Shamanic Healing: Coming Home to Sacred Reciprocity
Why Shamanism? Why Now?
We are living in a spiritual crisis of unprecedented scale. As you watch the world burn, fascists rise, and oligarchs extract ever more from the rest of us, you might think the crisis is political. Or economic. Or cultural. And you wouldn’t be wrong.
But at its core, we are living through the culmination of a vast spiritual crisis, a crisis that has grown and spread violently for thousands of years.
It is the crisis of modernity: the orphaning of the vast majority of people from the Mother Earth. The tearing of most of us, one way or another, from our indigenous spiritual traditions. The forgetting of the sacred interconnection of all life and our belonging to it.
This crisis lives not just at the global or national scale. It permeates our daily lives, in ways we may not even recognize, in moments large and small:
…When we struggle with depression and anxiety, the sense that something is terribly wrong, and that we have been cheated out of something precious.
…When we feel called to something greater — to play a role in healing our communities and our relationship to the Earth — and are afraid to take the next step;
…When we shrink ourselves because we feel bad for taking up space on this planet.
…When we feel the tension between the need to make ends meet, and the desire to live lives of meaning, service, and joy.
…When we find ourselves believing that we are not good enough, that there is something wrong with us.
…When we buy food at the grocery store and consume it without a thought of saying thank you to those who gave their lives so that we may live.
…When we spend our evenings doomscrolling or watching TV because there is no place to go to tell stories around a fire.
…Even when we go for a hike, a ride, or a ski, and treat the natural world as a vast playground, not once kneeling on the earth in reverence.
…When we feel we don’t have time to rest.
…When we click “purchase” – without a thought to the impact on ecosystems.
…When we don’t know how to connect with spirit, because the church is a place of judgment, division and violence, because the church is where we learned that our bodies are wrong or sinful or “unnatural,” because the church teaches (white) man’s dominion over the Earth.
…When we fear death, or don’t know how to show up for people who have lost a loved one.
…When therapy, or activism, or meditation helps us get by, but doesn’t heal…
Shamanic Journeying Offers a Way Home
People in nature-based cultures have practiced shamanism in various forms for tens of thousands of years, on every continent.
Shamanism is rooted in animism, the worldview held by indigenous peoples across the globe and for most of human history, that the more-than-human world is alive, sentient, and our kin. Rivers, mountains, animals, plants, and stars are not “natural resources” or the set design for some grand play starring humans. They are beings with their own agency, wisdom, and gifts.
In shamanic cosmology, each of us has Helping Spirits: guides who can appear as Power Animals, Ancestral Teachers, or elements of the natural world itself – the Earth Mother, a river, a tree, a star. These Helping Spirits are living presences who offer guidance, healing, and love.
The shamanic journey is the practice of communicating with these Helping Spirits and the spirits of nature. In order to embark on this sort of journey, rather than hopping in a car, we enter a state of consciousness where the critical, analytical, rational mind (that is, the mind that has been conditioned by the culture of domination), takes a back seat, and our creative, intuitive, loving heart and soul step forward. Different cultures enter this “shamanic consciousness” in various ways, some through plant medicines such as ayahuasca, others simply through the monotonous beat of a drum, which is the method I offer.
Over the hundreds of journeys I have facilitated for women, men, nonbinary people, young adults and elders, I have had the honor of witnessing profound transformation. I have watched people:
Move from living with a baseline of self-doubt, self-criticism, depression, anxiety, and disempowerment, to a baseline of personal power, unconditional self-acceptance, self-love, playfulness and joy;
Reclaim the vital parts of themselves that trauma forced into hiding, and welcome those parts home (the shamanic practice known as soul retrieval);
Find a place to bring their grief for the world, and learn to carry it without being crushed by it;
Shift out of hopelessness, apathy, and despair, and into a sense of purpose and belonging;
Lean into death in the shamanic realm, and return with a felt sense of liberation, lightness, and fearlessness that no amount of talking about death can produce;
Get to know their Soul-Spirit self and discover that it is not broken but full of love, playfulness, and delight!
Learn through felt, visionary experience that they belong to the web of life. That animals, trees, rivers, mountains, and stars are our relatives. That we are not alone, and never were. We simply forgot.
How I Work: Journeying Out Loud
I have trained for some twenty years in the lineage of Sandra Ingerman, one of the world's foremost shamanic teachers and a leading voice and co-creator of the practices of “core shamanism,” first systematized by anthropologist Michael Harner from his study of shamanic traditions across cultures and continents.
(I am keenly aware that core shamanism raises legitimate questions about cultural appropriation and right relationship. I address them directly on my FAQ page.)
Most practitioners in the core shamanism lineage journey silently while you, the client, rest comfortably until they are finished. Afterward, they summarize what happened.
That is not how I work.
In my shamanic journeys with clients, I narrate what is happening in real time, as it unfolds. This means you can travel with me. You can feel each offering from Spirit. You notice how it lands in your body, your heart, your mind. You can say “yes! that makes complete sense, here's why!” Or, “I notice my chest is tightening.” And the Helping Spirits respond to you. The journey becomes a conversation.
This, as it turns out, is closer to how many healers work in many indigenous cultures, including the Siberian culture from which the word "shaman" originates. (Silent journeying was adopted as the core shamanic journey practice so large groups of people could learn it in a workshop setting.)
What this means for you is significant. If you've ever tried to meditate and felt like you were failing, you don't have to quiet your mind on your own. If you can follow a story, you can journey with me. I will guide you through it, the way a skilled guide walks beside you on an unfamiliar trail. Many of my clients are surprised to find that within a single session, they begin to co-create the journey with me, seeing things unfold in real time, receiving their own direct revelation and guidance from Spirit. It’s like a back-door to learning how to journey for yourself, without the pressure and challenge of solo work.
This means that you are not a passive recipient of this work. We create it together.
Working Together
I offer shamanic journeys by phone and in person, where the mountains meet the desert in Mancos, Colorado (a tiny town in the Four Corners region of southwest Colorado, between Durango and Cortez).
Because we connect with Helping Spirits through the heart and inner vision rather than outer vision, nothing is lost in a phone journey. In fact, many clients find it freeing to discover they can access their Helping Spirits from their own home.
Sessions generally run about an hour, sometimes longer. Because time does not work in the same ways in shamanic consciousness as it does, for example, in a therapy session, I don’t set a limit and instead charge a flat fee:
Introductory Shamanic Journey: $225*
Stand-Alone Session (after the Introductory Journey): $200*
Ongoing sessions (weekly or biweekly commitment): $175*^
*A sliding scale is available by conversation for those who need it, including folks in our local community here in the Four Corners.
^I believe the deepest healing happens in ongoing work, and I've structured my pricing to make that accessible.
I also offer immersive retreats in shamanic journeying, both for beginner and advanced students. A retreat is a place where you can take a deep dive into the process, in community, and in relationship to the land. Click here for my current retreat offerings.
The Next Step:
If this discussion enlivens you or awakens longing or hope, the next step is to schedule a free, 20-minute phone consultation. We'll talk about what you're looking for, you'll have a chance to ask me questions, and we'll determine together whether we're a good fit.
You can reach me at kris@cedartreehealing.org or fill out the form below to schedule your consultation.
I look forward to hearing what brought you here!
Still have questions?
I have answers! Check out my shamanism FAQ page.