Shamanic consultations take place in sacred circle spacetime

Image via Wikipedia

Shamanic consultations take place in sacred circle circle spacetime each at a unique crossroads of here and now. Each session flows and unfolds as stirred and spiraled by Spirit and the Spirits. I follow no formula beyond the simple opening of a sacred circle spacetime, purification, then connecting with Spirit and Spirits. Counseling, journeywork, divination, and healing may all happen. The session may emphasize spiritual healing of dis-ease or mending a breach or transforming a trouble or shifting a situation or another intervention or two or three interwoven themes may be addressed. You may bring others to in-person sessions - family and support system members who can encourage your process. Sessions may take two to three hours, and three to several sessions may be needed.

Your wholehearted and open-minded willingness, desire, and dedication are required in order for the new beneficial dreams, shapeshifts, and other changes towards the better and best accessed in non-ordinary reality to activate and unfold fully into ordinary reality and your everyday life. The activation and unfolding of new dreams and shapes from Spirit and the Spirits must be energized into life in this world - drummed, danced, storied, and acted out by you every day in ordinary reality, in your own settings and situations. Gifts from Spirit and the Spirits once seeded, may grow and blossom in subtle ways becoming more and more noticeable over shorter or longer periods. Shifts can happen quickly and obviously but some of the most amazing shifts start quietly and gradually. I may recommend lifestyle changes that may facilitate your spiritual healing and help you maintain wellness.

Shamanic assistance does not take the place of standard psychotherapy and medical care and does not diagnose, treat, or cure any diseases. Yet shamanic interventions may enhance, deepen, and connect standard as well as other complementary or alternative treatments at soul levels, in the spiritual dimensions. Other counseling, support, and interventions may be necessary in addition to shamanic assistance.

You can read more information about some of the shamanic prayer interventions that might be experienced during a consultation here.

Phone consultations and shamanic journeying at a distance: Distances between ordinary spacetime coordinates take just nano-moments to cross in the non-ordinary realms of Spirit and the Spirits. So it is possible for me to consult with you by phone or email and make a shamanic journey or other shamanic prayer intervention to help with whatever challenge you are facing. The shamanic healing and revealing might be accomplished by Spirit and the Spirits through one or more kinds of shamanic rituals or practices such as blessing, power or soul retrieval, divination, extraction, depossession, psychopompic travels, dreaming, shapeshifting, re-creative artplay, or another way or combination of ways given by Spirit and Spirits in the moment. Every session like every situation and every circling around on purpose in Spirit, is unique.

After I shamanize for your intention and follow the instructions, guidance and teachings of Spirit and the Spirits, I impart the results to you through ritual and other means as guided by Spirit and the Spirits. Many types of shamanic assistance from Spirit and Spirits may be blended in one session. I send you a detailed written report and/or follow-up through phone or online conversation. The follow up will most likely bring out suggestions for further work around the challenge. More than one session may be needed.

Studying some background information ahead of in-person and distance sessions can be very helpful, especially if you are not already practicing shamanic ways. Here are some suggestions for beginning some reading on your own, about shamanic ways and shamanic journeying. This will help define the intention for the shamanic journey(s) and other shamanic prayer-interventions I undertake. The suggested books about shamanic ways can give you places to begin shamanic studies and see shamanic ways from many perspectives. There are more shamanic web resources linked at Shamanic-Ways.Info. But please, allow Spirit and Spirits to guide and teach you every step of your shamanic way! None of the books or websites listed can be followed, as is, or in any way like a blueprint. And all of these writings and teachings put together barely scratch the surfaces of shamanic experience.

About Author: ECP is Elizabeth Cunningham Perkins, a shamanic practitioner and minister who performs as street-jester Shamantic! The Wise. Elizabeth is a co-founder of Shamanic Shift Center and Companions Circle.

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Shamanic ways are not always the best ways to help everyone

by ECP

It hit me as a shamanic practice shifting shock that many visitors to Shamanic Shift Center who arrive before me or call or email requesting shamanic assistance or teaching have brought too many mental or emotional troubles to take up shamanizing effectively - or safely. I was deeply dis-eased when I was healed radically and my life transformed wonderfully through shamanic crisis and shamanic shifting. So for years I held onto and did my best to express my conviction that notion shamanizing could help anyone and everyone, whenever and however they showed up, no matter what.

I still say that is so, but I now understand that often the shamanizing must be roundabout - shamanized later, gradually, by me around and about whatever energy flows and patterns are resonating and reverberating within me related to my visitor who appears to be suffering from mental or emotional illness. If I conclude that a reasonable person would suspect the presence of a diagnosable mental, emotional or medical disorder, syndrome, or disease I refer such a visitor to appropriate licensed practitioners and do not practice or teach shamanic ways to that person beyond simple, tried and true, widely-known, self-help tips.

Instead I shamanize over myself on behalf of that person and situation, over whatever is reflecting and resonating within me connected to the other person and all related troubles. Sometimes it is a fun-house mirror reflection and distant mountain-top echo that I see and hear in another person who appears too ill for me to teach shamanic ways to in any formal way. But I am always shown by Spirit and Spirits through the patterns and flows of the situation that are calling - within me - for shamanic shifting, that I can always shamanize over harmlessly and helpfully. I have come to understand that not everyone experiencing crisis or emergency is being called to shamanic practice.

I no longer begin doing or teaching anything specifically shamanic, even the shamanic journey process, with anyone right away. Until a visitor shows enough stability to stay with shamanic shifting processes in ordinary and non-ordinary realities without suffering further trauma or injury, I shamanize in the 'roundabout' ways for a while. In sessions I stick to earth-centered self-help practices such as smudging or expressive arts or reconnecting with nature. I may require a written 'OK' from licensed, complementary, or alternative healing arts practitioners who are already treating any visitor who appears requesting shamanic assistance and discloses diagnoses and treatments.

So I suppose many visitors nowadays could easily jump to the conclusion that I know very little about shamanizing. That's OK for now, because in a way that is always true. I live and teach what I know but I only know a few things so far.

