Dana Robinson - The Shamanic Worldview: Everything is Alive™

Dana Robinson discusses the shamanic worldview, emphasizing the aliveness of all things, the importance of connecting with spirits of objects, and practical exercises to deepen this understanding. The conversation explores personal experiences, cultural insights, and the transformative power of shamanic practices.

Guest: Dana Robinson, BA, CSC Guests Bio: https://www.shamanism.org/faculty/dana-robinson/
Guest Website: https://www.shamantracks.com/

Host: Kerri Husman, MD Bio: https://www.shamanism.org/faculty/kerri-husman/
Website: https://www.mammothhills.com/services/courses-in-core-shamanism/

Workshop: The Shamanic Journey: Pathway to Knowledge and Power™ https://www.shamanism.org/workshops/the-shamanic-journey/

Learn more about shamanism and shamanic workshops by visiting the website of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies: https://www.shamanism.org

Transcript

Introduction to the Shamanic Worldview

Speaker 2 0:07

You are listening to the Way of the Shaman Podcast with your host, Kerri Husman. The content shared in the Way of the Shaman Podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute professional or therapeutic advice. The views expressed by the host and interviewees reflect their personal experiences and opinions. Please consult with an appropriate licensed professional if you have any medical, psychological, or legal concerns.

Kerri 0:39

Hello, and welcome to the Way of the Shaman podcast. I'm your host, Kerri Husman, and today Dana Robinson is joining us again. And this time we're going to be discussing the shamanic worldview. Welcome, Dana.

Dana 0:53

Thank you very much, Kerri, and uh it's a pleasure to be with you. Thank you.

Kerri 0:58

I'm so excited for some of the stories you'll be able to share with us and really how those apply to the shamanic worldview that everything is alive. So, Dana, I if you could, could you share with us what it means to embody the shamanic worldview every day?

Dana 1:17

Well, uh, I'd be happy to share my experience. And um let's start off with the uh Chuk chi poem, um, which really uh contains the line, everything is alive. And uh the Chukchi are indigenous peoples in northeastern Siberia, um and they're highly shamanic, okay, and uh they have some very interesting shamanic practices, so I encourage people to research them. But uh this poem really encapsulates, I think, the shamanic worldview, the the the way a we could say typical or quintessential shaman experiences the the world, this amazing world uh in which we live. So the poem is called Things a Shaman Sees. Everything that is is alive. On a steep riverbank, there's a voice that speaks. I've seen the master of that voice. He bowed to me. I spoke with him. He answers all my questions. Everything that is is alive. Little gray bird, little blue breast, sings in a hollow bough. She calls her spirits, dances, sings her shaman songs. Woodpecker on a tree, that's his drum. He's got a drumming nose, and the tree shakes, cries out like a drum when the axe bites its side. All these things answer my call. Everything that is is alive. The lantern walks around. The walls of this house have tongues. Even as bull, which is a peapot, even as bull has its own true home, the hides asleep in their bags were up talking all night. Antlers on the graves rise and circle the mounds while the dead themselves get up and go visit the living ones. Everything that is is alive. So uh this

Experiencing Aliveness in Nature

Dana 3:45

world in the eyes of the shaman uh does not consist just of biological life and then a bunch of dead objects. Right. Like rocks, rivers, and so on and so forth. No, they're all alive. That is, uh they have consciousness, they have intelligence. And I think that this workshop really explores that and really informs us that this um shamanic vision of everything that is alive is in fact a very valid. It's actually the truth. But everyone has to decide that for themselves, of course. And at the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, we'll present exercises. We'll give a few guidelines, but ultimately it's up to each person to determine uh what uh their experience and what these exercises mean for them. Right?

Kerri 4:49

Well, thank you for that, Dana, and thank you for that poem. And to follow up on that, can you think back in time to an experience that you've had where your experience that everything that is is alive was really deeply and profoundly changing for you or reassuring you of that truth?

