Power

MAY 2022

Sometimes it can be easy to lose oneself. Maybe it is because we are running too fast, with too much to do. Maybe we expect a lot of ourselves or opt for an easy way out. Perhaps we are facing great change. At such times, the ground can feel loose or shaky, and we become uncertain. We may make choices that do not feel quite right and regret creeps in with a growing sense of unease.

What happens to our souls when we are not true to who we are? Avoiding the truth can, over time, make ou…

APRIL 2022

Life makes itself known, in its vibrant and insistent regeneration. Springtime in Scandinavia is a rich time - tight tiny buds on trees unfurling, early flowers reaching for the Sun and green growth overtaking dry remnants of Winter.

Whatever tragedies play out on the human stage, Nature insists on Life. Here it is again, right in front of us. We can open to the Power of new Life, of Regeneration, of Budding and Blossoming. Even in sadness, grief and anger, Beauty is here. Even in …

MARCH 2022

Sometimes it feels as if change happens so fast, we cannot keep up. One morning we wake and everyday reality is shifting into something almost unrecognizable. Many of us might have felt this as the experience of war seeps through Europe, reaching far and wide. It is all connected and wherever we are, it affects us.

Now more than ever, it is important to keep hold of our practice and ask the Spirits to help keep us steady. To remember what is at our core and keep connecting to Power.…

NOVEMBER 2021 -

AUTUMN 2012 -

A golden Autumn day. In the Sun’s warmth, the frost on the oak leaves melts to mist in the crisp air. Change. Life is so full of the unexpected, the things we feel to be “good” seeking balance with what we feel to be “difficult.” The main work of the shaman is that of healer, yes, but healing in a bigger sense, of being the one who dances with the rhythms of life and finds ways to restore the balance.

The shaman is the one people turn to in times of change. So the shaman must als…

SPRING 2013 -

It was a long winter, but now it seems we can finally say “Spring is here!” How wonderful to walk on the bare Earth, feeling that raw, re-awakening power come up through the snow-flattened grass. I always become more Earth-conscious in the Springtime, the joy of the early days of smells and textures in the air, the new shoots penetrating through last year’s leaves, the brush of green on the willow, hazel and beech.

This joy is sometimes dampened by the constant reminders that som…

AUTUMN 2013 -

Today I woke up thinking about Time. I always start thinking about Time in the Autumn as the days grow shorter. Time - there is never enough for everything. But is that true? Busying this morning I heard myself thinking: “I’ve got to catch my breath.” Catch my breath! Sitting down, I felt my breath – breathing in – breathing out.

There is time for everything, I thought, starting with time to stop. How easy it is to blame other things, like “no time.” But there are no “other thin…

MAY 2014 -

Walking down by the pond it is so still except for the song of a warbler. Sitting by the water, I thought over the past weeks. It has been busy with four courses in four countries working with some of the faces of power – balance, gratitude, responsibility, joy, and the spirits of nature.

Many people think of power as the power over us, but as we know it is also a surging energy that gives life-force. Power has so many faces and different ways of interacting with our lives: the powe…

FEBRUARY 2016 -

This Spring marks the thirtieth anniversary of the very first shamanic workshop I ever taught. Of course I wasn’t alone the doing the teaching. My Spirits were with me all the way. I suppose they were looking at me the way we look at a child who is taking her first steps. And there was one miracle I remember to this day: a woman was spontaneously healed from claustrophobia which had been plaguing her all of her life – cured on her very first journey. Any doubts about shamanism I…

WINTER 2016 -

We are blessed to live in amazingly challenging times. Often we cannot help but feel hopeless in the face of what is happening, be it environmental destruction, political injustice, poverty or greed. But if we allow these things to cripple us, then neither we nor the world has a chance. This cannot be allowed to happen.

We also live in a time of amazing possibilities. For the past half year I have been greatly inspired by what is going on at the Standing Rock Lakota Reservation o…