About Author: ECP is Elizabeth Cunningham Perkins, a shamanic practitioner and minister who performs as street-jester Shamantic! The Wise. Elizabeth is a co-founder of Shamanic Shift Center and Companions Circle.
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Shamanic Code of Agreements for Shamanizing

Companions Circle Church and Shamanic Shift Center composed this Code of Ethics (or agreements) for integrity in shamanizing. Like most of what is posted in this weblog so far this text is a work in progress:

Code of Ethics for Shamanic Shifters

I agree to shamanize in spiritual companionship with beings and spirits of benevolence and compassion, and to be informed and guided by Spirit in offering service to others.
I agree to respect the wholeness of every being, group, place, situation, and event calling for my help.
I agree to be and act purposefully for better and best in thought, word, and deed and shamanize for healthier, happier life patterns and connections in the local present and throughout all realms, directions, dimensions, levels, and orders of living and being in non-ordinary and ordinary reality, even into the future and the past.
I agree to respect others beyond any and all differences.
I agree to shamanize with compassion and consent in formal sessions as well as everyday situations.
I agree to do no intentional harm or exploitation or misconduct in my shamanizing.
I agree to maintain the confidentiality of all shamanizing sessions and situations.
I agree to practice rigorous honesty with myself and everyone.
I agree to offer fair and appropriate fees and exchanges.
I agree to do my best to keep my life in balance to better serve others
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Bring to the shamanic circle what you dream of receiving!

by ECP

Unlimited potential and infinite possibility are in the non-ordinary realms already, always. And all strengths and needs and wants are interconnected in the rocky web we crawl through here and now. So for the shamanic circle's opening round of sharing it is extremely effective and hopefully helpful to offer into the sacred circle exactly what you think or feel or sense you are needing or desiring most. If you are coming into the shamanic circle from a week of challenging or troubling experiences, contemplate what needs and desires those beings and situations in your life have brought to your attention for shamanizing. The shamanic circle is an hour or two suspension of ordinary reality, a spacetime sanctuary of chances to dream and dance better shapes and stories, the best we can imagine and activate.

So say something like, "Tonight I offer courage because I am here to dream more courage for myself and my world!" If you must offer complaints, about work or family or current events or whatever, do your best to express these short stories of yours with self-teaching and laughing at yourself, then quickly shift your words and phrases into purposeful actions of bringing and giving to the circle (and the community and the world) what you need and want most to receive from Spirit and the Spirits.

Pleasant or unpleasant, fun or not, you can only experience and notice what is resonating and reverberating within you. It is not 'denial' or 'stuffing' or 'censoring' if you - on purpose, on YOUR BEST shamanic purpose - shift your dancing and storying towards fun and laughter and recognition! Acknowledge what is, then shamanic shift it towards better, as the best you can imagine in the present.

Through ways of shamanic reversing and inverting, what you know you don't have but really need and truly want is exactly what you do have, already and always. Shamanizing rattles, drums, sings, and dances this upside-down, inside-out, being and living FUN flow into new shapes and patterns for your life and this universe.

Psychotherapy sessions are a better place than the shamanic circle for indulging your complaining habit or any (seemingly) irresistible urges to self-justify out loud...or sob or scream...or maybe even kick, if you are sure you must keep on performing these actions. I often hear that crying is good for people but after careful, long observation I must say that I doubt it.

After observing myself and others for many years I have concluded that, aside from the healthy process of grieving a definite, present loss, tearing up or bursting into tears or sobbing often or a lot in reaction to everyday triggering words or events might be another no-longer helpful or healthful past pain relief strategy now become unconscious and habitual, a habit that it would be better or best for an adult who wants to grow spiritually to break, or at least interrupt for an hour or two.

Frequent, sudden, heavy, uncontrollable crying or sobbing - in reaction to everyday household words that arise in ordinary conversations or during 'talking story' around the shamanic circle - might even be signs of grave mental and emotional disorders that requiring standard medical-model interventions. Shamanic circles are for self-healing and self-change and for universal healing change beyond - not as a substitute for - licensed psychiatric, psychological, and medical treatment.

During a shamanic journey one may cry, complain, self-justify, kick, and scream to Spirit and the Spirits, all in non-ordinary reality, and still bring back at least the beginnings of a healing story to tell the circle to shamanic shift life towards better and best. Shamanic experience may flow up strong emotions and bring a shamanizer to the edge of crisis, but shamanic performing in circle - acting out through dancing, singing, and storying - is for inspiring, encouraging, and transforming ourselves, the circle, and the universe, not for freaking out.


About Author: ECP is Elizabeth Cunningham Perkins, a shamanic practitioner and minister who performs as street-jester Shamantic! The Wise. Elizabeth is a co-founder of Shamanic Shift Center and Companions Circle.
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Shamanic creed for a shamanic circle church

Shamanic Creed? Shamanics is knowing, not believing! An enthusiastic, emphatic "Non credo!" would be the best shamanic creed, but that might sound facetious or even sarcastic to many.

In applying for advance 501c3 tax-exempt recognition from the IRS, something churches are not required to do under the Internal Revenue Code anyway (but we decided to), some of us at Companions Circle - Shamanic Shift Center made a spiritual exercise a while ago of writing down formally some key principles of our shared shamanic practice-way to serve as a shamanic creed. (We had noted that the reviewer assigned to our case seemed to be wondering if we considered shamanic ways to be about nothing in particular.) So we came up with this...

We do our bests to be and live the following principles and teachings:

• There are non-ordinary as well as ordinary realms of reality


• Unlimited potential and infinite possibilities exist within the non-ordinary to be shamanized on purpose into the ordinary


• Shamanizers relate to Spirit and Spirits in the non-ordinary to shift reality towards better and best in the ordinary


• Consciousness and reality live and progress best according to cosmic laws of number, geometry, rhythm, resonance, harmony, and beauty; the Zero Aggression Principal, voluntary cooperation, and unanimous covenanting; adventurous questing and returning; and the Spirit of Aloha


• Each individual is a shamanic shift center in the universal companions circle of all life and being


• Shamanic ways are ecstatic methods and techniques of living and being ongoing shifting revelation through individual direct experiences of Spirit and Spirits, spiritual companionship, and sacred circling around at living crossroads of here and now


• Shamanizers practice outward and visible prophetic entertainment to effect inward and spiritual alchemical transformation


• Shamanizers connect to spiritual companions and open sacred circling in everyday life situations


• Shamanizers interconnect and circle around formally in ordinary reality as needed, when it's beneficial to all


• The universe rattles, drums, sings, and dances - all ways, always!

