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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

How Do I Find My Authentic Self?

Contemporary life is filled with so much promise of happiness and fulfillment. Yet many people find that, though they are doing all the right things, that passionate sense of meaning and purpose just isn't happening. Many others are so depressed or fatigued that they don't have the energy to care about what is authentic or what aligns with their heart. People, high and low functioning alike, feel a sense of alienation and betrayal that runs deep while the source remains a mystery. All of these experiences are symptoms of a dis-ease of the soul. "This is not an issue of good soul or bad soul," explains shaman Christina Pratt, "but of a distance from the soul and from connection to a community that cares that we are lost. As we reach out for help we are betrayed again and again by the failure in our culture to offer valid and effective paths back to our soul and its purpose for being here." Join members from the Last Mask Center Community as they interview Christina, asking what soul healing Last Mask Center offers for the individual, why these teachings work, and how our passionate expression of our soul's purpose is exactly the medicine the world needs at this time.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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William Henry Talks Sun Worship, 2012, and More

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

I have not been and will not be doing much blogging until I get some computer problems resolved. Don't ask. It's been a rough few months on many levels. But, in the meantime, I've managed to catch some good new YouTube vids and this Coast to Coast interview from November is an excellent reminder of how much more advanced the ancients were than our current tech dependent civilization. George Noory's interview with William Henry begins a little before the 40 minute mark.

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

How Do I Begin Shamanic Healing?

How do you begin shamanic healing? And perhaps more importantly why would you start down the path of shamanic healing? Contemporary people begin to explore the path of shamanic healing usually because nothing else is working or they simply know something is missing. There is a growing frustration with the unfulfilled promises of pharmaceutical and surgical medicine and a growing irritation with the vacuous "you get what you need" response to our reasonable desire for efficacy and accountability when turning to alternative care. Shamanic healing with an initiated shaman offers direct access to the source of the inner dissonance that we experience as illness or disease in our mental, physical or spiritual lives. Often shamanism offers a direct response to our pain and suffering, like a soul retrieval or extraction, in just one session. Just as often the source of the problem is a bit more than we asked for, like ancestral healing and a strong need for a real personal daily practice. Nonetheless, the path forward is clear, practical, and doable. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she shares her experience and expertise to answer your question, "How do I begin shamanic healing? What is reasonable to expect from a shaman and what will they expect from me?"

Tuesday, January 3, 2012 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Shamanism and the Renewal of Spirit

Winter is the season of The Return. It is the time to rest and slow down. For most just slowing down is the challenge. We think all we need is to catch up on some sleep or restart our daily meditation practice. For others chronic exhaustion and fatigue is the challenge and we get caught up in the actions of healing. They are each a side of the coin of imbalance that is so common in the lives of contemporary people. Both require the same journey into solitude to remedy the deeper causes of this natural imbalance in our lives. However, to just rest or slow down or try a cleansing diet again are not The Return, explains host and shaman, Christina Pratt. They only hold the space for it. The Return is a Taoist term for the natural turning inward, a natural call to leave the day-to-day patterns, expectations, habits and small addictions and to remember. We are called to remember the path back to our mountain and to connect again to why we are here in this life at this time. And we are called to participate in the kinds of actions that open our hearts, allowing true emotions to flow and fill the lake that lies at the base of the mountain. In this way we go into the source of our deepest dreaming, realign with our heart's path, and restore the resources we will call on throughout the year to come. Join us this week as we explore the renewal of Spirit.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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The Invincible Sun of Winter Solstice

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

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Wishing all a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Yule, Raucous Saturnalia, and all other celebrations of the enduring of the light at Midwinter.

The Shortest Day Susan Cooper So the shortest day came, and the year died, And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world Came people singing, dancing, To drive the dark away. They lighted candles in the winter trees; They hung their homes with evergreen; They burned beseeching fires all night long To keep the year alive, And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake They shouted, reveling. Through all the frosty ages you can hear them Echoing behind us - Listen!! All the long echoes sing the same delight, This shortest day, As promise wakens in the sleeping land: They carol, fest, give thanks, And dearly love their friends, And hope for peace. And so do we, here, now, This year and every year. Welcome Yule!!