Dana 5:09

Well, yeah, I think um and this is an important question because I think it really addresses uh our potentiality. And when we're children, uh unless of course we're living in a war zone, I don't know what that's like, but uh you there maybe you're just trying to survive. But if you have a fairly uh safe and uh uh childhood, uh a childhood experience, uh and you we could say a normal sort of childhood experience

Childhood Memories and Shamanic Insights

Dana 5:50

that your perceptions as a child really uh I think embody this shamanic worldview. Everything is magical. Now, uh I had some experiences when I was a kid, yeah, that I think informed me about the aliveness of everything. I I hearken back to uh a night in New Orleans back in uh 1953, and I was walking from our uh non-air conditioned apartment in New Orleans, Louisiana, to uh another apartment where my parents were playing bridge with some friends. So I was walking at night and I went through uh just this little field now, it was not a long walk, okay. And um to this day I remember sensing the aliveness of of the grasses. Certainly the frogs, I can still hear, or was it the crickets or both? I can still hear their their sounds when I uh think back on that experience. And it it was really a realization. I wouldn't know this is in the consciousness of a seven-year-old, right, which is a little different than the consciousness of a three-year-old. And it was uh an enlightening sort of experience. Now, um we tend to get that sort of uh world view knocked out of us uh in our culture, and I think a lot of modern cultures which uh objectify so much. You know, so things are objects. They're you know, they're just objects, they can be exploited, they can be uh uh used by us in one way or another, uh but um the shamanic worldview is uh quite different. Uh everything in a sense is at least potentially sacred. Uh yeah, if you really think about it. I mean, uh fourteen billion years ago, if you listen to astrophysicists, there was nothing at all, except maybe a singularity. And so the universe didn't exist. And here uh in thirteen and a half billion years, we have a planet. Well, first of all, we have a single atom. Isn't that alone a miracle? And it you know, and now we have a planet with tigers and great sharks and whales and wolf lemurs and um beautiful primates beyond the human primate, and so on and so forth. And so um I think I w I I sort of got that back when I was seven years old in New Orleans, Louisiana now. Uh

The Influence of the 60s on Shamanism

Dana 9:03

I found a poem that I wrote in 1972, so uh a little later on when I was in my twenties. But um now you you have to remember that there were the uh the uh uh the sixties. And certainly I was uh right in the midst of the sixties as a young man, and they were influential, and um that was a phenomenon that uh brought a lot of us back in touch with the natural world, also with with indigenous peoples. I mean, people were dressing uh more or less very much like uh Native or indigenous uh North American peoples. Uh there was an adulation and an admiration of these peoples, uh alternative spiritualities were uh, particularly from the East, were uh uh gaining a lot of interest. The works of Carlos Castaneda were highly influential. This idea of uh a completely alive uh universe uh with spirits, uh with wise people who uh uh uh revered the planet. But anyway, so um I wrote a little poem which I found, and so let me I think it's highly shamanic, you know, but this is like nine years before I ever uh really had any official sort of shamanic experience through a basic workshop they attended with Michael Harner back in uh 1981. So uh what's the title? I I didn't title it, but I would call it a drop a drop of water. How about that? Okay. So uh mountain high reaching for the sky, valley low where cool waters flow, joined in inseparable union. I wish I could melt with the snows in springtime, joining crystal cold streams, race over rocks, flow through gills, a rainbow trout, replenish thirsty bears, osmos into roots of tall pines, finally reaching rivers and always moving, spreading God's love to every corner of creation. Then warm west wind would lift me high to join tall clouds so that I could fly. Well, uh I won't claim that it's great poetry, but you sort of get the uh impression that um of um a love for the planet and and at least uh uh a recognition that there's so much going on here that's uh so beautiful, and that our planet gives so much to us and all creatures.

The Importance of Water and Nature

Kerri 12:14

It does. And thank you for sharing that poem. I I would agree it definitely is a shamanic poem. It's it's it's encapsulating uh in some ways a life cycle, but also just how important each drop of water is to the existence of everything on this earth.

