"The Shamanic Drum" Audiobook Release

I am excited to announce the release of the audiobook version of my bestselling books The Shamanic Drum: A Guide to Sacred Drumming and Shamanic Drumming: Calling the Spirits. The Shamanic Drum is my definitive guide to shamanic drumming, a form of repetitive rhythmic drumming. Its purpose is to induce ecstatic trance states in order to access innate wisdom and guidance. The essence of shamanism is the experience of direct revelation from within. Shamanism is about remembering, exploring and developing the true self. Shamanic practice heightens the ability of perception and enables you to see into the deeper realms of the self. Once connected with your inner self, you can find help, healing and a continual source of guidance. To practice shamanism is to reconnect with your deepest core values and your highest vision of who you are and why you are here.

Drawing from 30 years of shamanic practice and teaching, I present the first practical guide to applying this ancient healing art to our modern lives. Through a series of simple exercises and lessons, I teach the basic shamanic methods of drumming. The focus is on creating sacred space, journeying, power practice, power animals, drum circles and the therapeutic effects of drumming. There are no prerequisites to learning shamanic drumming. Whether you are an accomplished percussionist or a total beginner, this user-friendly book will help you harness the power of drumming. Listen to a sample of The Shamanic Drum.

In my book Shamanic Drumming: Calling the Spirits, I recount my journey into shamanic practice and explore what someone should do if they feel the call to become a shaman. Many people in today's world are being called by spirit to become shamans. A yearning exists deep within many of us to reconnect to the natural world. It is a call to a life lived in balance with awareness of nature, of spirit, and of self. Following up on my book, The Shamanic Drum, I provide a new series of exercises and lessons that allow for a deeper understanding and utilization of this core shamanic practice. I have written a guide to becoming a shamanic healer that encompasses the power of the drum, of community, and of the accountability inherent in authentic shamanic practice.

This empowering book is a call to build relationships with helping spirits. Spirit helpers are the caretakers in the unseen world who want to support the earth and her inhabitants at this time. They are here to teach us how to gather wisdom from the spiritual realms, the natural world, the past, the present and the future in order to give birth to new ways of being. The shamanic relationship between humans and helping spirits supports our spirit's quest for self-realization. Helping spirits, if engaged regularly and skillfully, offer flexibility, creativity and perseverance in fulfilling our own unique path. The spirits are here to assist us in doing the principal, unique thing we have come here to do in a way that benefits all living things. Listen to a sample of Shamanic Drumming.

Virtual Voice Narration

These audiobooks use Virtual Voice narration. Virtual Voice is a computer-generated speech technology designed explicitly to create Audible audiobooks. Audible is an Amazon-owned company renowned for its vast library of audiobooks. Audible's Virtual Voice is a cutting-edge technology that utilizes advanced artificial intelligence (AI) to generate lifelike voice narrations for audiobooks. Unlike traditional methods that require human narrators, Virtual Voice can create high-quality narrations using synthesized voices. This technology leverages deep learning and natural language processing (NLP) to produce voices that sound remarkably human.  

One of the significant advantages of Virtual Voice is the consistency it offers. Human narrators, while talented, can introduce variability in their performances due to factors like mood, health, or fatigue. Virtual Voice eliminates these inconsistencies, ensuring that every chapter of a book is narrated with the same level of quality and energy. I was hesitant to publish any of my books using Virtual Voice, however the quality of the narration is much better than I could have ever imagined it would be. 

The Rise of Audiobooks 

In the fast-paced digital age, the way we consume content has significantly evolved. Audiobooks, once considered a niche market, have surged in popularity, providing a convenient and engaging way for people to enjoy literature. Audiobooks have grown exponentially over the past decade, thanks in part to the proliferation of smartphones and the increasing popularity of multitasking. People can now listen to books while commuting, exercising, or performing household chores. This convenience has turned audiobooks into a preferred medium for many readers. Audible has been at the forefront of this transformation, offering a vast selection of titles across various genres. 

For those who listen to audiobooks, the arrival of Virtual Voice will be seamless to the existing customer experience. Audible users will be able to easily discover and enjoy audiobooks featuring virtual voices, and audiobooks created with Virtual Voice will be clearly marked to avoid any confusion with traditional, human-narrated audiobooks. Customers will be able to listen to samples prior to purchase, just like with any other audiobook, and decide for themselves whether they want to give this new technology a chance. Whether you're a long-time audiobook enthusiast or a newcomer to the format, Virtual Voice promises to enhance your listening experience in ways you never imagined.

Initiation into Shamanism

Shamanic initiation is a rite of passage, connecting the apprentice shaman intimately to Spirit. It is probably the most powerful and least understood of all forms of spiritual awakening. It is not achieved by having mastered a body of knowledge or having completed some long-term training program. Though it may be set in motion by an apprentice's human teachers as part of an ordered training process, authentic initiation can only be conveyed by the spirits themselves. Ultimately, shamanic initiation takes place between the initiate and the spirit world. It is the spirits who choose and make the shaman.
 

The most frequent and most genuine manner of shamanic initiation is that of crisis, often involving psychological and physical suffering. The encounter with illness, suffering, and death not only opens the world of the spirits to the shaman, it also provides an experiential ground for the healing work that the shaman will later be doing. Election can also occur through heredity, signs at birth, a proclivity or gift that is recognized in childhood, through a realization arising in the course of a ceremonial event, or in the experience of a vision quest.
 

Shamanic initiation is typically the final step in becoming a shamanic healer, a process that is facilitated by the aspirant's shamanic teachers as part of a training regimen. However, initiation may also be spontaneous, set in motion by Spirit's intervention into the initiate's life. To be initiated by a helping spirit forever transforms your life. For the uninitiated, this can be problematic to say the least. They may have no clear idea of what is happening to them, and may find themselves overwhelmed by fear of their nonordinary experience. 

The Dismemberment Journey

Initiation into shamanhood often involves the visionary experience of symbolic dismemberment--the experience of being taken apart, devoured, or torn to pieces. In a classic dismemberment journey, the apprentice witnesses their own body being torn apart and perhaps completely destroyed. The apprentice dies a symbolic death and is then restored and brought back to life, whole and empowered. At its deepest level, the dismemberment experience dismantles our old identity. It is a powerful death-and-rebirth process. The experience of being stripped layer by layer, down to bare bones forces us to examine the bare essence of what we truly are.
 

Anthropologist Felicitas Goodman, the modern discoverer of Ecstatic Body Postures, notes that Siberian shamans considered dismemberment to be an essential phase of initiation for healers. Goodman researched and explored ritual body postures as a means to achieve a bodily induced trance experience and discovered that this archetype appears to be universal. In her trance work with Westerners, those who experienced spontaneous dismemberment visions were invariably destined to become various kinds of healers.
 

