Religion vs Spirituality

Religion involves trying to be a 'good' person. 'Spirituality' (for want of a better word) involves becoming a whole person. 'Good' people make a lot of effort to eat the right sorts of food, they keep up a good relationship with their spirit guides and are definitely to be found at the extinction rebellion protests. There is nothing wrong with any of this. But it is fragile and, usually, well-defended.

You just have to dodge and dive around this if you are a free spirit, because if you get too close you will be judged and tidied up. There is, of course, a whopping great shadow around 'good' people, which by definition they can't see, and it is not our job to point it out or judge it. Life, if they are lucky and if they are open, will do that. Usually in the messes that happen close to home. It can be protracted and a bit gruesome.

Then the real path, the beautiful path of wholeness opens up. In which there was never anywhere to go. We just relax into our natural state (as the Dzogchen guys put it). Or we allow Spirit, which is what we are and always have been, to guide us. Or we are true to ourselves, we don't edit out and judge the bits that don't fit. But usually, we need to encounter our own dung-heap first 💡

MUSINGS ON SHAMANISM

Shamanism is not about shamanic journeying. It is much broader than that: journeying is a speciality. Shamanism is about becoming a balanced human being, in balance with ourselves and with the natural world. It begins with a simple acknowledgement of our own spirit and a sense of belonging to nature. 

There are no books, no beliefs, no teachers to revere. It brings us back to the basics of experience. And that is all we need. If we are true to our spirit, then our lives will unfold as they need to. When we are not true to ourselves, and maybe go along with what others expect us to be, then our life gets blocked. But that is often the path too. We can only give parts of ourselves away if they weren't truly ours to start with, and in reclaiming them we become more permanently whole.

An aspect of balance is taking care of all 4 elements within ourselves - earth, fire, air and water. My reservation about using journeying as a starting point - and I guess you have to start somewhere - is that it does not include the earth, the body. Not the way it is usually taught, anyway. It buys into our western prejudice of living in, and over-valuing, the head (air). But I think the body is where it needs to begin, especially for us. The ecstasy of dance, that aligns us with Spirit. And journeying in that context, where Spirit can incarnate, and the power that comes with that. We have old cultural baggage around physicality, and its control by the Church. In medieval times, people used to dance in churches, it gave them their own direct connection to Spirit.

In living shamanically, we move away from the rules and the shoulds and the fears that can dominate our lives, and keep us stuck in particular ways of being and living, and towards the freedom of living according to the promptings of Spirit. This can take courage, but it is the only way to live, and there is joy in it.

I think the best sort of teaching of shamanism comes from this place. The teacher responds to whatever is going on, rather than the programme of learning in his/her head. Just being around certain people and the way they are and the way they think, I observe and I learn.

The teaching of shamanism has in some places become like a franchise, a certain set of methods which any fool can learn and pass on. This is not teaching. Teaching is in many ways not deliberate, it is about who you are as a result of being true to your own spirit, and that rubs off onto other people. And that also means being normal and messy and everyday with people, so they don’t start to worship you and in-so-doing miss you. It is a two-way street, the ‘teacher’ learns from the ‘pupils’ too.

Our Shamanism needs to develop organically and always be up for modification. Yes, import from other cultures, but re-shape as necessary in ways that works for us. It is the spirit that matters. With the Pipe Ceremony, for example, what matters most is prayer, in the sense of a conversation with the natural world, rather than all the forms that can be placed around it. In this sense we have a freedom that, perhaps, many traditional cultures do not have; on the other hand, there is depth, egregore, in ceremonies that are old and imbued with symbolism, and we do not have that, by and large. But the overall principle is: if it works, it's real; if it's real, it works. (Jim Tree: The Sacred Way of the Pipe).

Success and Failure

The great thing about coming back to Spirit is that it removes the pressure around those imposters, success and failure. This thought was prompted by Theresa May's resignation. I can see that she genuinely wanted to do the country some good, but it is also mixed in with her desire for a legacy, and her desperation not to leave with a legacy of 'failure' over Brexit.

The only legacy worth bothering with - if you are bothered - is the kind of person people will remember you as. And if you are true to who you are, you will tend to have good relationships with people, and they will continue beyond death.

And if what you are doing doesn't work out as you'd hoped, then it is clear that Spirit had its own plans - with our tiny slice of consciousness, what can we ever truly plan? - so it really doesn't matter, not in the bigger picture. 'Failure' is not a negative judgement on who we deeply are, though there are maybe things we can learn. And if it works out as we hoped, and even goes spectacularly well, well that is not 'ours', Spirit provided the following wind.

Great Mystery

I love it that we haven't a clue about the real nature of things, and never will. We have stories about how things are, and we need those stories as prisms for the light of the Great Mystery that shines through them. We humans often want certainty, a hidey-hole from the Great Mystery. That is when the stories become dogma, whether of the religious or scientific variety. 

