A Tale of Two Shamans: How Dismantling Your Identity Reveals Your True Path

When was the last time you completely dismantled your identity and rebuilt it from scratch? In this soul-stirring conversation, spiritual coach and shamanic practitioner Kelly Sparta takes us on her extraordinary journey from conventional success to spiritual awakening.

From her earliest days, Kelly was immersed in metaphysical teachings thanks to a mother who recognized her daughter's psychic gifts and was determined not to let them be suppressed. By her twenties, Kelly had checked all the boxes of the American Dream – successful career, marriage, home ownership – yet found herself deeply unfulfilled. What followed was a radical act of liberation: she walked away from everything familiar, embarking on what she calls a "drive-about" across 14,000 miles of America, living on $350 a month and the kindness of strangers.

The heart of our conversation explores Kelly's profound shamanic initiation with Grandmother Spider, who delivered a powerful lesson about worthiness that will challenge everything you've been taught about self-value. Kelly describes her experience of "foundational deconstruction" – a three-week period where she lost her sense of identity so completely that she couldn't perform basic tasks – and the surprising gifts that emerged when she allowed herself to be rebuilt naturally.

We delve into the misconceptions surrounding modern shamanism, the nature of spiritual acknowledgment, and why certification programs miss the essence of this ancient healing tradition. Kelly shares beauti

Spiritual guru, two-time #1 best-selling author, and higher consciousness advocate Shaman Isis (aka Cynthia L. Elliott) is on a mission to turn the tide of the mental and spiritual health crisis with mindfulness practices, incredible events, powerful content, and motivational storytelling that inspire your heroes journey! Learn more about her books, courses, speaking engagements, book signings, and appearances at ShamanIsis.com.

Ready for a life transformation? Ready to bring your dreams to life? Then you will want Glowup With Shaman Isis: The Collection of inspiring books and courses filled with life lessons and practices that raise your vibration and consciousness. 

Ready for a life transformation? Ready to bring your dreams to life? Then you will want Glowup With Shaman Isis: The Collection of inspiring books and courses filled with life lessons and practices that raise your vibration and consciousness. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Shamanic Journeys
• 4:29 Early Spiritual Beginnings
• 10:11 Breaking Free and Finding Purpose
• 18:31 Spider Medicine and Shamanic Calling
• 30:15 Foundational Deconstruction and Identity Shifts
• 36:54 Signs, Synchronicities, and Birds as Messengers
• 45:31 Modern Shamanism and Spiritual Acknowledgement
• 52:33 The 100,000 and Closing Thoughts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:56

It's Shaman Isis here and I am so jacked for our episode of Glow Up with Shaman Isis today. I've got Kelly Sparta on the show spiritual coach, extraordinary and shamanic practitioner. We're going to have an amazing conversation about spiritual journeys and plant medicine and being a shaman. Kelly, thank you so much for joining me. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 2: 1:15

Thanks, I'm so glad to be here. This is we're going to have so much fun. We were chatting before this and I'm just like I'm I'm, I'm so excited for this, for this conversation, so we're going to have a great time, yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:26

You guys are going to like this. We're going to delve into, like important moments along the spiritual journey. We're going to talk about Kelly's journey and we're going to talk about you know what it's like to really be in shamanic practices. You know there's a lot of talk about it, a lot of mystique around it, and I think it's time we kind of elevated and modernized our idea of shamans. Right, kelly? Yeah, yes, yes. So you have to just like. Please take me back to, to sort of like before and the spirit. What kicked off your spiritual journey.

Speaker 2: 2:04

So my mother said I was talking to ghosts in my crib and so she saw this and she had been psychic when she was a child and she had shut it down because it scared her and she never figured out how to turn it back on and she was absolutely committed to the idea that that would not happen to me. And so from as early an age as she could bring it to me, she did, and so from the time I was about five, six years old, she started me on seth and ram das and abraham hicks and jc knight and you name it. We studied it right. She home Est, which is the not kinder gentler version of Landmark, and she brought that home when I was six. And so you know this was just an ongoing journey.

Speaker 2: 2:49

I was, I was doing self-hypnosis by the time I was 10. I was reading tarot cards by the time I was 12. We were doing psychic development classes and you know I'm reading books and ordering tapes from the backs of books. You know, because I'm that old and the you know. So I really just I grew up with this. And people say, oh well, how did you know? When did you start coaching? And I'm like, well, I have some high school yearbook signatures that read like client testimonials. So you know, this is not what I do, it's who I am Right at testimonials. So I you know this is not what I do, it's who I am Right, and so you know. But, and so I grew up with sort of the metaphysical side of it, and that was that was really the path that mom took me on was the new age metaphysical path. It was not the shaman ritual, wicca, all that stuff path those are very different, right, and it wasn't even energy healing path. That was not part of it either. I'd never heard of energy healing until I was like 28. And so I got married at 21 and married an atheist, and so we didn't talk about that stuff. And except, you know, I brought all my personal growth work into trying to fix our marriage, which he didn't meet me in, and so therefore it didn't fix.

Speaker 2: 4:03

Um, and then I was like, okay, I'm done Right, got to go, woke up when I was 28. And, um, and I woke up and I was like you know what? I had this moment of decision where I had to determine whether I'm going to stay in my marriage or leave. And I looked ahead and I was like if I stay in my marriage, it's going to be 10 years before I come to another choice point and I'm like I do not want another 10 years of this crap. Right, and that triggered a whole life sort of look Right, because I looked up and you know when you're working hard and I was working hard. Right, because a lot of reasons, but I was working hard.

Speaker 2: 4:43

I was a real estate agent at the time and when you're nose to the grindstone you don't always look up all the time. I was doing a very masculine path, right, just like do, do, do, do, do. And I looked up and I realized that I had done the American dream checklist and I hated my life. I, you know, I was done with my husband. The dog didn't even like me. You know the the she was in competition with it with me for his attention. Uh, she would literally roll me out of bed at night. Um, I had the big house, I had the two cars, I was a pillar of my community, volunteering my time for running a Habitat for Humanity, and I had a very successful business and absolutely none of it made me happy. And I was just like you know what when I was a young child, my mother introduced me to the movie Auntie Mame.

