TRANCE DANCE and THE FALL OF MANKIND

Within the Tibetan Dzogchen tradition, people often meditate with their eyes open. The idea behind this is that the divide we make between the inner world of Spirit and the outer world of the senses is artificial, it is a duality to be overcome. This world and the otherworld are the same place; it is a distinction we make because we humans get so caught up in material activities - and this is natural if you are a busy adult - that the world of Spirit that drives this dream recedes from awareness. Hence many of our practices and ceremonies: they are there to remind us of our origins in Spirit. An experienced medicine person does not need these ceremonies, for she will feel the presence of Spirit with her all the time. She does not need to journey to a drum, for example, for Spirit with its input is already there.

POSSESSION

Trance Dance is a way of journeying that involves the body. What has become the standard method of journeying does not involve the body, and the reason for this is not just its origins in academia via Michael Harner, but goes further back to the Christian split between matter and spirit: the world of matter is the devil's domain. If you exclude the body, then you exclude the most vital connection to Spirit that we can make, and in that way religion can control people.

So I am making a bit of a suggestion here: that in our journeying method that excludes the body, we are unconsciously perpetuating the Biblical Mythology of the Fall, and all the prejudice against the feminine principle that came with it, and to which which our Shamanism is supposed to be a corrective.

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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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Connection to Spirit via the body, suppressed by the church in medieval times, has been returning to our culture via rock and roll, sporting crowds and the American Pentecostal churches. In Shamanism, one method we use is Trance Dance, and this brings us close to eg Mongolian Shamans, who dance. Ongod Orood - embodying the Spirits.

From what I understand, the Mongolians dance with a curtain over their eyes, that breaks up the light. We go one step further, usually, and wear blindfolds. And this is what I want to address, from both the Dzogchen view point of not separating this world and the otherworld, and from the point of view of our historic issues with the body and Spirit.

I have just been on a Trance Dance weekend with Leo Rutherford, and for my last 2 dances I removed my blindfold, and the freedom that gave me to move vigorously and freely around the room considerably deepened my trance. I have been trance dancing for 20 years, and this weekend I had probably my deepest ever embodiment of my animal helper. It was joyful and delicious. When I trance, it is immediate, and my eyes are looking sufficiently within for the visual input not to distract me, and it is how I do healing work. And the trade-off, if one is needed, for the free physical movement is more than worth it. If you watch videos of possession dances - which generally go much deeper than what we do, involving a total surrender of the ego, something most of us would find terrifying - they do not wear blindfolds, they dance freely.

I can see the rationale for blindfolds, but I also find myself thinking of our historic issues with, and downgrading of, the body, our most vital connection to Spirit. And I wonder if blindfolds are not also an unconscious way of keeping it all safe, of not giving the body too much free rein, for where might that lead?