Completing this restorative rite is precisely the task of the shaman. As Joan Halifax explains in her book Shamanic Voices, "The shaman is a healed healer who has retrieved the broken pieces of his or her body and psyche and, through a personal rite of transformation, has integrated many planes of life experience: the body and the spirit, the ordinary and nonordinary, the individual and the community, nature and supernature, the mythic and the historical, the past, the present and the future." The cure for dismemberment is remembering who we actually are. As Halifax puts it, "To bring back to an original state that which was in primordial times whole and is now broken and dismembered is not only an act of unification, but also a divine remembrance of a time when a complete reality existed."(1)
 

Shamanic initiation functions as a transformer--it causes a radical change in the initiate forever. An initiation marks a transition into a new way of being in the world. It informs us about the mystery of life and death. According to noted shamanic teacher and author Sandra Ingerman, "Initiation is the death, dismembering, and dissolving of old forms, structures, and ways of life. And I have come to understand that true initiation is allowing Spirit to sing into creation the new forms and new creations. Allowing Spirit to sing formlessness into form creates a new evolution of consciousness."(2)
 

Shamanic initiation is complicated, profound and nothing short of life-altering--in the best possible way. While it may not be easy, it will improve your life for the better with patience, trial and error, and the passage of time. If you find yourself in one, all you can do is trust the process, hang on tight, and get ready for a newly awakened life.
 

Global Dismemberment
 

There is so much more to discover and explore about shamanic initiations and the deep spiritual knowledge held in Indigenous cultures. Now that the present world-age during which all human civilization developed is ending, it might be time to pay more attention to the experience of those whose world has already ended: Indigenous peoples. Depending on how you count them, there may be up to three hundred million Indigenous people still on the planet. Most are survivors of colonialism. The genocide of the Indigenous peoples was the beginning of the modern world for Europeans, but the former remain as veritable end of the world experts. Models for restoring our relationship with the earth exist in the cultures of Indigenous peoples, whose values and skills have enabled them to survive centuries of invasion and exploitation.
 

From an Indigenous perspective, the global climate and ecological crisis represents a mass shamanic dismemberment--the experience of being taken apart, devoured, or torn to pieces on a global scale, allowing for a shift of awareness and transformation of collective consciousness. The acceleration of planetary crises can either provoke a planetary awakening and a shift into a regenerative planetary culture based on shamanic wisdom and sustainable principles, or a destruction of human civilization in its current form, and perhaps extinction for our species. We are all responsible, for better or worse.

 

As the global upheaval intensifies, our interest in shamanism represents an attempt to retrieve and include a part of our inner and outer lives that technology and civilization has consistently denied, suppressed, or destroyed since the advent of agriculture. The cultural imprinting of hierarchical, agriculturally based societies leaves the individual outside the realm of personal spiritual experience. Any sense of the Great Mystery is beyond the individual's grasp. In the contemporary world, where our rites of passage for young men mean going to war, in a world where social turmoil and environmental disaster induce fear, anxiety and despair, the way of the shaman, the one who is a master of the initiatic crisis, might well be of great value for all of us.

 

1. Joan Halifax, Shamanic Voices: A Survey of Visionary Narratives (Penguin, 1991), pp. 18-22.
2. Sandra Ingerman. "Messages from Sandra Ingerman." Transmutation News (Mar. 2011): <https://www.sandraingerman.com/transmutation-news/english/english-2011/page/2/>.

Meet Modern Shaman Sabrina Villard

As a tot, Sabrina Villard took her first steps in the Sahara desert, just south of Algeria. She did so while holding the hand of her great-grandmother, a Bedouin shaman--who are known in the region as Fugara--who she says lived to be 123 years old.
 

"She is still with me every day, guiding me," says Villard, who inherited and honed her skills as a shaman from her late great-grandmother. She keeps a photo of her on an altar surrounded by candles and flowers in the corner of her ceremony room, which occupies the second bedroom of her apartment on Robinson Road in Hong Kong's Mid-Levels district.
 

To this day, when faced with adversity or difficult decisions, a distinct tingle on her arm is a reassuring sign that her great-grandmother is watching over her. And one year ago, feeling she had that support, Villard made one of the biggest decisions of her life so far.
 

At the time, she was the Apac project manager for one of the world's most revered luxury fashion houses by day, and by night, she would guide clients on shamanic journeys, straddling the living and spiritual realms to assist in a variety of areas: from healing traumas to removing subconscious patterns that block people from reaching their full potential.
 

"The traditional definition of a shaman is a seer in the dark," says Villard. "I don't know about anyone's life when they come to me. I am shown what you are ready to see by your spirit guides, ancestors and your own memories. I have a conversation with your soul."
 

Last September, on her birthday, she quit her high-flying fashion job to pursue her role as a shaman full-time. "I resigned on my birthday," says the self-proclaimed witch. "Rebirth day!"
 

Since then, she has made it her mission to spread the ancient healing art of shamanism throughout the modern world. Without compromising its sanctity, she has found ways to make it approachable and applicable to even those who might be put off by the "woo-woo" perception of it.
 

"Some people like the theatrics of it: the crystals, the potions or dressing a certain way ... but it's not for me," says Villard, who prefers not to use any tools in her shamanic practice, and whose style is more wicked than witch. "For me, the modern witch is sure of herself and her intuition."
 

In fact, Villard recently became the first shaman to enter the metaverse, spending the last few months building a world on online virtual community platform VRChat under her moniker, V-Healing. The dreamy domain is a futuristic, space station-esque oasis that looks out to a desert landscape--a nod to her Bedouin roots. 

Villard may be the first, but she hopes she isn't the last, and that over time, spirituality and alternative forms of healing will find their place in virtual reality.
 

"I know a lot of people will go against [this idea], but this is what I like; this is what's necessary," she says. "I like to go against the current, to bring spirituality into our modern world. We need to adapt and bring ancient knowledge and wisdom to the platforms that people are using now."

"A Journey Into Shamanism" Book Sale

I am now offering a 50% discount on my ebook Riding Spirit Horse: A Journey Into Shamanism. The ebook sale price is $2.99. Offer good through July 31st, 2023. In this spiritual memoir, I recount my journey into shamanic practice. The narrative of my story moves from my first ecstatic experience as a youth at a church revival to my mystical shamanic awakening in the wilderness, transformational pilgrimages to sacred places, working with indigenous wisdom keepers, to the experiences that prompted my writing, particularly my trance experiences "riding the drum" or Spirit Horse. Studying with Native elders and shamans, I discovered my shamanic gifts as a drummer, storyteller and ceremonialist.
 

A journey into shamanism is a pilgrimage of the soul. My journey has taken me down many spiritual paths. As a youth growing up, I embraced the teachings of Christ; I later studied and practiced the teachings of Taoism and Buddhism, all of which have their roots in shamanic practices from the earliest tribal communities. Shared core principles and truths weave a common thread through all spiritual traditions. This golden thread runs through the lives and the teachings of all the great prophets, seers and sages in the world's history.
 
Ultimately, all contemplative spiritual practice leads to the evolution of conscious awareness and union with the divine in the present moment. The perennial wisdom traditions teach us that the "here and now" is eternal, unchanging and omnipresent; it should be the primary focus of our life. When we are not present in the moment, we become a victim of time. Our mind is pulled into the past or the future or both. The present moment is all we ever have. The eternal now is the fundamental ceremony of life. When we bring ourselves fully into the present moment, our life becomes a spiritual practice and an opportunity to ride in beauty on the windhorse of authentic presence! I invite you to read Riding Spirit Horse: A Journey into Shamanism.

