It's not the done thing if you are English to say that you are good at something. Rather, you understate, and assume that people will read between the lines. I rather like it, assuming that one's audience can actually read between the lines, for it takes the edge off the egotism that we can't help but have. Americans are not like this, they will wave at you from the hilltop about what they are good at, and I like that too, it is honest and refreshing.
So I am going to have a go at being American, in the interests of something a bit bigger than myself (only a bit bigger, being English I don't want to sound grandiose.)
When I do my Shamanic work, I embody these fuckers that come through me, and I speak expressively in their mysterious and urgent tongue. I do not know anyone else who works in that way. Sometimes I will wear a leopardskin dress in honour of the powerful female spirit that wants to work though me, which can be so delicate. At other times I will be a Bear, roaring without regard for the neighbours. And the work that is done is effective, deep things are shifted. I have no doubt that this way would be recognised by Siberian Shamans, who dance their spirits, which has the same kind of power. It is not what so-called 'core shamanism' teaches, which is but a pale reflection, albeit safe and civilised, of this traditional way of working.
So there is my boast. It is not something I say lightly. But I want this possibility to be known about, for those who feel that call, who want to bust through the inhibition that the body is not the spirit, that Christianity and now Science (the mind/body divide) have bequeathed us.
There is an initiatory energy in it, it is a high voltage cable, if you can bring yourself to step outside the usual civilised self - and become wild, which is just another world for self-possession (look at wild animals: they do everything for a reason, they know who they are, unlike ourselves, much of the time.)
I think it is about time I started teaching this stuff. I have had 40 years experience in how not to do it. Specifically, it cannot involve ambition, the personal desire to establish a name, a reputation. That takes some not-doing. It also requires insight into the natural propensity to treat teachers as the guys with the answers, and to be able to deflect that. Our job as teachers is to nudge people into trusting their own inner guidance. No more and no less. It is that simple, and that difficult.
Whether or not you want to dance the Spirits like I do - and I think that will always be a minority interest - I am always available, whoever you are, to chew stuff over and to help identify what might give meaning to your life in particular. I'm usually of some use in this respect, and astrology is one of my tools.
Be that as it may, I think it is time I also engaged with groups of people, in a broad kind of way, that includes but is not confined to my way of working. And which also creates community, outside of the usual teacher-obsessed paradigm that our shamanism usually seems to fall into, but which is to be expected. I do not rail against it, but what I can provide is something outside of that, that leaves you in possession of your own soul. I have no need of students as a way of bolstering myself.
I have the notion to run a non-certificated course in shamanism, that will not qualify you to do anything - only you can be the judge of that - but which might help bring you closer to who you are. And that will create a free kind of community, that is not hedged in by the usual anti-establishment stance by which shamanism, and our counter culture more generally, defines itself. Watch this space, I might have something ongoing, and not online, planned for next year.
And finally, a few lines:
"Do not tell me you are a 'shamanic practitioner',
Without a sick-bucket to hand.
Do not show me your phoney certificates
Penned by professionals building a legacy.
Rather let me eavesdrop on those whispers you cannot resist,
Drawing you on a voyage to oceans unseen.
Interested
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