Picking up the shaman’s drum.

Several of the tribal shamans with whom I’ve studied began their journey toward becoming a healer while they were still very young children. For instance, the Quechua-speaking Peruvian shaman Puma Quispe Singona, began his training when he was just a child. As a six-year-old boy, he was playing in the river and was struck by lightning. Fortunately, Puma survived. His grandfather, Maximo Quispe recognized that this meant the spirits of the mountains–known there as apus–were calling Puma to be a paqo.

My Nepalese teacher, Bhola Banstola has a similar personal history. He received his calling at a very early age and was taught traditional shamanic healing methods by his family elders. While many tribal shamans have had the benefit of beginning early, there are those who found their lives taking new turns much later in life. I was fortunate to meet several of those people while visiting Nepal.

The Tamang shaman Buddhi Maya Lama, who is better known as Aama Bombo or “Mother Shaman,” began life in Nepal’s North-central hill country. Aama’s people are the indigenous inhabitants of the Himalayan regions of Nepal. Her people are the largest ethnic group found there. They are a Tibeto-Burmese speaking people who trace their ancient ancestry to the Tibetan plateau.

Aama wanted to be a shaman from as early as five-years-old since her beloved father was famous for his gifts as a shamanic healer.  Unfortunately, traditional Tamang culture prohibits women from practicing shamanism and so her father discouraged her desire to follow in his footsteps.

When Aama was sixteen, she moved with her husband to his military residence in Kathmandu. While she was in the city, her father grew ill and before she was able to return home, her father died. This was a terrible blow to her as she lost both her father and her connections to his spiritual world.

At age twenty-five, Aama suddenly began shaking uncontrollably. Her family took her to the hospital as she was thought to be mentally unstable but soon the convulsions ended. A while later, her shaking began again and continued off and on for fourteen months. However, this time Aama was fortunate to have been taken to a Buddhist lama who determined that her problem was spiritual in nature. The lama told her that the spirit of her late father was trying to work through her. Aama’s father had died without finding a suitable person who could receive his shamanic power. Apparently, his spirit believed that, in spite of the Tamang cultural prohibitions, it was only his daughter Aama who had a pure enough heart to work with the power of the gods and his other healing spirits.

Since that time, Aama has continued her work of healing people. Each morning, she starts her day with prayers to Shiva, the deity that is most sacred to Nepalese shamans, and then proceeds back to her home. There, she sees up to one hundred clients a day from all walks of life for healing, divination and blessing. Now seventy three-years old, Aama is widely recognized as a powerful shaman, healer and member of the Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers.

Hari Bahadur Khadka or Guruji began his shamanic career at an even later age.  Known as the “egg shaman,” due to his unusual form of shamanic extraction work that is accomplished with eggs, Guruji resides in Durwakot a rural village in the Bhaktapur District of Nepal. He is known all over that country for his ability as a spiritual healer and diviner. His method has been proven effective for a variety of mental and physical diseases and conditions. He has helped people suffering from AIDS, cancer, paralysis, tuberculosis, infertility and ulcers.

While he began his spiritual life at the age of eleven, Guruji did not initially pursue a shamanic calling. He served in the military, became a police officer and worked as an administrator for the Ministry of Finance. It wasn’t until much later that Guruji finally began his shamanic practice. The egg shaman was then fifty-eight-years-old.

Sometimes the life of an established shaman takes a dramatic turn that forces her or him to start over in a new way or a new place. The last Tibetan shaman or lhapa, Pau Nyima Dhondup is one such person. Pau Nyima was born in the Bungpa, Kepyand part of Tibet. When Pau Nyima entered puberty, he was spontaneously chosen by the spirits to continue his family’s healing tradition. At that time, the powerful mountain deity, Nyenchen Thanglha entered his body and the young lhapa began having the visual and auditory initiatory experiences that signaled his calling. Unfortunately, this is the time that people were fleeing Tibet and so he was unable to receive training he needed to master the power.

Finally, when he was in his late twenties, he was able to apprentice with two other lhapas. Like many other Tibetan people, Nyima was forced to flee his homeland. Since that time, he has resided in the Tarshi Palkhiel Tibetan Refugee Settlement on the outskirts of Pokhara, Nepal. There, Nyima performs healings in his modest home. While working, he merges with Nyenchen Thanglha and other spirits including a fierce wild canine that bites and sucks out illness from the lhapa’s patients’ bodies. During these healings, the entranced shaman reveals actual objects to show the patient the sources of their illness. People from around the world have found their way down the grassy lane to his home to receive healings by his spirits.

My partner Allie’s shamanic calling didn’t begin until her very early fifties. She had a severe infection that was treated by a medical center. The provider there also told her that while her illness would be cleared up by medicine, it may also have some underlying message. The practitioner sent Allie to a well-known psychic to get a reading about her illness. There, it was revealed that Allie was being called to be a shaman. While she had always been a spiritual person, this was shocking news! Yet, some part of Allie knew the truth of what the psychic told her. From that point forward, Allie began her shamanic path. She learned the shamanic journey process, which she practiced daily until she was able to begin more formal training.

My own journey along this path formally began in my early thirties. Initially experienced upheaval in every aspect of my existence from where I lived to how I made a living. Initially these changes felt somewhat disorienting, however since I was terribly depressed and in an unfulfilling job I continued my explorations. I soon realized that developing relationships with benevolent spirits and traveling along the shamanic path led me to something far better than anything that had gone before. Today, I am far more fulfilled than at any other time in my life!

Indeed, this sort of calling is becoming more common today. People all over the world are awakening to the path of shamanism. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, executives and other people are discovering that their lives are taking a sharp turn toward the spiritual. They are drawn to work with the spirits. They learn to journey and take our shamanic training programs to develop their relationships with the numinous world. While a few become healers, all of them bring their new connections with the spirits into their ordinary experiences. They find themselves enriched, changed and often make incredible transformations in their own lives as well as the lives of those that they know and love.

While starting something new can feel disorienting or even disturbing, it can lead you to a life of wonder, beauty and service. I believe that those who have stepped into deep relationships with the spirits and with nature are the ones who will make the changes in our culture that will heal our people and our planet. This happens by getting trained to work with spirits safely, learning how to be in heart coherence with those spirits that are around you, and developing shamanic skills that support all aspects of your life to be sacred work. It doesn’t matter if you are very young or well-seasoned, there has never been a better time to take up the shaman’s drum!

© 2013 Evelyn C. Rysdyk

Nationally recognized shaman teacher/healer, speaker, and author of Spirit Walking a Course in Shamanic Power, Modern Shamanic Living: New Explorations of an Ancient Path, and contributor to Spirited Medicine: Shamanism in Contemporary Healthcare, Evelyn C. Rysdyk delights in supporting people to remember their sacred place in All That Is.  Whether through face-to-face contact with individual patients, workshop groups and conference participants, or through the printed word–Evelyn uses her loving humor and passion to open people’s hearts and inspire them to live more joyful, fulfilling and purposeful lives.  In joint practice with Allie Knowlton as Spirit Passages, her web site is www.spiritpassages.com.

The author’s new Two-Year Training in Advanced Shamanism and Shamanic Healing begins this April.

Information: http://www.spiritpassages.com/initiatorytrainingprograms.html

Printable brochure: http://www.spiritpassages.com/pdfs/2YearGradFlyer.pdf

Living as a Multidimensional Human

For as many as one hundred thousand years, shamans have moved beyond the edges of ordinary reality.(1 ) Defying any perceived limits or ideas of what is “real”, they have expanded their minds and spirits into transcendent realms. Their shamanic journeys showed us that we are more than our physical existence and that the invisible world can help us to thrive in this plane of existence. Their journeys helped to open up new pathways of human thought and ability. Furthermore, it is likely that their altered consciousness experiences and relationships with transcendent spirits has contributed to our evolution.

