When Visions Become Real

One of the visions I've had over the past several years is of the classic pub gig, some musicians in a crowded Irish pub, playing traditional Irish music. Somehow that didn't quite happen during the past few trips. It always turned out to be a guy and guitar singing ballads, or someone with a harp playing Enya covers. While planning the current tour, I added in the hope that I could dance a jig and a reel with Patricia. She took up Irish dance shortly after our daughter Meghan did, and has gotten rather good at it.I managed to pick up the jig and reel while helping Meghan to practice her dances for her end of year recital.

Stopping at the music store in Kenmare, we found out that there was going to be a "session" for local musicians at Crowley's pub that evening. We got there early and watched John tuning up his banjo and a female friend of his tuning her fiddle. They soon launched into a medly of reels, which made me smile. Finally some live traditional Irish music in an Irish pub - in Ireland! Then a badhron player joined in and my vision was complete, so we danced a couple jigs and reels to the amusement of the locals, before finally walking home almost at midnight.

The sun has been setting slowly here, finally disappearing around 10:30 or 11:00. So that walks home have been under pretty fabulous skys.

We still have a few more days here in Ireland, and a few more opportunities to bring visions to life.

More on Ireland and the Continuing Saga

We have this weekend off from planned group activities, which doesn't mean we don't have anything to do. We will be taking some long walks around kenmare, going to see the Celtic Tenors this evening and generally enjoying how much better everything tastes over here in Ireland.

Last night was amazing. I've been planning this trip for over three years, gradually piecing together my visions into something that could work. During that time, I read Frank Delaney's Ireland, which gives the best account of the traditional Irish storyteller that I had found, and I wanted to include that in our tour. I did a lot of searching and finally settled on two likely characters. I don't believe any one person could have carried the weight of all the contradictory elements of this Seanachai vision, so I was very fortunate to find both of them. Amantha Murphy is anchors the role of the speaker for the pre-christian, pagan land, filled with goddesses and gods, heros and heroines, everyday wonders and the miracles that arise in every generation. Batt Burns is the quitisential, traditional, hill-walking, brough-talking, condensation of the Catholic Irish, filled with pride in his country and in the people upon whose shoulders he satnds. He is a showman and a bit of a magician, even popping on an old hat and pair of spectacles in order to invoke the character of his own grandfather, from whom he learned the art of the storyteller, as well as many of his stories. Watching Batt yesterday evening, sitting beside the turf fire, just as so many before him, reciting the words of his ancestors, I was struck by how well this vision had come to pass. I leef so much gratitude to all my ancestors and all the other spirits and people who have helped to make this visions real.

After the storyteller left, we went out for a pub crawl. And these were some pubs! We started off with the Wander Inn, where I had a pint of Smithwicks and Patricia a Bulmer's cider. After we finishered there, Patricia and I bowed out and walked over to the food truck to get a cheeseburger and chips. There was an interesting conversation already going on between an older woman and a fellow who looked to be about my own age. She was telling him that he should find himself a good younger woman and get on with life. He said he was a widower these past 11 years and had no interest in trying to find someone to take the place of his wife, though he missed his two sons dearly, both of whom had imegrated illegally to New York. As we tend to do, Patricia and I joined into the conversation and the four of us had a good bit of fun before we finished our food and headed home under a magnificent sky, the towering clouds painted from behind by the light of the full moon.

Meghan sounds like she is stirring and so we will be setting off for a hike soon. I promise to add another post soon. Wishing you all well from here in Ireland.

Off to Ireland again!

It's the beginning of our third full day here in beautiful Kenmare, and this is the first day that I've managed to get the blog site to work.

Patricia warned me before we left that Mercury was going retrograde and would remain that way for the whole trip. Even without the heads up, I would have figured it out by now. But despite communication snafus and interruptions, this has been the best time yet! There are 24 of us in all, staying at the Ardmullin Holiday Homes in Kenmare. Apparently I cannot add photos to this blog on my iPad just yet, so until I remedy that, you will have to use your imagination.

