Communicating with our loved ones who have passed is something I’ve thought of, especially in most recent weeks. Without a doubt, I know that they are leaving me signs that are both comforting and reassuring. What if we could communicate with them? I began thinking more about this when I had discovered Shawn Leonard, a Nova Scotia based Mi’kmaq medium, and learned about his upcoming TV documentary series Spirit Talker on APTN.
Shawn has helped thousands of people across Canada and around the world connect with the spirit world. This emotional 13-part documentary series follows his travels throughout Atlantic Canada meeting with First Nation communities performing live shows then hones in on audience members for one-on-one readings. He is also on a personal journey to reconnect with his Mi’kmaq heritage to learn more about the local history, cultural events and practice of traditional skills.
We had a chance to learn more about his abilities and about the documentary series…
When and how did you discover this connection to the spiritual world?
I discovered my connection to the Spirit world in my early 20’s, although I feel I have been connected my whole life. The more I walked a spiritual path and practiced meditation, prayer, kindness, compassion, it revealed itself to me through many life experiences that I have written about in my book “The Language of Spirit”. There were moments that were profound especially once I trusted what I was seeing, feeling & hearing internally. The more I trusted what was being communicated to me from spirit and I was able to validate that communication, I felt I had a role to play in allowing this communication to come through me for people.
The communication from spirit provided validating evidence that we exist beyond our physical form and there was incredible healing that took place in the people I shared that message with. My understanding of the process is still growing and evolving with each connection that is made..
Your heritage and background to your ancestors, how has that helped you in understanding your gift of communication?
I am Mi’kmaq and when I first learned about smudging it was from an Elder in the Spirit world who helped me understand the importance of utilizing this tool. He literally showed me how to help an earth-bound spirit move into the light of the other side utilizing the smudge. After that day I felt supported by my indigenous ancestors to learn more about my culture as a Mi’kmaq man. I prayed and requested spirit to send me the right physical people to help me learn more about my indigenous spiritual culture.
I participated in sweats & pipe ceremonies and other ceremonies. I then realized that in our cultural ceremonies we always include words and in our spiritual practices in connection to The Great Spirit/Creator and our ancestors. I watched as different elders communicated to spirit world with the ceremonies. It helped me feel closer and pride in my culture and our practices. I knew the way that the spirit world was communicating to me was uniquely different in how it comes to me, but I could clearly see that indigenous people have always been connected to the spirit world through our words, ceremonies and practices.
Our spirits are connected to the land. Can you tell us your experience/thoughts or beliefs and teachings?
We are spirit having a human experience! We all come to the physical world from spirit and one day we all will return to the spirit world in our true form. There is no place that spirit is not!
The light of the other side exists within each of us and is also all around us. We choose to come here into the world from spirit so that we can grow, experience and gain wisdom from many physical lifetimes.
Our growth and expansion of our spirit are dependant on coming to physical form, just as our creator aka the universe vibrates into form – The invisible to the visible.
We are no different as our creator expands and grows into the unlimited space of the universe and itself. We are equally vital to that expansion and growth.
We are as vital as a grain of sand is to the beach or a drop of water is to the ocean. We are the subatomic particles & atoms of our creator and each atom in the universe is in a constant state of becoming a new.
Everything including each of us vibrates into physical form as an individual expression of the whole. We retain that expressed experience and are very connected to our soul group who are in spirit and also in physical form.
Death does not exist; it is an illusion!
Our spirit and light hold the very being of you and your every experience from this lifetime and others. All spirit beings can and do interact with our world. There are many physical worlds and many ways to be expressed within it.
How have people found healing through these experiences with you?
Coming to me or a Spirit Talker like myself most people experience healing. Whether you are receiving a message or see someone receiving a message from a family member or friend, you experience and see that it is possible. Healing can and does take place when they understand that people in the spirit world can and do communicate through validating healing messages. That their loved one still exists and remembers and sees them in their current life.
Many people are walking through life with many heavy emotional traumas like grief due to the loss of a person or pet they care about deeply. Sometimes there are other heavy emotions that can accompany grief… for example; regret, Anger, Stress, Anxiety and emptiness or feeling alone, worry, sorrow, failure, disbelief, denial, fear etc.
