A CREATION MYTH: THE RETURN OF THE GIANTS

Here is a story that runs counter to the current human narrative. Life is abundant by nature, and is always unfolding into new forms, guided by the care and imagination of Mother Earth. The plants were the first to cover the earth in their abundance. The animals, a different kind of life, were enabled to prosper by the plants. It was the time of the giants, both plant and animal.

But as the plants flourished, they used up their food, carbon dioxide, storing it in their bodies as they died and rested underground.

 

Humans arrived when CO2 had reached a record low: much lower and plant life itself would have been threatened. Plants by this time existed in nowhere near the abundance of their glory days, and most of the giants were long gone. Humans quickly spread over the earth, and in the blink of an eye by geological time, began to use the buried plants for their own prosperity. Insodoing they also began to give food back to the plants, which responded with the great re-greening of the earth that we are starting to see. Already an area 1.4 times the size of the USA has re-greened.

 

It is early days yet. CO2 is at 400ppm, while the historical norm is several thousand ppm. Temperature is also at a historic low, and that too is currently recovering, though for reasons that are less clear. It is a wonderful win-win, as human prospering spawns a wider natural prospering.

 

The purposes of what we call Evolution are mysterious. But did Mother Earth have a hand in creating humans partly to help her first children, the plants, prosper again?

 

Humans are a tropical species. We eventually die of exposure unclothed in temperatures as high as 60 F. The warming of the earth and its increasing abundance reminds us of who we once were, that we have maybe forgotten.

 

Humans are contrary, easily thrown out of alignment with the natural world. A large part of the species currently sees the good they are doing to nature as a bad thing. But that is to be expected from this species, the new-born ones who do not yet know who they are, or their part in the bigger scheme of things. Will they gain more sense over time? It is Mother's Earth's hope.

ON NOT BEING ABOVE THE WORLD

I've seen this in Buddhism, in Christianity and in Shamanism: a teacher claiming that the world is in a hell of a state, even (gleeful hand-rubbing) in crisis, and he or she stands for a new vision, rooted (in the case of Shamanism) in indigenous values.

It can be very alluring. It's a story as old as the hills. It makes you one of the good guys, it gives you belonging and it gives you purpose. It tells you who you are. It is hard to see through, until the teacher has too many one-night stands with the pupils.

But even after you've had your own crisis and left the teacher, you're probably still left feeling like you're one of the good guys in an unspiritual world. That one goes deep. It is foundational to the 'counter-culture' in which most of us here swim to some degree.

But it is a false identity. I'm sure I could do no better a job of running the world than those appointed to do so. It is fiendishly complex, with a down side to every decision.

The self-serving complacency of the counter-culture. That is one way of putting what I am railing against. No, your simple solutions for the world are not a product of your good-heartedness and insight, just naivety and a wish to be above the fray. The 'us against them' thing goes very deep. Anti-capitalist, anti-Tory, anti conventional medicine and conventional farming, anti the pharmaceutical and oil industries ..... the list goes on. It is self-serving and it is hokum.

Let us be with the world, like a good therapist would be with, rather than opposing, their client. See what it is that people are trying to achieve, and assume that people in positions of influence are there because they are competent and acting in good faith. Taking successful people down is not insight, it is envy.

When we look at the world from its point of view, with a consideration for facts, then we look with compassion, and we can be of real help. And it also opens our eyes to the real bad actors, instead of the imaginary ones. Some of whom may be very close to home, in spiritual guise.

 

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Dr Patrick Moore was one of the founders of Greenpeace. He left in the 80s when the anti-capitalists and anti-humanists took over. He is a scientist, and here he argues against the nonsense of the climate 'crisis' and the lies surrounding it. He argues that higher CO2 is good for the natural world, judging by the past, and that it only plays a small part in global warming, which is itself also a good thing. CO2 is at a historic low, and humans are saving the planet by burning fossil fuels! Here he is in a recent interview.

 

                

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In my happy place yesterday, high up on Dartmoor in the sunshine after a month of rain. 

