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Our Tradition discussed:

Our ‘Tradition’ has a few main themes:

you know we are healers is what we say as a group
we also say that we have been ‘connecting men and women with Spirit since the beginning of time’
when you look at the composition of the Mothers, there are many modalities

Discussion:

For us this idea about Tradition is perhaps what you could call a moveable feast. We move with the times and accept the times and what we can do in those times. So when you look at very ancient times we were bound somewhat by our mobility and our location and you know, our resources. Then you look at times when the Christian church was very active and a lot was lost during that time, but a lot was also created during that time to counteract what was being lost if you like.

So, there was again a movement with the times and so our Tradition is of course about healing which is slightly different to a lot of other Shamanic Traditions. By that, we don’t mean that they don’t heal, because of course, they do they are used as Doctors, medicine people, but our healing is based in this idea that we move with the times and we utilise what we have and who we have if you like, at that particular time. (here, now, in this time is Brad and Caroline)

The other thing is, and this is crucial to our Tradition is this idea of connecting men and women, humans, if you like, to Spirit. If you look at some traditions they do, the Shaman will do the Spirit work for the person, on the person, they will take them on the journey. But for us, it’s very much and has always been that the person themselves, and this also comes back to the healing aspect, the person themself must also put themselves on the line. They must also come on that journey of healing and they must in effect be the leader of their own journey of healing.

So they might come and say: ‘Oh, I have a pain in my back.’ and some Shamanic practitioners and some Shamanic Traditions will do healing work on them, whether that’s an oral medicine, whether it is some going into trance, whether it is journeying for them, touching them, what-have-you. We might incorporate that, but we say to the person really, they have to come to an understanding themselves of what is the problem. It’s not just us doing the work or somebody else doing the work, they must be the leaders of their own wellness.

We see this a lot when you are doing work with people, they can only go so far, or they reject this self-responsibility. You can work to get them to understand, but at the end of the day, the way that we do business in our Tradition, is that they are the leaders of their own healing. Of their own connection with Spirit. Of their own journey.

This is why our Tradition is very much a self-propelled, a moveable feast because it is not dependant on the Shaman or dependant on the healer in the tradition, it is dependent on the heal-ee – the person who is coming for healing. The person who wants to make the changes, that’s what the work is dependent on. And that’s what makes our Tradition some-what unique because we are not always going to use our guides, we are not always going to use the personal guides as the Shaman. We are not always going to use the same methodology of journeying.

We are not going to because it depends completely on the person that comes:

what they can cope with,
what they want to do,
how they want to do it

and that’s one of the reasons why we have in our work so many possibilities.

It’s not just hands-on healing for example, or it’s not just the journeying, it’s the constellations, the ancestral healing, it’s the different versions of the constellations that offers different types of healing, it’s the different versions of the journeying, it is the consultations with the Mothers. It is also the healing transformation planner, it is the Runes, it is the Forest Lore cards, the Medicine Circle, Talks, Posts, it is a whole range of things.

Because some people will really identify with the Forest Lore cards, it’s what they can cope with and what they will really help them understand. For those people, the Runes would be too dark for them, because the Runes are like ‘so into the stomach, twist it around and pull it out’, right? The cards still do the same thing, but they have a different energy in the world about them, better for some people.

So our Tradition is in a way:

‘whatever needs to happen, at that time, in that place, for those people, for that person’,

and we offer a format where:

‘they lead the way and we follow, sometimes we have to take over the leadership and then they follow, alternating as needed, but it is this constant movement of energy, possibility and openness.’

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Our Naturistic Shamanic Tradition

By Mother Sha-Riah

There are many versions or types of shamanic traditions, some of them use vehicles, plant or chemical vehicles, hallucinogenics, and so on, to transport the shamans or followers to a heightened state in the mind and the soul of the spirit. These vehicles facilitate the crossing over to another world, or another type of existence, where people can sometimes see the world in a clearer fashion. Sometimes they see a riddle, but most of the time it changes the perspective of a situation. Generally, once they go into this state, using a hallucinogenic vehicle, they move into an underneath world where they can look up and see a much broader picture.

It is a similar situation for the shamanic tradition where the shaman moves into a trance and in that trance, they are transported from the physical environment that they are in, into another space, where the feeling of the physical body no longer is there for them. They are completely at one with the world around them, this other world. Some people call it, beyond the veil, spirit world, or universal energy; there are many different names, but this is how they do their work.

And then, of course, you have the other traditions where a spirit, whether that spirit is an ancestor or healer from a previous time, enters the person and takes them over. In this way the person becomes the vessel, they become the vehicle for the spirit to enter them and do their work. The person that is the vehicle is not lost, but they are no longer active in their physical body, there is this other energy that has entered them, and that’s how they do their work. So, the spirit that enters now sees. They are seeing whatever it is that is required to see so they can do the work that is required.

The shaman in many traditions also use herbs and other indigenous medicines that help to support the person seeking help, to assist the healing process or to help create bodily (the spirit, mind, emotion and physical bodies) equilibrium.

