We carry inside us many names given to us by life. Names are embedded into us - sometimes perpetrated upon us - by our parents, by friends, by culture, by religion. Names are given to us by our money and clothing, by our body, by our job. We carry names given to us by our sins and mistakes, by our enemies, by our regrets and secrets. These names swirl in our thoughts when we try to make decisions about who we are - and who we are trying to become. The names often calcify in our energy body, where they direct so many of our thoughts and actions from the shadows.  Names are meant to shape us, or control us, to contain us, to define our role in the tribe, to make us acceptable, or to keep us safe. 

But we have many other names too: names given to us by the stars and the trees, and by the glittering afternoon water. Names given by the ancestors who are cheering us toward the strength that they didn't have in life. The moon has a name it calls you when you gaze up at it and feel those ancient tears welling up. Those birds at dawn may just be singing their name for you. And there is the name your most secret Spirit has for you - the Spirit which carried you into this body from the other world, which  whispered the instructions to you in the birth canal and which whispers to you every moment.  These are the names that shamanic practice helps you find, breathe into yourself and live. It is a path of beauty. It is a path of connection to the Nourishing Mystery. 

Warm Blessings,
Jaime

Donald Trump is a masterful purveyor of negative energy, someone who freely and indiscriminately dispenses hoocha, maladai, and the evil eye, among many other names for cursing energy. While it's true that he is the Frankenstein rising up from Karl Rove's 30 year-old laboratory of Republican race-baiting, and it's tempting to snicker as the monster bites its creator, it's good to remember that Trump is an expression of the worst energies latent in each one of us. 

Trump is the living embodiment of the shadow side of American culture - that low consciousness that we push out of sight and pretend is "not us" but which is imprinted in all of us since birth: hyper masculinity disconnected from nature, the Feminine and compassion; the fantasy of individual achievement; money as the soother of a spiritual and moral void, violence as a gleeful solution to irritation, lashing out against the smallest of insults; impatience, narcissism and certainty re-framed as strength, courage and vision; easy fakery, without shame. These are energies present in our lives, because we were raised with them, and imprinted with them. Trump is our most painful mirror and reminder of what will become of us if we don't move beyond these patterns. In that way, he is helping heal us. Anyone who has ever done therapy, “shadow work” or shamanic work knows, it is coming into clear contact with our least desirable traits that truly fuels our growth and healing. Trump will help heal us by ALMOST becoming president, giving us a painful, frightening look at ourselves in the process, and initiate a sense that we can never again return to that way of living.

But, in the meantime, there's all this Trump-induced hoocha in the air. And we need to cleanse ourselves of these poisons. So, I offer you several ways to help cleanse and protect yourself:  

Antidote #1: I’ve made an audio shamanic healing session to cleanse your energetic body. It's free, lasts about 20 minutes and uses song, tobacco and prayer for you. Find a quiet place, use headphones, and let it cleanse you. 

Shamans recognize that psychic or spiritual parasites abound, and Trump is a radiating vortex of these parasitical energies. He spills them out like a volcano, onto all of us. If you are feeling “whacked” with fear, anxiety, and sadness at "The Orange Prince," it’s not because you are too weak or sensitive to operate in this awful world. It’s not because the world has gone mad. It’s because Trump has always been a master at delivering parasitic energies into the world, and he’s been invited (by us, and by Spirit) to do his work on an even larger scale than ever before. Merely seeing Trump for what he is in non-ordinary reality can help protect you. Listen to the audio to be shamanically cleansed of parasitic energies and gain some protection.

Recognize that the media loves parasitic energies and uses them to stay in business. Crisis, lust, greed, fear, tribalism, envy – these low human energies are happily used by the media to addict us to it. Trump is a dream come true for the media. I’m not saying the media is evil, I'm just suggesting that you be conscious of what energy you are ingesting.

Antidote 2: Limit your media intake. Force yourself to take a day off of all media. With that time and energy, go for a walk and look at gardens and trees and remember that the universe is very large, mysterious and beautiful. I believe in civic engagement, but remember that ours is a culture of addiction. Regulate your intake of media like you would pie.​

​Antidote 3: Focus on becoming flexible. The addictive world of politics and media wants you to shrink and become hardened - angry, outraged, judgmental, black and white, brittle. Remember what the ancient Dao de Ching says (at right).

​Stretch your body each day. Even a little. You don’t have to be obsessive. You don’t have to be a yogi. Just stretch, and as you feel the stretch, say to yourself that you are releasing stored hoocha.

And also stretch your imagination – by reading poetry or by sitting for ten minutes and allowing yourself to daydream weird stories.

Here are some daydream story-starters for you to use:

A well in the middle of the forest.  A woman leans against it, with eyes closed. What happens next?
At the sea shore, night. The moon begins to rise over the water. A bird seems to emerge from the moon and fly toward you. Wait. It’s not a bird. What happens next?
You are standing by a burbling creek. In your hand, a cup filled with liquid of some sort, not water. You begin to pour it into the water. What happens next?
You are sitting next to a campfire. The embers are glowing. Suddenly you realize there is an object in the embers. You find a way to retrieve it. What happens next?

Antidote 3: Summon love and activate it. There's only one way that we will work our way out of the serious problems we have and that is through community, not through individual effort. Donald Trump voices the old, collapsed myth when he claims that he alone can fix problems. Our problems are only going to be solved through collective effort, across culture, geography and religion - not through genius saviors with some secret answer.

Each of needs to be strong and cleansed of parasites in order to do the big work that needs to be done – in our individual lives and in our collective life. We need you strong because we are inside big work right now. Blessings on you. ​