#contemporary shaman

[shamandrummer]

Meet Modern Shaman Sabrina Villard

As a tot, Sabrina Villard took her first steps in the Sahara desert, just south of Algeria. She did so while holding the hand of her great-grandmother, a Bedouin shaman--who are known in the region as Fugara--who she says lived to be 123 years old.

"She is still with me every day, guiding me," says Villard, who inherited and honed her skills as a shaman from her late great-grandmother. She keeps a photo of her on an altar surrounded by candles and flowers in the corner of her ceremony room, which occupies the second bedroom of her apartment on Robinson Road in Hong Kong's Mid-Levels district.

To this day, when faced with adversity or difficult decisions, a distinct tingle on her arm is a reassuring sign that her great-grandmother is watching over her. And one year ago, feeling she had that support, Villard made one of the biggest decisions of her life so far.

At the time, she was the Apac project manager for one of the world's most revered luxury fashion houses by day, and by night, she would guide clients on shamanic journeys, straddling the living and spiritual realms to assist in a variety of areas: from healing traumas to removing subconscious patterns that block people from reaching their full potential.

"The traditional definition of a shaman is a seer in the dark," says Villard. "I don't know about anyone's life when they come to me. I am shown what you are ready to see by your spirit guides, ancestors and your own memories. I have a conversation with your soul."

Last September, on her birthday, she quit her high-flying fashion job to pursue her role as a shaman full-time. "I resigned on my birthday," says the self-proclaimed witch. "Rebirth day!"

Since then, she has made it her mission to spread the ancient healing art of shamanism throughout the modern world. Without compromising its sanctity, she has found ways to make it approachable and applicable to even those who might be put off by the "woo-woo" perception of it.

"Some people like the theatrics of it: the crystals, the potions or dressing a certain way ... but it's not for me," says Villard, who prefers not to use any tools in her shamanic practice, and whose style is more wicked than witch. "For me, the modern witch is sure of herself and her intuition."

In fact, Villard recently became the first shaman to enter the metaverse, spending the last few months building a world on online virtual community platform VRChat under her moniker, V-Healing. The dreamy domain is a futuristic, space station-esque oasis that looks out to a desert landscape--a nod to her Bedouin roots.

Villard may be the first, but she hopes she isn't the last, and that over time, spirituality and alternative forms of healing will find their place in virtual reality.

"I know a lot of people will go against [this idea], but this is what I like; this is what's necessary," she says. "I like to go against the current, to bring spirituality into our modern world. We need to adapt and bring ancient knowledge and wisdom to the platforms that people are using now."

[without-ado]

A Ghost Day l Min HyunWoo l Contemporary Korean dance

[jareckiworld]

Sun Xun (孙逊) — Shamanist in the Distance (oil, resin, wood, 2023)

[tjagbo]

Shaman - the story of man, 2024

[sebdoeswords]

Insane how much nostalgia I can get from reading a 90s manga I didn't even read and the anime to which I didn't even watch back then

[bobbole]

 Anne Siems

[pabloorza]

autumn songs (2023)

acrylic/paper_70x50cm

[lastwordsofdutchschultz]

Joseph Beuys Wire Tap, 1998

(Thegn Penrose, Digital, 2023)

this is a thing I made recently relating to Joseph Beuys, Shamanism, Alchemy, and some pseudo-spiritual ideas I have about the internet and its origins in telecom in the 1990s. I might make more related to this, but who knows. since I had a deadline for the project it isn't all I wanted it to be, but it allowed me to sperg out about Joseph Beuys to people in my class that didn't care, so that's alright. I'm especially interested in the belief that Terrence Mckenna had in technological singularity and the internet before he died. McKenna believed that a technological singularity would provide the redemption of the spirit through matter prophesied in the hermetic tradition. This belief seems very out of place now, but in the 1990s it was considered perfectly logical.

formally it draws heavily on La Jetee (you absolutely have to check it out if you haven't yet, it's only 30 minutes and available on youtube), and the work of janet cardiff. I'll probably make a post about her some day, because she's a really interesting artist. she mostly makes installations, but they focus a lot on sound and physical spaces, so I was thinking of her a lot when mixing the audio. her work is very creepy and interesting, but honestly, it can only be fully experienced in person.

all that you really need to know is that the text-to-speech program in this video is recounting Joseph Beuys' story of crashing in Crimea during World War II. he had been drafted into the Luftwaffe and ended up crashing, after which, according to him, he was taken in by nomadic Tatars, who nursed him back to life using animal fat and sheets of felt. this story is probably not literally true and was either made up as part of his self-myth or hallucinated. later, after the war was over he became an artist, and like a lot of his german contemporaries was consumed by guilt and an overriding postmodern fear that whatever trauma they had inflicted upon humanity would stifle all meaning in human life. he and other artists like Anselm Kiefer, (who, not at all coincidentally was also interested in alchemy) were terrified of the urge to forget and suppress the memory of the holocaust and believed that without proper healing no actual progress could be achieved.

he is known for his especially pessimistic work in the 1950s and 60s that focused on trauma, the dissolution of humans as living beings and subjects, and a fixation on Auchwitz. following this he leaned more into his belief in alchemy and felt that through his ritualistic practices, much like the tatars healed him, he could heal the large scale trauma in the world around him. his attitude at this time was very sincere and earnest, and was accompanied by a strong involvement in the West German anti-war and anti-nuclear movements. some people would see his early involvement with the Green Party, for instance, as out of character or wacky, but it actually fits beautifully within his belief that great art would accompany meaningful material change in the world.

anyway, I'm rambling. I will not get into my ideas about the early internet yet. some day.

