Nicholas Breeze Wood Talks to Bhola Banstola About his work documenting the shamanic traditions of his homeland Nepal, and about a Shamanic Summit he is organising there in 2020.

Nicholas: You’ve worked incredibly hard for many years, travelling the world, bringing the teachings of your Nepalese shamanic tradition to people. What has been your motivation for doing that?

Bhola: Learning and experiencing has deepened my understanding of the tradition and it has brought me a lot of clarity. It helped me to share with a new community people in the West – who are ‘evolving’ in their view and understanding about the rituals, ceremonies and myths which have been passed on for generations in my culture. In Nepal – with the changes of recent times, such as the need for people to have more material possessions, and with people leaving the place of their birth in order to search for better possibilities in life – there is a general lack of interest in
shamanism shown by the younger generation. They are not really interested very much about the traditional practices and the long lineage traditions of their ancestors.

By carrying the ‘knowing,’ which is deeply embedded in me, and with
the renaissance – or at least a deep interest – in ‘reconnecting the ways
of the ancestors,’ an interest which is arising throughout the whole world at this time, I have been invited to travel to different corners of the world to share my tradition.