THE MATTER OF ENGLAND

The Scots, the Welsh and the Irish value and love their peoples and culture. The English do not. We turn the other way and look embarrassed if the subject comes up. Or we make an acid comment about 'little Englanders'.

This is not healthy. It is corrosive. A Shaman loves and values her people and culture, and this connection gives power to her work. This is a given, it should not need even saying.

I do not want to hear any comments under this post that justifies this attitude. Even by saying there is no such thing as English, that is just the same thing. We are the people who live here, now. Of course the English have their faults, just like any other nation. (And I suspect part of our problem is the hangover from Empire: some of us feel guilty for having had it, others feel humiliated for no longer having it, and maybe some of us feel both!) But that is not the point. There is so much to celebrate, not just in our history, but now: we are, for example, the most multi-cultural nation in Europe. We have achieved that since WWII. I love that about us, the tolerance and broadmindedness and love for all peoples that it implies.

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I offer Shamanic consultations, usually by skype, in which we can talk over anything you want to talk over. I may use the Medicine Wheel, Journeying, Astrology, Tarot or anything that works. And it centres around listening to ourselves in a deep way. I work on a donation basis, and I am happy with whatever is easy for you: I love this work. Contact: BWGoddard1@aol.co.uk

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Shamans are healers and elders, and we help heal not just individuals but the whole tribe. The people are feeling badly about themselves, and it has become a bad habit that eats into our psychological health. We have a job to do here, a stance to take, and because our loyalty is primarily to Spirit rather than to the values of society, we do not mind what people think about us, we are bigger than that.

ON NOT DEFERRING TO INDIGENOUS PEOPLE

Our Shamanism will never come into its own while we continue to give our power away to indigenous peoples. We need to stand tall. We have the goods just as much as they do. And I don't just mean in potential. I mean in actuality. If you've been around a while, and you've been on that journey of transformation that may well have dismembered you, but which in any case has had the end result that you listen more deeply to that Spirit that is both within you and beyond you, then you are really doing it, you have the goods. And of course it is ongoing, and of course your mess and shadow stuff will always be there, and on a bad day we identify with all that stuff instead of that power within us.

But that power you have is no different to that which a traditional medicine person or healer would have. IT IS JUST AS STRONG. Stand tall and claim it! DO NOT SHIFT INTO DEFERENCE MODE AS SOON AS AN INDIGENOUS PERSON WALKS INTO THE ROOM, which is what I see happening all the time, and it is collective, it is the groupmind also at work, so that other people will think you are being disrespectful if you don't do this.

And don't listen to people who tell you that the healings that traditional people do are much more powerful than what we do. It is more disempowering nonsense. Sure, we can be superficial in our approach sometimes, and sure we can learn from the collective prayer and ceremony that can be involved in traditional healings: but there is nothing stopping us also doing that. And yes we have some people who are good healers who you wouldn't want to trust as far as you could throw them, but you find that in the indigenous world too. They are just as mixed as we are, and always have been.

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I offer Shamanic consultations, usually by skype, in which we can talk over anything you want to talk over. I may use the Medicine Wheel, Journeying, Astrology, Tarot or anything that works. And it centres around listening to ourselves in a deep way. I work on a donation basis, and I am happy with whatever is easy for you: I love this work. Contact: BWGoddard1@aol.co.uk

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Of course, like me you might still be a bit of a baby, and maybe none of us will be full-blown elders till we are in our 80s or 90s, which is a traditional attitude. And we do not have the ceremonies and stories and some of the subtle understandings of spirit that come with being part of a tradition. But we have Spirit, and we will learn all we need just by staying with Spirit. And maybe we will find that we are not around indigenous teachers, and we may feel that as a lack, but I think that can be an important lesson from Spirit to claim what is within us and not feel it as a lack. If an indigenous teacher turns up, trust that, but stay critical. And if one doesn't turn up, trust that too. (More generally, trust the things that aren't happening in your life as much as the things that are!)