Most of the shamanic traditions we have described above complete their work in a ritualistic way, they have very strong ways of practising their tradition that has been passed down through the ages. The shamanic tradition that we come from, and practice, is a very fluid tradition. Mother Sha-Riah, myself, I am from Siberia, from the plains, and we were very much involved with our natural environment. We had to be very connected to the natural environment because it was really tough. You had to be very aware of where the weather was going, how the animals were behaving, how the water was flowing. It wasn’t just enough to look, you had to really be in it. And so, we have brought that idea to this modern time. We are not transplanting it, however, from that time to this time, from that place to this place, we are actually using the two main aspects of that tradition – connection and communion – and introducing those concepts, and ways of being, into this modern world. And we are using those two main aspects to have a constantly developing, growing, evolving form of shamanism.

The name that we have given this form of shamanism is Naturistic Shamanic Way. Naturistic, because it is to do with all of nature, the whole of the natural world, including the cosmos, the stars, the sun, moon, and so on, as well as the earth, the sea, the water, the air, and the elements. And then we have what shamanic means for us: connection and communing. And finally, we have this idea of a ‘way’. So, not a religion, not something that is set, but it’s more of a direction that is fluid culturally.

To elaborate further, we will discuss the two shamanic aspects:

connection
communion

Connection is about connecting within the self, and then being able through that connection to connect with the outer world. Now for us, it is very, very important that you find the shaman within, instead of looking out and being told by somebody, “This is how it happens, this is how you do it, this is what you must do to get to this”. We seek the shaman within, to connect with that aspect of the self, to connect with the self. So, for us, knowing the self, fearing the space in the self, to find and accept that shaman within, is very, very important.

The ability to connect within really allows a connection, an ability to connect, without – with what is outside of you. Connecting comes first, so that communing can be facilitated. It’s like doing a puzzle, you need to put the pieces of a puzzle together before you can see what the picture is. However, once you’ve put the puzzle together, it’s very rare that you would just walk away. Generally, you would look at it, study the picture and look at the work you have done. And in that deep, conscious, concentrated looking, you are actually communing. You’re not just looking at the picture you have created, you’re also aware of the energy that’s placed in it, so it is a part of you.

You move into the space where you’re not just connecting the parts, or connecting to parts, you’re actually moving into that space, moving into that energy. And that’s part of what communing means.

To commune also means being aware of aspects of the self, moving in those aspects of the self with ease, grace, understanding and acceptance. An extension of that movement, as the following are an extension of you, is communing with the natural, with the person across the road from you, with the community, with the human group. And, so, for us it’s connecting first, and then the communing.

We also have an understanding that whilst connection and communion is important for the individual, the effect of the individual connection/communion journey on the group is astounding.

This possibility is profound and something that we take very seriously. We are very conscious of the fact that whatever we work on, in our own entity/energy, has an effect on the community around us. Whether it’s in our group, family, friends, and so on, the connecting and communing with a community, has an amazing effect. The effect of one on many is very apparent to us, we have seen it many, many times, and we spend time on that within the group. We spend time on the communing of the community.

We spend time building a bond, building energy, building strength, for the group and know that the individuals, take what has been built out into the world. The building, the time, effort and love that’s gone into it is taken out to the world by the Circle participants, and they bring it, even if it’s only for a brief moment, to their own community. This is a very important aspect of our tradition.

Now, we discuss the ‘naturistic’ aspect of our tradition, the natural world side of it, which does need some explaining. Part of communing is understanding how it works, how communing works, and how when you commune with somebody, or something, there is an unspoken language that appears. That unspoken language is obvious and prevalent in the natural world. Plants do not use the spoken word to talk to each other. Animals make sounds but, it’s not like the human language, and they tend to use different senses. So, they would use their hearing, their scent, their taste, their feeling, the touch on the body, and/or their vision in a much more conscious way than humans would. They won’t just use the voice to make the communication.

For example, trees in a forest use the fungus to communicate. Fungus has been scientifically shown to carry messages along the forest floor and under the forest floor describing how different aspects of the forest are doing and what is needed.

The natural world communicates in completely different ways to humans. We understand that communication is not one way, and not just voice and hearing, instead, communicating is communing because when you are communing, you are communicating on a level that is not always seen. An example of a type of communing that humans understand is the concept of body language. Human beings understand 80 to 90% of the conversation that they’re having with someone through body language, and it’s unconscious. They don’t say, “Oh that person has their arms folded, that means that they’re angry or they don’t want to listen to me”. No, it’s innate, they pick up on the energy that the person is giving off. It’s not just the visual they are picking up either. There is an energy, and that energy actually speaks to all of the senses. Not just the eyes or the ears, but all of the senses.

This is something that is fundamental to our tradition, communing and communicating in very subtle ways. We do this with each other, we do this with the natural world, and we use this idea of how the energy that’s in the natural world is communing energy and this enables communication to occur. Some people might say that it’s like mental telepathy, or it’s intuition. Yes, you can absolutely call it that if you want to, but we call it communing, and it is a really strong and positive aspect of our tradition.

So as we said before, our tradition is not a religion, not something that is set, but it’s more of a direction that is fluid culturally.

Thank you,

Mother Sha-Riah
Shamanic Representative
Ancestral Medicine Women.

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