They return to where the deer oversoul resides in the spirit worlds and dreams. As they resume residence within the spiritual field of deer, all the other deer spirits therein are curious. The incomers tell them what has occurred, that they allowed the humans to kill them and let their souls out of their skins, and that they went back to the pueblo with the humans where they were celebrated with singing and dancing and music. Today, most of us in the Western world buy our food at the supermarket, yet we can still employ a form of hunting magic.
Whenever I prepare food, I always pause to acknowledge the source of the meat or fish or corn or squash and offer my gratitude. It is my hope that the hunters and fishermen among us engage in some sort of shamanic ritual before they practice their craft. So during those moments, machete in hand, I offer those banana trees my profound respect and gratitude for providing my family and me with sustenance.
And whenever Jill and I plant or harvest other food crops on our land in south Kona, she always consults the Hawaiian moon calendar for fishing and farming, and I always sing. As discussed by Jill in our co-authored book Spirit Medicine: Healing in the Sacred Realms, soul loss happens when parts of the soul complex to be discussed shortly become dissociated, often in response to severe trauma.
In the indigenous perspective, this dissociation is one of the classic causes of illness and premature death, yet curiously, soul loss is not even mentioned in our Western medical textbooks. Not surprisingly, many recipients of soul retrieval describe their responses to this experience as life changing.
Jill has performed more than four thousand shamanic soul retrieval rituals on behalf of her clients over the past twenty years. There she encountered Bob, her high school sweetie. Upon graduation, she and Bob had gone their separate ways, had careers and families and children, and now were both widowed, their children grown and gone. Upon meeting once again at the reunion, they discovered that the spark of love and attraction was still there. Despite the spark, Bob felt he was unable to commit to another long-term relationship because of something that had happened to him as a boy, something that had profoundly wounded him emotionally, leaving him rather remote at that level.
He was in Catholic parochial school at that time, and when he was in third grade, on the first day of the new school year, his class was going to have the ritual of Holy Communion in the front of the chapel before any of the other grades. This was an initiation, and he was really, really looking forward to it. When he got to school on that day, he was thirsty and ran to drink from a water fountain only to feel an iron fist gripping his neck from behind and hauling him upright. It was one of the nuns informing him point blank that he had been told not to eat or drink before coming to school and taking part in communion.
Eight-year-old Bob then had to sit alone in the front of the chapel while his entire class got up to have communion. On that day, he had experienced a profound and enduring soul loss in shamanic terms. In fact, he could not speak of this event for thirty years, nor could he relate it without crying for forty. Bob connected with Jill by phone, and she agreed to do a long-distance soul retrieval for him. She would go to her office, she told him, where she would state her intentions for him. She would then expand her conscious awareness into the shamanic state and connect with her spirits, who would advise her and help her journey to recover his lost soul part.
She would then send this soul part back to him while he was sitting in a park a place in nature in Minneapolis. At the day and time agreed upon, Jill did just that, and when her inner shaman vision came up, she found herself with her team of shamanic spirit helpers in the back of a church. The building was empty, yet Jill intuited that this was the church where the soul loss had transpired.
In vision, she and her team walked down the central aisle, and way up in the front pew she could see a tiny head. He appeared to be made of stone, of marble, frozen. As she quietly observed him in her shamanic vision, an intuitive download appeared in her mind, and she asked the powers at large if there was any other shamanic spirit who would like to come forward to be of service to Bob at this time.
Immediately, a door opened in the back of the church and a luminous form entered and floated down the side aisle.
On turning the corner, the spirit took the shape of a tall bearded man with long hair who was wrapped in robes made of light. He was smiling with radiant benevolence, and in that moment Jill felt that it could well be the spirit of Jesus of Nazareth himself. She explained to the shamanic spirit why she was there and told him the story of Bob, the frozen stone boy sitting before them.
