The Interconnections of Life. The Path of a Shaman

The One Who Knows

The word “shaman” has become common currency in modern esotericism. It appears in self-help books, in weekend retreats, in social media profiles decorated with feathers and crystals. Many use it. Few pause to listen to what it really says.

The word comes from the Evenki language — a people of Siberia who created it not as a title, but as a description. Shaman means, in its simplest and deepest root, “the one who knows.” Not the one who believes, not the one who thinks, not the one who read about it. The one who knows. Because he was there. Because he saw. Because he crossed over.

And that difference — between believing and knowing — is the first frontier that separates shamanism from almost everything the modern world calls spirituality.

The Web

Life is a web. Not in the metaphorical and comfortable sense that appears in calendar poems — but in the structural, literal, inescapable sense. Every being, every event, every element of nature is connected to all others by threads that most of us cannot see, but that sustain everything that exists. Pull one thread and the entire web vibrates. Cut one thread and something, somewhere, collapses.

Shamanism is, perhaps, the oldest spiritual practice of humanity — not because someone invented it, but because someone perceived it. Perceived that the forest is not scenery, it is an organism. That the river is not a resource, it is an artery. That the animal is not inferior, it is a relative. That the stone beneath our feet is not dead matter, it is living memory of the earth. And that all these elements — all of them — are connected in a web whose harmony determines the health of each part.

The shaman is the person who learned to see this web. Not with the eyes of the body — with something else. With that sense that has no name in modern language, but which the Evenki, the Lakota, the Australian aborigines, the Celts, the Siberians and dozens of other peoples recognized as the most important capacity a human being can develop: the perception of the invisible.

What a Shaman Really Is

Today, there are those who believe a shaman is any healer who uses herbs and incense. Others call a shaman someone with an intense gaze and strong personality. There are those who confuse the title with an aesthetic — natural clothes, seed necklaces, hair flowing in the wind. But shamanism is not defined by appearance, nor by discourse, nor by intention. It is defined by practice.

A shaman — man or woman — is a person who voluntarily changes their state of consciousness to make contact with another reality. He does not imagine another reality. He does not visualize another reality. He travels to it. With his soul. He crosses the boundary between the world we know and the world that most ignore, obtains strength and wisdom in that crossing, and returns — because returning is an essential part of the work. A shaman who goes and does not return is not a shaman. He is a victim.

The outbound journey has purpose. The return journey has commitment. The shaman does not travel out of curiosity or pleasure. He travels because someone needs healing, because the community needs guidance, because balance has been broken and someone needs to go seek, in the invisible world, the missing piece to restore it.

It is work. The oldest type of work that exists.

The Shamanic Universe

With the help of rhythmic drum beats, dance and song, the shaman alters his consciousness and sends his soul to what traditions call the Spirit World. It is not trance in the sense of loss of control — it is the opposite. It is a state of expanded perception, where the senses open to frequencies that ordinary consciousness filters out and discards.

In many cultures, this parallel universe divides into three regions. The Upper World, luminous, vast, where masters and guides of elevated nature dwell. The Middle World, which mirrors ours, but in an energetic version — where it is possible to see reality without the filters of common perception. And the Lower World — which is not “hell” in any sense, but the deep, underground, chthonic realm, where animal spirits, ancestors and the most ancient forces of the earth dwell.

The journey to the Lower World begins when the shaman sends his soul through an opening in the ground: a cave, a spring, a hole between the roots of a tree, an animal’s burrow, an ancient well. The opening extends into a tunnel that descends deeper and deeper — and on the other side, the world reveals itself. Forests that do not exist here. Landscapes that change according to who visits them. Skies with two suns. Oceans of light. Each shaman sees the Lower World differently, because each soul carries its own map.

It is in this realm that the shaman finds the helping spirits — entities that offer strength, knowledge and guidance. It is these spirits that do the real work. The shaman is the vehicle, the bridge, the messenger. Without them, as we will see later, shamanism does not exist.

American anthropologist Michael Harner, in his book “The Way of the Shaman,” observed that this technique of traveling to other realities was practiced throughout the world for millennia — and that, despite seeming exotic to the Western mind, it can be learned and practiced by anyone willing to open themselves to the experience.

What Psychology Does Not Understand

It is common to hear people trained in psychology try to explain the shamanic journey as a “journey into the unconscious” or a “connection with the Higher Self.” The intention is good. The explanation is insufficient.

This interpretation is born from a typically Western premise: that the human being is the crown of creation and that, therefore, everything significant that exists must be within the human mind. If the shaman sees spirits, they are projections of the unconscious. If he hears voices, it is internal dialogue. If he encounters power animals, they are archetypes. Everything is reduced to the individual psyche — because admitting that something could exist outside it, something with its own consciousness, something that does not depend on the human mind to exist, would dismantle the entire edifice upon which Western psychology was built.

