art by Luis Tamani;
After a long journey of solitude and acute illness during Fall/Early Winter 2024 and in the wake of another round of ongoing dismemberments over the past 5 years I have been in much inquiry into the nature of change at this time, and thus have significantly altered the nature, format and timing structure of this next cohort beginning in April 2025, in order to honor the inevitability of flux, the tendencies of self regulated patterns to become malleable over time, and the need to be flexible and responsive to rapidly evolving patterns in our world. This means that although my spirit council and I have designed the complete training to fully occupy 3 years, you don’t have to commit to 3 years. You can come for the first year or first and second years and then discontinue. Also anyone can simply leave the cohort at any time without penalty. You might not be fully resourced in all the ways offered, but you might receive what you need and can use.
Please Consider:
One point I want to make early about this particular endeavor is this: much spiritual and healing work is now done focused primarily on individual well-being as currently defined by an oppressive, extractive culture and its notions of success and also on the belief in a constantly increasing sense of self-improvement. However, a person who seriously and effectively works with the earth and spirit realm recognizes that any individual’s need is not simply something that arises in an isolated way nor do we continually “improve” all aspects of ourselves in some concrete, linear way. There is always surge, collapse and reorientation in living systems. To perceive or speak about “healing” as if it has just one objective and can be some sort of fait accompli, a personal commodity sucked out of the earth and swallowed whole, is a mistaken notion based on so much of our misinformed conditioning, our subsequent self-absorption from our long disconnect with our Earth, and our impatience with the complex and largely underground processes of true change.
We humans do not have just one causal life nor are any of our lives enclosed in unchanging and rigid barriers as to what we define as human. We are always weaving in and out of other beings, places and times and they us; not in invasive ways but as collaborating aspects of a multitude of diverse creative forces who sometimes harmonize and sometimes present challenge. The wind is always blowing through our bodies with memories seeded of other beings, times and places; the rain soaking into the ground under our feet, running down our gullets or returning to its homewaters or crystalizing, or melting or turning to vapors in a continual exchange fully, freely soaks us with secrets of life on this planet; we dream the dreams of antelopes and marsh marigolds, of still sentient bones of mastodons and the passenger pigeon, of the person lying next to us or a stranger in another life, time or place.. How could we possibly hope to fully resolve and order everything to our wishes as if we are only individual creatures who can be finished? Especially in relation to our magnificent bodies with their own timeless divine intelligence and mysterious momentum. And how could we ever separate our intelligent bodies from the flow of our minds or how we are literally moved through our lives by the nature of our emotions, whether we know this or not? With all our modern isolation and loneliness, why do we still hold so close to these ideas of perfecting ourselves that keep us ultimately separate, from our nature and from others and the dynamic nature of the Earth? How do we learn to feel our wondrous permeability? We are at the center as well as walking the curving edges of the most elaborate, layered, infinite Venn diagram, just quivering with possibilities. To believe that we can fully address the infinitudes of continuously changing fluid organisms and bring them all into some notion of what we define as being healed disregards the unimaginable and endless risky interconnected creativity of life. It disregards that maybe we don’t need to be healed, we simply need to live honestly and compassionately with what’s moving in us each moment. To think we could do otherwise would be stasis, a true death, which Life has no room for.
Many life expressions we wish to “heal” are seated in a complex network of often unidentifiable relationships and a more vast timeline than one life and even in a more collective organism and place and will not be able to realize the types of complete resolutions we’ve learned to wish for and often define as “happiness”, “wholeness” “health’ or “success” in one lifetime and which would not be even desirable from a greater big picture. However, we are not stuck either, which is my point; we can often learn to relate to and from our own lives and to those of others compassionately in collaborative peace which allows for creative conflict; with discerning awareness, inspirited creativity and a grateful sense of “enoughness” and keep our energies in good flow. We can learn from working with compassionate spirits of Earth and Cosmos how to be comfortably present to the unknowable, with those whose suffering is unabated, to be a deep well of receptivity to those whose grief paralyzes; we can be the human connective touchstone for the spirits to do whatever is possible to maintain inspirited flow in those who seek change. The intention is to enhance awareness, clarity, connection and learn to some degree how our nature—matter and spirit intrinsically together —actually moves and shapes experience as well as what limits our understandings and influence. In doing so we can experience and radiate the awe, wonder, beauty and deep joy inherent in those states of growing awareness; reclaim the power of original nature in order to have greater options of satisfactions in life and begin to align more deeply with the nature of the Earth who birthed us in form. The intention is to live as a deeply relational being among the timeless expressions of Earth life: To live prioritizing these relationships.