The revered shamanic healer turned his attention upon the boy for long, thoughtful moments, and then leaning over, he breathed into his face. With successive breaths, again and again, the spirit blew life force back into the small figure who slowly thawed, becoming a living boy once again. Little Bob sat blinking up at Jill and the tall shamanic spirit beside her, and as Jill prepared to gather him into her arms, she became aware that the spirit had withdrawn into the front of the church.
When she turned, she saw the shamanic spirit come back, bearing the tray with the wafers and the wine, whereupon he served that little boy communion. When the ceremony was complete, the shamanic spirit, with a smile, slowly dissolved into a misty cloud that simply disappeared, leaving an impression within Jill that she would never forget. They married and lived happily ever after until his passing more than a dozen years later. In discussing shamanic healing, it is worth noting that while every shaman is a medicine person, not all medicine people are shamans.
Like shamans, medicine people often function as ceremonialists and ritual leaders, working on behalf of large numbers of people, even entire communities at once. Yet most of the medicine people that I have encountered in both the indigenous and Western worlds are not involved in shamanism, but rather fulfill social roles more like those of priests or priestesses.
Like shamans, medicine people may hold considerable understanding of physical medicine and perform tasks such as mending broken bones, healing wounds, preventing infections, facilitating childbirth, and treating illnesses with their knowledge of herbs and medicinal plants and through other shamanic healing modalities, including energy work. However, non-shamanistic medicine people tend to do their main work in the objective, physical reality of things seen.
All our specialists in modern Western medicine—our physicians and surgeons, our naturopaths and homeopaths, our energy workers and acupuncturists, our midwives and many practitioners in our psychotherapeutic communities who are in service through the medium of talk therapy—are medicine people and may or may not have knowledge of shamansim. By contrast, shamans do their main work in the spirit worlds in states of deep trance. Many do not engage in lengthy ceremonies, although some do.
In such cases, they do what is necessary to create a sacred space and expand their conscious awareness. They then work in tandem with their helping spirits in the transpersonal levels of reality to accomplish what needs to be done. Shamans are medicine people who know that all illnesses have a spiritual aspect, and by working with their helping shamanic spirits to diminish the spiritual aspect of an illness, they may diminish, even eliminate, its expression into our physical world of form—this is one of the core essences of shamanism.
Shamans use their own bodies and minds to create bridges between the personal world of form and the transpersonal worlds of the spirits. And when that bridge is formed and the spirits are engaged, it allows the healing and harmonizing powers to flow across that bridge and into our world to manifest something—shamanic healing, for example. I should also note that some healing practitioners function as shamans, as energy workers, and as ceremonial leaders as the need exists. And most indigenous shamans also know a great deal about physical medicine.
It may be that tens of millions of people—maybe more—have these shamanic abilities. Evidence from my own experiential workshops has led me and others to suspect that there may be a biological-energetic program on our DNA—on our genetic hard drive, so to speak—and when this program is double-clicked with the right mouse, higher functions coded into the personal mind-body matrix may be awakened. In response, our consciousness may expand dramatically, allowing us to have that direct, mystical connection with the sacred realms that defines shamanism.
I believe now that this is what happened for me on the clay pan in Ethiopia so many years ago. The inner fieldwork of the Eastern shaman mystics suggests that this biological-energetic program is associated with the ductless glands, the brain, and the heart—organs that, in turn, are in relationship with those dense concentrations of energy known in the East as chakras and are located in the core of our personal etheric matrix.
When these physical and energetic mission-control centers are activated, the relationship between them can dramatically affect the body and the brain , which may undergo striking changes as a result of the shamanism. It is also known that the people in indigenous societies have developed techniques for altering consciousness in specific ways. If there are psychotropic plants growing nearby, the ritual use of hallucinogens derived from these plant teachers is sometimes utilized to expand consciousness and access the inner, hidden realms.
