shamanism

Spiritual Advice Column: Our Relationship with Spirits

Date: January 15, 2016
Author: maryshutan
Categories: shamanism, Spiritual Advice column

Dear Mary-

I love your website it is very informative and not BS like other websites that I have been on. My question would be, and I do not know if you have addressed this before so forgive me, but what was/is the relationship of Shamans and Spirits? The reason I ask is because what I get from most practitioner’s relationships with spirit is romance, jobs, money, court cases, etc. Why do Shamans work with Spirits and vice versa? This applies to all types of spirits.

Thanks Mary and keep up the good work.

Nicky

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Hi Nicky-

Thank you for submitting this question. It is an important one, and one that is often overlooked for various reasons.

There are a few sub-questions here that I will bring up– such as why do spirits work with us? and what is working with actual spirits like? along with your excellent question of what is the relationship of Spiritual Workers (I use that word instead of Shaman for a lot of reasons people are pretty tired of me talking about by now) to Spirits?

 

So first things first. Most people do not work with spirits, or more accurately, they likely do not know what or who they are working with… or they have not achieved any depth in their spiritual relationships. 

What does this mean? It means that a lot of people self-create spirits and energies to work with. They are a part of themselves. I harp on this a bit because if you are working with something that you self-created it can only have so much power. Meaning it can only have up to and including how much power you personally have. If you are working with an actual spirit, you are working with not only your own power but theirs as well. This is a really important distinction.

So if we self-create spirits they can be our indentured servants, or slaves. They are typically one-dimensional, without much personality, show up whenever you want them to, and will do whatever you want. They also tend to agree with whatever you say, or will only say things to you that come from either your conscious awareness or from one of the more surface layers of your subconscious.

I will say that working with parts of yourself, specifically integrating them, is really important work. But it is different than working with actual spirits.

Also, a lot of people have no idea what or who they are working with. They may be working with a spirit but the spirit is not showing their true form either because you are not ready for them to (a very common reason), you have been taught that spirits are intended to be these indentured servants and are supposed to act in particular ways (hello upper and lower world cosmology) and so your own mind and belief systems (basically your issues) are stopping them from completely coming through. Or coming through in their true form.

Another reason is that a spirit (for example a former human) may say that they are your guide, or an Archangel, or whatever, so they can attach to you. It happens more than people might think. People aren’t really taught discernment and practicality when it comes to the spirit world, so they will accept anything that comes their way at face value. If someone were to come up to you in a bar and tell you that they were a multi-millionaire film producer who wants you to be in a starring role in their next movie, you would likely have the common sense to realize they were full of it. But if a similar thing happens in the spiritual realms, people don’t question it. Odd, isn’t it?

The other question here is one of depth. Most people do not have the skills, or more likely, the patience to develop significant spiritual relationships. It takes time. I have worked with spirits for years who have put me through trials, or wouldn’t even tell me their name for a period of time. They were checking to see if I was worthy of working with them. This happens, especially if you are working with more powerful energies/spirits/beings.

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So back to your question…

Why do Spiritual Workers work with Spirits? In simplicity, if you are an actual spiritual worker (and don’t just play one on tv or in weekend workshops) it is dangerous to work by yourself. You need to have working relationships with Spirits, basically.

Spiritual workers do work with spirits because spirits can more easily travel and understand the spiritual realms than humans in their meat suits can. They can be intermediaries, bringing through messages from other spirits and energies that may not be able to talk directly to you for whatever reason. Also, a spirit or energy that I am working with that is attached to someone may not want to talk to me, but they often are willing to talk to one of my spirits that I work with.

We also need to talk about power here. A Spiritual Worker is as powerful as their network of spirits. If you have developed deep, significant working relationships to your spirits, they will not only do work for you, but they will bring their power and protection to the session.

More simply put, if you are not connected to spirits and you are doing work only through yourself (with self-created spirits or you just don’t have the skill or depth yet to work with actual spirits or have working relationships with them) and try to do moderate to difficult spiritual work you will get sick, you will be attacked, and you will walk around tired most of the time. This is because a single human isn’t that filled with power, no matter who they are. They are only so protected. So what happens is that if you do not have a “network” of spirits working with you, you burn out, and are more open to be harmed.

The above is incredibly common, by the way. I have heard about so many “shamans” getting sick, being tired, or being attacked all the time, and it just doesn’t have to happen. Not saying some work will not be tiring some days (like all work is) but if you develop proper spiritual relationships (as well as know what you are doing. Sigh…) it just doesn’t really happen.

So in my work my spirits do most of my work. I am there to direct them (sometimes, most of the time they can do better work and in different ways than I can), but mainly my job these days is to talk to the client and take them through the mental-emotional aspect of things so that they can consciously accept the work that I, and my spirits, are doing.

Spirits are also my teachers, guides, and elders. I have deep respect for them. Most spirits that I have developed working relationships with have more power than I could possibly ever have… but also they have much more wisdom than I do. They are my teachers, my guides, and my elders. This is only because I trust them and know who they are, though. I don’t go to spiritual workshops any more because the spirits I work with have a lot more wisdom and guidance than any human source could. This happens to most actual Spiritual Workers over time– they are taught directly by spirits and it is much deeper, much more wisdom and power than any book or workshop or whatever. But again, this is only if they are not self-created and quoting law of attraction type stuff (which most self-created spirits tend to do, it seems).

