Shamans call on a variety of spirits for help on their spirit journeys and in their day-to-day shamanic work. Most guides and teachers are animal spirits, plant spirits, or the spirits of stones and crystals. Quartz crystals, in particular, seem to have been used since the very beginning for their clear-seeing and energy-focusing abilities.
Animists believe that everything has spirit—animals, plants, stones, rivers, lakes, mountains, valleys, thunder, storms, and every little area of the land itself.
Of all the spirits, land spirits in general seem to be the hardest for modern people, Americans in particular, to relate to. Perhaps that is because Americans tend to move around, never living in one place long enough to develop the kind of feeling for the land that our ancestors once had.
To understand animism and shamanism, you must learn to sense and communicate land spirits. Learning to work with other spirits first can make it easier to sense their subtle energy.
Yakut People Herding Reindeer Photographic Print by Conger, Dean
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