ST JEROME AND I

It has been occurring to me that in writing my book The Medicine Wheel, 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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

For me, there has also been a strange synchronicity. St Jerome had come to mind recently in relation to my work. The Medicine Wheel 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.

I am not boasting when I write all the above. I have a reluctance, but there is a particular gravitas and significance to The Medicine Wheel 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.

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.

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 Surfing the Galactic Highways.

SHAPESHIFTING and ChatGPT

I asked ChatGPT "What is the place of shapeshifting within shamanism?" Shapeshifting is one of the main themes of the shamanic fantasy trilogy I have almost finished writing. I got this response:

Shapeshifting is a common practice in shamanism, which involves the shaman taking on the form of an animal, plant, or other natural object. It is often used as a tool for accessing and working with different realms of consciousness, as well as for healing, divination, and spiritual transformation.

In shamanic traditions, shapeshifting is believed to be a way of connecting with the natural world and the spirits that inhabit it. By taking on the form of an animal, for example, the shaman can gain insight into the animal's perspective and gain access to its innate wisdom and power.

THAT'S ME FOLKS

Shapeshifting can also be used as a means of personal transformation. By embodying the qualities of an animal or other natural object, the shaman can take on its strengths and attributes, and integrate them into their own being. This process can help the shaman to overcome personal challenges and develop a deeper connection with nature and the spiritual world.

Overall, shapeshifting is considered to be an important part of shamanic practice, and is often used in conjunction with other techniques such as drumming, chanting, and meditation. However, it is worth noting that shapeshifting is often seen as a highly advanced practice that requires a great deal of skill and experience to perform safely and effectively.

BALANCING HEAVEN AND EARTH

I am reading these memoirs of a singular Jungian analyst. There is much food for thought. Johnson is by temperament introverted and solitary, and it draws me into that emphasis in myself. The Hermit archetype, which is full of the inner joy to be found when we let the world recede and honour the abundance within. Out of that I do my best work, which mainly takes the form of astrology readings by zoom, but which is a vehicle for whatever is needed.

For me, the overlap between Jung and Shamanism is seamless. I don't feel any limits or dogmas around Jung's spirit, and Shamanism at its best also has that quality: it is simply the human living in alignment with the spirit of the natural world, which is infinite. Jung knew one or two indigenous elders, and there was an easy understanding between them.

As a young man, Johnson was fortunate enough to meet Jung. He'd had a dream, which he related to Mrs Jung, and she passed it on to Carl. It was a huge lengthy dream involving Buddhas and snakes. Jung laid out Johnson's life before him. Do not join anything. Never marry. Your life is an inner life, and the world may never acknowledge you. That does not matter. What matters is that you commit yourself to that inner life and work.

As it happens, the world did acknowledge him. His books such as He, and Lying with the Heavenly Woman, became bestsellers (I recommend them.) And Jung was spot on. It reminds me of the traditional idea where a young man goes out on a vision quest, has a vision which reveals the course of his life, and an elder interprets it for him.

Never join anything was one of the injunctions. Out of his longing for community, Johnson tried a number of times to join institutions. He even became a monk at one point. It never worked out, and he knew beforehand that it was wrong for him. But still he went ahead. How many times has each of us done just that, one way or another?

Jolande Jacobi founded the CG Jung Institute in Zurich. Jung was resigned to its inevitability, but refused to set foot in it. Groups of people always mess up and dogmatise and literalise the teachings, and put the teacher on a pedestal. Not to speak of the interpersonal politics that arise.

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This has been a theme for me for years. I feel that the universe keeps shoving me away from groups, but still I footle around the edges. I may even try to change them. It always ends in tears. There is usually some kind of falling out because I feel constrained by the unspoken rules and hierarchy, and I say something. That need for community has also driven me to allow people to become close to me who are inauthentic in some way, have an agenda. And I can be naïve enough to try to address it with them.

I am trying now to quietly leave religious groupings – and indeed, the world itself - to their own devices. There is an inevitability to the way they are, and they serve a function. Where does that leave me? I have published a book, The Medicine Wheel. It is full of ideas that are worth chewing on, though I say so myself. But to set up a group based around the things I have to say? I recoil at that.

Many of those who wanted to stay in such a group would be doing so on the basis of aligning themselves with my ideas, with various degrees of dogmatism, depending on their (unacknowledged) need for authority. Now there’s nothing wrong with my ideas, I think many of them are pretty good. But my job is to help people align with their own inner guidance, not mine. That is all that real teaching ever is. But the difference is not clear to most members of spiritual groupings. Of course they think their understanding is their own. But it’s not, it’s the teacher’s. If you are outside the group, you can see that.

It's like received opinion everywhere. It’s what makes the world go round. You hear one opinion from someone, and you can usually guess the next dozen. And there’s usually very little point arguing with it, even though I do, because people get their identity from belonging to some sort of ‘right-thinking’ demographic. Here’s a thing, based on my observation: nearly everyone believes what they want to believe about just about everything, and evidence to the contrary makes very little difference. It is almost the human condition itself. As Blake said, “A man convinced against his will, retains the same opinion still.” This is the North of the Medicine Wheel, the Mind, and it comes last because it is so difficult for people. The ‘wanting’ to believe comes from the opposite point, the South, Emotion, and the North can help bring awareness to that.

So I am much more inclined to go for individual interactions. With the best will in the world, a grouping develops a collective mind of its own, with its own unspoken rules of engagement. We all get drawn into that to some extent when we join or when we lead. I am not saying useful stuff does not happen in that context. It is often the first stage for people, and it may go on for years. It certainly did for myself, even though I was always a bit uncomfortable, always aware that the leader needed me to surrender some of my autonomy, though they would never have acknowledged that. Group leaders are usually very unaware of the real nature of their relationship with their students. That is quite a thing to say, but I think it is nevertheless true.

That is not what I am about. The people running such groupings usually have some kind of ambition for themselves (NOT always!) They don’t seem to see anything wrong with that. I have been unfriended and blocked by teachers over this issue. One guy even claimed that personal ambition was validated by the indigenous Mexicans he hangs out with. It that is truly the case, then that indigenous tradition has become degenerate. It is a fundamental issue, and a good teacher will hold you back and help you unravel those different motivations, which I think we all have. I have had the personal ambition painfully pummelled out of me, incrementally, over the last 30 years. The more I move away from the ego paradigm, the more Spirit has the opportunity to send my way the people I can be of use to, which is by no means everyone.

I am moving to this deep place where I sit quietly and let Spirit call the shots. I love it. It is such a relief. You have probably seen this process in me, as I have been writing on this theme, on and off, for years now. Yes, I will talk about my book with people if they want to, I am very happy to. But purely from the angle of how it helps them align with who they are. That mysterious journey, that just gets more mysterious as we get older. This is Robert Johnson’s approach, coming out of his commitment to his inner life. It has been a welcome reminder.