Core Shamanism Chronicles: Manifestation During Healing Session

This client had heard of shamanic healing from my god-daughter, who had some very positive results from a healing session that included extraction healing, power animal retrieval and soul retrieval.

I met the client thru a phone call, and she told me of some issues that were causing difficulties in her life, and we set a time to have a healing session. I mentioned about an exchange of energies for payment, and when she offered a ceramic bowl she had made in exchange for my working with her, I agreed.

She came with my god-daughter as witness on a Sunday morning. She gave the bowl to me, and it was beautiful. She carved on the bottom of it her artist symbol, which was a simple little house, a square with an inverted “V” as a roof.

When it was time, I began the session by rattling and singing an icaro (spirit song) my spirits have given me, and when I was in a shamanic state of consciousness, I journeyed to find out what would be most beneficial for my client at this time. I was instructed to do an extraction, and then a soul retrieval.

I used a recording of shamanic drumming, and I connected with my power animal. My power animal takes on a human form like an old Indian shaman when we do extractions. I merge with my power animal then return to my client and begin finding and extracting intrusions that do not belong in her body. When we are finished with the extraction, my guardian spirit returns to animal form, and I am guided to two soul portions that are ready to come home to her. I bring them back safely and blow them into my client’s heart and crown, then finish off using my rattle.

I welcome home my client and tell her the story of what happened, then share some information I received. Everything resonated with her at a deep level. It was emotional and beautiful.

When our ceremony was finished, I was looking on the ground where we worked, and saw a small object and picked it up. It was a small square little house that was exactly like the symbol she drew on her ceramic works! Now, I had never seen this little house before, and my client didn’t bring it, and my god-daughter didn’t either. This amazing “micromiracle,” the manifestation from the spirit world of my the little house, my client’s symbol, blew our minds! What I realized was the spirits materialized it to show my client that the hidden world of spirit does exist, and to trust that mysteries and miracles are real. There was a lot of gratitude in the room that day.

When I spoke to the client later, I received a very positive report on her life after the extraction and soul retrieval, and that she honors the soul portions and the little miracle house that was returned to her. I am amazed and grateful.

Don Ensslin, CSC, FSS Three Year graduate


Core Shamanism Chronicles logo ©2019 Foundation for Shamanic Studies
FSS Core Shamanism Chronicles features brief personal shamanic healing accounts and practical applications of shamanism in daily life. By sharing our inspiring stories with each other, we hope to reveal the power, effectiveness, and beauty of shamanic practice.

If you have a core shamanic practice story to share, please send as an email attachment to INFO@SHAMANISM.ORG and put “Chronicles” in the subject line. Submission guidelines: No more than one page is recommended. Accounts should offer a specific personal example of healing or applying core shamanism methods in everyday life. As always, keep in mind ethical standards of confidentiality and permission: Ask your clients for permission before sharing and do not reveal their names. If your submission is selected for inclusion in the Chronicles, you may use your name or choose to be listed as anonymous.

Core Shamanism Chronicles: Skunk Power

I am reclaiming my power.

Specifically, I am reclaiming Skunk power. I don’t think it ever left me, but when I was first given it, I didn’t know what to do. My life was in pieces and I was new to the world of spirits as shamanism understands it.

In my twenties I went through a three-year period I call my “Great Falling Apart.” I entered a period of extended dismemberment lasting several years. Spontaneous visions, periods of deep sleep and dreaming became common. My dream landscape expanded dramatically.

It was during one of these dreams that Skunk visited me, and in its way claimed me. At the time my understanding of Power Animals was in its infancy, and it would be many years before I had any real understanding of shamanism and dreams. I had no way to know what was happening to me, no real point of orientation.

I shifted from one dream to find myself standing on the front lawn of my childhood home. I felt a presence behind me and turned to see a skunk not ten feet away. Thinking I was sure to be sprayed I turned to run but I felt an invisible power coming from the skunk holding me in place and then throwing me face down on the ground. As I fell it sprayed me dead center on my back. This was no ordinary skunk spray. It did not smell or burn, though I was expecting it to. It sunk through my skin, into the muscles of my back and then deep into my center. It filled me in a way I had never felt before. Now I understand it to be a transfer of spiritual power.

I tried to get up but could not. I quickly lost consciousness, waking again in the dream world, on the same night but sitting in the back seat of a car driving up the coast road in Big Sur, California. A ghostly pale young man with black hair sat beside me. We were deep in discussion — he was intent on teaching me about how to work with my new power. It was then that I realized my companion was actually Skunk, the one who had sprayed me earlier. He had become human so I could speak with him more easily. He was kind but very serious. It was clear that he was the teacher and I the student, but thankfully he had an affectionate patience. Eventually I drifted off to the sound of our conversation, awakening in this ordinary reality.

