Part 8: It Takes a Village to Make this Show…
Niles: Alright, let’s do a call to action for the community to support the series.
Rak: Yes, Shamans of the Global Village is an online documentary TV show. It’s episodic in the sense that the vision for it is that we want to do either one or two seasons of this work to cover the full spectrum of these medicines and their caretakers. I’ve looked around and in my ten years of working with different entheogenic medicines and different practitioners around the world, we’ve seen many different substances that are secreted by the planet.
These substances are potentially exo-pheromones in the sense that they are secreted by the earth, and are designed to interact with our consciousness to mediate us and to bring us back into right relationship.
Different bioregions around the world all produce different psychedelic or entheogenic substances. There are many, but some of the most pronounced are the prime ones like: ayahuasca, San Pedro, the Sonora Desert toad with 5-MeO-DMT. There are also the acacias in Australia, Haoma (Syrian Rue), psilocybin mushrooms, iboga, salvia divinorum, tobacco, marijuana, etc. There are many different sacraments that the West has encountered from indigenous cultures.
Our aim is to not just document these substances but to document the people that are working with them and to see the patterns within that. To see how the role of the shaman in the 21st century in the West or in modern culture is connected to indigenous cultures and from indigenous cultures to the plants and the planet themselves. To see this unbroken thread that is resurging now.
As part of that, I know there is a global shamanic community of not just practitioners, but of people that have felt the power of these medicines. People that have felt the sacredness of these substances and these states of mind and that we are global. We are growing and it is part of this awakening process.
What I really feel is that Shamans of the Global Village is your show. We are making sacred media, taking a lot of steps to hold the integrity of the message and to document authentically and transparently what is going on. We want to talk about the shadows as much as the light. The teething issues, the commodification, the commercialization, the joy, the sacredness, and the reconnection. So this is your show. If you are part of the shamanic movement, it’s all a larger movement. This is a larger awakening of the species–so I get pretty big picture with this.
We are holding space for you and we ask you to join us to support the show because we are doing this on our own. We are doing this without the support of any larger network or any other vested financial interest. By downloading the show, by streaming, by watching the show and sharing it with your friends, and supporting it financially, you can ensure that next episode will get made.
It’s a bit of a Herculean journey to do 12 entheogens, and 12 shamanic practitioners all across the world from Africa in Gabon, Peru in the Amazon, or in Iran with haoma, etc. All around the world these substances exist and they are switching us on and the gatekeepers who are the medicine people are the ones who are bringing this to the community.
So, please if you are a part of this community, this is your show. We are just holding space and creating a container for documenting the work in a way which mainstream media cannot because of its vested interest. We rely on your support.
As episode one is released we’ll start moving towards episode two. We’ll be doing some crowd funding and we’ll have opportunities for people to engage with the show and even come with us on future episode journeys and to be an extension of the community. To be supported by the community is our vision and our great hope. Thank you!
Niles: In terms of you and I being the creators of the show, one thing that’s so special for us is that it’s synchronistically the perfect combination of our skillsets. It’s the perfect merging of our life’s work in terms of your background being very intertwined with this shamanic community globally along with your past documentary experience and past production capabilities.
Being the kind of person you are in terms of producing projects. You are such a perfect “one side of the coin” and you are exactly what you needed to get the show going and to make it the best it can be. And I provide the other perfect side of the coin, directing and filmmaking.
Rak: I know. How beautiful is that? Together we are stronger.
Niles: Yes! In terms of looping in somebody who is also passionate about the medicines and has been on his own path of philosophical growth and has had some of these direct experiences and seen the power of them and has been desperately searching to create content that’s more conscious content. Then looping in that person who has a background working on incredibly top of the line projects with very high production values, and bringing that into the show who is very capable of being a multifaceted director, cinematographer, and a filmmaker on the backend in terms of editing and these things, you and I kind of “co-share” in these roles on this project.
For something that’s made independently, we each have to wear multiple hats, which we are phenomenally good at. The content is there with your depth, substance, background, capabilities, interview skillset, and your language skillset as the host of the show. It all perfectly compliments my visual production values, direction capabilities, and slick design in terms of the presentation of the materials.
Rak: Yes, if anyone is hearing this or reading this please embed the trailer link and prepare to be blown away. [https://vimeo.com/151266545]
Niles Heckman you’ve done an amazing job on this show. It’s such an incredible responsibility to capture the sacredness and the beauty of these experiences and these locales and these people. My hat’s off to you. I feel that we are both in deepest service to the medicines and to the spirit that’s coming through the medicines. This is revolutionary stuff. It’s paradigm crushing, as you like to say.
The last thing I want to say is they say it takes a village to raise a child. Well, it takes a tribe or a village to support this show. We’re all doing this so incredibly well on whatever budget the community can support by supporting and buying the show. I know that it will be supported and reciprocated. It does take a village to make a TV show so please, become part of that.
Niles: Exactly, and the culmination of our skill sets is the perfect vehicle to help share this information in a way that though being done independently, is very effective because now is the perfect time to make this show.
It couldn’t have been made in the way it’s being made now just a few years ago. It’s the perfect content at the perfect time. I think there is no randomness behind this and I think that nothing is ever really random. There are only various levels of “zoom”. One thing that these medicines can show you is they allow you to zoom out on patterns to allow things to come together.
This is why we network with our own people that are on the same wavelength, the same vibration, and the same path so we can come together as teams and communities to manifest something stunning.
Ultimately, the quality level of this show is like nothing you’ve ever seen. We are both very excited about it.
Rak: Aho! Join us!
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✧ We hope you’ve enjoyed our article series! ✧
WATCH THE SERIES PILOT: http://www.shamansoftheglobalvillage.com
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Catch up on the Article Series:
Part 1 • Part 2 • Part 3 • Part 4
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