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Bringing Health and Well-being to Children

"Let yourself imagine and experience the certainty that ADD and ADHD, birth trauma, incomplete bonding, sensory overload, dyslexia, and autism, labeled strenuous and unalterable by the mainstream society, can be immediately and beautifully transformed forever." This is the reality accessed through the work of Jon Bredal, MA. Jon joins host and shaman, Christina Pratt to discuss his innovative, joyful, and effective healing process with children and families. His work integrates decades of art and teaching, deep exploration into kinesiology and BrainGym, and the influence of his experience with many North American indigenous peoples. Jon explains that, "These difficulties (for children) are primarily caused by incomplete infant developmental patterns. The methods and activities in this process work to eliminate the underlying causes through a combination of joyful, spontaneous play, integrative movement, repatternings, heart activities, as well as developmental/rocking movement." Jon is our next guest in the Society of Shamanic Practitioners sponsored interview series. In this show we explore how we could be more effective in our healing with children facing the challenges of ADD, dyslexia, anxiety, depression, sensory disorders, learning blocks, birth traumas, incomplete infant bonding, autism, and those other experiences children suffer for us that we can't diagnose or explain away.

This week's guest:
Jon Bredal, MA

Jon spent twenty years in the classroom teaching, coaching, and counseling middle and high school students in Minnesota, Colorado, Texas, and for the Navajo Nation in New Mexico. Midlife sparked a period of intense spiritual seeking for Jon, bringing him to discover kinesiology and Brain Gym, then the best known and most powerful integrative movement method of the time. He studied this craft and over the years has blended his experience, insight, and exposure to other modalities into his own unique method of healing which assists people of all ages in developing skills that lead to inner peace and personal power.

Jon Bredal's committed contributions to the field of child development, family systems healing, and natural play are unparalleled at this time. Through a combination of reflex activations, joyful play, and spontaneous movement, Jon makes healing for children and bonding for families deeply fun and deeply transformative-like no one else. Jon has helped children heal some of the most challenging difficulties facing them today: ADD, dyslexia, anxiety, depression, sensory disorders, and autism, among others. His love of North American indigenous culture continues to inform the work he does with the Six Nations, Toquat, and Okanagan Nations. He has led workshops, given courses and consulted in over forty schools, community centers and treatment facilities throughout Europe and the Americas, where he now regularly teaches. Father of three and grandfather to seven children, Jon lives in the mountains near Wolf Creek, Oregon.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Michigan Christian Notices Christmas is Pagan

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

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Christmas lovers in a quiet Michigan neighborhood were shocked to find a note appended to their mailboxes denouncing their holiday light displays. It began:

Hi neighbor

You have a nice display of lights and this love note explains how that pagan tradition began. For thousands of years Sun worshippers have celebrated the Sungod's rebirth after solstice. Pagans honored the birth of the "invincible sun" with a "festival of lights." They used big bonfires, pigs fat tallow candle lights, and today, billions of colored christmass [sic] lights. Rome's seven-day December Saturnalia was religious revelry with decadent drunkenness outrageous adultery and giving Saturn's nativity birth gifts to the children. The Norseman's yuletide solstice carousal used sexual soliciting mistletoe, Yule-log bonfire, and decorated evergreen wreaths and tree worship. None of this honors the life of Yeshua the Christ.

But for the invective, that could have been written by a pagan. (I particularly like the way Sungod and Saturnalia are capitalized but "christmass" isn't.)  In fact, last year I offered a bit of history regarding the pre-Christian roots of bringing evergreens into the home during solstice and the Bible's condemnation of it. But light-displaying Michiganders scoff at such litmus tests of their Christianity and do not take kindly to the grievous insult of being called "pagan."

Harmonic Indigence

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Well, we knew this was coming. James Ray's lawyers have washed their hands of the Harmonic Wealth author who hasn't been able to pay them for some time. It's funny. I was opening some of the newly posted court documents and before I even read this one, my eyes lit on Brad Brian's name at the top of the letter head and felt a rush of relief. I had this overwhelming sense that he felt done with James Ray. Then I read it. He is done with James Ray. As are his legal eagles Luis Li and Truc Do and all the other nameless, faceless attorneys and paralegals at Munger, Tolles, & Olson who have put in thousands of billable hours on this case. For all Li's grandstanding about how they're going to appeal this, that, and the other thing, his firm is handing Ray off to the public defender's office.

