Inspiring accounts from renowned contemporary working shamans about their first moments of spiritual epiphany

• With contributions by Sandra Ingerman, Hank Wesselman, John Perkins, Alberto Villoldo, Lewis Mehl-Madrona, Tom Cowan, Lynn Andrews, Linda Star Wolf, and others

• Also includes shamanic awakening experiences from those with unique shamanic paths--teachers, mothers, social workers, academics, and even rappers

How does one receive the “call” to enter onto the shamanic path? What causes some people to change their safe, uneventful, and ordinary lives and start on a spiritual search? For many it is a singular instant, a flash when the mystical reveals itself and the person is drawn into the world of shamanic power. For a few, it is a more gradual awakening, filled with numinous events that build upon one another until the calling of the shamanic path can no longer be ignored.

In this book of remarkable stories, we learn firsthand about the many different forms of the “aha” moment of shamanic awakening, whether they arise from ceremony, near-death experiences, dream messages, or entheogenic substances. We travel alongside Sandra Ingerman, Hank Wesselman, John Perkins, Alberto Villoldo, Lewis Mehl-Madrona, Tom Cowan, Lynn Andrews, Linda Star Wolf, and other well-known shamanic practitioners as they begin their transformations into the prominent shamans we know them as. We experience the real-life shamanic epiphanies of those with unique shamanic paths--teachers, mothers, social workers, academics, healers, and even rappers who have all experienced a moment in time in which they were awakened and the shamanic path showed itself to them.

As each of these unique and beautiful stories of unexpected realization, insight, and inspiration unfolds, we see how these single moments--usually entirely unexpected--are able to transform the individual’s life, clearing their vision and allowing a new consciousness to emerge. As a whole, this collection paints a breathtaking portrait of the intricacies of the shamanic path and the paradigm shift of which we all are part.

Itzhak Beery is an internationally recognized shamanic healer and teacher. He was initiated into the Circle of 24 Yachaks by his Quechua teacher in Ecuador and by Amazonian Kanamari Pag讠He has also trained intensively with other elders from South and North America. The founder of ShamanPortal.org and cofounder of the New York Shamanic Circle, he is on the faculty of New York Open Center. The author of The Gift of Shamanism, he lives in New York.

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Relevance of Shamanism
      By Itzhak Beery

1    The Three Stages of Spiritual Unfolding
      By Hank Wesselman

2    Shamanic Impact: From Child to Crone
      By Dana Jefferson

3    Urban Shamanism: Treating Depression Using Shamanic Healing Practices
      By Ellie Zarrabian

4    Shamanic Ecstasy
      By Alberto Villoldo

5    The Call to Service
      By Sandra Ingerman

6    Raptor Medicine: A Portal to Shamanic Beginnings
      By Thomas J. Mock

7    A Mountain’s Light
      By Ginny Anderson

8    Journey about Love Doctoring
      By Katharine Weiser

9    A Most Extraordinary Vision on the Power Path
      By José Luis Stevens

10    Into the Red Path
        By Julián Katari

11    Mount Everest
        By Jan Engels-Smith

12    Rappers Don’t Go on Meditation Retreats
        By Bezi

13    Moon Struck
        By Mama Donna Henes

14    A Lifetime of Awakenings
        By Tom Cowan

15    Encounters with an Ally Plant
        By Carol L. Parker

16    Call of the Ancestors
        By Phillip Scott

17    There’s Been a Whole Lot of Grace
        By Reverend C. Ayla Joyce

18    An Experiential Journey toward Trust
        By Julie Dollman

19    Of Mountains and Men
        By Rebekah Brandon

20    Shamanism in the Amazon
        By Deborah Goleman Wolf

21    A Visit from Apó Lákay
        By Lane Wilcken

22    The Non-Dualism of Shamanic Psychotherapy
        By Joseph E. Doherty

23    Baby, I Was Born This Way
        By Linda Star Wolf

24    Shapeshifting: From Dying to Apprenticing
        By John Perkins

25    A Doorway Called Africa
        By Misha Hoo

26    Sacred Journey of a Lifetime
        By Holly Gray Schuck

27    A Pathway to Transformation
        By Raymond Nobriga

28    Shamanic Awakening      
        By Nadiya Nottingham

29    A Luminous Re-Membering
        By don Oscar Manuel Miro-Quesada

30    My Shamanic Initiation: The Fire of Transformation
        By Mona Rain (Smith)

31    The Power Animal Experience
        By Debra Fentress

32    Pandora’s Box
        By Wendy Whiteman

33    Sacred Place
        By Peter Brown

34    The Awakening of a Medicine Woman      
        By Katherine Gomez

35    Warrior Wisdom
        By Colleen Deatsman

36    Spirit Chases Me
        By Randall Sexton

37    Shamanic Impact
        By Niramisa Weiss

38    Pine Spirit Medicine
        By Rita Baruss

39    Communal Song and the Art of Healing
        By Elizabeth Cosmos

40    Temples of the Earth
        By Zacciah Blackburn

41    Direct Dialogue with Mother Earth
        By Michele Gieselman

42    The Calling
        By Michael Drake

43    The Gifts of Shamanism
        By Pamela Albee

44    The Story of a Bear
        By Leon Sproule

45    The Soul Union Community
        By Johanna Lor Rain Parry

46    The Slow Build of a Shamanic Path
        By Lewis Mehl-Madrona

47    Northern Lights
        By Lynn Andrews

Epilogue: Back Where It All Began
        By Itzhak Beery