Eddy - Street Spirituality
Eddy is a Shamanic Healer, Founder to Street Spirituality, and regularly leads masculinity workshops across London. Since his initiation into Shamanic techniques, Eddy has dedicated his time and energy to giving back to others by bringing healing to the mainstream. Eddy is a natural at de-mystifying the spiritual world which, in turn, lends itself perfectly to ‘Street Spirituality’. At a time when it is most needed, he bridges the gap and creates an opportunity for spiritual accessibility.
You are a Shamanic healer - can you explain a little about your journey to becoming a healer?
I suffered from acute anxiety growing up. I used to suffer from panic attacks really regularly and this in turn led to a lot of depression because I felt completely hopeless. I tried psychotherapy. I tried to party away my symptoms. I tried being a recluse. Ultimately nothing worked. Life was just a series of overwhelming events and I ended up just sitting around smoking too much weed just to cope. Around six or seven years ago I discovered yoga and trained to be a teacher but during this training it became apparent that this wasn’t my path. I got obsessed with Shamanism around this point and studied the subject of healing obsessively, going to see many Shamans and my life basically became taken over by the practice. I had always seen ghosts and spirits growing up. My room would be filled with them at night and I found it incredibly difficult to sleep - something that didn’t help my anxiety. Shamanism sort of became my framework for healing and I became aware of the archetypal Shamanic calling which was a sickness that marked you out to the spirits. Suddenly my anxiety and acute sensitivity, which I had always seen as a curse, started to become a gift - and I gradually began to open up to the Shamanic experience.
After a year or two of studying with different teachers in different modalities, I found my teacher - Jez Hughes, a Shaman from the UK - and began a rigorous multi year initiation with him. It was in this time that I learned Shamanic techniques for healing and formed a relationship with the local spirits of my birthplace that enable me to work as a healer.
What is Street Spirituality?
I didn’t come from a spiritual or religious background. The idea that spirits even existed was always very far fetched to me - despite seeing them most nights. I would always just assume I was seeing things or it was the drugs I had taken in the days before. Gradually though, the more I was actually healing and the more that life was becoming much more enjoyable, I began to be amazed at how this entire world existed and I never knew that it was open to a person like me. I’m a spurs season ticket holder, I used to run raves with my mates, I was just a normal lad. I saw the people around me suffering and when I would speak to them about going to a ceremony or spending a night out drumming in the woods they would look at me like I was crazy.
The people that knew me well would say that they could see the transformation in me but that it would never work for them. That they didn’t want to hang out with hippies and didn’t want to have to grow their hair and leave their jobs. You’ve got to take this with a pinch of salt - people’s belief systems are people’s belief systems - but the main thing I realised was that this world of “spirituality” is so far removed from the “average” person that they don’t see it as a viable option of healing. I also saw an incredible amount of ego within the Spiritual community.
I guess I don’t look like a person who is into Spirituality. I have short hair, wear tracksuits and would rather go to the pub then a kirtan - but I was amazed that people would talk down to me at Ceremony. Tell me with a puffed out chest how many ayahuasca ceremonies they had done. Express how many years they had “been on the path” with the same breath that they would explain that they had cut people out of their life because they were “bringing down their energy”. I thought no wonder people feel alienated. In my opinion, if a spiritual practice, whatever it is, doesn’t make you more down to earth, more accepting, more loving and easy going - it’s not working. Street Spirituality is about trying to normalise being spiritual. To the indigenous cultures that we learn so much from, it’s just a way of life - it permeates their entire being - it’s culture. It’s not separation. It’s not this idea of we’re spiritual and they're different. Let’s bring that back. I don’t believe anybody is more spiritual than anybody else. We’re all just doing our best with what we have.
What can we expect in a one to one shamanic healing session?
The sessions are around 3 hours long and begin with a consultation. The purpose of this is to really refine the intention for the healing. Often people come in with one intention, but underneath there is another core wound that is the actual root of the issue that they are facing. Also, we are a very logical and rational society - I believe it helps to give this part of our minds a work out before any more traditional shamanic healing techniques are used. This time is used to begin unravelling the belief systems that may have led the client to the situation that they believe they need healing from.
The second part is the more traditional shamanic healing, where I will drum, sing or rattle to go into trance and work with my guides on the energy body of the person. I will travel into their story and remove any stuck energy that is preventing them from moving past their wound. This is often called “spirit extraction”. I work with ancestral healing too and psychopomp - which is working with the dead and returning them to where they should be ie. the afterlife. In some cases, I will also use soul retrieval.
How do your masculinity workshops help people?
My view is that if men were empowered to be themselves and connect to their own unique medicine that they can offer the world, many of the issues that we are facing today as men (or those who identify as male) would be softened. We have a very small box of what a man is allowed to be, and trying to cram ourselves into it becomes immensely damaging. Masculinity, like any energy, is a spectrum and it is fluid. If energy remains still, confined and rigid, it will stagnate - like water in a pool. We must empower every single person on the masculinity spectrum to share their unique gifts to the world. To keep this energy fluid. The groups I facilitate are shamanically led with ritual and ceremony and it is my belief that we can connect with our deepest self this way and anchor to the earth so that we feel safer in truly being who we were meant to be.
They are also meant to offer the beginnings of initiation. In tribal societies it was said that the uninitiated man would come back to burn the village down. We are seeing this very clearly now - with heads of industry and high ranking politicians making absolutely ridiculous decisions based on greed and immature forms of power grabbing.
What is your favourite ritual?
I love the sweat lodge. It’s beautifully simple. It combines all of the four elements, so essentially you are sitting inside the medicine wheel. So much of my personal healing has taken place inside a sweat. I also love the sit out ceremony. Spending 24 hours or more underneath a tree fasting with no water. It’s an amazing way to just completely reset and really tune into the real pace of life. The pace of the birds, the animals. The pace of the breeze and the pace of the sun as it dances across the sky. We try to dictate the pace of the world as humans. We work set hours. Go to bed when we think we should. We compartmentalise time like a puzzle and base our days, weeks, months and years around what fits where. The sit out is a good reminder that the rest of existence does it differently.
Do you practice any other self-care routines?
To be honest, I need to do more. I have been so busy recently that my own self care has fallen to the side. I’ve felt the difference. Shamanism has never really been about the self. It’s not a path to enlightenment. It’s about the community and how you can serve it. Personal healing does tend to come hand it hand with the ceremonies, initiations and healings but it is a by-product not a goal. I’m outing myself here to say that I need to work on myself more. No hiding now!
How can we follow you and your work?
I’m most active on Instagram and my page is : eddyelsey - you can find all my event information there. Feel free to send me a DM to ask me anything. I also have a podcast called the street spirituality podcast which is on iTunes and YouTube and my website is www.streetspirituaity.com which has all of the event and 1-2-1 information.