There is an absolute freedom, an ecstasy when we can roll with the mystery behind everything. Life and death become aspects of the same thing. For me, this is what Shamanism is always pointing to. And the more we are aligned with the mystery, the more that Spirit is able to incarnate in this dream that, for now, we belong to.

That's me chatting with Leo Rutherford at the weekend just before going into a sweat. (Note my flies are coming undone - they have a mind of their own). Leo is in his mid 80s, so if you get a chance to do some stuff with him, take it. Did 2 sweats in 2 days. My main concern was what if you run out of prayers on the second sweat, because you've said them all on the first one? 

I was leading one of the rounds, it was the 4th one where you just listen to Spirit. And that was fine, and we had birdsong from outside in the silence. But then afterwards I felt dislocated, and I remembered why I feel reluctant to lead stuff: the Managing Director in me takes over, the person I was raised to be, who takes control and does things properly, and how ironic when it's the round about letting go of any personal control. He only lives from the neck upwards. But when I asked around afterwards, no-one seemed to have noticed the MD. Phew! But it's left me with food for thought. Another inner character to form some kind of relationship with.

THE GOOD VS THE REAL

I see this shamanic path as about becoming real rather than good. Maybe many of us start out by trying to become good, it's kind of natural. Here's all this world-wrecking, greedy, disconnected stuff going on around us, and we don't want that, we have ideals for something better. But then we become identified with those ideals, it becomes who we are, because underneath it all we're not very sure of ourselves, so we create an identity, and that's kind of normal too. And then a shadow gets cast on everyone who is not a spiritual warrior, as we see it. And you get that in shamanism just as you can get it in lots of other places. As soon as I hear someone talking about their high standards, or how hard they 'work' on themselves, I guard my back. 

This way of being is standard in leaders who have ambitions, who build an organisation around themselves, and that inevitably also has a hierarchy, spoken or unspoken. And the teachings may be beautifully and clearly presented (take 'em and run!) And everything is just so, and there is a pride around that. But also a whopping great shadow that is not seen by the teacher or the followers, that will instantly round on any critics, usually in quite a personal way. There is a lot of hidden judgement and a lot of unconsciousness in this way of being.

The real task is not about building a spiritual self that knows all the teachings and practices them diligently and supports all the right causes like extinction rebellion and is probably vegan to boot. No, the real task is letting go of any identity and probably being a bit messy and badly behaved, but listening deeply to ourselves. That is when Spirit can really get in. That is when we can really unfold. When we are relaxed about everything, not trying to become someone other than who we are in the interests of self-improvement, and not bothered about others' opinions of who we ought to be.

It is the difference between religion and spirituality, and it's not necessarily a hard and fast distinction; moving from one to the other can happen gradually over years. Some people have a gift for being themselves and they see through the religious bullshit quite early on. For myself, the tension between what I was trying to become (in a Buddhist context) and the voice of Spirit became so great by my early 30s that it split me apart and I could do nothing for several years. I was trying my hardest, in my young warrior way, to be one of the good guys. I never truly believed in it, and I knew I didn't, but I thought that was a shortcoming, and that if I tried hard enough I would come to see the light. But instead, as I said, it split me apart. I was lucky, because there are plenty of people who can keep this up for decades.

But it’s also been a gradual path for me. Listening to the deeper voice within, and then not doing so and coming unstuck. And not judging myself for not being the great achiever that the self-builder would like me to be. No, just muddling on and trying to live in accordance with what I am feeling and being sympathetic to the painful bits. And above all trusting that if I follow what I feel and don’t impose any ideas of who I ought to be or where my life ‘should’ be going, that all will unfold as it needs to. That I may not have much that is obvious to show for myself – if I even think in those terms – but I know that I am living close to myself, and what else is there to do? When I come to die, if I can feel that I have lived close to myself, then I will feel that I have lived, and that it’s OK to let go, because life has taught me that kind of trust.

It's all in there if we can get out of the way. That is what the 'hollow bones' teaching is about.

MASS EXTINCTION - A SHAMANIC PERSPECTIVE

As we know, this world - this universe - is dreamed into being. It is unknowable. That is why 86% of it has recently revealed itself to be dark energy - it is the dream saying the more you try to know me by your puny rational means, the more I will elude you. Evolution is the same: as a theory, it provides a tiny slice of explanation in a vast and unknowable creation.

These dream universes, they come and they go. In the deepest sense, they are illusion. The mass extinction we are seeing on this planet is painful. Life has such beauty and mystery to it. And it is unbearable if this is the only planet and when you die that is it.

