C. Michael Smith (Mikkal) is author of Jung and Shamanism in Dialogue; Psychotherapy and the Sacred, and the forthcoming, The Archetypal Heart. He is editor of 8 volumes of the Shamanic Applications Review; author of many articles on indigenous healing and psychotherapy, most recently, Indigenous Views of Heart, Heart Health and Disease: a Medical-Anthropological Study.
Mikkal’s teachings bridge ancient and indigenous healing wisdom with modern depth psychology. They are based in a synthesis of Jungian, archetypal, and transpersonal psychology with his medical anthropological studies of indigenous healing systems across cultures. The system of “archetypal heart” lays a foundation of a heart-centered and earth-honoring path, and brings in a powerful set of skills for inward inquiry and personal transformation. He teaches these heart principles and skills in workshops on shamanic counseling, and they lay the grounding basis and integrative axis for his use of the non-drug ecstatic practices using state of the art sound technology, shamanic journeying methods, archetypal journeying methods, and sacred breath and dance work, in the context of loving and supportive community. With this potent non-drug approach we are able to access the entire spectra of experience associated with shamanic journeying, and we are able to help people recover their vital center of life and bring all of themselves on line (soul recovery).
The intent is to help us move, in 2012 and Beyond, towards transforming and healing the soul of individuals so we can heal and care for the soul of the planet (Anima Mundi, Pachamama). This has an urgency requiring a creative shift from the materialistic and egoistic paradigms that are destroying the planet, to a heart-centered and earth-honoring way of life supportive of a holistic-participative planetary culture. Shamanism has universal inreaches in human nature which transcends any specific culture and is a goldmine, a kind of Noah's Ark containing a vast real of human possibility and transformative techniques of the sacred.
Shamanism is also an inexhaustible set of resources is to help us in the modern world develop a more wholesome and earth-honoring spirituality and healing practice which moves beyond the conventional and medical models of healing, while respecting and not pilfering sacred ceremonies that belong to indigenous peoples and their sacred histories.Rather his focus is own developing and owning our own ancient potentiality for shamanic spirituality, within our own cultures and environments. Mikkal's teaching and training events tend to take place in woodland retreats and wilderness settings, and he founded Crows Nest Center for Shamanic Studies in the southwestern Michigan woodlands for this purpose. A strong component of his teaching is on the value of loving and supportive community, and he fosters this wherever he teaches Crows Nest workshops.
Mikkal sponsors an annual Wounded Healer Wilderness Quest on South Manitou Island. He is currently teaching in North America , France, Belgium, in South Africa and, in July 2012 will be a featured speaker at the 8th International Amazonian Conference on Shamanism, in Iquitos, Peru. He is also in the private practice of psychology (Jungian and transpersonal psychotherapy).
admin@crowsnest.com
(269) 262-1919
The American Psychological Association
Member of the Focusing Institute of New York
Certificate in Analytical Psychology, CG Jung Institute of Chicago
Member, The Society for Shamanic Practitioners