During the shamanic state of consciousness the brain produces high alpha and theta waves while the majority of the brain’s functions shift into the right hemisphere. Though best known for its spiritual benefits, this state of consciousness provides many other blessings. When we experience expanded awareness it literally changes our mind. It produces an enhancement of creative thinking and imagination. Both of these are critical skills for tackling new or challenging situations and for being able to innovate unique solutions.

Additionally, the alpha brain state supports the release of accumulated stress and tensions in the physical body. This in turn supports the organism to be more resilient and able to bring a fresh attitude to any task at hand. At the same time, right brain states enhance the ability to learn new information as well as being able to retain what you have learned.

Intuition is also heightened by right brain activity and especially by alpha brain wave states. A Harvard study determined that up to 80% of business innovators considered intuition a critical component to their success. In addition, high alpha wave states also contribute to better rapport between members of a community or team. This enhancement of cooperation was certainly a contributing factor in the advancement of human culture.

Indeed, author Michael Winkelman suggests that the heightened states of awareness that develops through expanding consciousness has had profound effects on our evolution, our psychology and biology. Furthermore, experience has proven that the alteration of consciousness that shamans perform holds tremendous potential for healing and transformation.

I would argue that when these brain states are coupled with the guidance, insight and support we receive in relationship with our tutelary spirits, the enhancements are even more profound. Based upon my own experience, those of powerful tribal shamans and of other profoundly committed shamanic journeyers, I believe our physical nature and the physical reality around us undergoes transformation when we expand our consciousness. More importantly, these changes are driven by our need to continue our evolution.

For millennia, shamans have moved beyond ordinary time and space into the spiritual realms. Over many thousands of generations, these spiritual dimensions have become nearly tangibly physical locations. Indeed, the Upper, Middle and Lower worlds of spirit are part of every shaman’s spiritual landscape. Thanks to all the journeyers who have come before us, they have become reliable sources of inspiration and guidance.

Following in our ancestral shamans’ footsteps, many more people now enter into the realms of spirit than any other time in our evolution. The influx of people entering these states of consciousness is contributing to a collective evolution. Our journeys are changing us even as the reasons we seek the spirits have also shifted. Today we face challenges to our physical reality and planetary survival that our ancestors could not have imagined. Our new problems require new solutions. As a result, our guiding spirits have begun stretching us beyond the map of the well-know spiritual realms into new dimensions of reality.

For instance, many more people are visiting past and future time bands or entering the quantum world of vibration, or are using the portals of their physical bodies to gain wisdom and insight. Still others are entering into realms that were never previously explored or that have no recognizable parameters. These journeyers are able to accomplish this work because they have nurtured dependable relationships with power animals and spiritual teachers who function as reliable guides for new experiences.

This kind of shamanic evolution is also made possible because all human beings are capable of multidimensional experience. Using our imagination as a springboard, we have the potential to reach solutions that lie beyond our perceptual limitations. As Albert Einstein once said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

Since the act of journeying changes us, stretching ourselves into the familiar shamanic realms and through to previously unexplored dimensions, creates new possibilities. As people continue to open to journeying, our collective consciousness evolves. That is, those of us–who choose to stretch our minds and hearts beyond the known world and into the Multiverse–are actually contributing to the evolution of human potential.(2) We are changing the definitions of what it means to be a human being. Our shifts and changes contribute to the whole and this happens because we are not separate from each other.

If you journey or use deep meditation techniques, you may already be experiencing new dimensions of reality. Your teachers and power animals may be taking you beyond the known spiritual landscapes to assist with your healing or to find solutions to particularly difficult problems. Their assistance is critical for your safety, as the process of expanding consciousness must have clear parameters to assure safety for the physical body and psyche of the journeyer. Every consciousness expanding experience must have a beginning in our familiar ordinary reality. The process of expansion into the spiritual realms must follow a path that is clear so that a final return to ordinary consciousness is secure. If the shaman does not return to ordinary reality, then the healing, guidance or insight they received will not be implemented. This can cause the physical body to either suffer or expire and perhaps more tragically, the evolutionary potential of the experience for the collective will be lost. My spirit teacher, Grandma has said on many occasions that, “It isn’t how far your go, but how well that you return for it is here that the magic is made manifest.” And I would add the very act of going and returning actually manifests a magic of its own!

Having the constant and loving guidance of spirits you have come to implicitly trust allows you to transcend previous limitations of thought and being. With their nurturance and support, it is possible to move beyond the map of the known and into wondrous possibilities that we are only just beginning to imagine. Joseph Chilton Pierce has said that we are “hard wired” for transcendence. If this is true, we are on a most marvelous journey together!

© 2012 Evelyn C. Rysdyk
Nationally recognized shaman teacher/healer, speaker, and author of Modern Shamanic Living: New Explorations of an Ancient Path and the soon to be published Spirit Walking a Course in Shamanic Power, Evelyn C. Rysdyk delights in supporting people to remember their sacred place in All That Is. Whether through face-to-face contact with individual patients, workshop groups and conference participants, or through the printed word–Evelyn uses her loving humor and passion to open people’s hearts and inspire them to live more joyful, fulfilling and purposeful lives. In joint practice with Allie Knowlton as Spirit Passages, her web site is http://www.spiritpassages.com.

1. The author will be teaching new workshop, “Living as a Multidimensional Human” on January 26th and 27th in Falmouth, Maine. Register at: http://www.spiritpassages.com/calendar.html
2. The author’s next Two-Year Apprenticeship in Advanced Shamanism and Shamanic Healing begins in Spring 2013. More information may be found at: http://www.spiritpassages.com/initiatorytrainingprograms.html.

Spirit Passages Shamanic Inner Body Healing: A Portal to integrated Wisdom

In our culture, shamanic healers serve a community with its own special issues. In large part, our culture has honored the cerebral at the expense of the heart and we have neglected the spiritual side of life. The result is that the individuals within our culture are often disconnected from themselves, each other and from Nature herself. Just as peoples of the world living with poor sanitation suffer terrible diseases like typhus or cholera, we Westerners suffer from diseases that have arisen from our way of life.

Whether a person arrives at a shaman’s doorstep due to physical, mental or emotional illness, much of the malaise we experience in our contemporary world originates from our perceived disconnections. A person may feel disconnections within the Self–between her or his body, mind and spirit–as well as with the larger world of society and/or Nature. Whether conscious or unconscious, these disconnections contribute to chronic stress and to illness. Anxiety, depression and autoimmune disorders are wide spread and the incidences of stress-related illnesses are continuing to rise even as conventional therapeutic interventions fall short. Indeed, it is often the case that a patient who seeks out the shaman has tried many other therapies that have failed to alleviate their symptoms.

Spirit Passages Shamanic Inner Body Healing is a form of healing developed by my partner C. Allie Knowlton, nearly two decades ago. This unique method evolved as a tool to access the wisdom and healing that is locked away inside of your being. Whatever the issue–physical, emotional, or spiritual–often times the most valuable pieces in your healing puzzle is seemingly “missing.” You may have done traditional psychotherapeutic work, received shamanic healing, taken medication, learned how to meditate, and kept a dream journal yet still don’t feel “whole.” You may have become discouraged or even despondent at your “lack of progress.” It is in these situations Spirit Passages Shamanic Inner Body Healing work can be most useful.

This practice is based on several key principles. The first is the idea that all healing is a process. All of nature follows this paradigm–the seasons, the weather, the many rhythms of life are all in constant movement. Natural ebbs and surges are normal and expected. More importantly, processes are never complete. Unlike the goal-centered model that contemporary culture seems to ascribe to, a process model offers permission to focus on the present time. You have the freedom to savor sensations, ruminate over imagery and browse through what your mind may have judged as irrelevant details which are, in actual fact, often the keys to healing.

