This tran­script has been edit­ed for clar­i­ty. There may be dif­fer­ences between the audio and this tran­script.

A Canine Companion, A Spiritual Light

John: [00:00:00] The rela­tion­ship between humans and dogs is a tale as old as civ­i­liza­tion itself. From ancient wolves who first wan­dered into our ances­tors fire­side glow, to the devot­ed com­pan­ions curled up beside us today, dogs have always found a way into our hearts. This bond, built on cen­turies of mutu­al ben­e­fit and deep con­nec­tion, speaks to an unspo­ken [00:01:00] under­stand­ing between two very dif­fer­ent species.
For us, dogs are more than just pets. They are fam­i­ly, heal­ers, and stead­fast friends. They greet us with uncon­di­tion­al love, offer­ing solace dur­ing our hard­est days and joy in our sim­plest moments. Their pres­ence can low­er our stress, ease our lone­li­ness, and remind us to find the beau­ty in the present moment.
This bond is not one sided. Dogs, too, ben­e­fit deeply from our con­nec­tion. They receive food, shel­ter, and a sense of belong­ing and pur­pose. Their abil­i­ty to read our emo­tions and respond with empa­thy is a tes­ta­ment to how inter­twined our lives have become.

Rebec­ca: My moth­er was an alco­holic and because she was try­ing to mask her feel­ings of hal­lu­ci­na­tion and what­ev­er, I think she was chan­nel­ing oth­er enti­ties and it just haunt­ed her. But then 10, 11 years lat­er, my father died by sui­cide he shot him­self in the heart in the [00:02:00] show­er and I just remem­ber going into his room.

I asked him if he was going to kill him­self and he said no, but I knew down deep inside at some point it would hap­pen.
John: Our guest today is a gen­tle soul with a war­rior’s heart. She has jour­neyed through pro­found loss, child­hood trau­ma, and the com­plex­i­ties of men­tal ill­ness with her fam­i­ly, yet merged with deep com­pas­sion and unwa­ver­ing con­nec­tion to the unseen world. Her sto­ry is one of trans­for­ma­tion and find­ing heal­ing through nature.
Her sto­ry is one of trans­for­ma­tion. Find­ing heal­ing through nature, explor­ing shaman­ic tra­di­tions, and shar­ing her truth through film and writ­ing. She car­ries the gift of deep lis­ten­ing, remind­ing us that light and heal­ing are always with­in reach, even in our dark­est moments. Wel­come back. I’m John Moy­er, your host, and you are lis­ten­ing to The Urban Grief Shamans.
Rebec­ca: I was sit­ting out in the back of our house and I was talk­ing to his best friend who’s a preach­er. Days after he had passed and he want­ed a cer­tain way on [00:03:00] how my broth­er’s funer­al should be. And these two hawks were sit­ting in the tree and they were scream­ing, I mean screech­ing. And I knew that was my broth­er, intu­itive­ly I knew he was say­ing no.
I don’t want it that way. And so, the funer­al plans were his favorite songs. And my daugh­ter, who was sit­ting in the kitchen, and she came out and she goes, Mom, what is that noise? So, she wit­nessed it as well. And I knew that was him com­mu­ni­cat­ing. He was like, no. Because he was very stub­born. And then after that, after the funer­al, It was, that was pret­ty spe­cial, and then we all went to our beach house, and there were nine hawks as we were walk­ing down the beach, my fam­i­ly, my hus­band, my two daugh­ters, and myself.
There were nine hawks that were fly­ing right above us. I just get tears and goose­bumps because I love how nature speaks to us. If we just lis­ten,
John: this is our guest, Rebec­ca Shaper. Rebec­ca ded­i­cates her life to guid­ing oth­ers on their heal­ing jour­ney, draw­ing from her own pro­found expe­ri­ences of trau­ma, loss, and spir­i­tu­al awak­en­ing. Through her work as a film­mak­er, author, and spir­i­tu­al seek­er, she shares sto­ries that inspire resilience and hope.
Join us in our con­ver­sa­tion.
When I reflect back in my child­hood after what you were say­ing for, I felt a guardian angel with me. I felt, because it was almost like know­ing what was going on with both of my par­ents, and I under­stood it at a deep level.[00:04:00]
I knew, that’s just the best way I can explain it, it was a know­ing that I, that, okay, this is hap­pen­ing for a rea­son, at the age of 15, I’m not sure if you were the care­tak­er of your par­ents, but, I was I saw some very trau­mat­ic sit­u­a­tions, but I always felt pro­tect­ed. I had a very inner strength with­in me. When my broth­er, Carl, who was diag­nosed with para­noid schiz­o­phre­nia, he left. In 1980, was it 1977, he left for 20 years and he was home­less, but I always knew he was alive.
