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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

The Power of Gratitude

Gratitude is a choice to see beyond the surface of instant gratification. Gratitude is not a luxury for people who get what they want, but a requirement for anyone who wants the help of spirit with the impossible. When we are without gratitude we are without perspective. The visionary capacity of the heart slips into doubt, we fixate on what is not working, and blame others for our problems. When we orient in gratitude, we are forced out of an attitude of entitlement and blame. Only then can we see the affects of our own internalized racism, sexism, and other systems of hatred and fear. Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she explores the power of gratitude and why it is necessary in these challenging times. Gratitude must be made concrete through action and intent. The power engages when you show gratitude at all times, make every gesture of your life a labor of love and retribution for the gifts you receive and will receive.

**This show originally aired August 16, 2016.**

Tuesday, July 31, 2018 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

Beautiful photos! Full moon eclipse and Mars

Earth flew between the sun and Mars this week, so, during yesterday’s total lunar eclipse, the moon and Mars were close. Photos from the EarthSky community here.

. . .

Peter Lowenstein in Mutare, Zimbabwe, wrote: “Conditions were very good for observing the eclipse and yielded many of the usual Blood Moon photographs. However, when photographing the approaching umbra just before it had completely encroached on the moon, a beautiful vivid blue ozone fringe which lasted for just a few minutes appeared. The attached animation, which consists of 21 still photographs taken between 9:13 and 9:22 p.m. local time using highlight instead of shadow detail exposures, presents a rare and unusual view of this lunar eclipse phenomenon which usually just imparts a pale bluish tinge to the last directly illuminated portion of the moon (as is shown in the conventional picture taken at about the same time).” Read more about the ozone fringe seen during lunar eclipses.

. . .

Helio C. Vital in Saquarema, Brazil, saw the eclipse at moonrise, when the moon was still low in the sky. He wrote: “The moon was very low during totality (9 degrees above the horizon only at U3)! I first spotted the moon some 25 minutes after its rise as I had predicted. Such delay was due to the fact it was thousand of times dimmer than the usual full moon when it crossed the horizon. The moon was many times darker than Mars when I first glanced it, only 5 degrees above the horizon at 17:48 (UTC-3h). It was a therefore a dark eclipse not due to recent major volcanic eruptions, but due to the fact the moon crossed the center of Earth`s shadow where the shadow is very dark. What a nice show the totally eclipsed moon and Mars in opposition (only 7 degrees apart) put on over Saquarema! Nikon CoolPix P900 camera using its Moon Mode.”

Bottom line: Photos of the total lunar eclipse of July 27, 2018 – longest lunar eclipse of the 21st century – from the EarthSky community. During this eclipse, the planet Mars was near the moon and brighter than it had been since 2003.

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Around the Web, Around the World

"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

What is Shamanic Healing? Some Case Studies - Part Two

Shamanic healing describes a particular set of healing forms. Many diverse cultures practice these healing forms in ways are culturally specific and still functionally the same. For the practitioner, "shamanic healing" defines not only the function of the healing form, like the retrieval of a soul part, but also the means by which the practitioner accomplishes that function. This is critically important in today's healing landscape because we all share all the same healing issues of ancient people while having invented several new ones. We need shamanic healing now more than ever. Join us this week as host and shaman, Christina Pratt, shares stories about shamanic healing in everyday life while navigating the troubled waters of appropriation, culture exchange, and listening to inner voices.

Tuesday, July 24, 2018 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

Drone Reveals Massive Stonehenge-Like Circular Monument in Ireland

A drone flyby has revealed a prehistoric henge, or circular monument, in a field next to the  5,000-year-old passage tomb at Newgrange in Ireland. The new henge is the fourth one discovered near the Newgrange tomb.

The discovery comes as archaeologists, in a separate discovery, have unearthed a mysterious prehistoric structure – thought to be a ceremonial Neolithic avenue aligned with the rising and setting of the sun at the spring and fall equinoxes.

The high ground around the Newgrange passage tomb, beside the Boyne River about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Dublin, is already celebrated as a Neolithic "graveyard" and ceremonial center.

. . .

The finds reveal the importance of the area to its ancient inhabitants 5,000 years ago — more than 100 years before the Neolithic stone circle at Stonehenge in England was built, and about 400 years before the pyramids at Giza in Egypt, archeologists said.

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"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

How to Receive Shamanic Healing

What are the ethics for receiving shamanic healing? Much is written about ethics for practitioners, but is it really ethical to drop all the issues of your life in the lap of any healer and ask them to heal you in one session? Is it ethical to get angry about a session when the healing offered doesn’t play into the story you carry about your woundedness? Is it ever ethical to ask for healing, which is always an effort of energy expended, without offering anything in exchange for the healing energy spent on you? Join host and shaman, Christina Pratt, as she explores the very prickly issue of the ethics for receiving shamanic healing. This week we slash expectations for magical cures and effortless life changes in the hopes of revealing how contemporary people can come to an ancient healing form prepared, informed, and ready to do what is needed to follow up responsibly.

