After finally making some headway in my friend’s Woven Energy podcast on Shamanism, I find this episode of Tribes, Predators & Me fascinating. Firstly, you get to see a lot of what is being talked about in terms of Mongolian culture and animism. Secondly, there’s the timing of the release of the bird. If you’ve been following some of the exercises for Amsgar in the podcast then this element will be familiar to you, even if it’s not been picked up on by the programme producers, or the guy in it 🙂

Even if you’ve got no interest in Shamanism, it’s a great episode to watch – utterly fascinating.  You can watch it on the BBC iPlayer.

My old XingYi teacher has finally made a podcast, and it’s all about Shamanism. 

My old XingYi teacher, Damon Smith, is notoriously reclusive, doesn’t use the public parts of the Internet much and seems to live in hiding, in fact, I still feel weird seeing his name written down on a web page, knowing how much he’d hate it! I’m also pretty sure there was a time when mentioning his name online booked you in for a swift Beng Chuan to the guts in the next class! But it looks like somebody has done the impossible and dragged him out of his cave to talk about his favourite subject – Shamanism.

Back when I was training with him on a weekly basis we used to get into these sorts of discussions all the time, and he used Shamanism constantly in his teaching in reference to XingYi. In fact, I don’t think the two could be separated in the way he taught it.

There was much about it that I could understand and find immediately useful, but much that I couldn’t and seemed beyond my ken. Well, it looks like I may get a second chance thanks to  another of his students, Josef Sykora, who has somehow cajoled Damon into spilling the beans on a new Podcast series called Woven Energy.

Joe describes Damon and his teaching as follows:

So who is Damon? Well, he has studied shamanism academically as well as practicing it for over 30 years.

He has an extremely pragmatic view of shamanism and animism so if you’re looking for your normal “simply bang a drum… dance around a bit… have a chat with an animal… imagine going down a hole and now i’m happy” kind of stuff that means nothing, then turn around now… this podcast ain’t for you.

If you accept shamanism as a discipline. A lifelong journey full of ups and downs and a tremendous amount of confusion and hard work, then great… because once pandora’s box is opened, there is no shutting it. You are now at the mercy of the divine.

You can find out a lot more about Damon by simply listening to the podcast. He has some fantastic stories and knowledge to share.

Here’s a few things you can look forward to in future episodes

A deep and thorough look at Shamanism from the inside out
A clear starting point for beginning Shamanic technique
The tools, mindset and knowledge you need to apply Shamanism to all areas of your life

To get episode 1 you need to jump through a couple of sign-up hoops (well, nobody ever said Shamanism was easy, did they), but after providing your email address you will be given access to episode 1 here.

Now it’s time to see how deep the rabbit hole goes…