Traveling Shamans Camp 2019

Traveling Shamans Camp 2019 July 26-28 is a free admission 3-day festival/camp in Hotchkiss, Colorado for shamans, shamanic artists, practitioners, students, friends, and the shaman curious. This gathering of shamans features ceremonies, sweat lodges, a medicine wheel workshop,  journeying lodge, drum circles, shamanic trance dance, dance of universal peace and more. Enjoy the magic of earth-based ceremony and dancing and drumming with all our relatives. The shamans are gathering beside the North Fork of the Gunnison River. Bring your tipi, tent, or RV and join the camp. Plenty of camping sites at the Fairgrounds, Tipi Haven, and Mountain View Meadows in Hotchkiss, Colorado. The event is sponsored by the Shamanic Arts Center in Hotchkiss and Epic Grand Valley Magazine from the Grand Valley of Colorado. For more details see the official website at https://ShamansCamp.com.

Vernal Equinox 2019

At the Vernal Equinox, we begin a new cycle on the Medicine Wheel of Life, entering the East -- home of the rising sun, morning, birth, beginnings, and the spring season. Spring arrives when the earth is tilted so that the sun is directly over the equator. In the Northern Hemisphere, the first day of spring is on or about March 21. This is the day of the Vernal Equinox. Vernal means spring; Equinox means equal night. Night and day are the same length, each lasting exactly twelve hours on this day. It is at this time when light and darkness are in balance. The forces of feminine and masculine energy, yin and yang, are also in balance at this time, providing a unique opportunity to tune in and find our inner balance, harmony, and alignment. The 2019 Vernal Equinox will occur on Wednesday, March 20, 2019, at 5:58 P.M. EDT.

Throughout human history, people in the northern parts of the world have celebrated the Rites of Spring, marking the end of earth's winter sleep and the start of spring when everything is reborn. Ancient cultures connected spring with the return of life to the earth. The return of spring in ancient times was of more consequence than it is to us today because winter food and fuel storages ended, inclement weather waned, and crops could be planted. Pagan customs such as lighting fires at sunrise for renewed life and protection of the crops still survive in South America as well as in Europe.

 

In China, the Vernal Equinox has always been celebrated as the time of new beginnings, of action, of planting seeds for future grains, and of tending gardens. Spring is a time of the earth's renewal, a rousing of nature after the cold sleep of winter. The life energy, symbolized by thunder, erupts from the depths in early spring to awaken the dormant seeds to new life. The yearly cycle begins in the spring when thunder quickens the renewal of life. Winter still has its grip on the land, but the days are lengthening and the light is growing stronger by the day. Spring is almost here... I hope we can be inspired by nature's reawakening to renew our own lives.

A Bridge to the Spirit World

In oral/aural cultures, sound is regarded as one of the most effective ways of establishing connections with the spirit realm since it travels through space, permeates visual and physical barriers, and conveys information from the unseen world that underlies our physical reality. Tuvan shamans of Siberia believe that the spirits of nature create their own sound world, and it is possible for humans to communicate with them through the sound of the drum. A ritual performance often begins with heating the drumhead over a fire to bring it up to the desired pitch. Shamans may strike certain parts of the drum to summon particular benevolent helping spirits who give them knowledge and assistance. It is the subtle variations in timbre and ever-changing overtones of the drum that allow the shaman to communicate with the spiritual realm. The shaman uses the drum to create a bridge to the spirit world while simultaneously opening the awareness of all the participants to that bridge.

All elements of drum music such as timbre, rhythm, volume and tempo play an important role in shamanic ritual. By using different parts of the drumstick to play on different parts of the drum, different timbres can be produced for transmitting different meanings. Different rhythms transmit different meanings and enable the shaman to contact different beings in different realms of the cosmos. Volume and tempo arouse feelings in the listener and communicate symbolic meanings directly as aural sense experience.

