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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Art and Living Shamanism with Mark Wagner

"Creativity is a magical and sacred process. The process transforms the artist and the product transforms the world,” explains artist Mark Wagner of Hearts and Bones. Mark is an internationally known digital and traditional artist, teacher, and street painter whose work moves so deeply in shamanic realms that it has empowered the covers works like Michael Harner’s classic, The Way of the Shaman, and countless Shaman’s Drum magazine issues. This week Mark joins host and shaman, Christina Pratt, in this final episode of the WSN series, Art and Shamanism. There isn’t a reason in the world to stop making art because it grounds our creativity in our bodies where it can then change the world. It feeds our souls, takes us on a journey, and connects us to the sacred. Join us as we explore the job and the power of art to move the people and in that act to shape a new story for the new world.

**This show originally aired August 2013.**

Tuesday, July 20, 2021 at 11:00 AM Pacific

Listen live on Tuesdays at 11 AM Pacific For over 500+ podcasts go to: whyshamanismnow.com... Subscribe to the iTunes Podcast Library

Esoterica

The Space Tourism Industry is Stuck in Its Billionaire Phase

In this beginning phase, flying to space is priced only for the ultra-rich, driven by the high costs of new space technology. Virgin Galactic’s launch of Richard Branson represented one of the final key test missions to validate its shiny six-seated spaceplane, SpaceShipTwo, but it was also a meticulously crafted marketing event, complete with flashy promo videos, inspirational speeches, and a pop concert, all designed to help attract more attention, and more customers.

. . .

While Branson and Bezos’ flights to space mark key moments for their space tourism businesses, the space industry is far from being able to offer its services to the rest of the public. To get there, they’ll have to clear several hurdles: Can these rockets reliably fly humans on multiple missions without a hitch? If there is a hitch, like a fatal accident, can the market survive a damaged reputation? And can someone buy a ticket to space just as they can book an expensive flight (instead of just the ultra-rich)?

Then there’s the court of public opinion, which may be difficult to win over. Bezos, Branson and Elon Musk’s space ambitions have been criticized as another example of billionaires spending money on passion projects when there are places and causes where those funds could arguably be put to better use. The US alone struggles with vast wealth inequities, poor access to healthcare and a rapidly changing climate, among other problems that, when paired with space tourism, makes the activity look insultingly selfish to many. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), a leading critic of billionaires, has repeated that point as the private space race heats up. “Here on Earth, in the richest country on the planet, half our people live paycheck to paycheck, people are struggling to feed themselves, struggling to see a doctor — but hey, the richest guys in the world are off in outer space!,” he tweeted in March.

 

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Around the Web, Around the World

"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Sacred Dance: Art and Shamanism

True power can be accessed through the spirit of dance in a freeform atmosphere. Anyone can access his or her power anytime. You don’t need to know how to dance to touch the sacred through dance. When we dance we can access the power to reconcile our inner conflicts, transform toxic stress into energy, and reshape the story that defines our path in the world. So why don’t we dance? Or why don’t we dance with the focus and intention required to enter sacred space and embody the Spirit of Dance? This week host and shaman, Christina Pratt, continues in this third episode of the new WSN series, Art and Shamanism. She explores the many ways sacred dance is used in her shamanic teachings to create personal sovereignty and allow the True Self to manifest your life from the inside out. In the wise words of Gabriel Roth, “Only when you truly inhabit your body can you begin the healing journey… (and) dance from the inside out, not the outside in.”

**This show originally aired in August 2013.**

Tuesday, July 13, 2021 at 11:00 AM Pacific

Listen live on Tuesdays at 11 AM Pacific For over 500+ podcasts go to: whyshamanismnow.com... Subscribe to the iTunes Podcast Library

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Around the Web, Around the World

"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Sacred Song: Art and Shamanism with Lauri Shainsky

Sacred sounds resonate with the original blueprint for life and for your life. Sacred song can be a direct path by which the shaman restores your resonance with your original self in your body in the moment, regardless of the stories your mind spins or the fears you believe in. Shamanic sound healing can be offered to others or practiced with the intention of self-healing, but either way you do not need to know how to sing. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, in this second episode of the new WSN series, Art and Shamanism, when our guest is shamanic sound healer and teacher, Lauri Shainsky, PhD. Lauri currently has a thriving practice in shamanic sound healing at Hidden Lake Retreat, outside of Portland Oregon. There she works with individuals and groups to rediscover sacred sound and how we can sing with the song the universe is singing of all life.

**This show originally aired July 2013.**

Tuesday, July 6, 2021 at 11:00 AM Pacific

Listen live on Tuesdays at 11 AM Pacific For over 500+ podcasts go to: whyshamanismnow.com... Subscribe to the iTunes Podcast Library

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Around the Web, Around the World

"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Sacred Art: Art And Shamanism with Faith Nolton

“Making sacred images co-creates reality and feeds into the soul and web of life…” explains visual artist, author, and shamanic practitioner, Faith Nolton. “Making paintings with sacred intention one has a foot in both everyday reality [the act of painting or drawing] and the spirit worlds [trance state]. Keeping a balance between the two is where the point of creation lies.” This is what makes sacred art sacred. The act of creating sacred art is an ancient and honored shamanic practice. Join us this week as Faith, shares her forthcoming book “Gardens of the Soul: Making Sacred and Shamanic Art” and the whys and hows of making sacred art whether you can draw or not. Pictures and symbols speak to our consciousness beyond the busy mind allowing sacred art to function as healings, blessings, or connection to the spirit world. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, in this first episode of the new WSN series, Art and Shamanism.

