We notice a rising practise of shamanism, magic and spirituality in the West since the late nineties. Moreover, terms such as technomagic, technoshamanism and technopaganism have been surfacing to designate a rising movement between art, spirituality and technology and still create confusion to this day. But the intertwining of the notions of “technology” and “magic(s)” could be seen as evidential when one operates spiritual practice as a technique to be studied, or when one faces the many ghosts animating technology.
This compilation of interviews engages different practitioners from Brazil, Belgium and Lithuania across multiple fields whose work is embedded within this subject to create a composition of points-of-view in relation to this movement.
Kathy Melcher
Bois Le Comte, Villers-devant-Orval, June 2018
02:13
Kathy Melcher Your questions make me think about this in a unified way. Because normally the teaching from an experiential perspective is as it comes. I find it interesting to try to think about it as a body of work.
Technology (before COVID-19)
02:47
One question you had, was, do you think technology plays a role? I've been kind of struggling with that one. I'm not sure about how I would answer that, except to say, for example, that technology makes things available, like on Youtube. You can see everything, you can see every shamanic piece of work and music that has ever been composed and interviews. And all of that that we were never be able to see before. Does it play a role? In a way it creates a very broad exposure of something that used to be kept secret. It was only handed down from generation to generation, from shaman to shaman trainee, as in Carlos Castaneda. Maybe, if nothing else, it puts people in touch with what it looks like. But it never probably gives what the internal experience is, which I think matters more to people.
On the presence of spirits
04:18
On the presence of spirits.\ When I was a child I always saw things. I saw creatures and spirits and all of that. I would say until I was about 11 years old. By then, I was told that wasn't what you were supposed to look for. I spent a lot of time as a child looking out the window and seeing things.\ I think that is why I love gardening so much, because you can be in touch with those kinds of influences and not be thought crazy. You can commune with the varying energies and feel good about it.
05:20
The most profound experience that I had, was when I stopped drinking decades ago, I was very much aware of help from the other side. The way that it came about, was really interesting. I decided to stop drinking on the 17th December and Frank and I had never taken a honeymoon. We decided during that time that we would go to the big island of Hawaii. At the time, I had a friend who was training as a hypnotherapist. She had come across in some of the groups that she had done, the work of a Hawaiian healer, by the name of 'Papa Auwe. She said, if you're going to Hawaii, you need to see 'Papa Auwe, he's really a healer. I thought, great, ok. But Frank immediately picked up on it. He called 'Papa Auwe and made an appointment. We drove all the way across the big island to Hilo where 'Papa Auwe lived in a wooden house painted dark red. He was about 85 years old. We came in the back door. He took us into a kind of a sitting room. We were sitting on kitchen chairs. He started by asking me about how long I had been drinking and what's going on now. I don't remember everything he asked me nor do I remember everything that he told me, but I remember his eyes and the power of his person.
Basically, his instruction to me was, you take these herbs and you put them in tea, everyday at the same time and so on and so forth. He said: it will not be easy. I said that I knew that. That was the end of that, except to say that, that was the beginning of the support that I felt for the change. I knew that it was going to happen and I knew that it was going to last, even though I had my moments of craving. I knew that this was once and for all.\ Years later, I bought a copy of Parabola - an esoteric publication in US. This was some time after 'Papa Auwe died. There was an article on 'Papa Auwe and his life work. I discovered then that he was the great Kahuna of all the Hawaiian islands. He was the great shaman, in charge of the rituals at the City of Refuge. There I had first gone as part of my pilgrimage on the island of Hawaii to be initiated in Reiki. I felt that that was a huge influence in my life. Also the fact that three years leading up to this point, I had been in the company of Native Americans, because part of my work for this corporation, was to maintain relationships with all the Native American tribes working with Native American youth to help and encourage them in careers in technology. I was meeting with elders, learning Native Americans' ways, hanging out with all of the tribal stories, learning all of this. One day, I was sitting at a lunch next to a Native American. He was a Cherokee. He said, 'I never had anything in my life, until I quit drinking. Now I have my dignity.'
That was like an arrow pierced my heart. Ah! That's what it is. And then the story of 'Papa Auwe came.
10:17
An Mertens If you say that you felt the support, can you try to visualise it?
Kathy Melcher No, it was a felt thing. I remember saying in AA-meetings -- people often think you're crazy when you first sober up -- that there is help from the other side.. 'I feel like there are angels watching over us,' I said, 'that we're being taken care of if we allow it.'
