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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Shamanism in the New World

The shamanism of today must continue to evolve if we are to respond to the times we have chosen to live in. Our contemporary shamanic practices have not been immune to the influence of the Old Story. Now is the time of the New Story of the People in the beginning of a New World. This week we explore how the lie of separation, so foundational to the Old Story, undermines the personal message of love and self worth from our helping spirits. And, more importantly how that lie keeps us engaged in the age-old religious battle between good and evil, instead of using our understanding that Everything Is One to return even evil to it's origins. Fear of the Shadow also drives the Old Story effectively keeping us from facing our fears and experiencing meaningful individuation and initiations. But with our helping spirits we have an avenue into the Shadow that allows not just understanding, but the rescue, transformation, and integration of the original ally form. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, this week and she unpacks the Old Story in our shamanic practices and challenges us to write the New Story with our shamanic work in the world.

Tuesday, February 5, 2013 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Church Critiques Just Like Pogroms

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Speaking of the self-pity and tone-deafness of the Catholic hierarchy... Were we? Yes. Yes, we were. But Archbishop Gerhard Müller, the Vatican's head of doctrine, has broken my irony meter.

In an interview published Saturday by Germany newspaper Die Welt, Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Mueller likened the sentiment directed toward the Church to that of the pogroms against Jews in Europe.

Mueller, who leads the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was quoted as saying that those attacking the Church borrow arguments used by totalitarian ideologies such as Communism and Nazism against Christianity.

Let's see... A German representative of a Church that killed Jews during the Inquisition, collaborated with the Nazis, and that, in general, has a pretty terrible record of anti-Semitism, now equates the most powerful church in the world with persecuted Jews.

So, are Catholic clergy being dragged from their homes, beaten to death, starved, shot, gassed, or, say, turned into lampshades? Not last I heard. What has happened to these tragically oppressed victims? They've been criticized for protecting priests who've raped children. Oh the humanity!

The Apologia of Cardinal Mahony

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

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This week the Los Angeles Diocese finally released all 30,000 abuse related files. They came with a very public censure of Cardinal Mahony by Archbishop Jose Gomez. And Cardinal Mahony took to his blog to defend his record with a rebuttal letter. It is a startlingly open conflict between two church officials.

Wrote Gomez:

I find these files to be brutal and painful reading. The behavior described in these files is terribly sad and evil. There is no excuse, no explaining away what happened to these children. The priests involved had the duty to be their spiritual fathers and they failed.

. . .

I cannot undo the failings of the past that we find in these pages. Reading these files, reflecting on the wounds that were caused, has been the saddest experience I've had since becoming your Archbishop in 2011.

My predecessor, retired Cardinal Roger Mahony, has expressed his sorrow for his failure to fully protect young people entrusted to his care. Effective immediately, I have informed Cardinal Mahony that he will no longer have any administrative or public duties. Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Curry has also publicly apologized for his decisions while serving as vicar for clergy. I have accepted his request to be relieved of his responsibility as the regional bishop of Santa Barbara. [emphasis added]

Spiritual But Not Religious

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

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"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience." ~ Teilhard de Chardin

If it were up to me, I'd retire the phrase "spiritual but not religious." I consider it effectively meaningless. To my way of thinking, we can't not be spiritual. We are spirit. But I'm not being fair to the idiomatic meaning of that phrase, which could be more fairly stated as, "searching for meaning beyond the confines of organized religion."

However problematic the phrase, it is a growing trend. This seems to rankle a number of religious authorities. A quick search through the Huffington Post religion section brings up a fair sampling of disdainful diatribes against all these dilettantes who think they can have God without the hard work of religious practice in like-minded community. I read a number of these posts when they came out, sighed, and moved on.

There's Pastor Lillian Daniel who is sick and tired of hearing from anonymous strangers on planes that God can be found in sunsets. She just wishes the nonreligious would stop boring her with their irrelevant observations. And, no, I'm not overstating her tone. "Please stop boring me," is her subtitle.