We need to free ourselves from the collective guilt we have in relation to indigenous people, for that is also disempowering. It is important to remember that we are not personally responsible for what has happened, and we may need to free ourselves from those ancestral ties, just as indigenous people sometimes need to, for they can get caught in victim mode. We are collectively a strange combination of hubris and guilt and over-deference. It is a collective current that we are plugged into: on a material level, we push indigenous people aside, we treat them with contempt; and then almost by way of compensation, we put them on a spiritual pedestal. And that compensation has something real in it, in that they, to some extent, still have everything we have lost in our 'conquest' of the earth.

Our perennial quest as humans is to become deeply rooted and deeply balanced in ourselves. And it is also perennially true that most humans are not strongly driven in this way. That is why you probably find yourself to be the odd one out amongst many of the people you know, and not able to talk freely about what is important to you. And it is why Lewis Mehl-Madrona, who is part Native American, says that most people in a tribal situation have a fairly simple set of beliefs about how the world is, and that it is the medicine person who has the more subtle view of the world, that does not have these simple certainties. It is the same thing: most indigenous people will not have the same level of drive as you to become a whole and balanced human being. This does not mean you cannot learn from their tradition, but if they got to know you, it is you they would be looking to for wisdom, not the other way round.

The people who are keen to tell you what Shamanism is and is not are usually part of this problem. They think hierarchically, so that they have traditional elders somewhere up there on a pedestal, and by association they have themselves somewhere up there too, and certainly above you. This is just religion, and it is perennial, and it is often the majority way, because it is simple and gives a kind of certainty and security.

This is not the real path, and you will find this dichotomy between mainstream religiosity and the minority with their own direct connection in all traditions - and the minority are often the 'heretics'. So it is disrespectful and even outrageous, from a certain point of view, for me to say don't treat indigenous people as though they know more than you, do not defer to them, you know as much as they do. But from a real point of view, from the point of view of our direct connection to Spirit, it is absolutely true. Assuming you have what it takes to live from that level of uncertainty and self-reliance, which is where the real power lies.

REFLECTIONS ON THE SACRED

What do you reckon on this?

 

Uluru climbing ban: Tourists scale sacred rock for final time

Like most things, it has at least 2 sides to it, though overall they're probably right to stop people climbing Uluru. Cultural appropriation is just one side of a complex issue. Some indigenous people want to share their traditions with us uprooted secular moderns, others say that is selling out and disrepecting the traditions. I'm more in sympathy with the former, but both have a point. I think we are one world, one earth now. We have our local allegiances perhaps, but we also belong to the whole earth. I am a strong believer in letting yourself be claimed by some piece or pieces of land where you live - and it is that way round, you do not do the claiming. But you can also be claimed by a place far from home. The whole earth is our home.

And Uluru occupies an important place in our modern, perhaps 'new age', mythology, even though we may never have been there. And let us not do down the New Age too readily. Yes it can be silly, yes it can be in denial of the shadow. But it fundamentally involves a quest for meaning that is heartfelt in our muggled world. Always look to the good in what people are trying to do, it is easy to make fun and sneer.

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I offer Shamanic consultations, usually by skype, in which we can talk over anything you want to talk over. I may use the Medicine Wheel, Journeying, Astrology, Tarot or anything that works. And it centres around listening to ourselves in a deep way. I work on a donation basis, and I am happy with whatever is easy for you: I love this work. Contact: BWGoddard1@aol.co.uk

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Like in the film Dreamkeeper (recommended) where the youthful Indians encounter a young white man who deperately wants an Indian name, and they make fun of him as a 'wannabe' Indian, and the Indian elder steps in and says yes, he wants to be connected. Brilliant.

So Uluru - Ayers rock - is in our own way the sacred. The sacred is something we feel that connects us to what we feel to be most important in life, that which gives value to life. And in our utilitarian, scientific age, the sacred is easily made fun of. And those of us who seek it don't always know what we are doing, but we are having a go. And for some climbing Uluru, it is just a rock, and maybe this news item is a reminder that it is not just a rock. But for others, it is maybe their way of experiencing the sacred and they have had it taken away from them. Even though the Aboriginal traditon is not to actually climb it.  As I said, I think there are at least 2 sides to this. And indigenous people can understandably want to protect their traditions from the grasping white woman (and man - let's be gender neutral :) ) But are they also being selfish, some of them? If some white people have a genuine experience of the sacred through climbing the rock, is that something to be denied to them?

