Surrendering to Spirit

An Elder has a strong presence, not because they are full of will, but because moment-to-moment they are surrendering to the flow of Spirit within and without. In a sense that is straightforward, but it requires continual attention. We'll probably never stop the random thoughts and personalised reactions that are always floating by, and which sometimes consume us, but we can always make room for Spirit. It's something that is built over many years.

Black Elk

It's not really about stopping anything. That has too much of the big stick about it. It's more about paying attention to that bigger picture within, that is always there, which we learn to trust, and that has a feeling of integrity and even joy to it. It is carrot!

ON HANDING OUR SHADOW OVER TO THE POLITICIANS

To be some kind of competent healer and have a bit of wisdom to offer, we need to begin with ourselves. Life usually drags us through some sort of painful process where we encounter our human failings and realise that it is OK to have them, and that everyone else has them, that we are one big family hobbling along from cock-up to cock-up. 

And this is profound. It means you are not just hobbling along from cock-up to cock-up, but you KNOW you are doing so. That is the difference, and it dismembers that ridiculous sense of self that likes to strut and have imaginings about itself. And with that sense of being part of the general mess comes compassion.

This post was originally about politics, and how we project our shadow - our messiness - onto the politicians and the party we don't vote for. Badness is out there, rather than with our righteous selves. In our case, that usually means the right-wing politicians who are the bad guys. We make judgements about them when we don't even know them. 

And this was prompted by a Facebook post called 'Nobody likes a Tory'. I call this liberal mob-mentality. I rail against this when I see it in people who, in my mind, could know better. Politicians of whatever persuasion are usually muddling along just like we are, no better and no worse.

Here's an exercise: give Donald Trump credit when he gets something right. This is virtually impossible for many people. He is such a good shadow hook, because he really is awful in many ways. But if you can't give him credit - or Boris Johnson for that matter - then you are acting in an unconscious way.

ON NOT BEING A VEGETARIAN

I was talking to a vegetarian yesterday, and for her it was a simple matter of feeling, of opening your heart, and then you really wouldn't want to eat meat.

And I didn't have an argument against it. I was vegetarian in my 20s and 30s. It began briefly before my Buddhist days, and then in a sustained way while I was doing Buddhism. Though because there was a group dynamic at work, meat-eating also acquired elements of taboo.

And then along came Shamanism, an earth-based path that put the life back into me - and eventually, the meat-eating. I felt there was something missing in me that was supplied by meat. And last night I lay awake thinking about this issue, and I realised that I couldn't go back to being vegetarian. My head and heart can provide good reasons for being vegetarian. But on a gut/instinctual level, which takes me right down through my feet and into the earth, I just cannot be vegetarian. I don't exactly know why. It is something to do with having my hands in the entrails of life, to do with doing what people have always naturally done, which is to eat meat.

Maybe it is easier for a lot of women to be vegetarian, because through childbirth they are brought closer to the earth and to a raw experience of life than men are. Sweatlodges are often more of a man thing, because they are the ones who get ungrounded with all their head stuff and warrior thing. 

So I don't know, I'm just speculating. What I have seen in this is each persuasion judging the other, and it's easy to see why. Vegetarians moralising at meat eaters, and meat eaters making fun of vegetarians. But I think it's best to live and let live and trust that people are genuine in what they do.

Local and Global

I think that we are both locally based and citizens of the world at the same time. So with our shamanism or animism or whatever we call it, we need to find roots in the people and land we are part of; but also to draw inspiration from around the world, and incorporate what others have done as appropriate. I think this is about being true to who we are these days. It is a great opportunity.

A SHOUT, A DECLARATION FROM THE SPIRIT WORLD

This is a bit of a thought experiment, and I'm going to be a bit controversial, so please take it in that spirit.

It is this. The way many of us have been taught to encounter the Spirit World is through 'shamanic journeying', as taught by Michael Harner. And it is safe. It suits cerebral westerners who don't want anything too physical or too expressive, and which can therefore achieve a kind of respectability in the worlds of academia (Harner's world) and therapy.

And it works. To some extent. It worked for me and it changed me, many years ago. But most of the raw power is missing. We don't do primordial. When I go to the Spirit world, it is these things. I am taken over physically by the Spirit and I am expressive both physically and verbally in a way that is all-consuming and entirely free-flowing. And it is therefore ecstatic. I have had dogs barking at me when I work, for they sense the animal presence that could dispatch them with a swipe of its claw. 

In the Harner method (which no indigenous person I have ever heard of uses) the body is not involved, and nor is speech/song. THE SPIRIT CANNOT INCARNATE. For Mongolians shamans, it is standard that the spirit comes into you physically. It is standard too in voodoo, and maybe that is why we are terrified of it. It is the power of the irrational, of the unconscious. Harner tries to tame it, to keep it in the service of the rational mind. But you can't do it. Spirit will erupt and destroy that puny edifice.

Trance dance is maybe the nearest we get to this true surrender to Spirit. That is where it began for me. It is such a deep encounter, because Spirit gets to use the whole of us.

And I would like to see the way we teach journeying change fundamentally so that it is geared towards this experience, and doing healing work on that basis. I might even say that if you can't let Spirit use you in this sort of way, then it's not your path. Let us have no more tame 'shamanic practitioners'. Let us have those who are able to be unashamedly possessed by Spirit. It's the real deal.

