Shaman: Invoking Power, Presence and Purpose at the Core of Who You Are - Ya'Acov Darling Khan 2020

Empowerment: A Basket Full of Medicine

’Power can be taken, but not given. The process of the taking is empowerment in itself.’

GLORIA STEINEM

Now that you’ve met the Inner Shaman, it’s time to put them to work in service of your own awakening. We’re going to align body, heart and mind in order to hunt and gather the medicine the Inner Shaman needs to make the strongest impact possible on your day-to-day experience of life.

At the same time as being concerned with your own awakening, I’d take a guess that your Inner Shaman knows there’s no such thing as genuine shamanic practice that begins and ends with the self. On my own journey, I’ve been taught that my liberation won’t come in isolation from the world, but in physical relationship with it. I’ve found that to be true, and it has become even more relevant now, when our way of life is causing so much damage to the natural world around us.

The most powerful and intimate force that we’ve been given for relationship is our creative sexual energy. How we are with that energy has a huge effect on our vitality. And the Inner Shaman’s power is rooted in their vitality. So we’ll begin our hunt for medicine with a look at the dance of the apparent opposites of yin, the receptive, creative energy of the universe, and yang, the active, conceptive energy of the universe, and your relationship to your sexual energy. Learning to harness your sexual energy for your health, wellbeing and empowerment is potent medicine for your Inner Shaman. And seeing how that primary relationship plays itself out inside you is of great importance if you are to effectively use your capacity to create.

Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate more and more that it is this physically present relationship with life in the Middle World that is the harvest of my work in the Lower and Upper Worlds. To bring what we learn to life, we need to be emotionally awake, courageous and able to let go and celebrate. Therefore, I’m going to invite you to ask your Inner Shaman to show you the landscape of your heart and your emotions. For the Inner Shaman, emotion isn’t something to be got rid of. It’s super-honed animal intelligence that we can learn from. And we need to harness the full power of our heart if we are to heal and bring our gifts into this world.

We will then open the door to the roles and archetypes that play a big part in the shaman’s world. We will specifically work with transforming the roles that keep a particularly vicious circle spinning. That transformation from vicious circle to what I call the ’medicine circle’ will be helped by connecting with four archetypes that will give your Inner Shaman greater access to their power.

Finally in Part II, I’ll share with you a simple yet powerful embodied alchemical process that will be the basis for working more actively with where you are in your life. Your Inner Shaman has the capability to do deep work on behalf of your evolving essential self. They will serve you well as you discover more of who you are.

The Shaman’s world is full of everything you can imagine and more besides. That’s why they need a basket full of medicine. So, dear seeker, it’s time for us to move on and do some good old-fashioned hunting and gathering…

Ready?

Okay. Let’s talk about sex…