Tag Archives: russia

228 – Spirits From The Edge Of The World: Shamanism and the Ulchi

So what exactly is a Shaman? A quick explanation would be that it is someone who can interact with a spirit world that is surrounding us, but we usually cannot see, an intermediary between us and the spirits who can help us heal and ask for their wisdom.

Our usual Western idea is of some kind of “Medicine Man”, a witch doctor taking hallucinogenics and shaking sticks at the sky. Sure, he might know some natural herbal remedies, but it’s just primitive superstition. In our materialist society, if we can’t scientifically explain something, it must not be real. Nothing was more materialist than the atheism of the USSR and when they attempted to “Sovietize” the indigenous Siberian population, they specifically went after the Shamans.

Ulchi Woman. Ulchsky District, Khabarovsk Krai, Far East, Siberia. © Alexander Khimushin / The World In Faces

The Ulchi People have been living in Far Eastern Russia for at least eight thousand years in one of the world’s oldest continuous cultures, in fact they speak the language that we get the word “Shaman” from. They are animists who find spirits in the whole world, from animals to people, from rocks to mountains. These spirits are constantly watching and judging us. Their Shamanic tradition has had millennia to develop and they remained relatively free from foreign interference until the Chinese tried to collect taxes on them in the 17th Century and the Russians eventually colonized the area in the late 1800s.

However there are less than three thousand Ulchi left according to the last Russian census. Jan Van Ysslestyne is an American who speaks their language fluently and has taken it upon herself to not only record their traditions and beliefs, but also keep them alive. Her latest book is called Spirits from the Edge of the World: Classical Shamanism in Ulchi Society, which is a compendium of Ulchi Shaman knowledge and teachings, often in their own words.

Click here to learn more about Jan Van Ysslestyne’s work: http://2pathfindercounseling.com

Jan also teaches Ulchi Shamanism for self-healing and discovery in her hometown of Seattle, Washington. In this discussion with Jan about her work and her latest book, we talk about:

  • How she got involved with a Siberian indigenous people
  • What convinced her that the Ulchi were for real
  • What it means to believe that spirits are all around us all the time
  • Shamanism and listening to nature
  • What is Shamanic “healing”?
  • What’s the first step we can take to get in touch with our own inner Shaman, how can we start interacting with the spirits around us?

For the song this week, we thought a little metal might be in order. There are places in Siberia that get colder than the average temperature on Mars(!) So, if “The Immigrant Song” is any indication (Led Zeppelin’s classic ode to Iceland), when we’re writing about a cold place, we got to heat it up with a barnburner. Inspired by Jan’s title as well as the Shamanic and animistic idea of a planet animated and alive, here is Sunspot with “Spirits From The Edge of the World”

Alive
Everything all that you see

Shaman
Each of us roots of the tree

Singing our visions aloud to the heavens
the dream of our lives will unfurl
Listen for the call, surrounding us all,
The spirits from the Edge of the World

In Tune
They’re giving you prophecy

Transform
to anything you want to be.

Singing our visions aloud to the heavens
the dream of our lives will unfurl
Listen for the call, surrounding us all,
The spirits from the Edge of the World

Singing our visions aloud to the heavens
the dream of our lives will unfurl
Listen for the call, surrounding us all,
The spirits from the Edge of the World
The spirits from the Edge of the World

131 – Mother Earth Mysticism: Past Lives and Shamanic Healing with Rachel Mann

Rachel Mann took a long and winding course to finding her calling as a healer and spiritual teacher.  Originally studying the Russian language and Slavic folklore and preparing for an academic career, she switched paths as the Cold War ended in the early 90s and university positions teaching Russian dried up.

rachel mann
Rachel giving somebody the Mother Earth Mystic Once-over!

While working through her own issues,  Rachel was getting traditional “talk therapy” as well as getting “energy work” done. But it was during one of those sessions where Rachel discovered her own history as a warrior monk in Medieval France and relived his dying moments in battle. The way she describes the experience is simila to Philip K. Dick’s  Exegesis and the strange connection he felt with the prophet Elijah and John The Baptist. But it’s interesting because it’s the idea that your in their head and they’re in your head, even though you’re separated by centuries. Rachel could feel his pain, his love, his hopes, and his faith. Meanwhile, he was poking around in her brain as well.

And that experience started leading her to where she is today, as a teacher of what she calls The Great Medicine Wheel of Mother Earth Mysticism, where she takes bits and pieces of the different spiritual traditions that she’s studied from Buddhism to the customs of the indigenous people of the Andes Mountains to the Cherokee to modern psychological techniques like psychodrama.

A Medicine Wheel in action!

Rachel’s work is a blend of the Ancient and the Modern and she teaches the connectedness of all things, living or otherwise. You can find more info about her on her site, Rachel Mann PhD, you can also follow her on Twitter or Facebook.

Her vulnerability and fearlessness in discussing the  challenges in her own life is what inspired this week’s Sunspot demo. We strive to be perfect and we often ridicule the sick as if somehow they’re “responsible” for their condition. That striving, that criticism, often just leads to even more suffering. Admitting that there’s something wrong and that it’s okay there’s something wrong is usually the first step in learning how to fix it. The track is called “To Accept Is Not Defeat”.

Scrape the skin ’til you see blood
Rub the flesh until its sore
Bang your head against the wall til your brains fall on the floor.
Cry til your eyes are red
til you find a moment of clarity
That this striving beyond surviving just more futility.
And the more that I struggle
the more I seem to ache,
 And the more that I struggle
the more I seem to break.
I surrender.
I throw myself before your feet.
I’ve tested every limit,
To accept is not defeat.
The tighter that you grip,
The looser that you hold,
And all that you have lost, you’ll find when you let go.
For the more that I struggle
the more I seem to ache,
For the more that I struggle
the more I seem to break.
I surrender.
I throw myself before your feet.
I’ve tested every limit,
To accept is not defeat.
I surrender.
I throw myself before your feet.
I’ve tested every limit,
To accept is not defeat.