Know Thyself - E70 - Snow Raven: Indigenous Wisdom From Arctic Siberia: Animal Spirits, Shamanism & Healing Music

Episode Date: October 31, 2023

Indigenous Arctic Siberian woman, Snow Raven, delves into the rich tapestry of her heritage, sharing the ancient traditions and practices of her people. From mystical shamanism, to mimicking birds and animal sounds to go into trance - Snow Raven reveals the wisdom of her people, and how it can change the world. She recounts her childhood in Arctic Siberia, where it reaches -96 degrees in the winter, and 100 degrees in the summer. She reflects on how surrendering to a harsh environment and the natural cycles of life, has helped her people to live in harmony with the Earth. Snow Raven offers invaluable perspectives on the merging the wisdom of indigenous traditions and the Western world, reminding us that we are all indigenous to Mother Earth.  ___________ Timecodes: 0:00 Intro 2:31 Growing up in Arctic Siberia  5:31 The Contrast of Moving to America 7:02 Traditions of Shamanism in Arctic Siberia 10:19 Symbolic Meaning of 'Snow Raven' 14:19 The Healing Power of Singing Traditional Songs 15:39 Listening to the Sounds of Nature & Cultivating Inner Silence 19:51 Magical Tools of Shamanism 27:05 Mimicking Birds and Animal Sounds to Go Into Trance 34:54 Arctic Beatboxing: Transforming Reindeer Breath into Music 36:37 The Instrument of a Jaw Harp 41:46 Embodying Ancestors through Shamanic Singing 46:05 Connecting to the Heart & Crown Through Bird Songs 49:50 Singing Techniques for Healing Different Energy Centers 54:15 Snow Raven Shares a Song 59:05 The Power of Connecting with Our Ancestors 1:05:24 Facing the Fear of Death & Embracing the Cycles of Life 1:12:55 Merging Indigenous Wisdom with Modern Times 1:22:44 Snow Raven's Upcoming Offerings 1:24:31 Conclusion ___________ SNOW RAVEN - SUOR was born in one of the most remote and cold inhabited places in the world - the Republic of Sakha - Yakutia (arctic Siberia). She was three years old when she started to learn the language of birds and animals. Her voice takes its breath from traditional Sakha culture and is truly an instrument. She is the OG of “arctic beatbox” - the reindeer breath and the founder of OLOX, the NEOshamanic Portal to a Decentralized Humanity, Earth and Consciousness.  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/snowravenofficial/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SNOWRAVENOFFICIAL/videos Music: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2Tq7mjX98unxvK93baHot4?si=F_-TCBC1QvisOKiKAz1S6g ___________ Download André's FREE Book Recommendation List: https://www.knowthyself.one/books Know Thyself Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ Website: https://www.knowthyself.one Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ4wglCWTJeWQC0exBalgKg Listen to all episodes on Audio:  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4FSiemtvZrWesGtO2MqTZ4?si=d389c8dee8fa4026 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/know-thyself/id1633725927 André Duqum Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/ Meraki Media https://merakimedia.com https://www.instagram.com/merakimedia/

It's very important for humanity to reconnect to our ancestors. So I was born in a small village with 600 people where the winters can go to minus 96. And on the contrary, summers can go to 100 above. So it's very extreme weather conditions. A lot of indigenous societies, they survived because of surrendering with the cycle, natural cycle of life. Silence thought me how to hear clearly the sound of environment, how to express myself in order to connect with the nature. Mimicking birds and animal sounds are very, very important aspect of falling into trans.

Altering your state, your soul visits other realms. What I am doing from music, it's awakening that DNAs that carries a lot of ancestral wisdom because we all have that gift. We're carrying it, it's sleeping somewhere here deep down, and the question is how we're going to have access. We've destroyed 50% of the world's forests. What message do you feel like modern society needs to hear that the ancient wisdom traditions have been holding? Hello, beautiful beings. Welcome back to the Know Thyself podcast for every single week.

We get the honor, privilege, and opportunity to sit down with a brilliant mind to learn more about the true nature of self and the world around us at deeper and deeper levels every single week. Our guest today was born in Arctic Siberia, which is one of the most cold and remote inhabited places on planet. earth. She was raised in a village of only 600 people and she was raised up until 18 years with no internet, no technology. And her ancestors learned how to survive through their deep connection with nature. And it's with that that she learned to talk, commune with the plant and animal kingdom. And now she uses that as with ceremony and song and she travels the world sharing her wisdom and her voice in the world. So Snow Raven, thanks for coming on. Wow. Thank you so much.

much for the beautiful introduction of my entire culture and of course having me and my ancestors today. Yeah. I'm so looking forward to diving into this conversation. It's going to be very fascinating. We're recording this pretty close to, but this will be released on Halloween, which is just coincidence, but no coincidence. Very fascinating because today's conversation, I'm so excited to just dive into what it was like to live and grow up and have such a deep connection to nature in a way that is so foreign, especially to Western society. I would love for you to open up and sharing just a little bit of the context of the story of where you came from as it's such a big part of your journey and your life story. Can you share a little bit about where you were

born and how you were raised? Wonderful. So let me take you to the journey to my childhood. So I was born almost like pre-Soviet Union collapse. And I was born in, as you said, with the in a small village with 600 people, but I had a luxurious lifestyle in terms of I had electricity compared to my grandfather, who just two generations behind me, but even at that time, my people were living in a very traditional way, no electricity, surviving through this severe, cold winters, where the winters can go to minus 96 by Fahrenheit or 72 by Celsius. And on the contrary, summers can go to 100 above. So it's very extreme weather conditions.