A foundation of the work is realizing that your symptoms are not the enemy, but instead are signposts that show you where you need to focus your attention and energy. Spirit Passages Shamanic Inner Body Healing is one way to access the imagery, sensations and memories which can provide, not only immediate information for healing but also reveal the next steps in your unfolding life process.

Another important key to this work is the understanding that your body is a manifestation of your divine spirit, which is not limited by either time or space. While your spirit is what shapes and infuses your physical being, your body also shapes how your spirit can manifest itself. As a result of this interplay, your physical body can function as a portal into a spiritual realm of wholeness and balance.

During a Spirit Passages Shamanic Inner Body Healing, your own body and spirit act as a doorway to wisdom. This wisdom is unlimited by the restrictions built by the conscious mind or the personality. A session involves an open-ended inquiry process that takes place in the sacred inner landscape. Shamanic realms exist both inside and around your physical body. As a result, you can be supported to go outside of ordinary time and space into your inner spiritual landscape.

Spirit Passages Shamanic Inner Body Healing can be very effective in unwinding many different kinds of limitations you experience. With the assistance of the helping and healing spirits, old traumas and misperceptions that may have been unreachable using other methods can finally be healed. This process has been successful in healing people from wounds and limiting beliefs sustained in utero or during preverbal infancy, to identify and eliminate unconscious, familial and generational patterns, and to heal unresolved issues that have their roots in a past life.

During the course of a session, traditional shamanic healing methods may be used to release a possession, retrieve a soul fragment or bring back a power animal for an aspect of your self, to heal a past life experience or to release your from curses, addictions or a familial dysfunctional pattern. The entire process is witnessed and facilitated by Allie and I. We ask questions to help you find your own interpretation for sensations, images and feelings. Since the information arises from within, each healing unfolds with a rhythm and pace that is safe and uniquely suited to you.

The method is also effective for negotiating better outcomes for surgery and invasive medical procedures by supporting your body, mind and spirit to accept and work in harmony with the intervention, thereby reducing the potential for further traumatization.

To discuss how this dynamic healing modality can support your own healing and personal evolution, call our office at True North Health Center (207-781-4488) to set up an initial consultation. Allie and I would be delighted to help you!

© 2012 Evelyn C. Rysdyk
Nationally recognized shaman teacher/healer, speaker, and author of Modern Shamanic Living: New Explorations of an Ancient Path and the soon-to-be-published, Spirit Walking a Course in Shamanic Power; Evelyn C. Rysdyk delights in supporting people to remember their sacred place in All That Is. Whether through face-to-face contact with individual patients, workshop groups and conference participants, or through the printed word–Evelyn uses her loving humor and passion to open people’s hearts and inspire them to live more joyful, fulfilling and purposeful lives. In joint practice with Allie Knowlton as Spirit Passages, her web site is http://www.spiritpassages.com.

Embodied Light Meditation

This meditation is a very simple to learn and easy to practice in any situation when you need to feel focused, calm, and present. I find that it is an excellent way to begin each day.

1. Begin by finding a quiet space where you will not be disturbed. Sit down in a comfortable chair that allows your back to be straight with your feet on the floor.

2.  With your hands folded gently in your lap, close your eyes and take a few moments to breathe. Allow your breaths to be both quiet and full–somewhat like the breaths of the deep sleep state.

3. As you begin to more fully relax, notice that your breath originates in the center of your chest. Imagine a light there that grows brighter with every breath you take.

4. As this light grows brighter, see it also expanding to fill your entire body –growing ever brighter.

5. Your radiant body is a gift of the stars.

6. Exploding novas seeded the cosmos with all the elements to make you and the body of our beautiful planet. All the iron, calcium, oxygen and other elements are gifts from the stars. This gift is what you inhabit while you are embodied. You are a divine radiance wrapped in star-stuff!

7. Allow your light to expand so that your physical body is enfolded in light. Your spirit –your light–completely surrounds your body. This is your true state of being.

8. Your entire being is full, rich, radiant, beautiful, and divine.

9. While continuing to breathe notice how your radiant body is connected to the radiant body of the Earth.

10. Your body moves within the atmosphere of our planet. You live by swimming through her air with your feet touching her body. Your body is held by your light and is always cradled by the Earth.

11. Allow yourself to reach out even further and feel how the Sun’s radiance embraces the Earth as she embraces you in her loving warmth. Allow all your senses to be fully enlivened by this nurturance.

12. You are an embodied Light–a divine and magnificent aspect of the All That Is–made manifest by your physicality–always connected to the Earth and All That Is.

13. Breathe in the depth of this radiant, loving connection and allow it to bring you to a peaceful and fully enlivened state of being.

14. When you feel full of this experience–clasp your folded hands tightly together. As you are doing this, recall the sensations of being fully enlivened and cradled by the Earth –completely peaceful.

15. Whenever you wish you will be able to attain this fully embodied state by repeating this symbolic gesture with your hands.

16. Now, gently release your hands and allow yourself to slowly return your attention to the room in which you are sitting. Take a full, deep, sighing breath and gently open your eyes.

When you feel ready, you may wish to make notes about what you experienced while doing this meditation. Take time to record all that you felt, saw and heard.

If you experienced difficulty visualizing or feeling the light at your heart center, don’t worry. Sometimes it can take some time to move the consciousness down into the body and into the heart. This is especially true when we are used being in our heads or being out of our body as a protection. Those wonderfully ingenious strategies that may have helped us survive when we were younger can interfere with us being able to thrive as an adult. However, with practice you will be able to move through to a heart-centered experience.

If, on the other hand, you feel foggy, confused, or lightheaded after this meditation, it means you need to practice grounding yourself. Some easy ways include:

• Eating a light snack

• Spending time outdoors-especially in a natural setting (with grass, trees, ocean or by a river)

• Doing something with your hands–making something, touching stones, playing in water or digging in dirt.

• Sitting on the ground with your back up against a tree

• Breathing with a focus on the soles of your feet–feel them touching the inside of your shoes or the ground

• Imagining roots coming from the bottom of your feet into the ground to firmly tie you to the core of the earth.

• Listening to whatever music makes you want to dance–and DANCE!

Above all, please be gentle with yourself–especially if you feel like your experience with the meditation feels difficult. You are in the process of transforming! This is something that is best done with a loving patience and a gentle persistence. Over time, a kind of softening begins to occur whereby the new way of being becomes gradually easier. Practice this meditation daily until you are able to attain this state of being more easily.

© 2012 Evelyn C. Rysdyk

Nationally recognized shaman teacher/healer, speaker, and author of Modern Shamanic Living: New Explorations of an Ancient Path, Evelyn C. Rysdyk delights in supporting people to remember their sacred place in All That Is. Whether through face-to-face contact with individual patients, workshop groups and conference participants, or through the printed word–Evelyn uses her loving humor and passion to open people’s hearts and inspire them to live more joyful, fulfilling and purposeful lives. In joint practice with Allie Knowlton as Spirit Passages, her web site is http://www.spiritpassages.com.

* This meditation is from her  book  (working title) Spirit Walking: A Course in Shamanic Power.

River Offering

Last evening, Allie and I bundled up against the Autumn chill and walked down to our little local river. Just as the sun was sinking below the horizon, we allowed ourselves to remember all the moments that brought us to gratitude. We filled our hearts with the feelings of our purring cat, savoring coffee as we listened to public radio, hearing from friends and many other simple blessings the day had given us.

With full hearts, we each tossed a handful of fine, cornmeal toward the river. The cloud flew through the air and settled on the surface of the water. A slow current gathered the particles into long, lazy spirals and carried them downstream. As the sky began to turn indigo, I thought of our gift being carried to the ocean by the river’s insistent flow. Soon, her surface will be hard with winter ice.