Speaker 2: 5:36

Oh, love that movie, right, rosalind Russell, the only one 1965 or something, and I always said my whole life I want to be auntie, mame, without the alcohol.

Speaker 1: 5:49

Yes, my mother was an alcoholic.

Speaker 2: 5:50

So I was like we don't, we don't need to go there. So, uh, and I looked at my life and I'm like none of this looks like auntie mame right none of it.

Speaker 2: 5:59

I'm like because Mame was like this amazing figure, she she traveled the world and she had positive attitude and she was just a love and she just loved everybody and and cared about everybody and and she liked interesting thinkers and interesting people and creatives and and I was like, yes, those are the people I want in my life and that's what I want to do with my life. And I looked around and I was a real estate agent in you know, sort of this not really high end town. I mean not not that it wasn't high end, I was, I was in the Groton, new London area. What I'm, what I'm saying is it wasn't a big city. We didn't have a lot of those types of people there. You know, it was kind of just, you know, a seacoast town right and um, and my, my partner was not with me on the big and bright and shiny.

Speaker 2: 6:49

In fact, he would give me a hard time if I stopped for somebody who looked obviously lost, looking at a map this is the time frame and and I would stop and offer them directions. He's like they didn't ask you. Why did you bother them? And I'm like because I like people and they needed it. You know, I asked them if they wanted it and if they said no, I would have wandered off. But you know that my partner just was not meeting me in in being that person right, and so I just leveled my life. I threw it all away, I divorced him, made him take the dog, I sold the house, I sold the business, I quit the nonprofit and I moved out of state with to live with a bunch of people I met at the Renaissance fair.

Speaker 1: 7:30

I love this. Oh my God, how brilliant. And that's so anti-mame If you guys aren't familiar, anti-mame was a movie about a wealthy I think it's New York City woman who ends up getting her nephew custody of her nephew, and she's a bohemian. She's very self-actualized, dresses fabulously, she's stylish and she has self-love, which I think was what you really see in that movie. But you don't really get. I think the reason so many women in gay men love the movie is because it is a person who would normally be challenged living the most self-actualized existence.

Speaker 2: 8:03

So you just threw everything away and said I'm gonna go be a bohemian yes, that's exactly what I did and and, uh, you know, I, I lived effectively the bohemian hippie lifestyle for the next you know, decade, right? So I moved in with these people and I, you know, what I didn't know at the time was that they were all energy workers and shamans. And so I moved into this house. It was a three story, six bedroom, four bath Victorian in North Attleboro, massachusetts, and we would come to call it the magical house, because everybody in the house was magical, and so much so that we actually had a set of magical rules for the house, all of which came about because somebody screwed something up, right? So, but the, the, the group I was with a working circle, you know, that's, that's who lived there.

Speaker 2: 9:03

Um and uh, we worked together for four years doing deep healing and personal transformation work during that time, so much so that, at one point, I was doing what I now refer to as foundational deconstruction. I didn't have a name for it at the time, but it's where you rip out the foundation of your identity. And, yes, yes, and I did it so bad that, like, there was zero foundation left when I was done. Now, if you've never done this, what happens is that you lose the ability to do all rote activities, and so I would get out of the shower with shampoo on my hair. I would forget to put toothpaste on my toothbrush. I would literally run into doorways uh, door frames as I was trying to walk through the doorway because I didn't know where my edges were. I was unsafe to drive. I did not drive for like three weeks because I was unsafe to drive. Would you compare this to spiritual?

Speaker 1: 9:57

psychosis no okay, no, this was just I had.

Speaker 2: 10:03

I had pulled out enough of my identity that I wasn't sure who I was. I wasn't, I wasn't seeing things and being pulled in.

Speaker 2: 10:10

I still had the ability to manage myself I just wasn't able to do the rote activities because those were built on the foundation of my identity. We build the rituals of our lives on our identity and you know, it's like, oh, I am this person, I do these rituals every day, right, and when you don't know who you are anymore because you ripped it all out, those rituals fall down and they don't exist, and so things like being able to drive without thinking about it was gone, and I was like, how about I just don't drive for a while?

Speaker 2: 10:47

And so you know, when I reestablished my foundation, all of those things came back, but for the moment they were just. I was kerfuffled right.

Speaker 1: 10:58

How long? Can I ask you how long was that process? About three weeks, oh, wow, okay. The only reason I ask is that when I woke up I had burnt out and when I demassed I had an executive dysfunction. I had no executive function Like every. I could not keep a Zoom. I still have challenges with this. I could not keep a Zoom meeting to save my life. I could not put a zoom meeting to save my life. I could not put a calendar prompt in. I mean, just like absolutely all ability to function as an adult just went out the window and that and that went on for like two years.

Speaker 2: 11:38

Yeah, that's burnout, and that's how long burnout takes when you don't know how to do it Right, yeah, um, and even then, even if you know how, it still takes a long time depending on how long you burned yourself out for yeah.

Speaker 1: 11:45

I've done that too. So it was 40, it was 40 years and it, and then it took. It took me almost four years to really get back to where I'm almost at like full capacity. Not sure if I want to get to completely full.

Speaker 2: 11:58

Yeah and right now there's like all this stuff going on in the ethers where and I'm hearing this from a lot of people and I'm having this experience myself where, uh, you are, um, you're going just fine, everything's great, and then you must sleep now, and I'm. Are you having that Because I am having that and everybody I'm talking to is like that has been going on for about a month now and I'm like yeah, yeah, I fell asleep in the middle of the day yesterday, which is not something I do very often.

