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Shamanic
Workshops,
Shamanic Training and Shamanic Courses
Asheville is the home of shamanic training
and shamanic workshops
in North Carolina!
Are you interested in Shamanism?
Do you want to learn more? Do you want to learn how to
practice Shamanism yourself?
If you do, start with Meet Your Helping Spirits, the Fundamentals of Shamanism class.
If you are interested in studying with me, send me an email and let's gather a group together and begin.
Following is a mostly complete list of the shamanic techniques
that I can teach you. I am constantly learning from the
helping spirits, so this list grows and changes! Click any title for a full description and content notes,
or scroll down and browse through the catalog as you like.
Visit the Shamanic Training and Shamanic Workshops | Workshop Schedule
page for what's cookin' today.
Shamanic Workshop
Course Listing
The
Self-Transformation Series
The self-transformation series of shamanic workshops is
designed to empower you and give you tools for healing and
self-change, to shift blockages in your life, and to help
you connect with the sources of your own true and personal
power.
The Andean Cosmology
Series: Working with the Ancient System of Spiritual
Connection
Course Descriptions
Meet Your Helping
Spirits:
The Basic Workshop in
Shamanism
a 1-day shamanic training
workshop
This is the beginning shamanic workshop, your
gateway to becoming a shamanic practitioner
Prerequisites:
none.
can be expanded to
2-days for more depth of experience if desired
I invite you to join me
and learn more about this amazing spiritual tradition,
the shamanic path of direct revelation that you can step
onto. Shamanism is a technique used all over the planet
to interact with the world and its energies on a
fundamental and personal level, giving the shamanic
practitioner a deep, rich, direct experience of the
divine.
"Shamanism is the oldest
spiritual practice known to humankind. We know from
the archaeological evidence that shamanism was
practiced all over the world for at least 40,000
years. However many anthropologists believe that the
practice dates back over 100,000 years.
The word shaman comes from the Tungus tribe in
Siberia and means "one who sees in the dark".
Shamanism has been practiced in parts of Asia,
Europe, Africa, Australia, Greenland, and Native
North and South America.
A shaman is a man or woman who interacts directly
with spirits to address the spiritual aspects of
illness, perform soul retrievals, divine
information, help the spirits of deceased people
cross over, and perform a variety of ceremonies for
the community. Shamans have taken on many roles in
tribal communities. They have acted as healers,
doctors, priests, psychotherapists, mystics, and
storytellers." ~ Sandra Ingerman, shamanic teacher,
author and practitioner
During this basic workshop, you are introduced to
shamanism, the universal and near-universal basic
methods that enable you to enter non-ordinary reality to
bring problem-solving and healing into your daily
experience. Emphasis is on the classic shamanic journey,
which you will learn how to do. Shamanic journey is one
of the most remarkable visionary methods used by mankind
to explore the hidden universe otherwise known mainly
through myth and dream which you will gain access to.
You will be initiated into shamanic journeying using
sonic driving (drumming and other techniques) for
experiencing the shamanic state of consciousness and for
awakening dormant spiritual abilities, including
connections with Nature.
We will spend time sharing our discoveries in shamanic
journeys, and you will be provided with methods for
journeying to meet and study with your own individual
spirit helpers in non-ordinary reality, a classic step
in shamanic practice. You will learn how shamanic
journey is used to restore your spiritual power and
health, and how shamanism can be applied in your daily
life to help heal yourself, others, and the Planet, our
earth mother.
Your first experiential shamanic workshop includes these
discussions and exercises:
- What is shamanism? Lecture and
discussions about shamanism in many cultures; who
and what a shaman is; shamanic cosmology, the
journey process, and what shamanism is good for.
- Psychic protection and shielding - you
will learn how to strengthen your energy body and
re-member who you are at a deep and spiritual level.
This is an extraordinarily useful practice even when
you are not practicing shamanism.
- Shamanic journeying - you will learn about
shamanic journey work using sonic driving to either
a drum or a rattle.
"Shamanic
journeying is a method of direct revelation and it
is the experiential centerpiece through which
shamans make contact with their helping spirits to
access empowerment, personal guidance, and healing
help." - Awakening to the Spirit World by Sandra
Ingerman and Hank Wesselman.