The point about Shamanism is that Sacredness is everywhere. The point about religion is that it removes sacredness to certain places and beings and makes them special, and certain people end up controlling access to those special beings and places. It is more complex than that, however. All traditions have holy people. Black Elk was a holy man. And it is right that there are such people, and it is right that there are holy places (holy=whole, that which makes us whole) such as Uluru. And it is right that we treat them as holy.

But really, they are a reminder. BLACK ELK WAS NO MORE HOLY THAN YOU OR I, the difference is that he was more awake to the sacredness of everything than you or I. That is the difference. And people or objects acquire the power to remind us of the sacred because they have been treated as such for generations. This power of the collective to imbue itself is objective, it is not just a fantasy. And it is the same with my medicine objects: it is right that I treat them in a special way, because they remind me of the sacred, they have that power within them. But their deeper message, like the message of holy people and places like Uluru, is to remind us that the sacred is everywhere, equally, if our hearts are awake to it.

What is this life if the sacred is not at the core of it? It is eviscerated, it is unthinkable from the point of view of probably every human who lived until a few thousand years ago. And yet for us it has become the norm. And there has always been that human tendency, particularly for adults who may be consumed by practical demands. And that is why there are ceremonies such as sweatlodges: to melt us out of the everyday and into our metaphysical foundation. Yes, our foundation is metaphysical or we are not properly human.

And Uluru is there also to remind us of that foundation, which is something felt, not thought. It is sacred for all of us. Whether we should be able to climb it or not - I think that is ultimately a political question. But remember that the sacred is to be found everywhere.

TANTRIC SEX

A few months ago I went for a Tantric massage. I had no particular reason other than curiosity. And at the high point of the 'massage' I was taken over physically by the Spirits in a way that usually happens when doing trance dance or journeying. But it had its own quality. There was a catalytic, initiatory sense to it, that seemed to be a product of the interaction between what I can only call the divine masculine and the divine feminine, as embodied by myself and the 'temple goddess' respectively. We both saw and experienced serpent energy in the room. The temple goddess said that this level of interaction was quite unusual for her.

This experience was brought to mind because of a dream I had this morning, in which I was experiencing that divine pull of the feminine, in the form of an actual woman, but really it seems to be about something powerful in myself that has been coming alive since last June. And the dream was in turn catalysed by watching a biopic of Eric Clapton, and his obsession with Patti Boyd, who he 'stole' from her husband, his friend George Harrison. 

Eric Clapton and Patti Boyd

And I think the reason Clapton (aged 25) was so obsessed is because he has that artistic temperament that more than most seeks the inner union of masculine and feminine; that is where the artistic power comes from, but we often begin by seeking it without. Dante understood this in his feelings for Beatrice, and kept his distance and used it for an inner journey.

Dante sees Batrice

And the reason all this is relevant to us is that the healer/shaman/medicine person is also someone whose power comes from having both masculine and feminine awake in themselves, at least to some degree. Talk to anyone who does this work, and you will find this is commonly the case.

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I offer Shamanic consultations, usually by skype, in which we can talk over anything you want to talk over. I may use the Medicine Wheel, Journeying, Astrology, Tarot or anything that works. And it centres around listening to ourselves in a deep way. I work on a donation basis, and I am happy with whatever is easy for you: I love this work. Contact: BWGoddard1@aol.co.uk

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But anyway, I feel I will have cheated you if I don't talk about sex, because that is in the title of this piece :) The usual model we have in our heads for sex is that it is about 2 people becoming increasingly stimulated to the point where they both have orgasms, and that constitutes 'successful' sex. If one person doesn't have an orgasm, then it has not been successful, and the other person may then experience a sense of inadequacy or failure.

Tantric sex is not about this path to orgasm, and the sense of success or failure that comes with that, and the pressure involved. We are such a crazy society! Tantric sex involves the exchange of feeling and energy between 2 people. It may go on for a long time, and it is not meant to be leading anywhere. There may or may not be orgasms, and if there are, for the male it is the 'full body' orgasm that is aimed for, rather than ejaculation, which involves a major depletion of energy, rather than the invigoration that the Tantric way leads to. There is overall much love and beauty in the exchange, consciousness is heightened, and time can disappear.