SNAKE

Here is a great post from October on the snake by Chris Luttichau who runs the Northern Drum Shamanic Centre (see below):

SNAKE
Now is the time when adders go into hibernation. Every year I seek out locations where I can encounter these old friends. Snakes have been part of my life since I was a child. There was a dare in Denmark when I grew up: pick up an adder and hold it by the tip of the tail, it won’t be able to reach your hand and bite (catching an adder can be very dangerous, so do not attempt this).

Later this skill came in handy when I lived in the States and had to catch rattlesnakes that had gotten into people’s dwelling spaces. Rattlesnakes, however, would be able to reach your hand if you held them by the tail, so they require a different approach.

These experiences taught me one important thing about venomous snakes: they are peaceful creatures. It takes a lot of provocation to arouse their aggression and make them bite. However, if you overstep their boundaries, there are dire consequences. It was a vital lesson, one that can be applied in many ways.

The second lesson I learned was that snakes can go almost anywhere. Where many other animals can’t find a way in, snakes can: through crevices into caves, into holes in the earth, up into trees, snakes explore all spaces, nothing is hidden.

Metaphorically this means that snakes have the ability to find their way into any secret space, and unlock what is hidden for others. They find their way into the mysterious chambers of the underworld, and this means that they have the power of expanded awareness.

This quality extends into the snake’s awareness of the Earth, and what is happening on the planet. The whole body of most snakes is in contact with the earth all the time, unlike humans and animals where only our feet are touching the earth most of the time, and in the case of birds where the body is removed from the earth a lot of the time.

The snake knows when an earthquake is coming long before it arrives. Indigenous people know this and have made an art of reading and understanding the behaviour of snakes so that they could see what the snake knew and be prepared for what was coming. Snakes know things that human don’t, and in this way they have mastered awareness and perception.

The close connection to, and knowledge of, the Earth is partly why snakes are depicted in statuettes with ancient goddesses, such as the Minoan snake goddess from Crete, along with goddesses from Asia, Egypt and other Middle Eastern cultures. Snake represents the Earth Mother. This symbolism can also be found in many cultures of ancient Mexico in the form of Quetzacoatl, the feathered serpent. Amongst other things Quetzacoatl represents the union of the snake and the quetzal/eagle.: the earth and the sun, the material and the spirit, instinct and consciousness. Together they take flight into awakened consciousness.

The fundamental creative power of the Earth is also embodied in the snake. In India, the kundalini energy is portrayed as a coiled snake at the base of the spine, where it lies dormant, waiting for the right moment to awaken and rise up to the crown, bringing union and awakening.

This is a power that can transform and transmute. Sometimes it will blow things out of the way and tear things apart because it holds the power of transformation, close to the power of creation.

It’s a power of renewal, and like the snake that sheds its skin it leads to rebirth. The snake sheds its skin in one go, not scale by scale. The power of the snake is intense, and not always pleasant, but it leads to rebirth. As the snake repeatedly sheds its skin it teaches us to renew ourselves and not resist change.

The eyes of the snake seem impervious to what happens around it, as if it is a messenger from realms other than the human. In the ancient ouroboros image of the snake biting its own tail, we can see infinity and eternal return, showing us that all life sustains itself upon life in the eternal cycle of birth and death, and that destruction and renewal are part of the cosmic dance of creation. The snake points us towards understanding the union of opposites, integrating our own shadow, and realizing the oneness of all that is. For thousands of years the snake has taught humans that reality is not what it appears to be on the surface.

Otherworld

I love the Otherworld and contemplating its nature and how to be in relation to it. I love thinking and writing too, but it's the connection with the Otherworld which is my source. When I do my spirit embodiment, and get taken on a journey, it goes so deep. And this happened with a dragon the other day, and it has effects on this world beyond just myself. This began to happen in 1999, and the healing work I did on that basis was strong, people still tell me about it years later. 

And then it slowly went, I gradually lost the power of my connection to the Otherworld due to the relationship I was in, and of course I was party to that, but I think it was hard for her if I shone too brightly. And now it is returning, I have the cave in which I live and I am re-establishing my connections to the Otherworld. But I think more confidently this time, I have been scoured and impediments in myself have healed.

ON NOT TAKING THINGS PERSONALLY

There are different ways of looking at the reasons for things. In my Buddhist days, I learnt that there are 5 different levels of causality. Buddhism has lots of lists. These days, I am happy with 2 sorts of reasons: the ordinary, this-world kind of reasoning; and the Spirit reasons for events, the bigger picture.

So if your car won't start, the natural response may be to feel frustrated, and anxious about that appointment you have to get to. The Spirit perspective would be to wonder what it is about today and the way I am that my car won't start? That way it becomes de-personalised. You may not have an 'answer', but it is a different kind of contemplation. You never need take anything personally any more once you have that Spirit perspective. You can view everything objectively. So someone is unpleasant to you: no need to get offended, just wonder why that person felt the need to do that, and what the bigger picture might be, what Spirit might be trying to tell you. But again, don't rush to find an 'answer', it's not usually as simple as that.

I was thinking about this because of the Great Extinction issue. For me, it is hard to think about, it is that painful. And of course we humans seem to be causing it, and we need to do what we can to halt it. But then I thought, from a Spirit level, it is like why are all these plants and animals choosing to leave the planet? And where is it that they go? There is pathos and mystery in their choosing to leave.

