Author: A Solitary Pagan

JUST AS WE ALL HAVE POWER ANIMALS, WE ALSO have human-form teachers looking to help and guide us. All spirit entities can travel to any of the spiritual dimensions, but our human-form guides are generally found in Upper World. Before we journey in search of our ancestral helping spirits, it is important that we understand that they are a very specific type of ancestral spirit. Not everyone leaves ...

IN SHAMANISM, WE HAVE A COMMON BELIEF THAT everyone has at least one power animal that accompanies them throughout their life. In some cultures, this belief states that no person can survive beyond infancy without a power animal. As we move through life, other power animals will join us as we navigate particular challenges, and then they will move on. Even if we are not aware of them, they are sti...

OUR BODIES AND OUR SELVES ARE THE PRIMARY and most important ceremonial tools at our disposal. As such, we must learn to honor ourselves and better integrate our bodies, the material self, and our souls, the immaterial self. Learning to be in harmony with and within ourselves is one of the key processes of shamanic healing. When people are called to Shamanism, they are generally seeking to heal pr...

WE CAN HAVE COUNTLESS CEREMONIAL tools and power objects for ritual use, but there are two specific tools that play an essential role in shamanic ceremony: the drum and the rattle. These instruments are ancient and resonate with us on a primal level. When we use drums and rattles, we are using tools and tapping into ritual practices that have been part of our genetic coding and ancestral memory fo...

If you are feeling unsure or self-conscious, use this as a basic guideline to allow your soul song to come forward. You will need a drum or rattle and a quiet place. If you do not own any ceremonial tools, you can get creative. Fill a small jar with dry rice, dry beans, or even pebbles to use as a rattle. Find a quiet space where you can be undisturbed for 15 to 20 minutes. This can be indoors or ...

You feel most at home in nature. The shamans of a culture are the bridges between nature and humans, serving as translators between the mountains, oceans, rivers, animals, and people. You may sense that nature is talking to you or that you get your most tuned in downloads when you are surrounded by the natural world.

You’re very sensitive. You may feels things others don’t feel, see things others don’t see, hear things others don’t hear, smell things others don’t smell, and sense things others don’t sense. This may make it hard for you to be out in public, where you may feel accosted by over-stimulation of your senses. If you embody the shamanic archetype, it’s likely that you’re the kind of person others may ...

You feel a sort of spiritual calling to ease the suffering of people, animals, and nature. Many health care providers are called to medicine the way priests are called to the priesthood. But you don’t have to be a health care provider to have the shamanic archetype. It may transmute itself into healing service to animals, sacred activist causes, or conservation of Mother Earth.

Physical ailments that fall under the category of “shaman sickness.” In the indigenous cultures, shamans who have been called to service but haven’t yet said “yes” to the call often wind up struck with physical ailments. In modern culture, these shamanic sicknesses may fall into difficult to treat categories like chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, chronic Lyme disease, chronic pain disorders,...

Anyone who seeks a deeper connection to Spirit can study Shamanism and use these elements in their personal practice. But as humans existing in a world where privilege, oppression, colonialism, and cultural appropriation still exist, we need to keep these topics at the forefront of any discussion about Shamanism. I urge anyone bringing Shamanism into their personal practice to do so from a place o...

EVERY PERSON WHO INTEGRATES SHAMANIC practices and/or ceremonies into their lives is a shamanic practitioner to some degree. Shamans are shamanic practitioners who have dedicated their spiritual practice to helping others in their community. Not every shamanic practitioner is a shaman, in the same way that not everyone who works on healing themselves is a healer (and not everyone who receives medi...

THE ORIGIN OF THE WORD SHAMANISM IS A BIT COMPLICATED, and at times, a bit fraught. Throughout the history of humankind, every tribe has had their healer or healers, and each culture has their own term for these healers. They have been known as curanderos, pajés, strega, mães de santo, and countless other names. The term shaman originated from an indigenous tribe in Siberia but was not used global...