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“Creation consists of the emanations of the Eagle. There are forty eight distinct emanations of the Eagle, of which humans through our ordinary perception can perceive two of them.”>/i>

Don Juan – the Yaqui Indian and teacher of Carlos Castaneda.

There is a lot of discussion and opinion on what a shaman is. The word itself is rooted in the word šaman from the Tungus people in central Asia. Definitions vary greatly in modern society, this varies from people who enjoy trancing out to music at dances and ‘tribal’ gatherings calling themselves shamans to a very precise definition as per Mercia Eliade who in his book Shamanism - Archaic techniques of ecstasy specifically defines the term shaman as distinct from medicine man, sorcerer, healer, diviner, magician, herbalist and so on. Eliade’s specific differentiation is that the shaman who may be and practice all of the above is defined as, “the shaman specialises in a trance during which his soul is believed to leave his body and ascend to the sky or descend to the underworld”. This definition is sometimes employed in a strict sense, and appears to me to be limiting in scope. To me a shaman means more than that definition.

To quote Joan Halifax from her book Shamanic Voices; “The shaman, a mystical, priestly, and political figure emerging during the Upper Palaeolithic period and perhaps going back to Neanderthal times, can be described not only as a specialist in the human soul but also as a generalist whose sacred and social functions can cover an extraordinarily wide range of activities. Shamans are healers, seers, and visionaries who have mastered death. They are in communication with the world of gods and spirits. Their bodies can be left behind while they fly to unearthly realms. They are poets and singers. They dance and create works of art. They are not only spiritual leaders but also the judges and politicians, sacred and secular. They are familiar with cosmic as well as physical geography; they know the ways of plants and animals, and the elements. They are psychologists, entertainers, and food finders. Above all, however shamans are technicians of the sacred and masters of ecstasy.”

Leo Rutherford in his book The Shamanic Path Workbook, also sees a shaman from an inclusive and holistic perspective. He defines a shaman as “someone who has fully walked the path of transformation and chosen to become a healer, helper, seer, prophet, in service to the people”.

The most important and consistent point in all the above views is the emphasis on community, whether healing, divining, or prophesising, it is done in service to others. Shamanism is not shamanism if done in isolation.

Contemporary Shamanism

Shamanism has always been a way for living as humans in relationship to all things on our planet Earth. Some thousands of years ago at the dawn of human civilisation a quantum change happened to this way of being. It was not the introduction of religion but something far more powerful, the shift from a hunter gathering and ad-hoc horticultural society to agriculture. This change had enormous consequences. From being in relation to all things; we became the ‘managers’ of the living world. The ways of animal husbandry, crop rotation and irrigation of fields led to permanent settlements, the human tribes no longer had to follow the migration of the animals and foraging for plants, we could have it all in one place! The early civilisations started, from where the social and religious structures, systems, and worldviews (many of which we still experience today) came into existence.

The ancients knew and experienced that there is an energy normally invisible, which connects all that exists, and they lived with the knowledge of this energy and how to use it. This concept of the inter-relationship and understanding that man is a part of nature, not separate to it, a part of the connecting energy has been expressed in many ways and in many cultures but unfortunately not in ours. As Chief Seattle said in 1855 in his address to the American Congress;

“What befalls the Earth befalls all the sons of the Earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web he does to himself.”

The separation in Western society from the natural world with it’s accompanying myth of man having “dominion over all living things”, has led to spiritual disconnection from the universal energy field. At some level we are aware of this, and many are experiencing a heart-led desire to reconnect to the universal field of energy and consciousness which we are part of.

Many people are being drawn to spiritual paths such as shamanism as one of the ways to meet this deeply felt desire, to heal the pain of separation, and rejoice in the ecstatic beauty and possibilities of simply being alive on this rich and beautiful planet.

Shamanism contains time tested healing practices, ceremony and teachings to support people in this re-balancing of themselves. These practices are fundamentally healing, not only for the physical body but also for our inner sense of being and our soul. However the challenge is to build a bridge between the ancient wisdom and practices in such a way as to be useful , effective and meaningful to the modern Western individual.

One of the most significant separations between modern Western approaches and the shamanic approach is one of perspective i.e. between energy and physicality. From the shamanic perspective you could say that we (and everything else) are fields of energy, and the actuality that we experience as the physical world is but the description of our physical senses rather than being an absolute inherent fact. In some respects quantum physics is now pointing in the same direction as have the ancient shamans for forty thousand years.

In shamanic Healing we work with energy. Another word for this energy is life-force, soul, or the ‘vital nature’, and in shamanism there are many traditional ways of healing working with soul or life-force. It comes to fundamental questions and challenges to what is reality. This fundamental conception is so vast, that it seems that it can only be described in terms of metaphor.

“Nature shows us only the tail of the lion. But I do not doubt the lion belongs to it even though he cannot at once reveal himself because of his enormous size”.

Albert Einstein

The Path of the Shaman

The distillation of shamanism in the 21st century is the recognition that we and our god (whom we have made in our image) are not separate from creation, but discrete aware elements in a vast unending timeless ocean of consciousness and energy, and that we are all connected to each other, simply because we are each other.

All the traditional and indigenous shamans that I have encountered share one unifying characteristic , they will do whatever is required to help a person into health and well-being by catalysing in one way or another that persons inner belief system, to guide change in that persons reality so that they come to feel and ‘know’ that they will get well. This is just as important as the ‘real’ and tangible medicine work. They know that we are greater than we have been led to believe we are, and can influence and co-create our ‘reality’. Creative visualisation and other practices to influence the unfolding of our lives are not new-age, they are very much ‘old-age’ and belong to all of us. If we go back in our ancestral lineage, you would find that we all came from shamanic cultures, it is our birthright.

One of the beautiful aspects of shamanism is that it is a true spiritual democracy; there are no priests, no hierarchy. We all have the same rights of access to the universal field of love , life-force and consciousness because that’s where we are at. We have just forgotten it.

After being virtually ignored by Western civilization for centuries, there has been a huge surge of interest in Ayahuasca recently. There is a growing belief that it is a kind of ‘medicine for our times’, giving hope to people with ‘incurable’ diseases like cancer and HIV, drug addictions and inspiring answers to the big ecological problems of modern civilization.

Ayahuasca is not a drug, it is regarded as a gateway to another reality, a reality which co-exists with our physical world. From this reality an experience of the totality of inter-connectedness can be personally experienced. Ayahuasca is also known as La Purga (The Purge) due to it’s powerful physical ‘clearing’ effect, but it is more than just physical clearing it is also an energetic clearing of personal history as well. It is never to be taken lightly and only under the supervision of a shaman who is well versed in the ways of the plant.

Spirituality is at the centre of the Ayahuasca experience. Purification and cleansing of body, mind, and spirit in a shamanic ceremony can be the beginning of a process of profound personal and spiritual discovery. This process can continue indefinitely even if one never drinks Ayahuasca again. One thing is sure, and that is that every person gets a unique experience. We believe that by seriously looking at the way Ayahuasca is used we can improve our life experience and benefit more from this medicine.

