Itzhak Beery - 17 Aug

To my grandchildren, Ayela and Abraham May the Great Mystery guide you on an awe-inspiring life journey.

Acknowledgments

My deepest gratitude to all the shamanic teachers who came forward to share in this collection the most personal and intimate moment of their lives transformations. Thank you for your trust and courage, and for believing in the importance of this book. I am in reverence to you and in awe of your journeys. I know they will inspire the readers as well.

This book could not have happened if it werent for the vision and passion of my longtime pal and fellow traveler on the path Ariel Orr Jordan; I am indebted to you for your insights, continued generosity, and support. Special thanks to my friend and inspirational agent, Joe Kulin, who knows how to calm me down and get me to the finish line. Thank you, Ken Jordan of Reality Sandwich, who got the ball rolling over a Zen platter at one of our lunches. Thank you, Nora Logan, for assisting me with heralding the authors and entries. Thank you to my fellow New York Shamanic Circles Core Members and community for your enthusiastic support. To my family who encourage me to continue to pursue my life passion, an endless thank you!

My profound thanks to Ehud Sperling and his Inner Traditions team for believing in the books message, taking on this project, and making it happen so beautifully.

INTRODUCTION

The Relevance of Shamanism

Itzhak Beery

You better make it absolutely relevant. Listen to me, relevant is the key word! My longtime friend Ariel Orr Jordan, who is a talented filmmaker, a prolific writer, and a shamanic soul himself, was fired up and animatedly repeating this over and over as we were speed-walking in circles around Washington Square Park. It was a beautiful early spring morning, and passersby glanced at us in amusement as we exchanged words in throaty Hebrew. Ask them to send you their personal stories of how their shamanic experience forever changed their lives. The more personal it is, the more powerful and inspirational it will be for others, he added in growing excitement and passion.

I knew he was on to something, as he had been many times before. I had asked his opinion because I was searching for a big idea, something exciting that would make the new website I had just created in 2007, Shaman Portal, not just popular with our readers but also useful.

Yes! Youre right! I agreed wholeheartedly, trying to catch up to him.

Everyone must have had one single moment, a split second of a personal experience, an aha moment, a eureka of unexpected realization, inspiration, insight, recognition, or comprehension, after which their world, as if by magic, changes lenses, like wearing a new pair of different, clearer eyeglasses, and a new consciousness emerges, he said in one long breath.

As we started our last lap around the park he continued decisively, Listen to me. If you do that, your site will be a tremendous success.

Back at my office, I asked my webmaster to add a new section to the website. I called it Shamanic Impact.

This was not the first time that Ariel had taken part in a moment of birthing ceremony. On the base of Cotopaxithe snowcapped volcanic mountain in Ecuador, which reaches a height of 19, 347 feetAriel, our friend Samuel, and I had stood frozen. We were part of a group of sixteen individuals who had traveled to South America in the spring of 1997 with John Perkins, the renowned author and shaman (who also is a contributor to this book), to learn and perform healing ceremonies with the Quechua and Shuar shamans. It was already late afternoon when we arrived at the base of Cotopaxi, and as the sun started to set we shivered from the cold temperature and the merciless strong blowing wind. The legendary symmetrical glacier cone we knew from pictures was all but gone, covered by a heavy blanket of gray clouds, and the fierce wind blew so hard it literally swept us off our feet.

For no apparent reason, I took a drum and started drumming, chanting, and calling on the spirit of Apu (the god who lives on the mountaintops) and began walking in a large circle. Soon Ariel and then Samuel joined me, and the others followed as if in a trance. Down below, a group of Andean geese looked at us in surprise from the puddle they were enjoying. Quickly and magically, a powerful ritual circle was formed. About twenty minutes later, suddenly, as if by the hand of Apu itself, the sky opened up above the mountaintop and massive rays of light poured down, revealing the magnificent snowcapped tip and with it a beautiful bright blue sky. The whole mountain came alive. I was mesmerized. What just happened? Did we have anything to do with that?

In this superb collection of stories you will have the opportunity to read accounts of people who have experienced such moments. Although most of them are now shamanic practitioners, they used to be just regular folks, just like you and me. There is no way to know how, where, and when that game-changing moment will occur. It can happen in strange places and situations. The experience can come in response to life challenges or illness, and/or just by accidenton mountaintops, in cities, by rivers and oceans, or even in ones kitchen. It sometimes happens as a spirit visitation, through dreams, or when one is walking in Nature or even just driving a car.

According to the now famous prophecies of the Inca and Maya (the two more well-known and well-documented ancient South American cultures), as well as other indigenous cultures around the world, we have entered a new period in mankinds conscious development. The Incas Pachakuti (which means Earth/time correctiona period of five hundred years) began in 1993, five hundred years after the execution of the last Incan king and the fall of the empire. This was the beginning of the occupation of the white man, and on December 21, 2012, the thirteenth Baktun ended and a new time cycle began (marking the start of a new calendar).

The Inca and Maya prophesy that this will be a period of peace and cooperation between all races, and a time of knowledge-sharing between all people. It is the time of the return of feminine energies, a return to the heart-center and to a more just society.

Since 1993, shamans, medicine men, and wisdomkeepers from all over South America have come down from the mountains, out of the Amazon basin; they have heard their calling and started to spread their hidden and well-kept ancient wisdom to the people of the industrial world. The impact stories you are about to read are all part of that extraordinary change we are witnessing, which is happening ever more rapidly now. Lawyers, housewives, celebrities, auto mechanics, corporate executives, financierspeople from all walks of life are hearing that calling. Like mushrooms after a long-awaited rain, they are opening their hearts and listening, which is not always easy, as you will see from their accounts. The skeptic gatekeepers of our rational mind still stand guard.

And yet we are learning to unlearn. We are learning to re-remember the wisdom we have forgotten. We are learning to make room for the magic, the miracles, and to be in the awe of the unseen universe. We are learning to pay close attention to supposed coincidences and not to dismiss them as accidents. We are rediscovering our connection to our ancestors and beginning to see our lives as a continuum of our family trees. We are discovering our souls life mission and purpose and truly paying attention to itaware as we are of how important it is to embody it and make it manifest.