[The following is an excerpt from a book Susan and I are working on. It also serves (we think) as a wonderful introduction to what we do and what you can expect by working with us.
Enjoy!
Greetings!
This book (and now site) is an amalgam of what Susan and I have studied and are continuing to study. We’ve been fortunate enough to study with teachers, elders, shaman, and shamanic practitioners from all over the world, many of whom you’ll meet in the Practice. You’ll witness the teachings of our teachers put into practice, or, as Grandmother Paula teaches, “To learn anything you must learn everything.”
Some of our teachers are respected cultural anthropologists as well as medicine people for their tribes. Some are published physicists and mathematicians as well as StoryKeepers of the Land. Some are cooks and dishwashers in hole-in-the-wall restaurants who are sought out for their Knowledge of herbs and medicine ways. Some are shopkeepers and elders of their nations. Some live high in the mountains by themselves and some live in apartments in the middle of New York City, Chicago, Washington, DC, Sydney, Nova Scotia, and Edinborough, Scotland. Running Water, a Penobscot Elder, accurately summed up one of the many things learned and experienced during these several years of continuing study; “Grandmother and Grandfather gave the same teachings to all the peoples everywhere.”
I returned to Grandmother Paula after some time away and she asked, “What have you learned?”
“Shamanism,” I told her. “The Practice of it, anyway.”
She shook her head. “No, no. That’s what you’ve studied. I want to know what you’ve learned.” I didn’t know what she meant and I suppose it was obvious. “I told you,” she said as she smiled, “To learn anything you must learn everything.”
Ba-Doing.
I’ve read many books on various forms of shamanism and studied the practice with many more teachers than there are books. An error I find in many books and in many discussions of Shamanic Practice occurs when an individual applies a single discipline to study, to develop an interpretation, or to make a decision regarding the Practice. One of Shamanism’s teachings is to apply as many lenses as possible to a thing to understand it. This is a lesson which is echoed by such diverse cultures as Menomenet (Native American) and central European Celtic practices. Grandmother Parvati says “Everything in the Universe is your teacher. You have to decide what the lesson is.” Her statement goes beyond the concept of a liberal arts education.
Grandmother Paula, who admonished me “to learn anything you must learn everything,” wanted me and still encourages me to study everything I can whenever and wherever I can.
…
[So know now that here, on this site and in our trainings, we’ll cover lots of things. You’ll learn about the latest scientific discoveries as well as cleansing ceremonies and rituals. Most importantly, you’ll learn how one advances the other and vice versa.
Remember, there is no one way, and paraphrasing, to learn any one way you must learn all ways.
Come join us. We want this to be educational for everyone, definitely, and definitely we want it to be fun.]
