'The Way of Animal Powers workshop with the Sacred Trust, UK

Our ancestors were privy to a great knowing – that from nature – from the glorious beasts and birds of this beautiful Earth, came profound teachings to guide their lives both in the actions of everyday survival and in primal communion with the animal powers. This way was integral to the fabric of their lives and, because of this, their presence on the planet was melodic - walking in time to the Earth’s rhythm. Shamanic cultures today still know animals as ardent tutors and mentors, wise and holy beings who are guardians of our souls and who offer us entrance to the pathways to power and give us keys to the greater human journeys.

Animal Spirit Medicine is based on a sacred trust that exists between the human and the animal kingdom, residing in the meeting point between the two. The training focuses on the richness of this ancient wisdom and engages with the power of the pack and the pride, and with the heart of the herd and the hive. It allows us to re-align ourselves with nature ‘raw in tooth and claw’ and know once more a wild peace on the journey home. We will move through the most vital areas of this work: Initiation, Foundation, Transformation, Healing, Exploration, Celebration and Liberation, deepening into the following areas:

Learn the twilight language of Shamanic Animal Communication. These proto-historical techniques of inter-species communication remind us that ‘speaking with the animals’ is something that is innate, but that we have forgotten. It is a gift that encourages us to listen rather than impose.

Learn the art of the shape-shifter. The art of moving from one species awareness to another, including little-known practices of merging and communing with animal spirit powers. Here we will shed the cerebral and intellectual skins for a corporeal transformation and spiritual communion, allowing the body itself to absorb wisdom in the form of mystical union with the animal powers.

Learn animal healing ways. Including classical shamanic practices such as Animal Soul Retrieval, Animal Extraction Medicine, Animal Power Retrieval and Animal Psychopomp methodologies. We will also explore rarer and more unusual forms of animal-human healing including the Bone Ritual and the Ceremony of the Talking Tails.

Learn methods of human healing through animals. This work concerns the remarkable ability of the animal kingdom to reflect our interior states, enabling us to observe ourselves in a non-judgmental fashion, for the healing of our own, and others, psyches.

From our intuitive core we will become ‘Living Myths’ moving into the hidden mytho-poetic landscape that all animals naturally inhabit. Through the creation and activation of Animal Spirit Tools we re-ignite our primal sensing powers in order to truly ‘see’ - experiencing the world and ourselves from the place of primeval truth.

This training is being led by Naomi Lewis and Catriona Macdonald. It consists of two five-day residential components at The Sacred Trust Centre, Dorset, and two four day non-residential components taking place in Bath.

  DATES:
  First Component: Thurs. 2nd - Mon. 6th April 2009, - Dorset.
  Second Component: Sun. 26th - Wed. 29th July 2009, Bath.
Third Component: Fri. 16th - Mon. 19th October 2009, Bath.
Fourth Component:  Fri. 22nd - Tues. 26th January 2010, Dorset
  FEE £1,496 (Fee includes accommodation and food for the two residential components in Dorset at The Sacred Trust   Centre. It may be paid in bi-monthly installments).                                                                                                       Book Here

PRE-REQUISITE: The Way of the Shaman workshop or equivalent. A telephone interview will be required of all applicants.

Have you ever cared for a horse? Known his breath on your face, met her gaze across the field at dawn, nursed him through colic or felt her patience and care with a child on her back? The history of the horse is long, noble and often painful. As we know it today, the horse evolved some 55 million years ago from a fox-sized, forest-dweller, with the oldest species of 'true' horse – Equus stenosis - arriving within the last two million years. During the earliest periods of human-horse relationship, the right-relationship with the horse was maintained, the maps for which were passed down from one generation of horse-people to the next. However, this sacred bond has been increasingly eroded in the modern world and as a result the corporeal spirituality carried by and through the horse, has been largely cast adrift.