When Spirit connects to a person like myself, they help me understand what a person may be emotionally carrying in their spirit. So with their guidance and the spiritual wisdom I have gained over my many years, we work together to help them release that emotional energetic baggage. When you shift the energy within someone who has been carrying a heavy burden, it’s incredible to witness healing taking place. Attending a Live event where messages are being given, shifts of energy take place in most people who attend.
Even if they don’t receive a personal direct message, they still can receive the wisdom via someone else’s messages. I used to be a mailman for Canada Post, and I explain it like this – Some people are getting the direct letter and some people are getting postcards.
Has any experience (communication) surprised you?
I’m always surprised by what Spirit communicates to me. The information that does surprise me would be something no one else could know except them and the person in the spirit world. In one episode of Spirit Talker, a young lady who lost her life due to cancer communicates to her mother and sisters at a LIVE event. She shows me her slim body only wearing a Bra… Imagine now I am talking to a grieving mother who is trying to heal from the loss of her daughter. I not only see her daughter in only a bra, she also takes it off.
I am puzzled as to how I should share this image with these ladies who are crying. I gathered that her daughter in spirit didn’t want to wear the bra for whatever reason. I had to pause and figure out how I was exactly going to share this with them live while being filmed in front of an audience. When it comes to spirit communication, I am the middleman, the Medium and I don’t always understand why spirit people show me the things they do. I must trust what they share with me! I bit the bullet and said, “Did you do something with a bra for your daughter?” I didn’t elaborate right away on what I had seen for obvious reasons.
The lady and her two other daughters laugh and share that when they were alone with her in the back room at the funeral just before the service, they stuffed her bra to make it look like she had big breasts. It was an ongoing joke between them for a long time even when she was alive.
I elaborated after as to what she had shown me exactly. They laughed more and without a doubt knew it was her communicating to me.
How did you get involved with creating this series? (there are many spirit communicators out there)
The producer of the Show Ed Peill and owner of Tell Tale Productions had heard from a lady who works for him as a writer named Donna Gabriel. She had attended a live event I did with a fellow medium from Massachusetts, USA named John Holland and suggested he check me out as she was impressed with my work.
Unknown to me I then called Ed Peill at Tell Tale for a completely other reason as his production company is also working on a show called “The Curse of Oak Island” which airs on the History Channel. I wanted to see if I could go out there and offer my assistance as a spirit talker and medium. Once I called Ed he said “Omg you’re the guy” and told me that Donna Gabriel would be in contact soon to talk to me about a TV show idea and wanted to know if I was interested?
I guess the universe conspired to bring us together to create the APTN TV show “Spirit Talker”. When you are following your path in life things become very synchronistic. In my opinion, it was just meant to be.
Your first episode had you return to Conne River, NL, I appreciated that you were open in wanting to learn and understand your family history, what did you discover there?
My Mi’kmaq roots were in Conne River, NL and I had recently lost people that directly connect me to that location. My Grandmother Margaret and my great aunt Corsine and I felt a disconnect and wanted to share my ability with the community in the hopes I would rediscover my ancestral connection.
I did discover many cousins that I have not known and feel a renewed connection to the community. I also discovered a sense of pride in how well the community is incorporating language and culture. Young people in the schools are being taught traditional practices. That makes my heart and spirit happy.
How do you prepare yourself before your readings, events?
I have my own ceremony where I smudge myself and the space. I meditate and use my own prayer and words to invite the spirits to communicate to me. I talk to them and tell the spirits that I am a spirit talker and how they can best communicate to me. I ask for their help in validating their connection and ask that we work together in helping people mentally and emotionally heal. I go out on the stage and explain how spirit communication works and tell them what to expect and what to say and not to say to me. I begin and trust what I receive and give it with Love.
What do you wish people to know about you, and what you do?
I am a proud indigenous Mi’kmaq person who works with spirit to help people heal. I am not gifted; I know a Language “The Language of Spirit” and I am a translator for Spirit people. I am a teacher and have a course called “Spirit Talker Tribe” to help people understand how they too can remember this language.
If people would like to know more about me or my online course “Spirit Talker Tribe”, my book “The Language of Spirit” go to my website.
To see me utilize The Language of Spirit and help people heal, watch the “Spirit Talker” world broadcast premiere on Wednesday, February 19, at 8 p.m. EST / 8 p.m. MST on APTN.
Here is the trailer…