Speaker 2: 12:34

It was only for 15 minutes, but it was like. This is weird. I must lay down. Yes, it's like I will lay down or I will fall down. I do not have an option, right, it's not like I can override it and have a cup of coffee or whatever. Nope, Nothing is going to fix it. Right, you got to lay down, so that's the, and that's different than burnout. That is something that is happening in the ethers right now and I I still have yet to identify it. I've, quite frankly, I've been very busy and I haven't looked very hard, but at least you're being honest.

Speaker 1: 13:03

You know what happens to me. I've noticed, whenever I have like a, I'll get dark for a little bit and I'm like well, I'm not being triggered by anything. I know my triggers really well, I will look and the human resonance is off the charts Every single time that happens.

Speaker 2: 13:19

It's so weird.

Speaker 1: 13:21

Anyway, I want to keep hearing this. So you went bohemian. Then you had a few weeks of like not being able to function.

Speaker 2: 13:28

And then what happens? So here's the thing about foundational deconstruction you don't put it back together, it automatically comes back together. And if you try and put it back together, you're going to go backwards in your identity, because the you that you used to be is the one who would put it back in place, right, and so you have to wait for it to recoalesce and somehow, intuitively, I understood that, even though I didn't know what the hell was going on um I was just like nope, I just got to be with this and let it.

Speaker 2: 13:57

Let it recoalesce. And when it did, I was floored at the things that were left out, things that had been cornerstones of my prior existence, like perfectionism. Right, yeah, it's got be 100, it's gotta be done to 100. And and perfect, right, that was just gone. You know, there were just things that were not part of my beingness anymore and I was like that's interesting. I don't know who this person's gonna be, but it's gonna be interesting, right, yeah. So, yeah, that that was my first real hardcore deconstruct that I went through. And then so I worked with this group for four years. We, we did a lot of work with each other and then the the entire house just sort of dissipated and people just moved out of state and you, you know, there were only two people out of like eight people who had lived in that house, who were still around when I was done, right, uh, and the.

Speaker 2: 14:58

So when that happened, I actually ended up on walkabout, and I had just learned what walkabout was three months before this happened to me. It's like, oh. So if you don't know what the definition of walkabout is, it's walking out into the world until you find yourself, and so I most people think it's in australia and the outback. But no, the app, this is an aboriginal process that they they do but, and they do it in the outback in australia. But the idea is to walk into your world right, and so for me, my world was the us in my car, and so I called it drive about right, which, if you listen to my true yeah, right yeah, so if you listen to my podcast, I actually wrote a song from the journey and that's what the opening and closing of my spirit sherpa podcast is.

Speaker 2: 15:45

so, uh, it's the song that I wrote from that journey, and so that walkabout took me a year where I lived on $350 a month and the kindness of strangers.

Speaker 1: 15:58

Yeah, and so.

Speaker 2: 16:00

I was all over the country, 14,000 miles.

Speaker 1: 16:03

I love that you're, I'm so excited that you're sharing this story and and you're. Everything you're saying is fresh, I think, for a lot of people. I just have to go back for a second. So I love that you're talking about what happens when you you have these spiritual experiences, because there's so much, there's so many people across the planet that are having spiritual awakenings, and there's a lot of talk about things like spiritual psychosis, which is something I understand.

Speaker 1: 16:25

Um, and burnout, and and and suddenly going to have to find yourself. So that's a process I went through myself. I just literally I got up one day and said I can't do this anymore. Here's everything I own. I'm going to leave and go find a way to actually function. And then spent two, two years, um, really, uh, finding out who I was, and I think it would have taken less time except, uh, except I put myself in a lot of environments where the old version of me had existed before. Yeah, and so there was this back and forth, back and forth of you know, the, the new version, the old version, and, and it took me a little bit, uh, to really like hone in Um, and then this, this, spending a year really walk the walkabout or drive about as you did. I think a lot of people. You see people doing the camper van thing. I think it's the same same thing. They're getting a camper van and then driving around the country for for a year or two Same idea.

Speaker 2: 17:18

Yeah, yeah, um, I was. Yeah, it was very interesting because people were like, oh my God, you're so brave and I kept saying, no, I'm not, because I felt so led. I wasn't trying to be modest or humble. You can't be brave if you're not scared. Brave is overcoming your led and so guided that I literally had no fear about it.

Speaker 2: 17:42

I was just like, okay, here we go. And I did the same thing. I opened up my storage unit and I gave away everything I owned. And I had one of my students. I was at her house and there was a you know bathroom reading and I picked up a book. It was Lame Deer Seeker of Visions, and I opened it to a random page right after I scheduled for everybody to come and take my stuff and the deal was you could take anything you wanted, but you had to help me bring the rest of it to the, the nonprofit, right To the giveaway. And and I opened the book and it said the apprentice shaman just before his final initiation.

Speaker 1: 18:23

We'll we'll give away everything he owns.

Speaker 2: 18:32

Oh, you just made the hair on my entire body, sand on end. Oh, oh shit that's it.

Speaker 1: 18:35

In moments like that, it's like you really understand that you're being called and it's like, okay, I the signs and synchronicities. I mean it was nuts you know, you're just like people wouldn't believe the sheer number and if they aren't spiritual or been on that journey, how powerful is that? Wow?

Speaker 2: 18:51

Yeah, it was. It was insane, and so you know, from there I went to a festival and at that festival so many synchronicities happened that we could do an entire podcast by itself on it. So I'm not going to talk about that, I'm just going to reference them and call it good. But the thing that was relevant there was that I was getting a tattoo and there were a lot of synchronicities around that. That happened as well. But when it happened I had two people I had asked to hold space for me. One was one of the people who had lived in the house with me and one was the person whose house I was planning to go to after the event, who I had met at the event.

