SHAMANKA, Middle Piccadilly, Holwell, Sherborne (2026)

02/01/2026

🌿✨ Nature’s Connection – Weekend Workshop ✨🌿
📅 16–17 May 2026
📍 Shamanka, Dorset

Do you feel called to deepen your bond with the living world around you?
This two-day workshop is for anyone who longs to connect more deeply with the spirits of plants and trees and to discover the healing messages of nature. 🌳🌸🕊️

Through guided journeys, creative expression and hands-on activities, you’ll learn to sense and understand the unique energies present in nature, fostering a renewed sense of wellbeing and appreciation for the environment.

💫 During the Weekend You’ll:
🔸 Journey to your Elemental Gardens – earth, fire, air and water – and hear their messages
🔸 Meet “The Old Woman” in her garden to find the plant ally for your personal healing
🔸 Create your own herbal spritz for cleansing and healing
🔸 Learn the legend of the Oak King and Holly King
🔸 Journey to meet your Personal Tree and receive its message
🔸 Make a mask to connect with the trees and become one with nature
🔸 Be inspired by the land to write your own nature poem
🔸 Take a nine-step journey through the forest to resolve a current issue

We’ll drum, sing, create and share in the joy of being in nature. 🌿💚

Spaces are limited – reserve yours now: www.shamanka.com

31/12/2025

🌿✨ South American Wisdom – A One Weekend Workshop ✨🌿
📅 21–22 March 2026
📍 Shamanka, Dorset

Step into the vibrant world of the Andes and the Amazon. This special two-day workshop offers a rich introduction to the shamanic practices of Peru and Colombia, giving you practical tools and initiations you can bring into your own life and healing work. 🕊️🌈

💫 During the Weekend You’ll Explore:
🔸 The Sacred Seven Rays and what they bring into our lives
🔸 Opening the Nawi Eyes to connect more deeply with Mother Nature
🔸 Healing with voice, drum and rattle
🔸 Awakening the Elements within our portals
🔸 The art of Despacho – creating prayer bundles for harmony & balance
🔸 How to craft and use your own personal Mesa / medicine bundle with Khuyas
🔸 Programming the days of the week and their connection to the planets

🌟 You’ll also receive a Chumpi Initiation, a powerful Andean rite that strengthens and aligns your energy field.

By the end of the weekend you’ll have a hands-on understanding of Inka ways of healing and how to weave these practices into your everyday life. 🌿💚

Spaces are limited – reserve yours now: www.shamanka.com

30/12/2025

✨ A Journey Into New Beginnings – 2026 ✨ 🦋 The Way of Shamanka

Step into a deeply transformative path of healing, wisdom and empowerment.
This is your invitation to experience traditional shamanic practices and techniques that awaken your inner healer and bring balance to your life, and to those around you. 🌿

Intro Weekend
📅 21–22 February 2026

One-Year Main Training – Healing & The Shamanic Arts
Four immersive weekends to awaken your gifts:
🔑 Module 1 – Keys to Self Knowledge • 10–12 April 2026
🪽 Module 2 – Dance of the Allies • 5–7 June 2026
👁 Module 3 – Gifts of the Seer • 21–23 August 2026
📖 Module 4 – The Book of Souls • 9–11 October 2026

Advanced – Luminous Warrior
Four powerful weekends to deepen your practice:
📅 28–29 March | 9–10 May | 4–5 July | 18–20 September

Miss a weekend on the main training? You can attend the same module the following year.

Two Day Workshops:
South American Wisdom
📅 21-22 March 2026

Nature’s Connection
📅 16-17 May 2026

At Shamanka, you learn to deepen your perception to the world of living energy, dialogue with it for healing and spiritual evolution, and weave ancient shamanic traditions into modern life. This is more than training, it’s a path of the heart, profound growth and compassion. 💚

Explore more and book your place:
🌐 www.shamanka.com

30/12/2025

✨🌙 Cyclical Time 🌙✨ It’s wonderful to see so many people sharing information about the celestial events of the coming year; eclipses, lunar cycles and the turning of the Wheel of the Year.

Each of these moments marks more than a date. They open a space.
A breath.
A readiness.
An invitation.

Not in linear time — but in elemental, cyclical time.

These thresholds invite us to slow, to deepen awareness, allowing opening and connection. To listen, to honour the rhythms of the Earth and cosmos, and to give thanks for the great movements we are part of.

