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Interview — David Shi, Author of The Mysteries and Magic of North Asian Shamanism
Linda Bischoff (PaganPages.Org): In your book “Spirit Voices” you talk about your background and your path to where you are today – is there anything else that you’d like to add? What do you see your future path looking like? David Shi: Yes – thank you. I grew up in what I would term an Atheist family meaning that I was raised by parents with a mindset of believing in hard science; somewhat of a STEM perspective. The ancestral practices in the book are coming from my ancestors who began appearing in my dreams when I was in my mid to late teens. It was in this way that I…
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30 Days of Samhain
It’s Almost Time! The final harvest calls, the Ancestors await and the veils between the worlds have thinned offering the gifts of healing, transformation and deeper communion with the cycles of nature. 2020 marks the fourth year of 30-Days of Samhain! This year has been challenging and turbulent and as we approach this sacred time of the year all that we hold dear is reaching out to embrace us in all of its beauty and power. In past years we have explored the mysteries of Samhain using a daily format of postings and suggestions to deepen your awareness of this sacred time of the year. This year I’ll…
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Book Review – Magic in the Landscape: Earth Mysteries and Geomancy by Nigel Pennick
Book Review Magic in the Landscape Earth Mysteries and Geomancy by Nigel Pennick 176 Pages Nigel Pennick’s new book, Magic in the Landscape – Earth Mysteries and Geomancy, opens with a lament for the loss of a cultural sense of humans’ place in the natural world. We spend most of our time physically separate from the natural world, in artificial environments, oblivious to what we cannot see on our screens. The worldview of “developed” cultures is that we live in a “world of dead matter, there to be used and used up.” And, as Pennick emphasizes, we have rejected not only the natural world, but the ways in…
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Book Review – Psychedlic Mysteries of the Feminine Edited by Maria Papaspyrou, Chiara Baldini & David Luke
In “Psychedelic Mysteries of the Feminine,” a diverse group of authors, artists, historians, scientists, ecologists, herbalists, shamans, poets, doctors, lawyers, and therapists deliver an interdisciplinary message of hope and healing for our traumatized and increasingly poisoned world. This book is a well-balanced collection of essays which draw on a large number of original sources and academia to explore the history of feminine themes in the tradition and usage of psychedelic pharmaka, from beer and cannabis to ayahuasca and LSD. The psychological narrative of the book includes discussion of Jungian archetypes of women as earth mother, goddess, medicine woman, and more, as well as exploration into what psychedelics can teach us…
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Book Review – The Mythic Journey: Use Myths, Fairy Tales and Folklore to Explain Life’s Mysteries by Liz Greene and Juliet Sharman-Burke
Book Review The Mythic Journey Use Myths, Fairy Tales and Folklore to Explain Life’s Mysteries by Liz Greene and Juliet Sharman-Burke 240 Pages This lovely collection of myths, fairy stories and folklore is brought to us by Liz Greene and Juliet Sharman-Burke, who collaborated on The Mythic Tarot. It appears to be a re-working of the book originally published in 2000. The tales included continue to inform our psyches today as the authors see with the eye of the mythic imagination past form into the heart of being. The stories included in the book come from many cultures and traditions: Buddhism, the Old Testament, ancient Greece, Minoan Crete, Maori…