Here are some of the most beautiful, potent, and life-changing forms of shamanic medicine I’ve been privileged to witness, participate in, and been initiated in over the last two decades. I’m listing with affection, a raised eyebrow, and the quiet certainty that miracles usually wear very old clothes.
- Soul Retrieval Somewhere along the way we all lose pieces of ourselves — the year your father left, the abortion you never told anyone about, the promotion that went to the guy who golfed with the boss. In shamanic traditions worldwide (from the Q’ero in Peru to the Buryat in Siberia), the healer journeys into non-ordinary reality, finds those shimmering fragments of you, blows them back into your chest with a feather or a rattle, and suddenly you’re crying like a baby because you can feel joy again. It’s the original “you complete me.”
- Extraction Healing Think spiritual surgery without the anesthesiologist or the bill. The shaman sees the crystallized grief or the intrusive energy that’s been living rent-free in your liver for fifteen years, pulls it out with their hands (or a feather, or a stone, or simply their mouth in the classic sucking method), and spits it into a bowl of water that immediately turns black. I’ve watched lifelong migraines vanish in eight minutes. It’s rude to stare, but impossible not to.
- Cord-Cutting & Energy Divorce You know that ex who still shows up in your dreams and mysteriously ruins every new relationship? Shamans see the etheric cords that keep you hooked. One beautiful Huichol elder I worked with used a little obsidian blade, maracas, and a lot of tobacco smoke to snip those cords while singing the most tender lullaby you’ve ever heard. You walk away lighter, slightly drunk on freedom, and your phone finally stops autocorrecting “I’m done” to “I’m down.”
- Plant Spirit Medicine & Sacred Dietas In the Amazon, you “diet” a single plant — Bobinsana for heartbreak, Chiric Sanango for speaking your truth, Ajo Sacha for boundaries that don’t require explaining yourself on Christmas. You drink the brew, eat bland food, abstain from sex and gossip, and let the spirit of the plant rewire your entire nervous system. People come back glowing, humming, and occasionally able to speak to trees. (The trees are usually very polite about it.)
- Despacho Ceremonies The Andean version of writing the universe a love letter. You create a gorgeous mandala of flowers, candy, coca leaves, seashells, and tiny symbolic offerings, then fold it all into a perfect package of prayer and blow your intention into it three times. When the bundle is burned or buried, the mountain spirits (Apus) supposedly open it like the world’s most beautiful Amazon delivery. I’ve seen cancer patients make despachos for healing and get clean scans two weeks later. Correlation, causation, cosmic FedEx — who cares? It works.
- Fire Ceremonies Write everything you’re ready to release on a tiny stick or piece of paper, feed it to the fire, and watch the smoke carry it straight to whoever keeps the cosmic recycling bin. There’s something about flames that makes forgiveness feel possible at 2 a.m. when nothing else does.
- Drum & Rattle Journeys A steady 4–7 beats per second matches the theta brain-wave state you had when you were four years old and still believed in magic. The shaman drums or rattles, you lie there with an eye mask on, and suddenly you’re riding a jaguar through the lower world or having tea with your 90-year-old future self who is very pleased with the choices you’re about to make. It’s the cheapest therapy on earth and the only one where the therapist occasionally turns into an eagle.
- Limpias (Spiritual Cleansings) with Eggs, Flowers, or Florida Water In Mexico and Central America, the curandera rubs you head to toe with limes, an egg, or a bouquet of basil dipped in perfume water while whispering prayers older than the Spanish language. When she cracks the egg into a glass afterward, the yolk sometimes looks like the exact trauma you just told her about. I stopped asking “how” a long time ago and started saying “thank you.”
- Ancestral Lineage Healing Because your great-grandmother’s rage issues didn’t actually die with her — they just moved into your hips. Shamans from Dagara to Hawaiian traditions create rituals where the ancestors are invited, fed, apologized to, and asked to stop possessing the living. I’ve seen addiction patterns dissolve in one weekend when the right ancestor finally got the song they’d been waiting a hundred years to hear.
Every single one of these practices is older than modern medicine, gentler than chemotherapy, and — when done with integrity — more effective than anything I ever prescribed in my white-coat days.
They all rest on the same principle the quantum physicists in What the Bleep were trying to tell us: everything is energy, everything is connected, and love is the strongest medicine we have.
If your soul is tired of waiting for the double-blind study, come sit by a fire with me sometime.
Medical Intuition Energy Medicine Intuitive Readings Mediumship Channeling Akashic Records Readings Past Life Regression Reiki Shamanic Healing Sound Healing Crystal Healing Aura Clearing Chakra Balancing Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) Hypnotherapy Guided Meditation Spiritual Coaching
