When we have lived through trauma, loss, betrayal, illness, oppression, or other forms of profound suffering, it can be tempting to look back and try to make the suffering meaningful. Spiritual traditions sometimes encourage us to see our wounds as gifts, as though the terrible things that happened to us were somehow necessary so that we could become who we were meant to be. I do not believe we need to do that. Trauma does not make us spiritually special. We do not need to be

Transformation in meditation For many years, I thought healing meant understanding. I began psychotherapy in my early twenties and eventually spent years in Jungian analysis. That work changed me profoundly. I learned to recognize the dynamics of my family, understand the ways I had adapted to an unpredictable childhood, and see patterns in myself that had once been invisible to me. I mined my dreams for images of transformation and meaning. I became deeply self-reflective an

The Golden Love-Light of Healing There are experiences that do more than hurt us. They can alter our relationship with ourselves, with other people, with the Sacred, and with life itself. Trauma, violence, betrayal, abandonment, oppression, grief, and other forms of suffering can leave us feeling profoundly alone, even when we are surrounded by people who love us. We may feel disconnected from ourselves, unable to trust what we once trusted, or spiritually disconnected from a

Discovering Your True Self Who are you? Most of us answer that question, at least initially, with the facts and stories of a particular human life. We are our names, families, relationships, professions, identities, accomplishments, failures, and the places and cultures that have shaped us. We are also shaped by what has happened to us: the people who have loved us well or failed to love us, the opportunities we have been given or denied, the losses we have endured, and the c

A Shamanic Healing People come to shamanic healing for many reasons. Some are carrying the effects of trauma, loss, betrayal, or difficult relationships. Others feel stuck in patterns they understand intellectually but have been unable to change. Some describe feeling disconnected from themselves, their bodies, their spiritual lives, or a sense of meaning and direction. Still others have already done considerable healing and arrive with a different kind of question: There is

What does it mean to say that a human being has a Light Body? Across many spiritual and healing traditions, human beings have been understood as more than physical organisms. We are embodied, certainly. We think and feel. We carry histories in our bodies and psyches. But spiritual traditions have also described dimensions of human existence that extend beyond what can ordinarily be perceived through the five senses. In my own spiritual practice and nearly two decades of work

There are experiences in life after which we may say, “I have never been quite the same.” Sometimes the change follows an obvious trauma: violence, abuse, the death of someone we love, war, betrayal, abandonment, or another experience that overwhelms our capacity to absorb what has happened. At other times, the loss is quieter. A child learns that a particular gift is unacceptable. Someone repeatedly suppresses an essential part of themselves to remain connected to a family o

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“ Beloved Condor Spirit and Spirit of Macchu Pichu, I am feeling stuck around manifesting the next step in my mission and purpose in life. Please give me guidance!” I was sitting in front of my mesa—the word used by the Q’ero people of the Andes in Peru for a power-packed medicine bundle. I said more—about what I had done so far, about my ideas and thoughts, wishes and dreams. But I knew once I opened Sacred Space by praying to the 6 directions—East-West, North-South—Mother

In my early 20s, I got myself into therapy. Talk therapy, that is. I had a lot to say and process. It was extremely helpful to have a compassionate witness and guide as I tried to understand the complexities of my complicated relationship with my narcissistic mother (though I didn’t have that word back then). My self-confidence was low, my anxiety high. Frankly, I didn’t know who I really was. This was the beginning of a long journey to heal from family trauma. Therapy was

Yep, this planet is can be a hard, hard place to live. Sometimes when I am feeling weighed down by personal challenges and/or by the many horrible things happening around the world, with my face pointed upward as if to heaven, I say, “You try living down here!” I am speaking to all those beings in other dimensions and domains outside this physical space-time continuum whom I believe are “out there” assisting us—though such assistance may seem at times nonexistent or ineffect

Yep, that's what I think. I suspect that many of you have been in some kind of talk therapy--maybe even on and off for years. I've heard...

Have you done a lot of therapy and personal growth work—perhaps years or even decades—and one day, you realize that what you thought was healed or resolved is still active in some way? Or some aspect of it resurfaces? Maybe because some outer event seems to reactivate it? I have heard this lament from friends, clients and students over many years: “I thought I had resolved this! Why do I have to do it again? I’m so tired of this!” I have been in the same boat myself. Starin

Healing Frequencies About two years after 9/11, I had a vision of billions of people flooding the streets in every corner of the world, demanding an end to violence and war. I did not experience this vision as a prediction. I experienced it as a revelation of something possible in the human heart: a longing for another way of living together. That vision has stayed with me for more than twenty years. So has the question beneath it: What would have to change in us—and between

Current events in 2017 bring me back to the day after 9/11 when I sat in a packed concert hall at the University of Virginia. The administration had set up an open mike event where all members of the campus to share their thoughts and feelings about what had happened. I, like many others, stepped onto stage to speak about my grief and to call for everyone to seek healing not only of the wounds incurred by the previous day’s events, but of their own personal wounds from betr

I live in Charlottesville, VA. On Saturday, August 12, the date of the white supremacist rally here, I was in South Dakota visiting my stepsister and supporting the sacred Lakota Sundance ceremonies. On that afternoon, a friend in Chicago texted me and asked if I was aware of events unfolding violence in my hometown. I looked at the newspaper on my Android. What I saw shocked me. I was filled with grief, anger, and confusion. As so many of us were and still are. Neverthel

Is your energy low? Do you feel drab despite the sun shining so brightly outside? Do you feel stuck in your head with old stories and...

As our country has been thrown into division and conflict in the wake of November’s election, I am moved to write about the importance of...

I have a mission to make contemporary western shamanic energy medicine relevant and understandable to practitioners in mainstream...

One day, I was cleaning my house and listening to a radio program on the problem of post-partum depression in women. The researcher being interviewed had done a study of a large group of women who had experienced depression and more mental and emotional imbalances following the birth of their child. These were women who otherwise had been happy to become mothers, loved their babies, and prior to their pregnancy and birth, had never had any serious problems of a psychological