Hello!
I hope this finds you well. This year seems to be flying by! We have been busy with the college working on a lot of new things. There is a lot more to come, but this is where we are up to so far…
If You Can't Attend Live Sessions, Can You Still Do The courses?
In a major new development – yes!
IN THE FIRST PANDEMIC, WE MOVED THE COURSES ONLINE
When the first pandemic lockdown happened and we considered moving the courses online, I really wasn’t sure that doing so would work. I was prepared to give it a try though, and if it didn’t work, I was going to close the college down. Most of our students at the time had doubts too but were also willing to give it a go. In practice, moving online turned out to be a resounding success though. Students found the online courses to be highly effective and with many advantages, and the college has grown into a vibrant and international online shamanic community as a result.
IN THE LAST YEAR, WE TESTED SELF-PACED LEARNING
Having gone online though, our focus initially was still to deliver a “face-to-face” learning environment – live classes, essentially. Over the last year though, whilst many of our students prefer to attend the online sessions live, we have been getting an increasing number of inquiries from people asking if they can do the courses without attending the live sessions. Again, I had some questions as to how well this would work but, particularly given just how keen some students were try this out, I was prepared to try it out. Having done so now, and got the feedback in and made the necessary adjustments, it is clear that this is another success. So, if needing to attend the live sessions has been putting you off signing up for any of the courses, the good news is that now you can access the courses in a different way if you prefer.
HOW DOES SELF-PACED LEARNING WORK?
Essentially, the live sessions are recorded. The recordings include all the theory presentations, the journey instructions, and the extensive Q&A sessions (basically, everything except the discussions in break-out rooms, which we don’t record to protect participants privacy). Recordings are released a few days after each live session, and are available for a further three months after the last online session date, giving you plenty of time to go through the material at your own time and pace. And whichever way you decide to do a course − live, or in your own time, or a mixture of both − you get all the benefits of being able to:
- Ask questions and get them answered by Paul Francis (either at the next online session or via access to a library of Q&A videos).
- Access all the course handouts and other resources, including suggested further reading, links to videos and articles, and so on.
- Join the courses’ lively discussion forums, where students can share experiences, ask further questions, debate issues and share ideas and resources.
I am very excited to be able to offer this now, and I hope it will make the courses much more accessible to our ever-growing number of international students. If you have any questions about it though, please don’t hesitate to ask.
A Brand New Course: SHAMANISM AND MIDDLE-WORLD WORK
Even if you mostly journey in the Lower and Upper Worlds, some shamanic middle-world journeying is almost inevitable (and sometimes necessary). The shamanic middle-world is not always safe or benign, so it is useful to know the essentials of protection and cleansing if and when you journey there. In addition, the physical middle-world is where we spend most of our day-to-day time, and knowing how to live in the physical middle-world is an important part of any fully-developed shamanic practice. On this course then, we explore these issues. The exact course content will vary, in response to the needs and wishes of the students on it, but can include issues such as:
- Personal protection and cleansing.
- What healthy boundaries are (and what they are not).
- The kinds of shamanic middle-world beings that we can encounter (including elementals, thought-forms, the unquiet dead, spirits of the land, and other kinds of spirits), and how to deal with them appropriately.
- Making right our relationship with animals, plants and stones in the middle-world.
- Connecting with the hunter-gatherers who lived on the land before us.
- The often tricky issue of how to deal with the modern-day human middle-world!
a few changes in time and dates for the upcoming courses
October NEXT STEPS Course – Times have Changed
We have been getting an increasing number of students from North America, which is great! Although some are very happy to do the course via the recordings, some still wish to attend the sessions live but struggle due to the time-zone differences. In order to accommodate those students, we have changed the times for October Next-Steps course – The Shamanic Worlds: The Landscapes and Realms of the Lower-World. This course will now start at 4pm UK time.
Also, please note, we are open to considering changing the times of the other courses too, to fit in with time-zones and depending on how many people are interested, so please let us know if that is the case and we will see what we can do.
the “Inner Tribe Work” – Course Dates have changed
For a number of reasons, it has been necessary to push back the start date of the course “Inner Tribe Work: Shamanism, Soul Retrieval, and Parts-Of-Self Therapy”, The new dates are on the page here (scroll down to see them).
The Upcoming Courses
September – October 2022: FIRST STEPS INTRODUCTORY COURSE (10 am start – UK time)
October – November 2022: THE SHAMANIC WORLDS – The Landscapes and Realms of The Lower World (4 pm start – UK time)
February – March 2023: BETWIXT-&-BETWEEN – The Cracks Between The Worlds (10 am start – UK time)
April – May 2023: THE UPPER-WORLD – Exploring The Shamanic Upper-World (10 am start – UK time)
… and more Next-Steps and Further-Steps in 2023!
New Blog Posts
Since the last newsletter, Kaja has written more great posts for our blog. As ever, they are engaging, highly accessible, and packed full of useful information. Please do check out the new ones if you haven’t seen them already:
Connect on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook
As well as the blog posts, Kaja has continued to be busy posting on our Facebook and Instagram accounts too. If you are on those social media platforms, or Twitter too, please do join us if you haven’t already:
More To Come...
There is a lot more we are busy working on. Plans include more videos, podcasts interviews, more book excerpts, articles, more free MP3 recordings of shamanic drumming and rattling, and more. We will keep you posted!
Thank you for reading this.
Blessings,
Paul Francis