Ayahuasca is the jungle medicine of the upper Amazon. It is made from the ayahuasca vine ( Banisteriopsis Caapi) and the leaf of the Chacruna plant (Psychotria Viridis). The two make a potent medicine which opens the doors to experiencing the energetic world which underlies the world of everyday. The vine is an inhibitor which contains harmala and harmaline among other alkaloids, and the leaf contains vision inducing alkaloids. As with all natural medicines, it is a mixture of many alkaloids that makes their unique properties. For example, Peyote, the cactus used by the North Native Americans, is said to contain 32 active alkaloids, so when one of those alkaloids, mescaline (LSD) is synthesised in a laboratory, contrary to popular opinion, the result is not at all the same.

Ayahuasca is a name derived from two Quechua words: aya means spirit, ancestor, deceased person, and huasca means vine or rope, hence it is known as vine of the dead or vine of the soul. It is also known by many other local names including yaje, caapi, natema, pinde, daime, mihi, & dapa. It plays a central role in the spiritual, religious and cultural traditions of the Indigenous and Mestizo (mixed blood) poeples of the upper Amazon, Orinoco plains and the Pacific coast of Colombia and Equador.

The plants are collected from the rainforest in a sacred way and it is said that a shaman can find plentiful sources of the vine by listening for the ‘drumbeat’ that emanates from them. The mixture is prepared by cutting the vines to cookable lengths, scraping and cleaning them, pounding them into a pulp, and then adding the chacruna leaves. The mixture is then boiled about twelve hours until it is a thick brown liquid.

To understand ayahuasca in the local context, one cannot avoid taking a look at the ecological environment, such as the rainforest, cultural environment and indigenous cultures. This has structured the cultural content of ayahuasca.

One of the more romantic stories takes place amongst the Shipibo people who live up the river in the heart of the jungle in the Peruvian Amazon.

This tale is centered around women, more so than men, as they look after the children and their health, whilst the men are out hunting and fishing. Men are more interested in plants that aid their inner spirits when hunting , whilst women are more interested in plants that will allow their children to grow.

There was one particular woman who was very interested in plants, who liked to pick the leaves of different plants. She would then crush the leaves into a pot and soak them in water over night. She would then take a bath every morning before sunrise (the way to find out about various plants and their effects is to bathe in them). She bathed in them every morning until she had a dream. In her dream a woman came and said, “why are you bathing every day?” She answered “I am doing this as I want you to teach me.” The other woman said “You must seek out my uncle, his name is Kamarampi. I will show you where to find him”. The woman led the other woman to her uncle. The uncle showed her how to mix the leaves of the chacruna, which was a bush she had taken leaves from to bathe in. He showed her how to prepare the brew of Ayahuasca, he told her to go and tell the people the knowledge of how to use the brew.

One of the many mysteries surrounding Ayahuasca is how the vine became to be used with the Chacruna leaves as although they both come from the same soil but always grow apart otherwise the ayahuasca winds around the Chacruna and kills it. No one knows this but we get a clue from how the shamans interact with the plant. Javier Arevalo a shaman from the Peruvian Amazon told us “ that his grandfather and uncles used to sit around after taking ayahuasca and he said that ayahuasca was originally taken alone and in the visions they saw that chacruna was missing. Ayahuasca would say I am the doctor that gives the vision. His grandfather responded, how can we find this plant? The response in the vision was, you can find it by turning two corners. So they went around two corners and found a bush which attracted them which was chacruna i.e the ayahuasca showed them.

This is a fundamental principle, in the visions it is the spirit doctor of ayahuasca which tells them what is wrong with their patient, what medicine they need, or who has caused the illness or malaise.

Ayahuasca and the spirit of plants.

In the West there are lots of stories like ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ reminding us that plants have spirit power, Alice in Wonderland explored this world too. There is a large body of knowledge of power plants even if the form has been adapted to fairy tales and ‘domesticated’, not to under rate the richness of Grimms’ tales.

All the plants used in medicine today were known by our ancestors. McKenna suggested that the evolution from primates to humans was achieved when we left the tropical rain forest to inhabit the savannah regions. We learned to stand on two legs and consumed psychotropic mushrooms. Interaction of plant and animal, change of diet meant a change of consciousness. Goats have a habit of eating all kinds of herbs which is why in the Andes, you are not supposed to eat goat’s milk or meat if you are having mental problems. In Lapland the reindeer eat the hallucinogenic mushrooms and the shamans drink their urine which has been “processed”.

When a person drinks Ayahuasca, especially with a trusted shaman, there is a chance to learn and trust the plant. You discover that it works in its own way. It is a great moment getting to this point. Then there is the question of whether the plant trusts us, because it can be abused and used for getting the wrong kind of personal power. Without intention, vision, preparation, and a shaman, it is a drug not a healing medicine.

In the Amazonian world Ayahuasca, as indeed all plants, has a spirit which is angelic but also has human emotions projected like jealousy, vengefulness, wroth etc. When it is being prepared, the shaman has to watch over it at all the time to prevent bad spirits being introduced. The fire needs tending regularly throughout the 10 hours concoction and the shaman should diet during this time. It is said that the spirit of Ayahuasca is very jealous and that if the rules of its preparation are not respected it is resentful. We wonder if this is a cultural thing or would it happen to us Westerners as well. During our interviews we constantly found that the general rules about the working of Ayahuasca did not always match up with our own experiences. For example the addition of toe (bella dona) and tobacco to induce vomiting is supposed to make you have a clear head the next morning but we found sometimes it was the other way round. We found it hard to pin down which were the decisive factors.

Sexual abstinence is another thing which is emphasised yet this seems to be a very individual thing. It would seem though, on reflection, that the purpose and intentions of the shaman are among the more important factors, that he follows the diet during preparation and for the session. At all times he is placing his energy where the Ayahuasca is. This also means that not anyone can be present to watch the brewing process, their quality as people as well as whether they had dieted, practised abstinence or had a period, all have an influence. When we watched the shaman Javier Arevalo preparing, his wife would do the washing and shredding of the Ayahuasca. After it had boiled for a while, Javier lit a large mapacho (hand rolled jungle tobacco) and blew smoke over the top of the concoction. The two of us were invited to do this as well. When this is done you can feel a blast from the boiling Ayahuasca in your face. Later in the session, the shaman or the person who has blown the smoke, feels the return of this blast and passes it on to his clients.

It is also important that none of the clients watch the process of preparation. In particular, a woman passing by who was having her period, could leave a bad energy with the medicine. This is a vexed question, the origins of which seem to be traceable to Christian, Amazonian and countless other traditions.

Anthropologists call it taboo for want of a rational explanation, but as with all things of the primordial world, there are reasons inherited from ancestral times, which may have been forgotten. At the dawn of time, realities were very different from what they are today. Mythology may shed some light on the matter, but one thing is sure we don’t really know! However it’s reasonable to make the assumption that our ancestors were not frivolous.