The Spirit level also tells me to just watch what humans are doing to the planet, and wonder about the process. It is a huge collective unfolding. On one level, it is tragic. On another level, it is something to just contemplate, what is it about the nature of life that this is happening? It's not like we are a disease, an aberration, that is outside of life. We are part of life, and this is what is happening. It is not just our doing, it's not 'personal. I'm not arguing for complacency; I'm just suggesting there is a deeper contemplation that takes us to the mystery of things.

ONGOD OROOD

The way I naturally relate to the spirit world, when I am 'working', is through embodiment. For me, this has more power than the usual way of journeying, where one lies still. Perhaps it is because the spirits also have the power of the body, and are therefore more present in this reality. It is the normal way of working in Mongolian Shamanism, where it is called Ongod Orood. But it doesn't seem to be on offer in our society. I have no reason to doubt the ancient British would have worked in a similar way too, as it seems quite natural.

I'm interested in exploring this way with other people. If this intrigues you, and you want to come and see me in Moretonhampstead in Devon, UK, please let me know and we can try and sort something. I work in an informal, let's-see-what-happens kind of way.

Meanwhile, here is an excerpt from the book Chosen by the Spirits, by Sarangerel, a Mongolian Shamaness who also has European ancestry:

Sarangerel

"The state is called Ongod Orood, meaning the state of having the ongon spirits inside the body. While you are Ongod Orood, you retain awareness of your surroundings, but your senses are heightened through your merging with the spirits. You will be able to see spiritual beings and forces, something that you will need for your shamanic work. You may have the sensation that you are working in two realities at once: the physical reality of your body and the ritual space and the ecstatic reality of spirit.

While you are embodying the spirits, you are in perfect safety; the spirits will not allow any harm to come to your body while they are in it. You may find yourself singing songs you have never heard, doing ritual actions you have never learned, dancing dances you have never seen. This is because your udha (spirit helper) is working directly through you and teaching you the techniques that have passed down through the sunsnii mur, the stream of shamanic experiences and techniques from the lives of all the shamans your udha has partnered with before. Just relax, release all expectation, observe, and learn."

WHO ARE WE?

According to the latest genetic research, who we are is influenced much more by our genes, and much less by our environment, than we have been led to believe. And the older we get, the more we are an expression of our DNA, and the less we are an expression of our environment. The more, in a way, we become who we are.

This is based on decades of statistical research, particularly into twins. Even our environment is partially a product of our DNA: eg the availability of TV as a child used to be taken just as an environmental influence. But it's not. How much the child actually watches is mainly genetic. Academic attainment is largely genetic. And because it is heritable, the favourable environment for it as a child is also genetically related. If there is genuine equality of opportunity, then heritable meritocracies are produced.

This is not fair in the slightest, and goes against much social theory that tends to favour the environmental influence. But it seems to be how things are. The implications are huge.

Weight is another example. Adopted children growing up in a health-conscious family tend to adopt the weight pattern of their biological parents. The environment makes little difference.

The reasons these findings are controversial is that they seem to give backing to the idea of an innately superior class of people. If you think in terms of some people being 'better' than others, and you assess that in terms of peoples job ability and earning power, the fact that is heritable gives backing to this idea. But I see it as an idea that has always been around: people have egos, and if we can find a way of feeling better than others, we often will. 

Having grown up around such 'better' people, I never noticed a marked ability for sensitivity to and care for others. If anything, it seemed to me worse. And I'm sure that is heritable as well. And ultimately we all have our own unique gifts, and it misses the point to get into comparing ourselves to others. Each person, each plant, each animal has its own spirit.

Anyway, for me there is a mystery in all this. Professor Plomin does not even state his assumption that there are only 2 possible influences on who we are: DNA and the environment. And there seem to be a lot of factors that are not explained by either. Plomin calls these influences 'non-shared environment' to explain the differences between eg identical twins. But these influences continually stump researchers, however hard they look. They seem to be unobservable and unmeasurable. They just assume they have to be there.

I think they have found the spirit-element! It seems to me rather like the brain researchers who, after all these years, are still completely stumped by what consciousness is and how it arises. This, to my mind, is because consciousness, the dreaming, is what lies behind even the perception of a thing called the brain in the first place.

So back to this part of who we are that stumps the geneticists. Good! Plomin is a bit of a straight-line thinker who doesn't even name, let alone question, his own assumptions. He can't bring himself to say well there's a mystery here. But there clearly is a mystery. There is a way in which we are unknowable that is at the heart of who we are. It is the spirit within our earthly presence that continually dreams us into being. It brings influences and characteristics from who-knows-where. And it is creative, it cannot be pinned down.

We are this synergy between spirit, DNA and environment.

I think science can only go so far in any field before it is defied. That is because it is a specialised, and therefore limited, way of looking at reality. Matter dissolves into counter-intuitive quantum reality, in which there are only probabilities. Most of the universe has been discovered to be missing. And much of the human personality turns out to be a mystery, not explicable in terms of either genes or the environment.