With our openness to and familiarity with Spirit, I think that the Tantric way is something that many Shamanic people could find comes naturally. And I think it takes place essentially outside of the usual conceptions of monogamy and attachment, for it is Spirit principles that are involved. Though it may include them, and if it didn't one would have to tread carefully and not pretend we have gone beyond all that, because we are after all human as well as divine.

CLIMATE CHANGE: A SHAMANIC PERSPECTIVE

When a person isn't well, the shamanic perspective tells us that their soul probably needs some attention :) I would say that this is the main component. Conventional medicine often plays its part, but its approach is generally to 'correct' the symptoms. That can work, and be part of the healing. But really the symptoms need honouring rather than 'correcting', need listening to, because they are telling us the story of the soul dis-ease. In this respect, I am interested by Lewis Mehl-Madrona's approach: he elicits spontaneous images and stories from people around their symptoms, and uses that for healing.

And I think it is the same with our mother, the earth. She is producing symptoms at present in the form of extreme weather patterns. And we can take the approach of conventional medicine and say it is about the extra CO2 which we are producing, and if we address that then we will heal the disease. Or we can listen directly and tune in to what it is like to have 7 billion of your children living with you, who are dominating all the other children, and living in an increasingly frenetic and out-of-balance way. And what is it like on an energetic level to be living with this? From the earth's point of the view, the extreme weather patterns seem like a fairly mild response to this collective human energy, it is a cold from which she will recover.

And as with conventional medicine, CO2 is telling us part of the story, and it is worth paying attention to. But it is not telling us the deeper story, and it is that deeper story which we can all listen to and probably have our own images and narratives present themselves. It is the level that many of us are probably used to working on. How much it is possible to actually do anything energetically on this collective level is another question. It is endless, and we are individuals. We can do something, intention and spirit help make a difference.

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I offer Shamanic consultations, usually by skype, in which we can talk over anything you want to talk over. I may use the Medicine Wheel, Journeying, Astrology, Tarot or anything that works. And it centres around listening to ourselves in a deep way. I work on a donation basis, and I am happy with whatever is easy for you: I love this work. Contact: BWGoddard1@aol.co.uk

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But my main point here is to remember the deeper climate story. Our collective modern humanity has boiled it down to one, superficial story and has divided itself into believers and deniers, like it does with so many things. These human beings with their tiny individual consciousnesses, thinking they know the whole story, or at least a good part of it, when really they know nothing. It makes you want to put your head in your hands and weep! Yes, the CO2 story is OK as far as it goes. But I think the important thing is to get a feel for the energy of collective humanity and how that is for the earth. Thank you to Palden Jenkins for this perspective.

AMBITION

I don't seem to have ambition. I have tried almost desperately in the past to have ambition, to turn my life into a measurable 'achievement', because that is what I was brought up to do. And ironically what I ended up doing - running a Buddhist organisation - didn't count as an 'achievement' in the terms under which I grew up. But that didn't stop me trying.

I have found that the attempt to turn my life into an achievement runs counter to the ability to listen to myself and to Spirit. I can have one or the other, but not both. This contradiction brought me to a crisis by the time I was 34. The Buddhist set-up I was part of saw the path in terms of achievement (they called it 'responsibility'), which suited the teacher's evangelical ends. And I was good at it, in a wilful kind of way. So I ended up being able to do nothing for several years, I was deeply out of sorts with myself.

And I started to listen more to my Spirit, to those things that genuinely 'did it' for me (Shamanism and Astrology), and as I did that, so did I gradually recover. But that conflict has remained for the last 27 years, it has been a fundamental struggle. I have wanted to turn Shamanism and Astrology into 'achievements' too, but I have always been foiled, nothing happens when I do that, the Spirits are too much with me! And I think I am at last starting to feel properly free of it.

