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eddyelsey

⁣⠀ ⠀ Something that comes up quite a lot whe

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Something that comes up quite a lot when I work with men is that they have lost their joy. Nothing really gets them going. I don’t mean sexually or in small ways like going out or a good movie - I mean in terms of purpose and raw energetic power.⠀
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The day to day spark we have inside of us all seems to have been put away somewhere to wither - usually from the weight of responsibility or cultural demands on what is important for men to do. I’ve definitely experienced it myself. We are pressured to “make something” of ourselves, and often our dreams and passions don’t immediately align with that. We need to “cook” a little more to find our calling. To follow these dreams and passions instead of just slotting blindly into culture is often deemed childish and naive and often comes with a heavy dose of shame.⠀
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But the spark of life then turns in on itself. It sucks away at our soul like a black hole and cries out to be nurtured. A lot of the fast twitch pleasure responses like porn, drugs and fighting seek to replace that spark, but it’s like squirting petrol onto the dying embers of a fire - it only fans the flames for a few moments and only burns what’s left of the fuel quicker. The once relentless boyhood energy fades into a grown ups somber fatigue and we are left roaming as restless giants - searching everywhere for that love of life that seems to have deserted us.⠀
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Your joy is you. It’s your life force and it’s what your soul thrives on to grow. If you have joy you have everything. Don’t throw it away willingly.

SOLD OUT Thanks everyone 😊❤️ See you all

SOLD OUT Thanks everyone 😊❤️ See you all on Monday evening!

⁣Anxiety often kicks up familiar stories within

⁣Anxiety often kicks up familiar stories within us. The stories that come up again and again, and feel almost insurmountable. One of mine would come up when I was in relationships. I was terrified of not being enough and the stories manifested as constant questions about the past for the person I was with. This eventually drove them mad, and they would split up with me - which would back up the story in my mind that I wasn’t good enough - and the perpetual cycle of anxiety would go on.⠀
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By acting out my anxiety, I was actually allowing it to become stronger. It became a self fulfilling prophecy. What I had to do was sit with the anxiety without attaching it to my story. This was impossible at first, and I would just have a panic attack if I couldn’t ask a question. But eventually, little by little, I managed to sit longer and longer inside the anxiety without my coping mechanism (asking questions) and after a few days the dying need to do something about the anxiety drifted away.⠀
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It would come back a few hours later and I had to repeat the process. It’s now got to the point where it doesn’t even register in my mind. My fear of relationships has completely gone. Of course, I’m scared of other things - we cannot move past or remove fear - but the main story that was kicked up by my chronic anxiety for much of my life has turned into a friend. ⠀
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Our stories are not important. We think they are, and they fucking seem like they are, but it really they’re just a way for our minds to process how our body feels. Often, it gets it either completely wrong - or we act out a story that only served us at one point in time, and now actually holds us back. If you can step away from the story - even for a moment - and then make that a practice, you can start to see anxiety for what it is - energy moving in and out of us. ⠀
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It’s the story that snags it on the way out.

⁣Offerings are, in my opinion, the single most e

⁣Offerings are, in my opinion, the single most effective way of coming into balance with the earth.⠀
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It is the currency between us and the land, the spirits of the land, and our ancestors. Without offerings, it’s very difficult, maybe impossible, to form lines of communication with spirit.⠀
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The definition of an offering, to me, is that it is something of tangible value, given to something that’s spirit is invisible, and who’s existence is not able to be proven. The unprovable aspect of the spirits existence is where faith comes in. Each offering is a small leap of faith that allows our senses to begin to perceive the invisible nature of the world in a different way.⠀
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Through this relationship, we are repairing the imbalances created in the spiritual environment by our lives. We are born as consumers. Not just in terms of our current society - where this has gone into overdrive, but also in the most traditional sense - we consume. Food, Fire, Water - we move, effect and disturb habitats. As well as on the physical, on a spiritual level we create little holes in the fabric of existence and this is why many original cultures believed that we are born with a debt to pay. Offerings are our way of repaying that debt, and in turn repairing these holes.⠀
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An offering can be physical, but can also be of beauty - the two combined are wonderful. So a song, a piece of art, a ribbon tied to something you have created - anything from the heart and anything that has taken time to make. It also depends on what we value in our culture. In ours, often it is our time and our money. In other cultures, it can be livestock, or songs, or sacred plants like tobacco or copal. If the offering you’re giving means something to you, then that is a wonderful thing. You don’t need to spend hundreds of pounds copying other traditional offerings if you’re not from that tradition. Something from our traditions, even if not seen as sacred, can mean much more. ⠀
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It doesn’t need to be "positive" either. Our griefs, our fears and our pain if given through beauty are very potent. It’s not that spirit delights in our pain, but if we become humble and vulnerable through it - spirit will notice

