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.