Medicine people work as part of the continually ongoing Weaving of Life, and recognize that personal challenges are interwoven and related to not only our intrinsic gifts, but also to what has occurred ancestrally, what’s shaping the arc of lifetimes occurring within essential timelessness,, what’s currently occurring within the greater human community as well as within the other-than-human and environmental gestalt of the times, and are not simply indications of faulty or disruptive individual histories. Consequently, any committed person tending to the Earth/Spirit realms must also be a type of animist activist, aware of the greater patternings in the world, and will be attuned to how to observe and engage with this greater community of beings as well as with individuals, for the initiating patterns lie in that greater fabric of life whose full nature we can’t even know.
Additionally, I ask for people participating in this endeavor to understand this learning is not complete at the end of three years. This is a beginning. It’s an unusually discerning and powerful beginning, but still a beginning. It is ongoing as you practice, receive feedback and gain life experience. There are some things you’ll be prepared to engage with to some degree when we conclude and some you won’t. The priority of your relationships with the spirits will always be evolving, sometimes in confusing ways, more often in startlingly beautiful ways, so please be aware of the ongoing need to learn, change, adapt and reorient.
That being said…….
Author and intrepid dream explorer Robert Moss once wrote: “Poets are shamans of words, and shamans are poets of consciousness.” And in that light…..
……..when you begin to pay heed to the language of birds, and sense your body re-aligning with the heartbeat of the earth through the whispering in your blood and the dreaming of your bones; when the singing of night stars thrills you and the wise trees guide you; when the winds wrap around you with their far-sensing secrets and you witness and receive with heartbreaking wonder the beauty of this Earth that nourishes you; and when you encounter the myriad touches of the unseen in your life and sense your spirit sap rising in trembling response, ..... then I invite you to reflect on the landscape you might find yourself in if you’re drawn to a practice of Earth/Spirit tending.
Consider that your life exists simultaneously as matter and spirit., although there are other expressions of consciousness. Then imagine existence as a vast web of life. Consider each warp and weft thread of that great web to be like the strings of a musical instrument with their own pitch, tone and frequencies; vibrating and resonant. You are the sound waves of one of those uncountable strings. And imagine then each string traveling on infinitely and in ways we can’t track. Consider the pulsing, unknowable vastness of all those points of connection, how powerful and mysterious! Envision how the sound waves that occur at those intersections carry on down the threads and consider also that time and space is very undefinable in the spirit realm especially, and so you can’t explain or predict just how far your sound-waves might travel or for how long and with what power; or even what sound-wave is yours and what is another’s, for they make one vast, glorious music together.
And then envision yourself and all others and how each thought and feeling, each sensation, how each belief and action that rises out of you sets your string quivering with unimaginable results. And this is simply from the human realm. Add to that the inconceivable sound-waves from each string of life of every other species and each being in that species, planetary and beyond, and the complexity of this web of creation. And so… it matters, doesn’t it, how we dream in this web of life, what music we make? It matters what we value, how we act on our values and what we envision to be the original substrate of this entire Web, which is also our own original template, and how we relate to/from that. Is it a web of original and mysterious Beauty or is it a web of ….what?
It is from this consideration and inquiry I am offering “Poets of Consciousness: A 1-3 year Earth/Spirit Tending mentorship” for those who feel called to live in dedicated, loving, engaged partnership with the Earth and spirit realms in relational, creative ways.
This medicine walk is a critical and powerful immersion of observing, discerning, practicing, applying, tracking and refining for those who are possibly being called to tend their relationships with the Earth and the formless realms; for those who want to update, challenge, expand and deepen the work they may already be doing in this way; for those who engage in practices/professions/expressions who want to better perceive, understand and work with what is occurring on the spiritual/energetic/ancestral levels of their populations; and it is also suitable for many who are doing creative work of any kind who wish to include an inspired, practical, creative consideration of the spiritual, energetic dynamics that give rise to and are interwoven through physical reality and vice-versa, so as to more fully understand the nature of, and thus inhabit, the true range of our humanity with expansive skill and awareness.
