One of my favorite classes right now is A Shaman’s Workshop, an apprenticeship-style class over at Matrix International University. It’s advanced enough that we can really play with the subject matter. Because students majoring in New-shamanism have to take at least 3 trimesters of it in order to graduate, I set it up so that the series is 9 trimesters long; that way, no one repeats a topic, regardless of when they start. Subjects are based on the cycle of the local wheel, with Spring trimester being a growth topic, Summer being an abundance or life topic, and Fall being an introspective topic.

We just started the Summer trimester series, and the elemental influence is Air. We’ll be doing trance induction through breathwork, examining the energy between things, and working with weather. We were mostly indoors yesterday for the first class, but at least 2 more of the classes will be held out in nature. I feel strongly that an experiential class in shamanism needs to have a visceral connection to the planet.

Over the weekend, the weather changed (much to the benefit of the firefighters, I’m sure), and we really had an opportunity to feel the weather. One of the great things about playing with weather in LA is that it has such clearly defined weather patterns. Even our inversion layer is obvious. So we looked at various trees that had opinions on the likelihood of rain, we felt the quality and flavor of the wind, and we got to feel the ceiling on a low pressure system. After talking about the ethics of weather work, we played a little bit with push and pull, with special focus on the Camarillo Springs fire area. While cause and effect are often indistinguishable from coincidence, yesterday the professional weatherfolk were predicting 20% chance of rain for today, and today it’s up between 80-90%, depending on which site you look at.

I’m not claiming ownership on this, but I am pleased that the folks in the fire-threatened areas are going to get some relief. Ego has no place in work like this, and the best you can ever hope for is to convince a weather pattern that it wants to be stronger or weaker. You work with the patterns that already exist, no more, no less.

For those of you who missed it, the May Newsletter finally went up on Saturday. Sorry for the delay!