Soul Tending
EMbodieD soul tending through nature
My Response to “How Do I Get Started in Shamanism?”
Without a doubt, this the question I see most often in shamanism forums. Online, in-person, in the checkout line (seriously, that happened, once), people ask me at least once a week how to get started in shamanism. For the sake of not answering it evermore, I'm...
The Question Everyone Asks About Shamanism
"Do I have to work with Shadow to be a shaman?" It's true. I bet I've been asked that question more than any other, over the last 25 years. That and "What's my life purpose?" The funny thing is, we can't know the answer to one without resolving our issues with the...
Life Betwixt – Depression in the Shaman’s Life
Throughout the Betwixt Series I've emphasized that shamanism isn't called 'fire in the head' for no reason. It's inextricable from mental illness because we culturally can't honor hearing voices and engaging trance states without also projecting judgement onto sanity...
Life Betwixt – Deathwalking
So many people have contacted me since I blogged about my experience in February of this year, when the planetary Watchers told me that we need to be prepared to deathwalk Midgard (Earth). Lewise, after I posted early in September about planetary soul loss, many more...
Life Betwixt – Shaman 2.0, or Why Soul Tending
Soul Healing? Check. Now What? You know the phase that comes after realizing you have no glaring soul wound to heal? No? You're not alone. Loads of other people don't know it, either. That curious place does exist, though. Chances are you've experienced it and weren't...
Betwixt – Feathers and Felonies
In the Betwixt series, I talk a lot about Nature Spirit Allies. For many seekers, these allies are engaged through work with fetishes, or power items, as has become the phrase-of-the-day. For a shamanist, this means possessing some likeness of the Nature being,...
Life Betwixt – The Ayahuasca Thing
I don't talk much about entheogens in my work, largely because I don't use them. I don't think they're bad or any such, I just have never needed to use them to get where I want or need to be, in terms of the ecstatic. Nonetheless, when I teach Intro to Soul Tending ,...
Thursday Betwixt – Spiritual Crisis and Psychosis
It's been a while since I updated the Betwixt series. For those of you who are new to it, on selected Thursdays I shed light on lesser discussed aspects of the modern shamanic path, and in the vein of disclosure, hope to frame this path in a more realistic and...
Thursday Betwixt – Modern Challenges in Shamanic Journeying (Part 2 of 3)
Last week, we discussed self-doubt and failure of imagine as culprits limiting the experience of shamanic journeying. This week, we continue in Part 2 of that dialogue, with: Over-rationalization. One of the most valuable skills of the modern mind is the ability...
Thursday Betwixt – Modern Challenges in Shamanic Journeying (Part 1 of 3)
In the first phase of the Thursday Betwixt Series we've discussed diverse possibilities in allies available to support the modern shamanic path, and to a great degree that of animism. Moving into phase two, I'd like to talk about how we do what we do on...
Thursday Betwixt – After the Journey
"Then he began to think of all the things Christopher Robin would want to tell him when he came back from wherever he was going to, and how muddling it would be for a Bear of Very Little Brain to try and get them right in his mind. 'So, perhaps,' he said sadly to...
Why Journeying Isn’t Shamanism
"Journeying" is the term most often used to describe the process shamans go through to engage the spirit world. The word was associated with shamanic ecstatic trance by Michael Harner in the 1980s, which for those keeping ancient score, wasn't that long ago. My...
Seizures and the Spiritual Experience
Back in the day, the original inception of Intentional Insights was based on reader Q&A of spiritual experiences, shamanism, and animism. This question, this post, remains one of the top three read posts on my site. If you suffer with seizures, know that it is a...
S. Kelley Harrell, M. Div.
I’m an animist, author, deathwalker and death doula. For the last 25+ years, through Soul Intent Arts I’ve helped others to ethically build thriving spiritual paths as fit, embodied elders, who upon death become wise, capable Ancestors. My work is Nature-based, and focuses soul tending through the Elder Futhark runes, animism, ancestral healing, and deathwork. I’m author of Runic Book of Days, and I host the podcast, What in the Wyrd. I also write The Weekly Rune as a celebration of the Elder Futhark in season. Full bio.
#beyourcommunity ~ #youareecosystem
elder well, die well, ancestor well
Elder Well
To bear your unique gift to the world.
Die Well
To leave the planet better than you found it.
Ancestor Well
So that your descendants never elder alone.
We don't heal in isolation,
but in communityGift of the Dreamtime Reader's Companion
~S. Kelley Harrell