Dana 12:35

Absolutely. Again, 14 billion years ago, there was no water. And water is the basis of biological life here, that's for sure, on this planet. And um so we um I think the shamanic worldview entails don't waste anything. Every drop of water is uh important. I'll never forget I I I uh hung out at a uh commune. It was a like a hippie commune in northern Maryland back in the early 70s. It was a really nice place. And uh remembered doing dishes there, and um I kept the water running as I would grab another bit dish to wash, and and uh a guy who actually lived there, I would just would visit, said, you know, you should turn it off until you got the dish ready to rinse, because you're just wasting water. And you know, this was more than 50 years ago, and I remember it like it happened yesterday because it just woke me up. Yeah, this is this is precious stuff.

Kerri 13:54

Yeah.

Dana 13:54

And and and um doesn't uh doesn't almost everything deserve our respect, you know. So my car, our car, we try to take good care of it. You know, we have it serviced regularly, it's detailed um once a year, and uh we try to keep it clean and so on and so forth. And that is um my shamanic world, too, for sure. You try to take care of things. Sure, we have bird baths in the back here, we throw seed out to uh to the birds, and uh we have suet for them, and we have a hummingbird feeder. I actually have six hummingbird feeders, but that's too much work. So I'm starting with one this this year. But that's part of it, isn't it?

Kerri 14:52

Yeah. And it's so lovely to be able to connect with all these different species, even if they're migratory and just coming through, but they know that your home is a place to stop.

Dana 15:01

You know, and that's I'm glad you brought up migration because you know I've got a I'm gonna get a book on migration because there are all these migrations on the planet, not only through the air, but also through the sea, these uh eels that uh uh uh uh migrate like a couple of thousand years uh every year, right? To the where they originate in the Sargasso Sea and they come in, I forget, but uh so that's the reason I have to read about them. Yeah.

Connecting with the Spirit of Objects

Dana 15:30

There's so much going on here in this beautiful planet. Um and this workshop, the shamanic worldview, really um I think uh promotes such a uh a greater understanding of uh the aliveness of um, yeah, a tree will connect with a tree, but we really get to understand through the exercise or two that we do in this workshop just how alive it is. What are its needs? Uh what kind of intelligence? You know, and the the the shaman understands that not only is everything that out there alive, and Aaron, oh, by the way, inside here. So, yeah, the stapler. I always like to go to my stapler. This is alive. It even told me something once. It told me in in an exercise that we actually do in this workshop when I attended this workshop, it told me it has a real need. The need is to be used. And so I know every time I use it, I'm I'm uh I figure I'm making it happy down my nuts. No. The shaman is actually uh, and uh, you know, as Michael Harner would say, no one in the right mind calls themselves a shaman. You leave it to others to uh that you help to make that determination. But um, I forgot where I was going with this, and so forgot about it.

Kerri 17:06

Well, your point is, you know, just like a pen that you have a long relationship if you're doing a lot of handwriting or a keyboard if you're typing. They all have a spirit, they're all alive, and they all have something to say. They have the potential to have power. They have the potential to answer divinatory questions. They have the potential to maintain a relationship with you.

Dana 17:28

Aaron Powell, and you know, as you relate to all these things, particularly shamanically, um their power, I think, becomes a part of your power, and your power becomes a part of their power, and it's a symbiotic relationship, and it's quite wonderful.

Kerri 17:45

So, you know, if the relationship is maintained.

