About
Meet Emma
Emma Howden is a trained and qualified Shamanic Teacher (healer, guide and facilitator) who embodies a new age style of shamanic practice in her daily life. Sharing these powerful teachings and holding a safe sacred space for the community to reconnect with their own inner guidance is her life work and an expression of who she is at the heart of her soul.
Emma's path to becoming a Shamanic Healer and Teacher sprang from her own search for healing. In this search she engaged in and studied a range of mainstream and alternative healing modalities and learned all about how healing works. She is intrigued how each modality shapes the inner and outer experience of life. When she discovered Shamanism it rapidly transformed her life with a power that clearly surpassed any other practice. This eventually led her to study Shamanism and undertake Teacher Training and she continues to explore Earth based indigenous spiritual practices for life transformation.
After discovering the shamanic way of living, Emma received much more than she was looking for, experiencing dramatic life transformation, deep healings and a new pathway to a life of richness and depth. Emma is deeply passionate about sharing these transformational teachings and practices with anyone who wishes to experience them and has the courage to take responsibility for their own healing.
Emma's Offerings
Emma continues to be immersed in studying and understanding healing, what healing is, what it means to heal, how healing changes the body and experience and what is useful to a person that feels they would like to heal. She offers a sacred, spiritual and deeply grounding space to the community members that feel called to empower themselves to heal. She continually develops and practices ceremonies, rituals and other shamanic and somatic processes to allow individuals to step in and find what they need to heal and grow. With guidance, reflection, encouragement and an ability to ask the right questions, Emma brings a new age shamanic approach to lead individuals to their own power in this ever changing and ever expanding world.
Emma's Experience
Shamanic studies
Experiencing shamanic practices for the first time in 2015, Emma really delved in in 2017 when she completed the Certificate in Shamanic Studies with the Awareness Institute in Sydney. After completing this course and feeling a deep calling learn more she went on a search for a Shamanic teacher. Emma then met Vicki Dean who is a deep well of spiritual and shamanic wisdom. She completed the Certificate, the Diploma in Shamanism and Transformational Mask and the Teacher Training with Vicki.
Counselling
Emma completed a diploma in Holistic Counselling in 2016 and has experience working with carers, disability, ageing, anxiety & CBT, depression, trauma, low self esteem and self worth, neurodivergence, women's empowerment, lgbtq+, addictions, sensory processing seeking and avoidance, emotional overwhelm, inner child work, shadow work & health concerns.
Meditation
Emma first tried with meditation in the early 1990s and has been exploring meditation practices from around the world ever since. Meditation has been a key component for building presence, consciousness and insight. She has meditated for over 25 years and embodies a hearty daily meditation and spiritual practice.
Reiki
Emma studied and has been practicing Usui Reiki since 2013 and mixes in Reiki energy into her Energy Healings, when it is called into the session.
Community Work
Emma has spent her adult life working in many areas of the community including aged care, disability and early education plus living in Tanzania working in a community school. She has found her own inner turmoil a very humbling experience and has a natural empathy for all people and the situations they find themselves in. Emma has a very caring nature and loves to help and support others in the community.
What is Shamanism?
Shamanism is a term used to describe an ancient tradition or way of living embodied by indigenous cultures across the earth for thousands of years. It pre-dates religion and has no official texts. What we name a tradition, paradigm, ism or healing modality in modern times, is 'just the way things are' for shamanic tribes. These indigenous tribes experience life and consciousness in deep engagement with nature and spirit, in every moment, every single day. Shamanism is the natural lived experience and relationship with life that engages the natural cycles and energies of the universe. It involves entering into deep trance states and embodiment of spirits for the purposes of survival, protection, healing and guidance.
It is most important to respectfully note that there are traditional shamans and shamanic practices that are exclusive to certain indigenous cultures. These practices can barely be understood by people in the modern world, as today, there is no appropriate language, context or even a reference point to begin to explain the complexities of the traditional shamanic life. It stems from a completely different viewpoint and understanding of life itself. Consider this, traditional shamans trained from childhood for 40 years before they were allowed to practice their skills, their spiritual abilities appear as magic to us today, as they can shape and change physical matter, shapeshift, be in two places at once and alter weather patterns.
