
The Earth Element
For earthkeepers, all of us who are dedicated to the stewardship of the Earth and all of life, the Earth element is foundational. We choose to hold the sacred dream of a planet where all beings live in peace and where the rivers and the air are...

Light and the Shaman’s Fire Ceremony
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SHAMAN’S FIRE CEREMONY As we have come to learn, ceremony and ritual are incredibly important to healing, as well as growth and development. To a shaman, the fire ceremony is incredibly sacred. Fire is a wild energy and...

Shamans and the light in plants
During my early work in anthropology, when I visited cultures that lived much like their Paleolithic forebears, I was surprised to find how present the sacred was in their lives. Many of their legends speak about a heavenly being who walked the...

Rites and Initiations Connecting Shamans to the Cosmos
Rites of passage and initiation have been practiced for millennia by all peoples in the Earth. These rites are not only stages of initiation, but perhaps steps for the evolution of humanity. As nations fight for bits of territory and battle over...

Shamans and Cosmology
The shamans of the Andes know and serve a sacred dream, one that guides planets across the heavens and our human destiny here on Earth. The sacred dream is a map to the future but has no paths you can follow and no trails other than the ones you...

Shamanic Fire Ceremony During Solstices and Equinoxes
A fire ceremony to honor solstices and equinoxes is a perfect time to contemplate our relationship to Spirit. What is Spirit and what is a ceremony? Why do we use fire and ceremony? https://thefourwinds.com/fire-ceremony/ The answers to these...

Feathers as a Shaman’s Tool
Perhaps the most omnipresent animal symbol of all has been the eagle—adopted by both ancient and modern cultures around the world. This magnificent bird has been associated with the Greeks, Egyptians, Sumerians, Hittites, and Romans, all of whom...

A Crystal as a Shaman’s Tool
The Shaman’s vogel, or double-terminated, crystal is a cathedral of light we use to extract energies and entities from our clients. We then call on the four directions and our lineage of healers to take these entities and energies home to where...

Spirit Water as a Shaman’s tool
Shaman’s use spirit water, agua de florida, made with vodka to preserve the elements and sweet herbs that give us the sense of our blessing and summon the archetypal energies in each direction to be with us and guide us in our tracking outside of...

The Mesa, Drum, and Rattle as Shaman’s Tools
The word mesa means table in Spanish, but it also means high plateau, the place where the shaman goes to meet the spirits. A shaman’s mesa is a portable altar (where he goes to meet the spirits) or medicine bundle used for healing, ceremony, prayer...