Shamanism and Shamanic Healing
Are you a Shaman or a
Shamanic Healer?
A Shaman will
heal using Shamanic techniques however; practising Shamanic Healing
does not necessarily make you a Shaman. Within the essence of the
Shaman is the knowledge that his or her gifts belong to everyone. The
gifts possessed by a Shaman have been instilled, developed and nurtured
for the good of the community. I know we all need to make a living but
so often the power of "give away" medicine is not always fully
understood, taught or practised. If you are a Shaman and someone calls
you at 3am desperate for help. Do you pull out your appointment book
and discuss when you can fit them in, or do you offer, with an open
heart, an invitation to come there and then? Once you have completed
the session, do you put out your hand and ask for the fee, or do you
offer an embrace of reassurance? A Shaman must come from that place of
love & light, and understand his or her purpose is the healing of
the souls with whom this journey is shared. There is not anything
"wrong" with accepting payment in order to make a life for you and your
family, but it's just as powerful to help someone else get back theirs
for nothing more than the price of giving.
A Shaman should always be willing to offer up his own self to heal
another. Being a Shaman is about self-sacrifice.
Shamanism
There is no single dogma or central ruling
authority for Shamanism, and Shamanism is perhaps one of the least
readily definable of beliefs, being extremely diverse as it is. The
spirit world is viewed as part of everyday reality - it surrounds us
and we live with spirits all the time; the Shaman has the ability to
move between the worlds and thus provide a bridge, becoming a
pathfinder for his people. Shamanism is an ecstatic religion, and
through training or calling the Shaman is able to access the spirit
worlds and work with the powers there; through this contact, the Shaman
is able to work acts of healing, divination and magic, revealing human
spirituality through vision, poetry and myth.
Shamans, who are
typically referred to as ‘medicine men’ and ‘witch doctors’, are
keepers of a body of ancient techniques, used to achieve and maintain
well-being and healing for themselves and their community. Shamanic
ways are amazingly similar the all over the world over, even those
cultures which differ remarkably in other respects, and who have been
separated by oceans and continents for thousands and thousands of years.
“Shamanism is a
great mental and emotional adventure, one in which the patient as well
as the shaman-healer are involved. Through his heroic journey and
efforts, the shaman helps his patients transcend their normal, ordinary
definition of reality, including the definition of them as ill. The
shaman shows his patients that they are not emotionally and spiritually
alone in their struggles against illness and death. The shaman shares
his special powers and convinces his patients, on a deep level of
consciousness, that another human is willing to offer up his own self
to help them. The shaman’s self-sacrifice calls forth a commensurate
emotional commitment from his patients, a sense of obligation to
struggle alongside the shaman to save one’s self. Caring and curing go
hand in hand.”
Shamanic
Healing
Shamanic healing is a spiritual and medical
practice based upon the belief that all healing includes a spiritual
dimension. Shamans enter altered states of consciousness to communicate
with other realms of reality. The shaman's journey is to help the
patient or community to rediscover their connection to nature and
spirit. Shamanic medicine is a tradition dating back 25000 years. The
shaman is responsible for the health of the individual as well as the
community. This is a physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual
balance. Shamans are the ritual leader, herbalist, and mediator between
the community and the spirit world. The spiritual healing methods of
shamanic are now receiving increased and significant attention in our
culture, because shamanic healing affects the energy field of a person.
To better understand how a shaman heals it is important to understand
some of the fundamental concepts of what shamanism is. It is a specific
set of methodologies for accessing the spirit or energy field of
anything or anyone. The shaman heals by working unseen/inner/spiritual
reality to crate changes, which in turn crate changes in
see/physical/everyday reality.
The essential
perspective of the shaman is:
1. Everything is
alive. Everything has spirit and awareness.
2. Energy and matter are the same. Everything is vibration. Everything
that exists is an energy system within a greater energy system.
3. Everything that exists is connected to everything else in a web of
energy or life.
4. Unseen/inner/spiritual reality affects visible reality.
Working within this system of perceptions, the shaman strives to create
balance and harmony of the spirit. This can be focused on the
individual or the community. This also can be applied to anything that
exists.
What does distinguish the shaman from other types of healer are his
methods. The journeying, or shamanic state of consciousness, allows the
shaman to send out their consciousness to obtain information from the
spirit world. This information is retrieved and used for further
insight or healing. Example: a shaman might assist in healing a broken
bone by opening up an increased energy flow to that area, or help a
person half from an emotional depression by restoring energy lost
because of a traumatic even.
By using shamanic practices, a wide spectrum of healing is possible.
Traditional shaman healing is done by journeying to the bat of a drum
or rattle to visit a teacher/spirit/totem for guidance or wisdom.
Shamanic healing takes place in many forms, depending on what the
spirits recommend. This can include plant and mineral spirit medicine,
through ancestral memories, soul retrieval, extraction and soul
escorting.
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