The view over Burrator reservoir from Down Tor. 

 

Then the stone circle and stone rows I had not visited before. Half an hour curled up on the ground in the second circle, no-one else in sight. 

 

Finally, on the way back, a surprise fairy path, with cut roses at a small tor, and a gateway through thorn trees further down. And right at the end, a phone call from my son in London, ringing for no reason. He's never done that before, he wouldn't know how cheering it was for me.

TRANSGENDER: A SHAMANIC PERSPECTIVE

Shamanism begins with a remembering that we belong to the natural world. We are part of her, and she takes care of us. We learn to trust her. And for the same reason, we trust the body we are born into, whether it is male or female. It is not the wrong body! This is very basic.

But what happens if you experience the other gender within yourself? Again, TRUST IT! You have an interesting journey to undergo. You are both genders, you are gifted, you bring a perspective to life that others do not have. If your people are civilised, they will look to you. If they are uncivilised, they will taunt you for being different.

You may look just the same as everyone else. Or you may be a man living as a woman, or vice-versa. Many people do not like difference. They want to know what is what, and they fear the unknown. You will need to let their arrows bounce off you, and not take it personally. This is a warrior training that forges character, for few people have the strength to live outside herd approval.

Your dual nature is a gift from Spirit. When you present as the other gender, there is a ceremonial element to it, an archetypal power that passes through you. You may want to do it all the time, or just when the call to do so is there.

Gender is real and distinct for the great majority of people, and it tells them who they are. It is a partial identity, but it is the identity they need to live. To say that gender is just a social construct is to deny a very basic and ancient fact of existence. It is harmful to push this at people. If you grew up on a farm like I did, you will know that a lot of our gender-associated behaviour is biologically, not socially, determined.

Basic as the distinction is between male and female, it is also fluid. In achieving a deeper balance during the course of our lifetimes, we may feel we have become both genders, or neither. This is what Jan Morris, one of the earliest men to have transgender surgery, said in his eighties.

We live in a literalising culture that does not understand Ceremony and Spirit. When people opt for surgery and start to insist they are the other gender and that others must recognise them as such, they are literalising a god or goddess that is working through them; they are trying to become it, and in doing so they turn a gift into a curse. It is a tragedy.

What is also a tragedy is young people joining a bandwagon, thinking that changing gender will solve their problems, and adults colluding in this and offering irreversible chemical and surgical mutilation. The stories of castrated or breastless young people who are now 'detransitioning' are heartbreaking. Their accounts are difficult to listen to. For most of them, the research shows that the real issue is that they are gay, and they need time to realise this.

Identity is not such a big deal. It is ultimately illusory, even though ordinary humanity needs it for psychological well-being. Humans are relational as much as they are autonomous, and who we are is a product of a negotiation with the outside world. This is something we learn in the school playground. You can't insist on how people see you. It is natural and part of their development for a 2 year-old to insist that really they are a princess or a superhero, and adults play along with it. But for an adult male to insist they are 'really' a woman is delusional and infantile. It is fuelled by a medical lie that we can physically change gender. We cannot. There is only ersatz and mutilation. There is money to be made from this lie, doctors know it is a lie, and hopefully there will eventually be an accounting and a reckoning for this malpractice.

If you are at ease with who you are, you do not need to insist on how others see you. Nor do you need to go on marches about it, displaying it in public. You quietly get on with who you are. The sacred is degraded when it is turned into a political campaign.

Many people such as artists will have both genders working through them. Both are needed, to some degree, in order to be creative. They may not feel the need to present as other than the gender they were born into.

There is a natural process whereby we encounter the other gender within during the second half of life: this is Jung's Anima and Animus. Men become better able to listen to themselves and to others, listen with their feelings; and women become better able to know what they want, and not feel so obliged to please others and to take care of them.

So here's to masculine women and feminine men, and the riches they bring. My perspective is indebted to the Native American Two-Spirit tradition, which is worth looking up on Youtube.

 

And, something for everyone, 

 

here is the 10 min youtube version of this post. You can find my youtube channel, full of 10 min videos here.

