Why Shamanism Now - A Practical Path to Authenticity

What actions are required to unite a nation divided? If we are not insane (and one wonders these days) then we must innovate and take new actions if we are to create a different outcome. Shamanic skills give us the ability to engage spirit in creating different actions through direct revelation and asking for help. But will we have the courage to explore what is needed with a whole-heart and commitment to a greater, shared truth. And will we have the courage to take those actions? Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she explores how easily we can slip into shadow when our world asks us to act consciously from the heart. Will we continue to allow our minds to be hijacked by the media or will we use our shamanic skills to take the power to shape our collective dream? Will we rise to the hope of our spirit or allow that dream to continue to be rendered impotent and invisible. And in our body’s disgust with the whole thing, will we slip into rebellion?

Now that the ugly racist, sexist, violent, ignorant underbelly of America is exposed for the world to see, will we learn to heal the wounds of our culture? Will we simply move on to ogle the next bloody accident of our culture, get distracted by the next shiny thing, or martyr ourselves on the sad cruelty of our world? Why would we be such cowards when the world is full of beauty and blessings? This ugly underbelly is a blessing in disguise, a gift, a calling to the human you are dreaming yourself to become. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she explores how we use our shamanic skills to turn the trauma of this election year into medicine. Can we step up into the disease within our culture and be the healing salve of inclusion, vulnerability, and the honesty necessary to embrace being the change we are seeking?

True visionaries are a dime a dozen. Humanity is full of great ideas. What we find in short supply are those people who will actually manifest a new vision. These are people who have the capacity to stay out of fantasy thinking, hold two divergent thoughts simultaneously and tirelessly, and work on all parts of the project indefatigably. Vision is easily distorted by doubt, perceiving reality as a limitation, and denying the truth because you simply don’t like it. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she explores what it takes to manifest a truly new vision. With the help of spirit and shamanic skills we can see through the lies we tell ourselves that keep us from doing good work and see through the hype and illusion to the actual power of our vote.

Leading is a thankless job, whether you lead a community garden or a nation. People criticize, blame, and project their unacknowledged flawed selves onto leaders without hesitation and regardless of fact or fiction. People project their unlived dreams and desires on to leaders so that they do not have to take full responsibility for the life they are unwilling to create for themselves. The contemporary dynamic between the leader and those led is deeply steep in shadow and misuse of power. If we are to become a new people who can write a new story then we must drag our relationship with leaders out of the shadow. Only then can we come into right relationship with our power and cultivate the capacity to lead well and to be led. Join host and shaman, Christian Pratt, as she explores the shamanic values that shape a new vision of leadership and the shamanic skills needed to bring that vision into the world.

Timespirits exist in the shared field and can motivate the actions of individuals in the collective. The more unaware you are of your self and the timespirits that exist in your field the more easily you become possessed and motivated by them. Some timespirits are in the forefront like the forced roles of racism while others are in the background like the unknown path of diversity. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she explores the influence of timespirits in shamanic practice. Conscious engagement with timespirits can help us to transform ourselves individually, create lasting and resilient shamanic communities, and work within non-shamanic communities to create the humane, informed, abundant, and inspirited ways of living together that celebrate all life.

What are the tangible ways we can engage shamanic skills to approach both systemic racism and our own internalized racism? They begin when we engage the Visionary to access the power of shared dreaming and the Ancestral Helping Spirits to learn from those who have gone before us. Those who colonized North America dreamed of religious freedom, but hypocritically took action, perpetrating genocide and slavery, to ensure freedom only for themselves. Today we live in that hypocrisy, not in that dream. Join host, Christina Pratt and her guest, Langston Kahn, as they explore what is necessary to step out of the shadows of our unresolved past and weave a new vision. How can we use our shamanic skills together to go beyond the limited imagination of our ancestors and make the medicine we need from the great diversity of our time.

Can contemporary American’s transform their consciousness—and unconsciousness— in their engagement with systemic racism? Shamanic practice offers tangible ways we can approach the transformation of our own internalized racism. When we choose to engage powerfully and skillfully on our selves in this moment we become the people who can then transform the system itself. Join host Christina Pratt and her guest Langston Kahn as they continue their exploration of how we can effectively engage the double wounding of racism and the roots of this cultural disease from a shamanic perspective. There are ways to use our shamanic skills to make new medicine for this ancient illness and step up, together as humanity, to shape a social fabric our descendants would be honored to inherit.

The poison arrow of racism is a double wound. It is the arrow—the direct injustice inherent in the act that harms the heart and mind. It is the poison—the insidious, creeping awareness that the larger system condones the injustice, righteously maintaining a double standard that has no basis in scientific or spiritual truth. Does shamanism offer contemporary American consciousness a possibility of true transformation? Join host Christina Pratt and her guest Langston Kahn as they explore the double wounding of racism and the roots of this cultural disease from a shamanic perspective. Can we use our shamanic skills to make new medicine for an ancient illness, to lean effectively into our own discomfort, and shape a social fabric our descendants would be honored to inherit?

