ANAM means ‘Soul’ in the Irish language; Gaeilge.

Lead by fáthlia Katie Ní Mhathúna in partnership with Cassandra Worden, (counsellor, ecotherapist), Anam Shamanic Arts is an integrated field of the indigenous spirit of this planet.

These studies of Shamanic Arts are rooted in the knowing that spirit lives in everything. Spirit lives in all creation, not solely in a person, or an animal, but in stones and rivers, and also in your favourite dress or your mobile phone. That there’s spirit and memory in everything.

Therefore the Shamanic Arts are mostly a conscious engagment with those memories, with those spirits. It is a path of friendship with all creation and one that we as a species have largely forgotten.

Often now people limit the path of Animism (see below if you’d like to know why I prefer animism to other phrases) to healing. Often it is limited to rituals with powerful plants, or ceremonies like sweatlodge, beautiful ancestrally kept practices from across the world.
Yet these few practices are not the limit of Animism. We can invoke spirit into so many spaces and call upon the great unseen forces to vitalise our reality in so many ways!

The Shamanic Arts Anam both holds and teaches are:

Healing
Divination
Initiatory Ritual
Waking Ceremony and Keens
Blessing Ceremonies
Spirit Craft
Ritual Dance, Theatre and Puppetry
Plant and Mushroom Ceremonies
Womyn’s Mysteries
Witchery

And whatever the spirit will move in us!

Anam teaches in the tradition of a mystery school, in that what is transmitted is ‘esoteric in nature’. Therefore the mystery school only teaches techniques for one to find their own true nature, in their own unique way. In essence, you, are the mystery unfolding.

In these teachings there is no modality to be taught, no manual or specific ‘how to’ or set of instructions. Those who connect to this field are taught how to learn for themselves. To grow and develop their gifts and offerings in resonance with the truth and love of nature and creation. Each person is completely unique and empowered to their uniqueness.

I personally hold a policy of ‘no back-stage’. This means I and those who hold space with me work from a place of grounded transparency with people who come to Anam. This is my respect to your being, your journey and your wisdom, to allow you to see us as people and not create a veil between. In this way much more learning can happen as there’s no pretense of superiority or hidden processes.

In these spaces you are given back the keys you forgot you had to become a creator and creatrix within your own resonance, to make something wholly unique, and incept a new beginning wherein you can begin to walk in harmony with who you are and world you are creating.
In Anam you can realise the gifts you already had and begin to honour their giving while enjoy greater reciprocity.

If you wish to know more fell free to connect,

in the meantime blessings and remembering

All Paths Are Sacred And All Lead Home.

In kindredness,

katie


*A note the commodification of ‘shamanism’;

I don’t vibe much with the term ‘shamanism‘, it’s a strange word that feels off to me, yet while we are evolving into greater nuances, it’s helpful for me to be found by you and you to be found by me, so I am grateful for it as a stepping stone until we can root into the truth that is rich and earthy between this world and the unseen.

In this context I invoke the term ‘Shamanic Arts’ for two reasons, to call those who are drawn to the work of bringing the spirit back into our world, and in honour of the traditions of these arts which have been carried down through very difficult incarnations by Shamans across the world.

The initiatory path of the shaman is something that cannot be certified by a human authority, and these teachings will not make you anything you are not. The path of the shaman is a path that is thrust on someone by the spirit world, and it’s an insistent and dangerous road to navigate and can be fatal.

Many people are using the word ‘shaman’ as a way to illustrate their serving of plant medicines, or their holding drum journeys or Jungian analysis yet this does not require one to be initiated by spirits. There are many paths, such as medicine person, priest and priestess, witch and so on that have their own distinct initiatory processes and also their own shadows. Shaman has a distinct path, and that is important to note in honouring the Siberian Shaman’s whose term has become shorthand for many Westerners to illustrate any animist practice.

I personally do not ‘use’ words lightly such as these, in fact I speak them with incredible respect to those who are not incarnated right now who have guided me along the path, for I know they have made this journey far easier for me than it was for them. I also speak them with respect for myself, as I have encountered along this path the extreme edges that I can be taken to and I know there’s no piece of paper or human being who could ever qualify the knowing that comes from those edges. That is why I have full body knowledge that it’s not for humans to decide who will be initiated shamanically, only the spirits can know.

That said if you are navigating shamanic initiation I am so happy to sit with you and see if I am permitted to support your journey, yet I cannot be the one to validate it for you. That is between you and the spirit world. And it’s certainly not a ‘career’ that one chooses.

Having been initiated by spirits with the word shaman, in homecoming to Ireland and some of our forgotten gnosis, I am learning to know myself as Fáthlia, although there’s a subtle difference in the resonance between our native word and shaman.

Finally;
This is my life path and has been since birth.
We as humans have always offered sacrifice for healing in all cultures and I offer sacrifice to the beings who give me healing too. I see the offering of a fee as the equivalent of sacrifice and I respect the energy I am releasing as I know it returns to me in health and wisdom.

I make a living but I don’t make more than I need at any given time or can be shared into my community. It is not meant to profitable to heal and teach, and that is something I honour deeply. I will always have enough to walk this path.
I will not have more than I can love in this world, and that is how I know I’ll always have enough.

In essence we all know, that spirit is, and always will be; free. I and those I work with are paid for our time, energy and experience and we reciprocate in love, wisdom, joy and health. And that is blessing that is truely alchemical and an honour to be able to offer.

Spirit is not a commodity and love is not a product, what is intangible in it’s uncondtional nature always will be.
If you wish to speak more with me about the ethics of this work in the current paradigm I’m so happy to connect.

Meanwhile blessings on your path,

My thanks for reading,

in kindness,

katie