THE GLOBAL SHAMAN: A REMIT FROM SPIRIT

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Shamanism begins with the sense that we belong to the Earth, and that everything around us is alive, inspirited. For traditional people, this would not need stating, it is the air they breathe. What characterises a Shaman is their commitment to Spirit, rather than to received, collective values. The name is not a claim to special rank or powers, but to where their loyalties lie. Their path may have been arduous, for the Spirit is uncompromising when it comes calling. It often takes a crisis, when our old life no longer works, or our health fails, to persuade us to listen. It may be a long and gradual process.

Spirit is forever fresh, so that Shamans, in their listening to Spirit, in their embodiment of it, are creative people. We may work with particular spirit helpers to help and heal people, or we may have a general sense of Spirit at our shoulder, urging us on. Our principal function in the community is to stand for Spirit, to bring in Spirit, in whatever way. This keeps the people in balance: the demands of everyday, material life can seem all-consuming, but there is always room for Spirit. Spirit is the foundation, it is everything.

I think it is vital that we see ourselves in the modern West as the real deal. We are attempting to reclaim indigeneity for ourselves, through honouring the natural world and feeling ourselves to be part of it. And I think we are succeeding. There is a difficulty in what we call ourselves, because saying you are a shaman is a claim to something, and that involves ego, which separates oneself off from Spirit. This is traditional: 'Shamans' do not describe themselves as such, though others may do so on their behalf. So I think trust in this: we do not have a title, or a job description which can amount to the same thing. We just try and do a bit of helpful stuff for people.

In the modern world, Shamanism has come to mean our broad attempt to reclaim the ways in which early people related to themselves and to the world. The word has a trickster quality: it is of recent western invention, yet people argue its 'correct' meaning. It comes from the word 'shaman', whose origin in Siberia/Manchuria is debated by academics. So we can be creative with the word.

Essential to the traditional Shaman is the calling, the illness even, and there is no choice but to respond if they want to feel well and balanced again. I think it best not to set limitations as to what can come out of that. A Shaman can be a lot of things.

Today, as never before, we can have a sense that the whole Earth is our home. Shamanism is both local and global. Out of the local – our sense of a particular part of the Earth that has claimed us, our sense that it is sacred – grows a sense of the whole Earth, indeed the whole Universe, as sacred. And out of the depth of the ways and the practices and the ceremonies we engage in, comes a recognition of all indigenous ways as having a common aim, that of becoming a true human, who lives in balance with him/herself and the natural world around them.

We are heirs to all the Shamanisms around the world. We can learn from all of them. Those traditions are there to be shared. Maybe I sound like an evangelist, but what the world needs more than anything is to remember what it is to be a balanced human being, and that is to be found in the ways of early peoples. Shamanism is the remedy to the Great Forgetting, that began with farming, when people stopped trusting so much that nature would provide for them: she had to be worked. The Fall.

Particular traditions acquire depth over the thousands of years they have been developing. We can learn from that. At the same time, the vast majority of us are in a situation where there is no ancient tradition to turn to. But that is no reason for a poverty mentality. Our connection to Spirit can also be very deep. It may be hard-won over decades. Tradition often comes with a price tag, which is adherence to particular forms, and restrictions on being creative, on truly making them our own. We do not have those restrictions.

When someone has made a ceremony or a teaching their own, you can feel its heartfelt power. It may be a simple and ‘made-up’ sweatlodge, for example. But simplicity often reveals what is essential. And what is essential is the sense of the sacred, and bringing that in to this earthly reality. And that sense of the sacred deepens over time, as we continue to honour it, and deal with whatever it is in us that stands in the way of its free expression.

We are in a new age, in which the whole Earth is our home, and all peoples are faced with the same underlying issue of loss of relationship to the Earth, and the grave problems arising from that. Modern communications and media bring a vivid sense that we are all one people. As modern, global Shamans, we value all the different Shamanisms around the world and we learn from them; we also value the wonderful opportunity this gives us to keep creating something that is our own; and, I think, we can have a sense of Shamans working together globally, on the level of Spirit, to dream a new balance into humanity and its relationship to the natural world.

In case you are interested, I wrote this post for the re-naming of a Facebook Group I admin, which is now called THE GLOBAL SHAMAN.