Shadow of the Shaman

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Shadow of the Shaman

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Shadow of the Shaman: 5 Reasons Why Being a Shaman Sucks
Waking Times
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“It is easy to go down into Hell; night and day, the gates of dark Death stand wide; but to climb back again, to retrace one’s steps to the upper air — there’s the rub, the task.” –Virgil

Ghost talker? Vision poet? Soothsayer? Oracle? Bridge between worlds? There are many ways to describe shamans and the shamanism they practice, but basically shamanism is the most ancient spirituality, and for the most part you don’t choose it –it chooses you. Shamanism is mankind’s primordial soul-signature, tapping the cornerstone of the human leitmotif. Shamans are psycho-ecological vehicles for spiritual entanglement, and they realize that we are all unique expressions of the same ubiquitous energy. But they also realize that very few of us are actually aware of that fact. And even fewer are able to do something about it. As such, shamans are unique expressions of the human condition who are aware of their connection to all things, and who have acquired mysterious methods for doing something about it.

Although it’s a deeply powerful form of spirituality, it should not be taken lightly; or if it is taken lightly, it should be taken with a wholesome helping of “humble pie” along with a healthy side of “a humor of the most high.” This is because shamanism is a lopsided double edged sword. The ecstasy on the one side cuts deep and can be genuinely ecstatic, but the agony on the other side cuts to the soul and can be devastatingly dismal. The pain that comes from such knowledge can be a crippling thing, especially coming from a culture that’s hung-up on the bliss of its own ignorance. Like Wei Wu Wei said, “In order to be effective truth must penetrate like an arrow — and that is likely to hurt.” The truth hurts, but cosmic truth hurts most of all. Shamans are the one’s becoming intimate with such pain. Here are five ways being a shaman totally sucks but is also secretly awesome.

1.) You will be shunned by friends and family:


“What is it we are questing for? It is the fulfillment of that which is potential in each of us. Questing for it is not an ego trip; it is an adventure to bring into fulfillment your gift to the world, which is yourself. There is nothing you can do that’s more important than being fulfilled. You become a sign, you become a signal, transparent to transcendence; in this way you will find, live, become a realization of your own personal myth.”
–Joseph Campbell

Shamanism grabs your Destiny by the throat and does not let go. Once it clamps on with its death-grip hold, there is no going back. The shamanic initiation can appear spontaneously, as a blunder, or as an unlucky (lucky) break. It can arrive through super-serendipity, as a chance occurrence, or a cruel twist of fate. It can come through new life, or through unexpected death, or both. It can come from another shaman, or even a raging thunderstorm. There’s no telling when or where it will happen, but when it happens you know it. The universe lines up like a divine fisherman, and you are the magical fish caught on the hook of primordial Time. The kind of knowledge gained is a bone-knowledge, a marrow-deep wisdom, a soul-caliber comprehension. This will, in small and large ways, cause complete havoc in the hyperreal world of the average person. Such havoc is scary for most people, and since your friends and your family include most people, they will more than likely be scared of your newfound unorthodox spirituality.

Their shunning is a double edged sword: you will be dubbed crazy, insane, and eccentric on the one side, and arrogant, conceited, and even selfish on the other side. But they don’t even understand the nature of selfishness; as Oscar Wilde wrote, “Selfishness is not living your life as you wish. It is asking others to live their life as you wish.” You understand that it’s society itself that’s being selfish for asking you to live the way it wishes. Your refusal to be pigeonholed by the status quo is why they despise you. Anybody who takes up the lifestyle or attitude of artificiality will not be able to stand you, because you have become a natural being. You are now of the earth. You have re-discovered your roots, through soulful self-interrogation and self-rewilding. By your very presence you catalyze. You are a great fermentation. The unconscious of anyone living in an artificial manner will sense you as doubly dangerous. Everything about you will irritate them, especially your sense of humor. They sense nature in you, and they are scared shitless of it. But don’t lose heart. You are vitally necessary to tonalize this otherwise atonal world.

