Shaman Quotes

I want something that'll give me the stamina of a young werewolf, the vision of a shaman, the thoughts of a serial killer and the gentleness of a hungry vampire bat. ~ Warren Ellis

And so, we have next to ask what the difference is between the predicament of the "essential schizophrenic" and that of the trance-prone shaman: to which the answer is simply that the primitive shaman does not reject the local social order and its forms; that, in fact, it is actually by virtue of those forms that he is brought back to rational consciousness. And when he has returned, furthermore, it is generally found that his inward personal experiences reconfirm, refresh, and reinforce the inherited local forms; ~ Joseph Campbell

I went to see a shaman. He put his hands on me, and I cried like a baby for an hour. ~ Billy Corgan

In a way, this is a definition of shamanism. A shaman is a person who by some means has gotten out of their own culture. ~ Terence McKenna

Can we perceive those inorganic beings, don Juan?" I asked. "We certainly can," he replied. "Sorcerers do it at will. Average people do it, but they don't realize that they're doing it because they are not conscious of the existence of a twin world. When they think of a twin world, they enter into all kinds of mental masturbation, but it has never occurred to them that their fantasies have their origin in a subliminal knowledge that all of us have: that we are not alone. ~ Carlos Castaneda

I have deeper journeys to take. Metaphysical journeys to see Christ. Shaman journeys. It's what I have been elected by God to do. ~ Clive Barker

The central figure in the archaic revival is the shaman. ~ Terence McKenna

How has it happened that we've lost sight of this ancient woman shaman and what she represents? For despite the proof of language and artifacts, despite pictorial representations, ethnographic narratives, and eyewitness accounts, the importance - no, the primacy - of women in shamanic traditions has been obscured and denied. ~ Barbara Tedlock

The shaman no longer looks for meaning in life, but brings meaning to every situation. The shaman stops looking for truth and instead brings truth to every encounter. You don t look for the right partner, you become the right partner. And then the right partner finds you. It s a very active practice focused on healing. ~ Alberto Villoldo

Sanctified by their initiatory experiences and furnished with their spirit guardians, the shaman alone among human beings is able to consciously travel into the spiritual worlds as cosmic explorers. ~ Hank Wesselman

Charm's a very dangerous thing. Lucien, tell me," Stephen said thoughtfully. "This respect for shamans, this inviolability ... "
"Mmm?"
"Well, I don't know if you remember, but some three weeks ago, you tied me to your bedposts and spent two hours subjecting me to acts of unimaginable depravity. And considering you call me a shaman
"
"I take issue with 'unimaginable'," Crane interrupted, sudden heat and light rushing through him. "I imagine those acts in detail every night you're not there. In fact, I've imagined quite a few more that I have every intention of subjecting you to when I get a chance. ~ K.J. Charles

Every time a shaman dies, it is as if a library burned down. ~ Mark Plotkin

Therefore, at about the age of twenty-one, I made to myself the solemn vow that I would never be an employee or put up with a "regular job." I have not always been able to fulfill this vow. I have had to work (in a reasonably independent manner) for the Church and for a graduate school, but since the age of forty-two I have been a free lance, a rolling stone, and a shaman ... ~ Alan W. Watts

If a state political organization is founded in part upon a state religion with a dogma based on one or a few 'official' prophets, then shamanism, where every shaman is her or his own prophet, is dangerous to the state. [ ... ] Shamanism, as I said, is not a religion. The spiritual experience usually becomes a religion after politics has entered into it. ~ Michael Harner

The male sphere of Norse shamanism consisted of the elite warrior groups known as the berserkir ("bear-shirts") and the úlfheðnar ("wolf-skins"). The berserkers (as we'll refer to the members of both of those groups for the sake of convenience), were shamans of a very different sort. After undergoing a period of rigorous training and initiation, they developed the ability to fight in an ecstatic trance that rendered them fearless - and, according to some sources, impervious to danger - while nevertheless inspiring a tremendous amount of fear in their opponents by their behavior, which was
at once animalistic and otherworldly. Perhaps needless to say, there was no ergi associated with being a berserker. Quite the opposite, in fact - the berserker was seen as something of a model of manliness. ~ Daniel McCoy

Broken Wind believed that we are traumatized as babies by intestinal gas or colic. The great shaman invented a technique called "gastral projection" to help release these traumas. His philosophy was simple: "To air is human ... but to really cut one loose is divine. ~ Swami Beyondananda

