Welcome to
Seventh Direction Publishing, our newest
way of sharing our experiences with you... in book form! These titles
reflect our
decades of experience in shamanism. Look for new additions as we write,
edit, illustrate and publish our journeys in paper and ebook
formats.
In addition we have a book-ordering service (see below).
Articles
The following articles are available in .pdf format for your
personal use; they are copyrighted and may not be duplicated
in any medium without permission. We welcome your feedback--let
us know whether you found them useful and (we hope) interesting. Email us
with your comments at publications@church-of-earth-healing.org.
Grounding, Centering & Shielding
by Crow Swimsaway, PhD (.pdf file)
Soul Mates or Soul Exchange? by Bekki
Shining Bearheart, LMT (.pdf file)
One Experience of Drumming in
the Temple by Crow Swimsaway, PhD (.pdf file)
Books AVAILABLE NOW
Bear Walks, Crow Talks
Rooted in the Heart, Seeded in the Soul
Fundamentals of Shamanism: A Collection of
Articles for Students of Shamanism
Books COMING SOON
Adventures with the Shaman's Daughter
...2008
A Circle of the Ancestors ...2008
Book Ordering Service
We stock a limited supply of high quality shamanic books for our students, and are happy to obtain titles for you at the list price plus shipping.Please
note we are just now recalculating our shipping charges according to
the latest
Post Office weight/size formulae. Until these are posted here,
please just
ask us how much to add for shipping.
Bear Walks, Crow Talks
by Bekki Shining Bearheart, LMT & Crow Swimsaway, PhD
This book is a valuable addition to every library of contemporary shamanism. It is a well illustrated compilation of work from fifteen years of shamanic teaching and healing by Bekki and Crow, teachers and practitioners totally involved with their work.
heavily illustrated, 111+ pages, comb binding and plastic cover, $21.00
Rooted in the Heart, Seeded in the Soul: Contemporary shamans working with plant spirits (2nd edition)
by Crow Swimsaway, PhD & Bekki Shining Bearheart, LMT
with added journeys by Jan Mittleman, LMT
and a new article by Ramon Lopez, PhD
This work has grown from Bekki and Crow's workshop on working with plant spirits, a powerful and popular workshop taught at the Chicago College of Healing Arts, Dragon Waters, Healing Heart Herbals, United Plant Savers Annual Conferences and the West Virginia Herb Association Annual Fall Conference.
60 + pages, comb binding and plastic cover, $17.00
Fundamentals of Shamanism: A Collection of Articles for Students of Shamanism from The Church of Earth Healing
This collection includes ten articles used with students studying with Bekki and Crow, plus a current list of Shamanic Workshops offered by the Church of Earth Healing and a list of recommended books. These articles are also useful to anyone pursuing shamanic studies. All of the articles in this monograph appear, in somewhat differently edited form, in Bear Walks, Crow Talks.
40 pages, stapled, no binding or cover, $6.00
Spirit Knife, Soul Bone: The Ancient Shamanic Art of Extracting Negative Energies
by Crow Swimsaway, PhD
From the Forward by Dr. Chris Forester:
This is a book whose time has come. As more people turn to shamanic practices for spiritual meaning, and for healing, the art of shamanic extraction has never been more sorely needed. Many popular books touch on it, but here you will find, I believe, the first really comprehensive treatment by an expert practitioner of the art. Any shamanic practitioner or student of shamanism should read this book.
La curacion chamanica es siempre un ejercicio humano de la libertad. Este libro detalla uno de los hallazgos chamanicos que, por ser verdadero, trasciende las limitaciones de la memoria porque siempre se redescubre y se renueva como un amoroso entendimiento de la naturaleza humana. La profunda verdad de la extraccion chamánica se comprueba en la variedad historica de sus expresiones rituales. Por eso, su antiguedad es la seoa de su pertinente actualidad.
Ramon Lopez, Barranquitas, Puerto Rico
This is the first contemporary book about the ancient and powerful shamanic healing technique known as extraction. Composed by an internationally noted shamanic practitioner, teacher and author, Spirit Knife describes extraction techniques in current use. Stories of extractions from several centuries and many peoples around the world provide important background for modern practices. While reading of powerful healings gained by removing toxic crystals, piercing bones, cutting blades, and--perhaps--malevolent spirits, you can judge whether extraction might aid your own healing.
In Spirit Knife, Soul Bone, sources of destructive intrusions are examined at length. The chapter "Awareness is Half of Prevention" offers detailed guidelines for avoiding intrusions. Like all the major shamanic healing techniques, extraction is not and has never been self-applied. Still, understanding how extraction works and how necessary it may be, set against the complete portrayal of shamanic healing provided by Spirit Knife, makes the choices for your own healing safer and more effective
<><>The newly revised edition is now available, for $17 at selected bookstores, by mail from us, and at our workshops. (By mail please add shipping as appropriate: please note we are just now recalculating our shipping charges according to the latest Post Office weight/size formulae. Until these are posted here, please just ask us how much to add for shipping. )Both Spirit Knife, Soul Bone and Seeded in the Heart, Rooted in the Soul (our earlier book on shamanic plant spirit work, newly edited and redesigned by Mary Pat Mann PhD) are also now available on CD in fully illustrated and complete versions in pdf format. You may have either of these for $15, or both on the same CD for $20. (Plus shipping as needed.)
