What is a shaman? What can a shaman do for me? There are all kinds of academic, even poetic explanations of what shamans are, and what they do. In fact, a very detailed FAQ on shamanism can be found at various locations on the web. Detail or no, the questions I get from most people are, "What is a shaman? What can a shaman do for me?" A shaman can help you heal whatever you are open to healing, most likely. To me, shamans are intermediaries with the spirit world, not just links to the spirits, but explorers of the spirit realm, itself. "Aren't we all?" you ask. Yes, we all have the potential to be, though not all of us readily know how. We are not all active participants in the worlds within and around us, though we all have the ability to be. Shamanism is not a religion; rather, a perspective entailing that everything is alive. The shamanic view holds that everything, everything has a soul, and is connected to every other creature and entity. Through that connection we are able to travel out of our bodies, beyond our egos to communicate with souls of the dead, ourselves and other humans; plants, animals, Earth, the elements; even "higher" spirits, such as guides, helpers, our own High Selves, and our Higher Power. How shamans accomplish this act is perhaps most telling, and most individual. There are some basic tenets of shamanism that pervade ancient and indegenous cultures, such as we all have animal guides and spirit guides; the concept of soul retrieval; extracting an illness or entity from the body for physical, emotional, mental or spiritual healing; psychopomp work, or death walking--guiding the dead to Spirit; and divination. Contemporary shamanic work draws on these same basic tenets producing what is commonly known as "Core Shamanism", or an intertribal celebration of many cultural heritages of shamanism; thus, many techniques in interacting with the spirit realm. For me, an intertribal, or One Tribe approach is more appropriate in my own healing and practice, as my guides and my biological and spiritual lineages have led me across many cultures of shamanic study. I find consistently that they all lead back to the Source. Given the range of techniques shamans use, it's important to understand how these skills apply to everyday life. In the most broad perspective, shamans promote healing. Opening communication with the spirit realm can open you to your own healing ability, body, mind, soul, and emotion. Bear in mind that no shaman, doctor, surgery, or medication can heal you. You heal yourself. You make the conscious decision to allow whatever healing modality you receive to actually heal yourself. Healing is your personal agreement between yourself and Spirit. Know that when you interact in the journey state, which is the theta brain wave level of deep cognizant deep dreaming, you are in the space to directly access yourself at the central levels of being. You can reshape your physical and spiritual DNA, taking command of the creative ability with which Spirit blessed you. In short, with shamanic healing, you are an active participant in your wellbeing. Through understanding your ability to co-create your own life with Spirit, you not only improve your own quality of life, but that of All Life. Shamans work with healing energy by communicating with the spirit realm through the trance state commonly called journeying. When I journey, I experience the spirit realm as the Dreamtime, an Australian Aboriginal perspective including the seen and the unseen as coexisting, conjoined. All realms are One. The concept of the Dreamtime was introduced to me several years ago, and I immediately saw a map of stars and light unfolding before me when I heard the word. In journeying, the Dreamtime has indeed unfolded to me in many ways, many directions, each leading to healing. What a shaman can do for you depends on your reasons for seeking one. Perhaps you have a chronic illness that doesn't seem to abate. Perhaps you are depressed, or want to be rid of a disruptive pattern, belief, or habit in your life. Perhaps you feel you have umlimited potential, but can't seem to manifest it into what you need in your life. Perhaps you just want to find meaning in your life, or want insight into your own abilities. Maybe you want to meet your spirit guides. The reunion with your guides can help in each of those things, as well as the reunion with your High Self. Remembering these relationships allows you to reconnect to Spirit, empowering you, and giving you intimate knowledge of your own strengths, abilities, and love. You will never feel alone again once you have remembered your spiritual allies. Additional work could also help, such as a soul retrieval, in which spirit aspects that left due to trauma are returned and integrated, allowed to heal and age to your current maturity. The effects of this technique usually include ending the pattern of chronic illness, depression, or other pattern that you have become locked into. In some cases, memories are returned, and certainly abilities that you may have missed as you have aged. Another way to specifically address patterns, thoughts, or habits that have become harmful, such as addiction, obsessive behaviour, a disruptive relationship dynamic, or even chronic illness, is past life regression and future life progression. Often seeing the origin of these patterns helps one to clear them, as well as talking with a future self to see the healing that has been done, and carried through one's life. In some cases, an extraction of an intruding entity is needed to release a pattern or illness. Some refer to this as "depossession", "exorcism", though it is rarely theatrical as it is depicted in fiction. It is, however, quite profound. Most often an intrusion is some sort of spiritual attachment, an energetic imbalance, in which an entity has blocked a portion of your life force energy. Symptoms of this may be illness, radical shifts in mood or temperament, an imbalance of power in a relationship. When the attachment is extracted the flow of life force can be restored and full body balance maintained. Another way to bring about balanced flow in your life force and to alleviate an illness is a technique called "dismemberment". In this technique, your animal guide is asked to do the dismemberment, and allowed to completely destroy your physical body. The animal may "re-member" you immediately after, or it may recommend that you take time in this re-membering. The end result is your body fully re-membered, without the affliction. It is new. These are just a few of the techniques shamans use, and only a vague description of the reasons that you may seek out a shaman. My book, Gift of the Dreamtime: Awakening to the Divinity of Trauma gives a more thorough presentation of shamanic healing in a useable modern context, and may be very helpful in determining if shamanic work is appropriate for you. Many of my clients begin our work together with a soul reading, which can be done in person or by distance, as a basic check-in with their spiritual sources. Also, read the services that I offer, as well as the classes and Mystery School that I teach. 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