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Shamanic Creativity
Free the Imagination with Rituals, Energy Work, and Spirit Journeying
Published by Destiny Books
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
Table of Contents
About The Book
• Explains how creativity--or creative energy--is a life-giving force that frees the imagination, supports innovation, and awakens unique ways of thinking and feeling that can transform your life
• Explores how to use spirit journeying and ceremony alongside experiential shamanic exercises to release creativity-blocking patterns, reprogram the subconscious, engage the “right brain,” boost imagination, and overcome anxiety and other destructive emotions
• Provides suggestions for when your creative energy is at a low tide
In this step-by-step practical guide to enhancing creative energy, Evelyn Rysdyk explains, from the shamanic perspective, how creativity--or creative energy--is a life-giving force that frees the imagination, supports innovation, and awakens unique ways of thinking and feeling that can transform your life. She explores how to use the shamanic technologies of spirit journeying and ceremony alongside experiential shamanic exercises to release creativity-blocking patterns, reprogram the subconscious, engage the “right brain,” boost imagination, overcome anxiety and destructive emotions, and become much more creative in daily life. Examining creative energy as a natural phenomenon similar to the tides, the author provides suggestions for when your creative energy is at a low tide as well as offering shamanic techniques for dealing with insecurities related to your creative pursuits and overcoming dysfunctional subconscious perceptions.
Presenting a wealth of experiential exercises, rituals, and shamanic principles, this guide gives you the keys to unlock your own creative birthright.
• Explores how to use spirit journeying and ceremony alongside experiential shamanic exercises to release creativity-blocking patterns, reprogram the subconscious, engage the “right brain,” boost imagination, and overcome anxiety and other destructive emotions
• Provides suggestions for when your creative energy is at a low tide
In this step-by-step practical guide to enhancing creative energy, Evelyn Rysdyk explains, from the shamanic perspective, how creativity--or creative energy--is a life-giving force that frees the imagination, supports innovation, and awakens unique ways of thinking and feeling that can transform your life. She explores how to use the shamanic technologies of spirit journeying and ceremony alongside experiential shamanic exercises to release creativity-blocking patterns, reprogram the subconscious, engage the “right brain,” boost imagination, overcome anxiety and destructive emotions, and become much more creative in daily life. Examining creative energy as a natural phenomenon similar to the tides, the author provides suggestions for when your creative energy is at a low tide as well as offering shamanic techniques for dealing with insecurities related to your creative pursuits and overcoming dysfunctional subconscious perceptions.
Presenting a wealth of experiential exercises, rituals, and shamanic principles, this guide gives you the keys to unlock your own creative birthright.
Excerpt
From Chapter 14. Going Beyond the Limits
Now that you have had some practice with the Lower and Upper Worlds, it is time to begin journeying into more of the numinous world. While an extension of the journeying you have already practiced, I have found that these kinds of journeys expand your perceptual map even further. In so doing, these journeys expand your minds ability to more easily process new, unique information - a critical part of the learning process. Stretching the mind’s perceptual limitations also enhances the ability to visualize and pre-test any new concepts or possible solutions to problems in your mind. In other words, you become much better at developing and refining new possibilities prior to actualizing them. This is a skill that can save time, energy and reduce materials that would have been used in prototyping ideas. . . .
Journeying is designed as a method for perceiving that which isn’t as readily available in ordinary reality. For instance, journeying is a way to experience that which is too small, too large, too distant, or too faint to perceive with ordinary senses. When we stretch beyond the reality that is currently defined by our senses, we also expand our current construct of what is “real.” In some ways, it also boosts our sense of connection as we extend our internal map to encompass the non-ordinary.
In thinking about our connections to nature, when we have had an experience of a tree’s sentience in a journey, we can no longer go back to seeing it as a thing. The “it” becomes a “who.” If we then expand that idea to our larger cosmos, to the past and to the future, we begin to perceive ourselves and integrated into a larger context of being connected through multiple temporal and spatial pathways. We understand in a visceral way that we can never truly be solitary or alone. This feeling of being integrated into the infinite web of existence changes how we are able to be in our world. With such a perspective, we are more likely to be courageous about sharing our ideas and talents. We are more likely to extend ourselves by stepping into new adventures. We are also much more likely to be willing collaborators with others for achieving those things that serve our community and our environment.
These forays beyond the usual shamanic landscape can be of many different kinds. For instance, you might choose a journey experience of a time in the distant past to witness something you only read about. Choosing to voyage into a potential future that is not yet fixed or predetermined but based on current choices might be an exciting choice. Journeying to the furthest galaxy or into other dimensions of reality is also possible. Frankly, with the companionship of your power animal and teacher, you can “boldly go” where you have never been before! For these “beyond the map” journeys, it is equally important to merge with your power animal! This will allow you to have deeper experiences while also knowing that you are both safe, and able to more easily return to ordinary reality.
