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Rev. Elaine M. Egidio,
MCAT, BC-DMT, LPC
Elaine is a
licensed Counselor, Board Certified Dance Movement Therapist, Shamanic Practitioner and
the Director of Dancing Winds Therapy in Atlantic Highlands, New
Jersey. She is also a minister in the Circle of the Sacred
Earth, a church of...
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Read an article by Elaine
published in "Holistic Living"
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The following is an excerpt
from Sandra Ingerman's book Shamanic Journeying: A Beginner's
Guide.
Shamanism: The Path of Direct Revelation
Shamanism is the earliest spiritual practice known to humankind,
dating back tens of thousands of years. Although the word
“shaman” is a Siberian word for a spiritual healer, shamanism
has also been practiced in parts of Asia, Europe, Africa,
Australia, Greenland, and native North and South America
throughout history. The fact that the practice has survived and
thrived for tens of thousands of years speaks to the potency of
the work.
One of the beautiful aspects of the shamanic journey is the
principle of direct revelation. The practice of shamanic
journeying helps us to part the veils between the seen and
unseen worlds and access information and energies that can help
awaken us and restore us to wholeness. A shaman is a man or
woman who interacts directly with spirits to address the
spiritual aspects of illness, perform soul retrievals, divine
information, help the spirits of deceased people cross over, and
perform a variety of ceremonies for the community. Shamans have
taken on many roles in tribal communities. They have acted as
healers, doctors, priests, psychotherapists, mystics, and
storytellers.
Traditionally, the practice of shamanism has focused on
practical results achieved by the shaman. In a traditional
shamanic culture, there was either a single individual or a few
people in the community acting in the role of shaman. The shaman
would be consulted by hunters and gatherers in the tribe to
identify food sources. If the shaman were unable to accurately
divine the location of food, the tribe would not survive.
Shamans were also expected to perform healings for members of
the community. Once again, the survival of the tribe was largely
dependent on the shaman’s spiritual abilities.
Shamanism teaches us that everything that exists is alive and
has a spirit, and that we are joined with the earth and all of
life via our spiritual interconnectedness. Just as quantum
physics describes a field of energy that connects all of life,
shamans also speak of a web of life that connects everything. In
modern culture, many of us feel a deep longing to experience our
unity with this web of life and to heal our sense of isolation.
When we travel to non-ordinary reality in our shamanic journeys,
we learn how to communicate with the spirit of the trees,
plants, animals, insects, birds, fish, reptiles, and rocks, as
well as the spirit of the elements of the earth, air, water, and
fire. We directly experience the web of life.
As we are a part of nature, we have a deep need to reconnect
with nature’s cycles and rhythms. Imagine how exhausting it
would be to walk against the flow of a river every day of your
life. In truth, we have disconnected from the cycles and rhythms
of the moon and the seasons, and often we do walk against the
flow of the river of life. I believe this is partly the cause of
such ailments as chronic fatigue, depression, and a host of
other illnesses, both psychological and physical, that are so
common today. The helping spirits have a great deal to teach us
about restoring balance and harmony into our lives by
reconnecting with nature’s cycles and by living in unity with
the natural world.
Within the practice of shamanism, there are a variety of
ceremonies performed for honoring and working with the cycles of
nature and the cycles in our own lives, as well as for reading
omens and interpreting dreams—all of which provide insight,
healing, and empowerment. Shamanism can also teach us the value
of having a regular spiritual practice and the value of being in
service to others, which brings a genuine sense of meaning and
purpose to our lives. Finally, shamanism enables us to access
powerful forces to help us create the world we want to live
in—for ourselves and for others.
Shamans heal emotional and physical illness by working with the
spiritual aspect of illness. The traditional role of the shaman
has been to perform ceremonies. After tens of thousands of
years, traditional shamans are still a part of community life
and practice in Siberia, Asia, Australia, Africa, and North and
South America. The technique of shamanic journeying [taught] in
this book is just one of the ceremonies shamans use to establish
communication with the spirit world.
There are three common causes of illness in the shaman’s view.
First, a person may have lost his or her power, causing
depression, chronic illness, or a series of misfortunes. In this
case, the shaman journeys to restore that person’s lost power.
Or a person may have lost part of their soul or essence, causing
soul loss, which sometimes occurs during an emotional or
physical trauma, such as accidents, surgery, abuse, the trauma
of war, being in a natural disaster, or other traumatic
circumstances. This soul loss results in dissociation,
post-traumatic stress syndrome, depression, illness, immune
deficiency problems, addictions, unending grief, or coma. It is
the role of the shaman to track down the parts that have fled
and been lost due to trauma by performing a soul retrieval
ceremony. The third cause of illness from a shaman’s perspective
would be any spiritual blockages or negative energies that a
client has taken on due to the loss of his or her power or soul.
These spiritual blockages also cause illness, usually in a
localized area of the body. It is the role of the shaman to
extract and remove these harmful energies from the body.
Other ceremonies performed by shamans include welcoming children
into the world, performing marriages, and helping people at the
time of death transition from body to spirit. Shamans also work
to encourage the growth of crops, help people interpret dreams,
and advise people who are experiencing trouble. Shamans are in
charge of initiation ceremonies conducted around transitions
from one phase of life into another, such as initiating children
into adulthood. Shamans tell stories about the meaning of life
and show us how the spirits can help us find our way when we
feel lost in our life circumstances. They can remove spells or
dark energies, and read the tenor of the community, picking up
disharmony and imbalance. They create ceremonies to mourn the
loss of a member of the community. Shamans also read signs and
omens to choose auspicious times to undertake activities such as
hunting and celebrations.
Shamans understand the cycles of nature – the cycles of the
seasons and moons, and how the starts move across the sky. They
read the signs that come with these changes and movements. They
communicate with the weather spirits and maintain harmony and
balance in their communities.
Typically, there would be more than one shaman in a community.
Different shamans would be known for their spiritual areas of
expertise. For instance, some shamans would be known for their
great successes in particular healing ceremonies such as soul
retrievals, while others were known for their divination
abilities.
Over time, the practice of shamanism has adapted in response to
different cultural needs and the changing needs of the times.
Currently, there is a dramatic revival of shamanism in the West,
with a wide range of people integrating shamanic practices into
their lives, including students, housewives, teachers,
psychotherapists, lawyers, nurses, doctors, politicians, and
scientist. I believe that one of the main reasons for this
revival is that people want to be able to access their own
spiritual guidance. We want to stop giving away our power to
socially acceptable authority figures. We know that we are the
only ones who truly have the power to change our own lives.
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Elaine Performs
Sacred Ceremonies by Request
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