Please note that Bekki is teaching both online (particularly when there are upticks in Covid or other communicable disease) and in person.

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This training is designed for participants who have a good grounding in shamanic journey work and who have already been practicing shamanism as their primary spiritual path, or as a significant adjunct to their spiritual path, and who already have strong shamanic ally contacts. Acceptance into the program is at Bekki’s discretion. Usually 2 and up to 5 participants per training assures intensive and in-depth attention from the teacher.

Prerequisites

• The Fundamentals of Shamanism and Circle of the Ancestors workshops with Bekki, or equivalent training.
• At least 6 months of experience with journeying (once a week or more often). You will need to submit copies of your journeys over this time. (Not required of people who have studied extensively with Bekki; in some cases this is waived if you can demonstrate your level of shamanic skill).
• Permission of your allies
• Interview with Bekki
• Bekki’s review of your natal astrology chart (to pre-select appropriate student partners for your training)

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Topics Covered

Each topic is taught over a 2-day period, and the students work with volunteers from the community in supervised group healing sessions based on the teachings. In addition, each student is responsible for 2 client sessions observed by Bekki, utilizing the topic/helping spirits based on that topic’s teachings. These sessions can be done on Zoom, should be completed within a few weeks of the training, or before the next training.

Many of the trainings re-visit topics covered by other workshops Bekki teaches at the intermediate level, always from the perspective of developing and supporting advanced healing skills, with shamanic allies who offer their help for that work.

The topics covered are as follows (roughly in order, which can vary somewhat): 

Energy healing

A review of the basics of energy work from a shamanic perspective, and discussion of systems students are already using (shamanic, polarity, Reiki, etc.), including partner work. Discussion of trance dance, healing stones, and other energy healing tools. When possible, Bekki arranges to teach Opening the Shamanic Voice to fulfill most of the requirements of this segment; additional readings and outside sessions may round out the work.

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Ancestor work

Review and new perspectives of ancestor work. Ritual work with the Ancestors, focused on healer-ancestors (healers in our lineages). (The Circle of the Ancestors workshop is a prerequisite for the course. This segment does not replace it.)

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Elemental spirit allies

Earth Elementals: We will make contact with a personal earth elemental spirit ally and learn to work with this elemental to examine and address the physical aspects of illness, disease, and imbalance in our clients. This ally may offer us processes or techniques that are unique and/or specific for physical healing.

Water Elementals: We will make contact with a personal water elemental spirit ally and learn to work with this elemental to examine and address the emotional aspects of illness, disease and imbalance in our clients. This ally may offer us processes or techniques that are unique and/or specific for emotional healing.

Air Elementals: We will make contact with a personal air elemental spirit ally and learn to work with this elemental to examine and address the mental causes of illness, disease, and imbalance in our clients (ideas, beliefs, mental constructs). This ally may offer us processes or techniques that are unique and/or specific for healing our minds and our thinking.

Fire Elementals: We will make contact with a personal fire elemental spirit ally and learn to work with this elemental to examine and address the spiritual causes of illness, disease, and imbalance in our clients (relationship with the Divine and its impact on wellness, crises of faith, spiritual wounds, etc.). This ally may offer us processes or techniques that are unique and/or specific for healing the spiritual causes of illness.

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Fey allies

Healing with Fey allies, Faery Doctoring. Throughout the world, the Faery Folk are recognized as a powerful class of spirits. The Faery Doctoring presented here is based primarily on Celtic/European teachings. It includes abduction by the Fey, and energetic interference from the Fey, and addressing situation of transgressions against the Fey, and help from Fey allies to address and re-balance the client’s relationship with them. Bekki has been working with the Fey since 2006, and considers them among her most powerful allies.

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Plant spirit allies

Making contact and working with plant allies. Apprentices make their own sacred place with selected plants, altar, and meditation space on the land at Medicine Spring Farm in Ithaca, where the training takes place. They also make plant medicines and tools, as directed by their allies. The plant spirits are important spirit helpers in our shamanic healing work- they can act on our behalf both in the spirit realms and through their physical healing attributes.

