...first and last....then first all over again. These darkest days of the year are perfect for facing, embracing, and celebrating shamanic death and rebirth...and all life's tricks that slay us day by day. All shamanic ways are most of all about Trickster, the Dualist, and Death - before and after they are about light.   Shamans make friends with all of the above and stick by them until the end of all ends.

Shamans descend before ascending and shamans ascend only to descend again.  Shamans do not seek to escape 'endless cycles of death and rebirth - they revel in the fun of it all!  (FUN = fun, freedom, and unity unfuring universally now new = a NAME of Power to rattle, drum, sing, and dance shamanic shifts with.)  On the way(s) of the shaman, some of us are learning how to make light of the deepest darkness.

In all seasons shaman must not only welcome but invite the scariest beings that lurk on the fringes into their sacred circles...and offer sharing of their fires, beverages, refreshments, and stories.  Shamanic ways work best in crossroads, on common grounds...where no individual 'issues' exist apart from the circle's, the community's, the nation's, the world's, and the universe's dreaming Dream. 

It is easiest for me to remember this amidst winter.