tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16693591772746954782024-03-23T03:16:13.691-07:00SHAMANIC FREE STATEBarry Goddardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10050835957098177925noreply@blogger.comBlogger369125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669359177274695478.post-75368089785377827292024-03-12T03:01:00.000-07:002024-03-12T03:01:07.681-07:00LOVE AND DEATH<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="ejumg-0-0"><span data-text="true">When we die, we become what we always were: everything. That is why Taliesin, the original Celtic Shaman, sang: </span></span></span></p><div data-contents="true"><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="6rt8d" data-offset-key="3g68d-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="3g68d-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="3g68d-0-0"><span data-text="true">"I have been a speckled snake on the hill,
I have been a viper in Llyn.
I have been a bill-hook crooked that cuts..."</span></span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="3g68d-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="3g68d-0-0"><span data-text="true"> </span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="6rt8d" data-offset-key="8l0be-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8l0be-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="8l0be-0-0"><span data-text="true">Nancy Wood was an American poet who spent many years living alongside the Indians on the Pueblo, absorbing their ways of seeing the world. Her poetry is inspired by the Pueblo. You could say this is a metaphysical love poem:</span></span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8l0be-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="8l0be-0-0"><span data-text="true"> </span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="6rt8d" data-offset-key="ecuq0-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="ecuq0-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="ecuq0-0-0"><span data-text="true"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidwUJhj2W3lkods-15hEzCtC_r1Nx2ShZVUAlc-VrwyZ1TLa2JPd-EfBP8pIucwQ-tsuJO_xhftWcRS09pDoFpomOsZP6PQwpaHU-B-PAwdZKT00rV2wGTvePPYNxRJKnPBjjJUTb96LitvHO6xtCkcfRoPWSpHW2RLKyOCqP2_DeXqz2S9myJ0g1S_lk/s632/a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="444" data-original-width="632" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidwUJhj2W3lkods-15hEzCtC_r1Nx2ShZVUAlc-VrwyZ1TLa2JPd-EfBP8pIucwQ-tsuJO_xhftWcRS09pDoFpomOsZP6PQwpaHU-B-PAwdZKT00rV2wGTvePPYNxRJKnPBjjJUTb96LitvHO6xtCkcfRoPWSpHW2RLKyOCqP2_DeXqz2S9myJ0g1S_lk/s320/a.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />A long time I have lived with you</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="6rt8d" data-offset-key="54bt5-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="54bt5-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="54bt5-0-0"><span data-text="true">And now we must be going</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="6rt8d" data-offset-key="28t9g-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="28t9g-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="28t9g-0-0"><span data-text="true">Separately to be together.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="6rt8d" data-offset-key="csrja-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="csrja-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="csrja-0-0"><span data-text="true">Perhaps I shall be the wind</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="6rt8d" data-offset-key="2he78-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="2he78-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="2he78-0-0"><span data-text="true">To blur your smooth waters</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="6rt8d" data-offset-key="em0qm-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="em0qm-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="em0qm-0-0"><span data-text="true">So that you do not see your face too much.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="6rt8d" data-offset-key="4uou3-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4uou3-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="4uou3-0-0"><span data-text="true">Perhaps I shall be the star</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="6rt8d" data-offset-key="dr06k-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="dr06k-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="dr06k-0-0"><span data-text="true">To guide your uncertain wings</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="6rt8d" data-offset-key="7d8gp-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="7d8gp-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="7d8gp-0-0"><span data-text="true">So that you have direction in the night.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="6rt8d" data-offset-key="6ig22-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="6ig22-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="6ig22-0-0"><span data-text="true">Perhaps I shall be the fire</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="6rt8d" data-offset-key="euuq4-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="euuq4-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="euuq4-0-0"><span data-text="true">To separate your thoughts</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="6rt8d" data-offset-key="fe608-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fe608-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="fe608-0-0"><span data-text="true">So that you do not give up.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="6rt8d" data-offset-key="8q31h-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8q31h-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="8q31h-0-0"><span data-text="true">Perhaps I shall be the rain</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="6rt8d" data-offset-key="fbo1c-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fbo1c-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="fbo1c-0-0"><span data-text="true">To open up the earth</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="6rt8d" data-offset-key="7ln44-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="7ln44-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="7ln44-0-0"><span data-text="true">So that your seed may fall.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="6rt8d" data-offset-key="20qq3-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="20qq3-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="20qq3-0-0"><span data-text="true">Perhaps I shall be the snow</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="6rt8d" data-offset-key="sjd-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="sjd-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="sjd-0-0"><span data-text="true">To let your blossoms sleep</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="6rt8d" data-offset-key="fui3j-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fui3j-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="fui3j-0-0"><span data-text="true">So that you may bloom in spring.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="6rt8d" data-offset-key="3idv6-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="3idv6-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="3idv6-0-0"><span data-text="true">Perhaps I shall be the stream</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="6rt8d" data-offset-key="1nn81-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="1nn81-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="1nn81-0-0"><span data-text="true">To play a song on the rock</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="6rt8d" data-offset-key="8allr-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8allr-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="8allr-0-0"><span data-text="true">So that you are not alone.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="6rt8d" data-offset-key="95h83-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="95h83-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="95h83-0-0"><span data-text="true">Perhaps I shall be a new mountain</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="6rt8d" data-offset-key="crhf9-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="crhf9-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="crhf9-0-0"><span data-text="true">So that you always have a home.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="6rt8d" data-offset-key="bana0-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="bana0-0-0"><span data-offset-key="bana0-0-0"><br data-text="true" /><br /></span></div></div></div>Barry Goddardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10050835957098177925noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669359177274695478.post-59571603741281859022024-02-27T09:54:00.000-08:002024-02-27T09:54:47.502-08:00FATE, SPIRIT HELPERS and SOUL-LOSS<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="bkumr-0-0"><span data-text="true">In Greek Mythology, the 3 Moirai determine our Fate. One spins the thread of life, the next allots its nature and length, and the next cuts it, determining the time and nature of our death. After death, we are judged not on our deeds but on how well we have responded to the challenges the Fates sent our way - or, in later Christian mythology, how well we have borne our cross. Very Saturnian theme, if you are an astrologer. Behind the Fates lies the goddess Ananke, Necessity, who cannot be circumvented.</span></span></span></p><div data-contents="true"><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="2e5th" data-offset-key="ld28-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="ld28-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="ld28-0-0"><span data-text="true"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghnXM6aA6XzGL2gacI0stk3BAZSfQ72IplHSbRmtX86QNph8AvLWXK35VphQDNlNru5l2YZ8FOIP0GWPDkb70Vk3pdv-C-_g5V8UwE_brioxEs0v00xAVk3xNLtHb9GYnvOjEIXznjoJLF2daC1PN9QfdI6mbE2pSrV6VnT7BV_IUEouOvRdCJgYfBzN4/s1013/a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1013" data-original-width="752" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghnXM6aA6XzGL2gacI0stk3BAZSfQ72IplHSbRmtX86QNph8AvLWXK35VphQDNlNru5l2YZ8FOIP0GWPDkb70Vk3pdv-C-_g5V8UwE_brioxEs0v00xAVk3xNLtHb9GYnvOjEIXznjoJLF2daC1PN9QfdI6mbE2pSrV6VnT7BV_IUEouOvRdCJgYfBzN4/w298-h400/a.jpg" width="298" /></a></div><br />What I like about this mythology is the sense of our life as a pattern that is already there to be lived out. We may in dreams or in moments of vision get a glimpse of this larger pattern. Or another person may be able to read it for us, much as an Elder might read the life path of a young person returning with a vision from a solitary time in the wilderness. Jung had this ability: Robert Johnson (whose books I recommend) brought a dream to him as a young man, and Jung laid the future pattern of his life before him, including the injunctions to never marry and to never join anything. It never worked for Johnson if he attempted to go against these injunctions.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="2e5th" data-offset-key="aukg7-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="aukg7-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="aukg7-0-0"><span data-text="true"></span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="2e5th" data-offset-key="bgsf6-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="bgsf6-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="bgsf6-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="2e5th" data-offset-key="94s6j-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="94s6j-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="94s6j-0-0"><span data-text="true">I think we can get a sense of this fated dimension of life at moments of major change. Someone close to us dies, perhaps, or an opportunity presents itself that we cannot see the full implications of, but we know we have to do it. Or a person shows up who we get a sense we are meant to be around. Fate, a living thing, is that which we have to do, and Free Will is the willingness to do it gladly, as Jung said.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="2e5th" data-offset-key="arrk8-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="arrk8-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="arrk8-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="2e5th" data-offset-key="fstl6-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fstl6-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="fstl6-0-0"><span data-text="true">With this perspective of life being in a sense woven for us in advance - though outside of time - life becomes a series of gifts and opportunities to seize, and crosses to bear. It is the Moirai - the Norn's in Norse Mythology - who make us what we are, far more than our parents ever did: they are but a light overlay.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="2e5th" data-offset-key="36vf5-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="36vf5-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="36vf5-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="2e5th" data-offset-key="19ue4-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="19ue4-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="19ue4-0-0"><span data-text="true">'Know thyself' was written above the entrance to the Oracle at Delphi. Thy 'self' is a pattern inextricably woven in with the patterns of others. It has a part to play in whatever it is that the universe is up to, which we can never know, but it is nevertheless the Mystery we need to live close to.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="2e5th" data-offset-key="d50pg-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="d50pg-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="d50pg-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="2e5th" data-offset-key="3okt1-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="3okt1-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="3okt1-0-0"><span data-text="true">In the Shamanic traditions, we have the idea of spirit helpers, who act as intermediaries between ourselves and the Great Spirit, the Great Mystery in which resides our living Fate. These helpers may be clearly defined, or we may have just a general sense of help being around us. It is important that we have this sense of being helped, that we are not the truncated lone hero of the Protestant tradition, carving out his place in a hostile wilderness. </span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="2e5th" data-offset-key="e82jh-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="e82jh-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="e82jh-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="2e5th" data-offset-key="9jsec-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="9jsec-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="9jsec-0-0"><span data-text="true">In core shamanism, one is taught to have a clearly defined sense of helpers. But because it is a system, it doesn't always have the necessary nuance. You may feel you are wanting or inadequate, because you do not have a clearly defined sense of who your animal or human helpers are. But if you can pull back from that, it may be that </span></span><span data-offset-key="9jsec-0-1" style="font-weight: bold;"><span data-text="true">your general sense of being helped by a benign universe is stronger than someone else's, who may have a very clearly defined set of spirit helpers. Trust whatever way that Spirit/the Spirits appear to you.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="2e5th" data-offset-key="5vcln-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5vcln-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="5vcln-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="2e5th" data-offset-key="57dd2-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="57dd2-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="57dd2-0-0"><span data-text="true">What about the shamanic idea of soul loss? When I learnt core shamanism in 1997, I was taught that soul loss is often indicated by someone's life not working very well in certain ways, or at all. This was, I was taught, usually the result of some traumatic incident earlier in life, in which part of the soul had fled for self-protection. The job of the shaman was to bring that piece of soul back so that the person could become whole and their life could work. This description of soul loss seems to have been tailored to fit the modern western psychotherapeutic model, which places much emphasis on the idea that who we are is fundamentally shaped by our childhood.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="2e5th" data-offset-key="c3cfd-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="c3cfd-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="c3cfd-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="2e5th" data-offset-key="88oo-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="88oo-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="88oo-0-0"><span data-text="true">If we have the sense of the larger Fate around our lives, then this childhood emphasis appears to be simply not the case. It contains a certain amount of truth, but </span></span><span data-offset-key="88oo-0-1" style="font-weight: bold;"><span data-text="true">Fate, not childhood, needs to be the first port of call in healing ourselves and in acquiring self-understanding. </span></span><span data-offset-key="88oo-0-2"><span data-text="true">What we most need is not reductive stories rooted in childhood, but mythologies that tie us in to cosmic dramas. "Trailing clouds of glory do we come," as Wordsworth wrote.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="2e5th" data-offset-key="4fkv5-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4fkv5-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="4fkv5-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="2e5th" data-offset-key="5ni45-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5ni45-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="5ni45-0-0"><span data-text="true">It is always important to stay close to experience. What we do experience are our tribulations: suffering is one of the most real experiences we have. What we do not experience is the cause of that which torments us: attempts to do so are speculative. Explanatory childhood stories may seem very persuasive, they may even contain some truth, but truly our demons are a mystery, they are part of the Fate woven for us at birth. What we may view as traumatic, and as something having 'gone wrong' that needs repairing, is not necessarily how the Spirits see it. </span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="2e5th" data-offset-key="cbc7u-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="cbc7u-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="cbc7u-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="2e5th" data-offset-key="78mao-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="78mao-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="78mao-0-0"><span data-text="true">What we call 'soul loss' may be precisely the difficulty we need in order to get us to seize our Fate. I am not saying soul retrieval does not work - of course it does, it can be a profound thing. What I am arguing around is how we see it.