COYOTE MEDICINE

Lewis Mehl-Medrona is an American Professor of Psychiatry. He also has Lakota and Cherokee heritage, and he is a sweet guy. You can't help but love him. And here he is talking about a number of things, but particularly about how people get ill, and traditional approaches can do things that our modern medicine can't. And some great stories. Like the guy who turned up with a gun, firing it, saying he wanted to be an Indian. They had an Elder there. So instead of arresting/sectioning him, the Elder helped him become an Indian. And it did the job.

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HOW LANGUAGE SHAPES OUR REALITY: ENGLISH vs HOPI

"English is based on a 'the subject verbs the object' linguistic system, while Hopi has subject and object participating in the verbing. The language we think and speak in shapes our Weltansicht, our perception and understanding of the nature of existence, and those who think primarily in terms of the subject (self) acting on objects (things) are more prone to change and take from who and what is around them to their advantage.  

The Weltansicht of traditional people, in which subject and object participate in the verbing, is more likely to foster mutuality and co-operation than competition and arrogation - the spirit of sharing at the heart of the Sacred Giveaway - than is the European Weltansicht, in which every subject, every 'I', is trying to verb the world around her or him, and so inevitably they wind up rivals." (p50 The Circle of Life by James David Audlin)

PRAYER

Recently I used my new Pipe for the first time. I was beginning what will hopefully be a long and fruitful relationship with this Being who has come my way. Well, I came its way, to be more accurate. But I also had something specific and important to converse about, a money issue that really needed to move on. And I had a particular outcome in mind that I had been working on for months. And I asked for help with the issue, and with the particular outcome, with the proviso that only if that was the right way for things to go. Because you never know. You know you need some help, but we limited humans can find it hard to see the bigger picture. 

And some days later I got my help. The particular outcome I wanted was being blocked by a solicitor, and for a few hours I was so angry; but the more radical outcome which I had been avoiding, and which will make me very unpopular, but with which I will be a lot happier, had re-presented itself. 

So there it is. I prayed for something, and got the opposite in no uncertain terms, and it seems to be the right thing. But I had left room for that in my prayers, because even when an outcome seems self-evident we can be wrong. We can't assume we know as much as Spirit. And thank you to my new Pipe. We're getting along just fine.

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

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STRANGE ONE

You're a strange one. And I mean that as a compliment. Your life is governed not by the dictates of society, but by some inner imperative, which you are increasingly recognising. And the more you do that, the less you will judge yourself by your inability to measure up in conventional terms. I know this self-judging all too well, it is a burden we need to throw off. 

We have our own means of seeing our lives, in terms of how close we have lived to that daimon, how much we have loved and honoured him/her. And what happens when we don't. Yet periods where we don't listen are part of the path too. And it is all a slow path, much slower than a career.

And the more you understand this inner calling, the more will your past make sense to you, not as some random wandering, but as a necessary series of experiences that have contributed to the wisdom that now flows through you when you listen to yourself.

But you'll always be an odd one to many people. You have my recognition and solidarity.

THE CO-OPERATIVENESS OF LIFE

I'm reading a graphic book on epigenetics, which describes the complex chemical dance that goes on around DNA, that ensures that certain genes are activated, and certain ones are switched off. It's a hugely complex, delicate balance that is barely understood. And I'm left awed by it. It just seems impossible to me that there isn't a phenomenal intelligence behind this, even though there is no scientific description for such an idea. All biological complexity has this effect on me. This complexity is supposed to have come about largely through chance changes that happen to work. Impossible. 

The human body is 1 trillion cells co-operating. That is surely the basis for life itself, one giant co-operation, one Great Spirit behind it all, beyond rational comprehension. This is why, when they kill an animal, the Native Americans thank that animal for giving its life. It's maybe best not taken too literally, but there is also a deep truth in it, and a gratitude that goes with it: that life is essentially co-operative, life loves all other forms of life. Maybe we are the first society ever to see life as essentially competitive, and to have a Creation Story based around that.

