Being Shamanka

At an early age I was asked what I planned to do when I grow up.  I wrote that I would live in the countryside, keep lots of animals and lead a Sunday School for them all.  Looking back, I think becoming a shamanka is a decent realization of that ambition.  I live with my husband, two daughters and two cats. Not so many animals, but the nature connection is powerful and important.  And, although I have ventured far from my childhood Christian faith, spirituality is still a core part of my life.  Recently, I have started leading Dances of Universal Peace at Oxford City Farm, where my husband works.  As we sing and dance with the prayers of Sufi, Hebrew, Buddhist, Goddess and other traditions, the chickens root around outside and the goats call to each other.  Perhaps it’s only a matter of time before I’m leading the animals in prayer...

As well as nature and a spiritual life, music and story have always been crucial in my life and work. And healing – the kind of healing that is about wholeness, the body and the mind, the earth and the water, the family and the community, the song and the dance. It is hard for me to separate out these strands. I sing in my shamanic work.  My clients tell me stories.  My songs have become spiritual practice.  I have made an autobiographical storytelling show about a horse Goddess, with songs as part of it. And anyway, any kind of performance is a ritual. And what is a ceremony if not a kind of storytelling? Cut me through the middle, and you’ll find music, story and healing in every cell.

But for the sake of simplicity, I will try to unravel the threads a little here.