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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…

SPRING 2016 -

As we move towards the edge of Summer, I look back on the Springtime and its many bounties. Being in residence at Schumacher College for six weeks with Zara was a very special experience that brought so much together for me from my 30 years of teaching. We taught several courses but our presence there was also much more than that. I was able to call on all the gifts I have learned and received from my shamanic path, and share it with others. It showed me how shamanism can be at th…

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 2017 -

Years ago I was given a deep lesson from my Teacher. He said: “Life is change. Shamanism is change with power.” Of course, he was not talking about the power of money or armies. He was talking about spirit power, the power of Love. Reading the headlines, hearing “the news” from many places around the world, it is easy to feel that love and wellbeing is not of great interest to many political leaders. Whether or not this is true, it does not absolve us from our duty to shine and …

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…

AUTUMN 2018 -

On a misty day you can see forever
If you close your eyes and
Listen to the sound of the clouds
Caressing the mountain’s face
Then there are no secrets
To be kept away from anyone
You only have to listen

This year has been a time of deepening for us. A time not so much about the new or finding more, but being deeper with where we are. Peeling off the layers, letting them fall away and allowing them to enrich us.

Shamanic practice is a kind of spiritual archeology. On every cou…

WINTER SOLSTICE 2018 -

Often in everyday life we find ourselves under pressure or caught up in a rush, trying to reach a destination, achieve a result, or find an answer. Both time and space are entities many people feel they do not have enough of - but Time is an elastic magical creature and we can work shamanically with it. Consciously deciding to make more space and take more time are strong intentions and essential tools of a spiritual practice. We can slow down and come into ourselves, we…

AUTUMN 2019 -

When teaching, we often hear ourselves say: “The Circle is my Home.” We have come to feel the truth of this more and more. The feeling of sitting together, around a center, sharing intention, touches the heart and soul. In the Circle we see people begin to heal and become more themselves. We see them open to the Spirits and to new possibilities. In a Circle, we don’t all have to be the same. We don’t have to be anyone else but ourselves. We learn from each other’s experiences and…