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

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Imagination and the Spirit World

William Blake said "Imagination is the real and eternal world of which this vegetable universe is but a faint shadow." In other words, Imagination is the Spirit World, that dreams this world into being. Imagination is often used in a 'smaller' sense almost as a subset of the ego, as fancy. But I don't think that is a valid use of the term: it betrays the real nature of the Imagination, and seems like a very modern attempt to put the non-rational under the control of the rational ego, instead of the other way round. I bring this up because a distinction is sometimes made, as though 'real' shamanism is this powerful thing that is beyond mere 'imagination'. And I don't think it is, not at all.
 

A PLACE OF BEAUTY AND SLOW TIME

I'm thinking out loud here as I ponder what it is that I'm going to be doing with this shamanic thing. I've put to one side the usual models of what people do: shamanic healing; teaching courses; writing a book. All that's good stuff, but as usual I don’t seem to fit very well with what's presented.

 

More than that, I've been held back for years from doing a lot with this wonderful thing called shamanism, because the real boss (which isn't me) has insisted that I sort things out, become more balanced. In the meantime the boss has thrown me a bone in the form of astrology readings, and that’s kept me ticking over. I turned 60 in February, and when I look back, my adult life has been two 18 year healing journeys that I didn't even know I was on until the end. And I'm starting to feel like I could now actually do something.

In my early 40s I was doing healing work and running sweat lodges and a weekly journeying group and it was fine, but it ground to a halt. And it would probably have gone weird if I'd carried on.

Maybe I would have written a made-up book about what a special shaman I was, and passed it off as fact! Or maybe I'd have set myself up as an Elder, a guardian of 'real' shamanism. We've all seen it when people have some abilities, and a genuine desire to be of help, but a load of mess in there as well. And I've been fortunate enough that something has insisted no.

This was always Leo Rutherford's main point when I was on his stuff in the 90s. You don't begin with your shamanic robes and your guides, but with becoming aware of the mess - the child place, the South of the Medicine Wheel. I think there’s a depth missing if you don’t do this, because the wounded bits are also gateways to the soul. You never really find your own voice.

This path is a slow one, and it's stop-start and it meanders, and it is beyond our ken to plan it. Our job is just to trust where it takes us. And not expect to have much real wisdom till we're in our 70s or 80s.

I’ve been having dreams recently. One was about running sweats again, and it was just so easy and lovely and natural. The next one, a few weeks later, suggested broadening that out to the other things I love doing. So I’m being prompted.

And it comes back to what this path is fundamentally about for me. The Chippewa Cree friend who used to stay with me said that in his tradition it’s about becoming a balanced human being. That’ll do for me. It’s nice and broad. In terms of the Medicine Wheel, I’d see that as balancing the 4 elements of Fire, Water, Earth and Air. The Imagination and Spirit promptings of Fire, the Emotional Mastery of Water, the incarnation and practical engagement of Earth, and the wisdom and generosity of Air.

What I want is a place where people can come. That has a few acres that have wildness and beauty and seclusion. And a barn. And some sort of house. I have the means to do this. Probably West Country, maybe Wales or the Borders. And it won’t be about courses or teachings in any formal kind of way. It will be a place where people have the space and slow time and beauty to encounter themselves. And yes, we’ll do the odd sweatlodge and journeying and trance dance and pipe ceremony and burials and we’ll paint boulders and create a Medicine Wheel. And I’ll have my yurt and tipi up. And we’ll hang out together and talk and get to know each other over many years. And stuff will happen. I think it’s time to do this, the thought of it makes me cry, it’s been there in me for so long.

Shipwreck

I've spent the last year feeling like I've washed up on the beach after a long time hanging in there in a stormy sea. And I'm still on all fours, coughing up seawater. And I forget this sometimes, and all is well with the world when I remember. It's gonna take a while. And alongside it has run a marvellous closeness to myself that I have never experienced before, a kind of huge soulful solitude. It's been catalysed by the end of a long relationship in which I was being pulverised to leave for the last 5 years. 