When we found each oth­er through a mir­a­cle, that’s when the heal­ing real­ly start­ed with him and, and with me. Because he was old­est, I felt like he took on a lot of the trau­ma. And I took on a dif­fer­ent [00:05:00] type of trau­ma we just dealt with it sep­a­rate­ly. I went away and he went home­less. He was the cat­a­lyst of the film, A Sis­ter’s Call. With­out him, it nev­er would have been made. And I would­n’t have been able to have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to help so many peo­ple who’ve gone through such tragedies in life. I also felt like it was a soul call­ing. It was­n’t me. It was my soul say­ing, you need to do this. It was almost like my broth­er knew when we met, when we found each oth­er through a mir­a­cle, he knew the same thing. But we nev­er real­ly exchanged that, pur­pose with each oth­er. We just did it. And it took 14 years, but, I feel very blessed for every­thing that hap­pened in my life
Huh.
Rebec­ca: have been able to help peo­ple.
John: No, I just want­ed to step back a [00:06:00] few steps, as we move, back to your younger years. But you also had men­tioned, was it both your par­ents com­mit­ted sui­cide? Mm hmm.
Rebec­ca: Both died by sui­cide.
John: My, moth­er was an alco­holic and try­ing to mask her. feel­ings I think she was chan­nel­ing oth­er enti­ties, and it haunt­ed her. Ten, eleven years lat­er, my father died by sui­cide. He shot him­self in the heart, in the show­er. I remem­ber going into his room. Talk­ing to him and ask­ing him, I said, I need a sign. Plus I asked him if he was going to kill him­self and he said no. But I knew deep inside it would hap­pen.
Rebec­ca: he
John: trig­gered just from his, being an abuser, or?
Rebec­ca: abused me and I found out lat­er that he abused my old­er daugh­ter, [00:07:00] which was dev­as­tat­ing. He suf­fered with PTSD from the war, and I also found out that he was abused by a scout leader.
So again,
John: Mm-hmm . How did you, when you were younger, cope with the abuse
Rebec­ca: remem­ber, I would kick him out of the bed and he would come in and I would just kick him out. I’d kick him out of the bed. And final­ly, hon­est­ly, I don’t remem­ber how I think I just told him to stop. And then it stopped and unfor­tu­nate­ly my moth­er nev­er knew because she was in heavy drug med­ica­tion. But, yeah.
John: Was shame a big bur­den for you at that age, or was it just uh, you just buried it?

Rebec­ca: It’s inter­est­ing, you ask that. I nev­er felt shamed. I, it, it was, I can’t explain, it’s hard for me to explain,
but I nev­er felt shamed and I did­n’t [00:08:00] feel guilty. I did­n’t think it was my fault. I just knew I had to do what I had to do.
John: Mm-hmm
Rebec­ca: the best way I can explain. It needs to stop.
John: How do you, when you look back on your life, I mean, it’s an odd way of look­ing at it, but all our chal­lenges seem to be for some kind of a pur­pose the grief that we car­ry is that, grind­ing stone that hones us Into dia­monds, you know, if we have that incli­na­tion, or it’ll just swal­low us and eat us until we, pass and come around and do it again,
Rebec­ca: yep.
John: How did you look back on that younger self
Rebec­ca: are you ask­ing, how I look back at, myself grow­ing up?
John: No, the, the, those ear­ly life expe­ri­ences, how do they con­tribute to who you are now?
Rebec­ca: Oh, wow. A lot more com­pas­sion for peo­ple, a bet­ter under­stand­ing for [00:09:00] peo­ple real­ly at a deep, deep soul lev­el. Intu­itive­ly I can, sense where a per­son is. It gave me a lot of expe­ri­ence as well. I’m very grate­ful for it. I, I, it is trau­mat­ic. The sit­u­a­tion was when I grew up, I would­n’t be where I am today or who I am today. The call­ings I’ve had in my life go back to how I grew up. You can take it on and use it to serve oth­ers, or it could real­ly debil­i­tate you. I chose to help to serve oth­ers through my expe­ri­ence.
I have no psy­chol­o­gy degree, it’s just all expe­ri­ence.
It broke open my heart and gave me a lot of strength.
John: The, uh, in your life with, Carl, did you have much time togeth­er as teenagers before he left,
Rebec­ca: That’s a very good ques­tion. Yeah, and I could see the anger with him. But then when he left, I was [00:10:00] still in high school and he left and he went on to col­lege and then I got mar­ried lat­er on and then he took off and left
John: Mm hmm.
Rebec­ca: for over 20 years back and forth, but I nev­er saw him.