This type of visioning is always carried out in ceremonial circumstances steeped in shamanic cultural significance. The visionary shamanic explorers Terence McKenna, Ralph Metzner, and Michael Harner are among many who have revealed that the same use of hallucinogens held true for the mystery schools in the ancient world. The growing literature on hallucinogens reveals striking cross-cultural similarities in the reported effects of these natural substances on human consciousness. These effects include the capacity to channel the energy of the universe , to discover the most profound secrets of nature, and to acquire wisdom that may be used for magical, medical, and religious purposes.
But taking a hallucinogen and seeing visions does not necessarily make someone a shaman. It is also generally known that the intensely physical stimulus of monotonous drumming and rattling, combined with culturally meaningful ritual and ceremony, prayer and chant, singing and dancing, can be equally effective in shifting consciousness into visionary modes of shamanic perception. Not surprisingly, the use of drums and rattles by practitioners of shamanism around the world is almost universal.
Shifting consciousness by means of the drum and rattle is the time-tested method that Jill and I use in our training workshops. Until relatively recently, most Westerners have tended to regard the whole issue of altered-state experiences as mysterious, paranormal, or even pathological, and so some, in ignorance, still fear and reject the idea of expanded awareness and connection with helping shamanic spirits and guides.
By contrast, in a traditional indigenous society, each child grows up with elder ceremonial leaders and shamans who are able to access expanded states of consciousness intentionally for the benefit of themselves, for others, and for the entire community. They know that virtually everyone can learn how to access sacred states of consciousness to some extent. They also know that some of us are real naturals at it. The shamanic state of consciousness can now be partially understood in scientific terms.
It is known, for example, that the nature and quality of the visionary experience can be determined to some extent by our focused intentionality, by our belief systems, and by the set and setting in which we find ourselves. These may serve as patterning forces that can reshape our visionary experience once our initial state of consciousness has been destabilized by the drum, the rattle, or the hallucinogen, if one was used in whatever form of shamanism is being practiced..
With more than thirty years of apprenticeship in this shamanic tradition, I have learned that the achieving of this expanded state of consciousness is a learned skill that improves with practice—a skill that can give seekers access to many varieties of experience, including connection with the shamanic-spiritual-astral world, if that is their intention. Experience with an indigenous spiritual tradition and cultural overlay is often useful and interesting, but it is not required although some feel it is. I also know with absolute certainty that the program, once activated, allows us to ascend toward the luminous horizon of our personal and collective destiny in a completely new way.
Yoga Nidra uses intention as a mental device to create energetic alignment between what you think, say and do by tapping into the powerful capabilities of your subconscious. Stress is the biggest epidemic we face today. Eighty-five percent of all disease is stress-related. Heart attacks, diabetes, insomnia, depression, and anxiety are only surface symptoms — effects.
The cause is hidden in the unconscious, difficult to recognize and even harder to release. Ordinary relaxation techniques aim to release symptoms that appear on the surface as effects. Treat the effects and the cause continues to take new forms. Treat the cause, and all symptoms erode. In Yoga Nidra you dismantle your pre-programmed past and actualize intentions.
During Yoga Nidra your brain moves into the Alpha state where you release large amounts of trapped energy held hostage in the form of physical, mental and emotional blockages. Does the soul want to re-enter the body? Or does it need help moving on which would lead to the death of the patient? There is a lot to say about this topic and it beyond the scope of this article. Today there has been a resurgence in the interest of the practice of shamanism.
We now have many hundreds of wonderful shamanic practitioners reintroducing the practice of soul retrievals into our culture.
It is interesting to note that as soul loss was so understood in shamanic cultures people who suffered traumas were given a soul retrieval within three days after a trauma occurred. Today as we have not been practicing soul retrieval, modern day practitioners are going back ten, twenty, thirty, or forty years or even more looking for lost soul parts. Also in a shamanic culture the individuals knew what was out of balance in their lives that might have caused an illness or issue to occur.
In our culture we are unaware of what is out of spiritual harmony that is creating illness. And because often our soul loss happened so young we are unaware of the unconscious patterns we are living out due to our first soul loss. We are always trying to retrieve our soul. And how we do this is by repeating the same trauma over and over again.
