CHAOS SHAMANISM

Perhaps the reason the universe is widely seen as inanimate, as dead, is because we are still collectively traumatised by the gruesomeness of the crucifix as the centrepiece of our old mythology. 

 

Shamanism, the reclaiming of indigeneity, of how people were in the world before big-time religion took over, is a remedy for that trauma.

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MORALITY vs PSYCHOLOGY

'Spiritual bypass' is better described as the sin of pride, in that we have awarded ourselves a spiritual status; and the sin of dishonesty, in that we are not owning the evil in our own hearts.

Good old-fashioned morality has a lot going for it. It doesn't care what happened to you in your childhood, or about diagnosing you with exculpatory psychological syndromes. It says here is what you are doing wrong in the eyes of the Great Spirit, which is also the voice of your conscience: change it, or you will continue to suffer, and to be out of balance with yourself and with the world.

 

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And a 10 minute video on what I am calling Chaos Shamanism: Inspired by tradition, but not beholden to it. Listening to your own guidance at every step.

 

A CREATION MYTH: THE RETURN OF THE GIANTS

Here is a story that runs counter to the current human narrative. Life is abundant by nature, and is always unfolding into new forms, guided by the care and imagination of Mother Earth. The plants were the first to cover the earth in their abundance. The animals, a different kind of life, were enabled to prosper by the plants. It was the time of the giants, both plant and animal.

But as the plants flourished, they used up their food, carbon dioxide, storing it in their bodies as they died and rested underground.

 

Humans arrived when CO2 had reached a record low: much lower and plant life itself would have been threatened. Plants by this time existed in nowhere near the abundance of their glory days, and most of the giants were long gone. Humans quickly spread over the earth, and in the blink of an eye by geological time, began to use the buried plants for their own prosperity. Insodoing they also began to give food back to the plants, which responded with the great re-greening of the earth that we are starting to see. Already an area 1.4 times the size of the USA has re-greened.

 

It is early days yet. CO2 is at 400ppm, while the historical norm is several thousand ppm. Temperature is also at a historic low, and that too is currently recovering, though for reasons that are less clear. It is a wonderful win-win, as human prospering spawns a wider natural prospering.

 

The purposes of what we call Evolution are mysterious. But did Mother Earth have a hand in creating humans partly to help her first children, the plants, prosper again?

 

Humans are a tropical species. We eventually die of exposure unclothed in temperatures as high as 60 F. The warming of the earth and its increasing abundance reminds us of who we once were, that we have maybe forgotten.

 

Humans are contrary, easily thrown out of alignment with the natural world. A large part of the species currently sees the good they are doing to nature as a bad thing. But that is to be expected from this species, the new-born ones who do not yet know who they are, or their part in the bigger scheme of things. Will they gain more sense over time? It is Mother's Earth's hope.

ON NOT BEING ABOVE THE WORLD

I've seen this in Buddhism, in Christianity and in Shamanism: a teacher claiming that the world is in a hell of a state, even (gleeful hand-rubbing) in crisis, and he or she stands for a new vision, rooted (in the case of Shamanism) in indigenous values.

It can be very alluring. It's a story as old as the hills. It makes you one of the good guys, it gives you belonging and it gives you purpose. It tells you who you are. It is hard to see through, until the teacher has too many one-night stands with the pupils.

But even after you've had your own crisis and left the teacher, you're probably still left feeling like you're one of the good guys in an unspiritual world. That one goes deep. It is foundational to the 'counter-culture' in which most of us here swim to some degree.

But it is a false identity. I'm sure I could do no better a job of running the world than those appointed to do so. It is fiendishly complex, with a down side to every decision.

The self-serving complacency of the counter-culture. That is one way of putting what I am railing against. No, your simple solutions for the world are not a product of your good-heartedness and insight, just naivety and a wish to be above the fray. The 'us against them' thing goes very deep. Anti-capitalist, anti-Tory, anti conventional medicine and conventional farming, anti the pharmaceutical and oil industries ..... the list goes on. It is self-serving and it is hokum.

Let us be with the world, like a good therapist would be with, rather than opposing, their client. See what it is that people are trying to achieve, and assume that people in positions of influence are there because they are competent and acting in good faith. Taking successful people down is not insight, it is envy.

When we look at the world from its point of view, with a consideration for facts, then we look with compassion, and we can be of real help. And it also opens our eyes to the real bad actors, instead of the imaginary ones. Some of whom may be very close to home, in spiritual guise.