- The ethics of shamanism, shamanic practice
and healing
- Journeying to the Lower World to meet your
Power Animal Allies
- Journeying to the Upper World to meet your
Teachers and Guides
- Establishing a solid and mutually
responsive relationship with your new allies,
teachers and guides
- Honoring - you will learn how to honor
your new relationship with the helping spirits
- Time Permitting (or in the 2-day version)
you will learn
- Simple and effective healing methods you
can use with others
- Simple divination methods for finding
answers to your life's questions
Introduction to
Shamanic Mediumship with Compassionate Deities
a 1-day shamanic training
workshop
This is an advanced shamanic workshop
Prerequisites:
basic shamanic journey skills and good working
relationship with your helping spirits.
This workshop gives you new tools to help you work more
closely with the helping spirits and provides new insights
into the ways in which you experience the energies of the
world around you. Using traditional mediumistic
techniques, you will learn a method of safe conscious
mediumship to help you develop and use your innate abilities
to connect with compassionate deities, nature spirits and to
connect more deeply with your own helping spirits.
Working with powerful compassionate Deities and spirits is
an excellent and unique way to receive deep wisdom and
insight into the issues and problems of daily living.
Learning to safely embody compassionate beings is also a
beautiful way to strengthen and refine one's energy body,
and gives new ways to connect with the energies of the
world around us.
Note: This workshop does not teach the advanced skills
necessary to communicate with the spirits of the dead.
That advanced practice is well beyond the scope of this
course.
In this course you
will learn
- Methods of Energetic Protection while working with
Mediumship
- Strengthening our connection to our True Selves
- Techniques for conscious mediumship with compassionate
Deities
- Information on how you process and perceive energies
in the world around you
- New ways of being and perceiving the world
An Introduction to
Curse and Oath Unraveling
a 1-day workshop
This is an advanced shamanic workshop
Prerequisites:
basic shamanic journey skills and good working
relationship with your helping spirits.
The energies of Curses, Thoughtforms and Oaths can affect
our daily lives, and using curse energies against others is
a frequent occurrence in our culture; we do it without
knowing that we do. Curses were regularly used in
ancient times - and still are, to oftentimes devastating
effect. This course explores the form and nature of simple
curses and oaths and gives methods and approaches for safely
unraveling them.
In this course you
will learn
- Information about Curses, Oaths, and curse-like
energetic constructs
- Methods of Energetic Protection while working with
Curses and Oaths
- Strengthening our connection to our True Selves, the
Divine Blueprint, shield from within
- Methods for the safe unraveling of curses and
curse-like constructs
- Energetic methods to help heal and clear the
aftereffects of curse energies
Advanced Curse and
Oath Unraveling
a 1-day shamanic training
workshop
This is an advanced shamanic workshop
Prerequisites:
basic shamanic journey skills and good working
relationship with your helping spirits
plus Curse and Oath Unraveling I.
The energies of Curses, Thoughtforms and Oaths can affect
our daily lives, and using curse energies against others is
a frequent occurrence in our culture; we do it without
knowing that we do. Curses were regularly used in
ancient times - and still are, to oftentimes devastating
effect. This course explores the form and nature of more
complex curses and oaths and binding spells fueled by and
created in the names of gods and deities and gives methods
for safely unraveling them.
In this course you
will learn
- Methods for tracking curses and oaths back to their
inception
- Techniques for safely unraveling generational and
past-life curses from people and from family lines
- Information about Thoughtforms and how they differ
from curse-like constructs
- Methods for removing thoughtforms from places, people,
and family lines
Energetic Clearing
of Objects and Spaces
a 1-day workshop
This is an advanced
shamanic workshop
Prerequisites:
basic shamanic journey skills and good working
relationship with your helping spirits.
This is a fun and experiential class that explores various
methods for energetic clearing of auras, body energies,
spaces, and objects. Having methods for achieving the
"cashmere touch" is essential for the person working with
body energies and energy medicine, and being able to clear
energetic imprints from homes, workspaces, businesses, and
healing tools is essential.
