Summary: Tom Cowan, a shamanic practitioner of Celtic visionary and healing techniques, joins us this week to discuss “Self in Service,” the Society of Shamanic Practitioners (SSP) 7th annual conference. Tom is a much loved teacher and an internationally respected author, lecturer, and tour leader. He is also a founding board member of the SSP. This year’s conference is the first exploration as a community into of one aspect of the SSP’s mission: learning to practice shamanism without borders and to respond to the voices of the wounded within the Land. These will be intense days of experiential shamanism. This year the conference format is radically changed to allow for large and small groups to focus healing responses to places and beings that have suffered traumatic experiences. This new structure is designed so that all the steps involved in responding to trauma from natural disasters are activities attendees shall undertake and do together, including learning how to tend and grow themselves. Fundamental to Shamanism Without Borders is the belief that as people practicing this medicine, it is incumbent to learn what the disasters teach us individually while protecting ourselves from being part of the disaster.
