Shamanism vs animism: how to live spiritually in modern times (transcript)

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Episode Transcript:

Lian (00:00)

How might we tell a call to animism from the rarest summons to shamanic work and live well with either in today's world? Hello, my beautiful souls, a huge warm welcome back. In this episode, I'm joined once again by Nicholas Breezewood. Nick is a shamanic practitioner of over 40 years who blends the earthier end of Tibetan Buddhism with medicine teachings from native North American people.

Together we trace the line between animism and shamanism, naming where they overlap and where they differ. We look at how industrial life thinned our old ways and what restores a living connection with a more than human world. We keep it practical and human, the small daily offerings that slows us down.

This is for those of us who feel that call back to nature and are wondering whether that means animist, shamanist or simply human answering an innate way of seeing. And before we jump into all of that good stuff, first it's time for our weekly omen from the algorithmic oracles.

Baba Yaga cackles from her hut on chicken feet. Subscribe or your fire will go out and your notifications will sing sagas of irrelevance. Best subscribe now if you haven't already. And if you're struggling with the challenges of walking your soul path in this crazy modern world and would benefit from guidance, kinship and support, come join our Academy of the Soul Unio.

You can discover more and join us by hovering over to BeMythical.com/unio or click the link in the description. And now back to this week's episode. Let's dive in.

Lian (01:50)

Hello, Nick. Welcome back to the show.

Nicholas (01:54)

Hi, and thank you very much for inviting me back on.

Lian (01:57)

Well, there were so many different rabbit holes and side tangents when we spoke last time. I was like, we've got to pick at least one and go deeper with. actually, as it's happened, it feels as though we're perhaps combining two of those side routes into one conversation in this one, which feels actually really apt for the time, the time we're in as a culture.

Nicholas (02:22)

Yeah,

strange times.

Lian (02:25)

Let's,

yeah, they are really are strange times. I think there's, I guess I'll say at the outset that we're bringing together two, two themes in this conversation. And one is these times we find ourselves in, you know, you could say we're kind of the end times of this particular version of our culture, the civilization, which one way or another is set to change, potentially

Nicholas (02:49)

Mmm.

Lian (02:54)

radically and quite fast in this generation. And then on the other hand, something we were talking about, we touched upon in our last conversation was this call so many people are feeling towards what they might think is charminism, but could be animism.

And there's a difference between the two. Of course, they're kind of, you know, they're related. And my sense at least is one of the ways that we're being called to meet these changing times is to head back in that direction towards this kind of, again, this, I'm going to group them together, kind of animism and shamanism. But it feels important that we understand the differences between the two.

And so each person can understand what's in line for them rather than kind of like, oh, I must become a shaman because I'm feeling this call back to the land. What if we really understood what it is we're being called back to? So it's a complex, complex kind of two topics together, but it feels as though this is what we're being called to talk about today. So let's begin, I guess, first by defining what's meant by animism.

Nicholas (03:52)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Lian (04:15)

versus shamanism. So ⁓ if you're happy to pick the baton up from there.

Nicholas (04:17)

Okay. Yeah, fine.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. All right. So, mean, shamanism is an animistic tradition, but let's not confuse it by saying that and just sort of start with animism. It kind of means a lot of different things to different people, but basically it means that the world is full of spirits and at its roots, it means that everything is alive. It's that whole kind of idea of living matter reality rather than dead matter reality, dead matter thinking that we have in the West. So, you know, when I work with Native Americans, they talk about the two-legged, they talk about the four-legged, the six-legged, the creepy crawly nation, the swimmers, the tree nation, the star nation, the stone nation. It's like all of these are our relatives on the medicine wheel, on the great circle of life, as it were. And they're all alive. And because it's a circle, everybody is equal, everything is equal. You know, we have this kind of apex sort of idea in the West that kind of reality is a triangle and humans are at the top of the triangle. And indigenous cultures see much more that it's a circle and everybody has their place on the circle. So

Lian (05:19)

you

Mm-hmm.

Nicholas (05:38)

For me, animism is that we are kind of like swimming in this entire universe full of spirits. Some of them are the spirits of the things that we see, like the stone people, or the tree people, or the star people. And some of them are spirits that are invisible to us that we don't see, or most people don't see, which would be, I guess from European culture, you could talk about the fairies, or you could talk about in Tibetan culture you could talk about the sen which are the the beings that live amongst the rocks on the top of the mountains and most people are not aware of those but they're still part of the kind of ecology spirit ecology of the world so that's what animism is and I always think also kind of like an animist picks up the phone and talks to the spirits and a shaman goes and visits them so

Lian (06:37)

I love that.

Nicholas (06:37)

For me, shamanism is, I mean, that's a kind of very broad brush, but it's a kind of easy, fun way of thinking about it. So a shaman is somebody, it's an animistic tradition because they understand that everything is alive and full of spirits. it's, a shaman is somebody who kind of applies the animism in this particular way. So a shaman is somebody that is chosen by the spirits.

