Michelle

Mahkeis, I am new to the Maker tradition, but not new to energy work itself. I have a lot of previous experience before coming here and have found I am always respected for who I am. Even with my own personal experiences, I am still learning new things here, which I am finding complement and add to what I previously knew. All I can suggest is, start off with just the recap 1 class and see how it goes. If you find any of the information classes with what you previously were taught, maybe put aside what you already know, just to see what this can teach you and then find a way to integrate it with what you already know and practice?

Hi Fini, welcome I'm also in QLD. Originally from Melbourne, I travelled all over Au and I had a similar connection feel in and around Alice. I am also exploring and healing from childhood traumas that one counsellor told me was PTSD. I'm currently doing a couple of classes here and I highly, highly recommend the recap 1 class when it starts again. Definitely do the exercise as outlined here. It's how it's done in the recap class, but they talk about different areas of your life and how to focus on those specifically. The energy won't hang around you. Expelling it is an act of intent for it to be gone. It will then go back to wherever energy comes from, to the either, the void, to the person it rightfully belongs to - but it won't stay with you

I've started to work on sharpening focus and I'm having an interesting experience. I pick a spot on the wall and just put all my attention on that. Like meditation, except I am not trying to relax my mind, alter perception or meditate as such, I am more looking at intensifying my focussing abilities. If that makes sense? So I picked the spot on the wall and just focused my mind on it, eyes closed. As I continued to keep my attention fully on this spot, my mind started to throw up all kinds of chatter. It just would not shut up. When that wasn't working, I felt my body shift as though energy was shifting around me and I'd some how gone into an alternate state of perception. My thoughts went to that for a while, until i realised it was just another mind trick, to get me focused on my mind again. I'm not looking to stop my mind, I don't think that's possible, but to be able to maintain my focus no matter what my mind throws at me - or later on, what may come up while I'm doing specific energy work. I know there's a class here that looks at the mind and I'm interested to take it later on, I just feel this is going to take years lol.

Besides the eagles were hungry and vying for food? Not everything has to have a meaning. as Freud said, 'sometimes a cigar is just a cigar'. The important thing is, did you get a feeling at the time there was some important message in this? If you did, what do YOU think it was? If it's a message for you, then you are the best person to work it out. Ask your intuition what each part might mean and trust in your own responses. Then look at your life experiences over the following days to see if it helps make sense of the message.

Narael, I don't know how I shut it down, it was really a response to living in a very toxic environment and not being able to take it anymore. It was my family home when growing up, so I wasn't able to run away from the world. I think it is part of a survival instinct we have and takes a lot of emotional trauma to happen. Trust me, you don't want to shut it down. It's a part of who you are, it's a natural ability you were born with and I believe such things happen because it's part of the overall reason of why we are here. Being an empath is awesome for giving you early warning when danger's about. It can help to keep you safe. If you find later on you are drawn to healing work, it is crucial for helping you know what is wrong or what the cause might be, without them needing to go into it. Ideally, the best way forward I find is to embrace who you are and learn to shield so you can still sense what's going on but don't have to take it in and have it be a part of you. Like being at a party and watching a conversation take place on the other side of the room, instead of feeling you are part of it. I'm doing the recap 1 class now that Ralph mentioned. I'd highly recommend it as a place to start. It teaches you to know what is your energy and what has been taken in from others - and how to get rid of energy that isn't yours. It seems a simply exercise, but it does work. Part of shielding is also being really grounded in knowing who you are as a person and having strong boundaries about what is acceptable and not acceptable behaviour toward you. It's crucial to get to know yourself well and to know how you feel inside. That way when you start to feel strange, you can tune into your body to find out if this is you responding to a situation you've picked up on but aren't aware of yet, or if it's an energy from someone else you've picked up on. Once you know these, you can create an energetic boundary in your auric field, which is essentially what a shield is. And also, learn how to shake off energy at the end of the day. Cleaning yourself energetically is vital. I don't know if any of this is taught here, but I think it might be. I do strongly suggest recap 1 as a place to start though.

