Ethical Shamanic Practice: The Three Core Principles of Working with the Spirit World

Ethical Shamanic Practice: The Three Core Principles of Working with the Spirit World

Ethical Shamanic practice is built on relationship — not technique. And like any healthy relationship, it requires certain qualities to thrive. Over years of practice and teaching, I've distilled these qualities into three core principles I call the Three C's: Context, Consent, and Collaboration. These aren't rules imposed from outside. They are the natural expression of genuine, respectful relationship with the living world — with the land, the spirit realm, and all the beings we work alongside in Shamanic practice.

My Introduction to Context, Consent and Collaboration in Shamanic Practice

When I was in second grade, my school went on a trip to the high desert in central Oregon. At that point in my life, visiting a different bioregion was a huge revelation to me. I was accustomed to the towering firs, waterfalls and cascading moss of the pacific northwest rainforest. Encountering such a distinct environment with a completely different architecture of climate, geology, and inhabitants opened my eyes to new awe for the genius of nature. As we learned about life in the desert, I felt the tremendous importance of understanding the constellation of beings, elements and land, and how they all work together in a way that is specific and ideal to that particular place.

That moment planted the seeds of what would later become the three principles I now teach as the foundation of all Shamanic practice: Context, Consent and Collaboration. For the first time, I clearly realized the significance of this dynamic in nature. Later in my teenage years, these ideas took on more structure and definition as I began my Shamanic study and learned practices from my teachers about how to make offerings and communicate with land and nature spirits, and bring these principles into Shamanic healing sessions.

Let’s explore the Three C’s of Shamanic practice and how they can help you deepen your relationship with nature and the spirit realm.

Context: Know Where You Are

Context is the first and most foundational C. In Shamanic practice, context means understanding the existing architecture of wherever you are. What land are you on? Who are the indigenous peoples or original stewards of this place? What are the common plants, animals, and salient geological features? What is the history of this land — its transformation, its grief, its gifts? Who are the spirit guides who work with these frequencies and come from this place?

Context also encompasses the cultural lineage you are working within. Are you drawing on a specific tradition? A specific teacher? A specific geography? The more clearly you understand your context — both the land context and the lineage context — the more effectively and respectfully you can work.

Practically, this means: wherever you are, take time to learn about the place. Research the bioregion. Learn the plants and animals, and their relationships with each other. Research the history. Acknowledge the peoples who have stewarded this land before you. This is not only ethically important — it also makes your practice more powerful, because you are working in alignment with the actual living intelligence and existing architecture of the place rather than imposing something onto it. This is foundational to a practice of ethical Shamanism — there is no true relationship without understanding.

Consent: Ask Before You Act

Asking for and receiving consent to harvest Chanterelle mushrooms.

Earth is a free will planet. This is one of the fundamental principles of Shamanic cosmology. Nothing can be compelled. Nothing should be compelled. Everything we do in relationship with the spirit world, with land and nature spirits, with the beings we work alongside — all of it happens in the context of consent. In an animistic worldview, consent isn’t just a courtesy — it's a recognition that everything around us is genuinely alive and sovereign.

This means asking before you take anything from nature — a mushroom, a branch, a stone, a handful of herbs. It means asking the land or the space before you do ceremony, Shamanic healing work, or any kind of energetic practice. It means listening for the response, which may come as a felt sense of openness or resistance, as a sound, as an image, as a physical sensation or physical messenger. The principle of asking and attuning before acting is at the heart of what I mean by ethical Shamanism.

What does it feel like when consent isn’t present? I clearly remember an experience several years ago where I was walking through the forest, looking for a space to do some Qigong and Shamanic ritual practice. I came across a spot that visually looked beautiful and appealing. When I opened my senses to ask if I was welcome to practice there, I felt incredibly uneasy. All of a sudden, the birds all went quiet, and I felt prickling on the back of my neck. I acknowledged the refusal and kept walking. As soon as I left the space, the birds resumed singing and the sensation faded. I kept walking until I came across another space that answered my request with warmth, welcome and a feather on the ground.