Lian (06:54)

Hmm

Nicholas (07:07)

and they're born different. don't know if I can't quite remember what I said in the last podcast, but there's an Ewenk story, which is the Ewenk, where the word shaman comes from, the Ewenk live in southeastern Siberia. And they have this sort of mythology or cosmology that everybody's soul sits like birds on the world tree before they're born. And they say the souls of ordinary people sit on one branch.

and the souls of shamans sit on another. So shamans are kind of different. They're not better or worse or they're just different. So they get born and then they learn through human teachers so that they can go into a controlled repeatable trance state. And in that trance state, they do the spirit flight to the spirit worlds. and they sometimes will get taken over by the spirits, so the spirits will work through them. But that's kind of shamanism, and what they do is that they're working to make physical changes in this world. So they're negotiating with the unseen powers, and they're sometimes sort of slipping out of this mundane physical world that we see all around us and going into the kind of the, behind the curtain into the spirit world and working there.

and they have spirit helpers that they have a very long, strong relationship with, so they really know them and trust them and work with them. An animist would do ceremonies, they would perhaps, they would make offerings to the spirits, they may have an idea of the spirits, they may have a cosmology where they know certain spirits within their kind of cultural framework, and they would make offerings and they would do ceremonies and they would placate the spirits in whatever way.

but it's kind of more in this world. ⁓ There's obviously an overlap because ⁓ shamans do a lot of animistic things. know, if you're going to be really technical about it, a shaman is only a shaman when they're either being possessed or they're doing a spirit flight. But a lot of their magic, for want of a better word, is animistic. So they might make protective amulets or...

Lian (09:07)

Mmm.

Nicholas (09:30)

you know, they will do offering ceremonies just the same as an animist would. There's huge overlap between ⁓ Native American traditions, which I first trained with and say Mongolian or Siberian traditions. They all do the same kind of thing, but the shaman does something slightly extra, which is the spirit flight and the, or the possession. ⁓ And the thing calling it up to order is important. So,

Lian (09:51)

Mmm.

Nicholas (10:00)

Okay, so, ⁓ Vision Quest, a lot of people will have heard of Vision Quest, which is the kind of the Native American idea of going up the hill and fasting and praying for a vision. ⁓ And it's a good rite of passage for people when they're in a point of transition in their lives. And you kind of hope that you're going to get a vision and kind of a message from God, so to speak, a message from the spirits, but you can't guarantee it, it happens to you if it happens to you. But a shaman has the techniques to be able to kind of call that up to will, you know, at will. So it's, yeah, it's it is a different thing. ⁓ But there's a lot of overlaps.

Lian (10:34)

Mmm.

Mm, thank you so much. I love your your metaphors. think there's this this conversation is as as you're talking, it's dawn on me how helpful this actually is, because it's because of that. As you say, it's more than overlap. It's kind of like a shaman is an animist and then some no wonder in our culture that has largely forgotten the old ways.

Nicholas (11:08)

Yeah. Yeah.

Lian (11:14)

No wonder there was this confusion and kind of, you know, not understanding kind of what we're being called to. It makes complete sense given we've lost contact with these things. Something I recall from a conversation several years ago with a traditional shaman. And they said something that I've mentioned several times on the show since, it, You know, you hear something and it completely like shifts your own way of seeing something like in that moment. And they said something, it was really simple, but has stayed with me ever since. And they said something like, animism is our innate worldview. And by innate, they didn't just mean it was kind of our original worldview, but it's like the innate worldview for even modern humans. we, yeah, as a baby.

Nicholas (11:48)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

yeah!

Lian (12:09)

That is our innate worldview, it's how we see the world and then our culture trains us out of it. And that was like one of those moments you're like, of course, like we see the world as it is until we're told to see it differently.

Nicholas (12:12)

Yeah, I think.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, I think we're hardwired to be animistic. I mean, you know, it's a kind of a bit of a joke, but if your car won't start, you talk to it or you swear at it or it becomes an animate object, you know? So, I mean, no, we really are and our culture is, you know, that whole dead matter thinking stuff, it's ingrained in us.

Lian (12:25)

Mmm.

Hahaha!

So true.

Nicholas (12:46)

from everywhere in the culture, from television, mostly our parents, even the most enlightened parents in our culture, they were brought up in a dead matter thinking culture. So they kind of have that too. It's very much part of our worldview. And of course from the enlightenment, kind of 17th, 18th century, the whole idea of everything being mechanistic and that whole kind of way that it was reduced, the reductionist,

Lian (12:58)

Mmm.

Yes.

Mmm.

Nicholas (13:16)

kind of mechanistic worldview that we generated at that point, where it was the age of reason and superstition went out the window. You know, so we're still living with all of that. But I always I always feel hopeful because it's only really been about the last 300 or 400 years that we've been like that. And before that, there was lots of superstitions and of course, superstition isn't necessarily a good thing or an accurate thing. But but that whole

Lian (13:22)

Mmm.

Mmm.

Yes. ⁓

Nicholas (13:45)

Idea of the world being bigger than just what we see and the kind of the clockwork nature of reality. That's a really, really a new thing.

Lian (13:53)

Hmm.

Nicholas (13:58)

I've thought about this before and I think the Industrial Revolution had an enormous amount of damage because people moved to the cities and they lost the connection to the countryside and it wasn't all wonderful living in the countryside and being a peasant on a farm, but you were in touch with the natural world, which is something that is missing. I was ever so taken years ago, I watched an archaeological programme and they were talking about ⁓ excavating a graveyard in Birmingham, which they had to move because of a railway line being put there. And when they were excavating it, the earliest graves, which were dating to about 1700, I think, all of the bodies had plates on their chests and the archaeologists couldn't work it out. And then eventually they realised that it was probably to do with a tradition from Wales called sin eating. And a sin eater, when somebody died, they would they would put a plate of bread and salt on the dead person's chest or on top of the coffin. And then there was a particular person in the culture that was called a sin eater, and they would come and eat the bread and salt. And that would symbolically take on the sins of the person that had died. And this only actually died out in the 1950s, believe it or not. There was, I remember hearing somebody from Swansea that,

Lian (15:24)

Mmm, like a scapegoat kind of.