An Mertens Did you feel it physically?
Kathy Melcher Yes, I felt it as something around my head. I just always felt a presence or presences. And I trusted that. Maybe I graduated from when I was younger from seeing to feeling.
11:26
An Mertens When you were a kid, you could see them. Can you give an example of what you saw?
Kathy Melcher No, because it is difficult to identify. I just always felt at home. I didn't feel threatened. I didn't feel afraid. But in the night, I'd tell my father that I saw something go down the hall, he'd get up and go down the hall, he'd come back and say: no, nothing there.
I could see entities, beings. Whether they were bodies, it was less definable than that. Shapes, some colours. I'm not so sure that most children don't see something like that. Or that they can see something around people and read auras. I was able to do that at different times in my life. I could see darkness in certain auras and light in others, and wondering what that was. At the time I was not really understanding that it was something. I had a vague sense that something was going on.\ It's not something that I rely on as a profession. I think all people are capable of doing it and do read from one degree or another. I guess it's just information.
I think the spirit world, the invisible world, is with us, and that the veil between the visible and the invisible is very thin.
We think that death is a big door that is separating us, but I don't think that is so. I think quantum physics is telling us, one minute you're on one side and the next minute you're on the next, whoever you are. Maybe.
14:45
An Mertens So, spirits are material?
Kathy Melcher Yeah, because I suppose that if you say the absolute is the immaterial, then yes, I suppose there are gradations between what is densely material and what is less densely material. Rocks and this chair I'm sitting in, that's one kind of physical reality. And then, what would you say to felt presences? They're not seen necessarily or maybe they are seen but they're ephemeral. They're not solid.
An Mertens Like gas?
Kathy Melcher Yeah, or less than gas.
On science, experience and synchronicity
00:12
An Mertens You're talking about quantum physics. How does that relate, does it offer to you some kind of scientific explanation of things that happen?
Kathy Melcher In the end, philosophy, science, it doesn't separate science from experience. It is all one thing. The esoteric and the mundane are the same. That's what I like, to see that holistic view of what is. We've always known this, this story of the master appearing to the student, like the story of Ramana Maharshi sitting at the foot of a young seeker's bed for many years. Then the guy goes to India and there the master is. So what is that about? All of those tales of the miraculous. I think we make too much of separating science from experience. Most people kind of know that. Otherwise it gets to be a mental exercise, improving and disproving. It's not to say that there shouldn't be some kind of higher reasoning involved in how we evaluate our experience but I don't think it serves to separate anything from anything. That's my take.
02:30
Kathy Melcher Ok, what you were saying about an enhanced awareness of synchronicity, that also plays into that description of what I just said of the intermingling, of how can this be that someone is in one place and also in another place, or physically in one place and appears in another place. I think that shamanism has always accepted everything. It's an all inclusive practise. And there is nothing excluded, no experience outside of shamanism that is not dealt with or included.
03:27
An Mertens Do you feel an enhanced awareness of synchronicity since you started working as a shaman?
Kathy Melcher Yeah, that's more the natural than anything else. The only reason that we're surprised is because we live in our heads all the time. If you're living in experience where you're not overthinking it, synchronicity is to everything, happening the way it should, unfolding the way it should. It is not extraordinary. Because that is the way reality is.
An Mertens In nature for example, the seasons and so on.
Kathy Melcher No, not like that. The fact that you think of someone, and you go to the village to run an errand and then they're there, even if they're from the other side of the world. I don't know if you have had that experience. The first time I had it we went to Italy and there we saw people we knew. My family were like, what are you doing here. Oh, we just on the last moment decided to come and blablabla. Like that.
I lived for four years without a telephone, without a television, without anything. And, no kidding, everything that I needed, I got. Everyone I needed to meet, I met.
05:06
An Mertens When you then meet these people in Italy, you feel the synchronicity. Is it also then an invitation to work together or do something together or exchange?
Kathy Melcher I think it's just pure play. As they say in Sanskrit: 'Lila'. It's the play of the universe. We come together, we recognize each other, we enjoy, we share, and then we dance off somewhere else. That's kind of how I see it.
And whether or not it means we're supposed to work together, that's kind of heavy. [Laughs] I mean, if first something happens and we participate in it, then I think it's pretty cool. [Laughs more]. When you first hear of the new age thing, you know, when I was an early sannyasin,, 'Ho, you're here too… oh wow…. [laughs more].'