So if you experience a deep call to do this tending on behalf of others; if you already do this but realize there is always more to learn and wish your work to remain alive, flowing and grounded in intelligent active, earth-based spirit community; if you are a psychotherapist or body worker of some kind, a Reiki practitioner, sound healer or any other kind of energetic professional; or if you’re an artist, astrologist, musician, entrepreneur; tend a farm, a business, a family, a political district, or a school, etc. this mentorship can help you better perceive the context and originating patterns in which our culture operates and then critically navigate both the discrete as well as holographic, always changing landscapes of the spirit realm in relationship to what is created and experienced in the material world. Even if you never intend to engage professionally as a practitioner in any related specific way, which is a choice I deeply support, learning how to accurately perceive and understand how the energetic realm is moving and its ways and paths of influence can greatly enhance your own general awareness and well-being as well as support whatever life endeavors and purpose you express.
Learning how to perceive, track, and be responsibly creative both in the physical domain and in the spirit world when allied with fully benevolent beings gives us a way to understand and navigate life with wider, more unconditioned, compassionate perspectives and options; more just and accountable relationship to others and to the signs and circumstances of our bountiful intrinsic diversity; a greater capacity to perceive and move peacefully in relation to the suffering of others— especially those we believe are not like “us,” whoever that “us” is; an enhanced range of choice, and deeply increased effective follow through within all realms. The idiosyncratic and powerful relationships formed through consistent tending of both the spirit and earth realms can bring us home to our innate presence and capabilities as beings who are spirit and body; whose lives are sourced in the infinite realm which teems with a dazzling array of possibilities we are better equipped to perceive and act on when we cultivate the awareness, skills and direct relationships that give us reliable experience in working in both visionary and grounded ways on behalf of our wondrous planet, who is signifying in countless ways our responsibility to attend to the needs of a living, diverse Earth.
This 1-3 year training will look at a wide range of what is currently considered widely acknowledged fundamental perspectives, protocols and skills to reliably practice at this time in the wildly distorted context of capitalist culture; and with curiosity and an invitation to be surprised, we will see what new(or very old) and possibly more expansive lenses we might bring to what I call Earth/Spirit Tending work. We will most importantly delve into incisive self-inquiry about cosmologies, biases, blind spots and power, consistent solo and group practice navigating various relationships to the spirit realm and its multitudinous dynamics and how to work beneficially within those expressions; inspired experimentation, and thoughtful feedback within a stable container founded on the following benefits: A sensual, respectful, reciprocal relationship with the Earth, Ancestors and Cosmos; continuous long-term community; one-on-one mentorship; commitment to personal and group integrity; and the balance between discipline/ structure with the wild, feral, ever-changing unique brilliance of the compassionate spirits that evolves through direct experience within sound relationship.
My relationship to you:
Before I begin discussing content and structure, I’m addressing the accountability of my relationship to you as this will be a critical influence as we move through this mentoring. One of my primary definitions for what it means to be a peer oriented mentor in this training is that I am a deeply resourced, consistently proven and accountable tracker, guide and companion; I have the on-going, evolving experiences, skills, beneficial outcomes and perspectives, change and growth as well as inevitable missteps and misunderstandings, all of which arise, are cultivated through and consequent of serious, many decades-long continual commitment. I pledge to share all this with you in ways that will illuminate knowledge, attitudes and abilities needed by you now and also prompt you to remember sane, healthy ways of being human you already have encoded in your soul and from ancient ancestral and future time to help you develop ways to clarify, synthesize, refine and effectively apply all of this on behalf of Life in ways that many similar kinds of training lack the capacity to explore for various reasons. Hence one reason for creating such an intimate group.
I recognize and honor that you have gifts, wisdom, vulnerabilities, and valuable experiences and perspectives to share with me and the group. Together we will create new possibilities for enhanced understanding and action in the world with the companionship and guidance of powerful, compassionate spirit beings. In doing so we help reawaken an innate knowing in the psyche of the human species that has been overshadowed for a long time and thus we help mend a deep rift in the world.