Ancestors

Daniel Foor is well worth listening to. He prefers the word animism to shamanism. I kind of prefer it too, but I don't know if it'll ever catch on. Anyway, Daniel talks a lot about ancestors. And he says that our ancestors are a mixed bag, they're not all going to be well. So we don't want to call on them indiscriminately. But there are ones who are well, and they are always keen to help, and it's good to call on them, we need to call on them. 

And in particular there will be ancestors who were around before the modern era, who do not partake of its lack of balance, and who therefore have the medicine to help heal that lack of balance. So build a relationship with one of them. That is such a wonderful idea.

WHO ARE THE ANCESTORS?

It's the Festival of Samhain on Oct 31st. The Festival of the Dead. The time when we honour and celebrate our ancestors. What does that mean? The ancestors are very important in traditional cultures, but we have lost this sense.

Those who came before have helped make us what we are. We live in a culture where the importance of the individual is stressed, the individual who is supposed to make it big on their own. The sense of being enmeshed in, and supported by a community of both the living and the dead is downplayed. The rights of the individual, rather than the needs of the community, are what matters.

When we become sensitive to Spirit in our lives, the emphasis is less on the Will and the ego and more on being receptive. More feminine, if you like. And that includes receptivity and gratitude to that which came before.

It can be difficult with parents, our primary ancestors. We often have issues with them. We are also taught to blame them for our psychological woes. DNA research is increasingly showing that who we are is much less a product of our environment than we thought. Maybe that will take some of the blame off the parents?

At any rate, our parents gave us the power to live. Once we can stop wanting our parents to be anything other than the half-formed people that we all are, that frees us to be more comfortable with who we are. It's simple, we just need to stop. And that frees us to feel the power of life that they gave us, and that still runs through us.

More than that, we are the product of a long line of parents, each supporting the next generation. And it is good to feel that.

And more than that, we are also a product of the gifted people of the past and the influence they have had. I might sound old-fashioned here, but it is where education in its best sense matters. It gives us that connection to the ancestors, an appreciation of where we come from.

Shakespeare

If you have British roots, then Henry VIII, for example, was our ancestor, and he helped free us from the medieval religious outlook, and gave the possibility of each person having their own relationship to the Divine. Then there are all those great Victorian novelists - Eliot, the Brontes, Dickens. And the poets and the painters. And the scientists. And so on. All these great teachers. And from other cultures and the distant past, too: they are also influences.

If we immerse ourselves in these people, we learn to think and observe and to feel and to imagine more widely and deeply. And we come to know our story. And our story is now the story of the world, and it goes back thousands of years. More than that, Evolution (if you go with that story) and DNA research show the thousands of life-forms that are also our distant ancestors, who gave us most of what we are.

This idea of educating ourselves is not an idea that is usually bandied about in the world of Shamanism. But I think it is fundamental. Just to repeat, we need to know our story, like any traditional person would.

These are great gifts from the past. Samhain is a time to celebrate the richness of the people and life-forms who have come before, because they have given us the power to live and made us who we are.

SHAMANISM and the NEW AGE

William Bloom is interesting. He has articulated and defended the 'New Age' for some decades now. The 'New Age' is often used as a derogatory term by 'traditionalists' to suggest a superficial eclecticism and lack of seriousness, as in 'New Age Shamanism'. I think that in the modern Shamanic world, anyone who thinks they are traditional is a fantasist looking for certainty and, sometimes, for someone to look down on. We do not have tradition, full-stop, and those that are extant are not ours.

The strength of our situation is that we are no longer required to think along set lines. What can appear to a 'traditionalist' as a 'pick and mix' approach to spirituality can in fact be deeply authentic, the product of a keen sensitivity to the calls of the spirit. This is one of the strengths of the 'New Age'.

I think that along with this freedom comes the need to set our Shamanism in a universal context. Yes, we are trying to address much that has been lost in the transition from early to modern cultures. That, I think, is what we have to offer the world. But that understanding needs to be set in a broad context. We need to be 'educated', appreciate our ancestors such as Shakespeare and William Blake :) , or else we become one more -ism thinking along narrow lines.

PRAYING FOR THE WORLD

I just saw a serious article arguing that leaving the EU will compromise UK economic growth, and that will be disastrous. Now I can think of lots of good reasons for staying in the EU, and I don't want to get into that argument, but the above reason is not one of them. The idea of continuous economic growth is insane, literally, it does not need arguing. And yet otherwise intelligent political leaders from the 'developed' world act as though this is not the case. And it will lead to our destruction.

There is a Buddhist quote that “The worldling is like a madman”. You can see what is meant. Not so long ago our leaders were caught up in the nuclear arms race, another grand insanity that does not need arguing.

I think it is important to be able to stand outside these torrents of madness. They will always be there, in big ways and small. A shaman/healer/medicine person is in the world, but not of the world. It is that insight, that refusal to accept conventional wisdom of any sort, but to work everything out from first principles and from our own experience and authority, that means we have something to offer. 

The near enemy of this wisdom is the rebellious rejection of the world, an 'us and them' mindset, which is another form of foolishness. And in particular, I think we need to be able to stand outside one-sided political views that demonise the party we don't vote for. Everyone, even UKIP deserves our understanding. We act on behalf of everyone.