We worked extensively with Javier Arevalo and we had many discussions on the role of the Amazonian shaman and the use of ayahuasca. Javier comes from Nuevo Progreso, a community of 50 families on the Rio Napo, Department of Loreto, Peru. Several generations of his family before him have been shamans and already at the age of 17, he knew this would be his future. However it was not until he was 20 when his father died from a ‘virote’ (a poisoned dart in the spiritual world) sent by a jealous brujo, (sorcerer) that he felt compelled to follow the arduous five-year apprenticeship to be a shaman.

Javier, what is the role of a shaman?

He learns everything about the rain forest and uses that knowledge to heal his people since they do not have money for Western style doctors. He uses Ayahuasca to discover in his visions, which plants will be effective for which illnesses.

How do you perceive this?

The sprits or plant doctors tell us. As they are pure, they are made happy when we are too, so we must diet in order to attract them. That means we should not eat salt, sugar or alcohol, and abstain from sex. The spirits come and say, for example they will cure in two months if the patient takes a particular plant. Then the shaman goes out to look for the plant.

It is said that every environments has the necessary plants to heal the people?

Yes, every plant has a spirit, the shaman goes into the forest as part of his apprenticeship and spends two years taking plants and roots. He takes Ayahuasca too and the spirit tells him what it cures. Then the shaman tries another plant, each time remembering which ailment is cured by what.

Does each shaman have to find it all out for himself or is there a body of knowledge handed down?

The maestro goes with the apprentice into the wilderness and gives him the different plants and it is like a test or trial to overcome. The maestro is usually a member of family. In my case both my grandfather and my uncle were maestros. You go off deep into the forest with your maestro and make a very simple shelter or ‘tambo’. A shaman must not live in a big house, its just for sleeping and dieting.

How long do you have to diet the plant?

Just one day to know its process, the next day you move onto another. This is if you do not return to the city, you can get through a lot of plants. This is different from dieting a plant for a month say.

So does every condition or illness have a particular plant to remedy it or is it a spirit energy which comes through the plant which can cure many things?

One plant may cure lots of ailments. A particular plant has a spirit which can either heal or kill. As for example with another shaman (who we worked with earlier) , who had not dieted Ayahuasca correctly and poom! it caused fever and people caught colds.

So why would a plant kill or cure?

Because an hechicero (sorcerer) also learns from the plants. He may for example learn from dieting a plant which has spines or phlegm which could be good for certain things. But if he is bad no one can stop him and in the night ‘ffoooo’ he uses it for harm or to kill. These are the brujos who come back from the forest with eyes red like the huayruro (red beans with black spots). He is a bad shaman and we have to cure the people they harm.

Who would want to do such things?

There are some people who have a squabble with someone, and then they go off to see a brujo and say “this Senora talks too much and has insulted me, kill her and I’ll pay you”. They pay them and they do harm.

But the shaman who made us ill did not do it intentionally.

No, of ignorance. It was a shaman from the city not from the forest. He went away and left us to mop up the ill effects. He may have had a good teacher but does not diet, he is very fat! (People in the jungle are rarely fat.)

In addition he probably eats the day of the session and that is why he threw up himself!

How does this affect Westerners?

It doesn’t matter, they will probably throw up and not have any vision because when he blows he has condiments on his breath. However, it matters much less if the clients have eaten or not stuck rigorously to the diet. The important thing is that the shaman diets.

Note: There is much discrepancy between shamans concerning the question of vomiting. Some say it is necessary for the body to rid itself of what ever is necessary and that if they are not sick they might get ill. (Ayahusaca is often referred to as La Purga.) Others say if you vomit you will not have such good vision and on no account should a shaman vomit.

Why and how did you become a shaman?

I never thought of being a shaman. I took Ayahuasca from 14 years old just to clean my stomach. Later my father said I heard you chanting, you are going to be a shaman. I don’t want to I said. Later when I was 20 my father died from sorcery so then I wanted to learn in order to take vengeance. During my apprenticeship I had a change of heart and understood that God knew best in such situations.

Why did the brujo want to kill your father?

Because he was a curandero who had cured someone who had been harmed by the brujo. It happens because we curanderos undo the work of the brujos and they get angry with us. This is the famous spiritual battle between the brujos. When you cure you send the bad magic back to where it comes from and the brujos get their own dirty medicine back. This is why there is a fight between the good and the bad.

Howard tells story of his battle with one of Javier’s assistants 3 weeks earlier.

(Javier laughs a lot and explains.) Well because he was not really a shaman, he works as a guide, he drinks liquor. Then when he takes Ayahuasca and chants icaros he is not pure and his doctors don’t take any notice of him. The spirits start bothering (molesting) the people participating in the session. That is what happened to Howard. When I take Ayahuasca I talk to the doctors who give visions, I ask them to cure, I have dominion over them because I diet. If I don’t, they make you crazy or annoy you.

So if the shaman cannot control himself, then the spirits get out of hand?

If you can’t dominate the spirits of the jungle you are nobody, instead of curing they run away or take no notice of you.

So the control of the spirits is fundamental?

Spirits are like angels. God withstood 40 days of hunger and temptation by the devil and was resurrected. That’s what we have to do too.

This is Christianity, but your (Javier’s) people were practicing long before the missionaries came. Is it possible to separate the Christian from the wisdom of the jungle?

No, no, they work together. But it has nothing to do with going to a church. You learn all this in the wilderness. The spirits there are the angels of each plant to which you add your will to heal the client. This is the will of Christ.

Where does the power of the shaman end and the spirits begin?

The shaman receives the power from the jungle, he doesn’t have any power of his own that he doesn’t get from the forest.

When I look at you by day I see just a normal young man, when you wear your clothes and move into the ayahuasca space you become different, a different presence, you become larger…

(Javier laughs!) The medicine is not in the body, the body can wear clothes for example, and you see that by day. But at night you don’t see my body, you see my spirit which receives the medicine which transforms me through the vision. I have to be pure so as to be a receptacle of the spirit of the medicine. It is essential too for a shaman to be happy, the shaman laughs at everything, because a happy heart is what cures. He can’t have a long face or fight with his wife and children.

You started off with a desire for revenge, what changed you into a shaman?

My grandfather saw that my heart was bitter and he told me that it would not get me anywhere. My heart was still hard and wanted to kill! Bit by bit through taking the very plants that I had intended to use for revenge, the spirits told me it was wrong to kill and my heart softened.

Since the beginning of human experience, plants have played a role in the evolution of our species, not only in the provision of food and medicine but in our deepest spiritual experience and the development of consciousness. Their form, beauty, enchanting scents, their healing and emotional qualities, have all provided a gateway to the Great Mystery of Nature, which our Celtic forebears called “The visible face of Spirit”.

Though our lands are no longer forested as they were, we try to recreate a sense of their beauty and tranquillity in our gardens, parks, and the green spaces in our cities, giving us at least a taste of Nature with which we can sustain ourselves against the soulless backdrop of the steel and concrete jungles that are our homes today. For many people, plants are still the messengers of divinity, harmony, and beauty. They are also the source of our health and wellbeing, not just as medicines but in their ability to relax, refresh, or excite us.