⁣We live in a culture that does not support the

⁣We live in a culture that does not support the journey to becoming a “full” human being. The ancient technology of initiation and rites of passage, which were developed over millennia in traditional culture, have faded away in the Western world. We are now only left with our bare bones and our own devices to deal with the inevitable difficulties of becoming a man. It is expected that, at some random point, we will cross over from boy to man, with all the gifts that come with that journey, without instruction of a ritual elder or a cosmology that supports true change. This is unrealistic, and the proof is unravelling before our eyes, as we see examples of “coiled springs” of repressed emotion erupting all over society. We simply do not understand how to handle the energies of masculinity and, like a boy driving a supercar, or a child wielding a gun - destruction lurks around the corner.⠀
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The rational and logical approach to healing is not one that supports the human psyche. What happened when we neglected mythology as a truth, is that our ability to access the truth within us began to fade with it. A story does not have to be factual to carry truth. When we can begin to pan out from our own lives, and look at them with a different lens, we start to see how the various characters inside of us interact with each other. The relationship that we cultivate with these characters in ourselves gives us the key to our own personal power.⠀
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As men we often carry a burden too great for us. The responsibility we feel can be crushing, and without ritual and ceremony to share this burden with the earth - it becomes unbearable. The permission that the earth gives us to carry sadness, guilt, destructive emotion and feelings of madness allows us to give this permission back to ourselves in return. These emotions can all be gateways to healing, but we often feel far too unsafe to relax into them. Our minds then create stories around them, supported by fear, and we label parts of ourselves as “do not disturb” zones. (Continued in comments)

Trance states can be spooky. They can show you par

Trance states can be spooky. They can show you parts of yourself that you were sure only moments ago didn’t exist. You can feel both incredibly alone or connected to everything - sometimes paradoxically at the same time. They can show you many, many things. But the idea of an altered state within shamanism is not really to do with the self. It is to become a hollow bone and be of service - which is to “hollow” out completely and allow the spirits into your body to perform the task at hand. This is why such a personal relationship with the spirits you work with is so important - if you’re just letting spirit inside in general, or an idea of a spirit you work with - it’s dangerous. You’re giving over control - which is why to have issues around control is not very conducive to shamanism - something I have struggled with a lot. It’s also having a trust in these spirits that if you let them take you completely, you will be able to come back into your body at will and not fall into psychosis. That’s nerve wracking to say the least - especially at first. The more time you spend in trance - the more likely this descent becomes. It’s been said that the only difference between a shaman and a psychotic is the control the shaman has over their psychosis. That’s probably why most practitioners are forced into their calling by a wound. It’s through this wound they are “taken by spirits” and their life falls apart and then gain a relationship with the spirits that put it back together again. Shamanism can be mucky and quite confrontational to some. It’s not usually very gentle, and this puts a lot of people off. Heavy Metal spirituality. Don’t forget to smile!