I really didn’t know what to do with what had happened. The impact of his spray was so physically real I could feel it throughout my body after I awoke. It was so intense to be awake and feel that power in me, it was so tangible. Whatever had happened, it had become a part of me. I could remember some of what he’d told me, but I knew there was a lot more I couldn’t remember. Some part of me had absorbed it, but I couldn’t consciously access the knowledge. I was touched by the experience, but I don’t think I really understood its magnitude. I didn’t know that animals many of us consider to be as humble as skunks could be important Power Animals. I certainly didn’t understand that helping spirits could visit you spontaneously in your dreams and convey power to you without any effort or intention on your part. Most of all I didn’t really understand the nature of the power I was given, and the many ways in which it could change my life.

I eventually found a well-trained practitioner of Core Shamanism healing techniques to work with. Over several years she performed healings on me that helped me put my life back together, as well as introducing me to the FSS curriculum. As I took various FSS courses and practiced passionately on my own, my waking visions and spiritual visitations subsided. By journeying to the spirits regularly, intentionally, I was able to turn down the volume on the chaotic experiences I was having. My sleep was less disturbed and I was eventually able to rejoin the ordinary world and begin to build a life for myself. But I never returned to that specific dream to fully understand or integrate Skunk power until recently.

In all of my decades of training and practice Skunk never showed up in my journeys, never presented itself as a Power Animal to work with for soul retrieval, psychopomp or other shamanic work. My shamanic practice was always full of participation from various spirits, and my life grew to include a day job and a very fulfilling family life. I wonder if I would have been as willing to let that experience fade if it had been Bear or Eagle or Panther who had so clearly given me power? I must assume that some part of me has felt reluctant to explore more deeply the power that Skunk transferred to me because, well, it came from a skunk!

This reluctance is not something I’m proud of. I believe biases like that are ultimately childish and based in ignorance. In nature skunks must be considered to be very powerful; most animals give them a wide berth. And clearly the spiritual power a helping spirit conveys has little to do with its physical size. Mouse, Lion, Elephant or Dragonfly, it must be acknowledged that all have the ability to radically transform our experience of being alive. Each gift of power from the spirits can convey tremendous healing and transformation.

Years later I am reclaiming Skunk, using the many tools I’ve been trained to work with over the years. My first step is just to honor the Skunk at my altar and with a pendant I wear. Both are ways not only to signal to Skunk that I’m showing up, but also to bring my awareness of its gift into my daily life. I have also shifted my morning practice of raising power and connecting with the spirits to focus on Skunk. Moving slowly, I welcome Skunk’s power forward into my awareness, remembering the feeling of its power seeping into me. As that power grows in me, I welcome it gratefully, with an open heart. It’s been my experience that in shamanism we ultimately integrate power we are given through our hearts, and that works best with a sense of gratitude. Then, of course there is journeying.

I felt that attempting to journey directly to Skunk, because so much time had passed, was not the best approach. Instead, I journeyed to a Power Animal I’ve been working closely with for the last three or four years. This spirit was able to walk me through all that I had been gifted by Skunk’s power. The most important gift was a deep feeling of safety, even through the feeling in the dream had been one of the most frightening experiences of my life. Skunk’s power had given me a sureness, a relaxed calm that was with me even when fear was a constant in my life. I could sense how the skunk can sit easily in its own power and ward off danger simply through its own presence. Next, I was shown that Skunk energy helped me balance my head and heart, ensuring that they worked together. Finally, I was shown that Skunk taught me to enjoy life and be playful. This is something my helping spirits have been calling on me to cultivate for the last several years as I have become a single father.

Now I can feel Skunk with me, and I can feel the strength I gain by engaging its presence. I am more confident calling on that power when I’m with others, exploring how people respond differently to me when I sink into the feeling of its presence. It feels like the more I call on it, the more I work with it through life’s challenges, the stronger in me it becomes.

In the morning, when I dance to raise power, I feel Skunk right there, ready and willing to join with me. I understand its power is in me, that we are connected through that gift. As I dance it, the power grows and I am filled with gratitude at having Skunk with me so powerfully in life.

Timothy R. Flynn, FSS Three Year graduate
alchemistsjournal.com


FSS Core Shamanism Chronicles features brief personal shamanic healing accounts and practical applications of shamanism in daily life. By sharing our inspiring stories with each other, we hope to reveal the power, effectiveness, and beauty of shamanic practice.