And the swore of heating was a fireplace and also cows, the cattle, who would live next to people. It would be a wall and door and then they would provide this warmness. So I was born in very, let's say, comfortable, you know, life. But it's still, I call it comfortable because, as I said, we had an electricity and then TV. But I still didn't have like water coming from the sink or our toilet was outside or our refrigerator. it's under the ground because we have a permafrost. Yeah, and then I just moved to the United States five years ago

and then having all of this more comfortable life brings me back to the childhood of these memories. I can retrieve something from there, some information and then compare it with my life here being in the beautiful. bigger world. And in that dance of memories, there are a lot of interesting thoughts that I can share through my music. So it's been an amazing journey to come here and bring the wisdom of my ancestors. I could imagine it would have been such a contrast. And did you have a culture shock when you first came over to the Western world because obviously being raised and living in

in such a completely different way to how most people are used to, at least in the States, you know, was it tough integrating in such a different way? Yeah, it is very civilized world, right? It's just opening the door of a bigger world and it's the country where a lot of people wants to come and coming from small remote place. And opening that door, it was shocking, but that shock actually went into creativity. I brought that kind of, I was dancing with that creative energy. And that actually helped me to understand that the earth, it's nature, it's underneath a big cities, the heartbeat of the Mother Earth is just beating whatever I go to. So that helps me,

you know, to feel that I'm at home whatever I go to. So that's how just discovering bigger world and having some traveling around the world kept me to go back in my dreams to my homeland. So it was really, really helpful for me. Yeah. Can you share a little bit more about the spirituality of your people and where you come from and what a shaman is and the way that you relate to it from where you're at? Yeah. Yeah, I just love sharing about my culture. The core of shamanism, it's connection, the human being connecting to nature and connecting through the nature with the whole cosmos. So Oyunahan, which is Saha shamanism, it has fundamental view as a three worlds, concept of three worlds, lower, middle, and higher. And we believe that all of these three worlds are connected.

So the lower world is the realm of fear, cutal, and it's a very primal. survival energy. The energy that is being born here in the lower chakra could be elevated if you learn how to do that. And it can go upper to the middle world. And in middle world, we consider it as everything tangible and physical. And you can even look at it from the perspective of body. So our physical body is the middle world. And so the middle world is the of tapal and love and we believe if we build our tangible world physical world out of love we can create a really sustainable life sustainable hope for ourselves then if we learn how to elevate that energy towards the higher world which is you had a derailum of gratitude

machtal we can connect to the deities we believe and we have 12 different levels of sky and each deity lives in the sky and responsible for human problems. And therefore we have shamans who can connect to those deities and to the certain level of the sky. And I would love to talk about deep down a little bit into that aspect too. But here is the whole concept of shamanism is to learn how to dance between those three realms. slower kuttal, middle, taptal and the higher mahtal and being able to fall into trance

and deliver very important messages to the community. As a shaman, you are servant of the community. You're no longer belonged to your normal life. And that is very important aspect of shamanism and being a shaman in my country. culture. Yeah, it's got to be such a, it's such a unique lens in which you're bringing, you know, and I'm excited to dive into all the avenues that we're going to in this conversation about how, you know, certain indigenous wisdom can really be applied in these modern times to alleviate a lot of the suffering and heal a lot of the separation and division and our loss of connection to the

natural world. But before we do that, I'm curious to hear a little bit more about how Snow Raven came about and your name. When did that become a thing for you and what does that mean to you? The name's no raven in Saha. It's a swore. In Saha native tongue. So we call sometimes Yakut language, but we call ourselves as a Saka. And Svore was given by Saka Shaman woman back in my homeland about seven years ago.

And I didn't accept it. I felt that it's very heavy because swore, Raven's energy as a totem animal, spiritual meaning behind that is mental death and rebirth. And seven years ago it was very heavy for me to embrace that. And, you know, when you resist, that persist, so that energy was coming, keep coming to me. And then once I accepted it, my wings were just,

they felt them very dry and ready to fly. So I spread it wide. And that's how Snow Raven became my spiritual and stage name here in Western culture. And it is also becoming very close to my heart. And there's also a very interesting aspect. The snow aspect is ravens, they're everywhere in the world. And they can survive in minus 96. They don't migrate.

They don't fly away. They stay with us. It's almost like a companion for survival. And it's just an amazing how to like comprehend how this bird without any fur. It's just a feather, no fat. They can survive that. And they don't find a warm spot under roofs or something. They are deep down in a forest nesting.

there sometimes I can hear their like a wing flapping in the very like early winters and then you cannot see you just hear the sound because it's very foggy frozen air so I have very very deep connection to ravens and they follow me everywhere I go to and yeah it's just becoming part of my bones I can feel it Yeah. So you feel that energy of the raven of death and rebirth is carried in how you share your music and how you show up in the world. Obviously you said you kind of resisted accepting that because understandable, you know, having the energy of supporting people in the death and rebirth process, I feel like could be a little scary or maybe we're fearful and resistant of it. But that's beautiful. So you feel like that's how you mainly show up now and how the energy of Snow Raven then moves in the world. Yeah, it's just also my personal, you know, I would say something that dying here constantly and then being reborn, kind of admitting and meeting those processes in the body and it's also spiritual. It touches very much the personal and also when you go through that process and look at the process and