When we consciously engage in this exchange of reciprocity, the dance of life becomes richer, sweeter, and more meaningful with every step we take.

At Shamanka, our trainings are woven into this living rhythm — allowing time for integration, reflection, growth and deep transformation.

✨ Calendar dates for Shamanka courses next year are now available…
✨ A Journey Into New Beginnings – 2026 ✨ 🦋 The Way of Shamanka

Step into a deeply transformative path of healing, wisdom and empowerment.
This is your invitation to experience traditional shamanic practices and techniques that awaken your inner healer and bring balance to your life, and to those around you. 🌿

Intro Weekend
📅 21–22 February 2026

One-Year Main Training – Healing & The Shamanic Arts
Four immersive weekends to awaken your gifts:
🔑 Module 1 – Keys to Self Knowledge • 10–12 April 2026
🪽 Module 2 – Dance of the Allies • 5–7 June 2026
👁 Module 3 – Gifts of the Seer • 21–23 August 2026
📖 Module 4 – The Book of Souls • 9–11 October 2026

Advanced – Luminous Warrior
Four powerful weekends to deepen your practice:
📅 28–29 March | 9–10 May | 4–5 July | 18–20 September

Miss a weekend? You can attend the same module the following year.

If you feel the pull to walk more consciously with the seasons, the elements and your own inner cycles, perhaps this is the year to step onto the path.

🌿 www.shamanka.com

30/12/2025

🐾✨ Animal Guides of the British Isles ✨🐾 Long before fences, roads and cities, the British Isles were home to a rich web of wild beings. These animals were neighbours, teachers, symbols and guides, woven into folklore, myth and ancestral memory.

🐺 Wolf
Once native to Britain, Wolf is a guide of instinct, loyalty and wild intelligence. Wolf teaches the balance between independence and community, helping us trust inner knowing and reclaim parts of ourselves that may have been silenced.

🐻 Bear
Also once native to these lands, Bear carries the medicine of strength, boundaries and deep renewal. Through hibernation, Bear teaches that rest is sacred and that withdrawal can be a powerful act of healing and preparation.

🦅 Raven
One of the most potent guides in Celtic and northern traditions, Raven is a bridge between worlds. Carrying the medicine of magic, prophecy and transformation, Raven teaches us to sit with mystery, listen beneath appearances, and speak truth with power and integrity. Raven is a messenger of change and ancestral wisdom.

🦌 Deer / Stag
Sacred in Celtic lore, Deer embodies gentleness, sensitivity, majesty and sovereignty. The Stag, shedding and regrowing antlers each year, teaches cycles of death and rebirth — great strength held with grace.

🦉 Owl
Guardian of night and threshold, Owl offers clear sight beyond illusion. Owl medicine supports intuition, truth-seeing and wisdom in the dark spaces of transformation.

🐗 Wild Boar
A symbol of courage, protection and raw vitality, the Boar teaches fearless truth and the strength to meet life head-on. In Celtic myth, Boar is both protector and initiator.

🦦 Otter
Otter brings the medicine of joy, play and emotional flow, teaching us how to dive deep into feeling and resurface with lightness and delight.

These animals still walk with us —
in story, in dream, in instinct and in the land’s memory.
To work with them is not to claim ownership, but to remember relationship — with the wild, our ancestors, and the untamed parts of ourselves.

When an animal guide appears, it often asks:
What part of you is ready to be remembered? 🌿

28/12/2025

✨🔮 Divination — Listening for Wisdom in Many Forms 🍃✨ Across cultures and centuries, humans have sought ways to listen more deeply — to life, to spirit, to the quiet voice within. Divination tools are not about prediction or control; they are mirrors that help us see what already has presence and is available for attention.

🍃 Coca Leaf Readings: in Andean traditions, coca leaves are living allies. Read through prayer, breath and relationship, they offer guidance rooted in sacred reciprocity (Ayni) and connection to Pachamama, the Apus and ancestral wisdom.

🌿 Oracle Cards: modern and diverse in form, oracle decks arise from many traditions and themes. They offer intuitive, direct messages and are often guided by personal resonance rather than strict structure.

✨ Other Tools
Runes, stones, scrying bowls, shells, bones, pendulums, smoke, tarot, dreams — each culture has its own ways of listening. The tool itself is not the source of wisdom; it is the relationship formed through respect, presence, attunement and practice.

At the heart of all divination is intuition.
The hands move, the eyes see, the symbols suggest — but it is the inner listening that channels meaning. What matters most is allowing what truly resonates, what feels alive in your body and true in your heart, inner knowing.

