The Path of someone who works as a shaman is very difficult and sometimes lonely.They would normally have had a near death expierience or a rite of passage.The essential part of being a shaman - else he is not walking between worlds. It can be difficult and dangerous. To be a shaman requires total commitment
A Shamans work with death and ecstasy. They walk into the place of death, of non-being in our everyday world ... and return. They work with extremes of feeling, beyond what most people ever wish to experience; to experience ecstasy can be seriously mind-blowing but shamans learn to do this ... and return. From this return they enable change and healing of other beings, creatures, people, plants, the land itself. Journeying, there and back again
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Animism is an integral part of shamanism. All shamans are connected to everything around them, whether it lives (as you understand living) or not. So you feel as much at-one with your computer or your car as you might with your cat. A magician once said "if you cannot be a worm, then you cannot be god". This tenet is fundamental in Celtic shamanism and told through the Lore story of "Taliesin". Celtic shamans learn this story very early in their apprenticeship - then spend the rest of their lives putting it into practice.
The shaman knows Life, and soul (anima) and spirit in all things. This is animism. Anima is the soul and animists (and shamans) know the soul within everything - even if many folk cannot see or know it. Shamans learn respect and responsibility, knowing that every action really does have its equal and opposite reaction ... in the east, they call this karma, in Britain the ancient word is geas which has more of the idea of duty, respect and responsibility behind it. Geas is the PROMISE, and whatever promise you make you will be held to. The shaman knows this, hence he does not make promises lightly.
In Britain, the old ways are still handed down, but they are well hidden.