Some deep part of us knows that the healing power of plants is inherent in what they are as much as what they do. Flowers have a role to play, for example, in all of our most primal celebrations of life and death – birth and birthdays, comings-of-age, marriages, illnesses, funerals and deaths. They are there at the first ‘I love you’, and they are there for our endings too. Even after death our connection to the natural world continues and our spiritual destination in many religious myths is some form of paradise which is often symbolised as the “Heavenly Garden”, or the Garden of Eden.

Archaeology shows that plant spirit shamanism has been part of our healing experience for thousands of years, predating other practices by millennia and going back to a time when healers worked in harmony with Nature.

Plant shamanism is - and always has been – a person-centred approach and incorporates, in a holistic way, practices such as herbalism, energy work, aromatherapy, and counselling to provide a unique blend of therapies that is most needed by each individual client, based on the healer’s attunement to the state of balance or otherwise of that client’s soul. But it is also fundamentally spirit-centred, and all traditional healers – from the Curanderos of the Amazon to the ‘folk magicians’ of Ireland – regard plants as sentient, aware, intelligent, alive, and as ‘doctors’ in their own right.

Plant shamanism involves practices for meeting these spirits, such as shamanic journeying, soul retrieval, rituals using flowers and fragrances, offerings to Nature, floral baths for protection, and the use of visionary plants to find purpose, clarity, and new directions in life. All of these, to the shaman, are implied by the term ‘healing’.

WAYS OF HEALING

As a young boy, I was apprenticed to a Welsh sin eater – a ‘cunning man’, as they were called in Wales - who used plants and flowers in his healing work. One of his methods was to bury the name of a patient, etched on a piece of bone, in a corner of his garden, next to a patch of ‘sun flowers’. Each day he would say his prayers to the flowers, consulting with them on the condition of his patient, then squeeze a few petals so their aroma was released. As the scent drifted upwards, he said, a little more of his patient’s illness was carried away until he or she was healed.

This may seem like a strange approach in our culture today, but when I grew up and went travelling I found the same essential methods used in Haiti, Peru, Africa, Greece, America, Turkey… so it is not an eccentricity or even unique to Wales.

The world over, in fact, wherever shamans work with plant spirits rather than extracts and compounds as Western doctors do, it is understood that plants are alive, aware, and willing to teach their healing secrets. Plant spirit shamanism is therefore learned practically - by getting out into the fields and making contact with natural forces, not by reading about plants in some dusty library.

The sin eater communicated with plants in this way and knew several magical uses for them that they had told him of. For example, the ‘sun flowers’ he used were actually marigolds, but he called them sun flowers because they are “Bright like the sun” and warmed the soul with protection. It is interesting, then, that we find the same belief in Andean Peru, where rosa sisa (African marigolds) are also used for protection. Here, they are often planted by the door of a house, so if someone should pass by and give the ‘evil eye’, the flowers will catch these negative energies and protect the soul of the house from disease. The petals turn black when this happens, but revert to their bright colour when the energy is discharged through their roots to the soil. The sin eater I knew had never visited Peru and yet the message from the plant was the same: marigolds – “sun flowers” - protect.

WORKING WITH PLANTS

The key thing with plant spirit shamanism is to establish a connection with the plant. Once that is done, the plant spirits themselves teach you everything you need to know and reveal the many ways of using them in healing, most of which are very unlike the Western medical notion of ingesting them in a tablet or even a herbal form.

In Haiti, Peru, Brazil, Indonesia, and in our own Celtic past, there is a practice, for example, of taking floral baths, where flowers and herbs are added to blessed water. The sick person then bathes to wash away his ailments. These baths are not restricted to physical healing, but can be used to draw good fortune and change your luck (which is regarded as a real and tangible force), by making you more ‘open’ to the receipt of money, love, or spiritual power.

Other ways of working with plants include the making of pakets, ‘power pouches’ containing herbs that remove negative energies, while returning life force to the patient as the pouch is brushed over his body. The paket has similarities to the Amazonian chacapa, a bundle of dried leaves which has medicine powers to rebalance the patient’s energy field, and is rubbed over the body in the same way.

The seguro of the Andes, a bottle which contains a mixture of plants and herbs in Holy water and perfume, uses the same principles of spiritual connection with the plants. Here the shapes, colours, or qualities of the plants invoke various powers that the client wishes to draw in to his life. Round, golden, seeds attract money, for example, while cactus spines embody protection. The seguro, according to Andean shamans, becomes a “Friend”, you can consult with. Every time you speak out your problems to this friend, they are removed, while the powers of the plants draw good energies in.

One rule that comes up consistently in this work is that we must treat our plant allies with respect. In Haiti, healers literally pay the plants for their work by dropping coins at the base of the tree they’re collecting leaves from. They are then ‘fed’ and there is a fair exchange: we charge the plants with energy so they have the power to help us.

We must also treat plants kindly. Research shows that they have feelings, intelligence, language – even the ability to count and make music! - and they can sense our intentions and respond to our actions. If we treat them with love, they flourish and grow; if not, then their spirits die and we don’t have the healers we need.

GETTING OUT OF OUR MINDS

One of the biggest challenges for the Western mind in learning how to work with plant spirits is our cultural fascination with science and measurement. This socialisation into ‘scientific thinking’ is hard to overcome because, as part of it, we have been taught to stifle our dreaming and imaginative selves. Luckily, however, there are also plants which have a spiritual intention to re-establish our connection with the spirit-universe and open us up to the true nature of reality.

One of these is guayusa. In the Amazon it is known as “The night watchman’s plant” because of its ability to bring lucid dreams and dissolve the boundaries between wakefulness and sleep. Thus, the night watchman can take guayusa and nap, while remaining alert to the sounds and sights around him as he watches over the tribe.

The shamans say that in every country we have plants to cater for our own needs; thus, in Europe, it may be difficult to find guayusa, but a tea made of vervain, valerian, and chamomile will achieve similar affects.

Another way of getting ‘out of our minds’ is through a special state of trance consciousness known as shamanic journeying.

To take any shamanic journey, find a time and a place where you can be alone and undisturbed for 20 minutes or so, then dim the lights or cover your eyes, lie down and make yourself comfortable.

Most journeys are taken to the sound of drumming, which encourages ‘dreaming’ patterns to emerge in the brain, taking the shaman deeper into a more holistic experience of the world in its fullness. You can drum for yourself, have a friend drum for you, or use a drumming tape to guide your journey.

Expressing your intention and keeping this in focus is again important. Intention is the energy that guides the journey and enables you to engage with the mind of the universe so it can work with you.

You can try this yourself by setting your intention to meet with a plant ally – the consciousness of a plant that will guide you into the world of the collective plant mind. You do not need to have a specific plant in mind. Stay open instead to whatever comes.

As soon as the drumming begins, imagine yourself entering a place which connects you to the Earth in a way that is meaningful to you, then allow your imagination to take you where it will. All you need do is receive.

When your plant ally appears to you, spend some time in conversation with him or her (in the imaginative world, most plants take human form). Enquire about its healing gifts and the way these properties manifest in the plants themselves. Ask how you can work with this ally and the plants that embody him or her.

Visit your ally often in this way and you will learn more about the world of the

plants, the nature of reality and, indeed, about yourself, as part of this vast and

beautiful universe.

