Why Shamanism Now - A Practical Path to Authenticity

What was shamanism and what is it today? Join host Christina Pratt in an exploration of what shamanism is and what it isn’t. What answers do the ancients offer us for these challenging times we live in? Pratt suggests that they don’t have the answers, but the means by which we could get answers that will—if acted on—change our lives. At the core of true, authentic shamanism is a live, direct, working relationship with spirit. This two-way communication characterizes a shamanic relationship with spirit and it is your birthright. You can draw comfort, guidance, clarity, inspiration, and healing directly from this relationship. And most importantly shamanism helps us to make better quality decisions—decisions that actually solve the problem at hand without creating three more, decisions that move beyond divisive politics and self-service, and finally decisions that will serve the next seven generations.

When we co-create our lives with Spirit and our Shadow together, we end up following the path of crazy logic. If you can use your shamanic skills to stay on that track—without panic and doubt—you will begin to unfold your inner self in ways you never expected or believed possible. With the help of your Shadow you begin to see what you have denied in yourself and with the help of spirit used skillfully, you can welcome that aspect of your true self home. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, for this final section in the Co-Creation Series where we explore how to use shamanic skills to co-create your life today so that you bring the needed medicine of your gifts to the world tomorrow.

What if our Shadow is actually trying to save us from a successful and safe but un-soul-satisfying life? What if our Shadow was actually trying, in it’s messed up, self-destructive, terribly resource wasteful and energy expensive way to get us to actually co-create a life that is true to us and our soul’s purpose? If this were so—and it is—then how do we co-create our lives with Spirit and our Shadow? Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she explores how to use shamanic skills to use the shadow patterns that arise along the path of co-creating your life as precisely the detour to take you directly to your truer self. There is no calling worth living that will not demand that you change yourself. That’s the adventure, the discovery, and the creation of a life worth living. And the world out there, so deeply in need of medicine and gifts, will change if you have the courage and creativity to give them.

Effective shadow transformation requires a specialist who knows the terrain of the darkest reaches of the human heart. This specialist must be more than human, fiercely loving all that is vast, ugly, and twisted within us while remaining a centered, curious, and creative guide. The Specialist is the archetype of Crazy Woman. She has inspired many wondrous and powerful destroyer goddesses in humanity’s diverse religions. But like the Tao, the destroyer goddess who can be named is not the eternal Crazy Woman. Join us this week as host and shaman, Christina Pratt, shares the essence of working effectively with Crazy Woman when our modern minds are stuffed full of Western bias, false beliefs about our own shadow, and fundamental misunderstanding of the human heart.

The fundamental assumption about shadow work that blinds us to its true nature is the idea that shadow work is a psychological or spiritual issue. It is neither; it is an issue of the heart. Once we understand that, contemporary assumptions unravel for anyone, and the transformational fun begins. Join us this week as host and shaman, Christina Pratt, shared the commons beliefs that actually lead us away from the real work we can do. She explores what we can do when we have the right tool for the job and a specialist to guide us. There is an art to engaging in transformation that flies under the radar of the mind and is deeply rooted in changing your real life choices. Mastering that art is the secret to renewing your heart’s sacred contract with your soul.

The Deep Liberation Process is time tested over 30 years and fine-tuned online with 950+ people. The core of its uniqueness is a fractal clearing process that allows you to navigate to the root of stuck patterns, stories and beliefs that uproot your healthy grounding and boundaries and reclaim your freedom to act in alignment with your authenticity and purpose. They also prepare you to step into the Shadow Transformation Process and completely transform what feels impossible to change. Join us for the final part of our series as we look at what we need to learn and do together to co-create a sustainable, just, and free way of life together? Author and practitioner, Langston Kahn, and host, Christina Pratt, explore the potential of the Deep Liberation Process skillset to support us in shadow transformation and ancestral healing. Together we can step into the fierce, unyielding heart of transformative love and restorative justice with anyone who will step into it with us.

