Laurence James Lucas

Shamanism

It was not initiation into any specific indigenous tradition that launched me on my shamanic path. Instead, I simply read half a book by Kenneth Meadows in 1991 about the medicine wheel and Native American philosophy, all of which somehow felt totally ‘familiar’ to me. I awoke early the next morning full of joy at the prospect of developing my own shamanic connection to nature.

I immediately felt that connection, along with a heightened awareness and a sense of vitality. I simply kept on going out into nature, virtually every morning, responding to the environment, my energy and my intuition.

In my opinion, shamanism is as natural as eating—it springs innately from our bodily instinct. I say this with no disrespect to indigenous shamans, who I value for the power they can draw from their ancient lineages.

All shamanic peoples connect to, communicate with and learn from the environment. They learn directly from the Earth, from the plants, from the trees, from the living creatures and from all manner of spirits and intelligences.

I have always felt a strong connection to and affinity with nature, so for me what was now a daily practice seemed totally organic and obvious. My practice involved following the threads of energy on the local common land, using sound, movement and a ceremonial circle; I remained attentive and attuned to the wildlife around me, as well as to the energy movements in the Earth and in the air. I also felt guided by intelligent beings.

Shamanism, in its purest sense, belongs to no one.

As my awareness continued to unfold, my primary focus in the first decade was through my own energy field and its interconnection with the environment. I experienced the environment as an environment of energy and consciousness.

It is through this practice that I accessed not only the vital etheric energy that engages with our instincts, but also the planetary realm. The holographic nature of my own energy field became viscerally apparent. The human energy field contains keys that, if employed, allow us to engage with many different realms of existence.

The discordance between nature and the modern urban environment was the seed for my later understanding of developmental levels. As my own connection to nature increased, so my disconnection from urban society also increased. This caused me some anguish, until I found the resolution to this disparity through accessing the frequency of the planetary realm.

We are obviously at the point now where we must reconnect to the vital beauty and sheer aliveness of nature in order to progress as a species. Does this mean we are to leave technology behind? I do not think so. Technological and scientific investigation is inbuilt into existence and is an inevitable part of our evolution. The early stages of our scientific path have often been barbaric, naïve, clumsy and self-destructive, being symptomatic of our adolescent evolutionary stage.

From my investigation of planetary and cosmic consciousness, I would contend that what we call nature was never a given—it did not come straight down from God, but was always the product of co-creation between many different types of beings on many different densities. The creation of the natural world involves everything, ranging from technological design, psychic transmission and sexual union between Devic intelligences and a lot more besides.

I do not ‘do’ shamanism onto or into people. My approach is to facilitate and hold the energy so that my client or ceremony participant can heal, develop connection and find guidance for himself or herself.

For more information on individual or group shamanic work, please see my other website. Click here.

For a broader perspective, and more on my journey into shamanism, please click here.

 © Copyright Laurence James Lucas; September 2014
Website design: Carey Vail