But all is not lost. A quiet revolution is underway, driven by those who have chosen to reject the brutality of modern horsemanship and instead have begun to re-instigate and re-establish the bond that was once an enlightened one. The Shamanic Way of the Horse is a unique and innovative training led by two teachers at the vanguard of this moral, ethical and practical revolution, who will lead participants back into harmony with the horse through the archaic ways of the shaman. Here is the perennial wisdom way, that draws upon ancient principles and practices of kinship with horses, leading to the development of a heart-centered, equine led spirituality.

On this training - which includes human-horse interaction - you will:

Have your own habitual ways and patterns of relating to the horse deconstructed, and discover where and how your movement and expression is blocked, inhibiting your greater communion with the horse.
Be offered new pathways, through which to develop a body that is quiet and listening, that articulates and communicates precisely and unequivocally - that moves in harmony with the environment and ultimately in ecstatic union with the horse. The core of this work is an innovative and holistic body of balance and equilibrium practices known as Lemniscate Circuit Work which strengthens body-mind-soul awareness.
Learn to develop 360 degree sensory, three dimensional knowledge and seeing with your body, enabling you to commune with the horse with the necessary levels of sensitivity demanded for right relationship, and in so doing come to embody aspects of this living grace that moves across our planet.
Undertake the ceremony of The Sacred Horse, a flight towards the heart of this ancient and wise ally.
Be introduced, through specific meditations, movements and voice work, to the shamanic way of being in divine fusion and harmony with the horse; which is centered around the premise that it is a spiritual practice and an embodied mystical path based on communion rather than conquest.

This sensuous, rigorous training offers the opportunity to make profound excursions into an evolutionary relationship with the horse, and go beyond the limits of our current beliefs to a new landscape where the horse is honored as teacher, healer and sacred ally.

PLEASE NOTE: This workshop is for all people who love horses and you do not need to be an experienced horse-person to attend. However, the work will involve direct physical interaction with our equine family:
Mendiondo (Andalusian); Windsong Darcy (Part-bred
Arab) Molly (Colored Cob) and Rhia (New Forest Pony).

Dates: Friday 27th February - Tuesday 3rd March 2009 OR Friday 11th September - Tuesday 15th September 2009
Venue: The Sacred Trust Centre, Dorset
Fee: £485 (fully residential; fee includes accommodation, food and all tuition) Book Here

For many people the animal world is something separate and distant from their daily lives, with a domestic animal being the only form of interaction with their kingdoms. However, to shamanic peoples across the world, animals are considered to be peers and allies, and there has always been a sacred relationship between the hunter and the hunted.

The masquerading of animal-headed deities, the wearing of pelts, horns and skins was undertaken with the intention of assimilating the superhuman powers possessed by certain animals. Humanity evolved from the beasts, and because of this we hold – deeply buried within the subconscious – the memories of superhuman powers that we once possessed. These are known as the Animal Powers. Each animal is seen as typifying one or more such powers: stealth and cunning for the wolf; seeing or sensing in darkness for the cat, the owl, and the bat; death-dealing power for the snake. The archaic art of accessing the powers of the animal pantheon is also deemed to enable one to embrace an embodied interconnectedness with life that brings forth previously unexplored levels of communion with our animal kin.

This weekend workshop is a practical exploration of the Way of Animal Powers and how they may be accessed, this being the corner-stone to the art of animal shamanism, a path which traditionally demands tests of courage followed by the opportunity for magical transformation. We will investigate the authentic totemic relationship and its application and relevance in modern daily life, and we shall explore the tradition of adopting of an animal ‘familiar’ which has strong roots upon the British Isles. We will engage with the theme of the Wild Hunt, where the boundaries between the human and animal nations become blurred and indistinct, and within which a third locale is revealed, where the Lord and Lady of the Animals reside and where their are teachings imparted.

  DATES: Saturday 8th - Sunday 9th August, 2009
  VENUE: St. Luke’s Hall, Kew,London
  FEE £145                                                                                                                                                                                Book Here