Dec 31, 2013

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Renewing Your Dream

Short days and long, dark nights lend themselves to unpacking squashed impulses of authenticity, assumptions that diminish passion, and denied feelings. Winter is the time to entertain your deepest truths for the purpose of renewing your dream. Without taking some time each year for gestation to tend the self who is tired, feeling inadequate, too small, too weak, and without power the expressive self is not rejuvenated and realigned to live your dream in life. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she explores how we attend to "adrenal fatigue" and "yin depletion' by working honestly with our emotional life without indulgence or mental distance. With a renewed flow of our emotions we can replenish our stores of lifeforce energy and realign with our dream with the call for your unique genius that resonates in the Dreamtime.

Tuesday, December 31, 2013 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Why Shamanism Now? on Co-Creator Network
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Dec 24, 2013

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

A Messianic Complex and Shamanism

Shamanic initiatory experiences often involve a break with reality and a time of madness, which is perceived of as a kind of test or challenge initiated by a helping spirit. The novice that allows a death of his/her sense of self moves through their own madness to the other side of that challenge transformed. The novice returns to a more ordinary state of consciousness and is acknowledged as a shaman. In contrast, in America similar breaks with reality lead into a dead end commonly referred to as a “messianic complex” in which the person perceives of them selves as a Savior or The One. This interpretation becomes a mental cul-de-sac for the individual with martyrdom the only way out. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she explores the fact that how we interpret our own “madness” is culturally determined, thus those challenged by a diagnosis of mental illness may help themselves by ditching contemporary culture and interpreting their own experience through a shamanic cosmology in which no one needs to be saved.

Tuesday, December 24, 2013 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Why Shamanism Now? on Co-Creator Network
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Dec 17, 2013

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Around the Web, Around the World


"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Taking Shamanism Out of the Box with Sandra Ingerman

"This is a good time to settle into yourself and go beyond the surface of your spiritual practices," advises our next guest, Sandra Ingerman MA, a world-renowned author and much loved teacher of shamanism. She joins host, Christina Pratt, to explore the need to take our shamanic practice out of the contemporary box we have put it in, keeping us from our full power and potential. Sandy advises, "It is time for all us to stand up and do our spiritual work to shift our own consciousness and perception. It is time for us to stand up together as a global community so that we can create exponential change, which leads to healing for the earth and all of life." Sandra 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 are we meeting this extraordinary need today?

This week's guest:
Sandra Ingerman


Sandra Ingerman, MA, is a world-renowned author and teacher of shamanism. She is recognized for bridging ancient cross-cultural healing methods into our modern culture in ways that address the needs of our times. A licensed therapist, she is the author of Soul Retrieval, Medicine for the Earth: How To Transform Personal and Environmental Toxins, Shamanic Journeying: A Beginner's Guide, How to Heal Toxic Thoughts: Simple Tools for Personal Transformation and many other popular books on the contemporary practice of shamanism and shamanic healing.

Through her website, www.sandraingerman.com you can access her audio lecture programs produced by Sounds True, "The Beginner's Guide to Shamanic Journeying", "The Soul Retrieval Journey", and "Miracles for the Earth" lecture programs produced by Sounds True and find numerous other articles written by Sandra as well as read her monthly column The Transmutation News.

Tuesday, December 17, 2013 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Why Shamanism Now? on Co-Creator Network
Questions? Comments? Call: 1-512-772-1938

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Dec 13, 2013

Chipping Away at Lululemon

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Chip Wilson Lululemon photo lululemon-chip-wilson_zps0e76c41c.jpg


Chip Wilson is bad for business. He announced earlier this week that he will step down as chairman of the company he founded in 1998 -- a yoga-themed retail chain he created to address the scourge of feminism and named to mock the Japanese.

But the news just keeps getting worse for Lululemon. Yesterday the company took a beating on Wall Street after lowering its sales projections. Shares fell 11.7%.

Under the new chairmanship of Michael Casey and with new CEO Laurent Potdevin, Lululemon will try to rehabilitate its image and stock price.

Lululemon Athletica Inc (LULU.O) named a new chief executive on Tuesday and said founder Chip Wilson will step down as chairman, as the upscale yogawear retailer tries to expand globally and put a series of embarrassing quality issues and other gaffes behind it.

The company said Laurent Potdevin, most recently president of trendy footwear brand TOMS Shoes, will replace Christine Day as CEO in January and emphasized Potdevin's role leading TOMS' global expansion.

Lululemon, in the early stages of a push into Europe and Asia, was forced to recall some of its signature black stretchy pants in March because they were see-through. The incoming CEO said quality will be a top priority when he takes the helm.

"Product and quality for any premium brand such as Lululemon is absolutely paramount," Potdevin told Reuters. "It will be a very clear area of focus for me."

Dec 12, 2013

Strings and Things

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

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There have been some big doings in the world of physics, real front page stuff. For simplicity's sake, I'm going to skip the part where I try to pretend I understand any of it.

The theory of the holographic universe just got a major boost from new developments in string theory.

A team of physicists has provided some of the clearest evidence yet that our Universe could be just one big projection.

In 1997, theoretical physicist Juan Maldacena proposed that an audacious model of the Universe in which gravity arises from infinitesimally thin, vibrating strings could be reinterpreted in terms of well-established physics. The mathematically intricate world of strings, which exist in nine dimensions of space plus one of time, would be merely a hologram: the real action would play out in a simpler, flatter cosmos where there is no gravity.

