The Shamanic Roots of the Way of the Circle Centre:
Since 1996, we have offered a variety of basic & advanced shamanic workshops and trainings, nature adventures, and healing retreats, as “Shamanism Canada”, and later the “Canadian Centre for Shamanic Studies”. We’ve hosted experiences with medicine people, peace-makers, and wisdom-keepers from Finland, South Africa, Peru, Tibet, and more.
Shamanic practice is a valued element of our centre’s roots – and in 2018 we embraced the opportunity to evolve our expression in a way that would help our language to become even more universal and limitless. We are based in Canada, where colonization continues to affect the First Nations people who are the rightful stewards of this land, whose power, language, traditions and spiritual practices were taken away in living memory. We don’t wish to perpetuate old systems of oppression or appropriate the culture or practices of First Nations communities – and the umbrella use of the Tungusic Siberian word ‘Shaman’ was defined by colonizers.
The language and methodology we share is that of the Way of the Circle, a strong and flexible framework for collective leadership that inspired our updated name, the Way of the Circle Centre. Connecting with nature, the heart, and the circle at our Heart Wisdom Healing Retreats, within this framework we continue to:
Our circle community is comprised of a diverse group of heart-centered individuals from a variety of cultural and spiritual backgrounds, including some First Nations members. Through our collective leadership practice, circle members are welcome to share their authentic personal practices with the group.
Many Westerners also lost our ancestral heart-centered, nature-based, circle practices. This is a story many of us carry in our bloodlines rather than in recent memory like the First Nations people. From the ancient Mediterranean world, to the Norse, Irish & Scottish, Polynesian, Mayan and Aztec peoples, and others, we all have traditions and forms of connection that have been lost to colonization. If you feel a strong calling to reclaim your heart-centered, nature-based spiritual practices, but don’t know where to begin, our circle programming may be for you.
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