Why do airline pilots always call passengers "folks"? I don't usually take umbrage at generic terminology
I'm one of those forward-thinkers who believes that "man" encompasses the whole darned race
but at whatever 0'clock in the mornning. I thought it would be nice to be called sometihng that suggested unwashed masses a little less. ~ C.E. Murphy

All knowledge that takes special training to acquire is the province of the Magician energy. Whether you are an apprentice training to become a master electrician and unraveling the mysteries of high voltage; or a medical student, grinding away night and day, studying the secrets of the human body and using available technologies to help your patients; or a would-be stockbroker or a student of high finance; or a trainee in one of the psychoanalytic schools, you are in exactly the same position as the apprentice shaman or witch doctor in tribal societies. You are spending large amounts of time, energy, and money in order to be initiated into rarefied realms of secret power. You are undergoing an ordeal testing your capacities to become a master of this power. And, as is true in all initiations, there is no guarantee of success. [Magician energy] ~ Robert Moore

Music is the shaman of my underpants. ~ A.J. Kaufmann

1] The absence of the personal story: in order for magical rites to pass from generation to generation, the sorcerer (shaman) must forget all he learned before his initiation into magic. According to tradition, a man or women who are tied to his past, will in the end allow himself to be governed by his parents' way of thinking, or that of the society in which he lives. This is why all those who are initiated choose a new name and seek to free themselves from their memories, both good and bad. ~ Paulo Coelho

The shaman is a very peculiar figure. He is critical to the functioning of the psychological and social life of his community, but in a way he is always peripheral to it. He lives at the edge of the village. He is only called upon in matters of great social crisis. He is feared and respected. And this might be a description of these hallucinogenic substances. ~ Terence McKenna

Like any good shaman, professional baseball player, or politician, my mother always answered questions with questions. ~ Sherman Alexie

If a wound was all that was required to be a shaman, we'd all be one. If wounds were required, no one would be. ~ S. Kelley Harrell

I'm not a goddamned faith healer! I don't talk to God! I'm a mechanic and her goddamned engine was broken!
Joanne ~ C.E. Murphy

I think the experience of going to a theater and seeing a movie with a lot of people is still part of the transformational power of the film, and it's equivalent to the old shaman telling a story by the campfire to a bunch of people. ~ Wes Craven

For all the popularity of spiritual advisers in South Korea, it still shocks to see the leaders of huge public companies relying on fortune-tellers. A shaman may advise a struggling executive to move a building's front entrance, tapping the widespread pungsu belief that your luck depends on the direction of your house. ~ Kim Young-ha

Listen, wait, and be patient. Every shaman knows you have to deal with the fire that's in your audience's eye. ~ Ken Kesey

Shamanism is a great metal and emotional adventure, one in which the patient as well as the shaman-healer are involved ~ Michael Harner

This one had come to me, though, picked me out. I thought she was trouble from the start. I don't read minds and I can't see the future, but call it instinct or experience, something was prickling my spine.
You could call it something else, if you wanted: adolescence, hormones, lust. Being seventeen. That doesn't go away, however long you practice.
"Hullo," I said politely, warily.
She was long and slim and very neatly put together, dark hair tumbling over denim, old worn black jacket and jeans that somehow hadn't faded into grey. They probably didn't dare. Right from the start I saw a focus in her, a determination that must go all the way through, like the writing in a stick of Brighton rock. In another world, another lifetime, I thought she'd have raven-feathers in her hair, a bear's tooth on a thong about her. She'd be the village shaman, talking to spirits, and even the headman would be afraid of her, a little...
Seventeen, I told you. She was devastating to me, she was sitting at my table, and I couldn't afford her. Not for a minute.
If I'd stood up, if I'd left, if I'd run away...
Nah. She would just have come after me. Faster, fitter, and on longer legs. What chance did I ever have? ~ Ben Macallan

The shaman is the figure at the beginning of human history that unites the doctor, the scientist and the artist into a single notion of care-giving and creativity. ~ Terence McKenna

Some of the bank people were so young they'd never seen a business proposal suggesting manufacturing things in the state of Massachusetts. They thought they'd unearthed some ancient shaman, full of clues to a forgotten world. ~ Dave Eggers

I remember there was this one lady shaman who said that having children puts a hole in your soul. And the only way to get it back is for your children to die. And, you know, monks don't have families. ~ Larkin Grimm