As you journey into truly unknown territory, you will find that you are also having experiences that not only stretch your mind’s perceptions but also teach your body that you are not limited by ordinary time-space. Your physical body holds memories that can limit your creativity. They might be memories of loss, of failure, or some other restrictive belief. When you allow it to make new, extraordinary memories, it has a way of displacing what no longer serves you. This is especially important as you age or if you have a physical challenge. To be able to experience true wonder and joy and to explore that which felt “impossible” is liberating! In that liberation, you unleash more of your vitality and that can easily translate into having more “creative juice!”
The journeys that follow will take you through a series of these “off the map” experiences. As you have done with other exercises in this book, take time to familiarize yourself with the directions before you embark, merge with your power animal and always return at the call back. The return to ordinary reality is where the real benefits of the journeys will be experienced. The effect will be that you will be able to “Be here, now” with more energy and vitality! You may find that the snack and water help you to ground yourself more fully.
As I’ve stated before, if you feel vague or ungrounded after any of the journeys in this book, go outdoors and feel the breeze touching your face. Then focus on your feet and allow yourself to really feel that you are standing on the body of Mother Earth. Notice any trees, plants, animals or birds that may be around you. Take deep full breaths and feel the gift of being alive in this moment in time-space!
Journeying into the Past
In this section, you’ll be taking journeys into the past to have experiences that can inform your present. Whenever we undertake any journey, we can be transformed by the experience and by the information we receive. When we go into the past, we can learn from those who contributed to us being alive.
Cruising to the Primordial Sea
For this exercise, you will need:
• A comfortable place to sit, lie down, or move safely
• Your sketch/notebook and a pen
• A clear question you have written down in your sketch/notebook
• A blindfold or bandana for covering your eyes*
• A way to listen to your shamanic journey rhythm recording
• A small, post-journey snack and water
*If you are more comfortable standing or moving, you may do so to help you feel more inspirited both prior to and during the journey. Make sure you will be safe if you move around. Lift your blindfold slightly onto your brow so that you can partially see your environment.
Making the Journey
1. Begin your journey in your special place in Middle World.
2. Call your power animal to you.
3. Great her or him and state your intent, “Take me back to the Primordial Sea that incubated the first life on earth.”
4. Merge with your power animal to guide you through time.
5. Once you arrive at the Primordial Sea, ask your power animal to show you the life forms that flourished there.
6. Meet a lifeform you are curious about. Get to know this new ally!
7. This being may communicate with you. You may also connect through metaphor or symbols. They may even take you on a journey within a journey. Whatever it is, just allow the process to unfold before you. If something doesn’t seem to make sense, ask for clarification until you understand.
8. When you hear the drumming change to the callback signal, thank the lifeform, and retrace your steps to pass back through the boundary into Middle World, and return fully to your starting place and ordinary reality.
9. When the callback is finished, take a deep breath and thank your power animal for this new experience. Open your eyes.
10. While drinking your water, think about how you and all life on Earth depends upon the waters of the world.
Take time to internalize and process what you experienced. Write down all of your thoughts and feelings about the experience this journey provided.
Process Questions
What was it like to witness the earliest lifeforms?
What did you learn from observing them?
How do you think that meeting them will change your way of living?
How did your visit change how you perceive the “little things” you meet in your life?
If your first visit left you wanting to learn more, make a list of potential questions you may want to ask in your sketch/notebook.
Additional Journey Experiences into the Past
• Journey to meet the first tiny mammal that is the ancestor of all mammals–including human beings.
• Journey to meet and thank humankind’s mitochondrial mother.
• Journey to visit your ancestral landscape 10,000 years ago.
• Journey to meet an ancestral spirit of a landscape feature near your home.
Now that you have had some practice with the Lower and Upper Worlds, it is time to begin journeying into more of the numinous world. While an extension of the journeying you have already practiced, I have found that these kinds of journeys expand your perceptual map even further. In so doing, these journeys expand your minds ability to more easily process new, unique information - a critical part of the learning process. Stretching the mind’s perceptual limitations also enhances the ability to visualize and pre-test any new concepts or possible solutions to problems in your mind. In other words, you become much better at developing and refining new possibilities prior to actualizing them. This is a skill that can save time, energy and reduce materials that would have been used in prototyping ideas. . . .
Journeying is designed as a method for perceiving that which isn’t as readily available in ordinary reality. For instance, journeying is a way to experience that which is too small, too large, too distant, or too faint to perceive with ordinary senses. When we stretch beyond the reality that is currently defined by our senses, we also expand our current construct of what is “real.” In some ways, it also boosts our sense of connection as we extend our internal map to encompass the non-ordinary.