"Shamanism in the 21st Century"

Copyright © 2022 by Jade Grigori

Shamanism is humanity's oldest and most enduring spiritual practice. From the very origins of the human race there is evidence of our relationship with the Divine expressed through ceremony as a means of maintaining harmonious union with Creation. Whether in the placement of flowers upon the graves of our Neanderthal ancestors or the markings upon cave walls to magically establish empowered embodiments of a totem animal's knowledge, the antecedents of our own desire for personal and conscious union with the All-That-Is connects us with the continuum of the spiritual quest as being an innate human drive.

Inherent within the Shamanic perspective is the understanding that each person has their own unique and autonomous path of reunification with Creator. Shamanism provides a compendium of ceremonies, dances, songs, approaches to Spirit, meditations and understandings of the underlying principles of reality and human nature based upon generations-upon-generations of experiential interaction with Creator through the Creation of which we are a part. Being free of dogma and doctrine, Shamanism enables each individual in their personal quest of each their own Spirit's path, purpose and truth.

This recognition of the individual's right and responsibility of his or her own spiritual awakening and fulfillment is but one of the very specific elements of Shamanism which establishes it as a viable means of meeting today's Spiritual Questor's desire for an honest and authentic approach to self realization. That Shamanism as a whole is humanity's spiritual inheritance of our ancestors' contribution to the collective unconscious of our species provides a firm and proven system of knowledge, and direct access to that wisdom through ceremonial forms, which can serve any individual's understanding of the realms of Spirit expressed as Nature and Cosmos, and our part within it. Because Shamanism is the birthright of every woman and man of this planet, rather than the provenance of the few select or elite, it is a spiritual form which is available to any and all.

Shamanism is the Spirit's direct expression of it's yearning to bring body/mind consciousness into the full realization that we are Spirit. Through Shamanic practices we have the direct experience with our senses that we are, indeed, One with the All-That-Is. It is this cellular perception of our Truth that brings us to the humble realization that we are accountable for all our deeds, actions and behaviors- and the consequences thereof. From this awakened state of being compassion is born. When compassion, born of the empathetic relationship with all life, is brought to conscious embodied awareness, we, individually and ultimately collectively, will emerge in chrysalis to become the fully realized beings that is our potential.

This passionate and compassionate embrace and respect for all life, inherent within the Shamanic perspective, makes of Shamanism a survival skill of the human race. It is as important, and here in the 21st century, perhaps even more important, if we are to be able to continue life on this planet, as the ability to make fire or shelter and feed and clothe ourselves. For if we do not once again, as our ancestors who have left us this endowment of Shamanic ways, honor as sacred all manifest Creation as the singular expression of Spirit, we may surely perish, taking all life with us.

Shamanism provides us with an opportunity to fulfill our own Spirit's quest for awakening and also bond us as a Community of Creation in the service of Life. This is the bequest of this ancient spiritual practice of our ancestors to us here, today, in the 21st century.

Jade Grigori mentored me in shamanic drumming and helped me to find my own path of rhythm. Jade is a Curator of the Sacred on behalf of his community, the community of All Peoples. He underwent his first Shamanic Initiation, that of Death-by-Intent, in 1956 at 5 years of age. Jade Grigori received direct initiations and training from his Ancestral Spirits who guided and instructed him in the rigorous endeavors of journeying into the spirit-realms, ways of healing and accessing Knowledge. Rigorous apprenticeship and oversight by his Elders prepared him for the eventual responsibilities of being a Curator of the Sacred. To learn more, log onto Jade's web site at: https://jadegrigori.com/

"Shamanic Journeys" Book Release

It is with great pleasure that I announce the release of my new book, Shamanic Journeys: An Anthology. This book is an anthology of shamanic journeys that I have taken over my 35-year exploration of shamanism, the most ancient and most enduring spiritual tradition known to humanity. Each inner journey has a unique story about what led up to the trance experience, and what I learned from it. They were powerful life-changing events for me. Journey work is therapeutic and liberating. My trance experiences were healing, insightful and empowering. They often triggered the cathartic release of suppressed emotions producing feelings of peace and well-being. The process restores emotional health through expression and integration of emotions.
 

Shamanism is based on the principle that innate wisdom and guidance can be accessed through the inner senses in ecstatic trance. We can engage the blueprint of our soul path through the vehicle of journeying. Shamanic journeying is a time-tested medium for individual self-realization. We can journey within to access wisdom and energies that can help awaken our soul calling and restore us to wholeness. It heightens our sense of mission and purpose, empowering our personal evolution. I invite you to journey with me into the inner realms of consciousness.

 

What is Shamanic Journeying?

Shamanism represents a universal conceptual framework found among indigenous tribal humans. It includes the belief that the natural world has two aspects: ordinary everyday awareness, formed by our habitual behaviors, patterns of belief, social norms, and cultural conditioning, and a second non-ordinary awareness accessed through altered states, or ecstatic trance, induced by shamanic practices such as repetitive drumming. The act of entering an ecstatic trance state is called the soul flight or shamanic journey, and it allows the journeyer to view life and life's problems from a detached, spiritual perspective, not easily achieved in a state of ordinary consciousness.

Basically, shamanic journeying is a way of communicating with your inner or spirit self and retrieving information. Your inner self is in constant communication with all aspects of your environment, seen and unseen. You need only journey within to find answers to your questions. You should have a question or objective in mind from the start. Shamanic journeying may be undertaken for purposes of divination, for personal healing, to meet one's power animal or spirit guide, or for any number of other reasons. After the journey, you must then interpret the meaning of your trance experience.

The drum, sometimes called the shaman’s horse, provides a simple and effective way to induce ecstatic trance states. When a drum is played at an even tempo of three to four beats per second for at least fifteen minutes, most novices report that they can journey successfully even on their first attempt. Transported by the driving beat of the drum; the shamanic traveler journeys to the inner planes of consciousness.

Contents
Introduction
1. Meeting My Spirit Guide
2. The Moon Goddess
3. The Guardian Spirit
4. The Storm
5. Drumming in Boynton Canyon
6. The Navajo Storm Pattern Rug
7. The Sweat Lodge Ceremony
8. The Great Kiva
9. Healing the Land
10. The Medicine Tipi
11. Spirit Horse Falls
12. The Pyramid of the Magician
13. You are Kukulkan
14. The Mystery of Death and Rebirth
15. The Earth is a Drum
16. The Rainbow Bridge
17. The Feathered Serpent
18. The Snowy Owl
19. Breitenbush Hot Springs
20. Guardian of the Pipe
Appendix A. Taking the Shamanic Journey
Appendix B. Ten Good Reasons to Take a Shamanic Journey
About the Author

"Riding Spirit Horse" Book Release

Happy vernal equinox! I hope you're safe and remaining hopeful despite the horrific world events taking place. It's a head-spinning, anxiety-inducing time. The past two years of the coronavirus pandemic have been filled with unprecedented challenges and uncertainty. Immersing myself in a writing project was my way to cope with a global pandemic that has affected everything and everyone. The isolation and prodigious amount of free time provided fertile ground for writing my life story. So it is with great pleasure that I announce the release of my autobiography, Riding Spirit Horse: A Journey into Shamanism. 

