NOLO EPISCOPARI

If you are appointed to be a bishop in the church, you begin by refusing. You say "Nolo episcopari" which means "I do not want to be a bishop." It has become a formality. But you can see the sense in it. You are there to serve God rather than your own ambition.

But of course they want to be fucking bishops, which of us doesn't want promotion? And which of us doesn't want to be a shamanic teacher or healer? Of course we fucking do. I spent years wanting to, and yet there was another side of me for which it felt wrong, so I didn't. I thought it was because there was something wrong with me. In fact there was something right with me, it was the voice of Spirit, that had a much deeper agenda for me than I could know.

But I had to get the ambition out of me first. There is nothing wrong with ambition, the desire to become good at something and to create a place for yourself in the world. I did that by making money and teaching myself astrology and writing. It probably took me till my early sixties until the ambition was sufficiently satisfied, sufficiently killed off, for Spirit to start to send teaching and healing work my way again. I'd been teaching from my late twenties to my early forties, and then it began to feel wrong.

Ambition has no place in a teacher or healer. The people in your care deserve no less. In the long term you will do far more good for other people by waiting, perhaps for many years. Unfortunately, this perspective is not part of our culture. We have forgotten it, and do not have the elders around to gently rein us in.

If anything, it's the opposite: courses on shamanic healing are readily available and relatively brief, and off you go. From there it's only one step to being a teacher, and then you've really made it. Lots of people will look up to you, and really, honestly, can you handle that, or will it become a part of who you are? That is another reason for waiting. I am not saying people don't do good by doing this stuff when younger, but it's easy to do harm as well, in fact almost inevitable, because of the shadow side. The unconscious needy ego.

And another thing. Self-promotion. I've never been able to advertise myself as this or that. I can say what I do, but I'll be damned if I'm going to say, or imply, that I am good at it. That is distasteful, it is boasting, and I would not trust anyone who describes themselves in those terms. You know the sort of thing: they are perhaps from a long line of healers, they had unusual experiences when young that make them special, and they have had special teachings from indigenous people. I won't start on 'testimonials'!

Fuck all that. I am interested in who you are now, how you come across, not all the 'qualifications' you assign to yourself. That is for worldly matters, and it is probably necessary there. But this concerns your soul, and you do not boast about that.

Spirit is not in a hurry. Festina lente. Trust who comes your way and who doesn't come your way. Don't try and make it happen.