# Progressive Summary # Rough Notes Shamans are energetic healers of the human spirit who travel into other realms of consciousness in order to work with the spirits on behalf of individuals or their communities. Michael Harner, an anthropologist, wrote a book called The Way of the Shaman, and helped to introduce shamanism into the West. Power animals and spirit guides are the way nature and spirit reach out to us to connect, guide, and protect us, regardless of our race, religion, gender, nationality, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. Sound is the universal highway to spiritual journeying. Some guidelines for journeying: 1. Have the right intention. 2. Show respect for other cultures, for nature, for the process. Always ask for permission. 3. Relax. 4. Express gratitude for whatever guidance you receive. Four Winds Society method of opening sacred space: https://thefourwinds.com/prayer-for-opening-sacred-space/ Learned a new word - EPISTEMOPHILIA is _love of knowledge_; specifically : excessive striving for or preoccupation with knowledge. Uses of mugwort: - good for the heart - good for sleep - Latin name is Artemisia vulgaris - considered a plant of protection - used for smudging in European pagan traditions - used by Chinese in moxibustion - used to reduce skin redness # Structured Notes # Quotes > Global shamanic practices are part of the worldview (cosmology) known as Animism, which is the belief that everything has a soul and is alive and is connected. Or Pantheism, which is the belief that God is the Universe, and the Universe is God. > Again, shamanism is not a religion, it is a practice. I am not trying to convert anyone. There is no group to join. No dogma. No leader. No guru. No rules. You don’t even need to believe in God. You can profess any religion you want and still appreciate and work with shamanic journeying or consult with a shaman. And just like any practice, the more you do it, the easier it gets. > Shamanic journeying is all about having a direct experience with the mystery of the universe. Your universe. My universe. They are both valid. You can call it whatever you want—God, Consciousness, Energy, Source, Science, the Universe. I call it Love, Nature, Magic. > One thing I have learned as a lifelong gardener is that life is not really about survival of the fittest. It’s not even about adaptation. (Sorry Darwin.) It’s really about survival of the happiest. The plants and creatures that are happiest are the ones that thrive. And each plant (or animal, for that matter) requires different things to be happy. Some need sun, others shade. Some prefer dry, others wet. But if they are in the right spot and encouraged with love, they become happy and thrive. They spread to fill in the empty spots. They come back again and again every year. They surprise us by popping up in new places nearby. They don’t need fertilizer or chemicals. They are just happy, and they know it. I don’t need to know exactly why this is so, because I believe in the magic of it all. It’s the magic of regeneration, which we all have access to. > Mugwort is considered a key part of the Korean creation myth. The story goes that a tiger and a bear named Ungnyeo lived together in a cave and prayed to their divine king to be made into humans. The king gave them twenty cloves of garlic and a bundle of mugwort and ordered them to stay in the cave for one hundred days, eating only the garlic and mugwort. The tiger left after twenty days, but the bear remained. And on the twenty-first day the divine king turned her into a woman. Ungnyeo prayed to a sacred birch tree for a child, and the king took mercy on her and gave her a son, who became the founder of the Korean nation. Clearly, mugwort has some royal roots. > Smudging is a way of cleansing the energy around a person or a thing, and like shamanism, smudging rituals are found all over the world. It is believed that the smoke gets rid of negative energy—but also that smoke can send messages to the ancestors or spirits. It’s why burning incense is a traditional practice in many Asian cultures. Smudging usually involves burning a bundle of dried herbs and letting the smoke surround a person, a room, or a place that is in need of protecting, cleansing, healing, blessing, or connecting to the spirit world. > We humans are never going to get rid of our “enemies”—whatever group of humans or pests that annoy us or we don’t like. All the genocides, all the wars, all the revolutions, and all the terrorist attacks throughout history have not eradicated whatever we fear is the enemy. Killing one dictator does not eradicate dictators. Trying to exterminate or “cleanse” an ethnic or religious group is not only abhorrent but doesn’t work and never will. The root systems of our species and all our ethnicities are deep and strong. Trying to eliminate a group, just like trying to eliminate a plant, is a futile endeavor. Sure, lots of things have gone extinct over the eons for many different reasons. But by intentionally trying to make something else extinct, we are probably most likely to extinct ourselves. > What history has taught us, and is still teaching us, is that we are all capable of becoming fascists. When information is limited and our selfawareness muted, it’s easy to lose our sense of right and wrong. In search of a moral code, we often look to words written in ancient texts. What if, instead, we looked to nature? Nature shows us that everything has a purpose, and diversity is essential. Therefore, it behooves us to appreciate our difference and listen to other perspectives. Learn from them. Befriend them. Work together with them. That is truly the only way we can find peace with one another.