 

In this spiritual memoir, I recount my journey into shamanic practice. It has been a lifelong process--a path that continues to unfold. I am sharing my journey and learnings because many people in today's world are being called by Spirit to become shamans or shamanic practitioners. A yearning exists deep within many of us to reconnect to the natural world. It is a call to a life lived in balance with awareness of Nature, of Spirit and of Self. We live in a culture that has severed itself from Nature and Spirit. Humans have lost touch with the spirit world and the wisdom of inner knowing. The spirits, however, have not forgotten us. They are calling us to a path of environmental sanity, to rejoining the miraculous cycle of Nature.
 

The narrative of my story moves from my first ecstatic experience as a youth at a church revival to my mystical shamanic awakening in the wilderness, transformational pilgrimages to sacred places, working with indigenous wisdom keepers, to the experiences that prompted my writing, particularly my trance experiences "riding the drum" or Spirit Horse. Studying with Native elders and shamans, I discovered my shamanic gifts as a drummer, storyteller and ceremonialist.
 
A journey into shamanism is a pilgrimage of the soul. My journey has taken me down many spiritual paths. As a youth growing up, I embraced the teachings of Christ; I later studied and practiced the teachings of Taoism and Buddhism, all of which have their roots in shamanic practices from the earliest tribal communities. Shared core principles and truths weave a common thread through all spiritual traditions. This golden thread runs through the lives and the teachings of all the great prophets, seers and sages in the world's history.
 
Ultimately, all contemplative spiritual practice leads to the evolution of conscious awareness and union with the divine in the present moment. The perennial wisdom traditions teach us that the "here and now" is eternal, unchanging and omnipresent; it should be the primary focus of our life. When we are not present in the moment, we become a victim of time. Our mind is pulled into the past or the future or both. The present moment is all we ever have. The eternal now is the fundamental ceremony of life. When we bring ourselves fully into the present moment, our life becomes a spiritual practice and an opportunity to ride in beauty on the windhorse of authentic presence! I invite you to look inside Riding Spirit Horse: A Journey into Shamanism and to view the official book trailer.

Vagabonding as a Spiritual Path

The natural world is my muse and sanctuary -- a place for refuge and discovery. My most memorable moments have been in the outdoors. I have hiked thousands of miles of trails through forests, deserts and mountains. Having spent much of my life traveling and trekking, I still crave adventure and new experiences. Vagabonding or nomadic wandering is a unique way of living, a spiritual path to authenticity, self-awareness and solitude. Solitude allows time for self-examination, relaxation away from urban stress, and a chance to meditate, contemplate, or just zone out for hours at a time. Many of my most memorable experiences took place during solo journeys into Nature. The longer the solo immersion, the more transformational the experience.

In October 2011, I felt Spirit calling me. I felt compelled to travel to the sacred sites and power places that beckoned me. I followed my intuition and deepest instincts. I traveled with my drum and medicine bundle to shamanize the meridian system of Mother Earth's numinous web, which is the planetary counterpart to the acupuncture meridian system of the human body. At the intersection points of the planet's energy web exist holy places, power spots, or acupuncture points. Like acupuncture needles, humans are capable of maintaining the harmonious flow of the planetary energy meridians by making an Earth connection at power places.

Many magical things happened during my two month pilgrimage. I camped at Panther Meadows on Mount Shasta. I hiked among the oldest living things on the Earth in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest. I soaked in the healing waters of Umpqua, Buckeye, Travertine, Whitmore, and Keough Hot Springs. Indigenous people worldwide believe that where fire and water mix at a hot spring is a sacred place. A water deity, usually a goddess, resides in each spring. People make pilgrimages to thermal springs to connect with the goddess and to supplicate the benefits of her healing graces. The sacred ambience of the place, its geothermal energy and the pilgrim's relationship to it, is sufficient to fulfill the pilgrim's aspirations.

I ventured south through California and explored the Owens Valley area on the east side of the Sierra Nevada crest. Before returning home in early December, I planned a four day desert exploration. On day one, I visited the Sleeping Lizard, which is an ancient vision quest site located in the Volcanic Tablelands north of Bishop. This site is sacred to the Owens Valley Paiute people, who use alcoves in the rock for vision quests. I took a journey back in time to visit the ancient ones who etched petroglyphs in the volcanic rock.

Next, I drove up the Whitney Portal Road towards the trailhead that hikers climb up to Mount Whitney. Unfortunately the road to the trailhead was closed for the winter. I backtracked down the road and camped in the Alabama Hills, located in the shadow of Mount Whitney just west of Lone Pine. The rounded weathered contours of the reddish-orange foothills contrast with the sharp ridges of the Sierra Nevada to the west. Throughout the last century, the Alabama Hills have appeared in hundreds of films and commercials. During my visit, a Quintin Tarantino project (Django Unchained) was being shot there.

In one day I drove from Mount Whitney (the sacred masculine), the tallest mountain in the continuous 48 states, into Death Valley (the sacred feminine), the lowest elevation in North America. Shortly after entering Death Valley National Park, I took an eight-mile detour north along the Saline Valley Road to visit a Joshua Tree forest at Lee Flat. The Saline Valley Road is very rough and progress was slow, but I eventually reached the magical forest. A cold wind buffeted me each time I left the confines of my truck to hike and photograph the forest. I would have camped here for the night if not for the high elevation and bitter cold wind. I camped instead at Panamint Springs Resort, 22 miles inside the western border of Death Valley National Park.

The following day, I explored Darwin Falls and the remote Panamint Valley adjacent to Death Valley. I camped for the next few days at the far northeast end of the South Panamint Dry Lake, a small wetland, grassland, dune system and mesquite bosque. The warm sulfur springs of this desert oasis provide habitat for frogs, shore birds, marsh hawks, and wild burros. A short-eared owl visited my campsite each evening at dusk. The stars bathed the cold desert in a warm glow. Few things are more serene than the deep stillness of the desert on a starry night. In that stillness, I am reborn, forever changed.

Oh, how I love vagabonding. Shamanism is deeply rooted in Nature and a nomadic lifestyle. The emphasis is on the individual, of breaking free and discovering one's own uniqueness in order to bring something new back to the group. Like drumming, nomadic wandering alters your ordinary everyday awareness. It is another means of habitual pattern disruption for reimprinting on alternate realties. When you leave home, meet new people, experience new stimuli, and process new information, you're soon intoxicated on a natural high. As Ed Buryn, the godfather of modern vagabonding puts it, "Vagabonding is nothing less than reality transformation, and its power is not to be underestimated."

A Path to Authenticity

Shamanism is universal and not bound by social or cultural conditions. It is the most ancient and most enduring spiritual tradition known to humanity. In his book, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, Mircea Eliade describes the three stages of becoming a shaman: the Call, Training, and Initiation. The first stage of shamanhood, as described by Eliade, is that of the calling. This call comes from the family, the community or from the world beyond. Some are called, initiated and trained by spirit guides and/or human teachers from childhood.
 