Collaboration: You Are Never Alone

The third C is perhaps the most liberating: you are never doing this alone. Shamanic practice is always collaborative. You are working alongside your spirit guides, your lineage teachers, the land spirits of wherever you are, the medicine spirits of the plants and elements, your own higher self. All of these are available to you as partners, allies and collaborators.

The shift from ‘I am doing this’ to ‘we are doing this together’ is transformative. When you’re holding space for someone in a Shamanic healing session or ritual, you don’t need to carry it all yourself. When you’re navigating something difficult in your own life, you don’t need to navigate it alone. When you’re facilitating a group or a retreat, you can invite the land itself to hold the container with you.

Collaboration requires the skill of asking, the willingness to receive and the reciprocal flow of energy through offering back. All of these are practices, and like all practices, they deepen with time, attention and devotion.

Putting the Three C’s Into Practice

As you are building your own Shamanic practice, here is a simple way to bring all three C’s into any Shamanic work or ceremony.

1. Before you begin, take a moment to orient to Context: where am I? What is the living architecture of this place? What do I need to understand about these beings and this environment?

2. Then move to Consent: I am asking permission to be here in this way. I am listening for the response and waiting for a full yes.

3. Finally, open to Collaboration: I am not doing this alone. I am working with my guides, with the land spirits, with all the beings who choose to support this work for the highest and greatest good. May my practice be a devotional gift of reciprocal generosity.

This three-part orientation takes only a few minutes and it fundamentally changes the quality of everything you do. It moves you from performing a technique to being in genuine relationship. That difference is everything.

Ready to Deepen Your Shamanic Practice?

The Three C's — Context, Consent and Collaboration — are woven through everything I teach, from individual healing sessions to long-term mentorship to the Foundations of Shamanism course. They're not just principles to read about. They're skills that develop through practice, guidance and genuine relationship with the living world.

If you're ready to build an ethical Shamanic practice rooted in integrity, here's where to go next:

→ Foundations of Shamanism — my 11-week live online course covering the essential skills of ethical, grounded Shamanic practice.

→ Shamanic Mentorship — 1:1 support for your unique path of healing and awakening.

→ Shamanic Healing — powerful sessions for deep personal healing work.

Not ready to commit yet? Start with my free guide, Activate Your Shamanic Gifts, and begin building your own relationship with the living world.

Land and Nature Spirits: What They Are and How to Work With Them

Land and Nature Spirits: What They Are and How to Work With Them

Working with land and nature spirits in Shamanic practice are among the oldest and most fundamental spiritual relationships. In animistic traditions worldwide, the natural world is understood to be alive — not just biologically, but spiritually. Every tree, stone, watershed and animal carries both a physical and an etheric presence, available to us as ally, teacher and guide. I've been in relationship with land and nature spirits since childhood, long before I had words for what I was experiencing.

How I First Encountered Land and Nature Spirits

When I was growing up, my favorite tree was a massive Big-Leaf Maple along a hiking trail in the forest near my house. I met this tree for the first time on a class field trip hike when I was 8 or 9, and then returned regularly to hike with my family. Every time I passed, I would stop to say hello to the tree, give it a hug, and stand in awe at its towering elegance.

Later, as a teenager developing my Shamanic practice, I started to make offerings to the tree. I would bring little crystals, share some water, and offer a prayer of gratitude. The energy of this tree was so grounded, calm and expansive, and I immediately felt a sense of peace and connection whenever I visited. As I continued my study of Shamanism and learned more about land and nature spirits, I came to understand that this special being was a Guardian Tree of the local ecosystem – a powerful nature spirit who helps to anchor and protect the etheric grid of the area.

Since then, I have had the honor of meeting and working with many other Guardian Trees. The land where I live now is home to a massive Hemlock who serves as a temple keeper of this area. She has anchored the prayers, ceremonies and offerings of me, my partner, and countless students and clients.

In Shamanic practice, we don’t work alone. We are always working in relationship — with the Earth, with the beings who inhabit her, and with the animating forces that move through the physical and non-physical world alike. Land and nature spirits are at the heart of this relationship. They are among our most important allies, our most consistent teachers, and often our most overlooked resources. (Read also: What Is Animism? The Ancient Worldview at the Root of Shamanism.)

What Are Land and Nature Spirits?