learn how to surrender to that cycle of life, then you can help others to go through the exactly same process. And then I project it into whole humanity. So then as a collective consciousness, we also quite often go through that death and rebirth process. So, yeah, so I can feel more and more that energy starting to come. Yeah. Yeah. So how does your voice and your song and music, how does that become the instrument or vehicle in which you do your shamanic work and then you do your healing work? How did that start to like awaken within you? My grandmother taught me how to sing traditional songs. You know, I sing from the moment as I remember myself. And she taught me this calais singing technique and traditional songs called Toyuk,

that you quite often use for as an invocation song to connect with the spirits and do certain ceremonies. And Ahuhaai, which is a circle dance where there's a one lead singer and everybody else repeats after that singer and we go clockwise and we dance and sing at the same time elevating the energy to the higher realms. So my grandmother taught me the singing technique,

and I was all of a sudden singing with elders together. So it was nice to be surrounded by that. And in the summer solstice ceremonies, we call it, we have a lot of awa chai, a lot of toyuk, sang by elders and kids and young people. So she wanted me to be part of that. Yeah, that's how I learned. And then how did the animal noises start?

Like, how did you start? Was that something you done in front? done for a while, but like how did that become a part of what you do and share and, you know, guide others through? I'm just curious about how that came about. Yeah, it's, I remember the first time I heard the sound of wilderness. It was a cuckoo bird. And they usually start, do the sound, call each other in May. And with the first sound of cuckoo bird, we recognized, oh our spring has started and there is no like a May 2nd or May 15 that our spring starts it's just all following the natural cycle of life and I heard this

sound on the hill on the northern hill and then another cuckoobird was doing like answering to that sound and I could hear the echoes and delays between them and it became like and I was super fascinated by that natural effect, almost like a tail that comes from that sound of the bird. Because I live is, I mean, just simply surrounded by the forest. I could go even without my parents to the forest and sit there and listen all the other sounds. So I would say silence. Silence thought me how to hear clearly the sound of environment and then the mother nature

thought me how to express myself in that environment in order to connect with the nature. So that was what was happening. The first time I started to like just mimicking cuckoo birds sounds and they would answer sometimes. And then as a kid you're like, wow, they're playing with me. They want to communicate. So the silence is something.

something that I'm missing today, being in the big city. And back in my homeland silence is, because we don't have that much cars in a small village, my hearing was more sharp there. That's how I could hear those voice effects, right? The sound effects. And on the contrary, being here in the big city, it becomes like a white noise. And my hearing, my eardrums perhaps just automatically cancels and, and, defense itself, themselves. It's just like turns into something that I don't want to pay

attention and going more into inward world. But yeah, just recognizing that thought helped me to understand and to appreciate how we need this silence, you know, no matter what is happening around the world and an outside world, the silence, inner silence, it's very, very important. So I'm like kind of trying to learn and master that inner silence within me, being in a bigger world. I'm sure. So interesting to navigate as it's easy to find your silence within when you're in an environment that is inherently more silent. But, you know, I feel like the real testament is to on one side, see how you can cultivate it in an area that is noisy and see how you can self-sourcise that. silence within. But on the other side, also realize that the way that modern society is built

is not conducive towards a healthy mind and body that can access that silence really readily. And so I find myself, especially moving to an area that has more nature and going on trails where I can cultivate and access that silence more easily around me is really important. But that's beautiful. So as you started to cultivate and listen to that silence, a lot of these voices and animal sounds started to come through. And so, yeah, would you walk us through? Maybe some, like, how those came about, which ones you've chosen to learn and to mimic? And then what that means to you? Like, what's the purpose that they serve? The tools in shamanism, tools to, or in order to fall into trance, there's so many of them.

To fall into trance. Yeah. So the tools to fall into trance. Yeah. So the tools to fall into trends are very important for shamanism. And if I go back to the shamanism and explain what is that and kind of why do we use that tool, I wanted to explain that. The word shaman, Saman, from Tungu's culture, it came from our area. And it means the person who knows. So it came from the reindeer herders, Tungus and Ewenk people as I would say

terminology as a word into English, into Western culture, as a shamanism, but as a phenomena, it exists around the world. And there's something about the human experience

that we all go through that process, through a process of becoming healers and teachers for ourselves. And the shaman is the person who learns how to deal with energy that goes through the body. So we believe that our bodies as a device, they can react to the energy. If it's too big, it can shake or having very similar symptoms to epilepsy or schizophrenia. so I'm using here the Western diagnosis.

We don't diagnose people with those words. But on the contrary, we ask shaman and elder shaman come and communicate with future shaman. And then imagine the future shaman quite often goes through the process of ettheni. And the et teni, it's like a very devastating sickness. It's a burden. It's the sickness that is quite often related to mental health issues and also non-diagnosed pain in the body. And an elder shaman comes and helps the future shaman to go through that process of right of passage, a process of learning how to deal with that energy and almost like a dancing with that,

negotiating, communicating. and once they learn how to do that, they can bring a lot of useful messages from the, straight from the source. So we have these phones, smartphones downloading data from web of internet, but the shamans they download through their bodies data from Web of Life, and it's unlimited data there, right well designed by by the creator and so the shamans would be the people who find if someone lost in taiga or they would find some game meat and send hunters there they would do certain ceremonies cleaning of the house or land purification from the

harmful spirits or they would execute also they would do wedding ceremonies funeral birthdays, the adulthood, the initiation to adulthood. They also work with elements of weather. They could call rain when there's a dry season or they are true healers who do magical results such as like healing cancer or they can adjust the bones or they're herbalists. there are certain types of shaman and types are they come from what kind of sickness they deal with and then the highest the 12th sky shaman