John: What was that rela­tion­ship like, when you were still in school?
Rebec­ca: He had a lot of anger towards me.

John: How did that affect you?

Rebec­ca: I had a great high school, high school years. I mean,

that was my sal­va­tion right there. I mean, hon­est­ly, my high school years were phe­nom­e­nal. So, I was very grate­ful for that. But you know what, when he dis­ap­peared and, I always knew he was alive and we found each oth­er.
It’s like our rela­tion­ship became very close. His anger was gone. And
John: you reunit­ed, you’re say­ing.
Rebec­ca: He, go
John: what filled in the rela­tion­ship for you after that, the com­ing togeth­er?
Rebec­ca: I saw the per­son with­in, I saw [00:11:00] his soul and I saw my broth­er who real­ly was down deep inside, despite all of. His anger, the anger was not towards me, it was towards my par­ents. I want­ed to show peo­ple that even though he was diag­nosed with para­noid schiz­o­phre­nia, he had a soul and he was a gen­tle giant.
John: Mm hmm.

Rebec­ca: And I remem­ber times, he would call me on the phone and ask about, Hey, Rebec­ca, how’s your daugh­ter? It’s almost like he was very tele­path­ic and could pick up on ener­gy. She was going through strug­gles her­self. But, he taught me patience. He taught me patience.

John: So,
Rebec­ca: amount of patience.
John: When did you start writ­ing the book about him?
Rebec­ca: The film came first,
John: hmm.
Rebec­ca: And that exposed every­thing in my, as I was grow­ing up. And [00:12:00] then, I was done. And then, I had anoth­er soul call­ing, that I need­ed to write the book.
And I felt like that was him say­ing, Rebec­ca, you’re not done. He had already passed in 2012 and 2015 was when the book was pub­lished. And he was telling me, Rebec­ca, you’re not done.
John: What was said in the book that was­n’t said in the
Rebec­ca: It was more, it was a lot more spir­i­tu­al. It con­nect­ed nature into it. And how he would, be present with me when I would see hawks. I’ll nev­er for­get one time, I’ll give you a very good exam­ple. I was sit­ting out in the back of our house and I was talk­ing to his best friend, who’s a preach­er,
John: hmm.
Rebec­ca: Days after he had passed and he want­ed a cer­tain way on how my broth­er’s funer­al should be. And these two hawks are sit­ting in the tree and they were scream­ing, I mean screech­ing. And I knew [00:13:00] that was my broth­er, intu­itive­ly. And so the funer­al plans were his favorite songs. And my daugh­ter, who was sit­ting in the kitchen, she came out and she goes, Mom, what is that noise? So she wit­nessed it as well. And I knew that was him com­mu­ni­cat­ing. Cause he was very stub­born. And then after the funer­al, that was pret­ty spe­cial. And then we all went to our beach house and there were nine hawks as we were walk­ing down the beach, my fam­i­ly, my hus­band, my two daugh­ters and myself. There were nine hawks that were fly­ing right above us. I just get tears and goose­bumps cause I love how nature speaks to us. If we just lis­ten,
John: the since I first spoke with you, the thing that made it such a delight meet­ing you for the first time was, your joy and we had a good laugh and I real­ly had a good time. But I mean, it
Rebec­ca: Yes.
John: a long time. I’ve cer­tain­ly enjoyed myself. I was even receiv­ing a lit­tle ener­gy from you, a lit­tle pow­er, ener­gy, you know, a lit­tle top up.
I was just won­der­ing that the, when peo­ple are so joy­ful it seems, or freely joy­ful, that they must also car­ry a fair­ly large bur­den, and I was won­der­ing, do you cry [00:14:00] often?
Rebec­ca: I have, yes, not all the time, but yes, yes I do. And I’m not always hip­pie hot or joy­ful.
Yeah, there are times when I have bad days and I think, okay, what’s going on? And I go with­in. And so. Go ahead.
John: Do you think that our grief makes a lit­tle extra room for joy if we allow it?
Rebec­ca: Yeah, sure. I think I under­stand
John: Yeah.
Rebec­ca: Yeah,
John: the rea­son why I men­tioned it, I know I’ve said it, before on a pod­cast, this, man who teach­es a lot of, grief work­shops Fran­cis Weller was telling a sto­ry about, we came across, this, woman in an African town or a vil­lage. And he was sur­prised at just how.
Beam­ing this lady was with, smiles and laugh­ing and, just this real­ly present. But the vil­lage was obvi­ous­ly a place that did­n’t have a lot of wealth or abun­dance. And, he was won­der­ing why she’s so hap­py. Why is she laugh­ing so much when all around kind of looks a bit dark?