Land and nature spirits are the individual and collective animating forces that correspond to animals, plants, stones, elements, and geological features. They have both an embodied and an etheric dimension. The Hemlock tree in my yard has a physical body, and also a spiritual body, a consciousness, a medicine.

Some land and nature spirits have a physical presence on Earth right now. Some exist primarily in the etheric realm or in myth. Dragons are very real — just not presently embodied in the way a sparrow or a cedar tree is. Unicorns, pegasi, and griffins exist in different traditions and in the collective mythological consciousness of humanity, even without physical form.

The I, the We, and the All

When working with land and nature spirits in Shamanism, I find it helpful to think in three layers. Take the Guardian Hemlock tree on the land where I live. She is the I — one individual Hemlock with her own personality, her own medicine, her own energetic signature. She is also part of the We — the Hemlock tribe, the forest community, all connected through root systems, chemical signaling, and the mycorrhizal network. And she is part of the All — the tree nation, the Standing Nation, the collective consciousness of all trees everywhere.

When you begin working with a particular coyote who visits your yard — playful, tricky, laughing at you — you’re meeting the I. When you encounter coyote as a collective frequency, as a medicine, as an archetype of the trickster, you’re meeting the We or the All. Both are real. Both are available to you.

Why These Relationships Matter

Imagine holding space for a Shamanic healing session, a retreat, or even a difficult conversation. If your personal energy field is carrying the entire weight of that container, it’s exhausting. But when you’re working in collaboration with the land spirits of where you are — the guardian trees, the local watershed, the particular mountains and stones — you’re not doing it alone. The land itself becomes a co-facilitator. It helps ground the container, process and compost released energy, and hold the field with stability and care.

Land spirits are particularly excellent co-facilitators for grounding and stabilizing a container, protection and clearing, composting released energy, and ensuring your Shamanic work moves in alignment with the existing flow of the place.

Start Local

One of the most important principles in building relationships with land and nature spirits is this: start with where you are. Not the most glamorous tradition or sacred sites you’ve read about. Not the most powerful-sounding beings from somewhere far away. The land where you currently live.

Your animal body is literally made of the land where you live — the water you drink, the air you breathe, the foods grown in local soil. Your body is attuned to the frequencies, the medicine, the particular climate and mineral composition of your place. Some of your most powerful, supportive, and intimate relationships will be with your local land and nature spirits, because that is home.

I often assign my Shamanic mentorship clients the following daily practice, which I also recommend to you: Go outside every day and visit the same tree, rock, water feature or plant (even a humble dandelion growing through a crack in the sidewalk). Make an offering, then wait and notice what you notice. Over time, you will begin to develop a deeper relationship with that being.

How to Begin

You don’t need a formal ceremony or specialized training to begin building relationships with the land and nature spirits where you live. You need presence, attention, and respect. Start by going outside without an agenda. Walk. Notice what draws your attention. Which tree do you keep walking past but never stop for? Which bird keeps showing up? Begin there. The animals that appear repeatedly — what Shamanic practitioners often call power animals — are frequently nature spirit relationships trying to make themselves known. Ask before you take anything from nature. Learn the names — both common and scientific — of the plants and animals where you live. Research who lived on this land before you. The more you know about the context of where you are, the richer your relationships with its spirits will become.

Ready to Go Deeper with Land and Nature Spirits?

Working with land and nature spirits is one of the most grounding and transformative skills you can develop as a Shamanic practitioner — and it's a central thread woven throughout the entire Foundations of Shamanism course.

Not ready for the full course yet? Start with my free guide, Activate Your Shamanic Gifts (below) — a beautiful first step into your own Shamanic practice.

And if you're looking for personal support navigating your relationship with the spirit world, Shamanic Mentorship may be exactly what you need.

What Is Animism? The Ancient Worldview at the Root of Shamanism

What Is Animism? The Ancient Worldview at the Root of Shamanism

As a kid, I always loved animals, nature and magic. All of my favorite books featured talking animals, young people learning to live harmoniously with nature, and discovering magical powers from that connection. When I read stories about sorceresses healing people with magic, I started practicing "healing spells" on my diabetic dog. I talked with the trees and listened intently to their replies. I learned the personalities of the stones in my backyard.

