A Shamanic Perspective on Belonging

When our soul wants to enter into this world, it requires a means of doing so. To do this, it works with our ancestors to create a vehicle to carry it into and through this life. We call this the physical body. The soul then uses this body and all its senses to act as a lens through which it enters the world. But as soon as it passes through the lens into the world, it becomes caught up in the senses, the information, the overwhelming complexity of sound, color, texture, scent and emotion. What joy! This part of the soul that has arrived in the world is then shaped by the experience of being here, and it gradually forgets that it is only a small part of a greater whole. It begins to believe that it is a separate and unique individual. We generally refer to this delusion of the soul as "ego."

Somewhere along the way, our human community lost touch with the sense of the greater soul and where we came from began acknowledging only the part of the self that was lodged in the physical vehicle. This began to break down the structure of communities that were based on a recognition of the deeper connections residing in the greater part of the self – what we are calling the soul. As we drifted further away from our roots beyond this limited existence, we forgot that the ego is only a delusion of the soul, and that its "death" is nothing more than the soul emerging from a deeply engrossing exploration of this world, through the physical body and its senses. This delusion had developed its own beliefs and valued its existence above all else. It saw that death was a great Mystery and insisted that it not be forced to look into it until there was no other choice.

Since it no longer felt the connection with its own greater self, the ego began to feel a great and insatiable hunger. This was/is of course the hunger to remember the connection with soul, but since to do so would break the illusion of sovereignty, the ego instead finds other ways to feed this hunger. Among other ways, it seeks to "belong." It creates further depth of illusion by assuming that this great hunger arises from an unmet need to feel that it has a place of its own. Difficult, considering its very ground of being is that which it rejects in order to be. (Sartré would love that one.)

From the view of the shaman, there is no NOT-belonging. The essence of existence is being. The rest is all commentary. To heal the wound that hungers to belong, our egos need to be able to recognize that they are part of something much larger, which extends beyond the world of physical senses. There are many paths to do this, and none are easy. Because we have been so long away from the realization of the soul, it takes a lot of personal work and usually some intense crisis to break through the delusion. And even then the ego continues to struggle. Such is life in this world. A great joy and/or great suffering.

The Happiness of Things

What I had started out to write in my blog entry last time - and never quite got to - was that we were much happier as a people (or so the polls told us) before the advent of the consumer society. Perhaps a movement away from hyper-industrial production, mimicking a war economy, would actually allow us to return to a way of life that was happier and more fulfilling for those of us who are not making the huge profits from this absurd financial experiment gone wrong. 

I've noticed that when someone tends to hold onto things rather than throwing them away, people will say it's because they - or their parents - grew up during the depression. For a long time, I simply accepted this bit of common wisdom without question. Now I'm not so sure. From what I understand of the world before the Great Depression, people had the ingrained habit of conserving rather than consuming and discarding their resources. This was not because of any poverty or miserliness, but rather because they had not been introduced to the throw-away culture that we live in today. This was before built in obsolescence, when things were not only made to last a lifetime, but also to reflect the skills and aesthetics of the maker. 

We live in an older home, built in 1915, and its construction reflects these values. Even the radiator covers, such humble creations, are works of art - and have lasted for nearly 100 years. What products made today have any such expectation? Even the houses we live in that were built more recently have a shorter life expectancy. And as much as I love my Macintosh computer, I know that it is already on the verge of being obsolete after only a little over two years. If I want to keep up with the rapidly developing internet and software, I will need to "upgrade" within another year or so. But do I need to? Do I really need to?

I remember very little of my childhood, but I do have some surreal mental snapshots of being very small and there being a room in the house with some boxes piled on a couch. I suspect I wasn't allowed in the room, nor in the boxes, and so they took on an aura of mystery and treasure far beyond anything they might actually contain. I have a vague memory of creeping into the room - I must have been five or six years old - and opening the box to find a curved bronze dagger in a bronze sheath, something that my Dad had picked up on his travels. There was a magic to that chunk of metal that I've never felt from any mass-produced object of any kind. 