A Native American friend once told me that all some medicine people do is pray. I have a lot of time for that idea. If you have protest in your blood, fair enough. But the most powerful way to help the world, in its desperation, is from the Spirit World. We know that to be true with individuals, and it is the same with the world. And prayer and ceremony is how we can do that. An ongoing wish from our hearts for balance in this dreaming that is the world, a wish that deepens over time as we live it day-to-day. Prayer in this sense can be a way of life, a way of being.

It can be tempting to throw up our hands in despair at the state of the world and the magnitude of its problems. And I sympathise with that response, I think there is sense in it. How can we know what will help, and can the individual help in any meaningful way on a literal level? But what we can do is pray for the return of balance, and know that has an effect, though we will probably never know in what way. If we have a duty to the world, I think it is to be engaged with it on this Spirit level.

Lewis Mehl Madrona in the UK

Lewis Mehl-Madrona wrote the best book I have read on how healing works in his autobiographical book Coyote Medicine. He is part Cherokee/Lakota, and lives in the USA. He is coming to the UK this October with his wife to run a long weekend in Penrith. I've applied to go. If you are interested, details are below:

Coyote invites you to join Lewis and Barbara in the beautiful Lake District this Autumn (26-29th October 2018) to share their knowledge and skills around the treatment of psychosis within community and with non-pharmacological means, narrative approaches to chronic pain and its use in primary care, and healing within a narrative/indigenous framework.

Day 1 Friday evening “Saying Hello” and planning 6-8.30pm
Day 2 Saturday Narrative Story Telling 9.30am—5.30pm
Day 3 Sunday The Ancestors 9.30am—5.30pm
Day 4 Monday Cherokee Bodywork 9.30am—5.30pm

Agenda

Location
Melmerby Village Hall Church Road Melmerby
PENRITH CA10 1HB

You are invited to attend the whole weekend, or parts of it, and you are welcome to camp etc, or bring kip mats and sleeping bags to sleep in the Hall, with showers at the nearby Leisure Centre.
There are various Air B&Bs around.
Cost Whole weekend £150.00

Single days at £65.00 per day
Places are limited so please book early with non returnable deposit of £50 to avoid disappointment.
Please bring your own food, or the Village Bakery provides wonderful food too.
Email: venetia.young@btopenworld.com for further details and bookings.

THEN at the Quaker Meeting House,Penrith
Talking Circles
30th October 2018, 2-4pm £10
Talking circles is one of the ways that indigenous populations sort out issues. They enable people to be heard and for a deep listening to occur. Communication is in a strikingly different mode from standard western ways of talking and listening. The effects can be profound in even a short time. This method marked the foundation of restorative justice

Getting the Magic back into Medicine
30th October, 7-9pm £10
Getting the magic back into Medicine shows how a GP working closely with a psychotherapist can achieve so much more by seeing and hearing the whole person. Their enthusiasm for their craft is infectious. Previously GPs have sent thanks to them both for reminding them of the reasons they became doctors.

To reserve a place please email venetiaemmayoung@gmail.com
Or phone 07788 661772

Dr Mehl Madrona is a GP and psychiatrist working on the North East coast of the USA - Bangor ,Maine. He has published extensively and provides workshops internationally.
The meeting is being convened by Dr Venetia Young retired GP and Family Therapist. She will explain how their joint working enabled her practice to deal more effectively with its frequent attender population and with practice meetings. Their collaboration and its measurable effectiveness has recently been published in the Kaiser Permanente journal.

I AM, I HAVE BEEN, I KNOW, I SING OF

We were asked on the recent https://www.dadeni.org/ exploration, at Cae Mabon in North Wales, to write some lines using the phrases of the title, in the style of Taliesin, or Merlin. Here's what I wrote:

I am the witness to the dark soul-journey
I am the dead leaves you have painfully shed
And the still-green leaves, reminder of spring.

I have been the soul in search of its power
The bearer of darkness not understood
Yet with openings enough to let in the light.

I know that this dream is vital and tangible
Yet deeper than I will ever fathom
I know that I must answer its call.

I sing of initiation, of setting sail on the night journey,
To die and so to grow.

Embodying the Spirits

Now this is something I wasn't taught when I learnt journeying, and I've been fishing around for years wondering how what happens to me fits in, and here it is, from a Mongolian shaman. (I guess our closest comparison is Trance Dance, which I love). 

"One of the things that distinguish Mongolian and Siberian shamanism from some (but not all) other shamanic traditions is the idea that the shaman actually embodies the spirits in many of the rituals he performs. This state is known as being 'ongood orood' or 'embodying the shamanic spirits' and is often accompanied by an experience of great ecstasy for the shaman.....Always remember that it is through the powers of the spirits that you have partnered with that these things are possible."

Does anyone else work in this way?

WHY I AM NOT A PIPE CARRIER

I had a dream this morning in which Prince Charles had renounced his claim to the throne. It felt good, like he was claiming his own power. It did not feel like a dodging of responsibility.

This dream followed on a conversation about a Pipe Ceremony that I had run, over at the ‘Shamanism’ group on Facebook, which at 62000 members, seems to be by far the largest FB Shamanic group. And it is also guided by, let's say, some quite definite ideas as to what is and is not Shamanism.

