Within shamanism death is understood as a passage and a crossing over to the Land of the Dead and a return to the ancestors or to source and serving the healing in the dying process is part of serving the healing in life One of the distinguishing features of shamanism is that shamans not only help the living, but also the dying and the deceased. As the soul guide or psychopomp, the shaman transports the souls of the dead home, assuring that soul’s safe and complete journey through the death process. The shaman also functions as a psychopomp for souls who, though dead for a long time, have not completed their passage to the Land of the Dead. On this course you will be trained in how to prepare the dying for the journey ahead and to escort the soul when its time on earth is done.

During this six-day intensive course participants will be trained in dealing with the two most prevalent forms of illness from a shamanic perspective, namely soul loss and harmful object intrusions. We shall learn how soul loss occurs and will experientially learn how to find or track a soul and bring it back to a person. We shall explore how this can be effective in working with survivors of abuse, accidents, people who have undergone surgery and other emotional and physical traumas, as well as people dealing with such issues as alcoholism and drug abuse. Participants will also be trained in methods of removing harmful energy intrusions from a patient’s body which typically cause weakness, malaise, localised pain or discomfort, illness or death, depending on the type of energy intrusion and how long it has been in the patients body. These misplaced energies can be removed through sucking out the intrusions or by using ‘spirit hands’ to pull the intrusions out, and the training explores in detail how to locate, identify and remove these object intrusions in a fashion that is safe for both the practitioner and the patient alike.

As well as working with techniques and practices regarding soul retrieval and shamanic extraction, the training will also focus on life after healing — how we create healthier lives for ourselves and others after the healing has taken place. This will be accomplished through shamanic journey, ritual and ceremony.

During this six-day intensive course each participant will act as a shaman to learn the techniques and they will also have the opportunity to have the lost parts of themselves retrieved and intrusions removed. This training is specifically designed for those people who wish to deepen their shamanic work and bring shamanic healing work into their practice with others.

Shamans have always known that ‘everything that is, is alive’, and that nature is the visible face of spirit. On this residential course the specific focus of the work will be working with both nature spirits and the spirits of nature, as a source of healing power, personal and planetary healing. This is an opportunity to connect with nature and the spirits to discover more about how to work together at this time of global ecological crisis, and where we can begin to hear and learn from the silent knowledge of the Earth herself and the spirits that animate her.