Winter Solstice 2018

In the Northern Hemisphere, the Winter Solstice is the shortest day of the year and the first day of winter. This occurs December 20, 21, or 22, varying from year to year, dependent upon the elliptical path of the Earth around our Sun. Ancient peoples in our northern climes regarded Winter Solstice as the pivotal time of year. It is a time of transition in the annual cycle when the old year ends and our journey into the New Year begins. It is a sacred time to conduct ceremonies focused on the return of light and warmth. Rituals designed to divert nature from the path toward eternal winter and oblivion to one directed toward light and prosperity. Most cultures planned festivals and celebrations at or around the Winter Solstice to ensure that the Sun would return.

Winter Solstice is an affirmation of the continuation of life; that the cyclical order of time and the cosmos will continue intact. Fire and light have always played a central role in the Winter Solstice ceremonies. In much of northern Europe people ignited huge bonfires. Lighted candles were often placed on the branches of evergreen trees, which symbolized survival and eternal life. These symbols of warmth and lasting life were lit to hasten the "old" Sun's waning and the "new" Sun's rebirth. On the Winter Solstice we are all praying, on some level, for the darkness to end. "Just return the light!" the ceremonies seem to say. As we celebrate the return of the light, we affirm the continuation of life at the very moment of dissolution. To be sure, dark days lie ahead. But contained within each is the promise of brighter tomorrows.

The Power of the Conch Shell Trumpet

The conch, also known as a "seashell horn" or "shell trumpet," is a musical instrument that is made from a seashell (conch). Its gently expanding interior spiral forms an ideally proportioned windway for producing a warm, full, and far-carrying tone. Probably the first musical instrument that was ever invented, the conch is often associated with the controlling of natural elements related to its habitat, such as rain, water, and wind. The conch is also used to represent the sacred breath of life. The interior spirals of conch shells often exhibit the mathematical proportions of the golden ratio, also known as the golden mean. This placed them in both the celestial and terrestrial world through the Classical concept of the music of the spheres. The golden ratio was often expressed in the design of musical instruments.

The conch achieved exalted status as a sacred instrument in ritual and religion around the world, including Hinduism, Buddhism, and the spiritual practices of Mesoamerica. The conch is sounded at the beginning of important rituals to attract attention, signaling the start of a ceremony, notifying the community, and drawing the Creator's participation. The sound is believed to have the ability to drown out any negative words or noises that might disturb or disrupt the harmonious atmosphere. The sound of conch is understood as the source of all existence -- a cosmic womb, for when the conch is blown, it is said to emulate the primordial sound from which all else emanates. Listen to the conch on my song "Turtle Shaker."

The Spiritual Significance of the Number 4

The number 4 has long been considered a sacred number in shamanism and Native American spirituality. All events and actions are based on this number, because everything was created in fours. The Great Mystery reveals itself as the powers of the four directions and these four powers provide the organizing principle for everything that exists in the world. There are four winds, four seasons, four elements, four phases of the moon, four stages to humanity’s spiritual evolution, and so on.

For instance, the Native American sweat lodge ceremony (Inipi) is usually carried out in four rounds. The whole process is modeled after the Medicine Wheel, which is a universal symbol that can be found in many indigenous cultures around the world. The Medicine Wheel represents the natural cycles of life and the basic way in which the natural world moves and evolves. The Medicine Wheel represents the archetypal journey each of us takes in life. This journey has four stages or rounds, each associated with a cardinal direction. Four rounds signify completion, wholeness or fullness.

10 Reasons Why You Should be Making Prayer Ties

The sacrament tobacco is used cross-culturally as a unifying thread of communication between humans and the spiritual powers. Offering tobacco smoke or a pinch of dry tobacco carries our prayers to the "Loom of Creation," thereby reweaving the pattern of existence in accordance with those prayers. Prayer ties are spiritual offerings created by wrapping tobacco into a cloth while praying and focusing on your intention -- what you desire or expect to accomplish. They should be thought of as a physical manifestation of your prayer.