**This show originally aired July 2013.**

Tuesday, June 29, 2021 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.

Esoterica

The Problem with Pema Chödrön

Chödrön’s many faces — tender grandmother and austere nun, feelings counsellor and religious disciplinarian— transcend the airbrushed world of Instagram self help. Her origin story and winding biography embody a message that rebels against a superficial age. She asserts that fulfillment and wisdom, if not happiness, are won through loss, disillusionment, and facing despair with an exposed heart. Chödrön has fermented an adulting tonic for American childishness.

She is faithful to the venerable Tibetan formula of renouncing worldly desires, developing limitless compassion, and using meditation to collapse the space between self and other. The message seems to be as Buddhist as her maroon robes.

But because Chödrön is also the messenger for her guru, Chögyam Trungpa, one of the most troubled and abusive Buddhist figures of the 20th century, it might be time to re-evaluate her legacy. It might be time to reckon with the possibility that her religion evolved in part as a way of finding peace in the shadow of a spiritual monster, and within a fringe church, Shambhala International, that has been by turns aspirational, evangelical, claustrophobic, chaotic, and cultic.

Chödrön’s catalogue has inspired millions, but it has also served to launder the Shambhala legacy and lend bourgeois respectability to Trungpa’s “crazy wisdom” movement. And what if, in its uncritical presentation of her roots, it also trojan-horses a reactionary attitude of abuse tolerance into the mainly-female self-help market?

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Shamanism is Not an Excuse to be Crazy

Being shamanic is not a pass card from the responsibility of living a grounded and sane life. Shamanic skills are actually a means by which we can live a sane life in an insane world. Part of our confusion comes from the standard practice of teaching anthropology students that shamans are delusional and quite possibly schizophrenic. After the 1950’s as research and researchers matured and shamans were actually given standard psychological testing, it was shown that while shamans do have more colorful “magical thinking” they are actually mentally healthier and more intelligent than the norm in their communities. This week host and shaman, Christina Pratt, explores the early mental health pitfalls to awakening from the collective dream: too many coincidences, too many ideas stripped from context, to many voices and no physical discipline. Join us this week as we discover why the belief that mental illness is a shamanic initiation waiting to happen is just an urban legend.

**This show originally aired July 2013.**

Tuesday, June 22, 2021 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.

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Around the Web, Around the World

"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

A Shamanic View of Mental Illness—Somé

When we look at mental illness through a different cultural lens we can see something entirely different than the standard allopathic interpretation of the situation. There are other ways to look at what is actually happening to someone who has been diagnosed as “mentally ill.” Malidoma Patrice Somé is committed to helping contemporary people to see that we can use ritual, albeit adjusted rituals, just as the Dagara people do to relieve the suffering at the core of “mental illness.” Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she explores the current work of Somé that shows that a different perspective opens up very different possibilities. Ritual can open the way for the individual’s healing relationship with helping spirits that supports a cure or definitive movement out of the “mentally ill” state of being and back into the world as an individual better equipped than most to give their gifts to the world.

**This show originally aired August 2014.**

Tuesday, June 15, 2021 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.

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Around the Web, Around the World

"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

A Shamanic View of Mental Wellness—Tacey: Part Two

Aboriginal elders warned the religious missionaries they encountered that if the trials of initiation were stopped then an even greater suffering would be unleashed on the uninitiated. We see this greater suffering unfolding today in the epidemics of depression, mental illness, addiction, sexual abuse, and suicide plaguing the contemporary “first world” and those who follow in our developmental and religious footsteps. In Gods and Diseases David Tacey explains what our ego-based society cannot understand, that it is “the task of culture to tell the person who he or she really is.” And that it is through the trials of initiation that the person comes to believe that deeper truth and use it as the foundation for sustainable mental wellness. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she continues to explore the power in Tacey’s work from his book, Gods and Diseases, which offers a an important way to look at mental illness and the possible new paths toward health and wellbeing that this point of view opens up.

**This show originally aired in September 2014.**

Tuesday, June 8, 2021 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.

Esoterica

Canada mourns as remains of 215 children found at indigenous school

A mass grave containing the remains of 215 children has been found in Canada at a former residential school set up to assimilate indigenous people.

The children were students at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia that closed in 1978.

The discovery was announced on Thursday by the chief of the Tk'emlups te Secwepemc First Nation.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it was a "painful reminder" of a "shameful chapter of our country's history".

The First Nation is working with museum specialists and the coroner's office to establish the causes and timings of the deaths, which are not currently known.

. . .

Canada's residential schools were compulsory boarding schools run by the government and religious authorities during the 19th and 20th Centuries with the aim of forcibly assimilating indigenous youth.

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Around the Web, Around the World

"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

A Shamanic View of Mental Illness—Tacey: Part One

What we diagnose as “mental illness” today grows ever more resistant to reason, logic, pharmaceuticals, or medicine. What if these are not illnesses of the mind, but diseases of the spirit? Author and scholar, David Tacey, explores how we would understand and treat mental illness if we understood that by shutting spirit out of our lives with our beliefs we have forced spirit to enter through the side door of illness. When we understand how spirit is trying to work with us through disease we can see that our suffering can be resolved or transformed only when we introduce the dimension of our soul into the healing equation. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she shares Tacey’s work from his book, Gods and Diseases, which offers a powerful example of the way in which looking at mental illness through a different lens opens up new possible paths to health and well-being.

**This show originally aired August 2014.**

Tuesday, June 1, 2021 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.