I’m very happy to announce that my shamanic practitioner training is complete. Fourteen years ago, when I first started attending shamanic workshops, I never dreamed that I might be standing in the shoes of the magical person who played the drum and carried out healings, but here I am. 

My training began in May 2024 with an organisation called the Sacred Trust. In the first residential I undertook an initiatory shamanic burial ritual in which we dug our own graves in the Devon hillside and spent a night in them. It sounds formidable but, for me at least, it was enjoyable, as I like digging and relished the thought of a night in the earth with my Gods and spirits, particularly as my patron God, Vindos / Gwyn ap Nudd had asked me to marry Him in death. I had far worse struggles with the change of routine and diet. 

In the second residential, we covered Harner shamanic counselling (1). During this process, a shamanic practitioner guides a newcomer client through six shamanic journeys to solve a life issue with help from the spirits. The client wears headphones to listen to a recorded drumbeat and speaks their journeys out loud into a microphone. The practitioner and client then listen to the recording and the practitioner guides the client in their interpretation.

We (a group of 22) took it in turns to play the roles of practitioner and client and were assessed as we went along. Whilst I recognised the ingenuity and value of this method, as an autistic person who struggles with wearing headphones and virtual drumbeats and with being in loud crowded spaces (imagine all those other people speaking out their journeys loud!) I found it incredibly claustrophobic and this was reflected in my shamanic journeys. I returned home questioning whether a recorded drumbeat on headphones rather than a live drum, combined with the pressure of speaking a journey out loud, were the best way to introduce a newcomer to shamanism.

Before I had the chance to deliver the Harner shamanic counselling to volunteer clients, I decided to leave the Sacred Trust for ethical reasons (2). My mentor and supervisor, shamanic practitioner and embodied relational therapist, Jayne Johnson, supported me through the process. Afterwards, she offered to take me on as a shamanic apprentice. Working one-to-one suited me far better as it allowed my learning to be more flexible and spirit-led.

With Jayne, I decided, instead of delivering the Harner shamanic counselling, for my first client offering, to provide a six week introduction to shamanism inspired by the model but with a live drum and no need to speak into a mic. In the first session, I outlined the history and theory of shamanism. In the following sessions, clients undertook journeys to the Lower World to meet animal spirit guides, to the Upper World to meet a spirit teacher, to the Middle World to meet their local land spirits, then finally, underwent a basic shamanic healing at the hands of their helping spirits. I guided eight complete newcomers through the process. Discovering shamanism and meeting their spirit guides was a great gift to them and it was a pleasure and honour for me to hold the space, provide guidance and witness their progress.

Around this time and afterwards, I experimented with running shamanic journey circles, first at a local Spiritualist Church, then at a couple of local venues. Although I succeeded in running the circles, due to my autism, I found it difficult managing the needs and energies of a group (particularly co-ordinating the drumming, which really hurt my head!). After numbers fell and events were called off due to extreme weather, I realised the spirits were telling me running groups was not meant to be part of my vocation.

Stepping up into shamanic healing, which I truly felt was my soul’s calling, one of my first offerings was power animal retrieval. I learnt this at an introductory workshop with the Sacred Trust. Journeying for or with a client into the Otherworld to retrieve their power animal was a beautiful and exuberant process in which I almost felt like a celebrant as I helped reveal and seal sacred partnerships that will hopefully last for life. 

I was then called to offer soul retrieval. This was a big initiation for me. I was aware of how sensitive the process of bringing back lost soul parts who have fled or been driven away due to trauma can be. I also felt it was a part of my soul’s purpose, being a devotee of Gwyn, the Gatherer of Souls. And there were times it was intense and scary and times I was unsure whether I ‘got it right’, but, largely the journeys and soul parts made sense to the client. Again, it was a great honour to play a role in helping the lost parts to return, to blow them into the client, to witness their becoming more whole.

An important related technique I mastered was soul exchange. This involves holding space for a client and another person to exchange soul parts they have picked up from one another in a relationship and cutting unhealthy cords. I experienced this to be a simple yet profound process.