I didn’t have the words for it at the time, but I later discovered that my childhood worldview was not just my imagination or wishful thinking, but was instead an ancient and fundamental philosophy common to people all over the Earth for thousands of years. And this worldview is known as animism. It is a worldview older than any religion, deeper than any tradition, and more intrinsic than most people realize.

Before there were temples, before there were texts, before there were organized religions, there was animism: the belief that everything is alive. That the tree outside your window has presence. That water has memory and the rivers sing songs of what they have seen. That the mountain watches. This is not mythology. This is the original worldview of people everywhere on Earth, and it is the foundation upon which all Shamanic practice stands.

What Is Animism, Exactly?

Animism is the belief that all things are alive and that all things are connected through a shared web of consciousness. The word itself comes from the Latin anima — the immaterial force that animates form. In animistic understanding, that animating force is not confined to living creatures as science defines them. Stones have anima. Mountains have anima. The elements — fire, water, air, earth — have anima. Nothing is truly inert.

You Already Know This

Most of us have already experienced animism, even if we didn’t have the word for it or consciously recognize it at the time. If you’ve ever felt someone’s energy or a presence leave their body at the moment of death, you have felt anima. There is a visceral, unmistakable difference between a body with life in it and a body without. That difference is anima.

If you grew up loving folk tales where animals could speak and trees had personalities and the forest was a living, breathing character, you were responding to animistic storytelling, the oldest form of human story. That sense of everything being alive, everything mattering, everything in relationship — that is animism, and it is your birthright.

Animism Is the Original Human Worldview

Anthropologists have documented some version of animistic belief in every human culture that has ever existed. It is not a tradition that belongs to any one people or any one part of the world. It is the baseline orientation of human beings on Earth. The concept of deities (such as the queen of the ocean, the god of the storm, the spirit of the forest) arose from animism. Before gods were personified, they were forces. Forces of nature. Forces of life. That recognition of aliveness in all things is where religion began.

Non-animistic worldviews are extremely recent in human history. A few thousand years may feel like a long time, but on the scale of human existence on Earth, it is a small blip. The majority of human experience, as seen in the cave paintings, the harvest rituals, the medicine songs, the offerings left at rivers and trees and stones — all of it was animistic.

How Animism Relates to Shamanic Practice

Shamanism is an animistic practice. You cannot separate the two. Shamanic practice is built on the recognition that all things are alive and in relationship with each other, and that we, as humans, have both the capacity and the responsibility to be in conscious, respectful, collaborative relationship with the living world around us.

This is why Shamanic practice involves working with land and nature spirits, communicating with the spirit realm, and developing a personal relationship with the specific plants, animals, elements, and beings of the land where you live. Because if everything is alive, then everything is available as teacher, healer, guide, and ally.

Why Animism Matters Now

We live in a world of profound disconnection — from nature, from community, from our own bodies. Many people feel a deep, unnamed homesickness, like a longing they can’t quite locate or name. Animism offers a frame for understanding that longing: it is the longing to return to relationship. To belong again to the living world. To stop being a witness to nature and become a participant in it.

Shamanic practice is one path back. Not as a regression to some idealized past, but as a reclamation of something ancient and fundamental that has always been available to us. You belong to Life, and Life loves you. And the web of aliveness that animism describes has always been there, waiting for you to remember it.

Beginning Your Animistic Practice

You don’t need a ceremony, a teacher, or a lineage to begin developing an animistic relationship with the world around you. You need attention. The simplest practice is this: go outside. Leave your headphones at home. Walk without a destination. Notice what you notice. A bird that holds your gaze. A tree your hand moves toward. A stone that catches the light in a particular way. These are invitations. This is animism beginning to come alive for you.

Ready to go deeper? Download my free guide, Activate Your Shamanic Gifts (below), to begin exploring your own connection to the living world. Or if you’re ready to commit to a structured path of practice, learn more about the Foundations of Shamanism course here.

Why do I practice Shamanism?

Why do I practice Shamanism?

(And why you may want to, if you are called to it.)

I don’t practice Shamanism for my clients. I practice it first and foremost for Life.

I practice Shamanism because I love Life. By that I don’t only mean my life specifically, I mean capital-L Life itself. I love that Life exists.