is the person who connects with the extraterrestrials so they can do everything that all the other shamans do and on top of that they can communicate with other entities from other planets And my teacher shaman, Savay, who is a Tungus shaman, he was the 12th sky shaman. And I had an honor and privilege to sit with him at the ceremony and receive a permission through him from the spirits to play drum, shamanic drum. Because in my culture, we don't beat the drum without any intention and purpose and without

permission. So there are certain tools to fall into a trance in shamanism. I find it as mimicking birds and animal sounds, singing, dancing, playing instruments. So this for, oh, and also the storytelling. So all the forms of art, it's very familiar, right? So a lot of people sing and dance. But if you look at from the shamanic point of view, it's actually, those are actually a tool to fall into trans or even bring you back to your body when you are into trance. That's why in a lot of shamanic ceremonies, shamans usually they have rattles,

they have shakers, they have drum, and they sing and dance. So I think it starts from the dancing. And have you felt when you dance, you become more flexible and there's some like a sort of spaces open up in your bones or in the parts of your body? And that helps me to embody sound, sound of my voice of my ancestors or mimicking birds and animal sound. because our bodies are truly an instrument.

So it becomes an instrument, almost like an empty vessel. Usually it starts from dancing, right? And then the birds and animal sounds, mimicking of them. It's actually not a mimicking, it's a communication. It starts as a mimicking. So I have this memories how I was learning to hear and answer back to the birds and animals, hearing that little details of the sound, the echoes and delays and reverbs of the sounds of nature. So I learned how to turn myself into animal or bird through the imagination.

And that would shamans do, they would call their totem animals. embody their totem animals in order to awaken the extra skills in them. So Snow Raven, right? So my totem animal, it's a raven, the first totem animal. And depending on the season, a raven does four different sounds that I can do because human voice is not capable of doing all the sounds of nature. So something that is comfortable to your or you connect it and also it comes through you easily. That's the sound of the totem animal.

And so the raven does the very high tone like a sound during the summertime. And spring and autumn, as I notice it does. Or sounds. And there is also winter sound, which is, and then a mating one. So I just heard that many times in that silent, you know, environment. And I just started to communicate with Ravens and they would also answer back. Also, there is one very special sound, which is related to the, bird called Elie.

And in English translation is interesting, a brown kite, but it doesn't look like the bird that I like to communicate. So elates the sign of summer, and it does sound. Very squeaky,

high, and it just instantly renews me, elevates my energy and my mood. So there's something about doing birds and animal sounds that also takes you from the state where you are you could be sad or you could your energy is low and by just mimicking it you could also elevate your energy so it's really cool and I would love to try it with you too okay you want to sure whatever I'm down for whatever have you ever tried

tried like mimicking or talking to some animals yeah no I don't think so oh wow Okay. So, for example, an owl sound. So would you mind to try with me this owl sound? Sure. It's actually very meditative. So the lowest tone, oh, first I'm not going to teach you how to do that. Just imagine that you are an owl. Okay. And just do like this. Oh, oh, oh, oh. And you can curve your tongue back and do. Oh. Yes. Yeah, that's nice.

very good so that sounds soothes my nerve system so much is very meditative because it's a lower tone of your head sound so it's like so that's my lower tone today and it curve my tongue and it becomes oh oh oh right so I started to kind of comprehend through my mind all the sounds that I've been doing and when I teach my students I do that quite often like re-learning how to do the sounds and use my body as an instrument. There's also another sound I would love to try with you. Sure let's go for it. I'm here. Yeah I really loved your owl sound yeah I've been practicing for years in my bedroom all alone just for this moment it's my time to shine You know that?

I'm an owl. The owls, they can rotate their head like 360. Yeah. Right? And then when shamans do the birds or animal sounds, they actually activate the skills. So you can do 360. What do you do? I guess in our imaginations it's pretty possible.

So there's also one sound, which is very good for men. It's a sound of the predators and more like a, grounding sounds that connects our hips, this like the root chakra area to the earth, and the bear sound, right? So bear is considered to be a king of the forest in my homeland. And they're well respected and honored. We call it the ta'age.

So I would like to invite you to try a little bit bear sound. All right, let's go. So you can imagine that you came out, after the long, like eight months of cold and long winters. And you're very hungry. And then you're sniffing, looking for a berry. So let's try to find that berry. Nice.

I love it. Yeah. And then there's also an Arctic wolf. right so there's something about Arctic Wolf when you do this sound like a long howling it just connects me to the moon and it something releases you know something just it's like it reminds me freedom so would you mind to try yeah we can go a little bit farther from the microphone and do like inhale and then oh nice right I love doing it with group of people too. There are a lot of melodies in the wolf sound too. It could be like

like a back and forth, back and forth. Yeah, that's legit. Yeah. And another one is reindeer breath. Have you ever seen the reindeer? Yeah. So the reindeer, they're not predators, but they have this low-tone breathing. And then nomadic reindeer herders, they they mimic the breath of the reindeer. And I remember when I write the reindeer for the first time, I was writing, and then it was doing strange sound, like a me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. And I asked, what is doing?

Is it farting? No, no, it's breathing. And then the northern people, they do this, a lot of interesting rhythms that mimic reindeer when they run long distance like thousands of miles in tundra and they do that in order to preserve their energy.

So I came up with Arctic Beatbox and Arctic Beatbox means playing with different rhythms so I would like to show it to you. So it's um So that's a beatboxing in the end. Arctic beatboxing. Arctic beatboxing. Yeah.