Dana 17:49

Yeah. Now one of the uh um

Teaching Shamanism and Cultural Connections

Dana 17:54

one of the great teachings of shamanism is uh, and let me let me turn to a quote, and then I'll say uh related to shamanism particularly. It comes from uh one of Castaneda's uh Carlos Castaneda's wonderful books uh dealing uh largely with his relationship with the uh Yaqui uh Native American shaman, Don Juan. Don Juan once said, This lovely being, which is alive to its last recesses and understands every feeling, soothe me. It cured me of my pains, and finally, when I had fully understood my love for it, it taught me freedom. Now he's talking about the earth. And also, uh an Indian guru, uh Shree Bhagwan Rajneesh, now known as Osho, also, and speaking of enlightenment, said to see the point that you are not separate from existence is the highest insight that intelligence can give to you. And I would say that seeing that you're not separate is the highest insight that shamanism can can give you. And I think this workshop certainly promotes that idea. And actually, it's beyond an idea, of course, that truth that we're not separate. We're part of all this. All this is part of us. And so ultimately we are not alone. That's true. You know, and uh that is um a very comforting thought. In in a time of you know, alienation, I mean the existentialism of the 50s, we're talking about alienation all over the place. Well, they weren't doing shamanism. Yeah.

Kerri 19:55

So let's go back in time a little bit, Dana, to discuss when you first started teaching. So you had permission from Michael Harner, you essentially had the eastern half of the United States and Canada. And over time, you have taught in over 70 cities throughout the eastern half of Canada and the US, top to bottom, side to side. And when you first started traveling to teach core shamanism, how was this teaching received by the many peoples and cultures that you um ended up encountering and connecting with? What was that like? And are there any stories there to share?

Dana 20:41

Uh well, yes, uh uh many stories. And um first of all, it was a great privilege uh to be in that position. When Harner offered me that uh job, the first thing I said uh to him is, have you uh consulted your helping spirits on this? Do you have any idea of who you're asking to do this? Uh for uh I mean two. I mean, uh yeah. So uh you understand who I am. And he said, I don't I don't have to. I think uh I think you're right for this. So good. Well, um there was a tremendous amount of enthusiasm. Uh and there still is uh lots of enthusiasm, but of course, you know, we talk about different cultures. Well, the culture of this country has changed in the last 40 years. And so we could say initially, and I think the average age of a participant, the average age is probably around 40, uh, but we're getting more and more uh interest in shamanism from younger people these days, which is really encouraging. But the um um some of the first people to attend trainings were uh Um, more or less my age at the time. And um, you know, or uh many were highly influenced by the sixties. Uh this interest in altered states of consciousness, of uh experiential spirituality. Um and um so uh yeah, there was great interest. Uh I met many wonderful people uh as I traveled uh south to New Orleans and Miami and north to uh New Brunswick, Canada, uh and um so on and so forth. Now, I'll never forget it was around 1988. So just a couple years into my teaching career, and um I was up in Halifax, uh Nova Scotia, uh doing uh a beginning in-person workshop, the basic workshop, the way of the shaman. And uh there were 40 people there. So we were getting big crowds uh at a number of venues, and I had a sponsor, and uh so she did the organizing anyway. Um before we got into the material, uh I had everyone just say their name and also very briefly in a sentence, why they had come to the training. And this guy uh stood up, and let me tell you what, this was a handsome, tall guy, his he had long black hair that went he had a couple of uh, I guess you call them pony uh braided braids that you know going halfway down his back. He was in a a black shirt, I think, maybe black pants and a beautiful belt with a big silver buckle. And he said, uh my name is, I forget his name. I wouldn't say his name now, but anyway, he said, I'm the uh chief of the Mi'kmaq's. Now the Mi'kmaq Nation of uh Native uh uh Americans of Canada, uh First Nations people, right? Uh so and he said, uh, I'm just here to see what you guys are up to. I'm thinking, wow, no pressure here, no pressure here at all. Um well, so we did the first day's work, uh journeying to the low world, journeying on behalf of someone, meeting uh animal spirit helpers, etc., etc. Uh and at the end of the workshop he came up to me and I'm thinking, uh-oh. No, he said, I just want to say to you, um, number one, I won't be able to come tomorrow. I have a previous engagement. I, you know, I I can't do it. But I just wanted to uh assure you that I really like what you guys are doing. And wow, can I tell you that was one of the peak moments uh in uh all the years that I've been presenting workshops, uh no doubt about it. Now, um we've had uh indigenous peoples attend numerous trainings, um and uh again, um no complaints. In fact, um you know uh I think we at the foundation for shamanic studies uh are all too happy to, we could say, reintroduce uh shamanism to people who have lost uh that tradition. And of course, our approach is core shamanism, so the universal, near universal, and common uh methods of shamans worldwide, uh, including journeys to other worlds. And uh uh inherent is the uh fact of two realities, ordinary reality and non-ordinary reality, the spirit world and the physical world. But