I shut down my empathic side for years because I couldn't cope with what I was picking up. It caused so much trouble for me, doing that. It was part of my denial. I'm now in the process of opening that up again and learning to handle it better. Narael, have you learnt how to shield? To create a personal shield around you, to keep the energies out, so you can read what's happening, but not be consumed by it?

Hi Narael, Welcome home! I've had similar experiences, though not quite the same. I suffered a lot from low self esteem, so I was always mentally bashing myself for being 'different'. Why couldn't I be normal? Why did I have to be the one who saw things so differently? So deeply? It was a really long journey for me, but I came to see it as my strength. Being different can mean you are odd, strange, less than the heard. Or it can mean you are unique, a rare gift and have strengths and abilities most don't, which can set you apart. I chose to take being called weird as a compliment. What I find now is I am finding more enlightened people around me. I am choosing to walk my path, which is not like anyone else's and it shouldn't be. I am choosing to honour me, whatever that will be. I choose to like me, my uniqueness, my individuality. I choose to just like me . I'm finding people are more accepting now too. Partly it's because times do seem to be changing and more people are becoming more aware and partly it's because I'm getting older and hanging out with older people more, even online. The drum in my pick is one I made myself. I went to a shamanic drum workshop. My drum's name is George. Most people go for what they feel are more spiritual names or more 'traditional' names. Not me. That's part of my uniqueness

Thank you Sandstorm I've been doing that more and more since my first post and indeed you are right. Good things are coming.

sandstorm, being a shaman is about learning to read the energy patterns underneath things. What you are talking about here is something humans have constructed (calendar and clock to artificially control time and superstition to explain fears). Shamans don't look at the superstition, they look at the energy that might be underneath. If you have enough people in one place, believe in the same thing, then their combined energy can create an energetic pattern we perceive as karma or fate. That doesn't mean it is real and doesn't mean it is made up, just that it is not something naturally created in nature, but does exist now in an energy form. And because it has been collectively created by humans, each human can be affected by it if they buy into the belief or they can choose not to be affected by it. Now at this point, you could say 'but my whole life has proved it is true' and to that I would say, that is so because your whole life you just took on the belief it was true. When we tend to believe something strongly enough, we find it often happens that way, because of the amount of energy we put into believing it. Now you are being confronted with a possible new belief. You can choose to accept what everyone has told you or you can choose not to accept. And before you make your decision ask yourself this, why is it in countries that do not have this belief, that the females born in 1966 have been fine? Some have had crap lives, some have had OK lives and some have had awesome lives. For a belief like this to be True it would have to be universally true and this one is not. My personal belief - I do not speak for any other shamans here - is that time does not exist. Humans created what a way to artificially mark moments in the day so they could plan ahead and control their lives. It makes getting about in the physical world a lot easier. It means you know when you are expected to be at a place and the person you are meeting will also be there. However, this to me is all artificial. The truth is there is no time, but there are cycles and we do see change. When you connect with the non physical or spiritual realms that's where you realise how artificial 'time' is. We look for energy patterns to see what has been, what is and what is coming. We look for changes in energy patterns to see if something is out of balance and also to help us redress that balance. I would like to ask you a question. When you say "But isn't being a shaman the ability to consider everything. With an open mind." What are you really asking? Being a shaman isn't about considering every human belief with an open mind, because human beliefs often come out of their own minds based on their fears or doubts. Shamans are often curious and question everything with an open mind, but that isn't considering. I guess the real question here is how much do you need or want to cling to this belief that you are somehow cursed because of an arbitrary date? How much has that belief shaped your life, simply because you did believe it then set up expectations based on it? What would your life be like now if you have of been told it was an extremely fortunate year to be born in? Just to list a few firehorse women: Louisa May Allcott, Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin, Sandra Day O'Connor, Barbara Streisand, Cindy Crawford Cynthia Nixon, Oprah Winfrey, Emma Watson, Katie Holmes, Kristen Stewart.

