Correspondence About Shamanism and Synchronicities
Hello All,
I am a clinical PhD student with a MA in Transpersonal psychology. I have been actively interested in shamanism for over a decade now, after some intense spiritual experiences that occurred to me and my family in 2004. My grandmother's grandmother was a Sami shaman in Northern Finland and the many unique sensitivities of that lineage have been carried down through the genetics of my mother's side. The question has always been what to do with them!
After speaking about the subtle ranges of human experience at the 2009 Amazonian Shamanism conference in Iquitos, Peru, I traveled upriver to live with a Shipibo tribe many hours into the jungle. I lived and worked with them for over 4 months, and learned a LOT about myself and the spiritual aspect of coincidence and entity interactions over that time of intense fasting and near nightly ayahuasca ceremonies. Perhaps there will be an opportunity to share more and explore those experiences in future discussions.
I have a certificate in spiritual guidance which I am currently trying to integrate into a private practice in Seattle. I am hoping to learn real world techniques for helping and healing others using shamanism -- drumming, ancestor worship, collecting and using spiritual allies, and how to clearly discern and heal "initiatory" illnesses before they progress too far along. I have many questions about the importance of diet, sensitivity, energetic boundaries and the genuinely real dangers of uninformed journeying.
Thanks and looking forward to "diving in" with you all! ;)
-Kaleb
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Hi Kaleb,
I am so happy to have you in this class with us. How wonderful that you have a family connection through the Sami tradition of Finland. I wonder, do you feel a particular connection to the lands of Finland? Have you ever had a chance to visit there? There reason I ask is that many of the Tibetan and Nepali shamanic teachers that I know often feel very attached to particular places and can communicate with the spirits there.
How amazing that that you lived with the Shipibo people! I have never met anyone that engaged in long term ayahuasca experiences on a daily basis. May I ask if this experiences intensify over time or does one tend to habituate to them to some extent. The reason I ask is that I have known many people to try daily long term LSD usage only to find that the effect is greatly diminished if usage is attempted within 24 hours of a previous trip.
Over the years I have been privileged to have several clients who have had amazing experiences with their journeys with guides and ayahuasca in the jungle. Often the best work I did with them was simply to be present while they told me what the guides were urging them to do and to encourage them to test the fruit of their wisdom. In some cases, the guides asked the person to consider things that sounded a bit un-wise to me personally but I always told the person to go with their guides and to test the fruit of their wisdom.
Well please let us know your thoughts on the assignments you might choose in the class when you've had a chance to read the syllabus. Also, I'd love to hear much more about your experiences. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom!
By the way, one of my favorite shamanic teachers, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche will soon be giving free internet teachings on soul retrieval in mid February if you or anyone else is interested. I will post the link to them here or you can find me on Facebook (I'm the only Ian Wickramasekera) and I'll get you an event invite.
Happy Regards,
Ian
--
Hi Ian,
Thank you for your kind words. While I have never been to Finland, the cold clean lakes and forests of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, where I was born, are a close match. I've read that over 70% of America's Finns moved to the Lake Superior region, assumably for that reason.
Interestingly, the genetic aspect (specifically my Finnish half, not my Swedish half) seemed to resonate very deeply to the ayahuasca experience. I suppose I can share some of this experience, as it relates to your questions about both my homeland, shamanic lineage, and ayahuasca experiences:
The first two weeks of ceremonies were said to be for "cleaning out," purging and cleansing the body of all impurities and sickness. After becoming clean, the Shipibo said the visions would begin. I imagined this part as my body being a sort of window -- the glass all dirty and thick with hamburger grease smoke and other such caked nastiness. After weeks of cleaning this glass, however, light could begin to shine through it again, and I could finally begin to "see." And, yes, after 2 weeks, I felt quite scoured and sensitive, through and through. I was breathing so full, uninhibited, my heart felt fully radiant and quivered with empathy.
It was at this time that I sat with a beautiful little Shipibo shaman, an elderly grandmother figure, who sang to me in the dark her old icaros songs. In my chest, there was an unambiguous feeling of ascent, as I rose gently upwards to some higher ranges of perception. I saw a landscape there very much like my home, a coniferous forest, and waiting for me there were two entities of beautiful blue-white light, my ancestors. They told me "We are the Finns." They emphasized this point several times. Their eyes were phenomenal -- big and bright and beautiful, and I could see the entire spectrum of light in them. As I connected with these radiant Finnish ancestors, they explained that they exist there in the "higher frequencies of nature" where they said they would teach me to "see and hear more."
