Oct 30, 2012

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

How to Interpret Messages from the Invisible World

The invisible world speaks to each of us through our own unique symbolic language. Learning to accurately interpret that language is essential to understanding your journeys, dreams, and inspirations. "The art of interpreting messages and visions is based entirely on how your see yourself in the Universe," explains host and shaman, Christina Pratt, "and how you understand the true nature of your soul." Accuracy in interpretation is important, especially when we being to allow our information from our helping spirits and guides to inform our actions in everyday life. While the messages from spirit resonate with our soul, they are all filtered through our consciousness. Thus our accuracy in interpretation is limited by our accuracy in how we see our selves and the world around us. Consistent and effective clearing practices are essential if we are to interpret the messages from our guides accurately and use them to co-create lives of beauty, joy and purpose.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Oct 26, 2012

Authenticity of Space Buddha in Question



The Nazi provenance, alone, should sound a few alarm bells.

Researchers who reported that a potentially ancient Buddha statue is carved from a meteorite said they are not surprised that an expert in Buddhist history believes the statue to be a fake.

. . . 

"The non-Asian features of the 'lama wearing trousers' should be immediately obvious to any scholar in the field," Bayer wrote, referring to the statue as a "lama" or guru. The shoes, pants and sleeves of the man's garments are all wrong for ancient Tibet, he wrote. The statue's hands, eyes and ears are also shaped unusually for Tibetan art, he said.

The statue was said to have come to Germany in the possession of a pre-World War II scientific expedition commissioned by the Nazi party. Bayer called that into question, too, saying there is no documentation of the statue's transfer and arguing that it is more likely a fake created in the 20th century for the antique or Nazi-memorabilia market.

Oct 23, 2012

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Crafting Shamanic Journey Questions: Part 2

Mastering the art of shamanic journeying requires that you first learn to craft a good question that, like key in a lock, opens a realm of information you previously had no access to. A good question provokes an answer that addresses your problem effectively without creating new problems down the road. Central to this art is attitude. You have to care passionately without taking things personally. You have to patiently allow the uncertainty to unfold while being completely impatient with what you think you know. And you have to hold true to your discipline while simultaneously abandoning familiar assumptions and human comforts. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt as she continues with Part Two of Mastering the Art of Shamanic Journeying: Crafting Questions. You must learn to ask the question from the truth of where you are living in the moment, especially when you don't like that truth. Always remember when we journey to spirit for answers we are seeking a deeper truth and that there will always be an even deeper truth out there.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Oct 21, 2012

Missouri Preacher's Speech Against Gay Rights

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.



Wow.

At first, this Missouri pastor's anti-gay speech seems akin to those delivered by a number of conservative preachers and other right-wing pundits nationwide over the past year.

. . .

But, as video of his speech reveals, the pastor has a few surprises up his sleeve.

Oct 17, 2012

The Wizard of Wormholes

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.



I've had The Wizard of Oz on my mind a lot lately, for some reason. When my daughter was little, she watched my video of the movie until I really got sick of it -- something I'd never thought possible. But lately I've been yearning to watch it. I'll need to get it on DVD... Anyway. I've been contemplating some of the metaphysical imagery that hadn't occurred to me previously. I should caveat that I've long been taken with some of the mythical themes.

That Dorothy is taking a shamanic journey into non-ordinary reality where she interacts with strange creatures and is assisted by guides seems obvious on its face. But there are some elements to that journey that deserve some analysis. This won't be a deep study. I may do that at some point. It's just some things that have been popping into my head of late.