Speaker 2: 19:29

Interesting story is that I had been circling his tent trying to set up my my tent, not knowing it was his tent. I had met, it hadn't met him yet and I couldn't find a place to be near him and I ended up someplace else. But when I went, when I met him and went back to his tent to grab something with him, I was like, oh crap, this is who I was circling right, and so when we met, he actually walked up to me and he was a friend of a woman I had made friends with while I was there and he, you know, she was like, oh, this is, this is him. And he walked right up and planted a kiss on my lips and and I was like, and he was like, I don't know why, I just did that. And I said I don't know why, it's okay, but.

Speaker 2: 20:11

But it was like, I'm not gonna overthink it, and so I had asked both of them to hold space for me while I got this tattoo, which was my dedication to grandmother spider who was, who had called me into shamanism, right. So when I was all right. So I gotta tell a little more of the story. So when I was in the magical house, at one point I'd walked into the basement and it's a victorian house, right. So they, they don't have light switches, they have the little pull switches from the center thing, right.

Speaker 2: 20:39

And so I. It was night, it was dark, pre-cell phone where you have a flashlight on you at all times, right. And so I'm like walking across the room feeling for this, this light switch string, and uh, and I I feel like I walked into a big spider web and I was like, whatever it is that I need, I don't need it this bad, I'll get it in the morning. And I turned around and I left the next morning. I got down there, there was not a single spider web in sight, and I realized that when I had come back upstairs there wasn't a single spider web on me. I hadn't thought it through at the time, but there wasn't.

Speaker 2: 21:21

And so I mentioned this to my friend in the house and he's like you better answer grandmother spider, because she's calling you and you don't want her to do you what she did to house. And he's like you better answer grandmother spider, because she's calling you and you don't want her to do you what she did to me. And I'm like what she did to you. And he said she hatched an entire nest of spiders over his bed and they came down to feast on him. I'm like, yeah, I'd like to avoid that. What does that? What?

Speaker 2: 21:41

does it mean? What is grandmother spider? I don't know what's a totem, what's a spirit animal, what's shaman? I don't know any of this stuff because he was introducing to me and I'm like I have no idea what this is.

Speaker 2: 21:52

And so you know, flash forward, maybe a year later I'm on walkabout, I'm getting a tattoo as a dedication to grandmother spider, so that I could learn to walk the web of life gracefully before I learned to weave it right. And so I'm there at the festival and the guy wasn't his. So my two people dropped out when I got there because they'd been up all night at the drum circle. And when I got there, the tattoo artists had also been up all night at the drum circle and was was asleep. I had to wake him up for my appointment and he had very tight appointments. So if you didn't make your appointment, you't have it right.

Speaker 2: 22:28

And um, I had to wait for him to make his peanut butter and jelly sandwich for breakfast and I walk into the, the tent area where he does his tattoos, and I'm sitting there as I'm walking in, I'm going. I don't know if I'm really I'm supposed to be doing this because two people have dropped out. He's not even awake yet am I supposed to be? They're suspended from a single thread. In the center of the tent was a spider and I went. Okay, I meant to do this and it crawled back up and disappeared.

Speaker 1: 22:56

Oh, that was a message from Steve.

Speaker 2: 22:57

Right.

Speaker 1: 22:58

Yes.

Speaker 2: 22:59

Yes, and so I am getting tingles now too. So I go in, I get ready, I sit down. This random woman comes up and starts talking to me while he's getting his stuff ready, and she and I are chatting and we're having a good time and whatever. It's 20, 30 minutes later and and he says, okay, we're ready to get started. And she says do you mind if I stay now when you're doing ritual tattooing? Whoever was there is getting built into that too, that their energy is going into that tattoo yeah and I was.

Speaker 2: 23:28

I I surprised myself because I looked at her really hard. I was like and I went yeah, you can stay. And and he said, okay, just state your intention again so that we're clear about what the intention is. And I said, well, I'm, I want to learn to walk the web of life gracefully before I learn to weave it. And she said isn't that funny? And I was like what said, that's what I'm doing. I spin my own thread and I weave my own cloth and that's what I'm here is selling my wares. And I was just like I started to cry and he starts to tattoo and they start to chant and I am gone on my vision, right?

Speaker 1: 24:07

oh, I love this. You're making the hair stand up all over my body.

Speaker 2: 24:11

I am out in my vision and grandmother spider comes up to me. I'm in this castle, right, um, and it's got stone walls, gray stone walls, and in the center of the room, the only thing in the room other than grandmother spider and me is this massive, like four foot circumference. Well, that is up, uh, you know, like three feet off the ground and you know, big, huge. Well, and I start crying and I'm looking at grandmother spider and I'm like thank you for deeming me worthy of support. I'm so grateful, thank you for sending me the support. She backhanded me across the room. She literally just threw me across the room and I which, of course, didn't hurt because I was in the spirit world, right, but, but I was just like, I was definitely shocked. I was like what is going on? Right, because you know, spirit animals, shaman stuff not always the kindest things, right this?

Speaker 1: 25:07

is. A lot of people don't understand that it can be really rough, it can be very rough.

Speaker 2: 25:13

And she just looked at me and she's like look at that web. And when I went to the well, just about a foot underneath the surface of the well, covering the entire well itself, was a spider web, spider web. And she said you look at that web. You see that strand right there. That's that's fraying and needs shoring up. I said yes, she's like do I ask if that needs shoring up and if it's worthy of it?

Speaker 2: 25:42

no I shore it up because it needs shoring up, not because it's worthy of it. It's part of the web. Therefore, the web. It depends upon it being shored up, just like everything else. Have you ever asked anybody if you, if, if they were worthy of the healing you offered them? And I was like no right, get a grip okay oh, this is funny.

Speaker 1: 26:04

Yeah, yeah, you're, you're like okay, okay, okay, yeah, I'm worthy, I'm worthy.

Speaker 2: 26:11

Yeah, it was. It was worthiness didn't exist, Right? That's what she was trying to tell me back then. Yeah, and that's what I tell my my clients now. I'm like look, worthiness is a construct designed to manipulate you by people who don't like who. You are Right.

Speaker 1: 26:28

And it's.