Synchronicities and Spirit Power

Dana 26:27

you know, there were there have been um numerous instances of uh uh uh remarkable coincidence, we call them synchronicities, over the years, and I remember those uh uh more than many things. Uh and so uh we did a workshop in the outer banks of North Carolina. We actually had to take a boat to get to this island.

Kerri 26:56

Oh, wow.

Dana 26:57

Yeah, and I'll never forget how sick I was from this one boat ride. I uh you know I was lying on the ground when we finally got to the island. I w I know I turned green and I wanted to die. I was, you know, but no, not really. But uh yeah, in the course of that workshop, uh one of the participants um had a shamanic journey uh to the upper world or lower world, I don't remember which, and uh she had the experience of being given a spear. All right. A spear, it was like a gift, all right. Well, during uh a break, a long break, I mean we were on this beautiful island, the water was right there, a bunch of us, you know, put on our bathing suits, went into the water, and she felt something under her foot. It was a spear from a uh spear gun, and she had stepped on the spear, and so now she had she not only was given a spirit spear in a shamanic journey, but she was also uh given, in a sense, a physical spear. Now, doesn't that seem rather remarkable? Would that indicate, you know, Michael Harner, uh the founder and director for many years of the Foundation for Shani Studies, and uh the guy who's made a lot of this possible for uh a good many of us, would say these sorts of synchronicities really inform us that

The Reality of Spirit Worlds

Dana 28:40

the spirits are real, power is real, power is at work. Now, this is spirit power, not the kind of the power that's wielded in the capital cities of numerous countries. We call them, I would refer to that as force, but this is spirit power, we could say an amalgam of energy plus intelligence plus ethics plus love. And our helping spirits embody those qualities. They're alive, they have energy, they have intelligence, they're highly ethical beings, and they actually care for us. And uh yeah, so there are other stories as well. Um would you like to hear one more story?

Kerri 29:27

Please.

Dana 29:28

Yes. Um we did a workshop in Austin, Texas, and um in those days we were doing a group journey uh in in the beginning workshop uh in person, the basic workshop, the way of the shaman. And we do a group journey to recover power in the form of an animal helper spirit, uh, a power animal, for someone in our group. So uh this person is the designated uh patient, so to speak, a recipient of the power. We journey together in a specific form uh in the spirit boat. And um what was recovered by the person acting as the shaman, we could say the the lead person in this journey was an alligator. Now, we uh say in uh power animal retrievals, we don't br blow into someone or a fish or reptile if his teeth are showing. Well, the person acting as a shaman uh saw this uh alligator uh or an alligator uh four separate times, but upon the fourth viewing the teeth were still showing. Because when alligators have their mouths closed, their teeth are still showing. So the person acting as a shaman informed the alligator spirit, uh, I can't bring you back, your teeth are showing. So the alligator said, Give me a second, right? So we're gonna steet, right? So that uh alligator was brought back to uh the the client now. After it was revealed to the client and everyone else what had returned, this uh recipient said, Well, you know, I have a spirit altar at home, and on it I have two uh little um stuffed alligators. And I and I said to the group, uh, does anyone else have a spirit uh altar with alligators on it? And of course the answer was no. So that's an another uh specific kind of um remarkable coincidence that really assures us that, hey, something's going on here besides mere chance. This is a reminder to us all that this world of spirit is entirely real, it's as real as this uh world here, or in the eyes of perhaps a shuar and the Amazon, the world of spirit is even more real than this physical world.