LOVE AND DEATH

When we die, we become what we always were: everything. That is why Taliesin, the original Celtic Shaman, sang:

"I have been a speckled snake on the hill, I have been a viper in Llyn. I have been a bill-hook crooked that cuts..."

 

Nancy Wood was an American poet who spent many years living alongside the Indians on the Pueblo, absorbing their ways of seeing the world. Her poetry is inspired by the Pueblo. You could say this is a metaphysical love poem:

 

A long time I have lived with you

And now we must be going

Separately to be together.

Perhaps I shall be the wind

To blur your smooth waters

So that you do not see your face too much.

Perhaps I shall be the star

To guide your uncertain wings

So that you have direction in the night.

Perhaps I shall be the fire

To separate your thoughts

So that you do not give up.

Perhaps I shall be the rain

To open up the earth

So that your seed may fall.

Perhaps I shall be the snow

To let your blossoms sleep

So that you may bloom in spring.

Perhaps I shall be the stream

To play a song on the rock

So that you are not alone.

Perhaps I shall be a new mountain

So that you always have a home.

FATE, SPIRIT HELPERS and SOUL-LOSS

In Greek Mythology, the 3 Moirai determine our Fate. One spins the thread of life, the next allots its nature and length, and the next cuts it, determining the time and nature of our death. After death, we are judged not on our deeds but on how well we have responded to the challenges the Fates sent our way - or, in later Christian mythology, how well we have borne our cross. Very Saturnian theme, if you are an astrologer. Behind the Fates lies the goddess Ananke, Necessity, who cannot be circumvented.

What I like about this mythology is the sense of our life as a pattern that is already there to be lived out. We may in dreams or in moments of vision get a glimpse of this larger pattern. Or another person may be able to read it for us, much as an Elder might read the life path of a young person returning with a vision from a solitary time in the wilderness. Jung had this ability: Robert Johnson (whose books I recommend) brought a dream to him as a young man, and Jung laid the future pattern of his life before him, including the injunctions to never marry and to never join anything. It never worked for Johnson if he attempted to go against these injunctions.

I think we can get a sense of this fated dimension of life at moments of major change. Someone close to us dies, perhaps, or an opportunity presents itself that we cannot see the full implications of, but we know we have to do it. Or a person shows up who we get a sense we are meant to be around. Fate, a living thing, is that which we have to do, and Free Will is the willingness to do it gladly, as Jung said.

With this perspective of life being in a sense woven for us in advance - though outside of time - life becomes a series of gifts and opportunities to seize, and crosses to bear. It is the Moirai - the Norn's in Norse Mythology - who make us what we are, far more than our parents ever did: they are but a light overlay.

'Know thyself' was written above the entrance to the Oracle at Delphi. Thy 'self' is a pattern inextricably woven in with the patterns of others. It has a part to play in whatever it is that the universe is up to, which we can never know, but it is nevertheless the Mystery we need to live close to.

In the Shamanic traditions, we have the idea of spirit helpers, who act as intermediaries between ourselves and the Great Spirit, the Great Mystery in which resides our living Fate. These helpers may be clearly defined, or we may have just a general sense of help being around us. It is important that we have this sense of being helped, that we are not the truncated lone hero of the Protestant tradition, carving out his place in a hostile wilderness.

In core shamanism, one is taught to have a clearly defined sense of helpers. But because it is a system, it doesn't always have the necessary nuance. You may feel you are wanting or inadequate, because you do not have a clearly defined sense of who your animal or human helpers are. But if you can pull back from that, it may be that your general sense of being helped by a benign universe is stronger than someone else's, who may have a very clearly defined set of spirit helpers. Trust whatever way that Spirit/the Spirits appear to you.

What about the shamanic idea of soul loss? When I learnt core shamanism in 1997, I was taught that soul loss is often indicated by someone's life not working very well in certain ways, or at all. This was, I was taught, usually the result of some traumatic incident earlier in life, in which part of the soul had fled for self-protection. The job of the shaman was to bring that piece of soul back so that the person could become whole and their life could work. This description of soul loss seems to have been tailored to fit the modern western psychotherapeutic model, which places much emphasis on the idea that who we are is fundamentally shaped by our childhood.