Speaker 2: 26:30

it is completely anathema otherwise, because, if you think about it, we are all one. I am everything, you are everything, everything is me, right? If I am everything and everything is me, where does worthiness fit into that? If you already are something. How can you possibly be worthy of it?

Speaker 1: 26:48

into that. If you already are something, how can you possibly be worthy of it?

Speaker 2: 26:50

This is one of my pet, my pet peeves with a spiritual community, uh, uh, as a is that?

Speaker 1: 26:53

there's so much, there's so much emphasis on this 144,000, which has nothing to do with people and this you know you're special, you're a chosen one and it's like well, we're all chosen, like like I get it when you first wait, when you first wake up and you're kind of a delulu, you know you, you need to grasp onto some things. I get that. That's us still, still deep in our ego and it's like no, we, we are all chosen, yeah.

Speaker 2: 27:16

Well, and sometimes I don't know the 144,000, except as it relates to Jehovah's witnesses. But um, I don't know about that because I just don't follow enough of the stuff out.

Speaker 1: 27:27

Yes, it's, it's social media stuff, yeah okay, let's not supposedly, supposedly, there's 144 000 people on the planet here to change everything, but it's really more of a reference oh no, it's 100 000 oh, oh, that saw that on your website. Yeah, I wanted to hear about that. Let's, let's keep going with it this, where this is a spider, mother spider, gave you the lesson, the worthy lesson.

Speaker 2: 27:49

And I honestly have no. I I have no memory of the rest of that journey. But this, this happens, guys. Okay, when you go into a journey and whatever you experience exceeds your threshold of assimilation, right, it exceeds your ability to understand and comprehend what it is that you saw, or it overly challenges your identity to see it right, you will forget it, and you will. You will think oh, I fell asleep. You never fell asleep, you exceeded your sphere of assimilation.

Speaker 1: 28:26

Yes, yes.

Speaker 2: 28:27

I, yes, yes, I love that, yeah, so I have no idea what the rest of the journey was, but that was the part that I took back with me, right? And so you know, that was my initiation with Grandmother Spider, and she has followed me ever since. And you know, big surprise, she's on the back of my shoulder. She's followed me ever since I knew it.

Speaker 1: 28:53

Do you know that? Okay, you guys who, the spiritual folks and who are listening to me, are gonna appreciate this. So, um, uh, we're all psychic. It's something that I've been tapped into, like you, since I was an infant, and as soon as we started talking, I saw a spider web on your back and I almost asked you at that moment uh, if you had this? We just started filming. I almost asked you do you have a spider web tattooed on your back? And then you mentioned tattooing and I was like, if she says it's a spider web, I'm gonna be like you know what the other one is what, what, what it's.

Speaker 1: 29:20

So I've got to oh yeah, yeah, you know, I just saw a spider web.

Speaker 2: 29:23

You only saw the one. Yeah, well, that's because that's a story I was going to tell you. But yeah, um, yeah, so and this is how it works, guys, we, we get previews of what's going to happen, sometimes when it's relevant, right yeah, and so I'm not surprised at all that that was something that you saw, right, yeah, um, and so you know, I continued my journey, I learned my things. There was so much I can't. So if you're really curious about this, I I have. I kept a live journal.

Speaker 1: 29:53

This is how I love this was. It was 2002.

Speaker 2: 29:55

I used to have to stop at internet cafes to be able to to type up my live journal, um and um. So I have translated that live journal to my website and so if you go on my blog it says you know, walk about journey and you can just follow the whole journey, but not enough time to talk about it all here. It's insanely lots of stuff, um. But two readers on that journey told me that I would not understand the full import of the journey for at least 10 and possibly 20 years.

Speaker 1: 30:27

Yeah, Can I tell you, it's been. It's a little. It's a little frustrating when you know that you're not getting the whole thing and you know if you're a perfectionist, which is something I really had to work on Uh, I would. I'm like you, I was a perfectionist. It's all trauma, trauma-based perfectionism. God, don't judge me, don't find anything wrong with me, because if you find something wrong with what I'm doing, then that will mean I'm not perfect enough and you can pick on me or say I'm not allowed to do things like. The whole perfectionism thing is just a whole. That's a whole podcast in and of itself, all by itself.

Speaker 1: 30:59

Yeah, yeah, I think spiritual journeys, which is why I'm so glad you're going into detail. It's really difficult for somebody who's still plugged into the matrix, who's still plugged into the beliefs and and they think that the things that you talk about when you're spiritual or you're awake are conspiracy theories. Like three years ago I did a video about the death of the American dream and the fact that the politicians and corporations were destroying the country and putting us in extraordinary debt and it's, and people were like they're like girl, there's not. The American dream has not died. You're being cynical and I'm like I'm not being cynical. I'm a spiritual person trying to tell you the truth about a situation that we find ourselves and we need to do something about it.

Speaker 2: 31:39

And it's.

Speaker 1: 31:40

It's funny to see, three years later now there's all this open conversation about the truth of what's been going on for such a long time, and I think that's going to cause a lot more people to wake up yeah, well, and, and that, and you know before.

Speaker 2: 31:53

So I just want to reference, if we're talking the death of archetypes, because that's a, that's an archetype that's dying right, um and uh, mostly dead at this point and the? Um. I remember vividly the other archetype that I saw die, do you remember? Oh, now I'm dying to hear. So it's so funny because we both said die. Uh, princess diana, when she died, she took the prince, the fairy princess archetype.

Speaker 1: 32:23

She took that with her yeah, yeah, that you just gave me chill bumps because you're absolutely right, she did. She broke it. Yeah, yeah, and that fantasy I think it's sort of that whole. She was the fracture in the whole Disney fairy tale, yeah, yeah, of a woman who needs to be chosen to be worthy.

