Twenty five years ago I was working in my private practice in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as a Gestalt and trauma psychotherapist and if there was one thing I knew then, without a doubt, it was that deep and truly effective therapy is all about contact.

When you ask the wisdom carriers of the Andes who they are, they will reply without hesitation: the mountain am I, the sun am I, the moon am I, the earth am I. The medicine people of the earth have always known that there is no separation between the moon and me, the tree and me and you and me.

Our ability to function in a state of true contact with another being, be it human, animal or earth itself has atrophied for far too many citizens of this planet. We are witnessing the results of this loss of contact every single day.

Are you burning out? We all know that combustion, or the fuel burning process, drives cars, cooks food and warms our hands and feet. The more powerful and stable the burn, the more energy it delivers. What happens if that flame becomes only a flicker?

My path into the world of shamanic work began 25 years ago with a bird. I was coaxed by a friend and colleague of mine to visit a woman who was a student of Michael Harner’s Foundation for Shamanic Studies. This energy healer offered what is known as Soul Retrieval - a practice for healing emotional disconnections.

Think of how you stand when you can’t find your balance. Any strong wind can knock you right off your feet. Emotionally, that strong wind can come in the form of other’s (and also your own) judgements, opinions, prejudices and projections. We certainly can’t withstand storms of pain, anger and fear if our emotional body can’t find its equilibrium.

Kuando un avla, serra la boca y avre los oídos.

When someone speaks, close your mouth and open your ears.

The sound of Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), Yiddish and Hebrew is the soundtrack to my childhood memories.

Healing happens when we come into alignment with unlimited possibility rather than calculated probability. When we can entrain the particle to slip back into the wave, if only for a nanosecond, we open the window to a new story.

Do you find yourself exhausted or overwhelmed in a world gone suddenly upside down? Perhaps you wake up in the morning after what seems to you like a reasonable night’s sleep and still feel as though you are out of energy, out of balance and out of synch in your body and mind as well as with the people around you. You are certainly not alone.

On Wednesday, January 6, 2021 I experienced an amygdala hijack. What is an amygdala, you ask? That is the part of the brain that is involved with the experiencing of emotions.

All familiar orientation is gone. Many have lost their ground in this time of crisis and feel adrift in a sea of unpredictability and uncertainty. The world we knew has suddenly and dramatically altered.

Several years ago, a gathering of twelve women who had attended my workshops stood in a circle as we began the rituals connected with the traditional Andean wisdom keeper’s fire ceremony.

Without realising it, we have all accepted the ordinary belief that we can only know what we have learned with our five senses in this lifetime.

This is a story about my mother's death in 1970. Actually, I want to tell you two stories about her passing.

Just as the old biology has left us misinformed about our relationship to our own DNA and the messenger genes that regulate our health and well being, the old theory of evolution has set us up for the perpetuation of a world system that does not support the health and well being of our species or any other.

My clearest vision comes when I allow my grip and focus to soften, when I can get out of the driver’s seat and trust that I am on the right path, heading exactly where I need to go.

It’s time for me to give up hope. This sounds like a message right out of Dante Alighieri’s gates of hell: “Abandon all hope ye who enter here.” That is not what I mean, although there are days….