I met Branca two years ago in an Aromatherapy workshop lead by me that took place in Human Light, a very pleasant space surrounded by the mysticism of nature and with an incredible energy! But it was only recently that our paths have crossed more intensely and I came to find out we have similar backgrounds. I did a shamanic meditation with Branca during the last full moon and I loved it! It was a powerful event filled with healing and connection!
Branca has a remarkable path! Around her, we feel a strong mystical energy that fills us with serenity. She has written several articles for Zen Energy Magazine and she also has an e-book available in her website on How to Lead Your Life.
In this interview we will share more of Branca’s vision, a vibrant human being who radiates light! Thank you Branca!
1 – Can you tell us a little bit about your path: from engineering to shamanism?
Well, this answer could be an entire book to be able to explain the path! In my website, you can see the story more or less explained.
To summarize: I was a very well behaved girl who went to college to a not common at all course for women at the time: we were 75 students, and only 7 were women! ahahah
I was a 18-year-old kid who had never left the small town where everything and everyone had to follow the rules. The course gave me perspective that I was more than a well behaved girl… I grew up with the social-academic experience.
As soon as I finished the course, I went back to the norms… a job, marriage, kids… The profissional side opened me up completely for the transformation from well behaved girl to an efficient business woman, who worked mostly in masculine universes. Those were very interesting years, very profitable for the success and the recognition, but at the same time some sadness that I couldn’t explain took over me… it grew, it grew, and it exploded!!!!! From an efficient rational woman I was “obliged” by my emotions to seek something different to try to understand myself. There, I went through a woman-warrior phase in an unknown ground… When I discovered myself and started to feel alive inside, the understanding thirst grew as things started to appear in my path without much effort. Since the first experience that a word here and another there, made me research and I found different methods, different philosophies, some more esoteric, other more scientific and I started to identified myself with small parts of some and forming my own “philosophy” or vision upon things. It was so many formations, workshops, therapies, encounters and dis-encounters in my personal life, that today I can say that without being truly aligned in my own will on Earth, in my own life at the moment, none of them could take me to change. I must confess it was a painful path, but no shadow of doubt that it made me value my life today in each minute that I live.
2 – In a paragraph, how would you describe shamanism?
To me, and according to my experience, shamanism is the connection with your own nature, it is assuming that you are part of the whole in the direct sense of the expression – the elements are in you and you are in them. We and nature don’t exist separately; it all exists as a natural organism that we are a part of, and through shamanism (which I practice without any type of substance and keeping the connection with the cycles and the elements) you have access to your Earth which is your body, to your Water which are is your emotions, to your Air which is your breathing and to your Fire which is your spirit, your essence. With all this, you can cross a safe path of grounding and a deep spiritual connection without stopping to live the life you’re living, because you have (re)learned to respect the natural cycles and to live each moment of your life with the maximum respect to everything that surrounds you, either good or less good, assuming literally your own responsibility for the footsteps you take.
3 – What is the role of meditation in a person’s wellbeing?
To me, meditation is a myth in the way it is normally presented. And I am very frontal in what I say, because – once again – according to my experience working with people, to many it is a huge pressure the act of meditating in the traditional way. Meditation is beneficial when adjusted to each person’s energy and, more than being in silence with the eyes closed, it is the intention that moves the result of a meditation. So, responding directly to the question, meditation may not have an active role in the lives of some individuals… So, once again, I refer that after the connection with our Earth, our life and the acceptance of the facts we go through, we reach a point where we accept the inner silence. There, we are ready to meditate. And here, meditate can be many things – each person must find the right way to be able to connect inside, being only with his/her own energy. To meditate because we want to initiate a path and start there because it’s a trend, or because it has been proven to be healthy, it becomes a “meditation” and not a genuine act of meditating – it will not result in any efficient internal change (or benefit), only something transitory and that masks the real cause of the moment you are in.
4 – How can we connect more with Mother Earth and what methods can we use to enhance our intuition?
Well, to answer this we can also read what I said in question 2. To be connected with Mother Earth is necessary above all that you respect yourself as a body whose function is important in the function of the whole planet. I say this many times: if you imagine you are a little cell in an organ of the body, the best connection is when you manifest your role, your specific function so that the organ functions fully so that also the body Earth is in balance… If you analyse yourself in this way, if we all feel in this way, as cells of an organ who is a part of the great body Mother Earth, we will easily conclude and feel what to do, and what to change if it is necessary to do so, so that the connection is possible. When we are able to accept this role that we have individually (the country we live in, the family we were born in, the life we live at the moment, etc, etc…) without comparisons, then we’ll be doing a deep connection with Mother Gaia and we will especially vibrate in the same frequency as our essence.
With this we enhance our intuition, because we let the masks fall down and the expectations – two great “enemies” of intuition… There are no specific methods, because each person, each cell or organ, operate in different ways. So, in my experience and in my vision, the most important is what I’ve described earlier.
5 – With the fast lives we live these days, what can we actively do to consistently promote health and conscience?
Connect with our Earth! Let the experiences that we’re having in the present moment, even with the fast lives we live, show us that way, because the body is wise and it shows us! Only those who refuse to Be Human don’t feel (see). Which is unfortunately the epidemics of the century… We are Human Beings, because the main function that was given to us was to Feel! And we, beings who insist in acting as thinking beings, destroy little by little the health and consciousness without even noticing it… because we insist in walking asleep. And not, I’m not just saying this… I am speaking by my own experience! When we find out that we are asleep, then there we can wake up and live in our Earth in consciousness.
6 – Can you tell us a little bit about your two mantras “do you want to be right or do you want to be happy” and “either you chose yourself or you exclude yourself and how do they make a difference? What daily mantra do you find more necessary these days?
These two you have mentioned refer to the individual and not in comparison with another one.
The first one “do you want to be right or to be happy” I have experienced it many situations where life tested me to the limit and in all of them I have concluded that: mental stubbornness is harsh! It was with this first “mantra” that I have taken conscience, that I understood I was asleep. To be right here speaks about our ego, our rational, and to be happy speaks about feeling, about the connection with yourself in an unknown level to your mind.
As for the second one “either you choose yourself or you exclude yourself”, it reflects the harsh reality that we have to face after our sleeping state – we face our shadows, the ones that the rational mind doesn’t let you see, nor hear. To choose or to exclude, it means either you accept yourself as you are, the dark side and the light, or you’ll continue sleeping taking the risk to fall into the abyss. To choose yourself, you integrally assume yourself and start the painful path of loving yourself truly without the necessity of the others to that (self) love. To exclude yourself, you keep yourself in the comfort zone, nourishing the necessity of love from the others, because without them you are nobody, believe you, or better, your mind makes you believe so.
If I could choose one mantra for the days we live in, I could take some words I heard from a Brazilian actress “live and let live”, but above all “feel yourself and live following the orientations of that feel”.
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