Shamanism Without Borders

Self in Service
(The Practice of Shamanism Without Borders)

Two years ago at the annual SSP conference in Santa Fe, learning to practice shamanism without borders was introduced as one of the goals for the SSP community. The June 2010 conference will be focused on this topic under the broader issue of “Self in Service.”

The plan is to have a conference structure that will allow both the complete Circle of participants and small groups to focus healing responses to places and beings that have suffered traumatic experiences. We will work within the larger environment of Santa Cruz County, a place that bears wounds from earthquakes, mudslides, fires, and other natural disasters. These disasters have impacted in different ways including loss of lives, dislocation of both body and soul, and injury to many Beings living within the specific affected ecologies.

Our work will include learning ways to:
** assess the nature and extent of trauma
** engage with the Spirits and Beings within the affected environment
** create a team of helping Spirits
** apply specific healing methods appropriate to the place and Space
** develop groups that can be ‘response teams’ to such disasters
** discover the different healing approaches for working directly or remotely
** employ ceremonies that support and bless the healing work involved
** discern the applicability of our experiences to traumas in other areas
** help create a guidebook for the practice of Shamanism Without Borders
** tend personal issues that arise in doing this work

These will be intense days of experiential shamanism. Material will be sent prior to the conference to assist us all in being prepared to make maximum use of our time together. The conference gives us the opportunity to discover how to form ourselves into a shamanic community that can bring healing practices to any area that is struck by some disaster.

Our conference structure is designed so that all the steps involved in responding to trauma from natural disasters are activities we shall undertake and do together. This includes learning how to tend and grow ourselves under such circumstances.

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. We will conclude the weekend assessing what we learned together and a final ceremony of Blessing for Land and all Inhabitants.

The planners of this conference are responding to the many requests for us as shamanic practitioners to move beyond our usual healing boundaries and to tend to the voices of the wounded within the Land. At a time when climate changes are bringing unforeseen disasters to various places, it seems especially appropriate that our practice of shamanic healing includes the capacity for responding to these events. Together we can create new ways of healing and deepen our bonds as a shamanic community. We look forward with joy and purpose to our June conference of “Self in Service”.

— Carol Proudfoot-Edgar, Tom Cowan, Jose Stevens and Lena Stevens