06:23
An Mertens Or like the story Frank told us yesterday, about the woman he gave a healing to and then you went to a concert and you came across this woman? I ask the question, because for me often it is tempting to put some reason or explanation to it. Or a meaning.
06:51
Kathy Melcher Well, it is its own meaning. You don't have to put anything on it. It's just the joy of meeting that person again. And although I did say to Frank, he said, that's the woman and I said, 'Yeah, he [her husband] doesn't look so good, he could use some help.'
07:26
An Mertens And it's enhanced since you started working as a shaman?
Kathy Melcher Maybe I ended up working as a shaman because those were my predilections. That was my inclination, to experience things that way. Because I didn't decide to be a shaman. That is absolutely not the way it happened. I just happened to be married to one.
On 'becoming' a shaman
08:04
Kathy Melcher When we [Frank & Kathy] were first together, he [Frank] said, I think I'm a shaman. I was like, hmmmm. I went to my mother. I said, mum, he thinks he's a shaman. She said, oh yeah, I know what that is. So my mother was happy, and I was just like, aaah. What an idea.
An Mertens Did your mother explain it to you?
Kathy Melcher She didn't. Conversations with my mother were not always complete. When she said she knew what it was, I wasn't afraid of it. I was just kind of curious. And also somewhat burdened by it, because I didn't know how to deal with it or incorporate it into my life at that time. I mean, it was good that I had been to India and had all these weird experiences and so forth. It enabled me to better meet that challenge of having a house where all these things were happening. And to this day when I meet my clients and Frank is doing his session, and I'm doing just straight therapy with someone in my office, and the drums start going, they feel it, they're having a session too.
I was initiated through marriage. And of course, I had encounters with Jóska Soós1 and other Native American shamans and tons and tons of sweat lodges. After a while, it becomes a lifestyle and you have friends who are shamans.
10:19
An Mertens Do you believe everyone can be a shaman?
Kathy Melcher No, I think those who are called to be shamans, are shamans. When they go through the initiatory process and they study with someone, maybe there is the rare one who springs forth spontaneously, I think that's a possibility too. But no, I don't think everyone wants to be a shaman, because it can be a heavy duty. Not to say that it's not fun, but you have people knocking on your door, day and night. Even in the neighbourhood. Oh, there is a shaman down the street! Ding dong! [laughs].
12:51
An Mertens You're collaborating. You're not serving him [Frank].
Kathy Melcher No.
An Mertens Which is very beautiful.
Kathy Melcher Yeah.
An Mertens And quite rare also, I think.
13:03
Kathy Melcher I think it is rare for people to be able to work together in this fashion. There has to be an agreement that whatever comes up, comes up. Whatever gets dealt with, gets dealt with. And that the decisions, if any, are made in the moment and not beforehand. That's difficult to live with sometimes, you know, because actually I'm a very -- as I've gotten older -- I used to be very broad brush, let's have a big perspective on things, but also, as I'm older, I require more specificity. What do you mean when you say 'x', what are you trying to communicate to me? In conversations I really want the full thing. After all this time I finally learned that there are so many layers to all this, that we don't talk about and that we take for granted. And sometimes the work is not complete until it's fully understood. That's my thing.
14:25
An Mertens When you say it is difficult to live, you also mean, on a daily basis?
Kathy Melcher Yeah, also on a daily basis there has to be the willingness to allow things to be as they are. Without interfering. It is an impersonal view of one's personal experiences, or an impersonal framework for ones personal experiences. And as long as one accepts the way things are, unless there is some violation or there is something that needs to be addressed, the way things are, flows very well and it's good. The only time one gets distracted, is when there is a knot, a personal knot. I find that very interesting. I came across some material that I had forgotten, Ken Wilber talking about the chakras. He said, yeah, chakras are real. What they are, are the knots that need to be untied before people can have an experience of being one with the all. And there are very specific places where people get stuck. Safety and security. Lost in sex. Wherever the preoccupations are, the emotional, bliss, self expression, vision, we can get stuck in these places. You know it from rebirthing, for example, remember that? Breathwork --- the whole rebirthing process, when people are breathing their way through their various experiential layers. It's kind of neo-Reiki, based on pranayama.. People come to plateaus and they want to get out there. They want to hang out on the bliss plateau, on the heart plateau. But that's not necessarily the end of it. We tend to get stuck. We get addicted to certain places because they feel good. It may not be in our best interest to remain there. We do that nevertheless.
Multidimensionality
17:46
An Mertens Maybe we can address the question on the multidimensionality?