I believe that magic is art, and that art, whether that be music, writing, sculpture, or any other form, is literally magic. Art is, like magic, the science of manipulating symbols, words or images, to achieve changes in consciousness ... Indeed to cast a spell is simply to spell, to manipulate words, to change peoples consciousness, and this is why I believe that an artist or writer is the closest thing in the contemporary world to a shaman. ~ Alan Moore

Humans are a part of creation and shamanism is our way of connecting with the whole. ~ Will Adcock

Christian, Jew, Muslim, shaman, Zoroastrian, stone, ground, mountain, river, each has a secret way of being with the mystery, unique and not to be judged ~ Rumi

I've sought out several dance teachers-shaman-like women dance teachers-to get in touch with the mystical through movement. ~ Marisa Tomei

He (the Shaman) is a self-reliant explorer of the endless mansions of a magnificent hidden universe. ~ Michael Harner

Intent is not a thought, or an object, or a wish. Intent is what can make a man succeed when his thoughts tell him that he is defeated. It operates in spite of the warrior's indulgence. Intent is what makes him invulnerable. Intent is what sends a shaman through a wall, through space, to infinity. ~ Carlos Castaneda

Like the shaman, a teacher has to have a clear vision so that a student can come to believe that he or she sees something real that can be shared. The teacher's message must be "I know something you don't know, something you don't have, but I am committed to sharing it with you and bringing you on this journey. ~ Louis Cozolino

Did anyone think this canon of druggie men were out of control? Only in the most admirable of ways! Out of control like a shaman or a space explorer, like a magician sawing himself in half. Out of control like a poet. ~ Michelle Tea

As long as we string out the ecstasy of awe, we won't do the work required to mine its precious teachings. ~ S. Kelley Harrell

The experience of going to a theater and seeing a movie with a lot of people is still part of the transformational power of the film, and it's equivalent to the old shaman telling a story by the campfire to a bunch of people. That is a remarkable thing, if you scream and everyone else in the audience screams, you realize that your fears are not just within yourself, they're in other people as well, and that's strangely releasing. ~ Wes Craven

The shaman does not believe in a division between the body and the spirit or between the visible world of form and the invisible world of energy ~ Alberto Villoldo

Ayahuasca is a brew that's made from the vine, which is the hallucinogenic element. And then there's also this leaf from a bush. And the vine is supposed to be the masculine and the bush is supposed to be the feminine, and this female shaman did a tea drinking ceremony with us, where we drank Wyoosa. And the intention was to go and find pieces of your soul that were missing and bring them back to your body so you could live more fully with yourself and it's called soul retrieval. ~ Larkin Grimm

Have intention, sacred will travel. ~ S. Kelley Harrell

The deep self has been referred to by many names over the ages. You may know it as Essence, Spirit, Soul, Source...or, perhaps by no name at all. I prefer to call it The Inner Shaman...The Inner Shaman simply waits for your sanity, that glimmer of light or recognition on your part. In short, it is waiting for your readiness to be aware of it. ~ Jose Luis Stevens

The communication function of modern writers is akin to the ancient role fulfilled by tribal shamans. All writers ultimately perform a shamanistic role in society; their mythmaking voices speak to us from the underworld after their passage to the other side. Writers place themselves in a trance-like state where their unconscious mind dictates to them what to write. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

We can intend not to be our program. ~ Lujan Matus

The particular province of the shaman is the province of soul, that which feeds our embodied life, or fails to feed it. From a shamanic point of view, the relationship with animal allies, or animals that show themselves in animal forms, is a vital part of living. We're fully embodied, with full access to our natural soul energy. ~ Robert Moss

Perspective shifted on why it must 'hurt to heal', and a series of questions kept coming to mind. I found myself wondering if these medicines always 'hurt', or do they hurt so much now to show us how separate we are from nature? Perhaps these 'revelations in pain' are necessary in order for a personal apocalpyse to occur so you may have a shift in perception, and a greater understanding of your role in the whole? To realize that we are not foreign from nature, nature is where we come from and where we return to. ~ Jennifer Sodini

Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proved innocent. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

The shaman/priest/artist/teacher/leader does not operate for the sole benefit of herself and her kind but for the benefit of the people at large and of the universe and its patterns, as becomes what she perceives as fitting into place, into her sense of natural justice. ~ Judy Grahn

Look at this, Grace," Peg's e-mail said. "He's entrancing those people. I just realized. Taking them out of themselves. Ty is sort of like a medicine man. A shaman.
P.S. Have you called him? ~ Shelle Sumners