2.) Love itself becomes a painful ability:

“If you love and have desires, let these be your desires: To know the pain of too much tenderness; to be wounded by your own understanding of love; and to bleed willingly and joyfully.” –Khalil Gibran

Here’s the thing: we live in a world filled with victims who have been victimized by a victimizing culture. Victims are victims precisely because they are afraid. Once they cease being afraid, once they quit allowing their fears to control them and become intimate with Fear instead, they cease being victims and become warriors. Shamans are spiritual warriors par excellenceprecisely because they are healers of fear. They help people move from a state of fear and expectation to a higher state of awareness where imagination is free to reimagine itself. Like Stephen Levine said, “To heal is to touch with love that which was previously touched by fear.” They realize that fearlessness is not the rejection of fear, it is intimacy with fear. It’s in the intimacy where the healing takes place. That’s where the ashes can be transformed into a Phoenix. Like Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

Love itself is the seer’s tool, the shaman’s soulcraft. Just as only love can drive out hate, only love can drive out fear. Only intimacy with fear can transform fear into courage. The catch: this particular flavor of intimacy is excruciatingly painful. It tears apart the soul with its counterintuitive energy, but then it puts it back together again with the unconditional glue that maintains the unity of opposites. It’s a deep, cosmic love, an absolute love that subsumes the slings and arrows of vicissitude, but also leaves its practitioner in a constant state of existential pain that he/she must be able to resolve in the hear-and-now while also understanding that it will ultimately never really be resolved. Almost like the joy of the journey is always now, whether or not the goal of the journey is ever achieved. Only the “joy” is no joy at all but rather an intimacy with pain, a primordial jouissance. Like Joseph Campbell said, “The schizophrenic is drowning in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight.”

3.) You will experience Soul-crushing loneliness:

“The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
–Albert Einstein

Never underestimate the ignorant power of “the armor of the ‘I.’” It forms itself under the naïve assumption that things are separate. It is constructed under the desperate assertion of maintaining a separate identity. It closes you off until all of your powers of perception can only “see” through the narrow chinks of the all-too-human cavern of self-bias. Most of us grow up in a world where this sort of armor is constantly being manufactured. We become attached to it. It becomes a kind of hyperreal skin. Shamans are the ones ripping that skin off, which is likely to hurt. But we have only to remember that it’s no skin at all –it’s metal, it’s machine-like. It is not you! It is a prison disguised as you. A shaman can help you by opening the door to your prison, but only you can walk through it to taste the freedom on the other side. But, fair warning: it is going to hurt like hell. You will experience one of mankind’s most debilitating pains: loneliness.

Here’s the thing: you have to feel lost and lonely in order to feel the real You as you. You are a microcosm within a macrocosm, a desperate tiny thing in an otherwise calm universe, but you are also an aspect of the universe. You can no more separate the micro from the macro than you can the human from the natural; both are needed to put the whole into holistic. This is the great lesson of loneliness: it’s only when you’re alone that you realize you’re never alone. Like Nietzsche said, “The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” Such privilege is a double-edged sword. It will liberate you on the one side, but it will crush you with loneliness on the other side. Do not balk. Self-pity is poison for a shaman. Like Rumi said, “Wherever you stand, be the soul of that place.” Seek the center of your loneliness and transform it into interdependence. Loneliness is merely the shadow of the self. Embrace the shadow, dance with it in the abyss, and you will never (always) be alone again.

4.) You will be destroyed over and over again between worlds:


“The greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random between the profusion of matter and of the stars, but that within this prison we can draw from ourselves images powerful enough to deny our nothingness.”
–Andre Malraux

Your soul will constantly be forced to eat itself. You will face death every day in the abyss. You have to constantly be able to “die” and rebirth your own energy. Like Henry Miller said, “We must die as egos and be born again in the swarm, not separated and self-hypnotized, but individual and related.” You must be able to destroy yourself and then rebuild yourself. This is the shamanic dance on God’s forehead, the eternal dance on the Divine Third Eye: the uncanny ability to be born, to die, and to be reborn, over and over again, and in each new life, to become a thing which is more capable of subsuming cosmos than in the life before. Where you are receptive to stimuli to which, in the time before, you were insensate. This is done between worlds. It’s done in the shadowy unconscious of the soul. It’s done in the abyss of the human condition, where the You of you is the same thing as the They of them. In short, it’s the death of your ego. And perhaps nothing hurts more than ego-death.