So now let us explore the other half of this… We have talked about how spirits can bring us power, they can protect us, they can work for us. They are important teachers, elders, and guides. This is only if we are in a working relationship with them, however. Just like you wouldn’t ask a random person at a bar to loan you a thousand dollars (well, most of us wouldn’t) you wouldn’t ask a random spirit to do work for you.

If we do not have a working relationship to spirits, to power external from ourselves, we burn out. We are intended to be in a network, to have power other than our own support us, guide us, and so forth. We either burn out or we are doing just life coach style psychological shamanism with no real power. And without power, we can only do so much work. Again, it just doesn’t happen. But I have seen this happen so much with people– they are doing spiritual work and are constantly talking about being attacked, sick all the time, or their work simply doesn’t do much (or all three). While there is a psychological component to the whole “shaman sickness” thing in some of these cases, it is mostly because the “shaman” hasn’t developed either their own power or external/network of power.

Those people that you refer to that are just asking for money or want things from spirits without giving anything back are not in a real relationship with spirits, by the way. It just isn’t how it works. Especially if you haven’t developed a relationship. Nothing drives me up the wall than random people calling on some archangel or saint or some random goetic something or other without developing a relationship with them. Because best case scenario it won’t do much. Worst case scenario they can really piss something off.

It is not like you can’t petition a spirit for money, or help in a relationship, but again, it takes time and effort to build a strong relationship with a spirit where they are willing to do something like this for you. And then, you typically don’t need the type of help that most people self-creating spirits and asking random spirits for things are looking for. If you do find a spirit willing to bring you money, or whatever, without knowing them, I suggest deeply questioning why they are doing so. If some random dude at the bar wouldn’t give you money, why would a “spirit guide”.

There is trust that is necessary, there is time and patience that is required to build relationships (especially a working relationship). Like all relationships, working with spirits requires respect, time, patience, and depth.

So why do Spirits work with us?

In a real working relationship, spirits work with us for a variety of reasons. It might be their job, quite frankly. Certain spirits enjoy working with humanity, and to do so lets them help aid humanity.

Some spirits may enjoy bestowing their wisdom on people, and acting like elders.

As mentioned before, some spirits are specifically meant to be ambassadors to the spirit world, to be a link between the physically dense world and other realms. It is their job, basically

But in a lot of spirit relationships, spiritual workers learn how to give proper offerings. This is a whole blog in and of itself, but many spirits do not work for nothing. They want specific offerings from the spiritual worker as payment. This is the most common reason spirits (as in actual spirits) work with humans.

Other spirits who are more powerful may want to claim a spiritual worker. Although this sounds odd, basically what happens in a spiritual relationship (well, some of them) is that you have a hierarchy of spirits. Some spirits wish to be the most important spirit in your life, and will only form a bond or work with you if you agree to terms like this (and/or other terms that work for the spirit).

As mentioned, some spirits test Spiritual Workers over the course of months, or years (or decades… Sigh) to develop a deepening relationship with the Spiritual Worker. Each test that you pass that shows your worth allows for you to work with the Spirit on a deeper level, and to access and be able to be in a “network” with more of their power.

It is worth mentioning that some spirits just like to screw with humans, to cause them harm, or to essentially make fun of “shamans” who don’t know what they are doing by attaching to them and draining their energy, or finding some sort of inlet inward to form a contract or agreement with the “shaman” without them being conscious of it to not only drain energy but also disrupt their life, attach to their clients, and so forth. This happens a fair amount, especially because there is a lack of discernment and practicality in learning how to be a “shaman” and it is treated like something that anyone can do for fun on the weekends these days.

And finally, some spirits work to elevate themselves. There is a hierarchy to the spiritual realms, and some spirits work with accomplished spiritual workers because the work itself (doing spiritual work) as well as aligning to a spiritual worker allows for them to become more elevated, or basically, go up a few spots (or a lot of spots) in the hierarchy of the spirit world.

I hope that answers your questions, Nicky, and again, great question!

Mary

If you would like to submit a question for my spiritual advice column, you can contact me here. Please note, I do not answer all questions, and am not an allopathic physician (meaning go to your doctor if you are concerned about something, and take my opinions/thoughts with the proverbial grain of salt).

Spiritual Advice Column: Protection

Date: January 2, 2016
Author: maryshutan
Categories: shamanism, Spiritual Advice column

Hi Mary-

chainlink-690503_640So a former teacher of mine (who I won’t name) used to tell me that nobody needed protection really during spiritual work. Or that all we needed was a power animal. She even said at one point that people who feel like they need protection, or people who run across “dark things” have something psychologically wrong with them. Like if you meet a dark spirit it is all your fault, especially if you run across them a lot. She also used to basically make fun of people who felt like they needed protection too, like she was somehow better than them because she didn’t need protection and those people who did feel like they needed so much protection were wrong and didn’t know what they were talking about.

I have grown a lot since her (she was my first teacher) but I still don’t know how I should feel about this. Can you give me your thoughts on the subject?

– Sylvie

Hi Sylvie-

Thank you for writing in! So my thoughts on the subject of protection are somewhat two sided.

  1. I think that some people over-protect themselves; or more clearly, they have learned protections like shielding that are from their own thought forms that are either not effective or are in fact detrimental to them (more on this later).
  2.  I think that a lot of people are really naive about protection. They have no idea about what is around them because they aren’t particularly sensitive, and they haven’t actually learned how to protect themselves in any real way. So they try the “dartboard” approach– where they read about surface level things like sage or salt or creating a shield out of their thoughts (basically trying anything and everything to see what sticks)– and mostly don’t know the first thing about real protection, as in protection methods that would actually help them if they actually needed protection.