The novel comes from a long shamanic tradition wherein the shaman-storyteller himself is transformed, no longer storyteller but a character, an animal, a god, a goddess, or a natural force that is not his everyday identity. And these moments, when the characters come alive and the author disappears, take us into another world. ~ Hal Zina Bennett

The healing hero, therefore, is the one who finds some creative way out, a way not already known, and does not follow a pattern. Ordinary sick people follow ordinary patterns, but the shaman cannot be cured by the usual methods of healing. He has to find the unique way, the only way that applies to him. The creative personality who can do that then becomes a healer and is recognized as such by his colleagues. ~ Marie-Louise Von Franz

It's been important to cultures throughout history with the court jester and the witch doctor and the shaman - all preach the same thing. ~ RuPaul

For some moments the two men sat quietly, each wrapped in his own thoughts, then Ivor rose. 'I should speak to Levon about tomorrow's hunt,' he said. 'Sixteen [eltors], I think.'
'At least,' the shaman said in an aggrieved tone. 'I could eat a whole one myself. We haven't feasted in a long time, Ivor.'
Ivor snorted. 'A very long time, you greedy old man. Twelve whole days ... why aren't you fat?'
'Becaues,' the wisest one explained patiently, 'you never have enough food at the feasts. ~ Guy Gavriel Kay

Unless we can interpret that ecstatic trip in a way that better grounds our physical reality, trance isn't worth much. ~ S. Kelley Harrell

Just as twilight is neither light nor dark, but a bit of each, so is the middle head, face, or person representative of that magical blend of two opposing energies. The shaman is the twilight child, born from the union of the masculine world of light and conscious awareness and the feminine world of darkness and unconscious awareness. Shamans are at home in both worlds: in that magical space and time shimmering between these worlds, that point of consciousness 'betwixt and between' and 'neither this, nor that,' flickering at the edge of twilight. ~ Tom Cowan

The acomodador or giving-up point: there is always an event in our lives that is responsible for us failing to progress: a trauma, a particularly bitter defeat, a disappointment in love, even a victory that we did not quite understand, can make cowards of us and prevent us from moving on. As part of the process of increasing his hidden powers, the shaman must first free himself from that giving-up point and, to do so, he must review his while life and find out where it occured. ~ Paulo Coelho

I don't think that mass drug taking is a good idea. But I think that we must have a deputized minority, a shamanic professional class if you will, whose job is to bring ideas out of the deep black water and show them off to the rest of us and perform for our culture some of the cultural functions that shaman perform in pre-literate cultures. ~ Terence McKenna

The elk that you glimpse in the summer, those at the forest edge, are survivors of winter, only the strongest. You see one just before dusk that summer, standing at the perimeter of the meadow so it can step back to the forest and vanish. You can't help imagining the still, frozen nights behind it, so cold that the slightest motion is monumental. I have found their bodies, half drifted over in snow, no sign of animal attack or injury. Just toppled over one night with ice working into their lungs. You wouldn't want to stand outside for more than a few minutes in that kind of weather. If you lived through only one of those winters the way this elk has, you would write books about it. You would become a shaman. You would be forever changed. That elk from the winter stands there on the summer evening, watching from beside the forest. It keeps its story to itself. ~ Craig Childs

Who knows? Life may just be a Positive Conspiracy bent on putting us in the right place at the right time every living, breathing moment of the day. It just takes a certain kind of perspective to see this. Realizing this can put our "analyzer" on hold, our interpretive mind on "ga-ga" and our hearts on breathless. ~ Antero Alli

The world will hear my name." When he spoke again, it was so quiet that Kokchu had to strain to hear him.
"This is not a time of death, shaman. We are one people and there will be no more battles between us. I will summon us all. Cities will fall to us, new lands will be ours to ride. Women will weep and I will be pleased to hear it. ~ Conn Iggulden

A shaman is someone who has a wound that will not heal. He sits by the side of the road with his open wound exposed. ~ Rachel Naomi Remen

The profession of shaman has many advantages. It offers high status with a safe livelihood free of work in the dreary, sweaty sense. In most societies it offers legal privileges and immunities not granted to other men. But it is hard to see how a man who has been given a mandate from on High to spread tidings of joy to all mankind can be seriously interested in taking up a collection to pay his salary; it causes one to suspect that the shaman is on the moral level of any other con man. But it is a lovely work if you can stomach it. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Soul recovery, I think, is much richer and more helpful. Instead of having a shaman retrieve our soul for us, we help each other to become the shamans and healers of our own soul. ~ Robert Moss

It has always been the role of the shaman to go into an altered state of consciousness and track down where the soul fled to in the alternate realities and return it to the body of the client. ~ Sandra Ingerman

