Dear the Spirits of This Place...
Shamanic wRites #2
Welcome to another offering from The Sober Shaman, where I invite you to shift your perceptions, gain new awareness, and strengthen your connection to spirit. Whether you join me for a Shamanic wRites or a Medicine Drum Journey, both of these experiential methods will provide you with practical ways to receive information, knowledge, and healing power from your helping and compassionate spirits.
First time here? Check out the guides to Shamanic wRites and The Medicine Drum Journeys for an overview and step-by-step directions.
Shamanic wRites: Dear the Spirits of This Place…
The Spirits of Place hold different meanings for different people, yet striking similarities emerge across cultures separated by thousands of miles.
For example, when exploring the spirits of place, we are commonly met by the spirits of:
Nature
Elements
Trees
Mountains
Bodies of water
Guardians
Thresholds
Ancestors—familial, tribal, national
Ghosts
Deities
Holy teachers
Taboos
Gateways to the Lowerworld and Upperworld
There are specialists who can help us into right relationship with each one of the above, and then establish alignment with the entire cosmos and all of the inhabitants within the Web of Life.
So, as you can see, there’s much to consider when engaging with the spirits of place.
My First Impressions of Chiang Mai, Thailand
After eight wonderful months here, I’ve come to love the spiritual and animistic currents woven into daily life. There are:
Spirit houses for ancestors outside most dwellings
Buddhist temples aligned with the four directions and heavenly cosmology
These same temples also honor Hindu gods and animistic traditions
Many people wearing magical amulets and talismans blessed by monks
Sacred Thai tattoos (Sak Yant) worn with pride
Daily interactions reflect this deep spiritual presence. A simple gesture—hands in prayer position over the heart with a slight bow—accompanies even the smallest exchanges. On the street, many people make eye contact and offer a quick nod, a silent blessing of recognition: I see you.
This spirit infuses everyday life, feeding both the people and the place itself.
Diaspora, Tourism & Belonging
My relationship to this place is like that of a water skeeter flittering along the surface when compared to families whose roots have deepened over generations—through buried bones, endured struggles, conflicts and their resolutions, then more struggles, expressions and rituals of grief and celebration, more challenges—all churning together into the humus that feeds this land, and from which the culture that nourish the spirits grow.
I bring a clear awareness of this and my own presence. Know thyself—and, in this case, know the spirits of the place I come from.
Born on the island of Manhattan, I have spent countless hours walking its streets, listening to the echoes of those who came before.
I felt my first home and deepest sense of belonging growing up in upstate New York about 70 miles straight up the Hudson River. We were on three acres of land with a garden of corn, lettuce, zucchini, pumpkins, squash, carrots, apples, cherries, pears, more apples and more apples, pickling the cucumbers, cantaloupe, potatoes, peas, broccoli, cauliflower, and the best Beefsteak tomatoes in the world - hands down - with too many deer mowing down the finally fruiting asparagus that took so long to grow, frozen toes and frozen fingers playing hockey all day on frozen ponds, watched by hawks, owls, and buzzards, with a head full of angry hornets after I wrist-rocketed their magnificent gray papered home, honey bees, lots of wasps in the barn that were much easier to outrun than the hornets, night crawlers, ferrel dog packs, lousy loud hunters who were as subtle as a belly-flop from the rope that swings out over the reservoir to drop you a good 40 feet into the never warm enough water, where if dived correctly, the temperature drops drastically in a second as you zip down into the creepy tangled muck, and to prove how bad those hunters actually were, I’d stalk close enough to touch those same hunted deer more than once, because I was taught by Taffy my still-wild cat who brought home her catch daily and once climbed a bare winter tree to successfully eradicate a perched humongous Snowy Owl from her territory with a surprise smack in the tail feather, fish, bats, skunks, fat ground hogs standing up from the back of the garden mockingly masticating what I thought were my root vegetables in a side-to-side chew that looked awfully a lot like a smirk, dairy farms & meat farms, fresh eggs from super chickens, long bike rides between friend’s houses, speeding down hills faster than cars, fast enough to make your eyes fill with water, fast enough to feel the edge, deer paths that have too many sharp turns to navigate safely while riding a runner sled through fresh snow at top speed, cardinals, jays, red-winged black birds, the migration of crows moving in and taking over every empty fall branch and leaving just as suddenly a few days later, the late spring wail of the mother cows when the calves had been taken away, exploring fields, creeks, hills with my black Lab, Pepper, who was hit by Mr. K’s jeep and I held up his broken neck and bleeding skull in the backseat of mom’s Oldsmobile on the way to the vet, and then, not understanding why he couldn’t help - and how I still carry that dog’s tag in my medicine bag.