And she [00:15:00] says, that’s because I cry so much. And, I’ve nev­er for­got that quote of his, and, I don’t know, I find a lot of joy and hap­pi­ness, but a lot of laugh­ter comes my way, either with the peo­ple that I meet or myself, and, I think that, you know, grow­ing up with these dif­fer­ent, peri­ods of grief, does work.
in some way to, to that, to do that. So, after your broth­er’s pass­ing, there was a bit of time there. Now, I’m try­ing to fig­ure out when did your shaman­ic path start? Or, was it, Gus who came first?
Rebec­ca: Well, I always want­ed to learn about shaman­ism ever since I was lit­tle. And, so when, when Gus passed away, I think it was a month pri­or to when he passed away is when I start­ed with the Peru­vian shamans in Peru. And, it, it, I just felt like I was home. Gus was, [00:16:00] then when he passed away, it broke my, oh my gosh, that was grief,
That hit me hard.

John: So, you had already start­ed on your path before?
Rebec­ca: About, prob­a­bly about a month pri­or to
his pass­ing. He passed Decem­ber 7th, 2023. And that was worse than los­ing my
par­ents. Cause we were, he was like my soul dog. He was my co pilot.
He was. There was just some­thing extreme­ly spe­cial about both of us. It’s almost like we knew each oth­er in past life. He knew me, I knew him, I could look at him, he could look at me, and we could speak to each oth­er tele­path­i­cal­ly. And then when he passed, oh, it just, I still get choked up. Yes.

And, but, he taught me a lot on the oth­er side through Sun­ny, who was the pet com­mu­ni­ca­tor. She would com­mu­ni­cate to my dog, Gus. in the after­life, and some of the mes­sages that he would reveal to her is that I need­ed to [00:17:00] get going on my shaman­ic prac­tice. You need to get going.
He was very adamant about me prac­tic­ing, prac­tic­ing. But, and I knew that, but I had some, uh, block, road­blocks in the way, and I’m still learn­ing a lot. It’s kind of a slow process for me, but I absolute­ly love it, and he was push­ing me.
John: But what was the draw for you,
Rebec­ca: About
John: To turn to, shaman­ism?
Rebec­ca: It’s all about nature.
John: What was it that you were see­ing in nature?
Rebec­ca: Wow. I feel like, I have the arche­type of a nature girl, but, nature speaks to me. I speak to nature. It’s an ener­gy that I just feel, such a con­nec­tion to every­thing, the trees, the birds, the ani­mals. I’ve been total­ly blessed by the mes­sages I’ve got­ten, but ever since I start­ed the doc­u­men­tary, I would start get­ting mes­sages from nature.
That’s pret­ty much when it real­ly start­ed with me. When that was twen­ty, yeah, two [00:18:00] thou­sand. I mean, to me it’s being present, being aware, and just absorb your­self in all the beau­ty and lis­ten­ing. Just lis­ten­ing because they want to help us their mes­sages all the time.
The time. Yeah I oh and I’ve just been ever since the Film I got I got so many Incred­i­ble mes­sages and all through­out and in the book and then Gus So
John: It’s fun­ny, my thoughts that I always had or cer­tain­ly believed in was that the uni­verse was always whis­per­ing, you just have to be still and open.
At that time, it was just like, you just have to lis­ten. They’re talk­ing, things are whis­per­ing. When I think back before that time, there’s dif­fer­ent know­ing some images, when you close your eyes, there’s some­thing there and this is, well, whoa, what was that?
You know, it took me a while to. real­ly get drawn into it. I was resist­ing for a while, but you can only push back so much when the obvi­ous is just hit­ting you on the head, right?
Rebec­ca: Exact­ly.
John: Yeah.
Rebec­ca: Exact­ly. They’re they throw lit­tle peb­bles and then you get a brick and then you get real­ly hit on the head It’s like okay I’m going to have to show you this to real­ly under­stand what we’re all about. And Gus [00:19:00] came into some of my, ini­ti­a­tions too. I had to be ini­ti­at­ed and he was there with me dur­ing the ini­ti­a­tions.
John: So, you men­tioned that you and Gus kind of were on the same path togeth­er. But I’m won­der­ing, being on a shaman­ic path isn’t so much about heal­ing oth­ers or doing oth­er things for peo­ple or ani­mals. It real­ly seems to come first that the soul is, try­ing to reach out for you to take notice of this strong con­nec­tion that.
We all have with each oth­er and with so much more when we’re in bad ways, griev­ing, just so much dis­con­tent, what­ev­er the feel­ings may be, it’s real­ly that we need to take care of that first to open us up so we can real­ly start walk­ing that par­tic­u­lar path by heal­ing our­selves some­what fur­ther along, you know, and then, yeah.

