Dear Friends,

I am asking your help in shamanic healing and prayers for our brothers, sisters, and for the land of Israel itself.

TendingSacredCircles and a group in Israel were sponsoring two shamanic workshops to take place March, 2001. These were part of our continuing mission to support the practice of shamanism and shamanic circles on a global basis. From groundwork laid two years ago while I was in Israel, we anticipated that these Circles would include people from many countries, and also represent the great range of ethnic, cultural, and spiritual diversity within Israel itself.

Our purpose was to see how shamanism would assist us in knowing we are One People and reaffirm our spiritual relationship with other beings and Earth herself -- and allow these ancient ancestral lands to speak to us of their wisdom.

Just as our International Shamanic Gathering in Oracle, two years ago, created a community which could be called upon beyond that particular gathering, we hoped the workshops in Israel would expand our 'known' community of shamanic Way Walkers. As we expand together, so too do our efforts and abilities to bring more healing and love into this world.

The situation in Israel has altered radically since our original planning. After journeying and conversations among those of us coordinating the workshops, we decided it wise to postpone them given the escalating violence in that Land. We made this decision with heavy hearts - yet also aware that many people who had planned to come had written they considered the situation too unsafe to continue with their plans.

Thus we turned our hearts and minds to how we as individuals and as Circles could be actively supportive -- hold hands together in one large Circle across the oceans, across distant lands. To manifest shamanic community encircling the Earth, encircling Israel, with our love and prayers.

As with any call for help, if help is not forthcoming there can grow a deepening sense of loneliness, of abandonment, of bereavement, and loss of re lationship with the larger human community. Those of us walking this path and working on behalf of others, know that shamanism is not a solo act - it is communal and shamans' act on behalf of both the individual and the community. So we are being called to help - an urgent need affecting all of us for we know whatever affects one, affects all.

What to do???

Some of us affiliated with TendingSacredCircles - and who were involved in the workshops to take place in March, have been seeking guidance as to what all of us might do together. We have also been especially concerned to stay in continuing contact with the shamanic circles in Israel which meet regularly -- around their Circle fires drumming and journeying for peace while just beyond their walls, the sounds of violence. After one such recent Circle gathering, Ziva Garbi, our International Affiliate, wrote this note:

"I shivered while reading about how TSC could ask for help and prayers for Israel. I have passed many wars and difficult times here where we live but this time I know I am not alone. I can feel I am part of a web with many strands which connect me to sisters and brothers around the world. You over the oceans feel that the strand here is in trouble and know we need your journeys and prayers for healing."

Another TSC Council member, Lanz Lowen, journeyed about the situation and sent these words: ...

"I had a knowing that the Middle East needs to be held and loved by many peoples all over the world; that there is tremendous power in peoples being in their own homeland and sending their love and light to Israel and Palestine; that there is learning needed by all of us how we can hold a land/people/prayer in our hearts and let our prayers encourage healing.

This would also be supportive...of the Circles there in Israel...and also would be a great teacher for all of us in how we can be at each others' back as we sit in different places all over the world."

Thus, on behalf of TSC, I invite all of us to do shamanic work 'tending that strand in trouble' and also learning how to hold a land/people" in a way that encourages healing.

Here are the specific things we plan to do and invite your participation. May our intentions be focused on: "What can we do to support the powers of healing and light in Israel - the Middle East?

First, we are creating webpages where we will post all messages, prayers, journeys, and any other material sent to us. Postings will also include letters sent and/or received between individuals if they wish to post. For example, someone in Israel may wish to post a letter - or parts of a letter - received from someone else. Such writings invite and open dialogues that might lead all of us together to do something heretofore not envisioned.

You can send anything you wish posted to me at carolproudfoot@shamanicvisions.com

There will be links to these special pages at TSC's home page shamaniccircles.org, shamanicvisions.com (my website), and Sandra Ingerman's webpage. In this way we are trying to reach all those who visit these various websites which are in some way affiliated with Tending Sacred Circles.

Here are some suggestions for what we as individuals and Circles might do now:

• 1) Send prayers - write prayers that can also be posted - and thus we pray together.
• 2) Send poems - or any other writing to be posted - remembering the power of words to lift our hearts and spirits.
• 3) If you wish to write a personal letter, please do so - and consider having that posted as part of our "shamanic letters" of encouragement, peace, and healing in the Middle East.
• 4) Journey as a Circle - forming an intention connected with our healing purpose. Have someone in your Circle send this to me and we will post it.
• 5) Journey to see if there is some special message for the Circles in Israel; journey to see if there is some special message for those of us 'not' in Israel yet seeking to offer prayers and healing.
• 6) Journey to see what particular Power Animals might be ones wishing to be of assistance. Remember that sometimes Places have Guardian Spirits or Guardian Power Animals. Might we learn about such a Spirit (s) in our journeys - and what's the nature of the power or gifts they hold.
• 7) Journey to see if there is some ceremony...for your Circle...for all Circles...that we might do now.
• 8) You might wish to write Ziva Garbi directly - she will share with the Circles there. Her email is: drorg@actcom.co.il

Finally, these workshops/Circle gatherings in Israel were to take place March 15 - 17 (Dead Sea area) and March 21 - 24 (Galilee area). As we begin doing our shamanic work now, creating and sustaining our prayers and healing activities, our hope is that by the time those weekends arrive in March, we might also have come to some agreed upon day(s) during one or both of those weekends when Circles around the world would gather and send energy and light to Israel......knowing that we may not be there physically but our work is not limited by geography - yet it take strong intention to 'hold and send' across the distances.

The above are suggestions - please share other ideas or suggestions you might have. The webpages are now being made - I invite you to visit the sites from time to time, share with your Circle, and with others who would be interested in offering support.

With respect for the power of prayer and healing when we partner with our spirits and within our Circles, may we be blessed to know the joy of responding to a Call for help.

Love and blessings,
Carol Proudfoot-Edgar

I send you part of a song from Lanz Lowen's journey.
The complete journey is posted at Voices from the Circles: Healing for Isarel.

Oh great ocean
Wondrous sea
Wash over the land
Of Galilee

Let their wounds be healed
Let their pain subside
Let their sorrow seep
Into the Holy Ground

Into mosques
Into synagogue
Into steepled temples
As they pray to God

Let their eyes be open
Let their hearts see
One people held by the Earth
Bathed by the Sea

Let peace emerge
In each our hearts
Let its light flood out
And lift us all

People of Israel
People of Palestine
Let love wash over you
Let peace breathe in this Holy Land