Step into the captivating world of BJ Brown, MSW, CIBP, a seasoned psychotherapist and shamanic practitioner whose journey intertwines ancestral wisdom with modern healing practices. With over three decades of experience, BJ shares profound insights into her life’s calling, the sacred path of the Shaman, and the transformative power of embracing life’s transitions with grace and resilience. Join MysticMag as we delve into her remarkable story of healing, service, and profound spiritual connection.
Can you share a few details about yourself and your professional journey?
I’m a first-generation Sicilian. My genetic lineage is Sicilian, Scottish, Irish, and French. My non-genetic lineage consists of Native American and Indigenous Elders, Curanderas, teachers, and Shamans, as well as highly respected white/Western Elders and teachers. I acknowledge I am a privileged, white, queer woman living on Arapahoe, Cheyenne, Ute land. My wife of nearly 21 years and I share a love of music, the Pacific Northwest, gardening, community, hilarity, and connection to the land and our family. We also share a deep concern for the environmental and political crises in the world. We raised two children and several four leggeds together in Boulder, CO. Our young adult children are beautiful people. Our trans/non-binary lovely human lives in CA., and our tenacious daughter, traversing the world with physical and learning disabilities, lives nearby.
Counseling, Spiritual practices, and being of service is my life’s-work, a calling since I was a small child. I didn’t understand that when I was little, of course. I didn’t know what my mother meant when she said I had a gift, a sixth sense, not until I was much older. The first, most devastating initiation in my life was the sudden death of my mother when I was 15. I experienced many other losses, traumas, and initiations along the way. And they paled by comparison. While I had experimented a little with drugs and alcohol prior to her death, severe alcoholism and drug addiction officially took hold, probably that very day. Both of these intense dark nights of the soul would ultimately enhance my calling and significantly impact my capacity for empathy, and my ability to serve others in their healing and recovery from trauma, loss, addiction, etc. I took the socially sanctioned route in my higher education. I mastered sociology and criminal justice in under-grad.
Then on to get a Masters degree in social work treatment. It was halfway through my graduate program that I got clean and sober. It’s been over 37 years now. I have been a body-centered psychotherapist in private practice since 1988. After many years of feeling a deep calling, studying different earth-based spiritual modalities, I pursued the three-year program in Advanced Shamanic Studies with the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, CA, followed by a two-year Teacher Training with Sandra Ingerman. I still provide somatic psychotherapy, and I am also a Shamanic Teacher and Practitioner.
What is the Sacred Pipe?
The Sacred Pipe is called by different names in different cultures. In the Lakota Sioux language, it is called Chanupa. It was something passed to me and is not something one just picks up and decides to own or use. I attended many Chanupa ceremonies and learned a great deal from the person who passed the Pipe to me in the early ’90s. It is a deep honor to be a Pipe carrier for my community – a responsibility I take seriously. I’ve also learned from several Elders with whom I’ve been in Pipe Ceremonies, Lakota, and Temescal Sweat Lodges. These Native and Indigenous Elders, (Lipan Apache, Mexhika, Ojibwa, Lakota, Mayan, Diné), have blessed me with their teachings and encouraged me in my Spiritual work.
What Shamanic services do you offer?
I offer private and family sessions in various Shamanic practices, such as Soul Retrieval, Power Animal Retrieval, Shamanic Extraction, Psychopomp, Divinations, and Healing work. I provide private instruction and individual classes and teach One Year Apprenticeships in Advanced Shamanic Studies. I’ve been called upon to do home or land blessings and officiated life passage ceremonies, such as weddings and memorials which aren’t necessarily oriented in Shamanism.
What are your trainings and workshops like?
The advanced trainings and individual classes are deeply potent. They primarily include teachings in ancient, cross-cultural Shamanism, doing classic Shamanic journeys and methods. Students learn to go into an altered state of consciousness – Shamanic state of consciousness – by using the sonic drive of drums and rattles. Learning how to access non-ordinary realms, students, receive direct revelation from the compassionate Spirit Helpers, an experience they often describe as life-changing. They become more clear and connected with their own Spiritual autonomy and with their own destiny, their hearts, and the land. Many say these teachings have helped them heal from trauma, unwanted repetitive patterns, or feeling lost. These trainings often include different types of Ceremonies, as well. (I do not offer plant medicine ceremonies; nothing psychoactive, by the way).
What can you tell me about your service/volunteer work?
I started volunteering at the Denver Women’s Correctional Facility in 2010. A dear friend and director of a women’s a cappella ensemble started a choir with a small group of us from the ensemble and a group of offenders at the prison. It included weekly rehearsals (with few exceptions) and occasional concerts for the rest of the prison population. It was a most compelling time. After five years, the director and other members felt it was time for a break. I wasn’t done volunteering there, though. I submitted a proposal to start a program to teach Shamanic Journeying. There is a lot of “red tape” in corrections, as you might guess. Proposals, request forms, background checks, waiting for approval from headquarters, etc. The proposal went through the chain of command and was approved.
Having looked closely at this and my background, the volunteer coordinator felt my services were needed in a different program, the “American Indian Talking Circle.” Respectfully, I call it the Native American Talking Circle. Their “religious program” had been long established, but without a volunteer for a few years. I said I’d be glad to be their volunteer, as long as they accepted me into their Circle. He said, “Well, it doesn’t really work that way in prison,” meaning, it’s not up to them. I let him know it was important for them to have the choice. He and I attended a Talking Circle where he introduced me. I was very familiar with Talking Circles and I wanted them to see that I, a white woman, would show respect and deference to their ways. I waited for the talking piece to come to me.
I told them a little about myself, my work, my Elders. I let them know it was their choice, and if accepted, I’d be honored to be their volunteer. A few were disgruntled. A couple of women considered elders in the group said to give me a chance. That was nearly eight years ago. They continue to want me to facilitate their weekly Talking Circle, providing smudging and seasonal Chanupa Ceremonies, (which they cannot do without a volunteer, as they’re not permitted to touch the lighter). They know by now that I love and accept them unconditionally (with healthy boundaries). I will serve their community as long as I’m able.
Is there anything else about your work that you’d like to share that we haven’t covered?
One thing I’ll add is I’m the author of The Six Gates of Completion ~ A Companion in Life’s Transitions. It’s essentially a guide to help those facing small shifts in life, as well as bigger life passages. There are some losses or changes that we don’t “get over,” and maybe we’re not meant to. Perhaps a break in the trajectory of our lives becomes our medicine. Like the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where the crack is filled with gold or turquoise, not to repair or fix it, but to highlight the reality of the break. The container is restored, resilient.
We can use this as a metaphor as we learn to attain a state of completion with any transition. This is ultimately my intention through my book, my service, my work, and how I strive to live my life. May our scars be highlighted with beauty, and used for good – for ourselves, our loves, our communities, and the planet.
To learn more about BJ and her work, you can visit www.wolfheals.com
