Aahara supports others in finding their own inner authority and becoming conscious, independent beings who fulfill their role in the interdependent web of nature through action.
Carley Mattimore and John Malan are cofounders of Aahara Spiritual Community, an active 501(c)(3) non-profit congregation of Venus Rising, since 2011. As Shamanic Ministers and Master Shamanic Breathwork Facilitators, they offer psycho-spiritual workshops in the Heartland of the US, including Dare’ Dream Circles, The Shamanic Healing Initiatory Process (SHIP), and their signature program, The Embodied Warriorship Path--a series of initiations for a new paradigm of warrior energy.
Carley is co-author of Sacred Messengers of Shamanic Africa: Land of ZepTepi, and a collaborative author on Shamanic Breathwork; the Nature of Change, and Shaman Heart: Turning Pain and Passion into Purpose. She is a Shamanic Midwife for our times, a Shamanic psychotherapist with over 30 years of experience working with
children, adults, and families as well as a Therapeutic Energy worker (Healing Touch Practitioner and Shamanic, Usui and Tibetan Reiki Master). In addition, Carley co-facilitates a Global Shamanic Multi-Dimensional Mystery School with Judith Corvin-Blackburn, author of Activating Your 5D Frequency.
Carley continues to deepen her own soul work as she listens to the call of spirit guiding her journey to her next right step.
John is an explorer, mainly of his inner life but lately of the world at large as well. He is fascinated with dreams and has studied with Jeremy Taylor, Mhondoro Mandaza, and Farai Hove, a Zimbabwe native Healer.
A student of life, he enjoys taking classes at the local community college in ceramics, botany, and writing. He is deeply grateful for his life.
John continues to be of service to his family and community with an open heart for each soul he meets.
Carley and John offer journeys to Africa and other places, empowering journeyers to connect with the natural world in support of Mother Earth. They are both graduates of the White Lion Leadership Academy in Timbavati, South Africa. They are explorers of the world in love and respect, traveling to South Africa, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Tonga, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Egypt, Colombia, China, Thailand, Canada, Mexico, and Peru.
What Aahara means and why we choose this name for our congregation
Aahara is a Sanskrit term with the following definition:
bringing, fetching; taking, seizing; accomplishing, offering (a sacrifice); drawing in breath, inhaling; inhaled air; breath inspired, inspiration
So we bring ourselves to the awareness that our lives are not what we want them to be. Something is missing and everything we’ve done up to this point has failed to address that emptiness. Maybe we weren’t ready to bring ourselves to face this, and the circumstances of life fetched us so that we paid attention. Or maybe we put up a fight and life took us anyway, seizing us in a manner that overwhelmed our resistance and brought us to where we had no choice but to
admit it was time to change.
This is a huge accomplishment in itself, and it is also a sacrifice, an offering of the part of the ego that has kept us going on the basis of denial, avoidance, self-medication, self-deception, etc. It worked for a while, and when it worked it felt like security and comfort, so that the loss of it truly is a sacrifice as we recognize that it just doesn’t work any more and release it.
So we breathe. The Shamanic Breathwork process, described in more detail here, can literally change your life. It does this by breaking through the barriers between our conscious and unconscious minds, not in a harmful or destructive way but in a way that enables us to see our lives and our past traumas holistically. This holistic view is inherently healing; it is what we mean when we refer to the Inner Shaman.
As we experience this healing, a release of energy occurs. Trauma that overwhelms us when it occurs becomes locked in our psyches and our bodies–it is hidden away from our conscious mind so that we can function. Keeping it locked away requires energy, and the longer we keep it locked up the more energy it requires. Breaking through the wall of denial and encountering the trauma through breath work enables us to heal and release it and when we do, the energy that was keeping it locked up is given back to us.
This is what is meant by transformation: freeing up the energy, releasing the trauma, waking up to our lives as they truly are is an experience that transforms us as at every level, like going into the chrysalis transforms a caterpillar into a butterfly.
Finally, it is when we are in this transformed state that we are open to inspiration.
Look around at what is happening in the world today. At a global level, we humans are trying to solve our problems with the same kind of thinking that created them, something that common sense (and Einstein) tells us doesn’t work.