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I offer Shamanic consultations, usually by skype, in which we can talk over anything you want to talk over. I may use the Medicine Wheel, Journeying, Astrology, Tarot or anything that works. And it centres around listening to ourselves in a deep way. I work on a donation basis, and I am happy with whatever is easy for you: I love this work. Contact: BWGoddard1@aol.co.uk

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So I don't have ambition. But I do have something strong driving me, and that is a desire to be deeply with myself and to act out of that. This motivation can have little in the way of plans, because I am following my spirit rather than a programme. And it requires trust, because you can never have that easy certainty of having it all planned out. You learn to just go with what is happening. And you have to do without the applause of the world. It is a deeply different way of being, and it takes years of exploring, it takes the rest of one's life because really it is the Great Mystery.

So this attempt to remain true to the Spirit is a strong drive, it is robust and 'visceral', it is what I live for, and it is there for those with eyes to see. My life is now about who I am, rather than what can be measured.

The Real Qualification

The main qualificiation for doing healing or teaching or leading ceremonies in our modern world, in my opinion, is not the long individual apprenticeship to a teacher that is traditional - we just don't have that. Rather, it is coming into a deep relationship with yourself, often being dismembered along the way, learning to listen to yourself in a new way, and carrying your mess alongside you, being friends with it: the mess keeps your feet on the ground and keeps you learning and keeps you the same as everyone else. It'll always be there.

When we've done that - or rather, made sufficient headway with that - the rest is fairly straightforward to learn. Of course, it helps to have a teacher, but if you haven't, many things can even be learned out of books, if that is all you have, whether it is journeying or sweatlodges or pipe ceremonies or medicine wheel or whatever. The Spirits, or your Spirit, will help you.

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I offer Shamanic consultations, usually by skype, in which we can talk over anything you want to talk over. I may use the Medicine Wheel, Journeying, Astrology, Tarot or anything that works. And it centres around listening to ourselves in a deep way. I work on a donation basis, and I am happy with whatever is easy for you: I love this work. Contact: BWGoddard1@aol.co.uk

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What matters is the wisdom and the listening: if you can listen deeply to yourself, then you can listen deeply to other people, and you are of use to them, whatever it is you are leading or teaching. If you haven't been through that often long initiation into who you are, then you aren't any use to anyone and you need to wait, even if you have got the certificates, which can be quite easy to get hold of.

Walking as Vision Quest

Out at Kestor and surrounds on Dartmoor this afternoon. I've been walking round the reservoirs lately, and I'd forgotten how joyful it can be to be out on the open moor with its vistas and wildness and silence. And I'm walking so easily now I'm 50lbs less than I was in June - not that I was huge, but since the big once-in-a-lifetime soul retrieval that occurred then, that has changed who I am, and is still in its early stages, I'm delighting in being a slim guy

And I have this notion of walking as Vision Quest. The point of a Vision Quest is to be with yourself - and Spirit in all its forms - over a prolonged period. And to be honest, I just get too bored sitting in one place. But walking, that is something else. I am deeply with myself, and fed by the natural world as I walk. I am thinking of a longer walk in the spring, maybe the Offa's Dyke path, something I've never done before. 

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I offer Shamanic consultations, usually by skype, in which we can talk over anything you want to talk over. I may use the Medicine Wheel, Journeying, Astrology, Tarot or anything that works. And it centres around listening to ourselves in a deep way. I work on a donation basis, and I am happy with whatever is easy for you: I love this work. Contact: BWGoddard1@aol.co.uk

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But I think there's definitely something in the idea of a long walk as Vision Quest. I got the idea from the film and book Wild, a true story in which a young woman heals herself by walking the arduous Pacific Trail on her own. I highly recommend both the film and the book.

An Autistic shaman shares why autistic people make good shamans

This is really interesting. I've often thought people with autism are probably just a type of human being who has always been with us, and has particular gifts that we collectvely need, rather than someone with disabilities.

WHAT TYPE OF SHAMAN ARE YOU?

I have done astrology readings for years – I do them by skype, if any of you are interested – and you can tell a lot about someone just from their Sun and Moon signs (you can look up your Moon sign at 'astrocal'.) Astrology often treats the Sun as the most important planet. But from a Shamanic point of view, with its aim of balancing the masculine and the feminine, the Sun and the Moon are of equal importance. The masculine, you could say, gets things done, and the feminine makes sure they are done in the right way. And we are all both, and hopefully more both as we get older. This process of union is spirit-driven, and produces a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. It gives us the broad perspective needed to be any kind of elder or teacher.

