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.