A prayer tie is made with a small (about 2") square of 100% cotton cloth and it is usually tied with 100% cotton string. The cotton cloth is usually red, but can be of any color, depending on the circumstances, which tradition you are following, or what your intuition tells you. To make a prayer tie, begin by smudging yourself and your materials. After smudging, take a pinch of tobacco and focus on your intention while holding it. Next, place the pinch of tobacco at the center of the cloth. Gently bundle the tobacco into the cloth, and then loop the string around the bundle and pull tightly. If you are making more than one prayer tie, space them evenly on the string. I usually make a tobacco tie for each of the six directions -- East, South, West, North, Above and Below.

Making a small sacred bundle to hold the tobacco makes it easier to carry on your person, to make an offering of to another person, and to hold onto for longer periods of time. As with any sacred object, treat your prayer ties with the honor and respect they deserve. Upon completion, prayer tie offerings might be left hanging in a tree, buried in the ground, left on a mountain top, added to your sacred space, or offered to grandfather fire. When prayer ties are ritually burned, they open a path of communication between the human world and the spirit world. Here are 10 good reasons for making prayer ties:

1. For personal protection. Everyone should make personal prayer ties and then carry them at all times for protection from negativity. I carry my prayer ties in a small leather pouch that I wear around my neck.

2. To protect your home from negative or unwanted energies. You should hang a string of prayer ties over each door to your home. I also hang a strand of ties over the main east-facing window of my home.

3. As a way to honor and safeguard sacred objects. I always store a string of prayer ties in with items like my sacred pipe and shamanic drum.

4. When someone is ill. Making prayer ties is a good way to pray for friends and loved ones who are sick or injured. 

5. To prepare for ceremony. The making of prayer ties is a wonderful way to prepare for ceremonies such as sweat lodge, vision quest, or whenever there is a sacred fire.

6. When someone has died. Creating prayer ties is a good way to pray for the safe passage of newly deceased souls. Unfortunately, many of the psychopomp myths and rituals that once helped prepare people for this final rite of passage have become lost or forgotten. When people are unprepared to face death, they often need additional assistance crossing over into the spirit world.

7. As a sign of friendship. Gifting someone with a prayer tie is a great way to show how much you value their friendship.

8. When you are seeking advice or information from someone. Giving a tobacco tie to someone who has helped you is a good way to show your appreciation for what they have done for you.

9. As an offering of gratitude to Mother Earth. Foster a reciprocal relationship of meaning to the Earth. Take time to honor and respect the reciprocal cycle of give and take, for Mother Earth provides everything we need to live and flourish.

10. Anytime you feel called to pray to the Creator. Regular prayer is a cornerstone of spiritual practice. Over time, frequent prayers help to dissolve our mind and through them we gain access to Divine consciousness. Praying brings us Divine help, reduces our ego, grants us forgiveness of mistakes, and much more.

Sending Out a Sound

Sound is regarded as one of the most effective ways of establishing connections with the spirit realm, since it travels through space, permeates visual and physical barriers, and conveys information from the unseen world. Sound, therefore, is a means of "relationship" as well as a "transformation" of energy.

Sound does not just travel out into oblivion. There is a call and then a response. When Iroquoian people of present-day central and upstate New York discuss "sending out a sound," they mention blowing on a conch shell and using the turtle rattle to attract attention, signaling the start of a ceremony, notifying the community, and drawing the Creator's participation. The conch is sounded at the beginning of important rituals because the sound is believed to have the ability to drown out any negative words or noises that might disturb or disrupt the harmonious atmosphere. The sound of the conch is understood as the source of all existence -- a cosmic womb, for when the conch is blown, it is said to emulate the primordial sound from which all else emanates.

According to the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), when the turtle rattle is shaken, "the earth stops to listen." The turtle rattle is a symbol of the world on the turtle's back, Turtle Island. The Creator is said to have loved snapping turtle best. When Mother Earth hears the sound of the turtle rattle, all of creation awakens and moves to its shaking beat. The crack of a turtle rattle, which shakes the earth, draws the attention of the spirits at the beginning of a ceremony or meeting. "To Shake the Earth" is a metaphor often used in Iroquoian communities to describe the purpose of the turtle rattle.