17:55
Kathy Melcher If you're talking about existence, the typical shamanic definition of the work, is that you have the lower world or the unconscious, the middle world which is daily life, and the upper world which is the lighter spirit world or superconscious. But I think that there probably are many dimensions to reality. It's all reality. And I think that we have trouble accepting the totality of reality. We try to put it in categories and call levels. This is the amphibian level, Jóska Soós used to say. He had a whole list. Mammalian level. Rocks and crystals and so on. I'm fine if somebody wants to call those different layers what they are. If people want to give those definitions of it, fine, but it's all reality. It's all inclusive. I think that is what universal shamanism tries to address. In it you say, I am that, instead of, I'm not that. The Jungian archetype of the egg is the beginning, a way to look at layers to the psychological, but he said that it tied in to the ultimate reality. And that's the way to start making the enquiry. What's happening on this level? And on this level? How do these meet? What is the unifying force underlying all experience? What's hearing these words? What's seeing this? What's feeling this? At that point, people drop into peace.
The only reason people aren't happy, is because of the knots. As if there is no birth, no death. We don't have to categorize experiences.
21:23
An Mertens Does it happen to you that you visualise these layers and dimensions?
21:35
Kathy Melcher No. It's more of a felt… I don't have to visualise. Whatever appears in the space, appears in the space, as an object. I'm not concerned about the level per se. I kind of instinctively know, I think many people do this, they vibrate at the level of the thing that they're working with. If they want to consciously bring in a higher level of vibration, then they do that. There is some skill to that. I suppose that is what a shaman does. They raise the vibratory level of the experience that is happening, so that there can be insight and freedom. But I don't necessarily visualise.
I remember reading in the Book of Judas where is there is that gnostic idea of the levels of heaven. The seventh heaven, you know that whole idea. I think that's an ancient concept. It's a conceptual thing.
An Mertens It is the same as categorisation? A way to try to…
Kathy Melcher To explain. It's descriptive, a way to try to describe various levels of experience.
On tools and totems
24:03
An Mertens If a person comes with a problem, that you so nicely call an object, the tools of the shaman like drumming or…
Kathy Melcher Intention. I think the intention is maybe the strongest tool. Everything else falls out from that. There are the ritual objects. That was one thing that you didn't mention that I wrote down. Ritual objects, those would be drum, a feather, sticks, flute,\… Those are objects used in rituals. Crystals, stones, scents, touch, all of that.
25:08
An Mertens The voice.
25:18
Kathy Melcher The voice, especially that. It's just a consideration. You asked about local totems. I sat with Frank for a while and I was like, what is that? He gave some kind of explanation and finally I thought, local saints and power places.
One day Paul, a student that we have from many years ago, he always comes back now and then, he bicycles all over the area. He said, yes, there is a place we have to go and visit today. It's called the green cathedral. So it's at Villécloye. We drive to Villécloye. And yes, there is a cathedral of green trees and all these stations of the cross. Half of them are devoted to Jesus and the other half are devoted to Mary. Or the Mary's or the Mary energy. At the head, you have the Lady of Lourdes. Behind that you have some Celtic symbol. At the front of this whole entrance to the green cathedral is a source of water, of the sweetest, purest water I have ever tasted. This water is supposed to cure blindness. It's dedicated to St Ernelle. It's sitting in the middle of nowhere. It was created as a place in the 1700s but it was reinforced at WWI as a healing place.
27:28
An Mertens And the Celtic symbol.
Kathy Melcher Yeah, that's from way before. Most of these sites are like that, like in the cathedral of Antwerp. There you have the weeping Mary. Before that, there was a Celtic goddess there that wept. It got co-opted with Christianity. That's often the case. There are secret sites that speak to a certain resonance in us. That was a magic journey. And then we came back to Avioth. It was a different experience then.
28:23
An Mertens Do you sometimes specifically work with the energy of such a place?
Kathy Melcher Sometimes. We did work with the energy from WWI. The Maginot Line and the bunkers where the 200 service men perished through gassing. We went up to the site not knowing how we would do this. We started with singing and ritual. We could feel it humming along. I think this is an area that is right for a lot of work because of the buried loss.
29:14
An Mertens That's more like a place to heal.
Kathy Melcher Yes, but it also offers healing. There is reciprocity. Does the Earth need healing, really? Really? The Earth will heal itself. But we offer it. It's a way of making harmony, a way of making peace.
