Journeys to the Soul: A Shamanic Healing Practice

03/17/2026

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

---From "When Death Comes"
By Mary Oliver

Hello Everyone!

There’s been a lot of dying lately. Not just out there in this crazy, hell-bent-on-destruction world we live in, but personally and closely. In the last three months, I have had four people I knew well die, one expectedly, two suddenly, and one by his own hand.

And so, I’ve been walking around with thoughts of death, turning it over and over in my mind and my heart. As with all the deepest things, I tend to turn to the ancients for some insight and perspective.

The ancients used to speak about and advocate for what they termed “making a good death.” In pre-modern times, death was seen as the natural course of things, not a thing to be feared or ignored, but a thing to be met with and spoken to, spoken about, welcomed in, even. Death meant that whatever you had planned in coming to this life, whatever you had agreed to undertake and learn and create was now drawing to a close. Contract paid in full; job done. The dying time was a time to feel gratified, loved, and honored.

And that’s what you reflected on, as you lay on your deathbed—the lives you had changed, the things you had made, the words you had spoken, the people you had loved and cared for, the wisdom you had gained. How had you grown your own soul in this now waning life? (Even if most of the learning was packed into those last few days.)

The survivors of the person who lay upon the deathbed—the family and friends—would also participate in and encourage the life review, the conflict resolution, the seeking and bestowing of forgiveness and understanding, the expressions of deep and boundless love. So, that when the last breath was taken and the body was being interred, there was no residual regret or things left unsaid. And that made the grief process lighter and clearer.

If a person died young, perhaps suddenly or tragically, and without the benefit of “making a good death,” the family took steps to contact them in the Otherworld to ensure they were transitioning well from out of their body back into pure spirit. The “making of a good death” came after, instead of before the death.

Nowadays, we tend to look at death as something gone wrong, an unnatural error of some kind that should have been prevented from happening. I remember my brother, who died in 1989, telling me once in a vision I had after his passing, that his death was not a failure. He said that because yes, I had been looking at it that way, and it wasn’t honoring him. It wasn’t respectful of his soul’s greater wisdom, a concept we all so commonly fail to grasp in these matters of dying.

Perhaps the most incomprehensible—and some would say reprehensible—death is the one that comes by one’s own hand. This is a death that I and the members of my family are turning around and around in our minds and hearts right now. It’s a confounding thing for us among the living to understand, to not, in several cases, feel outraged about. So, I asked the helping spirits to weigh in. What do we need to understand in the wake of this death?

“In a word, sovereignty. You call it free will. We see it as the ever-evolving relationship and conversation--maybe stand-off at times--between the soul and the one who carries it, carries it mostly in pure ignorance of its depth and magnitude.

You might see it this way. The divine soul which spirits you through every life—and death, for that matter—is like the parent. The worldly, conditioned self that seeks and aims to find approval at every turn, is like the child. And like any loving parent, the soul will still embrace and love the lost and troubled child, even when, in a fit of frustration at its perceived powerlessness, it acts to destroy a most precious thing.

You don’t—none of you—know what you know, remember who you are, or even vaguely comprehend the majesty within you that requires no approval, no reassurance, no permission, or inclusion from the outer world. You are not a subject of the empire; nor, for that matter, will you ever become the ruler of the empire. You are the empire! Not just a sovereign being, but Sovereignty itself, a marriage of divine perfection and temporal yearning, a living, ongoing collaboration and intertwining. The Alpha and the Omega.

You suffer from nothing more than forgetting, a perceived separation from something you cannot possibly be separated from. Some of you will experience glimpses of your sovereignty. Some of you may strive daily to embrace and regain it. While others will be so separated from themselves, they will live and endure only through the temporal—the world--which, for the most part, is a fickle and heartless master. And consequently, those who worship, who bow and scrape to this master will more often than not become wretched under his callous thumb. It becomes certain, should you live your life this way, that you will lose, and lose much.

There is great, albeit stark wisdom that is earned through the taking or preempting of one’s natural life, but it is not a sin. It is an epiphany—a resounding clarity that dawns once the breath is gone, and only the spirit remains. A crucial Self-realization and confrontation. Furthermore, it is a prerogative rendered to each one of you by the gift of your free will.

If Source sends you to Earth with free will—it MUST be unconditional. Otherwise, what is the point? If you’re coming to each life, aiming and longing to learn ALL lessons, how can some be skirted? Yes, some wisdom can be gained through the light, but there is no shame in learning through the shadow. On this plane of existence, you will explore the shadow as much as you do the light, and in recent times, it seems, the shadow has been the dominant field of learning in the human experience.