Connecting with the Spirits of Objects

Kerri 32:22

Going in a slightly different direction about this workshop. So, one of the important things about this workshop is that you learn how to connect with the spirits of objects that have been created. So it could be the spirit of a fork, the spirit of a chair, the spirit of your home. And and people often don't think of those as alive, and they don't think of them as having a spirit, especially if they've been manufactured by a machine. So can you give me a sense of what is what what's the importance of building these skills from these exercises for someone who is you know trying to build their shamanic skill set, wanting to be able to help others and help the planet? Why is it so important to learn to connect with and learn from these objects?

Dana 33:12

Yeah. Well, um uh uh if it weren't important, uh we wouldn't be doing it. And so no, we don't waste people's time in our trainings. You know, I we'd like to think that every single exercise that we ask people to do in our workshops, which are experiential, you know, they don't uh they these are not lecture trainings, although we may, you know, uh uh uh do some talking, introduct introducing uh some of these methods. But um we try to give people uh important experiences that um ultimately promote this idea and actually this fact that the world is completely alive, uh everything that is is alive. Now uh in connecting with created objects, let's see, we are um we're merging in in our workshop with a created object. And so we learn something about merging, which is something that um shamans have done uh forever. Uh why? Well, you know, there's uh saying you can't know someone until you walked in their shoes for a mile. Right. Right? So how can I let's go back to my uh wonderful stapler. To really understand the stapler at a deep level, why not become one with us and experience uh its existence as it, you know, I experience its experience of existence. Well, okay, so I become familiar with it. And in the meantime, uh if I do some other things, like perhaps ask it a question of my own that I want some help with, and if I if I receive an answer that uh seems helpful, wow, I've acquired a friend. So I think uh well as we connect with even created objects, we're expanding this shamanic worldview and and and uh further reinforcing the fact that we're not alone and there's so much help everywhere. We're in a sea of of assistance. As Michael Harner once said, um, you know, uh when you do shamanism, uh that you come to understand that all in all, the earth is a pretty friendly place. Well, in a way that's uh a gross understatement, but it is a beautiful thing to think about because uh we may not get that sort of information from uh the mainstream media. It's a oh in all, it's a friendly place. Well, there's something to be afraid of left and right, you know. Now, um when we merge with uh anything, and when we open ourselves up to communication, including from creative objects, this this does require concentration. And the shamanic journey uh requires concentration. Um so this is really good practice, uh absolutely. Um in fact, it's this idea of concentration, of actually energy that you expect uh experience that goes into this thought that if you were to work shamanically for someone else, say you go to your own helping spirits with a question, or you uh uh do some sort of other shamanic work on behalf of others, uh yes, it's gonna take concentration, and that concentration is a sacrifice that you're making on behalf of someone else. And uh we like to say that the spirits particularly honor us and are very happy uh that uh we are making a sacrifice for someone else. And I've noticed that uh sometimes uh working shamanically for someone else, that good things just come into my life. Maybe uh a new friend or uh uh uh a new insight or what have you. So, you know, there's by the way, there's always an exchange of some sort, you know. Uh and as we uh understand the aliveness of uh man-created uh uh objects, well, uh when we look inside a person's body looking for spirits that can be sources of pain or illness, uh surely if this is alive and we've experienced this aliveness, we uh can know without a doubt that what we're viewing inside a person's body, whether we perceive them as uh a nest of ants or uh a bunch of rusty nails or what have you, that what we're perceiving is also alive. Yeah. If this can be alive, what we see in a person's body, when we're looking uh uh for uh disease-causing spirits, that is certainly alive.

Kerri 38:59

So And so so extending that a bit more, Dana,

Expanding Relationships with Nature

Kerri 39:05

after this workshop, when someone has completed this workshop, what would what advice would you give for a student to continue to build relationships with the spirits of the objects that in their surroundings? What would you tell them to do?