[vsthepomegranate]

Völva Portraits (2018)

by Jim Lyngvild

[artwitchmanifesto]

[mnemotechnicstoo]

Shaman

A4 collage

1995

[bananartista]

I guardiani della terra

“The guardians of the earth”Tecnica mista su carta A4 (29×21 cm)

[river-taxbird]

Disability in the Ice Age

People usually talk about the dawn of civilization in occuring around the Neolithic, like 12000 years to 6000 years before present, but people have been experimenting with different ways of organising society well back into the late pleistocene, or ice age (30,000 to 12,000 years BP). In ice age Europe and Russia, people would build villages out of mammoth bone and skin, which they would inhabit for a season then break up into hunter gather bands for another season.

A particularly interesting part of ice age culture is their burials. They normally didn't bury their dead, but they did sometimes. The burials are marked as being very rich, with lots of grave goods, including weapons, tools, or intricately carved beads on their clothes. (Pictured: A burial called the Gravetian Prince). Interestingly, most of the burials from this time period have disabilities evident in their skeletons. This has led to the theory that in ice age culture, disabled people may have held a shamanic or ritual significance (as they do in some contemporary hunter gather societies). Non physically disabled ice age burials could have had some disability that is not evident in the skeleton, such as autism or epilepsy. This really goes against the stereotype that disabled people in prehistory would not have been cared for and died young.

Sources: The Dawn of Everything, by David Graeber and David Wengrow. Gobekli Tepe Ancient History Documentry, by History Time.

[whencyclopedia]

Queen Himiko

Queen Himiko, also known as Pimiko or Pimiku (183? - 248 CE), was a 3rd-century CE ruler of the territory in ancient Japan known as Hsieh-ma-t'ai or Yamatai, later to be known as Yamato. Considered by the Chinese as the ruler of all of Japan or Wa, given her state's power, she exchanged diplomatic embassies with the ruling Wei dynasty. A semi-legendary figure, Himiko is curiously absent from Japanese historical records but does appear briefly in Chinese histories. Himiko was noted for being a shaman queen, unmarried, and living in a fortress where she was served by 1,000 women.

Yamatai

Himeko's name in archaic Japanese means Sun Child or Sun Daughter and probably alludes to her divine descent from Amaterasu, the Shinto sun goddess, as all Japanese rulers would later be identified as being descendants of. Scholars do not agree on the exact location of Queen Himiko's state Hsieh-ma-tai/Yamatai. A minority place it in north Kyushu, but the majority consider the Nara region as the most likely candidate. In Japan, at the time of her reign during the 3rd century CE, there were around 100 kingdoms spread across the islands. It seems that Himiko's state was the most powerful of these and may have led a loose federation of 30 states as the contemporary Chinese state recognised her as, in effect, the ruler of all of the Japanese islands.

Continue reading...

[talonabraxas]

Algiz ᛉ

ALGIZ (also called Elhaz) is a powerful rune, because it represents the divine might of the universe. The white elk was a symbol to the Norse of divine blessing and protection to those it graced with sight of itself.

Algiz is the rune of higher vibrations, the divine plan and higher spiritual awareness. The energy of Algiz is what makes something feel sacred as opposed to mundane. It represents the worlds of Asgard (gods of the Aesir), Ljusalfheim (The Light Elves) and Vanaheim (gods of the Vanir), all connecting and sharing energies with our world, Midgard.

The symbol itself could represent the upper branches of Yggdrasil, a flower opening to receive the sun (SOWILO is the next rune in the futhark after all,) the antlers of the elk, the Valkyrie and her wings, or the invoker stance common to many of the world’s priests and shamans. In a very contemporary context, the symbol could be powerfully equated to a satellite dish reaching toward the heavens and communicating with the gods and other entities throughout this and other worlds. I find this metaphor particularly useful, due to my embrace of technology, but if it doesn’t work for you, use the older interpretations.

Aligning with the Divine Plan

As a part of the second Aett, whose inimical nature is primary to the interpretations of the symbols, Algiz represents the divine plan as set apart from individual affairs, even in spite of human concerns entirely. Understanding the divine plan is ultimately beyond us while we live as human beings, save that it is for the greater good.

Algiz requires faith to work with. Like DAGAZ, it can be seen as the continual unfoldment of universal intelligence, particularly consciousness in all its forms. This puts the denizens of Midgard in a central role.

Activating the Higher Self

When Odin sacrifices himself to Himself to receive the runes, it can be interpreted that Odin was setting an example for us: to sacrifice the things that make us small or petty, to give up our fetters, addictions and vice to seek something much greater within ourselves. Algiz lifts us away from the limiting egocentricity which comes part and parcel with ISA‘s rune vibrations.

Alignment with the divine plan activates our Higher Self, pushes us from within toward the self-actualization of MANNAZ. In doing so, Odin invites us to seek godhood, just as he once did, and give ourselves over the the pursuit of wisdom, higher awareness and service to the heavens.

In exchange for such a sacrifice (which you may eventually see as no ‘real’ sacrifice at all as you explore TIWAZ and GEBO), a number of specific magical and psychological benefits are bestowed upon us.

Protection

The first of these is protection, as is to be expected because of the rune’s esoteric meaning. Alignment with the divine makes a person sacred — set apart from the mundane and therefor blessed by divine protection. The courageous garner favor with the gods. This can be in the form of increased luck, stronger Hamingja, and this protection is renewed by passing certain ‘tests’ of one’s courage and honor, often administered by Odin in one of his various forms.

Communication with Divine Entities

The second is the ability to communicate with gods and entities of the Higher Realms, particularly Heimdall and the Valkyries, who are the guardians of Valhalla and watch over their favored warriors. The symbol, reversed, might be used to access the realm of the dead, giants, and the unconscious. Tread carefully!

[pabloorza]

solar eclipse (october 2023)

acrilic/paper_70x50cm