So right. Yeah, so that's a reindeer breath. And then I do have this instrument. Mouth harp? Yep. You know, America also has a mouth harp. America also has this instrument. And sometimes you can find it as a jaw harp or jaw harp.

We call it Homo. It's not H-H-O-M-U-S. I'm familiar with that one. Yeah, sounds like a hummus, right? But it's H-H-O-M-U-S. And we believe that this small portable instrument, it came from the first sound of the hunters when they realized that the bow can do

brion-bron-bron-bron-bron sound. So this instrument also has one string. And it exists around the world. It has over different, like a hundred different types. And it's made from different materials. In Japan, they do it from bamboo. There are also some of them made from bones. This one is made from iron of my homeland.

And the spiritual meaning of that is we believe that it brings, it does sound healing to your bones, to your cells. It repairs the cells. And also it becomes an extension of your body as an instrument. And because I'm putting it in my teeth like this and I breathe through, there's a lot of things happening. So it instantly connects with your bones through my teeth. So I feel the vibration in my skeleton. And it connects me to my breath. which connects me to the present time, then, for example, if I move the back of my throat, it does this, uh-k-l-k-un, right? It becomes like overtone. And also if I move my tongue, it does this. So you can hear how your muscles by them moving in a certain way creates the sound.

without any voice. Isn't it incredible? Yeah, so rad. It's just one string instrument that becomes like an additional voice, an additional sound. We know only voice, right? Like, we can sound. But this one is really very sacred instrument. And I wanted to give you for your audience a little mouth harp composition. Yeah, let's do it.

So that was the lower tone one. It also has different tones. This one is higher tone. So I can play a little faster rhythms. Yeah, like mimicking also birds and animal sounds through this instrument. It's very fun to do and it also puts me into that altered state. So you'd use all these tools, one, like the initial mimicking of different animal sounds,

the mouth harp and these different tools to essentially get into an altered state of consciousness that would give you more access to yourself or to wisdom or to healing. And yeah, I'm just curious to continue also with the animal sounds. and this is just also fascinating. Yeah, those are all this reindeer breath, mimicking birds and animal sounds, mouth harp, and dancing is like preparation for singing. And in the shamanism, you know,

you can see in the ceremonies, they sing quite often with a lot of interesting timbers. You can't believe that shamans, whoa, this is human being. And then they embody a lot of other people's voices. And quite often in Saha shamanism, shaman can embody their ancestors' voice. And we believe that they talk through the shaman. And in that state, in that alternate state, they can bring message through the singing. It's truly about how the person can embody different ancestors and sing through their songs,

like sing through their voices. So I'm woman, right? But I can embody like, very low vibration. Or it's more like a higher realm sound, more like a young person or woman's voice. And there's a storytelling, traditional storytelling called Olam Khoa in my culture.

It's truly an embodiment of 50 different characters in the storytelling, like a theater of one person. Shaman's, they, after coming off from their transcendental journeys, they tell the story, they translate into human language, their experiences into human language,

and they tell the story which becomes all on ho in my culture. And they can channel for like three days, three nights non-stop. And people will come and sit and listen and see having own visuals. Because we didn't have electricity back, you know, like two generations before me. My grandfather used to live in a very traditional way. No electricity.

So imagination was the movie. And people would come and participate in the shamanic ceremonies. and having what's so-called contact high, right? I learned it being here. And that it was a traditional way that the people just look at the shamans, the way shaman moves and turn into animal and then activate their imagination, and they would travel with shaman together.

And I'm coming from the background without any plant medicine. We don't have any the substances that shaman would take in order to fall into trans. They would use the tools to fall into trans and also going through the process of illness, right of passage. So the etienne process that I spoke in before, that's one of the very powerful tools to to define who you are, like, are you becoming a shaman or not?

Because in order to be a shaman in my culture, A, you need to have a blood, like a straight lineage, and B, learn how to deal with this ethony process. And it can last for months, years, or even decades. Depends on the strength of the shaman, again, talking about the skies. The 12 Sky Shaman can be sick for years. And yeah, so this whole forms of art that I actually see that we all do that in the world, right? Like I see a lot of other cultures have that. And we do it living in the city, but we have different approach to that.

We see it as entertainment. but it has a deep healing purposes and necessity in my culture. Thank you so much for sharing. Before we hop on to, I want to talk, there's a few more things I definitely want to touch on, but was there any other animal sounds, noises, bird noises, and then also the higher realm singing,

all that I would love for you to share a little bit more. Yeah, so if we go into more detailed journey through birds and animal sounds, So there are certain birds and animal sounds that instantly connect you to the heart realm. So this predator low vibration sounds connects me here. And then the heart chest area, it's quite often that something comes, reverberates here. It could be Morianka bird. That little bird lives by the Arctic Ocean.

It's small but very brave. There's also a bird sound, the boreal owl. There is also loon. So the loon does this very mysterious hunting sound. So it's just reverberates here and I feel connected in this part of my body. And there are also some bird sounds that have high tones and I feel mostly here, my third eye, crown chakra and beyond. So the crane, crane bird, it's considered to be the most sacred bird in my homeland. And they dance in the wilderness during the summertime. And it's very rare to see them singing and dancing at the same time. So they come from Japan during the springtime. They migrate all over from Japan and mate and have a babies, if someone with cancer witness dancing and singing, the crane

dancing and singing, we believe that they can cure themselves. So it is very sacred for us to do also crane sound. So it sounds like this. So that's crane flock sound. And when you add a little bit like vibration in it, vibrato, it becomes bigger flock like this. Yeah. And it's, what is interesting is the Japanese people, they do have the same. They have a lot of songs and dancing dedicated to this bird or they mimic the crane.