No one of us would be upset if plenty of others disagree with any or all of the statements above. Coming up with a shamanic creed seems to be a contradiction in terms.

Usually we say, "Don't believe, BE LIVE!"
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Introduction to the shamanic ways of our circle

Image via Wikipedia

by ECP

Shamanic Ways at the Shamanic Shift Center Friday Night Circle

In our shamanic circle we practice contemporary, core, and cross-cultural shamanic ways that emphasize the “magic of the ordinary" and the Way of the Shaman as Wise-Fool, the ultimate adventurer and alchemist. Aside from circle members bringing and sharing shamanic practices they know and find to be helpful which may come from an indigenous or earth-centered or other tradition or religion, what we practice in circle are new and adapted shamanic ways, which may happen to be inspired by other traditions such as Hawaiian or Jewish or Northern European spirituality (which already may be adaptations) or even a mainstream religion. The shamanizing at Companions Circle and Shamanic Shift Center is not Native American nor specifically Pagan or Metaphysical or of any new New Age religion or tradition.

Usually in our circle we shamanic journey the non-ordinary realms of reality, the source of unlimited potentials and infinite possibilities, to receive from Spirit and the Spirits whatever is best for our ordinary reality lives. So we focus on what we want and shift attention away from what we don't want. Through the shamanic journey process and other shamanic methods we adventure the Web of Being and Tree of Life, and Wheels of Medicine, Seasons, and Fortune, all quadrants all levels all dimensions all orders all modes, as we are guided by Spirit and the Spirits. Then we return to this circle and our community with new knowledge and healing blessings, dreams, dances, songs, stories, and other gifts from Spirit and the Spirits.

Shamanic ways are the earliest spiritual practices known to humankind, dating back tens of thousands of years and maybe longer. Although the word 'shaman’ is a Siberian word for a spiritual healer, shamanisms have been practiced in parts of Asia, Europe, Africa, Australia, Greenland, and Native North and South American throughout history. The fact that the shamanic ways have survived and thrived from pre-historic ages until now speaks to their potency.

To a shaman everything that exists is alive and has Spirit and is Spirit, and all are joined with earth, universe, and the rest of all-that-is through the natural, cosmic, dynamic, growing, transforming, interconnected spiritual oneness of LIFE. Shamanic ways work through individual direct experience of Spirit and Spirits within this co-creative, re-creative diversity of all our universal interconnecting. No two shamans work alike within this shifting and flowing of the mysterious yet knowable Eternal Now so shamanic innovations and adaptations are a natural continuation of shamanic ways into the modern age.


About Author: ECP is Elizabeth Cunningham Perkins, a shamanic practitioner and minister who performs as street-jester Shamantic! The Wise. Elizabeth is a co-founder of Shamanic Shift Center and Companions Circle.

Related articles

• Korean Shamanism: Today's Ancient Practice (discordianism.suite101.com)
• An Overview of Shamanic Healing (alternativespirituality.suite101.com)

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Shamanic Permission, Protection, and Diagnosis

by ECP

Shamanic Permission: Live a shamanic life - ecstatic, inside-out, present, on purpose, available, aware, and all the rest - and you will be called by people and be nudged by Spirit(s) to go here and there. On any way and at any destination you will notice what is asking for healing and transforming towards better and best.

In shamanic circles discussions arise under the topic of 'ethical considerations' about how a shaman can be certain permission is being given for healing and transforming in any given case. Here is an easy way. Whatever beings, situations, events, and places you notice and see in need of healing or transforming or you 'hear' asking for assistance must be resonating with something that is already within you. This echoes the saying 'All healing is self-healing; all self-healing is universal healing.'

Living as a shaman means 'living permission' or living as an opening for reality shifting by Spirit and Spirits towards better and best. Shamans are 'permission up walking around' through the world. So heal and transform what you have noticed starting with where it is resonating within you and that will radiate and resonate outwards through every where and when in the multiverse.

The dis-ease you notice is already within you not because you have been infected by anyone sending out stuff but because in mysterious ways you already gave permission for yourself to be born into this tree of life and web of being - a myriad myriads of interconnecting chaotic yet creative stone ripples of generations old forms, patterns, and weaves of this world's growing pains. All individual stuff is community and universal stuff, just as all present stuff is past and future stuff.

All LIFE experiences in this world are a fullness of generations old, backwards and forwards in spacetime, inwards and outwards in self and reality, and in all levels, dimensions, directions, realms, orders, and modes of BEING. Shamans heal yourselves and heal your neighbors as yourselves starting now, beginning here.

You carry permission for self-healing everywhere you go. Go ahead and begin with this much. Otherwise wait until you are asked for assistance by someone. If you really want to offer assistance where you see need and no one has asked yet, try acknowledging essential, overall wholeness first instead of condescending from a one-up place. A shaman heals in community recognizing the wholeness of the bigger dream and longer story without attachment to local outcome. Even though s/he walks on and around many edges the shaman of the moment does not try to stand further separate from client beings, situations, and events, or subject them to objectifying scrutiny and judgment. What about protection?

Shamanic Protection: Gather and open a circle at your crossroads, purify and clear self and spacetime, fill up with Spirit power through drumming, song and dance, carry or set up or wear reminders of sacred connecting with spiritual helpers, and create a new sanctuary for healing and transforming in the here and now. Healing is the natural direction of LIFE so all the cosmos will be protecting you (covering you ahead of time) when you ask for fullness in agreement and resonance with yourself.

Remember that evil (however you define that concept) works through lack of authentic power or the absence of Spirit. So that is what all the shaman's antics are for - hollowing out and filling self and the circle with spiritual power and keeping that container full. Shamanic diagnosis (apart for learning/knowing) is a dialog with Spirit and Spirits in circle too.

