Australian Aboriginees say that the big stories - the stories worth telling and retelling, the ones in which you may find the meaning of your life - are forever stalking the right teller, sniffing and tracking like predators hunting prey in the bush.

The particular province of the shaman is the province of soul, that which feeds our embodied life, or fails to feed it. From a shamanic point of view, the relationship with animal allies, or animals that show themselves in animal forms, is a vital part of living. We're fully embodied, with full access to our natural soul energy.

We need to consider ancestral cleansing. If we're willing to clear our energy fields of the ancestral energies we don't want, then we are ready to do something really interesting and beautiful which is to claim a connection with the wisdom of the kinds of ancestors we do want to be in contact with. But we can't do this until we've cleaned out the lower stuff that is hindering us.

When we travel with a sense of mission, we attract events, people and opportunities toward us.

In many traditions, crows are messengers and close attention is paid to their actions.

It is difficult to wrap your mind around this intellectually and until you've had the experience, it can be difficult to understand. I tell people to give it a shot; you have nothing to lose.

There are chemical and other explanations for addictions, but speaking from my own observations (and I am a shamanic type), there is always some sort of disembodied spirit causing some of the addiction, riding your energy field, trying to impose their needs and addictions onto you.