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

the making of the shaman

In traditional cultures someone generally becomes a shaman in one of two ways. Either they are born into a family of shamans or they are pointed out by traumatic events in their life that open them to communication with sprits. Since there are not many established family lines of shamans here in the modern world, we have to rely on the other primary form of inducing shamanic development. These traumas, which usually but not always, come in early life, can range from physical illness and near death to traumatic abuse and loss. But this is only the beginning. 

I read an article by Jason Godesky entitled Neoshamanism is Masturbation. While he rightly points out that many of those who claim to practice shamanism in our culture are little more than spiritual tourists, he misses some very important points as well. For instance, he reasons that since the traditional shaman works within a community; only serves the members of that community, and does not receive payment for the work that he does, that this means that any person claiming to be a shaman who serves those not in his immediate community or who takes money for his services cannot be a valid shaman. 

His first mistake is not recognizing what parts of the picture refer to the shaman and what parts refer to the culture in which the shaman is working. Obviously, when a shamans working in a traditional culture acts according to the norms of that culture it is appropriate and competent. Just as obviously, if a shaman were to act according to those norms in our culture, it would be both inappropriate and incompetent. 

Within a tribal culture, the needs of the shaman are met by the other members of the tribe in exchange for his or her service to the tribe in the realm of spirits, sickness, stories and whatever else they deem to be appropriate to that role. So there is no need for the shaman to "charge" in that context. He has no rent, no food bill - everything is already taken care of. 

Within our culture, we meet our needs by providing services in exchange for money, which we then exchange for the goods and services we require. These are the norms of our culture, and it is only right and fitting for someone working in this culture to work within these norms. 

Shamanism is not about adopting the norms and practices of other cultures. It is not about cultural appropriation. It is about recognizing our necessary links to ancestors, spirits and the divine and learning to express these connections in meaningful and healing ways. Ultimately, this IS in service to the greater community. 

Going back to the making of the shaman. Once someone has gone through whatever traumatic events have sensitized them to the spirits and given them a taste of altered states, they still are not ready to shamanize. If they are stable enough, they may be qualified to start training. Assuming they can find capable teachers and make it through whatever additional initiations that are required, they may get to the point of providing effective shamanic services to others.

It's all in Stillness

It's one thing to say that everything your soul needs for its process of awakening is right there in the practice of Stillness/meditation. It's quite another thing to put into coherent terms just what these packed away resources are. I can describe the impact that the unpacking has on a person's life: The deepening of sense of Self; the greater vitality and clarity of connection, but it is such a personal and intimate process that I hesitate to go beyond those generalities. 

What I usually find is that those whose souls are already awakening immediately sense the validity of the claim and either begin practicing diligently or run the other way, depending on how they feel about the prospect of becoming more awake. It's the one's who are further from the goal who seem to have more difficulty in recognizing how something so simple and apparently inactive as meditation can have a significant impact on their lives.

One of the most difficult points to get across to some is that Stillness is not a struggle. The idea is not to repress our thoughts; to shove them down until they give up. Indeed, as soon as you start fighting, you've already lost. The trick is in letting them go. Just like a rock resting on the floor of a river lets the water go.

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

What is a shaman today?

The work of the shaman is in service to community - but what does that mean in a culture that has lost its traditional ties? What is the community the shaman serves? This question has many answers. For myself, the community I serve is made up of those who seek out my help. Clients, students and friends - these have become the community I need in order to be of service. And yet we still lack a community in the traditional sense. This is one of those "invisible wounds" that plague us as individuals and as a society. 

Perhaps the single most important aspect of social evolution with regards to the role of the shaman, is the movement from the most important element of our culture being the clan or tribe to it becoming the individual. When we put the individual before the communal, the ties of traditional community break down. And the sovereign emerges. 

Now imagine what it might be like to develop a community of sovereigns. . . .

In our modern world we generally think about the soul as an abstract principle that has little or no impact on who and how we are here and now - in this physical world. Perhaps because of this, there is confusion around where the soul goes after death and if any part of us lives on. 

In many tribal cultures the story goes something like this. When you die, a part of your soul stays on in here, eventually dissolving into the natural substance of the world, where it remains. The rest of you goes into the lower world where it reunites with your ancestors and begins to process the unresolved parts of your life. When enough of that has been accomplished, yet another part of your soul rises up through the world tree to the upper world, where it may choose to be born again into a new body. 

Of course this outline differs somewhat from one culture to another, but it shows up even in Hebrew/Jewish spiritual tradition where the three parts of the soul are called neshem, neshemah and ruach. 

I was struck by this while preparing for my meditation practice this morning. My wife and I have a room set apart for our spiritual practice. We have space there to honor our physical ancestors and our spiritual ancestors. I had originally thought of the spiritual ancestors as some sort of conceptual background for my spiritual/shamanic path in this life, but as I looked over at them this morning, it struck me that they were in fact the real ancestors of that part of me that will eventually rise back up the world tree - to return again with a different face. 

That part of us - of me at any rate - tends to process information a bit differently than the ego. It has a deeper sense of what is true and of the relationship between all the pieces of the whole. It's in realizations like this that this deeper part of the self reveals its nature - and its gifts. It keeps reminding me that this is another good reason to continue my daily practice. 

namaste

Getting focused

Sometimes there's nothing like getting your hands dirty. I've just spent today and yesterday out in the garden getting earth under my fingernails and it's amazing how much it calms my spirit. Mind you, it also stiffens my back and knees, but that's a different matter. 

Sales of the book are beginning to climb - even without all the promotional material that got disappeared off my hard drive. One of my old students from the workshops up in Ann Arbor came down for a visit a couple days ago and asked me if I knew that my book "bounces off walls." Apparently it managed to trigger her to the point that she had to throw it. I'm thinking this might be a good thing. At least she's not bored.

I suppose I should start applying this blog to shamanism. But I have some questions coming up in that process. For instance: I need to maintain client confidentiality, so I can't talk about work in progress. And the conversational tone that I'm working on may lull me into the sense that I'm just talking to myself - which could be dangerous. 

One of the issues that comes up around doing this work is that the word/term Shaman doesn't come from English. I think it says a lot about where we are in our culture that we have had to adopt the word from the Tinglit, because we no longer even have the concept readily available in our cosmology. Having done so, however, the word has become more widely used and relatively understood than it ever was when it referred only to those people in the Tungus region who practiced altered states healing techniques for their traditional communities. In fact, if it wasn't for the Russians who brought the word to the attention of their colleges, we might have had to create our own term from spare parts of other words. I can only image what we might have come up with. Soulhealer; Journeyerinotherworlds; Ekkar. . . the possibilities are endless. And if you think the topic is confusing NOW - just imagine. . . .

My own, somewhat biased, perspective is that the term Shaman has been firmly and successfully co-opted by the modern western world. Just like we are not about to give back Manhattan, we are not going to return the less substantial elements of traditional culture that we've appropriated over the years either. In pragmatic terms, Shaman is now in the dictionary. It has meaning in our language too. And - ever so gradually - it is becoming a meaningful part of our spiritual awakening.