There's Alan Miller's lightning rod of a post bemoaning the religious illiteracy of a populace that can't name more than four of the ten commandments. He casts religion almost entirely in Judeo-Christian terms and dismisses all else as superstition. A good rebuttal can be found here.

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Darkness Guides Us to the Light

Who will guide us as we stand together with new allies: The Unknown, The Wild Heart, and The Tao, at the dawning of the New World crafitng the new Story of the People? What lights the way? "In the end the light of the Old World was the harsh light of judgment, the blinding light of righteousness, and the relentless light of monotheistic separation that drives us from all that naturally nourishes and replenishes the body and soul," explains host and shaman, Christina Pratt. "We must now find our way in the darkness to rediscover True Light, the Light that dances in ecstatic reciprocity with Darkness and gives life." Join us this week as we explore ways to use shamanic skills to enter the Shadow and gain access to transform the roots of the habits, additions, and unconscious patterning that limit our self-expression. These skills allow us to enter the darkest fears human experience offers and to see through the illusions that bind our hearts in mental unwellness, confusion, and depression. Finally Darkness is the path to the deep actions of self-care and self-love necessary to cultivate the internal richness needed to bring up True Light and the courage to express that light with creativity and humility in the world.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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All episodes are now available in the iTunes Podcast Library.

If I'm Not Free to Control You...

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

"Religion is a FREEDOM. Let's keep it that way." No duh, huh?

My mother was fond of saying, "Your freedom stops where the next person's begins." It was her paraphrase of an aphorism of uncertain origin. It always stuck with me as a statement of one of the most obvious elements of a free society. So, I have been brought up short by the roiling debate over freedom of religion in this country. Last year Catholic Bishops threw down the gauntlet over President Obama's access to birth control mandate, taking the position that anything that infringes on their right to impose their beliefs on people who do not share them is a violation of the First Amendment. It is a thoroughly nonsensical position.

Now comes survey data that shows that evangelical Christians, in large numbers, view any erosion of Judeo-Christian dominance of the country as a threat to religious freedom. (???) Oh... and it's all because of "the gays."

While these Christians are particularly concerned that religious freedoms are being eroded in this country, "they also want Judeo-Christians to dominate the culture," said Kinnamon.

"They cannot have it both ways," he said. "This does not mean putting Judeo-Christian values aside, but it will require a renegotiation of those values in the public square as America increasingly becomes a multi-faith nation."

. . .

Asked for their opinion as to why religious freedom is threatened, 97 percent of evangelicals agreed that "some groups have actively tried to move society away from traditional Christian values."

And 72 percent of evangelicals also agreed that gays and lesbians were the group "most active in trying to remove Christian values from the country." That compares to 31 percent of all adults who held this belief.

The whole thing just makes my brain hurt.

New Investigation Into Warren Jeffs in Arizona

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

The legal troubles for Warren Jeffs have not ended just because he currently resides in a Texas prison -- and  probably will for the rest of his days. Texas moved recently to seize the Yearning for Zion Ranch because it was used as part of a criminal enterprise -- the systemic rape of underage girls. Now the state of Arizona is moving against Jeffs and his church.

Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne says there is an ongoing criminal investigation into a polygamous sect along the Utah-Arizona border.

. . .

A 26-year-old woman who claims Jeffs forced her into marriage at age 14 has now fled the group. She says she and her six children were held against their will for years.

Horne says her allegations of forced underage sex, among other things, are part of the ongoing case, but he declined to provide details.

The woman in question is Ruby Jessop -- sister of Flora Jessop, who left FLDS in 1986 and has been one of the sect's harshest critics. During his press conference, Horne announced that this 26 year old woman had recently won temporary custody of her six children after escaping from the Colorado City compound last year. He was flanked by the Jessop sisters and Ruby's six children. He explained Ruby's circumstances.