Years ago, when I first read Clarissa Pinkola Estes's Women Who Run With the Wolves, it occurred to me that, in the movie, Dorothy also wore red shoes. In Estes's analysis of "The Red Shoes," our heroine who dances to her death under the spell of her magic shoes, is an orphan, like our Dorothy Gale. And the girl is raised by a somewhat overbearing and opinionated matriarch, who makes all the decisions for her orphan charge. While she acts out of love and compassion, she crushes the girl's soul, symbolized by the burning of the girl's own handmade, red shoes. The red, magical shoes she obtains later are a poor substitute for her now languishing, authentic wildness. Auntie Em is also loving, but overbearing. She is not terribly patient with Dorothy's emotional needs and drives. And she turns her beloved pet over to the local harridan. Dorothy's authentic self is being crushed, so like Estes's red shod heroine, she becomes reckless and impetuous, risking her own safety. These are interesting parallels that I've pondered when it comes to the underlying mythos of the film version of the story.

There are other mythical themes that have really just occurred to me over the past few days as this movie started ping-ponging around my head, despite the fact that I haven't watched or thought about it in some time.

Earlier today, a Facebook friend posted the above image. My first thought was that I can't seem to get away from this movie. My second thought was, is that a butterfly? I'd simply never noticed before that Glinda is wearing that classic symbol of transformation as a pendent.

Oct 16, 2012

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

The Vital Evolutionary Role of Shamanism with Don Oscar Miro-Quesada

"Any heartfelt practitioner of shamanism in the world today is deeply aware of the vital evolutionary role of this ancestral eco-spiritual tradition... Indigenous culture is based on the understanding that people are not moved through persuasion; rather, people are moved through being aligned in purpose," explains our guest, Don Oscar Miro-Quesada, "...one's experience of communion and reconnection with the living earth always arouses the desire to act on its behalf...(and when) you act on behalf of something greater than yourself, you begin to feel it acting through you with a power that is greater than your own". Join host, Christina Pratt, and Don Oscar, originator of The Pachakuti Mesa Tradition (PMT), a five-part workshop apprenticeship series and tradition rooted in the Peruvian spiritual methods of sacred relationship with the Earth. Don Oscar is our next guest for the Society of Shamanic Practitioners sponsored interview series. In this series we explore how contemporary shamans are meeting the challenge of their world where the relations of things are profoundly out of balance. It is the ancient role of the shaman in all cultures to tend the balance of things. How is this shaman meeting this extraordinary need today?

This week's guest:
Don Oscar Miro-Quesada

Don Oscar Miro-Quesada Solevo is a respected kamasqa curandero and altomisayoq adept from Peru. His apprenticeship in northern coastal huachuma curanderismo and initiation into the southeastern Andean paqokuna shaman/priesthood, formally took place between the years 1969 and 1986. Don Oscar has been facilitating experiential workshops and apprenticeship programs around the world since 1979 that integrate millennial and contemporary healing practices and Earth-honoring ceremonial traditions with a focus on the creation of heartfelt sacred communities around the world.

Don Oscar is the originator of the Pachakuti Mesa Tradition of cross-cultural shamanism, a soul-infused vehicle for deep personal and planetary transformation, that blossomed organically from Oscar's practice and fulfills the noble intentions of both venerable elders who bequeathed don Oscar with the oral sanction to preserve Heart Island's (South America) ancestral healing traditions as Peru's legacy to all future generations. He is also the visionary founder of The Heart of the Healer Foundation (THOTH) whose mission is preserving indigenous wisdom and restoring our earth. More about THOTH can be found at www.heartofthehealer.org.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Oct 12, 2012

If Thine Eye Be Single

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.



Some synchronicities are ickier than others.

This is the first news story I read this morning.

South Florida beaches are usually places where people find sea shells, tiny crawling creatures and a shark tooth here and there, but a man walking on Pompano Beach Wednesday came across something out of the ordinary.

A giant eyeball.

Later today, a sneaky neighbor left a bucket of these on our doorstep.
 

Oct 11, 2012

"Middle Earth" to Issue Hobbit Coins



Aimed at that all-important fanboy/coin-collector market, New Zealand will issue Hobbit inspired legal tender costing exponentially more than its face value. Of course it's also incredibly cool.