This river, the seasons and everything in and around us is in perpetual motion. All Life ebbs and flows in an endless circle dance and in this season, that inevitable progression is more evident to me than in any other month. By November, the leaves are gone, the night arrives early and there is a whiff of mortality in the atmosphere that mixes with the aroma of wood smoke.

On such cold and clear nights, I can’t help but turn my vision toward the sky. Lingering before entering the house, I look up and watch my breath snake into the Milky Way. I take comfort at the stars’ steady procession around the pole and smile at the Little Bear pivoting on his tail. His whirling dance is so fine a mirror for our planet’s pirouettes around the Sun, I blow him a kiss!

In taking time to honor the moments that life give us, we imbue them with a greater splendor. Like a glittery coat of frost on an evergreen, everything feels more marvelous when wrapped with gratitude. Every thing and person we love can feel even more precious when so enfolded. It is a way to capture the fleeting moments of our existence and preserve them in our hearts. In expressing our appreciation, we participate in creating even more opportunities to feel grateful.

© 2011 Evelyn C. Rysdyk

Nationally recognized shaman teacher/healer, speaker, and author ofModern Shamanic Living: New Explorations of an Ancient Path, Evelyn C. Rysdyk delights in supporting people to remember their sacred place in All That Is. Whether through face-to-face contact with individual patients, workshop groups and conference participants, or through the printed word–Evelyn uses her loving humor and passion to open people’s hearts and inspire them to live more joyful, fulfilling and purposeful lives. In joint practice with Allie Knowlton as Spirit Passages, her web site is http://www.spiritpassages.com.

Light on the Water

Our shaman ancestors understood that everything around us is alive. Of course, it is easy for us to see that the plants, animals and birds are living. Yet, the rocks, the river, the clouds, the rain and the winds are as inspirited as you and I. Every aspect of our world is humming with enlivening energy. This indefinable “something” that continually breathes everything into existence is described in many ways. Physicists talk about infinitely tiny, vibrating Super Strings creating the particles of matter from which the visible world is formed while we shamanic practitioners honor that everything is filled with spirit. Whatever unique language we use to try and explain it, it is clear that we all are part of a marvelously interconnected fabric of Life. Each of us is enfolded by and in constant interaction with it. Our actions, thoughts and feelings create ripples that impact the others in the fabric.

In family systems therapy, the family is described like a group of people held together by an enormous rubber band. When one member of a family makes a move forward, the band that connects them naturally pulls the other members of the group forward as well. Initially, this produces a kind of chaotic rumble of movement that is a series of actions and reactions bouncing the family back and forth. This uncomfortable jostling prompts the family to initially fall into chaos. If the members of the family unit are willing to look at what is changing, shift the relational dynamics and then work out their issues–the entire group can begin moving in the same direction.

A similar process is going on in our larger family of human beings. As some of us change and move forward, the rest of our human family is feeling shaken up. Some people will resist the shifts and create chaos. In the face of this turmoil, the individuals in the group have a choice. They can either choose to succumb to the turbulence around them and stay in that anarchic state or they can choose to work on their own inner resistances and wounds. In family systems work, as individuals in the group attend to their inner environment and experience their own healing, the benefits impact every member. Eventually, through the irresistible force of connection, everyone is moved forward.

It is clear from the daily news that our human family is deeply immersed in the chaotic phase of change. While we are experiencing the pandemonium that is occurring in our larger family, we have a choice. We can contribute to the agitation by being resistant, remaining polarized and staying stuck in our old dramas or we can refocus our attention to our own inner healing. The latter choice is the one that can contribute to a more rapid and positive shift in the outer world.

If we are honest with ourselves, each of us can see places inside that need loving attention. Perhaps we have old wounds that have caused us to believe that we aren’t as good or as important as others. In our early life, we may have been taught that we weren’t loveable. Perhaps we are feeling controlled by the fears of being abandoned or being unworthy. Maybe we have tried to cover over our wounds with alcohol, too much work or other addictions.

As we have the courage to unpack the old, unbeneficial perceptions and behaviors we have lived with for years, we have an opportunity to not only free our selves, but to unleash a powerful series of vibrations across the energetic web that unites us. These changes contribute to all the waves being made by other people of courage. Eventually, there is an irresistible upwelling of transformation that carries all of us to a new, higher way of being. While that sounds like an impossibly huge shift, all each of us needs to do is our own part.

Often, the hardest part of the shift is to recognize that each of us is a precious and remarkable aspect of the divine Wholeness. No part of the All That Is can possibly be more or less important than any other. My Nepalese shaman friend, Bhola always greets people with a shallow bow. While bowing, his hands are pressed together with his palms touching and his fingers pointed upwards, in front of his chest. This namaste gesture literally means that, “I bow to your form.” When two people greet each other in this manner, it is both a recognition and a reminder that each one is a transcendent, sacred being clothed in human form.

This understanding of our divinity is grounded in traditions that are hundreds of centuries old. While in their shamanic trances, our ancient ancestors were able to see that every aspect of the inspirited world is connected by a numinous radiance. In reaching beyond the ordinary way of perceiving the world, those early explorers beyond the realm of the senses grasped the nature of reality that is only now being discussed by the discipline of higher physics. That is, everything that is or ever existed, is first and foremost Light. Everything we understand as physical, is simply a standing wave pattern in that Light.

Those early shamans who called that radiance “spirit,” also learned that each of us impacts this Light as we are irrevocably connected in it. Physicists, too know that our connections interact with the Light of all potential. How we think and feel produce different vibrations and those vibrations have a direct impact upon how Light “crystallizes” into matter. Our thoughts, feelings and the actions that flow from them change the nature of our physical reality. While this may seem hard for our minds to grasp, it implies that you and I are participating in creating and recreating the world. Right now. This also means that we have the ability to impact the wellbeing of our selves and this planet. We just need to remember our inherent magnificent power–stepping out of the false illusions that keep us feeling small.

It is only our ordinary mind /personality that sees us as anything less than powerful creator beings. This is because we have believed the limited perspectives spun by our senses. Our sensory organs can only perceive the smallest aspect of the suite of vibrations that constitute All That Is. We can only see visible light and hear audible sound. This is a tiny portion of reality and even less that what many insects, birds and animals can perceive. Yet, we have based our fundamental foundations about what is real or true wholly upon our sensory input. As a result, we have fallen completely under the spell of illusion.

This illusionary world creates the belief that we are separate. It is the illusion that contributes to our belief that we are small, powerless and without value. This misunderstanding does not serve us nor does it serve All That Is.

When a shaman is initiated, they often experience a kind of tearing away or destruction of their old self. The ordinary person with limited perception must fall away so that the initiate sees her or him self as a person of power. During a spiritual dismemberment ritual the person would see their body burned or eaten away. This often times terrifying experience helped the initiate to understand that the true self was eternal and existed both in and beyond the ordinary world. In essence, the initiate was liberated from the perceptions of their limitations while experiencing that everything in the surrounding world–including him or herself–is radiant with spiritual light. Rather than creating a longing for the world of “no form” it helped the shaman to see that, since that light pervades everything, all of life is inherently precious.

This same kind of understanding underlies the Medicine for the Earth work of Sandra Ingerman. Grounded in the most ancient practices of shamanism, it is a method that helps a person understand that—like the tribal initiate—he or she is a being of light. In addition, each of us can use our heart-felt intentions and focus to alter physical reality through experiencing ourselves as that radiance. In other words, when we bring our consciousness into the full experience of our Light, we create a harmony that transcends the limitations held by our ordinary mental state.