James Arthur Ray hopes to rely on a court-appointed attorney to further the appeal of his negligent homicide conviction, according to a request filed Monday.

. . .

If his request is granted, he will likely receive an in-house or contract attorney through the county public defender's office.

So the tax payers of Arizona will have the pay the legal bills of a man who until very recently claimed be a millionaire on his way to be being a billionaire. He'll either be represented by some overworked public defender or the state will contract it out. Could that be to Tom Kelly? Maybe. I can't help noticing that Kelly has been the one signing off on all the recent documents, such as his notice of appeal.

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Shamanism, Winter Blues and your Purpose

The "Winter Blues" viewed from a shamanic perspective are misdiagnosed. Through the eyes of the shaman the Winter Blues are not so much about less light, but about the fact that we don't respond to the shorter days by turning off the TV, closing the email, unplugging, and going deeply within. The Winter Blues aren't so much about depression as they are about the feeling of your soul's purpose refusing to stay pressed down. The Winter Blues are actually your soul's purpose saying, "renew your connection to me now or the path will grow too dim to find me." Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she explores the winter path to Darkness and the renewal, restoration and rejuvenation of an intimate relationship with your soul's purpose. The activities that restore those parts of our self that move on a soul level, like dreams, journeys, mediations, and sleep, all happen in the dark. The increase in darkness each day is an invitation to visit Darkness. It is a time to ask for the threads of connection to the soul that have grown thin through the over activity, imbalance, and stress of the year to be renewed. It is a time to clear the calendar and be simple, in solitude, and renew your commitment to live from the inside out, finding again the voice of your heart and allowing it to move you. When we surrender our Winter Blues to The Dark we stoke the fire that will rise again in springtime in the rejuvenation of passion for our soul's purpose.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Shamanism, Abandonment and Fulfillment

Fear of abandonment, separation, or banishment is one of the great life hobblers, never quite stopping us from moving toward health, vitality, and our soul's purpose, but effectively keeping us lame and unable to satisfy this core life journey toward our self. The irony in the fear of abandonment we carry from the past is that it inspires us to abandon our selves again and again in present time. "The unique logic of shamanic work allows us to slice open the debilitating infinite loop of abandonment and dig out the core," explains host and shaman, Christina Pratt. "At the core of abandonment lies the seed to fulfillment and deep intimacy with self." However to harvest that seed we must be willing to "return to the scene of the crime" as it is carried in our bodies, release the memory, sense of debt and remorse, and grasp the True Value that we hid there. With the help of our spirit guides and our own True Value firmly in our grasp, we can return to present time and come to know what mattered to us so much as a child that we would risk abandonment to move toward it. When we renew our relationship with what really matters to our heart, our True Value, we inspire our natural movement toward alignment with self and the richly satisfying fulfillment of our soul's purpose.

Tuesday, December 5, 2011 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Sean Stephenson: Diploma Mill Yoda -- UPDATED

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

It was probably apparent in my previous post that I really took a scunner to Sean Stephenson. Aside from finding him appallingly arrogant, he struck me as something of a phony. When I first looked at his website, I thought it was a little sketchy on the details of his education, but I didn't want to go down that particular rabbit hole. His testimony constituted a small part of a very long post. My husband, however, couldn't let it go. It probably has something to do with the fact that he holds a doctorate from a legitimate institution, but he's a little touchy when it comes to people arrogating to themselves the title of Doctor without the proper educational credentials. So he started digging and I did more digging and we found, not to any great surprise, that there are some rather serious issues when it comes to Stephenson's academic background. No wonder he was so evasive when Sheila Polk questioned him on the importance of having the proper credentials if you're going to tinker around with someone's mind.

In his bio, Stephenson lists his undergraduate degree as being from DePaul University but he doesn't say what it's in. According to a very uncritical Wikipedia entry, it's in political science. So far so good. And DePaul's a fine school. But a degree in political science doesn't qualify anyone to counsel people, something he felt called upon to do in his work as a motivational speaker. In his quest to help people with their emotional problems, he pursued higher education... in hypnosis and NLP. I have not been able to find reference to any education in psychology.

For his hypnosis and NLP training he went to Bennett/Stellar University, an alternative healing school, which claims to be accredited but does not say who it is accredited by. According to this, it's accredited by the International Coaching Society. It is not listed in the government database of accredited institutions.