A Shamanic Path 

About This Training and Your Trainers

A Path of Re-Awakening and Healing

Life can present us with surprising challenges that take us off our familiar path, often instigated by Mother Nature, over whom we have to admit we don't have the power to control.

Living on the land for the first thirty eight years of my life, taught me a great deal about what I could and could not control. 

There were many years of heart-breaking drought, contrasting years when we would experience devastating floods, and other times when our land would be ravaged by bushfires, though the latter was personally rare thank goodness. 

My father was the captain of the State Emergency Services for some of this time. He was a pilot and would fly my sisters and I over the ravaged country when it was under threat, checking to see how the stock were managing. 

My connection with the spirit of Country and other Spirits came in a number of ways.  Early in childhood I had heard the comforting  whispers of Trees as they held me while I poured out my woes to them.  As I grew up, I stayed close to trees, but forgot to talk to them, and I forgot how to listen to them.

Later, as an adult and mother of three children, I learned first hand the huge responsibility of living on the land, taking care of animals and the plants, and being in harmony with Nature, and the spirits of the land. In my late thirties, I returned to the Trees to overcome a breakdown in my nervous system that was caused by stress. 

I vividly remember the day I reconnected with the Spirit of Trees. I had gone for a walk amongst the nearby woodlands, praying for recovery of my nervous system, for while I could think thoughts, I had great difficulty speaking them. All that came out was a nervous stutter.  My young family needed me, and I was desperate to find a way to recover.

As I walked into the forest, I could hear an Inner Voice guiding me to sit on a tree stump facing a huge Bloodwood Tree. I closed my eyes and drifted into a peaceful place within me. I could feel an energy pulling me toward the Bloodwood Tree. Opening my eyes softly, I stood up and walked over to touch the trunk of the Bloodwood Tree. Instantly I felt my spirit leave my body and I could feel myself shrinking until I was the size of an ant. I was now on the ground at the foot of the tree looking up at it. 

Feeling great love from the Tree pouring into my heart, I released all tension in my body, my mind and my heart. As I nestled in amongst the ants, I realised that the Bloodwood Tree was healing me, and I opened myself fully to that possibility. I learned that day that when you open your heart and fully trust, surrendering all resistance, magic can happen. 

My nervous system fully recovered soon after my healing with the Grandfather Bloodwood Tree. I came to realise that Bloodwoods are exactly that - a place to go to for connection with our bloodline, and our ancestors. 

My Irish and Scottish ancestors knew the power of Mother Nature, with our relationship and connection with trees being a major part of Celtic Shamanism, as I was recently reminded in studies in Celtic Shamanism with Jane Burns. 

During my initiation into the path of Shamanism, I spent a lot of time in the forests around where I lived, talking and listening to Tree and Mountain Spirits. They taught me a great deal about Walking Between Worlds, and in about 2004 I began to take groups of people into the Forest to teach them what I knew about talking and listening to the whispers of Nature Spirits, reading and following signs, calling in dreams, and healing and creating ceremony in the heart of Mother Nature. Eventually I called my offerings A Shamanic Path, ASP. And yes, there is a Snake Story that goes with this, but I will save it for another day.