19:42
An Mertens So, for you the places where these symbols of what you call religion…
Kathy Melcher Or power places, or local saints.
An Mertens The place you describe from WWI, do you also think it is a sacred place?
Kathy Melcher Sure! Yes. Any place where people transition, can be thought of as a sacred place.
An Mertens So, war zones are also sacred places.
Kathy Melcher Yeah.
An Mertens I never thought of it like that.
30:37
Kathy Melcher I mean crypts, chapels, goddess spots, rocks, moons, carvings, oak trees, healing waters, sacred earth, Arduinna, St. Ernelle,… stuff like that around here. But you know, in India, there is always a sacred place. Every five minutes there is a sacred place. Or in the Southwest of the US, there are tons and tons of that. I have a friend, Joe, an old Druid, he calls them vortices.
31:31
An Mertens Can a place become a sacred place? Because if you talk of vortices, there is some kind of predefinition in there?
31:43
Kathy Melcher Yes, I imagine that there are places that collect energy. Why, I don't know, but people sense that. They'll sit in the places where the energy is the best. Animals do.
32:11
An Mertens It helped me when someone told me that people go on beach holidays and resorts, because beaches are sacred spaces.
32:23
Kathy Melcher Yeah, and that's where we encounter the whales, who are the protectors of the planet. That's what all the aboriginal cultures say. And the dolphins, playful and loving, unless you're a shark and you attack them and they go 'whap' with their tale or with their snout. That's the place of encounter with the other sacred creatures. I think there is a reverence for that, for sure, and our relationship to all of the creatures, while maintaining respectful distance.
33:11
Kathy Melcher You know that Maori story of the whale rider. Did you see that movie [Whale Rider, 2002]? It is a true story about how typically the tribe would single out one who potentially could be chief by their capacity to ride the whale. So they would befriend the whale and the whale would agree to take them on their back and they would ride the whale. Well, a young woman comes into the Maori tribe and she says 'I feel called to ride the whale' and they're like, no no no, not a woman, no. She insists and goes out on her own and befriends a whale and rides it. And then it is a known thing. And then she's chief. And she's the daughter of a chief, but it's the fact that she's a woman.
Trance
34:28
An Mertens Maybe something about the trance?
34:38
Kathy Melcher It's a hypnotic state induced to promote vision, insight and healing. In many ways that can happen. It can happen through repetitive sound or repetitive vibration, it can happen through plant induced hypnotic states. But we are generally speaking easily hypnotized. Trance is probably a second nature to us, so we don't even realize it. When we watch movies or anything that we do in a repetitive ritualistic way induces trance. Driving on a highway! Listening to music or background noise anywhere.
35:44
An Mertens It doesn't always include healing, does it, or vision?
35:47
Kathy Melcher No, it doesn't have to, but with trance generally it is implied that there is a healing experience contained in it. That is the precursor to a healing experience. Frank tells this story about being invited to a village ritual in Bali, where the whole village instantly goes into trance. They're so used to doing that. And then they do this exercise with the knifes, where they put the knifes in and the skin doesn't break. And then they pull it out. That in a way is for them to have the experience that they are masters of their own experience. Because they join with the all and they're protected somehow in this exploration. And people in Bali are just healed by touch and presence. And through art, also. It is an ecstatic experience and I like the Mircea Eliade idea, of shamanism being an ecstatic experience. Coming into oneness is an ecstatic experience.
37:29
An Mertens Is not everyone looking for that?
37:32
Kathy Melcher They are and don't realize it. It's like everyone being in meditation all the time, but they don't realize it. We're all perfect as we are but we don't realize it. It's about getting conscious, I guess. Or allowing.
38:13
An Mertens For many people the ecstatic experience is found in drugs, alcohol…
Kathy Melcher Yes, but that's one that doesn't last, right? And perhaps ecstatic isn't the right word? Let's say an attunement, an experience where you feel at one? So, I do my journeys without any enhancement of ayahuasca or anything like that, partly because of my agreement with myself not to use altering substances, altered state drug induced. I go through these journeys without and that is also entirely possible. I think what you talk about is the dopamine kind of thing. I know ayahuasca is really popular right now and there is all this talk about ketamine's use against depression and stuff like that. It sort of reminds me of a paper I read when I was in graduate school studying to be a therapist. LSD as a cure for alcoholism ---, this was the experiment. I remember seeing this text just laughing. But I see now my clients talking about microdosing of mushrooms, that it might be helpful. For people who have been stuck for so many years on one of the levels, for them, they just want to have a glimpse of what the potential is. And I do think there are biochemical shortages in this life through disrupting our nutrition processes or trauma. You can alter DNA in such tiny ways. Like the twins, one goes up into outer space and comes back and his DNA is changed from his brother's. It is so subtle. The theory about schizophrenia is that it is like a summer virus or something that alters the chemistry in pregnant women. It alters the DNA and then it is passed on from generation to generation.