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="2e5th" data-offset-key="907jd-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="907jd-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="907jd-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="2e5th" data-offset-key="8gjdv-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8gjdv-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="8gjdv-0-0"><span data-text="true">I think soul retrieval is best seen not as healing something that went wrong in childhood, but as helping someone find the wherewithal to seize their life. I once had a Jaguar put in me, that gave me the resources to undertake something that I previously experienced as beyond me, because it would have caused me too much anxiety. It did not involve any childhood explanation for my anxiety. It was a nudge to help me live in alignment with the deeper patterns of my life.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="2e5th" data-offset-key="ft90j-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="ft90j-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="ft90j-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="2e5th" data-offset-key="8ns1d-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8ns1d-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="8ns1d-0-0"><span data-text="true">Why we have our demons is a mystery. Did they come in with us, did we choose a childhood that would mirror them, so that they would be 'in our face'? </span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="2e5th" data-offset-key="b5kap-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="b5kap-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="b5kap-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="2e5th" data-offset-key="9hh4q-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="9hh4q-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="9hh4q-0-0"><span data-text="true">So yes, sometimes we do soul retrievals, and it can be beautiful work. But I think the emphasis on any explanations that come with it needs to be geared towards the future rather than the past. What it is that we can now dare to do or to be, rather than correcting some past 'mistake'.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="2e5th" data-offset-key="bn503-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="bn503-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="bn503-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="2e5th" data-offset-key="91tq7-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="91tq7-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="91tq7-0-0"><span data-text="true">So soul loss can be a necessary thing. It can give us precisely the struggles we need to claim our destiny, the deeper currents in our life. </span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="2e5th" data-offset-key="77e0r-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="77e0r-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="77e0r-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="2e5th" data-offset-key="80akf-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="80akf-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="80akf-0-0"><span data-text="true">The primary emphasis also needs to be on bringing our own bits of soul back, for there is a claiming that only we can ultimately do. I think when soul retrieval through the agency of a shaman occurs, it is because sometimes we get too bogged down in our own stuff to see the way forward. And in either case, the context needs to be here is a part of you whose time has come to be lived, rather than here is something you should have been living all along if not for your dysfunctional parents.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="2e5th" data-offset-key="dsrt8-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="dsrt8-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="dsrt8-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="2e5th" data-offset-key="8tfrl-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8tfrl-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="8tfrl-0-0"><span data-text="true">There is always a bigger theme around soul retrieval, that may take time to emerge, but which I think is its real meaning. There may well sometimes be psychological explanations that help, but the context needs always to be the 'big-picture', which I think the Spirits are usually happy to provide. Both science and psychotherapy can be very reductive of the human being, and it is important that we do not concede to that reductionism - as core shamanism easily does - but rather make Shamanism a means of reclaiming a larger vision of existence.</span></span></span></div></div></div>Barry Goddardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10050835957098177925noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669359177274695478.post-83966711114339256872024-02-17T17:04:00.000-08:002024-02-17T17:04:04.085-08:00SHAMANISM AFTER THE NHS<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span><span data-offset-key="6ogdd-0-0">Here's a thing I'm mulling over. Much of the traditional shaman's work would have been the physical ailments that were afflicting people. In the UK, we have the NHS for that, and other countries have their own arrangements. So where does that leave the healers? By and large, with people's psychological ailments - which, as Jung said, invariably comes down to what it is that gives meaning, that is not being lived. So, in Shamanic terms, it comes down to people having a good relationship with their Spirits: they are our connection to meaning and to the Great Mystery.</span></span></span></p><div data-contents="true"><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="cr8h1" data-offset-key="aiq1n-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="aiq1n-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="aiq1n-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="cr8h1" data-offset-key="c5edq-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="c5edq-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="c5edq-0-0"><span data-text="true"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNdVRiDiRUclqlTS-goMmmlnQs4kMTZuxdgxgoxuGjxdSlJD7i1P1Gw2EHsMyzrdVPV3dD4XoM6HhWYASAu5ZdRfZ1_fSGqmnbJq2Xx9lDoBABuJDCY1vEaFlkeF9UHijkYfO2UgihCGATQNIy_YhdV4W_zVI276yTWvS8TNv91JrNZvcgTSTNXctlvC4/s455/a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="455" data-original-width="353" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNdVRiDiRUclqlTS-goMmmlnQs4kMTZuxdgxgoxuGjxdSlJD7i1P1Gw2EHsMyzrdVPV3dD4XoM6HhWYASAu5ZdRfZ1_fSGqmnbJq2Xx9lDoBABuJDCY1vEaFlkeF9UHijkYfO2UgihCGATQNIy_YhdV4W_zVI276yTWvS8TNv91JrNZvcgTSTNXctlvC4/w310-h400/a.jpg" width="310" /></a></div><br />I don't think our main job is going into people's Otherworld and doing extractions, retrievals and depossessions. That will happen occasionally, and that has its own beauty. I think our main job is relating, one human being to another. If our Spirits are around us in this reality, without having to bang a drum and head off somewhere else - which they bloody well ought to be - then that will bring the other person closer to their own Spirits: closer to themselves, in a deeper sense. That is, ultimately, all we are here to do.</span></span></span></div></div></div>Barry Goddardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10050835957098177925noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669359177274695478.post-39374103050067766052024-02-13T03:34:00.000-08:002024-02-13T03:37:39.195-08:00WILD GEESE<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dy6QZw-9S0AK5VL0nz5zep4uIRJ2Gc4htvBIS-GFS6oM2whG5pjFhOcj9LW4BW0zhVhamZ0SAq3VkN-BYT7hQ' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br /> <p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I've been learning poetry recently. It's a wonderful thing to do. It gets deep into you, entwines itself in your being, and gives a wonderful vehicle for expression. It occurred to me that it is also about the ancestors: absorbing the best of the past, standing on the shoulders of those who came before. (That's me in the video, just in case you're wondering 😂)</span><br /></p>Barry Goddardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10050835957098177925noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669359177274695478.post-19751823578749120302024-02-03T16:28:00.000-08:002024-02-03T16:28:12.849-08:00STORIES<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="4cud3-0-0"><span data-text="true">I get a lot of useful ideas about the world from watching Jordan Peterson and his interviews. But his attempt to resurrect the bloody Bible as a unifying narrative for the modern world is desperate. Its stories no longer speak to us - if they ever did, if indeed they were not largely forced on the population. That is why no-one goes to Church. </span></span></span></p><div data-contents="true"><div data-rbd-draggable-context-id="7" data-rbd-draggable-id="a054n"><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="32rcj" data-offset-key="a054n-0-0"><div class="public-DraftStyleDefault-block public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr" data-offset-key="a054n-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="a054n-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div></div><div data-rbd-draggable-context-id="7" data-rbd-draggable-id="40mjq"><div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="32rcj" data-offset-key="40mjq-0-0"><div class="public-DraftStyleDefault-block public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr" data-offset-key="40mjq-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="40mjq-0-0"><span data-text="true">Traditional stories are sources of wisdom and guidance, and now we have them available to us from all round the world, from all times. When you have more than one story for the same thing, as many traditions do, that acts as a guard against fundamentalism. We have access to a vast treasure store. Find the stories - and poems - that speak to you, and cherish them. Learn them and tell them from the heart. They will change you.</span></span></span></div></div></div></div>Barry Goddardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10050835957098177925noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669359177274695478.post-42902251906945392402024-01-27T18:36:00.000-08:002024-01-27T18:58:06.386-08:00SHAMANISM AND HUMAN DESTINY<p><span data-offset-key="8f5js-0-0" style="font-size: large;"><span data-text="true">Shamanism needs to be part of where humanity is headed, rather than part of the opposition - in this case a fantasy of what the remote past was like.</span></span></p><div data-contents="true"><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="6h6bk" data-offset-key="doie-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="doie-0-0"><span data-offset-key="doie-0-0" style="font-size: large;"><span data-text="true"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOpatO0z-ElQd596S-hA8BY7pAowiibW5JhKrgVTgoDLXPCEjJzPZ7NVx1PwlMZcsHQr7ryowYbH_IWmvHSj0XOEmPZoIqH1xBMUWAsoiJRkkAEYrYArlqwgR-sSZ5C_-LqhNvRkHb3Hu7sVhRYOxSQGD9iyQHgkYSsLom3cdODi05YQ_XckVuDaMW0EQ/s268/a.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="148" data-original-width="268" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOpatO0z-ElQd596S-hA8BY7pAowiibW5JhKrgVTgoDLXPCEjJzPZ7NVx1PwlMZcsHQr7ryowYbH_IWmvHSj0XOEmPZoIqH1xBMUWAsoiJRkkAEYrYArlqwgR-sSZ5C_-LqhNvRkHb3Hu7sVhRYOxSQGD9iyQHgkYSsLom3cdODi05YQ_XckVuDaMW0EQ/w400-h221/a.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />Shamanism reminds us to water the roots of the tree, reminds us that we belong to mother earth, who is alive, and that we are nothing but her. At the same time, there is a glorious destiny unfolding in the branches of the tree, humanity's cultural and technological inventiveness, which is only gathering pace. How do we remember the roots as we soar into the sky? That is our great shamanic task as humanity re-invents itself as an interplanetary species.</span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="doie-0-0"><span data-offset-key="doie-0-0" style="font-size: large;"><span data-text="true"> </span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="doie-0-0"><span data-offset-key="doie-0-0" style="font-size: large;"><span data-text="true"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6ZKKh0kqmktY_iYx669190Jdp1G3OyEYNc-3-wS4gKZPTHpm0QrgsjApfVCkXpJjRsAoHX9sl3GkNnjTiPvUVHzWaYEabM6FOj4AM44d0trGusSn-iLnMmClUDJM9YqMSWMz-eVqNa9prevbBePr04u2HGtS2D7sI-y_vWruDUrhhfUP6oiH4FIoFGL8/s600/a.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="445" data-original-width="600" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6ZKKh0kqmktY_iYx669190Jdp1G3OyEYNc-3-wS4gKZPTHpm0QrgsjApfVCkXpJjRsAoHX9sl3GkNnjTiPvUVHzWaYEabM6FOj4AM44d0trGusSn-iLnMmClUDJM9YqMSWMz-eVqNa9prevbBePr04u2HGtS2D7sI-y_vWruDUrhhfUP6oiH4FIoFGL8/w400-h296/a.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> </span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="doie-0-0"><span data-offset-key="doie-0-0" style="font-size: large;"><span data-text="true">It is the shamanic comfort zone to live in opposition to the modern world, to think we know better. We don't. Humanity has a destiny that the likes of Elon Musk and Silicon Valley are turbo-charging. We are an irrelevance if we do not allow ourselves to be thrilled by that adventure, if we go to that default counter-culture place of anti-oil (the earth's bounty), anti-nuclear, anti-modern medicine, anti-GM, anti-capitalism... the list goes on: it is tedious and life-denying and it goes nowhere.</span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="doie-0-0"><span data-offset-key="doie-0-0" style="font-size: large;"><span data-text="true"> </span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="doie-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="x193iq5w xeuugli x13faqbe x1vvkbs x1xmvt09 x1lliihq x1s928wv xhkezso x1gmr53x x1cpjm7i x1fgarty x1943h6x xudqn12 x3x7a5m x6prxxf xvq8zen xo1l8bm xzsf02u x1yc453h" dir="auto">We
need to seize our love of the roots of life, ignore the bad news that
the media perennially gives us, and bring that to the unfolding
adventure of humanity.</span></span></div></div></div>Barry Goddardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10050835957098177925noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669359177274695478.post-14892482405296740832024-01-12T16:28:00.000-08:002024-01-12T16:28:58.347-08:00KEEPING IT SIMPLE<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="x193iq5w xeuugli x13faqbe x1vvkbs x1xmvt09 x1lliihq x1s928wv xhkezso x1gmr53x x1cpjm7i x1fgarty x1943h6x xudqn12 x3x7a5m x6prxxf xvq8zen xo1l8bm xzsf02u x1yc453h" dir="auto">Maybe
all I mean by the word Shamanism is that the universe has a soul, the
world has a soul. It's not an intellectual position, it is something
felt. And that's all there is to it. Keep it simple, keep your eye on
what is real.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="x193iq5w xeuugli x13faqbe x1vvkbs x1xmvt09 x1lliihq x1s928wv xhkezso x1gmr53x x1cpjm7i x1fgarty x1943h6x xudqn12 x3x7a5m x6prxxf xvq8zen xo1l8bm xzsf02u x1yc453h" dir="auto"> --------------------------------</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="x193iq5w xeuugli x13faqbe x1vvkbs x1xmvt09 x1lliihq x1s928wv xhkezso x1gmr53x x1cpjm7i x1fgarty x1943h6x xudqn12 x3x7a5m x6prxxf xvq8zen xo1l8bm xzsf02u x1yc453h" dir="auto"> 'Core'
Shamanism complicates the Otherworld. It is simple: stuff works through
you. That is our gift, and that is all you need to feel. Thinking you
have to know what it is, and what it is that you have done, can make you
doubt your experience. It can take you away from the Great Mystery that
lies at the heart of everything, from which we draw whatever powers we
may have. Those gifts are not ours, they belong to the universe and are
there for everyone. There is not even an <span></span>Otherworld, for the Spirits are always with us.</span></span></p>Barry Goddardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10050835957098177925noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669359177274695478.post-4114487906888097972024-01-10T13:42:00.000-08:002024-01-11T14:33:38.679-08:00DARTMOOR<p> At Fernworthy Reservoir a few days ago</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGw0tjdTM-3PSX12d0Ju0gw6iKDVq0EdIrgiEC0nk7qYIMapJ_YGY4w5sb8vZuleTAOcMS1j87mO_6bgmN2ht6vw3Out28TKJFoWlTMpjdCmHeNSJCdYUT25-6JMp2NDx8fOtnLdboGpezxWQnCLq1mRyTjfyQ14ZML41jRvfzskCdZ9aUJNYxWgsqiyQ/s1280/a.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="960" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGw0tjdTM-3PSX12d0Ju0gw6iKDVq0EdIrgiEC0nk7qYIMapJ_YGY4w5sb8vZuleTAOcMS1j87mO_6bgmN2ht6vw3Out28TKJFoWlTMpjdCmHeNSJCdYUT25-6JMp2NDx8fOtnLdboGpezxWQnCLq1mRyTjfyQ14ZML41jRvfzskCdZ9aUJNYxWgsqiyQ/w300-h400/a.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>where a Frost Wand found me</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg32LJPnivQC-WoufhYQA2RxskSMp38Jv4_hYQeYIloSV-KvfAOW9azz2kkFtjk7O4tldlk58dtcZbT77mkBEve3DzQikVfC3pAdR-S77hSO48OiFuVlmdiZpkyPq8oJxFFAfgNaEn6aJvFO3CasjPSukm10FJAZC5_DiAYLMdz1DHesxhrLwLd3P9iy8w/s1280/a1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="960" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg32LJPnivQC-WoufhYQA2RxskSMp38Jv4_hYQeYIloSV-KvfAOW9azz2kkFtjk7O4tldlk58dtcZbT77mkBEve3DzQikVfC3pAdR-S77hSO48OiFuVlmdiZpkyPq8oJxFFAfgNaEn6aJvFO3CasjPSukm10FJAZC5_DiAYLMdz1DHesxhrLwLd3P9iy8w/w300-h400/a1.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>At Crazywell Pool today</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7i0poxNxKGtzPMTTrXcieN_JUNlaX3W3gFDIy6xnyxvR6XDVyOsXzRWVqgsTrZX1aAKOHBobzDot4zpuif2cNnpiPTu6-VTWmkPSa91opNeBmQaPIgeeovFEDnvk4l9hEJgu8q1QlWJSbVH9BTO0ToQFKJIJedga38x_aEvIcS-B4feeEx9QRqwNnWhQ/s1280/a.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="960" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7i0poxNxKGtzPMTTrXcieN_JUNlaX3W3gFDIy6xnyxvR6XDVyOsXzRWVqgsTrZX1aAKOHBobzDot4zpuif2cNnpiPTu6-VTWmkPSa91opNeBmQaPIgeeovFEDnvk4l9hEJgu8q1QlWJSbVH9BTO0ToQFKJIJedga38x_aEvIcS-B4feeEx9QRqwNnWhQ/w300-h400/a.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p>where the Ice King had left his crown on the bank of the leat</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgunZP92fZXDjVpEta_8kzFaAB7HoW8RUBg7Ib2JedNi6ti6qdE0q5Z9ipNX42PEwNK2Z4H_90dyje-jaegAJ7z5klLa4Ognuo8MrPUSkXoBh5KLUpwB_bnvbG8GlIaWgJSbsiM-JrIQxGeZp6CSyv1AqTIDmcaLLcQgXd45gGBhBqd4FL_NbIO_0EURH8/s1280/a1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="960" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgunZP92fZXDjVpEta_8kzFaAB7HoW8RUBg7Ib2JedNi6ti6qdE0q5Z9ipNX42PEwNK2Z4H_90dyje-jaegAJ7z5klLa4Ognuo8MrPUSkXoBh5KLUpwB_bnvbG8GlIaWgJSbsiM-JrIQxGeZp6CSyv1AqTIDmcaLLcQgXd45gGBhBqd4FL_NbIO_0EURH8/w300-h400/a1.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>Barry Goddardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10050835957098177925noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669359177274695478.post-83808880057123132122024-01-05T14:20:00.000-08:002024-01-05T14:20:54.594-08:00SELF-DOUBT<div data-contents="true"><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5o0hj" data-offset-key="doka5-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="doka5-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="doka5-0-0"><span data-text="true">There's only one thing worse than doubting yourself, which is not doubting yourself. It is entirely normal and even necessary. Self-confidence has to be earned by becoming good at something. Self-doubt can be the fire that keeps pushing you. Or makes you give up. And then you come back, because you'll go mad if you don't come back.