At first I wasn’t sure what to make of Deborah King’s new book “Be Your Own Shaman”. Coming from a fundamentalist Christian upbringing a word like “Shaman” made me wonder “is this some strange occult book?” And while I now have a much more liberal spiritual orientation my first impression was that King’s book could be on the fringe side.
My impressions changed in the first few pages. “So what does it mean to be a shaman today?” King writes in the introduction. “Is it someone who wears a feathered headdress, shakes a rattle, and dances around a fire to the beating of drums as he communes with an invisible world of spirits? It could be. But did you know that the sweet little old church lady with blue hair and clothes from the 1950’s could be a shaman, too?”
King goes on to define a shaman to mean “a healer – someone who expands his or her consciousness and conducts healing energy to help others resolve whatever is ailing them on the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual planes … a person who acts as an intermediary between the human world and spirit worlds – between the natural and supernatural.”
By that definition I’ve encountered many “shamans” in my life – the minister in the church down the street, the therapist, the inspirational author, and others. Far from being an exotic practice, shamanism is another term for something very commonplace. I now take the term “shaman” to mean a healer who brings spirituality into his or her work.
“Real healing power is inside you,” King writes, “it just needs to be awakened, nurtured, and practiced. You can be your own shaman, and this book will start you on your way.” She goes on to describe the many healing practices she has experienced in her life. Her background is varied; she spent time with both Christian and New Age healers. I never thought I’d see charismatic faith healer Kathryn Kuhlman and Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy mentioned in the same sentence. King describes how she studied both women extensively and saw similarities.
While I found the theological insights interesting, “Be Your Own Shaman” is primarily a practical book. King shares various healing techniques with readers. One forgiveness approach she describes, the Hawaiian ho pi’no pi’no, I tried myself. An internal process where you think of a person who has wronged you in the past and apply this method, I felt lighter and freer after practicing it a few times. It worked!
The author’s words about meditation also spoke to me. Earlier this month I wrote about how I kept reading about the value of this practice, and how that motivated me to start meditating daily myself. King gave me more encouragement. She writes “the surest way to heightened consciousness is meditation” describing it as “the single greatest thing I’ve ever done for myself. Meditation puts us in the present, completely relaxes the body and mind, and takes away stress.”
Other techniques King describes I wasn’t as open to – such as observing the movement of a pendulum as you hold it over the different chakra points of your body. But she writes “You will always know when something does or doesn’t feel right for you, as healing is simply a natural extension of being in right relationship with yourself and the natural world.” The reader can pick and choose from the many spiritual practices King described in the book based on his or her own intuition.
In the concluding pages King writes “The path of the healer is not clear-cut; there are no memos to tell you what to do and no course laid out in stone to follow. There are simply hints and glimmers of what lies ahead, whispers in the night, a voice in the wind as it calls your name.”
“Be Your Own Shaman” gives us some “hints and glimpses” into the ways of the Spirit. The book opened my awareness to many new approaches; some felt strange but others resonated with me immediately. King does excellent job in making an esoteric topic understandable to the reader. It’s a book worth reading for spiritual seekers looking for new ways to heal themselves and others.
You can get “Be Your Own Shaman” from these book sellers:
This is another book review in my partnership with Hay House. I was not financially compensated for this post. I received the book from Hay House for review purposes. The opinions are completely my own based on my experience.
