Our ‘Healing Methods’ article content focuses on shamanic healing techniques and practices that can support you in your personal healing, and is also for those of you who are shamanic practitioners to help you continue developing your knowledge base. You might also be interested in our ‘Healing Methods’ audio content.
Clients sometimes come to a shamanic healing session with a vague sense that a piece of pain they are experiencing is ancestral. They may have a general awareness that a parent or grandparent struggles with a similar issue. In the diagnostic journey, I ask my helping...
My introduction to the practice of utiseta was purely accidental. I didn’t know I was doing it. As a child in rural Wisconsin, I had the freedom to roam the woodlands and prairies that were my home. Many times I would walk into a place, quietly gathering twigs,...
When I first began my shamanic practice, I noticed early on that I had an affinity for ancestral healing. The client’s ancestors would appear in the session and share the story of the original wound in the family. Many of these suffering ancestors brought their pain...
I was first trained in Soul Retrieval back in 1993 through the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, and then later through The Four Winds. These organizations formed the foundation of the style of soul retrieval work I do, however, cross culturally, there are many ways of...
“All mental illness has a shamanic piece.” (Hale Makua, 2001) Mental illness is permanent, right? Most of us believe the best a mentally ill person can hope for is managing the condition with medication and good psychotherapy. Then in 2001, I started studying...
My daughter is still young enough to want to cuddle up with me when she’s scared or just in need of comfort. I cherish those times when we get to nest together in that way, her brother stopped joining us when teenage years hit. Our habit of snuggling was especially...
My shamanic training is rooted in Peruvian curanderismo, specifically in the use of the spiritual altar called a mesa. A mesa is the shaman’s gateway into the soul realm. In Spanish, mesa literally means “table,” which is fitting because it is the place where the...
One of the most interesting things I’ve encountered in my shamanic work is the emotional connection that the land has with us. We often think of it as the other way around, that we are the ones actively experiencing a connection to the land, whether that be through...
In the Beginning, There Was the Beat Life is about rhythm. We vibrate, our hearts are pumping blood; we are a rhythm machine, that's what we are. —Mickey Hart, drummer for the Grateful Dead When you came into this life, your first felt experience...
As we watch Russian armies create havoc in Ukraine, our hearts and minds are drawn to the widespread suffering of the Ukrainians and their land, the latest chapter in a long history of repeated invasions and destruction. SSP board member Ana Larramendi's article on...
Trauma can leave imprints in our energy body that influence our current life. These imprints cause us to attract people and experiences that recreate and repeat the traumatic stories. Both psychology and shamanism support this idea. Indeed, science is now able to show...
Sadly, traumatic events in the form of abuse, harassment, community violence and/or environmental degradation darken our news headlines nearly every day. Research documents a startling prevalence of one particular aspect of trauma - childhood abuse and neglect. The...
Perhaps no other story in Celtic mythology demonstrates more succinctly the unbearable weight of grief than that of the great hero, Cu Cuchlainn at the death of his son, Connla. The young warrior’s death comes tragically and unwittingly at Cu Cuchlainn’s own hand,...
Bright morning star's a-rising, Bright morning star's a-rising, Bright morning star's a-rising, Day is a-breaking in my soul. --American Folk Song, Author Unknown It was 5:30 am on a cold November morning in downtown Albuquerque. We were a circle of eight women...
[Note: Bob Makransky met Gg (Pronounced "Gigi"), an American woman who is an initiated Mayan daycounter, several years ago in Antigua Guatemala. Bob studied extensively with his teacher don Abel Yat Saquib until his teacher's death in 2009. This interview took place...
Soul Retrieval is a powerful topic for people walking the shamanic path. This article is about my experiences learning and conducting soul retrieval, but it is equally about doubt and wonder, because my thirty plus years on the shamanic path is ever and always about...
Systemic Constellations are a means of revealing the hidden structure of relationships in a system. By representing parts of the system with people or objects, we connect with the energies and information of those parts and with the system as a whole. When asked...
When I was a young child, I was fascinated by the local native history of the Fairfield and Bridgeport areas of Connecticut where I was growing up. One of the main indigenous communities were the Pequots, a tribe I felt a very familial connection to. Little did I know...
I am alone at home, on a Wednesday in January 2014. My wife Noelle is teaching a shamanic workshop across the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. The phone rings. The doctor’s voice is somewhat shaky, “It is cancer, stage 4 advanced lung cancer, with metastases.” I...