In our Medicine for the Earth monthly gathering, we have witnessed water that was poisoned with a strong alkali become completely harmless. The water came back into a balance in the presence of a small group of people who released themselves of the illusion of their ordinary perceptions and then experienced them selves as pure, radiant Light. No one focused on or touched the water.

As the people remember their true nature, their inner harmony supports the beaker of water, to remember its harmonious wholeness and balance. Amazingly, this happens in just a few minutes of ordinary time. This process is completely unexplainable by using scientific means. Ordinarily, the same this shift in Ph would only be possible if the polluted beaker of water was placed outdoors in sunlight for several days. It is scientifically “impossible” for it to happen in minutes. Yet, perhaps this is the very way that the shamans of old were able to perform the miraculous healings and transformations that are attributed to them.

When we are experiencing our true nature and the nature of All That Is, we are transcending our ordinary limited self. In this transfigured state, we naturally generate healing and harmony. You see, our ordinary, limited perception produce disruption. The consciousness that functions from limited beliefs is in constant opposition to the true nature of reality. When we shed that old, unbenefical way of being, the world around us returns to harmony.

The analogy of a swimming pool works well to help understand this idea. Every person in the pool disturbs the water as they move. When a group of individuals are each moving around, their waves crash into the next person’s waves and the water quickly begins sloshing around in a disorganized and turbulent manner. Once the people in the pool become still, allowing them selves to be upheld by their natural buoyancy, the water quickly returns to calmness.

When we think about the fabric of reality, the chaotic patterns we see around us a result of people acting from a place of illusion. In their feelings of separateness and smallness, they “splash around the pool” causing turbulence. When even a small a group of people remember that they are radiant beings who are upheld by and part of the radiant “waters” of reality, everything returns to its most harmonious state. That is because the group that is transfigured transforms everything and every being around them. This change occurs because harmony is not only conductive to creation it is the natural state of All That Is.

At no place in our long, human history has their been so much support for us to be able to live from this understanding. There has also never been so much riding on our being able to “get it” and remember our place as divine, creator stewards of this beautiful world.

Autumn is a perfect time to allow the illusions that keep us small to fall away like the dying leaves. As those unbeneficial patterns go away, we allow the energy of growth to flood back. We are able to experience life around us changing for the better. In dismembering our selves of those limiting beliefs or behaviors that keep us small and re-membering our place as divine co-creators, we not only step back into the flow of creativity, we co-participate in creation. We “calm the waves” and finally begin to manifest a better world for our selves and all beings.

© 2011 Evelyn C. Rysdyk
Nationally recognized shaman teacher/healer, speaker, and author of Modern Shamanic Living: New Explorations of an Ancient Path, Evelyn C. Rysdyk delights in supporting people to remember their sacred place in All That Is. Whether through face-to-face contact with individual patients, workshop groups and conference participants, or through the printed word–Evelyn uses her loving humor and passion to open people’s hearts and inspire them to live more joyful, fulfilling and purposeful lives. In joint practice with Allie Knowlton as Spirit Passages, her web site is http://www.spiritpassages.com.

Sustaining spiritual patience

Sometimes it feels as though the transformations you want to experience are arriving too slowly! When you stumble in your evolution, lose your passion for the process or just have times of feeling “stuck,” it is useful to receive support so that you don’t become impatient or lose faith in your inner wisdom. I find that a good focus to keep yourself on track is to begin thinking of your life as a “playground of transformation” and to experiment with the following ideas!

Cultivating compassionate curiosity

To better move through the times when you don’t feel as connected, it is important to cultivate a willingness to stretch into places that feel “beyond your comfort zone” and lovingly “investigate” yourself!  I am referring to developing an ability to observe yourself, your thoughts and your actions. Each of us have many aspects of Self–an inner wise person, the inner child/children, an inner critic, and so forth.  You also have a part which can observe you with compassion.

This part of yourself is can be an essential ally when something disturbs the rhythm your practice. Often we run up against some kind of inner interference that temporarily throws us off course. When we wear the eyes of the compassionate “inner detective,” we can recognize that these disruptions are actually calling our attention to some perception, thought or feeling that needs to be shifted so that we can move forward again. Since you are creating your world through your perceptions and their resultant thoughts/actions–being willing to become more conscious through self observation is a key to changing not only yourself but through you the outer world as well.

Eliminating Inner Interference:

Many of the inner stumbling blocks we encounter in our lives are unconscious perceptions, outmoded beliefs and habits. In order to understand them, it is useful to begin to look at what energies motivate our behaviors. Fundamentally, all human behavior is either based in love or fear.

The motivation of LOVE produces:

gratitude, compassion, appreciation, caring, wonder, mercy, sympathy, harmony, admiration, thankfulness, empathy, benevolence, exhalation, patience, tenderness, courage and thoughtful regard, as well as actual love.

FEAR on the other hand expresses itself as:

anxiety, anger, jealousy, envy, doubt, judgement, blame, shame, depression/shut down, bitterness, holding yourself back, feelings of being a “victim” or “inferior,” power abuse, impatience, emptiness, cowardice, suspicion and actual fear.

In the larger culture, people use many methods to avoid feeling their fears and so are  not able to identify or clear them away. These unbeneficial coping mechanisms include such things as: procrastination, distraction by keeping “busy” or staying involved in other people’s “trauma-dramas,” blaming the situation or other people, using substances such as alcohol, narcotics or food and/or behaviors such as sex, excessive watching of TV, playing computer games or hoarding to stuff feelings or shut feelings down. People also try intimidating others in an effort to feel more “powerful,” hold onto emotional pain because it provides a kind of “excuse” for not moving forward or even identify others as “enemies” who then become the focus for what are actually a person (or culture’s) inner, unconscious fears.

Since your unconscious mind can be such a strong motivation for your actions and thoughts, it is useful to begin observing yourself so that you can get a clearer sense of what is happening below the surface of your mind.

This means being willing to engage your compassionate inner detective to observe how you are in the different aspects of your life. This is important as many of us behave very differently in different situations. Take the time to notice how you are at work and at home. Notice how you behave in relationships. Begin observing how you think, what language you use about yourself and others and observe the times that you are judgmental.  Also look at how you deal with disappointment and notice what is happening inside when you forget to be engaged in your spiritual practice. Pay attention to what you learn and see how you can begin to become more conscious about your thoughts and actions. As you pay attention, you may begin to notice that many of your difficult moments involve strong feelings. Conscious and unconscious perceptions held in your mind blend with the input of your emotional body and exit you as feelings. Sometimes, the feelings you express have little or no connection to what is actually happening in the present moment! Indeed, often they are often connected to past events and the perceptions you developed then.

Many of our interference patterns are actually connected to our anxiety or fears. Often, these fears are actually unconscious so that they are difficult to recognize. With the assistance of your compassionate and curious “inner detective,” you can look at the ways your fears reveal themselves.

Our fears/anxieties are usually expressed in some form of the fight/flight/freeze response. While it is easy to recognize a literal “fight” or “freeze,” we may not readily notice these responses when they are wrapped in our behaviors. For example, if you become controlling, blaming, argumentative or bossy in certain situations, it is a form of the “fight” reaction. On the other hand, if you becomes vague, withdrawn, confused or emotionally immobile you can think about it as a “freeze” reaction. If in response to a situation you easily lose patience, give up or repeatedly don’t have “enough time” to do something then you may be expressing a form of “flight.”  Notice these reaction with deep compassion as they are very human!  Catching these behaviors is the first step of disabling the fear which is behind them. The prize is to relinquish the grip your unconscious fear’s have on your life!

As you compassionately observe yourself, make notes about when feelings come up and under what circumstances. Developing a picture of your reactions will support you to want to dig a little deeper. An excellent method is to journey to a teacher or power animal to ask questions such as “What fear is underneath this behavior?”  A deep meditaion on this queston may serve you in a similar way. As you bring the fears into the light of consciousness, you begin to disempower them and loosen their grip on you. Once on the surface, fears can be healed far more easily than ones that are hidden in the depths of the unconscious mind.

