Bekki’s spiritual path has led her to many ways of healing and she is honored to offer a variety of healing modalities to her students and clients, including shamanic healing and several forms of bodywork and energy healing. She also works with herbalism.
No previous experience with shamanism or other modalities is required to schedule healing sessions. Each session begins with a full explanation and discussion of the work. For more information or to schedule healing work, contact Bekki.
Bekki is available for healings sessions in Ithaca, NY, and is sometimes available for healing sessions at Dragon Waters and the Athens, OH area when she is visiting family and friends; as well as other locations where she teaches. See the Events Schedule for information on when and where Bekki is available for work, or contact her for more information.
For many years Crow and Bekki offered Healing Retreats at Dragon Waters. Abbey Laughing Lion Crouse (one of the first graduates of our Healing Intensive) is in the process of moving to Dragon Waters and will be offering these at some point after she settles in. She and all of the graduates of our Healing Intensive (now replaced by the Shamanic Healing Apprenticeship with Bekki) are trained in all of the classic shamanic techniques, and can be contacted directly via the graduates’ page.
“Bekki, since seeing you and Crow last August things have changed in many different ways. It took quite a while for me to get used to all the extra soul parts. For days my chest felt so full I thought it would burst! … A month after seeing you I tried Healing a rather sick house plant and much to my surprise felt energy flowing from my hands. Thank you again for the work you did with me. It really did set the wheels in motion for my journey… I do feel I wouldn’t have got this far without the soul retrieval.”
— English client, 2004
Soul Retrieval
Soul Retrieval is a shamanic healing technique practiced by the majority of shamanic healers worldwide. The method varies from culture to culture, though all recognize the reality of soul loss. Parts of one’s soul may be driven away by traumatic life events (physical, emotional or spiritual). The healer performs a journey to find, bring back and restore to the client the missing part(s) of soul essence. Soul Retrieval is often helpful for depression, apathy, chronic illness, addiction or when feeling not fully present.
Shamanic Extraction
Life events and relationships may sometimes result in our carrying uncomfortable inclusions of energy in our spirit bodies. Shamanic extraction is the process of removing these intrusions of incompatible energy. They are found during a shamanic journey and may be perceived as energy masses, objects, or even spirit beings. Removal is done with specific rituals, which may include rattling or drumming, cleansing with smoke or salt, or other purification. Bekki, and formerly Crow, have often been called upon to perform extraction healings in their healing practices.
Crow made a specialty of studying tribal extraction techniques and works in all the traditional modalities including sucking, cutting, and brushing. He wrote Spirit Knife, Soul Bone: The Ancient Shamanic Art of Extracting Negative Energies, which describes contemporary and tribal extraction tecniques as well as ways to avoid intrusions.
Psychopomp, Deposession, Exorcism
Psychopomp or Soul Guiding work is a journeying technique done for the spirits of the deceased who may have gotten lost or had problems in making the transition to the Afterlife. It can be helpful for the living, since displaced souls, not realizing that they have died, may try to continue to interact with those left behind.
Psychopomp work is also done at the request of relatives or friends who feel the deceased person has not made a successful crossing due to trauma at death or confusion about his or her death process.
Soul Guiding may form part of Depossession by helping haunting souls to leave a place or person to whom they have become attached in their confusion. Exorcism and Depossession are done through journey or ritual that heal possessing spirits and assist them to cross, or exorcise other entities, and detach them from this plane so that they no longer interfere with human activity.
In shamanic practice, Exorcism is not a simple banishment; spirits will take up residence elsewhere. Human souls are healed and helped to the Otherworld. Non-human entities must be escorted to a spirit place where they can do no harm, or the negative energy must be transformed shamanically into a neutral or positive one.
Energy Healing
Energy Healing is the process of bringing the energies of our physical and spirit bodies into balance when one or the other has become uneven, blocked, excessive or inadequate. The practitioner detects these imbalances by direct sensing and/or shamanic journeying. The practitioner then helps the client regularize energy flow and achieve increased strength, comfort, and relaxation, either by hands-on energy work or by other shamanic techniques.
The energy work we practice is facilitated by working with our shamanic helpers, often in a state of altered or enhanced consciousness, and it is enhanced by our training in various bodywork and energy modalities.
Bodywork (Structural Therapy)
Please note that Bekki is only available to administer bodywork when visiting the state of Ohio.
What is Structural Therapy?
Structural Therapy is a form of deep, gentle bodywork that focuses on lengthening and relaxing fascial tissue. Fascia are the connective tissues that wrap around muscles. When fascia become constricted due to stress, injury or poor posture, this creates misalignment, impairs movement, creates chronic pain and can even cause deterioration of the musculo-skeletal system. Since fascial tissue wraps around the muscles and attaches muscles to each other, to bones, organs and other body structures, poor alignment in one part of the body affects other parts of the body.
What does a Structural Therapist do?
The Structural Therapist works gently and deeply to release the layers of fascia in the body, realign them correctly, and bring teh body into balance. Generally this is done in a series of ten one-hour sessions, during which the therapist works through the entire body. However it is often possible to treat acute injuries or do spot work in a session or two.
Long-term change usually requires that the whole body be treated, especially where there is chronic, severe pain or injury or structural dysfunction. Your therapist will explain how the work will progress and the changes you can expect from it. Every individual experiences the work in his or her own unique way. Some of the most common benefits are:
- Improved body awareness
- Enhanced grace and ease of movement
- Reduction of chronic pain
Occasionally, as with all bodywork, the work can be uncomfortable, but overall it is pleasant and relaxing. People often fall asleep when I am working on them. I depend on your feedback to work to your comfort level.
Who needs Structural Therapy?
Consider Structural Therapy if you have:
- Poor posture
- Chronic pain
- Frequent pain in certain parts of your body
- Limited range of motion from accident or aging
- Excessive fatigue or stiffness
Your Structural Therapist
Bekki Shining Bearheart is a Licensed Massage Therapist (LMT) in the State of Ohio. She has a certificate in Structural Therapy from the Chicago College of Healing Arts, and has been working in this modality since 2001.
In addition to Structural Therapy, her specialty and preferred modality, Bekki is trained in other massage techniques and in cranio-sacral therapy. She practices Reiki and other forms of energy healing, including shamanic energy work. She depends on the help of her shamanic allies for all the healing she does.
For more information or to schedule healing work, contact Bekki.
Chakra Processing
Bekki began studying the chakra system and auric field in 1976. Distracted by other metaphysical systems, she returned to working with them in 1988.
In the early ’90s, she studied chakra healing with Sharon Laurie, a healer from Santa Fe who taught in Athens around that time. Bekki found chakra work quite compatible with shamanic work, and made it part of her approach to energy healing.
Bekki’s approach to chakra processing is gentle and non-invasive. She facilitates chakra clearing through a combination of psychic viewing and applied spiritual energy, assisted by her shamanic allies.
She occasionally is directed by Spirit to work with this method when doing bodywork or shamanic healing, if the client is comfortable with it.
Chakra processing is helpful for clearing emotional congestion from past trauma and for working with physical, emotional and spiritual energy blockages.
For more information or to schedule healing work, contact Bekki.
The Church of Earth Healing 