Angeles Arrien Quotes

Every culture has ways of maintaining health and well-being. Healers throughout the world recognize the importance of maintaining or retrieving the four universal healing salves: storytelling, singing, dancing, and silence. Shamanic societies believe that when we stop singing, stop dancing, are no longer enchanted by stories, or become uncomfortable with silence, we experience soul loss, which opens the door to discomfort and disease. The gifted Healer restores the soul through use of the healing salves. (p54)

Where we are not strong-hearted is where we lack the courage to be authentic or to say what is true for us. Strong-heartedness is where we have the courage to be all of who we are in our life. (p50)

the greatest remorse is love unexpressed. (p49)

Healers in all major traditions recognize that the power of love is the most potent healing force available to all human beings. Effective Healers from any culture are those who extend the arms of love: acknowledgment, acceptance, recognition, validation, and gratitude. (p49)

Spiritualism is the highest form of political consciousness. The native peoples of the West are among the world's surviving proprietors of that kind of consciousness. They are here to impart that message. It is important to use it wisely and well as we go into the twenty-first century-a time of bridging ancient wisdoms into the creative tapestry of contemporary times. (p11)

The shamanic traditions, practiced by agrarian and indigenous peoples the world over, remind us that for centuries human beings have used the wisdom of nature and ritual to support change and life transitions rather than to ignore or deny life processes, as we so often do. (p9)

My research has demonstrated that virtually all shamanic traditions draw on the power of four archetypes in order to live in harmony and balance with our environment and with our own inner nature: the Warrior, the Healer, the Visionary, and the Teacher. Because each archetype draws on the deepest mythic roots of humanity, we too can tap into their wisdom. When we learn to live these archetypes within ourselves, we will begin to heal ourselves and our fragmented world.
The following four principles, each based on an archetype, comprise what I call the Four-Fold Way:
1. Show up, or choose to be present. Being present allows us to access the human resources of power, presence, and communication. This is the way of the Warrior.
2. Pay attention to what has heart and meaning. Paying attention opens us to the human resources of love, gratitude, acknowledgment, and validation. This is the way of the Healer.
3. Tell the truth without blame or judgment. Nonjudgmental truthfulness maintains our authenticity, and develops our inner vision and intuition. This is the way of the Visionary.
4. Be open to outcome, not attached to outcome. Openness and nonattachment help us recover the human resources of wisdom and objectivity. This is the way of the Teacher.

When we open to being powerful, loving, creative, and wise, we experience the world and ourselves as the many splendid things that we are. (from the Conclusion, p130)