Be Your Own Shaman by Deborah King

From the beginning of this book Deborah King challenges the reader's boundaries and understandings of what it means to be a shaman and how to be a shaman. "So what does it mean to be a shaman today? Is it someone who wears a feathered headdress, shakes a rattle, and dances around a fire to the beating of drums as he communes with an invisible world of spirits? It could be. But did you know that the sweet little old church lady with blue hair and clothes from the 1950s could be a shaman to?" In Deborah King's context she uses the word "shaman" to mean "a healer." In her words, " someone who expands his or her consciousness and conducts healing energy to help others resolve whatever is ailing them on the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual planes."

Her book is the starting point and a guide for understanding this type of healing. We must start with ourselves first. She writes from the belief that "everyone one of us is a natural born self-healer--those abilities are there within us, even if they've been dormant. Our task, then, is to learn how to access and use them." And that is the basis for this book: to provide an understanding and practice in how to access and use energy medicine to heal ourselves. Learning about the chakras, of which most of us are familiar at least with the word, is only the beginning of what she covers in this book. Deborah King takes the reader much deeper into energy medicine and provides exercises to start or continue the reader's personal healing journey. Along with all of this, Deborah King intersperses her own story which makes all the information much more accessible.

One of my favorite parts of this book is her chapter on "Healing Through the Ages." I love history but it was both surprising and fascinating to learn the roots of energy healing. Deborah King has also included an index which I find invaluable.

I have started a second reading of this book because there was so much material that I found fascinating. This book is a "keeper." I zoomed through the first reading of this book because of the way Deborah King writes. It is personal, accessible and informative: an unusual combination. This book would be a good read for those in the beginning stages of understanding energy medicine but I believe it would also be useful for people who have already delved deeply into energy medicine.

Thank you to Hay House Publishing for sending me this book at no charge. It is another great tool on my journey.