A name for what I do?

Milfoil

nisaba said:
It sounds like a regional shamanic tradition. Shamanism is not just American - they just get the publicity.
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Shamanism isn't American either (sorry, not meaning to be rude) and most 1st Nation Americans don't recognise the word, their medicine people often don't work in altered states of consciousness. The word comes from the Tuvan language of the Tungus district in Siberia. Shamanism involves altered states of consciousness by which the Ancestors and other Spirits are contacted.

What is being described here sounds much more like a regionally specific, nature based belief system with some similarities to Balkan witchcraft and some HooDoo.

It also reminds me of a film I saw a while back about an American family of women who passed on their 'craft' only to their daughters and whatever element they resonated with. The daughter was also an Earth person, making massive sculptures!

The beautiful thing though is that all over the world we have survivals of the old beliefs which meander like streams, adapting to their particular locale and synchronising with other, similar systems. :)
 

Debra

I'm with Milfoil--sounds like central European witchcraft. I don't see the shamanism in what you describe.

Milfoil said:
Shamanism isn't American either (sorry, not meaning to be rude) and most 1st Nation Americans don't recognise the word, their medicine people often don't work in altered states of consciousness. The word comes from the Tuvan language of the Tungus district in Siberia. Shamanism involves altered states of consciousness by which the Ancestors and other Spirits are contacted.

What is being described here sounds much more like a regionally specific, nature based belief system with some similarities to Balkan witchcraft and some HooDoo.
Click to expand...
 

SunsetKay

Milfoil said:
Shamanism isn't American either (sorry, not meaning to be rude) and most 1st Nation Americans don't recognise the word, their medicine people often don't work in altered states of consciousness. The word comes from the Tuvan language of the Tungus district in Siberia. Shamanism involves altered states of consciousness by which the Ancestors and other Spirits are contacted.

What is being described here sounds much more like a regionally specific, nature based belief system with some similarities to Balkan witchcraft and some HooDoo.

It also reminds me of a film I saw a while back about an American family of women who passed on their 'craft' only to their daughters and whatever element they resonated with. The daughter was also an Earth person, making massive sculptures!

The beautiful thing though is that all over the world we have survivals of the old beliefs which meander like streams, adapting to their particular locale and synchronising with other, similar systems. :)
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You wouldn't happen to remember the name of the movie, would you? I think I'd like to see it.

I'm still researching everything but hoodoo. I looked pretty deeply into that avenue and found pretty much the similarities that I listed. I bought a copy of Balkan Traditional Witchcraft (since every site I've checked has referenced it) that I'll start reading after work.

I'm having a hard time understanding shamanism - for that very reason, I don't think it has any bearing on what I do; communications with "spirits" are considered a last resort, and under no circumstances are the dead to be disturbed. It could be that I'm simply not understanding "spirits". I do believe that everything is alive and has its own will. I don't know if that's what is meant by spirit. Even though I'm pretty sure it isn't shamanism, I'm going to keep reading about it just because it's really interesting. :)

Actually, I'm finding a lot of really interesting things. :)
 

SunsetKay

Debra said:
I'm with Milfoil--sounds like central European witchcraft. I don't see the shamanism in what you describe.
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Yes, I don't think so either, but it's really fun to research. :)
 
Paying it forward :-) question about auras