Shamanic Diagnosis: No two troubled situations or shamanic interventions are exactly alike even when they given the same diagnosis in other systems of healing. Although it is helpful to study many systems of healing and transforming and any technique or method may be used by shamans, in shamanic ways there is no authoritative manual or list of spells, remedy formulas, magical correspondences, or medicines to go by, except as the shaman is instructed by Spirit(s) on a case by case basis.

There are many underlying causes for what is ailing any being, place, or situation. There may be elemental imbalances, displacement, directional disorientation, unhappy dead (suffering beings or soul parts), ancestral troubles (for all kinds of ancestors, future as well as past), historical patterns and cycles repeating themselves, vows or promises broken or still in effect, issues from other lives (lives of all kinds at all levels, in all realms), astrological and seasonal considerations, lack of attention or neglect, and/or much more. There may be a few to several interlocking underlying root causes of the ailment, conflict, or trouble you are being asked to help heal or transform.

So shamanic journey or dream with your lower-, middle-, and upper-realm(s) helpers as much as it takes for you to learn about the obvious and hidden visible and invisible causes of trouble and receive healing solutions from Spirit(s). Then take further outward or inward shamanic action accordingly. Other kinds of help might be called for as well. Then circle around and shamanic dream or journey again if more wisdom, understanding, and knowledge are needed. Shamanic divination itself is transformational because deeper wider awareness and shifted attention begin inner processes of change towards better and best at many levels.

About Author: ECP is Elizabeth Cunningham Perkins, a shamanic practitioner and minister who performs as street-jester Shamantic! The Wise. Elizabeth is a co-founder of Shamanic Shift Center and Companions Circle.
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Shamanic Ecstasy, Direct Experience of Spirit, and Cosmos

Here is another section of the draft of our shamanics book-in-progress...

Shamanic ways are ecstatic and ecstasy inducing. Shamanic experience can happen at any living crossroads of here and now, whenever and wherever a purpose for shamanizing arises. Shamanic ecstasy expands any given present moment backwards, forwards, inward, and outward in spacetime and consciousness, beyond all boundaries and limits, all the way to Mystery. In ecstasy, shamans gain individualized access to the ordinary and non-ordinary multi-verse of unlimited potential and infinite possibilities. Shamans shift into ecstasy for alchemical transforming and return to ordinary reality for shamanic performing. Shamans always shamanize to effect beneficial changes for self, family, community, and world - and to be and live the intended, desired change as fully as possible.

Shamanic ways are ways of individual direct experience of Spirit and Spirits, according to each shaman's - and shamanic companionship's and shamanic circle's - understandings of Spirit(s). By many diverse techniques and methods of ecstatic direct experience shamans transform invisible and visible reality on purpose towards what is better or best by shifting consciousness and self in Spirit. Shamans act by dreaming new dreams and dancing them to life; co-creating and showing new images and shapes of beings, places and things; bridging, reconnecting, or healing what is separated or broken in any way; hearing and telling old or new words of knowledge, wisdom, understanding, and power; opening passage for souls, beings, information, energy-flows, patterns, blessings, gifts, and more to shift to the next best life in this world or another.

Individual direct experience is key. Yet two or three or more individuals - up to a sacred circle of spiritual companions shamanizing around purposes held in common - can live shamanic experience together as long as they agree.

The shamanic cosmos is...

one yet multi-

...dimension, level, order, realm, universe, mode, being, soul, spirit...

...one as many and all as one...interconnected, unified, re-unified...everything and no-thing...open-ended yet all encompassing...persisting yet shifting...

...and so the shamanic cosmos is ultimately paradoxical. The shamanic cosmos can be likened to and encountered through many archetypes, symbols, and signs and described through words of philosophy or concepts of science, and expressed through creative arts...a Tree (or married Trees) of Knowing and Life, a Web (of webs) of Being, Wheels (within wheels) of Fortune, Stars, Life, and Medicine...the Holy Mountain and all the surrounding terrains of Holy Lands...and many more. A perfect description of the shaman's paradox of paradoxes is impossible, but for fun and self-education we can aim for this target let new attempts fly for a while.

The universal animism, untamed gnosis, and ecstasy of inner shamanic alchemical transformation is best (yet never fully) outwardly expressed through the performing arts and prophetic entertainments of ritual and ceremony. Masked and costumed shamans act out, dance, and jest in song and story the change they are intending, then dreaming, then grasping.

Shamans of different older and newer traditions and contemporary shamanizers call and connect to Life Spirit and Spirits of Life in, as, and through names of power...which all mean something like 'authentic power(s) of LIFE playing and freeing Life and the living' and more (of course). To the shaman, all things are alive each in their ways, and self-knowing is the adventuring way to know and weave together everything in dynamic yet balanced harmony and beauty.

Names and images of power help bring the shaman's expanded and expanding experience of LIFE into consciousness and reality in the present moment - even while all words, concepts, and art fail to express shamanic experiences. In our way of contemporary shamanics the name of Life power, potential, and possibility we choose to use is FUN (or F.U.N.) for Fun, Freedom, and Unity Unfurling Universally New Now, or something like that.

About Authors and Book Project: The Universal Peregrine Companions (UPC) are a scattered site contemporary circle of shamanizers. This essay, originally written by Elizabeth Cunningham Perkins circles around among us and is still being edited. Universal Peregrine Companions Rezzee, Teal, Chammy, L.C., Eli, Sharon, Alan, Tom, Andy and Elizabeth have been working and playing with the draft for a shamanic ways or new shamanics book a while. The above section is not a presentation of final words on these matters!

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When is a way shamanic?

by the Universal Peregrine Companions

There are many understandings of shamanic ways as cross-cultural, multi-traditional sets of psycho-spiritual and magico-religious practices for self, community, and universal healing and change on purpose. This wide, inclusive, flexible, diverse set of sets of methods and techniques for shifting reality toward the better is often these days lumped together under the term shamanism. We prefer to call this old, new, local, universal, emerging phenomenon and movement and way of ways 'shamanic ways' or shamanics. The term 'shamanics' may have been introduced first by shamanic teacher and author Kenneth Meadows who probably hoped it would catch on as an alternative to the problematic word 'shamanism'.

