The Way of the Shaman: Power of Ceremony

I attended a workshop this past Sunday, April 22nd {Earth Day} called "The Way of the Shaman; Power of Ceremony". I went into this workshop knowing just little bits and pieces of what a Shaman was. If I knew just little bits and pieces, why was I drawn to this particular workshop? 

Over the last few years, I have had experiences working with Shaman's. I have met some wonderful people that are Shaman's and whenever I have worked with these individuals I feel a deep connection to the messages and healing they share. For example, this past fall I was at the Palmer House is Sauk Centre, MN. I had a reading done by a lady who was a Shaman. It was the reading when she talked about the directions {more to come on this} that I had a pull at my soul that made me want to know more. At the end of the retreat weekend this same lady led a final ceremony. Again calling in the different directions and giving thanks to all that we had just experienced. Leaving me standing there with tears running down my face. It was in that moment, that I knew I needed to know and gather more information about what these directions meant.

Now here we are, about a week ago and my friend sent me information on this class. I said, "sing me up, I have to go." 

This workshop was held at the Green Lotus Yoga and Healing Center in Lakeville, taught by Laurie Wondra {I have been to several of her events and highly recommend}. At every event of hers that I have attended she calls in the directions. Here is a breakdown of the directions; East, South, West, North, Mother Earth and Father Sky. All of the directions govern different energy, animal energy, element energy, archangel energy, colors, etc. So when working with the directions you are able to connect on a deeper level of healing. I think I got ahead of myself, typical. Shamanism is an ancient healing tradition, where connecting to nature is very important. They practice a lot of ceremonies using nature in all forms. Ceremonies such as birth, marriage, death, moon phases, seasonal transitions, etc. Alright, so now, I am at this workshop learning all the ins and outs of the directions, different meanings or trees, flowers, and how to perform ceremony as Shamans do. 

The really cool and interesting part of this workshop was making tools to use for ceremony. I have pictured below a few different things we made. 

I will explain the tools above. The first thing we made was the prayer flag: the string with the red flags from. Each reg flag represents each direction. They are filled with special herbs, trees, flowers that each have a specific symbol to them. When filling each red flag we set an intention that had to do with the specific direction. So very meaningful, I have mine hanging over my altar in my office. The next thing we made was the feather. I used a turkey feather for mine. This tool is to be used to sage your space or when using palo santo. And I actually found out that the energy of this feather is strong enough that you don't need to use any smoke, as long as you set the intentions to clear or bless this space it still has the same power. {Which I love because I actually learned a lot about cleansing/blessing spaces-something I really want to do more of}. Also in the picture is a piece of Palo Santo-the wood, which is used to bring in blessings into your space, sage which is the herb looking piece-used to cleanse any energies out of your space. The last thing pictured is the flower seeds. To use during a New Moon ritual when bringing in new beginnings. A type for you all: when plantings seeds, flowers or your garden, write down on a piece of paper of what you want to manifest and create. Plant that piece of paper in the dirt. As your plants have new life so will you in what you want to create. 

Lastly, I wanted to share that after we made the prayer flags, I looked over to my friend and just gave her a smile. I felt like I was in the right place at the right time. I was happy to be learning and making these new tools to use during ceremony and even happier I was there spending the day with my friend. I look down and saw this sweet little heart laying on the ground, made out of a rose petal {part of the material we put in the pockets of our prayer flags}.

To top off the whole experience, we sat in this beautiful room, over looking a pond, listening to birds singing and it was a beautiful Spring Day. To celebrate Mother Earth herself, learning ceremonies to celebrate all of the beautiful nature that surrounds us.