ST JEROME AND I

It has been occurring to me that in writing my book The Medicine Wheel, I took the spirit, the essence of a tradition and reinvented it for our culture. Not only did I reinvent it, I added to the tradition. The Medicine Wheel is now something we can claim as our own, and not because of my book alone.

The book is easy to read and understand, yet addresses the underlying themes in their complexity and profundity. It is a book to be lived, as the Medicine Wheel itself always has been. The ideas are fully embedded in western culture in a way that only someone from this culture could achieve.

Gosh, this is a bit of a paean to myself, very un-English of me, and I hope you'll forgive me 🤣 There is worse to come!

In writing the book, the archetype of the translator was breathing through me. Not literal translation of one language to another, but the translation of the spirit of a tradition into a form that can be readily appreciated in another culture, so that it does not seem foreign. It is a weighty responsibility. I began writing under a New Moon in Capricorn, which has that kind of gravitas.

St Jerome is the archetype of the translator in our culture. He translated the Bible from the original Hebrew into Latin. Up until then, translations from Greek into Latin had been used. OK, he didn't reinvent a whole tradition, but even in translating words you need a poet's mind, you need to grasp the spirit of what is being said and find an equivalent. Which cannot be literally exact, and adds new meaning, as well as losing some of the old.

So in this sense St Jerome was reinventing a tradition. Moreover, he undertook his translation next to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, built on the spot where Jesus was said to have been born. Shamanically, you could say, the original essence of Jesus was flowing through and informing him as he did his work.

For me, there has also been a strange synchronicity. St Jerome had come to mind recently in relation to my work. The Medicine Wheel was published on 30 Sept 2022, which is the Feast Day of St Jerome. I couldn't believe it when I found that out. Yes, I am being told, we are both translators of something deep. And my book was published 23 years after attending my first course on the Wheel, and having been with it, one way or another, ever since. This was exactly the amount of time Jerome took to complete his translation.

I am not boasting when I write all the above. I have a reluctance, but there is a particular gravitas and significance to The Medicine Wheel that needs to be articulated. It enables us to claim this shamanic thing for our own, without the endless deferring to indigenous people that we often engage in, when it can be like the Pope has walked into the room. We can stand on equal terms, and that is something we need to do for our shamanism to reach maturity.

There are various depictions of St Jerome. I chose the one with the lion, that references the popular belief that he tamed a lion by healing its paw. The union of animal and human, as well as healing, are central to the Shamanic endeavour.

NB If you buy my book and leave a (genuine) rating on Amazon, I will give you a free astrology (or tarot) reading😊 The same goes for my astrology book Surfing the Galactic Highways.

SUN, RAIN, SOIL and WIND

Fire, Water, Earth and Air are the 4 elements that make up the universe, both for Europeans and Native Americans. It is an ancient way of understanding the world that we share. Isn't that wonderful? Old ways like this live in our viscera, even though we may have forgotten them. It just takes a bit of smudge and honouring of the Elements for that ancient thing to awaken in us.

 

 

 

I like the Elements because they are concrete, they are close to experience. They are not the abstractions that we have got used to. You want to understand the universe? Here are the equations, but you won't understand them. And even if you do, your senses will not be invited in to share in the knowing.

 

But even Fire, Water, Earth and Air are, to a degree, abstractions. Abstraction has its place, for it can reveal underlying principles. 

 

All the same, I prefer to say Sun, Rain, Soil and Wind. You can feel them, taste them, smell them, even as you are reading this. Everything is to be found in allowing ourselves to be drawn, with gratitude, into that sensory experience of the world. You don't need books or teachers or spirit guides. That is all this thing we call shamanism is: allowing the spirit to incarnate through its delight in the natural world. And you can do it in a city.

THE SHAMANIC RED PILL and BLUE PILL

Healers and teachers of all sorts need to take the red pill, and stand apart from the collective currents of the day. Not that those currents are necessarily wrong, there is often some truth in them, but frequently simplified to the point of falsehood. Are you a Tory/Republican-hating, anti-vaxx, apocalyptic environmentalist? If you are part of any of those currents, then the chances are that you have taken the counter-cultural - in this case shamanic - blue pill of the day. And note how oppositional all those currents are.

The counter-culture, which goes back 60 years, is founded on rebellion. That cannot be a lasting paradigm. But it vitiates much of the modern shamanic world: the attitude of opposition, of knowing better, can give us a sense of who we are, and a sense of virtue. Of course there are critiques of society and its politics to be made, that is part of our job description. But the standing apart, the disengagement, has no place if you are any kind of teacher or healer. It is a spiritual bypass.

