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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Initiation Is Not Graduation

Initiation is not graduation. Initiation is not the formal certification of the successful completion of a course of shamanic training, nor is it the ritual or ceremony that celebrates that completion publicly. Initiation is a function; it is the enduring transformation of the collective energy of a person into a state of being that did not previously exist. Thus one can experience an initiation process without being initiated. One can experience change and transform without being initiated. Join us this week as host and shaman, Christina Pratt, explores the functional transformation at the heart of initiation. When we dispel our misinformation, myths, and wishful thinking we will be better able to co-create the rituals needed to heal our hearts, broken and betrayed by the culture that did not initiate us, and then begin anew to initiate our young into the power and responsibility of true spiritual adulthood.

Tuesday, April 26, 2016 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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CNN Still Soft-Soaping James Ray

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

A magician never reveals his secrets... unless he's a down on his luck, ex-con, trying to mount a comeback, and you stick a camera in his face.

Sometimes I miss New York. This is one of those times, because this week's debut of Enlighten Us: The Rise and Fall of James Arthur Ray at the Tribeca Film Festival is an event I'm actually sorry to miss, if only for stunning reveals like the above. You want to see how I played my followers like fiddles? Watch my hands, as I subliminally conduct your thoughts and feelings. See? ACTING!!!

This is not to say that it's a great film. I'm hearing not very good things about its effectiveness in conveying the horror of James Ray's actions, or holding him to account. For starters, the families of his victims were never even contacted by the filmmakers, so their voices and continuing concerns are notably absent. According to The Verge, Virginia Brown, mother of the late Kirby Brown, took it upon herself to contact the director, Jenny Carchman, and met with her over lunch. Kirby's sister Jean Brown's calls were unreturned, and Carchman declined to interview any family members on film. Ginny has posted a letter under the auspices of SEEK Safely, Inc., the organization of which she is a founding member.

We were disturbed to see clips of Ray “at work” before and after his incarceration serving as an infomercial for his comeback. The film failed to look critically at the tactics Ray had used prior to his incarceration and continues to use that put his customers at risk of emotional, financial,and physical harm; the film even omitted important facts such as the suicide of another attendee at a Ray event just months prior to the three deaths in Sedona. Many of these tactics, such as encouraging participants to share about personal trauma in a group setting, are commonly used in the unregulated selfhelp industry and are exactly the sorts of “red flags” SEEK wants to alert consumers to.

When asked at the end of the film how and why Sedona happened, Ray’s declares, “Sedona had to happen. It was the only way I could experience and learn… A test of character. I think I did ok.” Unfortunately, the people who were injured and traumatized, and especially those who died, are not so “ok."

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Nourishment for Your Spirit: The Elements

Right relationship with the elements allows their energy to flow into our lives, creating well-being by balancing our own excesses and deficiencies. Learning to work effectively with the elements through shrines, songs, ritual, and ceremony allows these essential energies to nourish the essence of our own souls. Join us this week as host and shaman, Christina Pratt, explores what it means to enter into right relationship with the elements, creative ways cultivate relationship that fit into our contemporary lives, and how to know when you need an elemental ritual to deal with what life has given you. Through right relationship with the elements we gain courage, presence, the ability to change as life demands without losing our true essence, and the ability to release and begin a new, no matter how improbable change seems.

Tuesday, April 19, 2016 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Earth as a Teacher of Your True Nature

The outer world reflects our inner world. Pollution reflects the ways we pollute our bodies, bloody conflicts reflect our inner struggle in immature, self-centered times, and our waste of the earth's resources reflects the many ways we waste the energy and essence of our lives in feeling lost and addicted. Yet the answers for who we are and how to live well are right here, waiting for us to learn again to pay attention. The Earth is the great teacher of our True Nature with its flowing harmony of ecosystems and the wild beauty of nature. Join us this week as host and shaman, Christina Pratt, explores the is great power in our True Nature and the fundamental healing in letting go of all that no longer resonates with it. When we allow our True Nature to flow through our lives and out through our words and actions, we come into a natural alignment with our essential selves. Living in that alignment we focus inward to energize our deepest core purpose and outward to work in a way that is good for all living things.

Tuesday, April 12, 2016 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Why Shamanism Now? on Co-Creator Network
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FLDS, Foodstamps, and Fraud

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Federal charges against FLDS leadership have opened a new window into Warren Jeffs's oppressive, ongoing regime. The imprisoned child molester is still very much in control and, while his followers are suffering, they are not doing so equally. While rank and file members have been forced to subsist on beans, sharing in the pain of their incarcerated "prophet," they were also directed to apply for food stamps, which they were directed to turn over to church leaders. The government benefits are enjoyed by the privileged few, while the majority starve.

Lyle Jeffs and 10 other church members, including another Jeffs brother, Seth, were accused in a federal grand jury indictment of conspiring to cheat the federal government -- and qualified recipients -- of millions in food stamp benefits. Families who qualified for federal assistance were told to turn over their food stamp debit cards and take what they needed from a warehouse of pooled resources called "the bishop's storehouse."

As a result, the federal government alleges, some families subsisted on beans, rice and toast, while high-ranking church members were able to serve more expensive meat, turkey and seafood. The government also alleges that the Jeffs brothers and others laundered money by swiping food stamp debit cards and ringing up "ghost" purchases at church-friendly businesses. The laundered cash allegedly was used on big-ticket items such as a Ford F-350 pickup truck ($30,236), a John Deere tractor ($13,561) and $16,978 in paper products.

In addition, another $250,000 allegedly was spent on printing costs for Warren Jeffs' self published, 854-page book of jailhouse revelations, "Jesus Christ, Message to All Nations."

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Working with the Spirits of the Land

It is particularly important today -given the vast changes moving in the earth and across environments- that we learn again to work with the Spirits of the Land. We have passed the possibility of going back and must now go forward. Will we go forward with consciousness and skill or continue consuming, deaf, dumb, and blind to our affect on the world around us? Join us this week as host and shaman, Christina Pratt, revisits "Working with the Spirits of the Land" in the context of learning about the structures and spirits and energies that are part of the vast practice of working with land. Whether you are a practitioner or an everyday human, your flourishing is tied to the flourishing of the land. To flourish in the coming changes we must live and work with the Spirits of the Land today.

Tuesday, April 5, 2016 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Why Shamanism Now? on Co-Creator Network
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