So as far as your teacher, thank you for not naming her, and I do my best to not go after individuals, because most people are caring, they just may be ignorant or stuck in their ways. A lot of teachers, especially “core” shamanic ones, tend to learn things a specific way, or have a specific ideology or cosmology, and they get stuck. They never grow past it. And a lot of “shamanism” these days is just self-help psychotherapeutic techniques. So in the therapeutic model, of course if someone has fear it goes back to early childhood, of course if someone wants to protect themselves it is psychological wounding of some sort. If someone says something like this it is just telling you that they are not interfacing with the spiritual world much, quite frankly. They are squarely in the self-help arena of psychotherapeutic shamanism.

I realize the above is a bit rough, but it is true. Plus the psychological self-help core shamanic type stuff still annoys me a bit. I should probably get over that, because I have full knowledge that most people want the psychological self-help type shamanism because it makes them feel better about themselves, and can be done on weekends, etc. with no repercussions to their daily lives, and it is rough to go beyond a certain point on the spiritual path, and most people simply realize this. But back to your question…

Protection is a vital part of any spiritual worker’s eduction. It is important to know how to protect yourself, and protect yourself well. It is important to know how to protect your family, your house, your business, your pets, and so forth.

This sort of education is missing from most modern day spiritual worker’s tool kit. Tools such as really knowing how to cleanse (step one), and then really learning how to protect, ward, reverse, and so forth should be in any moderate to advanced spiritual worker’s toolkit.

This is because if you are on the surface level of things, where you are play-acting basically, you really don’t need protection. You may need some clearing, but not really protection. You aren’t interfacing with much. You are basically interfacing with disassociated aspects of yourself and of your own power.

It is when you go beyond the point of recognizing that there is more than you out there (no, you are not the center of the Universe and everything was not creating from you or your wounds, believe it or not) that you really need protection practices. It is when you start to accumulate power and relationships with things outside of yourself that you need protection. 

So for your teacher, and many others like her out there (of which there are hoards) she likely does not believe that anyone needs protection because she has never met anything outside of herself, and is still of the belief that her thoughts and emotions create the Universe. I always think that this view is incredibly narcissistic, but that is just me.

Some people in the surface category really do have emotional wounds, by the way. They protect themselves with anything and everything they can find because they are deeply afraid of the spiritual realms. They end up harming themselves by shielding. Most people shield by thoughts– basically they create a visual image of a shield (or a bubble, or whatever) and place it in or around them. This uses energy. The energy of the person creating it. So the person becomes really depleted of energy, because they are not only using their energy for their daily functions but often to create elaborate shielding mechanisms.

Also, when you create a shield it doesn’t allow energy in, either. That “bad energy” you are cutting yourself off of? It is also cutting you off from “good” energy as well. Ideally we will have flow through our bodies and through our energy fields so that any type of energy… in fact the whole universe… flows through us. This can be a hard state to get to, however. Most people have so much baggage and trauma and beliefs in the way (that go way deeper than early childhood by the way) that getting clear flow through their bodies is hard, plus they do not know the tools to do so.

And by the way….shield-33957_640

I meet “bad” or negative spirits all the time. It doesn’t mean anything other than the fact that I meet a lot of spirits, and think that being willing to be of service to your community as a spiritual worker means that you are willing to listen to and work with a wide variety of spirits. The spiritual realms are a lot like the physical realms in a lot of ways. Even if you are completely “healed” or new-aged up with the appropriate colored lights and memes, you are going to meet a few jerks. No matter how enlightened you are, someone is going to cut you off in traffic.

In fact, the categorization of spirits into neat piles– this one is “bad” and this one is “good”– always indicates to me that someone hasn’t progressed very far on their spiritual path, and has not really interacting with anyone outside of themselves. Think of your friends, your family, your co-workers. Chances are they are a mix of “good” and “bad”, a mix of ethics, ideas, personalities. This same thing happens in the spirit world.

There are so many different types of spirits and beings out there, and they just do not singularly fit into neat categories or “upper world” vs. “lower world” vs. “middle world” categorization. I realize our brains like this sort of stuff, but it simply is untrue.

So if you are meeting a lot of bad, difficult, or negative spirits there are a wide variety of reasons:

  1. You are psychologically having issues and parts of your psyche are attempting to make themselves known through being difficult or harmful
  2. You simply have an awareness level that includes many different types of spirits
  3. You have progressed past a certain point spiritually where you realize that “good” and “bad” spirits are not so neatly divided when they are not self-created and are actually interacting with actual spirits
  4. You are called to psychopomp work, or “dark” work where you are healing or ministering to spirits that are of the not-so “love and light” variety
  5. You are living somewhere that for whatever reason has a bunch of difficult spirits around

By the way, I should mention that the “lighter” and “higher vibration” you get on a spiritual path, the more you notice darkness. The more you notice your own darkness, that of the world, that of the spiritual world. Spiritual Workers who are really light are also really dark. This is because everything has the opportunity to be worked with spiritually, and an actual spiritual worker will interface with a lot of it… and a compassionate spiritual worker will have just as much compassion towards a being that is amoral, or difficult, as one that is angelic (and ironically also may be immoral, but that is a matter for a different day).

So why learn protection?

Because if you are doing spiritual work, or progress on your spiritual path past a certain point, you are like a nightlight. 

This means that you can see the spirit world(s) and the spirit world(s) can see you (in simple terms). This means that if you do not protect yourself and set boundaries you will never get any sleep. This means that if you do not protect yourself good, bad, difficult, happy, curious spirits (and everything in between) will interfere with your work, just drop in, attach to you in order to heal (or for other purposes), or just basically be excited to interact with someone who has a lit nightlight.