I love that consciousness has manifested in the incarnate. I love that so many different bioforms have evolved over millennia to cooperate and live in concert with each other. I love that plants eat sunlight and trees sing to each other through the mycelial network. I love that elephant matriarchs remember for decades where to find water and pass this knowledge down to their daughters and granddaughters. I love the song of the red-winged blackbird. I love that hawthorn thorns eventually grow into branches, and what starts out as sharp and protective evolves into a flowering wand that bears abundant fruit.

I love that Life exists, and I am so grateful that I get to be a part of it.

I practice Shamanism to be awake in my life, to celebrate Life and to collaborate with this grand symphony of aliveness all around me every day.

I practice Shamanism as a student and steward of Life. I study the cycles. I study the darkness, hibernation and death. I study decay, rotting logs, and bones left after a cougar kill and scavenging coyotes. I study the explosion of budding flowers, eagles flirting, squirrels fortifying their nests. I study the rise and fall of the river. I study the movement of the stars and the planets, and the pattern of wheeling vultures.

I study Life so that I may collaborate with it, move in alignment with the flow of creation and be a harmonious contribution to something so, so much bigger than me: Spirit. The Great Unknowable. Thou. Life.

By studying Life, we learn its flow and rhythm. We learn what expands and supports and generates Life, and what contracts or restricts it. We learn to feel and collaborate with this flow of Life in our bodies, our health, our relationships, our daily experience. Healing and growth is the study and practice of Life-generating worldview and behaviors, and of course that offers a huge personal benefit to us.

But that’s only a tiny fraction of the whole. And the longer I practice Shamanism (now over 20 years), the more I feel absolutely certain that it’s not about us and our personal experience at all.

Something beautiful comes from de-centering the self. This inherently goes against all of the conditioning and foundation of modern, western culture (especially in the US) which is based on individualism and, to be brutally honest, this weird fetishization of selfishness. My rights. Look out for #1. Selfies. If it’s not on social media, it didn’t happen. Endless navel-gazing and pathologizing and self-diagnosing and therapizing and making it all about me, me, me.

How lonely. How small. How inherently blind.

But what happens when we de-center ourselves? What happens when we truly embrace that if I am sovereign, it means that all beings are sovereign? What happens when we remember that if I am a unique and special expression of consciousness, it means that all beings are unique and special expressions of consciousness? What happens when we believe that if I am devoted to cultivating life in myself, it means I am devoted to cultivating life for all beings? What happens when we make our Earthwalk into a prayer of gratitude and generosity to Life?

How connected we become. How expansive. How loving.

De-centering the Self helps us remember that consciousness is living itself through us. Life is living through us, just as it is living through all things. It helps us to take responsibility for what we are personally accountable for and to surrender burdens that do not belong to us. It helps us to be generous. It helps us to remember that we belong. You belong to Life, and Life loves you.

I practice Shamanism because I love Life, and I love that I get to be a part of Life, but even more than that, I want Life to thrive. I want so deeply with every part of my being to devote every day to honoring and advocating for the sovereignty of all beings. I am so excited to live in this world and cultivate relationships with forms of Life–people, plants, animals, mountains, elements–so that I can know Spirit in as many ways as possible. I practice Shamanism because I know truly that by devoting myself to Life, and collaborating with Life, and studying Life, it benefits me, and everyone around me, and all beings on Earth, and the Earth herself.

I practice Shamanism because it is the best way I know how to love myself, and you, and Thou, Life.

I cannot give you your why. I cannot make you fall in love with Life. I cannot give you the key that will make you excited to wake up every day and participate in this gorgeous symphony. That is for you to discover, if you haven’t already.

But I can help you learn how to listen. I can teach you Shamanic practices. I can guide you through Shamanic journeys, mediumship cultivation and help you connect with the spirits. I can give you the best tools that I know of to study Life, to awaken to your animistic consciousness and mediumistic gifts, to honor the spirits, to connect with something bigger than yourself.

Are you called to Shamanism?

Have you experienced a Shamanic awakening, but aren’t sure where or how to begin developing your practice?

Do you already have a Shamanic practice but are looking for deeper support, personal mentorship or healing work?

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