Shamanic training

The Medicine Path
Shamanic training with John Hawken

Medicine is the power and the humility, the love and the wisdom
to attract creative and life-affirming energies to further our growth
and the fulfilment of our sacred dream.

This is a systematic presentation of shamanic philosophy, practices and ceremonies based on the teachings of the Twisted Hairs Society, a weaving together of several shamanic traditions of the native American and celtic peoples.

The Native American shamanic tradition is a living reminder of our own pre-industrial pre-agricultural lineage, when our ancestors as hunter-gatherers lived in harmony and balance with our planet Earth and with the minerals, plants and creatures that are part of her.

At this present time, when our exploitative practices and ownership attitudes towards nature are clearly unsustainable and threaten the destruction of that which feeds and supports us, many people are turning to the shamanic medicine wheel teachings for guidance and inspiration.

We will explore both intellectually and experientially the medicine wheel to learn new ways of understanding and relating to reality in all its manifestations with respect and equality. So we can experience, instead of ruling over, belonging to our world.

The teachings of the Medicine Path allow us to grow in many ways eg:

• From often childish point of view to grow into adulthood, perceiving the world with our heart-mind with clarity and understanding
• To find balance between our male and female polarities
• To dance our dance of energy to awaken our sacred dream
• To free ourselves from any burdens and karmic issues on the line karma – ancestors, to let go of our unconscious patterns

In this training you can learn:

• how not to be a victim of life, of events, of fate
• how not to be an exploiter of nature or of others
but
• to co-exist, interrelate and co-create
• to understand our connectedness with the four kingdoms of Grandmother Earth:mineral, plant, animal
and especially human, and with the ancestors and the spirit world, as well as the laws of life, sacred, natural, magical and karmic
• to understand events in terms of cause and effect on an energy level
• to take responsibility for ourselves, stand in the centre of our circle and influence life
not from our heads
not from our emotions
or from our power centre
but determining with our spirit.

The course consists of four cycles of four days and will cover:
• The source of the teachings
• What is medicine?
• What is a medicine wheel?
• The basic teaching wheels
• The Star Maiden Infinity Circle
• Creating ceremony (Calling the powers, The 4 elements and the 4 directions, The twenty count)
• Healing ceremonies: scanning and reading the energy body leading up to full shamanic healing circle of The Star Maiden Infinity Circle, light and dark arrows, balancing the shields end other healing rituals)
• Sweatlodge and other purification ceremonies
• Vision quest
• The energy body (the flowering tree teachings, the 20 chakras, the human shields, the assemblage points, the 10 eyes and 5 ears)
• Fire medicine teachings about sexuality (human relationship wheels, lovers masks wheel)
• Teachings about our life energy
(circle of foxes, trachet tyrants wheel, wheel of mistakes, council wheel)
• Building and balancing your energy (psychic defence, losing self importance and erasing personal history, the sacred teachings of the 7 arrows, orende and the laws of attraction and repulsion, orende and the larien: building your energy and opening your extrasensory gifts, sacred platform breathing techniques)
• Tislogi sacred dance of centring and connection
• Kiva dance
• Shamanic journeying and soul retrieval
• Drumming and sacred songs