May 6th.  I realized that I hadn't blogged anything in several months.  I am declaring at this moment that I will be blogging at least twice a month, and aiming towards once a week.  If you read this and want to remind me to blog, I would welcome your "pokes."

I got home last night from the Acupuncture Pre-clinic student retreat.  Somehow, I managed to come down with the flu during the retreat.  Feeling rather out of it and guilty for spending so much time in bed when I really wanted to participate in the activities, one of my co-teachers said, "You are teaching them how to take care of themselves."  

I learned a few things about myself this weekend.  First, I push myself a lot.  I am a very busy person, and I am in the middle of a long period of busy-ness.  It started Easter weekend with a trip to Massachusetts to see my older daughter, and my friend, coming home just in time to drive nine hours to attend a wild-crafting herb class in North Carolina, home on Monday (another 9 hour drive) work all week to leave for student retreat on Friday.  This coming weekend I am teaching the evening/weekend folks in the Acupuncture program, the following weekend another 9 hour drive to NC for a camping/hiking herbal trip in the mountains, the following weekend a camping trip in upstate NY with my friend from Mass.  Seriously, I don't have a free weekend until sometime in late July.  Not that some of these activities are not fun and/or restful.  So, I went into this past weekend thinking, there is lots of time for rest at this retreat, I should rest "so I don't get sick."  Ha-ha, the joke was on me!  

During the weekend, I asked a co-teacher to give me an acupuncture treatment.  She put a few needles in my chest, where the main congestion was.  She stopped and said, "I get the sense that you really need a gentle touch."  Wow!  I started to cry.  I have spent my life thinking that meanness was normal from those whom I love.  Not to "put anyone down" but my whole life has been that way, until now.  Even as a child.  I allowed the grief to flow out of me in that treatment, and I know I have a lot more to release.  I feel a bit opened and "raw"  and know that I must protect that tender part of myself.  

I am sharing this with as much openness as possible because I don't believe our lives are for ourselves alone.  I don't believe we live in isolated bubbles.  What I experience and learn is for everyone as well as myself.  I have a really great love for humanity, for the Earth and for all "God's creatures".  As I grow and heal and expand and learn to love more the ripples will flow out.  Maybe others think I share too much, others who have a greater sense of privacy than I do, but I know that my destiny in this life is that of teacher/healer.  For me that means sharing my lessons as I learn them or as I am learning them.  We all have different paths, and mine is about teaching by example.  May my lessons serve you. . . 

A friend died on Saturday.  He is survived by his wife and the sons he raised with her.  He was a good man, he loved his wife, also my friend, dearly.  None of us expected this, he was only 54 years old.  

Death is a teacher.  It teaches us that life in these bodies is temporary.  It reminds us that our spirit is permanent.  It teaches us that each moment is precious and the next one is not guaranteed.  My friend said in a post yesterday to never forget to tell your loved ones, when you part from them. that you love them, because you may never have the chance again.  

In Romeo and Juliet  the song says, "A rose will bloom, and then will fade, so does a youth, so does the fairest maid."  I am sad, both for the loss of my friend, and for the pain his wife, my friend, is experiencing. It feels like part of our souls have been ripped away leaving a black hole that we could crawl into and never come back.  Yet, last night when I stood outside with my puppy and observed the wind in the trees and the stars twinkling above, I felt his presence.  I knew he was part of all that is.  

I love the poem, Do not stand at my grave and weep by Mary Elizabeth Frye:

Do not stand at my grave and weep 
I am not there. I do not sleep. 
I am a thousand winds that blow. 
I am the diamond glints on snow. 
I am the sunlight on ripened grain. 
I am the gentle autumn rain. 
When you awaken in the morning's hush 
I am the swift uplifting rush 
Of quiet birds in circled flight. 
I am the soft stars that shine at night. 
Do not stand at my grave and cry; 
I am not there. I did not die. 


Buzz Atkins is part of the wind and snow and stars.  He is part of the grasses and flowers.  My prayer is for his wife, Rain, to be comforted as she experiences him in all of nature around her. 

"What is Shamanism?" I’m asked as I explain that I practice Shamanism along with Acupuncture. Or, "Don’t you have to go to South America or at least out west?" "Surely, Sedona or Santa Fe?"

Believe it or not the word "Shaman" doesn’t even come from the continents of North or South America. The word comes from the Tungus tribe in Siberia and it means, "One who sees in the dark." All the earth-loving, new-age followers are throwing the word "Shamanism" around so that it has become a new-age household word. So just what is it anyway?

To understand what "Shamanism" is we first have to discard all the preconceived thoughts about running off to some indigenous person in the jungle and taking hallucinogens. Though, those practices are included in some shamanic cultures, they are not what shamanism is. 

We live in a modern culture, where we think we are separate from nature. Thus, many people refer to going camping as "getting back to nature." The truth is that we’ve never been separated from nature; we’ve only forgotten our relationship with it. Every thought we have, every time we turn on the water faucet, every time we put a piece of trash out for the garbage collector, we are generating ripples that effect all of the web of life. Shamanism in its purest form is a practice that reconnects us to the understanding that we are an integral part of that web of life.

