Shaman, Healer, Sage Quotes

“The shaman is a self-realized person. She discovers the ways of Spirit through her inner awakening.”
― Alberto Villoldo, Shaman, Healer, Sage: How to Heal Yourself and Others with the Energy Medicine of the Americas

“You can accomplish anything,” she once told me, “as long as you are willing to let others take credit for it.”
― Alberto Villoldo, Shaman, Healer, Sage: How to Heal Yourself and Others with the Energy Medicine of the Americas

“EAGLE The East direction is represented by eagle and condor, who bring vision, clarity, and foresight. Eagle perceives the entire panorama of life without becoming bogged down in its details. The energies of eagle assist us in finding the guiding vision of our lives. The eyes of condor see into the past and the future, helping to know where we come from, and who we are becoming. When I work with a client who is stuck in the traumas of the past, I help her to connect with the spirit of eagle or condor. As this energy infuses the healing space, my client is often able to attain new clarity and insight into her life. This is not an intellectual insight, but rather a call, faint at first, hardly consciously heard. Her possibilities beckon to her and propel her out of her grief and into her destiny. I believe that while everyone has a future, only certain people have a destiny. Having a destiny means living to your fullest human potential. You don’t need to become a famous politician or poet, but your destiny has to be endowed with meaning and purpose. You could be a street sweeper and be living a destiny. You could be the president of a large corporation and be living a life bereft of meaning. One can make oneself available to destiny, but it requires a great deal of courage to do so. Otherwise our destiny bypasses us, leaving us deprived of a fulfillment known by those who choose to take the road less traveled. Eagle allows us to rise above the mundane battles that occupy our lives and consume our energy and attention. Eagle gives us wings to soar above trivial day-to-day struggles into the high peaks close to Heaven. Eagle and condor represent the self-transcending principle in nature. Biologists have identified the self-transcending principle as one of the prime agendas of evolution. Living molecules seek to transcend their selfhood to become cells, then simple organisms, which then form tissues, then organs, and then evolve into complex beings such as humans and whales. Every transcending jump is inclusive of all of the levels beneath it. Cells are inclusive of molecules, yet transcend them; organs are inclusive of cells, yet go far beyond them; whales are inclusive of organs yet cannot be described by them, as the whole transcends the sum of its parts. The transcending principle represented by eagle states that problems at a certain level are best solved by going up one step. The problems of cells are best resolved by organs, while the needs of organs are best addressed by an organism such as a butterfly or a human. The same principle operates in our lives. Think of nested Russian dolls. Material needs are the tiny doll in the center. The larger emotional doll encompasses them, and both are contained within the outermost spiritual doll. In this way, we cannot satisfy emotional needs with material things, but we can satisfy them spiritually. When we go one step up, our emotional needs are addressed in the solution. We rise above our life dilemmas on the wings of eagle and see our lives in perspective.”
― Alberto Villoldo, Shaman, Healer, Sage: How to Heal Yourself and Others with the Energy Medicine of the Americas

“You would be surprised at the healing power of a simple “I love you” from a dying parent to a child or vice versa. This is not always easy, of course, yet a lifetime of mistakes can be undone through forgiveness even at the end of a life.”
― Alberto Villoldo, Shaman, Healer, Sage: How to Heal Yourself and Others with the Energy Medicine of the Americas

“Those who have mastered the seventh chakra attain unusual powers, including remembering ancient memories belonging to the collective consciousness of humanity. Doña Laura used to tell me that the final test of the shaman who attempts this level is to remember the first story ever told. “When time was still young, before the arrival of the four-leggeds or the plants, the first story ever told was told to us by the Stone People,” she would say. “This is why we place a circle of stones around our fires.” I would implore her to tell me more. “Ask the stones,” she would say. Until one day I remembered.”
― Alberto Villoldo, Shaman, Healer, Sage

“In the seventh chakra there is no longer subject and object. Everything is participatory. Apparent contradictions are merged into one: life in death, peace in pain, freedom in bondage.”
― Alberto Villoldo, Shaman, Healer, Sage

“The Earth protects us and nurtures us with her life force, and the Heavens propel us toward our becoming. Seeds sprout only when they are in the rich, dark, moist Earth, yet they grow by the light of the Sun. After germination, all plants turn to sunlight for life. Similarly, our spiritual life germinates in the first chakra with our nexus to the Earth, and later the light of the Heavens enters through the crown to feed the entire chakra system. The name for this chakra in Sanskrit is sahasrara, which means “emptiness.” Persons who have attained the gifts from this center no longer need a physical form. Able to travel through space and time, they are one with Heaven and Earth.”
― Alberto Villoldo, Shaman, Healer, Sage

“The shaman is a self-realized person. She discovers the ways of Spirit through her inner awakening. Antonio would remind me that the Buddha was not a Buddhist, and that Christ was not a Christian. One sat under a banyan tree until he gained illumination.”
― Alberto Villoldo, Shaman, Healer, Sage

