ON SAYING YES TO SPIRIT AND NO TO AMBITION

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There is a tradition that medicine people don’t teach or heal or run ceremonies unless they are asked. And of course that ‘asking’ may be implicit, it may be that a situation demands something. But it is in quite stark contrast to how we work in the West, particularly as regards teaching, where the standard method is to dream up a course and then advertise it.

But it is not something I can bring myself to do. Believe me, I have tried. I have tried to imagine it in every which way, but something big in me always goes no. And this year I seem to finally be grabbing the bull by the horns and saying to myself OK, I will trust that. I can take this pressure and judgement off myself and just roll with whatever happens and whatever doesn’t happen, and trust both. Even the journeying group I am currently co-running was the other person’s idea, and I just offered to help out.

Now a lot of good comes out of teachers dreaming up courses and advertising them, and I have no intention to criticise that in any overall kind of way. But what I notice is that there is usually – though NOT always – some kind of ambition, some kind of proving of something personal, or some kind of avoidance, going on alongside, which sets a limit on what Spirit can do. Because Spirit needs us out of the way entirely, in an ideal world; it is what the hollow-bone thing is about. And this is how I make sense of the traditional requirement that one be asked before one teaches.

I’ve just been reading a book about Rolling Thunder, an American Medicine Man. He worked as a brakeman on the railways. Being a Medicine person was not his day job, though he was very well known. And I think medicine work doesn’t make for a very good day job. Again, I’m not ruling it out. But I think it would take a lot not to have mixed motives, which again compromises the hollow-bone principle. Because this work is about Spirit, not about what we need personally, and I think those 2 things are best kept as separate as they can.

And even when teaching, the traditional way seems to be responsive, rather than coming in with too much of a set idea as to what is going to happen. Take story-telling, where again the contrast is very clear. In the modern West, story-tellers generally turn up with a story prepared in advance. But a traditional story-teller I knew would turn up and ask the audience what was on their minds, and as people spoke, gradually a story would present itself to him in response, and he would tell it, and expound its meaning. He had no need to prepare in advance, because all the stories had been educated into him at a young age. And this responsive approach leaves more room for Spirit, and reduces the ‘performance’ element which seems to be so strong in our culture.

So I feel like I’m taking a risk with my life, because somewhere in my mind I have this notion that I need to ‘achieve’ something, and that this comes about through an exercise of will and intention, and this is what responsible adults do. And occasionally in the background is this awful ‘realisation’ that I have avoided the main thing in life through my lack of measurable ‘achievement’. So I have on the one hand this beautiful open feeling, that leaves all the room in the world for Spirit. And this other side that can feel a bit wrong-footed, like I’m not the real deal yet because I am not taking a proper place on the stage and volunteering a teaching etc.

But goddammit, the deep places I have been to and the deep transformations that have occurred along with that, I have kept my eye steadily on that ball for at least 40 years now, I have stayed with it through all the difficulties it throws up and that takes something. There are things I know deeply, and maybe I am boasting, but I want you to know this about me. And I couldn’t say what those things I know are, they come out in the saying.

I’m getting there, ‘there’ being a place of rolling with Spirit and not directing my life and not judging myself (or others!) It is an adventure and a different way of looking at the world. There seem to be plenty of individuals turning up in my life who want to interact with me, and good stuff happens, I love that. And I’m being asked to do the odd thing like sweatlodges or medicine wheel stuff for groups of people. And because I trust in what is happening, I don’t need to feel anxious any more – though that is still there as a tendency – because Spirit will take care of the event, all I need to do is turn up and do what comes naturally. One thing I love is being drawn out. I have a lot to say when pressed a bit, and I can surprise myself. I am always learning through my interactions.

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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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And I trust it too when very little is happening. I guess I have a kind of commitment to always saying yes, and that is genuine, I will travel a long way just to be with 2 or 3 people in their front room, and if they can contribute towards my petrol, so much the better. Just so you know 😊 So my modern conditioning tells me my approach is a bit soft and flaky and lazy. And I am becoming something of an expert in going bollocks to that, I am on an adventure of the Spirit.