I haven’t written anything for some time and now I find that I am forced to pause and reflect since we are in the middle of a Coronovirus pandemic which means everyone must stay indoors as much as possible and away from crowds.

What have I been doing during this time – well I have been healing myself mentally and emotionally from whatever ails me, my wounds and shadows. Learning about Jungian psychology and the shamanic archetype which emerges during times like these to guide us through a crisis

Whats the shamanic archetype I hear you ask – well, its an archetype with clusters of facets which aid people in difficult times and comes to the fore building character when times get tough.

It has many facets which include the sacred clown (humor during tough times) the artist (art and creativity and colour to brighten difficult times) sacred musician (the musician) but also things like the witch, the priest, the magician, the trickster, the hero and so many others

If you feel any of these facets relate to you and your expression for getting through a crisis such as an ill health or an economic depression, or anything really, difficult relationships abuse, trauma then you may want to look at a course called the SHAMANIC WORKBOOK hosted by somebody called Andrew Carmago who runs the School of Modern Soul Science who can help people to navigate what happens psychologically during tough times and when this shamanic archetype emerges and can cause issues if not dealt with properly. https://theschoolofmodernsoulscience.teachable.com/

I have discovered my own expression of the shamanic archeype which emerged for me when I went through a health crisis and a difficult relationship and other real life traumas – include the artist, the sacred singer, the poet and the trickster, the technican of dream time and the dancer – there more and these facets overlap – but these are some  the facets of the shamanic archetype that emerged for me to guide me through crisis or just life in general.

You have to be careful that the shadow self doesn’t emerge and cause more of an issue or you get stuck in survival modes but there has been a great emergence of the shamanic archetype during these times and I guess its only going to get more prevalent as there appear to always be plenty of crisis for people to navigate and overcome.

For me my shamanic archetype has appeared as a tree of life as I meditate on life and the seed of life when everything seems to be going to death and decay. Spring time is a wonderful time for this mediation and Im going to embrace my shamanic calling and plant some seeds now during this crisis to honour life and I can watch something grow while everything is in turmoil.

For the last few years with a crisis in my health I have been training for times like these – if you want some ideas on how to navigate these personal crisis while we are all stuck at home then heres a list I came up with.

GET CREATIVE – find a positive healing expression you can spend your time doing instead of constantly staring at screens and panicking.  You can still check the news but it doesn’t have to be constant. It could be art making, card making, water colours (there are many free classes online and in books) My personal favouritie is Tamara laporte and she does a a Life book lessons with some free classes to get started to see if you get on with her style https://www.willowing.org/

GET THE BODY MOVING – during times like these its easy for the body to go into lock down sofa surfing and apathy but this isn’t really desirable – there is loads of great exercise videos you can do from home now during the crisis. Or you could do something called Chakradance meditation which is my personal favourite – basically you have the benefits of free dance and guided meditation as you visualise dancing through forests or crystal caves or round the campfire all in the comfort of your home = perfect for quarantine times. You can find chakradance for the minimum of 10 pounds for some basic dance meditations on daily OM https://www.dailyom.com/cgi-bin/courses/courseoverview.cgi?cid=928  Chakradances main page is here: http://www.chakradance.com/

WORK FROM HOME – theres currently loads of ways to earn a living from home provided you have a phone line and a decent internet connection. Some great ideas to get you started are teaching english as a foreign language – a basic website for this is cambly where you can get paid just to converse in english to people around the world https://www.cambly.com/english?lang=en but there are MANY english language sites. Other ideas could include proofreading, copywriting, data entry and so on Also ARISE does customer service from home https://www.ariseworkfromhome.co.uk/

SING – now may be a great time to start dancing and singing to your favourite songs at home – we saw this in Italy where they had beautiful neigbourly singing together in the street – this could be done in the UK or whatever country your in during a cris – but a personal practise even of just singing in the shower will be great for stress relief and expressing your voice during this time. If you like mantras and chanting i recommend also chanting either poems or affirmations that are personal to you and you have come up with yourself to encourage yourself (maybe repeat them while your doing the hand washing) A GREAT website for hebrew mantras which I love to sing is http://www.rabbishefagold.com/hebrew_chant/

KEEP A GRATITUDE JOURNAL – sometimes we can be overwhelmed by the things that worry us or seem to be going wrong – but theres nothing wrong with focussing on what is going right today here and now as well and it can be a beautiful thing to look back on – you could start a gratitude journal today and your grand-kids could read about what you were grateful for during the pandemic of 2020