The death of the ego is no easy task. Ego-death is identity-death is self-annihilation. It leads to a dark night of the soul. And if you are lucky (unlucky) enough to have multiple ego-deaths in your life you will reap the rewards (penalties) of having multiple dark nights of the soul as well. If all that weren’t enough, you will also experience the ego-death of other people, and the dark night of their soul will usually prove to be more excruciating than your own. In fact, the more times your soul is forced to eat itself, the more times your ego dies and is reborn again, the more interdependently connected you will become with the experiences of others. This too is a double edged sword, but the sharper the double edged sword the smoother the ego-death; which basically just means it gets easier with practice. Indeed, existential masochism becomes an art form at this level, and provides the perfect platform for meta-empathy to emerge.

5.) You will experience soulbreaking meta-empathy:


“Undifferentiated consciousness, when differentiated, becomes the world.”
–Vedanta

Shamans are neither scientists nor priests, but artists. They are Technicians of the Sacred, immersed in the numinous tapestry of the cosmos. A vital aspect of that tapestry is the human condition, and when it comes to the human condition, the artistry of the shaman shines like gold in dark times. The secret of their art is both very simple and very difficult: healthy detachment. It’s simple because all you have to do is realize that everything is connected and all things are in a constantly changing dance of interdependence. It’s difficult because you imagine that you have a static sense of self (ego) which seems at odds with your dynamic sense of connection (soul). But it’s not at odds at all. Your ego is just as much a tool as your soul is, you simply have to let go of what you think your ego wants in order to make possible what your soul intends. This requires heartbreak. It requires breaking your heart so wide open that the universe has no other choice but to fall in. Heartbreak equals soul-awake. And once your soul is awake, that’s when the real shamanic process begins: soulbreak.

Soulbreak, like heartbreak, opens us up to the vast knowledge hidden within the nature of pain, but it also teaches us detachment. Soulbreak is detachment in the moment. If you are truly detached, your mental-spirit-body becomes a mighty tool for clear seeing. Detachment is existential seeing. Existential seeing is meta-empathy. You must be able to act with compassion, but without attachment. Most love is conditional, most compassion is indiscriminate. As a shaman you have to come from a place of unconditional love. The shamanic experience involves tremendous self-discipline and the will to be focused even when such focus is painful. And it is painful. With this ability we move to the depths of another person’s emotional state and we can “see” from their worldview and understand what makes them healthy or not. When they are unhealthy, you feel it. And in a world where the majority of people are unhealthy, you become the walking personification of pain. Indeed, meta-empathy even becomes ecological. You feel deeply the unhealthiness of the broken system and the painful disconnect between Mother Nature and the human soul.

At the end of the day, it is the job of shamans to shake people out of ordinary, habitual states of mind and to reawaken latent faculties. This can be a soul-quaking experience of world-shattering pain. But there is a vast reservoir of knowledge in such pain, and shamans are the ones seeking it out and imaginatively and courageously transforming it into soul, into art, and into new knowledge. Through daily acts of courage and a willingness to reveal symbolic ways to transcend the darkness of the human condition, shamans are the personification of being the change they wish to see in the world. They are free to triumph over terror. They are no longer interested in the petty pursuit of meaning. They would rather the power that comes from creating it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gary ‘Z’ McGee, a former Navy Intelligence Specialist turned philosopher, is the author of Birthday Suit of God and The Looking Glass Man. His works are inspired by the great philosophers of the ages and his wide awake view of the modern world.
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Phil
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Re: Shadow of the Shaman

Post by Phil »

Well written perspective, thanks for sharing it :)
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neonblue

Re: Shadow of the Shaman

Post by neonblue »

Phil wrote:Well written perspective, thanks for sharing it :)
It's affirming to receive your appreciation of this topic Phil...

My impetus for posting it was because in my experiential observation and understanding, is that at this time - this kind of Shamanic journeying is availed more and more to many of us, in surprisingly existentially accessible ways. I venture to say, that you yourself and others here (on this growingly powerful 'collective' conduit - that is EE Forum), may indeed be among those that can personally relate to this phenomena.
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Re: Shadow of the Shaman

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I'm learning...and that's a nice guideline of principles I constantly strive for. I'd like to be a shaman when I grow up, maybe I'll have the opportunity soon...the universe seems to be unfolding that way...I like to think the recent decision to downsize the office of my soulcrushing job might have been at least partly a manifestation of my desire for a legitimate way out.