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Today, after 1000s of years of global colonization and a breaking away from traditional roots there is a more generalised use of shamanic practices. For these practices to be used in modern disconnected society they have to be engaged with from the understanding of a modern human, this makes the work evolving and organic and deriving from direct revelation with spirit.
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When I use the term 'shamanism' I refer to the practices that have been taught to me by my teachers. This involves navigation in altered states, spirit embodiment and developing nature and spirit relationships to know myself and heal and evolve towards oneness. My teachers have been taught by various teachers and shamans from around the world and have passed these practices onto me with the permission to be taught and shared with others. My experience is that these practices are highly effective in creating a purposeful and nourishing life, which is recognisable by the dramatic life transformation they have created in my own life and the many others I have worked with. Shamanic practices are ultimately experiential and are best experienced and explored by each individual.
What is a Shaman?
A shaman is the member of an indigenous community that is responsible for the overall health and survival of the community. They have the ability to enter into and navigate trance states, embody spirit beings and work with the spirits and the spirit world to create change for the benefit of individuals and the whole community. A shaman works with other community members and enlists specific skills of other tribe members to facilitate a holistic approach to healing, harmony and balance. They also have other vocations and skills such as a story teller, herbalist, teacher, artist, actor, social activist, tomato factory worker and takes on many other roles. A shaman is recognised and appointed the role by the tribal and shaman elders and spirit world based on their natural ability to do the work, respect for life and desire to serve their community. The training for the role often starts in childhood and is in he context of ancient traditions and living in direct and reciprocal relationship with nature amongst it's cycles and seasons.
I am not a shaman, as this is an indigenous title appointed by an indigenous community. I have been trained in shamanic practices and have embodied the practice in my daily life. I feel a calling to this work and to share it by listening deeply and working in collaboration with nature and spirit to bring forth a new age approach to this ancient way of living.
What makes the Shamanic path so powerful?
Shamanism holds a key to an ancient way of living that was known by indigenous cultures before modern technology. A powerful, interconnected, balanced and healed Earth-Cosmos based culture that lived in and through the body (instead of the mind). This way of embodying life was the outcome of thousands of years of lived wisdom in deep connection with nature and spirit. In situations where sharing of knowledge and wisdom was not possible due to the boundaries of mountains, deserts and oceans, the same healing and survival conclusions were found in indigenous tribes across the planet. These conclusions were the same because it is the natural way to heal, maintain balance and be in deep connection with life. Shamanism works with the natural universal energetic field (spirit world) which exists outside of the limitations of time and space. This provides access to the root cause of all physical manifestations. While most current therapies require an individual to process their troubles through the mind, Shamanic practices engage all of an individuals life and guides them out of the mind and into experience - which is where the magic happens.​
Is Shamanism safe?
During a shamanic session, in groups or individual sessions, the practitioner comes into a space that is highly conscious and aware. A trained practitioner should be able to divide their attention between the spirit world and physical world, ensuring that the person engaged in the process is comfortable and protected on both the physical and spiritual planes. Shamanic sessions, held with integrity, provide a very safe and protected spiritual container.
What are the benefits of Shamanism in our modern world?
In today's world, connection with our true self is needed most as humans have become more disconnected than ever, evident by the declining health of the planet, human discomfort and disease, nature destruction, rapidly changing weather conditions and animal extinction rates. Shamanic healing expands consciousness, reconnects interconnectivity with the cosmos, unravels discomfort and provides valuable insights into individual life circumstances. People report rapid change in the issue they have come to heal and gain peace, hope and clarity for the next steps in their life.
Shamanism isn't about the past, living in a cave and foraging for food, it is evolving and organic and provides current guidance and support in today's world for today's imbalances on the Earth and within our being.