Like honeybees gathering the last available nectar and pollen before wintertime, these are busy days for us all. And it is this busyness that I hope to help folks address as we slide into the holiday season.
Every year, I resolve to do the season “better” so that I actually enjoy it. What I need, and perhaps you need also, is to slow down, remember to breathe, savor the crisp air, and engage in practices of warmth–both physical and emotional–in these darkening days.
In the midst of white supremacist rallies, flood, fire, and mass shootings, I have found deep guidance and durable beauty in the practice of shamanism with others.
Like honeybees who lose their way after feeding on blossoms tainted with pesticides, so, too, do we grow forgetful, lose our bearings, and find ourselves pulled out of our essential selves with too much time spent consuming mediated information and too little in direct contact with the natural world and Spirit.
To create a new world we have to actually do something new in our lives. The main game isn’t in Washington DC. Trust me: I worked in Congress. It is here, under our feet, in the soil of our daily lives.
It is a war out there, but the war is over us. Division and distraction are the offerings of this for-profit world, the tainted forage on which we feed at our peril, lest we forget the way “home” to our center, to our common sense, to our power, and to our joy.
The ground game–how we spend our allotment of this non-renewable resource called life–is where the war of these times is lost….or won.
So let us reclaim our lives, our attention, our inner ground. Let’s slow down, walk with purpose, build empty space into our calendars, and fast from toxic offerings in our landscape. Let us cultivate an openness of heart and mind this season of hallowed evenings and giving thanks.
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Gaia Shamanism will be offering a 6-week fall shamanic intensive starting the first week of November running through mid-December. The cost is $150 and the class is capped at 6 participants.
In addition to the usual offerings of the intensive, I will be sharing weekly practices to help us to experiment with taking things away from our overstuffed lives to make room for the sacred.
For those who would prefer one-on-one support through the fall season of letting go and making room for new life, I am now offering weekly spiritual support sessions for $30. These are not shamanic sessions, but rather a time set aside for listening, conversation, and support of your efforts to connect with the sacred in your life.
Email me with your interest at aalkin07 at gmail dot com. Half-price shamanic spiritual guidance sessions ($50) will be available to those who choose to be engaged in this on-going spiritual support,