On November 8, my 75th birthday, I awakened with a strong desire to do a shamanic journey to Lake Titicaca and the Earth’s second Chakra. I put on my journey music, engaged my travel companions, Quetzalcoatl and my black panther cat, and requested that we journey to the Lake. Soon I was at the shores

As I continue to be sensitive to the flowers that attract my attention on my morning walks, I notice the white and blue Morning Glories peeking out from among the dark and tangle vegetation along my path. They are like a breath of fresh air pulling me into their simple beauty.

“Everything in nature resonates with the force of the Divine spirit.” (Ted Andrews, Animal-Speak, 82) Each animal, plant, bird and stone has an energy blueprint that reflects this spirit in its own way. Thus, flowers have specific energy blueprints unique to that flower.

Humans have been creating art for over 30,000 years. Caves in Southern France have revealed art depicting a variety of animals and symbols. One shows a dancing shaman wearing a buffalo robe and headdress, another with a combination of buffalo and human features, and a third of a dancing shaman with a beard and human

“Hidden Faces Longing for Light” Carl Jung said “one does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” (CW13. Par. 335) Recently a friend was telling me about dark lonely place in him, a place that makes him feel insecure, a place that limits closeness and holds him back

I finished the paintings to honor the seven chakras housed in the body. My mind turned to the chakras outside the body, especially the 8th and 9th chakras that reside above the head. The color most associated with the 8th chakra is “ultraviolet.” Ultraviolet means “beyond violet”, which is the color of the highest frequencies

This is the 5th painting in a series of paintings that I’m calling the “Chakra Series.” I paint a canvas with the color of a one of the chakras, red, orange, yellow, green, indigo, violet or, in this case blue, the color of the 5th chakra. I then use all those colors and paint an

My paintings are a projective experience much like clinical psychology’s Rorschach test. I paint a background of an undefined and ambiguous scene. I then paint the images that I see emerging from this undefined space. As I interact with the images, painting them, amplifying them, dialoging with them, listening to their personal and archetypal meanings,

I awakened with an urge, a kind of longing to journey into the realm of what the shaman calls “non-ordinary reality” to seek connection to what felt like split off and rejected parts of my soul. Perhaps the feeling was the residual effects of some forgotten dream in which these split off parts had made

This painting was inspired by two shamanic journeys. I journey to the place of the Hummingbirds. I sit in the grasses at the pond and drum, thanking the hummingbirds for their admonition to write, thanking them for their inspiration and their feeding me the sweet nectar of life.

In 2012 I traveled to Peru to sit and train with the shaman of the high Andes. The night before I left Cusco to travel into the Sacred Valley and ultimately to above 14,000 in the Andes, I dream that a colleague of mine is presenting a case at Integrative Psychotherapy at the Crossing.

The shamanic journey is a practice common to all indigenous societies throughout history. By listening to a drumbeat or other rhythmic percussion, the shaman enters the invisible worlds of “non-ordinary” reality–an altered state of consciousness beyond time and space–to access spiritual guidance and healing, assist others and the planet, and to connect with the cycles and

While meditating today, I journeyed to the Place of the Hummingbird—a place my guides took me to in non-ordinary reality a few years ago. As I sat in the grasses by the edge of the lake that is there, I felt myself zooming in or else something zooming toward me. In any case the distance between

Power animals are central to the practice of shamanism. They serve as guardians, guides and helping spirits. Each animal has its own wisdom and medicine. In shamanic practice, a person may have 2 or 3 primary power animals with whom he or she tends to work. However, other animals may show up to bring us their particular wisdom and medicine