The soul is entirely neutral on this matter, another choice in an endless sea of choices. Rest assured, you each have known death by your own hand, and if you cannot forgive the faltering of another for this, it is because you cannot forgive yourself. If you look again, from the soul, you will find the compassion and acceptance every death--no matter how it occurs--is entitled to and requires.

The necessary wisdom and understanding already lives within you. It doesn’t need to be gained or earned. Like all things, it is possible and it is at your fingertips.”

And so it is.

Deep Peace of the Snowdrops,

Jane

01/18/2026

But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.


---Mary Oliver
"The Journey"


Hello Everyone!

After a brief holiday hiatus, the newsletters are back!

While the world around us might seem to be imploding, we are not without refuge. It almost seems as if these times are forcing us to go within for the counsel, peace and sanity that have always been inside us. The world distracts us from ourselves, doesn't it? And we learn to give into that attention grab for any number of reasons, but I'm remembering now a poem by Derek Walcott, entitled "Love After Love," in which he talks about the return to self.

"You will love again the stranger who was your self," he says in this lovely poem. "Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart."

These are the words that come to me when I read this month's message from the helping spirits I work with:

"Do you remember when you were powerful? This question is not about past lives, when you imagine you might have been Alexander the Great or Cleopatra. This question isn’t even about worldly power. This question is about the power that comes from deep and true self-knowing, a pure and unequivocal sense of who you are and why you are here.

Do you know that when you came into this life, you had total awareness of who you were, where you had already been, and why you were continuing your soul’s journey in this, your present life? You were born into a family, a group that didn’t know who they were receiving, that tailored your needs to their own, your identity, prospects, and capabilities to what they required, discouraging, perhaps unwittingly, in one way or another, anything that lay outside of those parameters.

The greatest challenge of your growth and maturation process, the greatest obstacle to fulfilling your destiny in this life, is to un-learn almost everything the world has already taught you about yourself—the ways in which you fall short, don’t belong, don’t measure up, don’t deserve the things you long for, must struggle to be heard, valued and understood. The greatest waste of your time and energy is your effort to fit in. You are here to show the world what is unique and unparalleled about you, not to assure everyone how much you are like them.

If you were meant to be like others, you would have been made that way. Instead, you came into this world unlike anyone who has ever lived before and anyone who ever will!

Begin to enumerate to yourself all the things that set you apart, that make you unlike others, and then celebrate and advertise those differences, instead of disparaging or hiding them. Flaunt them!

Think about all the books, movies, actors, musicians, songs, stories that you love. Do you love them because they are like every other book or song or performer that you’ve known? Of course not. You love them because they stand out from the rest with something new and different and startling to say.

The very same is true for you! You have something new and different and startling to bring to this world. It is the source of your power. You came with it into this life, and though you have forgotten it, have laid it aside, have come to perhaps feel shame around it, it is still there, still waiting to be shared. And it must be shared, not just for you, but for the world.

You came into this life to serve the collective human soul in a unique and powerful way. You’re not just visiting, just marking time, keeping your head down and moving through the crowd. What a waste of a life and effort that would be!

So much of what you experience is not personal. You are a crucial part of a human evolution. That is why you are here; not entirely for your own individual advancement. When you focus less on being accepted and understood and concentrate more on what unique component you are here to bring to that grander scale evolution, you will be more in your body, more focused and content.

Do not look out into the world and ask it to mirror back to you your value and worth. The world does not know who you are or why you are here. Only you carry that precious information deep within you.

Ask yourself: what inspires me? What am I passionate about? What am I good at? What occupies my attention and fascinates me? What is missing from this world? Is there a role I can play in the discovery or advancement of what the world needs? There are clues in the answers to those questions regarding your field of play.

The only thing that stands in the way of you finding the answers to those questions is your own reluctance to explore and undertake them. And while it might seem like there are mountains in your way forward, the truth is the path is right at hand; it has always been there.

Everything you require to fulfill your destiny has been provided for you. It was all in your back pack when you arrived! The world will challenge and obstruct the fulfillment of that destiny; it is meant to do that, to test your mettle and provide the sand that shapes the rare and beautiful pearl that you are.

It is a time to look within now. The world around you is demonstrating more than ever what has always been true—it serves only the few in ways that ultimately prove to be meaningless.

Your inner world is the place where you have always had the power to choose your experience. Go there. Look around. What doesn’t serve you? What gets in your way? Bundle all that up and take it out to the curb. Clear away the thoughts that undermine, disparage, demolish your dreams. You no longer can afford to entertain what others have claimed to know about you. It’s time to set the record straight!"

