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Shamanism was an ancient traditional spiritual path. Stone Age cave paintings depicted animal skin clad Shamans wearing antlers surrounded by animals. Shamanism was a nonstandardized system of beliefs that varied from age to age and from place to place. Shamanism was characterized by personal transformation which only came after one let go of personal agendas and confronted the enigma of the labyrinth.
Both men and women were capable of becoming Shamans. Although, people usually associated the word, Shaman with indigenous religions, especially Native Americans, Shamanism was part of many different Spiritual Pathways. It was a large limb with many branches on the World Tree. In actuality by and large, Native Americans over the years were not comfortable with the use of either the terms Medicine People (Medicine Man, Medicine Woman) or Shamans to describe their healers and leaders of spiritual ceremonies. Midewiwin referred to the Anishinaabeg concept of the Spiritual Mystery of the Way of the Heart. A Shaman was quite simply "One Who Knows". One Who Knows how to retrieve lost soul essence. One Who Knows how to heal. One Who Knows what stones, herbs or other sacred tools a person needed to become whole. One Who Knows how to communicate with other spirits in this and other dimensions through telepathy or empathy. One Who Knows how to modulate energy signature frequencies so that a person can walk between worlds. One Who Knows how to be here now, not just in one dimension but in many dimensions simultaneously. One Who Knows how one acquires power and knowledge. One Who Knows how to transmit and teach that knowledge to others. Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, Shamans often journeyed far and wide in their search for Wholeness, Wellness and Wisdom for themselves and for others. Rather than summoning up a tornado to assist their journeying, Shamans these days used rhythmic chanting, drumming and dance to facilitate their soul journeys to the Spirit Lands.
Shamans also sometimes used visualization
to send themselves through an opening in the earth, a hole at the base of a
tree, a spring, a mineshaft or some other portal to a place where they could
meet and talk to the spirit helpers who could give them the information or
knowledge that they sought to heal the sick, to find solutions to problems or to
restore balance to the world.
Over at least twenty millenium, Shamans have shared many different functions for the tribe, clan or group including traditions keeper, magician, seer, poet, diviner of the weather, diviner of the hunt and healer of mind, body and spirit. Found in many diverse cultures under diverse names, Shamans under were the ecstasy travellers, the trance journeyers and the purveyors of spirit world knowledge. Traditionally Shamans came to the path by hereditary transmissions and by personal choice. They were also called by intense encounters with death or dark nights of the soul such as falling from heights, being hit with lightening, lucid dreaming experiences that they almost did not return from and/or life threatening illnesses. Shamans were the wounded healers who had passed through thorny thickets of pain and crisis to bring the message of the aliveness of nature, of the interconnectedness of all spirit beings, of the partnership of the goddess-god and of the wisdom of the spirit realms to all the people of the planet. The Shamans were the water singers, the tree talkers, the cloud walkers and the rock guardians who brought a feeling of sacredness and dignified meaning to the mundane. Using feather and stone, smoke and sound, song and dance, ritual and transformation, the Shamans journeyed up and down all homeward bound roads and feather floated up and down all streams that flowed to the cosmic seas. Recognizing the sacred presence of the Nature Spirits, the Shamans gathered their wisdom and blessings for others. The teachings they received from the Spirit Worlds were often individually tailored to match the measurements of understanding of the recipients of the knowledge or healing. Truly the most ancient of Days and Ways, Shamanism has been a global rainbow bridge that spanned from Australia to Africa to Asia to Europe to the Americas touching and connecting all continents and countries inbetween in a reciprocal loop of Dreaming. As a prototypical faith, Shamanism recognized the equal importance of the sanctity of Wholeness and Wellness, of the hallowed holy energies of the female goddess (chalice/cauldron); as well as, of those of her partner the male god. Shamanism extended backward in the time/space continuum to the deep mystery caves.
Shamanism also looked forward to a time and a space when there
was a universal harmonic resonance of all the diverse soul essences that comprised
this glorious Life Spiral Dance we all call Creation. Traditionally clans and
groups identified themselves with the spiritual essence of an animal, plant or
tree whose presence as a mentor, helper, protector and guide rooted them more
firmly in the Earth and bonded them to the Land. The spirit of their particular Animal Totem symbolized many things to the clan or group. It was honored by them in many ways such as ceremonial offerings and carvings of its likeness. The Animal Totem was sacred to them; therefore, it was taboo to injure or harm that Animal Totem in any way.
To enhance the pursuit of knowledge and power, Shamans could use magical tools, altars, rhythmic rituals and give offerings to these animistic spirits. Animism, when it was combined with spirit trance journeying, formed a core essence of Shamanism. The Dreaming was the foundational blueprint and energetics template that interpenetrated and surrounded the dimensions. Each dimension was separate and distinct in its own rite/right with each dimension sequentially (3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th etc.) vibrating at a slightly more refined or highly modulated frequency level, enabling them to all simultaneously co-exist in the same time/space continuum of the Eternal Now. For example, the midrange frequency levels of the Fourth Dimension were the realm or place where a person's more etheric body, part of your overall circle of soul essence, journeyed to every night when a person dreamed. The peoples of the planet were all Shamans unawares. Shamans underwent training so that they could leave their physical bodies at will. Upon completing this training, the Shamans journeyed out of body into the dimension of the Dreaming where Spirit Guides and Fairy Helpers resided. Sometimes Shamans developed their abilities to the point where they could fluidly and easily accomplish trance journeys in the waking state into other dimensions or have visions, called waking dreams that originated there. Drumming as a Shamanic practice encouraged and facilitated a trance state that was conducive for mental travelling into altered states of consciousness or for journeying into other realities.
Drumming circles offered the
participants the opportunity to share the knowledge and wisdom of the spirits
and to work together for individual, group or earth healing. The Earth Mother,
the whole planet has always been vibrantly alive with Spirit. The wind, the
clouds, the stones, the seas, the ocean, the birds were all alive with Spirit.
All beings not just human beings were alive Spirit and therefore worthy of
respect and consideration.
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The Shaman wore many masks:
priest/priestess, healer, metaphysician and magician as a bridge between the
worlds. Shamans lived at the thresholds of what was real and what was illusion
or delusion. Shamans have journeyed far (sometimes in an Ecstatic Trance state)
and endured much (often aided by Spirit Helpers) to gain knowledge of both
cosmology and consciousness. 
Eventually as Shamans
evolved and grew, like Dorothy at the end of The Wizard of Oz, they realized
that they did not really have to travel on extensive journeys, the answers to
their questions were right in their own backyards, berries for the picking on the
bushes of intuition and inner knowing.
Animism was a belief that
everything, everywhere was alive with Spirit and Beingness, which infused and
animated all of Creation. Plants, animals, humans and spirits were all
interconnected by energetic threads of light. Shamanic power was obtained
by journeying and by communicating and communing with this collective of
spirits.
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