reflection

Shamanism And The Care Of The Deep Self

August 2017 Here in the West, self-care is a multi-billion dollar industry, and yet we are becoming a more distracted, anxious, and uncertain people. Surrounded by courses, guidelines, gurus, fitness centers, accessories, and bookshelves of do-it-yourself volumes, we look to others for what’s best for us as individuals. In the middle of our debt-driven society,…

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“Why Prayer?”

I have often wondered what place prayer has in my life and in my work of bringing shamanism into contemporary western life. After all, I can do a shamanic ‘journey’ to helping spirits to make requests and to have a direct relationship with the Larger Order of Things, so shouldn’t that cover it? Prayer has…

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“The Death of Hummingbird”

I heard fluttering and flopping sounds on the sun porch of my friend’s lake cottage. “It’s the hummingbird,” she said as she gently picked it up from the floor and cradled it in her palm. The bird quieted to lie still against the warmth, minuscule claws gripping her skin’s surface. The tiny female had flown…

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“The Flight Of The Caduceus”

The winged caduceus of the Greek god Hermes came to supercede the staff of the healer Aesculapius (with its single snake around a wingless staff) as a representation of the North American medical profession less than a century ago, appearing initially as a symbol of the American Medical Corps during World War I.[1] Hermes (and…

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“Owl Crashes In”

It is the very beginning of spring, and in the melting snow a few weeks ago my eye caught a bright reflection on the ground: chunks of broken glass along the wall. When I looked up, I saw that the outer window of the classroom above the garage had been shattered. The window was double-paned,…

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“A Place of Continuous Prayer”

There wants to be a place . . . a Place of Continuous Prayer on earth, a place on the ground where always at least two or more are holding the circle holding the sacred Space in a prayerful good way. On a sanctified ground One Humanity One Earth One Home in accord with nature…

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“Infinite Games”

In an early morning dream, I am taking someone into a building to show them my office. When I open it, there is a large pool table and other recreational equipment filling the space. When I push it all out into the hall, I realize all my office stuff is missing. I go to the…

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” The Light from a Burning Bridge”

My attention was immediately grabbed by a song title on a recently purchased CD, “The Light from a Burning Bridge.” I sat stock still, the image rippling through me. I immediately began to wonder: How is it we learn to let go? How do we leave the familiar land we have been in to move…

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“The World and the Alphabet”

I have just finished a book, The Spell of the Sensuous, by David Abram. Abram is one of those writers whose long arms reach across the span of time to create a framework for helping you understand something that has been unsettled in your bones for a long time. I have always had a deep…

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“Darkness and Light”

This is a season of miracles, when nature offers an immense metaphor of the return of light to our lives. Human experience through the millennia melds with nature’s cycles, coming to some as the story of the Magi following a star, to others as the miracle of a lamp that continues to burn, to ancient…

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