Shamanics can overlap many religions, traditions, and fields of human endeavor from the mainstream to the frontier to the esoteric. Several characteristics distinguish the ways of shamans, aside from specific practices.

Shamanizers can use any or many spiritual, magical, psychological, or physical healing or transforming systems, methods, or techniques for shamanic shifting. Shamans can specialize or blend many ways of shifting reality, including but not limited to: light, energy, or vibrational healing; work with rocks, minerals, and crystals; work with color, sound, and words; dance, song, expressive arts and art play; psychodrama, storytelling, and costuming; hypnosis and imagery; meditation and relaxation; diet, exercise, lifestyle changes, and lifehacks; mediation; mediumship; channeling; mediation; herbalism, aromatherapy, and other work with plants; wilderness experiences; magic (or magik or magick); alchemy; astrology; work with Tarot, and archetypes; psychic experiences; spiritual awareness; personal development; work with otherkin and 'other kinds' of all kinds, such as angels and extraterrestrials; and so forth through practically all of New Age and Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) and much of the way through standard, licensed Western Medicine as well.

A healing art or life transforming strategy is probably 'shamanic' if it involves two or more of these key themes: dying, death, resurrection, and new life or dismemberment and restoration; shifting energy-flow patterns to the next, best life experience; changing reality on purpose towards better and best; ecstatic direct connecting to Spirit and Spirits; bridging or traveling different realities; and acting out desired reality changes.

The Tungus Siberian word that the anthropologists' (and now our) s-words ’shaman’ and 'shamanism' and all the rest came from probably meant simply 'religious leader' or 'spiritual healer' or 'priest' although through non-ordinary (non-historical, unofficial, and esoteric) etymology the letters and sounds of the word 'shaman' might link to expanded meanings - 'one or knows' or ‘worker with energy or heat’ and more. There are many favorite theories and in our circle we consider them all, but do not take any of them as the official word.

Shamanic ways give direct ecstatic access to the non-ordinary, inner, imaginary pathways within all energy flow patterns of ordinary reality and everyday lifecycles of birthing, living, consuming, joining, dying, and renewing.

There have been shamans in every culture and land since the mysteries of prehistory. In a living language it is normal and natural for words to hold more than one meaning, shift meanings, and mean different things to different people(s) and in different contexts. The s-words cause a lot of consternation and argument these days but so would any word invented to take their place and choosing another word would mean taking up even more time, space, matter, and energy excessively explaining.

So then, what qualities, attitudes, and practices are essential to our circle's contemporary practice(s) of shamanic ways or shamanics? What makes a particular healing or transformational or spiritual or magical practice, method, or technique part our set of the universal set of cosmic shamanic ways? What does it mean to live shamanic ways amidst everyday life?

No two shamans or or shamanizers - let alone scholars - would agree on the answers to these questions and we say that is OK. Shamanic ways are too diverse and individualized for across the board agreement and no two shamans shamanize the same ways anyway. Even where there might be agreement, ways of expressing the concepts diverge widely and can lead to arguing.

Here are some answers Companions Circle came up with but this list is not meant to be complete or final!

Aside from and beyond all cultural, traditional, and religious overlay and overlapping, we call a way ’shamanic’ if it somehow involves most or all of these characteristics:

Radical Availability - the practice of presence, earthiness, permission, and here-now-ness; relentless acknowledgment of what is including acceptance of death; simple openness to all beings, places, and situations; original singularity and individuality; being a mustard seed sized seed opening at the center of the multiverse

Voluntary Vulnerability - the practice of engaging enthusiastically whatever or whoever is arriving or with a new eager view; interrelating everything to everything else in self and world; 'being and living' true to self no matter what and 'just doing it' anyway; relating through direct experience; spiritual companionship

Mandatory Heresy - the practice of fullest possible use of free will and choice, present moment by present moment; life long self-education and learning of many systems; picking and doing whatever interventions work best, situation by situation; questioning and questing; connecting to authentic source power; living as the axis mundi at sacred crossroads

Circling Around - the practice of sacred spiral dancing; hopeful hospitality and voluntary cooperation; allowing passage and facilitating shifts of Spirit(s), Soul(s), and Life-flow-patterns; sharing a sacred meal and drink; holy communion with all living beings; practiced within the context of community for the benefit of self, family and friend, tribe, clan, and world

Creative Expression - the practice of sacramental co-creation and re-creation; interior and outward change towards the best on purpose; speaking the truth; bridging and re-connecting; bringing new dreams, dances, songs, stories, and shapes to the next new life

Questing and Jesting - the practice of clarifying intention and shifting attention; ongoing adventuring and returning with knowledge, healing power, and gifts for self, community, and world; living inside out on purpose; being paradox and living mystery one's own way; laying down one's life as bridge and opening

Ecstasy and Blessing - revealing, freeing, reveling, healing anywhere and everywhere 24/7/365

All of these characteristics are listed ahead of any detailed description of specific shamanic interventions and rituals and this evolving list parallels our shared practice way. All the better and lesser known complementary and alternative healing and personal development methods and techniques being re-invented, adapted, and popularized these days might turn out to be in practice more or less shamanic. If individual, original, direct experience of Spirit and Spirits is part of a way, the way is shamanic. Shamanic ways blend well with and can expand and deepen the practice of any religion or healing system from the mainstream to the alternative to the esoteric because all religions, philosophies, sciences, technologies and arts developed out of the original, prehistorical shamanic ways - that is, out of the direct experiences of individual shamans.

Yet shamanic ways are often bundled with all kinds of religions and other things from mystic-isms to superstitions, and are often weakened considerably through the confusions and contradictions that result, but not necessarily. Maybe in the long run and the bigger picture shamanic ways and shamanics are strengthened by all the mix-ups and changes. Maybe the mix-ups are part of a healing, re-spiritualizing alchemy for modern western societies.

About Authors: The Universal Peregrine Companions (UPC) are a scattered site contemporary order of shamanic entertainers and alchemists. This essay, originally written by Elizabeth Cunningham Perkins circles around among us and gets edited often.
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Introduction to shamanic ways

Introduction notes for an open ebook about contemporary shamanic ways

Shamanism is too broad a topic to be an -ism yet the word 'shamanism' is now widely in use to describe diverse sets of age-old yet ageless magico-religious, psycho-spiritual methods and techniques practiced worldwide within many cultures, traditions, and religions since the most ancient days of humankind. It is more accurate therefore to speak of shamanic (and/or shamanistic) ways or shamanisms. In Companions In Companions Circle we like to say shamanics or shamanic ways.