If you do not protect yourself after you progress past a certain point you will have active, non-restorative dreams (because you will be doing things all not in the dream realms or will be interfered with in your sleep), and if you are really sensitive you will constantly have health issues, fatigue, and serious overload issues.

Being really sensitive and aware in this world is like watching twenty, or fifty, or three thousand televisions at once. It can be difficult, it can be really difficult. And although a much different topic, parts of you can be in many different timelines or worlds or universes at once, which can get a bit confusing, and quite frankly, dizzying.

So if you do not know how to protect yourself, and protect yourself effectively (beyond destructive shielding and waving around some sage) you will be in a lot of trouble. But this is true only if your nightlight is turned “on” and is fairly bright. 

Otherwise you really can stay with your psychological constructs, as you likely won’t be noticed by much, and don’t really need much, if any, protection.

I very much think that anyone who is beyond the “beginner” stage (and this stage doesn’t mean a short period of time, I meet people who have been on a “shamanic” path for forty years who are still in this stage, as well as people who have been on a spiritual path for a very short time– well, consciously– who are way beyond this stage) should learn protection. Proper protection. Protection that allows for them to have guides, ancestors, and spirits that form a network for them. Protection with herbs, minerals, and other objects so you don’t have to use your own energy. Protection from using Universal energy (and how to properly access it) instead of your own. Protection that is for mild, moderate, and severe situations. You may never need the “severe” protections, but knowledge truly is power, and even knowing information on how to properly protect yourself in all situations can be of assistance to you. This is because when you have certain aspects of embodied knowledge, that gets transmitted outward. When you are interacting with spirits, many will know if you are a beginner, or if you know enough to properly clear, banish, or deflect them.

So yes, Sylvie, a lot of people over-protect or utilize ineffective protection when they don’t need to. A lot of people who are in the beginner stage don’t need to protect… evidently since they are still in a stage of creating everything in the Universe they can just get over their Daddy issues and they will be okay. But for the rest of us, we should learn protection. Not because we will need it all the time (or the severe forms of it all the time) but because we might need it, and it is a foundational tool for anyone on a serious spiritual path to learn.

If you would like to submit a question for my spiritual advice column, you can contact me here. Please note, I do not answer all questions, and am not an allopathic physician (meaning go to your doctor if you are concerned about something, and take my opinions/thoughts with the proverbial grain of salt).

Spiritual Advice: Processing of Energy, Soul Retrieval, and Proper Aftercare

Date: May 30, 2015
Author: maryshutan
Categories: shamanism, Soul Retrieval, Spiritual Advice column, Uncategorized

Mary-

I recently worked on someone who had a soul retrieval done, and she said she had had many lifetimes of horrific deaths and suicides brought back in, which she then had to integrate. This led to months of anger and depression, as her body tried to process it. My question is, do we need to process all of our spiritual experiences through our bodies? It was affecting her spleen and liver systems. She was “digesting” it. It seems like many people have superficial spiritual experiences. They are too happy, like they haven’t been dragged through the muck! Do we usually digest the information or whatever in order to really integrate and experience it? Are there other routes or pathways? Can we just let some things go, or keep them on a less physical level and still have them be real?  I know this question is getting weird…

Katie

Hi Katie-

So the short answer is yes, we need to process things through our physical bodies, our physical container for us to consider it to be real and for it to have an effect on our physical, external lives. We hold all of our experiences in our body– our current lifetime, past lives, ancestry, karma… and even larger patterns like societal patterns, family patterns, and even the whole Universe (I will not go there this blog) that are not technically “of us”.

For the “lower” patterns (stuff that actually has to do with us like our current lifetime, past lives, and our ancestry) anything that has a charge stays in our bodies. This typically is thought of as negative stuff– emotions and experiences that were too overwhelming at the time to process (like a death in a past life)  or various traumas in our own life that were too emotional or too much for us to deal with at the time. This energy then gets consolidated and walled off in our bodies. 

As a side note, we also carry the wisdom of our ancestors, the joy of our past lives, and the beauty of our current life with us.. it just is a vibration around us rather than being walled off.

Dr. John Upledger (innovator of CranioSacral therapy) referred to this phenomena as an energy cyst– a localized area of walled-off, entropic energy. The body walls this energy and experience off in a localized area and then disassociates from it in order to keep the whole organism (our physical-mental-emotional-spiritual) continuum and our external day-to-day lives intact and reasonably functional.

In Shamanic work there is a thought that this energy actually leaves, or goes somewhere. This really isn’t true. We are always whole, all of the time. We just believe or create stories that we are not. What happens is that we actually are holding a trauma in our intestines from that time we got made fun of as a teenager, in our uterus from a previous life dying in childbirth, or in our heart from an ancestor losing a child and having an emotion of grief be too overwhelming. This energy then, as I said, walls off, still believing that the incident is still occurring because it simply doesn’t know any better. 

So we will have parts of ourselves that believe we are still a five year old whose father just left, or parts of ourselves that are still in a cycle of grief from our ancestors. Our minds, and then our physical bodies, wall this energy off so we can go about our lives without having to deal with the energy. In reality, we are whole, but our minds have fractured. And then our body-mind fractures, leading often to physical issues in the localized area of the “energy cyst”.

So in a soul retrieval the story of that energy cyst comes up to the surface to be released and integrated. The difficulty with this is that it then has to process. Meaning that if we have an energy cyst in our liver that is pretty large that contains a lot of anger and depression we are going to have to deal with that, to integrate that.