We arrived at Shannon airport at about 8:30 in the morning on Sunday and were met by the Kerry Coach driver named Derry, who was like a compilation of Patricia's Irish uncles. The coach was perfect. We did not miss having to drive. We stopped off at Adare Manor for breakfast, thanks to Derry, who happens to know the manager. Then a quick stop for groceries at a Super Valu and it was into Kenmare to unload our bags and settle in. I managed to stay awake for the walk into town for dinner at Foley's, then crashed about 20:00 and slept for ten hours straight.

Our first full day, known as Day Two on the itinerary, was spent getting everyone comfortable finding their way around town. After one of our flock missed a turn and wound up taking an extended walk, I made sure that everyone could find their way hame from town. Dinner was at O'Donnabhain's Pub, which is owned by our landlord here. They had a fellow playing traditional irish ballads on guitar. He managed a version of a reel so that Meghan could demonstrate her prowess at irish step dancing.

Yesterday - Day Three - was our first day trip. The coach picked us up at 9:30 and we drove up to Killarney, stopping at Ladies View to give many of the tour their first view of the Lakes of Killarney. Have I( mentioned that there are 24 of us? We had to leave Meghan and her nanny behind that morning, because Meghan hadn't woken up yet and we have firm rules against waking sleeping children. In Killarney we took a jaunting car ride (pony cart) which we have been wanting to do for the first few times we were here, so it was about time. Beware the bad jokes. Okay. It's time to get dressed and walk to town for Market Day. More later!

Shamanism in Tribal and Post-Tribal Contexts

I am going to address a couple of the things I hear most often on Facebook pages and other forums dedicated to shamanic traditions. 

“No real shaman ever refers to him or herself as a shaman.” and “No real shaman charges for their services.”

Let’s consider tribal culture for a moment. First off, the primary unit of this culture is communal – the tribe itself. This is something that is simply impossible for most modern Americans to grasp. Your very concept of “self” is radically different from someone growing up in a tribe. Further, the community of the tribe is quite closely knit – much more so than small towns in our own culture. Even more so that extended families. These are cultures in which everyone knows what is going on with everyone else, to a degree that would be quite uncomfortable for folks from our culture. Now, if someone is chosen by the tribe’s shaman as an apprentice, everyone knows this. They know how that person is doing with the process of learning and initiation and they know when that person receives the blessing of the shaman to begin working. For the initiate to go around proclaiming him or herself a shaman would be ludicrous. They already know. 

In our culture, in shamanic practices, we have clientele who we have never met before they come to see us. There is no community net of people who already know what we have been through and that we have received our teacher’s blessing. What we have is word of mouth – and business cards. 

You see, not calling yourself a shaman has everything to do with the tribal context, and nothing to do with shamanism. 

The issue of charging for your services is another case of the same thing. The tribal communities still function on barter and exchange. They don’t use money in the same way that those of us in the post-tribal culture do. So naturally the shaman doesn’t get paid in money. However, the shaman does get paid in food and labor and whatever else he or she needs. 

Once again. Charging money for anything is a matter of cultural context, not shamanism. It is important to be able to view shamanism as it is, separate from the tribal context, if we are to be able to practice it in a meaningful way in our post-tribal context. 

For more on the difference between shamanism and tribal culture, check out post-tribal shamanism. 

Reframing the Past

This summer I was one of 13 artists participating in a group show entitled Faces and Figures at the Artisan Enterprise Center in Covington, Kentucky. This was the first exhibit I had been a part of in over twenty years, so I was pretty excited. But I have also not really produced any significant painting or drawing since the late 80's, so it was a selection of those pieces created in the midst of my healing crisis that were taken out of storage, put behind glass and given a public viewing.

