Surrendering to Spirit

An Elder has a strong presence, not because they are full of will, but because moment-to-moment they are surrendering to the flow of Spirit within and without. In a sense that is straightforward, but it requires continual attention. We'll probably never stop the random thoughts and personalised reactions that are always floating by, and which sometimes consume us, but we can always make room for Spirit. It's something that is built over many years.

Black Elk

It's not really about stopping anything. That has too much of the big stick about it. It's more about paying attention to that bigger picture within, that is always there, which we learn to trust, and that has a feeling of integrity and even joy to it. It is carrot!

ON HANDING OUR SHADOW OVER TO THE POLITICIANS

To be some kind of competent healer and have a bit of wisdom to offer, we need to begin with ourselves. Life usually drags us through some sort of painful process where we encounter our human failings and realise that it is OK to have them, and that everyone else has them, that we are one big family hobbling along from cock-up to cock-up. 

And this is profound. It means you are not just hobbling along from cock-up to cock-up, but you KNOW you are doing so. That is the difference, and it dismembers that ridiculous sense of self that likes to strut and have imaginings about itself. And with that sense of being part of the general mess comes compassion.

This post was originally about politics, and how we project our shadow - our messiness - onto the politicians and the party we don't vote for. Badness is out there, rather than with our righteous selves. In our case, that usually means the right-wing politicians who are the bad guys. We make judgements about them when we don't even know them. 

And this was prompted by a Facebook post called 'Nobody likes a Tory'. I call this liberal mob-mentality. I rail against this when I see it in people who, in my mind, could know better. Politicians of whatever persuasion are usually muddling along just like we are, no better and no worse.

Here's an exercise: give Donald Trump credit when he gets something right. This is virtually impossible for many people. He is such a good shadow hook, because he really is awful in many ways. But if you can't give him credit - or Boris Johnson for that matter - then you are acting in an unconscious way.

ON NOT BEING A VEGETARIAN

I was talking to a vegetarian yesterday, and for her it was a simple matter of feeling, of opening your heart, and then you really wouldn't want to eat meat.

And I didn't have an argument against it. I was vegetarian in my 20s and 30s. It began briefly before my Buddhist days, and then in a sustained way while I was doing Buddhism. Though because there was a group dynamic at work, meat-eating also acquired elements of taboo.

And then along came Shamanism, an earth-based path that put the life back into me - and eventually, the meat-eating. I felt there was something missing in me that was supplied by meat. And last night I lay awake thinking about this issue, and I realised that I couldn't go back to being vegetarian. My head and heart can provide good reasons for being vegetarian. But on a gut/instinctual level, which takes me right down through my feet and into the earth, I just cannot be vegetarian. I don't exactly know why. It is something to do with having my hands in the entrails of life, to do with doing what people have always naturally done, which is to eat meat.

Maybe it is easier for a lot of women to be vegetarian, because through childbirth they are brought closer to the earth and to a raw experience of life than men are. Sweatlodges are often more of a man thing, because they are the ones who get ungrounded with all their head stuff and warrior thing. 

So I don't know, I'm just speculating. What I have seen in this is each persuasion judging the other, and it's easy to see why. Vegetarians moralising at meat eaters, and meat eaters making fun of vegetarians. But I think it's best to live and let live and trust that people are genuine in what they do.

Local and Global

I think that we are both locally based and citizens of the world at the same time. So with our shamanism or animism or whatever we call it, we need to find roots in the people and land we are part of; but also to draw inspiration from around the world, and incorporate what others have done as appropriate. I think this is about being true to who we are these days. It is a great opportunity.

A SHOUT, A DECLARATION FROM THE SPIRIT WORLD

This is a bit of a thought experiment, and I'm going to be a bit controversial, so please take it in that spirit.

It is this. The way many of us have been taught to encounter the Spirit World is through 'shamanic journeying', as taught by Michael Harner. And it is safe. It suits cerebral westerners who don't want anything too physical or too expressive, and which can therefore achieve a kind of respectability in the worlds of academia (Harner's world) and therapy.

And it works. To some extent. It worked for me and it changed me, many years ago. But most of the raw power is missing. We don't do primordial. When I go to the Spirit world, it is these things. I am taken over physically by the Spirit and I am expressive both physically and verbally in a way that is all-consuming and entirely free-flowing. And it is therefore ecstatic. I have had dogs barking at me when I work, for they sense the animal presence that could dispatch them with a swipe of its claw. 