All that being said, the practitioner should know how to help the client/patient cycle that energy, have a basis in working with trauma so they can recognize when an experience from the past shouldn’t be uncovered (or fully uncovered), and provide appropriate aftercare to deal with the ramifications of such an energy.

It is somewhat rare that spiritual practitioners, who often operate outside of the licensing process, have an understanding and appreciation of emotional health and trauma response (the physiology of trauma, basically) to understand if an experience is too much to uncover, and to help their patient through when they do uncover something deeply traumatic. Trauma is real, and it has real, physiological consequences. If the practitioner is not trained in trauma response, I suggest that they pair up or learn to refer to someone experienced in trauma response. My personal favorite is Somatic Experiencing practitioners, who are typically open-minded as well as have gone through a three year training (or more) just in trauma work and know everything about how trauma shows up and how to process it. Nobody should have to process their trauma alone. It is much harder to do so, and to have the perspective when you are overwhelmed and emotional to do so, especially if it is something as removed from our current lifetime as past lives (but really, in any case).

It is also rare that spiritual practitioners do appropriate aftercare. Although a different subject, I have worked with people who have gone to the jungle and through Ayahuasca ceremonies and come back deeply traumatized because of sheer overwhelm at the amount of material coming up to process at one time. Our body-mind fractures for a reason, and it takes a sound mind to be able to process this stuff. Ideally for something like a soul retrieval, especially if they are working with an energy cyst that contains multiple lifetimes there would be a minimum of three appointments (ideally five). This means that the “shaman” would do the soul retrieval (sometimes this may take more than one session) and would schedule appointments weekly, or bi-weekly, to deal with the processing of energy and residual energy that comes up. This unfortunately does not happen too often, and the client is left with an energy cyst burst open and to deal with the residue and trauma on their own. If the spiritual practitioner does not want to deal with the residue, again I suggest a referral to a Somatic Experiencing practitioner, or an Acupuncturist, another Spiritual practitioner or Energy Worker who can help this energy clear out. 

So if I were to summarize this the answer is yes we need to process things. But the answer is also no, we do not need to have months of processing or deal with the process alone. Although integration and re-orientation can take longer than this period of time, the longest that someone should have to deal with really intense energy and emotion after a Soul Retrieval or any sort of energy cyst/emotional clearing process is three days. What happens after that period of time, or if the practitioner brings something up into consciousness that the patient wasn’t ready for the client/person just becomes re-traumatized and forms another energy cyst out of the current as well as past experiences that were brought up.

This means that they should have a follow-up appointment (or at the very least a check-in) with their spiritual worker or another professional if any emotion or experience is still lingering. And the spiritual practitioner should ethically be aware of when a big process is starting to do follow-up appointments and referrals so their patient does not end up non-functional or even hospitalized (yes, unfortunately, it does happen on occasion if the spiritual practitioner is not versed in working with trauma).

Just for clarity, I will say how I do spiritual work with emotions/trauma and Soul Retrieval work. I will have someone come in or send me an email for distance work (not for Soul Retrieval, although that may be their interest… I do not do “pick and choose” appointments, I ask the energies I work with and do divination to see what type of spiritual work should be done). Based on the first appointment and how intense the experience is (or not, if the person has a sound body-mind or a milder experience or meditates a lot), I will do anything from just checking in a few days later and suggesting aftercare like salt baths and connecting to nature or having sex (yes, I suggest that sometimes) or watching a funny movie (yes, I suggest this a lot actually) to telling the client that there needs to be 1-3 more appointments in short succession (1-2 appointments a week).

If the person reports back (especially for distance work) that they are non-functional, or are really struggling after the work (which occasionally does happen, but not that often since I make it a policy to ask during the appointment the persons subconscious if they want to deal with a specific trauma and/or are ready to) I suggest a Somatic Experiencing practitioner in their local area (or a thoughtful therapist if they cannot find an SE practitioner) to ensure that they are safe. When they get out of the intense amount of struggle phase they can come back and I will help them process the rest of the energy. But it is our responsibility as spiritual workers to ensure that the people we see are safe as well as functional (especially after a few days) after we work with them. There is no reason for someone to be dealing with that much trauma and emotion over such an extended period of time. They are just being re-traumatized at that point.

I hope that helps, Katie. We can all help others as well as ourselves work with trauma, but if we are not qualified, there are a lot of people out there that specialize in it, and there is no reason to deal with it by ourselves. It is a beautiful thing to become more whole, to release emotions and experiences that likely have a huge impact on our lives, and if it is done with clarity, with understanding (of trauma and emotions on a deep level), and with appropriate care, it can have a huge positive effect on anyone willing to plumb those depths to become more realized and whole.

Working with Your Ancestral Line

Date: March 31, 2015
Author: maryshutan
Categories: raising your consciousness, shamanism

In my practice I do Ancestral Healing (I will talk about this in a future blog and how significant/important this is) but I also teach people how to work with their ancestors and the power of the ancestral line.

This is often a crucial step that is simply not taken by many modern practitioners and spiritual seekers. This is often because many practitioners first come across spiritual paths and understandings that are not of their own heritage. That, or they do not see the significance of working with their ancestors.

In modern spiritual practice it is common to take a deity from one culture, spiritual ideas from another, or work within the context of a “spiritual system” that has been created (often unknowingly to the participant) out of a hodge-podge of Peruvian, Eastern, South American, Native American, and other indigenous-type sources and mixed with psychological mechanisms and self-help ideologies. Unless you are from a deeply spiritual family or culture, this is where most modern practitioners first begin (and perhaps end) their path.

