Shamanic Healing

great question!  and an important one, because everything at the dreaming otter is based on working directly with spirit guides and helpers.  I strongly feel that learning how to work with spirit guides and having a strong spiritual practice is the key to living a skillful, beautiful human life.

in the unseen realms of spirit (which are another kind of reality, as valid as the one you’re experiencing now) we can connect with goddesses or gods, elemental beings and nature devas, ascended healing masters, mythic or archetypal beings, bright and well ancestors, animal beings, or personal guides – the list is pretty endless.

working with the world of spirit and the mystery is based in the idea that ‘everything is alive, has sentience, and wants to communicate.’  once you learn how to talk with your compassionate helping spirits (you have lots of them, even if you haven’t met them yet, and we can work on this in a session if you like), you can consult them at any time and ask for guidance, insight, counsel, and healing on any situation in your life.

my particular way of working with helping spirits is twofold:  I’m an intuitive and a channel, and I’m receiving guidance from my compassionate helping spirits in a session while we’re together.  literally, they guide the work.  when you receive healings like soul retrieval, cord healing, power restoration, psychopomp, divination, etc I’ll use the rhythmic beat of a drum to help me drop more deeply into sync with my spirit guides so they can show me the healing they’re offering on your behalf – they’re the ones who actually deliver healing for you.  that’s a fun part of a session, as you get to hear the rhythmic drumbeat, which is healing in and of itself.  no surprise here, one of the main helping spirits I work with is river otter.  ;)

I love this work and have dedicated my entire life to it in these last two decades, because working with spirit guides is amazing, mystical, powerful, effective, and fun.  if you have any questions, please reach out and let me know.  I’m here!

caveat here: you can read a bunch about what different healing modalities can bring to your life, and it’s super different than diving in and receiving.  just like chocolate mousse, you’ve got to experience it to really get it!  ;)

that said.  speaking for myself, I might feel a little anxious if a healer I haven’t worked with yet says ‘I’ll figure out what to do for you based on my experience.’  that’s valid, and I’d also like to at least have a little sense of what’s available from a healer, as I discern if they feel aligned and supportive for me or not.

in service to helping you feel into what work with me might be like, here are some (very brief descriptions of) kinds of techniques we might weave in to support you.  I’ve been doing this work for 20 years, and the tool basket is deep and wide.  here’s a sneak peek at a few of the things we might bring aboard to help you:

dream seeds: you incarnated with ‘dream seeds,’ which are like kindly little lights revealing the path your spirit chose for this lifetime.  it’s really fun and cool to figure out what they are, so you’re not stumbling around in your life wondering ‘why am I here?  what makes me happy?’  note: you can receive a little PDF exercise (15 min) to discover yours, when you sign up for the email list.  this is important information, because once you know what your dream seeds are, you can see what is (or isn’t) aligned with them in your life.

spirit guides: pretty much ALL of the shamanic work here is based in working with spirit guides.  it’s an incredible joy to build deep, lasting friendships with yours, be they goddesses, elementals, well ancestors, animal helpers, or enlightened teachers.  spirit helpers are deeply kind and powerful, and can support you by offering information, counsel, and healings.  it’s amazing to be able to connect with your helping spirits, any time on any topic, and feel how loved and supported you are.  this is the heart of everything at the dreaming otter…and you can absolutely learn to talk with your helping spirits directly.  it’s like having a strong crew of best friends who want nothing but goodness for you, and can help you.

ceremony: ceremony is beautiful, creative alchemy that changes the shape of reality.  your helping spirits can teach you how to create your own totally unique ceremonies, and I can help you learn how to set strong intention, prepare for a ceremony, move effectively through the beginning, middle and end of a ceremony, normalize anything that arises (ceremonies are sentient, and a lot can happen in them), and then integrate the experience.  you can use ceremony to release what doesn’t serve you anymore in your life, invite a big new beginning, or serve the web of life.  knowing how to use your power in a good way is potent and wonderful, and waking up to the ceremonialist within you is a real joy.