Yeah.
Rebec­ca: yes, I feel like nature opened up my heart to real­ly [00:20:00] heal. I just feel like that it just expand­ed. My heart and the grief, you know, and it was, I def­i­nite­ly feel Gus was fore­front for that.
John: I can remem­ber sleep­ing one night and I woke up. This is again before all this hap­pened. And I think it was like 3. 30 in the morn­ing. And I was wok­en up by a robin call­ing just out­side the win­dow. And, it’s fun­ny that I turned to my wife. I said, because I woke her up. And, it’s so unusu­al to hear a song­bird at 3.
30 in the morn­ing. And, the first thing I thought of was this, fel­low, his name was Ter­ry. He was a good friend and a book­keep­er for us who, had died sud­den­ly. And, um, but I knew about that. But I just knew that was Ter­ry com­ing, com­ing by to just say hel­lo and kind of thank you, actu­al­ly. And,
Rebec­ca: Absolute­ly, yes. I love that sto­ry.
John: yeah.
And I’ll bet every­body who, who’s lis­ten­ing to the [00:21:00] pod­cast could think back of times when they just were qui­et and some­thing. Some­thing touched them, some­thing called to them. They saw a sign and some­thing.
Rebec­ca: Absolute­ly.
John: Mm hmm.
Rebec­ca: To me, it’s like, just like you. The robin came at 3. 30 in the morn­ing. You’re like, What is and that’s but you’re aware peo­ple that you just got to be present open and
Lis­ten
John: Mm hmm.
Rebec­ca: it’s like music to my ears when I wake up in the morn­ing because I love to see Every­thing wake up and hear­ing the birds Singing and watch­ing them do their thing.
John: Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Rebec­ca: I mean, it’s pret­ty amaz­ing. They just do their thing and go with life.
John: So, talk­ing about spir­its, our part­ner had, this lit­tle Miki, for 17 years, he had some seizures and after 17 years, his, back end decid­ed not to move my part­ner Patri­cia [00:22:00] called in, a vet, who, goes around euth­a­niz­ing, ani­mals And, she, Patri­cia saw her pic­ture in a web page and she knew right away that this is the lady to do it.
And, fun­ny enough when, she came, she was just so qui­et, soft, you know, a real soft ener­gy came in with her. And, Patri­cia got to, hold on to, the name of the dog was, Leg­end. I called him Spike. And, she held him the whole time. We don’t know why she went through the pro­ce­dures and what­not.
But when she was all said and done, we were just mak­ing some small talk. It turned out that, she her­self has been through, basic, shaman­ic work, and then also came back, to the foun­da­tions, death and dying, and we all shared the same men­tor. Lady’s name, Nan Moss, a won­der­ful shaman, taught for, I think, I don’t even know how many stu­dents she may have had.
I’ve heard thou­sands kicked around, but that might be a bit much, but a won­der­ful, won­der­ful, teacher, and she’s retired now. [00:23:00] But the coin­ci­dence, as peo­ple would say, that a shaman walks in to do this job for us and that we all know each oth­er through Nan,
Rebec­ca: that’s amaz­ing.
John: Yeah.
Rebec­ca: I know, I under­stand. We’ve had to put dogs down and there was a vet that came to us. It’s hard, you know, and thank good­ness you had that oppor­tu­ni­ty to be with the dog, you know, when it passed.
John: So I just want to step back again. You were, you had met an ani­mal com­mu­ni­ca­tor, Sun­ny Mann. Can you share a lit­tle bit of that rela­tion­ship and how effec­tive is she?
Rebec­ca: I found her through Karen Ander­son who wrote the book, Pets in the After­life, and she’s writ­ten prob­a­bly two or three, and incred­i­ble pet com­mu­ni­ca­tor. She no longer takes any­one, but she trains peo­ple. And so Son­ny was one of the ones that she had trained through this email that I had got­ten. from Karen Ander­son, mass email
newslet­ter.
and I thought, [00:24:00] okay, I’m going to con­tact her. Cause it was prob­a­bly a week after Gus had died and she lives in Aus­tralia. And, I told her about Gus and she said, I said, would you do a ses­sion? Would you please talk to him and let me know if there’s any­thing that he wants to say.
So. One thing led to anoth­er and she did 10 ses­sions with him. And she was, she’s an incred­i­ble ani­mal com­mu­ni­ca­tor. She also does past life and, so
hit it very well.
John: What is a ses­sion? What con­sists with a ses­sion?
Rebec­ca: okay, so what she does is, She com­mu­ni­cates with him first. It’s nor­mal­ly like 3 a. m. her time.