And I just love how we are even living in different countries, different parts of the earth. We can connect to each other through certain animals and birds that fly far distances. So that's the birds and animal sounds that can make you to travel through lower, middle, and the higher sounds. Amazing. And there are a singing technique. also that connects your three worlds. One of them is kahlha. And kulhach, it's this jodl.

Hey, heh, right? In saha culture, we have all the traditional songs having that singing technique. And it becomes something like a groove. And before each syllable we have this. this groove. And that for me, almost like I am connecting my three worlds. It brings into feeling that my breath start from here

and then a fundamental sound, it's in a chest area. and then this yodel is happening here, my head sound. And it becomes... E... So I feel so connected with my all three worlds as a tree. Because we believe that the tree goes to the lower world with the roots, trunks stays in the middle world

and the crons of the trees they go to the higher world and we even have a special name for that Alukmas, the tree of life and then there are those singing techniques that reminds you that all the three worlds are connected

have you ever tried yodling? I don't know probably yeah like like this comes from like a like sense of wonder like try to bring that sound out hmm yeah right so it's like a there's a slight click happening when you do that and then now try ha ha ha first like a

very solid sound ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha you see so that's the first step to do kulah that's what i usually teach for my students and then we just you see when you said uh-huh So you have this, huh, uh-huh. And then we add a little bit the yodl sound on top of that and becomes that that is the ultimate singing.

That's how it sounds like to do kala'uha. But I think the next one will be very easy for you to do. Let's try tongue alai. So this sound comes from my tongue. Yeah, exactly. Do you feel your tongue hits the area here like when your teeth connects with your palate?

Yeah, this one. Yes, yes, yes. Can you feel there's like a... Suction. Yeah, like almost you hit with the air. And but what is happening, you hit with your top of your tongue that's that palate, right?

And it creates groove. Te, they commit. That's one of the traditional songs Hete. And then yeah, so it becomes very also fun to do groove while you're singing. And then sometimes I play like this. So our body is truly an instrument.

So we can activate certain parts in it and all of a sudden starts sounding in a very strange, weird ways. So that's what I teach my students sometimes to express themselves. It's a human expression. Yeah. Yeah. Do you want to share a song that's like native to your people before we move on? Do you want to share anything there?

I would love to. Okay. Thank you so much. Yeah. There's a one song that is very dear to my heart called Agamalaha. And that song, I usually start most of my concerts and workshops. from that song. Hopefully you will enjoy it and I'm going just to take you to the sound journey with that song. Kiyu Khmi means thank you in my language. Maktal means thank you in my

language. Yeah. So that's a song that most of the time brings me into tears because that what reminds me my home very, very much. And before starting my concert, I sing that song and then that's one of the reassurance when I sing that I can connect to my childhood memories, to all the knowledge that have been soaking and absorbing from the elders when I was child. So it's truly one of the great tools to fall into trans and falling into trans.

It's having journey, almost like a time and space traveling. It's beautiful. There's the experience that we have in our lifetime, but then also the thousands of lives that preceded us in our lineage and our ancestry. And I would love for you to share a little bit more about the power of, connecting with our ancestors and how that's really missing in modern society today, what that looks like and what comes from that. Yeah, so that's, thank you so much for bringing up that topic, very important topic in my life.

Because everything that I do through being in my mission is the main goal there for me, It's reconnecting to our roots, to our ancestors. And we've never lost it. I believe that while as a trees, we're just looking at the surface, but not looking at the underground, the roots. It's infeasible to our eyes. But if we dig down, we can find almost another tree under the ground.

right? It has almost the same shape as it is above the ground. The root of the tree, it's under the ground. Remember I told you about the fear realm, primal survival energy. So reconnecting to our ancestors quite often requires to face fear and sit with pain and suffering. And there's something that in a Western society you call ancestral trauma. And if we look out through the history, each ethnicity, each nation goes through that process. You and I were sitting here embodying all of our ancestors, all the lineages surviving many, many cold winters or any harsh weather conditions. And then all came as who were. we are today and we are embodying not only their bodies like their eyes or nose and their skin tone

but what is really important is we embody the resilience or their very special skills let's say when I sing I feel the presence of my ancestors. I feel that there are elder shamans who sing through me and when they appear, I just feel protected. I feel the ground or strong ground that I'm standing. And at the same time, when I'm visiting or traveling between time and space, when I would like to see my homeland, and it gives me wings to fly through my imagination. So it has a lot of beautiful elements and gifts that we all carry here. And I always say we don't borrow from other cultures.

We all have our powerful ancestors. There are all of them very close to nature. all of them were hunters. They knew how to survive. And we're all indigenous to Mother Earth. And we have those DNAs. We carry those DNAs with hidden treasures, hidden gifts. And through self-expression and through sitting with the trauma,

what they were going through, we can awaken. And then all of a sudden, when we awaken them, It just feels so nice. It sometimes brings me into shivers and tears and just being so grateful that I was born in one of the most remote and cold places in the world. And I made this journey to come to the United States five years ago. It took me a lot of strength to do that brave step. Of course, I flew here by the plane, not like my ancient ancestors who crossed the bering straight and they walked. and perhaps some of them died on the way but yeah so it's just something that I'm really

interested and curious how we can reconnect to our tools and there are to our ancestors and then there are tools how to how to connect to our ancestors and my the realm that I serve it's this artistic human expression and uh through that we can embody our ancestral voice. And it also comes with the knowledge how we could lead our new world, bringing their knowledge, their wisdom, weaving it into the modern

technologies that science invented. And in fact, all of these technologies that we have today that are well designed by nature. All the scientific, amazing discoveries they came from the nature, just by simple observation and inventing some tools. So I think this is like a perfect time to reconnect to our ancestors and awaken this deep wisdom that we all carry

and sing it through without oppressing our voice and integrating it to our day-to-day life. Yeah, it feels like they're just so much untapped power and potential there to access that. We're often just oblivious to, but nonetheless it's still there. And like you spoke to, I feel like it requires being able to face those fears and address the trauma that you want to put under the rug. Of course, we've been passed down many different challenges.

