Weather Shamanism II

to tangle or untangle

the willow —

it’s up to the wind

— Chiyo-ni

Balance. Inter-relationship. Respect for all Life. Boundaries. Humility. Responsibility. Generosity. Devotion. Reciprocity. Healing. Right Relationship. Gratitude. Ceremony.

LOVE.

These words might sound foreign now as we live within the vertigo of our world as she tries to right herself and spin to new rhythms. The news, and tragically, personal experience for some, confronts us with the bleak shadows of a fractured culture. However, underneath all the chaos, all the lineage burdens running wild, the intensity, frozen grief and terror, the madness no less, I assure you there is still a wisdom tradition with a heartbeat strengthened through many millennia. Strengthened by ritual, by devotion, by responsibility to natural law, by gratitude. Strengthened by LOVE.

Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump…

Do you hear it in Surf? In the songs of Life? Can you feel it in your chest? Your feet? Can you sense it in Tree? In Deer? Can you see it in Star’s twinkle, Hummingbird’s wings?

It’s not as subtle as you think, this Heartbeat of the Earth. It beats in all of us –ALL beings here in this world dreamed into being by our Primordial Mother. By the Great Heart of All That Is. Seeded by Ice and Fire. Perhaps you’re just tuning into the wrong station. Turn the dial. WLIF radio is calling you through ancient, compassionate marketing to its primary demographic — your bone and blood. Calling you home.

What does all of this have to do with Weather shamanism?

Join us for three days this summer (July 17-19, 2026) to find out. Experience how sacred ritual with the compassionate Weather Spirits and the Spirits of Place can begin the turning of the wheel of life toward good relationship with Earth and Sky. To bring this statement into personal focus, when we are in good relationship with the Spirits of Place, including the Weather Spirits, the blessings flow (read balance).

Okay, but what’s the path to these relationships, you might be asking.

To begin, in order to be in good relationship with other beings, we must also be in good relationship within ourselves. So, we will be engaged with Hollow Bone (shadow) work as a way to grow our hearts, our self-awareness, our wisdom and reduce congestion between ourselves and other beings.

We will also deepen relationships with some of the Spirits of Place here on the retreat Land with the support and tutelage of our Rainmaker guide, an ancient, seasoned friend of the Weather Spirits who models right relationship for us. This guide will support our learning generally and our personal connections specifically with the Spirits of Place, whom I call my friends, neighbors and some, my ancestors.

These can be powerful relationships. Personally, my relationships with my Rainmaker guide and Pine have brought me to tears of gratitude and love for their wisdom and generosity.

Working with the five elements.

Just close your eyes and picture a storm brewing. Feel the power of the pure elements as they gestate and birth into a Weather event.

We, too, are following a similar pattern. The elements gathered to create us as a unique being. We gestated and then at the right moment, the kairos moment, we were born and are living out our lives until death brings a dissolution of our elements, which will continue on to create another unique being.

Working with the Weather Spirits brings us into greater knowledge and relationship with the elements.

The four elements we think of in modernity are in constant motion, changing, impacting, experiencing, learning, bringing life into the world and then breaking apart. The fifth element, space, is constant and permeates everything. And it’s there after we die as well. Luminosity.

We will learn more about these building blocks of Life. How they can help us heal and balance. We will also learn how we might work with them when asking for healing for others.

What else?

Over twenty years ago I took a week-long writing workshop with Martin Prechtel in New Mexico. If you haven’t heard of Martin, please look him up. He’s quite wonderful and made a very big impression on me, particularly around being in good relationship with all beings.

But my point is that during this workshop my great friend and ally, Crow, told me a story over the course of the week. I journaled every word and will tell the story in this workshop. This will be our teaching on the importance of not only wisdom traditions, but on the power of sacred sound. I predict that we will fall in love with sound and share the medicine of sound in our healing rituals for ourselves and others.

Speaking of healing, we will learn a land healing practice that my guides shared with me many years ago.

The time now seems right to teach this practice. So, we will learn and practice it in a healing that will be requested by a Spirit of Place.

If watching yourself disappear into interrelationship (humility) with compassionate (loving) non-human beings and then witnessing and/or co-creating healing with them for the world (ceremony and responsibility) sounds like a good time, you’re in the right place.

And you just might at times have an experience of being the medicine, elbow-to-elbow, with your Weather Council as you keep shedding what protects you from being in a frequency of wisdom and love (the true healer 💖).