I’m not an ‘anything goes’ sort of person, but nor am I a traditionalist in the sense of adherence to forms as though they are the main thing that keeps everything ‘sacred’. I have a strong sense of tradition, but it is more to do with personal connection to Spirit. This is what really matters. The real tradition, the secret, perennial tradition is the unfoldment of Spirit in our lives. And I think if we have put in the years and the work, then it gives us the right to be flexible, even creative with the forms. But not before that!

I was asked at one point if I am a ‘Pipe Carrier’, and I said no, and that I have no intention of becoming one. I am not part of that tradition, and that if anything is Cultural Appropriation (a term I am skeptical about), claiming to represent a foreign culture is. It was suggested that I was therefore coming close to disrespecting the Pipe. And that I shouldn’t have put a photo of a Pipe up – I can see the reasoning, but I say it is helpful. I also made the point that I do not regard the Pipe Ceremony I run as Native American. It is inspired by them, and I was shown the heart of the ceremony – the prayer – in a Native American way over a period of years. I was also told in the group that I cannot do this, that the ceremony has to be seen as Native American.

But I trust what I was shown and not shown, because of the way it came to me.

And here is the point: WE NEED TO CREATE OUR OWN TRADITIONS. In the case of the Pipe, we need to start at the heart of it, and build our own forms and symbolism around that.
I have been through quite a journey of self-doubt around this. I have felt wrong-footed at times by those who claim to know all about the sacred protocols that have to be followed.

“If it’s real, it works; if it works, it’s real.” (Jim Tree, The Way of the Sacred Pipe).

But last night was a bit of a watershed for me, a moment of clarity. I have it within me to carry the spirit of the Pipe in a way that is authentic. And because of that, the freedom to create and build over time in a way that works here, where people are not beholden to a tradition from several thousand miles away. I am claiming this, and it feels right, like I’m being asked to. Like Prince Charles, who chose his own power above institutional power.

It’s quite a thing, because the Pipe IS sacred. And we often don’t know much about the sacred anymore, and we need to spend years learning and reflecting on it. You don’t mess with the sacred. But the sacred also wants us to be able to adapt, to present in ways that are appropriate and close to home.

THE PRIMACY OF DIRECT EXPERIENCE

Early people lived closer to their experience, and trusted it more, than we do. This became clear to me reading James David Audlin's 'The Circle of Life' (2012), based on his wide experience of Native American peoples. 

If for example, you saw an owl sitting on a tree, and as you got closer you saw a pine cone in the same place, you would not say, as we do, that you had been mistaken. No, you’d say that the Spirit of what was there presented itself to you first as an owl, then as a pine cone. And then you might read something into that.

And I think that metaphysically as well as practically, these people are right. Because what else do we have apart from our direct experience? Only abstractions. 

And these days, much of our ‘knowledge’ consists of abstractions, of realities that we do not experience, but which we are told are how things ‘really’ are. And that, to my mind, is a great cultural disempowerment. It leaves us weak, and vulnerable to manipulation and to control.

This is the bit where some of you might think I am being a bit crazy, or wilfully contrary, but I am not. Take the earth and the sun. Our EXPERIENCE is of the sun making a daily journey across the sky, of the sun going round the earth. But we are told that ‘REALLY’ the earth goes round the sun. Does it ‘really’ do this? 

If you went to space, it seems you would have the experience of the earth going round the sun. How interesting, I would say: from this perspective I see the earth going round the sun, yet back home I see it the other way round. Wow! In both cases I would give value to my experience, I would treat them both as equally real. I would not set one above the other.

I have worked with this one a lot, because I have been told all my life that other people with their equations and equipment and PhDs know how things ‘really’ are. That head knowledge is more real than experience; that authority for what is real lies, crucially, with others and not with myself. Just as it did with the medieval church - it is the same mindset.

I think this is so important, that we reclaim the power of our experience by treating it as real. Because without it, we have nothing.

Another example, perhaps, is the 'flat' earth. Which is closer to your direct experience, round or flat? 

There is no deeper reality behind our experience. There is just our experience. 

"In the seen, just the seen. In the heard, just the heard." (The Buddha)

This is the crazy wisdom of the shaman, the yogi, the mystic. But it is only crazy from the viewpoint of public reality and the tramlines along which we are trained to think.

IN DEFENCE OF THE NEW AGE and A COMMENT ON TRADITIONAL ELDERS

I had a very real dream recently in which I was going to be leading a Sweatlodge. It is about 14 years since I have done so, but it is in my mind and heart again, quite strongly. The dream lodge was what could be called ‘New Age’. The lodge itself was an inflatable, and no-one quite knew what they were doing. I was happy with that, because I knew it would work, because I knew what I was doing, even if not many others did. And people were coming in naked: I had reservations, I didn’t want others to feel pressured to be naked. But it also says that people were being real, open, genuine, spontaneous.

Then it all started to go wrong. The native teacher who used to come to my house turned up for the lodge, and took ages blessing and smudging everyone while the stones grew cold; and a pupil of his who can be quite rigid about what is respectful and what isn’t also turned up and would barely talk to me, and then the firekeeper got into a power struggle with me and wouldn’t talk about the stones: it is also about my own power.

So it brought up my unsurenesses around this Traditional vs New Age debate that you see so often on Facebook. I think the term New Age is now often used as an automatic derogatory. When what people are really trying to do is find their own way.