We've also been passed down many different gifts and skills, like you said, which are important to cultivate and discover. So, yeah, I'm curious, anything you want to share there. And then also, you know, facing death as Snow Raven is somebody that deals with a lot of death and rebirth, death is a topic that we all are going to face. It's a reality that we're all going to face. And I'm just curious how you navigate or support people with their fear of death. They're like reading my mind right now.

So it's death, for me, it's a part of the cycle of life, right? It equals for me to the birth. Later, I was just sitting and meditating on the phenomenon of death. and what is it? And it's one of the existential questions of the humanity, perhaps we would never answer to that question, but everyone has own perception, own comprehension of that. And for me, it's when we come to this world,

the little babies going through the womb, being in a wamp of our mothers in that very comfortable, warm, surrounded by water space, and it's dark, right? it's dark and then when the birth starts the time comes for us to appear in this middle world and that darkness you can see how the lights comes out it almost like a tunnel and then we go through that tunnel and perhaps we experience the great pain there because it's a small place that we go through through our mothers and our sculpts are like a squishing and

our mother's experiencing pain, we're experiencing, and perhaps we think that, oh my God, we're dying. You know, after nine months after going off all the interesting state of evolution, from being a little organism and then animals and then human baby, and then here we are, we're dying. And then it turned out to be, we came to this world, to the middle world, to the tangible world, to continue our journey. And then everyone has this beautiful experience that I call life. And since it feels like since we came here, we start dying, it's almost like there is this spiritual meaning to that,

like impermanence, everything changing and dissolving in this world. So we kind of step into that realm. and the entire life it becomes a journey, and it comes into the point where we front it again. And then that phenomena, it remains so mysterious for me that I can just touch glimpse of that and perhaps come with some explanation or some amazing observation what is the death.

For me, that constantly happens. While even right now I'm talking, my cells are dying and being reborn, dying and reborn. So it's a part of the cycle. And what my people did, as an example I would like to bring again, my people, Saka people, they constantly were facing death, constantly were working with fear of death.

Imagine surviving in minus 96, very cold. and if you don't know how to put the right clothes on or your car is broken in the middle of the road and there is no other cars passing by you're in the middle of nowhere you just die and the mortality of people back in a was two generations behind me so back in the 90 till 1950s the mortality of people was high, specifically kids, because it is natural selection. And my grandfather, he's one of the seven survivors among 12 kids. And a role of women in an hour society back in like two generations behind me, they were giving birth as soon as they have a moon cycle, first moon cycle.

And quite often they would give more than 10 children. and half of them only will survive. So my grandfather was born and raised in that harsh conditions. I was born in a more civilized world with electricity than my grandfather brought. And so this constant facing of fear of death and sometimes facing death made my people to surrender to natural cycle of life. and hear and listen and follow the changes in the environment. When sunsets, we go to sleep, on the sun rises, we wake up. And perhaps that was the most efficient and survival, effortless way to live around that area.

Even the mortality was high. they found the way how to sustain and survive. Versus being here, I'm constantly, you know, surrounded by comfort zone. This being in the city and using the modern technologies. And we honestly contemplated with death too, with all of the invention scientific researches and in every single you know day i hear some interesting discoveries and explorations around human life and how to you know anti-aging or how to take our consciousness and and leave it here and come back so there's this whole interesting experiences that i do

that we do as a human beings and just having a little dancing with the energy of the death. It's really, really fascinating. I can bring only this information about the death, but I'm sure some cultures like Tibetan, Tibetans, they have the whole entire book, right, Tibetan Book of the Death. So each culture has interesting view on that Yeah, it's something that I think we're removed from having to face that reality And something that in Western culture, individuals don't think about a lot And it feels like, you know, our ancestors had to face that reality much more

And it feels like the closer you are to the possibility or reality that you are mortal And that you will die, the more reverence and appreciation you can have for life Which makes you feel more alive, you know, when you realize, you know, when you realize, you that you're mortal, when you realize that you could die at any point, then you start to pay attention and you're way more present to your reality. So I think that another thing I'd love to bring up and get your perspective on is indigenous wisdom that would be applicable to modern times, you know, and kind of the intersection and the crossing of both. The statistic that I read the other day was really interesting that kind of put things into perspective for me, saying that Earth is 4.6 billion years old.

And if you were to put that on a time scale of 46 years, we as a human species have been here for only four hours. And with that, the industrial revolution started about one minute ago. And in that time, we've destroyed over 50% of the world's forests, which is heartbreaking. It really puts things in context for where we're at and how unsustainable the path we're currently on is. And so I'm just curious to hear a little bit of having such deep roots and connections to your ancestral and indigenous. indigenous wisdom, what pieces of advice or reflections you think are important during these times where we've lost our way in so many different ways? Wow, those are shocking numbers.

