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NEW
PUBLICATION
The View
Through the Medicine Wheel: 'Shamanic Maps of How the Universe
Works'
By Leo Rutherford
Cover Art by Howard G Charing
The View through the Medicine
Wheel is a magnificent reflection on how to live creative, healthy
and happy lives. We are all on a great journey - how different
would life be if you had a good map? Native American wisdom
teachings of the Medicine Wheel explain how the Cosmos works and
our place in it. Our ancestors saw the world in terms of circles
and cycles. The Star Maidens Circle reflects life through the eight
directions. This book of life maps shows you how to avoid pitfalls
and master you own self. It presents the circle of the egoic self -
how we create a life of problems and dramas - and the circle of the
authentic self which teaches how to discard our old habits and
addictions. The Medicine Wheel culminates in the Twenty Count which
is the Cosmos revealed in all its beauty and complexity. Shamanism
is spiritual, ecological and psychological. No other book does full
justice to the fabulous medicine wheel teachings.
Published by O-Books
(www.o-books.net).
Shamanism
Books
Plant Spirit Shamanism - Traditional Techniques for Healing
the Soul
By
(author) Howard G. Charing
By (author) Ross Heaven
Foreword by Pablo Amaringo
ISBN: 1-59477-118-9 Quality
Paperback
This book can be ordered from Amazon.com,
Amazon .co.uk
An in-depth look at the role of plant spirits in shamanic
rituals from around the world
• Shows how shamans heal using their knowledge of plant
spirits as well as the plant’s “medical
properties”
• Explores the core methods of plant shamanism--soul
retrieval, spirit extraction, and sin eating--and includes
techniques for connecting with plant spirits
• Includes extensive field interviews with master shamans of
all traditions
In Plant Spirit Shamanism, Howard G. Charing and Ross Heaven
explore the use of one of the major allies of shamans for healing,
seeing, dreaming, and empowerment--plant spirits. After observing
great similarities in the use of plants among shamans throughout
the world, they discovered the reason behind these similarities:
Rather than dealing with the “medical properties” of
the plants or specific healing techniques, shamans commune with the
spirits of the plants themselves.
From their years of in-depth shamanic work in the Amazon, Haiti,
and Europe, including extensive field interviews with master
shamans, Charing and Heaven present the core methods of plant
shamanism used in healing rituals the world over: soul retrieval,
spirit extraction, sin eating, and the Amazonian tradition of
pusanga (love medicine). They explain the techniques shamans use to
establish connections to plant spirits and provide practical
exercises as well as a directory of traditional Amazonian and
Caribbean healing plants and their common North American
equivalents so readers can ex-plore the world of plant spirits and
make allies of their own.
Conclusion of review by Timothy White,
founding editor of Shaman’s Drum (USA) of Plant Spirit
Shamanism.‘Plant Spirit
Shamanism offers a readable melange of information, insights, and
viewpoints on spiritual plant medicines. I feel comfortable
recommending this volume to readers interested in magical herbs, as
well as to those beginning to work shamanically with plant
spirits.’
Extract from Foreword of Plant Spirit Shamanism by Pablo
Amaringo
Pablo Amaringo and Howard G Charing, Pucullpa, Peru Feb. 2007
 My
visions helped me understand the value of human beings,
animals, the plants themselves, and many other things. The
plants taught me the function they play in life, and the
holistic meaning of all life. We all should give
special attention and deference to Mother Nature. She deserves
our love. And we should also show a healthy respect for her
power!
Plants are essential in many
ways: they give life to all beings on Earth by producing oxygen,
which we need to be active; they create the enormous greenhouse
that gives board and lodging to diverse but interrelated guests;
they are teachers who show us the holistic importance of conserving
life in its due form and necessary conditions.
For me personally, though, they
mean even more than this. Plants—in the great living book of
nature—have shown me how to study life as an artist and
shaman. They can help all of us to know the art of healing and to
discover our own creativity, because the beauty of nature moves
people to show reverence, fascination, and respect for the extent
to which the forests give shelter to our souls.
The consciousness of plants is
a constant source of information for medicine, alimentation, and
art, and an example of the intelligence and creative imagination of
nature. Much of my education I owe to the intelligence of these
great teachers. Thus I consider myself to be the
“representative” of plants, and for this reason I
assert that if they cut down the trees and burn what’s left
of the rainforests, it is the same as burning a whole library of
books without ever having read them.
People who are not so dedicated
to the study and experience of plants may not think this knowledge
is so important to their lives—but even they should be
conscious of the nutritional, medicinal, and scientific value of
the plants they rely on for life.
My most sublime desire, though,
is that every human being should begin to put as much attention as
he or she can into the knowledge of plants, because they are the
greatest healers of all. And all human beings should also put
effort into the preservation and conservation of the rainforest,
and care for it and the ecosystem, because damage to these not only
prejudices the flora and fauna but humanity itself.
Even in the Amazon these days,
many see plants as only a resource for building houses and to
finance large families. People who have farms and raise animals
also clear the forest to produce foodstuffs. Mestizos and native
Indians log the largest trees to sell to industrial sawmills for
subsistence. They have never heard of the word ecology!
I, Pablo, say to everybody who
lives in the Amazon and the other forests of the world, that they
must love the plants of their land, and everything that is
there!
This expression of love must be
a sincere and altruistic interest in the lasting well-being of
others. We are not here simply to exist, but to enjoy life together
with plants, animals, and loved ones, and to delight in
contemplation of the beauty of nature. A shaman has in his mind and
heart the attitude of conserving nature because he knows that life
is for enjoying the company of this world’s countless
delights.
Any painting, or book, or piece
of art that spreads this message is to be respected, and every
reader who picks up a book on this subject is to be honored.
I invite you to read on, and to
learn from the greatest teachers of all—the plants, our
sacred brothers and sisters.
Now Available: Shamanic Path
Workbook by Leo Rutherford
*Cover art by Howard G. Charing
A Revised and Updated version of ‘Your Shamanic
Path’.
This book is really a workbook – hence change of title
– and is full of practical exercises and ceremonies which you
can do at home.
Here is a summary:
Teachings of the Red Road - Medicine Wheel
Maps for Understanding Your LIfe
How to shift addictions, neediness, judgmental-ness
How to master the victim - persecutor – rescuer triangle
How to retrieve your personal power and live Your life
How to comprehend your life via the Star Maiden’s Circle
Teachings of the Blue Road - Accessing
Alternative Realities for Knowledge and Wisdom
How to journey shamanically into parallel realities
How to do Soul Retrieval for another
How to Trance-Dance your way to ecstasy
How to know yourself as part of the Cosmos through The
‘Twenty Count’
A Shaman is one who walks with one foot in
the everyday world and one foot in the spirit
world’
This book takes you down both the red and the blue roads and
offers many practical exercises and ceremonies to help and guide
you on your way.
Published by Arima Publishing, ASK House, Northgate Avenue, Bury
St Edmunds, Suffolk, IP32 6BB.
Available by mail order from:
Eagle’s Wing, Watkins, 22 Cecil Court, off Charing Cross Road, London WC1 - £10.99 plus £1 P&P
Can be ordered from all good bookshops!
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