A set of three gold coins — depicting Gandalf, Bilbo and Thorin Oakenshield — sells for $10,995 NZ ($8,798 Cdn), but each coin will bear a face value of just $10. The rim of each coin is inscribed in both English and Dwarvish with the words "Middle-earth — New Zealand."

The cheapest coins in the series have a $1 face value, but will retail for $29.90 NZ ($23.93 Cdn) each. In addition to an image of Bilbo shown reading his contract to become a burglar, other $1 coins depict Oakenshield, Gandalf and Radagast together and three of the 13 dwarves in scenes from the film.

. . .

Set for release Nov. 1, the coins will be available internationally and are part of a publicity campaign aimed at rebranding New Zealand as "100 percent Middle Earth."

The first of three planned Hobbit films, based on Tolkien original novel, will debut Nov. 28 in Wellington. The New Zealand capital is changing its name to "The Middle of Middle Earth" for the occasion.

Is Mormonism Racist?

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.




I was reminded again recently of how much insane, socially unacceptable, and terribly, terribly cruel, stuff is in the Bible. The writings that were compiled into that text were products of their time... and it was a fairly brutal chapter in human history. Today most but, rather stunningly, not all Christians would not support the idea of killing rebellious children, as that most recent example makes clear. The rejection of violent, homicidal, and genocidal, Biblical passages only really presents a problem for fundamentalists who still insist that every word in the book is the true and irrefutable word of God. Having been raised Episcopalian, leave say, I learned to look at the Bible through a somewhat different lens.

As Brian Keith Dalton, aka. Mister Deity, points out, this is much trickier for Mormons. Dalton, who apparently was a Mormon, explains that the Book of Mormon is literally true and "the most correct book on Earth" under Mormon doctrine. That makes it much harder to gaffe off the wackiest bits.

The racism that was so acceptable in the time of Joseph Smith is forever enshrined as unassailable truth in Mormonism. That would seem to leave non-racist Mormons -- let alone black Mormons -- with little to fall back on other than cognitive dissonance.

Oct 9, 2012

How To Kill Your Rebellious Child

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.



It's become quite fashionable to compare the "clobber verses" in the Bible condemning homosexuality to scripture no one in the modern world would endorse. I, myself, have written extensively on the hypocrisy of shrimp munching, polyester blend wearing, homophobes. An increasing number of gay-positive, evangelical Christians have likewise taken to pointing out the socially unacceptable passages that are avoided by the vast majority of fundamentalists. But every so often some Biblical purist calls our bluff.

Deuteronomy 21:18-21 is one of those scriptural passages no modern Christian could love.


18 If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:
19 Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place;
20 And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.
21 And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.


~ Deuteronomy 21:18-21


Yup. If your son is worthless lay-about, have him put to death.

Openly gay megachurch pastor Jim Swilley likes to point that one out as an example of the outrageous scriptural obscurities that no one would endorse today. But the Pastor Swilleys of the world are just not prepared for Charlie Fuqua, GOP candidate for the Arkansas legislature. Fuqua thinks a death penalty for rebellious youth is an idea whose time has come.

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Complementary Dualism in All Things with Hillary S. Webb, PhD

At the heart of shamanism is the pulse, the breath, the dance of complementary dualism, a Tao-like awareness of wholeness expressed in Nature and found in the sustainable, practical philosophies of shamanic peoples around the world. Our guest this week is psychological anthropologist and author, Hillary S Webb, PhD. She recounts her compelling scholarly and personal odyssey into the complementary worldview at the heart of contemporary Andean shamanism in her most recent book, Yanantin and Masintin in the Andean World: Complementary Dualism in Modern Peru. With host and shaman, Christina Pratt, Hillary explores complementary dualism as a sophisticated and practical philosophical model for living a balanced life, for healing and for transformation. At its essence this philosophy offers respite from the lie of separation that overwhelms human consciousness today. It brings us experientially into the interdependent reality of the physical world and the possibility of peace in our hearts.