It is also true that most people interested in spiritual paths will try out one, not find immediate results, and will then go on to the next deity, the next spell, the next spiritual path or practice. This is how many people remain beginners in their understandings and practices– and subconsciously they may desire to remain beginners (which is fine, of course, I do not judge… this is simply a commentary for those of you who wish to go deeper and are realizing that you can).

But many of you may be ready to move forward, to move beyond the pop psychology and the marketing of the new-age canon. Maybe you are ready to finally commit yourself to a weekly or daily practice, to integrate spirituality in your life. To not only intellectualize it and create images out of your imagination and keep on attending workshops to get a temporary “high” but to have the direct experience of it. To let go of the fads in shamanism, magic(k), the occult, folk magic, and energy work. To learn how to cultivate power, to learn how to cultivate yourself. To step out of that path of beginner and finally begin to have concrete understandings and direct experiences of a spiritual nature.

For this I suggest working with your ancestral line. No matter how screwed up our current family is, or how many cultures and regions of the world we are comprised of, we have ancestors that can be strong spiritual allies. Our ancestral line is our power– it runs through our blood, it gives us our spiritual capabilities, it gives us our calling (if we have one to become a spiritual practitioner).

The cultures and places we are from (even if we have never physically visited) give us power. Our ancestors can give us protection and guidance if we know how to access them. It is typical to try to borrow the power, to feel the power of other cultures, to continually go to workshops and seek gurus whose power we can be in the presence of. I personally have a passion for folk medicine and spiritual and occult practices from many cultures that I am not from. I have learned a lot from them. But when we adopt other cultures as our own, when we appropriate them without the baseline of our own power, our own ancestry, often we are just mimicking power of other peoples’ ancestors. We have not cultivated our own.

I talk a lot about power in my practice because it is important. Most people have not developed any power. They believe they are powerless because of trauma, they believe that power needs to be given to them by taking classes or through their teachers. Real spiritual power comes from within. It at first comes from understanding who and what we are. This is our history, our lineage. After we understand this we can move on to greater spiritual powers. But first we must develop our own spiritual power. And that is done through understanding our ancestors, receiving guidance from them, and understanding what abilities and power flow through our lineage.

Working with your ancestral line is fairly simple but requires a bit of guidance. I say this because it is important to have an ancestral guardian– a point person to contact and work through, especially early on in the practice. There is a huge misunderstanding in the spiritual community that once people pass over they become all-knowing and wise. This is untrue (and typically people who have written books about communicating with their dead son or relative or whomever who suddenly starts espousing Osho after death when they were educated at a high school level and were a drug addict in life are accessing their higher self or are simply delusional with grief unfortunately). Simply because someone is dead does not mean they are all-knowing, know the totality of the cosmos, or are even in place of being able to help us out. We have all sorts of ancestors who need healing (again, a separate post I will do in the next few weeks). We have all sorts of ancestors that have not accessed their own power, who will simply give bad advice.

With that understanding, you need a spiritual practitioner that can help you to find your spiritual guardian and teach you how to access your ancestral line. Gradually many of you (especially if you are interested in going beyond beginner-dom and are resonating with this post) may become lineage bearers for your ancestral line– meaning that you carry the spiritual power of your entire line. Through an appointment together we can find out who your guardian is, set up your practice to honor and work with them, and begin to answer questions of what ancestral abilities and knowledge flow through you. Generally it is a one-time appointment to set you up with a practice that will give you power and guidance for the rest of your life, if you choose to cultivate it properly. This is often a huge step for people, and often takes them from being spiritual seekers (without finding or even knowing what they are looking for) to looking within and beginning to cultivate themselves and develop power on a rather deep level. If you are interested in doing so, you can contact me, and we can see if it is the right time for you to begin this practice.

Psychic Abilities and “Darkwork”: Death, Disease, and Darkness

Date: February 19, 2015
Author: maryshutan
Categories: psychic abilities, Psychopomp, shamanism, Spiritual Awakening

One of the most common reasons why people who have actual psychic abilities and sensitivities find me is because they are able to sense, see, feel, hear, or use whatever their dominant psychic ability is to see death, disease, and/or destruction of some sort. This understandably freaks people out, especially when they are unskilled (meaning they have abilities but have not found an appropriate teacher and/or do not know how to set boundaries with their abilities or know how to use them properly and safely).

The other reason this concerns people is that we live in a spiritual “community” of lightworkers– meaning that most of the courses, books, and information out there… as well as what people are willing to talk about in most spiritual communities (even in many hardcore occult communities surprisingly these days)… is only fashioned on the light, or light work. Information on how to work with abilities surrounding “darkness” are met with disdain by others, or people who are “lightworkers” give really bad advice about transmuting darkness to light of some sort or will lecture you about how your abilities are evil, amoral, or not what you should be focusing on. This surprisingly happens with even discussions on what is considered “dark” work, such as working with the Earth, death, spirits, ghosts, curses, disease, working with primal emotions, sexual spirituality, herbs/rootwork and basically any sort of work that does not adhere to a rigid puritanical neo-spiritual cosmology.

