Osprey Medicine

Osprey is a messenger, guide, psychopomp, fearless protector of its young, and guardian of both the air (consciousness) and the water (the unconscious) it dives into for fish. Like the shaman, Osprey moves between the seen and unseen realms joining both worlds together. Osprey is a master shapeshifter who merges light and darkness, seeing both inner and outer reality. Invoke Osprey to help you integrate conscious and unconscious awareness, thereby renewing the flow of intuitive mind. Intuition reveals appropriate action in the moment for a given set of circumstances. Synchronous activity appears within consciousness as the most natural thing to do. One can readily perceive what aims are in accord with the cosmos and not waste energy on discordant pursuits. So long as one follows one's intuitive sense, one's actions will be in sync with the true self and ultimately the cosmos. Listen to my song "Osprey Guardian" on Spotify.

Drumming Out Drugs

Daniel Smith is the program director of the Herman Area District Hospital Alcohol and Drug Unit in St. Louis, Missouri. After years of use of shamanic drumming techniques and training by the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, Smith introduced drumming into his work as a licensed clinical social worker in a substance abuse rehabilitation program. Using a shamanic approach, he introduced the shamanic techniques of journeying, divination, power animal retrieval, soul retrieval, extraction and shapeshifting as an alternative and complementary therapy for addiction. Shamanic techniques are reinforced through rituals with symbols of flight (e.g., birds and feathers) that help evoke visionary experiences reflecting common themes in recovery--symbolically rising from the depths of despair and soaring through the sky.

In a study published in the American Journal of Public Health, Smith states that "drumming and shamanic activities address addiction through reintegrating aspects of the self in rituals for soul retrieval and power animal retrieval. Through these activities, people gain access to traumatic assaults that have driven their abusive relations with drugs. Spirit world journeys provide direct access to these early experiences in a context that reduces barriers to awareness. Ancestor spirits or other helpful spirit guides and allies encountered in rituals and journeys facilitate the resolution of trauma. These experiences are healing, bringing the restorative powers of nature to clinical settings. Shamanic activities bring people efficiently and directly into immediate encounters with spiritual forces, focusing the client on the whole body and integrating healing at physical and spiritual levels." Read more.

Starting a Shamanic Drum Circle

A shamanic drum circle is a place for practitioners to get together for learning, healing, and the direct revelation of spiritual guidance. Starting a drum circle begins with getting the word out. This means doing outreach to new age bookstores and local events listings in community newspapers, college campuses and the local shamanic community. If possible, begin promoting your first drum circle at least six weeks in advance. Follow up with reminders a few days before the event. Don't be discouraged by a low attendance. When they meet on a regular basis, drum circles have a natural tendency to grow over time. If you drum, they will come. What you communicate about the drumming circle has a great impact on who will join and what they will expect. For posters and promotional materials, emphasize the benefits of being a member of a shamanic drum circle. Make sure to include key phrases like:

1. "A supportive community for shamanic practitioners;"
2. "Deepen your knowledge of shamanic practice;"
3. "Build community through rhythm;"
4. "Promote understanding of self and others;"
5. "Foster authentic connections and relationships;"
6. "Elicit wisdom, insight, ideas and points of view;"
7. "No prior musical experience necessary;"
8. "Instruments will be provided;" 
9. "Please bring a drum;"
10. "Drug and alcohol free!"

To learn more, look inside my book Shamanic Drumming Circles Guide.

Core Teachings of Shamanism

One of the core teachings of shamanism is that the entire universe is alive with a spiritual consciousness that can communicate. From photons to galaxies, life is conscious, intelligent energy that can form itself into any pattern or function. The shaman, like our modern physical scientists, views the universe as a web of inseparable energy patterns that is in a continuous process of creation. As a result of this, we are all interconnected and interdependent through all dimensions of reality.

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.

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. Read more.

Support Standing Rock's Landmark Case

The Lakota People's Law Project is asking for donations to fund the upcoming legal battle to protect Standing Rock activist, Chase Iron Eyes. The necessity defense of Chase could set a precedent to protect not only land and water, but freedom of speech itself. This trial can help create a permanent legal framework to protect indigenous, environmental, and civil rights. This trial may prove to be the most important of our generation. At this crucial juncture, they ask you to give once again. They must raise $200,000 for expert witnesses, investigators, their travel, and the capacity to categorize all the evidence. As Lakota People’s Law Project Chief Counsel Daniel Sheehan discusses in a new video, the information they have already gathered from deposing law enforcement officials is very encouraging. When people go under oath, they often stop lying.