Wow, I just said with that while we were talking and just realizing. The indigenous communities that survived today, who kept their traditions until today, without that much transformation in changes but kind of following more the changes on earth and preserving the wisdom and knowledge how to survive those indigenous communities today

I think they're like a portals how to connect to earth earth, there is a knowledge, deep knowledge, how to take care of our home. And I'm sure Earth is going to be okay without us. It can create floating, earthquakes, volcano eruption, and will be gone if it's that devastating. But we will not be okay without Earth, our home. and I quite often see it as a earth is our body is an analogy like this is also our home

this is earth this is our planet and in a bigger scale this planet is our home my body this vessel for many generations to come through it's also our home so I feel that there's some change in the air where the Western culture is becoming very curious and also creating safe platforms, an environment for indigenous people to step in and share their knowledge and wisdom. And it's all earth-based because what most of the communities did, they preserved their relationship with plant medicines and how to deal with the spirit of plant medicine, which they show through their ceremonies and through the lifestyle they have, living in a very remote and survival places. So the ecosystem that indigenous people have,

within their communities, they're all linked with elements of earth. And we know the elements from the Hindu tradition, like air, water, fire, ether, and earth, right? Those five elements also exist in a lot of cultures. In my culture, we call it Kutzer. and so all of these elements those are like a bricks of the little pieces that we create our home our society and the indigenous tribes they quite often have a lot of knowledge how to build our society how to create a relationship with earth and with each other as a human species and some of them are shared, some of them are not shared, because there is this fear that some of the wisdom could be

brought to the mainstream, not in the right time, it could be damaged or destroyed or transformed into something else. For that, I think if we learn how to create safe space for indigenous people and Westerners come together and just hug each other, cry through, forgive each other, to find the ways how to heal each other and how to heal the earth. So I think there are a lot of ways to reduce that 50% that you mentioned. But there is this problem to feel safe from both sides and truly sit with it and heal our wounds. And specifically what happened towards the many, many indigenous communities, many indigenous tribes around the world, it's very sad. It brings into sadness.

And it brings into the... guilt and sometimes blame. There's some aggressive energy could, some aggressive energy could be in that realm. But I think this is the time when we need to kind of come as a brothers and sisters and as an all indigenous to the mother earth, no matter which skin color you have and where you were born. We are all indigenous to our home, to, earth. So it's one of the actually very deep wisdom that my people have. And of course, all the technologies around climate change and the way we built our communities, there are a lot of interesting solutions within the indigenous cultures. I think those solutions need to be talked about more

and shared on bigger stages. And it feels so real that just the disconnection that we have from nature, and nature is a part of ourselves and part of knowing thyself is to know to the extent of what ourself is. And if that extends through the natural world, if we're disconnected and we're separate from it, then of course we're going to treat it as a resource instead of a living, you know, biosphere that we can commune with and learn from. and, you know, it's just so sad that we're destroying the intelligence of nature on such a rapid rate.

And so I think everything that you've been sharing today in terms of how to be able to connect back with our ancestors and the tools that we can use that through our voice and sound and dance are great reminders to be able to connect back into that. Because as much as we want to look out there and, you know, say the problems out there, really everything starts within first. And so, you know, acknowledging and taking that responsibility of how we can show what better to live more. more in harmony with nature and be better stewards in our own worlds first and then extend that to our communities and the world at large. But yeah, it was beautiful. Thank you. Is there anything else you want to share within that? Yeah, it's almost also like a taking care of our bodies, right? When we take care of the earth, it just feels so nice when we become like stewards of our servants of the earth, it's just automatically brings so much light and almost like equanimity or

inner peace that we're part of this great cycle of life. Because we're truly part of huge cycle of life and it has all little cycles within it and we're part of this chain of life. And And yeah, so it's just we give more and receive more of that kind of cycle. It's very, I think, also important to look at it that way. I think, I mean, just like you said, our physical home body is a microcosm to the macrocosm that is Earth. And that is also our home. And it's like if we're destroying the planet, it's also no coincidence. We're also seeing more disease and destroying of our physical bodies simultaneously and how there's so much connection there.

because obviously as we destroy the earth around us and the soil and all of that, it comes back into affecting us and the nutrition density in our food and so many different aspects of our life. So a lot to ponder on. And this whole conversation has been really unique, fascinating to share with our audience. And yeah, before we wrap up, is there anything you want to share? You're obviously traveling a lot, sharing your song and your work in the world. So just where people can find you and any last notes you have you want to share before we wrap up. Thank you. Yeah, I've been traveling a lot since I moved to the United States.

And right now I'm doing my very special small tour on mostly West Coast. And those are more intimate concerts, more like a ceremonial performances. And I'm also preparing myself for the special. tour that brings my recently released album called Home. You can find it on Apple and Spotify. It contains six songs of my people, traditional in Saha and also my original songs in English, which I'm very, very vulnerable to put it out because it's one of the first attempts to write in English. And then I'm working on also an app. It's a creative and educational app that highlights the indigenous teachers.

So I'm going to put out all of my courses that we, you know, called them, called them as a tools for archaic techniques of ecstasy or extending of the consciousness. So I'm going to put those videos and I'm going to announce everything on my social media on Instagram. So it's like Snow Raven official. Everything is going to be announced there. Amazing. So exciting to have that out there.

We'll put links for things in the description. And again, thank you so much for sharing yourself with us today in the audience. And yeah, sending you love on your journey and excited to see the unfolding of how you continue to share yourself. So thank you.

Thank you so, so much, Andre. Appreciate it. For everybody that's been tuning into the Know-Liself podcast, thank you for coming on this journey of exploring the full spectrum of what it means to be human. Until next time,