Wow.

Nicholas (15:34)

remembered the shock that the sin eater hadn't turned up for a funeral because the sin eater was an old guy and he himself had died. But this was in the 50s, you know, so it's not that long ago. And then the archaeologists, when they started to excavate other graves in this graveyard, more recent graves, they didn't find the plates. And they realised, and it's a logical kind of assumption to make, that as people moved into the city to find work because of the Industrial Revolution and probably all these people with plates had come up from South Wales somewhere. As they were in the city and they were mixing with other cultures, the traditions had faded away. And so the idea of sin eating in that population had just died out. It kind of wasn't relevant anymore in Industrial Revolution Birmingham. ⁓ And so that's...

Lian (16:17)

Mmm.

Hmm. Yeah.

Nicholas (16:31)

kind of part of what it is. I live in Pembrokeshire, which is in the southwest of Wales. And I've been here for about 25 years, but I've been coming here for about 45 years on a regular basis. And I've seen massive changes here. When I was first starting to come down, the old people were still alive.

and they remembered the old stories and there were sort of like prohibitions about going into certain woods because they were fairy woods and you didn't go into them. And as the old people have died and new people have moved into the area, kind of people coming in from England and whatever, a lot of those old traditions have faded and gone and with it the kind of the living folk memory. So that's,

Lian (17:19)

Hmm.

Nicholas (17:21)

I've kind of rambled a bit, that's something to do with why we've got this dead matter thinking culture. We've kind of lost so much of that.

Lian (17:33)

Well, if it was a ramble, I think it was a really illuminating one because, as you say, it's hopeful to recognise that that innate worldview of animism hasn't actually ⁓ been lost for us as adults all that long. It's not we're having to reach back into our long distant past to reclaim it. It's actually...

Nicholas (17:56)

No.

Lian (17:57)

You know, not that far back, not that many generations back. was ⁓ something ⁓ I was thinking as you were talking about the reasons for this that ⁓ I remind, as you were talking about the Industrial Revolution, I remember ⁓ going deep into this, I don't know if it has a word, it's the theory that whatever our current technology is, like our kind of technological edge that we're at as a culture any one time, we take in as our worldview on how our mind works and how the universe works. And so when it's when it's mechanistic, or when it's based on computers, we take that in and go, oh, that's how we work. That's how our mind works. That's how the universe works. And that makes a lot of sense to me, it's going to be interesting to see how we take the the AI

Nicholas (18:36)

Yeah. Yeah.

Lian (18:55)

way of, you know, that's now the edge of our technology, how that's going to affect how we believe we work and the world works. It's an interesting thing. Yes, it's like, does that, exactly.

Nicholas (19:01)

Totally, yeah. And for children born in that, it's, yeah, I mean, it's normal for them. Yeah, yeah.

Lian (19:11)

So just to come back to what you said there before we sort of dive a little bit more into shamanism and then kind of bring it back to what's being called of us in these days. What you said there in terms of as animists, we would have still been, you know, conducting rituals, ceremonies, making offerings. I think that's a really helpful thing to know because again, these practices are now no longer common in our culture outside of perhaps organised religion. You for those of us that aren't part of an organised religion, we may never have done those kinds of things consciously and knowingly. And so I think that in itself is really helpful because it's so in our blood and bones to do those things, and yet it's become alien. And I think that's the reason we end up having this kind of when we start to get this glimpse of

Nicholas (19:42)

Yeah. Yeah.

Yes, it is.

Lian (20:09)

those things being natural for us, we can then, the only way that we can see this happening in our culture is we go, that's a shamanic practice. That's the only way I can possibly engage with this living world I'm now recognising is all around me, that this tree that I visit is alive and is a being I can have a relationship

Nicholas (20:26)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lian (20:33)

I'd love to hear your sense of that because that's what I recognise is something that is so natural for us to reclaim, but is an animistic reclamation, not necessarily a shamanic one.

Nicholas (20:46)

Yeah, I absolutely agree. And I think it's really, really important. mean, Western culture is a complete mess. And a lot of the fact that it's a complete mess is because we have lost that living matter thinking view of the world. ⁓ We get ridiculed. It's better than it used to be. I when I was a kid, if I was to kind of do anything that was kind of vaguely woo-woo, you would have been ridiculed for it. I would have been ridiculed for it.

Lian (21:13)

Hmm.

Nicholas (21:14)

people, it is better now. mean, for all its faults, the New Age movement has kind of at least made these things a little bit more kind of mainstream. ⁓ But I mean, in terms of like, okay, I was thinking of milk offerings. milk offerings, cultures often give milk or they give food because food is precious to us, you know, it's important stuff, food. And so in,

Lian (21:21)

Yeah, that's true.

Hmm.

Nicholas (21:42)

Southern Siberia, Mongolia, Central Asia, they give milk quite often because it's a valuable product. And the shamans will do it. They will make milk offerings to the directions, but the local people will also do it. The non-shamans will do it because it's a way of saying thank you to the spirits, building a relationship with them. It's kind of a bribe in that you make an offering and you ask for something. You know, it's transactional.

We're transactional creatures. ⁓ But it's something that we don't do, but it would have happened. I was working with a young guy a couple of days ago who is feeling the pull of the spirits enormously. I was sitting and talking with him for ages. And then it dawned on me that it would be actually really useful for him to actually make milk offerings.