I'll be in touch again next month. And don't forget to check out my new novel, available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.com!

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+hungry+sea+jane+burns&crid=ZGBBW9OAWQN7&sprefix=%2Caps%2C115&ref=nb_sb_ss_recent_1_0_recent

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-hungry-sea-jane-burns/1148520385?ean=9798260325926

The book has been well received and I'm grateful to all who have taken the time to leave a review. If you would like to do the same, here's the LINK: https://www.amazon.com/review/create-review/?ie=UTF8&channel=glance-detail&asin=0991417933 And thanks!

Deep Peace of the Tumbling Snowflakes,

Jane

11/01/2025

Wishing everyone a Blessed Celtic New Year! This time of year harkens the need to withdraw and introspect in preparation for winter and the return of the light at Winter Solstice. A powerful Samhain to all!

10/21/2025

We are stardust, we are golden.
We are billion-year-old carbon
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden.


---Joni Mitchell
"Woodstock"

In my July newsletter, I wrote to you about a master race of ancient Ireland, known as the Tuatha de Danaan. You might have wondered upon reading about them: whatever happened to those folks? Well, the story goes that they made a decision to create a reality more suited to them than the one their Celtic invaders were offering. And so, it is said, they “turned sideways into the light” and disappeared. They became known thereafter as the Sidhe, or the Shining Ones, and it is believed that they still thrive here, deep within the Earth, where they have created for themselves a different—and more suitable—dimension than the one we know.

Over the years, I have worked with the Sidhe from time to time and have always found them to be remarkably wise, yet formidable. A no-nonsense group of beings. They have always offered great insight into the peculiarities of human behavior, as if they know us better than we do ourselves. Now, they offer us this message:

“In the beginning, we were a story you sometimes told one another, a story soon forgotten, maybe hinted at by an elder or whispered in your dreams, an implausible tale you no longer came to believe. But we, the Sidhe, are more real than you, living as you do in your world of illusions. What are you creating, we sometimes wonder, when so many of the ingredients you are using don’t even exist?

Here are some of the things you have come to believe: that you lack options; that you must succumb to a reality you can’t stomach; that the world as you know it is imploding; and, that the power to change all that lies in the hands of others.

We were once where you are now. Here is what we learned: if you seek help in liberating your world from oppression, you will be supported by forces more powerful than what you seek relief from; if you think beyond what is into what can be, it will become; dreams have no limitations; your imagination holds all the power you require to change anything. Anything. The trick is to live, see, and become straight from the heart.

Do not feel helpless, because that is a falsehood. Do not despair; what you don’t want, you can change. Do not languish in the dark; turn sideways into your own light, as we did. Do not lose focus; hold onto your heartcenter, because it is from there that everything truly comes.

Here is what we see when we look at the human race: humanity is caught in a kind of fugue state—a chronic unknowing—an amnesia, having all but abandoned its once gentle and caring nature—its community consciousness. It has become instead, self-serving, predatory, retaliatory and destructive. It believes it must fight and fight hard for what it wants and this has made the human being ruthless and cruel.

Those who choose not to become predators, instead become prey. At present, this seems to be the only other option. You think you will remain safe if you hide and say nothing, do nothing.

The heart consciousness that many of you wish to create and become part of here on Earth does not have to be created from scratch. The truth is, we already created it many millennia ago, and we offer it freely to you. Think of it as simply a higher frequency than the one you have grown accustomed to.

We offer you this daily practice: Through the eyes of your heart, take yourself to the most sacred place you know. Close your eyes and see yourself standing within the elements of this place. Feel the warmth of the sun shining itself directly down on you. Feel the bottoms of your feet become magnetized to the earth as you become rooted there like a tree. Feel the sun’s warmth penetrating every cell of your body.

Now, imagine if you will, a soft blue light emanating from the ground and surrounding you. Stand in this calming, gentle aura—what you might think of as the breath of this sacred place—and feel it soften and relax, yet completely support you. A soft breeze blows in and moves this blue light through you, as if you were completely porous—which, by the way, you are. Feel yourself becoming less dense and defined, more spacious, freer, lighter. Lighter than you ever remember feeling before.

Feel now the vast space that surrounds all the cells of your body. Inhale and allow the blue light to swim all around and through you. This light will fortify and expand you. It will raise your frequency as your cells will begin to hum and vibrate with new and restored life. It will protect you from the lethargic, sleep-deprived passivity that many of you have been feeling.

You can do this daily practice any time you feel powerless and confused. Whenever you have forgotten yourself, and no longer understand who you are, or where you came from.