The Deep Liberation Process is a literal and accessible path forward—from wherever you are—out of your unconscious, everyday repetition of history and into the engaged, mature expression of your true self. This experiential skillset has 3 parts, each its own course, that build one on the other. With these skills you are able to release limiting beliefs, clear emotional turmoil or numbness, and free yourself at the root in the past that support the persistent patterns that frustrate your life. Join us for Part Two of this series, as author and practitioner, Langston Kahn, and host, Christina Pratt, discuss the potential is collective work and other exciting aspects of Advanced Energy Body Clearing, offered every third year. At this level the Deep Liberation Process skillset gives us the ability to work in focused collaborative effort to undermine and transform the systemic injustice we share and dismantle the internalized patterns of unconscious colonizer thinking that colors our innovation and collaborative creation.

The Deep Liberation Process invites us to discover how we can divest our energy and liberate our imagination from the oppressive systems and broken culture we inhabit. This is not a solo job. It is both personal and collective, but one we can only do together. If we learn to do that—to embrace and celebrate diversity, both human and nonhuman—then we will share in the manifestation of a more just and joyful future together. If we don’t, we are abandoning why we are here completely. Join us in a new series, as author and practitioner, Langston Kahn, and host, Christina Pratt, discuss a literal and accessible path forward—from wherever you are—out of your unconscious, everyday repetition of history. With this experiential skillset you can step into the fierce, unyielding heart of transformative love and restorative justice with us and our global Deep Liberation Community.

If the New World is to be different than the one before then we must learn to ally our minds with paradox. We must see the deeper truth that the nature of our world—and our selves included— is the living expression of complementary dualism in which two opposites co-exist in harmonic wholeness. And as they transmute each other we experience true renewal or passionate expression. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she explores the essence energies we must ally with on our journey to change our thinking and behavior and align with the necessary Dreaming of the New World. One of the many great gifts of a regular shamanic journeying practice is that the journeyer is immersed in the logic of the Tao. In our journeys and our interactions with helping spirits we are constantly asked to see—or tricked into seeing—the reciprocal exchange of energies that is the heart of complementary dualism. When we finally understand that all energies within our selves are opposites of another energy, also present though often denied within our selves, we will begin to be able to show up as co-creators of the New Story the Earth is singing.

Who will guide us as we stand together with new allies: The Unknown, The Wild Heart, and The Tao, at the dawning of the New World crafting the new Story of the People? What lights the way? “In the end the light of the Old World was the harsh light of judgment, the blinding light of righteousness, and the relentless light of monotheistic separation that drives us from all that naturally nourishes and replenishes the body and soul,” explains host and shaman, Christina Pratt. “We must now find our way in the darkness to rediscover True Light, the Light that dances in ecstatic reciprocity with Darkness and gives life.” Join us this week as we explore ways to use shamanic skills to enter the Shadow and gain access to transform the roots of the habits, additions, and unconscious patterning that limit our self-expression. These skills allow us to enter the darkest fears human experience offers and to see through the illusions that bind our hearts in mental unwellness, confusion, and depression. Finally Darkness is the path to the deep actions of self-care and self-love necessary to cultivate the internal richness needed to bring up True Light and the courage to express that light with creativity and humility in the world.

In preparation for this upcoming Solstice Fire Ritual, we create two arrows, Life and Death. The Trickster’s alchemy and wisdom about true sacrifice helped us to discern what must go into the Death Arrow and into the fire. The Visionary inspired our vision and the creative stages of transformation that must go into our Life Arrow at dawn on the first day of our New Story. This week we receive our final guidance, write our story, and create the seed that must be planted to tend our inner fire in a new way. With the solstice upon us, we continue to work together with hearts open to our global connection, clearly visualizing that web of human light, and using this ritual as a gateway to leave our old stories behind. Together we step into the empowered sovereignty that is at the heart of humanity.

In preparation for this upcoming Winter or Summer Solstice the Healer asked us to stir our old stories. The Warrior guided us to sort through these stories with curiosity and compassion to find what needs to change to tend our inner fires. The Teacher Trickster now asks us to identify the Judges, Controllers, and Righteous Zealots that keep our strong hearts in the shadow. Through the Trickster’s alchemy and wisdom about true sacrifice, we discover what must go into the fire. This week we continue to work together with hearts open to our global connection, clearly visualizing that web of human light, and using this ritual as a gateway to leave our old stories behind. Together we step into the empowered sovereignty that is at the heart of humanity.