[T]he shaman treats all realities as subjective, much like some modern theoretical physicists are beginning to do. In such a viewpoint the question of whether an experience is real or not makes no sense, because the answer is yes and no, depending on your point of view. ~ Serge King

Harner has impeccable credentials, both as an academic and as a practicing shaman. Without doubt (since the recent death of Mircea Eliade) the world's leading authority on shamanism. ~ Nevill Drury

This is why the shaman is the remote ancestor of the poet and artist. Our need to feel part of the world seems to demand that we express ourselves through creative activity. The ultimate wellsprings of this creativity are hidden in the mystery of language. Shamanic ecstasy is an act of surrender that authenticates both the individual self and that which is surrendered to, the mystery of being. Because our maps of reality are determined by our present circumstances, we tend to lose awareness of the larger patterns of time and space. Only by gaining access to the Transcendent Other can those patterns of time and space and our role in them be glimpsed. ~ Terence McKenna

The shaman is a self-realized person. She discovers the ways of Spirit through her inner awakening. ~ Alberto Villoldo

19. THE WALL OF DICTIONARIES BETWEEN MY MOTHER AND THE WORLD GETS TALLER EVERY YEAR
Sometimes pages of the dictionaries come loose and gather at her feet, shallon, shalop, shallot, shallow, shalom, sham, shaman, shamble, like the petals of an immense flower. When I was little, I thought that the pages on the floor were words she would never be able to use again, and I tried to tape them back in where they belonged, out of fear that one day she would be left silent. ~ Nicole Krauss

Today the artist has inherited the combined functions of hermit, pilgrim, prophet, priest, shaman, sorcerer, soothsayer, alchemist. ~ Thomas Merton

Oh, they're always saying that. But they are only the Masters of Outer Darkness," he corrected. ~ Michael Talbot

How far can they travel before you lose them?" Kiral asked the shaman, who seemed puzzled by the question. ~ Anthony Ryan

It is of the first order of importance to remember this, that the shaman is more than merely a sick man, or a madman; he is a sick man who has healed himself, who is cured, and who must shamanize in order to remain cured. ~ Terence McKenna

The shaman has access to a superhuman dimension and a superhuman condition, and by being able to do that he affirms the potential for transcendence in all people. He is an exemplar, if you will. ~ Terence McKenna

The process of falling apart (the Coyolxauhqui process), of being wounded, is a sort of shamanic initiatory dismemberment that gives suffering a spiritual and soulful value. The shaman's initiatory ordeal includes some type of death or dismemberment during the ecstatic trance journey. Torn apart into basic elements and then reconstructed, the shaman acquires the power of healing and returns to help the community. To be healed we must be dismembered, pulled apart. The healing occurs in disintegration, in the demotion of the ego as the self's only authority.20 By connecting with our wounding, the imaginal journey makes it worthwhile. Healing images bring back the pieces, heal las rajaduras. As Hillman notes, healing is a deep change of attitude that involves an adjustment and abandonment of "ego-heroics." It requires that we shift our perspective. La ~ Gloria E Anzaldua

The primitive magician, the medicine man or shaman is not only a sick man, he is above all, a sick man who has been cured, who has succeeded in curing himself. ~ Mircea Eliade

We have gone sick by following a path of untrammelled rationalism, male dominance, attention to the visible surface of things, practicality, bottom-line-ism. We have gone very, very sick. And the body politic, like any body, when it feels itself to be sick, it begins to produce antibodies, or strategies for overcoming the condition of dis-ease. And the 20th century is an enormous effort at self-healing. Phenomena as diverse as surrealism, body piercing, psychedelic drug use, sexual permissiveness, jazz, experimental dance, rave culture, tattooing, the list is endless. What do all these things have in common? They represent various styles of rejection of linear values. The society is trying to cure itself by an archaic revival, by a reversion to archaic values. So when I see people manifesting sexual ambiguity, or scarifying themselves, or showing a lot of flesh, or dancing to syncopated music, or getting loaded, or violating ordinary canons of sexual behaviour, I applaud all of this; because it's an impulse to return to what is felt by the body -- what is authentic, what is archaic -- and when you tease apart these archaic impulses, at the very centre of all these impulses is the desire to return to a world of magical empowerment of feeling.

