Introductory Day run by Barry Goddard

SHAMANISM

An Introductory Day at Penmaen Village Hall, Swansea

Sun 9^th Feb 2020                     10am to 5pm

Ancient people understood that humans are a part of the natural world, and that sacredness is everywhere, that all is imbued with Spirit. And that the purpose of human life is to become balanced, or whole. There were no holy books or religious founders, just ways of being in the world, and stories and ceremonies and practices to remind people of their connection to Spirit.

‘Shamanism’ refers to our modern attempts to reclaim this natural way of being in the world, and the range of practices many of us use: Sweatlodges, Shamanic Journeying, Pipe Ceremonies, Trance Dance, Medicine Wheel, Vision Quest….

The Medicine Wheel sees the human as made up of Spirit, Emotion, Body and Mind, with life as a process of continually bringing them into balance in order to find our true centre. These 4 aspects also have correspondences with the 4 Elements, the 4 Seasons and the 4 stages of life. On this introductory day, we will focus on Spirit and Emotion: what have been the points of transformation in our lives, where some new element has entered in; and what have been the most serious challenges, that are also often part of the same transformative processes?

The event will be facilitated by myself. Here's a bit about me, written in the 3rd person:  

Barry Goddard first came across Shamanism in the mid 90s. He’d been involved in running Buddhist Centres in London for 15 years, and while he liked much of the philosophy behind it, the organised aspect had come to feel confining. It brought him to a point where nothing seemed to work anymore. Shamanism, which has no holy books or gurus, sees Spirit everywhere, and which considers humans to be an integral part of the natural world, was to him a delicious experience. And it placed the emphasis firmly back on listening to himself, instead of to somebody else’s teaching. Through his experiences of shamanic journeying, sweat lodges, trance dance and the Medicine Wheel, his whole life changed. Astrology also came on the scene for him more strongly at this time, and as an intuitive art, he finds it to be very compatible with Shamanism. 

In the early noughties, a Chippewa Cree teacher started staying at his house in Glastonbury, running sweatlodges and pipe ceremonies, telling traditional stories, and discussing metaphysics around the breakfast table. This gave Barry another perspective, and since then he has been asking himself what it is, in the absence of a tradition of our own, that is essential to Shamanism? And while seeing the benefits of a tradition with its detailed understanding of symbol and ceremony, Barry also thinks that our lack of tradition gives the freedom for each of us to be creative. Essential to this path, he says, is listening to our own Spirit rather than to all the other voices that try to tell us what to believe and how to live. This requires courage and time – Shamanism is a gradual path – but all the practices and ceremonies point towards this deep listening to ourselves, out of which comes the life that we need to be leading, the only one that can really work.

Barry lives in Moretonhampstead, which is on Dartmoor in Devon, where he loves to walk. He runs the UK Shamanic Community Facebook group, is involved with running the annual UK Shamanic Gathering in Somerset, and writes a blog at www.shamanicfreestate.blogspot.co.uk

To book, message me on FB or email BWGoddard1@aol.co.uk Cost for the day: £50. Please bring lunch to share.