Our hearts expand as we embrace the enormity of all the pain being suffered by the people and all living beings in Japan who have been impacted by the earthquake and the tsunami.

When we feel that our hearts are breaking as we watch levels of suffering in actuality our hearts are expanding allowing us to be stronger and deeper channels of love and light.

As a shamanic community we ask our helping spirits and the helping spirits of Japan to send healing and peace to those in need.

Let us journey deep within ourselves transcending our egos and experience the vastness of our spiritual light and love and transmitting radiance to Japan.

Move out of a place of pity for the suffering you see and focus on the strong spirit of the people, all of life, and the land itself. In this way you project strength which leads to a foundation of support for all in need.

Let us sing songs of love and healing to the earth, the waters of the world, the air, and to the element of fire. Go outside and sing!

The day the earthquake and tsunami occurred in Japan was when astrologically the planet Uranus moved into Aries marking the beginning of a cycle that will effect us for the next 84 years. The planet Uranus in astrology is seen as the planet of earthquakes and unexpected and sudden change.

We have already been seeing extreme environmental, political, and economic changes. And it does seem like a way of life on this planet continues to dissolve.

We have not been living in a disharmonious fashion on this earth. And the elements of earth, water, air, and fire are mirroring back to us our extreme way of life.

As a collective we have been feeding the energy of change with how much discussion has been going on about big changes that will occur as we continue to move towards a new evolution of consciousness.

Think about how many millions of people have been reading books, listening to lectures, and having discussions about earth changes coming. Reflect on the energies you have been feeding. As a collective we have been feeding the energies of dissolution, discreation, and dismemberment.

It is time for us focus on what we have learned from our shamanic work:

Shamanism is a practice of direct revelation. We should all be strengthening our personal connections with our helping spirits so that we can ask for guidance of how we can help to alleviate pain and suffering as we experience such life changing events in our own lives and the world around us.

We need to strengthen our spiritual connections so that we can always be open to receive spiritual information when we need it.

Spend a lot of time in nature connecting with the elements and the heartbeat of the earth. Reflect on how you can live a shamanic way of life that embraces beauty, harmony, honor and respect for all of life. When we as a collective start to live a harmonious way of life we will see the elements around us reflect back a state of harmony.

Learn to read the omens that nature will continue to show to help guide you.

We must learn to honor the rite of passage and initiation that humankind is going through. We are experiencing levels of death on many levels. Shamanism teaches us that death is not an end but rather is a transition.

In the bible it says that without a vision the people will perish. Shamanism teaches us that we are the dreamers of our world. Part of living shamanism as a way of life is to be able to surrender to our deep spiritual wisdom and be the dreamers to help birth a new vision of a healthy way of life. We need to be able to hold a vision that the collective can move towards as the old is dismembered. Reflect on the vision you want to be projecting into the world right now and make changes to your vision to lead to a desired outcome.

Build up your spiritual muscles! You cannot be a shamanic practitioner without living a shamanic way of life.

Let us together hold the planet in love.

Remember that the media moves on after covering environmental, political, and economic events. People and all of life are still suffering the effects of the earthquake in Haiti and in New Zealand, the oil spill in the Gulf, the floods in Australia, the extreme weather in the U.S. – these are just to name a few. People in the Middle East are still fighting for freedom.

All of life needs us to be a channel of light, love, and spiritual healing. We are one collective. We are not separate cultures, separate countries. We are going through an initiation together. Let us do our work and live our lives in a good way. That is how we can be in service to the whole.

For those who are newer to journeying, you can go to the Lowerworld or the Upperworld and speak to your helping spirits to ask this question.  If you get a yes in answer to this question, then you can journey on:

What on-going work can I do with my helping spirits to cure the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico?

DO what you are directed to do, and be sure to follow the Helping Spirits counsel to the letter.

For friends and others who do not journey, I would ask that you do whatever spiritual work you do, and dedicate that work to serving all of the peoples — animal, plant, etc — who are sick and dying as well as to asking the earth for her forgiveness in cutting open her body until it bled.

On another note, this is THE time to write senators, congress people, all elected
officials — including Obama — to stop the lunacy of re-instituting off-shore drilling.

