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.

The search for new space - a shamanic quandary?

Recently the doctor who owns the space where my wife and I have our offices told us that we needed to find a new location as our office spaces were going to be needed for her practice. This space is a hard act to follow, as it is very much what we want in office space. It's an old house that was completely renovated, with wonderful natural light, hardwood floors, high ceilings, reception area, and an elevator.

So – for the past month, we have been scouring Cincinnati for something that would seem like a step up instead of a spatial demotion. We've narrowed the search down to a few places, each of which has its upside and its downside, which is where the quandary lies: In asking the spirits for their input, I keep getting "it's up to you. Make a decision." This is the same sort of situation so many of us find ourselves in. Presented with multiple choices, none of which is clearly the "right" one, we wish that the "Universe" would magically make the decision for us. Instead, it is a part of the process of awakening (and maturation) that we must make the choice ourselves – accepting the responsibility for whatever comes of it.

So - sometime in the next week or two – we will bite the proverbial bullet and make a choice between these different locations...assuming that the spirits don't present us with yet another option which is so clearly superior to the others....

I'll let you know.

moving forward...slowly

So - some new things on the horizon. I am working with a team to put together a webinar introduction to Post-Tribal Shamanism. If that goes well, I will move forward with putting more of the teachings into webinar format. I am not sure how much of them will actually translate to the web, but we shall see.

Also - it has been suggested that I open this blog up to other folks to write in, so that it maintains a more consistent presence than I have been able to manage on my own. With this in mind, I would invite any of my advanced students or apprentices who have an interest to contact me about writing "guest appearances" here. They would need to be on topics related to Post-Tribal Shamanism, but other than that, I think it's a pretty open forum.

The Shaman's Paradox and an Excellent Fedora

I would like to think of myself as non-materialistic. It fits with my philosophy and ethics and general worldview, so when I find myself coveting something that is – to my view – outrageously expensive and unnecessary, I have to take a moment to be mindful of what is happening.

Now, I will admit to having a fondness for fedoras and that I try not to leave the house without one. I like a warm head and shaded eyes...and I suppose there's a bit of my sense of identity wrapped up in it as well. My dad wore fedoras, and this is one way for me to express my loyalty to him. However, I generally find my fedoras on Ebay and pay no more than $50 for one, which should last me for many years. So I was surprised to find that, when I came across some truly amazing hats – the kind "they don't make anymore – being produced by a little company in Tennessee, I was so taken with them that I am seriously considering ordering one, even though they start at $800.

At first, I tried to laugh it off and let it go, only to find that the idea of wearing such an excellent hat kept re-emerging. So I took a look at it. What was is engaging about this? What deep hunger is it tapping into? Why can't I just shake it off and be done with it? It took awhile sitting with this quandary before I realized what it was about.

One of the aspects of life as a working shaman is that, on the one hand I need to keep myself very grounded in the everyday world, in order to be able to do my work and relate to my clients. On the other hand, I need to stay in touch with Spirit/Soul, in order to do my work and relate to my client's souls. I spend as much as six hours a day in soul awareness, working with clients, in addition to my own personal practice. So keeping myself grounded in the relative world of the ego is sometimes difficult. (It helps to have a lovely wife and daughter, who keep me engaged with their loving presence.) I call this the Shaman's Paradox – that I need to live and function in two apparently contradictory realities at once. Buddhists – who have an excellent vocabulary for this sort of thing – refer to it the relative and absolute. It's not that it's so difficult, but it does help to have "things" to anchor me into the the relative world. Since my ego is already aware the permanence is an illusion, it really likes to have something that is at least long-lasting. These hats remind me of the fedora I wore in art school – a gift from my friend Troy Gerth. It was a buttery soft, fur felt stetson, probably made sometime in the mid-40's. It disappeared at a senior party in the foundry, right before graduation, and it was a great loss.

When I think of wearing one of these fedoras, I feel myself suspended between the relative and absolute – enjoying the beauty, quality and comfort of the relative world, while appreciating its fleeting nature with equanimity. This brings me to a place of peace about my apparent obsession with ordering a very expensive, custom made fedora, but it doesn't get me any closer to doing so. However, it does keep me very aware of what I yearn for in this relative existence. When I hold such a well-made object, constructed from the best materials, I experience the beauty of it's design, the care with which it has been made, the sensual quality of its material and the sense of all these elements coming together in a meaningful way – assuring me that there is value in this experience of being human and being Here. I realize that I look for these same qualities everywhere in the world – in myself and in friends, in my home and – apparently – in my hats. Not such a bad thing, I think.

Note: I visited with my dear friend and mentor, Eli, yesterday. When I told her about the hats, she said, "You should do like they do in Italy. Put it on your wish list and ask your friends to contribute. Then you could have a present from all of them that you would really love."

I'm considering this.