What will you do differently and how will you make the desire for change in your heart real in your world today? This week we move on to Part 2 of the preparation for this upcoming Winter or Summer Solstice. The Healer asked us to stir our old stories. Now the Warrior guides us to sort through them carefully, with curiosity and compassion, to find what need to change to tend our inner fires. With Why Shamanism Now listeners are spread around the globe we hope to unite and empower each other’s ritual work. Let’s open our hearts to that global connection, clearly visualize that web of human light, and use this ritual as a gateway to leave our old stories behind. Together we step into the empowered sovereignty that is at the heart of humanity.

The depth of the systemic political, financial, and social misuse and abuse of power at the core of the old story is revealed more fully each day. Now what? What will you do differently and how will you make the desire for change in your heart real in your world today? The old stories can be changed when they are changed within you and me, and only then. So, let’s step up. Why Shamanism Now listeners are spread around the globe. This part one of a four-part series is offered not only as a way to prepare for your winter, or summer, solstice fire ritual, but to unite and empower each other’s ritual work. By opening your heart to that global connection and clearly visualizing that web of human light, you can use this ritual as a gateway to leave your old ways behind and step into the empowered sovereignty that is at the heart of your humanity.

At the core of living well is the ability to center love as a place of power in any circumstance. This is equally, and in some circumstances differently, true individually and collectively. To center love empowers us to remember what we care about, what has value, and what is meaningful for us to commit time, energy, and resources toward. It reminds us why we should bother. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she shares practices and explores the dynamics involved stepping into love as an act of revolution, liberation, and creation of a new world. This week look at how the Cycle Teachings help us to meet the waves of stress that keep rolling in from climate change, pandemic demands on space and time, social strain of living with life narratives that refuse to ground in reality, and the heartbreak of not knowing how to show up as parents for all of the ways this is affecting our children.

Hatred is a luxury we do not have. It costs too much, eventually destroying all that truly matters and leaving the soul lost as collateral damage. What can we do to reverse the rising tide of hatred in the United States? Using our shamanic skills we can draw on our helping spirits to support us in small, everyday acts to shift the story playing out around us. For the more experienced practitioner we can engage in large acts of ritual, healing, and ceremony that reach the very source of the hatred and focus the power of transformation there. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she explores the small, subversive daily acts that allow each of us to engage hatred where we meet it and the larger shamanic acts needed to disengage today’s hatred from the historic roots that nourish it. Large and small, it is work we must all engage in or we have learned nothing from history. Hatred ultimately costs us our souls.

To bring our mature courageous hearts into action in the world we must be resilient. But resiliency is the first casualty in a culture that avoids discomfort through mood altering prescription drugs, escaping through recreational drugs, and learning skills to clear the discomfort away, without ever asking why. The root of resiliency is in the courage to heal the deeps wounds of your past, to risk stepping through fear into a new way of life, and to engage in the mundane daily practices that cultivate a robust inner life. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she explores why any true path of healing or raising consciousness cultivates resiliency. Living your authentic life is not accomplished by "special snowflakes" who seek to control their environment, but by courageous and resilient, whole-hearted people who aren’t afraid to make a mess.

Mental wellness extends deep roots into solitude, silence, and a sense of self. In times of quarantine we are cut off from everyday patterns of distraction that allow us to avoid taking an honest look at the quality of our relationship with ourselves. As the weeks of shelter in place stretch on, mental wellness gives over into unwellness and mental illness is just around the corner. What if you could take a different path? Join us this week as host and shaman, Christina Pratt, explores ways to cultivate the deep roots of mental wellness through the everyday things you still have access to.

As the Covid-19 pandemic unfolds around the world we are witness to a range of leadership from truly inspired, excellent leadership to awful, morally bankrupt leadership. And this is not an abstract lesson; we need to take this in as teaching. We are all invited into leadership every day of our lives in countless ways that have nothing to do with our role or rank. This week host and shaman, Christina Pratt, offers a new podcast exploring leadership as the micro-expressions throughout every day that are an opportunity to step up and express your values and vision for a better world.

Pandemics require that we learn to live with ourselves without distractions. For many this feels impossible on a regular day and is especially so now faced with great uncertainty and an unforeseeable array of future issues. This week host and shaman, Christina Pratt, offers a new podcast exploring grounding, fear, and the hazards in journeying about future outcomes to manage your fear. What can you do at home to cultivate effective grounding, parse accurately what that fear really is, and respond to it in ways that transform. Join us for actions that heal in pandemic times.