Shamans are called and then receive rigorous instruction. Training may follow an ordered tradition or take a spontaneous course guided by the shaman's spirit helpers. The function of training is to develop the skills and talents so that shamanic practitioners don't unintentionally hurt themselves or others. Though the spirits give shamans their healing powers, practitioners must learn how to properly honor and commune with them to gain their blessings. Traditional shamanic training requires considerable devotion and personal sacrifice, not so much to gain power, but to become the person who can wield that power responsibly. It's a lifelong commitment to service and learning. Ongoing practice and learning are essential to perfecting any art or skill.

Then there is Initiation. Shamanic initiation is a rite of passage connecting the apprentice shaman intimately to the spirit world. It is typically the final step in shamanic training, though initiation may be set in motion at any time by spirit's intervention into the initiate's life. Ultimately, shamanic initiation takes place between the initiate and the spirit world. It is the spirits who choose and make the shaman.

In their book, Shaman Wisdom, Shaman Healing, Michael Samuels and Mary Rockwood Lane have taken Eliade's three stages and added a fourth: "the practice of shamanism." To be an effective shaman, one must go through the three stages of development, and ultimately the practice of shamanism in the community. An authentic shamanic practitioner makes a commitment to intercede between the spiritual and human realms on behalf of the local community. It's an alliance that fosters healing, problem solving, and strong communities.

Shamanism is a sacred call to build relationship. A skillful shamanic practitioner works in sacred partnership with helping spirits--the power animals, the benevolent ancestors, and the sacred elements. Spirit helpers are the caretakers in the unseen world who want to support the earth and her inhabitants at this time. They are here to teach us how to gather wisdom from the spiritual realms, the natural world, the past, the present, and the future in order to give birth to new ways of being.

The shamanic relationship between humans and helping spirits supports our spirit's quest for self-realization. Helping spirits, if engaged regularly and skillfully, offer flexibility, creativity, and perseverance in fulfilling our own unique path. The spirits are here to teach us to be better humans. They come to assist us in doing the principal unique thing we have come here to do in a way that benefits all living things.

Shamanism offers a valid and effective path back to our soul and its purpose for being here. Shamanism is about remembering, exploring and developing the true self. By engaging life from a shamanic perspective, we rediscover our core values and deep loves, find others who share them, and recommit our lives to living from what has heart and meaning. The passionate expression of our soul's purpose is precisely the medicine the earth needs at this time.

Shamanic Initiation Dreams

Many people in today's world are being called by Spirit to become shamans or shamanic practitioners. A yearning exists deep within many of us to reconnect to the natural world. It is a call to a life lived in balance with awareness of Nature, of Spirit and of Self. We live in a culture that has severed itself from Nature and Spirit. Humans have lost touch with the spirit world and the wisdom of inner knowing. The spirits, however, have not forgotten us. They are calling us to a path of environmental sanity, to rejoining the miraculous cycle of Nature. 

Spirit calls us to a path of shamanism in many ways. It can be as dramatic as a life threatening illness or as simple as a dream. Some people receive signs of a shamanic calling through their dreams. Future shamans may dream of spirits and ancestors or hear their voices. Others may have recurring dreams in which they meet certain animal or teacher figures that are manifestations of the very spirits who are calling them. Also, in dreams the candidate is sometimes given initiatory directives and learns which objects will be needed to perform cures. These instructions are given by the spirits and by the older master shamans and are equivalent to an initiation.

 
During a shamanic dream initiation, the candidate usually experiences suffering, death, and resurrection, including a symbolic cutting up of the body, such as dismemberment or disembowelment by ancestral or animal spirits. The candidate dies a symbolic death and is then restored and brought back to life, whole and empowered. Sometimes initiation dreams begin even in childhood. Usually, the premonitory dreams of future shamans are followed by mortal illnesses if they are not rightly respected.
 

The souls of the dead are regarded as a source of shamanic powers among some tribes like the Paviotso, the Shoshone, the Paiute, the Lillooet, and the Thompson Salish. In northern California this method of bestowing shamanic powers is widespread. The Yurok shamans dream of a dead man, usually a shaman. Among the Sinkyone the power is sometimes received in dreams in which the candidate's deceased relatives appear; the Wintu also become shamans after such dreams, especially if they dream of their own dead children. In the Shasta tribe the first indication of shamanic power follows dreams of a departed mother, father, or ancestor.

 
Among the Mohave and the Yuma of southern California, power comes from the mythical beings who transmitted it to shamans at the beginning of the world. Transmission takes place in dreams and includes an initiation scenario. In their dreams the Yuma shamans witness the beginning of the world and experience mythical times. Such dreams may include a mystical journey to the archetypal Cosmic Tree or World Tree. Among the Maricopa, initiatory dreams involve a spirit taking the future shaman's soul and leading it from mountain to mountain, each time revealing songs and cures. Ultimately, it is the spirits who choose and make the shaman.

What is Shamanism?

Shamanism is universal and not bound by social or cultural conditions. It’s the most ancient and most enduring spiritual tradition known to humanity. Shamanism predates and constitutes the foundation of all known religions or philosophies. In essence, shamanism is the spiritual practice of ecstasy. Ecstasy is defined as a mystic, prophetic or poetic trance. Ecstatic trance is an academic term referring to those inwardly focused experiences of cosmic oneness, that mystical connection to a living, intelligent Universe that exists within each of us. Practitioners enter altered states of consciousness in order to perceive and interact with the inner world of the self. The act of entering an ecstatic trance state is called the soul flight or shamanic journey.
 
The shaman’s trance is an intentionally induced state of ecstasy. Shamanic trance is characterized by its flexibility, ranging from light diagnostic states to full embodiment trance states. Shamans use intention and discipline to control the nature, depth, and qualities of their trance states. The shaman may progress through a range of trance states until they reach the level that is necessary for healing to occur.
 

The capacity to enter a range of trance states is a natural manifestation of human consciousness. The ability to enter trance states makes us human, not shamans. What makes shamans unique is their mastery over an otherwise normal human trait. It requires training, practice and devotion to master any expressive art. Shamans master the art of ecstasy to see the true nature of the universe.
 
Shamanism is a way of perceiving the nature of the universe in a way that incorporates the normally invisible world where the spirits of all material things dwell. Shamans have different terms and phrases for the unseen world, but most of them clearly imply that it is the realm where the spirits of the land, animals, ancestors and other spiritual entities dwell. Spirit encompasses all the immaterial forms of life energy that surround us. We are woven together into a net of life energies that are all around us. These energies can appear to us in different forms, such as spirits of Nature, animals or ancestors. The spirit world is the web of life itself.
 