We give you this practice and this help freely and with love. We are the Sidhe.”

I'll be in touch again next month. And don't forget to check out my new novel, available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble!

https://www.amazon.com/Hungry-Sea-Novel-Jane-Burns/dp/0991417933/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.M4H3zlrWRVXKpTF52hvMOQ.bHzN4b9OAIQAh3AKkL1s-4Hng9y2p7dgtrA0g8y8Tr0&qid=1761074813&sr=8-1

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-hungry-sea-jane-burns/1148520385?ean=9798260325926

09/23/2025

For the next two days you can access my talk for free. Join the summit!

I am participating in this 7-day free online event entitled "Crones, Hags & Elder Wise Women. I will be speaking with Alison Palmer about How We Can Reclaim Our Sovereignty. It starts September 23rd. Sign up here: https://www.fullcirclewomen.com/3iyh

09/22/2025

The poem is not the world.
It isn't even the first page of the world.

But the poem wants to flower, like a flower.
It knows that much.

It wants to open itself,
like the door of a little temple,
so that you might step inside and be cooled and refreshed,
and less yourself than part of everything.


---Mary Oliver
Section 8. of "Flare"
Living with intention is part of the shamanic way. The ancients saw themselves as participants in a larger story in which they had an obligation to serve. How could they personally add to the greater good?

If we see ourselves as someone alone against the world, the force and magnitude of what lies against us feels too great. But if we instead see ourselves as part of a larger initiative, united with spirit allies, nature beings, and every human intent on bringing goodness to the world, then we are gathered within a strength and force that cannot be bested.

Shamanism is a community practice and mentality. Its vision and intention are collective in form. Your dream fulfilled is a dream fulfilled for all. It is not self-serving; it is serving the greater good.

This month, the helping spirits offered these words of advice:

"Life does not happen to you. You actually create it as you go. The more you move forward with intention, the more you can thoughtfully revise what does not suit your purpose. The more creativity and self-reflection you invest in the process of living, the more satisfactory results you'll attain.

Adverse patterns remain because you do not step forward to alter them, to say, that was not my intended result; no, this is my intended result. Don't accept what you do not want! The most important factor in changing your circumstance is believing that you can, that you must, that you are supposed to.

Think of a flower blossoming. The code for its self-actualization lies quietly within. It does not question its entitlement to bloom, to come into the fullness of its beauty. It does not wait for the world to give its approval. Instead, it announces itself. Here I am, it says, in all my splendor. I want you all to see this.

You, too, have a code that lies quietly within, but you have come to believe that the world must agree to make room for your blossoming.

The world itself cannot fulfill your dreams. It does not even know what they are. Only you can know that. Only you can say, this is the life I am here to make real; this is the answer to my prayers, what my dream-realized looks like. I want you all to see this.

If you let go of the steering wheel and simply suppose—if luck will have it—that the desired result will appear, there is far less chance the vehicle will arrive at its destination.

Your destiny is inscribed on your soul. The challenge is to not stand in the way of its fulfillment.

Ask yourself: what is the life I came here to live? What is the work I am meant to undertake? Who is it I am meant to serve?

Not only can you fulfill your destiny—you must. It’s precisely why you’re here. You came here with a game plan, and now you are responsible for bringing it into being. Don’t wait for the world to say, okay, you may have your heart’s desire now, because that won’t happen. The world is not your provider—you are.

Fulfilling your destiny does not require someone else’s dream to shrink or alter. The blossoming of one flower does not impose upon or prevent the blossoming of its neighbors. If anything, it encourages it. Shape your dream so that it encourages the flourishing of other dreams that may not be your own. Align your dreams with the force of goodness that is still present in the world.

Identify your dream and give it a name. Hold it in your heart and see how it flourishes there. Nurture it as you would any newborn. This is where your dream becomes magnified and strong. This is the source from which it drinks. Next, witness how the dream expands and grows beyond your heart center, stretching out into the world like the tendrils of a vine. Locate three words that describe this expansion and process, words that tell the story of the dream realized. Repeat these words whenever you think about your dream. This makes clear your intention and your plan. See yourself in the director's chair; see yourself in the dream realized—how do you appear? Make that person the one you see in the mirror each day. Make that person the one who speaks about their dream to the world.

Look around you. The world could use some new dreams right now. Make yours one of them!"

