The Life Cairn Project

The Life Cairn Fire

Throughout human history, cairns have been built as landmarks to help guide a journey, to memorialize fallen comrades, for spiritual or shamanic practices, or simply to indicate a reverence for the natural world. The Life Cairn is a powerful new version of this tradition established in England by Reverend Peter Owen-Jones and Andreas Kornevall and assisted by Vanessa Vine, to memorialize species rendered extinct by human activity. The mission of The Life Cairn Project is to promote and catalyze the creation of Life Cairns as memorials to species that have become extinct due to human impacts on the environment, and to sound urgent alerts about critically endangered species, cultures and island nations.

A Life Cairn is more than a static memorial; through repeat visits to add stones and express our grief when another species disappears forever, a Life Cairn becomes a crucial touchstone for our sacred interdependence. As board member Diana Lightmoon puts it, "Grieving for the loss of a fellow creature of creation is an act of acknowledging what is happening right now. From this place of acknowledgement, we may be able to find a new way of being in this world with each other and with all species." To learn more about constructing Life Cairns and what you can do about our Earth Community's suffering, visit the Life Cairn Project website. 

2014 Summer Solstice Drum Circle

Sunday June 22, 2014, 1 to 4 pm at the Silverton Grange, 201 Division St., Silverton, OR 97381. Facilitated by Michael Drake, author of Shamanic Drumming Circles Guide. At the Summer Solstice, we begin a new cycle on the Medicine Wheel of Life, entering the South -- the home of summer, midday, youth, joy, trust, growth and Coyote, the Spirit Keeper of the South. As we celebrate in ceremony, we participate in this season of abundant growth, attuning ourselves to the cyclical rhythms of nature. By joining our hearts in prayer and sacred drumming, we create a sacred union with the vital energy of our Mother Earth which reaches its full expression in the South. Nurtured by our Earth Mother's limitless energy, we become limitless co-creators of all that is needed to benefit all beings unto seven generations. Bring a drum, a dish, and a donation. 

Heyoka Coyote

Coyote is a cunning shapeshifter who can adapt to any habitat. While the habitats of most predators are diminishing, Coyote’s territory is expanding. Call upon Coyote for these shapeshifting qualities, but beware, for Coyote is a magician, trickster, and heyoka. The heyoka or sacred clown uses satire, folly and misadventure to awaken people to innovative and better ways of doing things. The mischievous heyoka behaves in ways that are contrary to conventional norms in order to violate peoples’ expectations. In such paradoxical states, people can assimilate new information quickly, without filtering.

Coyote’s lesson is to stop acting out of habit. You must be willing to plow old habits into the soil in order to cultivate new patterns that enhance your natural growth. Innovative change will revitalize your life and precipitate renewed growth and creativity.

Sometimes we unwittingly cut off the voice of our inner truth, or sense of what is correct; relying instead on old, soul-killing patterns of judgment, control, and distrust. Inner truth reflects, like a mirror, the higher, universal truth that exists in every situation. Yet even when our point of view is at its most positional, narrow and self-righteous, higher truth, often in the guise of the trickster, is there to open the way back to balance and wholeness. Click here to listen to the Coyote chant.

Shamanic Drumming Circles Guide

I am pleased to announce the publication of the Kindle eBook edition of my new drum guide. The paperback will be available in a few weeks. This book is the culmination of twenty-five years of shamanic circling. Since 1989, I have been involved in facilitating shamanic drumming circles and hands-on experiential workshops nationwide. Many of the participants in my seminars were inspired to start or join drumming circles in their communities. Over the years, a number of these shamanic practitioners have shared the specific challenges and issues their circles experienced. This ongoing networking with other practitioners evolved into the Shamanic Drumming Circles Guide. This comprehensive manual provides guidelines for creating, facilitating and sustaining shamanic drumming circles.

A shamanic drumming circle is essentially a modern adaptation to an ancient form of cultural expression attributed to indigenous shamanic peoples. In indigenous cultures, the term "drum circle" would not be used. Rather, the term "ceremonial drumming" or "drumming rite" would be more accurate. 

The shamanic drumming circle is the most powerful way I know to connect with the spirit and oneness of everything. Everything has a rhythm, and that rhythm is circular. Drum circles provide the opportunity for people of like mind to unite for the attainment of a shared objective. There is power in drumming alone, but that power recombines and multiplies on many simultaneous levels in a group of drummers. The drums draw individual energies together, unifying them into a consolidated force that can be channeled toward the circle's intended goal. Look inside my new book here. View the YouTube book trailer here.

Interview with Sandra Ingerman

Sandra Ingerman is one of the respected leaders of the neo-shamanic movement here in America. She is the author of eight books including Soul Retrieval and Medicine for the Earth. Sandra has been teaching for over 30 years. She teaches workshops internationally on shamanic journeying, healing, and reversing environmental pollution using spiritual methods. She has trained and founded an international alliance of "Medicine for the Earth" teachers. Sandra is recognized for bridging ancient cross-cultural healing methods into our modern culture addressing the needs of our times.

In a recent interview, Sandra shared her struggle with depression and how she used the methods derived from the beliefs and practices of traditional cultures to create her sense of well-being. Sandra says, that even though shamanism has been practiced in cultures that seem to have little in common with our modern society, the underlying philosophy is timeless for its relevance to humanity. She states "shamanism is a way of life." It reminds us that everything is alive with energy and that we are all connected to and inseparable from a universal web of life. She believes that so much of the mental illness we see today largely comes from our disconnection from nature. Watch the interview here. 

Solo Time in Nature

Trail through the Tatoosh Wilderness

When was the last time you took a hike into the forest or a walk onto the beach alone? When you go solo in nature, the entire experience is different than if you're with someone else. Hiking with other people, there is little hope of seeing any real wildlife and not much solitude. Solitude allows time for self-examination, relaxation away from the daily grind for awhile, and a chance to meditate, contemplate, or just zone out for hours at a time. The longer the solo immersion; the more transformational the experience.

I did my first solo in nature at the age of twenty (1974); backpacking for three days in rugged Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. That first trek challenged and inspired me to pursue more outdoor solo adventures. Many of my most memorable experiences took place during solo journeys into nature. My longest solo was a (1980) three week backpacking trek through the Salmon Mountains of Klamath National Forest in Northern California. It was an epic adventure and transformational experience that I will never forget. I recounted my backpacking adventure (and shamanic initiation) in my book Shamanic Drumming. At the age of 59, I still spend solo time in nature. I no longer backpack, but still like to go tent camping alone for days or weeks at a time. I always return home feeling spiritually renewed. My inner self is most nourished when I am immersed in nature.

Shamans have always gone solo in nature because they knew that the only way to recharge was to connect with nature's healing energy. What better way to reenergize than to sit in a deep forest, or next to a waterfall for a few days and nights? Shamans knew that some of that natural power could be gathered and stored using shamanic techniques and then applied later to their active endeavors. There is no reason why an ordinary person cannot learn and apply similar techniques to recharge, gather, store, and apply the renewed vitality gained from solo time. To learn more, read my journey into nature and shamanism, Shamanic Drumming: Calling the Spirits.