SPIRIT and SOUL

CHAOS SHAMANISM 5: SPIRIT and SOUL

So, the Spirit. Part 5 of this Chaos Shamanism series. Chaos meaning a number of things. Today it means the essence of Shamanism. The essence is Spirit, coming back to Spirit, always living from Spirit. That thing in you, we don't exactly know what it is; it's more than us, it's bigger than us, it's the place that we have to live from in a way. That's what Shamanism is about: it's about that, in the context of belonging to the natural world.

So we're talking about what's essential to Shamanism, what's core to Shamanism. Of course that term's already been taken up – ‘Core Shamanism’ - and it refers to a bunch of techniques for journeying to drums and doing healing work on that basis. And you know that's such a narrow way of describing this great project that we're undertaking, which is reclaiming indigeneity. We're reclaiming that indigenous worldview, that indigenous way of feeling about the world and relating to the world, that we've lost in our big religions, in Christianity and then in Science after that: Science is a big religion in its own way, because most of it is based on beliefs in certain absolute truths about the universe, that we have not and cannot verify for ourselves.

Somewhere that soulfulness of the world, that is also fire, earth, air and water or, more concretely, sun, rain, soil and wind, somewhere that connection has been lost. We've got caught up in this thing, you know, we're heading off up there to heaven, or the world's dead and we've got this great technological future before us that will save our souls.

We need to sort of come back to this soulfulness, this heartfulness, this connectedness, this simplicity. There's nowhere to go, there's nothing to do, it's just a life to be lived and this Spirit in us and the Spirits around us.

The Spirits. That's what I began with. What are these Spirits? I don't know. People talk about you know, their animal helper, their Spirit guide. I have different animal helpers that turn up at different times. I mean I do when I work. But also they may just be around. One was around a couple of years ago getting me to write a fantasy saga. But that’s another story.

I began with Core Shamanism in 1997. I did that course, but it's broadened or changed since then. Sure, I can lie down and journey to a drum, but actually the Spirits are just there anyway, like over my shoulder, and they shift into me physically. That's the thing, I don't go and meet the Spirits. Some indigenous people say no they come to you, you don't go to them, they come to you, that's how they say it, they even say there’s something wrong if you go to find them. And that's how it works for me: they come into me, I don't go and find them. I don't journey miles and miles down to a lower world and go looking. I'm not invalidating that, but there’s this other way, and it's just like they're there, over my shoulder, so to speak, because the Spirits are always with us.

They kind of are us and not us. It depends how we define ‘me’. In the narrow sense, no they're not us, they're outside and they come to us. In other ways they are us, in a bigger sense. We kind of are the universe, and there's these helpers which understand us intimately. They know how we're unfolding, they're gods of the unconscious, you could put it like that, but even the unconscious makes it too personal and narrow. This is is something bigger, it's a bigger cosmology. So we must never forget that we're part of a cosmology, an intimate part of a multidimensional cosmos, and we have our contribution to make, which in a way is not for us to explain. It's just whatever does it for us, in a deeper kind of sense!

So that's one way we could see the question of how do I live shamanically? Well, it's belonging to the natural world, being part of it, while also doing that thing that calls you, doing that thing that you love. Life in this sense is a joyful thing. But it can also require courage and patience and honesty. It is easy to make excuses, to put aside the things that really matter in the interest of the things we just think matter, or that we ought to do.

There's the ‘oughts’. Often the people around you, maybe the society around you, will tell you who you ought to be. That's just the way it works, it has its rules, it's trying to survive and prosper, so the collective tells you who you ought to be. Often that's helpful for people, but if you’ve got something else going on, you need to get rid of these oughts, they are someone else's idea. We need to do the things that we love. I mean of course we have responsibilities to fulfil, and that's part of life as well - economics, family - they help us incarnate and connect. But outside of that, and that's why you're reading this piece, you have something you're here to live.

Do you ever get that sense there's something in you, that you haven't lived yet, that needs living? I get that all the time, oh it can be hard bloody work! If I'm not living it I'll drink, too much. So I haven't had a drink now for two months, because it just anesthetizes that, it's an easy way out. It's a kind of creative spark or urge, and eventually you have to go with it. Or you may get ill or something, that is what the Shamanic illness in traditional cultures is about. An offer you cannot refuse! Spirit is essentially creative, we're here to live this creative life.

And you never know what it is that people will love. I mean I'm an astrologer I can look at the chart, but I don't know what it is that interests them, that pulls them, that calls them. It might be horses, it might be astrology or painting, it might be building things, it might be trees. I don't know what it is that gives you your joy, which also gives us our difficulty, something that stretches us.

The Spirits. Now we may or may not know what they are, it doesn't matter, sometimes it's like it's quite clear there's a bear around me, or a wolf, other times there's just something working through me. If you just have a sense of something but that is all, trust it. Not knowing can be good for us humans. The Spirits are there to help and to guide, they will guide us in the direction of that which we love. They support us in that, and it's a challenging place to live from, it's a difficult place, it'll stretch you and it'll give you self-doubt. As well as joy.

So what I'm going to ask you, is what would you like to be good at if you thought you were capable of it, what would do it for you? Because often we put these things aside, because we go oh no I'd be no good at it. I mean self-doubt is natural, it's necessary, because you're not good at it yet, you have to earn that kind of confidence rather than go to an analyst and talk it away. No no no, you have to earn it. And all the other neurotic self-doubt as well that's around, just get good at something you love. That's one of my central maxims for life: get good at something that you love.

And you can think well it's just not practical to do that thing, I can't have horses or whatever. But I think there's always a way, this is where the trust in Spirit comes in. There's always a way to do these things that we love. We get help, we find there's these mysterious openings when we take the initial steps, it’s like the cosmos responds. We can at least do a bit of whatever it is, we don't need to necessarily do an awful lot of it, just a bit to keep that connection. Over time it will grow, and opportunities that you could never have thought of will present themselves.

So that's the that's the main point I wanted to make today. Finding that thing, or those things, that you love. It's a good exercise. Find that thing that you love that you're not doing, because you think it's just not practical, or you'd be no good at it, all these excuses we make. It's about living creatively, it's about the Spirit being able to go beyond just following some kind of set of rules. You're bringing something new into existence, it's your own, and that's the deepest fulfilment, the deepest joy. That really is incarnation. Incarnation isn't just about earning a living and being responsible, no it's about something much deeper and bigger than that, it's about bringing that creative Spirit in, and living it, doing something with it, and that's very fulfilling, very joyful when you do that.