As your fear becomes clearer, see if it has a message for you. By finding out more about the fear, you can begin shifting out of your old, disfunctional behavior and learn new ways of being that are healthy and can contribute to moving you forward.

Using gratitude to make you more resilient

Making changes in your life can be stressful but gratitude has a healing effect on the body. Research by the Institute of HeartMath has found that people who practice gratitude regularly are able to sustain their positive biochemistry and regulate their moods even when stressed! In other words, the continued practice of gratitude allowed individuals to have a physical and emotional resilience that was not accessible to those who didn’t practice gratitude.

Feeling gratitude helps you to nurture the seeds of your new dream of yourself. The time in which we are living offer us an opportunity to shed the old, outmoded ways of being human. As each of us changes, we in turn help to rocket human evolution forward and so transform everything and when you commit to being grateful in spite of personal struggles, fears, illness or other “disruptions,” it becomes much easier to be peaceful and loving even in difficult times.

Expanding possibilities–Shamanic Imagination.

The shamanic journey process is one very ancient method which can expand you beyond your ordinary way of perceiving the world and help you to move beyond your mind’s limitations. While you are in the journey state, you are able to FEEL experiences and new possibilities before they are physically realized. This in turn, supports you to stretch into new places of consciousness and help you to shift out of old beliefs that limit you. Expanding your perceptions of what is possible, actually helps you to realize new ways of being. This can support you to grow!

In addition, the unconditional love and guidance that the transcendent spirits offer can buoy you up and give you courage to keep going forward. Their expressions of compassion can also support you to have more compassion for yourself.

Getting support from the human world

We human beings are social primates. There is a reason that solitary confinement is considered a harsh punishment. In the psychological theory referred to as, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, after the need for physiological support–such as food, water and shelter–and the needs for safety, the third layer of human needs are social and involve feelings of belonging. Without the close connections of family, friends, and larger social groupings, humans become much more susceptible to loneliness, social anxiety, and clinical depression.

Especially during those times when you are engaged in making changes in your life, it is important to become an active participant in supportive communities. This may mean that you need to be willing to stretch into places that feel uncomfortable by meeting new people, going to gatherings and taking classes. Supportive, social relationships can help you to integrate all that you are learning and experiencing as your new life continues to unfold.

On the other hand, you may also find that you may have to let go of older relationships that do not support your growth. This is usually something that occurs organically. In the course of our changing and evolving, some of our relationship naturally “grow apart.”  While it can often be emotionally difficult to experience this kind of shift in a relationship, it is also true that as one person leaves you, you become open for others to enter into your life.

If at any point you need even more support than your “friends and family network” can provide, give yourself full permission to seek out a professional person, such as a therapist or counsellor, who is especially skilled at assisting people on their life paths. A good counselor is worth their weight in gold in helping to sort out feelings or untangle patterns when they feel too overwhelming to deal with on your own!

Being compassionately persistent

There is no substitute for being willing to pick yourself up when you falter or stumble on your path. Indeed, our journeys through life are seldom straight. They are usually a long series of starts, stops, twists, turns and restarts. When you falter, stall or get lost along the way, remember to repeat all the steps I’ve outline here. So long as you give yourself permission to look at all of your life as exuberant explorations on the “playground of transformation” you can keep making progress with no limits upon how far you can go.

© 2011 Evelyn C. Rysdyk

(Excerpt from the soon to be published book: Spirit Walking: A Course in Shamanic Power)

Nationally recognized shaman teacher/healer, speaker, and author of Modern Shamanic Living: New Explorations of an Ancient Path, Evelyn C. Rysdyk delights in supporting people to remember their sacred place in All That Is.  Whether through face-to-face contact with individual patients, workshop groups and conference participants, or through the printed word–Evelyn uses her loving humor and passion to open people’s hearts and inspire them to live more joyful, fulfilling and purposeful lives.  In joint practice with Allie Knowlton as Spirit Passages, her web site is http://www.spiritpassages.com.

A Consciousness of True, Reverent Relationship

I’m so grateful to be living in a time when our most ancient ways of understanding the world are being joined with the most advanced way of perceiving reality. The combination of these is creating a new paradigm for stewarding the Earth and also providing a new template for being a whole human being. This new paradigm has deep parallels to the way of being exceptional tribal shamans also exhibit.  Each of the ones with whom I have been fortunate to study constantly expressed their spirituality not only while teaching, healing or leading ceremony but also during the everyday, mundane aspects of their lives.

When I studied with the late, Grandfather Mikhail “Misha” Duvan, he was a ninety four year old man visiting a place a world away from his home in Southeastern Siberia. While his teachings were profound, it is the personal time I spent with him that showed me how congruent his practice was with his life. In the traditions of the Ulchi, the shaman is always gracious with the spirits–attending to their needs and treating them as revered elders. Much in the manner of Native American peoples, the many spirits Grandfather worked with were addressed with titles such as “ Old One,” “Grandmother,”“Uncle,” “Elder Sister” and so forth.  The spirits of Nature and the Ulchi ancestral human spirits were all fed good food and offered songs and vodka to nourish them. This was done in the same fashion and with the same energy that one might care for one’s treasured , living family members.

Indeed, a sense of humble and gracious reverence was expressed in all aspects of Grandfather Misha’s life-practice. He bowed when encountering a person and was equally respectful during his interactions with the spirits of place. As he walked along with his staff, he would converse with the plants and stones. Since his home was far from where he was teaching, he would ask the spirits of place to forgive him for not fully understanding their customs. He requested that they be especially gentle with those of us who were his students as we were “still learning.” He fed them food and vodka and, in turn, asked them to share some of their power with him while he was in ceremony.

Through his action, Grandfather Misha was expressing what I call, Reverent Participatory Relationship and this is the way the really powerful shamans I have met always live their lives. Like he, they approach the world feeling a profound respect–expressing consideration and appreciation for all beings. They participate not simply with thoughts, but with coherent actions. Their actions arise from a deep sense of obligation that is in no way burdensome, but rather a form of reciprocity in motion. Shamans understand very deeply that everything in the world is inspirited and that no one can exist without the complex interactions of the others with whom we share the planet. As such, the shaman feels a deep sense of responsibility to give back with gratitude for all that is given. In other words, caring for those with whom he or she is already in relationship.

This way of being has tremendous power to transform and heal. Consulting physician for the Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital and renowned medical conference speaker, David Reilly, MD, has proven that an effective therapeutic encounter–that is, one where a healing response has been engendered–is based in such an understanding of relationship.  In his April 2005 presentation for the Academic Departments of the Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital, Creating Therapeutic Encounter, Dr. Reilly suggests that “traditional and indigenous healing systems including shamanism have spent a long time learning about these things – translating it to our world is the challenge.”  In regards to our own bodies’ capacity to heal, Dr. Reilly noted, “We know a human recovery reaction is a built in potential, we have seen that it can be modified for good and bad by human interaction.” I believe that the very same may be said for how our human interactions impact the non-human beings around us, too.

When Reverent Participatory Relationship becomes ingrained enough to be a person’s framework for living,  remarkable coherence is exhibited across all aspects of life. The typical separation most people feel between the spiritual and mundane worlds simply does not exist. Indeed, everything is felt to be and treated as sacred and beloved.