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5o0hj" data-offset-key="f2no7-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="f2no7-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="f2no7-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5o0hj" data-offset-key="f8o6e-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="f8o6e-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="f8o6e-0-0"><span data-text="true"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh55Uox18B6FoDBb6cjZ60sgsmM4kixzMg531h0CRQP3_2LmcZqWwOQMJ8snjul03lBMjI8jkjl0QzUeTjmoxTXGpDSg96inwbo3UmUV52G3BpttTaVNNv-4o2HLWf9jgEZuZsl23kVRQ0Rw2Ge3w-ABWkMiuZkJ3dJDbImBxDZZJxHhYZRaqFTTZN8CZU/s259/a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh55Uox18B6FoDBb6cjZ60sgsmM4kixzMg531h0CRQP3_2LmcZqWwOQMJ8snjul03lBMjI8jkjl0QzUeTjmoxTXGpDSg96inwbo3UmUV52G3BpttTaVNNv-4o2HLWf9jgEZuZsl23kVRQ0Rw2Ge3w-ABWkMiuZkJ3dJDbImBxDZZJxHhYZRaqFTTZN8CZU/w400-h300/a.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />I have been plagued by self-doubt all my life, not just until I've got good at something, but until I know I am good, which can take a lot longer. It has happened with astrology, with shamanic work, with writing books....</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5o0hj" data-offset-key="3dks3-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="3dks3-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="3dks3-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5o0hj" data-offset-key="5jn2g-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5jn2g-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="5jn2g-0-0"><span data-text="true">The thing about our sort of work is that there isn't an obvious measure of right or wrong, unlike say fixing a gas boiler. I am talking about a deeper kind of confidence in who we are, that can feel excruciating because we are baring our souls to the world. Virginia Woolf would feel suicidal in response to critical reviews of her work.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5o0hj" data-offset-key="8i3i6-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8i3i6-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="8i3i6-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5o0hj" data-offset-key="3i68f-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="3i68f-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="3i68f-0-0"><span data-text="true">It is a tough one. There is an initiatory fire to be gone through if you have a calling, but would you want it any other way? Of course the approval of the world can help get us started, but ultimately we need to know for ourselves the value of what we have done. In Shamanic terms, we trust our connection with the spirits; we may not understand their purposes, but we feel the value. In some ways, the lack of recognition from the world can be a help, a worthy opponent that pushes us onwards on this deeply solitary path: in this solitude we find the fire in our souls, and our connection to everything.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5o0hj" data-offset-key="5efkq-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5efkq-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="5efkq-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5o0hj" data-offset-key="fbja8-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fbja8-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="fbja8-0-0"><span data-text="true"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3wzzirx89AKpETxuPS0hBpxQVtaQAQlmVbG8naAUhfiUEv4cpIOwmH5J-1XiZh2r6IWKx9ZouKihJb02Ai4YccZedHBBe8W3uwcdESYET2GxNv3J9GeD4bEii6qcXW4sWV-muUmJqued8BG2nYMcQJU7WswWvz11pHxUpsSWhyphenhyphenkOs6jy4jXJDjD6mFHo/s276/a1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="276" data-original-width="183" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3wzzirx89AKpETxuPS0hBpxQVtaQAQlmVbG8naAUhfiUEv4cpIOwmH5J-1XiZh2r6IWKx9ZouKihJb02Ai4YccZedHBBe8W3uwcdESYET2GxNv3J9GeD4bEii6qcXW4sWV-muUmJqued8BG2nYMcQJU7WswWvz11pHxUpsSWhyphenhyphenkOs6jy4jXJDjD6mFHo/w265-h400/a1.jpg" width="265" /></a></div><br />Chewing over self-doubt with people is one of the things I do. My shamanic work is mainly talking, but do not be misled. My spirits implicitly meet your spirits, if we are talking openly, and enriching things happen for both of us. Above all, perhaps, I will support you in the long initiatory fire of your self-doubt, and I will listen as you talk of that which you love.</span></span></span></div></div></div>Barry Goddardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10050835957098177925noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669359177274695478.post-77173171899498353202023-12-30T11:30:00.000-08:002023-12-30T11:30:47.954-08:00 SHAMANISM VS THE DOOMSTERS AND GLOOMSTERS<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8p1a5-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="8p1a5-0-0"><span data-text="true">I was watching with grim fascination the head of a Buddhist Order that I used to be part of. He was emphasising what a terrible state the world is in. He said the world has always been in a terrible state, but that it is particularly terrible right now.</span></span></span></div><div data-contents="true"><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="ed9p1" data-offset-key="a4g6b-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="a4g6b-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="a4g6b-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="ed9p1" data-offset-key="4u4nq-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4u4nq-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="4u4nq-0-0"><span data-text="true">My view is that the world just is what it is, it is humans doing what humans do and always have done, and there are good things and problematic things within that. We kind of need the challenges of the problematic things. As Dostoevsky said in The Brothers Karamazov, if humanity ever did create a utopia, it would destroy it, if only to assert its own free will.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="ed9p1" data-offset-key="5u4dq-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5u4dq-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="5u4dq-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="ed9p1" data-offset-key="3njps-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="3njps-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="3njps-0-0"><span data-text="true">So what is it about religions damning the world? We see it in Christianity, where the world is the creation of the Devil, and humans are tarred with Original Sin. And we see it in Shamanism also: it is almost axiomatic that benighted, greedy humanity is destroying the natural world and that we know better.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="ed9p1" data-offset-key="1m61l-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="1m61l-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="1m61l-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="ed9p1" data-offset-key="e73nh-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="e73nh-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="e73nh-0-0"><span data-text="true"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_arJUTKCBhpBjRuJHqgFrWA3uasIRyIBKKv40NwqQwt8BL_iDbbqrg8tf03uNy9FhZcEU4GPxd8O9T_Ea1TtQ2SsFRkFdF_G6ZVmX4-9R3wIXjD5gAf1YOkwnkKxACx4tFAKR-SV02JZ1NEUdHVgeksr1yvJCJ8dvBrkwU8WYMP46p8rdKCfE9m9kXyw/s300/a3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_arJUTKCBhpBjRuJHqgFrWA3uasIRyIBKKv40NwqQwt8BL_iDbbqrg8tf03uNy9FhZcEU4GPxd8O9T_Ea1TtQ2SsFRkFdF_G6ZVmX4-9R3wIXjD5gAf1YOkwnkKxACx4tFAKR-SV02JZ1NEUdHVgeksr1yvJCJ8dvBrkwU8WYMP46p8rdKCfE9m9kXyw/w400-h224/a3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />There is an unconscious dishonesty here that goes deep: the worse the world is, the more spiritual we are with our 'enlightened' attitudes; the more virtuous we become when we go about saving the world from itself. Another term for it is 'spiritual bypass': when we imagine a good, identify with it, and see 'bad' as out there instead of where it truly lies, in our own hearts. This is what all these Buddhists, Christians and Shamans are avoiding in their condemnation of the world. Muslims too, no doubt.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="ed9p1" data-offset-key="3lhem-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="3lhem-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="3lhem-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="ed9p1" data-offset-key="2gcbk-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="2gcbk-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="2gcbk-0-0"><span data-text="true">The western world is having a particularly bad dose of 'everything is terrible' at the moment. I doubt people in China, one generation out of rural poverty, see it that way!</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="ed9p1" data-offset-key="ftv09-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="ftv09-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="ftv09-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="ed9p1" data-offset-key="arit0-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="arit0-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="arit0-0-0"><span data-text="true">I think it is our responsibility as shamans to oppose this pessimism, to repeatedly point out that which is good in the world, and for that basic optimism to shine through in the way we are. Because if we feel close to Spirit - and that, after all, is the point - then we feel joy, and we want to embrace this brief period called life while we can.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="ed9p1" data-offset-key="2p9k4-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="2p9k4-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="2p9k4-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="ed9p1" data-offset-key="cbk6e-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="cbk6e-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="cbk6e-0-0"><span data-text="true">So enough of this climate apocalypse stuff, enough of this condemning humans as thoughtless and greedy (most people are just trying to get by!) Instead, rejoice in human brilliance and ingenuity and adaptability: it is what we bring to the table of life, and Spirit is cheering us on as our technological inventiveness increasingly races forward. Of course it brings imbalance, but that can and is being addressed.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="ed9p1" data-offset-key="c5289-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="c5289-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="c5289-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="ed9p1" data-offset-key="134k-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="134k-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="134k-0-0"><span data-text="true">To condemn humanity as a cancer, as many do, is itself a disease. Love humanity.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="ed9p1" data-offset-key="8jk1t-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8jk1t-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="8jk1t-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="ed9p1" data-offset-key="fgpb9-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fgpb9-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="fgpb9-0-0"><span data-text="true">Things are at a stage where to you are liable to be attacked if you point out the good trends in the world, as though that is a denial of the bad things which, we are told, constitute an existential crisis. </span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="ed9p1" data-offset-key="cc5s8-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="cc5s8-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="cc5s8-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="ed9p1" data-offset-key="7smcr-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="7smcr-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="7smcr-0-0"><span data-text="true"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglTAbtFUY4ndkb56jUsemeuk20_-HrcnD_XLUbWnkjsKuc8WhFtbdi8Sbzrr9Rtp_GcHuH13DerSqndNYV-7hFM9A9bPkR5LXgV9U45R0x1AqrKQG1zauSfzRWkQ_UASlvO-r-tAmEegz11MXF7IwDDr1gxlg4isaMOXINjpF2PKMJJa3emSdb3SmAcXA/s259/a2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglTAbtFUY4ndkb56jUsemeuk20_-HrcnD_XLUbWnkjsKuc8WhFtbdi8Sbzrr9Rtp_GcHuH13DerSqndNYV-7hFM9A9bPkR5LXgV9U45R0x1AqrKQG1zauSfzRWkQ_UASlvO-r-tAmEegz11MXF7IwDDr1gxlg4isaMOXINjpF2PKMJJa3emSdb3SmAcXA/w400-h300/a2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />Here are some of the good things: Hundreds of millions are coming out of poverty as the East industrialises; vast areas are greening over due to higher CO2; agricultural yields are at an all time high, and we are starting to give land back to nature; the world is net being reforested; as the world warms, so do far fewer people die from cold, well outweighing the extra heat deaths; fewer people are dying from climate incidents because we adapt; we live amidst unprecedented peace and prosperity. (Look up Bjorn Lomborg for a fuller, referenced account of these trends.)</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="ed9p1" data-offset-key="7iu0f-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="7iu0f-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="7iu0f-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="ed9p1" data-offset-key="8cfda-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8cfda-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="8cfda-0-0"><span data-text="true">Will that do? It is our responsibility to be informed of these positive trends as a counter-balance to the problems of the world. It is our job to help people out of the slough of pessimism into which they have sunk. As healers, where else do you begin?</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="ed9p1" data-offset-key="2haef-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="2haef-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="2haef-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="ed9p1" data-offset-key="dl8gm-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="dl8gm-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="dl8gm-0-0"><span data-text="true">Of course, people are attached to their slough of pessimism: it gives them a group identity, it makes them feels like they are on the side of good, and it protects them from their own misery. So it's not easy, and you won't always get thanked for it. You will lose a few friends. Some people will think you are unhinged and in denial. But that is always part of the shamanic territory, for we can only help and heal to the extent that we have stepped out of herd-think. That is an ongoing task, for the collective pressures to think in particular ways are powerful and alluring, however wrong-headed.</span></span></span></div></div></div>Barry Goddardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10050835957098177925noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669359177274695478.post-66838593554603634212023-12-29T15:53:00.000-08:002023-12-29T16:55:00.451-08:00OPEN TO INVITES...<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="1sr2o-0-0"><span data-text="true">I'm not a great advertiser of myself. But I reckon I'm good at running workshops of many varieties. It's something I love to do. I've been at it for nearly 40 years in one way or another. In my youth it was Buddhism. After a major revamp that turned into Medicine Wheel, Journeying, Pipe Ceremonies, Sweatlodges, Trance Dances and just general chewing stuff over: maybe my favourite 😎 I do astrology and tarot too. I prefer not to plan too much, and let things unfold in their own way. </span></span></span></p><div data-contents="true"><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="a4va2" data-offset-key="f7q7g-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="f7q7g-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="f7q7g-0-0"><span data-text="true"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXp11uH8Hia58DCNZ4q_hdX179HqHhdbL6h_WYjb6hOfzuh_vMH_NdCIP7_keWcHdz69gWI534VL6hfYWneclFwnOaTHXCFb35fdoIuA9UtVRPq3HtaAcm9-9JNzljiKduwzS_GqkTONPBV6WqlpgfrBznyCYHVdll9Q-2LYX5mpn1XO1R4R29geiQaR4/s320/a.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="207" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXp11uH8Hia58DCNZ4q_hdX179HqHhdbL6h_WYjb6hOfzuh_vMH_NdCIP7_keWcHdz69gWI534VL6hfYWneclFwnOaTHXCFb35fdoIuA9UtVRPq3HtaAcm9-9JNzljiKduwzS_GqkTONPBV6WqlpgfrBznyCYHVdll9Q-2LYX5mpn1XO1R4R29geiQaR4/s1600/a.jpg" width="207" /></a></div><br />The point of a teacher is to edge you in the direction of your own inner guidance. That is why I say cherish the things you don't agree with me about. If you've been reading this blog for a while, I will almost certainly have said some things you don't agree with 🤣 </span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="a4va2" data-offset-key="23cu7-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="23cu7-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="23cu7-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="a4va2" data-offset-key="7lnq4-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="7lnq4-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="7lnq4-0-0"><span data-text="true"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHPjdLx4CZSsMZXQjkyVZ-Yos028hTlLnaTUO0lgwMG_gNjogCgSZVOBbz9aLPAjgmZmOcCGhXVOtTpDLoh8_OQ7xufeLjHaX7n-YnXtqkm7BwZuSIQXi4QHSLgkgIhkRnjsP4q2_q48xny7K17wYXUPGmQjVvUV2Ufajoi5T1dJsESHIv6esFz6jBPpw/s320/a1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="207" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHPjdLx4CZSsMZXQjkyVZ-Yos028hTlLnaTUO0lgwMG_gNjogCgSZVOBbz9aLPAjgmZmOcCGhXVOtTpDLoh8_OQ7xufeLjHaX7n-YnXtqkm7BwZuSIQXi4QHSLgkgIhkRnjsP4q2_q48xny7K17wYXUPGmQjVvUV2Ufajoi5T1dJsESHIv6esFz6jBPpw/s1600/a1.jpg" width="207" /></a></div><br />I have 2 books as a sort of CV (pictured), published by Moon Books in 2022. I'm not that inclined to set up workshops myself, but if you would like me to come and do something for a</span></span></span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">n evening or</span> </span><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="7lnq4-0-0"><span data-text="true">a day or even a week, I will probably say yes, enthusiastically. Anywhere in the world! As long as I don't lose money on it. Happy to sleep in a tent. </span></span></span><span data-offset-key="1kudv-0-0"><span data-text="true"><span style="font-size: large;">Or my van </span></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="7lnq4-0-0"><span data-text="true"> 😊<br /></span></span></span></div></div></div>Barry Goddardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10050835957098177925noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669359177274695478.post-62239567220467569572023-12-17T05:34:00.000-08:002023-12-17T06:34:24.836-08:00OF COLONISED INDIANS<div data-contents="true"><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5kpk6" data-offset-key="crqqb-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="crqqb-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="crqqb-0-0"><span data-text="true">A traditionally-trained Chippewa Cree guy who used to stay with me said that 'Native Americans' refer to themselves as 'Indians'. It was just the white people who call them Native Americans. So now I refer to them when I can as Indians. And sometimes you will get taken to task for that by whites who think you are being disrespectful. It happened to me recently, from someone has a bit of Indian blood in them, but is very identified with that, even though they had never met an Indian until recently. No discussion was possible, she was fierce about it: saying 'Indian' was like using the 'n' word about black people.