From the shaman’s point of view, the reality of the spirit world exists in parallel to ours and does not depend on our mind. It was there before we were born and will continue after we leave. The shaman knows that everything that exists has a soul — the stone, the water, the wind, the thunder — and that it is possible to communicate with these souls, traveling to them, breaking the limits of time and space.

Shamanic practices work independently of the explanation we give them. But if we accept a truncated psychological description — if we reduce the spirit world to a department of the mind — we risk isolating ourselves from most of shamanic power. Because the power of the journey does not lie in imagination. It lies in the fact that the shaman’s soul goes out, travels, finds, receives, and returns charged with the energy of the Universe — not with the energy of the ego itself.

It is the difference between looking at a photograph of the ocean and diving into it.

Without Intermediaries

One of the most common mistakes is treating shamanism as religion and the shaman as a priest. They are fundamentally different things — and confusing them is to lose what is most essential in shamanic practice.

Religion, by definition, operates through intermediaries. There is the believer, there is the priest, and between them there is a hierarchy that regulates access to the sacred. The priest intercedes. The pastor interprets. The guru guides. In all cases, someone stands between you and the divine — someone who holds, or believes to hold, the monopoly on communication with the transcendent.

Shamanism has no monopoly. It has no fixed doctrine. It has no sacred book. It has no institutional hierarchy. What it has is direct experience. During the shamanic ceremony, all participants are exposed to the force that manifests — not just the shaman. The bridge between worlds is opened, and whoever is present can cross it. There is no locked door. There is no key that only one chosen person possesses.

In shamanism, gurus exist only in the spirit world. That is where knowledge comes from. And this knowledge is not fixed — it can change according to who receives it, when they receive it, and what they need to learn at that moment. If a new shaman returns from a journey and announces that the East, traditionally considered the side of “beginnings,” is actually the land of “endings,” his mentor will not argue. He will ask questions. He will help the apprentice understand the deeper meaning of what he received. Because the shaman knows that no doctrine is unshakeable when confronted with direct experience of the spirit world. The Universe teaches each one according to their needs and their capacity for understanding.

Shamanism walks hand in hand with animism — the understanding that everything that exists is alive and endowed with spirit. People, trees, dogs, cats, bees, stones, mountains, seas, Earth and Sky. All connected. All part of the same web. And that is why shamanism, although not a religion, has profoundly influenced various religious traditions throughout the millennia — from certain branches of Buddhism to Islamic Sufism, from mystical Christian sects to African animist traditions.

To practice shamanism, it is not necessary to believe in anything. Not even that it works. You just need to be willing to experience it. And experience, as those who have had it know, tends to be more eloquent than any argument.

How a Shaman Is Born

In the oldest traditions, the future shaman does not choose the path — the path chooses him. Initiation usually comes from the spirits, spontaneously, without invitation and without warning.

In Western culture, this type of experience receives various names depending on who interprets it: out-of-body experience, psychotic episode, mystical vision, revelation, breakdown, existential crisis. The labels change according to the paradigm of the observer — but the experience itself is the same. Something breaks through the surface of ordinary consciousness and erupts with a force that cannot be ignored.

Sometimes, initiation comes accompanied by illness. The most famous case is that of Black Elk — the Lakota shaman whose story was recorded by John Neihardt — who received his first great vision during a serious illness in childhood. The illness was, at the same time, the crisis and the door. And healing only came when he accepted crossing through it.

When this happens, the person seeks an experienced shaman — not to receive answers, but to learn to ask the right questions. Shamanic training consists, in essence, of creating situations where the apprentice can gain his own experience. Because the shaman knows that the true teacher is not him — it is the Universe. The mentor merely prepares the ground. The seed is planted by greater forces.

And here lies another crucial distinction: while priests and religious figures are limited by the rituals and rules of their cultural tradition, the shaman receives information that goes beyond any established tradition. Each journey can bring new, unexpected knowledge that contradicts what was known before. And the community respects this — because it recognizes that the shaman has his own direct contact with the source, without institutional filters.

Time, Time… Time

People ask how long it takes to become a shaman. The answer is honest and uncomfortable: it can take a few minutes to have a shamanic experience, but it takes a lifetime to become a shaman.

And there is an infallible indicator that someone has not yet arrived there: the moment when a person says to himself “now I am a shaman” is clear proof that he is still an apprentice. Because it is not the person who decides whether he is a shaman or not. It is the spirits who recognize him and the people who seek him out. The shaman knows that it is the spirits who do the real work — he is merely the channel, the instrument, the bridge. Without the spirits, there are no shamans. And whoever thinks the power is his has understood nothing.

