become wise. Nowadays people come up with wise things and they've spent at most a couple of years thinking about it and the wisdom that we're saying, you can tell its only come from a couple of years.
Shinju -Is that perhaps because you hang around with people such as myself who are only perhaps thirty years old rather than people who are eighty?
Catriona - No, no. I'm talking about people who are making money as shamen, who come out with stuff that just has no depth. I can sense the depth in people's comments. i have a tape of saying of Native Americans, sayings which have been passed down through generations, through the ages and the sayings had weight, and they are profound and beautiful and they bring love to your heart, they are unbelievably simple but unbelievably moving. When I speak to modern people about stuff, because I'm very interested and have spent a lot of time talking to a lot of people, they say things that have the emotional depth of McDonalds in comparison to the things the Native American have said in ages past. Modern Shamanism is a large number of people who've read a large number of books who haven't really got much power. However I know that a lot of people are committed and I believe that on a mass scale we can move things and its meant to be this way. I don't believe that this is because the people are crap, I think its because this society doesn't support people to put their energy into shamanism. So you find some people like the Native Americans in otterburn that I've talked about, they don't have the time energy or money to concentrate, to become to develope to their true potential, these people who are not making wise statements, who are making crass statements are only making crass statements because they don't have the society that allows them to plumb the depths of their own intuition.
Shinju -What do you think to the way modern shamanism is reacting to money?
Catriona - I think it's down to the individual shaman. I know that one person charges money because he has spent many years training and when he charges money he says that he's charging fifty pounds an hour because he's spent years training and when you spend that fifty pounds you're not just paying for the hour you're paying for the seven years that he spent training. I personally, if was ever to go into charging, which i might do, the way that I would do it and the thought that I would have are, I need money to buy food and pay rent, if I want to dedicate my life to healing people through shamanism I have to charge because I need to pay those bills, people are therefore paying me not to work in a bank. They are having to pay me because if they didn't I would have to do a job that paid me instead. So they're not really paying me for the shamanism, they're paying me not to work in a

bank. They're paying me to have the space to give to shamanism therefore they are not paying for the shamanism.
Shinju -How do you find the way that a lot of other shamen approach this?
Catriona - I think that every single person that I've met has been fine about money and I don't think they're overcharging. I think that this is the society that we are in. I haven't come across many people who rip people off. I've heard about them a lot, but then you do hear a lot about allsorts of things and sometimes your experience doesn't match up.
Shinju - How does shamanic art facilitate contact between this world and the other world?
Catriona - To be quite honest I think that the spirit world goes "Aaaah. That person's drawing a picture of us. How nice. I like this person. I'm going to help this person". It gains the favour of the spirit world. The more effort you put in, the more the other side is impressed. Everything has a consciousness and if, for example, you spend a lot of time drawing the sea the sea will be pleased with you, and it will grant you favour.
Shinju - What about the energy of the artist. I can imagine a really angry person drawing the sea would piss it off.
Catriona - Well yeah, again the intent is important. Everything is like a being, a loving being. I know that there are horrible people on the earth but I tend to find that if you are nice to them they will reciprocate and its only if you give them attitude that they will show their horrible side. If you speak to the deity within the person you will always get a good response and I very strongly believe that. I have never come across anyone who has been horrible to me when I've been nice to them. The point is, if you put something positive into art, the other world likes it. I also believe that it gives the spirit world an anchor to the physical world so it gives you a door. I think that when something is in the spirit world it can come into the physical world if there is a place for it which is why we have graves and gravestones because then the spirit can sit in the gravestone on earth in that thing that says "Frank Kelly" or whatever, so when you do art, what you are doing is making a home for the spirit to stay in.
Shinju - OK well thank you very much, that's all my questions done with. It's most kind of you to do that for me.
Catriona - You're welcome.