Another one of my teachers, the late Ai-Churek, said in a 2007 interview that, “Shamanism is like a gift, and for me…it is for life.”  She was someone who worked tirelessly on behalf of her people and the natural world believing that, “…the main thing in shamanism is the Earth, Nature, and my connection….” Her focus when doing rituals was to “help to people who are not indifferent to the fate of trees, the fate of living nature.”  The same fierce respect was bestowed upon the people who worked in her shamanic clinic in Kyzyl, Tuva. She lobbied the government to make sure her shamans received appropriate respect and challenged anything she felt was unfair. Thanks to her hard efforts, both men and women healers at her clinic receive government maternity leave. This was a feat she shared delightedly with us! For her, this work was as holy an action as performing an ancestral fire ritual as they stemmed from the same root of sacred interaction and deep caring.

Nepalese shaman, Bhola Banstola, who will be with us again at the end of June, is another great example of someone who practices Reverent Participatory Relationship. He is a twenty seventh generation shaman and the thirtieth generation in his family history to be a practicing shamanic healer. As we are friends, Bhola lives with my partner and I during his visits to Maine. From so close a relationship, we are able to see him in all of life’s of situations. Whether ironing his costume, preparing a meal, doing e-mail or negotiating with airline personnel when a flight was canceled, Bhola consistently maintains his focus to remain kind, grateful and in spiritual harmony no matter what is happening. In other words, he lives his practice.

It is too easy in our culture to allow anything of importance–even our spiritual practice–to become an intellectual or theoretical exercise.  In reality, while many people can have high ideals, it is in the living of one’s life that the “rubber meets the road.” That is, it is through expressing one’s spirituality in every day life that true real power is achieved. To be sure, this is a disciplined way of life. It means truly “walking the talk”–that is, following through on spiritual beliefs by taking concrete actions. It means living in gratitude, being completely faithful to our word and keeping our words and deeds in complete alignment.  It means eliminating the erroneous ideas of separation from the mind and stepping up to care for the beings around us that give and sustain life. It means treating all of beings as you might a treasured friend or loved one.

It is my profound belief that this is how we all must learn to live our lives. In so doing, we support a renewal of the Earth and ourselves. As an added benefit,  we also develop the level of spiritual potency that a truly powerful tribal shaman exhibits.  In our spiritual practices, learning the nuts and bolts of metaphysical techniques and methods of transformation are just the very beginning. It is only through deliberate practice of loving the world and being in Reverent Participatory Relationship with all, that our lives transform. Through this way of living our practice, we develop ourselves into beings who are able to provide healing and balance through our daily interactions.

Thankfully, this way of being is slowly gaining more credibility even though it challenges the typical ideas our culture has about power. This is marvelous as unfortunately, too many people in our culture still feel powerless whether they express these uncomfortable feelings or not.  From a place of emptiness, they seek to fill themselves with ever “more” in hopes of one day feeling complete, worthy or happy.  This addictive behavior keeps them in a constant cycle of temporary highs which are followed by feelings of an almost desperate hollowness. It creates a lifetime of desperately seeking and never really finding peace.

In stark contrast, those that are willing to step into deep relationship with the spirits of nature, other beings and themselves are able to feel that they are a part of the divine.  In essence, through behaving as our ancient shamanic ancestors did, we are more able to perceive the nature of reality that quantum physics proposes–that is, that we are always intimately and irrevocably interwoven with everything and everyone.

At no other time in history, have we been offered so many opportunities to truly comprehend and act from this understanding of the world. In diverse corners of our culture from business, to science, to healthcare and education we are seeing a convergence of knowledge that is extraordinary. All paths seem to be coming together to show us the nature of the cosmos is one of connection. Furthermore, these connections are best nurtured and healed through heartfelt interaction.

For instance, a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) by Helen Riess, MD titled, “Empathy in Medicine—A Neurobiological Perspective,”stated that “… new generations of physicians must understand the emotional, physiological, and practical consequences of … empathy.” The author goes on at length to describe the actual, positive neurobiological, psychological and physical changes that occur when we choose to be in an empathetic relationship. In other words, when we realize that we are actually part of one organism–sharing the same experience, we are able to transform every moment into opportunities for healing, renewal and an even deeper connection.

This premise has become the foundation for my and my partners life. It is at the heart of our healing practice as it is our belief that our being in Reverent Participatory Relationship with our clients supports them to become healthier individuals. We follow this ideal in our teaching practice as we believe that it is the only road to becoming a truly powerful shaman. We believe this so strongly that our shamanic graduate level training as it is especially focused on immersing advanced students even more deeply into relationship with All That Is through the deliberate, heartfelt practice of Reverent Participatory Relationship, expressing one’s own inherent sanctity and being consistently grateful.

It is also why we continue to host Bhola Banstola’s work in Maine. He is not only a wonderful teacher, he models a spiritually integrated way of life which infuses all of his interactions. In his presence, his students are reminded again that as each of us takes steps to embrace the world with reverence, allowing our hearts to be open, grateful and loving–we are reshaping our human existence into something truly and wondrously powerful.

© 2011 Evelyn C. Rysdyk http://www.spiritpassages.com

Spirit Passages’ Fifth Graduate Program in Advanced Shamanism and Dreamscaping the New Earth begins September 29- October 2, 2011 and applications are being accepted now. The program is open to those that have graduated a thorough shamanic training such as the Spirit Passages Apprenticeship, FSS 3-year Program, Sandra Ingerman’s Teacher Training or comparable training. More information may be found at: http://www.spiritpassages.com/initiatorytrainingprograms.html

Nepalese shaman, Bhola Banstola will be teaching in Falmouth, Maine on June 25 & 26. There are also opportunities to have a private healing session  with Bhola still available. Contact Spirit Passages: info@spiritpassages.com or call: 207- 846-6829

The Roots of Northern European Shamanism

To begin to uncover the remnants of shamanic culture in Northern Europe, we need to go back to the Neolithic or New Stone Age.  This is the period that saw the transition from hunting and gathering to farming of cereal grains and the keeping of animals.  While this shift began after the end of the last period of glaciation, approximately 12,000 BC, the time frame of wide-scale flourishing of settled agriculture in the region began around 7,000-6,500 BC.

Venus of Willendorf

What we know about the indigenous, “Old European” culture of the Neolithic, is based upon archeological interpretation of the artifacts they left behind.  The late anthropologist, Marija Gimbutas studied these artifacts looking for the clues about the original European culture. During her field work, she reported that she found “beautiful painted pottery” and hundreds of female-figured sculptures. This material was very different from artifacts that were found in the layers with more recent dates.  Based on these clues, she postulated that a female-honoring culture–honoring the energies of creativity, continuity and fertility–persisted in Europe from the Paleolithic Age (35,000 B.C.) and continued for millennia.

It was Gimbutas’ belief that these female sculptural images implied veneration of a creatrix/earth goddess.  In her further work she discovered several other forms of the goddess which encompassed the fundamental phases/passages of continuance–Life, Death and Regeneration.  She grouped the goddesses of Old Europe into images of the the Life-Giver Goddess–which include representations of a figure giving birth, the Nourisher/Protector Goddess–included in these categories are pregnant images, and the Goddess of Death and Regeneration.  Some of these figures were represented as not solely human-shaped, but with animal or bird features implying the interconnection of all Nature. In other words, every thing and creature was a part of the Goddess.  She was depicted in a variety of forms and yet all of them were aspects of a singular Archetypal Feminine Deity. This goddess imagery persisted in Europe for 30-40,000 years into the late Neolithic/early Copper Age.

According to Gimbutas, about 4,000 BC, the first wave of horseback riding “Kurgan” people arrived in Europe migrating from their homeland in South-Central Asia far to the East.  While we cannot ever be sure about why these Proto-Indo-European herders began to move their flocks and families westward, there may be clues in the global climate record.

The Earth experienced a rapid cooling event that peaked approximately 8,000 years ago dropping the overall temperature about 3 degrees Celsius. A climate change of this kind would have affected everyone living during that time, however since the Kurgan people had domesticated the horse and were nomadic, they had the ability to pick up and move in search of “greener pastures.” This search took them westward and into the seat of the Old European culture.