Next, I moved onto extraction. This involves removing intrusions into a client’s energy field which cause sicknesses. Previous work with my own energy system led me to seeing this was just one form of shamanic energy healing (which also involves shifting and transforming blocked and congealed energies). Thus, I offered it under that title. As I’m usually a little awkward around other people, I wasn’t sure how working closely on their energy field would feel, but once I was in shamanic trance I was fine. I found shamanic energy healing really intuitive – my hands and body knew what to do and my spirit helpers were always beside me with their help and advice. My hounds, who I’d seen more as hunters, proved to be great healers. This fit with Nodens / Nudd (Gwyn’s father) being associated with healing hounds. Having more experience, I tied in other techniques, such as power and soul retrieval with shamanic energy healings where needed. My clients reported improvements with illnesses and ailments and having more energy.

All was going well until a great interruption. Following a week of meditation, I realised being a nun, Sister Patience, and running the Monastery of Annwn were no longer my calling. I was catapulted back into being Lorna Smithers, with all her shit, which Sister Patience thought she had transcended. 

I ended up writing like mad to get to the root of it and found out what I had been trying to escape was an eating disorder which began with childhood bullying. I was carrying a great deal of shame from binge eating and drinking, which had led to restrictive dieting and excessive exercising to control my weight. I’d thought, with my monastic routine, I was ‘better’. But, although my exercise and food habits were healthier, I still had issues with restriction and body image. I identified this as my ‘core wound’ and am still working with it today. I see this as essential inner work that has come out of the apprenticeship.

Throughout my training, I have explored ancestor work, building my family tree and journeying to family ancestors with my mum and offering healing where fit.

My training in psychopomping built upon my existing experience of witnessing Gwyn guiding the souls of the dead and being guided to help in rare situations. As my apprenticeship has progressed my psychopomp work has increased and I have helped stuck souls in a variety of situations to pass. I am now offering psychopomping for free as a service to Gwyn and the dead. 

Towards the end of the apprenticeship I also trained in depossession. I learnt enough to be able to handle situations where this difficult technique is needed, but will not be offering it as a service until I have more experience.

My shamanic training has been challenging, healing, and transformative. Following the tumult with the Sacred Trust it felt safe and right and like a homecoming to be training with Jayne – for which I’m deeply grateful to her and my spirits. Working one-to-one with Jayne meant I could work at my own pace and cover the techniques in the order I was inspired to. It meant I could take time off client work to work through my personal crisis. I also had far more in depth tuition than I would have got from the Sacred Trust. Jayne is incredibly knowledgeable not only about shamanism and psychotherapy. With her, I have learnt a lot about counselling skills and how the psychological material of clients might appear in their journeys. We have also done a good deal of work with my soul parts and their needs and conflicts.

Thus, I’m also very happy to say, that following my shamanic apprenticeship, I will be continuing with more advanced training with Jayne. I’m hoping to explore the intersection of shamanism and psychotherapy and working with soul parts more deeply and to progress further with ancestral healing and psychopomping.

Another avenue that I am considering is putting my experience of an eating disorder and my special interests in nutrition and exercise to use by investigating ways of combining them with shamanic work to provide a holistic approach to healing for others who have issues with food and body image.

This is the beautiful personalised certificate that Jayne awarded to me. 

I’d like to give a huge thank you to all my volunteer clients and to those who have paid student rates for offering your time, energy and money so we can come together to do this much needed and sacred work.

I’d like to thank Jayne for being a superb teacher and for supporting me through all the ups and downs that have come my way (there have been a lot!). Also, Jason and Nicola Smalley at the Way of the Buzzard with whom I have been learning and practicing shamanism for many years and whose journey circles and coaching calls have been an invaluable source of support.

Finally, I’d like to say my biggest thank you to Vindos / Gwyn and my helping spirits. I couldn’t have done this without you. A shamanic practitioner is nothing without their Gods and spirits. 

Vindos, my patron,
my inspiration, my beloved and my truth,
tonight I dedicate my services as a shamanic practitioner
 to Your sanctuary and to You.

(1) https://www.shamanism.org/workshops/harner-shamanic-counseling/
(2) See Nicholas Breeze-Wood’s article ‘Stung By the Tale – The Exposure and Death of British Bee Shamanism’ in Sacred Hoop, 126, 2024.