Shamanism represents a universal conceptual framework found among indigenous tribal humans. It includes the belief that the natural world has two aspects: ordinary everyday awareness, formed by our habitual behaviors, patterns of belief, social norms and cultural conditioning; and a second non-ordinary awareness accessed through altered states, or trance, induced by shamanic practices such as repetitive drumming. This second-order awareness can be developed over time or appear all at once, but once it is discerned the world is never the same. According to shamanic theory, the ordinary and non-ordinary worlds interact continuously, and a shamanic practitioner can gain knowledge about how to alter ordinary reality by taking direct action in the non-ordinary aspect of the world.
 
Rhythmic drumming is a simple and effective way to induce ecstatic trance states. When a drum is played at an even tempo of three to four beats per second for at least fifteen minutes, most people can journey successfully even on their first attempt. Transported by the driving beat of the drum; the practitioner journeys to the inner planes of consciousness to obtain personal revelation and spiritual experience.
 
According to shamanic cosmology, there are three inner planes of consciousness: the Upper, Middle, and Lower Worlds. The three realms are linked together by a vertical axis that is commonly referred to as the World Tree, or axis mundi. This central axis (spinal column) exists within each of us. Through the sound of the drum, which is invariably made of wood from the World Tree, the shaman is transported to the cosmic axis within and conveyed from plane to plane.
 
The shaman traverses the inner planes in order to change and shape experience. It is an inward spiritual journey of rapture in which the shaman interacts with the inner world, thereby influencing the outer world. In the shaman’s world, all human experience is self-generated. Experience is shaped from within since the three realms or resonant fields that define our experience of reality exist within each of us.
 
The essence of shamanism is the experience of direct revelation from within. Shamanism is about remembering, exploring and developing the true self. Shamanism places emphasis on the individual, of breaking free and discovering one’s own uniqueness in order to bring something new back to the community. Shamanic practice heightens the ability of perception and enables you to see into the deeper realms of the self. Once connected with your inner self, you can find help, healing, and a continual source of guidance. To practice shamanism is to reconnect with your deepest core values and your highest vision of who you are and why you are here.

Becoming a Shaman

Many people in today's world are being called by spirit to become shamans. A yearning exists deep within many of us to reconnect to the natural world. It is a call to a life lived in balance with awareness of nature, of spirit, and of self. We live in a culture that has severed itself from nature and spirit. Humans have lost touch with the spirit world and the wisdom of inner knowing. The spirits, however, have not forgotten us. They are calling us to a path of environmental sanity, to rejoining the miraculous cycle of nature.
 

The spirits call many to work with them, but only a few may respond to the call. Choosing to ignore a calling may have undesirable consequences or none at all. For some, it can lead to depression and illness as the life force is constricted and thwarted. Those who choose to follow their shamanic calling may have no idea how to begin.

What do you do if the ancestral shamanic tradition no longer exists in your culture, but you still feel the call today? While traditional, indigenous shamanism continues to decline around the world, shamanic ideology has gradually entered Western humanities and social sciences and developed into the neo-shamanic movement. Neo-shamanism is a term used to describe the creation or revival of a shamanic culture. Most modern shamanic practitioners fall into this category. Neo-shamanism is not a single, cohesive belief system, but a collective term for many such philosophies. Neo-shamans use a variety of core techniques from different shamanic disciplines. 

Mircea Eliade, a religious scholar, was perhaps the first to write about neo-shamanism. In his classic work, "Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy," Eliade discusses the three stages of becoming a shaman: the Call, Training, and Initiation. The first stage to becoming a healer, as described by Eliade, is that of the calling--this call comes from the family, the community, or from the world beyond. Some are called, initiated and trained by spirit guides and/or human teachers from childhood.

Spirit calls us to a path of shamanism in many ways. It can be as dramatic as a life threatening illness or as simple as a dream. Some people receive signs of a shamanic calling through their dreams. Shamans frequently journey during their dreams, often flying through the air. Shamans may have recurring dreams in which they meet certain animal or teacher figures that are manifestations of the very spirits who are calling them.

The more common signs of a shamanic calling are ones of personality, such as a desire to spend time alone in nature. Shamanic candidates tend to be loners and are often considered eccentric or "different." One of the most reliable signs of a shamanic calling is the urge to learn about shamanism. One of the things I have learned working with spirits is that they often prompt me through urges to do one thing or another. This is a common form of communication and instruction by helping spirits. The very fact that you are reading this post at this time is meaningful. It is the spirits themselves who are guiding you to search for information about shamanism. Your yearning to learn more about shamanism is a sign that the spirits are calling you. The call functions to awaken your own inner knowing and the yearning to express your true self through the artistry of the shaman. 

Shamans are called, and then receive rigorous instruction. Training may follow an ordered tradition or take a spontaneous course guided by the shaman's spirit helpers. The function of training is to develop the skills and talents so that shamanic practitioners don't unintentionally hurt themselves or others. Though the spirits give shamans their healing powers, shamans must learn the technique of invoking them. Traditional shamanic training requires considerable devotion and personal sacrifice, not so much to gain power, but to become the person who can wield that power responsibly. Ongoing practice and learning are essential to perfecting any art or skill.

Where does one find shamanic training in the digital age? There are growing numbers of spiritual seekers who learn about shamanism from the internet or through reading the published works of individuals who have received shamanic training. Though a handbook is no substitute for an apprenticeship program, it can convey the fundamental methodological information. Authentic shamanic knowledge can only be acquired through individual experience; however, one must first acquire the methods in order to utilize them. Once you have learned the basic skills, your helping spirits can provide you all the training you need.

Then there is Initiation. Shamanic initiation is a rite of passage, connecting the apprentice shaman intimately to the spirit world. It is typically the final step in shamanic training, though initiation may be set in motion at any time by spirit's intervention into the initiate's life. Ultimately, shamanic initiation takes place between the initiate and the spirit world. It is the spirits who choose and make the shaman.
 

How does someone embark on the shamanic path? To be an effective shamanic healer, one must go through the three steps. The first step is to acknowledge the calling.

Finding Your Spiritual Dharma

The concept of dharma, or the "eternal spiritual path," is a key Hindu and Buddhist concept, referring to a law or principle which governs the universe. For an individual to live out their dharma, they must act in accordance with this law. In Hinduism dharma is both the eternal order that rules the universe and the duty or law that governs one's life. In Buddhism, dharma is the doctrine, the universal truth common to all individuals at all times, proclaimed by the Buddha. Dharma, the Buddha, and the sangha (community of believers) make up the Triratna, "Three Jewels," to which Buddhists go for refuge. In Buddhism, dharma additionally means acting in accordance with the teachings of the Buddha. The Buddha's teachings and the path to enlightenment are symbolized by the Wheel of Dharma.
 

On an individual level, dharma can refer to a personal mission or purpose. Fulfilling one's dharma or purpose in life is considered the way to transcend suffering and the cycle of birth and death. It is said that all beings must accept their dharma for order and harmony to exist in the world. If one is following their dharma, they are pursuing their true calling and serving all other beings in the universe by carrying out their authentic role. According to the Hindu scripture "Bhagavad Gita," it is better to do your own dharma poorly than to do another's well.
 