soul retrieval: you can lose parts of your actual spirit after long illness, trauma, challenge, or overwhelm, and end up feeling ‘stuck’ or like there’s no flow or grace in your world.  if you feel like you ‘just can’t get over something’ or ‘something is missing’ there is probably some soul loss at play (and there can be other dynamics at work that need tending if that’s where you’re at, soul retrieval is a good place to begin if feeling stuck or lost feels familiar).  when your soul is more whole, you’re able to be with yourself, and can stop moving so fast in an effort to fill yourself up.  (aha!)  you can think of it this way: you need all of you here to live a happy human life – you could also call soul retrieval ‘coming home.’

releasing old energies: in a human life, you’ll accumulate many artifacts, ideas, identities, dreams, friends, agreements, and ways of being.  as you grow (how beautiful), you’ll release some of these in physical form (how natural), but old cords, energies, and spiritual contracts can bog you down.  healings from spirit guides get you free of old energies, so you’re not wandering around the planet like some beleaguered turtle carrying every old relationship and energy you’ve ever experienced around with you all the time (man, you’d be one exhausted turtle!).  a note about this one: if energetic cords are involved, I don’t do ‘cord cutting.’  my helping spirits propone ‘cord healing’ which is different, compassionate, and liberating.  we can also remove energetic intrusions (exactly what that sounds like), and other people’s residual energy.

personal retreat: our world is full, full of noise.  there is an art in being able to slow down and hear the ‘song in the silence’ – which is the truth and simplicity of your own heart.  you can learn how to relax, exhale, and come back to yourself.  from this place, you have access to feeling love, being happy, and remembering your purpose.  and, I’ve seen lots of folks try to slow down without understanding why they’re so ratcheted up all the time and have a pretty crappy, bumpy experience trying personal retreat.  there are skillful ways to set intention, prepare, move through the experience, tend what comes up (like phone addiction), glean the medicine and meaning of what happens in that sacred space, and then reenter your life.  even one personal retreat can change your life in a big way, like a powerful ‘reset.’  when you learn how to build your own effective personal retreats, you can really invite flow, ease, and grace into your life.

feeling full yet?  but what about sacred storytelling, medicine keys, dowsing, reiki, labyrinths, play, divination, magical counsel, sacred art, unburdening, talismans, circling, working with the goddesses, altars, elemental declarations, oracles, crystal grids, channeled activations, and resetting the nervous system?  (grin)  there are LOTS of tools in the tool basket.  I don’t know what might be helpful to you until we connect, and we’ll enjoy being easy together and figuring it out.  if you have questions about any of these things, please email me.  happy healing!

do you do in-person sessions?

I offered in-person sessions for 16 years, and now offer all of my work remotely.

my helping spirits guided me to move to sessions via phone or zoom two years before the pandemic began, and it didn’t make a lot of conscious sense to me then.  I get it now (chuckle), and discovered in that change that there are some lovely advantages to working remotely, like how we’re no longer limited by physical location, you can show up for session in your pajamas with a cup of tea and a snuggy quilt, and you don’t need to travel immediately after receiving healing.  that’s key for empaths and sensitives, and allows the work to integrate smoothly.

you can choose to work together via zoom if it feels nourishing for you to be able to see me, and if you prefer to curl up with a cup of tea and gaze out at the trees while we chat on the phone, lovely.  (that’s what I’ll be doing)

do you offer sessions on weekends?

I do not offer sessions on weekends, although there are occasional group circles on weekend dates.

if you need a session time not listed here, please email me and we’ll see what we can do for you.  I tend to reserve session times outside of what you see listed online for my ongoing clients, and if I can work with your schedule, I’m happy to.

YES!  this is actually the way I prefer to work.  reason being, there’s only so much one session can do, just like how one therapy session, one chiropractic session, one acupuncture session can be beneficial, but not tend to the complexity and layers sometimes required for deep, lasting change and healing in your life.

if your situation invites deeper work, depending on what’s going on for you, you might choose to do a series of 3 sessions, or work together for 6 months in an ongoing container, and you can read more about ‘the magical life’ here.

that said, I don’t want people to work with me forever.  I want you to fly on your own, and a big focus on my work is putting tools into your hands so you receive what you need, ‘graduate me,’ and go on to live your version of a magical life.

it’s a wonderful thing, to have a healer in your corner, who knows you well and walks with you through times of transition, change, endings, or beginnings with clear perspective and lots of effective tools.  if you feel you’d benefit from ongoing work, you can email me here.