Shamanism is a spiritual practice whose roots can be found in virtually every single ancestry on the planet, dating back in estimation anywhere from 40 to 100 thousand years. It’s not a religion, though most religions have shamanic practices. There are tools or practices or beliefs that we can find in most shamanic cultures that are common with each other. Most of them involve some way of communicating or connecting with the web of life all around us. When someone sits out in their backyard peacefully for a while they begin to feel the presence of their own yard, the plants, the insects, the birds, the sounds, the smells. Instinctively we know that all of life is vibrant around us. That is the heart of Shamanism. Reconnecting with this web of life often means slowing down long enough to experience it. 

Why would someone in the modern "work-a-day" world want to learn about Shamanism? Someone, who gets up everyday, follows the same routine, sees the same co-workers, comes home, eats dinner, watches TV and goes to bed begins to wonder what meaning their life may have. They may derive some meaning from their religious practices, but often find even with that a sense of lifelessness with living in a city, surrounded by concrete and noise following the same routine day after day, week after week, year after year.

This mundane sense of lifelessness in the individual and in the cities is one of the things that create this illusion of separation. So practicing or studying shamanism (or any other practice that would reconnect someone to the web of life) is an important key to the health of an individual, as well as to the health of a place. Running off to the jungles only continues to propagate the illusion that we are separate from nature, and leads people to believe that their thoughts and behaviors, where they live, are inconsequential.

There are two very distinct reasons for practicing Shamanism, the first being the health of the individual (both emotional and physical,) and the second being the health of the planet, wherever people are. As a practitioner of Shamanism, I could share a number of "miraculous" healing experiences from clients over the years, and they are truly wonderful, however, the miracles that are most needed in our urban jungles are the changes in consciousness and attitude. Those kinds of changes are common to every person who begins to study and practice shamanism, and in turn affect every relationship the individual has, including their relationship with their environment. In traditional shamanic cultures, bad crops or unsuccessful hunting expeditions were considered "disease" just as much as an individual actually becoming sick. And if we truly are a vital part of this web of life, then it makes a lot of sense that the crime, pollution and disharmony in our neighborhoods are "disease" as well. We don’t have to pour millions of dollars, or run off to be missionaries in other places to make a difference on our planet. Not to discourage those who are called to do these things, but reconnecting with the web of life right where we are can and does help to ease the "disease" around us, and affect the health of our "tribe." And that is the heart and soul of practicing shamanism. 

What kind of people practice shamanism? One may think that shamanism is for the "fringe" crowd, those selling smoking apparatuses in seedy shops, down dark alleys. Over the years, my clients and students have included Psychologists, Clinical Social Workers, Computer web designers, a manager for the mail room at a local university, a novelist, a publisher, a financial planner, a reimbursement manager for a healthcare company and even a Gastroenterologist. In a national three-year class with ninety students, there were 7 Medical Doctors, many Psychologists, Mechanics, Secretaries, Housewives, and even one Catholic Nun, as well as a Methodist minister. 

The best part of practicing shamanism is that one doesn’t have to change who they are or what they believe. What changes is one’s conscious awareness of their relationship with all that surrounds them. In fact practicing shamanism can actually enhance one’s current belief system. Let’s take the concept of "loving your neighbor as you love yourself," for example. If one is operating in the belief of the illusion of separation then loving one’s neighbor can be a stretch, an "us and them" situation. If one begins to understand the web of life, then they begin to see their neighbor as an extension of themselves in the oneness of this web, and loving one’s neighbor actually is loving oneself. 

What is a shamanic journey? "I thought you didn’t have to run off somewhere." A shamanic journey is an altered state of consciousness achieved with the use of rhythms such as drumbeats, rattles or click sticks. "Oh no," you say, "I knew the weird stuff was coming – I’m out of here . . ."

By now you may have images of William Hurt in "Altered States" running around the city transformed into an ape. Actually its not as weird as all that, every single person who lives and breathes air experiences an altered state of consciousness every single day of their life. Sleep is an altered state of consciousness, daydreaming is an altered state of consciousness; meditation and prayer are altered states of consciousness. It’s not something that takes someone over and makes them do things they don’t want to do. In a shamanic journey, the individual decides when they are going to do this, and can end it anytime they want to. The purpose of doing a shamanic journey, as it is a very basic tool practiced by many cultures all over the world, is to communicate with the web of life around and in us. The experience varies from individual to individual, but the results of conscious awareness are across the board, and the possibilities of healing are limitless.

Bringing the ancient practices of shamanism out of the woods and into the modern cities, to modern, Middle America is a lifeline to a drowning information culture. It’s a way to reach out to our neighbors and co-workers, increase our awareness of nature, reduce our stress levels, and enhance our spiritual experiences. It has always existed in indigenous cultures, and can be found in the jungles today. And most importantly, for the sake of our Earth, it needs to be practiced in our urban environments, by average, regular people.