We are also happy to add any of the other "free" pdf files listed here to your Seeded or Spirit CD at your request, at no additional charge.
For those who prefer audio books to reading hard copy, the voice recording of Spirit Knife, Soul Bone, read by the author, is now available on CD. Mairyann Wrentmore of Art and the Goddess, putting fresh faces on mythic legends (www.mairyannsart.com) and a member of our Athens area journeying circle has designed the new covers for the CD, and quite amazing they are too.
The voice recording is available in two formats. If you can play CDs in mp3 formatting, you can have it on a single disc for $20. If you are using play mode for sound CDs then you get 5 discs for $25. Both formats include the full pdf files for the book so you can enjoy such things as the table of contents, index and notes which do not read so well, plus all the illustrations, which are unique; you will not want to miss them.
The mp3 disc is in a jewel case with Mairyann's lovely cover. The 5 disc set is boxed in a hand made origami box, folded from Mairyann's design.
FROM the Author: Crow Swimsaway, PhD
I have studied and experienced shamanism since my graduate study in anthropology at the University of Chicago in the late 1950s. I am currently writing a series of books to share with a wider audience the wonders of a spirituality, mode of healing, and way of life as old and widespread as humankind.
It is my profound belief that early shamanic practice was the origin not only of spirituality but of the arts both visual and performing and of "science." That is, science in the sense of being willing to observe everything that happens to and around oneself and being able to learn from those experiences, whatever framework of understanding one may need to place this knowledge in to be able to work with and profit from it. This is relevant in that I was originally trained as a scientist by a very serious scientist father. (I learned to identify red and white blood cells through the microscope before age 5.) Since then, major and significant parts of my joy and the works of my life have been in the performing and visual arts: everything that shamanism has touched, has also touched me. I believe that almost 70 years of life's experiences along these blessed pathways have suited me to this writing and sharing.
Your comments are invited in return.
ABOUT the Illustrator: Denise Mangen
Denise Mangen is more than a photographer. As Photo Illustrator, she produced the illustrations for Spirit Knife, Soul Bone, including the color cover and author's portrait (excepting the classic drawings of the two famous cave paintings in Chapter 3). I met Denise when she was working on a portfolio of color photographs of alternative healers in Athens County, Ohio, as part of her work at Ohio University. I was very taken by her professionalism, the quality of her images and her eye for capturing the spirit and personality of Athens' healers. The choice was obvious when I came to choose who would create the images for Spirit Knife, Soul Bone.
ABOUT the Designer: Stacy Asher
I met Stacy Asher by pure happenstance: we both attended the opening of Denise Mangen's exhibition of photographs of alternative healers at Casa Nueva in Athens, Ohio. Not so much happenstance, perhaps, since as Assistant Professor of Graphic Design in the College of Fine Arts at Ohio University, Stacy worked with Denise in designing her book of healers. To my surprise and deligh, however, Stacy overheard me describe the Spirit Knife, Soul Bone project and decided she'd like to design the book.
We discovered many similarities of experiences--each of us learned a great deal in Hong Kong, for example--and taste in book design. I am very happy that she has taken on this project and responded so perfectly to the spirit of the work.
Adventures with the Shaman's Daughter:
A personal exploration
of the shamanic phenomena of the Spirit Lover
by Crow Swimsaway, PhD
Scheduled release: 2008
In traditional shamanic cultures, the shaman is known to have many connections with Spirit including allies, teachers, guides and ancestors. The shaman is essentially powerless without these connections; indeed, it is they who perform the vast majority of the healing work for which the practitioner receives praise from her or his community.
Few neoshamanic practitioners acknowledge the crucial function of the Spirit Lover for shamanic healing. For numerous shamanic peoples, a shaman without a mate in Spirit is of secondary quality; able to do some work, but without the power to fully perform the deepest of healing tasks.
Adventures with the Shaman's Daughter tells the tale of one practitioner's experiences in Spirit with a passionate, loving and deeply knowledgeable woman. As the spirit lover relationship grows, the 'Shaman's Daughter' grows to become the Shaman for her village. Her growth is matched and intimately aided by that of her warmest friend, the daughter of the village Priest.