The teacher who used to come and stay with me was very good at what he did, he was a great source of wisdom about traditional ways. But he was very dismissive about the shamanism that we are trying to build here and particularly about the ‘New Age’. And that put me in something of a quandary, because I still have great respect for who he was and what he had to say.

So this dream was showing me the way out of that quandary, by being so real, and by having so much that was genuine and helpful going on in this ‘New Age’ situation. It is saying that I need to reject that aspect of the native teacher friend of mine that was not open or tolerant to how people actually are. Because if you are not open to that, if you can’t grasp after the good in people…… I do not need to elaborate. I need to purge this in a thoroughgoing way.

And you sometimes see native Elders being quoted, as though that is the last word on a subject. Well it isn’t. Here is my theory. What we have in the West is an upsurge of the individual and his/her own unique spirit, finding its way outside of a traditional framework. It has its strengths and its weaknesses. But it can be hard for those who only know a traditional framework to understand. And they can judge it unfairly. And that means Elders. I think this is potentially a very interesting area for discussion. Which includes my observation that those of us who do take a 'traditional' stance are often fantasists who are hiding from themselves; it becomes an identity that is rigid and intolerant, and we see the results on Facebook.

So take the beauty and depth of what they have to offer. But do not be afraid to translate and run with it in your own way. Keep your own authority.

TRADITION, CREATIVITY and LEARNING from the SPIRITS

I used to attend Sweatlodges in a field on Exmoor. run by a guy called Bethlehem Taylor.The guy had something, there was a power to the lodges. He said they were Lakota lodges. Now I'm not sure Bethlehem had been near a Lakota in his life. But what he said was that spirit guides who were Lakota turned up and showed him how to run it. And of course from some people's point of view, to do this is charlatanry, cultural appropriation and probably a host of other sins that we could enjoy damning him for. I was never quite sure what to make of it, all I did know was that the Sweats worked, which in my view is what matters.

And then more recently I was on the UK Shamanic Gathering, and someone there had been shown by her spirits how to perform a particular traditional healing ceremony over the last 2 years, one she knew nothing about, and then they suggested she run a workshop on it at the Gathering. Someone else who had grown up around this ceremony was at the workshop and said that it had indeed been done correctly.

So for me this adds another layer to the complex issue of what is traditional and authentic, and that the Spirits may well be intervening to move things along, and why not? 

I think there are 2 principles that need to be deeply honoured, and sometimes they can seem to be in conflict: on the one hand, there is the sense of tradition that indigenous people have, that has been built up over long periods, that has a lot of power and which we can learn from. And this takes a lot of time and a lot of self-knowledge, and any replication is not to be done lightly.

And on the other hand, we have no long-standing traditions of our own, and it would be wrong for all sorts of reasons to import foreign ways of doing things wholesale. We are in the early stages of creating something that is our own. And we need to honour our own creativity and openness in this, and really run with it.

And there is a pitfall from both sides: on the one hand, we have lost respect and understanding of tradition and its depth, and we can launch in as healers or whatever without the long training in self-knowledge that is needed, we can be too quick to make it up as we go along. But on the other hand, there are plenty of paralysing voices that tell us we can hardly breathe without the permission of a foreign elder, and that we must stick to tradition and certainly not adapt.

So we need both a feel for the integrity and power of tradition, and the message that this is a slow path that needs a lot of self-knowledge; and we need at the same time to be very open, to be creative, to do things that speak to people, that are indigenous for us. And part of this openness is the idea that the spirits will show us what to do, and they may even show us ways that originate in foreign cultures, and that it is fine to regard that training as authentic.

PIPE CEREMONY

Recently back from the UK Shamanic Gathering, where among other things I led a Pipe Ceremony. My main purpose in doing this was to introduce people to the traditional way I had been shown how to pray - which means 'a conversation with the natural world', quite a different thing to what we grew up with.

And in the prayer we talk about our lives and take our time and we may be humorous and informal and we give thanks for all the good things in our lives and we pray for all the things that are stuck or need to change, and we can do this for others too. Some descriptions of the Pipe Ceremony can get very hung up on the forms, as though this is the main thing. And of course those forms are from a foreign culture and may not mean an awful lot to us. So I keep it minimal in terms of the forms, aware that we need to build our own way of doing these things.

At the same time, the symbolism within the forms DOES matter, and I think it is good to bring in that which can be universalised. As Black Elk said, the power of a ceremony lies in the understanding of it.

And the central symbolism of this ceremony lies within the Pipe itself: the stem is male and the bowl is female, and the joining of the 2 shows us that a balance of these 2 principles is needed in both ourselves and in the world, and in performing the Pipe Ceremony we are bringing more balance in these ways. Indeed, it is said that we are not much use to anyone until we have begun to find a balance of male and female within ourselves. And if you read Jung, this is generally not something that happens until middle age. For me, it wasn't until my mid fifties that my 'other half' began to seriously show up!

At the Gathering, approx 20% of the people were men (which is what I have come to expect) yet 6 men and 6 women came to the Pipe Ceremony, perfectly reflecting the balance that the Ceremony is aimed at. And when we came to smoke the Pipe, the tobacco in the bowl lasted exactly once around the circle: it did not need re-filling, nor was there any left over.

May all the prayers in our Ceremony be answered 

I offer skype/FB video astrology readings, by donation. Contact: BWGoddard1 (at)aol.co.uk

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WHAT'S IN A NAME?