For myself, I think of the Atlantic Spotted Dolphins I have been privileged to swim with (and love) in Bimini, and their cousins in the gulf. We MUST not close our eyes to the pain, but continue to seek the brave compassion we must have to look, work, examine every one of our choices to be certain we are not cooperating consciously in adopting the culture’s biggest disease — using animals, plants, all of nature as our personal Walmart. It is time to WORK at reparation.

I hope you will contact others you know and spread the word. In addition to doing all we can in ordinary reality to help, this work is very important, too. Serve Grandmother.

Bear Hugs,
Lora Jansson

I am writing to try to clear up some of the misunderstandings that have arisen recently about what we plan to do in Santa Cruz, particularly the rumor that we are planning to send teams of SSP members into foreign countries.
While it’s true that the French organization Doctors Without Borders sends medical teams into disaster areas around the world to assist local rescue efforts, we know that a shamanic organization will most likely look and operate very differently.  Nevertheless we believe that our unique shamanic perspectives could assist in tending the suffering of land, animals, and people when a disaster occurs.  We feel strongly that a shamanic presence, whether physical or in spirit, can help those who find their “normal” life patterns seriously disrupted by either natural occurrences or those created by human activities.  We have scouted out a number of sites where disasters have struck Santa Cruz County over the years.   We will select several of these and create teams of practitioners to visit these sites to see what kind of shamanic tending they still need.  Some of our work will be on site; some will be done remotely from the conference center.

Do we know what we will do yet?
No.

There are many important issues to consider when a team of us, or even one of us, uses our shamanic skills to alleviate suffering and help restore balance to disrupted life.
We don’t yet know exactly what procedures will seem appropriate for different crisis scenarios. The conference will be an invaluable opportunity to address these issues theoretically and practically by working in stressed environments. The conference will be a learning experience for all of us.

First we must discover what’s present at these sites—what Beings and life forms need tending, need a shamanic presence.
Then we must learn what the place itself—the people, animals, land, spirits—expect or ask of us. Last we must discover how to use shamanism for the good of the Beings who dwell in these areas.  Carol Proudfoot Edgar, who has lived and practiced shamanism in Santa Cruz for many years, and Susan Gilliland, who lives in nearby San Jose, are our guides and are mapping out the areas where we will work.  We know that what we do in this one small part of the world that has had some devastating natural disruptions over the years could serve as a model for similar work in other areas, perhaps even near our own homes.  We will learn what to do, what not to do, and how to transcend our personal borders and boundaries that prevent our shamanic practice from developing and reaching out into new and challenging areas of need.   In a world that is becoming more globalized every day, some of us should be using our skills and wisdom in a global context.

We expect that some or many of our assumptions about what is “correct shamanic practice” may need to be rethought.
For example, what ethical considerations apply and do not apply in the midst of death, chaos, and confusion? What Beings need to give their consent before we can work with them or their land?  If we were physically present at a disaster in a land with a strong shamanic tradition, could we find ways to cooperate with local shamans, assuming they were not killed or injured? How do we work in areas that may never have had a strong tradition of shamanism or no longer have one? What kinds of shamanic tending can we do remotely?  What ethical guidelines apply or do not apply when working remotely at a time of crisis?  Are there ways to provide shamanic assistance to people of a different culture than our own with their own understandings of life, death, spirits, and wellbeing? What kinds of shamanic activities could be helpful during the disaster, after the disaster, during the recovery, and to mark the anniversaries of these events?

These questions and others may look different every time we go into unfamiliar terrain even if it’s only a few miles from where we live.
Each crisis calls for unique responses but grounded in experience.  Emergencies demand that people transcend their boundaries of comfort, safety, and action.  We may have to overcome our culture’s fear of making mistakes and not doing everything perfectly.

I’d like to share with you comments made by one of Mongolia’s famous and revered shamans, Zaarin Byambadorj Dondog (in the current Shaman’s Drum, #82, p. 38):

At the present time, the human race is out of touch with mother earth, father heaven, and the natural world. . . .There is great danger of fire, snowstorms, floods, and earthquakes. For this reason, the shamans of the earth need to work together to bring cleansing and healing to the earth, and to do rituals together to restore balance.  Because this cleansing and healing has not been done, the present state of the earth is causing many problems and illnesses.  This is the great work that shamans are now required to do.

At this year’s conference in Santa Cruz we hope to learn ways to carry out this strong directive.

From Tom Cowan, PhD
On behalf of the Conference Faculty and the SSP Board of Directors