If we have the sense of the larger Fate around our lives, then this childhood emphasis appears to be simply not the case. It contains a certain amount of truth, but Fate, not childhood, needs to be the first port of call in healing ourselves and in acquiring self-understanding. What we most need is not reductive stories rooted in childhood, but mythologies that tie us in to cosmic dramas. "Trailing clouds of glory do we come," as Wordsworth wrote.

It is always important to stay close to experience. What we do experience are our tribulations: suffering is one of the most real experiences we have. What we do not experience is the cause of that which torments us: attempts to do so are speculative. Explanatory childhood stories may seem very persuasive, they may even contain some truth, but truly our demons are a mystery, they are part of the Fate woven for us at birth. What we may view as traumatic, and as something having 'gone wrong' that needs repairing, is not necessarily how the Spirits see it.

What we call 'soul loss' may be precisely the difficulty we need in order to get us to seize our Fate. I am not saying soul retrieval does not work - of course it does, it can be a profound thing. What I am arguing around is how we see it.

I think soul retrieval is best seen not as healing something that went wrong in childhood, but as helping someone find the wherewithal to seize their life. I once had a Jaguar put in me, that gave me the resources to undertake something that I previously experienced as beyond me, because it would have caused me too much anxiety. It did not involve any childhood explanation for my anxiety. It was a nudge to help me live in alignment with the deeper patterns of my life.

Why we have our demons is a mystery. Did they come in with us, did we choose a childhood that would mirror them, so that they would be 'in our face'?

So yes, sometimes we do soul retrievals, and it can be beautiful work. But I think the emphasis on any explanations that come with it needs to be geared towards the future rather than the past. What it is that we can now dare to do or to be, rather than correcting some past 'mistake'.

So soul loss can be a necessary thing. It can give us precisely the struggles we need to claim our destiny, the deeper currents in our life.

The primary emphasis also needs to be on bringing our own bits of soul back, for there is a claiming that only we can ultimately do. I think when soul retrieval through the agency of a shaman occurs, it is because sometimes we get too bogged down in our own stuff to see the way forward. And in either case, the context needs to be here is a part of you whose time has come to be lived, rather than here is something you should have been living all along if not for your dysfunctional parents.

There is always a bigger theme around soul retrieval, that may take time to emerge, but which I think is its real meaning. There may well sometimes be psychological explanations that help, but the context needs always to be the 'big-picture', which I think the Spirits are usually happy to provide. Both science and psychotherapy can be very reductive of the human being, and it is important that we do not concede to that reductionism - as core shamanism easily does - but rather make Shamanism a means of reclaiming a larger vision of existence.

SHAMANISM AFTER THE NHS

Here's a thing I'm mulling over. Much of the traditional shaman's work would have been the physical ailments that were afflicting people. In the UK, we have the NHS for that, and other countries have their own arrangements. So where does that leave the healers? By and large, with people's psychological ailments - which, as Jung said, invariably comes down to what it is that gives meaning, that is not being lived. So, in Shamanic terms, it comes down to people having a good relationship with their Spirits: they are our connection to meaning and to the Great Mystery.

I don't think our main job is going into people's Otherworld and doing extractions, retrievals and depossessions. That will happen occasionally, and that has its own beauty. I think our main job is relating, one human being to another. If our Spirits are around us in this reality, without having to bang a drum and head off somewhere else - which they bloody well ought to be - then that will bring the other person closer to their own Spirits: closer to themselves, in a deeper sense. That is, ultimately, all we are here to do.

WILD GEESE

 

I've been learning poetry recently. It's a wonderful thing to do. It gets deep into you, entwines itself in your being, and gives a wonderful vehicle for expression. It occurred to me that it is also about the ancestors: absorbing the best of the past, standing on the shoulders of those who came before. (That's me in the video, just in case you're wondering 😂)