I would like to talk a little about what I have noticed with my shamanic work since I have been back.  I have done four soul retrievals since I have been home and one depossession.  The work is different for me, as the practitioner.  I usually tape my sessions with the client, and give them the tape to take with them.  With my first session, it took me about an hour to figure out how to work my tape player.  I tried everything I could think of, and then I finally realized that the thing was on pause.  It was quite frustrating.  (Later I realized that it was because my ancestor was already in my body, and he didn’t know how to work the tape player!) And then for first soul retrieval I did, I did a lot of singing and dancing to get into a trance state. I knelt down next to the client, and rattled to get even farther.  I lay down next to the client to journey, and I “saw” my ancestor who does the shamanic work sitting on a log, laughing hysterically at me.  He looked at me, and said “if you feel like you need to do this then go ahead, but who do you think is going to do this work anyway?”  So, now I am in the middle of a soul retrieval, and I realize that I don’t know how to work.  I usually work with my power animal. Has this ancestor replaced my power animal, what am I supposed to do?  My ancestor says for me to continue with my power animal.  My power animal takes me to the places of the missing soul essence is, but this is different too.  I usually “see” some sort of setting of where the soul essence is currently or when it left.  But now I see nothing.  I am in the void.  I am there for all three pieces that I retrieve.  I collect the pieces and blow them into the client, I go get a power animal for the client, and their life’s purpose with a symbol.  I tell the client “Welcome Home,” and ask them how they feel, and they begin to tell me what happened for them when I blew in the soul essence.  They felt the energy come in, and they felt within their body the gifts that the soul essence brought back, and they were able to name them, before I even told them what they were!  This had never happened for me before.  And the same thing has happened for all four of the soul retrievals I have done.  The client may not tell me exactly before I tell the healing story, but they tell at some point in our time together.  I feel like the work I am doing now is taking me deeper, and seems to be taking my clients there too.  And I feel so much joy doing the work.  I felt the joy before, but I really feel it now.  My heart just sings.  I am still sorting out how to work.  The power animal does not fit into the African system, as I know it.  Neither does the teacher, for that matter, but the ancestors are kind of like teachers, so I can work with that one.  A friend of mine suggested that I journey to my power animal and ask him how he fits in.  I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.  I’ll find my way, eventually.  In the end, my work will look like my work, not someone else’s.  Bottom line, shamanism is all about results anyway.  If my way gets results, then I am on the right track.  And for now, I can say that my new found way appears to be getting better results than before.  I’m just very happy to have clients and to be doing the work.  I am grateful to my ancestors, and to all of those who came before, for their love, knowledge, guidance and immense patience as we all try to find our own way with this work in these changing times.

 Take care,  Shilo