Speaker 1: 32:42

She embodied that archetype, and then she broke it and that was her purpose on the planet was to break it, and that was part of the, the transition of women into their power again, because the fairy princess was gone, right, yeah, and so in its place, and you know, in its place, she was becoming the crone and, honestly, I think one of the main reasons she was taken out was because of of what she was capable of as in in her fully actualized self.

Speaker 2: 33:09

Well, she had dubbed herself the queen of hearts, and so she stepped out of princess into queen, which is in opposition to the actual queen of england, which was not okay. So yeah, whole thing right. So, anyway, she broke that archetype hard, and so you know that that's what some people are here on the planet to do, is to break the archetypes, right. So it's, it's a very interesting dynamic.

Speaker 1: 33:36

So, yeah, so much stuff oh, you know, I'll tell you a couple of interesting points on my own journey. So, uh, those of you who are new to the show, I woke up in before the right before the closures. I wasn't, what I'd say, fully vested in my spiritual journey, but I was awake, going, oh my gosh, we're about to close and people like kind of close as a country. I'm like no.

Speaker 1: 33:58

I'm just, I'm telling you we are. I'm not asking you, I'm not'm just informing you. And I couldn't get anyone to listen. And then everything started happening. I was like, oh my goodness, this is out of control. But anyway, at one point my spirit guides asked me to go uh. So I was called to to back up. For a second, I was called to shamanism.

Speaker 1: 34:14

As a teenager, I had every single thing happen, including like five near-death experiences in one summer. I was like you guys are really trying to get my attention. Um, uh, car accident, serious car accidents, being pushed, not pushed falling off of a roof, uh, getting trampled by a horse Like it was insanity. Going to juvenile uh prison. It was a prison when it has a huge steel door that closes.

Speaker 1: 34:37

And uh, at 13, anyway, I was called to shamanism. I had a shaman, uh, uh, move in next door to me and she started to teach me about, uh, natural remedies and, uh, healthy eating and, uh, raw eating, really, uh. And I was like, no, thank you. This reminds me too much of the nuns I grew up with and the orphanage I grew up in. And so I went running and it took me decades to finally wake up, and when I finally did. It was really a powerful awakening experience I think it was for everybody of finally becoming myself, and I remember my spirit guide saying we need you to go out to the, to the pond lake, whatever you want to label it and start to chant to wake other people up. And I was like, excuse me, you know this.

Speaker 2: 35:19

That's so funny because I tell people all the time, you'll know you're there when spirit starts telling you to do things that make you go.

Speaker 1: 35:30

You want me to do what I was like I'm sorry, my like, my, my, my. The people who live in my community are already looking at me like what the heck happened, cause I'm walking along with, like you know, different makeup and like, with this day's look, on my face as high as as a kite, and on life and other things. But you know what can I say? I was going through my process anyway. They said they go, we need you to go out to the water, find a way to float above the water and begin to chant, that it's time for everyone to wake up. And I was like you want me to float and chant in my neighborhood pond where people can see me, and they're like, yeah, so anyway, it was stuff like that, uh, that I in the synchronicities, the signs and synchronicities that come along, like the number of birds and butterflies and bees yeah, you had that same thing I I'm getting it now.

Speaker 2: 36:20

I mean, my client also just contacted me. Like two days ago I had a client who contacted me and said there are birds everywhere. I don't know what's going on. I've got a little sparrow who will come here on my window and like look at me and peck at the window every time I'm sitting in here. I love it. I love it.

Speaker 1: 36:40

It's so, I believe so. This is my theory about birds. So ibises were worshiped by the Egyptians and I think one of the reasons that they were is because and I noticed this because ibises and herons started showing up when I woke up and I mean it was crazy how many were showing up every single day. I was like what is going on everywhere I was going. It was like even my my friend said when you visit me, herons start showing up. Like even my friend said, when you visit me herons start showing up.

Speaker 1: 37:04

Anyway, I started noticing all these ibises and you know, Egypt was something I had memories of as an infant and it's been part of my life, which is where ISIS comes from. Anyway, the point is is that I believe that the Egyptians worshipped ibises because they sent somebody who's in higher consciousness. They feel energy and they're the first alert that there's something off about someone. I really think that that's a theory, but I think there's something to that, and the reason that I came to that conclusion was that I had been taking photographs with a 35 millimeter of all the birds and butterflies and bees that were coming around, and dragonflies.

Speaker 1: 37:39

Because I was just utterly fascinated and so present in those moments, such a beautiful time of my spiritual journey, really to abandon the old self and to feel free again and to be in wonder of the universe.

Speaker 1: 37:50

I think that's the thing that gets everybody hooked on spirituality is when you become present again and you're like, oh my God, look at the wings on that dragonfly. Anyway, I was taking pictures of them and I noticed that I couldn't get a good closeup of of the birds because they always stayed just far enough away. And then one day, about six months after I'd started my shadow work, I was out, uh, taking pictures, and, all of a sudden, uh, a gray heron, uh, stayed right where it was and I was able to sit down on the bank and it was right there, just like a foot away, and it just hung with me and spread its wings and allowed me to take all these amazing photographs. And it dawned on me all of a sudden that I had reached a level of vibration that was at, uh, at one with nature, yeah. And so that led me to this idea that birds, um, sense vibration, yeah.

Speaker 2: 38:36

When we first moved in here and, uh, so we live in Panama now Um, and when we first moved into this house, we had a hummingbird that came flying in the door and just flew around our house for a while.

Speaker 1: 38:47

so yeah, I love that. Oh, my goodness, you must have been like in a hummingbird of all things, because they're so, they're so shy of everything.

Speaker 2: 38:56

Yeah yeah, well, not so much down here, people feed them, but yeah, so you, you've gone through these, these incredible experiences.

Speaker 1: 39:05

You got the tattoo. Where are? Where are you off to next on this incredible journey?