John: Mm
Rebec­ca: That’s, that was her time. And she would call in on him. Or either he was very per­sis­tent in want­i­ng to talk to her. Either way. And some­times when she was doing her web­site, he would show up on her web­site. Because he want­ed to be the first one on her [00:25:00] web­site. And so, She would come back to me. She said he real­ly wants to talk to me. So what she would do she has qui­et time and Gus talks to her and she talks to him ask ques­tions and then after that she Every­thing’s in tran­scripts.
She tran­scribes every­thing and then she would call me up and tell me about the ses­sion and They were just incred­i­ble because After each ses­sion, I would read over what Gus had said and the ques­tions that she asked, and I would com­ment on it. And it seemed like every­thing flowed togeth­er. He just kind of knew where I was in my life at that time. And I’m going to fast for­ward here also too. That I knew he would be back. I knew he would rein­car­nate because it talks about him in the book that he would come back, but dif­fer­ent. He would come back and be with me and help me.
God threw me through my shaman­ism and I got so many signs about him com­ing back. And now [00:26:00] present today through so much syn­chronic­i­ty that led up that we have a dog named Zeke. Please. Now sev­en months old from the same breed­er. And I see so much of Gus in him and it has def­i­nite­ly filled a void in both my life and in my hus­band.
And it’s just, it’s, it was just a, a, a know­ing and that he would come back. And the ses­sions that Son­ny had with him, he would always talk about, he would come back, I will come back, and he talked about cer­tain sit­u­a­tions at the beach. That there was no way she would have known. Then we decid­ed to write a book togeth­er, and then things did­n’t work out, and Ger­ald helped me.
He’s the one who wrote my first book, Ger­ald helped me write the book, it’s a three way con­ver­sa­tion in the book, and it talks about [00:27:00] every­thing.
John: hmm.
Rebec­ca: I’m sor­ry, and there are illus­tra­tions in the book, too.
So, there are illus­tra­tions in the book to back up what Sun­ny said and what Gus said to Sun­ny and what I saw hap­pened and there’s illus­tra­tions in there.
John: okay. Well, since we’re talk­ing about the book, why don’t you, tell us more about the book and then we’ll come back to, talk­ing about the, Quiro, natives. Was it a Peru that you’re work­ing with?
Rebec­ca: Yeah, they’re, in the Kwe­lo
Nation and, they’re the last Apazi fam­i­ly in the Inka, in the
John: Okay, let’s hold that right there. So why don’t we talk about the book and Gus and give us more detail on the book.
Rebec­ca: Yeah,
John: And then I’d like to talk more about Peru­vian shaman.
Rebec­ca: All right. Well, is there some­thing that you would like to ask me? Com­ing to the fore­front with you.
John: I want to just know that the book has a begin­ning, a mid­dle, and an end. And I just was won­der­ing if you could just Kind of use those brack­ets to, just kind of talk about dif­fer­ent parts of the book that real­ly stand out for you, like your favorite parts. So oth­er peo­ple can get a sense of, sounds like an inter­est­ing book.
Rebec­ca: Okay. Well, I will tell you one sit­u­a­tion that hap­pened. [00:28:00] When I went to Peru in 2017, my hus­band and I, went there with Nation­al Geo­graph­ic. And on Sep­tem­ber 14th of 2017, I found this heart stone. And I went, wow. And so I saved it. To me that was very pre­cious.
So when Gus was alive, he and Stel­la would always get up on the fire pit. That was built in the ground. They’d walk around and try to get, chip­munks in the fire pit. When he passed, dur­ing one of my, ses­sions, The work­shop with the Peru­vian shaman, I took out the stone that I had found in Peru and I acci­den­tal­ly broke it and I was dev­as­tat­ed. I thought, is Gus telling me my heart is bro­ken? What is this? And I was dev­as­tat­ed. The next day I went down by the fire pit because I always feed the [00:29:00] birds. There was a heart shaped stone in the fire pit. And to me, that was like Gus say­ing here’s your stone back.
So I’ve got a stone that was bro­ken. My hus­band glued it togeth­er. Here’s the stone that was in the fire­place.
John: it is a heart shape.
Rebec­ca: Yeah, it was, it was, and. Anoth­er sto­ry is, prob­a­bly a week after he had passed, I was on my com­put­er and he had such a big block head. He was a wired head Vizs­la. And when I would take he and Stel­la, they were, I was, that’s my daugh­ter’s dog and he, Stel­la. I’d take him on walks and his, his head would bop up and down, like bob­ble­head, you know, the bob­ble­head. So I’d always call him, we’d walk and I’d always call him bob­ble­head. Well, when I was on my com­put­er, I opened up in, in the, you know, I don’t know, the brows­er or some­where, and I took a pic­ture of it, it said bob­ble­head. And I knew that was him com­mu­ni­cat­ing to me that. He was with me. And then song, the [00:30:00] song Over the Rain­bow by the Hawai­ian guy, I can’t remem­ber his name. Do you, oh, he was a big ol heavy­set Hawai­ian guy, and he sang that song, Over the Rain­bow. You would know it if you
heard it.