In this course you
will learn
- Methods of Energetic Protection
- Strengthening our connection to our True Selves
- Techniques for clearing and refining your energy
bubble
- Techniques for clearing and cleansing spaces in homes,
businesses, and healing spaces
- Methods for inviting tranquility, calmness, and
vibrancy into a space
- Techniques for clearing and cleansing objects,
projects,
Intermediate Topics
in Shamanism
a 1-day shamanic training
workshop
This is an advanced shamanic workshop
Prerequisites:
basic shamanic journey skills and good working
relationship with your helping spirits
This advanced workshop will explore topics of interest to
the gathered participants
In this class we will explore some of the following possible
topics and journeys:
- Egoless State University
- Meet the Council of Animals
- Meet and work with your Council of Allies
- Journey to be introduced ot the Hall of the Ancestors
and begin discovering its various rooms
- Cosmology Exploration journeys - what's in all those
worlds?
- Sacred Garden Work - this is work pioneered and written about by
Hank Wesselman, Ph.D.
Heart-Centered
Compassionate Depossession I
a 3.5-day shamanic
training workshop
This is an advanced shamanic workshop
Prerequisites:
excellent shamanic journey skills and good working
relationship with your helping spirits.
Possession or Obsession by other beings is a common malady
little known and treated here in the West, yet which is
dealt with routinely in other cultures around the world. A
person who has suffered loss of vital essence or who has a
spiritual void of some kind can become the host to a
possessing Being easily, and with no evil or malice
involved. The presence of the energy of the
obsessing/possessing Beings can overshadow a person,
altering behaviors, creating physical discomfort and
lowering quality of life. Memories and personality can be
shared between teh possessing Being and the host person.
Paranormal phenomena (spontaneous sounds, objects moving,
doors and cabinets opening) can result from the presence of
a possessing Being in one's energy field.
Heart-Centered Compassionate Depossession provides a
beautiful and safe method of alleviating the suffering of
all beings concerned. This is my favorite shamanic work!
This workshop will also give you new tools to help you work
more closely with the helping spirits and provides new
insights into the ways in which you experience the energies
of the world around you.
Heart-Centered Compassionate Depossession can bring immense
relief to persons experiencing troubling symptoms of unknown
cause.
In this course you
will learn
- Methods of Energetic Protection while working with
Suffering Beings
- Connecting with and calling in the Divine spirits of
protection who oversee this work
- Strengthening our connection to and merging with our
True Selves, our Divine Blueprint, to shield from within
- Identifying the signs and symptoms of
possession/obsession
- Ways of Communicating with obsessing/possessing beings
- Methods for moving Suffering Beings into the Light
using witness and accessing Divine help
- Energetic healing and clearing methods to help heal
the effects of possession
- Strategies for connecting with Suffering Beings and
move them to the Light
Compassionate Witness and
Healing with the Ancestors I
a 1-day shamanic training
workshop
As incarnate beings, we are the embodiment of the hopes and
dreams of our ancestors. We carry the gifts of their
DNA and also the energies of their unfinished business which
can help us or hinder us. We also are the carriers of
their luminous wisdom and strengths. This class is
designed to teach an introductory method of working with
your ancestors for witnessing and to begin to help heal
their unfinished business, feuds and regrets, freeing your
family line of these heavy influences and bringing in the
fresh energies of the beautiful fruits of their lives and
labors.
In this course you
will learn
- Methods for locating and working with your ancestors
and ancestral allies and totems
- Locating the cause of present-day stumbling
blocks: the unfinished business of our ancestors
- Compassionate Witness
- Using Sacred Landscapes to portray and understand
ancestral dynamics
- Introduction to methods for healing and unwinding
ancestral patterns that still play out in our families
today
Introduction to
Seidr, Norse Magic:
Song, Staff, Seat and
Spirits
a 2-day workshop
This is an advanced
shamanic workshop
Prerequisites:
basic shamanic journey skills and good working
relationship with your helping spirits.
This is an advanced
workshop requiring solid
shamanic journey skills and a good working
relationship with your helping spirits.
Seidr, the Norse system of divinatory
and healing magic, was written about in the Icelandic
Sagas a thousand years ago. Using shamanic methods, we
can access many of these ancient Seidr techniques using
a staff and powered by song to connect with the helping
spirits.
