What does it take to decode teenage America? How can we understand the confluence of factors behind rising crime rates involving our youth, changing sensibilities toward bullying, and violence in our society? Better yet, how do we inform ourselves and support young people in finding the facts? Every day I...

Uruz -- Auroch -- This second rune of the first aett hasn't come up in a long time. In the story of the runes, Uruz is the first point that we become aware of our ability to shape the universe. We become aware...

Sowilo -- Sun -- Ah, the rising sun! After a steady pattern of stop, go, and duck, who doesn't welcome a sunrise? Take it as a brilliant nod from source that all is in accordance, that the job has been well...

Nauthiz -- Need

Have you noticed that the last time Nauthiz was the weekly rune, Mannaz came the week prior, as is the case this time? It's not a coincidence, and I...

"Journeying" is the term most often used to describe the process shamans go through to engage the spirit world. Some call it ecstatic journeying or shamanic journeying, starwalking, skywalking. The journey process encompasses setting an intention, then traversing the layers of the spirit realm with one's spirit guides for healing...

In shamanic work is the concept of soul loss, or when an aspect of the soul has become distanced (I describe it as "shelved") and can't re-engage with the earthly consciousness. Souls are infinite, made up of limitless soul parts that travel in and out of our awareness. This soul...

"Rivers know this; there is no hurry, we shall get there some day." -- Winnie the Pooh

"Too many times we confuse motion with progress." -- Albert Einstein

A growing pain in the maturation of neoshamanism is the instinct to heal everything, that where there is energy imbalance it must...

When I began my shamanic practice almost 15 years ago, I found very different cultural perceptions of modern soul healing than those I run into now. I've written about contemporary approaches to shamanism, and how we have remade our perceptions of soul healing. Many people now know what...

When I was 5 years old, I asked my Sunday School teacher, a woman, "What if Jesus had been a girl?"

"But he wasn't," she replied.

Unsatisfied, I asked again, only to receive the exasperated, recursive answer. My mother gave the same empty response later, in private.

It's no huge...

"Bouncing is what Tiggers do best. -- Tigger, from A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh

Since the birth of our twins a little over three years ago, I've delved back into children's literature in an entirely new way. As someone who works as a shaman, I'm always intrigued by the shamanic...

As an author and pastoral counselor, I often encourage clients to write as a way to express feelings. I know firsthand from penning my memoir, Gift of the Dreamtime -- Awakening to the Divinity of Trauma, that often the synaptic processes fired in the creative act of writing...

In my shamanic practice, I work with people from all over the world. The first decade of working with others, easily three quarters of my clientele was international. That distant acceptance seemed to indicate that other cultures had a more accessible understanding of shamanism and of what someone acting in...

Closing last year Rune enthusiast, Tyriel, published his first book --The Book of Rune Secrets. A modern ode to an ancient avenue into contemporary...

"And as I have said to him a thousand or more times through the years, 'Well isn't life just a kick in the pants?' -- Esther Hicks, on the recent death of her husband, Jerry.

It's an odd thing to say, isn't it -- disbelief in death. Usually people contest...

The origins of our holy day icons are significant, though it's easy to get ensnared in what symbols you "should" honor, what they're "supposed to mean," who gets to claim them, and understanding what they really mean to you. For that reason, in this exploration of seasonal totems I offer...

As I grew into my intuitive abilities, I wanted to be the old woman on the hill. I...

In his recently released book, Shamanism -- a Biopsychosocial Paradigm of Consciousness and Healing, Michael Winkelman sheds interesting light on the question of the true basis of shamanism.

Much of the research on shamanism gifted us from the academic community has straddled the fence between...

During the Samhain season much emphasis is put on spirits, ghosts and things that go bump in the night. As psychopomp is a critical role of my personal and professional shamanic path, I'm often approached by those who want me to communicate with deceased loved ones. In some...

In the Northern Hemisphere, neopagans celebrate Samhain as the last harvest, the point at which the day has shortened and winter is setting in. Some modern pagans consider it the "witch's new year," though in other traditions, Samhain marked only the end of the year. The beginning of the year,...

The path of shamanism in the West is a curious thing. Dogmatic world religions are crumbling institutions that no longer meet the needs of the modern spiritual seeker. A stalled extension of that same unholy conglomerate is the New Age movement, in the form of spiritual gurus, podcast evangelists and...