This week's guest:
Hillary S. Webb, PhD

Hillary S. Webb, PhD., is the former Managing Editor of Anthropology of Consciousness, the peer-reviewed journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness and the former Research Director at The Monroe Institute. Having received her undergraduate degree in Journalism from New York University, Dr. Webb went on to earn an MA in Consciousness Studies from Goddard College and a PhD in Psychology from Saybrook University. She is the author of Exploring Shamanism, Traveling Between the Worlds: Conversations with Contemporary Shamans, and Yanantin and Masintin in the Andean World: Complementary Dualism in Modern Peru. She lives in Southern Maine.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Oct 8, 2012

Three Years Ago Today...

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.


In Memory of James Shore, Kirby Brown, and Liz Neuman


Today I find myself contemplating where I was and what I was doing when I first learned of the sweat lodge tragedy that took the lives of James Shore, Kirby Brown, and, ultimately, Liz Neuman. I was enjoying the long weekend with my husband's family when I read about the shocking deaths in the news. I thought, what a horrible, horrible accident. I was only barely aware of James Arthur Ray and thought his crime to be one of the kind of ignorance so typical of The Secret, with its stripped down versions of complex myths and traditions.

I was wrong. Ray's actions and inactions were so much worse than I could have ever imagined. The James Ray I came to know through watching every broadcast moment of a very long trial was a power thief who exploited the vulnerabilities of wonderful, beautiful people -- those who died and those who courageously testified about what they had experienced under his tutelage. Ray's was a very long trail of wreckage leading up to that stunning tragedy in the Arizona desert.

A year ago, I found myself waiting seemingly endlessly for the sentencing of James Arthur Ray, found guilty by a jury of his peers for causing these three deaths. Then as now my heart goes out to the family and friends of three very bright lights, snuffed out because of James Ray's recklessness. It goes out the family and friends of Colleen Conaway who also came to a tragic end at a James Ray seminar. And it goes out to the many people who were injured physically or emotionally by Ray's myriad abuses. Blessings and peace to you all.

Oct 7, 2012

Gabriele Convicted for Blowing the Whistle

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.



Am I alone in seeing something almost poetic in the fact that the first whistleblower convicted in the Vatileaks scandal, Paolo Gabriele, bears the name of the Archangel Gabriel? Gabriel, the messenger of God who announced the pending births of Jesus and John the Baptist? Gabriel, depicted in art and literature as the angel who will blow his horn come judgment day? If I were Pope Benedict, I'd be more concerned than ever about that Fatima prophecy.

Be that as it may, the verdict is in and the Vatican court is satisfied that the butler did it. Gabriele, manservant to the pontiff, was sentenced to eighteen months for hanging the Church's dirty laundry out to dry. It seems he believed sunlight to be the best disinfectant.

Gabriele slipped internal documents, including some of Pope Benedict's private papers, to journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi.

Nuzzi's book, "His Holiness: Pope Benedict XVI's Secret Papers" convulsed the Vatican for months and prompted an unprecedented response, with the pope naming a commission of cardinals to investigate the origin of the leaks alongside Vatican magistrates.

Gabriele insists he was only trying to save the Church from itself.

Oct 2, 2012

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

How to Craft a Good Question: Shamanic Journeying

Shamanic journeying is an art that requires crafting good questions. A good question provokes an answer that addresses your problem effectively without creating new problems. Shamanic journeys are often confusing or lackluster because the practitioner began with a poorly crafted question. To be crisp, clear, and meaningful shamanic journey requires a focused question and free access to the imagination. The shamanic journey is purely question driven state and occurs within the dreamlike landscape of your own symbolic language. The practitioner must craft the question so that it acts as a key to open the answer, explains host and shaman, Christina Pratt. And then the "answer" that may be as inscrutable as last night's dream must be accurately interpreted. Here in lies the greatest challenge in developing a powerful, passionate, and effective journeying practice. Join us this week as we continue to explore the common mistakes, misconceptions, and false assumptions made by journeyers and remedies to correct them. This show is Part 1 in a series called Mastering the Art of Shamanic Journeying.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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