In this weekend you will explore a truly Northern
European magical system that is an authentic lineage of
shamanism for those of Northern European descent. We
will explore some of the techniques written about in the
sagas, and we will end our weekend with a ceremony of
oracular divination, sometimes referred to as the High
Seat, or Oracular Seidr. This ceremony is described in
greatest extant detail in the saga
of Eirik the Red, chapter 4.
For further information about the history of seidr and its
modern reconstruction around the world, here is a
link to an excellent article on the legacy of seidr by
Danish seidr teacher Annetta Host who teaches seidr
techniques and has been researching this powerful form of
shamanism for over 25 years.
Singing In the
Healing:
Finding and Working
with Songs of Power
a 1-day shamanic training
workshop
This is an advanced
shamanic workshop
Prerequisites:
basic shamanic journey skills and good working
relationship with your helping spirits.
Power Songs are critical pieces of a shaman's toolkit.
Especially for the vegetalista,
power songs - icaros
- are used for almost every purpose imaginable.
Learning to work with your healing team to find sacred
healing songs and songs of power is a must for any shamanic
practitioner.
The
Self-Transformation Series
~ + ~
Healing The Wounded
Self
Tools for
Self-Change 1
a 2-day shamanic workshop
This is an advanced
shamanic workshop
Prerequisites:
basic shamanic journey skills and good working
relationship with your helping spirits.
Becoming the Hollow Bone, the clear vessel through which
Spirit can flow is a goal of the shamanic person yet our
unhealed wounds, our unfinished business and our shadow,
those aspects of us we deem unlovely and "unwanted" get in
the way and clog up the conduit. This course will give
you skills to begin to clear and heal your old unhealed
wounds, to finish your unfinished business and to greet your
shadow with compassion and make it your strength instead of
your weakness. Clearing those issues which perpetually
block us can bring us great joy, help us move through the
world in a more smooth way, and can liberate vast amounts of
personal power and creativity. This is an experiential
workshop with lots of journey time and outdoor exercises -
it is the first in a series of self-healing workshops.
Energetic
Methods for Balance, Stability, and Protection
For Sensitive and
Empathic People
a 1-day shamanic workshop
This is a beginning
shamanic workshop
Prerequisites:
None. Basic shamanic journey skills are a plus, but not
required.
Being able to be stable and balanced in the changing Middle
World of energetic influences is very important. This course
could also be titled "Psychic Protection" as it is designed
to give you ways to be safe, stable, grounded, rooted, and
protected in everyday life. In this workshop we explore
various methods for becoming rooted and stable in our own
energetics, and for moving out of the influence of
surrounding energy fields that may be difficult or toxic for
us. Some of these methods are also useful for transforming
the environment around us, such as in homes and businesses.
This is a highly experiential workshop with many exercises
and explorations, each designed to give you options and a
palette of tools to use which suit you best in any
situation.
Walking with Power:
Exploring
our Sources of Personal Power
a 1-day workshop
This is an advanced
shamanic workshop
Prerequisites:
basic shamanic journey skills and good working
relationship with your helping spirits.
We are beings of power. To be power-filled is a goal
of the shaman for protection and to be effective in his or
her dealings with clients. But how do we do that,
exactly? Where does that power come from? How do
we use it wisely and ethically without crossing over into
sorcery willfully or accidentally? How can we increase
our capacity to work with more power? This course
explores the nature and source of many varieties of shamanic
power, what it means to hold power, and how one can do so
wisely and for the benefit of all Beings.
Our Personal Chakra
Totems:
The
Devas of our Transformational Energy System
a 1-day workshop
This is a beginning
workshop
Optional: basic
shamanic journey skills and good working relationship with
your helping spirits.
In this workshop, you will meet and learn how to work with
the Devas of your chakras, your personal transformational
energy system. This workshop will give you easy, powerful,
and accessible ways to work with your own energies, to begin
to understand and to transform those things which block you
from being your authentic, powerful self.
