The MISSION of the Center for Shamanic Education & Exchange (CSEE) is to preserve the shamanic wisdom, culture, practice and the traditional ways of life of indigenous peoples worldwide; ways that have been helpful and powerful to humankind over the millennia.

Our VISION is to bring shamans and healers of different cultures together to both stimulate their own practices and to encourage new forms of shamanism to emerge, pertinent to the modern world.

We SUPPORT this by research into indigenous cultures in order to create
programs that will facilitate the continuance of their Songs, Dances, Healing
Practices,  Ceremonies, Arts & Crafts, and Teachings. A vital component of this is to support indigenous youth to learn more about their own shamanic traditions and to obtain advanced education allowing them to interface with the modern world while
retaining their cultural identity.

Our HOPE is to make this shamanic heritage available to first world
peoples, through the preservation of indigenous wisdom. These ancient ways will offer us in the modern world new understandings of resources available on the planet. This knowledge cannot be allowed to disappear. 

Current and Ongoing Projects of CSEE

CSEE annually brings Shipibo shamans and healers to New Mexico and other locations in the United States to share their knowledge through lecture and demonstrations together with selected showings of educational media about their song tradition, healing practices and woven textiles. During the most recent visit to Santa Fe CSEE sponsored a cultural exchange between the Shipibo and the Huicholes from Mexico, an indigenous tribe with strong shamanic practices, for the purpose of exchanging experiences and ideas.

Educational support. CSEE is currently sponsoring higher education and cultural training for Shipibo youth. Katty Liseth is currently studying to become a lawyer. She will be the first female lawyer in her tribe and hopes to become an advocate for tribal rights in her village. Walter Flores is studying botany, environmental sustainability and forest management. He hopes to support preservation of indigenous plants and trees as well as long term sustainable management of Amazonian resources. Pasquiel Flores is currently studying art with Pablo Amaringo and hopes to become an art teacher for the children in his village. One of CSEE’s future projects is to open and run an art school for children in his village.

Summer wilderness youth program for educating youth in the basics of shamanic practices and indigenous wisdom. Pilot program to run August 15-19, 2007.

Documentary film project currently underway is a combination of interviews with people using shamanic practices in their daily lives (westerners) interspersed with indigenous and their practices. The purpose of this film is to educate the public about what shamanism is, show the indigenous practices of it and then through the interviews show how and what aspects have bridged into modern living practices.

Future Projects
   
Expand the lecture and demonstration tours by inviting shamans from other countries and tribes to travel to the US and both exchange ideas and information with other shamanic tribes as well as share their knowledge and culture with first world peoples.

Organize programs for the preservation of the songs and textile patterns of the Shipibo woven songs tradition as well as establish an educational program for the tribal youth to learn this disappearing skill.

Make publications available to the public as well as collect and create materials to establish a research and education library of videotapes, audiotapes, papers, films, articles and books on the life and work of shamanic peoples.

Continue film projects for the purpose of education and preservation of indigenous culture so vital to our own survival as a species. Another documentary project could be about world shamanic ceremonies for preservation and as an educational tool.

Continue to support education of youth and help local teachers to become officially credentialed within their own tribal counties as a way to support the preservation of their culture.

Continue to develop and offer youth wilderness programs for the education of shamanic ways and indigenous wisdom.


Your financial help is greatly encouraged and deeply appreciated. All donations are tax exempt under full extent of the law. 

photo captions - click image for larger view.
top: Shipibo from Peru and Huichol from Mexico meet in Santa Fe, NM 2007
bottom: Augustin/Flores clan in Peru