Community

LATE SUMMER 2016 -

“Shamans are the servants of the community and the servants of the spirits.” My spirit teachers told me this long ago. At first it worried me, in fact it concerned me a lot. Where was I in this equation? Service was one thing, but wasn’t being a servant something else? Where was my “free will”? It bothered me for a long time, and, despite my teachings, I did my best to maintain what I thought was my individual freedom. But by resisting, for fear of losing my identity, I put …

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…

FEBRUARY 2018 -

Our first human teacher of shamanism, Michael Harner, left the land of the living to join the Spirits on February 3rd. He left behind him a great legacy. No, not his organization, The Foundation for Shamanic Studies. The legacy he left behind are the thousands of people who have had their lives changed because he showed that the ability to do the shaman’s work is not limited to people living in tropical jungles or on the arctic tundra. The ability to intentionally contact and i…

SUMMER 2018 -

For me, the practice of shamanism is about bringing power over the bridge from the Spirit world to the physical world. This power belongs to no one. It is the essence of the Universe. How can I call it “mine”? Possessive pronouns – my, mine, yours, ours, theirs - are real troublemakers and therefore great teachers, if we pay attention. When I first started with shamanic practice, it was with the simple desire of wanting to feel more at home on Earth. I had no wish to become a hea…

SPRING 2020 -

Dear friends. Here we are.

A few weeks into these deep changing times. Where are you now? Where do you find yourself? What is this time bringing you?

One of the original meanings of the Greek word “krisis” is a "turning point in a disease, that change which indicates recovery or death". In the 15th century it came to mean a "vitally important or decisive state of things, point at which change must come, for better or worse”. Crisis is the time when there is no choice but change…

LATE SPRING 2020 -

As we move into the next phase of this special time, it can be helpful to consider – after all you have experienced these weeks, where are you now? What has changed? What do you want to leave behind? What do you want to bring with you? What is your deepest wish for what we are about to step into as we cross the coming thresholds?

As many countries begin to open up, it can be tempting to “go back to normality”, even in small ways in our daily lives. When we are tired or worn …