What Is Shamanism? A Unique Perspective

Shamanism Defined

When we ask about "What is the Shaman?" we seem to expect a shaman to be someone that has magical powers and able to transverse dimensions by simply opening a portal and stepping through. So many have come to ask or decree their shamanism capabilities only to be proven incapable of these great powers.

What are these great powers that we are to manifest? Where have we learned to use these powers to help others or is this about the mighty EGO? "E.G.O:. means "Ease God Out." To serve is the way of the shaman, not to take credit for helping out a soul and expecting recognition for the deed. This is something I know we or most of us are aware of. We are only doing the work that the Creator has asked us to do. We are the Hollow Bone that Black Elk and the others spoke of. These powers do not belong to us, they belong to the Creator!

But we are in the age of the Contemporary Shaman which means we incorporate the old ways with the new ways. Contemporary Shamanism is opening yourself up to the energies that the Creator has put out there for those who have committed themselves to helping others. We don't have to dance around a fire, peer into a flame, or wave our hands around to show that we can call upon the Creator to help in healing, in soul retrieval and such. We just do it and give thanks afterwards. Oh we can sit in meditation and journey into the spirit world to do a soul-retrieval and sometimes we do need to that to help others and why? Because they won't believe the healing took place unless we do! You see, helping someone to heal is a matter of listening to their fragmentation and helping them to open their hearts and accept the healing process. This is not to take anything away from the old ways. Goodness, the ancients had powers beyond powers and for us to tap into those powers beyond powers, requires as little as connecting to your heart and mind and becoming one with the Universal energies that the Ancients left behind for our education.

Am I a shaman? No I am not, but we all have the abilities to be Shaman and use the powers that are gifted us. Do you know what power was gifted to you? Ego is an abuse of that power and what is gifted can be lost! Our job is to cultivate those gifts so that they can be called upon instantly.

We ask our spirit guides to join us in journey so that they will protect us as we pass through that 4th dimension, knowing they will help prevent any of the less desireable spirits from attaching themselves.

Have you ever stopped to thank your guides for their love and protection? To not thank them is abuse of those powers! To not thank the Creator for allowing us to be that Hollow Bone, is an abuse of the gift.

So Shamanism is what? Is it being a healer? Is it being a psychic? Is it someone that is specially gifted? I think a Shaman is an everyday person that cares enough about people, and the earth to get up off their rear-ends and make a difference in a world that needs a great deal of healing. What do you think?...

Further thoughts:

I sat with an elder once for quite sometime and we talked about what Spirituality meant to each of us and I understood. He said, "It is not about making Spirituality better, it is about adding to it!" What I believe he was telling me was as we progress to new levels of spirituality, it brings about a deeper understandings of what it means to us individually. We begin to acquire skills we never knew we possessed. We always had them providing the Creator allowed us them, but we begin to learn how to use them.

Adding to our spirituality is learning other ways of performing what needs to be done. If we are walking a shamanic path and we find someone that does something a little or a lot different, and we like what we see, we incorporate that into what we already do. This does not make Spirituality better but deepens our senses concerning spiritual matters. It provides new skills that need honing by the Creator. "T.I.M.E. = Things I Must Earn."

Chief Two-Trees: A Shaman I Was Blessed To Work With

Chief Two Trees of Old Fort, North Carolina. Creator and founder of Native American Studies Institute.

Source: Dale Hyde -: Chief Two Trees - Healer and Man of Wisdom Remembered.