Los Angeles Bishops Conspired to Protect Abusers

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

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Well. I can see why the Catholic Church works so hard to conceal records of priestly sex abuse. When they come out, they're really damning. The latest case in point comes from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles where Cardinal Roger Mahony's written words have come back to haunt him.

Cardinal Mahony has issued a number of apologies concurrent with the rolling disclosure of sex abuse on his watch. His most recent mea culpa was issued yesterday as an avalanche of personnel files was released under court order. This follows the release of private letters detailing a deliberate cover-up.

Mahony assures us that he now comprehends the gravity of his failings and he's very, very sorry. Previously, he really did not understand the pain caused by sex abuse. He had his come to Jesus moment when he met with some ninety abuse survivors, over a three year period, and had to look them in the eye.

"Those visits were heart-wrenching experiences for me as I listened to the victims describe how they had their childhood and innocence stolen from them by clergy and by the Church," Mahony wrote, ending his statement, "I am sorry."

Now that he better understands, he says, he has the names of each of those survivors on note cards and prays for them daily. So that's nice.

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Shamanic Art of Reciprocal Exchange

If the New World is to be different than the one before then we must learn to ally our minds with paradox. We must see the deeper truth that the nature of our world-and our selves included- is the living expression of complementary dualism in which two opposites co-exist in harmonic wholeness. And as they transmute each other we experience true renewal or passionate expression. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she explores the essence energies we must ally with on our journey to change our thinking and behavior and align with the necessary Dreaming of the New World. One of the many great gifts of a regular shamanic journeying practice is that the journeyer is immersed in the logic of the Tao. In our journeys and our interactions with helping spirits we are constantly asked to see-or tricked into seeing-the reciprocal exchange of energies that is the heart of complementary dualism. When we finally understand that all energies within our selves are opposites of another energy, also present though often denied within our selves, we will begin to be able to show up as co-creators of the New Story the Earth is singing.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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

All episodes are now available in the iTunes Podcast Library.

Mona Lisa on the Moon

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Sure. Why not?

Call it the ultimate in high art: Using a well-timed laser, NASA scientists have beamed a picture of Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece, the Mona Lisa, to a powerful spacecraft orbiting the moon, marking a first in laser communication.

The laser signal, fired from an installation in Maryland, beamed the Mona Lisa to the moon to be received 240,000 miles (384,400 km) away by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been orbiting the moon since 2009. The Mona Lisa transmission, NASA scientists said, is a major advance in laser communication for interplanetary spacecraft.

"This is the first time anyone has achieved one-way laser communication at planetary distances," David Smith, a researcher working with the LRO's Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter — which received the Mona Lisa message — said in a statement. "In the near future, this type of simple laser communication might serve as a backup for the radio communication that satellites use. In the more distance future, it may allow communication at higher data rates than present radio links can provide."

Must See Graham Hancock Lecture

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

Marvelous, marvelous, marvelous, presentation by Graham Hancock. I've read nearly all of Hancock's books and listened to countless interviews, and yet, there were delicious surprises in this lecture for me.

Needless to say, I totally agree with Hancock's take-down of Richard Dawkins. Dawkins uses his Oxford credentials to lend credibility to totally unscientific arguments. I tire of saying this but you cannot prove a negative; you can only fail to prove a positive.  But I think I've made my own views on this dogmatic, proselytizing atheist clear here, here, and here.

Hancock also gives a wonderful overview of the Gnostic beliefs in Sophia's error and how this resulted in the Demiurge and the Archons. He also explores the use of shamanic tools to free the mind from archontic manipulation.

He also spends a good bit of time on the correlations between alien abductions, shamanic experiences, and faerie lore. This is a theory that he also lays out well in Supernatural. Another lecture on the subject can be found here.

Of course his discussion of Egypt and the Giza pyramids is thorough and beautiful. That's to be expected.

This is a fairly long presentation and worth every minute of it. I was riveted.