I was born November 29th, 1948 on Vashon Island in Puget Sound Washington State.  The island is only 3 ½ miles wide by 11 miles long. Not many families lived year round on the island, but there were many during the summer.  The island can only be reached by a ferry boat.  I was raised in a barn that had been remade into a home, located just a short  walk through the woods, full of madrona trees, to the beach below.  These woods became my real home. The trees, the animals, the wind and the waves were my friends and teachers.  The ‘real world’ to me was being out in nature. I embraced all types of weather, each having it's own teaching and energy. They called to me, teaching me to really see, to look beyond the plastic veil and to listen, to really listen, to what was being said. 

It is easy to remember sitting sometimes for hours in the rain with a piece of plastic wrapped around me, the wind blowing wildly, sitting on a old wooden dock, with waves crashing all around.  Other times when all would be so very quiet, I’d snuggle down at the base of a tree and just listen to what message was being whispered. Somewhat of a tom boy, I’d build camps, spending much time outdoors and becoming very in tune with the spirit of fire, air, water and earth.  I’d climb up in the trees to simply be, listening and knowing I wasn’t alone. This continued into my adult years.

Some of my earliest memories are of flying out of my body, going into a tunnel of indescribable beauty and light. At the end of the tunnel from where the light emanated I would meet with beings, feeling completely warm, accepted, embraced and safe. They would teach me things that I needed at that time.  I never wanted to leave.  Each time I was told that I would have to return, to come back to enter my body.  I assumed everyone did this, not realizing that this experience was similar to the near death description.

During my adolescence and into young adulthood,  I found my way through hiking, backpacking (especially into the magical Olympic National Rain Forest), canoeing on Puget Sound and white water canoeing in NW Washington.  Whether I was high on some mountain ridge, sitting and watching a setting sun, or snuggled in the arms of an old growth tree by the river, well, it was there I felt alive.  It was there I received my nourishment and the spirits of that land taught me.

In my mid thirties I became increasingly ill.  By age forty, I was in complete physical and mental collapse. Doctors in three states couldn’t put me together again.  Then I was referred to a Shaman who, through Soul Retrieval, gave me back my life.  I was experiencing the ‘Shaman’s Death’ only I had no knowledge of what that was. In our culture we are lacking the memories of our ancestors who would have recognized the signs I’d shown all my life.  In tribal cultures these children are raised and trained. Here in ‘normal USA’ we label children or adults that see and talk with spirits as crazy. What is crazy is that we have lost our way and disconnected severely from our roots and the natural world.

Experience:

Tana Hamiter is a contemporary medicine women who has studied under various Native American healers & teachers, Shamans of Central Mexico and has mentored with a Maori Elder, traveling to New Zealand for internship. She is a Certified Trainer for Sacred Circle Institute and is a student of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.