And I suggested, because he's very much involved in Celtic stuff, for him to dissolve some honey and some warm milk and make offerings thanking the spirits and especially thanking the spirits that love him, because not everything loves us. And that's really important too. There's always, I was always taught to put that filter. It's like if you're only inviting the spirits that love us.

Lian (22:52)

Mm-hmm.

Nicholas (23:03)

then that's a really important thing to do. otherwise it's like sticking your party on Facebook and inviting the world. And some of those people wouldn't be that good as guests. yeah, pay him to do that. But it's an act of gratitude. That's also something we don't have. And that's something that is integral in animism. It's like when somebody would go hunting for food,

Lian (23:12)

hehehehe ⁓

Hmm.

Nicholas (23:33)

you know, they would kill a deer or whatever. There are always elaborate rituals performed where you're thanking the deer for its spirit and you're doing it absolutely in the right way so that the deer nation are not offended by your actions. Because if the deer nation are offended by your actions, there's going to be a blowback on you and your culture, your family or tribe, whatever. And so that whole thing about animism is that you tread lightly in the world and you are respected.

Lian (23:54)

Mmm.

Nicholas (24:03)

and you are grateful and you make offerings as an act of reciprocity. You give so that they give and it's that, it is that sort of transactional nature. Like the dispatch ceremony of the Quero and the people of the high Andes, you know, and I would imagine quite a few people listening to this have maybe even attended a dispatch ceremony because they're quite popular. But the whole idea of that is that you make an offering of different things, lots of flowers, wine, the ones I've taken part in, they were dried starfish, all sorts of strange and wonderful things. And you're doing it as a beautiful offering to the spirit so that the spirits are given the gift so that they can then give back to you. And it's a dialogue. That's the sort of dialogue that an animist will do. ⁓ A shaman will have a different...

Lian (24:46)

Mmm.

Nicholas (25:00)

form of dialogue because they will talk directly with the spirits but they'll still make offerings because that offering is paying respect.

Lian (25:06)

Hmm.

Yeah, gosh, there's so much that's just come up for me ⁓ in response to what you've just said. A couple of things I'm going to share before we get then spend a bit of time on Shamanism and then kind of again, let's somehow bring it to a close with a nice neat bow. But there's so much here. So a couple of things that feel helpful to

Nicholas (25:23)

Yeah.

Lian (25:38)

note. One is the very practical, like although there is a spiritual ⁓ basis for making offerings, it has this very practical action of slowing us down and, you know, not being in this constant like creation consumption way that we've become in our modern culture because making offerings takes time. ⁓

Nicholas (25:53)

Yeah.

Lian (26:04)

costs us, you know, it means that if we want to create something, we're having to then make offerings for it, which is going to slow down what we're then wanting to move forward with. I think that, again, is we don't do it for that practical reason, but it has that practical action that keeps things in balance that I think that one thing has led to so much of the imbalance in our modern world.

I think there's something just huge in that. noticed myself the way that understanding that, although, you know, I'm still probably creating things in my life at a rate of nots that, you know, in an ancient culture would be ridiculous. I do notice that slowing down to make offerings does make, it seems to change what I'm doing, the rate I'm doing things at, the tension I'm paying to the impact I'm making, you know, just you know, say for example, creating a new structure in the garden or planting new things. I think it brings you much more present to the impact of that. and again, we've lost sight of, yes.

Nicholas (27:13)

it yeah, it gives us a chance to listen. Yeah, we listen. Yeah. ⁓

Okay, here's another big concept, which I'll try not to make too big. When we do any sacred act, we step into the centre of the universe. And that's that's an enormous concept. But if you if you think of medicine we're teaching, you know, we have the north, south, east and west around us and different cultures will have different aspects related to each of those points, like, like the elements, for example, and whatever. And most, not all, but most cultures have that idea of the four directions around us and the above and the below. And there's, there's a, there's a sacred quality

Lian (27:56)

Hmm.

Nicholas (28:01)

When we go into a sacred space, if we're doing ceremony or making an offering, we literally step into the center point of the medicine wheel, the center point of that kind of direction wheel, if you were. And that point is generally in most cultures, it's the kind of the place of the soul and it's the place of emptiness where everything manifests out from.

It's like you've got, okay, you've got five elements in most cultures. You've got earth, air, fire, water, and space, or void, or spirit. And the center point is generally the void place, the spirit place. There's a lovely teaching from Buddhism, which is that everything emerges out of emptiness and then dissolves back into emptiness again.

Lian (28:54)

Mmm.

Nicholas (28:55)

The center point of the medicine wheel is the emptiness place. In Native American traditions, it's sometimes thought of as the place of ⁓ kind of like it's a male and female, yin and yang, positive and negative. And I always think of them as being like the battery terminals. Battery won't work if you've only got one terminal. And so the center point is the point where you connect with the two terminals of creation.

Lian (29:17)

Hmm.

Nicholas (29:24)

and things manifest from it. So when you do a sacred act and you go into that quiet place, you are automatically stepping into literally the centre point of the universe in a metaphorical, magical way. And that shifts your perception of the world. And you go quieter, you go slower. And you, because you're literally in sacred space, there's a...

Lian (29:37)

Hmm.

Nicholas (29:51)

There's a Native American alacota pipe song that I sing when I'm doing pipe songs, songs called The Sacred Nation Must Live. And the English translation is basically something along the lines of, ⁓ I'm praying with this sacred pipe. With this sacred pipe, I'm going into the center of the world so that I can pray for all beings so that all beings may be well. And it's that act of knowing that you're in sacred space, sacred time. You're stepping out of the mundane world.