Speaker 2: 39:09

Oh, so I eventually made my way back and ended up I, while I was on the journey, I had met somebody and uh, ended up coming back to Massachusetts, which I didn't expect that I was going to when I left. And you know, I came back and I needed a job because I was, you know, I was back and and so I got a job at a real estate company doing training and whatever. And you know, I continued my work right, I'm still doing my work and I remember so I, a year after I joined that company as a manager, I left to start my own real estate training practice and I opened that company up and on the side I was doing spiritual classes and all this other stuff. Right, sitting with um, I was sitting with a student of mine in a donut store somewhere I don't remember which one and uh, and oh no, we were in a restaurant but anyway, he, he asked me what's next and my phone rang and I picked up the phone and this guy is talking to me.

Speaker 2: 40:23

Now I had opened a um, oh, I've got this out of order. This happened before I left, anyway. Um, I had opened a spiritual education and healing center, and so this was before I left, on walkabout. But, um, I had opened this store and I was doing classes, right, and one of the classes I had done was life after divorce. Now, I had put it out, I was in my panic pivot era where I was like I give something like three days to work and I go oh, the universe didn't put the stamp of approval on a forehead, so it must be something else. So I had handed out a sum total of maybe 12 flyers. So I see you recognize that era, right.

Speaker 1: 41:01

Oh, my God, I can't panic pivot. I'm so stealing that from you because I did, I did. I had that happen repeatedly. Like I would be going in the direction, I would think I'd know what I was doing and all of a sudden I was like, well, that didn't pan out and I would turn to run the other direction. And it was like two years of me just going and of course, nothing, of course.

Speaker 1: 41:20

Nothing worked out because I couldn't stay nothing of course, nothing worked out, because I couldn't stay stay focused on any particular solution, because I didn't understand that it was going to take repetition, right?

Speaker 2: 41:27

yeah, that's exactly what was with me too, and so I had handed out maybe 12 flyers for this class okay, and this guy is calling me.

Speaker 2: 41:37

He's like who's this? And I'm like you called me, who's this right? And he's like I'm looking at this flyer and I'm like what flyer? And he said this life after divorce flyer, he said I found it in my visor. I don't know where it came from, but I, you know, I, I just lost custody of my kids.

Speaker 2: 41:56

I haven't slept in two days. I'm I'm exhausted and I'm overwhelmed and I, I, I just came out of the courthouse and I sat down in my car and I flipped the visor, cause I was going to take a nap, and this fell into my lap. And I that's why I'm calling and I said, well, I think you'd better come over here. And so, uh, you know, he, he, we met him at a donut shop that was halfway between where we were and he was, and, and, uh, you, you know, he proceeded to tell me this story of how wolf had been following him. And you know, everywhere he would go, there were wolves following him. And he was telling me all this other stuff that was going on in his life and it was clear he was having a shamanic awakening and that the, the wolves, were calling him and the shamanism was calling him and he had lost his freaking mind. And I'm like okay, you need to go lay down in your car for a couple of hours, because you are almost psychotic at the moment because you haven't slept for two days. Yeah, and so get a couple of hours sleep, I'll come out and get you. And then you know we could talk some more.

Speaker 2: 42:57

And while he's out sleeping, I'm looking at my student, who's like oh, my god, what God? What happened? Right, I asked what was next. And then we're here. How does this happen? I'm like welcome to my life, right. And so I go to the bathroom and I'm in the bathroom talking to spirit and saying I'm on the toilet talking to spirit going OK, I'm catching this one for you, but this is not what I do. I don't do this, I don't want to do this. And they're like no, no, you were the only person within 75 miles. I'm like okay, fine, I'll catch this one for you.

Speaker 1: 43:30

Right.

Speaker 2: 43:32

It's because they're negotiations, right, and so, um, so I, I I walked him through what was going on, explained the process to him, whatever, whatever, and sent him on his way. But that's one of the sorts of things that happen, right Is is sometimes you just get things dropped in your lap.

Speaker 1: 43:53

I'm kind of feeling like that's sort of like what everything is, you know, is this sort of like getting dropped in your lap. Um, I, with the few minutes we have left, I would love to touch on shamanism. So before we started recording, we talked about plant medicine, and I'm a big supporter of plant medicine. I believe that Western medicine has basically destroyed Americans' health and has done nothing but get in bed with fast food and mass-produced food to turn us all into a bunch of piggy banks. And so I'm a I'm a fan of plant medicine, but as a shaman I don't. Really it's not something I push.

Speaker 1: 44:31

And one of the biggest misperceptions I think for a lot of people is and I I remember when I first started to introduce myself to people with shamanitis, I would get this like oh, do you do ceremonies? I'm like, yeah, I do a lot of ceremonies. They don't involve what you're thinking necessarily, and so I wanted to touch on that, like that sort of you know, the modern shaman. I think people really need to evolve their perceptions of what shamanism is. Well, I think for listeners I have to just say really quick, a lot of people like I get people saying, oh, are you indigenous? And it's like no, I'm not but, but shamans have been in cultures all around the world for thousands and thousands of years. They've existed in the irish world and in the you know english world, and in the german world, and in nordic and and and in america. And it's much broader and more, uh, diverse than I think a lot of people actually understand. And the word shaman is something that we, that was created Western, created to label it actually comes out of Russia.

Speaker 2: 45:31

Yeah, yeah, the term comes out of Russia. So yeah, but I tell people all the time you ask a hundred shamans what a shaman is, they're going to give you a hundred different answers, and that's because that's sort of the nature of shamanism, is that, uh, the the shaman is what the who the shaman is right, the shaman does what. You know what that person who's the shaman does. There is no cookie cutter definition of shamanism, which is why, like 15 years ago on, on some random facebook group around shamanism, somebody was saying we need to certify shamans and everybody who was actually a shaman is like laughing their butt off.

Speaker 2: 46:06

Right, we're like no no, you can't do that, it is not possible. But yeah, but there's also this weird thing in shamanism that if, if you have not been acknowledged as a shaman by another shaman, you really can't claim to be a shaman. You can say it, but it'll go dunk, thunk, thunk in your beingness, right? You know, for years I called myself a practicing shaman, even though I knew I had all the shamanic skills. I had not been acknowledged by another shaman because I had studied with like 80 different people over the course of my life and and so no one person came and said okay, you've completed the training and here's the stamp of approval that says you're a shaman, right.