⁣The last men’s weekend was a great success. T

⁣The last men’s weekend was a great success. To be honest, it couldn’t have really gone any better. That wasn’t down to me or the amazing team that helped to run it - but down to the men themselves who came. Call that luck, or spirit, or whatever you want - but I am so thankful for the way it turned out.⠀
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It was incredibly moving to have 30 men together for two days to share ceremony and ritual - and although energetically it left me absolutely exhausted - I loved every moment.⠀
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Despite this I decided to stop men’s work for a year to really explore my own masculinity and find out what it was I could really offer in terms of healing within masculinity - not just getting men together for ceremony - I think there is a difference. I was fortunate enough to receive some great press, which to be honest only made it more difficult. I’ve never sought out any press and on the surface it seems great but it often leaves me feeling incredibly vulnerable. I suppose in this line of work that’s a good thing 🤣 That’s not to say I’m not grateful for every word written - I am very - but it did leave me feeling completely out of my depth.⠀
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So the year out was needed. I needed to “cook” a little bit more. Spirit has taken me on quite the journey, and now is the time to return - with another immersion next Spring. ⠀
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I’ll post the details soon but I’m really looking forward to it with a LOT more energy to put into men’s work specifically. I’ve got the fire back inside of me and it feels really good.⠀
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I will be also running and organising mixed groups as usual, and anything that is available for men specifically will me labelled as such. See you in Spring fella's!

⁣We were speaking last night on the online cours

⁣We were speaking last night on the online course about mental health and the need for community when dealing with it. In traditional communities if somebody is struggling, they often come together as a whole to support and empower that person through whatever discomfort they’re experiencing.⠀
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The “illness” may manifest within a specific person, but often it is seen as a symptom of something that the village or tribe is experiencing at large, and it’s all of their duty to help sort it out. It’s a very moving thought for me, having struggled intensely with my own mind throughout my life. I couldn’t imagine having the confidence to ask for help, and it brings tears to my eyes imagining all of my loved ones praying for my healing and accepting me for who I am. They would have done this, I’m sure. But society places so much stigma around mental health that the last thing you want to do is cry for help.
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This love and acceptance from others removes any shame or guilt from the person experiencing a break in their mental health and allows them permission to accept themselves, and to gently process what is going on - rather than curse themselves further by being told, either directly or indirectly, that they are broken.⠀
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Probably the most empowering thing you can do for someone struggling with mental health is to let them know that there is nothing wrong with them. Their symptoms have no bearing on who they are as a person. Often beneath the pain and discomfort lays a gift - be it sensitivity, or an openness to the world that can easily create overwhelming feelings. It’s through their wound that they can learn to utilise that gift. That gift then serves society for the better. Traditional cultures know this, hence the focus on empowerment when somebody is displaying symptoms. I managed to heal myself to the point where I love my life - something I never thought I would do - through shamanism. I really believe there is a way of framing mental health that allows everyone to come back to balance - it’s about finding that key for each person and then providing them with the support and love to turn it.

⁣When a man goes through a spontaneous initiatio

⁣When a man goes through a spontaneous initiation in his life - everything falls to pieces. ⠀
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He descends into the arena of the worried mind. The gates from a place that only weeks before had seemed so far away wrench themselves open, and with thunderous footsteps enters a titan. The body of that beast is cruel and otherworldly - alien and cold - but its face is unmistakable. It is his. ⠀
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So the man will look away. Look anywhere but in the eye of this monster. He will cling to things that give him some form of relief. Some false hope. Other people. Substances. Habits. Culture. He will move anywhere but forwards and spend every moment analysing his memories, begging the question - “where did I go wrong?” ⠀
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It may work. He may convince himself that although the face of the monster is his, the monster is not him. He will block his ears and cover his eyes for as long as it takes - maybe the rest of his life. His fingers will turn red raw from holding onto thin strands of meaningless ambitions and he will slam the doors shut wherever he see’s the glint of that monsters scaly hide. ⠀
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There is no help. No secret. No cure. No woman that understands - they couldn’t possibly imagine. Until comes the day where the man gives up everything he is and allows this beast to devour him. To crush his bones and chew him up and swallow every last cell. He becomes it. He see’s the world through evil eyes. He see’s the reasons that men throughout history gave themselves to burn and ruin and destroy - and he loves it. It thrills him. Gives him power. Finally he understands. The raw and primal energies that culture has tried with all its might to hold down. They are his. ⠀
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But there is something. The faint thud of a beating heart. A pulse through all the madness. A holy sound. Faint as the wind. And one day. One morning. As the sun rises, the monster is gone and the beat is all he can hear. By allowing himself to be devoured, the beast devoured itself. It turned to love. To fresh meadows. Flowering bees. Deep breath. Wide eyes. Rivers of honey. He remembers the boy he was. The power is still there. But it is his to wield. It has yielded to the man who proved himself worthy.

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