EXCERPT from Adventures with the Shaman's Daughter
|
The shaman lay on the platform covered by a softly tanned light coloured deer skin. Close to him lay a woman. She was moving about restlessly and was hot with a fever; her red sweating face gleamed in the fire light. The shaman's apprentice, the one whom I had met, was helping to cool her, wiping her face and giving her sips of a dark colored tea from a rough ceramic cup. My arrival was timely; the healing was reaching a climax. The shaman was completely covered by the skin but his spasmodic movements could be seen as the drumming continued. Suddenly he jerked powerfully and the skin slipped aside off of the platform. He cried out and began hitting the platform around himself as well as the skin as it slipped away. He jerked upright then rose and went immediately to the woman whom he began hitting with what looked like a drum beater: a thin two foot long stick with a padded ball at one end. As he beat her he pulled her up, first to sitting, then to one knee and finally to her feet. His apprentice helped hold the woman upright while he continued to hit her very rapidly all over. The blows did not seem to hurt the woman but she looked only semiconscious. As he drummed on her, he was shouting (I could not understand his words) and jumping around wildly: it was clear that he was driving something out of her. |
Soon a hazy shape, almost human in outline, formed in front of her, confronting the shaman, and the woman began coughing so strongly that her whole body jerked back and forth in the apprentice's arms. Immediately the shaman began to fight the hazy form. The fight looked like a martial arts dance and a violent one. The action took the possessing form away from the woman, who looked exhausted. Her partially open eyes closed and slowly, cushioned by the apprentice, she slid down onto the furs which covered the platform and lay still. The fighting dance continued back and forth, jerking around the platform, the shaman punching, kicking and jumping vigorously and rhythmically. His movements were, in some part, in rhythm with and motivated by the drumming, which got much louder during the fight. Somehow the shaman managed to keep his footing on the platform. In a few moments he won the fight, the hazy form dispersed and he went to kneel beside the woman, breathing heavily. |
A Circle of the Ancestors
by Crow Swimsaway, PhD
Scheduled release: 2008
This book is a deeply personal exploration of how shamanic connections to our ancestors can help us. It draws on lively journals of ancestor journeys (containing over 100 journeys) performed by Crow as he developed his connections with a powerful herbalist in ancient Etruria, a young woman shaman who lived 2000 years ago in Northern England, and several mysterious Gypsies who dispensed healing from their caravans in Eastern Europe.
A Circle of Ancestors explores tribal ancestor practices, but more exciting are the examples of verified knowledge of lost ancestral connections. Our students often find they can trace unknown or uncertain aspects of their heritage though shamanic ancestor work.
The significance of the ancestors as major shamanic spiritual connections deserves more recognition. In any tribal cultures, the ancestors are more powerful helpers than allies, teachers or guides; complimenting, supplementing and sometimes supplanting these other connections in the healing and divinatory work of the shaman.
In 1995, Bekki Shining Bearheart LMT was guided by her ancestors to create and teach Circle of the Ancestors. This is one of the most powerful and popular workshops offered by the Church of Earth Healing; it is often taken by CEH students soon after the Fundamentals of Shamanic Practice (Introductory) weekend because it is such an important step in their development. This book is a direct product of a decade of ancestor journeying and teaching.
EXCERPT from A Circle of the Ancestors
|
She [my Etruscan ancestress] was a little exasperated with me but did share a wonderful Full Moon Ritual which she often uses. I asked if she did this every full moon and she laughed a bit at the idea. My feeling is that she does it when she is in the appropriate mind. I do not yet know what places my Ancestress in any given mental state but she seems to live very much in the moment and the feelings of the moment. Her Full Moon Ritual is an all day ritual. It begins when the sun rises and she is up and outside to greet the actual moment the sphere breaks over the hill behind her house. She usually starts the ritual standing on the terrace at the south end of the hut, looking up the hill. As soon as the upper edge of the sun comes into her sight she begins to dance. This is a very sinuous, swaying dance, of medium tempo. Her whole body moves from side to side in gentle curves and her eyes never leave the sun. She hums quietly to herself as she moves. A smoldering herbal smudge, at least partly mugwort, in a ceramic bowl, is important for this ritual as are spherical fruits. The smudge is lit when she first goes outside and it is kept going slowly all day, being fed from a basket of the herbs. It smolders continuously, at least until the full moon rises in the evening. She carries a basket of fruit outside with her before the dawn. She let me know that she can get some sort of spherical fruit almost any time of year and always includes them in the ritual. The more spherical the better. Today she is using very rounded, dark purple plums. Properly shaped fruit is very important as an offering to the sun and to the moon. |
As she dances she seems to become more and more in trance with her eyes closing partly and her movements slowing a little. As the sun continues to rise, she picks up the bowl of smoldering herbs and dances with it for some time, raising and lowering it and holding it high toward the sun. Next she does the same thing with the whole basket full of fruit. Then she places the basket at her feet and takes a plum in each hand and dances that way for a while. This part of the dance ends when she sinks slowly to the stones of the terrace and, still looking very much like she is in trance, eats the two plums she is holding, one after the other. It
is fascinating--so entrancing that I feel myself moving into her state
of mind--to watch the dance which goes on until the whole disc of the
sun is
well over
the hill behind the house. She does
not move for some time but relaxes where she has settled and sits
calmly with
her legs curved to one side. When
she does rise and take the fruit and smudge inside, she remains in the
trance state, which I will call her full moon mind. She stays
in this
condition throughout the day. In the evening she greets the rising full moon in almost exactly the same way that she greeted the sun. The dance is longer and more elaborate in movements with more variation in tempo, but the general format, including her orientation on the lunar body and the way the smudge and the fruit are used, is much the same. The dance to the moon ends as the morning one did, with her resting on the floor of the terrace. After resting a while, she enters her house, still apparently in full moon mind trance. I have the impression that there is nothing more to the ritual but she does not invite me inside and I leave her and make the return journey at this point. |