What is a shaman and how can they help?
Rainbow Warrior Akasha in actions (Soul’D artist in the background)
Our Rainbow Warrior, Akasha has trained with Indigenous Shamans within the lineage of Native American, European and Peruvian traditions, with her main focus on Amazonian Shamanism, and has trained extensively to Maestra level in the Peruvian Amazon with Indigenous Shamans. Now this is may sound impressive but what does a Shaman do and how can they help you?
Shamans act as mediators. They communicate with the spirits on behalf of the community, including the spirits of the deceased. Shamans believe they can communicate with both living and dead to alleviate unrest, unsettled issues, and to deliver gifts to the spirits.
Abilities of shamans
Altered states of consciousness, possessing the ability to enter alternated states at will, and controlling themselves while moving in and out of those states.
Mediating between the needs of the spirit world and those of the physical world in a way that can be understood and used by the community.
Serving the needs of the community that cannot be met by practitioners of other disciplines, such as physicians, psychiatrists, priests, and leaders.
A shaman is therefore a specific type of healer who uses an alternate state of consciousness to enter the invisible world, which is made up of all unseen aspects of the world that affect us, including the spiritual, emotional, mental, mythical, archetypal, and dream worlds.
How can shamanism benefit your health and wellbeing?
Individuals may seek shamanic healing for many different maladies. If they are living within a shamanic culture, shamanic healing is typically part of a multidisciplinary approach used for any disease or imbalance, in partnership with physical healers, botanical medicines, changes in diet, and other therapies.
In contemporary western society, shamanic healing is unfamiliar to most non-indigenous individuals. Despite that, people are finding their way to contemporary shamans for all types of health challenges, but especially when they are not making satisfactory improvements with conventional approaches.
Shamanistic perspective on disease
The perspective on individual disease is different in shamanism than in the conventional medical view. In a shamanistic view:
Similar symptoms or diseases do not stem from the same underlying root energetic problem.
Community disharmony often manifests in individual illness.
Any illness may have a significant underlying spiritual or energetic issue, regardless of the form in which that illness manifests - physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, or relational.
Certain illnesses are more likely to have a spiritual component that may respond to shamanic healing techniques. These include psychological diagnoses like depression and anxiety, ADD/ADHD, autism, and addictions.
Illnesses that manifest physically may still have significant spiritual underpinnings. This is especially true for illnesses that have atypical or premature presentations, such as a degenerative illness that normally occurs in elder years occurring in a young adult.
The sense that something is "missing" or that "I haven't been the same since..." can often be indicative of an energetic loss of some type, including soul energy loss. Shamanic healing is often part of a multi-pronged approach to an illness, and is fully compatible with both conventional medicine and other integrative treatments, such as Traditional Chinese Medicine, homeopathy, naturopathy, chiropractic, and others.