There is a little compass for navigating our lives. It resides in the center of the chest. We must learn to listen to its still small voice. It is subtle, often enough, but tangible, and it can gently guide us onto our true path...the way we are drawn to one tree in the park, more than another. Shakespeare said there's a little door there, and we can "knock and ask what it doth know." Protect what comes from there!
-Mikkal
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 teaches workshops on shamanic healing and shamanic counseling internationally, and has been a shamanic practitioner and Jungian psychologist for more than 25 years. A licensed clinical psychologist, his work is recognized for bridging the realms of depth psychology and shamanic healing. He has mentored mental health professionals in the integration of shamanism and counseling for 14 years. His work now focuses on teaching heart-centered shamanism to individuals who wish to learn the shamanic way, as well as training mental health professionals in the integration of psychotherapy and shamanic healing.
Heart-centered shamanism is a synthesis of his experience, initiations by the Cherokee-metis Ai Gvhdi Waya, and the Ecuadoran Kichwa Iachak don Alverto Taxo, his study with many shamanic healers in the Americas, and his more than 25 years of practice of Jungian psychology. In building bridges, Mikkal has distilled the archetypal 'heart-psychology' of these traditions; developed a powerful skill-set for listening to, honoring, and protecting the heart; and has integrated all this with numerous rites, ceremonies, initiations, and shamanic journeys. The skill-set of the archetypal heart is transferable across cultures and ritual-ceremonial symbolisms. This frees the student to develop or use those rites and ceremonies, chants and dances which resonate with their own heart and true self. It also gives the student a portable set of skills for a shamanically oriented counseling, coaching, or psychotherapy practice.
Mikkal is director of Crows Nest Center for Shamanic Studies, in the southwestern Michigan woodlands, and sponsors an annual Vision Quest and Wounded Healer Wilderness Retreat on South Manitou Island. He is currently teaching shamanism in North America and Europe, and is also in the private practice of psychology and shamanic counseling.
Mikkal moderates the FACE BOOK Group Page: Crows Nest Center for Shamanic Studies. If you are interested in sincere dialogue and shamanic community, please come visit us.
ShamanicAR@aol.com
(269) 687-9364
Member of 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