 

A traditional healer would not have lived in opposition to his/her polity and traditions, but alongside, though not uncritically. Maybe most importantly, our sense of who we are needs to be rooted in our hard-won connection to Spirit, which can take decades, rather than in the easy opposition to the authorities of the day, who we need to be working alongside.

PRAYER

When we know what's in our heart, life can move forward. Sometimes we know, sometimes we don't, and then it can take a long time to discover: it can be a process of unfoldment, a change we are going through. We can feel all at sea, it may go on for years, and it brings some comfort when we know it needs to be like that. We just have to trust the Mystery and the benign Mother who takes care of us.

One of the purposes of prayer - whether in a Pipe Ceremony or talking privately to the fairies - is to find what's in our heart. The act of talking openly in a sacred context is a catalyst. Really life needs to be one continous prayer from the heart, in which we are constantly giving thanks for this beautiful life, while living from deep within: this inevitably connects us to everything and everyone about us. Then we are in balance, then we are in the Centre of our Wheel.

BECOMING 'INDIGENOUS'

When we talk about indigenous peoples, we usually mean the guys who got there first, who've been there forever. It was first used in this sense in the Americas in the 1600s. But technically it means native to a land, and that applies to most of us. So that can create confusion.

Take your pick, because I want to talk about what the word connotes as well as denotes. Its connotation is suggested by the etymology, coming from the Latin 'indigene' meaning 'sprung from the land'. What's not to like about that?

That, for me, is the real meaning of indigenous. You can be born in England and have lived there all your life, and yet not be 'sprung from the land'. Indigenous in this sense suggests a belonging to the land and to the natural world. It is the reclaiming of that felt belonging that I feel is at the heart of our modern shamanic enterprise.

In this way 'indigenous' becomes a universal attribute of being, that reflects the common world-view wherever you find indigenous people. And here's the thing: indigeneity becomes a way of relating to the whole natural world, such that if you transplant an Australian aborigine to North America, he or she would remain indigenous. They would not be indigenous 'to' North America, but they would embody the indigenous way of being nonetheless.

 

In our multicultural, globalist world, I think indigenous also has to mean sprung from the earth herself, so that you carry it wherever you go.

This post came out of a video course on the Medicine Wheel that I am constructing for Watkins publishers. I said that the purpose of the Medicine Wheel, and Shamanism more broadly, is to learn to relate to the world and to yourself as an indigenous person would. Which means living in balance with the world, and it is that which keeps you in balance within. Which is why going for a walk in nature can sort everything out. Mother Earth heals us and brings us back into balance if we expose ourselves to her, feel her with our hearts, give thanks to her, enjoy her.

Certainly the Medicine Wheel helps us find indigeneity, how could it not if approached through all 4 directions? As for the shamanic journeying side of things, to which some people try to narrow down the word shamanism, does that help make us indigenous? It can certainly fill us full of spirit, that same spirit that courses through nature. So yes. But it has its pitfalls, in that it emphasises just 2 directions: East and West, Spirit coming into matter. It does not, for example, involve much of the North, the Mind, objectivity and rationality: indeed, it can encourage a prejudice in favour of intuition over rational thought, and when you do that, your intuition soon stops being intuition.

I wasn't expecting to write that last para! Don't get me wrong, I love the journeying side of shamanism, which for me is like dance. But it needs the context of something like the Medicine Wheel to find its place in the scheme of things. The Medicine Wheel, which asks us to build a relationship with the elements outside of ourselves: Sun, Rain, Soil and Wind - will gradually make of us indigenous people. And you can do it in your back garden. Just a few minutes a day, done with intention, is a powerful thing.

WHY I DON'T BELIEVE IN GOD

I don't know how many of you watch Jordan Peterson's interviews. He's helped me think my way through the current apocalyptic woke mess that we find ourselves in. And, shamanically, to appreciate the bounty that the earth offers us and the prosperity it gives us.

What tends to be missing in our world is gratitude for this bounty. As a result it is easy to be shamanic and to separate off from the modern world, to condemn it in comparison to a lost ideal, to see nature as fragile, and to dislike humanity. I love humanity: I think it crucial that we do so. I love our technological genius, I am sure we are here to continue unfolding it. It is part of nature, not separate from it. And nature is robust. She is red in tooth and claw, as well as pristine and benign.