We talk in terms of 'the spirits' - well it was them wot was doing it, like nothing I've ever known in my life, except in the 90s, which was the first time they came along and hoiked me protesting into a completely different life, and left me quivering for years, wondering how the hell all that happened; but also knowing I had something so delicious, that taste of spirit that I find within shamanism, where all is sacred. 

And the shamanism wandered away from me for a few years from 2010, and then came back redoubled and led me step by step into the situation I am in now. Where heaven knows who I will be and what I will be doing in a year's time. But thank you all the same for leading me out of a difficult situation where I got lost and into this renewal of my life.

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

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Beast Magic

Just finished the Golden Fool, the 5th book in Robin Hobb's 3 trilogies on Fitz and the Fool. And they have people who are Witted, or Old Blood, who form a very close soul bond with an animal. And there is a lot of prejudice against these people. They are frequently hung if they are discovered having 'beast magic'. And the Queen's son is Witted, and she has just met a deputation of Old Blood and promoted their cause as best she can, bringing Old Blood into court life. I was in tears when this happened. Fitz himself has a wonderful bond with a wolf earlier in the series, that is described extensively.

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

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WHY I VIEW MYSELF AS TRADITIONAL

A friend told me recently that she thought I am 'orthodox'. She didn't know why she said it, it sort of came out. And it was interesting for me, because I often find myself debating on Facebook against what seem to be collectively established viewpoints. And if I'm around conventionally-minded people for too long, I start to feel bored. But as I thought about it, I realised, or I remembered, that I have a strong sense of tradition, that is where my loyalties lie, and that is where, at bottom, I discuss/debate from.

In my youthful Buddhist days, I had a hunger for the doctrines of Buddhism, I knew them well, thought about them, and based the way I saw the world around them. I still value many of those ideas. But 25 years ago I started to move on to Shamanism in quite a dramatic way. 

And it was particularly after a traditionally trained Chippewa Cree guy started to come and stay with me that I started to clarify my thinking around Shamanism. Shamanism isn't really a thinking thing for many of us, it's more about direct experience. Not that thought doesn't sometimes lead to direct experience, it does.

But this Chippewa Cree guy was very much a thinking type, though he wasn't at all lacking as a ceremonial leader and story teller and teacher. And he very much helped shape the way I thought about things. And since then I have encountered a great book, The Circle of Life by James David Audlin, which is a first hand, and very long, account of traditional ways of seeing the world, and being in it, in North America. So that has been like having a traditional teacher to hand again.

As I say, thinking is one of my stronger functions, and ideas come to me, and I write about them. And thinking in a way that is in accordance with what I have come to understand as traditional indigenous ways of seeing the world, is very important to me. I have a deep faith that the natural indigenous way is the universal and the best way, even the correct way, of seeing the world and of being in it. I am very traditional in this sense, it is at the bottom of who I am. But it is not in a superficial way, like knowing the correct forms of things, like whether a skin drum is the right way to go, or exactly how to run a Pipe Ceremony or knowing Lakota songs. It is about a way of seeing the world and relating to it and to ourselves.

So when, for example, I argue against Evolution as a scientific theory, I do so not to be contrary, but because if a Creation Myth does not have a sacred origin to life, I am deeply troubled by that. It seems very wrong, arguing from a traditional perspective, in which life is sacred. I am very happy to incorporate sacredness into Evolution, but then it is no longer a scientific theory. And I think these distinctions really matter, so that we know exactly what we are buying into.

From the point of view of the modern way of seeing the world, I may appear radical and rebellious. But from a traditional point of view, the modern way we see the world and the modern way we live are deeply out of balance with a natural way of living. This is not Utopian, I do not have an idealised past in mind. I just seem to have a natural connection with indigenous, particularly North American, ways of seeing the world, and a lot of faith, based on experience, that this is the best way to be human.

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

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