Local Fauna Lammas 2019 with Shaman Cat Shepard

Join Pryscilla Friday, August 2nd (Happy Lammas!) and welcome an extraordinary local practitioner of shamanic arts, and artist, Cat Shepard. Cat’s special focus is the practice known as Ecstatic Body Postures or Trance Posture. Cat works with participants to generate healing, as well as deeper understanding of universal and personal processes. We will discuss the history and practice of this phenomenon, pioneered by American anthropologist Felicitas Goodman, and carried on today by practitioners like Cat, and at the Cuyamungue Institute in Santa Fe, NM, among others.

Cat is an intuitive artist with over 40 years of experience. She facilitates ecstatic trance-forms, rituals, workshops, sacred circles, private intuitive ancestral readings & experiential Reiki sessions. Cat is a Reiki Master & a priestess of the Divine Feminine, the Dark Goddesses & Women’s Mysteries, a natural intuitive & an experienced instructor of earth-honoring & energetic healing practices. Her work respectfully blends ancient spiritual practices with creative expression, awakening transformational states of consciousness from within. She has learned that Art & Ritual, when used with sacred intention & integrity, are powerful gifts & tools for bringing art & healing to life, offering profound opportunities for recognizing greater potentials & giving deeper meaning to our experiences.

Health Benefits of Ecstatic Trance-Forms:

Releases beta-endorphins (bodies own opiates) responsible for states of rapture & intense euphoria
Blood pressure drops
Pulse heightens
Heightened sensual awareness
Expands consciousness naturally (without drugs) allowing one to leave our secular experience and enter into a sacred one
Aligns the left & right hemispheres of the brain resulting in whole brain functioning
Realigns the body for healing to take place

(Sources: “The Ecstatic Experience” By Belinda Gore, “Ecstatic Trance: A Workbook” by F.D. Goodman & N. Nauwald, & personal experience)

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Health Benefits of Creative Expression:

“Art filled occupational voids, distracted thoughts of illness”
“Improved well-being by decreasing negative emotions and increasing positive ones”
“Improved medical outcomes, trends toward reduced depression”
“Reductions in stress and anxiety; increases in positive emotions”
“Reductions in distress and negative emotions”
“Improvements in flow and spontaneity, expression of grief, positive identity, and social networks”

(Sources: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/make-more-art-the-health-benefits-of-creativity_b_8868802 & https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2804629/

Links for further research:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otPXbqGfDNo

http://www.cuyamungueinstitute.com/articles-and-news/exploring-characteristics-of-healing-trance-with-ritual-postures-using-gamma-radiation-assessment/

https://www.academia.edu/39737042/Contemporary_and_Neoshamanic_Practitioners_in_the_West_A_Hermeneutic_Narrative_Inquiry?email_work_card=view-paper