Rattling the Bones

I recently uncovered that Sacred Sexuality was one of the HOT TOPICS for this year's International Conference on Shamanism. I mentioned this to my students and brought it up on a Facebook Community that Sarah (a student and friend) started a few years back. This is one of my postings on the topic and since I didn't want to loose it for further references -- I brought it here. In 1999 -- I picked up this article on Sacred Sexuality where an ethnologist was talking about the different rites of Love and Sex all over the World. I liked the article because the ethnologist took a Shamanic perspective. He talked about tribal living and how people used certain rituals to teach each other how to be collectively healthy. I found it fascinating. For example he talked about Greeks (ancestors 1700) and how they were publicly affectionate with each other -- to teach their children how to be open and intimate with their own people (Greeks obviously). He also mentions the worshipping of

If you are here, reading my BLOG, it’s probably because you are interested in Shamanism, the Medicine Wheel and Indigenous Dreaming. That – and probably some curiosity about ME! Recently I posted on our google community site for individuals to post dreams… There’s nothing more brain-racking than to search for understanding when it comes to our dreams. So many people will come to me with the popular statement: “What’s the use of having dreams night after night if there’s no way to figure them out? All they do is tire us out.” Actually dreams only exhaust us when we are not disciplined dreamers. They are not meant to be a burden but more so a tool. Lots of people will refer to dream dictionaries but most will come out empty handed. Some will go see therapists who have some level of symbolic dream interpretation. Rare are those who seek out traditional dreamers – people who actually live their whole life according to the dream time. These individuals are actually initiated into the art of

I recently came across a book by Malcolm Gladwell, entitled BLINK. Perhaps some have you have read it? Basically Gladwell shares stories which show the reader that it is possible to “think with our guts rather than with our heads.” Similar books have been written on this topic by other authors including Deepak Chopra. What I found interesting in BLINK was the way he described man’s natural ability to intuitively feel and react as if it was a novelty. Often I meet people who speak about hypersensitivity as if it was an unusual gift when it truth it’s a basic and natural ability in human beings and was once so well developed that it helped our ancestors survive in wilderness. Many people confuse hypersensitivity to psychic ability. It is true that both can intertwine at some point; but when it comes to technique both are very different. Psychic ability stems from our brain where as hypersensitivity is caused by the magnetic force that our body creates. Stretch out your arms and then, spi

«The Medicine Wheel is an altar of stones of descending rings contained by four anchors and divided by a cross. The rings express different levels of consciousness whereas the anchors show that this awareness is earth bound or incarnated. The cross implies a challenge. Simply translated the Medicine Wheel is a life philosophy that invites us all to become more conscious of our story and the hardships, which bring forth learning and healing. It was a Jesuit in the late 1800’s that named these mysterious stone altars: Medicine Wheel.» (Lisa F. Tardiff) When I asked a Passamaquoddy friend and elder of mine how our ancestors used to name these stone altars before the arrival of the white man she replied: « we didn’t name them anything because they were the word so to speak to experiences that reached beyond language. » Then, she asked me with the tone of a child seeking a bedtime story: « have you ever had an experience that you couldn’t put into words because i

I have a few dozen questions and thoughts going through my mind all at once.   Are they somehow connected or did they pile up during the day as I dismissed them one by one because they were either to deep or too superficial; too intense or too ridiculous; or simply inappropriate?   It’s amazing isn’t it how everything we do in a lifetime deserves a judgment: A frown or applaud?   Isn’t there any experience that we can call our own without having to keep secrets?   When my husband and I were married our parents categorically told us “we were too young.”   They were both so sure we would be divorced by our 7 th year anniversary.   We are celebrating our 21 st year anniversary this year and we’re still as happy as when we shared our vows. When I got pregnant, my mother told me that her pregnancies and labor were easy and thus, because I was her daughter mine would be too.   Unfortunately, I was bed ridden most of my pregnancies and gave birth to premature babies along with havin