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5kpk6" data-offset-key="2pro6-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="2pro6-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="2pro6-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5kpk6" data-offset-key="2pnft-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="2pnft-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="2pnft-0-0"><span data-text="true">Personally I'd rather call people by the name they call themselves, rather than one invented by guilty whites, and then adhered to dogmatically by an imaginary Indian.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5kpk6" data-offset-key="4e78e-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4e78e-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="4e78e-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5kpk6" data-offset-key="9t5kh-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="9t5kh-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="9t5kh-0-0"><span data-text="true">Another word I'm wondering about is 'colonised'. In this case it refers to the dominant, conquering culture taking away the identity and culture of the conquered people and telling them who they should be in terms of the values of the dominant culture. Any process of telling people who they should be at a formative age is 'colonisation': an Indian teacher told me I had been colonised by my early boarding school experience.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5kpk6" data-offset-key="295pk-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="295pk-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="295pk-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5kpk6" data-offset-key="8a92l-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8a92l-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="8a92l-0-0"><span data-text="true">Indians often need to go through a process of 'decolonisation' to reclaim their original culture. The word brings in the connotation of 'colonialism' as an unmitigated evil. There was nothing good, for example, about the British Empire in modern discourse, and academics who look for the good as well as the bad get shunned. As did Nigel Biggar for writing the book pictured below.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5kpk6" data-offset-key="5ilf-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5ilf-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="5ilf-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5kpk6" data-offset-key="8aj26-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8aj26-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="8aj26-0-0"><span data-text="true"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6ELk5ro_j9sR5bD89wAiHLq-evqaSSdjRKcoczwNzsXC2tbHFy7jq9qsHyi4NfojElR1qixW3Eje_QY7YWhyZrwW7JpCZ6iPI4Yy6U5ogunUBwhGhwxReLaU9GKMvAp8y2klPQsqxeY9o29cRWZfDihlMlfGw0zGPpLpm2zWAC-LF7GjgPwFPb-yK7kQ/s278/a.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="278" data-original-width="181" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6ELk5ro_j9sR5bD89wAiHLq-evqaSSdjRKcoczwNzsXC2tbHFy7jq9qsHyi4NfojElR1qixW3Eje_QY7YWhyZrwW7JpCZ6iPI4Yy6U5ogunUBwhGhwxReLaU9GKMvAp8y2klPQsqxeY9o29cRWZfDihlMlfGw0zGPpLpm2zWAC-LF7GjgPwFPb-yK7kQ/w260-h400/a.jpg" width="260" /></a></div><br />This may sound harsh, but 'colonisation' is where Indian-as-victim meets modern woke culture, which turns any number of people into victims, and demands that we as privileged oppressors bow down before them. Some Indians are in victim mode, some are not. The Dalai Lama could easily be in victim mode, but he never has been. He gets on with life, and does not attack the Chinese. It is not some form of 'denial'. He just refuses to bear a grudge and complain about what was a huge injustice, when to do so would be futile.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5kpk6" data-offset-key="83a4t-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="83a4t-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="83a4t-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5kpk6" data-offset-key="cj6sp-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="cj6sp-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="cj6sp-0-0"><span data-text="true">My Chippewa Cree friend told me it is often the warrior cultures amongst the Indians who go on and on about what happened to them, for it is a matter of wounded pride that they have been conquered.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5kpk6" data-offset-key="b8h0l-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="b8h0l-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="b8h0l-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5kpk6" data-offset-key="9797a-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="9797a-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="9797a-0-0"><span data-text="true">But isn't colonisation what has happened throughout history, when one people conquered another? You'd better adapt to their culture - allow your mind to be colonised - or you will not flourish, you will be squeezed out. If Indians want to flourish, they had better adopt the white man's ways. It doesn't mean they can't also hold on to, and reclaim, their traditional ways: the conquering culture of the US is unusually liberal in that respect, by historical standards. It is great they can do so, for there is much in the traditional indigenous ways that we have forgotten, to our detriment in the modern world.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5kpk6" data-offset-key="4cr5n-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4cr5n-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="4cr5n-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5kpk6" data-offset-key="9crjv-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="9crjv-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="9crjv-0-0"><span data-text="true">Even if you are not part of a conquered culture, you will be colonised: your culture will tell you, as a child, who you are. It may do that with greater or lesser degrees of liberalism, but tell you it will. It is not a victim thing, but a necessary thing that suits most people. Some of us may eventually find it to be a cage that we have to struggle our way out of, because we have something deeper of our own to find. But that is a minority thing, and that struggle for our own values, with opposition from the mainstream, can be exactly what we need to find them.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5kpk6" data-offset-key="e19l6-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="e19l6-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="e19l6-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5kpk6" data-offset-key="2mhn6-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="2mhn6-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="2mhn6-0-0"><span data-text="true">So yes, all of us may need to 'decolonise' our minds in some respects. The reclaiming of a sense of the sacred, for example, denied as it is by materialist atheism. But don't get into blame mode about it, or you will perpetuate the colonisation: victimhood easily becomes a religion in itself. That is why I think the current narrative about slavery is as much about stirring up ancestral grievances - from something that ended generations ago - as it is about justice. Think Dalai Lama.</span></span></span></div></div></div>Barry Goddardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10050835957098177925noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669359177274695478.post-17630332097798623892023-12-08T14:44:00.000-08:002023-12-08T14:44:38.055-08:00SOUL RETRIEVAL and the DAIMON: REMEMBERING WHO WE ALWAYS WERE<div data-contents="true"><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5ntfc" data-offset-key="f3k4q-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="f3k4q-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="f3k4q-0-0"><span data-text="true">I'm trying to get my head around the idea of soul retrieval, as it is taught in so-called 'core' shamanism. It is a concept that is fundamental to becoming a 'shamanic practitioner', which is what many people call themselves these days. I've never been able to bring myself to use that epithet, and I trust my reluctance. After much thought, I decided a while back that if anything I would call myself the ‘flatpak helpline’. That is, I will do my best to help you decipher and live whatever vision it is you have for your life - what it is that you love, I will align myself with that.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5ntfc" data-offset-key="8287m-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8287m-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="8287m-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5ntfc" data-offset-key="b03e5-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="b03e5-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="b03e5-0-0"><span data-text="true"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL7tHJIpYiOcCA0wMaCzgIFh4HUeusHeQyz1ZtEeJgSCOVOCXV7FxWCeC-pgKcige9ntQ5QcIA51fPDjWrv_IHh2NZy1s_u_eHJxNPPAj5CoOO-1Rq2VV4KFUXuw3R6Yg9-Ps0044w8__Fr0OyhUtgOPENj_30t13OnKxqZEFN3aACii1EHYQ53U3pk08/s275/a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL7tHJIpYiOcCA0wMaCzgIFh4HUeusHeQyz1ZtEeJgSCOVOCXV7FxWCeC-pgKcige9ntQ5QcIA51fPDjWrv_IHh2NZy1s_u_eHJxNPPAj5CoOO-1Rq2VV4KFUXuw3R6Yg9-Ps0044w8__Fr0OyhUtgOPENj_30t13OnKxqZEFN3aACii1EHYQ53U3pk08/w400-h266/a.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />As for your traumas, I really don't feel it is my job to sort them by bringing back the soul parts that allegedly went missing as a result. That is just a modern western psychotherapising of the human as victim of their childhood, and the healer as the person who will sort that for you - with the help, of course, of their spirit guides.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5ntfc" data-offset-key="589vk-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="589vk-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="589vk-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5ntfc" data-offset-key="eslqn-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="eslqn-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="eslqn-0-0"><span data-text="true">No. We need to heal ourselves. And your traumas, your demons, however awful, have their part to play in your destiny. You have my full sympathy in your tribulations, but I'm not going to take them away from you, even if I could. You may think they came about because your father was like this, or your mother was like that. We never know, and in a way it doesn't matter. All we can ever do is come into good relationship with our demons. That is something we have to do to become a full human being, and it's like everything else will take care of itself if we do that. And it is a lifelong process.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5ntfc" data-offset-key="51fqc-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="51fqc-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="51fqc-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5ntfc" data-offset-key="8titf-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8titf-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="8titf-0-0"><span data-text="true">I don't think psychotherapists do anyone a service when they encourage people in the invention of creation myths of their own demons, based on their childhoods, however plausible. It is an easy, facile thing to do. We don't know where these demons come from, and there's a good chance our parents were just familiar mirrors for the challenges we came in with anyway. So don't blame them, which is all we are doing when we invent stories that seem to explain who we are in terms of how they were.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5ntfc" data-offset-key="8q13h-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8q13h-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="8q13h-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5ntfc" data-offset-key="ecrpa-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="ecrpa-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="ecrpa-0-0"><span data-text="true">I am banging on about this because the soul retrieval paradigm I was taught back in the 90s, that goes back to Michael Harner, had clearly been crafted to fit the modern childhood victim paradigm. We were taught that soul pieces often went missing as the result of trauma in childhood, and our job as whatever strange thing we were being taught to be - certainly not a traditional shaman - was to bring those pieces back, along with a story about what had gone wrong.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5ntfc" data-offset-key="bdh3e-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="bdh3e-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="bdh3e-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5ntfc" data-offset-key="c3ibu-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="c3ibu-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="c3ibu-0-0"><span data-text="true">Now I'm not saying there isn't some kind of truth in all this, but I am also saying to hell with it. I am not sure why I am putting it so vehemently, but I trust it.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5ntfc" data-offset-key="21pqo-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="21pqo-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="21pqo-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5ntfc" data-offset-key="627p2-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="627p2-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="627p2-0-0"><span data-text="true">There's a whole modern way of looking at the world behind my reservations. There is human as victim and human as autonomous. Those are the two underlying ideas that I am protesting against. Indigenous peoples did not see themselves as victims - as results, if you like, of genes, environment, of childhood. No, they were born unique, with a destiny, which if they were lucky would result in a vision of what their life would be. And humans were relational: you did not separate yourself from your people, you were not the lone hero, carving a place in an unforgiving world. As an adult, you had responsibilities more than you had 'rights'.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5ntfc" data-offset-key="6k7tv-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="6k7tv-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="6k7tv-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5ntfc" data-offset-key="do7jb-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="do7jb-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="do7jb-0-0"><span data-text="true">So where does that leave the work I sometimes do for people that shifts things along, or the work I have had done for me? Being able to do work for others that moves things along is a gift, it is beautiful, it is special, and I am grateful that I am able to facilitate that through whatever it is that works through me. I will always say yes if I am asked to do something, it is what I am here for. Why I end up doing what I do when I do it is a mystery, necessarily. It is always about a much bigger picture than the presenting problem. Maybe that is all I can say.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5ntfc" data-offset-key="98v8g-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="98v8g-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="98v8g-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5ntfc" data-offset-key="9okr5-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="9okr5-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="9okr5-0-0"><span data-text="true">It is not something I advertise. I have never been able to bring myself to do that. I can just about bring myself to advertise my astrology readings, but even then I do my best to keep them informal and to let them run on as long as they need to so that the spirit can do what it needs to. Healing isn't just about me shapeshifting and letting the animals take over. It is also about me feeling aligned with myself, and the other person as a result being drawn into a deeper alignment with themselves, maybe just through conversation.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5ntfc" data-offset-key="552gn-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="552gn-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="552gn-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5ntfc" data-offset-key="3ri81-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="3ri81-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="3ri81-0-0"><span data-text="true"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFSo1Zs6pqF11169jlVcWG7wsTensMl-YDDNZ7VLHK1A0HVcn-DFAtcj8DJmHXVmbNZ86tivRdP4OqcNantXj6xaUa5evKQXmjgZbCcinf9RE1BTBMeMHYDkbTGZbtaOuf6e_1ETa3f1-i9Nv1vqDsAZGvYBlqlPPnh1ErDXXg638filJ-buCYeUKWoFc/s327/a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="327" data-original-width="212" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFSo1Zs6pqF11169jlVcWG7wsTensMl-YDDNZ7VLHK1A0HVcn-DFAtcj8DJmHXVmbNZ86tivRdP4OqcNantXj6xaUa5evKQXmjgZbCcinf9RE1BTBMeMHYDkbTGZbtaOuf6e_1ETa3f1-i9Nv1vqDsAZGvYBlqlPPnh1ErDXXg638filJ-buCYeUKWoFc/w259-h400/a.jpg" width="259" /></a></div><br />For myself, feeling out of sorts for years at a time, feeling disempowered and lacking has pushed me to struggle and to find gold in myself. </span></span><span data-offset-key="3ri81-0-1" style="font-style: italic;"><span data-text="true">What we call ‘soul loss’ can be a necessary thing.</span></span><span data-offset-key="3ri81-0-2"><span data-text="true"> I spent many years with childhood explanations. I refuse to use those facile explanations, which are so easy to invent, any more. I prefer the old idea of Plato that</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5ntfc" data-offset-key="ni74-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="ni74-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="ni74-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5ntfc" data-offset-key="9tvic-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="9tvic-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="9tvic-0-0"><span data-text="true">“the soul of each of us is given a unique daimon before we are born, and it has selected an image or pattern that we live on earth. This soul-companion, the daimon, guides us here; in the process of arrival, however, we forget all that took place and believe we come empty into this world. The daimon remembers what is in your image and belongs to your pattern, and therefore your daimon is the carrier of your destiny.</span></span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="9tvic-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="9tvic-0-0"><span data-text="true"> </span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5ntfc" data-offset-key="bnun8-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="bnun8-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="bnun8-0-0"><span data-text="true">"As explained by the greatest of the later Platonists, Plotinus, we elected the body, the parents, the place, and the circumstances that suited the soul and that, as the myth says, belongs to its necessity. This suggests that the circumstances, including my body and my parents whom I may curse, are my soul’s own choice – and I do not understand this because I have forgotten.” (James Hillman, The Soul’s Code, p8)</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5ntfc" data-offset-key="di5kc-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="di5kc-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="di5kc-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="5ntfc" data-offset-key="3bcji-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="3bcji-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="3bcji-0-0"><span data-text="true">In this sense, ‘Soul Retrieval’ could be seen as helping people </span></span><span data-offset-key="3bcji-0-1" style="font-weight: bold;"><span data-text="true">to remember the presiding image of who they always were.</span></span><span data-offset-key="3bcji-0-2"><span data-text="true"> That, in Norse mythology, was woven by the Norns. It is about this bigger picture, rather than a remedying of pathologies.</span></span></span></div></div></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"></span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"></span>