One area I do not agree with Peterson is over God, specifically the way he puts pagan, polytheistic religions below the vengeful Old Testament God, who he seems unwilling to criticise. The guy who destroyed the god-fearing Job in a bet with the Devil. The guy who says that gays should be stoned to death.

My view is that indigenous peoples from time immemorial understood balance and gratitude and the sacred. Which doesn't mean they didn't also slaughter and do terrible things to each other and view other peoples as less than human. But for them the natural world was inspirited and sacred, and if you bring everything back to that, then you can always find balance.

The Old Testament God is the new kid on the block. He arose amongst an oppressed people living in the desert, and he reflects the harsh reality of their lives, and the strict, unforgiving rules that can be needed to survive.

The reason Peterson puts God above 'pagan' religions (a word that for him has pejorative undertones) is because he thinks that one God reflects a deeper understanding of reality than having many gods.

What he seems to overlook is the underlying unity of Spirit within pagan religions. Amongst the Native Americans, you have the Great Spirit. In Norse mythology you have the Web of Wyrd that connects everything. Spirit helpers are a lens through to the Great Spirit. Just as are the saints a reflection of God in Catholicism.

Peterson isn't stupid, so I think there is something unconscious in his attitude, a blind faith that needs Yahweh to be The Man. As a very rational, scientifically-trained guy (but not lacking in humanity and empathy) he is searching for a deeper metaphysical underpinning. The solution he has found has been, in a way, what was nearest to hand, and authoritarian: that to me says something about the level of his unmooring, brilliant as he can be in other ways. In this respect, he is a man of our times.

The reason I am Shamanic is because I believe - I experience - the world to be alive. It arose from deep within me, irresistibly, 30 years ago after 11 years of a Buddhism that had made me ill, and it changed my life completely. Both Buddhism and Christianity have a tendency, each in their own way, to separate off spirituality from the natural world. It serves the interests of organised religion to do so, because then people lose their power, and will give it instead to the religious authorities. It is a dark 2-way deal that is pretty normal, and often a stage along the way for people.

But unnecessary. If you begin by remembering your connection to the natural world by putting yourself in it, and if you have a teacher who has been dismembered enough not to need pupils, then I think one is off to a much better start. And essentially a teacher is nudging you towards your own wisdom. There is not really much to teach. All you need is your sense of belonging to, and love for, the natural world. Everything comes out of that, and we can find it ourselves.

The Christian God died for a reason. He arose in the context of an oppressed people, and gained currency through military means (Islam) and by becoming the state religion of the Roman Empire (Christianity). He was always corrupt, always out of balance. Away with him!

THE CENTRE OF THE WHEEL

The Medicine Wheel begins from its Centre, and unfurls from there in the 4 directions. The Centre is the point of alignment, of balance. It is a dynamic place. What do you feel called to do, to be? It concerns who you essentially are, but is also mysterious, beyond you.

I think we always know that place, if we are honest. It is specific and practical. For me, it concerns a number of things: putting my thoughts out on social media; writing books; doing astrology readings; putting my medicine wheel stones in the garden; following through with personal connections. It is abundant, and I can't ignore any of those things.

It can require courage. It is creative, and therefore self-doubt comes with the territory, because there is nowhere that can give you a certificate in your own genius: etymology - spirit attendant from birth. What you were born to do. It gradually reveals itself, as long as you keep doing the next thing. Don't worry about the long-term plan, Spirit has that taken care of. Or Fate, a living principle for the ancient Greeks. And Vikings.

The 4 directions of the Wheel are a way of coming closer to the Centre, our genius. What is your body telling you, your mind, your heart, the natural world, and those guides that live somewhere over your shoulder, slightly elsewhere, yet intimate, knowing you? 

 

If you are being true to those things you know you have to do, then there will be a sense in which you feel your life is fundamentally on track, that it is working, whatever the extraneous and inevitable difficulties that crop up. If you are avoiding what you know you should be doing  - and only you can know this - then the opposite will be the case: your life will not feel right, even if you have everything you have been told should make you a happy person. What gives you meaning can be something outside conventional values. Meaning is the thing, it is what keeps us here.

The Centre is a diamond to be forged from the coal-face of yourself, from the pressure of living with your own contradictions, year after year. It is what the universe wants of you, which is why it is also a point of balance. And abundance.