Had a hard time "throwing away the oars"...haven't been able to bring myself to do it, synchronicity would have it done for me. And as "luck" would have it, a dear friend sponsored my seat at an ayeuaska ceremony in a couple weeks, as the "Mother" had told him specifically she was ready to meet me.

Figure if anybody can help me find a clearer direction, she can probably show me myself like no other. I always intended to do that down Ecuador, where my babe's from, but the way things lined up I guess she didn't think I should wait that long--that was only slightly more likely and practical than quitting my job.

Having this dude out of nowhere not only find a gringo he trusts (loves), but pay my way in a period I'm forced into transition...cause he directly experienced a specific connection to me in his first journey with her...well I'm just glad that the experiences and information we've shared on these forums helped prepared me for to take the universe as its coming to me now...I've learned how to quiet the noise to achieve a much more peaceful state of mind and emotion than I had not so long ago.

Anyways, it oughta be interesting...maybe I'll meet you on the astral ;) I'm glad we were able to give each other affirmation 8-)
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Re: Shadow of the Shaman

Post by neonblue »

WOW Phil... your sharing of this auspicious invitation to encounter the numinous is thrilling...

It would be such a privilege - (if you are so inclined) - when you return from your shamanic meeting with the primal 'she' (accessed via ayeuaska) - if you were to share it here on the Forum, for us all to learn from.

Wishing you ALL the very best in your courageous journeying...
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Re: Shadow of the Shaman

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Well, my first face to face with actual shaman, those with a relationship with the medicine so intimate they can effectively share it with others, was nowhere near what I expected.

Firstly, I thought I had I checked all my expectations at the door. Prevented myself from having any. Now I wonder if that's possible.

I went into meeting H&E doing a pretty good job of it, they are beautiful wonderful totally actualized, centered in love couple, sharing an enthusiasm to share their unconditional love which each of us called to journey with them. Their reverence for plants infectious, but not fanatical...as is their apparent love for life.

B owns the amazing property that serves as the container for the ceremonies east of the central Oregon resort my friend calls home, and he is like a brother to H&E, an equal with a different role, eager to serve and amazing in his balance of comfort with self (confidence) and humbleness, just trying to describe the love these people exude, the feelings being around them creates, has my eyes welling up with tears.

The hardcore, serious almost battle-like scenario I envisioned from the first 3rd party recounting of a journey in the jungle of Peru with an intense native witch doctor type medicine man I first heard years ago was obviously so far from the reality I entered as we drove through the enterance of the scenic juniper and sage dotted mountain surrounded desert that I felt so at ease, so at home, I felt immediate intense excitement
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Re: Shadow of the Shaman

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The property had a couple of buildings, B's simple house, an old grain mill converted into an apartment with kitchen and sitting area, and the basic on room (with outer hallway house area the ceremony was held in. There was a patio outside with furniture surrounding a wood stove, and outside cooking gear all around.

Bill and I were almost the last to arrive, work issues held him longer than he'd hope, but we were still hours from dark, plenty of time to help in preparations and meet the other participants.

He knew a bunch of them, Bend has a small town feel, especially with the demographic he tends to keep to. The like minded people around our age tend to attract one another, people from around the country that appreciate what central Oregon has to offer all seem to wind up knowing each other. And everyone who's taken the medicine with H&E tend to come back, as often as they can
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Re: Shadow of the Shaman

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So while each individual goes in to meet H or E for a sort of introduction/consultation where we share our intentions, everyone else is chatting in anticipation...sharing their past experiences and intent. The mood is light, vibe is friendly, everyone was wonderful. A little thrill courses through the crowd (well dozen or so out on the patio) as it's mentioned they're going to try for early start, dark is quickly approaching.

I heard lots of stories of different experiences people had with the medicine, different settings and rituals and such, H&E drive theirs with music, and darkness & non-direct communication amongst those on journey...setting it apart from the lady who's describing the Christian one she went to, held in the brightly lit and rigidly ritualistic one she went to.

