HEART OF THE SHAMAN: foundations of shamanism online course
Join us from wherever you are
Our foundations of shamanism online course connects us with some of the fundamental teachings of the Medicine Wheel; it gives us the opportunity to tend our own relationship to the lineage; and it is a chance to do our own personal healing work – the most important foundation of all. The dates for our current course are below, and we would be honoured to see you there.
Chris shares foundational teachings of the lineage to give you practical skills that can support and inform your daily life. If you’re thinking of joining the Medicine Wheel shamanic practitioner training, this series is a great place to start!
The series is open to everyone – no prior experience is necessary. You are welcome to join us for an entire course, or session by session, as your time allows.
In this lineage, the foundations remain essential to our practice, no matter how experienced we are – it’s always a case of ‘beginners mind’. So you’ll find members of the teaching teams and past Medicine Wheel students alongside those joining us for the first time – all of us on our own personal healing journey, and grateful to be with our ‘allyu‘, our tribe of kindred souls, and our teachers from this wonderful tradition.
Course dates and times…
Join us for the whole course, or any session that your time allows! All classes are on a Wednesday at 7pm-9pm UK time.
October: 7th, 14th and 28th.
November: 4th, 11th, 18th, and 25th.
December: 2nd
The map of the Medicine Wheel: the path of the Earthkeeper
STEP 1: WEDNESDAY 7 OCTOBER 7PM-9PM UK
The ancient peoples left us maps to guide us, to help us to navigate challenging times, and teach us how to stay in balance and harmony so that we would be able to hold a still note and a vision of the future within the turmoil and upheaval of the present.
The Medicine Wheel is a map of human consciousness, a journey of growth and evolution. A map is always helpful when we feel lost, or stuck, when we can’t seem to find our way forward, or when we find ourselves going round in circles. Maps are useful, they help us to find our way, show us directions, but more useful still is to walk the territory, to experience first-hand the landscape; that way the map becomes a living experience, alive and dynamic.
Tonight we invite you to step with us into this map and discover this unique and powerful tradition that has inspired our own souls journey to wholeness. You will learn all about sacred space, and we’ll guide you on a journey around this beautiful medicine wheel that is a bridge (chakana) from where you are now, to where you would like to be.
See the world through the eyes of the shaman: the path of power
STEP 2: WEDNESDAY 14 OCTOBER 7PM-9PM UK
When we shift our perspective, the world around us also changes, and we can find that something that once appeared impossible or hopeless is suddenly transformed so that we see the gift in our situation, and an opportunity for something new to emerge.
The Archetypes that we work with in our Medicine Wheel training – Serpent, Jaguar, Hummingbird, and Eagle-Condor – help us to see our world through new eyes, to shift our perspective from one that feels caught in reaction to one that instead helps to restore balance and harmony. These lenses are powerful and transformational… and tonight you will discover how to use them.
These are the forces of nature, the same forces that create everything in the Universe. Serpent helps us to see what is actually happening; Jaguar helps us to see where we are caught in a drama; through the eyes of Hummingbird we see a new possibility, the gift and the learning, and here we find the nectar, the joy and sweetness of life; and Eagle-Condor helps us to soar and see the big picture from the place of pure energy.
This evening you will discover how to use these archetypical energies to shift your awareness, and your mindset from victimhood to empowerment. You’ll learn a powerful process that you can use in your everyday life and you will take away a meditation to help you see the world through these new eyes.
Honouring the ancestors: the path of wisdom
STEP 3: WEDNESDAY 21 OCTOBER 7PM-9PM UK
Tonight the veils between the worlds thin, and we are able to connect more easily with those who have gone before us. We will be remembering our ancestors, those whose shoulders we stand on. Think for a moment about how many struggles, how many battles, how much sadness, happiness, love, stories and hope for the future that our ancestors had to undergo for us to exist today. Their stories become our story.. like ‘hand-me-downs’ from generation to generation. Some of them gave us gifts that perhaps we didn’t want to receive. Tonight we travel back in time to receive the gift of their wisdom, their love and their dreams and hopes for the future. Wisdom that we can use to call on a new destiny, and gifts with which to create a new path into the future that is different from the past.
The power of stones to clear our energy field: the path of healing
STEP 4: WEDNESDAY 4 NOVEMBER 7PM-9PM UK
The Inca call this process Kuya Limpia. Kuya means medicine stone, and limpia means to clean.
