I have been remiss in writing blogums during the past five months during which Jill and I have been immersed in our teaching schedule as well as work on our farm… and I have also been involved with writing an ongoing series of essays that are regularly posted under Shaman Wisdom. The current series is focused upon the New Mysteries.

In these essays, I have been sharing my thoughts about the shape of ‘what has been’ from my perspective as an anthropologist, as well as my premonitions about the various possibilities of ‘what’s to come’ from my perspective as a modern shamanic practitioner and teacher… and right away several givens come up for consideration.

Firstly: Given the prominence of some form of religion in peoples’ lives virtually everywhere, it is obvious that there exists a great psychological need among humans to believe in something greater than ourselves.

Second:  We are living in a time of great change and things coming apart. This is also a time in which increasing numbers of spiritual seekers are leaving our mainstream religions in droves and turning toward non-Western spiritual practices.

And third: Given the number of websites and workshops devoted to exploring aspects of the old mystery schools of the past, not to mention the unending avalanche of books that have been written on these and related subjects during the past two decades, an interesting question now arises.

As we come to the end of this cycle of ages and the beginning of the next, are we willing to draw on the wisdom traditions of the old mystery schools, reworking and transforming them into something entirely new, refining this wisdom and enhancing it in a way that reflects who we are now as well as who we are becoming?

And so I invite you to dip into these essays to see how they resonate with your own thoughts and ideas about this, as well as where and when you see yourself fitting into the flow of what we may create together as we approach the beginning of the next cycle. With more to come…

And with warm thoughts–Hank