by Sandra Ingerman: I have been practicing and teaching shamanism for the past 30 years. Shamanism dates back over 100,000 years and was practiced in all cultures around the world. My passion as a licensed psychotherapist studying shamanism has been to discover how we could use indigenous healing ceremonies and practices to deal with modern day issues.
Shamanism is a way of life that teaches the feminine principles of how to live a life of honor and respect for everything that is alive. All life is connected to what is called a web of life. In our modern day world, we have disconnected ourselves from nature, and this is causing illness on physical and emotional levels, as well as impacting the health of the planet itself.
My work with bringing shamanic healing to heal emotional and physical illness led me to teach people how to identify changes they needed to make in order to lead a more harmonious life. This typically requires creating a vision of a positive present and future that is different from the challenge faced with in the past. Furthermore, many clients needed to learn how to create a new life filled with passion and meaning. Only by creating a healthy lifestyle could clients maintain the positive effects of shamanic healing.
As I continued my work, I started to focus on how to we could use spiritual methods to heal the planet. Many feel so overwhelmed by what is happening on the planet. Where we have the power to create positive change is with the spiritual practices we engage in.
One of the most important messages I received was that it is who we become that changes the world and our environment, not only what we do. It is important to understand that our outer world is a reflection of our inner state of consciousness.
Before we can heal the planet, we must transform how we think, daydream and speak so that we plant seeds of love and light into our earth garden and learn to feed those seeds so that they grow into beautiful and healthy plants. What we feed grows.
We must learn how to cultivate a rich inner landscape so that light and joy returns to our eyes and also to the earth.
Stories that come from many spiritual and religious traditions attest that miracles were once an everyday occurrence. I researched different traditions to find clues as to how miracles were performed by shamans, mystics and saints. As I read, a formula that seemed to be part of all miracles started to emerge. Each element of the formula could not be taken separately, but when combined, created transformational healing.
Eventually I stated the formula as intention + union + love + harmony + concentration + focus + imagination = transformation and healing. For miracles to occur, we must hold a strong intention of what we want to see happen. All spiritual practices teach about the power of intention, which inevitably leads to action.
Furthermore, miracles involve union with a divine force, which spiritual teachers tell us is the source of love. Love is a great transformer and an essential ingredient in all miracles. Where there is an open heart filled with love, there is miraculous energy to bring through. Being in the presence of people who imbue the power of love can produce healing in and of itself. These people often do not use methods or techniques; they lift up everyone around them into a higher consciousness.
Spiritual traditions also teach that to be healthy we must live a harmonious life. Harmony within creates harmony without. Most tell us, too, that a key to the success of a spiritual practice is the ability to concentrate. To add to this we must maintain a strong focus on both our short term and long term goals.
Imagination is another key in performing the miracle of transformational healing. We must be able to envision an environment that is pure and clean and which supports all of life. With the power of imagination, we have the ability to sculpt the world we live in with each thought we have. We all use our imaginations, of course, though sadly it is often not in a mindful manner.
A widespread spiritual practice to change our dreams involves engaging all the senses. We must be able to see the sights and colors of the world we want to live in and feel the sensations of what it would be like to live in such a world. We must be able to hear the sounds of life around us, smell the fragrances, and taste the tastes. We must be able to engage these senses to call our dream into being as if it is already here now, rather than imagining our creations as being in the future. Starting now, we can live in gratitude and appreciation for the beauty that we can see in all things.
We are more than our bodies and our minds. Who we are beyond our skin is spiritual light. When we drop all that separates us from our divine light, everything in the outer world mirrors back to us a state of divinity, light, and perfection.
We do live in a physical body and we have to take action to keep our bodies healthy. We also live on a physical body — the earth — and there are actions we must take now to insure the health of the earth.
Taking care of body, mind, and spirit all works together to create a harmonious way of life. For it has been known since the beginning of time that disharmony causes illness.
The feminine teaches us about the power of direct revelation. We all have the ability to follow our hearts and intuition to be positive changemakers for the earth. And it is time to trust ourselves and to recognize how each of us contributes to the health of our communities and the planet by being a presence of love and light.
This is not a time to give up. This is a time to remain in a state of hope and find the inner strength to feed all of life with love and light.
This is a powerful time of change and transformation on the planet. There is so much we can bridge from feminine principles to contribute to the health of the planet.
FEMME: Women Healing the World is filled with inspiring interviews addressing the feminine in all aspects. Women from professions such as science, politics, business and spirituality share their views helping us to awaken our feminine power and how it can be and will be a healing force in the world.
FEMME addresses the changes we need to make on the levels of body, mind, and spirit to bring in a holistic perspective to shift where the world is going. Watching this brilliant movie provides tools for learning about how we can be positive changemakers during this potent time of change on the planet.