I was not alone with them, but there were others intended to learn as well from these blue-white radiant ancestors. When I returned to my body, I felt my entire spine resonating with current, my limbs feeling as if they were buzzing with frequency. I thought of what a strange and wholly real (even "realer than real") experience I had just had, but was not going to tell anyone about it, as it was so unusual.
A few hours later, I was back in Iquitos, downtown, having breakfast on the sidewalk, another wet hot morning in the Amazon. Ordering something light, I sat looking out onto the street and heard "…meidän tytär kasvaa niin nopeasti. Rakastan häntä ja kaipaan häntä…"
I turned to see two bright blue-eyed blondes sitting at the table immediately to my right. I had to ask them "Excuse me…are you Finnish?"
"Yah! How did you know??" they seemed quite surprised by the question.
"I'm Finnish! I'd recognize Finnish a mile away! …what are two Finns doing in the middle of the Amazon jungle on a Tuesday morning?"
They explained that they were there for their daughter, who was going to school in Lima and so on. I explained that I was there speaking about shamanism and that my grandma's grandma was a shaman in Finland and that I'd always wondered how she did what she did. I explained that, after we immigrated to America, all of that spiritual heritage was lost, but that I know that she helped people, healed them, and communed with spirits to tell the future. I always wanted to know how...
"Oh! You need to speak with Jahna. She's the professor of Finnish shamanism at the University of Helsinki…HERE IS HER PHONE NUMBER AND HERE IS HER EMAIL ADDRESS!"
Such seemingly astronomical odds that I would have the vision, then meet two Finns a few hours later, after waking up AND that they would not only know the worlds foremost expert on the work my ancestors did, but KNOW THE PHONE NUMBER by heart, and be able to provide it to me, right there.
The Finns in the vision said "We will teach you to see and hear more." It wasn't until a few hours later that I got directions to the school! ;)
I am a clinical PhD student with a MA in Transpersonal psychology. I have been actively interested in shamanism for over a decade now, after some intense spiritual experiences that occurred to me and my family in 2004. My grandmother's grandmother was a Sami shaman in Northern Finland and the many unique sensitivities of that lineage have been carried down through the genetics of my mother's side. The question has always been what to do with them!
After speaking about the subtle ranges of human experience at the 2009 Amazonian Shamanism conference in Iquitos, Peru, I traveled upriver to live with a Shipibo tribe many hours into the jungle. I lived and worked with them for over 4 months, and learned a LOT about myself and the spiritual aspect of coincidence and entity interactions over that time of intense fasting and near nightly ayahuasca ceremonies. Perhaps there will be an opportunity to share more and explore those experiences in future discussions.
I have a certificate in spiritual guidance which I am currently trying to integrate into a private practice in Seattle. I am hoping to learn real world techniques for helping and healing others using shamanism -- drumming, ancestor worship, collecting and using spiritual allies, and how to clearly discern and heal "initiatory" illnesses before they progress too far along. I have many questions about the importance of diet, sensitivity, energetic boundaries and the genuinely real dangers of uninformed journeying.
Thanks and looking forward to "diving in" with you all! ;)
-Kaleb
--
Hi Kaleb,
I am so happy to have you in this class with us. How wonderful that you have a family connection through the Sami tradition of Finland. I wonder, do you feel a particular connection to the lands of Finland? Have you ever had a chance to visit there? There reason I ask is that many of the Tibetan and Nepali shamanic teachers that I know often feel very attached to particular places and can communicate with the spirits there.
How amazing that that you lived with the Shipibo people! I have never met anyone that engaged in long term ayahuasca experiences on a daily basis. May I ask if this experiences intensify over time or does one tend to habituate to them to some extent. The reason I ask is that I have known many people to try daily long term LSD usage only to find that the effect is greatly diminished if usage is attempted within 24 hours of a previous trip.