**This show originally aired on May 12, 2015.**

Tuesday, July 17, 2018 at 11:00 AM Pacific

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Why Shamanism Now? on Co-Creator Network
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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

What is Shamanic Healing?

What is a shamanic healing in the 21st Century? Host and shaman, Christina Pratt, explores this question in three parts. First we will explore the healing that comes from work with a shaman and how that integrates into all the other healing options available to you in the 21st Century. Being a contemporary consumer of health care in the USA is a challenge. In many ways working with a shaman can help you to orchestrate the rest of the options from the clarity and personal truth of your own core needs. Next we will explore the healing that comes from developing your own relationship with helping spirits. In other words, how does learning the basic shamanic skill set help you to heal your self and your life, which then reenergizes your overall well being. Finally we will explore the healing that comes from engaging in life from a shamanic perspective and the transformations that might get you to that place. Much of what ails us culturally can be healed by rediscovering our core values and deep loves, finding others who share them, and recommitting our lives to living from what has heart and meaning. This week we explore “what is shamanic healing”, what could it be for you, and how to weave that into your very contemporary life.

**This show originally aired March 8, 2011.**

Tuesday, July 10, 2018 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

Feeding the gods: Hundreds of skulls reveal massive scale of human sacrifice in Aztec capital

Some conquistadors wrote about the tzompantli and its towers, estimating that the rack alone contained 130,000 skulls. But historians and archaeologists knew the conquistadors were prone to exaggerating the horrors of human sacrifice to demonize the Mexica culture. As the centuries passed, scholars began to wonder whether the tzompantli had ever existed.

Archaeologists at the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) here can now say with certainty that it did. Beginning in 2015, they discovered and excavated the remains of the skull rack and one of the towers underneath a colonial period house on the street that runs behind Mexico City's cathedral. (The other tower, they suspect, lies under the cathedral's back courtyard.) The scale of the rack and tower suggests they held thousands of skulls, testimony to an industry of human sacrifice unlike any other in the world. Now, archaeologists are beginning to study the skulls in detail, hoping to learn more about Mexica rituals and the postmortem treatment of the bodies of the sacrificed. The researchers also wonder who the victims were, where they lived, and what their lives were like before they ended up marked for a brutal death at the Templo Mayor.

"This is a world of information," says archaeologist Raùl Barrera Rodríguez, director of INAH's Urban Archaeology Program and leader of the team that found the tzompantli. "It's an amazing thing, and just the kind of discovery many of us had hoped for," agrees John Verano, a bioarchaeologist at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, who studies human sacrifice. He and other researchers hope the skulls will clarify the role of large-scale human sacrifice in Mexica religion and culture—and whether, as scholars suspect, it played a key part in building their empire.

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Around the Web, Around the World

"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

What is Shamanic Healing? Some Case Studies

Shamanic healing describes a particular set of healing forms. Many diverse cultures practice these healing forms in ways are culturally specific and still functionally the same. For the practitioner, "shamanic healing" defines not only the function of the healing form, like the retrieval of a soul part, but also the means by which the practitioner accomplishes that function. This is critically important in today's healing landscape because we all share all the same healing issues of ancient people while having invented several new ones. We need shamanic healing now more than ever. Join us this week as host and shaman, Christina Pratt, shares stories about shamanic healing in everyday life while navigating the troubled waters of appropriation, culture exchange, and listening to inner voices.

Tuesday, July 3, 2018 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.

Crazy Wisdom, Uncomfortable Questions

Crossposted from Amora Obscura

The Party

In 1975 during a seminary in Snowmass, Colorado, respected Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, founder of Naropa University, and originator of Shambhala Buddhism, hosted a Halloween party. Two attendees, a couple named William Merwin and Dana Naone, mingled for a bit before retiring early for the night. According to witnesses, Trungpa was irritated that the couple had left early, and he ordered his followers to bring them back to the party “at any cost,” but William and Dana refused to return. According to one witness, negotiations between the guru and the couple went on for a few hours. An angry crowd of partygoers gathered outside their door, threatening them and attempting to break into their room. Tensions escalated until a chair was thrown through the glass balcony door in an attempt to force them out.

William and Dana were then escorted down to the party by Trungpa’s guards. Their guru reprimanded them, directed racially-charged remarks toward Dana, and threw a glass of sake in William's face. Then, they were asked to remove their clothes. When they refused, Trungpa ordered the guards to do it for them. They were stripped naked as Dana screamed for help, begging for someone to call the police. No one did. When another attendee tried to intervene, witnesses say that Trungpa punched him in the face. Dana alleged that Trungpa repeatedly hit the man who was stripping her because he was taking too long.