Shamanism offers not just a deeper connection to life, but perspective. The eagle who sees a much bigger picture from way above. The therapy rooms are full of people grieving at what is happening to the planet. That grief is not something to be 'cured', because it is a necessary first step for anything to happen. But the planetary situation is something that the individual can do very little about. It is one of things that, to all intents and purposes, you cannot change. And cannot fully know about - who knows the full spirit reason behind the mass extinction, why these species are, in a sense, choosing to leave, and what is the longer-term process that humans are going through? 

Species have been coming and going by the trillion in different dream universes since forever, and it is all illusion - yet it is a dream we are passionately embedded in, incarnated in, we rightly care enormously about it. What we do know is that prayer works. A constant, heartfelt connection to the dreaming, a wish for its health and flourishing. A traditionally trained Native American once told me that some elders, all they do is pray. By prayer I do not mean supplicating a god, but a heartfelt and ongoing conversation with the natural world.

Perspective and prayer - these are 2 things that can, I think, make what is happening to the planet bearable.

The Most Powerful Teaching

Just back from a Medicine Wheel weekend with Leo Rutherford. That is us in the picture below. I've started doing some stuff with Leo after an 18 year gap. There's something for me about being around him when I'm undergoing a major transition. Seems to catalyse it. What I like about Leo is that he is honest about himself and unassuming and the first to say he doesn't know what he's doing And he has a good dose of the trickster. 

One way of looking at this path is that it is about being honest with oneself, and honest with oneself around others. And keeping that up for years. It really does produce something. And some people will dismiss you if you are like that. What impresses them is a NAME and a POWERFUL TEACHING and INITIATION into an indigenous way and the claim of KNOWING something. Leo has none of these attributes, and nor do I, and that is why I feel at home.

The most powerful teachings are the most basic ones, and you do not need a teacher for them. Be honest and unassuming. Love nature. Be kind to people and interested in them. Go with what the Spirit wants, not what others expect of you. Look after your 4 directions - mind, body, emotions and spirit. And probably a few more besides, or maybe not  


So for me right now there is a process of my Spirit and my wounded bits coming together, it feels like it is now taking care of itself, I just need to stay on board. And the weekend finished with a recurring dream that I have had for over 30 years, in which I am back at university and trying to work out why I am there, what I should study. In real life, I didn't know why I was there, the ability to study in that way had switched off, and I got a 3rd. 

And in the latest version of the dream, for the first time, I realised that I didn't want to be there, I wanted to do other things. So this is about me not doubting the spirit that was awakening all those years ago, and which is still with me now. It's about fully realising that there was not something 'wrong' with me for not being able to do the 'right' thing, on which a lot of money had been spent on me in my childhood!

FOLLOW THE SWEETNESS

This morning I dreamed I was due to give a talk on ethics at a Buddhist event. Everything about it was messy, and try as I might I could not bring any order to it. I was running around looking for a text to research from, no-one would help me, I couldn’t find my room at a hotel, I didn’t have any shoes….. In my Buddhist days, which finished 20 years ago, one gave ‘talks’. And they were ordered things, with a little bit of room for spontaneity. 

Shamanism, at least what I encountered in 1996, had a very different spirit, and I drank it up. The particular bunch of people I was around had a sizeable authoritarian shadow around its spontaneity. So I took the teaching and ran! Which is what I have often recommended subsequently. Once you have ongoing groups with teachers, there will be shadow stuff, it is inevitable, don’t be disappointed. There is great teaching in that, and it is a great leveller. Sometimes it is manageable, sometimes it is best just to get the hell out. And sometimes we stay and lose a part of ourselves and then maybe years later we leave and find it, never to be lost again. There is great teaching in that too.

I was in a sweatlodge a few weeks ago, and we were having an extra round at the end when most people had left, and in which we took turns to pour a round and say a few things. And part of me, all these years later, still gets in Buddhist mode and anxious about not doing it ‘right’. Now there’s nothing wrong with a bit of planning, but keep it rooted in experience. That is the mystical path. Religion teaches from books; the mystical, esoteric path talks from experience. Esoteric means inner.

                                                    
 

So I reflected on the bees that had made their presence strongly felt at the start of the sweat, flying in and out of the lodge. And I talked about them. That is how shamanic teaching, at its best, works. You trust in what is actually happening, and bring your attention to that, and respond to that. Bees, as Eric Maddern (a seasoned practitioner of the spontaneous path) once pointed out, know their way home. They fly all over, huge distances for such a tiny being, but they know how to get back. And this is a great teaching for a sweat, because the steam and heat a melt us out of all our ideas about our lives and what we think we should be doing, and back to who we always were in our hearts, if only we can trust it. 

We can spend so many years trying to be a ‘better’ person, and ‘working’ on the bits of ourselves we disapprove of, and maybe proud of how hard we 'work' on ourselves. And then one day we realise there was never anywhere to go, nothing to disapprove of, only ourselves just to be with and be close to. And then we have ‘arrived’ and we have something to say.

