Tira Brandon-Evans A Faery Shaman

Q: What is the difference between a Faery Shaman and a Celtic Shaman?

A: The easy answer is that all Celtic Shamans are Faery Shamans but not all Faery Shamans are Celtic Shamans. There are faerys all over the world. I am not speaking of the Disneyesque, Tinkerbell-type of faery here. There are tiny air elementals which resemble Tinkerbell, but there are also enormous faerys, faerys the size of mountains and clouds, faerys we could call giants. Some faerys are like the brownies, elves and dwarves. These are slightly smaller than humans. Other faerys are about the same size we are. All faerys are inter-dimensional beings. Their natural homes are the Faery Realms. The Faery Realms are also called the Inworld, Otherworld, Otherwhere, and I sometimes call them the Shining Country. The faerys living in Faery Realms bordering the material world seem to pass freely between the two. These are the faerys we most often see. Indigenous people all over the world are acquainted with their local races of faerys, and Shamans native to each area of our world work with their local faerys to help and heal, to make and mend. This is the great work of all shamans. So all shamans are, in that sense, Faery Shamans.

Shamans also work with their own ancestors and animal guides. Your ancestors are all the people from whom you are descended. Shamans, who are of Celtic descent, are Celtic Shamans. There never were any people who called themselves Celts. The word Celtic describes both a culture and a group of languages. In Western Europe, the countries we now call France, Spain, Switzerland, and Belgium were all Celtic speaking areas in the 1st century BCE, as were Wales, Britain, Scotland, The Isle of Man, Ireland, the Orkneys and the Channel Islands. The entire west was Celtic. Therefore, anyone who is descended from people who lived in these regions has Celtic ancestors. Shamans with Celtic ancestors are Celtic shamans. We must, however, remember that the terms Celtic Shaman and Faery Shaman are very new. They were both coined within the last ten or fifteen years as the need to describe the Western European path was necessary. No one can claim to be descended from an unbroken line of Celtic Shamans stretching back to the builders of Stonehenge.

Q: How did your path bring you to Shamanism and teaching?

A: At the age of five, back in 1949, I was very ill with a fever and was "taken" by the faerys into a beautiful country. A troop of shining folk came to meet me across the green, shining hills. They surrounded me, took me to a tented pavilion, and made me rest. After what seemed a long time, I chose to return to the material world, because I knew I had work to do. One of the shining men promised he would always be with me and that I could return to the Shining Country whenever I wished. I had no religious training then, nor did I know about faerys, so I had no vocabulary to describe the experience. For many years I called them simply the Shining Folk; and the place they lived, the Shining Country.

My journeys into the Shining Realms continued for many years. I did not think this was unusual and was surprised to find out that no one else seemed to know anything about this place that was so real to me. When I was about eleven I read a book about Native Americans and found out what I did was called "shamanism." The Indian guides I contacted Inworld told me I had to find a guide from my own tribe. I had no idea what that meant. Still, I continued to journey and to listen to something I called, "my little voice." This little voice guided me through my whole life.

When I was about fifty, I was in the Dragonfly, (Ed. A metaphysical store) in Harrison Hot Springs, British Columbia, and saw a book titled, Taliesin: Shamanism and the Bardic Mysteries in Britain and Ireland, by John Matthews. By this time I had studied history for years, specializing in the history of Britain and Ireland. When I read that title a bolt of lightning went through me. Every hair on my body stood on end, literally. My outer academic life and my inner spiritual life came together in that instant. I understood the Indian guide's advice. I had found my own tribe, my own ancestral path into the Shining Realms. Within in days, I was face-to-face Inworld with my ancestor guide, Grandfather Merlin – not the Merlin of Camelot – and not at all surprised to find that he had been "my little voice" all along. He was, in fact, the shining man who had been so kind to me when I was first taken as a child.

Q: Why did you found the Society of Celtic Shamans?

A: I founded the Society of Celtic Shamans because that is what I was meant to do in this life. This is my life's work, the reason I had to return from the Shining Realms all those years ago. Those of us who are descended from the Celtic speaking peoples have lost our way in this world. We have forgotten our roots. We no longer remember our own ways or our own stories. We wander aimlessly about in a world where all other folk know who they are but we have amnesia. We are cut off from our ancestors and their wisdom. How can we walk forward, as a people or as individuals, if we have no feet? This is why we abuse the earth, poison the air and water, enslave the fire, and starve our spirits. It is important that we reconnect to our ancestral wisdom, that we learn who we are.

Each tribe, ethnic group, or race, here on Earth has its own strengths and its own weaknesses. We each have some unique gift to offer, some special blessing to share. All shamans are here to help and heal, to make and mend. Celtic Shamans have a great work ahead of them as they bring their own unique gifts into the healing circle. We have been absent too long. It is time to join hands with the other tribes so the circle may once again be unbroken.

Q: What is Elder Grove Press?