John: I’ll look for it.
Rebec­ca: yeah, but every time I would, was griev­ing him, that song, I would always play music, that song would come on, and I knew. That was him com­mu­ni­cate me like I am I am with you. There’s so much that I could say of the mes­sages That I received from him.
John: Mm hmm.
Rebec­ca: It was just incred­i­ble.
John: Okay, let’s step back now. I want to know how you found this, Peru­vian, shaman fam­i­ly
Rebec­ca: This is anoth­er sto­ry All right. I got it back up here.
That time when my hus­band and I in 2017 went with Nation­al Geo­graph­ic we hiked from lodge to lodge, to Machu Pic­chu,
John: is that an adven­ture [00:31:00] tourism thing?
Rebec­ca: Yeah, there was a group of us and we, stay in this lodge, get up the next morn­ing, and
hike to Machu Pic­chu.
So, pri­or to that, we had to stay in Cus­co. And I knew that there were shamans out­side of Cus­co, so I thought, you know what, I’m gonna, kind of a rebel, and I thought, I’m gonna detour and find out who one of these shamans are. And I want a heal­ing ses­sion. And so fast for­ward, pick me up. They took me and they did a heal­ing ses­sion with me in the cer­e­mo­ny and what­ev­er, and then they brought me back to the hotel and the tour direc­tor was a lit­tle wigged out, but every­thing was fine. So fast for­ward to. 2023, I thought, okay, I want to do a work­shop with the Caribbean shamans. So it just so hap­pened it was the same shaman that did the cer­e­mo­ny in his fam­i­ly. So that’s how I got hooked [00:32:00] up. I thought, okay, this is real­ly meant to be. So there you go.
John: Do you remem­ber his name?
Rebec­ca: Justin and Ale­jan­dro, um, and I for­got the. His wife’s name. And the oth­er shaman’s name, I don’t
John: Yeah. No, the only rea­son I was ask­ing because, my part­ner, she’s, she’s been to, the same places. And, uh, yeah, and, uh, they went to, uh, did a lot of cer­e­mo­ny work. Um, it was with the, um, Um, a group that anoth­er col­league of ours who, uh, did a three year, uh, um, pro­gram with, togeth­er. And, he does this, trav­el­ing to, Peru and Mon­go­lia.
And I for­get where else, the Ama­zon. And, uh, so it’ll take, like, uh, up to, up to twelve peo­ple. And they’ll do all this, exchang­ing of shaman­ic peo­ple with, Peru­vian shamans. And they’re just as inter­est­ed in know­ing how we do things and how we see things as we are of them.
Rebec­ca: oh, oh, I’d love that. So do you don’t know who, what, who she was with in,
John: Oh, I’m going to ask when,
Rebec­ca: I would love to know. Yeah.
it’s, it’s the posi A P A Z A fam­i­ly. Ale­jan­dro, [00:33:00] he’s the head­mas­ter.
John: I just did a fin­ished, a six month pro­gram with Alber­to Val­lo­do. And, he does a lot of, Peru­vian and Ama­zon, teach­ing. He did a lot of, study­ing with them for years. Yeah, it’s quite a remark­able sto­ries that he has. And, um, he’s been doing it now. His, his orga­ni­za­tion is called the Four Winds Soci­ety.
Rebec­ca: Yes, I saw him at a work­shop.
John: Yeah, he’s remark­able.
Rebec­ca: Yes, yes, yes. Do you know Lin­da Star Wolf?
John: No. Who’s
Rebec­ca: a shaman as well, she was at that work­shop. And do you know Stephen Farmer,
John: yeah, I know of him. I have a, I think he’s got a cou­ple books. I think I may have a cou­ple books of his.
Rebec­ca: Yeah, he’s, he’s kind of my men­tor.
John: Oh, is he real­ly?
Rebec­ca: Yes, yes,
John: Yeah, you’re, yeah, you’re hang­ing out with all the old, what I men­tioned to you, the old Wood­stock shamans. You know, that era is the way I look at it.
Rebec­ca: Lin­da Starr Wool­ford
is, yes, she was for sure.
John: So was Nan. She was, and uh, yeah, anoth­er lady, uh, lady who’s, uh, uh, that I admire, uh, Elaine, , DiGio, at, uh, the same.
She worked with Nan a lot. And, yeah, she went to Wood­stock, her hus­band.