What do we say about shamanic ways in general?

Shamanic ways are intentional methods and techniques of relating to Life Spirit and the Spirits of Life - the non-ordinary (invisible, unmeasurable) Spirits and Spirit of all ordinary individuals, places, situations, and things from the smallest to the largest. Shamanic relationships with Spirit are grown and cultivated in the here and now of everyday life for the purpose of self, consciousness, and reality shifting towards the Best.

In our circle we often call the non-ordinary realms of being imaginary but by this we do not suppose they are not real. For us imaginary realities are just as real as ordinary, visible, measurable, physical, matter and energy, spacetime reality. Shamanic ways work through the shamanizer's co-creative and re-creative interconnecting of non-ordinary and ordinary - or as we say imaginary and spacetime - realities.

Shamanic ways are individualistic, original, and ecstatic, even when centered in a spiritual, religious, or cultural tradition and are at best practical and flexible even when mystical and ritualistic.

Shamans fulfill and overlap many roles in society and community, beyond practicing shamanics. Shamanics includes a vast array of methods, and techniques, and no two shamanisms or shamanic ways practices are alike. Many shamanic ways are being re-invented these days by practitioners of complementary and alternative medicines and shamanic shifting is happening all over the planet in many fields of science, technology, and art.

Shamanizing beings, places, events, and situations through shamanic ways is always done on purpose. The overall purpose behind all shamanizing is the shamanizer's direct receiving from Spirit and Spirits of knowledge and transforming power for acting out change towards better and best for self, community, world, and the whole universe.

Shamanic ways effect purposeful change through natural and cosmic principles in action.

Shamanic ways are based on direct individual and small circle experiences in the here and now moment of power.

How are shamanistic ways different from shamanic ways?

Shamanistic ways are like shamanic ways or include some shamanic ways but are be based more upon longstanding traditional teachings and passed-down rituals or the customs, doctrines, or dogma of an established religion than upon direct, immediate, ecstatic individual experience of Spirit and Spirits and ongoing revelation and prophesy through individual shamanizers and family-sized shamanic circles.

About Authors: Circle Companions Rezzee, Teal, Chammy, L.C., Eli, Sharon, Alan, Tom, Andy and Elizabeth have been working and playing with the draft for a book about shamanic ways for a while now. The statements are certainly not meant to be taken for final words!

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Shamanic breathing for spirited fun restoration anyhere

by ECP

This is a Tonglen-like shaman-antic spiritual exercise several of us practice as shaman fools adventuring the world. Our version is called Breathing Healing Laughter or Breathing FUN Restoration (Fun, Freedom and Universal Unity Unfurling New Now).

Here it is:

As you go about your day naturally, breath in on purpose any pain, suffering, fear, sadness, anger, and even evil that you notice, wonder about, or are dismayed or discouraged by in any body or situation anywhere in the world, near or far away. Breath in the atmosphere of whatever grabs your attention without judging anyone or any words or actions or anything about the situation you breath in. Breath it all in as courageously and fearlessly as you can!

For a moment allow Life Spirit and the Spirits of Life to shift and re-dream and redeem it within your lungs and body. Hold your breath briefly while all is shamanic shifted for the better in extraordinary, mysterious ways within your deep, secret spaces.

Then breath out laughter and relief on purpose. Then begin to tell funner new life stories about those beings, places, and events.

About Author: ECP is Elizabeth Cunningham Perkins, a shamanic practitioner and minister who performs as street-jester Shamantic! The Wise. Elizabeth is a co-founder of Shamanic Shift Center and Companions Circle.
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Shamanize your day job

by ECP

Here are several shamanic jesting exercises for shamanizing your 'day job' and restoring that much more spirited fun to the universe!

At your everyday, ordinary reality job, no matter what it is, your uniform or work clothes (of any kind) are the elements of your shamanic costume, the tools of your trade are your consecrated shamanic gear, your workspace is your sacred space and medicine wheel of all quadrants all levels with the sacred winds, rivers and directional coordinates and associations. And your co-workers, from bosses to peers to subordinates, are your circle companions and/or worthy challengers. Some companions of the circle require your spirit-guided assistance and all are in some individual way great masters of disguise - in disguise, consciously or unconsciously and probably a shifting blend throughout most situations. So naturally all of them are your respected teachers, including and maybe even especially the most troubling ones, the trickster-teachers of your ordinary world.

To respect can mean, take another look, and then another, and another. It would take a lifetime to notice everything there is to see and attend to. The same is true, in even more mysterious ways of any clients or customers who visit your circle during your day's shamanic work and play.

Look again! You are in disguise in your own personality! But you are a powerful shamanic dreamer and reality shifter.

Your everyday work tools are now really sacred shamanic helpers and you may not realize all the potential and possibilities within each tool. More and more wonders and mysteries are revealed to you as this sacred wise folly unfolds day by day. This practice can restore a lot of divine fun and healing laughter to your work days. Memos are really coded messages carefully constructed of words of power. The tools, and everything in the workplace have Spirit and are Spirit(s), too, of course. Your greatest shamanic jesting job is harmonizing, resonating, and dancing new shapes, dreams, and stories to life re-creatively, co-creatively with all of the spirits, souls, and elements of your singular yet ordinary everyday shamanic healing and transforming circle.

All of this may be done invisibly and subtly through shamanic shifting of intention and attention. Drawing attention to one's self during this practice is unnecessary, though unintended consequences may vibrate extra attention your way and you then must dance and deal with those energy flows. Simple signs and symbols may be worn or placed in the open here and there to remind you of your ongoing role and enhance your performance. This may (yet does not have to) catalyze wondering and questioning by others, and any response by you is for entertaining and awakening yourself and others - not offending. The trickiest trick in everyday shamanic jesting is avoiding any taking of these spiritual exercises too seriously.

