All ceremonies begin with gratitude, with giving thanks. This is something humans forget to do. That's why it needs to be in a ceremony, because we forget to be grateful, we're too busy and we easily take things for granted, we are not very thoughtful in that way. I think this is a big deal in our modern culture, because our attitude to what is conventional, what is established, to authority can be very anti if we're in the shamanic world or the counter-culture. When we're anti like that, it can be hard to experience gratitude, because what we could be grateful for is provided to us by what we're against.
We are provided with food and shelter and health and education and safety and so on: there is a lot that is very basic to be grateful for. But people can feel that being appreciative of and grateful for those things means that they're being complacent and uncompassionate, because we've got to keep an eye on the underprivileged, those who are suffering, because people don't care about them. How can you sit there enjoying your cappuccino when people in Africa are starving? But it's not an either/or. We can be grateful for what works, without that meaning we don’t care about the sufferings of the world. Even then, the news will give you any number of desperate situations around the world to feel compassionate about. It can overwhelm you.
Two points arise from this. Firstly, charity begins at home. I always say yes to anyone who comes my way in need of the kind of help I can offer, and I deliberately do not get involved in suffering that is remote from me. How would I know what helps and what doesn’t help? The other point is that people often NEED the establishment to be the bad guys, because that makes them feel good about themselves, it makes them spiritual and even shamanic. Pointing out the people that they think government should be taking more care of affirms this position, and makes them the compassionate ones, because they care, unlike the greedy capitalists who really run the show. As if they could do any better at making the very complex decisions that the government has to make.
I am pressing what amounts to a political point, because it is an attitude that gets in the way of basic gratitude towards our society, for what works in a basic way. If you can’t experience basic gratitude because your politics won’t allow you to, then you are not going to get very far Shamanically. Even if you didn’t vote for this particular government, they are still keeping the whole show shambling along, the show that feeds us and protects us in its imperfect way. Appreciate that. Our gratitude extends back ultimately to the earth herself, because everything comes from her.
Moreover, that which we are grateful for is usually not perfect. The food we have may be produced in ways we are not happy with; the metals in the phone we have may be the product of mining methods that do not respect the earth; the medical care we get may involve drugs that do harm as well as good; and so on. But even with these limitations, we still have all those things to be grateful for. Again, we need a supportive attitude to the society that produces these things. Outright opposition takes us away from gratitude. Mining, for example, brings us riches from the earth. It needs to be done with respect, and made beautiful afterwards. Oil brings us further riches from the earth that are at the root of our prosperity and well-being. Appreciate her bounty, and use it wisely. This does not mean you don’t care about the environment. There is no point opposing the direction of the modern world. It is much better to work with what is happening, tweak it, and call for an appreciation of the earth as a living being.
I recommend once a day, just stop for a minute and remember all these good things, and feel your appreciation. It is a feeling thing, not an ‘ought to’ thing. It is for your own well-being and balance. It is not about making you a good shamanic person: that is religion. You can make it ceremonial. You can lie on the earth if you like, feel her and thank her, and feel her care for you. Gratitude connects you to everything, it is profound. It is a connection to who we really are, which is infinite, everything.
It's worth remembering too that your gifts are not yours, that is why they are called gifts. If you have a high IQ, if you are smart, that isn’t something you earned. You were born with it, it was given to you. We don’t usually remember these things. It’s hard not to identify with our gifts, it’s just what humans do. You can spend your whole life priding yourself on being smarter than the people round you. Or better looking, or wealthier. Or taller, if you are a man. And so on. So it's good to be thankful for these things too. No false modesty here, acknowledge the gifts and be thankful for them. And that will haul you off the identification with them, and into a foundation in yourself that is more real, that has more humility.
There are all these things that we can be grateful for, we can spend our life being grateful, walking around with the feeling of gratitude, hardly being able to believe that you're alive, for life itself is a gift – and a complete mystery. Just to be alive is a joy, it's rich. Of course there are difficult things that we have to engage with, and sometimes it's really bloody miserable and we don't know if we want to be here or not, but at the end of the day it's meaningful and it's joyful. There's something rich there, we know that we have to stay here for this journey, we have to be here for this innings, however difficult it is at times.
It's not about being happy. That's the mistake people can make these days. When you look back on your life at the periods that you remember most, that really mattered, that were the most fulfilling, they were probably the bits where you really grappled with something; there were difficulties that you faced and overcame, and that changed who you were. You probably weren't happy for much of those times, but they are the times you remember, they are what you're proud of.
So we're not mainly here to be happy, we're here to find meaning and that's often a difficult process. Through the meaning we grow and unfold, it's where the life is bubbling up through us, and we meet the new life that is wanting to emerge. That's often a difficult process. But we are grateful for that opportunity. I often say to people in the context of astrology readings and whatever difficult event has happened to them, that one day they are going to look back and be grateful through gritted teeth for that awful person, the ‘worthy opponent’ it is sometimes called, or the health crisis, or their spouse leaving, whatever it is. Here we are, grateful for the suffering that came our way, that was brought to us, maybe by the Spirit, for we learnt so much from it.
I think Christianity can turn this kind of suffering into a bit of a cult, where it becomes the main thing, and we’re meant to be grateful to Jesus for being tortured to death on our behalf. The Christians are onto something, but I think it gets all twisted up and made too central. I’d rather think of the Sundance, where your flesh is ceremonially pierced and torn. There is a closeness to the Great Spirit to be found here, within the privation and suffering. And therefore the sense of gratitude.
Be grateful to people who are successful, because they often create prosperity. I'm grateful for the fact that I can just find something on Amazon and buy it. I may not be entirely happy about everything Jeff Bezos, the founder, does, but I am grateful for the opportunity to encounter all those books I would never have encountered. That's difficult for a lot of people because Jeff Bezos is hugely wealthy, and as humans it serves us to envy and judge people like that, it is our comfort zone. Envy goes deep, it is the first sin in the Bible after Eden, when Cain kills his brother Abel out of envy at God favouring him. So here is a big challenge: be grateful to Jeff Bezos for what he has given us. But as I say, that doesn’t mean being uncritical of him. It is a complex picture, like everything in life. In this way gratitude makes us big-hearted, it goes against the very human tendency to live from the small, narrow mean-spirited place that can colour our whole view of the world. This kind of gratitude is a revolutionary act for many people, for it can challenge who we are at a deep level.
Be grateful for all these wonderful technologies that we have. There are only going to be more of them, they are a natural thing for humans to keep creating, so embrace them. Our task is not to judge and oppose them – that is too easy, it is complacent, it is even a kind of spiritual bypass. It is what religions have always done: put themselves above the world. Our task is to find new ways of bringing these technologies into balance with the natural world. We need to be a kind of anchor on the earth while humanity, Icarus-like, heads for the Sun, attempts to become god-like.
In conclusion, we 're just grateful just to be here and everything and everyone that comes with that, and we begin any ceremony by remembering and expressing our gratitude for that, because it so easily gets forgotten. Express it once a day all at least, have it in mind. Just feel appreciativeness for the house you've got, however inadequate it may be, and for the clothes you wear, for the people who made them. All those people and things that are near you.
