In the middle of a jungle ceremony a few years ago, a shaman told me, “Sometimes you have to break down in order to break through.” One of the essential truths on the ancestral healing path is that crisis and transformation often go hand in hand. This crisis can come in a variety of shapes and forms ...
I have a little challenge for you today that involves a simple, but often cathartic ritual that has been practiced for thousands of years — eye gazing. Our eyes are highly complex organs, capable of distinguishing the most finite details of our surroundings and interpreting the slightest discrepancy in ...
On a warm summer night a few years ago, an Ojibwe elder in the backwoods of Wisconsin shared a tale to illustrate an important choice we all have to make as we walk through this world. His words have stuck with me ever since and are particularly handy in times of intensity. Given that today is the summer ...
A few weeks ago, I sat down with Tibetan lama Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, and he shared an ancient method for transforming uncomfortable sensations and emotions into pure energy and deep wisdom. If you don’t feel occasional discomfort or pain in our body, I want to know your secret 🙂 For the other 99.99% of...
I came across a quote a few days ago that stopped me in my tracks. “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” ― Rumi The poet was probably speaking symbolically when he used the term “wound” above, referring to those places within us that have yet to be healed. But certain ...
Are there benefits in creating a daily practice? Well, I have two answers: the ‘up-level’ answer is, “It doesn’t matter.” The other answer, the one most of us want and need to hear is, “Yes, it’s absolutely wonderful to have a daily practice,” because most of us are embedded very deeply in the...
If I asked you to picture a shaman, what would you see in your mind’s eye? A lone mystic, sitting cross-legged in a cave somewhere, wreathed in fragrant smoke, chanting mystical incantations to the unseen forces that shape our lives? Maybe someone in an extraordinary costume with a whole variety of exotic ...
Here we are, in the beginning of yet another beautiful spring. Something is rumbling beneath the soil, a thing of beauty waiting to burst from its cocoon, a promise made long ago that is about to be kept. This is a ripe time of year to reshuffle the deck, shed skins of the past, and give yourself a fresh ...
I came across a poem yesterday that gave me a perfectly timed dose of insight. The wisdom it contained was something I’ve heard spoken before by a shaman, but using different words. The piece below from the 13th century poet Rumi carries within it an essence that is central to many spiritual traditions ...
We find ourselves in a powerful and transformative time of year – an interim period between two seasons. The spring equinox was a few weeks ago, but the ground of the northern hemisphere is still remembering the winter and just beginning to wake up to the promise of the warmer months. This transitory phase ...
A few years ago, a shaman in Honduras taught me an extremely useful technique that gives you clarity on your path and dissolves stress and anxiety. It’s had a pretty profound effect on my life and today I’d like to share it with you. Like much of the healing wisdom that comes from native cultures, ...
I came across the little saying below yesterday and felt called to share it. “Your mind is a garden, your thoughts are the seeds, the harvest can either be flowers or weeds.” Our thoughts often pass behind our eyelids without much investigation into their origin, as though these assemblages of ...