And at the centre of that impulse is the shaman: stoned, intoxicated on plants, speaking with the spirit helpers, dancing in the moonlight, and vivifying and invoking a world of conscious, living mystery. That's what the world ~ Terence McKenna

I let my head fall back, and I gazed into the Eternal Blue Sky. It was morning. Some of the sky was yellow, some the softest blue. One small cloud scuttled along. Strange how everything below can be such death and chaos and pain while above the sky is peace, sweet blue gentleness. I heard a shaman say once, the Ancestors want our souls to be like the blue sky. ~ Shannon Hale

A shaman walks the thin line of insanity and bliss. ~ Lori Morrison

I mightn't be a shaman in the indigenous sense, but as a world-bridger between Western culture and the indigenous world, I knew I was playing a shamanistic role. Language was my medicine and with it I would do my best to record my awakening and help heal with my words ... The journey isn't over yet. ~ Rak Razam

Father Sams, a mirthful shaman, looked at a nighted photograph of actress Lar Park Lincoln beneath his glass of bourbon con hielo. ~ Jarrett McCall

No wonder psychedelics are threatening to an authoritarian religious hierarchy. You don't need faith to benefit from a psychedelic experience, let alone a priest or even a shaman to interpret it. What you need is courage - courage to drink the brew, eat the mushroom, or whatever it is, and then to pay attention, and make of it what you will. Suddenly, the tools for direct contact with the transcendent other (whether you call it God or something else) is taken from the hands of an anointed elite and given to the individual seeker. ~ Dennis McKenna

Josh is the company tech expert, which means we all think he's a little bit shaman, a little bit magician, and mostly a nerd. ~ Julia Kent

Again, all the true shamans were wiped out long ago. ~ Shaman Elder Maggie Wahls

What happens to the faith healer and the shaman when any poor citizen can see the full effect of drugs or surgeries, administered without ceremonies or mystifications? Roughly the same thing as happens to the rainmaker when the climatologist turns up, or to the diviner from the heavens when schoolteachers get hold of elementary telescopes. ~ Christopher Hitchens

In the silence of the mountain there is much you can learn. ~ Dennis McKay

Do you see how little it all matters? How quickly and easily I can take it all away, should I choose to do so? Beware, gunslinger! Beware, shaman! The abyss is all around you. You float or fall into it at my whim. ~ Stephen King

The laughing, joking court jester, who is in reality a Shaman, has all the respect of a king, for there has always been an element of danger lurking about beneath the surface of his smile ~ Karl Wiggins

If we recognize the power of entheogenic substances to open us to the universal truth and full dimension of human experience, and if we accept the role of the shaman as hierophant and psychopomp into this realm, as enacted for example by the Huichol mara'akame, we have to conclude that today in Western society we are deprived of two key resources for complete human growth. Young people, in their hunger for meaning, will still gravitate toward entheogens. The more experienced among us may try to ease their journey, but in the absence of qualified guides not all will benefit from their experience. ~ Rick Doblin

I do not wish upon anyone a descent into hell. But if your life has to be turned inside out in order for you to know yourself
if the shadow of a shaman crosses your path and you turn and follow it down
I pray that you use its force wisely. I hope that you take the ultimate responsibility for your actions and that you consecrate any destruction to the rebuilding of your higher self and a more radiant life. ~ Elizabeth Lesser

You can throw away the privilege of acting, but that would be such a shame. The tribe has elected you to tell its story. You are the shaman/healer, that's what the storyteller is, and I think it's important for actors to appreciate that. Too often actors think it's all about them, when in reality it's all about the audience being able to recognize themselves in you. The more you pull away from the public, the less power you have on screen. ~ Ben Kingsley

Istagunga sought for the magic that ran beneath the soil like a network, each thread connecting all living things together. It was this immense power that held Iktomi's Web together... ~ Alannah K. Pearson

The true shaman, the true naturalist, works to reconnect conscious human life with Nature and Spirit through totems and ritual. ~ Ted Andrews

In every colour there's the light.
In every stone sleeps a crystal.
Remember the Shaman, when he used to say:
Man is the dream of the dolphin ~ Enigma

What did it mean to a prophet to sing in a God´s own voice? Would that make him a shaman, as in the days described in the Tusk? Or would it make him a god? ~ R. Scott Bakker

The skeins are tangled. Some butterfly shaman up in the north beats his puny fucking wings and the storm gathers before you know it. Chaos gathers, like a bad poet's verse. We run damage control, but the rules of engagement have changed. You think we're any happier about it than you? We've got our balls to the wall here, hero. We're fighting half blind, nothing works, not the way it should, not anymore. Which ~ Richard K. Morgan