The collusive, fearful, racist underbelly of the American culture has been exposed by the hate-filled rhetoric, violence, and lies of the current presidential race. The avoidance of social issues condoned by the 1980’s politics of political correctness have done precisely what avoidance does, allow that which we are avoiding to grow unchecked. In this same timeframe shamanism has blossomed into contemporary American consciousness offering a possibility of transformation. Join host Christina Pratt and her guest Langston Kahn as they explore the double wounding of racism and the roots of this cultural disease from a shamanic perspective. Can we use our shamanic skills to make new medicine for an ancient illness, to lean effectively into our own discomfort, and shape a social fabric our descendants would be honored to inherit?

Blessings are the way to give life to that which you value, to give it strength and help it to survive and to thrive. Through blessings we can give life and protection to what is new and uncertain. They are a way to give strength to that which doesn’t have strength yet, like a new story for a new world, and to give it time to take shape and build resonance. Blessings can be a formal, complex ritual process or a simple act of love, like calling on the spirits of the family totem to protect a child as she leaves for school. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she explores the power of blessings and how we can use them with intention to create change in these challenging times. Blessings call on energies of the invisible world, like elementals, nature spirits, and angels, and ask for their participation in our lives in specific ways. Whether simple or grand, our blessings are most powerful when they are an expression of a deep relationship with spirit, one that we have already cultivated with our faith, gratitude, and practice.

Faith does not require religion and is often stronger without it. Faith is the power to stand in the Unknown with uncertainty and discomfort and take a new step forward anyway… and then another… and then another. It is the power to do what hasn’t been done and what feels impossible. We must cultivate the capacity for faith, barrels of it, or we will not be able to be the change that we seek. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, this week as she explores faith and the need to cultivate faith that does not inspire separation from others via religion, race, or nationality. To rise to the challenges of our time we must know without ever getting proof that we were born to be the medicine for the illness, disease, and unrest of our time. And that it will require faith, again and again, to surrender who we are for who we could become so that we can be that medicine. Faith is power.

Gratitude is a choice to see beyond the surface of instant gratification. Gratitude is not a luxury for people who get what they want, but a requirement for anyone who wants the help of spirit with the impossible. When we are without gratitude we are without perspective. The visionary capacity of the heart slips into doubt, we fixate on what is not working, and blame others for our problems. When we orient in gratitude, we are forced out of an attitude of entitlement and blame. Only then can we see the affects of our own internalized racism, sexism, and other systems of hatred and fear. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she explores the power of gratitude and why it is necessary in these challenging times. Gratitude must be made concrete through action and intent. The power engages when you show gratitude at all times, make every gesture of your life a labor of love and retribution for the gifts you receive and will receive.

To bring our mature courageous hearts into action in the world we must be resilient. But resiliency is the first casualty in a culture that avoids discomfort through mood altering prescription drugs, escaping through recreational drugs, and learning skills to clear the discomfort away, without ever asking why. The root of resiliency is in the courage to heal the deeps wounds of your past, to risk stepping through fear into a new way of life, and to engage in the mundane daily practices that cultivate a robust inner life. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she explores why any true path of healing or raising consciousness cultivates resiliency. Living your authentic life is not accomplished by "special snowflakes" who seek to control their environment, but by courageous and resilient, whole-hearted people who aren’t afraid to make a mess.

The highly skilled wounded child arises when an adult learns an assortment of excellent skills to move out of the pain caused today by their unreconciled childhood without healing the wounds of that childhood along the path of that journey. The highly skilled wounded child tends to over-react and under-react regularly and then take responsibility for using their skillset to clear the painful reaction without investigating why they over or under reacted in the first place. They learn to clearly communicate to others how the others need to behave differently without seeing their own righteous positionality. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she explores the growing phenomenon of the highly skilled wounded child, how to recognize this behavior in your self, and most importantly, how we can use our shamanic skills to heal the wounds of the past, cultivate resiliency, and bring our mature courageous hearts into action in the world.

Discernment, the ability to accurately tell one thing from another, is a necessary quality of wisdom, along with objectivity and clarity. Cultivating discernment is critical for living an emotionally and energetically healthy life. It is even more essential when we engage in the invisible worlds as we do in shamanic practice. Until we learn to discern we will not be interpreting energies, messages, or experiences accurately. “At the most basic level discernment requires differentiation of self from other,” explains our guest, Mary Shutan, creator of “The Discernment Course.” Join us this week as Mary joins host, Christina Pratt, to explore the steps to cultivate discernment and the issues that arise when we skip that basic step in our development. When we reframe our lack of discernment as super sensitivity or empathy we undermine our health and the development of our true gifts.