Hi Sofia, The time zone was a tricky one for me. Basically, if you compare time with New York, you'll be in the correct time zone. Also, watch out for daylight savings. Intent is a bit complicated. Perhaps look up 'intend'. One description of intent is to have the mind or will focused and fixed on a desired outcome. Think about when you say you are going to do something but don't really mean it and when you say you are going to do it and then set about doing it. the difference in feeling between the two is your intent. In the second situation, you tapped into an energy within you which is your intent. When someone does something and we don't understand why, we usually ask 'but what was the intent?' What was the think they meant to have happen. Or intention. That's generally about the meaning of the word. What I'm learning here is there is an energy underneath that, that I can tap into and that energy is what is looked at. I think it makes more sense if the class is being done Sorry if that doesn't help.

Hi Sweet Soul, It's very much about doing here The classes give you some background info and theory and then an exercise is set for you to do during the week. The class itself is in a chat programme, so is basically words on the screen and you can ask questions. If you'd done private messages in facebook, that's sort of what it's like. And there are always the forums to come to for more questions, answers and conversations

A couple of things. 1. Trying. Don't try. Trying sets up an expectation that something must happen and then a fear of failure creeps in and you end up sabotaging it before you begin. Go with the "lets see what happens" attitude and then just allow whatever. If something happens great, if nothing happens also great. Very much a case of 'trying too hard'. 2. Not everyone experiences through sight. We have 6 main senses, 5 are the physical ones. Some people hear things, some taste them and some get physical sensations of what is happening. All are valid. None are more special or better than any other. As with everything, journeying is about you and your experience. You need to build up a strong sense of faith in how it works for you, trust me, even if 100 people all have sight as the main way to experience a journey, there will be 100 different ways it is done. For me, I often hear or feel things then my mind fills in vision for me, but vision isn't necessarily my strongest sense when it comes to anything not physical world. Set yourself a time to explore and allow the spirits or the experience or guides (whatever term feels best) to take the lead. Allow it to unfold for you and see what happens, don't try to control it at all. You may experience nothing and then later on thoughts and feelings come to you. It may be you have a feeling for a fraction of a second but ignore it. Take note and allow things to come and go at their own direction. Keep a journal and look back after a month or so and see what happens.

I was recently reading about animal symbolism. Bat is the symbol of rebirth and transposing things to severe connection from the old to take up the new. The link was made to how babies develop head up in the womb, then turn upside down to prepare for birth, turning their back on the non physical realm to prepare to enter the physical one, so to speak. I didn't do this. Doctors turned me in the womb so I would be head down twice and I turned back three times. I never 'severed' my connection with the non physical or the spiritual realm as it's also called. I came into this world with that connection still strong and I've been like that my whole life. As a child I would be criticised for my "too grown up" understanding of things. I could easily see and understand things no-one else could and it never bothered me, but I did learn to shut it down in order to live more easily in society. It came with a cost though. At least now I can choose to reconnect or not and on my own terms.

Part of my struggle for so long was believing it was better to be traditionally trained by a "real" shaman. Where I was going to find one living in the middle of the city in Melbourne, Australia I had no idea. Eventually, I came to the point where I had to go alone and just cope with it. As I stumbled along, I found most of my doubt and worry was based on fear of being judged by others as not being good enough, not being worthy. Just prior to starting here I decided I would decide what was worthy or not in me and that if I said it was good enough, then it was. Doing classes here has helped me feel more certain and grounded in that belief, as I reclaim my own energy.

Just an update: Now in week 3 of classes and I have to say I am soooo glad I did this. I have seen things begin to shift and change already, as I put the time into doing what I'm learning. This is an investment in *me*. One I am extremely glad I made.

