Hi all

I hadn't been back home with Indie Shaman very long when my good friend Ross Heaven invited me to attend his Shamanic workshop in Spain. I'm going to learn how to become a shamanic practitioner and healer! This is a unique 14 day course at at the Hummingbird Retreat Centre in Spain from 9 - 22nd April. I think there may be a very few places left so if you want to book one and join me contact Ross soon.

So as soon as I've had a good rest and caught up on my jet lag I'm off again to Spain. I had started packing but June said I wouldn't need any of the things I had borrowed so I put them back. I can't decide which amulet to wear though so I may wear both of them.

I may not be able to blog for a while until I've arrived in Spain and I believe Indie Shaman is closing for a week at the beginning of April too. Something to do with June and Simon needing a holiday. The Indie Shaman forum will still be open though under the very capable hands of Cathy.

So until I'm back on here again here are a few hedgehog facts for you courtesy of Secret World Wildlife Rescue (p.s. If you want to adopt a hedgehog, or an owl, fox, badger or otter ... but hedgehogs are best honest .... just click on the link).

* Hedgehogs have poor eyesight, but our hearing and sense of smell is very sharp
* Hedgehogs are born blind and our vision starts to develop two days after birth
* Hoglets leave their mother and their nest when they are 4-5 weeks old
* We used to live under hedges, but now, due to modern farming methods, we are almost reliant on gardens
* The biggest dangers hedgehogs face are: road traffic, garden chemicals, drowning (in pools and ponds when we fall in and can't climb back out steep sides), bonfires, cattle grids and garden machinery

So if you have a garden please think of my friends and family and make it hedgehog friendly.

Many blessings
Sham

Bye Bye to Texas, Hello Home and Happy Birthday

Ooops sorry I hadn't realised it had been so long since I last posted my blog! I had got rather sidetracked by setting up my new Facebook page . Do join me there as well. I can't write as much on there as I can on here but its good for keeping in touch with all my friends and for making new friends.

Yesterday I arrived back at home in the UK just in time for my birthday, today. I really had a wonderful time in Texas. The photo shows how Spring is coming already there - the peach tree is already in full bloom! Unlike the apple tree pictured below who still has her winter coat on but that will soon change; as you can see she has a few buds out.

You can probably also tell that I like sitting in trees. Unusual for a hedgehog I think! I'm always very careful getting up though so the trees don't mind and its a good place to sit and listen to them.

I helped with some more gardening before I left Texas. Here are some lettuces I helped plant. I also said goodbye to all my chicken friends. They have all grown a lot while I have been here and are now all laying eggs. I shall miss them very much.

A very big thank you to Sherry and her family for letting me stay plus a special big thank you to my new friend Jessica for the amulet she gave me. I hope you can see it in the photographs above. Its a fish she painted for me so very special to me as well as very lovely. As you may remember from earlier blogs I discovered my real name was Ezekiel the Fish during my ayahuasca journeys in Peru with Ross Heaven and Tracy Thornbury last August.

It's lovely also to be back home at Indie Shaman for my birthday. Indi said hello and didn't try to eat me at all so she must remember me a bit even though she has grown a lot since I last saw her. I will have to give a hand with the garden here as well as she seems to have dug it all up and it is now mostly mud and big holes!

Many thanks to everyone who has sent me birthday greetings on Facebook and promise to blog again soon.

Happy Winter Solstice and Christmas

Hi everyone

Just a quick blog to wish you all a Very Happy Winter Solstice (or Summer Solstice if you are on the other side of the world from me!). I've been chatting to my friend Indi who live with Indie Shaman in England and thought you might like to see the card she sent me. She wishes everyone a very Happy Solstice too.

I have the best present ever. Not only am I getting to stay with my new friend's in Texas over the festive period but I now have my own Facebook page, Shaman Sham. Do join me there. I will be posting all the pictures on there from all the lovely places I have stayed and all the lovely people I have met on my travels.

Talk to you all in the New Year. I am looking for new people and places to visit in 2011 so if you are interested in having me to stay do let me know. I am now quite a mature hedgehog (about 30 in human years) so a fully house trained guest and very well behaved, I promise!

You can contact me via Indie Shaman or my Facebook page. I usually only visit Indie Shaman members but if we know you and you are doing something interesting do send me a message.

In the meantime I wish everyone a Very Happy Solstice, Merry Christmas and a wonderful 2011!

Many blessings to one and all.
Shaman Sham x

A big hi to y'all from Texas.

Here I am sitting having a rest in one of the old oak trees in the pasture. There are lots of wonderfully wise trees here who have lived a lot longer than me so know much more than I do.

Not that you get much time for a rest round here. Sherry sure is busy! I've been helping and I thought I'd make a start by sorting out her work bench. It needed a lot of sorting - I think Sherry is too busy to be tidy.

This is Taj Chicken. There are lots of chickens and they were sharing a home with the horses but everyone will be much happier with their own homes so Sherry has been busy building them one.


This is a photo of the chicken beds I helped Sherry build. They don't look that comfy as beds but apparently chickens like them. I think I've got a bit spoiled by all the human beds I've 'borrowed'. Humans like their beds well padded!

