An Introduction

Building a Strong Shamanic Community

My name’s Nick. I’ve been involved in shamanism and animism for over 40 years. Im the editor of Sacred Hoop Magazine - founded in 1993 - a World leading magazine about shamanistic and animistic spirituality.

www.sacredhoop.org

I aim Welsh, I live in Pembrokeshire in South West Wales, a landscape full of ancient sacred sites, many of which date back around 5,000 years. It is mostly a rural place of the ancestors, with a fairly small population of just over 120,000 people in 625 square miles (so that’s less than 200 per square mile - hugely over populated compared to Mongolia, but vastly empty compared to London or New York)

I’m a writer of books about this subject, and a podcaster - 3Worlds, the Shamanism Podcast.

www.3worlds.buzzsprout.com/611740/episodes

And a Youtube about shamanism, which is a bit neglected, but has some good things on it non-the-less

www.youtube.com/c/3worldsshamanism

I practice shamanism as well as write about it, I hold a lot of traditional initiations and teachings from Northern Asian and Himalayan shamans I’ve worked with for years, as well as a lot of teachings from Native American medicine people - mostly Plains cultures such as the Lakota.

Im also a ngakpa, an ordained non-monastic Tibetan Buddhist lama. Ngakpas specialise in ritual and magic, and a lot of what they do is quite similar to shamanism. I have been working with a shaman from Nepal for about 20 years, and I especially find his traditions overlap with the Buddhist ngakpa traditions a great deal.

I have been told by two traditional shamans that I have to build a lineage in the West. Well, I don’t know about that, but all the work I have done for the last 40 years has been done towards building a strong network of people who want to practice shamanism and animism in a grown-up, grounded way.

I think we are at the dawn of cataclysmic changes. The Native American elders I worked with back in the 1980s were all teaching about that and warning us, and many of the things they told us about back then have since come true.

So I have dedicated my life to sharing real information about ‘Earth-based’ sacred traditions from around the world, because they are like a ‘seed bank’ of the sacred, and I think we are going to need them.

I am new to Substack, but often share things on FaceBook, where I run a well establish and quite large group devoted to authentic practice - https://www.facebook.com/groups/3WorldsShamanism

I teach for free, I was taught never to charge for ceremonies and healings, and like to give away freely, but if you would like to support me by subscribing it all helps keep the wolf from the door.

As one of my teachers puts ‘the medicine is free, but the ‘medicine man’ has to eat!’

And, in my life semi away from shamanism - although it’s never very far away - Im a musician, and an occasional painter.

You will find my music on all the streaming services under my name Nicholas Breeze Wood.

---