And when you make an offering or do a ceremony, that's what you're doing. And that is such an important place for us. And it's a place that we don't often kind of go too much in a very heavy, secular kind of world. When I do morning practice, and I do morning practice, if I'm in a real rush, it takes about 15 minutes. If I'm not, it's about an hour and a half.

Lian (30:26)

Mmm.

Yeah, yeah. ⁓ I love that so much.

Nicholas (30:50)

And I'm sitting and I'm doing mantras and all of the stuff that I do. And then when I'm in that space, things will kind of drop down, the downloads kind of thing. And I use the term, the whispering of the Dakinis, because the Dakinis in Tibetan tradition are these sort of fairy-like female enlightened spirits that are like the muses. They whisper. to the practitioner and kind of drop in ideas and thoughts and insights. And that happens

Lian (31:17)

Mmm.

Nicholas (31:25)

when you're making offerings because you're entering into a dialogue or in any ceremony. I think the first ceremony I ever learned was from the Native American traditions called the flowering tree ceremony. And people can do this if they want to. You find a tree that speaks to you and you go to that tree respectfully.

Lian (31:29)

Yeah. ⁓

Nicholas (31:47)

and you make an offering to that tree. Traditionally, it would have been tobacco, but something like some corn flour is a good thing to, know, cornmeal flour. And you go to the south of that tree and you ask a question out to the universe, where have I come from? And then you sit quietly and you listen. And then you go clockwise around to the west of the tree and you...

ask another question, which varies depending on the form of the ceremony, but it kind of it can be, where am I now? And then you'd go to the north and you'd get information from the north. Again, it depends. I'm just thinking of a question for the north. It could be, it could be, where am I going? And you sit and you wait for the universe to kind of drop in those dakini whispers. And then you go around to the east.

Lian (32:38)

Mmm.

Nicholas (32:40)

And it's kind of like, you could ask a question of what the spirit want of me at this time. And again, you sit and listen and then you thank the tree when you finished and you walk away. That's an offering, but it's an offering where you're in dialogue with the spirits. Very simple.

Lian (32:56)

Yeah. I love

that. Such a beautiful example. It's funny because when we chose this topic, I'm like, think there's enough here for an episode. And I'm already realising there's way more than one episode. anyway, we'll do our best. You just brought to mind, I attended a ceremony with the ⁓ traditional Mexican, the wirra.

Nicholas (33:01)

Yeah.

Hahaha

No.

Lian (33:26)

And

I just wanted to share this memory because it really, there's something in it that changed me. The Marakami, the kind of what you might say, the people who fulfill that shaman role of their culture, we're all sitting in circle and they were kind of sitting at one part of the circle together. And then in front of them were all the offerings for that ceremony.

Nicholas (33:42)

Yeah.

Lian (33:55)

I've never seen so many offerings together to the point where it looked like a market, like a grocery market store. I mean, it was just, you, you, you would need to, it was like, you know, deeper than a person length, you know, by some. And when we think of offerings, of course, you know, that's not what we'd have to do kind of as a daily thing, as a, you know, as you say, to be in dialogue, it can be a very simple offering.

Nicholas (34:02)

Yeah, yeah.

Lian (34:23)

But seeing that, even just once in our life, what an ancient culture would do in terms of offerings, like how much love, care, effort, cost went into the amount of offerings for one ceremony, that changed what I understood by offerings and kind of how important it is, how much went into that.

Nicholas (34:33)

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yeah.

Lian (34:50)

⁓ So do want to share that before we stop the conversation about offerings because it is something, yeah, but we don't understand offerings in our culture.

Nicholas (34:54)

Now it's really important. And I agree. No, we don't.

You make me remember ⁓ a Buddhist fire ceremony that I took part in in Mongolia. And there were long trestle tables full of fruit and grains. And it just went on and on. Yeah, it was like a market stall. I totally get what you're saying. And I got a ⁓ Korean mandang.

Lian (35:15)

Yeah. Or a couple of market tools put together.

Nicholas (35:22)

that's their work for shaman friend and the Korean shamans they they have incredible amounts of offerings. I mean to do a ceremony to put a ceremony on can cost thousands of dollars just in the offerings. ⁓ Yeah, I mean when I talked about making an offering at the tree and the flowering tree can it can just be a heart offering of a pinch of tobacco or a little spoonful or handful of corn flour. That's fine. But but yes, a lot of ceremonies they go way over the top.

Lian (35:33)

Mmm.

Yeah.

Hmm. Because we're asking for a lot, aren't we? a, you know, potentially that was a big ceremony, lots of people, lots of healing being asked for. And so it warrants that level of offerings. Anyway, moving on because otherwise we won't get into the Shaman part of it. Sure.

Nicholas (35:52)

Yeah. Yeah.

It does.

Well, can I just add a little bit there? Because that brings something else up for me. I think we touched on last time about how shamanism in the West has kind of like a therapy. And it's become secularized. And I was thinking over the last few days of something that a Lakota elder called Wallace Blackelk talked about. he was talking about the sacred pipe, which I referred to with that song a few minutes ago.

Lian (36:21)

Hmm.

Nicholas (36:38)

And he said there's three ways to walk with the sacred pipe. You can walk in front of the sacred pipe, and if you do that, you're dead. You can walk besides the sacred pipe, and if you do that, that's the path of arrogance. And the only way to really walk with the sacred pipe is to walk behind it in humility.

Lian (37:03)

Mmm.

