The shamanic perspective on what it means to be human
Shamans are healers of souls - this was and still is their primary function as healers.
Shamanism is a dance across the unknown, a journey to test the limits of the human heart. Shamanism devolves you, rebuilding you on a different model of what a human can be. Whether good or bad, it is certainly different.
"It is easy to go down into Hell; night and day, the gates of dark Death stand wide; but to climb back again, to retrace one's steps to the upper air -- there's the rub, the task." -- Virgil, 'Aeneid'
Stalking is the art of moving your energy to a point of complete fluidity, which it will resist intensely.
The difficulty for the Western Mind in all this is how it is trained to perceive itself as a distinct and seperate entity from all other energies.
The shaman also assists the dying and those departed on their journey from this world