The names might change of the people involved in our life story, but the story is often the same. The effects of having a soul retrieval vary from person to person. Some people feel that they are more grounded in their body and feel more solid. Some people feel lighter and a joyful way of being returns to them. For some memories of the past traumas might be triggered bringing up a variety of feelings that must be worked through.
And for some people the effects are too subtle to notice a change until further work to integrate the soul is done. As people feel more present in their bodies and in the world, they become more conscious of behavior that might be out of balance and disharmonious. When we are numb we might be aware that things in the world are not right but we can easily distract ourselves from feeling a need to change.
I believe that once a person has his or her soul brought back the client now has to do some work. If the person has done a lot of personal work the soul retrieval might be the end of the work.
With successive breaths, again and again, the spirit blew life force back into the small figure who slowly thawed, becoming a living boy once again. She has taught yoga classes and workshops for all ages throughout the midwest since Breathwork is a very spiritual thing for me. Yinzadi marked it as to-read Aug 13, The children are crying. Over the years since she has been a guest facilitator at VR events. Steve's website is www.
If not the soul retrieval would be the beginning of the work. Now it is up to the client to look at how to create a healthy life style and attract healthy relationships that will support wholeness and a life filled with healing. How do we want to use the energy that was returned from the soul retrieval and our returned vitality to create a positive present and future for ourselves? And how do we bring passion and meaning back into our lives again so that we thrive instead of just survive?
I write about spiritual practices we can bring into our lives to create a positive present and future in my books Welcome Home: How to Transform Personal and Environmental Toxins. This is vital work for the times we live in.
The earth wants her children home and she wants them home now. It is time to come back home again and take our rightful place on the earth. It is our birthright to fully express our souls and create the world we want to live in. And it is our birthright to shine as brightly as the stars above us. It is time to share our light again in the world. Medicine for the Earth: One of the most important messages I was to receive over my twenty years of journeying on this was it is who we become that changes the world and our environment not what we do.
Harmony within will create harmony without. So the true work is learning how to change our thoughts, attitudes and belief systems. Stories that come from the Bible, from the Kabbalah, and from various Taoist, Hindu, yogic, alchemical, Egyptian, and shamanic works show that miracles were once an everyday occurrence. I researched different spiritual traditions to give me clues to how miracles were performed by ancient cultures, mystics, and saints. As I read about miracles a formula of elements that seem to be part of all miracles started to form.
The formula that came to me is a hologram. The elements cannot be taken separately but combined with each other create transmutation. The definition of transmutation I am using is the ability to change the nature of a substance. The work of effecting environmental change is how to change toxic substances into neutral substances. Although we cannot use these elements as separate entities I would like to explain them separately. For all miracles to happen we must hold a strong intention of what we want to see happen.
We know that a key to the success of spiritual practice is the ability to concentrate. We must also be able to maintain a focus on our short term and long term goals. All miracles involve union with a divine force. In the bible when Jesus says to heal in my name the true Aramaic translation of this is to know God and heal as God does. This means having union with the creative force of life is essential for true healing to take place. Sai Baba, a guru in India, is known for his miraculous acts and healing abilities. These are just a couple of examples of what different mystics say about union.
Love is an essential ingredient in all miracles as it is only love that heals. Where there is an open heart there is the energy to bring through miraculous and magical energy. Love is the great transformer. I have already mentioned harmony as it is known in the practice of alchemy that harmony within will create harmony without. Disharmony creates disease; harmony creates beauty and health. Imagination is another key in performing the miracle of transmutation in that we must be able to envision an environment that is pure and clean and which supports all of life.
Caroline Casey, an American astrologer, says: To add to this formula there are more principles to remember. As we change our perception we change our reality. To change our perception to create a reality of a clean environment we must be able to see the beauty in all things. To see the beauty in all things, we must live in a state of appreciation and gratefulness. There are two phases of the work.