WHAT'S IN A NAME?

Now this may be fanciful. In fact, it most probably is. But that doesn't mean it's not true. About a year ago Andrew Steed put the idea in my head that it could be productive to dig around the meaning of my name. And my name was decided before I was born. I was going to be 'Barry' declared my father, who had no idea if I was going to be a boy or a girl. But I was the first born, and he had his ideas about who I would be, which developed over time, and were quite different to what I had in mind. But his ideas of who I was going to be began with my name.

And this was where the fairies bit him in the arse. Because my father was English and straight, and my mother was Irish and anything but straight. And what my father said, went. So I was Barry. And it turns out - from one source, at any rate - that Barry comes from Finvarra, who was a king of the fairies at Knockmaa, a mound near Tuam in Ireland, about an hour from where my Mum comes from.

"King Finvarra is the High King of the Daoine Sidhe in Irish folklore. In some legends, he is also the King of the Dead. Finvarra is a benevolent figure who ensures good harvests, a master at chess, strong horses, and great riches to those who will assist him. However, he also frequently kidnaps human women." I'm not known for kidnapping women - though sometimes I have felt kidnapped by them - and I'm good at bridge rather than chess. Apart from that, I'm happy with the description.

So I was named into a fairy lineage. And it was a trick. Which is also the nature of fairies. And 41 years later my son was born, and I knew nothing at that stage of Finvarra, and I called my son Finn. So the lineage continues.

 

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A NAVAJO GUIDE TO FINDING TRUE LOVE

Hosteen Begay didn't know how old he was exactly, but his memories stretched back at least 83 years, and he could easily have been 90. I asked his advice about a woman I had been dating. I wanted a companion badly. He put on his glasses and stared me directly in the eyes. Then he smiled and laughed. My ears turned red and my face flushed. "It must be the bellagana in you", Hosteen said, still laughing, but not without compassion. 'Bellagana' means 'white person' in the Dineh language. "Because I doubt you will listen to me. You must stop looking for love. When the spirits want you to have love, they will bring it to you. You must devote your life to your work and children. And though it won’t win them back, it will bring you peace within yourself. Shake my hand so I can feel your resolve.” 

He stood up and took my hand in his. We did not really shake, but rather he held on to my hand and studied me carefully. “You will not change. For all the other things you have learned, this is the one area where you prefer to remain stupid.”

“But Grandfather”, I said, “I need a companion, a half-side.”
Finally Hosteen Begay let go of my hand. He took off his glasses. “You have watched too many of those Hollywood movies, the kind my granddaughter acts in.” To him the matter was closed. But I needed to hear more. “Is it not right that a man and a woman come together in this way? Is this not what the elders teach us in the ancient stories and songs?”

“Only young men speak so stupidly and without wisdom.” He smiled at me gently. “Do not even bother to answer me,” he said. “I will be gone soon, before you see the wisdom of my words. You will keep trying to find this thing you call love, like a crazy teenager, until it bites you in the ass. Then maybe you will grow up.”

Coyote Medicine by Lewis Mehl-Medrona p227-8

Ayahuasca and the Shadow

When I took some ayahuasca 20 years ago, I became aware of a deep pain running through me. And I also became aware that it was that which kept me grounded and embodied and gave me a measure of humility. So I'm kind of a fan of the difficult stuff, the shadow stuff. I mean sometimes it can still kibosh me. Like I can feel overwhelmed and anxious in a disproportionate way when practical difficulties come up. Or I can start to panic if I think I'm not being listened to - like there's a law saying anyone has to? 

But the key thing is making friends with this stuff, and NOT JUDGING IT. That is the key. Being kind to it and not trying to change it. And seeing others in the same way. It is so easy and yet so difficult not to judge. But it makes all the difference. It takes us straight into spirit, into spaciousness and compassion and connectedness. Everything the yogis and mystics and shamans have always talked about.

Shamanism as Direct Experience vs Shamanism as Religion

"Few are happy living according to the postmodern stance of a world without absolute references. This position works for a shaman, however, because he is a rarity in the context of a traditional society. The majority of Native people live with a structured set of ideas, within which life is simple and meaning is rather fixed and concrete. The shaman lives in a different world from his people - this is what gives him a clear vision of what to do for those who are stuck somewhere in their lives." (Coyote Medicine by Lewis Mehl-Madrona p164)

This is why religion has always occurred. In my Buddhist youth, it was observable that Buddhism in the UK had divided itself up into a number of large groupings, all governed by a relatively fixed and particular set of ideas. It is the yogis and heretics and shamans who have the ability to make their own direct connection to the absolute, to spirit, and to live from that.

So we shouldn't be surprised when we see shamanism dividing itself up in this way into groupings of teachers and followers, all with perhaps relatively fixed, even narrow ways of seeing shamanism. And with teachers who maybe think too highly of themselves. And Facebook shamanic groups too. It is just what happens. 

I think it's good to point out the narrowness, but not to waste too much energy fighting it. It is kind of inevitable, and often serves a purpose. For some Shamanism-as-religion gives psychological stability, for others it can be a stepping stone to shamanism-as-direct-experience. And it is often precisely by giving our power away to a teacher - putting his/her judgement before our own as a matter of 'respect' and 'high regard' - that our being comes eventually to rebel and we find that power, that gold, within.

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HOW HEALING HAPPENS

AS POWERFUL AS A DEAD CHICKEN
"I have studied Native American healing for more than 20 years, and some people say I am a shaman. I'm reluctant, though, to claim the honorific for myself. One Apache shaman I revered told me, "I'm about as powerful as a dead chicken." At first I thought he was joking, or being modest; then I began to see why he was slow to take credit for healing. "The patient must do 70% of the work of getting well," he said. "The Creator does 20% and I do 10, which is barely worth mentioning." Most of what a patient can do to get well, he told me, is to make the firm decision to BE well. This is where the medicine person steps in, by taking seriously a vision of the sick person as healthy, when no-one else can or does. He or she creates with a patient a shared story of a mutual spiritual quest."
From 'Coyote Medicine' by Lewis Mehl-Medrona

I find this interesting,that some Buddhist teachers are starting to use ayahuasca in conjunction with meditation. When I was 20, I took psilocybin mushrooms many times over a period of a few months, and it opened me up in a permanent kind of way. I've never felt strongly drawn to take 'psychedelics' again, for me it was job done, though I did take ayahuasca a couple of times in Peru. 

After that I did many years of Buddhist meditation, and what I both experienced and have observed is that there are visceral levels of transformation that do not seem to be touched with a lot of meditators. It remains a bit cerebral, and my response is to want to boil them in a sweat lodge :) Indeed, it was what drove me to Shamanism. And I think these psychedelics can touch those deeper levels as well. So I think the Buddhist teachers are onto something.

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I offer skype/FB video astrology readings, by donation. Contact: BWGoddard1 (at)aol.co.uk

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On Having the Goods

There is a guy who puts a lot of time and energy on Facebook into 'correcting' people's notions of what Shamanism is and isn't. And he pronounces from a lofty platform of self-appointed authority. He once said in a group I run (UK Shamanic Community) that it is only in the indigenous setting that you find real power in shamanic work, and that what we do is tiddly by comparison. 

In response, I was filled with a wrathful spirit presence, of the kind that turns up when there is some particularly hefty and nasty energy to shift. It would have torn this guy's head off - energetically speaking, of course  

So there was the answer. We DO have the goods, we musn't allow ourselves to be disempowered by this kind of statement. I say this with a reservation, because I think there can be superficialities to the way we do things - that is another post. But the point is, we are human and that power is present, it is all around us and wants to be of help.