Hello and welcome to The Shaman Podcast.

I am Mark Ashford.

I am a Registered Usui Tibetan Reiki Master Teacher as well as a Shaman. I am a published author of books and online courses on Reiki and Shamanism. I host a YouTube channel and podcasts on Reiki and Shamanism.

Weekly I post a video and podcast for the Shamanic Energy of the coming week. The reading is a general reading; please take what resonates with you.

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For legal purposes, all videos and podcasts are strictly for entertainment purposes. Viewers and listeners have free will and are entirely responsible for any interpretation they place on the readings. I take no responsibility for individual viewer interpretation or actions.

The show notes contain information on the card decks used in the readings and get more information on websites, books, and courses. Please check them out.

Mystical Shaman Oracle Cards used in reading. Amazon link. - https://amzn.to/3fRG5Ow

Queen of the Moon Oracle Cards used in reading by Stacey Demarco https://shrtm.nu/uj5f

To learn more about my work, click here https://bit.ly/3h3E6I0

For a Personal weekly Shamanic Energy Reading please go to: https://bit.ly/30PmCd3

Thank you.

The Blade

A Blade is a cutting tool. It represents your mind, body, and spirit. Pointing upward, it summons the power of heaven to help you manifest. What is that you wish for? Be clear in your thoughts. It will cut cords attached to you that no longer serve you or are toxic in their effect on you. It is a thing of action. Use it now; use it with the best intention and not as a weapon. Use it to heal those old relationships or places by letting them go.

The Blade is sent to help you with your dreams which are grounded and stagnant. A blade can help you move forward because it frees you from things that do not mean anything to you. Do not use it in anger or bad intention. If you do, the karmic outcome will be worse than you had imagined. Always use the Blade positively to help you move forward.

The Tree of Life

The Tree of Life, Yggdrasil, is a Sacred symbol in Norse mythology. In Buddhism, it is the Bo tree or Bodhi tree. In Islam, it is the Tree of Immortality. In Christianity, the Tree of Life first appears in Genesis in The Garden of Eden. In Hebrew, it is Etz Chaim. In the Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism depicts the Tree of life with ten interconnected nodes or ten Sefirot powers in the divine realm.

To the Shaman, the Tree of knowledge connects all the realms of existence, from the higher realm of the Gods to the darkness of the underworld.

The message of the Tree of life is twofold for this week and your life in general.

To connect with the upper world, you need to be tall, not literally but elevated in thought and action. You need to have aspirational goals that are pure and clear and can be acted on. They should not be manipulative or degrading. 

A tree with shallow roots will fall over in a strong wind. Now is the time to ensure you are grounded and understand what it is to be foundational. You cannot reach your goals if you have not prepared. To put it simply, if you aspire to be a doctor, you cannot attain that goal unless you complete all the study and training required to be a doctor, not just a doctor; you want to be a good doctor. So, study hard.

To reach the upper world and be grounded means to be aligned with what you desire and what your Life Path purpose is. Open up to your Life Path Purpose and stop simply "turning the wrenches" on a boring unfulfilling life. Take time, peaceful time to think about your energies and what you want in life. That will help you create your life rather than be a directionless traveller through it.

Upper World

Shaman visits the upper world to speak to angels, divine spirits, helping spirits, and all that is luminous, empowering, and wonderful. They go there to seek the highest answers to their challenges and of those they are seeking to heal.

The Upper World is a place of destiny and growth, advancement and achievement. It is a place of discovery and potential. When the Shaman returns from the upperworld, they bring healing and a future full of possibilities.

If the card of Trust from last week encouraged you to trust yourself, the Upper World is sending you messages of encouragement to leap into the future. Your future. As you learned to trust in yourself and shrug off self-doubt, now you must rid yourself of sluggishness and apathy. While support for a new destiny is not yet in place, a new destination is available to you if you act now.

Self-Reflection

Moving forward, shedding self-doubt in favour of self-trust, embracing your future, journeying to the Upper World where all is light and abundance can all be exhausting and cause doubt to creep in.

Now is the time to take a few minutes at the end of the day to reflect on what has happened during the day and think about your reaction to all the events, thoughts and deeds. Pay special attention to the things that you thought you should say and do but did not. Why not? What held you back? Was your voice heard today, and if it was, was it clear?

Do you like the feelings that arise from your reflection? If not, why not, and how can you get past your feelings. When you think about the day and what you did or did not do, do you feel anger, frustration and annoyance? Think carefully about these feelings and identify the source; when you find the source, consider how to change things to not feel this way in the future.

Self-reflection is all about improving yourself and your feelings to not repeat them in the future.