In traditional wisdom and knowledge, life is a continuum that does not end at the moment of death. One of the most important traditional tasks of the seer, shaman, medicine man or woman is to assist people who are either dying or the spirits of those who have died to make the transition into great domain of consciousness. This body of practices is known as Psychopomp, from the Greek word psychopompos which literally means ‘conductor of souls’. In Greek mythology, the god Hermes served as the escort for the dead into the afterlife. This concept of a guide or intermediary between the living and the dead is a collective theme found in most religions and mythologies.

Death and Dying

In shamanism death and birth are closely related to each other. One of the roles of the shaman is as a midwife of dying, to help, guide, or usher the soul or essence of the dying person into the unity of the afterlife. This is the work of the Psychopomp, conductor of souls.

There are many ‘cosmographies’ of where souls go when they die, each dependent on the culture and society they originated in. Shamanism is not a system of belief or faith, it is a system of knowledge, and is directly experienced first hand by the senses. The world that Shamans work in is not a consensus reality, i.e. what we have agreed is reality. The Shaman sees i.e. experiences with all the senses, and is the mediator between the everyday physical world and an alternate reality. The roots of shamanism pre-date recorded history. The earliest findings date back over 40,000 years. Shamanism is the ancestral mother of the human spiritual experience.

In the great panorama of creation, many cultures have structured and formed a navigable cosmography. The shaman navigates and journeys in a cosmos experienced as three great realms revolving around a great axis, known as the great tree, or axis mundi. They are known as the, Upper World, Lower World, and Middle Worlds. Central to all these realms is the Axis Mundi, which is the central axis which connects these three realms.

These realms have been structured and implemented in ways relevant to our culture and the world we live in. These three worlds have been renamed but are still present; The Upper World, the realm of our ancestors, religious or spiritual leaders, the gods, the spirit guides, is known as Heaven. The Middle World has been simply moulded into meaning our physical world or Earth, and the Lower World, the traditional place of sustenance and nourishment, the home where the spiritual power of the natural world, the plants, animals resides, has become demonised, and renamed as Hell.

The problem here is that the Lower World has become demonised, and turned into a travesty of it’s original meaning and embodiment of the living force of the natural world, and has become a very ‘bad’ place where all the wicked (disobedient) people go to suffer eternal damnation, hellfire, and other such terrible punishments. From a shamanic and a psychological perspective this has created the major problem of separation. By demonising the Lower World, the place which holds the feminine qualities of nurturing, and sustenance, we have as a society managed to disconnect ourselves from these very attributes. The story of the Garden of Eden fundamentally underlies this separation. If we consider the unifying principle of ‘so above, so below’, we are also looking at the cosmography of the human soul.

We have also lost along the expressway to modern civilisation this concept of the transition of the human soul from the physical world into the great realms of existence. People who die in sudden death , accident , confused , unhappy, drugged , people who lack power, murdered, killed in war, often disappear in the Middle World, and may be unable to make their transition , or not have an awareness of where and who they are. The work of the conductor of souls is to help these deceased individuals make that journey.

The shaman would embark on a spirit journey, to find the person who had died in unfortunate circumstances such as an accidental death. They would start from the place that the person died, and in their trance vision of expanded awareness spiral outwards in concentric circles to find them. Once located, it is then the work of the shaman to help them make that transition to another place, and be welcomed and re-united with loved ones.

This is Psychopomp work, helping the deceased to another world. There is an enormous fear of death in our society, and a renewed interest in this kind of work could provide re-assurance to those who are dying, and their loved ones.

Spirit of Shamanism Brings Harmony and Magic into Everyday Life

Shamanism is a very practical spirituality. A modern-day shaman could live next door to you and the only clues you might have are that they get along well with people and animals and have a green thumb with plants. Also, shamans have a knack for putting people at ease and for saying and doing the right thing at the right time. In his book, Urban Shaman, Serge Kahili King defines a shaman as “a healer of relationships, between mind and body, between people, between people and circumstances, between humans and Nature and between matter and spirit.”

If you have a taste of divine ecstasy, shamanism can teach you how to ground it, how to bring it into your everyday life through using your natural gifts and talents. Shamanism can support you in translating that experience, that creative energy, into physical form so it can benefit yourself and everyone around you.

The essence of shamanism is not an esoteric, mysterious, ritualistic tradition that can only be practiced by native peoples in a tribal environment. This ancient spiritual perspective on life is a down-to-earth, pragmatic, realistic way of living that anyone can use anywhere, anytime, including in our modern world.

Currently across the planet, the sacred knowledge of the shaman or wizard is being translated into everyday street language in order to create more healthy, harmonious and enriching lives for people.

The spirit of shamanism is more of an open, flexible attitude and approach to living than a rigid set of rules, formulas and techniques. Applying the basic principles of shamanism opens people to new possibilities and options for dealing with modern daily challenges.

From Alaska to the Andes, from Tibet to Tanzania, shamanism is a worldwide phenomenon. Virtually every religion has its roots in shamanism, although shamanism is not a religion. It’s a perspective—a way of seeing all things as sacred. Shamanism does not preclude any religion. It simply says that anyone can have a direct experience of the divine without an intermediary. By honoring the sacred essence of everyone and everything, one’s whole life can truly become a spiritual adventure.

Following Omens and Signs

The shaman relates to every form of life as being alive, filled with energy and always communicating something to us. The key is in learning how to receive the communication. “Omens are a way Spirit communicates with us in the physical world,” states shaman Ken Eagle Feather in Traveling with Power. “You can decipher omens from virtually anything, but pay special attention to unusual occurrences, whether it’s the strange behavior of birds, or conversations in which someone says something that catches your attention in a special way, or when a book falls off a shelf in front of you. You might find that messages on billboards change right in front of you, so that while others are reading an ordinary advertisement, you end up reading a message from Spirit. Be careful about being too strict in your interpretations, though. Remember, you are looking for guidance, not assurance. An omen might be the same for several people, or it might mean several different things. It’s up to you to create your personal omen dictionary. This open-ended response is called non-patterning, and it provides the space for Spirit to communicate with you.”

Using personal experience as the means through which wisdom is gleaned (rather than through reading, thinking or analyzing), the shaman presents opportunities where people begin to sense a real, interactive connection with everything else that exists, even those things believed to be inanimate such as rocks, plastic, glass or metal.

Everything is Energy

The basis of shamanistic creation, healing and transformation has always been the knowledge that the essential nature of everything is energy. Modern science, specifically quantum physics, has only recently concluded that every living thing is made of energy. The reason that walls and rocks appear solid is because they vibrate at a low, dense rate. We know that pictures travel invisibly through the air and arrive on our TV screens. Is it such a stretch to open to the possibility that everything has an invisible energy within it? And that communication can be transmitted through this energy?

Shamans utilize the knowledge that everything is energy to create in their world by using their conscious attention to direct the flow of energy within all forms of life. Energy flows where attention goes.

Indeed, scientists are now reporting that the outcome of their experiments are significantly affected by the beliefs and thoughts of the person conducting the experiment.

