In today’s interview, Mystic Mag explores how they connect with the spirit world to heal individuals, the methods used for divination, and the rituals performed to cleanse and harmonize the energy of a space. Through captivating stories and practical insights, you’ll gain a deeper understanding of this ancient practice.
In your practice of shamanic healing, how do you connect with the spiritual realms to facilitate healing for individuals, and can you share an example of a transformative experience where shamanic techniques played a significant role in someone’s well-being?
First of all I want to say that shamanic healing depends entirely on the practitioner’s relationships with spirit beings. These relationships are generally begun under conditions of initiation, when the practitioner trainee is in an altered state of consciousness and therefore open to new experiences at a depth our ordinary consciousness does not provide. These relationships are maintained, watered and kept alive through regular daily practice. It is these spirit beings who do the healing work; the shamanic practitioner is definitely the junior partner.
In addition to the practitioner maintaining regular ritual practice, before any healing takes place a secure energetic/spiritual container must be made so that the client can not only feel safe but actually be safe as their soul, or energy body, is opened and any needed repairs made. This making of a secure container is called “opening sacred space”; I do this by calling on spirit being who have revealed themselves to me as being willing and able to hold the space from the six directions of East, South, West, North, Above and Below. When this is done then I use percussion, usually drumming but sometimes rattling, to lead both practitioner and client into an altered state of consciousness which facilitates communication with and healing from those spirit being who have come to help.
While I cannot share the details of treatment of specific clients, the case which springs most quickly to mind is that of a young girl having one urinary tract infection after another. In my initial interview with the parent who contacted me and in my consultation with spirits I asked enough questions to be a certain as possible that there was no sexual abuse taking place. There were some knots in the two families’ lineages far enough in the past to have nothing directly to do with either parent or with the client; when these were dissolved and smoothed the current urinary tract infection cleared completely and did not return.
As a practitioner of divination, what methods do you use to tap into spiritual insights and guidance, and how do you help individuals interpret and integrate these messages into their lives?
The most important method I use is to work with the client to refine the question, and this is why: The spirits will answer the question you ask from their point of view, which is helping each of us to learn life’s lessons thoroughly in this lifetime. So if I ask the spirits “Should I take this job that I have just been offered?” they may well come back with a resounding “Yes!” as an answer. In five years’ time you might find yourself in a breakdown after severe bullying from you boss, an unsuccessful relationship with a workmate who runs off with someone new and clears out your joint account and leaves you not only broken but broken. You might well go back to spirit and say, “Look what happened – why did you tell me I should take that job? You were wrong!” Possibly, had you initially asked a question like “What will I learn if I take this job?”, they might have told you that you would learn about heartbreak and loss, about breaking apart and cultivating the resilience
needed to start again from nothing. Then you could decide for yourself whether you wanted to learn those lessons in that way.
Once the question is formulated most commonly I simply merge with a spirit ally who helps with this sort of work. This means the ally and I are sharing space in my body. They can see through my eyes, hear through my ears and fell through my body – and I can see through their eyes, hear through their ears and perceive through my body as well. I then pass on to the client what the ally sees, hear and perceives. The most important part of this is hearing back from the client what that information has sparked in them. Usually they can easily come up with the actions needed to integrate the information into their lives; if they cannot, a few questions usually helps them to get thinking and imagining.
When conducting land and house blessings, what rituals or ceremonies do you employ to cleanse and harmonize the energy of a space, and how does this process contribute to the overall well-being of the inhabitants?
The first thing I do is to undertake a shamanic journey to the place to take a look and to ask the land or the house what sort of healing is needed. This often involves historical and geographical research as well as journeys back in time to find the place of injury in the land giving rise to the effects that had the human client get in touch. I may then journey to remove intrusions and to bring in healing energy and allies. There may be actions for the human inhabitant to take as well. Often we make offerings and ceremonially express love to the underlying land in the form of songs and spoken blessings. Each blessing is different, as each aspect of the earth is its own self and has its own needs.
In the context of shamanic healing and divination, how do you approach the delicate balance between providing insights and empowering individuals to navigate their spiritual journeys on their own?
This is so important. Learning to navigate our own spiritual path is essential to being an adult human being; however, none of us is actually independent; we all are part of the same weaving, and we are evolved to be part of a community, to help one another. So, as you say, it is a delicate balance. With all this in mind, I do my best to deliver my account of the healing or divination process as a vivid, poetic narrative/story without any interpretation. This is much more than a simple delivery of facts (if I get it right), as spirit speaks to us in metaphors, which carry multiple layers of meaning that unfold over time, sometimes over extended periods of time. So I advise the client to let the narrative land in their bodies and just live in that story and see what unfolds for them. This can be frustrating for us modern humans, trained to expect immediate answers, but I find it provides the richest returns.
Can you share a memorable experience where your work in land and house blessing and clearing had a tangible and positive impact on the energy and atmosphere of a specific location or dwelling?
I was engaged to work with a flat in which there was significant poltergeist activity, with heavy items being hurled across the room when inhabitants were present. No one had been hit with flying cookware yet, but it seemed likely to occur at some
point, if only by chance. Both the human client and I did some considerable research; I did repeated and lengthy shamanic interventions with the property as a whole and specifically with that flat until we uncovered the energy leftovers of a powerful ongoing conflict between two past, deceased, inhabitants of that very flat. When the injuries inflicted by this conflict were healed and the suffering being still present were moved on to a happier place, the poltergeist activity ceased and the current residents could enjoy living in what turned out to be a peaceful and very pleasant home.
As a practitioner of both shamanic healing and house clearing, how do you address and release stagnant or negative energies, creating a sacred and energetically balanced environment for individuals or communities?
Removing heavy energies is a fundamental part of shamanic healing work, whether with human clients or with land and housing. The most direct way is to merge with a specific spirit ally completely, so that my entire body is both filled and surrounded with their power. Then we can reach together to pull the heavy energy out of its resting place and hand it off to any ally on the other side of the veil where it can easily be moved to its perfect place in the universe.
There is a basic principle in shamanism (as in nature generally) that when an energy has been removed, something must take its place. Rather than leave that to chance (seldom a good idea for health and balance) what a shamanic practitioner does next, immediately after the removal of any energy, is to journey to retrieve a spirit ally, a power, to come in and hold the place of the energy that has been removed and to help with the process of healing and regrowing what has been pushed aside by the intrusive heavy energy.
This might be a Power Animal (a spirit ally taking the form of a specific animal in order to communicate its own nature and gifts), or a soul part that was pushed far enough aside that it left the client’s body and needed help to come home, or even an aspect of a natural power like sunlight or ocean that is what the client’s soul needs right then for healing and restoration. This is very much dependent on the individual situation and is one of the many things that keeps shamanic healing work various and interesting.