We are so sensitive. What are the restorative processes for that? I think in Western medicine we're still looking for the relationship between man and plant, man and mineral. It's a search.
42:00
An Mertens And other medicines?
Kathy Melcher It's the same… Ayurveda, Chinese medicine. It's the search to re-establish somehow the whole connection between animal, mineral, vegetable. The thing is it is all intelligent, it is all cooperative.
42:36
I remember having a tooth ache. It was here. I thought, oh god, what am I going to do, I'm in the middle of nowhere and I'm having a tooth ache. I stepped outside of the door and I had no idea. Right beside the door was 'kruidnagel' (clove). A remedy.
Relationship to trees
43:11
An Mertens This brings us maybe to this question about the special connection to trees, stones…
43:21
Kathy Melcher What to say? One of the most miraculous things I ever saw, was when Frank and I were in Breitenbush Hot Springs, which is a place where we teach and where Frank teaches. We were at a Reiki conference and a Japanese researcher was recording the song of trees. What she did is, there was a lot of construction going on at Breitenbush, they moved the water as it were, they changed the course of the river. It was shaking up the whole environment. So she recorded the tree song while the earth moving equipment was going on, and then she recorded the tree song after we were doing Reiki on the trees. It was beautiful. She put the vibration, the readings, to musical notes. Beautiful.
44:26
An Mertens What was the outcome?
44:29
Kathy Melcher With the Reiki of course, the song was more beautiful and with the earth moving equipment it was chaotic. That's something that you get when you put your hands on trees. Like my friend Joe, the Druid, he can feel the sap going up and down in the tree. That's not something I can do. But I can feel light in the tree, and I know, I have trees on our property at home and sometimes I can sit, meditating, and I can feel the wind moving the trees, coming up through the floor. There is this whole network underground how trees communicate with each other. I used to break apart the mushrooms that would come up, now I leave them alone, because I know what they're doing. But it took me a while to learn all this, to respect it.
We have a tree that was damaged when we enlarged our house to create office space for Frank. The two people who were responsible for the construction gave that tree Reiki on a critical moment, so that it lived. It is an 80 year old maple tree. It has lived in what used to be the woods.
46:13
We have 22 trees on the property, some large, some small, some ornamental, some big pines. I don't do anything to disturb them anymore, because I realize that they need to be there.
46:42
An Mertens How did she measure the vibrations?
Kathy Melcher She had these little clips and a box recording the vibration. And there was a software program, I have no idea how it worked. And then there was something else to translate that into Apple music.
Relationship to stones
47:14
An Mertens And the stones?
Kathy Melcher If you go to the Southwest of the US, you will see what stones are really about. There are so many incredible, unbelievable rock formations that give off energy. They tell a very deep and long story about life on and underneath the surface of this place.
Where we live there is a lot of volcanic rock. It is not the same as sedimentary rock that you might find in the Midwest or something. It is relatively recent lava from 6000 years ago. So, we live in volcanic country where any minute there could be something else, something different.
48:28
I'm attracted to crystals. I have many crystals in my office, in our home. People make fun of it sometimes.
48:43
An Mertens What is the attraction?
Kathy Melcher I started out with bear fetishes. Bear is my totem animal. The first thing I ever bought was a very large bear fetish carved by the New Mexico Zuni's. That was the first fetish I ever bought, in rock, in green and blue turquoise, carnelian…
An Mertens Do you work with them?
Kathy Melcher Yes, I do, especially with the white North-West healing spirit bear. And they're just all there on my wall and on my desk in my office. They're just hanging out there. It's a bear cave (laughs). It stands for strength and serenity.
I had my friend Lionel Little Eagle come long long ago when I first built the office. He came and did a bear awakening ceremony in the place. It was great. He smudged, it was thick. There was a thick smoke.
An Mertens You felt it afterwards?
Kathy Melcher Sure, it is still there. Anyone can feel it.
-
Jóska Soós was a Hungarian shaman and painter. He migrated to Belgium during WWII and lived in Charleroi, Brussels and Antwerp: http://www.joskasoos.be ↩