Now this may be fanciful. In fact, it most probably is. But that doesn't mean it's not true. About a year ago Andrew Steed put the idea in my head that it could be productive to dig around the meaning of my name. And my name was decided before I was born. I was going to be 'Barry' declared my father, who had no idea if I was going to be a boy or a girl. But I was the first born, and he had his ideas about who I would be, which developed over time, and were quite different to what I had in mind. But his ideas of who I was going to be began with my name.

And this was where the fairies bit him in the arse. Because my father was English and straight, and my mother was Irish and anything but straight. And what my father said, went. So I was Barry. And it turns out - from one source, at any rate - that Barry comes from Finvarra, who was a king of the fairies at Knockmaa, a mound near Tuam in Ireland, about an hour from where my Mum comes from.

"King Finvarra is the High King of the Daoine Sidhe in Irish folklore. In some legends, he is also the King of the Dead. Finvarra is a benevolent figure who ensures good harvests, a master at chess, strong horses, and great riches to those who will assist him. However, he also frequently kidnaps human women." I'm not known for kidnapping women - though sometimes I have felt kidnapped by them - and I'm good at bridge rather than chess. Apart from that, I'm happy with the description.

So I was named into a fairy lineage. And it was a trick. Which is also the nature of fairies. And 41 years later my son was born, and I knew nothing at that stage of Finvarra, and I called my son Finn. So the lineage continues.

 

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A NAVAJO GUIDE TO FINDING TRUE LOVE

Hosteen Begay didn't know how old he was exactly, but his memories stretched back at least 83 years, and he could easily have been 90. I asked his advice about a woman I had been dating. I wanted a companion badly. He put on his glasses and stared me directly in the eyes. Then he smiled and laughed. My ears turned red and my face flushed. "It must be the bellagana in you", Hosteen said, still laughing, but not without compassion. 'Bellagana' means 'white person' in the Dineh language. "Because I doubt you will listen to me. You must stop looking for love. When the spirits want you to have love, they will bring it to you. You must devote your life to your work and children. And though it won’t win them back, it will bring you peace within yourself. Shake my hand so I can feel your resolve.” 

He stood up and took my hand in his. We did not really shake, but rather he held on to my hand and studied me carefully. “You will not change. For all the other things you have learned, this is the one area where you prefer to remain stupid.”

“But Grandfather”, I said, “I need a companion, a half-side.”
Finally Hosteen Begay let go of my hand. He took off his glasses. “You have watched too many of those Hollywood movies, the kind my granddaughter acts in.” To him the matter was closed. But I needed to hear more. “Is it not right that a man and a woman come together in this way? Is this not what the elders teach us in the ancient stories and songs?”

“Only young men speak so stupidly and without wisdom.” He smiled at me gently. “Do not even bother to answer me,” he said. “I will be gone soon, before you see the wisdom of my words. You will keep trying to find this thing you call love, like a crazy teenager, until it bites you in the ass. Then maybe you will grow up.”

Coyote Medicine by Lewis Mehl-Medrona p227-8

Ayahuasca and the Shadow

When I took some ayahuasca 20 years ago, I became aware of a deep pain running through me. And I also became aware that it was that which kept me grounded and embodied and gave me a measure of humility. So I'm kind of a fan of the difficult stuff, the shadow stuff. I mean sometimes it can still kibosh me. Like I can feel overwhelmed and anxious in a disproportionate way when practical difficulties come up. Or I can start to panic if I think I'm not being listened to - like there's a law saying anyone has to? 

But the key thing is making friends with this stuff, and NOT JUDGING IT. That is the key. Being kind to it and not trying to change it. And seeing others in the same way. It is so easy and yet so difficult not to judge. But it makes all the difference. It takes us straight into spirit, into spaciousness and compassion and connectedness. Everything the yogis and mystics and shamans have always talked about.

Shamanism as Direct Experience vs Shamanism as Religion

"Few are happy living according to the postmodern stance of a world without absolute references. This position works for a shaman, however, because he is a rarity in the context of a traditional society. The majority of Native people live with a structured set of ideas, within which life is simple and meaning is rather fixed and concrete. The shaman lives in a different world from his people - this is what gives him a clear vision of what to do for those who are stuck somewhere in their lives." (Coyote Medicine by Lewis Mehl-Madrona p164)

This is why religion has always occurred. In my Buddhist youth, it was observable that Buddhism in the UK had divided itself up into a number of large groupings, all governed by a relatively fixed and particular set of ideas. It is the yogis and heretics and shamans who have the ability to make their own direct connection to the absolute, to spirit, and to live from that.

So we shouldn't be surprised when we see shamanism dividing itself up in this way into groupings of teachers and followers, all with perhaps relatively fixed, even narrow ways of seeing shamanism. And with teachers who maybe think too highly of themselves. And Facebook shamanic groups too. It is just what happens. 

I think it's good to point out the narrowness, but not to waste too much energy fighting it. It is kind of inevitable, and often serves a purpose. For some Shamanism-as-religion gives psychological stability, for others it can be a stepping stone to shamanism-as-direct-experience. And it is often precisely by giving our power away to a teacher - putting his/her judgement before our own as a matter of 'respect' and 'high regard' - that our being comes eventually to rebel and we find that power, that gold, within.

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