William and Dana were not the first attendees to be stripped that night. A woman named Persis McMillen had been forced out of her costume by the guards earlier in the evening, and was left feeling violated, "sick," and "really trashed out." An attendee named Jack Niland had also been targeted by Trungpa. The guards removed his clothes and threw him into a pool.

Once William and Dana were fully disrobed, the couple held each other, helpless and exposed. William Merwin allegedly implored, “Why us? Why are we the only two people in this room standing here naked in front of you?" So, the other guests removed their clothing, too. At Trungpa's behest, the dancing resumed, as if nothing had happened.

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Around the Web, Around the World

"Why Shamanism Now?" with Christina Pratt

Mythical Beasts and Weirdness: Working with Helping Spirits

A mythical beast is a beast that we believe never existed in physical form, like dragons, the basilisk, and the phoenix in the Harry Potter novels. But never is a long time. If they never existed, then why do similar mythical beasts appear in different stories the mythology of peoples who never spoke or met? Whether you believe they were real or are imaginary, mythical beasts are very special helping spirits to work with in shamanic altered states. "You need to pay attention," explains host and shaman, Christina Pratt, "There is a quality of being not of this world when we engage the mythical beasts. But we work with them because they remind us that our souls are not limited to this world either. Mostly we engage the mythical beasts to grow up and stop acting like our silly, violent, consumerist culture has anything to do with the real reality and why we are here.

**This show original aired June 21, 2016.**

Tuesday, June 26, 2018 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.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Mainstream — UPDATED

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

The Gateway: Gizmodo's New Podcast About
Controversial YouTube Guru Teal Swan (TRAILER)

The Gateway is a six-part series about Teal Swan, a new brand of spiritual guru, who draws in followers with her hypnotic self-help YouTube videos aimed at people who are struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts. Some followers move to Teal’s healing center—a spiritual startup in Atenas, Costa Rica—where they produce content and manage social media accounts. Teal insists her therapy saves lives, but her critics say Teal’s death-focused dogma is dangerous.

**TRIGGER WARNING: This post deals with suicide and other awfulness.**

Episode Reviews: Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4, Episode 5, Episode 6
Further Update: Teal Tribe Kerfuffle
Another Update: In which teal lies about Cameron... again

Last fall Gizmodo gained incredible access to teal's operation. Reporter Jennings Brown not only interviewed teal several times, he was allowed to take a crew into Philia, her retreat center in Costa Rica, to observe one of her high ticket Curveball retreats. The result of his year-long investigation is a six-part podcast series that is by far the most extensive profile of teal yet by a mainstream media outlet. Days before Gizmodo first interviewed teal, she was interviewed by reporter Addison Nugent for OZY, an international, online magazine. The interview was uncomfortable for teal, which she expressed immediately, and somewhat intemperately, on her blog. Neither the resulting OZY article nor "The Gateway" podcast series — which began airing at the end of May and has aired three episodes to date — have been mentioned by teal or her team.  (In the interest of full disclosure, I was interviewed by both reporters and my statements appear in both pieces.)

The day ends.  The house falls into the dark silence of sleep.  The next morning we board a plane to Paris.  I have one more interview to do; a segment for the provocateurs section of OZY.  This interview marks the end of this European tour.  I have five minutes to change my outfit before the camera is switched on in our hotel room.  The style of this interview is not what I expected.  There are two different styles of interview, one is supportive and the other is antagonistic.  In a supportive style interview, you are already going into the interview being loved.  The entire structure of the interview is set up to make you look good.  In an antagonistic style interview, the majority of the focus is placed on challenging you.  No one holds your hands in support in this type of interview.  Instead, the interviewer gives you the opportunity to fight though the power of narration to earn people’s good opinion by putting you on the spot.  The interview started off with this: “I have interviewed spiritual leaders from everywhere and many of them have been doing this for more than 30 years and to be honest, none of them have the amount of controversy, hatred and dedicated antagonists as you do.  There is so much written against you out there in the world, they call you things like ‘the suicide catalyst’, why do you think that is?”  In an antagonistic style interview, you spend your time trying to answer questions while simultaneously trying to caretake the vulnerable aspect of you that feels targeted and like hiding under a blanket while sucking its thumb.  Sometimes the interviewer is already biased against you and is simply setting up the interview as a trap to make you look bad so their pre-conceived, concrete concept of you can then be shared by the world in order to make them feel personally validated.  But if the interviewer is genuinely non-biased, the antagonistic style of interview often leads to the best content.  Nonetheless, it is always awkward when this style of interview ends because everyone acts as if nothing just happened and everyone is really friends when in reality both you know and they know that it was an antagonistic interaction that made all parties involved socially uncomfortable.  I decided to order minestrone soup after the interview was over to comfort myself and take a bath before I fell asleep. [all emphases added]