Laurie McNeill

Greetings, and thank you for reviewing my profile. I am a child of the Texas gulf coast, brought up wandering the beaches and bayous of my home state, feeling that human connection through the soles of my feet to the land that we all experience as children and often lose in the transition to adulthood. I have always felt the nearness of the unseen world, what my forebears would have called the Otherworld, and that is what drew me to study shamanism decades ago and keeps me engaged today.

Now I live in the south-west of England, enriched by having this island under the soles of my feet, and loving working with clients who wish to deepen and broaden their own relationship with place and with the unseen side of All That Is and come to find relief from patterns which hold them isolated in place rather than allowing for connection and movement both. I see clients in person here in Minehead (Somerset) and also gladly work remotely via phone and the like.

After three decades of classroom teaching of Chemistry and Physics (I hold an MS in Chemistry and further qualifications for the teaching of Physics and Mathematics), I did my Shamanic Practitioner Training here in the UK in the early 2000s. Since that time I have become a full mesa carrier in the Andean Peruvian Inka tradition, in the lineage of Don Manuel Quispe. I continue to pursue training in a variety of aspects of consciousness and shamanic practice because I love it and just can't help myself!

Traditionally, route to learning what we now call shamanic practice was a long apprenticeship with a local indigenous healer and wise person, an intercessor between the everyday world we live in and the Otherworld - the unseen, invisible but very real other side of this seen and experienced world that birthed us and holds us - followed by very local work in the same geographic region, usually in conjunction with the healer-teacher and the community in which they work. That would make us qualified to practice.

That type of apprenticeship is no longer available to us, so shamanic practitioners must lean very heavily on the second aspect of qualification, which is the depth and longevity of our partnership with allies, guardian and ancestors, often in the locality in which we live. That I do have after over two decades of shamanic work, ritual and ceremony on the land here in this valley where Exmoor meets the sea. Those who seek healing and a deepening of their relationship with place and with spirit are most welcome here, physically or virtually.

As all shamanic practitioners, I undertake extraction of heavy energy forms and thought patterns, release of connections which drain energy from the client, energy retrieval, soul retrieval and the illumination of energetic imprints (patterns which often come into this life with us but are unhelpful to living ourselves fully in this world). For most of us, each of these plays its part in healing, in becoming whole and free. All of them are an integrated part of the work of any shamanic practitioner, and I am no exception. I also undertake work to restore the soul of the land in areas that have undergone traumas, and am very able and honoured to help those who have died to move on to whatever is next for them.

It is not unusual for the work required to address a client's issue (for lack of a better word) to take more than one session. I generally plan for four; if we do the work in fewer, that is fine; if it requires a fifth session, then so be it. All of this depends on how deeply we have to work and how the client's energy system presents itself. In each session we will deal with what comes up, what makes itself known at that time. Payment is in advance or on the day; the money goes on the (sometimes virtual) altar space as part of the client's offering, since all of shamanic work is part of the great weaving of on-going exchange that makes up this luminous universe we are privileged to live in. There is further work for the client to do at home (homework!) in order to integrate the treatment and secure lasting effects. Sessions are at least two weeks apart to give the client's energy system time to settle between changes, which may be profound.