Sacred Spirit, I have paid and am waiting to start classes in the next week or so. Why did I pay? Because I genuinely seek the knowledge. I am NOT paying for the knowledge, but for the TIME that has been put into putting these classes together and for the TIME it takes to teach them. Why ask someone with experience and knowledge to give up of their time for your education? It's only in the spiritual field that people expect this. The same thing is asked about tarot and reiki and other energy work. There is a belief that because its spiritual it should be free. But why? The people teaching still need to live and they cannot live in this world on the good feelings of students only. Also the whole 'it's spiritual so you should not have to pay' belief is built on a false idea that spiritual is somehow separate from the rest of the world. Actually, everything is spiritual. The physical world is just manifestation of the creative energies that underlie everything. They are all one, all the same. The only division exists in the human mind. Now, why should information be giving freely on this website? Are you aware going into spiritual realms can be dangerous if you don't know what you are doing? Just because it's a spiritual realm doesn't mean it's all goodness and light. We see evidence of negative or evil in the physical world, well, as above so below or in this case as in the physical, so in the spiritual. Putting information on how to go off into the spiritual, how to have an OBE or astral travel would be irresponsible without giving all the other information needed on how to keep safe. That can be too much for a website to put up. Better to run a class to get to know who is using the information so they can be correctly guided. And there we are, back at running classes. I do not speak for the Maker Tradition of this website as I am yet to learn about it. I am speaking from what I have read widely elsewhere and what I already know from personal experience. Journeying and the spiritual realm is completely safe - if you know what you are doing. Why not invest in the time it takes to learn that?

My understanding is, the calling comes from the Spirits, they 'know' and choose who will be shaman. In traditional cultures, people know how to recognise the signs. In traditional Aboriginal peoples in Australia, a healer is known from around the age of 2, there's just something about them that their parents and elders recognise and later on, they are given whatever training they need. With them, it could be anyone, there is often no previous family member who has been called. I read in a book that often it would pass down through family lines because family members where the closed physically, on hand to receive, but I don't know more than that about it. For me, I've had some of the classical experiences people say someone called to be a shaman has had. As Kai said, being in communities who have lost ties with traditional ways, the signs of being called can often appear to be health issues or mental health issues. That doesn't mean someone with a particular health or mental health issue is really being called to be a shaman, just that in some cases it can be. As for me, I grew up in modern, down town Melbourne, in Australia. No religion to speak of, beyond being taught 2 prayers at midday nap time when I was 3. Went to a state primary and high school. Fell into christianity when I was 17 and stayed there for 6 years. Really typical. Come from a mix of British and Jewish stock - all immigrants to Australia over 200 years ago, so around 4th gen. Aussie. Really typical as I said. Except I had a serious health issue at 1 month requiring oxygen for 24 hours. After that I was constantly talking to invisible people only I could see. At around 18 months I had another serious illness and left me with eye sight problems. My right eye has never really worked properly since then and would literally turn into toward my nose as though trying to look within. I had an operation at 5 to try and correct it. Have worn glasses since I was 2.5 yrs. And I continued to spend time with my invisible friends until I was about 6 or 7. I did not mix well with other children, found it very hard to make friends and spent huge amounts of time in my room alone, reading. My best friend as a child was Night. I mean literal night time. I would look at the night sky and feel she was somehow my mother. There were other things that happened later on. I've explored over, under and around shamanism - everything to avoid it because deep down I knew this was my path but I was afraid to face it. Now that I accept it and am properly looking at it, I am having experiences of being taught my path in visions and dreams. And I'd really like to know what's up with all the cups of tea I keep being given. Personally, I believe shamanism is a part of every culture, even in the west. We all came out of traditional cultures long ago, who had very clear understanding and experiences of shamans or similar. I believe it's all part of the DNA of being human. If you look at epigenetics, it shows that traits like alcoholism or depression, can actually be passed down through generations. In traditional witchcraft they talk about the red thread, he blood line which gets passed along, so why not shamanic abilities? For many in the west today, the only sign they are being called is they are interested in learning about shamanism. And that's all you really need to get started. If it's not a calling for you, you will either find your true path or just lose interest. I really think the only sign that matters for us now is that personal interest.