A: Elder Grove Press is the publishing company I have started to help new writers publish their books on-line. We are located at: http://www.faeryshaman.org/egpdex.htm. The press publishes books about Celtic history, the traditional healing practices of our Celtic ancestors, and ancient and modern spiritual beliefs. We publish non-fiction, fiction and poetry. We publish e-books. All our books are published in PDF format. You download them from the Internet. None of our books are expensive when compared to the environmentally unfriendly ink-on-paper books printed by giant commercial publishers. We are presently accepting submissions from authors. You may find our guidelines at: http://www.faeryshaman.org/egp/egpsub.htm

Elder Grove Press also publishes Earthsongs: International Journal of the Society of Celtic Shamans, which you may access at: http://www.faeryshaman.org/erthsong.htm

Q: How many books have you written and what new projects are you involved in?

A: I began writing when I was in grammar school, and have written dozens and dozens of books over the years. Four are presently in publication. "The Green and Burning Tree: A Faery Shaman's Handbook," "Portals of the Seasons: A Celtic Wheel of the Year," "The Labyrinthine Way: Walking Ancient Paths in a Modern World," and "Healing Waters" are all published by Elder Grove Press. I am presently writing a book about the Ogham, the Druid's sacred alphabet.

I also wrote the Faery Shaman's Apprenticeship Program and teach this program on-line as a thirteen-month course. Each month I write new articles for the SCS web page, http://www.faeryshaman.org, and a lesson for our informal, on-line study group, The Oak Grove. When I have the time I write articles for magazines such as Body, Mind, Spirit. And I would like to thank you for allowing me to share my path with your readers in this way.

The Labyrinthine Way THE LABYRINTHINE WAY: WALKING ANCIENT PATHS IN A MODERN WORLD by Tira Brandon-Evans, is a compilation of essays and articles on Celtic Shamanism.

The ancient labyrinth pattern has only one entrance and one exit. The design appears complex, but as it contains only one path, it is deceptively simple. As you journey on this path, on its twists and turns, you find that you must sometimes walk away from the center to reach the center. In this book the author takes us on her labyrinthine journey to recover lost and forgotten wisdom of the ancient Celtic Shamans, and helps us to walk the spiritual path of our ancestors.

Tira Brandon-Evans has written this book from the well-balanced perspective of being both a shaman and a scholar. She has spent 20 years researching Celtic history, folklore and mythology. She is a practicing Faery Shaman and has been journeying to the Shining Realms since she was a young girl. She is the founder of the SOCIETY OF CELTIC SHAMANS and has authored many books and articles on Celtic tradition.

Recreating ancient Celtic spiritual practices is a formidable task, but one which Brandon-Evans seems well qualified to attempt. Traditional Shamanism of the Celtic people of Europe and the Western Islands was wiped out. They did not leave any written records of their rituals or beliefs. The author does not claim to have rediscovered these lost rituals and beliefs. She has attempted to recreate, as closely as possible, by using clues derived primarily from archeological records, folklore, superstition, medieval manuscripts, and in her words "the blood in our veins." Although she mentions her own journeys traveling in the "shining realms," I feel that she undersells the "knowledge" given to her by these experiences.

Quoting from the introduction, "All shamanic practice and belief is based upon the idea that the material and non-material realms intersect and interpenetrate one another." I would have liked to read more about the threads given to her in her journeys which helped her to weave this picture of what life was like. I do, however, understand that such qualifications might not be well understood by the average historian or scholar.

The book is written in three parts. The first focuses on the journey itself. Here the labyrinth is not only explored as metaphor, but we are taught to how to create a physical labyrinth. Finally we are offered some practical spiritual exercises, and a meditation to use with this labyrinth. Walking through my own labyrinth was quite enlightening and surprising…

In part two we are given pieces which help us to connect to our ancestors. We begin to realize that all time is present. We are taught the basics of divination.

We meet Biddy Early and learn about the faery doctors. We learn that when a healing was given, one was not only expected to pay the faery doctors, but sometimes the faery's extracted their own payment. Occasionally there were those who were not meant to be healed. It was believed that the cost to the faery doctor for healing against the faery's wishes would be grave indeed.

One of my favorite chapters is one in which the author shares with us her skillfully revived Herbal Ogham. This is a healing garden based on traditional herbs of Ireland, Britain, Scotland and the Channel Isles, and the ancient ogham alphabet. As a Master Herbalist and holding a Chartered Herbalist designation from Dominion Herbal College, Brandon-Evans is uniquely qualified for this task.

Folklore provides us with numerous bits and pieces of evidence. Part three is devoted to these clues. The focus of our look at these stories is the importance and role of the ever-changing seasons. Legends of augury lead into making a frith (augury) for ourselves, and a discussion of the all-important ethics of divination. Several appendixes, that I am sure to refer to again and again, and a comprehensive bibliography round out this book.

As someone who practices shamanism, I was thrilled to be able to read this book. I have found much guidance and many books about the shamanism of other of my ancestors and peoples, but I was still left with a large hole. I have felt my Celtic ancestors call out to me, but had found very little information to fill the hole. Thank you Tira Brandon-Evans for reviving what was once lost for so long. This book has brought me closer to the shamanistic roots of my Celtic ancestors.

This book should be of interest not only to those interested in shamanism, or of Celtic descent, but to anyone interested in the wisdom of the ancestors, of the nature spirits and in walking the ancient pathways.

Reviewed by: Victoria Betson

By Tira Brandon