Finding your spiritual dharma, or purpose, is more about introspection and self-discovery than about following the same path as others. The most important thing you can do is to develop a spiritual practice. A spiritual practice is the regular performance of actions and activities undertaken for the purpose of inducing spiritual experiences and cultivating spiritual development. This is where you practice a variety of techniques on a daily basis that are designed to expand your awareness with the intention of achieving higher states of consciousness and spiritual enlightenment. Here are a three techniques to finding your spiritual path:
 

1. Mindful Meditation: Meditation is probably the most ancient and well known spiritual practice. To meditate means to focus the mind on a particular object, thought, or activity in order to train attention and awareness, and promote calm and clarity. Mindfulness is the idea of learning how to be fully present and engaged in the moment, aware of your thoughts and feelings without distraction or judgment. Combining meditation and mindfulness together into a single practice optimizes the effects of both.
 

To practice mindful meditation, sit or lie comfortably, and then close your eyes. Begin by silently asking yourself: "What is my dharma or purpose in life?" Then simply focus on your breath and observe whatever comes up without judgment or attachment. You do not need to do anything to your breath. Just breathe naturally and focus your attention on where you feel your breath in your body. It may be in your abdomen, chest, throat or nostrils. As you do this, your mind may start to wander. This is perfectly natural. Just notice that your mind has wandered, and then gently redirect your attention back to the breathing. Stay here for five to seven minutes. It helps to set aside a designated time for mindful meditation each day.
 

2. Mindful Drumming: Drumming is perhaps the oldest form of active meditation known to humanity. It is a simple and effortless way to still the mind's internal dialogue in order to access personal revelation from within. Combining these two ancient practices -- drumming and mindfulness -- can be life-altering. Just like a yogi or a monk, who exists in a spiritual state most of the time because of constant devotional practices, we can readily induce profound states of deep meditation and heightened awareness by using a drum as an aid to meditation. Mindful drumming is a way to connect straight to the heart. The energy that comes in from the source is directed through our hearts. The essence of mindful drumming is the experience of direct revelation, which comes through as a feeling, impression or intuition.
 

To practice mindful drumming, sit comfortably, and then close your eyes. Silently ask yourself: "What is my dharma -- my purpose in life?" Next begin drumming a steady, monotonous rhythm and simply focus on the beat. If your mind wanders, gently redirect your attention back to the beat. Drum for five to seven minutes, maintaining a nonjudgmental awareness of sensations, feelings and insights. The punctuated sound of a regularly beating drum stills the incessant chatter of the mind, enabling you to achieve a mindful state almost instantly -- the fast path to self-revelation. This ease of meditation with a drum contrasts significantly with the often long periods of isolation and practice required by many other meditative disciplines before significant effects are experienced.
 

3. Shamanic Journeying: When we are unaware of our soul's true purpose, or simply not aligned in our actions, we often experience a malaise of the spirit. We can engage the blueprint of our soul path through the vehicle of journeying. Shamanic journeying is a time-tested medium for individual self-realization. We can journey within to access wisdom and energies that can help awaken our soul calling and restore us to wholeness. Journey practice connects us with our deepest core values and our highest vision of who we are and why we are here. It heightens our sense of mission and purpose, empowering our personal evolution.
 

Shamanism is based on the principle that innate wisdom and guidance can be accessed through the inner senses in ecstatic trance. Basically, shamanic journeying is a way of communicating with your inner or true self and retrieving information. Your inner self is in constant communication with all aspects of your environment, seen and unseen. You need only journey within to find answers to your questions. You should have a question or objective in mind from the start such as identifying your innermost purpose in life. After the journey, you must then interpret the meaning of your trance experience.
 

To enter a trance state and support your journey, you will need a drum or a shamanic drumming recording. The drum, sometimes called the shamans horse, provides a simple and effective way to induce ecstatic trance states. When a drum is played at an even tempo of three to four beats per second for at least fifteen minutes, most novices report that they can journey successfully even on their first attempt. Transported by the driving beat of the drum; the shamanic traveler journeys to the inner planes of consciousness. Try a shamanic journey.

Appropriate Destruction

From a shamanic perspective, all creation is based on some form of destruction. In order to create something new, something old first must be destroyed. The old form is taken apart and from its energetic source, something new arises. Nature offers the best examples of this constant destruction in the form of seasonal changes. As each season gives way to the next, something is destroyed in the process. Fall kills off the green leaves and lays the landscape bare. Winter kills off the insects and weakest animals. Spring destroys the snowpack and brings floods. Summer bakes the land, drying up the streams and plants. Everywhere in nature are examples of great destruction that reform the land, creating a new canvas for change. Earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, tsunamis, erupting volcanoes, and withering droughts destroy the landscape as it was, clearing the way for new life, new forms, new possibilities.
 

Shamans acknowledge the awesome power of transformation that comes with destruction and seek to harness that power. One powerful universal shamanic motif of appropriate destruction is the dismemberment of the apprentice during the initiation as a shaman. The individual dies a symbolic death and is then restored and brought back to life. Completing this restorative rite is precisely the task of the shaman. As anthropologist Joan Halifax explains in her book Shamanic Voices, "The shaman is a healed healer who has retrieved the broken pieces of his or her body and psyche and, through a personal rite of transformation, has integrated many planes of life experience: the body and the spirit, the ordinary and non-ordinary, the individual and the community, nature and supernature, the mythic and the historical, the past, the present and the future."
 

The viewpoint emerging from the shamanic community suggests the times we live in have a theme of planetary and cosmological initiation. Shamanic initiation is most often precipitated by physical, psychological, emotional, or spiritual events that force the ego into submission. Who we believe ourselves to be is not who we truly are. No matter how many years one has been developing their consciousness, no one is exempt from this shamanic death-and-rebirth. This is a shamanic initiation on the grandest cosmological scale.
 

The times we find ourselves in are like a great river in flood. We can try to hold on to the shore to save ourselves from being swept along with the current. But this is a futile effort, for nothing can resist the great tide of change that is sweeping through and forever altering life as we have known it for millennia. Instead, we are being challenged to let go and go with the flow. We are being given the opportunity to surrender to the current of change so that new dreams and visions can emerge.
 

The cure for dismemberment is appropriate destruction. An appropriate destruction measure for anyone would be to get rid of anything that does not contribute to personal growth and learning. This would include the elimination of unnecessary possessions, ideas, habits and limiting beliefs that no longer serve you. Situations, careers or relationships that no longer resonate with you will eventually fall away from your life. When you clear out the old, you make way for the new.

Siberian Shaman Gives Up Anti-Putin Crusade

A Siberian shaman who made national headlines for attempting to trek to Moscow and "cast out" Putin from power won't restart his journey, he said after being discharged from the mental asylum he was forced into earlier this year.

In a statement carried by local media, Alexander Gabyshev said he wishes to focus on his health and personal life.

"In order to get my health in order, I have to live on my own now. I think you will understand my decision," he said. "I'll take care of my teeth, get my documents in order and think about working in the future."

Gabyshev first set out from his home in the republic of Sakha last year, planning to trek over 8,000 kilometers to Moscow before performing a ritual to "banish" Putin from the Kremlin.

He dragged a cart carrying his belongings along highways, gathering a small following and meeting supporters in cities he passed.