In thinking about our connections to nature, when we have had an experience of a tree’s sentience in a journey, we can no longer go back to seeing it as a thing. The “it” becomes a “who.” If we then expand that idea to our larger cosmos, to the past and to the future, we begin to perceive ourselves and integrated into a larger context of being connected through multiple temporal and spatial pathways. We understand in a visceral way that we can never truly be solitary or alone. This feeling of being integrated into the infinite web of existence changes how we are able to be in our world. With such a perspective, we are more likely to be courageous about sharing our ideas and talents. We are more likely to extend ourselves by stepping into new adventures. We are also much more likely to be willing collaborators with others for achieving those things that serve our community and our environment.
These forays beyond the usual shamanic landscape can be of many different kinds. For instance, you might choose a journey experience of a time in the distant past to witness something you only read about. Choosing to voyage into a potential future that is not yet fixed or predetermined but based on current choices might be an exciting choice. Journeying to the furthest galaxy or into other dimensions of reality is also possible. Frankly, with the companionship of your power animal and teacher, you can “boldly go” where you have never been before! For these “beyond the map” journeys, it is equally important to merge with your power animal! This will allow you to have deeper experiences while also knowing that you are both safe, and able to more easily return to ordinary reality.
As you journey into truly unknown territory, you will find that you are also having experiences that not only stretch your mind’s perceptions but also teach your body that you are not limited by ordinary time-space. Your physical body holds memories that can limit your creativity. They might be memories of loss, of failure, or some other restrictive belief. When you allow it to make new, extraordinary memories, it has a way of displacing what no longer serves you. This is especially important as you age or if you have a physical challenge. To be able to experience true wonder and joy and to explore that which felt “impossible” is liberating! In that liberation, you unleash more of your vitality and that can easily translate into having more “creative juice!”
The journeys that follow will take you through a series of these “off the map” experiences. As you have done with other exercises in this book, take time to familiarize yourself with the directions before you embark, merge with your power animal and always return at the call back. The return to ordinary reality is where the real benefits of the journeys will be experienced. The effect will be that you will be able to “Be here, now” with more energy and vitality! You may find that the snack and water help you to ground yourself more fully.
As I’ve stated before, if you feel vague or ungrounded after any of the journeys in this book, go outdoors and feel the breeze touching your face. Then focus on your feet and allow yourself to really feel that you are standing on the body of Mother Earth. Notice any trees, plants, animals or birds that may be around you. Take deep full breaths and feel the gift of being alive in this moment in time-space!
Journeying into the Past
In this section, you’ll be taking journeys into the past to have experiences that can inform your present. Whenever we undertake any journey, we can be transformed by the experience and by the information we receive. When we go into the past, we can learn from those who contributed to us being alive.
Cruising to the Primordial Sea
For this exercise, you will need:
• A comfortable place to sit, lie down, or move safely
• Your sketch/notebook and a pen
• A clear question you have written down in your sketch/notebook
• A blindfold or bandana for covering your eyes*
• A way to listen to your shamanic journey rhythm recording
• A small, post-journey snack and water
*If you are more comfortable standing or moving, you may do so to help you feel more inspirited both prior to and during the journey. Make sure you will be safe if you move around. Lift your blindfold slightly onto your brow so that you can partially see your environment.
Making the Journey
1. Begin your journey in your special place in Middle World.
2. Call your power animal to you.
3. Great her or him and state your intent, “Take me back to the Primordial Sea that incubated the first life on earth.”
4. Merge with your power animal to guide you through time.
5. Once you arrive at the Primordial Sea, ask your power animal to show you the life forms that flourished there.
6. Meet a lifeform you are curious about. Get to know this new ally!
7. This being may communicate with you. You may also connect through metaphor or symbols. They may even take you on a journey within a journey. Whatever it is, just allow the process to unfold before you. If something doesn’t seem to make sense, ask for clarification until you understand.
8. When you hear the drumming change to the callback signal, thank the lifeform, and retrace your steps to pass back through the boundary into Middle World, and return fully to your starting place and ordinary reality.
9. When the callback is finished, take a deep breath and thank your power animal for this new experience. Open your eyes.
10. While drinking your water, think about how you and all life on Earth depends upon the waters of the world.
Take time to internalize and process what you experienced. Write down all of your thoughts and feelings about the experience this journey provided.
Process Questions
What was it like to witness the earliest lifeforms?
What did you learn from observing them?
How do you think that meeting them will change your way of living?
How did your visit change how you perceive the “little things” you meet in your life?
If your first visit left you wanting to learn more, make a list of potential questions you may want to ask in your sketch/notebook.