Nicholas (37:03)

And I was thinking about that and it suddenly dawned on me that for me, that's not just about the sacred pipe, that's about all of these sacred teachings. And I get a beef in my bonnet or whatever the word is about the way that shamanism has become commercialised. And for me, that's kind of walking besides or even sometimes walking in front of the sacred. It's not just the sacred pipe, it's the sacred full stop.

And that again goes in with the whole idea of being humble and making offerings. It's like animistic or shamanistic path is a path of humility and a path of walking behind it, not thinking that you're the big I am and walking in front of it or walking beside of it. It really is that point of humility. So I just wanted to lob that particular grenade into the mix.

Lian (37:55)

I'm so glad you did. Thank

you. I'm really glad. ⁓ Thank you for that grenade. I think that's a really beautiful way of saying it. Thank you. So let's touch for a while on shamanism in terms of, again, people listening may recognize, yes,

I can certainly feel there is a call back to animism that's here for me, but how would I know that it's, you know, there is also might be a call to shamanism, to practicing shamanism, to become a shamanic practitioner of some kind. How would they know?

Nicholas (38:41)

That's kind of hard. I think if people are being called to be a kind of hardcore shamanic or rather animistic kind of practitioner, one could call a priest or a priestess, I guess, in a way. So they're really doing it as a big thing. It's not like, I mean, everybody should have an animistic life as far as I'm concerned to make offerings and...

Lian (39:06)

Hmm.

Nicholas (39:07)

you know, have that interconnection with the world. But some people are called to do it in a deeper way and they become people who are important within their community. just a brief sidetrack about the word community, can be the people that you know on Facebook, it can be, doesn't need to be the people in your street. And you know, community is a broad word. But if you are acting as a ⁓

Lian (39:30)

Hmm.

Nicholas (39:34)

I'm going to use the word priest or priestess because it kind of seems to fit. You're doing it as more than just for yourself or your local, you know, your family. Then you might feel that you're being pulled to do shamanic work too. But it's hard to know. I mean, if you're really connected in an animistic way, then animals and other events kind of dance in your life. You know, you may see loads of deer leaping across in front of you in the car or lots of crows or whatever it is.

So you have that kind of connection that the world is responding to you and giving you signs. And that happens a lot with shamanism. Shamanism, you often will get the kind of classic shaman sickness, but that doesn't always happen. Shaman sickness is kind of like a shredding of ability to cope in the world. ⁓ And if you were in a shamanistic culture, you would probably have a shaman called in to diagnose you.

And that's, in a way, that's the only yardstick. But that's difficult in the West because, you you might do kind of mystical stuff and your neighbor might say, well, you're a bit of a shaman, aren't you? And they don't really know what shamanism is. So it doesn't count, you know? I mean, if an indigenous shaman tells you that you're a shaman, then you need to pay attention to that. But again,

Lian (40:54)

You

Nicholas (41:01)

And this is difficult too, because you can't always trust indigenous shamans because they know Europeans really want to learn about shamanism and there's bucks to be made. you know, ⁓ I had an encounter with some shamans from Southern Siberia a couple of years ago, and ⁓ they were charging an enormous amount of money for a workshop. Then on the workshop, they ⁓ said that ⁓ everybody on the workshop had to make offerings of money and the shamans' assistants actually went with the participants to cash points and encouraged them to get large amounts of cash out to put on the altar, which was an offering to the spirits, the shamans, the people who were pretending to be shamans.

Lian (41:52)

Yeah, where did that go? ⁓

Nicholas (41:56)

So, I mean, there's so much bogus stuff and I get really sort of cross about the ayahuasca tourism trade too, you know, because there's so many people that kind of crawl out of the woodwork and con people. So having a shaman in inverted commas tell you you're a shaman doesn't necessarily mean something. You need to know what that shaman's about and know if you can actually trust them and they're not just hoodwinking you. But it's hard to know. I think, I

Lian (42:03)

you

Hmm.

Nicholas (42:25)

events happen in your life, and they keep happening in your life. It's like the universe taps you on the shoulder and, and you kind of ignore the tapping, so the tapping gets louder or harder, and eventually the universe kind of whaps you across the back with a plank of wood because you're not paying attention. So if the universe is starting to kind of tap you on the shoulder and eventually kind of maybe hitting you on the shoulder, then you need to take notice and

And also the whole idea of when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. That's such a cliche, but it's really true. I've got a friend who was called to shamanism and they met a Tuvan-trained shaman in a laundrette in London. And that's how they became that shaman's apprentice.

Lian (43:00)

Hmm.

Nicholas (43:20)

It's like it really happens, you know? So, so, and some people don't ever get it. It depends on your karma. There's a, I can't remember what the word is, but, but as I understand it, the Mongolian word for a, a, a butterfly's cocoon is the word used for people who have got the potential to be shamans.

but they never meet a teacher and they kind of often live a sort of half-life. They're never born as butterflies. They're still in the cocoon. So it really does depend. ⁓ But I think if stuff is happening for you and you are also feeling a pull to a tradition, whatever that tradition is, then explore it. ⁓

Lian (43:50)

⁓

Hmm.

Hmm. ⁓

Hmm. ⁓

Nicholas (44:13)

Do your best to explore. And we're so lucky now. I mean, when I was kind of first getting into all of this and certainly when I was much younger, there wasn't the internet and there wasn't the ability to go and watch Shaman's performing, you know, in a video about Mongolia or South America or wherever. And now there's so much out there. There's so many resources. So if you're getting a pool, if you're getting, you know, a heart tug to follow a tradition or find out about a tradition, then do it because that's the only way. We have to be educated. again, those people that were conning, you know, those fake shamans from Siberia, I didn't meet the shamans. I had to deal with the aftermath because the people thought they had been cursed by the shamans because they hadn't given enough and all sorts of crazy stuff. So they came to me and it was a real mess and whatever.

