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The School of Shamanic Womancraft was founded by Australian Jane Hardwicke Collings.
Jane has trained in Shamanic practices with James M Harvey, aka Blackbear and has had many wonderful teachers including Midwife Maggie Lecky Thompson, Birthkeeper Jeannine Parvati Baker and Teacher and Author Cedar Barstow. Jane lives in NSW, Australia, with her husband, some of her children and many animal friends.
“Back in 1991, when I was 33, I met Jeannine Parvati Baker at a USA MANA conference. She gave a pre-conference workshop entitled Shamanic Midwifery. At that point in my life I had been a homebirth midwife for six years and a student of Shamanism for one year and we had three children. Jeannine’s wisdom helped me bring my passions of homebirth midwifery and shamanic practices together.
“Over the years I continued my country midwifery practice, had another baby and put together two workshops called Pregnancy: The Inner Journey and Moonsong: Reclaiming Feminine Power Through Reconnection With The Women’s Mysteries.
“Until Jeannine’s untimely death in 2005, I learned so much from her and on her passing, I committed to continue to spread her wise teachings, however I could.
“In 2008 I had a conversation with a young midwife. She spoke so eloquently, poetically, mythically, archetypally. She reminded so much of Jeannine. She asked me to share with her what I had learned from my mentor Jeannine and as a midwife to help her on her journey. And so the seed for The School of Shamanic Womancraft was sown.”
(Jane Hardwicke Collings is not registered as a midwife with the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia.)
In 2009 the School started with Her Virgin Journey. Ten women graduated from that first year-long journey in December 2010 and the second year, now called the Four Seasons Journey, started in October 2010.
The Four Seasons Journey program has continued to run successfully for each year to follow.
Women from all over the world are expressing interest in this Women’s Mystery School and she is growing as we grow with her.
Several Shamanic Craftswomen from the original groups are now teachers, and more are learning each year through the Apprentice Circle to become facilitators of this program, as well as Moonsong, Shamanic Dimensions of Pregnancy and Autumn Woman, Harvest Queen workshops.
Many other exciting and paradigm-shifting projects are underway within special groups formed by the students and graduates, including helping to bring Red Tents to communities and festivals where women gather, creating documentary films and presentations on the Women’s Mysteries sharing the wisdom of others from all over the world.
The School is growing, and the Women are gathering, finding the deep connection they often didn’t even realise they were craving. Blessed be!
Intimacy is the
Cauldron of Growth
The School of Shamanic Womancraft is dedicated to participating in ushering in necessary social change.
Social change will be facilitated by women who are resilient, adaptable, and accessing their inner strength.
From our one-day workshops, through to the five-day retreats and the one- or two-year programs (Four/Eight Seasons Journey), we focus on helping women reclaim feminine knowledge, wisdom and strength.
We do this through unlearning the dominant perspective of overriding our body’s wisdom and then by relearning the significance of our transformational rites of passage (birth, menarche (first period), childbirth, menopause and death), the power and importance of the menstrual cycle, the Earth’s cycle of seasons and the lunar cycle.
Basically we are reconnecting to the wisdom of the cycles of Nature, which govern our lives, whether we realise that or not, and whether we want that or not!
Transformation happens at every rite of passage and often unconsciously creates a deeper wounding. By bringing awareness to this we can do our inner healing work, and the cultural healing work, for the wounded feminine, within and without.
Due to the urgent need for effective action to, at least, be prepared for what awaits us, especially the extremes, we need to empower resilience, adaptability and strength in people and especially the ones most people are nurtured by: women.
Our programs are designed to assist women in their healing so they can build these internal muscles, so they can be the women the Earth needs now.
We call in, with great thanks, the resources required to empower women, at-risk women and all their sisters, with these attributes – adaptability, resilience, strength – so they can be leaders and healers in their families and communities, prepared for what is to come.
Gather the Women
Save the World
At around the middle of the year-long program we journey together living in the wilds as a community, with the journey women spending three days and three nights out on their own, water-fasting if that suits their metabolism, in deep communion with the Earth, Mother Nature.
And this experience is a game-changer!
A deep belonging occurs, on multiple levels, a lived experience of the interconnectedness of all things.
It is well known that when a human reconnects with Nature and their nature, and sees it as the one thing, everything will change.
The School of Shamanic Womancraft can be part of a solution for humanity’s current crises with our cutting-edge awakening, empowering and nurturing women’s programs.