Divination is a conversation, not a command.
A way of remembering that guidance is always available, when we pause long enough to listen. 🌙✨

Find out about courses starting in the New Year … https://www.shamanka.com

23/12/2025

We are not broken 🌿 we are shaped by life.

Like the mighty oak and the supple willow, each of us carries our own strengths, gifts and medicine. Sometimes we stand firm against the storm, other times we learn to bend. Both are wisdom.

When our branches are torn away, we have not failed.
We remain rooted — connected to the earth beneath us and to those who stand beside us. Our shape may change forever, yet still, when spring returns, we feel the sap rising. New shoots emerge. We learn again how to balance, how to inhabit our newly shaped energetic body through drought and through flood.

Life teaches us how to heal — not by avoiding storms, but by enduring them. Each tempest deepens our roots, strengthens our limbs and steadies our resolve. Over time, we come to trust what the earth already knows: seasons come and seasons go. And still, the Sun rises. Still, the Moon lifts. The great dance continues.

We are part of a living web, woven into all of existence.
As we remember our connection to this planet — to energies, creatures, rhythms — we open to moments of grace and unexpected bliss. Even in the grief of devastation. Even in the longest of personal droughts.

You are resilient.
You do not dance alone.

20/12/2025

🌬️✨ Air — Breath, Mind & the Messenger Between Worlds ✨🌬️

Air governs the intellect, communication, freedom and movement. It is the breath of life and the great messenger, carrying prayers, thoughts and intentions between worlds. Invisible yet ever-present, it is where ideas are born and understanding takes flight.

Working with Air sharpens perception, opens awareness and carries us beyond the ordinary. Through its light, etheric nature, Air offers insight, vision and the sacred voice — words spoken, songs carried, intentions lifted skyward. Through smoke, sound and breath, it moves messages between the visible and invisible, reminding us that our voice is medicine.

Air knows no borders. As the element of freedom and movement, it teaches us how to release rigidity, transcend limitation and allow consciousness to roam beyond the familiar. In the dance of wind and wing, we learn to trust life’s currents.

As the breath of spirit, Air bridges body and soul. Each inhale draws in vitality; each exhale offers release. In this living rhythm, we are renewed.

🌬️ Properties
• Intellect & Mind — thought, memory, learning, clarity and inspiration.
• Communication & Messenger — carries prayers, sound and intention.
• Freedom & Movement — expansion, exploration and transcendence.
• Spirit & Breath of Life — animating all beings.
• Divination & Vision — insight and perception beyond the physical.
• Change & Transformation — clearing stagnation and ushering renewal.

🪶 Tools & Practices
Feathers, incense, bells and drums; mindful breathing, smudging, visualising wind through the body, and working with sound vibration to clear mental fog, release blockages and connect with spirit allies.

Air reminds us that not all medicine is heavy or rooted —
some healing comes through lightness, breath and letting thoughts move on the wind. 🌬️🌿

18/12/2025

🌿✨ Earth — The Great Mother & Foundation of Life ✨🌿 element of stability, grounding, nourishment and abundance.

The Great Mother — one who holds us, feeds us, and gives form to spirit in the physical world. Earth is the foundation beneath every journey, the place where roots grow deep and wisdom is carried through bones and blood.

Earth connects us to ancestral knowledge, deep in the body, to the material world, and to the slow, steady rhythm of life itself.

• Grounding & Stability — Earth offers safety, belonging and steadiness, calming anxiety and scattered energy.
• Nourishment & Abundance — the source of fertility, sustenance and prosperity.
• Physicality & the Body — governing bones, muscles, the root chakra and the embodiment of spirit in matter.
• Protection & Security — creating strong foundations, boundaries and resilience.
• Patience & Practicality — encouraging commitment, steady effort and results that endure.

🪨 Ceremony
Earth is honoured through stones, soil, plants, roots and bones.
Rituals may include burying intentions, working with rocks or crystals, planting seeds, or resting the body directly on the ground — all ways of exchanging earth energy, weaving it into our tangible, lived reality.

Through Earth, we cultivate a deep relationship with nature, ancestry and place, remembering that we belong to this world.

⚖️ Balance
• Deficiency — feeling ungrounded, anxious, unreliable or “spacy”.
• Excess — stubbornness, heaviness, depression or over-attachment to the material.
• Balance — a strong, dependable, flexible self, rooted in purpose and reality.

