by Nick Brink
My second workshop at Cuyamungue this summer (July 30 – August 3) is parallel to the first workshop but with the addition of identifying a spirit guide, generally an animal spirit guide, to supplement the process towards healing, personal growth and going beyond in accessing the Universal Mind. Animals have been part of many, if not most of my ecstatic experiences. When an animal appears I have learned that I need to pay attention to it and they have always had something to teach me. Very early in my experience with trance, then hypnotic rather than ecstatic, animals began to appear, and with my knowledge of the Native American Medicine Wheel as described by Hyemeyosts Storm in Seven Arrows the animals have certain traits as determined by their direction on the wheel, the birds in the East, the rodents and small animals to the South, the carnivorous animals, the dogs and cats, to the West and the antlered animals to the North. He describes this wheel as that of the Lakota Sioux. Since then I have learned of the wheels of other tribes and realize that others arrange the animals differently, yet each has powerful meaning. My office is decorated with many figurines and images of my power animals.
I have published two papers of this topic. The first one describes the power of the medicine wheel. “The Healing Powers of the Naive American Medicine Wheel” is found in the book Imagery: Current Perspectives,” Edited by Joseph E. Shorr, Pennee Robin, Jack A. Connella and Milton Wolpin. New York: Plenum Press, 1989, pp. 45-54. The second article describes my personal experience with the animal spirit guides of the wheel is entitled “Ten Days in June,” and is found in the journal Imagination, Cognition and Personality, Vol. 11(1) 99-102,1991-92. These two articles are to be reprinted as appendices in my book, The Power of Ecstatic Trance in Healing, Personal Growth and Attaining the Universal Mind, which has been accepted for publication by Bear & Co., and hopefully will be available in the spring. I will be happy to send you copies of these papers upon request <nbrink@verizon.net>. Animal spirit guides have also been a powerful force in my dealing with prostate cancer, my East and West power animals.
Animals add another enchanting dimension to our life. Rick Tarnis in his book Cosmos and Psyche tells of how our scientific and rational thinking over the last few centuries has objectified the world and in doing so, the world his lost its enchantment. By objectifying it, we have taken from it its meaning and what it has to teach us. In this process we have become more and more self-centered and lost our ability to listen to and learn from our environment. Only now are some of us beginning to rediscover its enchantment and what it has to teach us, and listening to the/our animal spirit guides show us this enchantment and we can learn from them.
For more information about this summer’s workshop go to the Cuyamungue Institute website: http://www.cuyamungueinstitute.com/events/
Cost: $475 including lodging and meals if registered and paid before May 15th – after May 15th $495
About Nick Brink
Before Nick discovered the work of Felicitas Goodman and the power of ecstatic trance in 2007 he was a practicing clinical psychologist (PhD, UCLA, 1970) and extensively used hypnosis and dreamwork in his practice.
He is on the board of the International Association for the Study of Dreams and author of the 2001 book Grendel and His Mother: Healing the Traumas of Childhood Through Dreams, Imagery and Hypnosis. He is the book review editor of the journal Imagination, Cognition and Personality. Since 2007 and has led a weekly ecstatic trance group in Central Pennsylvania.
Nick Brink
P.O. Box 94, 125 Weaver Ave.
Coburn, PA 16832
814-349-5968
nbrink@verizon.net