The single room was long enough to have 7-8 mats lined snug against the left wall, 4 mats across from the sliding glass door enterance with all kinds of bags of plays and incense and crystals and incense and pipes and shaman stuff, there's a wood stove in that corner and 4 more mats right wall. Bill gets the space on the left wall in the corner, and I put my pad directly perpendicular, one of the two mats not directly next to another person, mine is perpindicular to the door, there's about a foot or two space between my mat and the foot of bill and two others'. The other "island mat is on other side of door.

I'm not sure what to think. I can't imagine being inches from others but not allowed to talk to them, but also not sure I want to be where people will need to come in and out. It seems intimate or crowded, I go back and forth. It had been described to me so wasn't surprising, but I still couldn't visualize what it'll be like filled up.

...ok, the mountain is calling, I need to get my snowboarding shit together so I'll leave it here for now...the scene is more less set
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Re: Shadow of the Shaman

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Absolutely lovely
Brotherhood falls asunder at the touch of fire!
He finds his fellow guilty of a skin
Not coloured like his own, and having power
To enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause
Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey.
~William Cowper
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Re: Shadow of the Shaman

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Ugh…back to reality.

Well, I was shoving so much in, with so much active stuff, that I could barely process the experience. It was so non-linear, and continues to evolve, it is a tricky thing to describe…well, here goes:

There’s an excitement as the room fills up, already warm from the wood stove, quickly becoming warming with the body heat. There’s an opaque skylight in the 2nd story ceiling I can see up and out of from my vantage, there’s a second story loft, it’s not quite fully dark yet, but getting there.

H & E give a brief summary of what to expect to us first-timers, there are 7 of us. They tell us that there is nothing toxic about the medicine, that drinking the entire bottle could not kill us. The purging (vomiting) is not like when your body is ridding itself of poison like alcohol, it is triggering you to remove the toxins and unhealed trauma from your body.

There is a blessing, where the space is cleared, beings/guides of the light are welcomed, dark forces/critters are not. It’s a very universal message, down to earth, not too woo-woo or religious, they are really into plant medicine and pure love and not to any sort of dividing paradigms or archetypes, though open to and even accepting of all.

Then we are individually blessed by E, she anoints each of us with frankensence in a quick and loving little ritual/blessing. Then move over to sit before H as he blesses our initial dose of medicine, which is about 2/3 of the full Dixie cup the experienced folks are given, they go easy on the noobs to make sure there’s no adverse reactions (they say there never has been, but I guess they gotta be careful). We take it back to our mats, the first one is taken altogether.

In talking to H later about it, I find that after his initial studies in Peru, he moved to Hawaii where Terrance McKenna had started a botanical garden of as many as the sacred plants from around the world I guess he cold his hands on and grow there. The “Hawaiian sweetness” makes the medicine much more palatable than what you get out of the South American jungles, which he says always give people an acid flux type harsh shot to the stomach initially. And as they aren’t always prone to refrigerating, and usually store in plastic soda bottles, it tends to get fermented, making it rougher and harsher.

So as thick and foreign and different as the deep green almost solid liquid is, it isn’t as difficult to get down as the stories I’d heard. With eager anticipation and a bit of fear, I take the shot with the rest of the room, salud!
We had been on “dieta” for a week prior, where the dietary restrictions were less intense than I had chosen as a sort of fast anyway…the main point of what they ask you to cut out (particularly salt and spices, red meat and sugar) was to heighten the senses…I chose to cut out chicken and had been eating only occasional fish and mostly salads and fruit.

Also on the dieta was sexual activity of any kind (including masturbation), violent video games and movies, drugs (including weed & alcohol), ice cold stuff (difficult for me), coffee (the hardest for me), and even intense spiritual practices (or something cryptic like that)…so going in your chi (I am not too familiar with the concept) is…I dunno, I don’t even really understand what that is. Anyway, you go in clean, pure as you can of mind and body.

The wait isn’t long, H starts playing his drum and singing a mesmerizing, beautiful song. When he’s finished, there’s about a 5 minute silence, then E comes with the most intense, otherworldly singing I have ever heard. She does things with her vocal cords that I could never imagine possible, later I discover that H can do something very similar. There sound and “style” are both very “alien”…I can’t even do any justice describing how different it is from anything I’ve ever heard. The medicine starts working…the sound moves it around in my body. It’s not very comfortable.
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