Dana 39:22

Well, I would uh uh advise them to continue to do the exercises that we do in the workshop and connect with the other aspects of nature either through well, through the journey, certainly, but also to directly communicate with uh the spirits of uh the plants, of the insects, of the birds, whatever, outside uh directly one-on-one. Um I would suggest uh uh a simple little um exercise that they do, that they go out into the world and take some tobacco, an offering, right? And when they see something that is um particularly beautiful or impressive, they simply toss the tobacco toward it and and and and honor it, right? And and r and remember that not only is the waterfall an amazing physical phenomenon, containing water, which is the basis of all uh uh biological life here, pretty much, uh and it's so beautiful and powerful, but remembering then also there's a spiritual component to the waterfall as well. So I would suggest that they remember not only that there is so much intelligence out there, and so when they walk through the woods or walk up uh uh a trail uh uh uh on a mountainside, that they simply uh focus on the aliveness, not only physical aliveness, but spiritual aliveness of everything. And um yeah, uh t that they embody the shamanic worldview and even expand their uh shamanic worldview. Now, Carlos Castaneda in one of his books said we won't ever understand it. We won't ever unravel its secrets. We must treat the world as it is, a sheer mystery. But we can experience the this world. We may not understand it fully ever, and do we really want to? I prefer that the world remain a mystery because it is, at least to me. I'd rather have a sense of wonder and then uh go around in my life thinking I know it all. First of all, how how obnoxious can you be? But we can experience the world through um through our shamanic experience and also just directly uh to have an appreciation an appreciation of uh this earth that gives us our lives, that feeds us. Um there's a poem uh in um uh from the same book that we find, uh the Chukchi poem, which I recited earlier. Uh it comes from the uh yeah, it's a poem uh that comes from Spirit Spirit Shaman songs, which is available through Internet Archives at no cost, by the way. Song about the spirit of the sea, oh you men and women. Now listen to me. Look to the sea, to the spirit woman who lives beneath the waves. The spirit woman deep beneath the waves, she takes her dish, she fills it up, she takes her dish, shoves it out, all kinds of food for us. Oh you men, now listen to me. She makes us glad. She feeds us. She makes us glad. She feeds us. And every living thing near here, she feeds. So I mean how wonderful what a what a a beautiful way to uh experience the world and ultimately what can we get from this workshop? And I think all shamanic work is this deep appreciation and us of our earth and also uh a deep humility.

Kerri 43:56

Yeah.

Dana 43:57

Yeah, uh a humility. Uh hopefully uh that uh we can body uh uh and uh you know uh

Returning to Awe and Wonder

Dana 44:07

doing shamanism is a return in some ways to the perceptions of our childhood uh uh that entail wonder at the uh this amazing world, but it's also uh uh a return to the uh visions and um experiences of our ancestors who uh were maybe a little more in touch with the wonders of this world, the power of this world uh as well.

Kerri 44:41

Well with that said, Dana, I just want to thank you so much for the poetry, for the stories, for helping us return to those youthful skills that we had with connecting with nature and spirituality, and for helping us remember that this workshop helps us build connections with everything, with and really connecting with that awe, that wonder, that respect and gratitude. And the more we connect with that, the more we can build shamanic power.

Dana 45:15

Yeah, absolutely. And I might add, you know, we really pack it in in this workshop. We really do a number of things. And uh wow it is really uh uh uh uh even if I do say so myself uh one of my favorite uh workshops uh and one of the most powerful uh workshops that the Foundation uh presents. So I hope that people will uh take advantage of uh the opportunity to spend a little time uh three and a half to four hours a day for two days to um to do this training. Yeah well with that said for our listeners if you'd like to learn more about this workshop or any other workshop from the foundation like to learn more about Dana as an instructor and when you can take classes from him please check us out at shamanism.org thank you thank you so much Carrie uh it was an honor uh to be with you and um thank you for your wonderful questions thank you bye bye thank you all right we'll see you bye