Speaker 1: 46:49

And, let's be honest, that's all about money. I mean the whole, the monetization of everything. When I hear people say that oh, did you get a certification, it's like shut up. Could you please just shut up please?

Speaker 2: 46:59

Yeah. So, um, you know there are skill sets that are required to be a shaman and you know, if you're going to do things, you need to actually know what the hell you're doing. You can, okay, and the shaman who was doing the house clearing was unpacking his spirit box which was a rubber made tote, by the way um, and he, he pulls out his eagle feather and he, he pulls it out and he starts to put it down and he's like looking at it and it's like the feather needs to be introduced to you. And I was like, okay, so he handed the feather over and it, and it's like the feather needs to be introduced to you. And I was like, okay, so he handed the feather over and I, I communed with the feather for a moment and, you know, had had the introduction, and then I handed it back and he said why didn't you tell me you were a shaman? Oh, I love that.

Speaker 2: 47:56

That was my acknowledgement, right yeah and I didn't have the guts at the time to say well, you know, you know I wasn't until a minute ago, but I just didn't seem relevant, right, and so you know, he invited me to be part of the healing, the clearing process. But you know, not everybody gets their acknowledgement Right. Yeah, my friend Kathy worked with a shaman. She did the whole process and he never acknowledged her Should have but didn't, which is kind of the whole point.

Speaker 1: 48:24

I never acknowledged her should have but didn't, which is kind of the whole point I think what we're talking about is like when egos get involved, it's like you know, do we have to make this more complicated than somebody wanting to just be a community healer? Can we just leave it at that? You care and you want to help?

Speaker 2: 48:37

people. So you know, when she and I were working together, I looked at her one day and I said Kathy, you're a shaman, ah and she was like oh yeah everything right. There was like this huge opening for her.

Speaker 2: 48:49

I I actually just acknowledged one of my students as a shaman, uh, like a couple weeks ago, because he he's there you know, and you know, we've been working together for four years and he's there and I was like he didn't ask me if to do it, he didn't anything. I just looked at him and I was like he didn't ask me if to do it, he didn't anything. I just looked at him and I'm like acknowledgement, right, um, because it was time, right, and that's when it should happen, not when somebody pays a certification fee or whatever. It's when it's time.

Speaker 1: 49:14

Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that. That's so important. I can't believe goodness, I, I, we have just a minute left. Uh, I know I, I could just keep talking to you. I could have this, could have been another hour. Maybe we should do another and pick up. Let's you know what, kelly, let's do that. Let's do a part two and pick up and talk about you know practices and you know where the spiritual world is right now in consciousness, and I want to hear more about your a hundred thousand um, for our listeners to part one cause we're going to do a part two uh, if they want to find out more about your work and events and things like that, what would they do?

Speaker 2: 49:50

so you go to kelly spartacom. So if you're watching the video, it's on the screen, but if you're listening it's k-e-l-l-e. Just e spartacom. And uh, if you want to get to know me a little bit better before you jump in that far, you know, come and see me on my podcast at Spirit Sherpa, or Spirit Sherpa podcast dot com. If you need a website, and you know, make sure you get the Boundaries for Empaths program on the homepage of the website, because that shit will change your life.

Speaker 2: 50:18

If you are an empath, you this is this is going to totally change the way you experience your world. I can't tell you how many people are like, holy crap, I feel so much better. I'm like, yes, okay, so definitely get that download. Um and uh, yeah, the a hundred thousand is on the site and I'm doing free training for the people who are part of the a hundred thousand. Uh, and the a hundred thousand is the people who are here to uplevel the planet and you'll know if you're one of them, because this was your experience when you woke up. I you're immediately overwhelmed. You're like oh, my God, I have this massive mission. I don't know what the mission is. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I have no idea what's going on, but I know I'm late.

Speaker 1: 50:56

Yes, that was such an accurate description. Yeah, no, I know that whole conversation, that whole feeling of waking up and being like, oh my gosh, how am I, how am I supposed to do this?

Speaker 2: 51:06

exactly, and so I'm actually doing free training for people who had that experience at their awakening. Um, and I want to be really clear this is not a chosen one thing, right?

Speaker 1: 51:16

that's it's it's.

Speaker 2: 51:17

You know, we, we came on to the planet for a mission and much like being a shaman. Everybody's like oh, I want to be a shop. No, you don't. You don't want to be a shaman. It's fucking hard to be a shaman. Okay, this is not going to be easy either. Okay, this is not a chosen one. This is a.

Speaker 2: 51:32

We came in because we had a mission to fulfill and we chose this path, and so I'm teaching people how to uh hold their energy, expand their energy and be able to connect to one another to create the grid that's necessary to blanket the planet. And I'm doing that free, so that's also on the homepage of the website. You can join the discord server where we were organizing that.

Speaker 1: 51:52

Ah, I love that. Oh my gosh, you guys heard it right here. Talk about a lot to to learn on her website, visit kellyspartacom, and we're definitely going to do a part two because there were so many things that we didn't get a chance to cover today. If this is your first time here, I am spiritual teacher and three-time bestselling author, shaman Isis, also known as Cynthia Elliott. To my friends and family, if you've never visited my website, go check it out shamanisiscom. If you're curious about my books, you can find them there. Any events that I have coming up, you can find them there. Um, as well as the my magazine, soul tech magazine, and um. Of course, you can always visit soul tech foundationorg to learn about the work that we're doing to help raise human consciousness on the planet. If you're not already subscribed, please subscribe, because this is intelligent listening and high vibrational uh uh energy to to enjoy your day with um. Love you guys. Have an amazing week. I will be back with another episode soon enough and thanks you guys, and have a good one.