In the Harner method (which no indigenous person I have ever heard of uses) the body is not involved, and nor is speech/song. THE SPIRIT CANNOT INCARNATE. For Mongolians shamans, it is standard that the spirit comes into you physically. It is standard too in voodoo, and maybe that is why we are terrified of it. It is the power of the irrational, of the unconscious. Harner tries to tame it, to keep it in the service of the rational mind. But you can't do it. Spirit will erupt and destroy that puny edifice.

Trance dance is maybe the nearest we get to this true surrender to Spirit. That is where it began for me. It is such a deep encounter, because Spirit gets to use the whole of us.

And I would like to see the way we teach journeying change fundamentally so that it is geared towards this experience, and doing healing work on that basis. I might even say that if you can't let Spirit use you in this sort of way, then it's not your path. Let us have no more tame 'shamanic practitioners'. Let us have those who are able to be unashamedly possessed by Spirit. It's the real deal.

SNAKE

Here is a great post from October on the snake by Chris Luttichau who runs the Northern Drum Shamanic Centre (see below):

SNAKE
Now is the time when adders go into hibernation. Every year I seek out locations where I can encounter these old friends. Snakes have been part of my life since I was a child. There was a dare in Denmark when I grew up: pick up an adder and hold it by the tip of the tail, it won’t be able to reach your hand and bite (catching an adder can be very dangerous, so do not attempt this).

Later this skill came in handy when I lived in the States and had to catch rattlesnakes that had gotten into people’s dwelling spaces. Rattlesnakes, however, would be able to reach your hand if you held them by the tail, so they require a different approach.

These experiences taught me one important thing about venomous snakes: they are peaceful creatures. It takes a lot of provocation to arouse their aggression and make them bite. However, if you overstep their boundaries, there are dire consequences. It was a vital lesson, one that can be applied in many ways.

The second lesson I learned was that snakes can go almost anywhere. Where many other animals can’t find a way in, snakes can: through crevices into caves, into holes in the earth, up into trees, snakes explore all spaces, nothing is hidden.

Metaphorically this means that snakes have the ability to find their way into any secret space, and unlock what is hidden for others. They find their way into the mysterious chambers of the underworld, and this means that they have the power of expanded awareness.

This quality extends into the snake’s awareness of the Earth, and what is happening on the planet. The whole body of most snakes is in contact with the earth all the time, unlike humans and animals where only our feet are touching the earth most of the time, and in the case of birds where the body is removed from the earth a lot of the time.

The snake knows when an earthquake is coming long before it arrives. Indigenous people know this and have made an art of reading and understanding the behaviour of snakes so that they could see what the snake knew and be prepared for what was coming. Snakes know things that human don’t, and in this way they have mastered awareness and perception.

The close connection to, and knowledge of, the Earth is partly why snakes are depicted in statuettes with ancient goddesses, such as the Minoan snake goddess from Crete, along with goddesses from Asia, Egypt and other Middle Eastern cultures. Snake represents the Earth Mother. This symbolism can also be found in many cultures of ancient Mexico in the form of Quetzacoatl, the feathered serpent. Amongst other things Quetzacoatl represents the union of the snake and the quetzal/eagle.: the earth and the sun, the material and the spirit, instinct and consciousness. Together they take flight into awakened consciousness.

The fundamental creative power of the Earth is also embodied in the snake. In India, the kundalini energy is portrayed as a coiled snake at the base of the spine, where it lies dormant, waiting for the right moment to awaken and rise up to the crown, bringing union and awakening.

This is a power that can transform and transmute. Sometimes it will blow things out of the way and tear things apart because it holds the power of transformation, close to the power of creation.

It’s a power of renewal, and like the snake that sheds its skin it leads to rebirth. The snake sheds its skin in one go, not scale by scale. The power of the snake is intense, and not always pleasant, but it leads to rebirth. As the snake repeatedly sheds its skin it teaches us to renew ourselves and not resist change.

The eyes of the snake seem impervious to what happens around it, as if it is a messenger from realms other than the human. In the ancient ouroboros image of the snake biting its own tail, we can see infinity and eternal return, showing us that all life sustains itself upon life in the eternal cycle of birth and death, and that destruction and renewal are part of the cosmic dance of creation. The snake points us towards understanding the union of opposites, integrating our own shadow, and realizing the oneness of all that is. For thousands of years the snake has taught humans that reality is not what it appears to be on the surface.