My part is to provide rich, stimulating, inspired, deeply informed as well as continually challenging ground for you to become confidently experienced in navigating the spirit realm and bridging that into daily life through a disciplined and inquisitive learning collaboration as we walk this way together. With each one of you who comes on this journey I make covenant to share the deepest understandings I hold as well as all I continually question about them and myself, and to encourage you to build and grow upon this and especially to develop your own on a strong foundation; to make room for respectful disagreement, doubt, challenge, rejection, the unknown and unanswerable; to express from the greatest vulnerability and sincerity I can access at any time; to be willing to change; to support you through growing pains with warmth, understanding and humor; and to offer my passionate love for this beautiful Earth life and all she so generously gives us as the guiding spirit of our time together. This is relationship and relationship is the defining purpose and benefit of our embodied spirit lives. For up to and likely more than three years we will inhabit a sacred circle of growing Love and Awareness together and we will be changed, together.
The Tending Processes
Listed here are protocols and orientations we will likely get to explore in this training. These can be considered energetic patterns that have been observed to be accessed across certain diverse cultures consistently, each with distinctive purposes. However, keep in mind that this kind of work cannot be codified. Spirit is vast, wild and moves outside all our efforts to standardize. This is our original nature too, present underneath even the most oppressive overshadowing. Consequently in practice, these conceptualized protocols often shed the clothes and language of domestication and take their own unique, wandering path…. thankfully! This work is dynamic, alive, mysterious and will not be contained by concepts, categories and language as much as we might need to use them just to navigate.. The guidance received through this engagement is truly a process of encountering mystery through direct revelation; yet that doesn’t translate into ‘anything goes’. Hence the great value of learning how to read and navigate wild energy through a creative application of the following approaches in tandem with trusted spirit allies, honest feedback and an experienced mentor with whom you will eventually break new, original ground as we travel together.
Earth Relations
Ceremony/Ritual
Divination
Power Recovery: teacher, Ancestor, animal, elemental, other
Soul Essence Recovery: present, past and future lives
Body Essence Restoration
Elemental Balancing
Transfiguration and Transmutation
Extraction
Cord Dissolving
Other Lives Aspects/Influences
Deathwalking (psychopomp)
Ancestral Healing
Land and Space Restoration/Reinspiriting
Non-dual Decoupling(integrative depossession
Curse Unraveling(self/ancestral
Schedule of protocols somewhat dependent on make-up of course participants: Likely the following:
YEAR 1
Earth Relations:
Ceremony/Ritual:
Personal Medicine Council/Power Stacking/Merging/Sovereign Sanctuary/Diagnostics
Power Restoration: teacher, Ancestor, animal, nature being, elemental, other
Soul Essence Recovery: present, past and future lives
Body Essence Remembering
Extraction
Transfiguration/Transmutation
Year 2
Cord Dissolving
Deathwalking (psychopomp)
Non-dual Decoupling(integrative depossession)
Curse Unraveling(personal/ancestral)
Divination/Mediumship
Year 3
Ancestral Healing: self and others/ “Time Spirits and the Ancestral Weave” c
Land and Space Restoration/Reinspiriting
Elemental Attunement
Other Lives Aspects/Influences
Learning these orientations and protocols as if they are separate from one another isn’t how experience tends to pan out when doing this work, and so during the first three years we will explore them through the lenses of what I consider relevant fields of life experience to help seat them in your practice more fully as the poetic nuances they actually are. These orientations will likely be among the following:
Songs of the Earth
The Beautiful Story
Power/Authority
Beauty, Wonder, Mystery
Distortions from Colonization
Longing and Fulfillment
Paradox
Love/Awareness
Death/Dying
Self/Other/No self/Communal Self;
Loss and Dismemberment
Grief
Ethics
Worldwork
Once the three years are complete there will be an elective opportunity to explore World Work/Service as a separate and critical module wherein you will have the opportunity to walk your talk in service to others. This module will give you the opportunity to be more self-directed as a group of whomever chooses this action. I will be in a consulting supervisory role but the group itself will determine one or two acts of service to collaborate on. For example, this may take shape as undertaking a form of re-inspiriting an area of land that has been affected by human created violence and/or disregard somewhere or it could be taking on work on behalf of a group that desires your services in the unseen realm to create beneficial change in an otherwise stagnant or hurting system. It will be up to you to determine together what these actions will be and how to proceed in a way that has integrity, humility, diligence, creativity, respect and accountability. It will be up to those who participate to clearly define the intentions of each work; to determine obstacles and allies; to receive the necessary guidance from the spirit world; to determine what will be decided through human creative thought and intuition; to elicit necessary permissions and cooperation from anyone involved on the receiving or cooperating end; to determine what specific actions will be undertaken in both the seen and unseen realms and to document each step of the process beginning to end, including consequences and follow-up for what worked well, what didn’t and what might have been done differently. This world-work will require dedication and self-directed persistence. And it will teach you in ways nothing else can.