If you have a core shamanic practice story to share, please send as an email attachment to INFO@SHAMANISM.ORG and put “Chronicles” in the subject line. Submission guidelines: No more than one page is recommended. Accounts should offer a specific personal example of healing or applying core shamanism methods in everyday life. As always, keep in mind ethical standards of confidentiality and permission: Ask your clients for permission before sharing and do not reveal their names. If your submission is selected for inclusion in the Chronicles, you may use your name or choose to be listed as anonymous.

Core Shamanism Chronicles: Help for Ukraine

The FSS is providing this forum for our shamanic community to share inspiration, activities, artistic endeavors, actions, and ideas about what is being done to help Ukraine and its people.

Scroll to the comments section below to leave a comment. Comments will be reviewed and selected ones will be posted.

See also FSS Polestar: Responding to Events in Ukraine, for important links, including training in shamanic methods to help.

Some guidelines for comments:

  1. Comments that involve actions in ordinary reality that are inspired by the compassionate spirits are especially helpful
  2. Posts and activities must align with shamanic ethics and permission issues
  3. Actions taken must be respectful of all beings, without expression of blame, anger, and judgment

Core Shamanism Chronicles logo ©2019 Foundation for Shamanic Studies
FSS Core Shamanism Chronicles features brief personal shamanic healing accounts and practical applications of shamanism in daily life. By sharing our inspiring stories with each other, we hope to reveal the power, effectiveness, and beauty of shamanic practice.

If you have a core shamanic practice story to share, please send as an email attachment to INFO@SHAMANISM.ORG and put “Chronicles” in the subject line. Submission guidelines: No more than one page is recommended. Accounts should offer a specific personal example of healing or applying core shamanism methods in everyday life. As always, keep in mind ethical standards of confidentiality and permission: Ask your clients for permission before sharing and do not reveal their names. If your submission is selected for inclusion in the Chronicles, you may use your name or choose to be listed as anonymous.

Core Shamanism Chronicles: Beginning Journey Experience

I have been reading Michael Harner’s books The Way of the Shaman and Cave and Cosmos. I have recently taken two trips to the Lower World by following the instructions in Way of the Shaman. My second time journeying was definitely eye opening.

When I came out of the tunnel, I could have sworn I was in the Amazon but it was night and everything was very dark. I could hear birds and water. I started to doubt what I was seeing; then I saw a white bird coming towards me that I thought was an owl until it got closer and I realized it was actually a white hawk (I had no idea they existed.) It was looking at me and moving its head. We flew together to what I thought at first was above the forest outside my window just outside St. Petersburg, Russia. However, there were mountains and I came to think it may actually have been Tuva, Altai, where I flew with the hawk. While we were there, I felt my body get cold. We then went somewhere else really fast through a tunnel. I’m not sure where it was but there was an elephant and it was waving at me with its trunk.

As soon as my journey finished, I went to look up white hawks to confirm that’s what I saw, and this is when I knew everything I saw was truly real. To my surprise the white hawk I saw does exist and they are from the Amazon. This was my first confirmation. My second confirmation was when I wanted to find out more about white hawks on YouTube and one of the first videos that came up talked about them as an omen and specifically a great shamanic sign to see. This blew my mind.

Thank you so much for all the work you all have done and I am so excited to continue my spiritual journey through shamanism.

Jay C., beginning journeyer


Core Shamanism Chronicles logo ©2019 Foundation for Shamanic Studies
FSS Core Shamanism Chronicles features brief personal shamanic healing accounts and practical applications of shamanism in daily life. By sharing our inspiring stories with each other, we hope to reveal the power, effectiveness, and beauty of shamanic practice.

If you have a core shamanic practice story to share, please send as an email attachment to INFO@SHAMANISM.ORG and put “Chronicles” in the subject line. Submission guidelines: No more than one page is recommended. Accounts should offer a specific personal example of healing or applying core shamanism methods in everyday life. As always, keep in mind ethical standards of confidentiality and permission: Ask your clients for permission before sharing and do not reveal their names. If your submission is selected for inclusion in the Chronicles, you may use your name or choose to be listed as anonymous.

Core Shamanism Chronicles: My Spontaneous Healing

My name is Eli and I have just returned from the second year of the FSS Europe (FSSE) Three Year Program in Advanced Shamanism, October 2021, in Switzerland.*

In November 2020 I came down with a neurological condition that left me virtually an invalid. I spent two weeks in the hospital, six weeks in a neurological rehab center, and six more weeks as an outpatient. My husband had to take three months off work to care for me. During this time, although I was not able to actually “work” with my compassionate spirits, they never left my side. They guided me and gave me much strength to keep going. Eventually, I regained enough function to be able to attend the Three Year session, although I was still in a lot of pain and had a movement disorder in my right leg.