Here I am telling the chickens all about their new home and how I helped. They found me very interesting as you can see. There were rather a lot of them so I'm afraid I can't remember who was who. I do know there are a lot of Debbie's who are all Buff Orpingtons. There was also a Penelope but now he's grown he's changed his name to Pete. I don't blame him - Penelope doesn't seem quite right for a rooster of his size!

Talk to ya all again soon

Hi everyone

Oooo I didn’t realise how long it had been since I last posted on my blog. Very sorry! It was such a long way to Texas so when I first got here I had a good rest. Here I am sitting on the back porch of my new home-for-a-while. I needed quite a long rest because its a long way to the United States of America and I got a bit over excited because I've never been here before.

This is a picture of what I was looking at. What a wonderful view to have from your back porch!

I am staying with Sherry and she is always pretty busy. She's very good at building things and said I can help her. I'm sure I'll be good at building things too when I've learned how. She also likes taking photos so I should have plenty to share with you. Here I am sat on a wall they built for the flower beds. I'm glad this job was finished because those bricks look a bit heavy for me.

There is plenty of space here for me to stretch my legs so I have been exploring. Here is a new friend I found in the garden. I tried talking to him but I think he was too busy to talk back.

I found these enormous piles of ... something ... too. It took me ages to climb to the top. I asked Sherry about them and she said they were food for the horses. Those horses must be pretty big! I wasn't at all sure I wanted to meet them after that!

While Sherry was brushing the hay from me she explained that the horses didn't eat all the hay bales in one go. It was an easy mistake for a hedgehog to make I think. So we went to meet the horses.Niessa (on the left) and Heidi were very nice. In fact I liked them so much I climbed back onto some hay and as you can see they didn't even try to eat me. Hay makes a very comfy seat but I don't like the taste much.

I promise not to leave it so long before my next blog! June always posts on the Indie Shaman Facebook page when I update my blog so do join us there if you want to know when to visit me again.

p.s. Are you an Indie Shaman member living in the US? If so I would love to stay with you if you would like me to visit? Contact details can be found at indieshaman.co.uk. Thanks :)

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside

Hi again!

Here I am at Barmouth. Its a very lovely beach with lots of dunes and then a large stretch of sand down to the sea. Indi got very excited as she has never seen the sea before. I have, of course, but I didn't ruin her fun by telling her. It was more enjoyable to watch her running here and there and in and out of the water. Then we had to go back to the car because she got overtired and cried for a sleep. Puppies are so sweet at that age. I can remember when I was only a hoglet and used to need a sleep when I got over excited as well.



Isn't this lovely? Its Llangollen. There is lots you can do at Llangollen including a steam train and a horse drawn boat down the canal. It was very busy when we visited as it was a Saturday so we just went for a walk around the town and spent most of our time by the river. This is the River Dee and you can get right down to the edge of it to. I had read that salmon go down this river so this was a good opportunity to have a look for the Wise Salmon!



First though a photo opportunity as you could get right down onto the rocks. There were some young lads down there and June was giggling when they asked Simon 'why are you taking photos of that teddy?' Maybe they couldn't see me that well as I think its quite obvious I'm a rather handsome specimen of hedgehog. Simon told them I had a blog on the internet. Actually Simon and I had quite an audience of people watching him take the photos, which I'm sure he enjoyed as much as I did.



Indi saw some ducks and said she would go and ask them if they had seen any salmon. They wouldn't speak to her. I think it might have helped communication if she had put her tongue away and stopped licking her lips!



So I decided to have a look for myself. The ducks seemed to let me closer than they let Indi. I could see some very small fish so I sat very still and waited until some came close enough to talk to. They were all swimming about in and out of each other. I asked them where I could find Wisdom. They answered as a shoal. Their reply was:

"Wisdom
....................... is
................................. in
...looking"

I thanked them for their answer and thought about it all the way back to the caravan. The next day was time to go home ... and I've had the chance to continue looking ...

I'm off to Texas in the U.S. Yee Haw!!

Rhaeadr Ddu

Here I am at the amazing Rhaeadr Ddu (Black Waterfalls) at Ganllwyd. These waterfalls are surrounded by beautiful woodlands which we walked through to get to where I am sitting here. This is one of June's most favourite places. She found it when she was driving down the road last year and recalled a childhood memory from when she was a child. The memory was of someone picking her up to look at the double waterfall you can see from the road's edge so she must have been a very small child indeed because she's a bit big to pick up now (but don't say I told you that!).

I'd heard that salmon can jump up waterfalls so this seemed to be a very good place to look for the Wise Salmon because if I were him I would want to live here. This photo doesn't really do the Rhaeadr Ddu justice as it was taken from the bottom. It looks much bigger from the top but June didn't want to climb up there and wouldn't let me do it either in case I ended up falling in again and being swept away. So we sent Simon up instead but he said he couldn't see any salmon from the top.


He did spot an amazing seat in the rock though a bit further down which was the perfect size for a hedgehog to sit in and look into the river. So I sat down to rest for a while and looked into the river. It was very beautiful and peaceful so I think if the Salmon was there he may have been having a little sleep. Not that I had a little sleep ... I just rested my eyes while I was resting my paws after I had been looking for a while.


June and Simon then said it was time for them to rest their paws as well over a cup of coffee. So just before we went June and Indi helped me have one last look into the river for salmon.

Still no salmon but it wasn't the end of our holiday yet so I still have one more story to tell of my time in Wales so do visit my blog again soon.