 

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Dr Patrick Moore was one of the founders of Greenpeace. He left in the 80s when the anti-capitalists and anti-humanists took over. He is a scientist, and here he argues against the nonsense of the climate 'crisis' and the lies surrounding it. He argues that higher CO2 is good for the natural world, judging by the past, and that it only plays a small part in global warming, which is itself also a good thing. CO2 is at a historic low, and humans are saving the planet by burning fossil fuels! Here he is in a recent interview.

 

                

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In my happy place yesterday, high up on Dartmoor in the sunshine after a month of rain. 

The view over Burrator reservoir from Down Tor. 

 

Then the stone circle and stone rows I had not visited before. Half an hour curled up on the ground in the second circle, no-one else in sight. 

 

Finally, on the way back, a surprise fairy path, with cut roses at a small tor, and a gateway through thorn trees further down. And right at the end, a phone call from my son in London, ringing for no reason. He's never done that before, he wouldn't know how cheering it was for me.

TRANSGENDER: A SHAMANIC PERSPECTIVE

Shamanism begins with a remembering that we belong to the natural world. We are part of her, and she takes care of us. We learn to trust her. And for the same reason, we trust the body we are born into, whether it is male or female. It is not the wrong body! This is very basic.

But what happens if you experience the other gender within yourself? Again, TRUST IT! You have an interesting journey to undergo. You are both genders, you are gifted, you bring a perspective to life that others do not have. If your people are civilised, they will look to you. If they are uncivilised, they will taunt you for being different.

You may look just the same as everyone else. Or you may be a man living as a woman, or vice-versa. Many people do not like difference. They want to know what is what, and they fear the unknown. You will need to let their arrows bounce off you, and not take it personally. This is a warrior training that forges character, for few people have the strength to live outside herd approval.

Your dual nature is a gift from Spirit. When you present as the other gender, there is a ceremonial element to it, an archetypal power that passes through you. You may want to do it all the time, or just when the call to do so is there.

Gender is real and distinct for the great majority of people, and it tells them who they are. It is a partial identity, but it is the identity they need to live. To say that gender is just a social construct is to deny a very basic and ancient fact of existence. It is harmful to push this at people. If you grew up on a farm like I did, you will know that a lot of our gender-associated behaviour is biologically, not socially, determined.

Basic as the distinction is between male and female, it is also fluid. In achieving a deeper balance during the course of our lifetimes, we may feel we have become both genders, or neither. This is what Jan Morris, one of the earliest men to have transgender surgery, said in his eighties.

We live in a literalising culture that does not understand Ceremony and Spirit. When people opt for surgery and start to insist they are the other gender and that others must recognise them as such, they are literalising a god or goddess that is working through them; they are trying to become it, and in doing so they turn a gift into a curse. It is a tragedy.

What is also a tragedy is young people joining a bandwagon, thinking that changing gender will solve their problems, and adults colluding in this and offering irreversible chemical and surgical mutilation. The stories of castrated or breastless young people who are now 'detransitioning' are heartbreaking. Their accounts are difficult to listen to. For most of them, the research shows that the real issue is that they are gay, and they need time to realise this.

Identity is not such a big deal. It is ultimately illusory, even though ordinary humanity needs it for psychological well-being. Humans are relational as much as they are autonomous, and who we are is a product of a negotiation with the outside world. This is something we learn in the school playground. You can't insist on how people see you. It is natural and part of their development for a 2 year-old to insist that really they are a princess or a superhero, and adults play along with it. But for an adult male to insist they are 'really' a woman is delusional and infantile. It is fuelled by a medical lie that we can physically change gender. We cannot. There is only ersatz and mutilation. There is money to be made from this lie, doctors know it is a lie, and hopefully there will eventually be an accounting and a reckoning for this malpractice.

If you are at ease with who you are, you do not need to insist on how others see you. Nor do you need to go on marches about it, displaying it in public. You quietly get on with who you are. The sacred is degraded when it is turned into a political campaign.

Many people such as artists will have both genders working through them. Both are needed, to some degree, in order to be creative. They may not feel the need to present as other than the gender they were born into.

There is a natural process whereby we encounter the other gender within during the second half of life: this is Jung's Anima and Animus. Men become better able to listen to themselves and to others, listen with their feelings; and women become better able to know what they want, and not feel so obliged to please others and to take care of them.

So here's to masculine women and feminine men, and the riches they bring. My perspective is indebted to the Native American Two-Spirit tradition, which is worth looking up on Youtube.

 

And, something for everyone, 

 

here is the 10 min youtube version of this post. You can find my youtube channel, full of 10 min videos here.