Since we come to this planet to evolve our soul within the paradox of this world of polarity (light and dark, inside and outside, body and spirit), we must develop the skill to play consciously and creatively with duality. If we are truly perceptive, we can see how the energies of each opposing polarity are serving us. If we see how we are at effect of all these dualistic energies, then we can make a choice of what to keep and what to eliminate. This is an act of magic. True magicians are those who can influence energy, whether it is inside them or in the world outside them. If we have learned how energy moves and behaves, we have opened ourselves up to our true selves. This is what the paradoxes of our world teach us. Shamans know that humans are determiners of spirit, and the choices, decisions and priorities that we set fashion the reality of the world in which we live.

Seeing Deeply

When shaman use their ability to “see” the underlying energy dynamics of situations and relationships, they are able to “see” cause and effect connections and forces that are not visible when viewing the circumstances superficially, i.e., looking only at the outer form. Perceiving the energy dynamics of life events reveals new alternatives and possibilities not previously apparent.

“The art of the shaman is to be able to guide, to be able to illuminate the path in such a way that the person hooks on to a greater experience—that of freedom.” Eagle Feather shares. This allows people the freedom to move beyond limits of past perceptions into the realm of options, fresh creativity and natural magic.

A shaman would “see,” for example, that the anger of a supermarket clerk resulted from the clerk’s inability to express their feelings. The shaman could “see” how this emotional energy was adversely affecting not only the clerk, but also the people in line. Consequently, a shaman may choose to engage the angry clerk in a friendly, relaxing conversation in order to shift the situation into flow and harmony.

Practical Power

We have many powers within us that we can learn to use for our own benefit and for the benefit of others. From the shamanistic point of view, all power comes from within. Power comes from authorship (authority). Shamans become the authors of the creations in their world by freeing themselves of programmed and conditioned perceptions. In moving beyond customs, manners, rules and techniques, the shaman embraces the practicality of “What works, works.” The shaman has little concern for how something works, only that it produces the results that one intends. Shamans are the most flexible, utilitarian and efficient authors of their world. They take the shortest, quickest route to their goals, even if the path tramples on their own concepts or beliefs.

One way people can experience this power is to look for proof in their own lives. Take love, for example. One way to increase the presence and power of love in a person’s life is to decrease the presence and power of judgment. Shamans notice that their attention cannot be in both places at the same time, and, therefore choose where they want to spend their energy. To spend energy judging that they harmed someone or that another person caused them harm, would be a misdirection and waste of energy for a shaman.

Eagle Feather explains more about the true nature of power, “Anyone looking for power over others or control over material processes is probably going to be disappointed by the teaching, which essentially define power as the ability to free oneself from one’s own perceptions and habitual patterns. The message seems to be that once you align with the energy, you’re no longer the master. Spirit is.”

Profound Healing

A shaman is a bridge between this world and the invisible world of the spirit. A shaman is very anchored, very present, in this world. Being so centered and grounded, a shaman can assist a person to travel into dimensions and see things from a much bigger perspective. Then people can heal because there is more room for them to expand and open to fresh new realities. This expanded awareness from the shaman creates a strong foundation for people to awaken to their own healing power within. The goal of the shaman is always to support the awakening of the soul. The shaman acts as an anchor so the person can reach their own depth and move through their own cellular transformation.

Shaman Frederick Wolf concurs. “People really know how to heal themselves. It’s an illusion to think that someone is going to come and heal them. But what will happen is, when they feel the support and safety that the shaman can hold for them, they will have faith enough to go into that place inside of them that knows how to heal. It’s not some magical thing that happens. It’s very natural.”

A Vibrant Way of Living

Shamanism is a way of living on the altar of Mother Earth. It’s a way to live in balance on the earth, a way of finding not only peace with yourself personally, but peace with nature and your environment. Shamanism is bringing the two worlds together: your inner world—“your heart”—with your outer world. It’s important to be balanced, to be grounded in both worlds. We should be able to go anywhere and be at home, whether it’s in a cave or a big city.

Shamanism is a pathway that can help us to realize the sacredness and magic within and all around us. Birds that soar into the heavens, trees whose roots reach deep into the earth, everything in nature reflects an aspect of our souls. As the poet Rumi said, “You will see stars and moons mirrored in your being.” Shamanism is letting go of our limited ideas and concepts of who we are. As we abandon our illusions of separateness, we open to the beauty and simplicity of our true nature—our connectedness with all of life.

Drawing from the wisdom of native and ancient spiritual traditions, Keith Varnum shares his 30 years of practical success as an author, personal coach, acupuncturist, filmmaker, radio host, restaurateur, vision quest guide and international seminar leader with “The Dream Workshops”. Keith helps people get the love, money, and health they want with his F-r-e-e Prosperity Ezine, F-r-e-e Abundance Tape and F-r-e-e Coaching at www.TheDream.com

Looking for a great way to give your home decor western or rustic style? Try including Shaman drums along with your rustic home furnishings like I did. My love for these beautiful, American Indian drums started right after my husband and I bought our new home last year. We knew that because of our love for the old west, we wanted true southwestern and Native American style decor with unique rustic home furnishings. Once that was decided I started filling my new home with awe-inspiring southwestern and Native American pieces that would go with my southwest decor and entertain my visitors by telling a story at the same time. That is when I discovered how easy it was to give my home that beautiful southwest style that you see in designer home magazines, by decorating with shaman drums.

Maybe you are like me when I first started hearing about the history and meaning of Native American drums, and have only a rough idea of what the Shamans drum is. Or, maybe you are wondering how to choose the right drum to play in your Shaman drum circle. Whatever the case, it is necessary to understand the role this raw hide drum plays in Native American culture so you can develop a true appreciation for its art and let its power lead you in the right direction.

If you are fortunate enough to attend or be involved in a Shamanic ceremony you will notice that the Shaman, or spiritual leader, will beat a unique looking raw hide hand drum with a soft drum stick to create the soothing monotonous beat used to take him to an altered mental state. During this altered state of mind, called the Shamanic journey, the spiritual leader receives healing and spiritual powers he uses to guide his people. If you look closely at the Shaman’s drum you will see that unlike many other leather Native American drums used for tribal ceremonies, these rustic drums have natural raw hide, stretched over a wooden frame on one side and are laced with raw hide string on the other side. They don’t have the loop hold like many other Indian drums do. A drum fashioned in this way gives you a natural hand holding position so you can fully control the drum and easily create the sound that is very important in bringing out the right tones necessary to guide you on your Shamanic journey.

You will also see that many Shamans drums have symbolic painted designs on the rawhide drum face. These unique American Indian paintings often depict a map of the universe or symbols of spiritual powers you can use to aid you in your spiritual journeying experience. If you are using the drum for Shamanic work, take time to study the significance of the painting. Since the southwestern symbols have a special power that directs the journey, you want to make sure it is in line with your own practices and guides you in that direction.

Also, I always make sure to check the quality of the drum before purchasing. It’s important to check that there are no thin places at the points where the cords of the drumhead are connected. This is vital to the quality and life of your Shaman drum and will ultimately save you money by not having to have it repaired or buy a new one.