A Shamanic Perspective on Schizophrenia

What does a father do when hope is gone that his only son can ever lead anything close to a "normal" life? That's the question that haunted Dick Russell in the fall of 2011, when his son, Franklin, was thirty-two. At the age of seventeen, Franklin had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. For years he spent time in and out of various hospitals, and even went through periods of adamantly denying that Dick was actually his father. Desperately seeking an alternative to the medical model's medication regimen, Dick introduces Franklin to West African Dagara shaman and writer Malidoma Patrice Somé, Phd. Somé helps Franklin in a way Western medicine couldn't, bringing to light the psychic capabilities behind the seemingly delusional thought patterns, as well as his artistic talents.

The Dagara people of West Africa have an entirely different view of what is actually happening to someone who has been diagnosed as "mentally ill." In the shamanic view, mental illness signals "the birth of a healer," explains Somé. Thus, mental disorders are spiritual emergencies, spiritual crises, and need to be regarded as such to aid the healer in being born. What those in the West view as mental illness, the Dagara people regard as "good news from the other world." The person going through the crisis has been chosen as a medium for a message to the community that needs to be communicated from the spirit realm.

A different perspective opens up very different possibilities. The Dagara people use ritual to relieve the suffering at the core of "mental illness." According to Somé, ritual can open the way for the individual's healing relationship with helping spirits that supports a cure or definitive movement out of the "mentally ill" state of being and back into the world as an individual better equipped than most to give their gifts to the world. To learn more, look inside Dick Russell's memoir, "My Mysterious Son: A Life-Changing Passage Between Schizophrenia and Shamanism."

Creating Effective Ritual and Ceremony

Opening Sacred Space

Ritual and ceremony are essential for a healthy and balanced personal and communal life. Many persistent personal and social problems can be linked to the lack of ritual and ceremony. Rituals and ceremonies reduce tension, anxiety and stress, produce deeper self-awareness, and connect us to our community. They reconnect us with our deepest core values and our highest vision of who we are and why we are here.

Ritual and ceremony are two distinct practices used to engage the powers of the unseen world to effect specific changes in the visible world. Ceremony is a formal act or set of acts designed to celebrate, honor or acknowledge what is. Ceremony is used to strengthen or restore the status quo, grounding people in the natural order of things and/or deepening communal relationships. Ritual is a formal act or set of acts designed to cause a change in what is -- to change or transform the status quo.

Ritual and ceremony are a universal way to address the spirit world and provide some kind of fundamental change in an individual's consciousness or in the ambience of a gathering. They may involve prayers, chanting, drumming, dancing, anointing, as well as rites of passage. Both are designed to engage the spirit world in helping us to do what we are unable to do for ourselves. Without the connection to the powers of the spirit world, neither is an effective tool for initiating change. By creating effective ritual and ceremony, we can skillfully engage Spirit in the processes we are involved in like healing, therapy or actualizing our goals.

Potent rituals and ceremonies have similar foundational elements. Key elements of this foundation include:

1. Intention is the first element of effective ritual and ceremony. Without a clear intention or desired outcome, the energy created in the ritual or ceremony is poorly structured with little or no direction. This intention may be a new vocation, better health or world peace;
2. The creation of sacred space. Sacred space is that territory that we enter for spiritual and inner work. Preparing sacred space shifts our awareness from ordinary waking consciousness to a more centered, meditative state and structures a boundary that separates the sacred from the ordinary and profane.  There are no rules or restrictions governing this process, although tradition suggests that you begin by smudging. Smudging is the burning of herbs for cleansing, purification, and protection of sacred space. Consider setting up a centerpiece or altar that is appropriate for your reason for coming together. Although an altar is not essential, it provides us with a focus to pray, meditate and listen. An altar is any structure upon which we place offerings and sacred objects that have spiritual or cosmological significance. It represents the center and axis of your sacred space;
3. Invocations welcome and invite the archetypal spiritual energies of the seven directions -- East, South, West, North, Up, Down, and Within. Calling the spirits is an ancient shamanic rite that is practiced cross-culturally to access and honor the powers of creation. Inviting their presence, participation and assistance not only aligns us with their power, but also is a way of giving energy that helps revitalize these primal forces. The specific words of your invocation to the spirits do not matter. What matters is that your prayer comes from the heart. You must show the spirit world you have passion and heart. At this point, the process becomes either a ritual or ceremony depending on the intention;
4. Altered states of consciousness are induced through intense rhythmic stimulation such as drumming, chanting and dancing. An altered state of consciousness is any state which is significantly different from normal waking consciousness. Altered or trance states produce deeper self-awareness and allow us to view life and life's problems from a detached, spiritual perspective not easily achieved in a state of ordinary consciousness. This process allows us to connect with the power of the universe, to externalize our own knowledge, and to internalize our answers;
5. The closure of sacred space. It is important to conclude the process by closing sacred space. When you close sacred space, you again address the archetypal elements and spirit helpers, thanking them for their help, healing and wisdom during this sacred time. After expressing your gratitude to the spirits, send them off, releasing their energies to the seven directions. The event may be followed by a festive potluck meal in which the people rejoice that the spirits have brought the blessing of greater power to the community. To learn more, look inside my Shamanic Drumming Circles Guide.

"Drumming for the Orisa"

Colin Townsend is a cultural anthropologist and drummer who published a study on the ways identity is constructed among a group of drummers at Oyotunji Village, South Carolina. Oyotunji Village was founded by Oba Oseijeman I, born Walter King of Detroit, in 1970 with the purpose of providing African-Americans in the United States with a geographical, political, and cultural space to experience African culture. Modeled after Yoruba culture of southwest Nigeria, members of the community practice a religion known as orisa-voodoo.

Throughout the year, festivals are held dedicated to various orisa, "deities," in which the drummers play a crucial role in the religious experience of the orisa-voodoo adherents. An essential part of Yoruba culture, drumming acts as a musical bridge between humans and orisa, enabling orisa-voodoo practitioners to petition the orisa for guidance and intervention in their daily lives. Drumming traditions at Oyotunji Village provide drummers with a repository of cultural knowledge and practices from which to draw, while at the same time offering them a creative outlet capable of reshaping and redefining those very same traditions.

Townsend examines various processes of identity formation among the drummers as part of their musical apprenticeship, during which they learn not only how to play the instrument but also about Yoruba culture in general. He employs an analytical framework involving a "subject-centered musical ethnography" within a three-dimensional space of musical experience including time, location, and metaphor. Read "Drumming for the Orisa: (Re)inventing Yoruba Identity in Oyotunji Village."

To learn more about African drumming, I highly recommend Sule Greg Wilson's informative book, The Drummer's Path: Moving the Spirit with Ritual and Traditional Drumming. Wilson provides a useful introduction to the many different styles of traditional African drumming. This is an intriguing work that shows the relationship between drumming, spirit and health. His writing offers an interesting insight into the physical, metaphysical and spiritual aspects of drumming.

Free eBook - The Mountain Chant

The Mountain Chant: A Navajo Ceremony
by Washington Matthews

Among the Navajo Indians of Arizona, the nine-day Mountain Chant marks a transition in the seasons. It takes place in late winter, at the end of the thunderstorms but before the spring winds arrive. The chant is also considered a healing ceremony, performed not only for individuals who are sick but to restore order and balance in human relationships. Matthews, an army major and one of the earliest Anglo recorders of Navajo culture, describes not only procedures and objects used, but emphasizes the ceremony's vision of humankind's place in a broader scheme. Download The Mountain Chant.epub.