Lian (45:04)

my gosh. ⁓

Nicholas (45:10)

If we are knowledgeable about stuff and we educate ourselves, we're not going to get conned so easily because we know it more. ⁓

Lian (45:18)

Yeah, there's some real discernment needed. mean, this is, the ego can get so attached to this idea of, know, glamour, of being a shaman. as you know, many traditional shamans will say, it's like no one in a traditional shamanic culture wants to be the shaman. And yet we've got this completely different idea. A couple of things occurred to me that ⁓

Nicholas (45:24)

Yeah.

Yeah.

No!

Lian (45:48)

might be useful to touch on. So as you know, I'm currently ⁓ learning from a traditional Mongolian teacher and they make a distinction between, this isn't a kind of, know, set thing, way of saying, it's just, I kind of think helpful way for us in the West to understand it. They make the distinction between a shaman and a shamanist and a shaman being, you know, often someone within that culture that ⁓ has ancestors that were shamans and ⁓ were kind of born into that lineage. And then the shamanist is going to do some shamanic rituals, but perhaps not the kind of, you know, really heavy, hardcore ones of a shaman. This is a very paraphrased, you know, apologies if this is, I've not said this very clearly. ⁓

Nicholas (46:33)

Sure, yeah.

No, no, that makes perfect sense. Yeah, yeah.

Lian (46:41)

I think it's quite a helpful thing because I wonder if we are right now in the West, we could do with more of those shamanists, but also shamanists that aren't kind of falling into this delusion of I'm this great powerful shaman. There's something quite humbling about even that notion of a shamanist. Another thing that occurred to me, which is more of a funny story was my own path of shamanism has been one just

Nicholas (46:51)

Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Lian (47:09)

with constant reluctance. ⁓ You you're talking about keep getting that knock and I was just like, no, no, no, no, Then finally, kind of reluctantly agreed to like, okay, I'll train but not with the like, I'm not planning to do anything with it, but I'll just do this for the moment. And then at that same ceremony, I mentioned with AmeriKami, a number of us went for healing afterwards.

Nicholas (47:26)

Mm. Mm.

Lian (47:36)

And as he was doing the healing on me, he said to me, you can do this too, can't you? And it was just one of those moments of like, don't say that, like I don't want hear it. And I remember going back to my group and telling them about it. And they were just laughing, just saying, you know, where everyone else is like dying to be told like, you know, you can do this, you're a shaman. I'm like, just, I don't want to hear it. It's funny how our ego can be.

either resistant or attached to whatever the thing is. But I think that's a really good point that you made. Not all supposedly traditional shamans are the ones to listen to either, great discernment is needed. coming to, again, this is a lot to pack into what we've got left in terms of time.

Nicholas (48:06)

Yeah

Yeah, yeah.

Lian (48:31)

As we were saying at beginning of this episode, we're in this state of flux right now. These are, without wanting to kind of be a doomsay, there's going to be a lot happen probably in the next century that's nothing like we can imagine or predict. My sense is, from what you've said, you agree.

Nicholas (48:44)

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Lian (48:54)

us reclaiming our animistic and shamanic roots is part of what will help us meet those times. What do you see? Like, what could that mean for, you know, the people listening? What might they do? What might they open themselves up to that will help them meet these times?

Nicholas (49:15)

Yeah, I think kind of like the industrial revolution was child's play compared to what we're going through at the moment. It's so much bigger and so the stakes are so much higher. In terms of gaining things that are resources, I think for people to learn as much as they can and to be as grounded as they can.

Lian (49:24)

you

Nicholas (49:38)

Knowledge is useful because it's stuff that we will be able to use in the future but also knowledge and teachings and that connection to the sacred and making offerings and all the stuff that we've touched upon are ways that will help us keep grounded in impossible maelstroms to come because it is going to get windy, it is going to get difficult, it already is. You know, I meet so many people that are feeling extremely stressed by everything going on at the moment and it's, it's just such a crazy time. So any sacred teaching that helps you stay grounded, and lets you help sort of helps you connect to the spirit so that you can get those reflections and insights. That's, that's essential. ⁓ Yeah, I think I think things are going to get heavy. I can't see how they won't get heavy. ⁓ I've had two traditional shamans say to me about kind of, I need to form a lineage in the West and I'm not a huge teacher and I'm not out for making some kind of great organization or whatever. So I'm not going to form a lineage, but what I try and do is throw seeds in and I'm hoping that a lineage will kind of happen as things coalesce in the future because I think we're really going to need these teachings, we need, desperately need to connect back to a sacred understanding of the world and, and living, and it's a cliche, but living in harmony with creation, because we're so out of balance at the moment and, things are going to change. I had a long conversation with my partner Faith Nolton last night about, we were kind of doing what ifs and ⁓

And it was one of the what ifs was, well, what if the internet goes down? And of course, if the internet goes down, then that's going to affect everything. But I thought, well, what am I going to do then with the teachings? Because obviously, I got a big internet presence and things. And I do a lot of, you know, connecting with people through that. And I thought, well, I'm just going to be I'm just going to do practice. I'm going to make offerings to the spirits. I'm going to do my daily practice. I'm going to try and be as useful as I can to the people in my local community, because if the internet goes down, we're probably going to lose everything else. And just have that awareness of living a sacred life. And I think it's hard for people who are so caught up in the urban rat race, for want of a better way of putting it. But I think I think the more we can do that and the more we can become aware of the fact that things are always going to change and maybe they're going to change in big ways, don't grasp hold of kind of thinking that things are set in stone because they're really not. But in terms of knowing if you're a shaman or being called to shamanism,

Lian (52:35)

Mm.