During the course of this session, in one particular exercise, the movement disorder literally disappeared, spontaneously. I cannot express, after over 10 months of not being able to walk properly, the sheer joy of doing such a simple thing as putting one foot in front of the other. Especially as before the onset of this condition, I was able to run 20 km! Now I am learning to walk again, but every time I walk it is exhilarating for me to feel my leg again.

During my stay at the Rehab center I decided to take the plunge and train to become a psychotherapist, specializing in working with patients with neurological conditions. I have a special interest in helping those who are suffering from the same rare condition that I have. As this condition is relatively unknown it is my goal to set up a self-help group and carry out advocacy work through an international non-profit organization. Currently these ideas are just little acorns, but out of little acorns great oak trees grow! With the support of my family, friends and of course guidance from my spirits, I am feeling strong and well equipped to walk this new path.

I wanted to say, from the bottom of my heart, a HUGE THANK YOU for all the work that the FSS and FSSE do. I know that much of this healing has come from my spirits (and I thank them every day!) but my FSSE teachers** gave me access to these tools and the setting to experience healing like this. A tool is only as good as the teacher who teaches you how to use it. That is why I wanted to take this opportunity to say my deepest appreciation for all the work the FSSE does and that without my teachers’ extensive experience I certainly would not be walking (and even able to consider running!) again so soon, if ever!

All this would not have been possible without the strength and wisdom I received from my helping spirits in the darkest of times, to turn something so life changing into something so wonderful, and where I can really give back to those suffering around me.

Eli, FSSE Three Year Program participant

*see https://www.shamanism.eu/
**Roland Urban is director of the FSSE and its faculty. He, along with a team of FSSE faculty members, facilitates the Three Year Program in Europe.


Core Shamanism Chronicles logo ©2019 Foundation for Shamanic Studies
FSS Core Shamanism Chronicles features brief personal shamanic healing accounts and practical applications of shamanism in daily life. By sharing our inspiring stories with each other, we hope to reveal the power, effectiveness, and beauty of shamanic practice.

If you have a core shamanic practice story to share, please send as an email attachment to INFO@SHAMANISM.ORG and put “Chronicles” in the subject line. Submission guidelines: No more than one page is recommended. Accounts should offer a specific personal example of healing or applying core shamanism methods in everyday life. As always, keep in mind ethical standards of confidentiality and permission: Ask your clients for permission before sharing and do not reveal their names. If your submission is selected for inclusion in the Chronicles, you may use your name or choose to be listed as anonymous.

Core Shamanism Chronicles: Spirit Song

I’m trained and have practiced as a psychiatrist for more than 40 years. Many years ago, after sustaining a head injury due to a fall, I started having some amazing, overwhelming, unexplained experiences (some call them “peak” or “transcendental” experiences), where I felt I was dissolving and merging into the “oneness” of everything. These experiences led me to Michael Harner’s Basic Workshop: The Way of the Shaman, and then on to more advanced trainings in core shamanism including Extraction Healing, Spirits of Nature, and Shamanism, Dying & Beyond. Over the years, I’ve had some miraculous treatment successes using core shamanic healing methods for severely traumatized patients (including some health care professionals), who were struggling with depression, anxiety, and body experiences that were totally refractory to mainstream intensive psychotherapy and medication. I’m writing now because a long time ago I received a song during one of my journeys that I feel others may benefit from knowing. The words are as follows:
Spirits, Spirits
Within and Beyond
With Wisdom, Power, Compassion
Guide me safely
Flying through worlds
Guide me safely
Riding my drum

FSS student and shamanic practitioner


Core Shamanism Chronicles logo ©2019 Foundation for Shamanic Studies
FSS Core Shamanism Chronicles features brief personal shamanic healing accounts and practical applications of shamanism in daily life. By sharing our inspiring stories with each other, we hope to reveal the power, effectiveness, and beauty of shamanic practice.

If you have a core shamanic practice story to share, please send as an email attachment to INFO@SHAMANISM.ORG and put “Chronicles” in the subject line. Submission guidelines: No more than one page is recommended. Accounts should offer a specific personal example of healing or applying core shamanism methods in everyday life. As always, keep in mind ethical standards of confidentiality and permission: Ask your clients for permission before sharing and do not reveal their names. If your submission is selected for inclusion in the Chronicles, you may use your name or choose to be listed as anonymous.