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22 A Journal of Contemporary Shamanism Volume 6 Issue 1 SPRING 2013 and cultures. This is not to say that we are wrong in any way for not being so now. My teachers have pointed out that withouthumanitys first soul loss without this fall from grace we would not be able to learn so much in our lives. How can we truly understand connec- tion if we have never been disconnected The spiritual search which we under- take throughout our lives is ultimately to recover for ourselves as much of this lost soul as we are able. The traditional work of the shaman makes this goal a little more attainable. Soul retrieval is a major part of our shamanic work in this life. Souls can be lost from this life and have been lost from past lives we live in cultures in Europe where it has not been the norm for many centuries to seek help from the spirits. Accepting shamanism means for me accepting that we and the spirits we work with are individualseach individ- ual plant has an individual spirit which may or may not wish to work with us. It is a necessary part of my shamanism that I negotiate between the spirits in order to bring about healing for my client. Why would spirits help us Well my experience is that not all will. Some nature spirits like some humans have been damaged to the point where they cannot think beyond their own pain. They need to receive help before they can give it. This is a large part of what I do and what I teachthe healing of the land and of nature. Most nature spirits are like most peoplethey will help if they can and if they are asked politely and offered something in return. This can be seen as a form of contract. If we keep our side of this contract they will keep theirs. The Spirits of Nature are on the whole incredibly generous. They will help in any way they can if the balance of giving and receiving is maintained. Maintaining the balance between the worlds of ordinary and non-ordinary reality is ultimately our goal as shamanic practitioners. The work of the shaman is bound by this need to maintain the bal- ance and so often when working with the spirits of plants whether as oils tisanes or an oak tree part of the work is to come to an agreed contract about what can be given in return for the help being offered. Ask the Spirits Maintaining the balance is difficult. It is very easy for us to get out of balance. Our culture does not regard spiritual balance as particularly important. In Feng Shui the elements need to be in the correct proportions to each other. The geomancy of Northern Europe where I am is similar although the energy flows are slightly different and unlike Feng Shui practitioners I do not need a list of rules to follow in order to find out what to doI ask the spirits. A client suffering from serious mental health issues had been visiting me for healing for some months. She was finding it hard to leave her home a one bed- roomed apartment even to go shopping. Her spirits said that her home was seri- ously out of balance. I arranged to visit her and see what I could do. I asked the spirit of the apartment what was needed. The answer was very clearand surprisingly organized. The spirit wanted each room to be dedicated to an element. The bathroom should be Water. Paint it blue and have decorations that will make Andrea think of the sea shells pictures of fish and so on. The kitchen needs Fire. When she is in there cooking she should light a candle and thank the flame and the sun for her food and the means to cook it. Make the sitting room Air. Hang some chimes and open the windows at least once a day. And the bedroom needs Earth. It should have thicker curtains to cut out streets lights at night. It should be warm and cozy. Put some pretty stones on the windowsill. All of that was done some of it opening the window at once. The rest took longer but she was determined to be well and went at her task with vigor. The next time I saw her she was much better. The rearranging gave her some- thing to occupy her and she found that the constant reminders and giving thanks had reconnected her to the natural world. Her bedroom became a private sanctuary a place where she could literally go to earth and feel secure. She began to sleep much better. She loved the sitting room finding that her energy levels switched on while she was in there. She began to feel able to visit me using public trans- port and to go out into the local park walking her neighbors dog. Soon she felt well enough to start looking for a job. This simple example shows how through balancing the elements in our lives heal- ing can occur through reconnection to the web. Connection and balance bring about healing. Very often the act of actively giving thanks to the spirits for helping us is all they need to continue to be willing to do so. Blessing our food before we eat thanking the sun as it sets each day and giving thanks to the spirits of weather are all simple acknowledgements which help maintain our connection and help maintain the balance in our lives. Connection to Nature I feel that many illnesses in our culture stem largely from disconnec- tion from the Spirits of Nature. A simple and direct way of working with them is ingesting them with our food. The more natural our food the better and the stronger is the connection to the spirits. People in our culture are divorced from growing gathering or hunting food relying on others to do this for us. This increases our disconnection from the spir- its. Some people do not like to go outside at all seeking to reduce their exposure to the outside world as much as possible by for instance shopping inside huge malls and spending leisure time within inside venues. They prefer to have nothing to do with the natural world rejecting even fruit and vegetables shuddering to think they could possibly eat stuff which has been grown in the dirt. These are the