And while I say the above and it seems like I have disdain for lightworkers, it simply is not true. I personally have capabilities and am rather dark in my nature (as well as am very light in my nature- when you are willing to work with and see your darkness in a balanced manner your light grows, and vice versa), and it took me a long time to find some of the information I am going to write here. It took me even longer to realize that there really is no “color” to anything- at a certain level everything is light, Brahman, Tao, Godhead (whatever you wish to call it). But I digress…

Seeing darkness, death, and disease can be extraordinarily helpful. I have trained to the extent that I can look at someone in my clinic and see what areas need work, what organs possibly carry disease, and what emotions are being held. I can see if issues/imbalances are being held in the emotional, physical, or spiritual levels of the body… and if they are from this life, past lives, ancestral sources, etc. I had a natural, innate ability to do this but before I became skilled I would just hazy smoke around people or shapes inside of people, a lack of flow in or around the body, or just had a sense of knowing without anything to back it up. Before I became skilled I could sense that someone was carrying something that was not theirs, but now I can see what it is and communicate with it (with boundaries). In clinic, in my spiritual practice, these skills can be very helpful.

But in my regular life they are not. You do not want to know what diseases your friends have, what sort of odd activities your teacher is up to (BDSM with an Asian fetish in one case), that the person in the grocery store line just lost their child and is in immense grief, or that a family member has something rather nasty attached to them that isn’t theirs. When you are unskilled, this information is overwhelming and the amount of stimuli that comes at you with abilities like these can be emotionally, spiritually, and physically harmful in a way that is difficult to describe. When you see disease and darkness everywhere you turn it is obviously extraordinarily difficult.

This scenario gets even more complicated when the matter of Death comes through. There are many psychics and sensitives that are able (through one or more psychic abilities) to see Death, or the psychopomp beings (basically Grim Reapers if we are being simple here), to see death in people, to know when and how they are going to die. This is typically a strong psychic ability… This gets a bit complicated because there is not one term for it beyond “Deathworker” “Darkworker” or “Darklighter”… which conjures up all sorts of images of evil and whatever society thinks of anything or anyone that is not a “lightworker”.

What I am saying, simply, is that a Darkworker is typically a highly psychic individual… and that can be through Clairvoyance (seeing), Clairaudience (hearing), Dreaming states, Precognitive states, Channeling, Mediumship, and/or someone with Psychopomp capabilities (for a little bit about Mediumship and Psychopomp abilities click here)… who can see and work with death, disease, destruction, primal emotions, and the Earth. We are needed, and in vastly short supply because many of us are not skilled, are overwhelmed, or feel this ability is “evil” because it is not “light”. 

The truth is that this is light, it is just not the light that is popularized and considered okay by neo-spiritual groups. Some of you with this ability may see that someone is going to die by the certain amount of light around them or how their energy field looks, some of you may sense the psychopomp beings around the person, some may have dreams or precognitive abilities where you know before someone is going to die (or right when they are going to die), some may hear that a specific person is going to, or some of you may have guides that tell you. There are specific ways that the ability to see Death comes through, even in the most unskilled of individuals, depending on your dominant sense. In most people, until they are skilled (and even then) it is through claircognizance – or simply knowing information about death, disease, and destruction (like of bombings, wars, terrorist attacks, etc) without knowing how or why you are getting the information. 

While Claircognizance is a wonderful and can be quite a strong psychic capability, when you are in an unskilled state with it the amount of information coming at you and the type of information coming at you, such as knowing time of death or who is going to pass when you are in a grocery store (or maybe even how) can be quite disconcerting.

So what to do about this ability?

  • The first thing to do is accept that on some level that you have it. This may be a long road, especially in a culture that is so obsessed with the “light”.
  • Figure out how you are getting your information- basically through what senses. Are you hearing, seeing, sensing, physically feeling in your body, or just knowing the information? Are you having dreams about it? Are you seeing information from the past, present, or future? You may not be able to answer all these questions, just do the best you can.
  • Get a sort of catalogue, or sense of what type of information you are getting. Is it time of death? A disease? Attachments or beings? Matter of death? Information about world events/destruction of some sort?
  • How does this information affect you when you receive it? Do you get a headache, do you react emotionally? Do you disassociate (leave your body)? Do you take on the disease, energy of death, or darkness into your own body?
  • This information may take you a while to gather, but most importantly know that you need to move from being unskilled to skilled with this ability. This is unfortunately not an ability that you can learn fully about from books (or even through this post). Because it is fairly individualized, you need a teacher or training of some sort to work with it. This teacher will tell you how you are receiving your information, what psychic abilities you have, what the effects are on you (the questions above, basically), and most importantly how to work with it.
  • There is typically a reason for you having this ability. For some it may be to become a medical intuitive, for others a hands-on healer, for some a spiritual healer who works with darkness, hospice work such as nursing or volunteering, or psychopomp work (moving souls on). It may be that it is part of your own healing and spiritual path, and you are intended to work spiritually with darkness, the dark void, the psychopomp beings, even Death itself.

Learning how and why as well as how to maintain boundaries and safety is essential if you have natural capabilities with this work. When you are naturally psychic you will have all sorts of events, happenings, and energies around you that may be very good, or may put your physical health and energetic/spiritual safety in jeopardy. That is not intended to frighten, it just is what it is. If you are reading this and already have these capabilities, it is likely that this is already occurring- and that you have disrupted sleep, fatigue and pains in your body, digestive issues, headaches, emotional lability, and sometimes freak out a bit in the grocery store (sometimes without knowing why). This doesn’t need to happen. With skills you can learn how to work with the information so it doesn’t have an impact. You can be initiated into specific understandings with specific energies, learn spiritual protection, and even (to a certain extent, admittedly) turn off (and to a much greater extent) simply notice the information being given to you without processing it or letting it flow through you without registering and having to deal with it.