Barry Goddardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10050835957098177925noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669359177274695478.post-37186172012613968802023-12-05T04:17:00.000-08:002023-12-05T05:28:07.261-08:00THE BAD TEACHER<p> <span style="font-size: large;"><span><span data-offset-key="fvhii-0-0">I think we all have a bad teacher somewhere in us. By which I mean we all have a self-serving shadow-side that we're not always in good relationship with. It loves praise, it does not like being contradicted, it wants to have its way with some of the women who come along. It's a rat's nest of trouble. </span></span></span></p><div data-contents="true"><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="tkb0" data-offset-key="3u8pf-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="3u8pf-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="3u8pf-0-0"><span data-text="true"> </span></span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="3u8pf-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="3u8pf-0-0"><span data-text="true">There's only one thing worse than having a shadow, and that is not having one. By which I mean denying it. If you feel you have a position as teacher to maintain, if you feel you have to give an appearance of knowing something, then the shadow is ready and waiting to seize on that. So being any kind of teacher requires an ongoing struggle, not to control the shadow - that just makes things worse - but to be honest about it, firstly with yourself, and then, to the extent it is appropriate, with others. Then you are a good teacher. For you are showing others how to be in good relationship with themselves.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="tkb0" data-offset-key="7mpb6-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="7mpb6-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="7mpb6-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="tkb0" data-offset-key="5ivup-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5ivup-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="5ivup-0-0"><span data-text="true">The shadow will always be there, and I think it has mysterious purposes of its own, like Gollum, without whom the Ring would not have been destroyed in Mount Doom.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="tkb0" data-offset-key="aq3ti-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="aq3ti-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="aq3ti-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="tkb0" data-offset-key="1ehu5-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="1ehu5-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="1ehu5-0-0"><span data-text="true">I think we can learn as much from the bad teacher as we can from the good teacher. Every teacher has a bad teacher within them, and if you keep your eyes peeled you will see it, for no-one is perfect. Heaven help us from anyone who is perfect.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="tkb0" data-offset-key="7r04e-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="7r04e-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="7r04e-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="tkb0" data-offset-key="50djg-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="50djg-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="50djg-0-0"><span data-text="true"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJZO8SKGOKp1U4XheyJfTOyQSr4jSWTg47Ke78KERQiagatHkCvKRiBbKVBPZqMsa7DauMjC4Sbm0RDLrRT-RCyadGKU1Z_9M2joi5GmrOWzjLYzC38VIewVVb1YWrhOd4h6LJ-c5KjuPF5IPOC4d19E0SVRSEUF8a4ZFkxoUGiN6V9sYAOQvhsfXVJ2c/s564/a.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="358" data-original-width="564" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJZO8SKGOKp1U4XheyJfTOyQSr4jSWTg47Ke78KERQiagatHkCvKRiBbKVBPZqMsa7DauMjC4Sbm0RDLrRT-RCyadGKU1Z_9M2joi5GmrOWzjLYzC38VIewVVb1YWrhOd4h6LJ-c5KjuPF5IPOC4d19E0SVRSEUF8a4ZFkxoUGiN6V9sYAOQvhsfXVJ2c/w400-h254/a.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />What do you do with what you have seen? Many people reject the teacher outright once they have seen his/her faults. That is because they feel betrayed. They were expecting perfection. Don't get me wrong, you may need to just walk away. They may be seriously bad news. But teachers usually also have some genuine gift that also needs appreciating: they'd maybe rushed in to teaching early, before they were ready. Or maybe that was always going to happen.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="tkb0" data-offset-key="7sr7g-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="7sr7g-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="7sr7g-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="tkb0" data-offset-key="fjaof-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fjaof-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="fjaof-0-0"><span data-text="true">I've yet to see anyone teaching who is young (and that means from B4 middle age) and plenty older than that, where the shadow side isn't playing a significant, and unconscious, part. I've previously been unfriended by teachers for making this sort of general statement, which I think proves the point. My first port of call with teachers is can I level with them, will they talk to me man to man, so to speak, or are they always having to be teacher, always having to know better? And on a feeling level, are they allowing me close to them, or is there a protective wall there? </span></span></span><span data-offset-key="340mt-0-0"><span data-text="true"><span style="font-size: large;">And maybe I do feel close to them, but is that just their charisma?</span></span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fjaof-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="fjaof-0-0"><span data-text="true"> </span></span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fjaof-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="fjaof-0-0"><span data-text="true">It's easier to be a good teacher when it is one-to-one. A group situation has its own dynamic in which the teacher becomes the 'special' one who everyone treats differently, and there's not much to be done about that. Except keep giving people their power back by being honest and natural and not trying to sound too authoritative.</span></span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fjaof-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="fjaof-0-0"><span data-text="true"> </span></span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fjaof-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="fjaof-0-0"><span data-text="true">Not only does the group give power to the teacher - and this is something that can be difficult for the individual to resist, for we are relational creatures - but the bad teacher will want it, need it. You will find yourself becoming diminished, a different and less free person than when you are around friends and family. It can be subtle, and it can take a while.</span></span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fjaof-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="fjaof-0-0"><span data-text="true"> </span></span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fjaof-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="fjaof-0-0"><span data-text="true">I think this is one of the greatest lessons we can have. You may be able to look back and see that losing some of your power, your autonomy to that teacher was exactly what was needed in order for you to properly claim it. Because if it can be given away, you never truly had it in the first place. The bad teacher doesn't truly have their own power either: they need your praise to feel sure of themselves.<br /></span></span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fjaof-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="fjaof-0-0"><span data-text="true"> </span></span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fjaof-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="fjaof-0-0"><span data-text="true">'Power' is an overused word in this context. What I mean at bottom is our own ability to guide ourself, that lies deep within. It usually takes unearthing, because it is not something humans naturally have, though we find that hard to see and admit to. Everyone thinks they are their own person. This is why we have religion: we usually need to start with considerable guidance from without. Or from your spirit guides, though that is more complex, because in a sense they also are that deeper self.</span></span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fjaof-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="fjaof-0-0"><span data-text="true"><br /></span></span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fjaof-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="fjaof-0-0"><span data-text="true">I covered some of this in my last piece, 'The Good Teacher', who is always guiding us to find our own answers. A bad teacher will always claim to be doing that too, and think they are doing that. Which they may be to some extent: it is complicated. But their own personal needs will also draw you into a place of submission to their authority, along with the rest of the group.</span></span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fjaof-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="fjaof-0-0"><span data-text="true"><br /></span></span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fjaof-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="fjaof-0-0"><span data-text="true"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimgFyMU9uN4M9E4ZPOXN-XlOvrppwDjR0zRORwgBAAT2_P3GF7ENLoMT1HHz0E_PRyKDNWkBx506eZj50jN9dyw61N1WD8ZLN238BtQF2FHnHGb2Sha5omdbYb_NayYoIj0t0P-R67lHKQX5nJ_Ib6WHVkD5n3RTuzfEgmvtSNCstqvIVllBsVq7XI5go/s197/a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="185" data-original-width="197" height="376" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimgFyMU9uN4M9E4ZPOXN-XlOvrppwDjR0zRORwgBAAT2_P3GF7ENLoMT1HHz0E_PRyKDNWkBx506eZj50jN9dyw61N1WD8ZLN238BtQF2FHnHGb2Sha5omdbYb_NayYoIj0t0P-R67lHKQX5nJ_Ib6WHVkD5n3RTuzfEgmvtSNCstqvIVllBsVq7XI5go/w400-h376/a.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />Just as Gollum had his part to play, so too do the bad teachers, for they expose the ways in which we are not sure of ourselves. Breaking away from them can be a drawn-out crisis. There is a voice in us we need to listen to, but we are uncertain of it. Things do not seem right when we do not listen to it. But the price of listening to it can mean leaving the metaphysical and social security of the teacher and group we are around. And there are good things about the group, so we try to put the doubts aside. But they keep coming back. It is a warrior thing. It requires daring, courage, self-confidence and ruthless honesty. There is a new centre waiting to emerge, around which your whole being will re-arrange itself. <br /></span></span></span></div></div></div>Barry Goddardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10050835957098177925noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669359177274695478.post-71234970781030219872023-11-28T17:13:00.000-08:002023-11-28T17:13:00.537-08:00THE GOOD TEACHER<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span><span data-offset-key="5igv4-0-0">A friend was telling me what he liked about my book The Medicine Wheel. He began by saying that it had helped him gain confidence in his own spirituality. That hit the nail on the head for me, I was very pleased to hear it. Because that is the best sort of teaching: it's not so much about imparting information and practices and traditional wisdom (though that has its place), as it is about bringing people to the point where they trust the guidance that comes from within: we have all the wisdom we will ever need within, if we listen to ourselves - or to the spirits, depending on how you look at it.</span></span></span></p><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="6s0hi" data-offset-key="7k79b-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="7k79b-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="7k79b-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="6s0hi" data-offset-key="76efb-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="76efb-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="76efb-0-0"><span data-text="true"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTzQHx4jZEWqSeirxq9k1YDtfVisVE56s3JBFxFf_3b_hCcKjd4Z9FOSjKcuz9rhYNVviJUid2zYs-KCnOSopwqacQPE03ugE4mHtJzNUukEfcBe3DeLNltWl61FklFreFSTQWC2iaQewtSZqPoRu5mnxKf4q4dM6vWOTiAM6cbIA9-XQU2wWTI5J7nA8/s327/a1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="327" data-original-width="212" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTzQHx4jZEWqSeirxq9k1YDtfVisVE56s3JBFxFf_3b_hCcKjd4Z9FOSjKcuz9rhYNVviJUid2zYs-KCnOSopwqacQPE03ugE4mHtJzNUukEfcBe3DeLNltWl61FklFreFSTQWC2iaQewtSZqPoRu5mnxKf4q4dM6vWOTiAM6cbIA9-XQU2wWTI5J7nA8/s320/a1.jpg" width="207" /></a></div><br />That is what humans find so difficult. We tend to rely on authority for our guidance, though few people will see or admit that. It is a big transition, even a crisis, when we let get of the stabilisers and begin to put our own wisdom above received wisdom. It can feel like chutzpah: who am I to think I know better than these elders who have been around since the year dot? I don't mean this in a blind, rebellious way. It involves listening and taking in what others have to say, but making your point of reference your own genuine response to whatever matter it is. And you will always have your own response: listen to it, take it seriously, and hone it against the views of people who think differently.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="6s0hi" data-offset-key="4cpdq-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4cpdq-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="4cpdq-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="6s0hi" data-offset-key="4fvum-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4fvum-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="4fvum-0-0"><span data-text="true">It is not just about views. It is, probably more importantly, about knowing what to do, and feeling confident you are doing the right thing with your life. A limited teacher or astrologer or tarot reader will give you answers and tell you what to do with your life. A good teacher will ascertain what it is you want to do, and support that. I think we always know the right thing to do in the moment, that is congruent with how we are within, even though we may have no idea about the long-term. This is a difficult training, but it is about living your own life and not someone else's idea of how you should live. The good teacher always backs that. The only purpose of all the practices and ceremonies and teachings is to steer us to this point, repeatedly, with all our fallings away, until it becomes the way we live. It is a deep thing, and it takes a lifetime to build. It is why, in the Far East, you get the shamanic illness: ordinary humans often do not want to live from this sort of depth. But, if we are lucky, life will not let us away with living superficially.</span></span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4fvum-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="4fvum-0-0"><span data-text="true"> </span></span></span></div></div><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="2t4tv-0-0"><span data-text="true"></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEcXuOud4fRhlAaZlnsRRtNnvd5K2FDxJA9JwZ1pkFGGdmZ5Q954DRWLZv3Z2NhEtQHIKsTjD5bsnmOFWdXUi5ENEXPAuoNLuoFO42Mr1Da5bHSG92E2Y-8HXa2l6Dzjjl64VkLJa0DEkvXIj0foE-8EwyB74hoIXhbgoWQ13EltGhm6Qfpz_8ZN1jHHg/s327/a1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="327" data-original-width="212" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEcXuOud4fRhlAaZlnsRRtNnvd5K2FDxJA9JwZ1pkFGGdmZ5Q954DRWLZv3Z2NhEtQHIKsTjD5bsnmOFWdXUi5ENEXPAuoNLuoFO42Mr1Da5bHSG92E2Y-8HXa2l6Dzjjl64VkLJa0DEkvXIj0foE-8EwyB74hoIXhbgoWQ13EltGhm6Qfpz_8ZN1jHHg/s320/a1.jpg" width="207" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />Above is my other book, on Astrology. Treat yourself for Christmas, or treat your friends and relatives. They are a feast, though I say so myself. And very readable. I defy you to read the numerous reviews on Amazon and not be sorely tempted 😎</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="2t4tv-0-0"><span data-text="true"></span></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span><span data-offset-key="cknqt-0-0"><span data-text="true"> </span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span><span data-offset-key="cknqt-0-0"><span data-text="true">TALKING</span></span></span><span data-offset-key="cknqt-1-0"><span data-text="true"> TO TREES</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="fl87r-0-0"><span data-text="true">Plants, and particularly trees, are the life-form that stays in one place, that has physical roots. They are at home to themselves. If you are feeling out of sorts, talk to a tree and you will come back to yourself. That within you which has yet to unfold will be given the attention it needs.</span></span></span></p><div data-contents="true"><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="bh801" data-offset-key="7fn4o-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="7fn4o-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="7fn4o-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="bh801" data-offset-key="e0ajo-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="e0ajo-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="e0ajo-0-0"><span data-text="true"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFGyHwk_NVetQTr20CaI7IW9N3rgTcZ423valqZlUKCwzDQfySbdQ3Hs2jOQ_Qm7c5lLYBfSn6OM2RNrAIix_ew7YxJDw8lztn-hclvcUIkX1eXfSia06orldZ4UodMxSL6fHqmMGrv5egm1aHMRiu9kKU6fltgkLTngqfLofrhyphenhyphenaeSQQcqMTKblc5Y88/s400/a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="365" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFGyHwk_NVetQTr20CaI7IW9N3rgTcZ423valqZlUKCwzDQfySbdQ3Hs2jOQ_Qm7c5lLYBfSn6OM2RNrAIix_ew7YxJDw8lztn-hclvcUIkX1eXfSia06orldZ4UodMxSL6fHqmMGrv5egm1aHMRiu9kKU6fltgkLTngqfLofrhyphenhyphenaeSQQcqMTKblc5Y88/s320/a.jpg" width="292" /></a></div><br />I recently planted a Japanese Snowbell tree in my garden. It brought the fairies with it from down the road, and I spoke to them, and my prayers were quickly answered in the usual tricksy way the fairies have, where you learn something. The fairies have always taken care of me, which often means leading me by the nose into a difficult situation that acts as a wake-up call.