Rebec­ca: Isn’t that interesting?[00:34:00]
John: just remark­able. The things that you stud­ied, what can you touch on?
Rebec­ca: Dif­fer­ent modal­i­ties on heal­ing, like, one with the chakra sys­tem, the oth­er one, soul retrieval, soul extrac­tion, um, let’s see here, what else, um, the rain­bow, the, uh, you can be a nus­ta, which is a female that works with the chakras in the rain­bow. And, um, let’s see here. What else was there?
Um. God, there was a cou­ple more. I kind
John: the work that you did with the chakras that they call that, illu­mi­na­tion,
Rebec­ca: You bought the rib­bons, and you bought all the tools
from them, and each chakra col­or,
like the yel­low or the red, rep­re­sents some­thing, and you ask the client pri­or to it what’s going on, and then you work that cer­tain col­or.
John: Mm-hmm
Rebec­ca: And you have to do it a cer­tain way.
John: Do you remem­ber how they did the, soul retrieval? How they taught that? Mm-hmm
Rebec­ca: Yeah, it starts with a cer­e­mo­ny. You do a [00:35:00] cer­e­mo­ny. You get your cocoa leaves. Yeah, you’re famil­iar
with that. And then you ask Pachama­ma, and then you do the, you ask for a pic­ture of them, and the, and when they were born, and the place they were born. So those are the three things that you ask pri­or to work­ing with the client. You do it like a cer­e­mo­ny for Pachama­ma, and then you just kind of down­load like dis­tance heal­ing.
John: Yeah. It’s a remark­able work of the, the pro­gram that, I went through with Alber­to was, it was kind of, there’s a lot of sim­i­lar­i­ties to what I was taught through the Foun­da­tion for Shaman­ic Stud­ies. But so much, of that, the stuff that was dif­fer­ent was quite dif­fer­ent. And there is, say, some real­ly good stuff that I’ve incor­po­rat­ed.
And oth­er stuff that, I thought, well, okay, I, I liked it. But, I’m going to keep this oth­er par­tic­u­lar prac­tice, dif­fer­ent­ly. So you kind of can bring dif­fer­ent philoso­phies or dif­fer­ent teach­ings
Rebec­ca: Exact­ly. Yes. I don’t stick to it com­plete­ly. I kind of use my own intu­ition and inter­twine what I [00:36:00] feel. Cause I feel the body says a lot,
John: Mm hmm.
Rebec­ca: the ener­gy, and if you’re work­ing with some­one and if he starts, if I start some­thing, then I feel, this does­n’t feel right. And then
John: Yeah.
Rebec­ca: if it,
John: Yeah. All right. I think we’re just about all out of time. Is there any­thing that you want to say at all, Rebec­ca?
Rebec­ca: I just hope that, Peo­ple can res­onate with this book if they feel a call­ing to read it. It, there’s so many beau­ti­ful
John: Okay. The title of the book.
Rebec­ca: Is, Ros­es to Rain­bow, My Dog Gus in the After­life.
, you can pre order,
but, uh, the, the, yeah, the launch date is April 8th. But, what helped me grieve through los­ing him was going through all the mem­o­ries. Walk­ing through all the mem­o­ries, like walk­ing on the beach with him, doing our adven­tures, we used to do that. That real­ly helped the griev­ing for me, and I would offer that to peo­ple that they’re always with you, and they want to be with you. They, and that if you’re in deep grief, they don’t show up. But once your heart is open, and you’re pro­cess­ing your, of course you’ve got to process the griev­ing. They will send you [00:37:00] mes­sages. You’ve just got to be qui­et, and lis­ten, and tune in.
John: Mm
Rebec­ca: Because I’ve expe­ri­enced it. I’ve had just mes­sages, and I’ve just been very grate­ful for the mes­sages that I have received from him,
because I know he’s always with me.
John: Well, thank you
Rebec­ca: sure, and thank you. Thank you for hav­ing me. I appre­ci­ate it.
John: Well, it was it was a nice soft con­ver­sa­tion and I thor­ough­ly enjoyed it, so thank you.
Rebec­ca: Oh, well, good. I’m glad you did. So did I. You asked some very won­der­ful ques­tions, deep ques­tions, which I like. They had to make me think. Ha ha ha ha
John: Well, don’t tell my friends they won’t believe it.
Rebec­ca: Will tell them then.
John: all righty, thank you so much. All bye bye.

Thank you for join­ing my con­ver­sa­tion with Rebec­ca Shaper. If her sto­ry has touched you in some deep and mean­ing­ful way, I invite you to share this episode with those who may need a [00:38:00] gen­tle reminder that heal­ing is pos­si­ble and that our loved ones in this life and beyond are always with us.