About Author: ECP is Elizabeth Cunningham Perkins, a shamanic practitioner and minister who performs as street-jester Shamantic! The Wise. Elizabeth is a co-founder of Shamanic Shift Center and Companions Circle.
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Another way to play Shaman Stones

Image by Jeff Kubina via Flickr

by ECP

In URBAN SHAMAN, by Serge King a way of playing Shaman Stone Divination is told. This shamanic fun is done with several little colored stones (or pieces of glass) that the child-like, animal-like, even plant- and mineral-like parts of our own selves can use to show us something about the interior conditions of the present moment. URBAN SHAMAN is the author’s interpretation of Huna, a kind of Hawaiian shamanism, and contains many fun shamanic games to play with Spirit(s). Over the years I started playing Shaman Stone Divination a slightly different way.

Here and now are the spacetime coordinates of every circle-center and all entrances into the non-ordinary realms of shamanic voyaging. When shamans divine, heal, reveal, shift reality, or conduct spirits, they are drawing possibilities and potentials out of the generous, unlimited depths and heights of the powerful present moment. Shaman Stone Divination is a very fun technique, easy to play, and highly helpful. Instead of going on a shamanic journey for knowledge and power, you stay in everyday reality, toss your shaman stones, and let things come to you.

I use 11 small stones, 1/2 an inch or so wide: white, gray, black, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, and clear. The white stone stands for pure awareness, the gray stone stands for wisdom, the black stone stands for understanding, the pink stone stands for knowing, and the clear stone stands for purity of intention, attention, and energy-flow. I follow Serge King’s system for the other stones, adding some related meanings: The red stone stands for availability, life, and freedom. The orange stone stands for vulnerability, reconciliation, and focus. The yellow stone stands for choice, mastery, and persistence. The green stone stands for love, companionship, and hospitality. The blue stone stands for confidence, creativity, and obedience (to creative wyrd). The purple stone stands for flexibility, integration, and disintegration. The white stone is also used as a significator some of the time, and so are the black, gray, clear, and pink stones in my method.

One of the ways to play is to use only the white, red, and green stone. Ask a yes or no question and toss the stones. If red is nearest to the white stone the answer is no - if green, then yes. Then there is the way of playing with all the stones: Ask an open ended question, beginning with words like “What do I need most for________?” The stone closest to the significator is the answer. Since there are five significator stones in my version, there are five answers, one from the point of view of each: white, black, gray, clear, and pink.

Another way to play Shaman Stone Divination is to simply toss the stones, and dream over the pattern of thoughts and images that come to mind, and emotions and feelings that come to heart. There are many possible ways to play. If you toss the stones and get an answer that you don’t like, Serge King highly recommends that you reach out and shift the stones into a better position on purpose, and then say with clear conviction and hearty feeling, “Here is the new pattern!” This shamanic game is effective, because the game of life is playing out in every present moment, where infinite possibilities and unlimited power are just a stone’s throw away.

About Author: ECP is Elizabeth Cunningham Perkins, a shamanic practitioner and minister who performs as street-jester Shamantic! The Wise. Elizabeth is a co-founder of Shamanic Shift Center and Companions Circle.

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Where are the secret shamanic schools and teachers?

by Teal Talking Raven

A featured ministry of Shamanic Shift Center: helping folks find the Mystery Schools and Wise Ones in ordinary reality, the ’secret shamanic schools and teachers’ right in their own neighborhoods. These local universities, hidden right in plain sight, send out signals to prospective students but a ’shamanic shift’ in consciousness is needed to pick up and decode these subtle (yet now and then shocking) invitations.

Finding the secret schools and teachers in any neighborhood is just one little facet of urban vision questing and there are many more: questing block to block or city to city as a shamanic journey or waking dream; adventuring events, situations and circumstances in your city as a micro world or universe around a sacred purpose; dreaming anew on sites of power within and near a city; locating the energy lines and living crossroads of urban centers. . .The possibilities are diverse if not quite infinite!

There are plenty of initiatory challenges and ordeals to face out in the open in every city of today’s world yet most ways of urban vision questing are simple and ordinary, especially for anyone who can be open of mind, childlike in heart, and courageous at the gut level during everyday encounters and situations. One can transform the urban grid into a labyrinth of 180 degree turns for spiritual self-education through little, gradual shamanic shifts! One can quest and question the corners and the edges of life by walking down one’s own street and strolling around a few of the nearest blocks with shamanic healing intentions and moments of extraordinary attention.

Recently, I set up a shamanic bus journey: My shamanic intention was for self-healing and retrieving some forgotten knowledge relating to a tendency I lately have been noticing in my thoughts and feelings - sweating more of the small stuff while seeing small stuff as big stuff. To begin the journey I boarded a city bus to run an ordinary errand after I stated my journey intention. The first scene that caught my attention in this waking shamanic dream was a gentleman seated close by, a frequent bus rider I recognized. As usual, he was muttering intensely as if giving answers to some persistent, private, challenging, voice…or to a secret traveling companion.

Instead, of shifting attention away and attempting to tune out this man as 'urban static' I began listening intently with the expectation of hearing exactly what Life Spirit and the Spirits Of Life would tell me if this were a ‘lying down, eyes covered' shamanic journey to drumming. I asked ‘What is being imparted to me as a special gift of wisdom, understanding, and knowledge through this odd man's life and weird utterances?’ I redirected myself to stay still and listen. When my attention wavered I reminded myself that this was how my shamanic bus ride journey was meant to unfold.

The result: Several important messages were indeed imparted to me during this city bus journey and I knew I had received both a healing and a revealing! When I reached my destination I remembered that this was the ‘call-back’ signal for this shamanic journey and as I got off the bus I thanked Spirit and the Spirits, the talkative wise one, and all of the living beings who had been there for me.

A week later: This talkative wise one was silent during the first ride he and I shared following the ’shamanic bus journey’ I just told of. Wonders never cease. This mysterious frequent rider appeared calm, composed, and content to me for the first time.

Now I listen to this man if he is speaking when we share a bus ride and I give careful consideration to the messages he seems to be telling the thin air in front of his distant gaze. Have I found another classroom in the secret shamanic school of these city streets and could this man be one of its secret shamanic teachers?