Maldacena's idea thrilled physicists because it offered a way to put the popular but still unproven theory of strings on solid footing — and because it solved apparent inconsistencies between quantum physics and Einstein's theory of gravity. It provided physicists with a mathematical Rosetta stone, a 'duality', that allowed them to translate back and forth between the two languages, and solve problems in one model that seemed intractable in the other and vice versa. But although the validity of Maldacena's ideas has pretty much been taken for granted ever since, a rigorous proof has been elusive.

In two papers posted on the arXiv repository, Yoshifumi Hyakutake of Ibaraki University in Japan and his colleagues now provide, if not an actual proof, at least compelling evidence that Maldacena’s conjecture is true.

Dec 10, 2013

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Finding Your Life Magic

Your life magic is just waiting for you to notice it, to notice the natural (visible) and supernatural (invisible) forces that influence the events of your life. The way you interpret what is going on around you in the world, where you came from, and where you are going either opens your eyes to the magic or explains it way. "Believing in the magic in life is different from fantasy thinking," explains host and shaman, Christina Pratt, "fantasy thinking is motivated by the need, real or perceived, to escape everyday reality. Believing in the magic in life is an attitude that opens our mind to possibility, our hearts to the flow of the forces moving around us, and grounds us in the full reality of the moment." Our world is inherently, wonderfully mysterious. Join us this week as we explore finding your magic and allowing it to open the way in the very real world to the life your heart dreams of living.

Tuesday, December 10, 2013 at 11:00 AM Pacific

Log on to Listen
Why Shamanism Now? on Co-Creator Network
Questions? Comments? Call: 1-512-772-1938

All episodes are now available in the iTunes Podcast Library.

Dec 9, 2013

James Arthur Ray Has a Record

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.



One thing I learned during the James Ray sweat lodge trial was that you can't rely on mainstream media to report the unvarnished truth about the man's character or his crimes. If the recent Piers Morgan puff piece proved anything, it's that CNN is not so much a news organization as it is a PR venue for criminals. But then, the media has always been an enabler for the rogues gallery behind The Secret, ignoring one financial misdealing after another.

But there is a record. It's scattered across teh internets on blogs, zines, and message boards. The latest installment can be found on The Verge, who not long ago brought us Scamworld. In The Death Dealer, Matt Stroud offers a crash course in what went so horribly wrong on that awful day in Sedona. He also delves into Ray's autobiographical details, separating fact from fiction.

In Harmonic Wealth Ray describes sitting in the front row of his father’s church as a child. There he first heard that "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." He describes how angry he felt, how that Biblical verse made him question his family’s situation — even question God. His parents didn’t have money to buy nice clothes, or own a home — they had to live next to the church. Rather than pay a barber, his mother would cut his hair. From his upbringing he concluded: "Here’s what I know: it’s a sin to be poor." That belief stayed with him for the rest of his life.

"I was the kid with the big Coke-bottle glasses and buckteeth who everyone made fun of," Ray writes, painting himself as a stereotypical nerd, mocked for his gangliness and lack of athleticism. Later, a classmate told the Arizona Republic that, like much of his "rags-to-riches" biography, Ray’s tale of an impoverished, socially outcast childhood contained embellishments if not outright lies. He dressed well and carried himself with confidence, said the former classmate. "It depends on what you call poor, but his dad made more than my family made."

Yes, Ray has both under and over estimated his net worth throughout his career -- his financial picture has always been more narrative than balance sheet driven. But more to the point, it's a sin to be poor?! Words matter. To Ray, poverty and illness are not simply unfortunate, they're spiritual failings -- even indicators of moral turpitude. Except, somehow, when it's Ray who's in financial trouble.

Dec 3, 2013

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Around the Web, Around the World


"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

What is a Shamanic Cosmology?

Cosmology is the science of the origin and development of the universe. When we say "a cosmology" we are talking the way we interpret what is going on around us in the world as seen through the lens of how we see the origins of life, where we came and our world came from, and where we are going. There are purely scientific cosmologies and purely religious cosmologies and there are cosmologies cobbled together from religion, science, and wishful thinking. We all have one and we all use ours to understand and interpret life accurately. What if your cosmology is false? Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she explores shamanic cosmologies and their formation through observing and participating with the natural world. The great value of living from a shamanic cosmology is that it supports life choices that are sustainable, connected to both the environment and Spirit, heart-centered, and tend to promote peace in diversity.

Tuesday, December 3, 2013 at 11:00 AM Pacific

Log on to Listen
Why Shamanism Now? on Co-Creator Network
Questions? Comments? Call: 1-512-772-1938

All episodes are now available in the iTunes Podcast Library.

Dec 2, 2013

The Remarkable Vision of Jimmy Nelson

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.



I don't like the title of this book. It sounds fatalistic to me, as if the attrition of these indigenous cultures is inevitable. But it is also a warning, a reminder of what a treasure they are, a call to protect what's left of humanity's origins.

These are truly remarkable photographs. Jimmy Nelson devoted 25 years of his life gaining the trust of these tribal peoples, so much so that they were willing be documented by a Westerner.

Looking at Nelson’s photographs, it’s difficult to imagine how a British man could gain this kind of access. “I never, ever take out the camera right away,” Nelson says firmly. “I didn’t know their language, but we connected as people.”

Because each tribe has its own particular dialect, there was only so far a local translator could go. The rest was up to Nelson. He says he used body language to convey ideas. By way of demonstration, he stretches his eyes wide, puts his hands on his face, makes an expression of awe and ‘ooos’ and ‘aahs.’

“It’s all about vanity and empathy,” Nelson says. “You literally go onto your knees and you beg them… You put them on a pedestal and you say until you can’t hear yourself anymore, ‘You’re beautiful, you’re beautiful, you’re beautiful, you’re beautiful. You’re important.' And eventually people feel that.”


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