Based on the archeological record, these Kurgans or Proto-Indo-Europeans had a more male-focused, warrior culture that was quite different from the one of the Old European culture. They honored Sky Gods as they primary deities and their artifacts include stone weapons/implements such as daggers, axes, spears and arrowheads. This is quite different from objects gathered in excavations of the indigenous Old European settlements where archeologists found no warfare imagery or weapon artifacts.  In fact, sites from the earlier period have been excavated across Europe and no examples of daggers or swords have ever been found.

The meeting of these two vastly different cultures must have been a time of terrific intensity!  Given what we understand about human nature, conflict would have been inevitable when such different mythic and social paradigms collided–particularly if it occurred during a period of environmental changes.  If the struggles weren’t physical in nature then our ancestors must have at least experienced intellectual and emotional turmoil.

Whatever the case, over time the people came to an uneasy compromise so that a kind of hybridized culture eventually arose among the groups–becoming the Indo-European culture we recognize today.  According to Ralph Metzner in his essay, “Sky Gods and Earth Deities,” “During the hundreds, even thousands of years of cultural interaction there was undoubtedly not only conquest, assimilation and superimposition of an alien religion, but also intermarriage of peoples, a blending and combining of religious and mythic images.”

Examining Northern European mythology, we can clearly see reflections of this clashing of cultures and blending of mythologies between the Proto-Indo-European Kurgan invaders and the Old European cultures. For instance, the ancient Norse/Germanic mythic traditions honor two distinct families of deities.  These are the Vanir and the Aesir. In the myths, these two different clans or families of gods and goddesses are often at odds with each other and even engage in warfare.

9 Worlds Diagram ©2013 Spirit Passages

When we look at the two groups of deities, we can see reflections of the cultural diversity that existed between the two groups of people in Europe.  In addition, they can give us clues about cultural perceptions that must have evolved during the time when the two cultures met. This time period would have been experienced differently by the “invading” Proto-Indo-European tribes from the East and the aboriginal populations of Old Europe who “resisted” the assimilation.  What seems clear, however is that the resulting blended culture was left with two, conflictual perceptual frameworks locked into its psyche.

The Vanir is the clan of earth, sea and nature deities.  They include Njörd, god of the sea who is the father of the Vanir which include, Freyr and Freyja. The realm of the Vanir is Vanaheim which lies in the west.  Their sphere of influence includes connections with the elves/air spirits (in Ljossalheim), the dwarves/stone spirits (of Svartalfheim), the Nature elementals of ice/cold and heat/fire (Niflheim and Muspellheim, respectively).  If we look at this through the lens of traditional shamanic views of the spirit world, the Vanir have their connections and associations in Middle World and Lower World.  In other words, they are more closely aligned with the Old European, earth and nature worshiping traditions.

Of this group, the Goddess Freyja may be seen as an excellent representative.  Having a complex series of traits, Freyja bears a resemblance to the aboriginal European Earth Goddess. She is the goddess of fertility, love, beauty, attraction and wealth.  She was also the goddess of war, battle, death, magic and prophesy.  In her role as goddess of prophesy, Freyja has ties to the Norns or Fates who control destiny and on whom all the deities pay homage.  The Norns are the “Three Wyrd Sisters” who are described in the Icelandic Poetic Edda–a collection of Old Norse mythic tales–as giantesses.  This is an important clue to their identity, as giants are thought to be progenitor beings who existed before the gods/goddesses. (This is a view that is common to other European cultures such as the Celts.) The Norns were said to have come out of the giant’s realm of Jötunheim to limit the god/goddesses’ powers and to act as protective spirits for the people of earth.

The oldest Norn, Urd draws the threads of existence from the void and passes them to her sister, Verdandi.  It is she who weaves. The last and youngest sister, Skuld is the one who eventually cuts the weave and sends energy back into the formless.  In their triple aspect, these sisters reflect the threefold face of the ancient earth goddess–maiden/mother/crone, life-giver/nurturer/destroyer.

Cover Spirit Passages’ CD, “Norse Oracle” http://www.spiritpassages.com

Freyja also encompasses these energies in that she holds sway over fertility/love and battle/death.  In addition, she is capable of viewing that which the Norns weave in her role as goddess of magic and prophesy.  Those women that acted in the role of seer or völva in Old Norse culture were acting as Freyja in that they too, were able to see the strands of the Norns’ weaving.  As goddess of prophesy, Freyja is the primordial shaman being able to see that which others cannot. Interestingly, among the tribes of peoples scattered across Siberia all the way to the Pacific Ocean, the primordial or first shaman is also most commonly seen as a magical woman.

The Æsir are the gods and goddesses of the sky.  They reside in Asgard which is high above the other realms like the shamanic Upper World. Among this clan, Odin is the chief and since the Vanir were dominated by the Æsir, he held sway over them as well.

Icelandic Door

According to the Eddas, the runic alphabet was a gift from Odin. A selection from the Eddas tells of their discovery. Odin hangs for  nights upon the World Tree, Yggdrasil.  In hanging himself from the World Tree, Odin’s story echoes the ancient Siberian shamanic ritual of hanging those who would be initiated as shamans from great poles or trees.  It was believed that from this lofty position the initiates could gain access to the spirits.  Odin hung on the tree for nine days and nights–one day and night for each one of the Northern European spiritual realms. Through his suffering, he experiences what may be best described as the shaman’s death.  His old self is sacrificed.  He transcends death so that he may gain knowledge.  On the ninth day on the Great Tree, Odin has a vision of the runes hovering below him.  With his last remaining strength, he tears himself from the tree and literally grasps his vision.  Screaming, he scoops up the runes and falls back to the Earth.  His scream marks the moment he passed through the doorway of initiation into a new way of being.

The word ‘rune’ means ‘whisper,’ or ‘secret wisdom.’  Once Odin had the runes–what we can think of as raw knowledge, he had to learn how to use them.  Unlike Freyja, who represents the divine original shaman, Odin reflects that to become a shaman requires transformation.  In Odin’s case, to become “wise” it was necessary for him to make a further sacrifice.  In order to see/understand knowledge and transform it into wisdom, Odin sacrifices one of his eyes for a drink from the Well of Remembrance.  This well contains all ancestral, primordial wisdom and is guarded by the giant Mimir whose name has it’s root in the word “memory.”  Odin’s sacrifice of his ordinary sight–symbolizes the perceptual shift that is necessary for all seers to accomplish their work.  That is, seers and shaman require the ability to shift into a non-ordinary, visionary way of “seeing” to accomplish their calling.   His wounds taught him compassion for others.  These experiences give him the tools to be a healer, the kind we refer to as “wounded healer” or shaman. In addition, perhaps his looking into the Well of Memory reminds us that even the Proto-Indo-European cultures may have an older shamanic belief system not unlike that of the indigenous Old Europeans.

© 2010/2013 Evelyn C. Rysdyk

“Oracles, Runes and Rituals” an experiential workshop which explores more of this material will be held on March 23 & 24 in Maine. Here is more information:

© 2013 Evelyn C. Rysdyk
Nationally recognized shaman teacher/healer, speaker, and author of Spirit Walking a Course in Shamanic Power and Modern Shamanic Living: New Explorations of an Ancient Path, Evelyn C. Rysdyk delights in supporting people to remember their sacred place in All That Is. Whether through face-to-face contact with individual patients, workshop groups and conference participants, or through the printed word–Evelyn uses her loving humor and passion to open people’s hearts and inspire them to live more joyful, fulfilling and purposeful lives. In joint practice with Allie Knowlton as Spirit Passages, her web site is http://www.spiritpassages.com.