Anyway, my purpose here is to go through the signs of the zodiac with suggestions as to what type of shaman they make you! Don’t forget to look at both your Sun and your Moon signs, and then maybe imagine a synthesis. Here goes:

ARIES You are the warrior shaman. The important principle is ‘Not my will but thine’. That has been a difficult aspect of the path for you. You are excellent at what you do, and you will stand up for shamanic principles. But you need to let others have their viewpoint, and to be in service to spirit, just as the warrior needs to be in service to the king. The shadow doesn’t come so easily to you, you would rather dwell in the light and in straightforward action: you cut through the nonsense. Allow yourself 4 days before you make a decision. Life is a quest for you, a quest to find the gold in your soul, that makes you a magnificent human being. You are notable for your courage and determination: if anyone has spent a month naked in the wilderness, with nothing but a blanket and a knife, it is you. There is a heroic dimension to becoming a Shaman, and you embody it.

TAURUS You enjoy the beauty of the natural world, and your delight in her is infectious. This is your gift to others. Where else is the sacred but all around you? You understand that Shamanism is an earth path. You make beautiful medicine objects that connect you to Spirit, and you are steady and loyal in your Spirit connections. You can show people where the fairies live. You don’t find change comfortable, and your task is to direct your gaze towards inner truth as well as towards outer beauty.

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I offer Shamanic consultations, usually by skype, in which we can talk over anything you want to talk over. I may use the Medicine Wheel, Journeying, Astrology, Tarot or anything that works. And it centres around listening to ourselves in a deep way. I work on a donation basis, and I am happy with whatever is easy for you: I love this work. Contact: BWGoddard1@aol.co.uk

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GEMINI You are the storyteller shaman, you can tell people exactly how the world was made, because you were of course told it by the Creator himself. And then 5 minutes later you will tell them another story of how the world came about. So you are also the trickster shaman. You stand in both worlds, and communication between them is easy for you, for you see no difference. Words are just words, they are not realities, you move smoothly around them with your quicksilver tongue. There is such a thing as factual truth, however prosaic that may sound, and you will lose your audience if you pass off your invented memoirs as fact. You dance between the polarities, light and shadow, good and evil, male and female. Keep your eye on the meaning of things.

CANCER You are Mother Nature herself. Her suffering at human hands is your suffering, and you know that we are nothing but mother earth: all the healing that any of us may need lies within her. We are her dream. You are so tender-hearted, and you are psychically attuned to all the people and animals and plants that you care for. You have a strong sense

of tribe and people and ancestry. Take care of yourself first, so that your love of others is not also your own neediness, or you will unknowingly smother them.

LEO You embody the regal quality of the Shaman. You have the dignity and poise that come from being deeply rooted in who you are, your own unique connection to the universal Spirit. You do not need to do anything for others, you just need to be who you are. Others will pick up on that and drop all the ‘shoulds’ they often live by, their anxieties about measuring up to other people’s standards. This is your gift to others, this is the deeper way in which you are the life and soul of the party. You understand that all healing ultimately comes from being true to the Spirit within, and you help people become their own guides, to trust in their own wisdom.

VIRGO You are the earth goddess, attuned to the cycles of nature. And you are deeply moved by a sense of service – this is what gives meaning to your life. Under the cool surface you are deeply emotional. And you are a healer. You were born under the sign of purity, of impeccability, and a particular gift you have to offer is how to live, how to lead, without the ego sneaking in. Shamans are a notoriously mixed bunch, with great gifts often living alongside behaviour that is damaging to others. As a Virgo, you have the integrity and inner and outer discernment to know your mess, but not be ruled by it. And this makes you trustworthy. Your learning is to let go of your ability to live in an orderly way, and to trust the chaos.

LIBRA You have the wisdom that sees both sides of any question, and understands the truth to be complex and never finally to be pinned down. Human beings are by nature one-sided, perhaps nowhere more so than in politics. You are a diplomat, and can move the way people see matters without appearing to contradict them. You are a sign of balance, and have been on the long and often painful journey of seeking inner balance outside of yourself, through relationship. People are inclined to ignore Spirit in seeking relationship, and this makes them foolish. You have found the balance that allows for ‘spaces in your togetherness’, because you understand that fundamentally you are alone, it is just you and Spirit, and you would not want it any other way, now that you have finally arrived there.