Drumming in Boynton Canyon

I love the sound of the drum echoing in the canyons. The Boynton Canyon cliff dwelling, near Sedona, Arizona, is one of the most memorable places I have ever drummed. After all, my journey into shamanic drumming began in Sedona in 1989. Known for its deep red color, Sedona has some of the most spectacular sandstone canyons and buttes found anywhere in the world. Boynton Canyon is one of the most scenic of the box canyons that make Arizona Red Rock Country so famous. The Boynton Canyon cliff dwelling is located 2 miles west of Sedona in the Secret Mountain Wilderness which is part of Coconino National Forest. You'll find the Boynton Canyon trailhead just outside the entrance to the Enchantment Resort. 

From its start, the Boynton Canyon Trail hugs towering red rock cliffs and offers a view of "Kachina Woman," a red-rock spire rising high in the desert sky. Here among the towering buttes, crimson cliffs, and natural desert gardens, the Verde Hohokam (aka Southern Sinagua) built cliff dwellings between A.D. 1125 and 1300. Look for ancient ruins tucked into shallow cliff-side caves. The largest ruin, Boynton Canyon cliff dwelling, is located about ½ mile north inside a cave-like alcove about half way up the right (East) face of the canyon. Keep looking to your right for a trail up to the ruins in the side of the cliff with a large overhang.

The Boynton Canyon cliff dwelling has a few rooms, constructed around a small spring that emanates inside the overhang that shelters the dwelling. It is not unusual to hear chanting, drumming, or the haunting sounds of a flute emanating from the ruins. If ceremonies are in progress, do not interrupt. Boynton Canyon is still sacred to the Yavapai Native Americans who consider Boynton as their place of origin.  

Drumming and chanting in this acoustic grotto and canyon produce an ethereal soundscape.  The combination of instrument and architecture can be used to create an elaborate sonic environment. This is a mystical place where the human voice is amplified and where musical sounds linger in the air as abiding echoes. Tones magnified and echoed by stone surfaces seemed to come from everywhere, yet nowhere. The harmonics create a great opening or gateway to the spirit world. Just as I use musical sound to create sacred space in my home each day, my musical improvisations in places like Boynton Canyon are rooted in an attempt to reach the divine -- to harmonize heaven and earth.

Erecting a Prayer Tree for World Peace

by Sarangerel Odigon

The barisaa, prayer tree, is an important site of worship in Siberian/Mongolian shamanism. This ritual brings peace and reduces violence in whatever place it is performed in. It needs to be done in as many places as possible, especially in places that were sites of deaths from war or violence. It also calls the nature spirits to bring inspiration, calm peoples' hearts, and create thoughts of peace and love.

Humans possess three souls, the suld, suns, and ami. The suld embodies the unique personality of the present life and becomes a nature spirit after death. The suld of a person who has died can be beneficial or harmful depending on the circumstances of death. The suld souls of those who have been killed or died very young are often hostile and cause disease, mental confusion, despair, and thoughts of violence. The reason for this is because of a desire for vengeance on those who are able to have long and successful lives with prosperity, happiness, and children. This is due to ignorance on their part of the fact that they can still provide a constructive contribution to human society even as spirits.

The 20th century was one of the bloodiest and most violent periods in human history. Even now as wars burn throughout the world and society becomes more chaotic a certain despair and frustration has entered peoples' hearts. The reason why this continues is because so many people from all parts of the world have died violently and prematurely and their suld souls are ranging about the places where they had been during their lives, especially battlefields, sites of massacres, and violent inner city areas. They implant desire for revenge, violent thoughts, mental confusion, despair, and illness in those places and thereby the violence and misery has continued. This ritual cleanses these spirits of these evil and violent thoughts and turns them toward bringing good to the places where they are. This is why this ritual needs to be done in as many places as possible in order to calm the spiritual chaos that this evil century has created.

The most important thing needed for this ritual is a young tree, the type of tree is not important, but it should be healthy and not in any immediate danger of being cut down. If at a later time the tree must be cut a young tree should be planted nearby and the ribbons and other shamanic decorations transferred to the new tree.

