How My Helping Spirits Led Me From a Book and a Wilderness Trail to a Worldwide Shamanic Apprenticeship and the Work of Teaching Shamanism
I once read a comment online: that serious practitioners don't "dream up" courses to teach — they work with their helping spirits, who guide and illuminate what to teach. I agree completely. The shamanic methodology I practice and teach was, quite literally, given to me by my helping spirits, who then showed me a clear image directing me to spread the work.
Curriculum Given, Not Designed
When I wrote the curriculum for the courses I teach, I didn't begin with a market-research plan asking what kind of teaching people were looking for. I began with a different question entirely: what does this student need in order to achieve the grounding required to safely open their connection to Spirit — in a way that lets the Good Medicine flow within and through them?
Healing Is Holistic, Not a Spa Menu
When I first began practicing shamanism professionally, I couldn't reconcile the way I'd initially been trained with what was actually required to get real results for my clients. In my experience, techniques like Extraction and Soul Retrieval can't be isolated in practice — they aren't treatments to be ordered off a menu like a reflexology session and a mud wrap. Yet many practitioners offering shamanic healing were doing exactly that.
I work holistically. In each session, I ask that whatever healing is necessary and appropriate be done. The unhealthy patterns we carry for decades — sometimes for generations — can only truly shift when we get underneath the level of belief and reach the core agreements we've made about ourselves, the world, and our place in it. My job is to remain open as a Hollow Bone, trusting the helping spirits to determine what healing is called for and which techniques to use, and to let the Good Medicine flow through me. This holistic approach is what I pass on to my students.
A Path Given by Spirit
Teaching evolved organically for me — the result of accumulated life experience and the calling of Spirit. I never even considered teaching my methodology until I received clear, strong guidance to do so. What feels so natural to me today was not yet integrated in me as a younger man; I was only called into this service when the timing was right.
To practice shamanism — and especially to teach it — we have to be fully grounded and rooted in our connection to Spirit and to Mother Earth. When we remember that the pollution and desecration of the outer world are reflections of the spiritual pain within individual humans, we understand that helping one person back into balance is also a gift to the whole Web of Life.
I've always had a natural affinity for the movement of energy and for communicating with plants and animals. As I immersed myself in nature, that gift deepened until the land itself was speaking to me regularly. Walking wilderness trails, I would feel called to a particular spot to receive a message — a tree, a rock, a passing animal offering some perfectly timed droplet of wisdom. Trusting that guidance moved me along my path: first my book, Voices of the Earth; then private guided nature experiences; then work as a shamanic energy healer and a Tai Chi and Qigong instructor. Step by step, I came out into the world to share these gifts — overcoming years of self-doubt and old programming about what counts as an acceptable career — and more and more people began seeking me out.
The Bracelet From the Amazon
A series of seemingly random events moved me into teaching. It began with an email from a woman who'd heard of my book and wanted a copy. Rather than order online, she explained that she worked on the cruise ship that comes into Kauai once a week, and asked if I'd meet her near the dock so she could buy the book in person. My guidance said yes, so I went.
As we met, she looked at me with great urgency, slipped a bracelet onto my wrist without asking, and said: "I have been to the Amazon. A shaman there gave me seven bracelets to carry out into the world, and tasked me with choosing the right people to receive this Medicine. Because of your book, I have chosen you."
Soon after, my life changed quickly. I found the strength to leave a toxic relationship — the mother of my daughter literally tried to tear the bracelet from my wrist as I walked out the door. People who'd joined me for nature excursions began reaching out for healing. And then, out of the blue, a practitioner from Australia asked if I would teach her my methodology.
My First Student, and the Vision of Ripples
We arranged for her to spend five weeks studying with me on Kauai. Honestly, I had no idea exactly what I would teach her — but Spirit had told me to say yes, so I did. Each day I journeyed to ask what needed to be transmitted to her; each night, after the day's teaching was done, I journeyed again to ask, "what is next?" My spirit helpers gave me a sequence of journey topics for her, and I trusted that the process would complete a full turn of the Medicine Wheel by the time she left. As the curriculum unfolded, I watched her overcome long-standing patterns she'd struggled with for years.
As the course ended, I was guided to have her journey on the question: "What is Right Relationship for the path forward from here?" I did the journey too. I was shown ripples spreading in concentric circles across calm water from the single point where a droplet had fallen. And I heard: "You can help far more people by teaching than through individual sessions. When you embrace this, the ripples of your work will spread throughout the Web of Life — each person who learns from you will apply the teachings to help others." Then the vision shifted, and new center points appeared along the rings, each sending out ripples of its own. "This is the work of your students, helping others once they have studied with you."
Students Sent by Spirit
The day after she departed, I opened my long-neglected Facebook account and found a message that had been waiting two weeks — from a woman in England asking whether I had a teaching program. She'd been searching everywhere for one that felt right. I apologized for the delay, told her I'd be glad to teach her, and soon my second student arrived for six weeks.
They kept coming, as if sent directly from Spirit. One had a session with me and, days later, canceled her flight home to stay three months and study. Others contacted me out of the blue to say they were coming to Kauai to learn. Friends of friends arrived by word of mouth. And one woman inspired our entire online program by asking if we could meet by video conference twice a month for a year. With each new student I refined the curriculum, came to understand more about how people learn, and gradually developed a paced, three-stage training program — segmented to the speed at which each part of the work can truly be absorbed. Before long I had to open the classes to multiple students to meet the demand.
Teaching Full Time, Before I Even Knew It
More than a full year passed — teaching full time — before I'd so much as mentioned it on my website or anywhere public. Today I offer classes year-round to students all over the world who want to learn a grounded, safe, and effective method of applied shamanism, through group workshops on Kauai, live online classes, and a video learning program.
Looking back over everything that brought me here, I can say with complete honesty that my path was given to me by the helping spirits. My own contribution has simply been the willingness to step up and fully embrace the road I was given to walk.
If you feel called to learn this work yourself, you can explore the Shamanic Apprenticeship — or begin where every student begins, with Level 1.
— Scott Silverston