Structure/Timing
During the one to three year period we will meet in the following ways:
There will be 4 in-person 3-day gatherings each year from April through October with one optional 2 day gathering in early November to honor the dead through ritual, memory, art and story. We will be following the seasonal cycles of more active outer engagement with skill building and practice during the fecund parts of the year and enter into somewhat more internal oriented, reflective, partially autonomous explorations at a slower, more in-depth pace during the colder and darker months of the year as we concentrate on prioritizing how this practice is shaping us and our lived relationships with the spirit realm over protocols and skills.
Although gathering in person confers benefits unmatched by remote inclusion, I understand there might be occasional times when it’s unworkable for some. In these infrequent times I will support you participating online
There will however be 3 multi-hour Zoom practice sessions each year during November-March and 2 multi-hour instructional Zoom sessions each year during this same time, depending on need.
There will be one voluntary zoom call each month for those who wish to drop in and share their journey experiences, the work in their pods and relationships with the spirits, to ask questions and just generally touch in.
There will be one on ones during the winter months (and other times as well)as working with your discrete nature closely is a vital part of being mentored but not to replace full participation in group and solo practice
There will be inspirations, assignments and complementary practices sent to you by email once a month to guide and support your daily and weekly practice, either singularly or with a partner or pod and tutorials and audio files available for you to access.
There will be a 3 day residential initiating grief ritual followed by a celebratory ceremony for you to come forward and name the nature of your medicine at the end of the 3 years.
I will share personal energetic hygiene practices with you to conform to your needs and temperament.
All processes and inquiries will be stored in a shared Google drive .
Participation is limited to 8-10 in-person people.
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The location of this training likely will be the Cleveland, Ohio area. This is a non-residency training but I will do my best to find locations where you can stay without great expense,
This training will begin in april of 2025. Exact dates will be posted when known
Terms and Cost of this Training:
This mentoring program is available as a 1 year, 2 year or full 3 year engagement. No long term commitment is needed. You may simply commit for 1 year at a time and see how it goes. Also, you may drop out at any time without penalty.
$4200.00 per year for three years.
Payments made in full for each year are due at the beginning of each term. Monthly payment plans are available for anyone when worked out with me. Payments likely range from $250-$350 per month with all unpaid balances extended out into the months following whenever you leave the group.
No monthly payments under $250 per month.
I will happily notify you what $250, $300 and $350 monthly payment plans would look like if requested. You can change the amount paid per month each year that you continue if desired
Monthly payments are always due by the 5th of each month.
A $300 deposit is due upon registration and will be credited towards first year tuition.
Prerequisites to Participate:
—A reliable practice connecting with the Spirit realm. What this is and how it works for you can vary, but within the training you will need to be amenable to times of singing/ silence/ stillness/ dancing/ moving/ drumming/ ritual/ self-inquiry/ rattling/ toning/ artistic expressions and more… . . We will largely be practicing by inviting, recognizing and cultivating loving relationships with the spirits and our bio-regions, often through our deep listening, self-inquiry and generous giving of ourselves as well as with the application of focused meditative/trance work, spirit flight, mediumship, spirit songs/power songs, dance/movement, ceremony, play and other various earth-based disciplines, although I don’t wish to automatically preclude other forms of connection at the get-go if you feel otherwise called to this. In such a case, we will need to have a conversation to determine if it’s a good fit. All that being said, I will not be coaching you on the fundamentals of connecting to the unseen; you must already have a practice in place that connects you fairly reliably to the spirit realm. If you currently use an entheogen as your way to connect to the spirit realm and hope to do so during the course of this training, please do not apply unless you’re willing to stop long before the course begins and practice to see if you have consistently reliable relationships with the spirits before the training begins, and are willing to continue that way for the duration.
