as this was the theme of our workshop. Before we met I said a prayer and went for a walk with the land asking for this definition.
As I walked past some familiar oak trees I looked up and tears filled my eyes! This was an answer to my prayer as I was being in sacred connection. My understanding came through direct experience. When I offered this to the group it was met with silence as it spoke to beyond the minds seeking to know, in this they came to know in a different way.
I have spoken earlier about a remembering of these ways it seems the speaking and practice of shamanism unlocks something within that remembers it used to be like this once.
As we connect with this practice we also connect with our ancestors who would sit with the fire with drum rattle in circle and share these experiences, in these times ceremony and working with these ways help us to remember.
This is all as relevant today as it was back through time and as spirit has its own intelligence it evolves with the need of now so is still relevant as it ever was.
Shamanism has survived the test of time and there is a reason for this as it is a pragmatic practice and I have worked with the spirits in all aspects of my life, from building a building, inspiring this website, personal healings of my own trauma, creating businesses, asking for solutions to problems, and being in service of the other and land, I could go on.
This methodology is available for all those that feel the call to engage and work with these ways.