S. Kelley Harrell

Kelley is a modern shaman and author in North Carolina. A lifelong intuitive, she has been on a shamanic path since 1988, and since 2000 has served her local community and an international client base through Soul Intent Arts.

"I knew two truths about myself as a child.

One was that I bore an incurable lust for the written word before I’d even learned an alphabet. Given that, I assumed a path in writing could sate and I managed a thorough education in penning my soul’s art, the culmination of which I’d planned to be traveling the world and exploring cultures. It didn’t work out that way, though. When the time came to pack my bags the impetus was to stay put, a wordless mystery that took me a long while to unravel.

As my initiatory wounds demanded closure I came back to my other childhood truth, which was that I could interact vividly in the unseen world. I felt a little silly then. I’d finally realized all those elegant letters of my naïve youth were really spelling, “Don’t write about the past. Listen to its story. Live better.”

From that point on my writing took on a rather different life. I began weaving tales of souls consciously steering through the wreckage of colonization, chronic illness, unquiet dead, eldering well, and legions of Ancestors–all passionate, sacred pursuits.

And I wasn’t allowed to keep it to myself. To that end, I mentor others in soul tending, rooting into their land-based identities, and rune studies."