Additional Journey Experiences into the Past
• Journey to meet the first tiny mammal that is the ancestor of all mammals–including human beings.
• Journey to meet and thank humankind’s mitochondrial mother.
• Journey to visit your ancestral landscape 10,000 years ago.
• Journey to meet an ancestral spirit of a landscape feature near your home.
Product Details
- Publisher: Destiny Books (December 21, 2021)
- Length: 256 pages
- ISBN13: 9781644113554
Raves and Reviews
“This book is a wonderful read and a deeply empowering way to heal our stolen creativity, and bring us back home to ourselves. Unlocking and repairing our creativity is essential work, and Evelyn puts the key to this locked, vital passion right in the palm of our hand with this book. This book is about discovering the seed of our birth right again, and about helping that seed grow into a strong and mighty tree, full of beauty.”
– Nicholas Breeze Wood, editor of Sacred Hoop Magazine
“Art is a process that brings nature back to people, and shamanism is a process that brings people back to nature. This soul-nurturing awareness is elegantly illumined throughout the pages of Evelyn C. Rysdyk’s latest book, Shamanic Creativity, where visionary inspiration, symbolic meaning, and archetypal wisdom are given earth-beautifying ceremonial expression as spirit medicine for healing the ills of our postmodern world. Highly recommended!”
– don Oscar Miro-Quesada, coauthor of Lessons in Courage
“Evelyn Rysdyk is a brilliant shamanic teacher who has helped to pioneer shamanic teachings in our time. She knows how to take some of the deeper ancient cross-cultural mysteries and share them with a modern Western culture. Evelyn performed her ‘magic’ again with Shamanic Creativity. This practical guide contains the support, inspiration, clear communication, and shamanic guidance you need to tap into the deepest level of your creativity. This is such a timely book as we all need to own our destiny to create our highest dreams.”
– Sandra Ingerman, MA, author of Walking in Light and coauthor of Speaking with Nature
“Kudos to Evelyn Rysdyk’s new book Shamanic Creativity. This overdue and inspiring book offers in simple language the tools to free old energy blocks, patterns, and ways of thinking to manifest a creative and fulfilling life beyond your expectations. Read it and follow the rituals, energy work, and spirit journeys. It’s a must, not just for those who practice shamanism but for anyone who wishes to rediscover and ignite their birthright’s life passion.”
– Itzhak Beery, author of The Gift of Shamanism, Shamanic Transformations, and Shamanic Healing
“In this moment when we dearly need to access the full range of our wildhearted creativity, Evelyn Rysdyk offers us a way to do just that. Shamanic Creativity is not just for those who identify as ‘creatives’ but for all of us to discover how we unleash our creative superpower. We are creating the path as we walk it, and we need to course correct. Evelyn offers direct, accessible practices to awaken our slumbering creative potential to be that course correction now, to offer unique new solutions, ingenious risks, and heartfelt weaving of it all together. With the shamanic practices offered and the hope Evelyn inspires, we might just innovate our way into a future that supports the insanely, improbable, fragile, beautiful reality of life on Earth.”
– Christina Lee Pratt, founder of Last Mask Center
“As a teacher of sacred art I often tell my students that our own life is the greatest piece of art we ever make! We are all part of creation, and it is through our own creations (in the widest possible sense of the word) that we express the innate and divine force within us. Creativity unlocks, heals, and supports wholeness. Evelyn Rysdyk’s new book presents a map and ‘creative cardinal rules.’ Ultimately, she tells us how to transcend conflict and contradiction, view those as fertile ground for new insights and projects, and, in her own words, arrive at homospatial thinking. Treat yourself and get started today!”
– Imelda Almqvist, author of Sacred Art and Medicine of the Imagination
“The ideas and suggestions offered in Shamanic Creativity are interesting, inspirational, and supportive for anyone wanting to connect with the creative forces of the universe as well as their own. Evelyn Rysdyk is the epitome of shamanic creativity and a great guide.”
– Mama Donna Henes, urban shaman and author of Bless This House
“Once again Evelyn Rysdyk shares her deep understanding of shamanic practice coupled with her lifelong experience as a creative artist. You can trust her, as both shaman and artist, to guide your own creative energies into life patterns that will bring greater harmony and empowerment to your everyday life. It will be a joyous journey!”
– Tom Cowan, author of Fire in the Head and Yearning for the Wind
“Creative energy is our birthright. It is life itself speaking through us. In Shamanic Creativity, acclaimed author and experienced guide Evelyn C. Rysdyk teaches us how to connect with this limitless vitality, removing the blockages and allowing it to flow unimpeded.”
– Hillary S. Webb, Ph.D., author of Yanantin and Masintin in the Andean World
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