Things needed:

White cloth ribbons, about a foot long (at least 10 or 2 for each participant, which ever is more)

Sage

Juniper (dried fronds or sticks)

Spring water

Salt

Sand

Rice

Milk

Tea

Vodka (optional)

Incense with burner

Bread

Cookies

Money (coins are fine)

Small table

Wooden spoon or bundle of small twigs, about 6 inches long

A small table should be set next to the tree. On the table there should be an incense burner and incense should be kept lit constantly during the ceremony. The ribbons should be placed in a neat pile. The salt, sand, rice, bread, and cookies should be on plates. The spring water, milk, tea, and vodka should be in bowls.

To start one of the participants should smudge the tree with sage. The participants will then form a circle around the tree; each one will take at least two of the ribbons and tie them to the branches of the tree. While tying the ribbons each person should meditate on bringing peace to the world, to their community, and to their personal life. Then the shaman who will preside in the ritual will take the juniper and light it, then walk around the tree three times, fanning the smoke outward to the spirits. Here is a sample prayer for this part of the ceremony:

Nature spirits of this place

Suld souls of those who have departed

Be cleansed of your anger

Be cleansed of vengeful thoughts

Be filled with light

Be filled with love and peace

(The participants may drum during this part of the ceremony if they want.) The shaman will then take the spring water, and after calling his or her spirits for power, breathe into the water three times. The shaman will then take the spoon or twig whisk and circle the tree three times, throwing the water outward to the spirits. After the third time the remaining water should be put back on the table. The shaman will then circle the tree three times throwing salt to the spirits in the same manner, then circle three times throwing the sand, and then three more times throwing the rice. The salt, sand, and rice should be depleted by the third time around. This is the act of performing ariulga, cleansing, of the nature spirits of the community where this ritual is done.

The shaman will then make a second prayer; it should be something like this:

Nature spirits of this place

Suld souls of those who have departed

Having forgiven what has happened in the past

Be aware that you can do good for all living things

You can bring goodness to all human beings

Inspire people with vision for the future

Bring calm and confidence to their minds

Fill their hearts with thoughts of peace and love

Hurai! Hurai! Hurai!

Hurai! Hurai! Hurai!

Hurai! Hurai! Hurai!

(the word hurai should be accompanied by the clockwise movement of the right arm in front of the body)

The shaman will then drum (the others may drum too) and all participants in the ritual will slowly circle the tree three times. The shaman will then take the milk and circle the tree once, throwing milk to the spirits, then circle once more throwing the tea, and then once more, throwing the vodka. Then each of the participants will take a piece of bread or a cookie and crumble it into pieces and scatter the pieces at the base of the tree. The shaman will then pour half of the milk on the ground by the base of the tree and then throw half to the sky. The same should be done with the tea and vodka. Then each of the participants should leave a few coins at the base of the tree. These are gifts to the nature spirits and the spirit of the tree. Other gifts may include tobacco or milk products such as dabs of butter or crumbles of cheese. Milk products also honor Mother Earth.

Now that the ceremony is concluded each of the participants should take a sip from the spring water. It has become arshaan, energized water, and it has power to cleanse the spirit. Any remaining water may be drunk by the shaman or may be poured next to the tree.

The tree has now become a barisaa, a shamanist shrine to the nature spirits. It should be regularly honored with small gifts of food and liquids. People may also tie additional ribbons to ask the spirits for assistance, protection, or granting of wishes as well as leave money. Of course animals and other people may later take the food and money, but the act of giving creates buyanhishig (positive energy created by good deeds) and increases a person's windhorse (personal spiritual power). The ritual for the calming of the spirits will have a permanent effect and will benefit all people in the community where it is done, not only the participants.

Sarangerel Odigon was an American of Mongolian descent. As an adult she returned to live in the place of her ancestors and studied Mongolian shamanism for many years. She was the author of two books on Tengerism (Mongolian shamanism): Riding Windhorses: A Journey into the Heart of Mongolian Shamanism and Chosen by the Spirits: Following Your Shamanic Calling. She traveled across the globe passing on the teachings of her people to all who wanted to learn them. Sadly, in 2006 she passed into spirit.