And the bees of course collect nectar which is turned into honey, which is sweet. And life has its sweetness. And maybe that is how the bees find their way home, by following the sweetness! And maybe that is the best way to live: not by doing what we ‘should’ do – the ethics of my dream-talk – but by following that which makes life feel sweet.  

Many of us are afraid of bees, because they can sting. And one guy in the sweat was not afraid, and picked the bee off someone else and gently carried it out of the lodge. 

As Marianne Williamson said:  "It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.”

We are right to be afraid, if we want to hang on to what we know and who we think we are. All that IS our life, it seems, and what could be more terrifying than losing everything we know? But it is only apparently terrifying. The sweat, and the bees, teach us the sweet way home. Pay attention to that which is sweet and live it, and it will lead you, step by step, all the way home. And be ruthless with that which is not sweet, or no longer so!

SHAMANISM and THE TRANSFORMATIONAL PROCESS

Just been for my weekly visit round the corner to Berto's, the Italian restaurant in Moretonhampstead. I try and limit how often I drink, because I find it acts as an anaesthetic that lasts through the next day. But it also, paradoxically, frees me up. And I'm back from tonight's outing with the idea of personal transformation as being at the heart of this shamanic thing we do. I went in there below par, I've had a low level flu for a week, but the red wine has invigorated me! Though I may be a bit rambly


I have a deep sense of shamanism being fundamental to who I am, but I wouldn't find it easy to say what it is, and there's people who won't use the word, but I think that can be a bit snobbish, like yeah course there are chancers out there using the word, but you'll find that wherever you go, it's better to just carry on instead of going purist on it, 'cos that just creates its own religion. I love shamanism, I will defend the word!

One thing that matters to me is that I have this sense of spirit presences guiding my life, maybe putting me through the mill for years on end. And that is fundamental, maybe that is why I call myself shamanic. And I have sometimes had the sense of my spirits and someone else's spirits holding hands, as it were, and that's really rare, it doesn't happen often in a lifetime, and that's something we go with if we have any sense. And it's a different thing to desire, though it doesn't exclude it. But Hollywood doesn't really talk about it. And it's not the same thing as when there's projection involved, though it is easy to mistake the latter for the former.

Anyway, I used to get a bit lost in this idea that to do shamanism you have to have spirit guides that you talk to, coming out of the core shamanism thing. But really, it's a speciality, that may not be how you work. You may just have nudges, or know to do certain things.

The main thing is being on this path of personal transformation. There are no bibles, no prophets, no teachers to idolise - well, there may be, because that's something probably most of us go through, it's part of the process - it's just us and this dreaming called life and becoming fully part of it.

Yes, that is a big part of the transformational process: incarnation. And that involves coming into relationship with all 4 elements within us. It's not enough to be Air and Fire and visionary - that is called spiritual bypass. It's about Water and Earth too, the child and adult of the Medicine Wheel I use. So it is about arriving fully on the Earth, and bringing our spirits into that too, they want to incarnate, they want to be part of our lives, and they will help us transform all that wounded, painful stuff. It may take decades, it may be there for the rest of our lives, but it keeps our feet on the ground, it is hard to be too egotistical when you're limping and you know you're limping.

So I don't have a feeling for running courses that qualify people to be practitioners of something or other. I have no beef with that, it's just something I don't connect with for myself. But I do have a feeling for being with people on the transformational process. It is what I have been doing in my astrology readings for years. My adult life has consisted of 2 18 year transformational periods, though in each case I didn't know that was what was happening till near the end. 

The 1st one, in my 20s and 30s, was the teacher teaching - about finding my deeper, existential autonomy, and not giving it away to a teacher. Of course, every self-respecting person thinks they have this autonomy, until one day they wake up and find that their values are just the ones around them, they are received, and they have been assessing their lives according to how well they perform according to these received criteria. 

And the 2nd 18 year process, in my 40s and 50s, was the relationship teaching, and again I lost some of my mojo, I was even persuaded to distance myself from the shamanic world, and that really did start to sink me. But I also found that thing that blokes often don't find till they are older, which is the ability to relate and to feel, and as that happened, so did I realise that I was no longer with the right person. But it was still a protracted struggle to find my way out, to trust my instincts enough to know it was right to go.

And both of these processes always had an element of misery that lasted right through, and sometimes a lot of misery. They took me to the Underworld - which is where you often need to go to transform. So I have a sense of the transformational process, that happens in so many different ways, and I know that I can be with people in that. And it is fundamental. If who you are isn't moving, changing in some way then you aren't living.



So I reckon this is what I'll be doing more of as time goes on. I don't know when and who with and how, I'll leave that to the spirits. That's one thing this path teaches you: there's so much you don't have to worry about, it gets taken care of, and if something goes 'wrong', or not as you imagined, trust it. It is maybe necessary for reasons you don't yet know, and it is taken care of too. As long as you keep your camel tethered, and know where your camel begins and ends