a beginning

I'm starting this blog to explore the shamanic within Jewish Mysticism. Shamanism and mysticism are not that different - they are both related to direct experience of God and the ability to perceive and interact with the spirit world. Shamanism is mostly concerned with one's ability to heal. Jewish Mystics have often been healers, and my intention is to try to look at these mystics to understand how they healed. The next step is to come up with a "Seder halacha", a method for doing, and try to bring their words off of the page to learn how to heal as they did.

I bring to this my training as an acupuncturist, craniosacral therapist, and shaman. I have been studying with a shaman for the past seven years. I am hoping that my training and my healing practice will give me the tools to understand what the Jewish mystics did. And hopefully I am not so immersed in them that I will be unable to avoid the trap of finding new names for what I already do, rather than finding new things to do.

I will also post notes and translations for things that I do in the hopes that others will be able to find ways of making these mystical practices work.