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Working with Divinities

All shamanic peoples believe in a Divine Being or Beings who created the world and continue to shape and guide it. These Beings are concerned for their creation and are available as shamanic helpers for healing and maintaining balance of our world. We will work with personal Divinities who offer themselves as shamanic helpers for us in our healing practice, and form a personal relationship with them as Holy Beings who nurture, protect and guide us .

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Shamanic extraction

Learning about and learning to heal with this classic shamanic technique. Bekki covers diverse techniques across cultures. It is recognized throughout shamanic cultures that shamanic intrusions- negative energies or matter-out-of-place- can lodge in our energy bodies, and cause illness or imbalance. We learn how to recognize and remove these intrusions.

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Soul retrieval

Learning about and learning to heal with this classic shamanic technique. A variety of approaches to the concept of soul loss and soul return are covered, examining diverse cultural perspectives. Soul loss can be caused by physical or non-physical trauma, and is one of the primary causes of illness or imbalance. Apprentices learn how to find and restore soul energy to those who have lost it.

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Psychopomp work

Learning about and learning to heal with this classic shamanic technique. Psychopomp means “soul guide”. Sometimes when people die they do not make the crossing to the afterlife. One of the shaman’s roles is to find the spirit where it is wandering and guide it to the other side, doing healing work for it if required.

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Exorcism and De-possession

Learning about and learning to heal with these classic shamanic techniques. Possession of a human, an animal or a place by a discarnate human or a non-human entity (a spirit of disease, for example) can create illness or other problems. A possessing spirit has attached to a human or other sentient being, or to a location. In the case of discarnate humans, removing the spirit, healing it and helping it cross to the afterlife is required. If the spirit is non-human, exorcising it is required (including removal and any other shamanic activity the allies indicate, in order to render it harmless.)

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Required Readings

• The Shaman by Piers Vitebsky: the best and most beautiful summary of this complex subject.
• Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy by Mircea Eliade: A classic. (Highly recommended, not required)
• The Sacred Tree: Reflections on Native American Spirituality by Judie Bopp and Michael Bopp
• Soul Retrieval: Mending the Fragmented Self by Sandra Ingerman
• Riding Windhorses and Chosen by the Spirits by Sarangerel Odigan
• Shamans, Healers, and Medicine Men by Holger Kalwait (Recommended, not required)
• The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge and Shamans Through Time: 500 Years on the Path to Knowledge by Jeremy Narby (Recommended, not required)

A selection of testimonials from Bekki’s and Crow’s Two-Week Shamanic Healing Intensive- the precursor to the Year-Long Apprenticeship,which they taught from 1993 to 2010. (This course focused only on Soul Retrieval, Extraction, Psychopomp, Depossession and Exorcism, but included client work and some additional training.)

“The training was exactly what I expected it would be, having known Bekki and Crow for several years, except that it was ten times more intense and ten times more challenging than I expected.  A real learning experience, packed with information and excitement.  This training caused a profound change in my healing abilities.”
–student at ’95 Intensive

“…you are both very supportive instructors. Your eagerness to share your life experiences and your acquired knowledge only enhances the experiential learning process. And you accept the life experience and acquired knowledge of your students with the same eagerness.”
–student at ’95 Intensive

“One of the most challenging and rewarding aspects of the training was the constant journeying required.  Besides being confronted with such a huge spectrum of journey “topics” (some of which pushed just the insecurities I needed pushed), I found myself becoming incredibly comfortable and familiar with shamanic reality, so that now if I don’t journey enough, I begin to actually miss being there. It became natural.”
–student at ’99 Intensive

“I felt very guided and supported as well as pushed to expand my own self-imposed limits.  I didn’t once feel asked or told to do anything that I was incapable of doing, or that would compromise my own sense of boundaries or integrity.  Every time I felt nudged, I would check in with myself, and realize that I was facing another insecurity that needed to be worked with.”
–student at ’99 Intensive

“I continue to regularly use the techniques in a powerful and nourishing way.  I’ve worked with close to 50 people since the Intensive, all positive, some deeply profound and healing.  The approach to ancestor work you introduced me to in 2000 continues to unfold in new and powerful ways, repairing the chains through time.  I’ve witnessed dramatic shifts in the soul retrieval work and I’m gradually refining energetic awareness in combination with the massage practice.” –student in ’02 Intensive