Emma Jacques-Willis

Spirit has always been close, a resonant part of me. I have a clear memory from around the age of nine when, one summer whilst walking down a lane I looked about at the world around me and had a sudden realisation that I was not my body. I looked out from my eyes but knew that I was not my eyes; I breathed with my lungs but I was not my lungs. It was not a disturbing realisation, it was just a connection to something beyond my own physicality, a connection with something bigger, a sense of being part of the one. Later I referred to this as Spirit.

That sense of being more than my physical body is something that has always been with me, and yet my connection to nature and the earth also brings me into my body and I feel ever closer to the land as a physical being. This may seem like a contradiction but the realm of Spirit and the physical here and now are inextricably linked. Shamanism is a practice that embraces the contradictions of reality, and in this sense I have been walking the path of the Shaman since I was a child.

A traumatic experience in early womanhood left me wounded and in search of help. I found a place called The Self Realisation Meditation Healing Centre in Somerset and after receiving healing there I was suitably blown away to enrol myself on their two-year course. This was my first introduction into working as a healer. After graduating from the course I practiced Spiritual Healing for several years. The healing path then took many colourful turns and I enjoyed many years working with amazing healers and teachers until eventually discovering Shamanism through Carol Day.

My training to date includes 3 years study in Classical Kinesiology at the Bristol School of Classical Kinesiology; 5 years training as a Trance Medium with Sally Pullinger; 1 year training as a Priestess of Rhiannon with Katinka Soertens; 3 years training as a Creative Shamanic Practitioner with Carol Day at The Centre for Creative Vision in Scotland. Followed by on going Advanced Creative Shamanic Training also with Carol Day.

I’m also an artist and sculptor, a mother of 2 beautiful boys, living with my husband and family in Somerset close to Glastonbury, UK – The Ancient Isle of Avalon.