 

Shamanic Awakening: Dismemberment Dreams

Date: July 23, 2014
Author: maryshutan
Categories: shamanic calling, shamanism, Spiritual Awakening, Uncategorized

One of the most significant occurrences that begins and occurs throughout a Shamanic Awakening or Calling is the dismemberment dream. These dreams can be terrifying, especially for someone who has no idea what is going on. As discussed in prior blogs, a shaman is called onto the path by a near-death experience or severe childhood illness that gives them the ability to see beyond “ordinary” reality. Although the child has had the experience of the shamanic sickness or near-death state they may not be initiated or called until they are are much older.  So a child at the age of two may have a severe illness that gives them the ability to see, feel, and work “beyond” but may not be called or begin initiations to become a Shaman until their teenage or early adult years.

In modern society this call of becoming a Shaman may not be answered until much later as we lack the proper spiritual understandings, teachers and mentors, and often deny what we are being called to do in this world. We are taught that we must be accountants (for example, no slam to accountants) because we must make money, hold a regular job, have a family, etc. Answering the call of becoming a Shaman is a severe and life-changing path and many of us deny answering the call because we subconsciously know how difficult it will be. For these reasons in modern society it is not unusual for people to be years or even decades beyond their early adulthood and finally answering the call to become a Shaman.

One of the first initiations into becoming a Shaman is a dismemberment dream, or series of dismemberment and then rememberment dreams. At first these will likely come in dream form during sleep. Nightmares and dreams about being torn apart by wild animals, eaten by snakes, bugs, and other creatures, buried alive and disintegrating in dirt, dissolving into the elements, being chopped into bits by various implements… these are all dismemberment dreams that signify that a Shamanic Calling or Awakening is occurring.

It is of course possible for people to have nightmares and dreams of dismemberment without the calling, in which case a dream analyst is helpful because these dreams for “regular” folks signify deep themes of emotional turmoil, losing of self concept, trauma from early childhood resurfacing, and large changes in life that may be uncomfortable.

But for the Shaman who has a background of childhood illness or near-death, someone who develops an interest and calling to spiritual healing or interests, who has the ability in some small or large way to see, feel, touch, or work “beyond” normal reality and has an animalistic, primal and rather strange quality to them that makes them understand that they are different in some way than those around them, the dismemberment dream is the first initiation into becoming a Shaman.

In later stages the Shaman may have reoccurring dismemberment visions during waking life, meditation, and dream states during important changes in their life and initiation into higher and deeper levels of knowing. The dismemberment is important for the Shaman to be able to fully work in different layers of reality and with different energies and beings. It is an opening, an initiation in which the Shaman loses identification with the physical body and gains a more open cosmology- a deeper understanding that there is a vital force, a current of energy  that flows through the world, and that animals, people, plants, minerals, and all of the life on this planet has a voice. The dismemberment allows for the Shaman to begin to have the direct experience that the world is vitally alive and that there is more out there than self-created energies, illusions, and spirits. The ability to have the physical self dismembered in a seemingly violent fashion allows for us to get over our fears of death and see beyond the material world and the physical container.

After a dismemberment there comes a remembering- a re-identification with the physical body. This can happen quite quickly or can take months or even years. Some Shamans who have no idea what they are going through require going to spiritual healers that can help them re-identify with their physical bodies. When the physical body is remembered it is with the understandings gained through the dismemberment. Each dismemberment going forward is a marker of a new phase, a new initiation, new understandings, new healing abilities, and a furthering of going down the proverbial rabbit hole. Frequently dismemberments allow for the Shaman to gain new non-physical spiritual teachers and be initiated into greater power and capabilities.

If carried forward it is typical for the shaman who answers the call to find the appropriate teacher, mentor, or other materials to guide them on their next step. If not resisted and properly understood, the Shaman will find both physical and non-physical teachers who can guide them to become a full-fledged Shaman or to help them understand their experiences and provide the appropriate context for them.

However, many people have a great deal of fear about this process, do not understand what is going on, or are resisting becoming a Shaman. The dreams of being dismembered are understandably scary, even for those of us who know what they are and what they signify. Some people simply consider them nightmares and do not have familiarity with anything spiritual or shamanic and so will not investigate in spite of extraordinary happenings. Others know full well, consciously or subconsciously, what is going on and are resisting the path because they know what being a Shaman entails. Many people get stuck after a dismemberment, losing their sense of self and not becoming remembered and cannot find the proper resources to help them through the initiation.

Other people will have these dreams and know they are being called but are confused and lack the proper guidance to help them. Due to the popularity of shamanism and the advent of “core” shamanic principles that merge modern psychology and new-age culture with shamanism for people who aspire to be shamans without actually having a calling most of the guidance and materials out there are for aspirational shamans rather than those who have actually been called. Those who actually are being called face a lot of confusion because they are faced with resources and guidance intended for those who want to be shamans, and not for those who actually are shamans and are going through a spirit-led initiation process such as dismemberment dreams. There is little truthful or helpful resources for those who are actual Shamans because the vast majority of people are aspirational shamans, and actual direct experiences and spirit-led callings are difficult to discuss due to lack of cultural identification with the spiritual, personal feelings of craziness or uniqueness and separation that these experiences create, and the simple difficulty of putting deep, direct spiritual experiences into common-day language.

Whatever the reason, know that shamanic dismemberment dreams signify an important awakening, the start of a process. Generally the next step in the path is to find a teacher or guide. I always suggest both a physical, in-person teacher as well as learning how to work with non-physical guides and ancestors.