The process of dragging these old remnants of my inner struggles into the light understandably offered me the opportunity to revisit those experiences from the present perspective. This allowed me a brief period of glowing appreciation of how far I've come and how much happier, healthier and more whole I am than I was as the clinically depressed art student, who dressed in black and smoked too much. Deeper introspection revealed that most of the shadows I had carefully stored away had left some residue behind. Those remains no longer run my life, but it was good to have them brought to my attention. It took a few weeks of work to clear away what I could.

Choosing frames for the art was easy - cheap and black. The process of doing so led me to thinking of how I was reframing those old outpourings of my soul, and then putting them on display. This is not such a bad thing to do. A little self-disclosure is a good means of reminding us who we are and where we come from.

The framed pieces are back in my basement again, awaiting their next outing – or perhaps a collector of expressionist art? They have served to remind me of how my past inhabits my present and to inspire me to create some new works of art that I can look back on in the future to remind me of my journey.

Dance of Stones – second edition!

Back in 1998 I took a road trip with a friend from Germany. At the time, I was trying to come up with a way of writing a book on shamanism that wouldn't be "just another book on shamanism." A couple days into the trip, with my friend constantly asking questions about my work, I realized that this a an excellent opportunity, and started keeping better notes. The journey took us to some powerful places, both in the outer world as well as the inner. The experiences were pivotal to my own growth and realization, and they seemed to have an impact on my friend as well. We followed the signs if synchronicity across through Brittany and across the Channel to Cornwall. At each turn, the spirits welcomed us with new opportunities for deepening.

Ten years later I published Dance of Stones: A Shamanic Road Trip, and now it is being released in a second edition from the good folks at Moon Books. Later this year, they will also be releasing my second book, Post-Tribal Shamanism: A New Look at the Old Ways.

Dance of Stones succeeded in doing everything that I had hoped. It expressed the foundation teachings of post-tribal shamanism in and accessible and coherent way. It allowed the reader to begin his or her own journey into their exploration of the deeper parts of self. It also received excellent reviews, sold much better than could have been expected and opened up doors that have allowed me to expand my teaching practice. With the re-release, I hope to be able to extend the reach of post-tribal shamanism to an even wider audience.

These teachings are need in the world today. With the various crisis of society, earth and soul that each of us are going through, it is essential to reconnect with those things that nurture our souls. The journey we took through Cornwall is only one facet of the larger fractal that we are all embarked upon. I invite those who have not yet taken this journey to join me as we set off for a deeper place within us.

the Unparented Parent

In my work as a shaman, I have been aware for awhile that – at least at a soul level – all parents love their children and all children love their parents. This begs the question of, if this is so, why do so many parents and children have such a conflicted relationship?

Having observed a great many of these parent child relationships in the healing process, I see a number of reasons for this failure of mutual trust, respect and regard. I will address one of the most common causes, which I call the Unparented Parent.

All too often in our culture, due to abandonment, death, illness or absence, children do not have a competent parent available to them in their formative years. In combination with chronic low-level traumatic stress, this can derail the emotional maturity of the child, leaving them stranded in a childish state, often for the rest of their lives. They have not received competent parenting themselves and so, when they become parents, their child is constantly in competition with that inner aspect of their child self, who still seeks the nurturing of a parent. This can lead to behaviors that appear narcissistic and inappropriate, because the un-parented child aspect of the parent is desperately trying to get his or her own needs met, and can feel very resentful and fearful of the infant that is now receiving the attention, caring, nourishment and nurturing that they feel they were denied.

This can become a trans-grenerational cycle that can inflict its wounds time and again. However this cycle can be broken by those rare adults who engage their own healing process fully, reintegrating their wounded child aspects, before becoming parents themselves.

Much of the shamanic work I do with my clients is directed at this sort of healing soul level wounds that reach back over many generations, usually to a parent who was lost to war, illness or other life trauma, leaving a family bereft.

The good news is that these wounds can and do heal. It is not to late for that child to finally receive the parenting he or she needs. What may be hard for some to hear, is that that parent needs to be you.