Mmm. Yeah. Mmm.

Nicholas (52:51)

I think, or animism, I think you've just got to, you've got to start off doing little bits, follow your nose, follow your intuition, ask, make offerings. I often will tell people to make offerings to the four directions with milk and the above and the below and make prayers to the spirits that love us so that, you know, we are asking for guidance, we're asking for a way to open for us.

Lian (53:18)

Mmm.

Nicholas (53:20)

we kind of don't pray enough. Praying's got a real bad word, know, bad name in our culture. You know, our father who heart in heaven, you know, it's kind of, it's bigger than that. So, although that's a pretty good prayer actually. ⁓ so to make offerings, living in that connection, we need to develop and foster our sense of connection with the bigger world, the bigger universe. ⁓ And then if you're called to be a shaman, then stuff will happen around you.

Lian (53:45)

Mmm.

Hmm. Yeah.

Nicholas (53:51)

I'm pretty sure, especially if you promote it by asking, you know, for help. Be humble. When you are doing a vision quest, a Haŋbléčeyapi, which is the Lakota word, ⁓ you are literally crying for a vision. You are crying to the spirits. Sacred ones, please have mercy upon me, have pity upon me. I'm just a dumb two-legged, I don't know anything. Please help me, sacred ones. Show me my path.

Lian (54:05)

Mmm.

Nicholas (54:17)

And that's again, going back, that's walking behind the sacred. It's that place of humility. We just are too dumb, two-legged. We don't know anything. And that's kind of where we have to come from, because that's here, not here. So yeah, sorry. I get passionate about these things.

Lian (54:27)

you

you

I don't apologize at all. I think that's a perfect way to close this conversation. Thank you so much. Where can listeners find out more about you and all the wonderful work you do?

Nicholas (54:50)

pleasure.

Okay, well, I guess first and foremost this Sacred Hoop magazine. and I started Sacred Hoop magazine back in 1993 and we published quarterly ever since. Faith's no longer involved in it. Faith's a painter so she does other things now. ⁓ Sacred Hoop is www.sacredhoop.org and you can check that out. We cover animism and shamanism and all sorts of stuff.

I'm working on a new issue now that's even got some ancient Egyptian stuff in it, which is very rare for us. yeah, so there's that. ⁓ I run with a friend called Willa, a wonderful group on Facebook, which is very active and very friendly, called Free World Shamanism Facebook group.

Lian (55:42)

I've just got to jump in here to say it really is a, think as Facebook groups go, it is a rare and precious gem. The way that you both run it and like it is actually a thing of beauty. Like it is so unusual. It is really something that's such a resource, such an incredible group. It really is.

recommend anyone listening that is at all interested in the topics we've been talking about to join. is incredible.

Nicholas (56:09)

It is. Yeah.

Thank you. Thank you. ⁓ And I do a lot of things under the banner of Three Worlds. There's a podcast that I do, which is an audio podcast, Three World Shamanism podcast, which you'll get on all normal providers. ⁓ And ⁓ I've got a YouTube channel, which surprisingly enough is called Three World Shamanism. And again, I was talking last night with Faith and she sort of prodded me in the ribs and said, you need to do some more videos. So I'm going to do some, basic teaching videos. There's quite a lot up there, but I did it really when COVID was around as a resource for people and I haven't really done very much since. So I'm going to do some more videos and stick those up in the next month or two or three. And I've got some books out too, which people can get on Amazon. If you go Google my name, search for my name on Amazon, you'll find stuff. And I'm always approachable to, you know, people.

send me emails, I mustn't say that too much because I'll get flooded by them, but I often will act as a kind of impromptu mentor for people and reflect to them and stuff and I can't do it for everybody that emails but I do do it for an awful lot so people can contact me if they want to.

Lian (57:28)

Thank you so much, Nick. You really are. It's just... I don't actually have... I had a number of different words I wanted to use to describe you. All positive, but you really are a wonder. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you and everything you're doing.

Nicholas (57:45)

Thank you. And it's been such a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you.

Lian (57:49)

Likewise, both episodes, really, I'm so pleased that we've had the opportunity to create them. I think they're exactly what the world needs right now.

Nicholas (57:59)

Thanks.

Lian (58:01)

What a truly wonderful episode. I always so love speaking to Nick. Here were my favourite parts. A living matter worldview invites us to see the world as I think it truly is alive and responsive, which restores our connection where modern culture has somewhat disconnected and blinded us to it.

Simple offerings and acts of reciprocity show us how to slow down, bring balance and open a real conversation with the unseen. Humility keeps us aligned with the sacred, allowing guidance and support to come in ways that we just cannot predict. If you'd like to hop on over to the show notes for the links, they're at BeMythical.com/podcast/520

And if you're struggling with the challenges of walking your soul path in this crazy modern world, and would benefit from guidance, kinship and support, come join our Academy of the Soul, UNIO. You can find out more and join us by hopping over to BeMythical.com/unio or click the link in the description. And if you don't want to miss out on next week's episode, head on over to your favorite podcasting app or platform of choice, including YouTube.

and hit that subscribe or follow button. That way you'll get each episode delivered straight to your device, auto magically, as soon as it's released. Thank you so much for listening. You've been wonderful. I'm sending you all my love. I'll catch you again next week. And until then, go be mythical.

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