We'll be in touch again next month. And don't forget to check out my new novel, The Hungry Sea!
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+hungry+sea&crid=MQXYVLRFZ1W3&sprefix=%2Caps%2C89&ref=nb_sb_ss_recent_2_0_recent

09/15/2025

I am participating in this 7-day free online event entitled "Crones, Hags & Elder Wise Women. I will be speaking with Alison Palmer about How We Can Reclaim Our Sovereignty. It starts September 23rd. Sign up here: https://www.fullcirclewomen.com/3iyh

09/08/2025

I am part of this Inner Wisdom Summit put on by Cissi Williams that's currently running. All interviews are available to listen to at your convenience. Here is the link to the summit: www.innerwisdomsummit.com

08/27/2025

A snippet of The Hungry Sea! If you would like to read more: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+hungry+sea+jane+burns&crid=UYWN8DF4U0X3&sprefix=%2Caps%2C96&ref=nb_sb_ss_recent_1_0_recent

08/20/2025

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted–

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.

---Mary Oliver
"Morning Poem"

The ancients were deep observers of nature. The nature beings were their teachers and their family. They gave the sky and the earth, the wind and the birds titles of respect and affection. They praised and thanked them for their beauty, their gifts, and their wisdom. They gave them their wonder and awe.

Much like the helping spirits, I have found that nature beings are respectful of our free will. Though they may cross our path from time to time in some magical and unexpected way, perhaps to bring to our attention something important, they generally leave us to our own devices. Unless we extend ourselves to them. Then they respond with great generosity.

When nature turns chaotic or destructive, it isn't personal. Nor is it an attack. It is nature simply transforming itself, expressing itself, for which it does not require our permission. Nor, for that matter, have we ever required nature's permission to change. Because humanity has changed over the millenia, and nature hasn't stood in our way. It has in many ways allowed the diminishment of itself.

And yet, so much can be derived from an ongoing working relationship and understanding with nature, as the ancients once enjoyed. The changes we desire in nature will happen once we change.

Here is a gentle messsage and practice from the helping spirits that we all could use:

"Nature is your world, your home and your solace. Ever present, ever loving, ever available. And yet for many of you, it is something other. You call it the “natural world” as if it were apart from the world you inhabit. You go there, out into nature, and walk among the trees and animals, as if it were some place you do not normally inhabit. Where do you think you are exactly?

Are you not also part of this blessed planet you call Earth? Is not the sky above you the same sky all of nature shelters beneath, and the ground below you the same ground everything else stands upon? Does the breeze not blow against your face, too, the rain not drench your clothes, the birds not awaken you with their song? Do the stars not shine for you and the ocean not rush to meet you?

Nature has not moved away from you; you have moved away from it. You have made it separate from you, perhaps not physically as much as in your heart and perception, and it is for this reason you are oftentimes lost, angry and afraid.

When was the last time you touched a tree, lay down in the grass, watched the clouds change shape as they drifted across the sky? There is comfort there; there is wisdom there. The beings of nature have the power to heal you, to neutralize your anxiety. It requires only your engagement, your attention.

Once upon a time, you did these things every day. As children, you ran into the arms of nature for adventure and splendor, but also, more importantly, for companionship. Once upon a time you too were wild.

The wild beings of nature are your brothers and sisters. They have never deserted or betrayed you. It is you who has broken that bond; it is you who has gone silent.

Here is a suggestion: choose one being of nature each day: a tree, a bird, a flower, a stone, a ray of sunlight, a stream, and so on. Spend a minimum of five minutes in its company. Pay deep attention here, noticing every minute detail of its physical presence. Feel how it vibrates with life—yes, even the stone. Breathe in its outbreath—yes, even the stream. Be as you once were—led by your imagination.

Nature doesn’t care about what you know; it cares about how you feel. It cares about what you can become; how you can transform. That is the power nature shares with you and that is what it sees and appreciates in you.

Next, move past the physical attributes of your nature friend and sense the spirit within it. (It’s doing the same thing to you.) Tell it what you see and sense. Listen. Does it have anything to say to you? What does it see and sense about you?

Thank it for what you appreciate about it: its beauty, its majesty, its strength, its grace. Acknowledge its essential presence on the Earth, just as it acknowledges yours. Feel the incompleteness of a world in which it does not exist.

Make this practice a daily habit. Then, notice the changes. Observe how the wild beings of nature come more frequently into your path. How nature extends greater beauty to you because it sees you coming. Nature wants to be noticed; if it knows you are looking for it, it will show up in splendor.

Notice the changes in yourself. It’s hard to feel sad in a world of splendor. It’s hard to feel unloved in a world where nature shows up every day to charm and delight you! It’s hard to be afraid once you have reclaimed your wildness and the vast extended family you forgot was yours.

Now, feel the incompleteness of a world without you."