Over the years I have been privileged to have several clients who have had amazing experiences with their journeys with guides and ayahuasca in the jungle. Often the best work I did with them was simply to be present while they told me what the guides were urging them to do and to encourage them to test the fruit of their wisdom. In some cases, the guides asked the person to consider things that sounded a bit un-wise to me personally but I always told the person to go with their guides and to test the fruit of their wisdom.
Well please let us know your thoughts on the assignments you might choose in the class when you've had a chance to read the syllabus. Also, I'd love to hear much more about your experiences. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom!
By the way, one of my favorite shamanic teachers, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche will soon be giving free internet teachings on soul retrieval in mid February if you or anyone else is interested. I will post the link to them here or you can find me on Facebook (I'm the only Ian Wickramasekera) and I'll get you an event invite.
Happy Regards,
Ian
--
Hi Ian,
Thank you for your kind words. While I have never been to Finland, the cold clean lakes and forests of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, where I was born, are a close match. I've read that over 70% of America's Finns moved to the Lake Superior region, assumably for that reason.
Interestingly, the genetic aspect (specifically my Finnish half, not my Swedish half) seemed to resonate very deeply to the ayahuasca experience. I suppose I can share some of this experience, as it relates to your questions about both my homeland, shamanic lineage, and ayahuasca experiences:
The first two weeks of ceremonies were said to be for "cleaning out," purging and cleansing the body of all impurities and sickness. After becoming clean, the Shipibo said the visions would begin. I imagined this part as my body being a sort of window -- the glass all dirty and thick with hamburger grease smoke and other such caked nastiness. After weeks of cleaning this glass, however, light could begin to shine through it again, and I could finally begin to "see." And, yes, after 2 weeks, I felt quite scoured and sensitive, through and through. I was breathing so full, uninhibited, my heart felt fully radiant and quivered with empathy.
It was at this time that I sat with a beautiful little Shipibo shaman, an elderly grandmother figure, who sang to me in the dark her old icaros songs. In my chest, there was an unambiguous feeling of ascent, as I rose gently upwards to some higher ranges of perception. I saw a landscape there very much like my home, a coniferous forest, and waiting for me there were two entities of beautiful blue-white light, my ancestors. They told me "We are the Finns." They emphasized this point several times. Their eyes were phenomenal -- big and bright and beautiful, and I could see the entire spectrum of light in them. As I connected with these radiant Finnish ancestors, they explained that they exist there in the "higher frequencies of nature" where they said they would teach me to "see and hear more."
I was not alone with them, but there were others intended to learn as well from these blue-white radiant ancestors. When I returned to my body, I felt my entire spine resonating with current, my limbs feeling as if they were buzzing with frequency. I thought of what a strange and wholly real (even "realer than real") experience I had just had, but was not going to tell anyone about it, as it was so unusual.
A few hours later, I was back in Iquitos, downtown, having breakfast on the sidewalk, another wet hot morning in the Amazon. Ordering something light, I sat looking out onto the street and heard "…meidän tytär kasvaa niin nopeasti. Rakastan häntä ja kaipaan häntä…"
I turned to see two bright blue-eyed blondes sitting at the table immediately to my right. I had to ask them "Excuse me…are you Finnish?"
"Yah! How did you know??" they seemed quite surprised by the question.
"I'm Finnish! I'd recognize Finnish a mile away! …what are two Finns doing in the middle of the Amazon jungle on a Tuesday morning?"
They explained that they were there for their daughter, who was going to school in Lima and so on. I explained that I was there speaking about shamanism and that my grandma's grandma was a shaman in Finland and that I'd always wondered how she did what she did. I explained that, after we immigrated to America, all of that spiritual heritage was lost, but that I know that she helped people, healed them, and communed with spirits to tell the future. I always wanted to know how...
"Oh! You need to speak with Jahna. She's the professor of Finnish shamanism at the University of Helsinki…HERE IS HER PHONE NUMBER AND HERE IS HER EMAIL ADDRESS!"
Such seemingly astronomical odds that I would have the vision, then meet two Finns a few hours later, after waking up AND that they would not only know the worlds foremost expert on the work my ancestors did, but KNOW THE PHONE NUMBER by heart, and be able to provide it to me, right there.
The Finns in the vision said "We will teach you to see and hear more." It wasn't until a few hours later that I got directions to the school! ;)