A lot of attention is placed on the drum alone but it’s also important to choose the right striking mallet so you can enjoy the resonating sound of these native drums to its fullest. You will realize that there are many different types of mallets that evoke different tones from the drum and although I personally like using a mallet with a fur covered head, it is a matter of what you like best. Whether you are buying Native American musical instruments such as drums as part of your home decor or are using it to guide you in your spiritual journey, you will no doubt love the authentic Native American style and western charm brought to your life and home by Shaman drums.

Everything begins with a thought. We are a thought form of Creator. Everything on this planet, trees, flowers, animals, stones are manifested thought forms of Creator and Creator only has good thought forms so all these things are good. Man was created with free will. Man can create both positive and negative thought forms. He has both positive and negative thoughts. A thought form is created by a thought and powered by emotion. Creator powers his thought forms with love. If Creator were to stop loving, his positive thought forms would cease to exist. We are powered by the love of Creator. Everything beautiful on this planet is sustained by the love of Creator. When we create a thought form we power it with our emotions too. It is either a positive thought or a negative thought powered with love or perhaps fear, anger, greed, envy, jealousy or another negative emotion. These thought forms need continued emotion to power them. A negative thought form, like an intent to harm someone, needs a continued supply of negative emotion to keep it alive. A positive thought form, like a blessing, needs a continued supply of love to keep it alive. When the emotional power is no longer supplied the thought form can wither and die unless it finds other appropriate emotion from other sources to keep it alive. Where can it find other sources of emotion? From other people.

These thought forms are floating all around us at all times. They bump into our energy fields all day long. If we are feeling angry, upset, depressed or fearful the negative thought forms are attracted to us and feed off our negative emotions. The thought form itself can influence us indirectly and that thought can bring its own discord, unhappiness, anger, obstacle into our lives and thus power up on even more negative emotional energy. Like attracts like.

If we are positive and loving we attract positive thought forms which then are powered by our own feelings of positive emotions and they can even influence our lives with that positive thought. Some teachers have taught that to be wealthy you should be happy about others being wealthy. You should consider yourself wealthy and have all the positive emotions that wealthy people have expressing their good fortune. You are not only attracting that positive thought form of wealth to you but you are also combining yourself mentally to that thought form along with those who are already wealthy thus giving the thought form even more power to manifest in your reality.

A group of people with a common thought form gives more energy to that thought form and help in its manifestation in a bigger and quicker way. The common positive energy they supply to that positive thought form allows it to grow more powerful and manifest more completely than one person might be able to achieve alone. Belief also comes into play here. When you believe in a thought you give it power. When a group of people believe in a thought they give it a lot of power. It doesn’t matter if it is a positive thought or a negative thought, a true thought or a false thought, the power can be just as great. If the thought is positive and powered by love and believed by a group of people, the thought can be manifested in this physical world quite easily. If the thought is negative and the power is fear and a group of people support this thought by believing in it wholeheartedly and feeding it with fear, it can manifest on the physical plane just as easily.

If you have a wish, that is a thought form. If you power it with positive emotion it goes out into the unseen world to become manifest. Maybe your wish was not powerful enough just from your own thought. But it can gain power by hooking up with the positive emotions of other people around you. If those people have the same thought for you as you have for yourself then its power and ability to manifest becomes stronger. If a group of people believe in your wish as you do and have the same positive emotion about it as you do then it will manifest quickly and powerfully.

The same is true for fear based thoughts. Ever notice that you can share your wish with someone and it just fizzles out unmanfested? They intentionally took your positive energy away from your wish by feeding it with their negative emotions about it. They stole the gas from your car. And have you noticed if you shared your wish with others who have the same wish for you it became more powerful and was able to manifest physically in your life?

So to make a wish come true, first you need to have a positive thought. This thought should not just be one that will benefit you only but should be one that will benefit all of Creation so that it can be Creator’s own thought form powered by Creator’s love as well as your own. That will guarantee your success. If your wish is for you personally, it will be more difficult to find sufficient positive emotion and shared belief to make it happen. So a wish in alignment with Creator’s thoughts is the first step. Then share that thought with others who have positive emotions to feed it. If they can believe in your thought and share positive emotion for it, that is even better. The more people who share your thought the more powerful that thought form is.

Now you have the car of the common positive thought and the gas of positive emotion. You have put that wish in motion and it has no choice but to manifest itself in your life provided that it doesn’t get stopped by negative thoughts and emotions draining it and causing it to lose power and stall out on the side of the road. Announcing your positive thought/wish to those who want to see you fail is a sure way of stalling out your wish. Wishing for something that you know in your heart or mind is not good for you will not give any power to that wish. If you have any negativity about your wish either consciously or unconsciously it will not have the power to manifest for you. If you do not connect it to Creator’s own wish for you, it will be pretty small in power and hard to manifest. If your wish is harmful in any way it cannot be powered by positive emotion no matter how much love you throw at it. If someone’s wish is deliberately harmful and enough people throw positive emotion at it such as love, it can also stall out on the side of the road. But if your wish is not only for your good but for the good of a group of people and good in Creator’s benefit too, then it will be powerful. And if you can get that group involved emotionally in that wish it will have more than enough gas to manifest itself.

This is a universal truth and has been taught by sages and mystics and wise men throughout all of history. This is a universal truth of Shamanism too. This explains the reason for inner world beings and the struggle between good and evil in the inner worlds where the Shaman journeys to heal people. This is the explanation of why you have guides and teachers and helpers around you who were given to you by Creator to help you accomplish your mission in this lifetime. You can learn much more about this by exploring the world of Shamanism with a wise teacher who understands this truth.

Shaman Elder Maggie Wahls is one of America’s most beloved elder teachers of traditional Shamanism for today’s modern society. She is the creator and instructor of the Shaman Apprenticeship 101 online course. Learn more about Shaman Elder Maggie and this course now by visiting her website www.shamanelder.com

Want to give your home true Native American style decor? Try using Shaman drums along with your rustic home furnishings like I did. My love for these unique, American Indian drums started right after my husband and I bought our new home last year. We knew that because of our love for the old west, we wanted true southwestern and Native American style decor with unique rustic home furnishings. Once that was decided I started filling my new home with awe-inspiring southwestern and Native American pieces that would match my southwest decor and entertain my guests by telling a story at the same time. That is when I came across how easy it was to give my home that beautiful western style that you see in designer home magazines, by decorating with shaman drums.

Maybe you are like me when I first started digging into the symbolic meaning of Native American drums, and have only a vague idea of what the Shamans drum is. Or, maybe you are wondering how to purchase the right drum to play in your Shaman drum circle. Whatever the case, it is necessary to understand the significance this raw hide drum plays in Native American culture so you can develop a true appreciation for its art and let its power guide you in the right direction.