Ceremony On the
Mountain:
Ceremonies of Healing,
Releasing, Divination, Blessing
monthly, 3rd Wednesdays
Ceremonies of releasing, blessing, and healing can be very
powerful, especially when attended by a group of dedicated
and focused individuals. There are no prerequisites, but do
contact me in advance if you plan to attend.
Ceremony
etiquette
Ceremony is a time for honoring the spirits. It is a time of
focus, of intention, of healing for all. With respect
towards the healing spirits, it is considered good manners
to arrive at ceremony clean and purified in body and spirit,
bathed and in respectful clothing. Once ceremony begins, all
energy and intention are focused solely on the matters at
hand: I ask that respectful focus be maintaned until the
ceremony has come to an end. Afterward we will have time to
chat and share food together!
Once or twice a year we perform the oracular ceremony of
High Seat, written about in the saga of
Eirik the Red, chapter 4.
The Andean
Cosmology Series
~ + ~
Andean Cosmology I
Wooing
the Mother
a 2-day experiential
learning exploration
This is an beginning
shamanic workshop
Prerequisites:
sincerity and a desire to connect with the Pachamama. Open
to All
The Andean
Cosmology as practiced by indigenous paqos in Peru is a
rich, ancient, and unbroken lineage of shamanic knowlegde
that emphasizes balance and life-giving connection to the
Pachamama, the Apus, and the Spirits of Nature. In this
workshop we learn simple and powerful ways of making those
connections to begin our healing. This workshop arose from
my journeys and studies with the Pachamama and the Apus in
sacred ayllu both in Wisconsin and in Peru.
In this
introduction to this life-practice, we will learn
- The important and principal cosmological elements of
the Andean Cosmology
- The Pachamama
- The Apus
- The Pachamamitas and Spirits of Place and the
Spirits of Nature
- how to make and activate kintus, small fans of sacred
leaves used to bless and to convey prayer to the
Pachamama, the Apus, and the Spirits of Nature
- Napaquy, the simple ceremony for introducing ourselves
to the Spirits of a Place for greater connection
- Hallpay, the sacred ceremony of greeting fellow humans
- Andean concepts that this spirituality is built on,
including
- Ayni, sacred balance
- Hallpay, the sacred ceremony of greeting which opens
fountains of energy connected to the Andean Cosmology
- Ayllu, the Andean form of Sacred Community
- Hamut'ay, sacred silence for connecting with the
Helping Spirits
Andean
Cosmology II
Care and
Feeding of the Stone Mesa
a 2-day experiential
learning exploration
This is an advanced
learning opportunity
Prerequisites:
sincerity and a desire for deeper connection with the
Pachamama, the Apus and the Spirits of Nature. Open to
Stone Mesa carriers
The stone
Mesa, or Misa, is the portable altar of the Andean paqo. It
is a sacred bundle of stones that reflects the bearer and
the bearer's Inner Temple, his Manqos Wasi. Learning how to
care for the misa, to keep your connection to it, and
practices to keep it healthy, alive, and growing, is an
important part of the Andean Cosmological teachings.
Here we will learn
- The important and principal cosmological elements of
the Andean Cosmology
- The Pachamama
- The Apus
- The Pachamamitas and Spirits of Place and the
Spirits of Nature
- how to make and activate kintus, small fans of sacred
leaves used to bless and to convey prayer to the
Pachamama, the Apus, and the Spirits of Nature
- Napaquy, the simple ceremony for introducing ourselves
to the Spirits of a Place for greater connection
- Hallpay, the sacred ceremony of greeting fellow humans
- Andean concepts that this spirituality is built on,
including
- Ayni, sacred balance
- Hallpay, the sacred ceremony of greeting which opens
fountains of energy connected to the Andean Cosmology
- Ayllu, the Andean form of Sacred Community
- Hamut'ay, sacred silence for connecting with the
Helping Spirits
- Lore and history about the misa, the Andean Cosmology,
and about various kinds of misas
- Ceremony for opening your misa
- Ceremony for closing your misa
- Ceremony for clearing hucha from your Inner Temple and
from your misa
- Making a making a kintu misa, a simple form of
Despacho, or sacred offering
- Qechua (Cusqeuna) terms which describe these practices
Jeffrey Rich
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