So - what have we lost? And what can we regain? I believe that this most recent economic crisis is nothing less than the long over-due response to an artificial economy, and that it can allow us - at least those who take the opportunity to do so - to return to an economic footing similar to that our parents or grandparents would recognize from their own early years. This would mean making some fundamental changes in how we live our lives. With a basic value on "conserve rather than consume" we could put more of our income into savings. We might take another look at things we spend money on and decide that we really don't need more than one television; a cable service with over 100 channels; a new car every three years; new clothes every season; gadgets that we are going to throw out in less than a year; or anything that we are able to live a happy and fulfilling life without. We might even begin to dismiss the idea that have been drummed into us by advertising over the past several decades: That we must consume in order to be a productive member of society. 

This is not to say that I am some sort of enlightened zen master, no longer attached to material things. On the contrary, I rather like my material things. As I was sitting in our Temple room with Patricia this morning, I was noticing how much I enjoy and am comforted by our "things". To some extent, this is because these objects express and reflect our shared aesthetic, and seeing them gives me an illusion of permanence. It is a way in which we extend ourselves into the world around us and claim our territory. With these objects, we say: "I am here! This is my space - my part of the ever-changing world." 

It seems to me that all of the pieces fit together. The throw-away aesthetic leads to shoddy workmanship and to a greater sense of impermanence. This also leads to people spending beyond their means, because they are told that happiness is to be found in having the latest widget, in the most popular color. And of course, it isn't. If the polls are any indication, happiness was something we found in much greater measure back in the days when we put our money into savings and purchased things that would last as long as we did; when our happiness was based on the health and well being of our loved ones; the closeness and companionship of friends; and, on our own spiritual connection with the wholeness of the world. 

Perhaps this crisis is a blessing in a this disguise. If we have to pare back our spending this year and focus on those things that are both free and priceless, it's not such a bad thing. 

namaste,

Kenn

Dueling with my demons

The Sheya community is going through some interesting changes lately. Which in turn are stirring up some interesting issues and generating good discussion. What I find fascinating is that it's so easy to not see when something is our own issue. We become so determined that this thing is right and proper and that others just are not seeing the truth of it that we loose all sight of how things actually are. 

One of the issues that has come up is that of providing certificates of completion for those going through an initiation. For some reason, this hits me right in one of my own issues. I obviously need to work this out before taking it to the rest of the community.

It my mind, the initiations are tremendously sacred and powerful doorways into the sacred Mysteries that lie at the heart of the human experience. As such, it strikes me a somewhat absurd to go through such a transformative, mind-blowing experience and then be handed a certificate that states that you have, in fact, been through this experience. It's kind of like getting a certificate that states that you have received a tattoo - isn't the experience itself certification enough? Apparently not. 

So how do I address this? I recognize that my response is based on my own deep reverence for the initiatory process which I feel would be defiled by certification. But would it? Would the Mysteries be changed or lessened in any way if we handed the initiates a piece of paper afterwards that proclaims that they are now an a certified initiate? Hmmmmm. . . .

There are other questions that have been raised by the recently announced changes to our mentoring program, but most of them don't even ruffle my feathers. So I can tell that this one has managed to run right into one of my own personal shadows. Perhaps I am afraid that if we are not properly respectful of these awesome mysteries, that they will cease to function for us. Isn't that a little like being afraid that gravity will stop working if I don't brush my teeth? 

But what to do? The reality of it is: I really don't WANT there to be anything that lessens or distorts the impact of the initiations in any way - and there is nothing I can really do about that other than to continue to honor them and to provide the best and clearest initiations that I can, training other initiators to do the same. And I believe that I need to give our students the opportunity - should they so desire it - to have another piece of paper to hang on their walls.

namaste

Diving for pearls. . .

Like pearl divers, who learn how to hold their breath for considerably longer than the average person, we modern humans have learned - however unintentionally - to live without the necessary element of community. However, as any pearl diver can tell you, the need does not go away. 