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="bh801" data-offset-key="7uhlq-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="7uhlq-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="7uhlq-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="bh801" data-offset-key="217bt-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="217bt-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="217bt-0-0"><span data-text="true"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcjGS660nGooVpq5UuugtX5rzzFHD9RJB9Ur1sASwgDqaVBD_X1vw48VYxMQQDoHYJdUfhXelf6W1pkzoTo4elqEJyXNjc8Y5jTyQoPEelqlkX0MBmXMxCFyyxCftTC3PBw2Edz50bcZ4gWHpgHE5yyuuKxYHEiVf_iYQAxtEZbEks-TEaLE5wt5jtHLw/s1280/a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcjGS660nGooVpq5UuugtX5rzzFHD9RJB9Ur1sASwgDqaVBD_X1vw48VYxMQQDoHYJdUfhXelf6W1pkzoTo4elqEJyXNjc8Y5jTyQoPEelqlkX0MBmXMxCFyyxCftTC3PBw2Edz50bcZ4gWHpgHE5yyuuKxYHEiVf_iYQAxtEZbEks-TEaLE5wt5jtHLw/s320/a.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br />The top picture is my tree as it will look in summer. Below that is how it is now. </span></span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="217bt-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="217bt-0-0"><span data-text="true"> </span></span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="217bt-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="217bt-0-0"><span data-text="true"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5BHMl7gYcoxZLwo55UXYLO01d-T9d3xccsepaGSrvXor7OUb8BuoVYUixD1qQkLpyfYZzRGzQRFJpRuDeEs0TCGp6cb4twb88X0cQjyRDHv_JHsQfVk7fURqoSYVLyC0qwoNMjjK7OnabMU9Zq6UhU0QBIKqmPx1DcQWkK3JTQFdUPGo5yWRPwRwwd0s/s2048/a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2048" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5BHMl7gYcoxZLwo55UXYLO01d-T9d3xccsepaGSrvXor7OUb8BuoVYUixD1qQkLpyfYZzRGzQRFJpRuDeEs0TCGp6cb4twb88X0cQjyRDHv_JHsQfVk7fURqoSYVLyC0qwoNMjjK7OnabMU9Zq6UhU0QBIKqmPx1DcQWkK3JTQFdUPGo5yWRPwRwwd0s/s320/a.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />This picture is of another fairy tree that I visit on my walks over Butterdon Down.</span></span></span></div></div></div><p></p>Barry Goddardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10050835957098177925noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669359177274695478.post-57774641681203002312023-11-14T06:25:00.000-08:002023-11-14T06:25:58.765-08:00SHAMANISM AT THE EDGE<p> <span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="4s4p6-0-0"><span data-text="true">I just saw an ad for Contemporary Shamanism - Safe Practices. Harrumph! Is the Sundance, where you dance until you are exhausted and your breast torn open, 'safe'? Is a Sweatlodge, where you struggle to bear the searing steam, 'safe'? Is a Vision Quest, where you are exposed to the elements for 4 days, with no food, 'safe'? Is a trance dance that takes you to the point of possession by the spirits, writhing on the floor and speaking in tongues, 'safe'? No, the whole point of these things is that they are not 'safe'. Think of the young Siberian Shaman, called by the spirits to his vocation, and ill until he accepts the calling. An illness that may kill him unless he yields: an offer he cannot refuse. </span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="4s4p6-0-0"><span data-text="true"></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfE-MCxnIOdLqzsFMXWZ-EdjUxMLanG6howiFiU5SDK-Qx5knY__BMsC7wB4y4Mo5WeQK7BVF9zmFOr73PO-yM3bivSN-4z05CHytvhYVsRT9Uo4pMKNxo-K8uHDhJViOsIyVc309riTdsiwXahqcsLtvXmtvSdZGuVcAmjZ1TUabaVnx9PVztPcfaoOE/s840/a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="840" data-original-width="553" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfE-MCxnIOdLqzsFMXWZ-EdjUxMLanG6howiFiU5SDK-Qx5knY__BMsC7wB4y4Mo5WeQK7BVF9zmFOr73PO-yM3bivSN-4z05CHytvhYVsRT9Uo4pMKNxo-K8uHDhJViOsIyVc309riTdsiwXahqcsLtvXmtvSdZGuVcAmjZ1TUabaVnx9PVztPcfaoOE/w264-h400/a.jpg" width="264" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />The whole point of this shamanic path is that it takes us to the edge, it dismembers and rebuilds us. There is risk involved. And in that process we find gold, a source of guidance and connection that comes from deep within - or without - that can be trusted, that renews us, and that serves the world. If your shamanic practice is 'safe', it will remain superficial. The role of teacher is often safe too, they hide behind it. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="4s4p6-0-0"><span data-text="true"></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMXjIBb0lRg72WMhBMp9J0RPeYfPbMFBDCmLPHLFxBv53cI7KD-7sgkzuuMRTvqcPHcw6kAzXDJYcqLpqIuXEqzvnxuABQPTnMZ14yLkyBwZAZ_5r1A5YxT_2Fi_r-8pzgmpYvLB3D2s6T24tJp2C-wbsxLFnkGZubYM0rHxznNGjeHgeOTnQE9Vbhxhw/s448/a1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="448" data-original-width="448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMXjIBb0lRg72WMhBMp9J0RPeYfPbMFBDCmLPHLFxBv53cI7KD-7sgkzuuMRTvqcPHcw6kAzXDJYcqLpqIuXEqzvnxuABQPTnMZ14yLkyBwZAZ_5r1A5YxT_2Fi_r-8pzgmpYvLB3D2s6T24tJp2C-wbsxLFnkGZubYM0rHxznNGjeHgeOTnQE9Vbhxhw/w400-h400/a1.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />Enough of this coddling and safety. There will be trigger warnings next, and a <span class="xv78j7m" start="1243"><span data-offset-key="4s4p6-1-0"><span data-text="true">#metoo</span></span></span><span data-offset-key="4s4p6-2-0"><span data-text="true"> group for anyone who has had a fierce power animal. We have been prosperous for too long, we have cast out the warrior instinct as toxic and patriarchal, and little that is real can happen in that context. Though the groups we attend may serve our social needs and award badges of shamanic attainment: everyone's a winner. Good luck with that 😎<br /></span></span></span><p></p>Barry Goddardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10050835957098177925noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669359177274695478.post-79793029300426168672023-10-22T17:23:00.000-07:002023-10-22T17:23:05.609-07:00SPIRIT PLAY<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span><span data-offset-key="47cau-0-0">Don't take your spirits too seriously. That is religion. You don't need to know what they look like, what they are. They show up in a light sort of way, sort of sideways on, not through any kind of demand. They are happy to dance around your life. But they are nevertheless powerful. They are involved in the main currents of your life, and they can be sensed.</span></span></span></p><div data-contents="true"><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="8063b" data-offset-key="b4q5d-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="b4q5d-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="b4q5d-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="8063b" data-offset-key="edlbi-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="edlbi-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="edlbi-0-0"><span data-text="true"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUG-VG318PZksO8m46BPyRngakxznigkWsjtzoIbAxzxh-NhtlP_iFPXONpsfiWD-vj1bFlLheg346ZhkB37HFGLE9Fvj9F18xdnqeueHLeZe4xX6YJlMgls9kgvtz0Z6OOV-sN_xABBn74z4X4WMAucr09zjEI95CmilXMt-bNYMR8_Tc_K5gBusKY1A/s580/a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="348" data-original-width="580" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUG-VG318PZksO8m46BPyRngakxznigkWsjtzoIbAxzxh-NhtlP_iFPXONpsfiWD-vj1bFlLheg346ZhkB37HFGLE9Fvj9F18xdnqeueHLeZe4xX6YJlMgls9kgvtz0Z6OOV-sN_xABBn74z4X4WMAucr09zjEI95CmilXMt-bNYMR8_Tc_K5gBusKY1A/w400-h240/a.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />Our modern wisdom is literal: we want to know who our spirit guides are, and almost what they have for breakfast. But it isn't like that. The spirits are very real, they can be experienced as more so than this everyday world. And that is because they are very real: this world is a pale reflection of how things are, as Plato's Cave illustrates. The spirits are real in the way that powerful dreams are real. And we always have a choice about how much attention we pay to them.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="8063b" data-offset-key="f87e9-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="f87e9-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="f87e9-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="8063b" data-offset-key="5k70t-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5k70t-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="5k70t-0-0"><span data-text="true">So there is a dance to be done. Don't get too religious about this thing. We will forget about the spirits, and we will forget about the natural world, because we are human. We need to forgive ourselves for being human.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="8063b" data-offset-key="66p47-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="66p47-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="66p47-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="8063b" data-offset-key="8ce1v-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8ce1v-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="8ce1v-0-0"><span data-text="true">There is always that wider pattern at work, for which the spirits are intermediary. Don't think that anything major happens in your life without that decisive influence. It is reassuring: we can trust there is something in it for us, that we are taken care of, even if it is bitter.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="8063b" data-offset-key="5rpmv-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5rpmv-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="5rpmv-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="8063b" data-offset-key="8ein4-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8ein4-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="8ein4-0-0"><span data-text="true">Trust what is not happening in your life, as well as what is happening. You may have notions about what you want to be happening, or that you think ought to be happening. But that is a merely human perspective, which is a tiny slice of how things are. Have patience, for there is often a deeper alchemy at work that takes time. Let Spirit hold your hand, and feel her presence as you make your choices. Choose gladly that which you have to do.</span></span></span></div></div></div>Barry Goddardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10050835957098177925noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669359177274695478.post-54667252453048934312023-10-21T10:27:00.004-07:002023-10-21T10:27:27.327-07:00NOT A TALKING HEAD<p><span style="font-size: large;">I've recently created a video course for Watkins Books, as a companion to my book The Medicine Wheel. There are 11 sessions, and I had a fun time doing it: it brings something out in me that writing alone cannot. I think you'll find my style engaging: it's more enthusiastic fireside chat than polished talking head 🤣</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> The intro is free and <a href="https://youtu.be/fq7jAeYMBYQ " target="_blank">you can find it here</a></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> The course itself <a href="https://www.watkinswisdomacademy.com/p/the-medicine-wheel-maps-of-transformation" target="_blank">can be found here.</a></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrc9qd6N7xUDrU1yoW5DGYvCQeNRNQL0MmiDIio4rKmdtQRoQU68E4OZ-Dp8pb-2O4NrVKTIunNTSNbWrNXDr8VoJnhxli7Htsc-bXfIsFHWD2uSLz9JC_L_yul8LZLuO0fqeBOZkL8EEg9uzcu0ZDFKLBVRYabweLztgmBhzybCaI_5llzVb1IX67LfY/s1920/a1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrc9qd6N7xUDrU1yoW5DGYvCQeNRNQL0MmiDIio4rKmdtQRoQU68E4OZ-Dp8pb-2O4NrVKTIunNTSNbWrNXDr8VoJnhxli7Htsc-bXfIsFHWD2uSLz9JC_L_yul8LZLuO0fqeBOZkL8EEg9uzcu0ZDFKLBVRYabweLztgmBhzybCaI_5llzVb1IX67LfY/w400-h225/a1.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /> </span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">While you are about it, I did a talk with Aquarius Severn Astrology group in early October, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjDR0KFga0c">you can find that here.</a></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKoK_syemPWoCHYznJO-J2IdP_hvSZgJc8NHCzStBklNjht2mbFErEAfDeCpCcVBHoZnj0LGm6JHu-1L7MdonkqlSR8nREi5AZ5YBrynPBEhzaDeLaIlVCoebS6j98lGbUhbOasPYQWvcB1YeQcvDNcULlYesJlwtT8wWIeJgHjKShNmK2KEj9GHBS8Sw/s1000/a2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="522" data-original-width="1000" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKoK_syemPWoCHYznJO-J2IdP_hvSZgJc8NHCzStBklNjht2mbFErEAfDeCpCcVBHoZnj0LGm6JHu-1L7MdonkqlSR8nREi5AZ5YBrynPBEhzaDeLaIlVCoebS6j98lGbUhbOasPYQWvcB1YeQcvDNcULlYesJlwtT8wWIeJgHjKShNmK2KEj9GHBS8Sw/w400-h209/a2.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Happy Watching! </span><br /></p>Barry Goddardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10050835957098177925noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669359177274695478.post-3235079952970025372023-10-15T03:44:00.000-07:002023-10-15T03:44:32.694-07:00CRAZY SHAMANS and THE MADNESS OF CROWDS<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="5v316-0-0"><span data-text="true">Who am I to criticise anyone's crazy beliefs, when I talk to rocks, leave offerings for fairies and seek guidance from imaginary animal friends? But I think Shamanism does for that reason teach us to hang loose to all beliefs, especially those rigid ones that ironically stop our vast collectives from going completely insane. It used to be religious beliefs, nowadays scientific and political beliefs are used in the same rigid way.</span></span></span></p><div data-contents="true"><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="luqk" data-offset-key="3rl8v-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="3rl8v-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="3rl8v-0-0"><span data-text="true"> </span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="luqk" data-offset-key="2c7ef-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="2c7ef-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="2c7ef-0-0"><span data-text="true"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYoIO00RincA9ZSG2xuTldMBnOBdR9D9oRDbNU_s7kMzUB7LZ6Sex_dB7SU3GerfDvw_ZTyw6eZd9lS_2dT1PYs5DpIp0aG_c_IWbOSp1G7PDoq8IetnEvLu7SCeo0CdGe1cUSk8Bi4_MZ7kG6saFuyhNQFhQSjnJUbXDrbLJ3KzOF9tPTFxiDPjAw-wA/s600/a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="600" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYoIO00RincA9ZSG2xuTldMBnOBdR9D9oRDbNU_s7kMzUB7LZ6Sex_dB7SU3GerfDvw_ZTyw6eZd9lS_2dT1PYs5DpIp0aG_c_IWbOSp1G7PDoq8IetnEvLu7SCeo0CdGe1cUSk8Bi4_MZ7kG6saFuyhNQFhQSjnJUbXDrbLJ3KzOF9tPTFxiDPjAw-wA/s320/a.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />We don't really know anything about the important stuff, like where the universe came from, who we are and why we're here, how life started..... we console ourselves with the idea that science will one day tell us, or maybe God is the one who has the answers.</span></span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="2c7ef-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="2c7ef-0-0"><span data-text="true"> </span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="luqk" data-offset-key="80a6b-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="80a6b-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="80a6b-0-0"><span data-text="true"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD_TEiZ3G3n-Vou2UprrbWqXFgW1ayeY45IZhSlwXIeKxdFZuZbADLU2ChlEHfyaIjXFiWDPLdGgXUGkhYUsPtX2KNmHxms_INMr84PSEYfzOnDLr10Vm_isvWDS48mZzurjZ1pytVRpZRzluvcvNmC1QaX16e0I114dSKpqpDXyNeKfra3H0aSWJ_0do/s518/a1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="388" data-original-width="518" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD_TEiZ3G3n-Vou2UprrbWqXFgW1ayeY45IZhSlwXIeKxdFZuZbADLU2ChlEHfyaIjXFiWDPLdGgXUGkhYUsPtX2KNmHxms_INMr84PSEYfzOnDLr10Vm_isvWDS48mZzurjZ1pytVRpZRzluvcvNmC1QaX16e0I114dSKpqpDXyNeKfra3H0aSWJ_0do/s320/a1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Embracing the uncertainty is the way to go. But that isn't an intellectual position. It's about spending years doing the spade work so that you can tolerate yourself. Then there becomes no need to cling convulsively to those collective beliefs and the massive sense of authority behind them. It becomes natural to be open and fluid. And here's a thing: it means you can afford to think honestly and logically, because you no longer have anything to lose by doing so.</span></span></span></div></div></div>Barry Goddardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10050835957098177925noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669359177274695478.post-27479053956367868202023-10-12T06:49:00.005-07:002023-11-03T11:32:18.394-07:00 A SHAMANIC MANIFESTO<p><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">“God is
Dead,” declared Nietzsche over 100 years ago. Who is this God who has died - or
who, rather, according to Nietzsche - we killed? I think he was the corrupt
invention of a desperate people.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjZ2711y0s4jmtgvGKKwOvJQTSppPr2Pbvc0oRLDuZwpqeOxy12eZRDd6XZ3vjRDlrwOmoyFtHCoUPlm6KQQwtGcXtaETvGWSXR7zdqW6NMRcmqVSq7ruQUKPzOI8wYwjkoOYQuaw9fcuvut_tw_j5B4v7PUwOuQqTCYy-miTokJ2RjBh4LYvEjHoEEcE/s275/a.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjZ2711y0s4jmtgvGKKwOvJQTSppPr2Pbvc0oRLDuZwpqeOxy12eZRDd6XZ3vjRDlrwOmoyFtHCoUPlm6KQQwtGcXtaETvGWSXR7zdqW6NMRcmqVSq7ruQUKPzOI8wYwjkoOYQuaw9fcuvut_tw_j5B4v7PUwOuQqTCYy-miTokJ2RjBh4LYvEjHoEEcE/w400-h266/a.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">It goes this
way. The Great Spirit is everywhere in nature. All is sacred. This is the
universal experience of early peoples. It is how things are, and far older than God, the new kid on the block. The Jews, a slave
race, flee the Pharoah, and spend years wandering in the desert wilderness:
this is the book of Exodus. They have fled a tyrant, but tyranny is what is
familiar to them. And so, in the absence of a tyrannical worldly ruler, they
create a tyrannical Otherworldly ruler. It is the psychology by which adults
replicate painful family situations from childhood, because that is what they
know. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXSbDN7y-PMo67bmYh2lodHMwmKYxkQWRaHaBevIgD-SEYPeDQv0GQnP6PA3kEGcQAesdG3vXl3lEYuMgZAOL5yupl8bzhGBQa-2D4tx0SZdC5IC9Mi1GEnvWSlb0POKQZukKNUdW2bYecOZY0K_garQ8btcYmuAiYVnf6JMir5X31P71tyU_Kpk-L-VE/s300/a1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXSbDN7y-PMo67bmYh2lodHMwmKYxkQWRaHaBevIgD-SEYPeDQv0GQnP6PA3kEGcQAesdG3vXl3lEYuMgZAOL5yupl8bzhGBQa-2D4tx0SZdC5IC9Mi1GEnvWSlb0POKQZukKNUdW2bYecOZY0K_garQ8btcYmuAiYVnf6JMir5X31P71tyU_Kpk-L-VE/w400-h224/a1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">This
tyrannical God is abstracted from the natural world, he dominates it from
above. The Jews were living in a harsh, unforgiving reality in which the
people's survival was at stake if they did not follow strict codes of
behaviour. So there was a practical as well as a psychological reason for an
authoritarian God. He is for the same reason jealous of the pagan god Baal.