He and his supporters were detained several times, forcing the shaman to restart his journey from his home city of Yakutsk each time.

Authorities in Yakutsk placed him in a mental asylum in June after he announced a third attempt to trek to Moscow, a move condemned by rights groups as an attempt to silence a dissenter and compared to Soviet-era punitive psychiatry.

"To the many people who supported me mentally and supplied me with food and clothing ... I express my gratitude and sincere goodwill. And now, without losing heart, we need to live like human beings," he said in his statement.

Shaman Walking to Moscow to Expel Putin Arrested

According to Amnesty International, a Siberian shaman walking across Russia to Moscow and promising to use his shamanic powers to "purge" President Vladimir Putin in 2021, was abducted by a squad of masked law enforcement officials and held in an undisclosed location. When citizens disagree with their government, there are many ways to voice opposition -- whether it's through protests or voting in an election. Alexander Gabyshev, a shaman from Russia's republic of Sakha in Siberia, was taking a different approach. The shaman left Yakutsk, capital of the vast Sakha Republic, on March 6 this year. The 51-year old ethnic Yakut shaman calls his quest divinely ordained, and insists that Putin is a manifestation of dark forces which must be banished to save Russia from ruin. God had one condition: Gabyshev had to reach Moscow on foot, which would allow him to muster the strength needed for the final showdown.

Gabyshev began his odyssey in March, promising to walk more than 8,000 kilometers (4,970 miles) from his native Yakutia region to the Russian capital. To meet his goal of reaching Moscow by August 2021, Gabyshev walked 20 kilometers each day. With him, he towed an aluminum cart holding all his possessions, including a portable yurt, a stove, clothes and provisions. He stopped in towns and cities along the way, giving sermons and meeting with local opposition activists with the goal of inspiring a nationwide democratic movement. Chronicles of his journey, which take the form of short video addresses from roadside campsites and short exchanges with passing drivers and long-distance truckers, have won Gabyshev a huge following in Russia. As the shaman has gained more sympathizers, he has become something of an opposition politician.

But police in Buryatia said on Thursday they had arrested Gabyshev on a highway in Siberia in connection with an unspecified crime in Yakutia and that they would fly him there. Gabyshev had walked nearly 3,000 kilometers by Thursday. When asked about Gabyshev's arrest, the Kremlin said it was impossible to keep track of all the criminal cases in Russia.

Amnesty International condemned the arrest in eastern Siberia. "The shaman's actions may be eccentric, but the Russian authorities' response is grotesque. Alexander Gabyshev should be free to express his political views and exercise his religion just like anyone else," Amnesty's Russia Director Natalia Zviagina said in a statement.

Shamanic Initiation

Buryat Shaman's Initiation Staff *

In his classic work, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, Mircea Eliade discusses the three stages of becoming a shaman: the Call, Training, and Initiation. The first stage to becoming a healer, as described by Eliade, is that of the calling -- this call comes from the family, the community, or from the world beyond. Some are called, initiated and trained by spirit guides and/or human teachers from childhood.

Shamans are called, and then receive rigorous instruction. Training may follow an ordered tradition or take a spontaneous course guided by the shaman's spirit helpers. The function of training is to develop the skills and talents so that shamanic practitioners don't unintentionally hurt themselves or others. Though the spirits give shamans their healing powers, shamans must learn the technique of invoking them.

Then there is Initiation. Shamanic initiation is a rite of passage, connecting the apprentice shaman intimately to the spirit world. It is typically the final step in shamanic training, though Mongolian Buryat apprentices go through a sequence of initiation rituals to become shamans. Buryat shamans having completed more initiation rituals are believed to have more power and more experience. However, initiation may be spontaneous, set in motion at any time by spirit's intervention into the initiate's life. Ultimately, shamanic initiation takes place between the initiate and the spirit world. It is the spirits who choose and make the shaman.

Shamanic initiation is probably the most powerful and least understood of all forms of spiritual awakening. It is not achieved by having mastered a body of knowledge or having completed some long-term training program. Though it may be set in motion by an apprentice's human teachers as part of an ordered, training process, authentic initiation can only be conveyed by the spirits themselves.

Initiation into shamanhood often involves shamanic dismemberment -- the experience of being taken apart, devoured, or torn to pieces. In a shamanic dismemberment, the individual dies the little death, which is the surrender of the ego. At its deepest level, the dismemberment experience dismantles our old identity. It is a powerful death-and-rebirth process. The experience of being stripped layer by layer, down to bare bones forces us to examine the bare essence of what we truly are.

Shamanic initiation functions as a transformer -- it causes a radical change in the initiate forever. An initiation marks a transition into a new way of being in the world. It tells us something about the mystery of life and death. According to shamanic teacher and author Sandra Ingerman, "Initiation is the death, dismembering, and dissolving of old forms/structures/ways of life. And I have come to understand that true initiation is allowing spirit to sing into creation the new forms and new creations. Allowing spirit to sing formlessness into form creates a new evolution of consciousness." To learn more, look inside my guide to becoming a shamanic healer, Shamanic Drumming: Calling the Spirits. 

* Photo of Buryat Shaman's Initiation Staff by Arkady Zarubin.

From Slave to Shaman

Guarani Shaman

Many people in today's world are being called by spirit to become shamans. A yearning exists deep within many of us to reconnect to the natural world. It is a call to a life lived in balance with awareness of nature, of spirit, and of self. We live in a culture that has severed itself from nature and spirit. Humans have lost touch with the spirit world and the wisdom of inner knowing. The spirits, however, have not forgotten us. They are calling us to a path of environmental sanity, to rejoining the miraculous cycle of nature. Taking responsibility for our lives involves breaking out of this robotic existence and taking responsibility for Life as a whole; for the evolution of our societies into something vastly more meaningful, creative and joyous than the moribund system we have today. Read more.

The 7 Keys to Accessing Shamanic Consciousness

Shamanism has achieved a dramatic modern resurgence. Recent studies by some of the world's foremost scholars on shamanism reveal that the contemporary world still hungers for transcendent experiences because the shamanic narrative is hard-wired in us all. Study results demonstrate that the cross-cultural manifestations of shamanism and its contemporary appeal are rooted in innate functions of the brain, mind, and consciousness. Many people in today's world are being called by spirit to become shamans. A yearning exists deep within many of us to reconnect to the natural world. It is a call to a life lived in balance with awareness of nature, of spirit, and of self. Learn the fundamentals of this sacred ancient practice in this in-depth guide to shamanism.

10 Signs that You are a Shaman

Because contemporary culture doesn't have a role for the shamanic archetype, many people who grow up outside indigenous traditions may be shamans and not realize it. Many naturally gravitate towards mainstream healing professions, such as medicine, psychology, or life coaching. Others wind up in professions where they may feel like they don't fit in at all. Even those who enter the healing professions may feel out of place, because the systems of Western medicine and psychology leave little room for a shaman to practice their innate healing art. Many others will wind up in various forms of sacred activism, healing the planet, for example, rather than healing people.

Are you a shaman and don't know it? Here are some telltale signs that you might fit the archetype. Read more.