Shamanic Council Review

In September 2010, an interesting event took place at East West Bookshop in Seattle.

Shamanic practitioners from various disciplines gathered together to share their teachings and learn from each other.

This is the brainchild of Jan Ysslestyne who wanted to create a space in which people of different shamanic backgrounds could compare notes about what they do and the philosophies under which they work.

This is an unusual event because of 2 reasons:

1. Shamanic practioners, and indeed, indigenous shamans, are not known for being a gregarious bunch.  They tend to do their work alone and rarely do collaborative projects.

2. Even though Seattle is a highly spiritually charged place, we are still infected with the “my way is better than your way” bug. This again keeps people from working/sharing together.

So it was with delight that I attended this meeting of various practitioners and heard some of their beliefs and stories!

Represented disciplines included Native American, Peruvian, Siberian, Mongolian, Hawaiian, Wiccan, Pagan and someone calling themselves a practitioner of Gaian shamanism.

Jan did a wonderful job of facilitating the group.  She brought several questions for us to consider.

Two questions of note brought up much discussion that will, no doubt, keep us busy for several meetings:

1. How does your discipline define “soul”
2. How does your discipline define “shamanic road (or path)”

It was very interesting hearing how each of us viewed these concepts.  While each of us would say that we believe in a “soul”, we each had a different definition of it.

At the end of the meeting, we all agreed that this was a valuable way to spend our time and would like to meet this way monthly.

Until the next meeting, Jan is working on keeping us connected.  She even gave us homework!

Jan runs a local school for Ulchi (Siberian) shamanism.  If you have an interest in attending a future meeting, please contact her at pathfindercounseling@gmail.com.

Tagged as: sacred space, shamanism