SCORPIO You have the quality of emotional depth and honesty. You understand the archetype of the ‘Shaman’s Illness’, the deep turning about that is required in those who hear the call: that unless they shift their loyalties away from the demands of everyday life and the expectations of others, and towards the call of the Spirit, they will never be well. The Shaman’s gaze is turned elsewhere, like the ancient mariner and his glittering eye. You understand the journey into the depths, the struggle and the wasteland, and the deep renewal at the end of that journey. It is the ability to live through this dismemberment and come out renewed and not destroyed, that is the real qualification to be any kind of shaman or healer. You can be alongside people in this journey, you can reassure them they are not going mad. And you have the ability to get to the bottom of things and heal from that knowledge. You are deeply instinctive and intuitive, and you have learnt to trust that in yourself, even without apparent reason. You are not phased by anything, and you will survive anything. Just lighten up sometimes and enjoy this beautiful world.

SAGITTARIUS What you bring to the table is trust and faith. Faith in yourself and optimism, and also a wider trust in the workings of Spirit. You are a seeker after knowledge, and you have a cosmic perspective. You know many things, and you know enough to be aware that ultimately there is nothing to be known, that it is all the Great Mystery; that really our puny human theories of big bangs and evolution and atoms and so on all amount to nothing, for this is the Great Dreaming, which could just as well be some other Dreaming, it is not a static thing. Human beings are fragile, and they want a sense of certainty to reassure themselves and to delude themselves. You are a teacher, you tell people how the universe really works, often through stories; and you embody that sense of trust in things working out, of when to tether your camel, and when to trust in the strange workings of Spirit, and when to do both.

CAPRICORN This is truly a Shamanic sign, for you are Spirit impaled on the cross of matter, you are that difficult interplay between the two, the alchemy of it. You are that primal urge we all have to INCARNATE: it is much easier to either ignore the spirit and identify with matter; or to over-identify with the spirit and withdraw from being fully a part of life. Capricorn is the sign of squaring up to the difficulty of engaging spirit with matter, and the magic and knowledge that comes with that. You are the archetypal Elder, who has earned their place in the community through many years of hard-won experience; who has mastered the ways of the people, and has earned the right to break and re-shape the traditions.

AQUARIUS People want to know where they stand: what to believe, what to think, what is right and what is wrong. And many people need these limiting factors for their psychological stability. The Aquarian Shaman recognises this, yet subverts these tramlines nonetheless. He/she is the trickster, the clown, who brings insight through the unexpected. And like all the signs when they have got a bit further down the road to wholeness, it is not a wilful thing, it is Spirit working through them. If you go to see him/her, they will bring some new insight into your life, or maybe shock you in some way, such that you will awaken to yourself. As an Aquarian, you may have had to tread the path of not just trusting the brilliant insights that come to you, and that can be so helpful for others, but also learning to trust your own animal nature, so that you embody your insights, and do not become ill through the neglect of that animal nature. You may therefore have an animal spirit helper who helped you heal yourself before you moved on to healing others.

Human?

PISCES The Pisces Shaman will love you unconditionally, and yet it is impersonal, in the sense that it is the ocean of Spirit that is loving you. Spirit wants what is best for you, that which will bring you more into balance, and it is ruthless in this quest – yet you will feel held by this Piscean healer nonetheless. This Shaman is not present in a personal sense: they are the complete hollow bone, the complete embodiment of Spirit. And they can draw whatever is needed from that ocean, whether it is information or energy work. When you look at them, you are not looking at a human. As a Pisces, you will have had little problem being a channel for the Spirit world: the journey for you will have involved grounding yourself, arriving properly on the planet, incarnating. You may therefore have had a long apprenticeship in ordinary life before Spirit decided you were ready to use those gifts.

Meanwhile you may want to look up the sign of your North Node. This is the point of our greatest growth, and my theory is that we therefore become that sign, over and above any other, as we age. It makes me a Scorpio 😈