The Miraculous Quality of the Mundane

One of my earliest memories - I think I was seven - is of riding in a truck cab with my father, listening to the radio. Quite suddenly I was struck and overwhelmed by the vast, complex and intricate network of people, skills, interaction, cooperation and efforts that made radio possible. It wasn't just that someone had invented the radio itself but that there were people who paid for advertising products, which generated income which allow allowed other people to make music and play it over the radio so that others would listen to their music, and the advertising, and perhaps even purchase the products advertised, thus completing the cycle. I don't know how long it lasted, but I was pretty stunned by the complexity of it all. 

Quite a few years ago, when I was twenty something and was meditating for hours a day, I once went for a walk and realized I could feel the sidewalk humming. I saw that even the sidewalk, made of crushed sand and grit, was still alive - that everything was filled with Chi. This realization left me quite blissed out for hours afterwards. Since then I have always tried to keep in mind that the whole of the world is alive and conscious at some level. Not just the trees and animals but the stones and even the dixie cups. 

Yesterday, in the shower, I found myself looking at my twin bladed razor and thinking "this too is alive." It was tempting to laugh it off - seeing myself as ridiculous. But it's true - and miraculous. Consider the miracle of the razor: Not only is it an item that could not be produced by our bare hands. Not even a skilled blacksmith with a complete set of modern tools could craft this simple product. It takes the completely (apparently) unconscious and unskilled attentions of a robot factory fed on the remains of long dead monsters that once roamed the earth, to slap together a construction of plastic and steel that would not even exist if not for the current trends in human society to 1) be clean shaven, 2) compete with each other for resources, 3) constantly strive to find and meet previously unrealized needs in order to more effectively compete with other monkeys for

  increasingly scarce resources....and it occurs to me that sometimes miracles are not things emerging from puffs of green smoke but instead arising from the fog of the everyday trance - that even awakening from that trance, even for a moment. That is a miracle. We humans - building trash heaps of wasted resources on which we sacrifice the future of our unborn generations in the vague hope of another moment of unknowing - and suddenly acting out of compassion we transform everything - with a single smile we change the world. It is worthwhile - valuable - beautiful. . . and never to be encompassed by mere words. This magical, ecstatic Mystery that we are. What grand visions we mistake for mundane refuse. 

namaste

Initiation

Shamanism is one of those things you can read about in every book in the world and still not really grasp. This is because words live in one world and the roots and reach of the shaman lie in others. Access to these other worlds is not defined by intellectual understanding, but by direct experience - experiences that we call initiation. An initiation is a doorway opening into these other worlds. It might take many forms in this world, but if it is an effective initiation, it will have the impact of opening your awareness to the worlds of the shaman. 

It could be something as simple as a life threatening illness that shoves you out of your body and into an "hallucinatory" state in which you encounter beings or information that change your life. I could be something more specific, like a ceremony in which your physical body is ritually dismembered and your organs replaced with glowing gems. 

Initiations generally take one of two paths. Either they occur naturally - illness, car accident, lightning strike - or they are planned and orchestrated by those who have already encountered these doorways and know how to acquaint you with them in a safe and relatively non-traumatic way. If you have the choice, I encourage you to seek the later. They are much easier. Still terrifying and overwhelming, but much easier than the initiations that spirits provide you with if they feel you are not responding to their calls.

Those initiations that are encountered haphazardly in life seem to be sent by spirits that have decided they have a use for you. It would help if we lived in a culture that recognized such encounters for what they are and responded appropriately. Instead, what often happens is that the spirits get frustrated when we don't respond and so they knock louder. Eventually we either wake up or we don't survive. 

I don't mean to say that every car wreck, epileptic seizure or coma is a call from the spirits. This is another way in which words to not begin to express the nature of what it. There is a unique quality to an experience that is an attempt by spirit to wake you up. You may experience this quality in the disorientation of your consciousness and the sudden awareness of things that you didn't know before, but suddenly realize to be true. It can all be quite confusing - and there is little difference between someone called to be a shaman and a madman.

Of course, as indicated by another meaning of the word, initiation is only the beginning. 

Keeping the Ancestors Happy

It's not often in this culture that we stop to consider the ones on whose shoulders we stand - that long line of ancestors, without which we would not be here today. Shamanic teachings talk about the three souls humans have, and one of those souls comes from - and returns to - the ancestors. So we owe them our gratitude and our continued appreciation. We've lost this - most of us anyway. Grandparents and those before them might get a photo or two, a place in the family album, but they rarely have a real presence in our lives. 

When I think about how ancestors are respected and honored in tribal culture, it occurs to me that this might be one reason why we've lost so many other good parts of that culture as well. For instance, there is a sense of ingrained generosity in tribal people that I just don't see in moderns. Not that the people I know in our culture aren't generous, but that there is a difference. (And if there's someone who grew up in a tribal culture who would care to speak to this - please feel free.) There seems to me an unconscious sense of obligation to and openness of spirit and heart to fellow members of your tribe that we have lost. And this sense of generosity extends to the ancestors as well. Often there are rituals around the feeding and care of the ancestors - holding a place for them at meals - passing a plate for them. 

I try to rediscover this myself by having an altar for my ancestors and giving them daily offerings - speaking to them - asking for their continued blessings - asking for their guidance and support. All of us like to be listened to and to be of use - apparently this applies to the ancestors as well. The occasional offering of Irish whisky seems to make some of them particularly happy. 

As much as we might have lost of our tribal ways, it's important to realize that we can only reclaim these pieces from where we are now - not by taking on the trappings of a tribal culture; not by wearing another tribe's tradition like a costume. We must rediscover what has meaning for us and for our ancestors. When we do this; when we stand with our ancestors and remember we are not alone on this earth, we begin to remember what it is to be more fully human.

namaste

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

looking in the mirror

Our social evolution impacts our personal lives as well as our society as a whole. The movement away from integrated community toward radical individualism has birthed a whole spectrum of new reactions to old stimuli. One clear example is the tendency to draw away from others when hurt. I've seen this in myself as well as in my friends and clients. We seem to think that there is comfort and/or safety in being separate. But all this does is lead to greater separation and further frustrates our hunger for connection. 

When we look at the animal world for reflections of our own nature, we tend to think of the "lone wolf", the eagle, the lion or other predators with little or no tie to community. But the closest real reflection of us in the animal world is the ape - a very communal animal. So - why do we so often chose to see ourselves as an anti-social predator, rather than a communal omnivore? Whatever the answer, this certainly reflects a long standing movement in human consciousness. I don't know when it began, but there is a long history of predators being chosen to symbolize nations. 

Perhaps we need to consider what it would be like to have a nation whose symbol in the bonobo ape.

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

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.