Another of our allies in this tradition are the stone people. The stone people, with their ancient, quiet and powerful wisdom, can help us to remove the heavy energy that create dis-ease and discomfort in the mind, the body and the spirit.
Tonight, you will learn and experience for yourself this simple, practical and powerful process of clearing the energy body that invokes the bodies’ innate ability to heal itself.
For this class, you’ll need to bring with you two smooth stones that fit into the palm of your hand (not too big, and not too tiny) and which you can handle easily.
Chris explains everything you’ll need to know in order to do this process for yourself and you will be able to take this away and use it for those people you share your life with.
Restoring balance, coming home to the body: the path of peace
STEP 5: WEDNESDAY 11 NOVEMBER 7PM-9PM UK
In a world full of external stimulus over which we have little or no control, we can find ourselves caught in fight/flight/freeze/faint response. When we are on red alert, we become hypervigilant and we tend to either obsessively worry over things, over-react to situations, or ‘check out’ energetically. Or, if we go to freeze/faint mode we might put our head in the sand, and disappear ourselves. All of these strategies are useful up to a point, but long term they use up too much of our available energy, it’s no wonder we can often feel exhausted by life!
This week you will learn how to shift from ‘worrier’ to ‘warrior’!
We will share with you a practice that disengages that fight/flight reflex when it’s switched on, using two of the archetypical allies that we work with: Jaguar and Eagle/Condor. You’ll learn how to come back into your body after a shock or trauma; how to bring yourself and others back into a calm and peaceful state; and how to bring yourself into right relationship with the Earth.
Rites, rituals and the power of the Mesa: the path of initiations
STEP 6: WEDNESDAY 18 NOVEMBER 7PM-9PM UK
This week, we focus on the importance of working at the mythic and how this helps us to stay out of the emotionally laden limbic brain. Chris tells the story of the energetic transmissions that we receive on our journey around the Medicine Wheel. We explore the meaning of the mesa, the medicine that it holds and the alchemical process of transformation that takes place as we build our personal stone altar. We spend a year creating it, and many more years developing it into a powerful tool for healing and transformation.
We will end the evening with a meditation that connects us with the Bands of Power and Protection, vital protection and support that we can rest in as we navigate these uncertain times. These bands not only support our journey through life, but also align us with the five elements so that we know with certainty that we are safe and held by the forces of nature.
Releasing things that no longer serve: the path of compassion
STEP 7: WEDNESDAY 25 NOVEMBER 7PM-9PM UK
This evening we share with you how to make what we call a sandpainting. We use nature as the landscape on which we paint whatever issues we are caught up in. When we are overwhelmed, when we are triggered, when we are obsessed with an issue that won’t go away, when our minds keep recycling things or when our fearful thoughts take over… then the sandpainting is a great practice to have. It keeps us out of the dramas that are ever present in our world and gives us a tool with which we can find compassion with ourselves, and gain some clarity, and a new perspective on our life.
This is a life skill that works wherever you are, and is a great tool to teach your children too.
Journeying for healing: the path of destiny
STEP 6: WEDNESDAY 2 DECEMBER 7PM-9PM UK
At the heart of all shamanic traditions is journeying. What is so beautiful about the Inca tradition is that here we learn that we can journey not just into the past, but more importantly into the future to call forth our unique destiny; reclaiming our Sovereign Self… this is such a gift!
In this session we will journey to the Upper World, the place of our becoming to claim what we need from our future self: then we can call forth our destiny rather than continue to live from or recreate our past. Here we can source ourselves from our original template… who we were always meant to be… then we have all that we need in order to navigate this great turning time. No matter how challenging our life might feel, when we journey to meet with our future self, we can literally download something completely new and unknown into this present time. .a destiny that isn’t informed by our past. In this weeks session we will journey to recover the aspects of us that we need in order to live our one true and precious life.
A community of kindred spirits
This course is also about being part of a community, a village of like-minded and like-hearted people who want to create positive change — both within ourselves and in the world around us.
The magic of the HEART OF THE SHAMAN lies not only in the simple yet powerful techniques you will learn, which require no specialist equipment or cost, but also in the depth of connection that we feel being part of our group, our allyu, as we make this journey together.
“I have self-confidence and boundaries now, something I didn’t have before. Working with this medicine has changed my health, and my life.” Debbie