A shaman is a shaman only when he practices. At other times, he is a common member of society. In contemporary Western culture, people who practice shamanism can be programmers, teachers, doctors, masons, civil servants, artists. They are parents and grandparents. People you would pass on the street without noticing anything different. Behind the most ordinary facade, a shaman may be looking at you — and seeing things you cannot even imagine are visible.

The Earth That Feeds Us — If We Allow It

One of the most profound consequences of contact with the spirit world is a change in how one perceives the Earth. Not as a concept — as an experience. The shaman who travels between worlds returns with a denser sense of what surrounds him: the smell of autumn leaves gains depth, the warmth of the earth in spring becomes personal, the wind ceases to be a meteorological phenomenon and becomes a presence.

In traditional communities, shamans communicated directly with plants, animals, stones and other beings with whom we share the planet. This communication was not metaphor — it was daily practice. And as a result of it, people lived in harmony with the environment. Not out of idealism. Out of intelligence. Because when you talk to the forest, you do not destroy it — just as you do not destroy the house of a friend you had lunch with yesterday.

Most modern people have forgotten how to communicate with the other inhabitants of the planet. And the most visible consequence of this forgetting is what we see every day: the threat of destruction of life on Earth in its known form. A threat that does not come from outside — it comes from within. From our civilization that calls itself “superior” and that, in practice, is the only species on the planet incapable of coexisting with the environment that sustains it.

Everything we use — from the simplest utensils to the most advanced computers — comes from nature. Without exception. In the same way, a huge portion of the spiritual energy that sustains us comes from the spirits and from the Earth itself. The shaman knows this. And he knows, therefore, that when we destroy nature in the millions of ways we destroy it, we are not committing an “environmental” crime — we are practicing suicide. Physical and spiritual. We are destroying the foundations of our own existence.

One of the greatest challenges faced by the new generation of shamanic practitioners is exactly this: to restore communication between people and the other inhabitants of the Earth. To stop the destruction. To discover what can be done — spiritually, ritually and practically — with the damage that has already been caused. And to remember, with the humility of one who listens instead of shouts, that the Earth is capable of feeding us, physically and spiritually, if we only allow it to happen.

Shamanic Healing

Healing is, and always has been, the central work of the shaman. Not healing in the narrow sense of treating symptoms — but healing in the original sense of the word: restoring wholeness.

The fundamental concept here is power — understood not as influence or authority, but as energy. Vital force. Presence. The shaman looks at illness and sees, essentially, two possibilities: either there is something inside the person that should not be there — an invasive energy, a foreign force that has taken hold — or something that should be there is missing. In both cases, the problem is imbalance. And healing is restoration.

The deepest cause of illness, in the shamanic view, can be summed up in a single word: separation. Separation from the environment, from loved ones, from oneself. The two words — illness and separation — are, for the shaman, almost synonymous. When someone says “my work drains all my energy,” the shaman hears it literally. When someone says “I feel disconnected from everything,” the shaman hears a diagnosis.

Think of the healthiest and happiest person you know. Probably, he maintains good contact with what surrounds him — perceives what happens around him and responds with ease. Now think of the person who causes you the most concern. Probably, he is isolated — from himself, from others, or from the world. The difference between the two is, almost always, a matter of connection.

The Loss of Power

In shamanism, the idea of separation is expressed by the concept of “loss of power.” We feel strong — full of energy — when we are in good contact with the rest of the universe. When the helping spirits are near, when the animal forces accompany us, when we hear what they tell us and follow their guidance. In everyday language, we describe this state as confidence. As intuition. As that feeling that we are in the right place, doing the right thing, at the right time.

When power is lost, the signs appear. The first is lack of confidence — that inner withdrawal, that hesitation that did not exist before. The second is fear — not the healthy fear that protects, but the diffuse fear that paralyzes. The third is the feeling that things are “going wrong” — days when nothing works, when each attempt encounters an obstacle, when the world seems to row against you.

We all have those days. One or another is normal, it is natural energy fluctuation. But when those days become weeks, months, a pattern — when depression sets in, when illnesses repeat, when life seems to have lost its way — the shaman recognizes there the loss of power. Frequently, this means that one of his power animals has left. Not out of caprice — but because something in the person’s life broke the bond.

The shaman’s work, in these cases, is to travel to the spirit world, find the power animal that has withdrawn, understand why it left, and bring it back. This restoration of energy is usually enough not only to lift the person up, but to expel any invasive energy that has taken hold in the empty space that the loss of power left. Because illness needs emptiness to enter. And the shaman fills that emptiness with what should have been there from the beginning.

The Loss of Soul

There is a form of loss of power that is more serious, more profound, and more difficult to cure: the loss of soul.

The soul, in shamanic understanding, is not a monolithic block. It is composed of parts — fragments of consciousness, memory, identity — that, under extreme conditions, can detach from the whole and depart. Not of their own will. Out of necessity for survival.