I can relate so well to the oral traditions not written down. I live in Australia, was born here and feel a very strong connection to the land. I want to know about the traditions here, learn the connections but I will never be taught because I am not indigenous. I know more than most people about reading art, or what a few things mean, but no where enough of what I would need to know. Anything that is written down can't be trusted. Aboriginal people here will not tell their sacred knowledge to anyone. They will even go so far as to make up explanations to keep the truth hidden - and I don't blame them at all. It just makes it so much harder for those who have been genuinely called outside of a community.

I agree, you definitely need to be able to relate to what is being said. If you can't understand it, you aren't going to learn anything, or at least only 5-10% of what is being taught. The great thing about the internet is you find whatever you are looking for. The bad thing about the internet is you can find whatever you are looking for - and usually 100 different viewpoints on it! The biggest issue for me is the amount of core shamanism out there masquerading as traditional shamanism. I contacted a shaman once as I felt I needed a soul retrieval. She didn't do that, but she was going to come to my house and analyse it for disharmony and tell me how to re-arrange my furniture for better energy flow (I'm not kidding). I think there definitely has to be some kind of fascination or interest, otherwise what's the point? The shamanic path generally is no picnic in the path. I have experienced deep depression and even reached a point of being ready to end my own life as part of this journey. Yet here I am, still answering the call. Still wanting to know and go further. As for cleverness behind the words, I don't know. It has to have a feeling of authenticness behind it. It has to feel like it's right, deep in my bones. A kind of recognition of, I have no idea what. Just a feeling like it fits. My biggest lesson in life has been to learn to trust. Recent experiences I've had, books I'm reading, courses I will be doing shortly (not here, elsewhere), I have had to learn to trust they are all part of this journey. I will be going to a drum making workshop. Not necessarily by a shaman, most likely be a new-age "shar-man", but I felt it was the right one. I believe if something is right, the spirits will find away to get to you what you need and you being open meets them half way. At least, this seems to be how it's all shaping up.

The energy is the same. The way you connect and utilise it is different. I do reiki and have also been trained in a system called pellowah. Both do essentially the same thing, except with pellowah the energy does not pass through the practitioner at all, it goes from the universe to the client. Years ago when I was a christian I also experience 'laying on of hands' and have also done a generic healing with people. In all cases it was the same energy, but worked differently. I can't speak to shamanic work as I'm still very new and just starting to explore, but I sense it would be the same (eg. same but different).

In my work analysing people's dreams for over 20 years, it has always been the case that a nightmare is simply an issue that is not being dealt with. The unconscious needs to get your attention on this and since you do not listen to the dreams it presents, it will start to yell at you. Nightmares are just the unconscious yelling at you, to get your immediate attention on an important topic. Now that I am learning about shamanism, I can see there are other things going on as well. Dreams of being torn apart for instance. So there are other reasons for why things - not just nightmares - happen. I would never say the reason something happens is only because of this one thing. Nothing in the universe is that completely black and white. I personally have never come across nightmares representing being anti-social. If that fits for you, awesome, but it has not fit for anyone I've worked with and doesn't fit for me.

Thanks so much Karl I may need to use it yet lol More classes to go.

Thanks Lorrie, just sent the payment and an email to you with details. I ended up registering in two workshops. Michelle

Hi Lorrie, Thanks for getting back. Just tried directly from the link you supplied. Still not working. I'm using chrome if that helps. Just tried with firefox. Got to this page http://www.shamanscave.com/classes/online-classes and the add to cart button wasn't working. I don't use IE so can't test on that. If you could supply me with an email address I can use, I can make a direct payment through paypal if that helps. Michelle

I've tried to sign up for the recap 1 course beginning in October, but the 'go on and pay' button does nothing. Also when I click on the contact our faculty link, it says it might have been moved but doesn't go anywhere helpful. How can I sign up for this course? Thanks.