—Another prerequisite to participate in this circle is that you acknowledge that you do not expect this to be a venue for either personal therapy, self-promotion or prioritizing of self-healing, it is not,(even though healing will certainly occur); it is necessary to have your shit together at least enough to be aware of your basic foibles and triggers, discern when they’ve been activated, have reliable self-care protocols and be able to move with a fair degree of emotional balance and ownership during challenges, as well as being committed to the work at hand. This does not mean you won’t be supported at all during difficult, unexpected transitions; it means be emotionally aware and reasonably capable.
-A final prerequisite is that you acknowledge this is a working practice that needs your consistent diligence and attention; i. e. is at least one of the priorities in your life. Barring unavoidable and challenging circumstances it’s expected you will attend scheduled gatherings, keep up with the work, and cooperate with the others in the group, as we will all be practicing and moving together on a shared path meant to nourish you as well as with the sometimes difficult beauties of such a covenant.
Interested?
I want anyone who feels at all curious about this mentorship and who has any questions to please feel free to contact me at damaris@damarischrystal.com to schedule a conversation. I will walk you through any aspect of this and want you to feel fully informed and comfortable when it comes to a sound decision. I know this is a serious investment of time and resources—for both of us.
If you know you’d like to apply, I welcome you to contact me at damaris@damarischrystal.com so we can schedule an interview.
This is a rigorous and profound training and will ask a lot of you individually and collectively as well as give a lot in return and inexorably change your life in remarkable ways as it has all my students. Although there will certainly be periods of challenge, resistance and doubt experienced during this training, it will also be intriguing, joyous, invigorating, fascinating and full of surprises that will ultimately help seat you more powerfully in the necessary qualities you were born to express and at a time that greatly needs you.. I will be so honored to gather with those of you who decide to come.
Students from the last and still lovingly connected circle are available to speak with you about their experiences and will also at times join the next circle to participate.
October,, 2024
Damaris Chrystal
Testimonies from a couple of primarily mentoring students taken from www.damarischrystal.com/testimonials:
From Brooke Saba McDowell, Architectural Living Systems Designer/Activist, (Massachusetts):
I have never met anyone in my life, anywhere I’ve ever been, like Damaris. She lives her life, both everyday responsibilities, in her spiritual practice, and in her work and all multi-dimensional relationships, with the deepest sense of finely tuned ethics, with passion and integrity for what is of value, and with the greatest clarity about the dynamics of power and the importance of skillful awareness and honesty when it comes to individual and collective perceptual biases.
From K. Klonowski, Cultural Foundations Educator and community liaison, Office of the President, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH:
“Damaris is the kind of teacher who works and moves beyond any kind of standard or traditional criteria. It’s not enough to say that you, as a student, will do a great deal of learning. It’s more accurate to say that you will change the way you think, feel and move in the universe. It’s like that. It’s that level of teaching. I am profoundly grateful for what I have received through her guidance, wisdom, and friendship. In short, if you want to understand something better, read a book. If. you want to set your reality ablaze, I present Damaris.”
From Elizabeth Meacham, PhD. Author at Inner Traditions/Bear & Co.”Earth Spirit Dreaming”; Spiritual Teacher, Healer, Coach at Earth Spirit Dreaming Healing Arts Collective, singer/songwriter. Cleveland, OH:
“Knowing and working with Damaris has been one of the most important and pivotal experiences of my entire life. I literally could not have fully discovered, understood and embodied my spiritual calling in this lifetime without her healing work, support, and guidance. As a scholar and long-time practitioner of multiple spiritual modalities, I’ve encountered many spiritual teachers and healers; Damaris stands apart. She understands and navigates the spirit world with tremendous sensitivity, awareness, beauty, commitment, depth, and knowledge. She’s loving and compassionate, and able to maintain deep intimacy as a healer and teacher, while also telling important truths when needed. She’s brave and powerful, soft and funny, caring and strong, creative and intelligent, and just brilliant and shining on so, so many levels. She understands that the deepest mysteries can be felt, explored, and engaged intelligently and effectively, while accepting that they can never fully be understood. She is a true medicine woman in the most profound sense, including all of the spirit power and sacrifices that her calling entails; a rarity exceedingly necessary, though too often undervalued, in these times that are both perilous and full of opportunity. If you feel called to engage with the multidimensional magic that is Earth/Spirit Tending, let Damaris be your healer and your guide.”
