This is an easy way to start developing a relationship with and offering healing to the neighborhood you live in.
Crystals are great allies for shamanic work and can be used very effectively for environmental Shamanism.
All crystals have their own energy or spirit, and we can work with them to shift the vibrations around us.
Gather a few small pieces of clear quartz crystal that you can leave as offerings.
Clear quartz is great for channeling and amplifying energy.
Sit for a few minutes and hold the quartz pieces in your hand.
Ask your helping spirits to help you in setting the intention that these crystal pieces will be used to heal their surroundings.
Hold that intent clear in your mind and focus on the crystals.
If you feel called to, rattle or drum to increase the vibration as you focus your intent. When you are ready, place them in your bag or pocket and go for a walk around your neighborhood.
The intent of this walk is to find places that need a bit of energy help, and leave small crystals in these areas.
Ask your helping spirits to accompany you on this walk and lend their energy as well.
As you walk through these familiar places, try to look at them with new eyes.
If you have nature in your neighborhood, see if you notice ailing trees.
You can bury a crystal near the tree to help it heal.
If you know of places that stray animals or wildlife inhabit, find a place to leave a crystal to protect them.
You can also leave crystals near intersections where accidents tend to happen or areas where homeless folks tend to gather.
Our transient populations are very much in need of healing.
I once had a student who lived in a newer neighborhood built on land that used to be a forest.
Once she discovered this, she realized she wanted to show her gratitude to the land and help heal it from the trauma of deforestation.
She now regularly walks around her neighborhood looking for places to leave healing crystals.
At the end of your walk, restate your intent to bring healing to your neighborhood and thank your helping spirits for their support.
I recently had a conversation about Shamanism with a woman whom I was meeting for the first time.
I told her of my personal goal to engage in more environmental Shamanism, especially as it pertains to Salem, Massachusetts, where I live.
Salem has a dark history of violence and persecution, especially within the contexts of gender and religious freedom, and the land still bears these energetic scars.
In recent decades, Salem has shifted to become a place where people gather to freely explore different spiritual paths, a powerful change from the era of the Witch Trials.
The spirits who tend to Salem have had a heavy load on their shoulders.
As a woman following a spiritual path very much outside what would have been acceptable during the Witch Trials, I consider it my personal responsibility to help and support our local spirits as Salem continues to heal and transform.
During our conversation, this woman and I spoke of the importance of connecting to the places we call home and assuming responsibility for their healing.
As we got deeper into this discussion, she confided in me that she had been leaving offerings to the helping spirits of her own home for years.
Her historic home was the site of horrible violence, and she had felt the calling to leave these offerings as a way to aid in healing the energetic wound of the place.
As we talked about Shamanism, she came to realize she had been practicing environmental Shamanism all along.
As you start to work with the helping spirits of the land you call home, ask them to tell you the name of the land.
This is part of developing a reciprocal relationship with the place you inhabit and acknowledging its importance.
Many of us no longer live in the same places where we were born.
Just as we must consider both our ancestors and our descendants in our shamanic work, so we must honor both the lands we came from and the lands we have chosen.