What eventually arose were the monotheisms of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, all of
which treat the Old Testament as a holy book.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">There is, of course, the New Testament, which has a less authoritarian flavour. But even there, right at the start, you have Jesus saying you can only reach God through him. So it is there also. Christianity hit the big time when the Roman Empire, which needed an authoritarian religion to unite it, adopted it. And the rest is history: crusades, inquisitions, witch burnings and so on. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">It has been
said that monotheisms are desert religions, because their context is just one reality:
the desert and the sky. In a jungle, by contrast, there are many realities,
which therefore lends itself to polytheisms. Lots of spirit animals! It is why
you got saints as Christianity spread beyond the desert. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">So good
riddance to God and his authoritarian ways. It has left the western world
floundering in a sea of uncertainties. Politics has taken its place. Extreme
right and left wing politics are a substitute for religion: </span><span data-offset-key="8j266-2-0"><span data-text="true"><span style="font-size: large;">they give the sense of certainty and belonging, and the prospect of redemption, that religion once provided. </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;"> We see it too in the
causes that young people take up - it is natural to them to do so - but with a
religious dogmatism that brooks no disagreement. You are, for example, quickly
labelled a 'climate denier' or a 'transphobe' if you question the mainstream
narratives around climate and gender. People get 'cancelled'.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCaXsHjWAlBkVdwzBA1L4CFc0FL-TJud0cq9vGtwdLEI50_3v2p7e5bmbUzZ_9npKYRosQcPHQvYmLR-scY04I7IBRZq0QH4mFVSF2GDSlIn1EsgxZ1x3XppYsn-GKVlOlDZ3LLQBIiiJPMU1RXIzhPotU1vfECepXUedhQhly06rSFuJ5h6cM9t-CBIk/s311/a3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="162" data-original-width="311" height="162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCaXsHjWAlBkVdwzBA1L4CFc0FL-TJud0cq9vGtwdLEI50_3v2p7e5bmbUzZ_9npKYRosQcPHQvYmLR-scY04I7IBRZq0QH4mFVSF2GDSlIn1EsgxZ1x3XppYsn-GKVlOlDZ3LLQBIiiJPMU1RXIzhPotU1vfECepXUedhQhly06rSFuJ5h6cM9t-CBIk/s1600/a3.jpg" width="311" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Into this
brew walks Shamanism, which represents a return to that which was universally
true before the corruption of the monotheisms. Shamanism is not true in a rigid
sense: it has no holy books or founders. It is nevertheless perfectly possible to become
authoritarian about it: you see that on the internet, where some people are
quick to correct others about what shamanism is and isn’t. That is just a power
thing, that is people wanting to stand above others, and there will always be
people like that. You can learn a lot by watching them.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Shamanism,
in a way, begins and ends with the experience of the natural world. In that is
everything you will ever need to know, but you have to find it for yourself. We
are a part of nature, neither above it (as God would have us believe) nor below
it, a kind of plague (as many environmentalists would have us believe). The
latter is an example of what Jung called enantiodroma, in which one switches to
the psychological opposite: from above nature to below nature.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtQOMoJ-W5GK03da25rcmo2WCPReTSQRTrolVydtNQEMTQsUbw-j_wmmFAakmbF1017BrzFhBTPeNedIGrHDCwlwNOm93043jvQFQgBgNb-9xyYbeCmRkJjgXYn2imGVcYhahbYyxb9wcOmDfQZMdv8vZjUNs4ZWRyPcY9ZQF0sIqJJBLtwx9PggNFUjo/s275/b.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtQOMoJ-W5GK03da25rcmo2WCPReTSQRTrolVydtNQEMTQsUbw-j_wmmFAakmbF1017BrzFhBTPeNedIGrHDCwlwNOm93043jvQFQgBgNb-9xyYbeCmRkJjgXYn2imGVcYhahbYyxb9wcOmDfQZMdv8vZjUNs4ZWRyPcY9ZQF0sIqJJBLtwx9PggNFUjo/w400-h266/b.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">For the
Chippewa Cree, we do indeed have a special place: the new-born ones, because we
are the only animal that does not know who it is. And so we can learn to know
who we are by observing nature – as part of it, not as separate to it – for animals
and plants and rocks and streams all know who and what they are, and get on
with it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">The loss of
our traditional religion has been a mixed thing, and its influence persists: in,
for example the scientific quest for truth, with its unspoken implication that
the truth will redeem us. It is this passion that drives research scientists. It
will indeed redeem us, but not very much if we are using the narrow scientific
definition of truth alone. I think the hatred of humanity often found within
environmentalism has reverberations of Original Sin, in this case our sin
against the Mother, the Earth, for which we must pay by dismantling our whole
way of life. I think it is important to look at the mythological roots of what
drives us.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">The
collective needs a new mythology to live by, or it will continue to treat
politics as religion, as a philosophy that can set us free. We saw how disastrous
that was with Communism. (The far right is as nothing compared to the far left
when it comes to mass murder.) We can only ever free ourselves individually.
Trying to change the world is usually an avoidance of the responsibility we
have for our own souls.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">Whether our
huge modern collectives of people can have a mythology that is not to some
degree authoritarian and crazed is something to which I do not know the answer.
When there are fewer people, a tribe can govern itself more through
relationships than rules. And that keeps things human, and keeps the mythologies
softer. Most people will always want a simple belief of some sort about the
universe and how it came to be; you need people who are listened to who can
dance around that, in the knowledge that really we know nothing about how the
universe came to be, and never will. The healers and medicine people, if you
like. Or, in our context, the poets.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">I think
Shamanism does provide the necessary basis for any society to be healthy. The
modern world needs Shamanism. We have a big mission on our hands,
we have a whole world to convert! But I don’t mean that evangelically. It is
more like a spirit we can convey in a natural kind of way, without actually
trying to, simply by being ourselves, and letting people come our way rather
than seeking them out.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 107%;">We do nevertheless
have some ideas to convey: for example, that the whole world is alive,
inspirited, and why would it not be? That we belong intimately to the natural
world, there is nothing in us that is outside of that. And the simple, but
world-transforming, idea of regularly expressing gratitude to the earth for her
bounty. </span></p>
Barry Goddardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10050835957098177925noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669359177274695478.post-10870817060943287592023-10-06T13:52:00.001-07:002023-10-06T13:52:26.048-07:00THE BATHROOM SWEATLODGE<p><span style="font-size: large;">The purpose of the heat in.a Sweatlodge is to melt you out of your rational mind, and into your heart. Failing that, I find a hot bath helps. One that is sufficiently hot that it takes a while to get into. And you just lie there and let the heat have its way. Occasionally hold the back of your head under the water so your brain gets it too. It will set you up for the evening, bring you close to yourself, which is what we are really seeking when we <span></span>reach for the alcohol, or whatever our self-medication is. Just before bed is good for deep sleep. Just before work in the morning may not be so good: the left-brain has its claims and its uses. </span><span class="x193iq5w xeuugli x13faqbe x1vvkbs x1xmvt09 x1lliihq x1s928wv xhkezso x1gmr53x x1cpjm7i x1fgarty x1943h6x xudqn12 x3x7a5m x6prxxf xvq8zen xo1l8bm xzsf02u x1yc453h" dir="auto"></span></p><div class="xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs x126k92a"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR8vBuAopgNSyPu6zxcXFuNP1ZvARqjF0BK1uM5ck3tQekB7JQWi1g4olOPZQNSLrG8HW5W5OuEbRkoYm8WDebTz7_wf_-K6bA9Xi1PLfI-bKJ3VSNOO2YgEC6v0HlzwYVatU5-7i8gLVJC0orgf0-domzloERghkzNzctGk3XHaTvfejAPRsodc_4thc/s1440/a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1080" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR8vBuAopgNSyPu6zxcXFuNP1ZvARqjF0BK1uM5ck3tQekB7JQWi1g4olOPZQNSLrG8HW5W5OuEbRkoYm8WDebTz7_wf_-K6bA9Xi1PLfI-bKJ3VSNOO2YgEC6v0HlzwYVatU5-7i8gLVJC0orgf0-domzloERghkzNzctGk3XHaTvfejAPRsodc_4thc/w300-h400/a.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;">Above is the view over Moretonhampstead and Dartmoor from my bathroom window.</span></div></div><p></p>Barry Goddardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10050835957098177925noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669359177274695478.post-5659102234594618192023-09-27T16:06:00.001-07:002023-09-27T16:06:44.979-07:00RELIGION: MEDIEVAL AND MODERN<p> <span style="font-size: large;">People used to be required to believe in a guy who died pre-emptively for their sins 2000 years ago, or they would burn in hell forever. </span><span class="x193iq5w xeuugli x13faqbe x1vvkbs x1xmvt09 x1lliihq x1s928wv xhkezso x1gmr53x x1cpjm7i x1fgarty x1943h6x xudqn12 x3x7a5m x6prxxf xvq8zen xo1l8bm xzsf02u x1yc453h" dir="auto"></span></p><div class="xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs x126k92a"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8vP2udHchPbLAQ-N_A0Z-c6ZoHAlGTiI3V2gxYlzowioUllemNCvhh522OzsxMEviCvasX9vi8KkSiaxf8ADyu2YlErIPYVr7rztNZkjHbeOyGhMXk_PgsRIlBtQ5-A4V4dTg5Hh9go59QUR3hpzxVeZ4a1ul0LAcE-5CEov2CMZj_KsfuLihPvgdRIc/s658/a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="306" data-original-width="658" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8vP2udHchPbLAQ-N_A0Z-c6ZoHAlGTiI3V2gxYlzowioUllemNCvhh522OzsxMEviCvasX9vi8KkSiaxf8ADyu2YlErIPYVr7rztNZkjHbeOyGhMXk_PgsRIlBtQ5-A4V4dTg5Hh9go59QUR3hpzxVeZ4a1ul0LAcE-5CEov2CMZj_KsfuLihPvgdRIc/w400-h186/a.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />Nowadays we are required to believe that unless we dismantle our whole way of life, there will be an apocalypse in which the world itself will burn. </span></div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ1-yw2NNrmrFduCDunCPMEAYhIiUc_cLcCTsbSm8uz6S__CU6b-hJnAI_2SEiBPbX0oZjfLWQqCEPTa4nOGtoMct_Uw1q1ua4sMrc_pgK7s4CagyGgcAQo8EHvavFZQbQkfOp_9FnHlbRHz4mjkFgI2z6QSKyCAGgzb-BulMSk09aXIObGBKAMCmf-jw/s620/a1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="326" data-original-width="620" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ1-yw2NNrmrFduCDunCPMEAYhIiUc_cLcCTsbSm8uz6S__CU6b-hJnAI_2SEiBPbX0oZjfLWQqCEPTa4nOGtoMct_Uw1q1ua4sMrc_pgK7s4CagyGgcAQo8EHvavFZQbQkfOp_9FnHlbRHz4mjkFgI2z6QSKyCAGgzb-BulMSk09aXIObGBKAMCmf-jw/w400-h210/a1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />There's maybe not a lot of difference. Both are redemptive religious beliefs, and no doubt the collective needs them. Given the choice, I'd probably stick with what <span></span>we used to have. The most I hope for is to be able to gnaw at the edges of dogma and foster islands of sanity. Meanwhile, the planet will carry on as before, oblivious of our attempts to save her <span class="x3nfvp2 x1j61x8r x1fcty0u xdj266r xhhsvwb xat24cr xgzva0m xxymvpz xlup9mm x1kky2od"><img alt="😎" height="16" src="https://static.xx.fbcdn.net/images/emoji.php/v9/t22/2/16/1f60e.png" width="16" /></span></span></div></div><p></p>Barry Goddardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10050835957098177925noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669359177274695478.post-59861252870129252082023-09-22T10:48:00.002-07:002023-09-22T10:49:33.791-07:00THE SHAPESHIFTERS TRILOGY <p><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="3t8b1-1-0"><span data-text="true">My next book, The Shapeshifters Trilogy, <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Shapeshifters-Trilogy-Stolen-Queen-Escape-Myrizen/dp/1805141953/ref=sr_1_16?qid=1695402159&refinements=p_27%3ABarry+Goddard&s=books&sr=1-16 " target="_blank">is available for pre-order on Amazon</a>. It is a fantasy novel that gives expression to my experience of working with the Spirits - Shapeshifting. It is also a world-transforming myth that addresses the old cultural clash between spirit and reason. If you buy it and leave a genuine rating on Amazon, I will give you not one but two free astrology/tarot readings, as it's a substantial, albeit page-turning, read. </span></span><span class="x1fey0fg"><span data-offset-key="3t8b1-2-0"><span data-text="true"></span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="3t8b1-3-0"><span data-text="true"></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu_k3X0Xs58GQRQ_n-ioZGFOiV0bJ8UB1-hTlLbJOJbahXgxBa_SoNvd_IjEb3Kjedtwo9kgxt-mjQQmSB1NoOuFdUIa1Ms0s1UhYNpCyHt9So21Rv9LYNzpcv3n1OvaT7EttyeHPgFVIN-h01XZF3R2OD9sole3uCQNn97Y-I8vbNN_wSyCqIkOK6ru4/s311/a.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="162" data-original-width="311" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu_k3X0Xs58GQRQ_n-ioZGFOiV0bJ8UB1-hTlLbJOJbahXgxBa_SoNvd_IjEb3Kjedtwo9kgxt-mjQQmSB1NoOuFdUIa1Ms0s1UhYNpCyHt9So21Rv9LYNzpcv3n1OvaT7EttyeHPgFVIN-h01XZF3R2OD9sole3uCQNn97Y-I8vbNN_wSyCqIkOK6ru4/w400-h208/a.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br />From the back of Shapeshifters: "In a world where dogmatic science has replaced tyrannical religion, the Shapeshifters – those with the ability to take animal form – are ruthlessly hunted down by the ruling Logos. Janwar is a teenager with a nascent gift for Shapeshifting, whose ambitious father is appalled by his son’s proclivity; Alicia is a rebel daughter of the aristocracy, unashamed of her affinity with the animal world. Together with their Shapeshifting friends – Diana the intuitive Dwarf, William the magical adept, Rowena the Rhino and Francis, a mole in the Logos - they must find and rescue Queen Elfina, who has been spirited away because of her Otherworldly sympathies. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="3t8b1-3-0"><span data-text="true">Elfina in her turn has a larger destiny to fulfil: reconciling the forces of science, led by the diabolical Roger Bacon, and resurgent religion, led by the charismatic Zeus Messiah. She has the ancient elemental powers of the Earth at her disposal, along with the help of the Shapeshifters, but will that be enough to pacify these old enemies? </span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="3t8b1-3-0"><span data-text="true">A page-turning drama that addresses a central mythological theme of our times, Shapeshifters is also a real-world exploration of the larger humanity that emerges from embodying animal spirits."</span></span></span></p>Barry Goddardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10050835957098177925noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669359177274695478.post-55528221180001272972023-09-18T16:08:00.005-07:002023-09-18T16:08:50.892-07:00ST JEROME AND I<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="17f9-0-0"><span data-text="true">It has been occurring to me that in writing my book <i>The Medicine Wheel</i>, I took the spirit, the essence of a tradition and reinvented it for our culture. Not only did I reinvent it, I added to the tradition. The Medicine Wheel is now something we can claim as our own, and not because of my book alone. </span></span></span></p><div data-contents="true"><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="9hpem" data-offset-key="9q91f-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="9q91f-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="9q91f-0-0"><span data-text="true"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFJuWp5AVO2p-2C10ngHcJdQ9I7MLMhd5ImKCp6xWZsArfHWULciawQhrTtMivyR2eBVJC-nsqaZ_lYWaUhrJV_zGxUD2QDxiA42ZLtv_SAVJWquHWTiQeOGt9uNUroR18XiIOvqCbRhZ-Ovv3SwLmpb0vfVuo6TKUVWJWRUJ7uwBza-svUqKWyLB8rXY/s463/a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="463" data-original-width="300" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFJuWp5AVO2p-2C10ngHcJdQ9I7MLMhd5ImKCp6xWZsArfHWULciawQhrTtMivyR2eBVJC-nsqaZ_lYWaUhrJV_zGxUD2QDxiA42ZLtv_SAVJWquHWTiQeOGt9uNUroR18XiIOvqCbRhZ-Ovv3SwLmpb0vfVuo6TKUVWJWRUJ7uwBza-svUqKWyLB8rXY/w259-h400/a.jpg" width="259" /></a></div><br />The book is easy to read and understand, yet addresses the underlying themes in their complexity and profundity. It is a book to be lived, as the Medicine Wheel itself always has been. The ideas are fully embedded in western culture in a way that only someone from this culture could achieve.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="9hpem" data-offset-key="fck4e-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fck4e-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="fck4e-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="9hpem" data-offset-key="5aagq-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5aagq-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="5aagq-0-0"><span data-text="true">Gosh, this is a bit of a paean to myself, very un-English of me, and I hope you'll forgive me 🤣 There is worse to come!</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="9hpem" data-offset-key="5kja9-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5kja9-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="5kja9-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="9hpem" data-offset-key="ds49v-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="ds49v-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="ds49v-0-0"><span data-text="true">In writing the book, the archetype of the translator was breathing through me. Not literal translation of one language to another, but the translation of the spirit of a tradition into a form that can be readily appreciated in another culture, so that it does not seem foreign. It is a weighty responsibility. I began writing under a New Moon in Capricorn, which has that kind of gravitas.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="9hpem" data-offset-key="e8kv8-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="e8kv8-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="e8kv8-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="9hpem" data-offset-key="dc04h-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="dc04h-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="dc04h-0-0"><span data-text="true"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEierhDaU5NMOrE51DmATT3up7SPjdpJPlLv5YqbPT1-SEr94AmGUNwh-CWOXaF__HVMQom6evtG9NMBkoNRdsdlEo6S3b2iDHDecmcHRZVoVJAp_5Sm61_26FF8guDs7UnEmrV3U4b2MGAv2jdUOL7PW7xPVcysmWT2_wz7DpCAurnG1zLcnCWkxcf6VMU/s821/a2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="821" data-original-width="749" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEierhDaU5NMOrE51DmATT3up7SPjdpJPlLv5YqbPT1-SEr94AmGUNwh-CWOXaF__HVMQom6evtG9NMBkoNRdsdlEo6S3b2iDHDecmcHRZVoVJAp_5Sm61_26FF8guDs7UnEmrV3U4b2MGAv2jdUOL7PW7xPVcysmWT2_wz7DpCAurnG1zLcnCWkxcf6VMU/w365-h400/a2.jpg" width="365" /></a></div><br />St Jerome is the archetype of the translator in our culture. He translated the Bible from the original Hebrew into Latin. Up until then, translations from Greek into Latin had been used. OK, he didn't reinvent a whole tradition, but even in translating words you need a poet's mind, you need to grasp the spirit of what is being said and find an equivalent. Which cannot be literally exact, and adds new meaning, as well as losing some of the old.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="9hpem" data-offset-key="alp53-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="alp53-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="alp53-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="9hpem" data-offset-key="cl45o-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="cl45o-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="cl45o-0-0"><span data-text="true">So in this sense St Jerome was reinventing a tradition. Moreover, he undertook his translation next to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, built on the spot where Jesus was said to have been born. Shamanically, you could say, the original essence of Jesus was flowing through and informing him as he did his work. </span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="9hpem" data-offset-key="5a9mk-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5a9mk-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="5a9mk-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="9hpem" data-offset-key="fmu8d-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fmu8d-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="fmu8d-0-0"><span data-text="true"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQb2ovNQvsTKW_AvTO8MwvMqq796YocxYF5Z9KnVjMhDJTPVDVPjbRZxTxJ2oSf3vXBbW1zd-JUS2Unbr5T6BxJlgSeCJb4BOe5Tth9kA8XilPuCLQJnl-qp2o27JZJPEjU48aE2eu7YbgXhHeYv6aNC9H_3XJoUhVe9vRlMS-Av2UqkbD2E9D5AB3ZTo/s522/a1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="522" data-original-width="386" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQb2ovNQvsTKW_AvTO8MwvMqq796YocxYF5Z9KnVjMhDJTPVDVPjbRZxTxJ2oSf3vXBbW1zd-JUS2Unbr5T6BxJlgSeCJb4BOe5Tth9kA8XilPuCLQJnl-qp2o27JZJPEjU48aE2eu7YbgXhHeYv6aNC9H_3XJoUhVe9vRlMS-Av2UqkbD2E9D5AB3ZTo/w296-h400/a1.jpg" width="296" /></a></div><br />For me, there has also been a strange synchronicity. St Jerome had come to mind recently in relation to my work. <i>The Medicine Wheel</i> was published on 30 Sept 2022, which is the Feast Day of St Jerome. I couldn't believe it when I found that out. Yes, I am being told, we are both translators of something deep. And my book was published 23 years after attending my first course on the Wheel, and having been with it, one way or another, ever since. This was exactly the amount of time Jerome took to complete his translation.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="9hpem" data-offset-key="3i82a-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="3i82a-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="3i82a-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="9hpem" data-offset-key="7p97f-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="7p97f-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="7p97f-0-0"><span data-text="true">I am not boasting when I write all the above. I have a reluctance, but there is a particular gravitas and significance to <i>The Medicine Wheel</i> that needs to be articulated. It enables us to claim this shamanic thing for our own, without the endless deferring to indigenous people that we often engage in, when it can be like the Pope has walked into the room. We can stand on equal terms, and that is something we need to do for our shamanism to reach maturity.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="9hpem" data-offset-key="crlhm-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="crlhm-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="crlhm-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="9hpem" data-offset-key="140hh-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="140hh-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="140hh-0-0"><span data-text="true">There are various depictions of St Jerome. I chose the one with the lion, that references the popular belief that he tamed a lion by healing its paw. The union of animal and human, as well as healing, are central to the Shamanic endeavour.</span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="9hpem" data-offset-key="cgn08-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="cgn08-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="cgn08-0-0"><br data-text="true" /></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="9hpem" data-offset-key="42c63-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="42c63-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="42c63-0-0"><span data-text="true">NB If you buy my book and leave a (genuine) rating on Amazon, I will give you a free astrology (or tarot) reading😊 The same goes for my astrology book <i>Surfing the Galactic Highways.<br /></i></span></span></span></div></div></div>Barry Goddardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10050835957098177925noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669359177274695478.post-5144363830913438202023-09-10T03:25:00.000-07:002023-09-10T03:25:48.223-07:00 SUN, RAIN, SOIL and WIND<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fr4v4-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="fr4v4-0-0"><span data-text="true">Fire, Water, Earth and Air are the 4 elements that make up the universe, both for Europeans and Native Americans. It is an ancient way of understanding the world that we share. Isn't that wonderful? Old ways like this live in our viscera, even though we may have forgotten them. It just takes a bit of smudge and honouring of the Elements for that ancient thing to awaken in us.</span></span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="fr4v4-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="fr4v4-0-0"><span data-text="true"> </span></span></span></div><div data-contents="true"><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="7uo7p" data-offset-key="81nrp-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="81nrp-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="81nrp-0-0"><span data-text="true"> </span></span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="81nrp-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="81nrp-0-0"><span data-text="true"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEW6MnciKJBK5aIECyAaTEKhgbqXTdODFJpS_HwPWdGoSXSAQxO1t2lCdZj25VlmhNzXYob_5NbPLc5TLX-9Yh9oUyiLMRSpmIKbAG4afsD9I__tGLemOISGdEd5gvHKIjWKsM55qwEiOmvXnHcEijWdBAsZ6GsyQoo4pLJ4ih-c81aAcGGxJmJxvLPRY/s696/a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="290" data-original-width="696" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEW6MnciKJBK5aIECyAaTEKhgbqXTdODFJpS_HwPWdGoSXSAQxO1t2lCdZj25VlmhNzXYob_5NbPLc5TLX-9Yh9oUyiLMRSpmIKbAG4afsD9I__tGLemOISGdEd5gvHKIjWKsM55qwEiOmvXnHcEijWdBAsZ6GsyQoo4pLJ4ih-c81aAcGGxJmJxvLPRY/w400-h166/a.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /> </span></span></span></div></div><div class="x1e56ztr" data-block="true" data-editor="7uo7p" data-offset-key="30c8p-0-0"><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="30c8p-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="81nrp-0-0"><span data-text="true">I
like the Elements because they are concrete, they are close to
experience. They are not the abstractions that we have got used to. You
want to understand the universe? Here are the equations, but you won't
understand them. And even if you do, your senses will not be invited in
to share in the knowing.</span></span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="30c8p-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="81nrp-0-0"><span data-text="true"> </span></span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="30c8p-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="30c8p-0-0"><span data-text="true">But even Fire, Water, Earth and Air are, to a degree, abstractions. Abstraction has its place, for it can reveal underlying principles. </span></span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="30c8p-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="30c8p-0-0"><span data-text="true"> </span></span></span></div><div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="30c8p-0-0"><span style="font-size: large;"><span data-offset-key="30c8p-0-0"><span data-text="true"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiueRcSo_lPMOUY3Vc_sHxaGwWgImo6c2ORCvlblk3rIBDGd6ohgKrxHEOFsuqvp1sMq4MWpGtHkJOnQBywdjGdAO71pogA615TD1JojUb5YSYEjDLPjczWSQqQSu4XzkKz_rYgW6FrN0H6qHpmAvevXdPn3vFXz79fcQTuvunrzsQH2h2GYB8id_L9uoM/s312/a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="161" data-original-width="312" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiueRcSo_lPMOUY3Vc_sHxaGwWgImo6c2ORCvlblk3rIBDGd6ohgKrxHEOFsuqvp1sMq4MWpGtHkJOnQBywdjGdAO71pogA615TD1JojUb5YSYEjDLPjczWSQqQSu4XzkKz_rYgW6FrN0H6qHpmAvevXdPn3vFXz79fcQTuvunrzsQH2h2GYB8id_L9uoM/w400-h206/a.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />All the same, I prefer to say Sun, Rain, Soil and Wind. You can feel them, taste them, smell them, even as you are reading this. Everything is to be found in allowing ourselves to be drawn, with gratitude, into that sensory experience of the world. You don't need books or teachers or spirit guides. That is all this thing we call shamanism is: allowing the spirit to incarnate through its delight in the natural world. And you can do it in a city.</span></span></span></div></div></div>Barry Goddardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10050835957098177925noreply@blogger.com0