From Nova S.; Author “Avonelle’s Gift”/ancestral healer/deathwalker/spiritual detritivore, Chapel Hill, NC:
“… What has it been like to resume what I refer to as my shamanic studies (even though Damaris doesn’t align with that term) 4 years after quitting to write my book with this teacher, both a friend and once peer student?....breathtaking and awe inspiring. We’ve been working together for over a year and I know partnering with Damaris is the reason why there have been so many changes. I’ve shed so much, making way for the new. Much of Earth/Spirit training is one’s own healing and deeper connection with their guides/ helping spirits: the two are intrinsically bound. Besides creating a stronger foundation for ancestral healing, working with Damaris has confirmed again and again that my purpose is that of a Psychopomp and lineage healer.
From the field Damaris provides of incisive inquiry, detailed tracking and deeply embodied relational practices to the Earth and spirit realm, my access to my guides has grown increasingly permeable and spontaneous. Over time I’m able to see clearly just how refined and exact the guidance is that Damaris gives. She is always acting in accordance with what her spirit cohort suggests and are they ever on point! I have been so amazed to engage this work consistently with Damaris over a long amount of time for there have been instances where I haven’t understood the reason for some of the suggestions that the helping spirits, through Damaris, have made, even though they have always been fascinating and emotionally moving in the moment. But over the course of time it has absolutely stunned me to perceive just what they were designing all along and the great interconnected beauty and complexity of it all. How do they do that??
What more, exactly, does Damaris bring to our partnership? She is meticulous. She listens carefully and deeply. She always plans, consults with her guides before any teaching but is able to spin on a dime if the situation requires. Her ability to “hear” and sense what is needed at any point creates the deepest student experience if the student is ready and committed. If you are wanting to move into a novel perspective about establishing/re-establishing your instinctual connection to Life, Nature and the Creatrix, then you will not find a more powerful, creative and generous mentor than Damaris Chrystal. “
From Katie T., PhD Agroforester/community food activist/songstress, Roanoke, VA:
The night after I met Damaris in 2015 I had a vivid dream where she was sitting next to me and teaching me something very important. Since then I have participated in over six of her multi-day trainings as well as numerous journey circles, completed her one-year “Time Spirits and the Ancestral Weave” course, and received many hours of mentorship in my personal practice. And now I am signed up for her 2+year training!
Over the years, Damaris has not only become a trusted mentor and teacher, but also a supportive friend, wise elder, cherished mother, and hilarious sister. Tending her relationship with me with the same love, compassion, and loyalty she has tended her relationships in the spirit realm creates a powerful and safe container for her students to re-connect to self, community, nature, and the unseen world and to responsively meet the unspeakable pain and beauty of being alive. When Damaris takes someone on as a student she becomes a seriously committed ally in their healing and learning with a willingness to share her full and real self.
As a teacher, she stands in the mystery and honors the subtlety and nuance of the spirit realm with a deep moral and ethical awareness and commitment. Navigating power dynamics with integrity, if presented with power given to her by a student, she does not take it as her own, but encourages and supports them in recognizing and re-claiming it over time. Weaving words with rich texture and feeling, she shares knowledge, deeply embodied .Inspirited in her instruction, she tracks her students and adapts to what is most needed in each moment. Dancing between the ordinary and non-ordinary her teaching style requires her students have a commitment to integrating their spiritual healing and skills into their life and community and ultimately a readiness for transformation.
Damaris Chrystal
*art credits;
Eagles-Falcon Moon Studio-The Art of Brenda Lyons
Dreaming Fox-Sandra Dieckmann
Bee-Lisa Marquis-Bradbury
The Foragers—Elizabeth Sommerville