🌍 Earth as Healer
Modern research mirrors ancient wisdom:
• Reduced stress & anxiety — grounding shifts the nervous system into rest and repair.
• Mood elevation — contact with soil can stimulate serotonin, supporting emotional wellbeing.
• Enhanced mindfulness — tactile contact with earth anchors awareness in the present.
• Improved gut health — soil microbes enrich the gut microbiome, our “second brain”.
• Pain relief — grounding may reduce chronic pain and muscle soreness.
• Better sleep — supporting healthy cortisol rhythms and deeper rest.

Earth reminds us that healing does not always require effort —
sometimes it simply asks us to sit, breathe, and remember, we belong. 🌿

16/12/2025

💧✨ Water — Flow, Feel & Deep Inner Wisdom ✨💧the element of emotion, intuition and the subconscious. Water carries great medicine, guiding us into our inner depths and reminding us of the great interconnectedness of all life.

Water teaches us how to feel fully without drowning, how to move with life rather than resist it, and how to soften into wisdom through its fluid, adaptable nature. 🌊

💧 Key Qualities of Water
• Emotions & Intuition — the realm of deep feeling, inner knowing and emotional truth.
• Adaptability & Flow — Water changes form without losing its essence, teaching flexibility, resilience and grace through life’s currents.
• Purification & Healing — cleansing emotional residue, soothing grief and overwhelm.
• Wisdom — ancient, quiet knowledge carried in the depths; truth that emerges when we listen inwardly.
• Feminine & Nurturing — the Yin principle, linked to the womb, compassion, receptivity and the cycles of life.
• Connection — Water bridges worlds, linking body and spirit, land and sea, self and other.

🐬 Water Creatures as Teachers
The animals of Water show us how to navigate emotion and flow:
• Dolphin — joy, breath, playfulness and emotional intelligence.
• Whale — ancestral memory, deep listening and soul wisdom.
• Fish — adaptability, instinct and moving with unseen currents.
• Otter — balance between play and depth, lightness within feeling.
• Amphibians — transformation and living between worlds.

🌊 Working with Water Energy
• Practices: mindful bathing, swimming, meditating near rivers or sea, journaling emotions, deep rest, and nourishing with soups and herbal teas.
• Balance: cultivating emotional awareness, trusting intuition, and releasing rigid control so life can move through you.

Water reminds us that softness is not weakness —
it is strength that knows how to bend.
When we honour Water, we learn to heal, to feel, and to flow back into harmony with ourselves and the world. 💧🌿

14/12/2025

🔥✨ Fire — Transformation, Purification & Prayer ✨🔥 a powerful ally to transmute, cleanse, work with passion and vital energy. The element that helps release old patterns, carry our prayers up to Spirt, and ignite our inner power. Fire holds the mystery of both destruction and rebirth — the burning away of stagnation and illusion, followed by renewal, clarity and creative life force.

In our part of the world, Fire can be linked with the East — the direction of the rising Sun. This is the place of new beginnings, motivation and cleansing, where light returns and vision awakens. 🌅

🔥 Qualities of Fire
• Transformation & Rebirth — Fire transmutes quickly, helping us release outdated beliefs, emotional patterns and ancestral wounds, opening the way for deep healing and renewal.
• Purification — It cleanses on every level, clarifying intention and restoring energetic balance.
• Energy & Passion — Fire fuels enthusiasm, courage, creativity and the drive to act.
• Illumination — It brings insight and awareness, lighting the way forward when things feel unclear.
• Carrier of Prayers — Through smoke and flame, Fire carries our intentions to the spirit world.
• Connection & Warmth — Fire draws us together, offering comfort, belonging and a focal point for ceremony, reflection and community.

🕯️ Ritual & Practice
• Fire Ceremonies — Writing intentions, prayers or symbolic items and offering them to the flames, releasing them to Spirit.
• Meditation — Gazing into a candle flame or connecting with the inner fire of the body — digestion, warmth, vitality — to awaken clarity and presence.

🌿 Balance & Duality
Like all elements, Fire asks for balance. In excess, it can show up as impatience, anger or burnout; in deficiency, as lethargy or lack of inspiration. Held with respect, Fire’s true purpose is revealed: to bring life, growth, courage and spiritual dynamism.

When we turn to the East and greet the rising Sun, we honour Fire as the force that awakens the soul and lights the path of our becoming. 🔥🌿

SHAMANKA

02/01/2026

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