All of that, and much more, is what fed me and fostered belonging into Home and the spirits of that place. But it’s home no more.
Times change, needs change, people move on.
Cross Atlantics
I am four generations removed from the voyage of hope my biz-biz nonna and biz-biz nonno (great, great grandmother and great, great grandfather) made from Europe to North America in 1898. The trail back to their hometown, Valle de Mosso in Italy’s Piedmont region, was still fresh enough to follow, thanks to handwritten records documenting their journey from both continents.
On my pilgrimage to their village in the foothills of the Alps, I visited shops, graves, family homes, an ancient bakery—now in the process of being turned into condos (condos? here?!) and even a distant relative, all of which carried our family name.
From these pieces, I stitched together the story of why they left. It’s the same story told across time and place—a kind of perennial philosophy: “Conditions are worsening here. Let’s follow the promise of something better somewhere else.” A common human response, and sometimes the only choice, but in the search for better...
What is lost and what gets left behind?
Our relationships with the spirits of place, home, and belonging.
We move on, carrying what we can, clutching to the fading memories of home.
Alongside or On Top Of?
When we leave home, it's natural to long for what we miss—our language, our food, the shared shorthand of humor, belief and understanding.
But how do we plant these now-foreign seeds of our culture in a place already full and thriving, and where life carries on just fine without us?
It’s simple: when we listen, respect, and honor what’s already here—by not barging in, not breaking anything, not imposing, learning to move in harmony with local customs, we avoid what Italians call la brutta figura (the bad impression) that is often associated with crass, pushy North American tourists, we let go of expectations of accommodation and begin to find where our gifts naturally fit.
If we don’t and instead try to fill the void with our own longing for home, we risk paving over what already thrives, ignoring the spirits of place. The real kicker? We end up recreating the very hardships that once drove our own ancestors to seek something better.
Home is working alongside, not against each other—to learn, not impose; to build, not flatten; to collaborate, not conquer.
Where to Begin?
No matter where you travel, a simple greeting and a heartfelt thank you in the local language go a long way. In Thai, “Sawasdee kap” means hello, while “Khawp khun kap” (for men) and “Khawp khun ka” (for women) mean thank you—often paired with a bow and hands in a prayer-like gesture.
I recommend starting with these same sentiments when approaching the spirits of place—a humble greeting followed by gratitude for the food, water, and shelter provided by this land and its people.
Let’s wRite.
Let’s write right from our hearts directly to the Spirits of This Place using the Shamanic wRites exercise.
What’s your Place that you’ll be exploring?
If you’re ready, go ahead and do whatever prep is necessary for you to begin. The audio file with drumming is just below. Or, if you’d like a quick overview of the directions and step-by-step guidance, you can find it here.
Drumming Audio File: Just Drums
Shamanic wRites pPrompt:
Dear the Spirits of This Place…
After wRites:
How did you do? What did you discover?
If you’d like to share what you received, please feel free to post it in the comments below or email them to me directly. I always enjoy hearing what’s been discovered!
I will be sharing what I received from the prompt, as well as discussing The Spirits of Place in more detail on the next episode of The Sober Shaman Podcast.
You’ll find it in the podcasts here when it’s released this time next week.
I invite you to share and collaborate.
Connection is Medicine, and I’m always looking for “the others” with like-minds and open hearts!
Do you want to present or respond to a prompt?
Have a shamanic concept you’d like to explore?
Want to talk about it in an interview or respond in writing to a few questions?
I’m all for it and would love to feature kindred journeyers in this space. Let’s discuss the possibilities. Email me here: spirit@randallyons.com
Want more? There are 52 interconnected Shamanic wRites and Medicine Drum Journeys in The Program. Feel free to explore and share what you discover.
With blessings,
Randal