a curve, if you then change your mind and then went off on a tangent you have a line at an angle. If you take a stream of consciousness and drew all those thoughts you get a mandala. So when you look at a mandala your subconscious recognises the pattern of the thoughts and that will take you into a mode of think or being. That information was given to me through shamanism. I travelled into an alternative place to find that information; I haven't read that in a book, it's just an experience. I also know that you can use art, using your own drawings. One of the ways you would use them is, if you wanted to call an animal, you would draw the animal, which would call that spirit to you.
Shinju -Making a connection between you and it.
Catriona - I think that would work not just with animals but also with any energy form. I don't think that's a common theory, but I personally think that if you make a thought then you make a connection to the object of that thought, the source of that energy. So if I think of a cat, I naturally connect to the divine cat energy.
Shinju -Ok. So how do other people fit into the life of a shaman? As in, people who don't consciously use shamanic techniques.
Catriona - I think everyone exists in the spirit world. The world is made up of energy. It has a huge aura, and when i think of deer, I travel to the energetic place in the universe where "deer" is centred, and when anyone thinks about deer they too always go the energetic place where "deer" is. I think that similarly everybody has some part of them in the other world. I think some people just sit there, some wander around and get lost, so if you have someone with health problems they might have wandered around in that world and gone to an area they don't like and don't have the coping mechanisms to come out. Those that are well, at least according to the way that the western world see it, are moving around according to the wishes of their higher being and that higher being has enough energy and enough no how to do it. Does that explain it?
Shinju -It does to an extent.
Catriona - We're all doing it, some of us are doing it consciously some of us are doing it by mistake, some of us are doing it well unconsciously. Unconsciously we all have the ability to traverse the spirit realm. If you start to become conscious, by using perhaps unknowingly techniques of moving through the spirit realm you will gain a measure of conscious control over your spiritual self. If you don't know what you're doing you will get classed as what this world think of as mad, because you will get lost, or you might just be brilliant at it, in which case you'll become clairvoyant or spiritualist or whatever you term it.

Shinju -Which traditions do you think you are descended from?
Catriona - Native American.
Shinju -Just Native American?
Catriona - Native American and Celtic. I know that I have a clan, and I know my clans name, but I'm very attracted to Native American, particularly their culture. I bow to the west naturally; I know that they do too.
Shinju -What makes a piece of artwork shamanic?
Catriona - The intent, everything is shamanic, there isn't a piece of art that I haven't been able to shamanically journey into at will. However if you want to make it shamanic you make the intent to be shamanic.
Shinju -Yes a friend of mine, Jamie says everything is art and I think the same is true of shamanism, at least to a certain extent.
Catriona - I think that there are levels of shamanism, if you put a lot of intent and thought into something you are going to get something that is more powerful by that fact. That is, it has had more focus. So the more intent you put in, the more power it will have shamanically, and the greater the focal point in the shamanic world you will get, the less scattered you will be.
Shinju -How does modern shamanism relate to ancient shamanism?
Catriona - I think its completely and utterly lost, to be quite frank. I think modern shamanism is peely-wally. I have yet to meet anyone who has got even as ounce of what I know in my heart the ancients had. I know, I believe that the ancients were literally able to shape shift. I've never met anyone who can do it more than an inch. I believe that the world that we live in is a mass of our beliefs. That when we believed in witchcraft and shamanism we had a more fluid reality to play in, which meant that people could exercise greater magical powers and now people don't have those powers because we don't have a consensus reality that would allow those powered to exist. Modern shamanism is a handing down of information. I have never met anyone who has dedicated their lives to a level that would concentrate enough effort to be able to come up with anything like as much as they used to.
Shinju -Given what you say, yes. I cannot see how for a single person it would be possible to outweigh the collective consciousness of the whole culture that they're living in.
Catriona - Confucius spent years, and years and years and years and years of his life doing meditation and developing himself in a way that would enable him to