About Author: Teal-Talking-Raven is a circle companion at large of Shamanic Shift Center and a co-founder of the Shamanic Humorists & Optimists (the S.H.O.) and the Universal Peregrine Companions (U.P.C.). She blogs shamanic shifting at http://teal-talking-raven.blogspot.com/ and http://shamanicshifting.blogspot.com/ and practices shamanic questing and jesting in secret amidst everyday situations.
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Make your own weird shamanic devices!

by ECP

Anything can help heal somebody, I often say. In this New Age some contemporary alternative and complementary healers use newly invented paranormal sorts of technologically sophisticated-looking 'new age plastic' or other shamanic-science devices to diagnose and prayer-treat spiritual and psychic dis-ease within folks and families and even generations. Well, we are always in a new age and plastic originally meant flexible. I hope most of the 'new age plastic shamans' out there stay as flexible and innovative as possible.

Yesterday someone asked me what I thought about a man who uses a camera to photograph people’s akashic records. If the device helps heal in practice, then using it 'works' somehow, is what I say. Anything that helps healing is 'working' in Spirit(s) is what I say. I would have been more impressed if that magic camera allowed wizardly editing or airbrushing however.

Historically there have always been shamans who construct unusual, consciousness, self, and attention shifting devices for reconnecting with the non-ordinary 99.999% of all-that-is for the best of purposes. Also some shamans have invented strange-looking devices as showy tricks to draw folks in….yet teaching, transforming, and healing takes place anyway. Some shamanic devices that used to be considered extraordinary now seem ordinary - like wands - yet truly extraordinary shamanic transforming devices can still be artificed from everyday household items.

Of course, rather than using plastic or metal one can still insist on exotic, so-called ‘natural materials’ of the highest quality and help importers and travel agents continue to make a good living. For me it is important to remember that the spiritual levels include all the other levels and are the most ‘real’ (approaching the non-temporary) levels - so all these shamanic devices can work, or shift reality towards the best, according to the intention and energy-flow behind each.

My humble suggestion: With helping Spirit(s) co-create your own shamanic devices. Interact directly within and around Spirit(s) - sit still, shamanic journey, or trance dance, or whatever you do to relate to Spirit(s) - and receive your own non-ordinary blueprints and ‘how-to’ directions for co-creating original shamanic devices with new yet strangely familiar designs and singular features and amazing functions. You could make shapeshifting-drum-phones, divinational-camera-wands, flying-cauldron-dowsers, dream-interpretation-hats, more, more, more, so go, go, go for it, is what I always say!

Here are some interesting links that may tangentally relate to this topic:

http://forums.scifi.com/index.php?showtopic=1535322&st=80

http://art.afterculture.org/

About Author: ECP is Elizabeth Cunningham Perkins, a shamanic practitioner and minister who performs as street-jester Shamantic! The Wise. Elizabeth is a co-founder of Shamanic Shift Center and Companions Circle.
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Welcome to 'New Shamanics' blogging book project!

Blogging can be another way to shamanic shift reality towards the BEST through new connecting and re-connecting. Opening and keeping connections is a key shamanic role. Our circle calls the practice of contemporary shamanic ways new shamanics. This weblog was going to be an open book project for linking and publishing practitioners of new shamanic ways and shamanic innovations.

But so far no one outside of our circles has expressed any interest in participating in this book. And we ourselves have lagged behind! So the purpose has now shamanic shifted. This is still an open book of shamanic bloggings and articles about new shamanic ways and experiences written by The Rev. Elizabeth of Shamanic Shift Center and by any other circle companions who participate as they can.

This open eBook project is flowing, but glacially slowly at this re-writing of this post, November 2008. Go ahead send a message through this CONTACT form to open a conversation contemporary shamanic ways.

The word shamanism has been widely in use for a while in spite of much arguing and controversy. We began using the the terms 'shamanic ways' and 'shamanics' because shaman plus -ism applies too broadly and shaman plus -istic implies what is being described is 'not quite' or 'no longer' shamanic.

The word 'shamanics' was coined and put into public use many years ago by the late Kenneth Meadows, a great shamanic teacher and writer who dreamed the term would catch on. We add on 'new' because our 'shamanics' are contemporary rather than traditional.

While no book can really show or tell 'how to' shamanize or become a shaman many of our circle have learned a lot about shamanic shifting and situation shamanization from books, CDs, DVDs, websites, and other media by following guidance from Spirit and Spirits in studying shamanic ways and by not taking anything literally. A growing number of books and other presentations on shamanic ways do effectively describe ways of practicing a shamanism, from the basics through advanced techniques.

There are so many decent examples of shamanism books and courses available that yet another seems unnecessary . This ebook may eventually include some basic and advanced 'how tos' but at first we will cover whatever side-topics have been drawing out our attention-spans.

Shamanic ways are taught by Life Spirit and Spirits of Life through an ongoing lifelong process, through shamanic experiences of connecting and relating directly around each individual (yet universally interconnecting) being, place, situation, and event brought to the shamanizer and shamanic circle for healing. Shamanic ways, from oldest to newest, overlap and inter-lap and are always being blended and lumped in with many fields, practices, and topics.

There is a wide range of disagreements about the particulars and even generalities of shamanic ways and shamanisms. In our circle we say that this is all part of new shamanics unfolding and of all of us world peoples unfurling new wings in shamanic flight towards the best.

Our shamanic ways are emerging and shifting day by day as we are stirred along our life shamanic quests by Spirit and Spirits. We opened this weblog to record and share experiences and discoveries in new shamanics in a non-linear way while the journeying spirals onward in many directions. This open book project will continue, slowly but surely.

No matter what...All copyrights here or on any of our blogs remain with the original authors now and forever. If we ever publish a completed eBook and/or bound paper book from this project we will not include anyone's stuff without permission, approval, chances to edit, and listing as an author. This eBook or book project is intended to be a long-term project and we undertake and continue it for fun and self-education.

~ Life Journey On, Everyone, and Dream the Best!
Elizabeth Cunningham Perkins,
and Circle Companions of Shamanic Shift Center - Companions Circle
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