If you are fortunate enough to be present at a Shamanic ceremony you will notice that the Shaman, or spiritual leader, will beat a unique looking raw hide hand drum with a soft drum stick to create the soothing monotonous beat needed to take him to an altered mental state. During this altered state of mind, called the Shamanic journey, the spiritual leader receives healing and spiritual powers he uses to guide his people. If you take a close look at the Shaman’s drum you will see that unlike many other leather Native American drums used during tribal ceremonies, these rustic drums have natural raw hide, stretched over a wood frame on one side and are laced with raw hide string on the other side. They don’t have the loop hold like many other Indian drums do. A drum made in this way allows for a natural hand holding position so you can fully control the drum and easily manipulate the sound that is very important in bringing out the right tones necessary to lead you on your Shamanic journey.

You will also see that many Shamanic drums have symbolic paintings on the rawhide playing surface. These unique southwestern paintings often depict a map of the universe or symbols of spiritual powers you can use to help you in your meditating and journeying experience. If you are using the drum for Shamanic work, take time to look into the symbolic meaning of the painting. Since the southwestern paintings have a special power that influences the journey, you want to make sure it is in line with your own practices and guides you in that direction.

Also, I like to check the quality of the drum before purchasing. It’s critical to check that there are no thin places at the points where the cords of the drumhead are attached. This is important for the quality and life of your Shaman drum and will save you money in the long run by not having to have it repaired or buy a new one.

A lot of focus is placed on the drum alone but it’s also important to choose the right striking mallet so you can enjoy the resonating sound of these native drums to its fullest. You will see that there are many different types of mallets that evoke different tones from the drum and although I personally like using a mallet with a fur covered head, it is a matter of personal experience. Whether you are looking for Native American musical instruments such as drums to add to your home decor or are using it to guide you in your spiritual journey, I guarantee that you will love the true rustic style and southwest charm brought to your life and home by Shaman drums.

Want to give your home authentic Native American style decor? Try using Shaman drums along with your rustic home furnishings like I did. My love for these unique, American Indian drums began right after my husband and I purchased our new home last year. We knew that because of our love for the old west, we wanted true southwestern and Native American style home decor with one of a kind rustic home furnishings. Once that was decided I started filling my new home with unique western and Native American pieces that would go with my rustic decor and entertain my guests by telling a story at the same time. That is when I came across how simple it was to give my home that beautiful country style that you see in designer home magazines, by decorating with shaman drums.

Maybe you are like me when I first began learning about the history and meaning of Native American drums, and have only a rough idea of what the Shamans drum is. Or, maybe you are wondering how to choose the right drum to play in your Shaman drum circle. Whatever the case, it is important to understand the significance this raw hide drum plays in Native American culture so you can develop a true appreciation for its art and let its power lead you in the right direction.

If you are fortuneate enough to attend or be involved in a Shamanic ceremony you will notice that the Shaman, or spiritual leader, will beat a unique looking raw hide hand drum with a soft drum stick to create the soothing monotonous beat used to take him to an altered mental state. During this altered state of mind, called the Shamanic journey, the Shaman receives healing and spiritual powers he uses to guide his people. If you take a close look at the Shaman’s drum you will realize that unlike many other leather Native American drums used during tribal ceremonies, these rustic drums have natural raw hide, stretched over a wood frame on one side and are laced with raw hide string on the other side. They don’t have the loop hold like many other tribal drums do. A drum fashioned in this way allows for a natural hand holding position so you can fully control the drum and easily manipulate the sound that is vital in bringing out the right tones necessary to lead you on your Shamanic journey.

You will also see that many Shaman drums have symbolic paintings on the rawhide drum face. These unique Native American symbols often depict a map of the universe or symbols of spiritual powers you can use to guide you in your meditating and journeying experience. If you are using the drum for Shamanic work, take time to study the symbolic meaning of the painting. Since the rustic paintings have a spirit and power that guides the journey, you want to make sure it is in line with your own practices and guides you in that direction.

Also, I always make sure to check the quality of the drum before purchasing. It’s important to check that there are no thin places at the points where the cords of the drumhead are connected. This is important for the quality and life of your Shaman drum and will save you money in the long run by not having to have it repaired or buy a new one.

A lot of focus is placed on the drum alone but don’t forget to choose the right striking mallet so you can enjoy the resonating sound of these native drums to its fullest. You will see that there are many variations of mallets that pull out different sounds from the drum and although I personally like using a mallet with a fur covered head, it is a matter of what works best for you. Whether you are purchasing Native American musical instruments such as drums to incorporate into your home decor or are using it to help you in your spiritual journey, I guarantee that you will love the authentic Native American style and southwest charm added to your life and home by Shaman drums.

Looking for an easy way to give your home decor southwestern or rustic flare? Try using Shaman drums along with your rustic home furnishings like I did. My love for these beautiful, American Indian drums began right after my husband and I bought our new home last year. We knew that because of our love for the southwest, we wanted true southwestern and Native American style home decor with unique rustic home furnishings. Once that was decided I started filling my new home with awe-inspiring southwestern and country pieces that would match my rustic decor and entertain my guests by telling a story at the same time. That is when I came across how easy it was to give my home that chic southwest style that you see in designer home magazines, by decorating with shaman drums.

Maybe you are like me when I first began digging into the history and meaning of Native American drums, and have only a vague idea of what the Shamans drum is. Or, maybe you are wondering how to purchase the right drum to use in your Shaman drum circle. Whatever the case, it is important to understand the significance this raw hide drum plays in Native American culture so you can develop a true appreciation for its art and let its power influence you in the right direction.

If you are fortuneate enough to attend or be involved in a Shamanic ceremony you will notice that the Shaman, or spiritual leader, will beat a unique looking raw hide hand drum with a soft mallet to create the soothing monotonous beat used to take him to an altered mental state. During this altered state of mind, called the Shamanic journey, the Shaman receives healing and spiritual powers he uses to guide his people. If you look closely at the Shaman’s drum you will realize that unlike many other leather Native American drums used during tribal ceremonies, these rustic drums have natural raw hide, stretched over a wood frame on one side and are laced with raw hide string on the other side. They don’t have the loop hold like many other Indian drums do. A drum fashioned in this way allows for a natural hand holding position so you can fully control the drum and easily create the sound that is very important in bringing out the right tones necessary to guide you on your Shamanic journey.

You will also notice that many Shamans drums have paintings and symbols on the rawhide playing surface. These unique western symbols often depict a map of the universe or symbols of spiritual powers you can use to lead you in your spiritual journeying experience. If you are using the drum for Shamanic work, take time to look into the significance behind the painting. Since the southwestern symbols have spiritual power that directs the journey, you want to make sure it is in line with your own practices and influences you in that direction.

Also, I like to check the quality of the drum before buying. It’s critical to check that there are no thin places at the points where the cords of the drumhead are attached. This is vital to the quality and life of your Shaman drum and will ultimately save you money by not having to have it repaired or buy a new one.

A lot of focus is placed on the drum alone but don’t forget to choose the right striking mallet so you can enjoy the rich sound of these native drums to its fullest. You will see that there are many different types of mallets that pull out different tones from the drum and although I personally like using a mallet with a fur covered head, it is a matter of what you like best. Whether you are buying Native American musical instruments such as drums to add to your home decor or are using it to guide you in your spiritual journey, you will definitely be mesmerized by the true Native American style and southwest charm brought to your life and home by Shaman drums.