Unfortunately it seems that we've forgotten that we have this need for community, and in the process, forgotten what community is. You can see the frantic attempts to fulfill this essential hunger - in the creation of internet "tribes", Special Interest Groups, sport clubs and other new variations on the theme of community. What it comes down to is that we are desperately hungry for real connection with others. And our modern culture has evolved by ignoring and attempting to replace this fundamental need with personal achievement, individual recognition and sovereignty. While these may all be good things in and of themselves, they also keep us from realizing that we cannot do it alone. 

It is past time for us to rediscover the recipe for real community. It will not be a return to the way things were. We can't go back. It will need to be a movement forward, informed and inspired by what we once had, but honoring who we have become. Rather than returning to a sense of tribe in which the individual is submerged in the whole, we will need to explore how to create a real sense of connection and integration between sovereign and equal individuals. This will mean going through a lot of work - together. It will be more than swapping emails, IMs and blogs. It will mean getting sweaty and dirty working together on something of value to the whole group. It will mean going beyond the range of comfort for those who you share this wholeness with. It will mean living in proximity and committing to maintaining that proximity, even when it becomes difficult. It will mean working THROUGH difficulties together. 

Only by going through the necessary stages of development together can a group hope to become a whole. It seems to me that more and more of our rugged individualists are ready to make this leap into the unknown and unremembered place of communion.

namaste

Roots of the modern shaman

While the word shaman comes from the Tinglit in Siberia, the roots of the practice go much deeper. It's easy for us to look at those living in traditional societies and believe that we are better off without the trappings of tribal community. After all, there's always someone looking over your shoulder. Everyone knows your business. There's no privacy. Why would any self respecting person want to live in such a cloying web of connections and relations? 

The question says it all. A member of a tribe doesn't respect self before clan. While those of us raised in the modern "Western" culture see the rugged individualist as the pinnacle of social evolution, this has been a relatively recent phenomenon - and not all that wide-spread. Most of the world still has much stronger "family values" than we can even conceive of. 

It's common in the US for people to pick up and move to a different state for the sake of their career or education. No one thinks any less of them, and they are encouraged, because this is what individuals are supposed to do. Moving away from your roots, however shallow they may be to begin with, is seen as right and proper. After all, you wouldn't want to be tied down to your family and friends. Those coming from more traditional cultures, even in Europe, may shake their heads in wonder at the apparent lack of feeling and connection we display. 

But what does this have to do with shamanism? I'm glad you asked! In a traditional setting, the shaman works in service to his or her community. So what happens when there is no community? Does the role of the shaman simply evaporate? No. If anything, the need is greater. Part of the work of a shaman is to remind the people where they come from; to help them develop their spiritual roots and to recognize the gifts of their ancestors. These are needed more by our "rugged individualists" than by anyone living in a tribal culture. 

While the shape of society has transformed, the substance of what it is to be human has not. To a certain extent, the function of a shaman reflects the context in which he or she works. If their is a coherent community, it makes sense to work within that structure. However, if that community does not exist, the shaman still has work to do. What that work is will reflect the nature of the society we find ourselves in today. 

There are those who believe that since the definition of shamanism that we "Westerners" developed from observing indigenous healers included "service to community", there can be no shamans without that element. Some even go so far as to claim that the practices of the shaman "belong" to the indigenous cultures in which they were found and that for us to use them is to steal them from the source. I would argue that this is a misunderstanding of the nature of shamanism and of the human condition. Shamanism is rooted in the human experience. The fact that people in our modern culture can be effectively healed by shamanic methods is one proof that they are valid and appropriate. The fact that moderns can also become effective shamans is another. 

This is not to say that all modern "shamans" are relevant, valid or even sane. Nor do I approve of the tendency of some to wear the trappings of other cultures - dressing up as native Americans or other tribal people - and offering their traditional teachings for a fee. 

An effective shaman is not just someone who has taken a few workshops and uses a drum to put their clients into an altered state. While the cultural setting has changed, the shaman is still a person who has passed through initiation and transformation; who has met their demons and survived; who speaks with the spirits and who is able to use that experience to assist in the healing of others.

namaste