Sep 29, 2017

Yoga and Healing from Sexual Assault

Crossposted from The Gohst

 


Okay, If you read this blog, you know that I was raped in 2012 by a friend that I was traveling with. You know that it took me almost 9 months to finally gain the balls to break away from the situation and 7 months after I left to confront him over email about the abuse. It took me 2 years to finally tell a trained psychologist and 4 1/2 years from the time that it happened to finally gain the courage to tell the police.

During all of that time- I felt like a leaf in the wind. Or perhaps a more accurate description would be that I felt like a dead body being tossed between raging waves and a sharp rocky cliff in the ocean. Directionless yet again. Hell, I was so dissociated from my body and my life in every single way possible. I thought that there was no coming back from this ever. And that was all the aftermath.

During the 9 months I had been traveling with him, I had been dealing with such horrible dissociation, depersonalization  and derealization.  I couldn't think and I never really spoke much. Since March of 2012 when it happened- I felt like I had no voice. I felt worse than dead. I felt like I was in a living nightmare and I couldn't tell anyone.  By the time I was able to finally put the pieces back together again, it was late September in Asheville, North Carolina. He had gone away to a meeting with his teacher Drunvalo Melkizidek. And I was finally alone with myself- free of him. So this is where yoga comes in.

Aright- I took my first yoga class in school 2007/2008. I was signed up for a full year. At first, I thought it was just an easy extracurricular activity to score an easy A on my report card. I remember going home from school after taking my first class completely convinced that this was the path I wanted to take in life, something in me was inspired. I wasn't flexible, couldn't touch my toes and I wasn't strong- but I was driven. Driven and angsty. And I had for a long time placed that drive into an eating disorder, and getting high off of whatever. So- that was me at 17. That should paint the picture nicely.

Sep 26, 2017

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Listening to Ayahuasca with Rachel Harris, PhD

Rachel Harris believes there is a new hope for depression, addiction, PTSD, and anxiety. Her hope is deeply grounded in research and clearly expressed in her new book, Listening to Ayahuasca, the result of years of scientific research into the use of ayahuasca, personal experience, and hundreds of hours exploring as a psychotherapist the therapeutic effects of ayahuasca with her patients. Rachel Harris joins host and shaman, Christina Pratt, to share the enormous healing potential in the use of ayahuasca as sacred medicine, the full preparation for and integration of those experiences, and the value of opening up to the rich spiritual world of visions, love, and the deep mystery in the physical world around us.

This week's guest:
Rachel Harris, PhD


Rachel Harris, PhD is the author of Listening to Ayahuasca. She received a National Institutes of Health New Investigator’s Award, has published more than forty scientific studies in peer-reviewed journals, and has worked as a psychological consultant to Fortune 500 companies and the United Nations. She lives on an island off the coast of Maine. Visit her online at http://www.listeningtoayahuasca.com.

Tuesday, September 26, 2017 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Sep 19, 2017

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

PTSD is Not a Mental Illness

PTSD is an illness of the soul, not the mind. Today PTSD is considered "an anxiety disorder." However, the cluster of symptoms used to diagnose PTSD (Post-traumatic Stress Disorder), or the expanded set for Complex PTSD, all simply describe how a healthy, sane human responds to their own soul loss. In other words, it is not a disorder. Shamans have been effectively treating soul loss caused by trauma or chronic abuse for thousands of years. If those dedicated therapists studying and treating PTSD could understand that they are all late to the party and work respectfully with shamans as colleagues then those suffering could find a path to healing in months, not years. Join us this week and host and shaman, Christina Pratt, continues to share the practical application of shamanic healing to alleviate suffering in our contemporary world.

Tuesday, September 19, 2017 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Why Shamanism Now? on Co-Creator Network
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Sep 17, 2017

Esoterica



Has a Mysterious Medieval Code Really Been Solved?

The Voynich manuscript is not an especially glamorous physical object. It is slightly larger than a modern paperback, bound in “limp vellum” as is the technical term. But its pages are full of astrological charts, strange plants, naked ladies bathing in green liquid, and, most famously, an indecipherable script that has eluded cryptographers to this day.

What could be so scandalous, so dangerous, or so important to be written in such an uncrackable cipher?

This week, the venerable Times Literary Supplement published as its cover story a “solution” for the Voynich manuscript. The article by Nicholas Gibbs suggests the manuscript is a medieval women’s-health manual copied from several older sources. And the cipher is no cipher at all, but simply abbreviations that, once decoded, turn out to be medicinal recipes.

The solution should be seismic news in the Voynich world—for medieval scholars and amateur sleuths alike—but the reaction to Gibbs’s theory has been decidedly underwhelming. Medievalists, used to seeing purported solutions every few months, panned it on Twitter. Blogs and forums started picking at its problems.

Sep 12, 2017

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

What is PTSD?

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, is an issue of the soul, not the mind. To define PTSD as a psychiatric disorder is to miss the simplicity of what it is and how we can alleviate the suffering now for those who are trapped in a post-traumatic stress response to everyday. When we understand the soul loss involved in PTSD and include shamanic healing in the modalities prescribed, we can bring healing to those who have been damaged by their experience in terrifying ordeals, situations in which their life was threatened, or sustained situations that involve the constant threat of physical harm. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she explores what PTSD is, why it isn't just getting triggered by unresolved issues of the past, and why we as a culture must begin to encourage suffers of PTSD to step beyond the boundaries of psychiatry to heal for themselves and for the next generations.

**This show originally aired November 18, 2014.**

Tuesday, September 12, 2017 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Sep 9, 2017

Esoterica



Viking skeleton’s DNA test proves historians wrong

The remains of a powerful viking — long thought to be a man — was in fact a real-life Xena Warrior Princess, a study released Friday reveals.

The lady war boss was buried in the mid-10th century along with deadly weapons and two horses, leading archaeologists and historians to assume she was a man, according to the findings, published in in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

Wrong.

“It’s actually a woman, somewhere over the age of 30 and fairly tall, too, measuring around [5’6″] tall ,” archaeologist Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson of Uppsala University, who conducted the study, told The Local.

. . .

“Aside from the complete warrior equipment buried along with her – a sword, an axe, a spear, armor-piercing arrows, a battle knife, shields, and two horses – she had a board game in her lap, or more of a war-planning game used to try out battle tactics and strategies, which indicates she was a powerful military leader,” Hedenstierna-Jonson said.”She’s most likely planned, led and taken part in battles.”

Sep 5, 2017

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Self Help and Shamanism

The soul sickness experienced by many in our modern day can be remedied by living as ancient, animistic, shamanic people did. This requires creativity to bring ancient practices into present time, without losing the power held in the essence and beliefs. While this choice literally allows people to help themselves, it is not self-help. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she explores the dumbing down of shamanism. A shamanic life works by changing the disengaged, purposeless life of a consumer into one that is connected, value-focused, and skilled. Engaging in shamanism as self-help limits the work to the realm of the self. The power in shamanism to transform comes when we leave the control of the self, surrender to the helping spirits, allow ourselves to be changed by something much larger than ourselves, and then make that change in the world.

Tuesday, September 5, 2017 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Why Shamanism Now? on Co-Creator Network
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