Spiritual Healing
Shamanic healing is almost always done in close
partnership
with the
shaman's helping spirits.
The shaman relies on these compassionate spirits for information,
guidance, power,
and protection.
The spirits rely on the shaman as a physical intermediary and
compassionate helper, and often make use of traditional healing methods
explained below.
Our spiritual healing
practice
Our healing
sessions are spirit-guided and may vary widely. Often, however, they
include a mix of these traditional healing methods, as guided by the
compassionate spirits during the session:
A Note about Remote Work
In almost all situations we prefer to work in
person
with our clients, and we can travel if needed. However, we can do
remote work in very unusual circumstances. In this case we would either
travel to the client's spirit in a journey, or call the client's spirit
to us for healing.
Payment
We do all our shamanic work by donation. The
spirits
do the actual
healing, but we have undergone the training and practice, provide the
space, and pay the bills. In addition, we have found that healing is
always a partnership - the client needs to be invested in the process.
So, we ask that the donation reflect what you think the work is worth,
and apply a sliding scale appropriate to your situation. We never
withhold healing for financial reasons!
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- Power Retrieval
- In the process of going through life, a person may
lose some of his or her personal spiritual power.
This will cause symptoms like chronic fatigue, a run of bad luck,
chronic illness.
The shaman will attempt to restore the client's power, usually by
reconnecting the client to
a former source of power, often in the form of a power animal
or totem.
- Soul
Retrieval
- When traumatic events happen, a bright and beautiful
part of our soul can become separated and lost.
This can happen in both physical trauma (accidents, anesthesia,
physical or sexual abuse) and emotional trauma (fright, separation,
loss of love,
emotional abuse).
Sometimes we even (unconsciously) "give away" a part of our soul, or
unwittingly participate
in someone else taking it. Soul loss can leave a person feeling empty
inside, depressed, anxious, or just not the same anymore.
- The
shaman, with the aid of his or her spirit helpers, attempts to locate
these lost fragments of soul that are willing to come back and help at
this time and return them to the client to restore a sense of being
whole.
This work is often combined with power animal retrieval. It is
incredibly beautiful work.
One of our teachers, Sandra Ingerman (see her
web site for books and seminars), was given this technique
by her spirit helpers, and then
discovered that it was essentially identical to what indigenous shamans
had
been doing for eons.
She is now widely regarded as the foremost Western authority on soul
retrieval.
She has refined the technique over the years, in thousands of sessions,
to the gentle and effective practice it is today.
- Extraction
of Negative Energy
- If someone is low on personal power, or has suffered
some soul loss,
they are "open" for opportunistic spiritual intrusions or negative
energy to enter.
This is sort of like the raccoons moving into an unoccupied wing of a
large house -
though they create quite a mess,
they are not "evil" or malicious, just in the wrong place.
Localized physical pain is the most common symptom.
The shaman merges with his or her spirit helpers to find and
"extract" these
spiritual intrusions.
They are usually returned to nature, where they belong.
This work is often very powerful and dramatic.
- Depossession
- Similar to a spiritual intrusion, the spirit of a
deceased person that didn't
"go on to the light" can attach to someone.
Usually these spirits are not malicious - just confused.
They are looking for a nice warm body to live in, where they can go on
doing whatever they used to do when they were alive. (What is sometimes
thought of as "demonic possession" is often just the
fear carried by the possessing being - perhaps a frightened child -
which can be experienced by the host as terror.)
- The
symptoms can be dramatic, like a sudden change in
personality,
a change in desires, or addictive behavior; or they can be quite subtle
with the behaviors well integrated into the personality of the host,
particularly if the possessing being has been there for a long time.
They can also be associated with localized physical pain. The shaman,
with the help of the compassionate spirits, contacts the
possessing entity and brings it enough light
and love
to help it understand its situation.
Then the shaman helps it to heal and go to the light, creating healing
for both the client and the possessing being.
- We have experience with several different masters in
this field - Michael Harner of the
Foundation
for Shamanic Studies , Brazilian Spiritists Carlos and Maria
Lucia Sauer (incidentally, we do not know their current contact
information),
and Betsy
Bergstrom. We have found depossession to be a powerful and
surprisingly gentle tool in our healing practices.
- Healing
the Dead
- One of the most important jobs of the shaman is to
help
people through the dying process, then help them afterwards to be sure
they "cross over",
or "go on to the light".
In addition to the shaman's clients and their families, this sort of
work is also
done to clear "haunted houses" and land. Sometimes this work is called psychopomp, which
means "to conduct
the soul".
-
Unwinding Curses and
Removing Enchantments
- With the help of the spirits, the shaman will attempt
to remove harmful energies. In
our culture we often create unconscious curses on ourselves, or inherit
them from our families, that drag down our energies, keep us from
reaching our goals, and generally disrupt the
flow of life. (In
other cultures this can be intentional.) Removing these curses and
enchantments, and replacing
them with blessings, can free up our energies and help us to move
forward successfully in our lives.
- Blessings
- The
shaman may call on his or her helping spirits or the spirits of nature
to create beneficial energies of protection, healing, and good fortune
for the client.
-
Cleansing for
Buildings, Lands, Organizations & Institutions
-
Buildings,
land, organizations and institutions can lack
power, need soul retrieval, contain negative energy
or
possessing spirits, and/or be under the influence of unconscious or
conscious curses, just as people can. The work of clearing spaces
energetically is much like the work of healing people. The shaman
brings his or her compassionate spirits to help heal the space or
organization, depending on what energies are influencing it.
- Conducting
Ceremonies
- Ceremonies speak to us in deeply
symbolic ways that reach our subconscious minds and help us integrate
and celebrate change. In our society, we have ceremonies for
weddings,
funerals and graduations -- and very little else. In indigenous
societies, births and coming of age were honored, as well as the
changing of the seasons, successes in hunting, transformative healings,
the coming of guests, and many other occasions. The shaman asks the
help of the spirits to organize and conduct ceremonies that honor all
who are present and that create a powerful experience for the people
involved in acknowledging and celebrating what is new.
- Divination
- The shaman will attempt to get
information for
a client from the spirits - by reading cards, tossing stones, or
directly in a journey.
We are familiar in our culture with the idea of going to a psychic for
a "reading". The shaman may bring messages through for the client -
usually from the client's ancestors, but sometimes from others.
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