Please contact us if you want to help with this. With support we can bring these ground-breaking programs anywhere in the world!
This we offer,
this is our prayer,
So Mote It Be.
MISSION
The School of Shamanic Womancraft is a community of women united by a revolutionary impulse for social change and healing to bring forward a new sense of inner authority and inner power for all involved.
We are committed to raising consciousness, supporting and reawakening deep feminine wisdom, healing birth and healing the Earth.
PHILOSOPHY
We honour the interconnectedness of all life and believe that by reclaiming the power, magic and healing potential of the cycles of Nature, a renewed sense of balance and wellbeing can be restored to the Earth and her people.
VALUES
The School of Shamanic Womancraft welcomes the participation of women of all ages and circumstance. We honour each individual as both student and teacher, able to share equally in the giving and receiving of the community. Eldership and leadership have new healed ways of being, with a unique space created for each woman to personally claim her own Sovereignty. We respect mothers and their babies and children as the valuable members of our community that they are and seek to hold a strong and supportive space for them. We honour our ancestors and the wisdom of traditional cultures. We know that, to sing up true healing, we must face and dismantle any legacy of genocide and white supremacy. We value and live according to the wisdom of all the cycles, seeing these as a reflection of our true nature.A Revolutionary Impulse for Social Change
The word ‘Shamanic’ describes the inner and outer multi-dimensional spaces (sometimes called the ‘lower, middle and upper worlds’) that exist within and around us that the shaman journeys to and within.
The worlds or realms of the shaman are both actual and metaphoric and are accessible by everyone.
The Shamanic Journey is an inner journey.
As a woman journeys through her life, during her incarnation on the earth plane this time around, she encounters many a shamanic journey. These are the opportunities for transformation and development of her being.
Menstruation, pregnancy, birth, and menopause are shamanic journeys. A woman travels deeply during these times into her inner world which reflects the landscape of the shamanic realms.
She meets her fears, her obstacles and her deep inner knowing in her lower world, she plays out different scenarios in her middle world, connecting with what is and she meets her extraordinary strength, wisdom and available guidance in her upper world.
The word ‘Womancraft’ can be seen as the original perspective of Midwifery, the practice, art and science of being a midwife.
To midwife is to facilitate, to assist someone’s learning through the Maieutic method (later called the Socratic method).
This means to help and to guide the person to discover their own inner knowing through asking questions and ‘holding the space’ for them to travel within to do this.
The School of Shamanic Womancraft creates the opportunity for women to find within themselves the skills and abilities needed to facilitate transformation for others on their journeys.
Menstruation, pregnancy, birth, and menopause are shamanic journeys
She isn’t necessarily a ‘She;’ however she will have access to the feminine way and be using the feminine way in her role as a Shamanic Craftswoman.
She is an Earthkeeper, a Birthkeeper; she hears the whisperings of nature and responds.
She is courageous, because she knows that to hold and shine the light for others she cannot hide. She is on the same journey.
She knows to help others she must heal herself.
She must be present to her own journey, attend to her own practice of self-awareness and be connected with the energy of the Earth and the wisdom of the cycles so she can be a guide for others.
The shamanic craftswoman must be comfortable and experienced with the landscapes and possibilities of the shamanic journey in order to be ‘with woman’ in her inner and outer worlds.
In our high-tech world where menstruation is barely honoured, where maternity care is highly interventionist and based on fear and risk, where menopause is avoided with drugs, the inner world and journey of a woman is usually not taken into consideration.
This is a missed opportunity for deeper self awareness and healing and creates wounds.
The shamanic craftswoman can best facilitate a woman’s journey through her life by holding her intact, seeing her as a whole complex being on her life journey, and helping her to do the same.
The shamanic craftswoman guides the woman through the experiences of menstruation, pregnancy, birth, mothering and menopause helping her see the relevance of what happens and the lessons and gifts of the issues and situations that arise for her.
The shamanic craftswoman is best equipped to help the woman in this way if she has in turn brought this same level of consciousness to her own experiences of menstruation, pregnancy, birth, mothering and menopause.
Working from the premise of “Healer Heal Thyself,” the shamanic craftswoman must be present to her own journey, attending to her own practice of self awareness and be connected with the energy of the Earth and the wisdom of the cycles.
Healer,
Heal Thyself