“I’ve come to the realization that we have to discover the shaman within. I teach my students that no amount of traveling with the Indians will bring you to your own wisdom and power. I’ve found that it frequently achieves exactly the opposite, distracting us from a true encounter with Spirit.”
― Alberto Villoldo, Shaman, Healer, Sage

“When the sixth chakra is malfunctioning, the individual confuses information with knowledge. He feels he has attained great spiritual truths when all he has is a collection of facts.”
― Alberto Villoldo, Shaman, Healer, Sage

“Doubt disappears when you step beyond the mind, and desire and longing cease to be driving forces. One enters the realms of knowledge that can be experienced but not told.”
― Alberto Villoldo, Shaman, Healer, Sage

“To experience selfless love we must die to who we have been in the past. Thus shamans have devised intricate practices for experiencing the death of the ego and egotism. However, we do not need to go through the complicated death rites of the jungle shamans to experience the love of the heart chakra. We simply need to surrender to love—to translate love from a feeling into a practice and a meditation. We need to stop falling in love and become love itself. When you experience your heart beating, remind yourself that it is love that is beating.”
― Alberto Villoldo, Shaman, Healer, Sage

“Through the heart center we share and experience love. This is the most misunderstood chakra in the body, because the quality of love of the heart chakra is neither the affection that we exchange with each other nor the romantic love we “fall” into. The heart chakra thrives on the love of Creation, the same love that the flowers feel for the rain or that the jaguar feels for the antelope it will have for a meal. This kind of love is not object-focused, nor is it dependent on another for its existence. It is not sentimental. It is impersonal. Christian theologians call it agape. The Inka call it munay. This kind of love is not a means to an end. It does not lead to marriage or relationships. It is an end in itself.”
― Alberto Villoldo, Shaman, Healer, Sage

“The function of the third chakra is to translate vision into reality. The name of this chakra in Sanskrit is manipura, which means “the palace of jewels,” referring to its ability to transform dreams into living treasures. The shaman understands that you dream the world into being. This center is the alembic on which our dreams are alchemically turned into gold. When you want to improve the world around you, bring balance to your third chakra. The tool of this center is visualization—whether sitting in meditation or on your feet at the beach being mugged. The fire element that rules it provides the fuel to manifest dreams. Be careful that you do not exercise this power for personal gain, but rather for the common good. The key word for this chakra is service.”
― Alberto Villoldo, Shaman, Healer, Sage

“The Inka lore tells us that when one of these luminous warriors slayed an adversary, he would honor the other by shedding a few drops of his own blood into the earth. He realized that in other circumstances they might have been sitting together exchanging stories around the fire.”
― Alberto Villoldo, Shaman, Healer, Sage

“The feminine power of the first chakra and the primordial sexual energy of the second chakra are transformed into a fine fuel that the third chakra employs for the fulfillment of our dreams. This chakra replenishes the reserves in the Luminous Energy Field. When we awaken the power of this chakra, we experience fearlessness and a resolve that cannot be deterred by adversity.”
― Alberto Villoldo, Shaman, Healer, Sage

“Its energy, which lies dormant within each of us, is the energy of the Earth and the heartbeat of the mother planet.”
― Alberto Villoldo, Shaman, Healer, Sage

“As we clear the imprints within the first chakra, the Kundalini energy is awakened. The primal serpent uncoils, and its feminine energy moves up through the chakras. Shamans in the Americas, India, and Tibet have long believed that it is through the power of the primal feminine that all creatures move, live, procreate, and flourish.”
― Alberto Villoldo, Shaman, Healer, Sage

“In yoga this chakra is thought of as the home of Kundalini energy. Its symbol is a coiled serpent asleep at the base of the spine. Kundalini is seen as the active power of the great goddess Shakti, the force that animates all creation. For the shaman this is the primordial serpent who swallows its own tail, Ouroboros, and portrays an unconscious state of self-absorption.”
― Alberto Villoldo, Shaman, Healer, Sage

“There are remarkable positive attributes of the first chakra. Its survival instincts ensure the continuation of the species: They drive us to mate and bear children, and allow humans to persevere under the most adverse of conditions. In Sanskrit the first chakra is called muladhara, meaning “foundation.” Our energetic house must be built on a strong footing.”
― Alberto Villoldo, Shaman, Healer, Sage

“The Spanish chroniclers in Peru wrote that when the conquistador Pizarro met the Inka ruler Atahualpa, he handed him the Bible, explaining to him that this was the word of God. The Inka brought the volume to his ear, listened carefully die a few moments, then threw the holy book to the ground, exclaiming, “What kind of god is this that does not speak?”
― Alberto Villoldo, Shaman, Healer, Sage: How to Heal Yourself and Others with the Energy Medicine of the Americas

“In the seventh chakra we understand that life is an intricate web of luminous strands, and that each of us is one of these strands, but also that we are the entire web.”
― Alberto Villoldo, Shaman, Healer, Sage: How to Heal Yourself and Others with the Energy Medicine of the Americas

“Sacred space allows us to enter our quiet inner world where healing takes place.”
― Alberto Villoldo, Shaman, Healer, Sage: How to Heal Yourself and Others with the Energy Medicine of the Americas