Because each of us has a limit to what we can bear. And when that limit is reached — when the pain is too great, the fear too intense, the trauma too violent — a part of the soul does what the whole body cannot do: it flees. It leaves. It goes somewhere else. And by departing, it allows the rest to survive. It is a mechanism of protection, not destruction. The part that leaves sacrifices itself so that the whole continues to exist.

Soul loss can happen in countless ways. In the death of a loved one — “when he died, I felt part of me go with him.” In a situation of extreme fear — “I was dying of fear,” and the phrase is more literal than it seems. In physical or psychological abuse — “my spirit was broken.” At the end of a deep relationship — “she took my soul.” In overwhelming sadness — “I just wanted to die.” Even everyday arguments can tear away fragments — “I lost my patience,” we say, without realizing that language is describing, with surgical precision, exactly what happened on the plane of the soul.

As Sandra Ingerman observes in “Soul Retrieval,” soul loss occurs, in most cases, as a result of the need to survive. When we are cornered, with no way out, no space to retreat, and the necessary action — leaving the cruel partner, facing the aggressor, breaking the cycle — is not possible at that moment, the soul does what it can: it releases a part of itself to ease the burden.

The problem is that this part does not always find its way back. Sometimes it gets stuck — stuck to a place, a person, a moment in time. Sometimes it stays with the dead, as in the case recorded by Ingerman of a young woman who, at seventeen, lost her father and placed his photograph in the pocket of a jacket inside the coffin. Her aunt had said that this way she would be with him forever. And she was — but the part of her soul that she sent along got stuck, preventing not only her own healing, but also the continuation of her father’s soul’s journey.

When soul fragments are lost and do not return, the symptoms are profound: persistent sense of emptiness, disconnection from one’s own body, inability to feel joy or love fully, the constant impression that something fundamental is missing without being able to identify what. The person functions, works, socializes — but inside there are holes. Empty spaces where there should be presence.

The work of soul retrieval is one of the most important and delicate in shamanism. The shaman travels to find the lost fragments, negotiate their return, and reintegrate them into the person. It is not an instantaneous process — reintegration requires time, because in many cases the person needs to confront the original pain that caused the loss. But the return of the missing part gives strength to do this work. And although the process can be painful, the reward is incomparable: the chance to be whole again. To be holistic in the deepest sense — because we need to be whole to be healthy, whole to truly live life, whole to understand who we really are.

The Wounded Healer

The shaman was often called the “wounded healer.” The expression is not poetic — it is literal. The shaman is someone who has gone through terrible illnesses, devastating crises, losses that seemed final. Who visited, sometimes literally, the land of the dead. And who not only survived, but returned stronger and wiser — because he received, in the crossing, the help of the spirits.

This means something worth listening to carefully: most people who read this text have potential for the shamanic path. Because we all face pain. We all go through crises. We all carry wounds. The difference is not in the wound — it is in what we do with it. The shaman is the one who transforms the wound into a door.

Not everyone who practices shamanism becomes a shaman, and that is perfectly legitimate. Many journey to gain guidance in difficult decisions, to survive moments of crisis, to help someone they love. Others combine shamanic practices with other forms of work — a social worker can make journeys to find guidance for his most difficult cases, a doctor can travel to better understand the root of a patient’s illness. Most people who practice shamanism do so for a simple and powerful reason: to gain the strength to be who they really are, even in the face of the worst circumstances.

Shamanism offers everyone, without exception and without intermediaries, the opportunity for direct contact with the energies of the universe. A capacity to receive strength and wisdom without anyone filtering, interpreting or controlling what is received.

The Beginning

A true shaman is a truly humble person. Not out of weakness — out of understanding. Because he understands that his strength is not his. It is borrowed. Rented from the Universe with the implicit condition that it will be used for the benefit of the web — this planet that the shaman calls Home, and all the creatures that inhabit it.

This understanding does not diminish — it expands. Because knowing that the strength is not yours, paradoxically, is what allows you to use it without fear. The ego does not need to protect it. Vanity does not need to inflate it. Insecurity does not need to question it. The strength is there because the Universe decided it should be. And the shaman does what he can with what he received — without arrogance, without false modesty, without the pretense of being more than he is.

And all of this — the worlds, the journeys, the spirits, the healing, the web, the ecology, the soul — all of this is just the beginning. Because the shaman’s path has no end. It has no diploma. It has no certification. It has only the next step, the next journey, the next call that comes from the spirits and that the shaman answers — not because he is obligated, but because he understood that answering is, at the same time, to serve and to be free.

Everything in life is connected.

The thread that links the tree to the stone links the stone to the river, the river to the sky, the sky to you.

The shaman is merely the one who learned to see the thread.