Hinhan's Lodge

The Hollow Bone Power

2010-04-14T18:50:00.000-07:00

The eyes and ears, tongue and skin, nose, teeth, heart, brain and breath, all are made of the same stuff as the things of the outside world, and that is why they can speak to one another and understand one another. We couldn't see or hear anything if what we saw and heard were not of the same nature as the eyes and ears.

This great lake of power is one thing- stuff "out there", stuff "in here"- all one pool- and that makes sense for beings like we humans who came out of this collective power, out of this world. Evidence of our belonging here lies in how identical to the world we are. Of course, there is another element of us- the spirit of us- that is not a thing of earth or water, but there is something about the earth and water and air that is likewise not just material and the spirit of us is the same as the spirit of them.

All of those spirits originally came out of Great Power and are kept from moment to moment by it even now; the spirits of humans particularly, like those of other animals, came from the unseen world, long ago, to join with the other stuff of this world. Some say those spirits came from the sky world, others from the world below the earth. I think it may be the same regardless- from beyond the boundaries of the earth-world, shape-changing beings came. I think that maybe they can get back to their origins if they desire it, or if there is a need to. When the spirit moves away from the earthy remains of the body during the power-change we call “death,” that spirit has to move through the ghost world, and perhaps beyond, depending on the spirit.

To use the Hollow Bone power is a way of becoming pure and sane, of becoming aware of one's sacredness, a thing people often forget due to the wild, distracting powers flowing through this world and through the senses and mind. I don't think the powers mean to be distracting, although the most wicked ones certainly do. But the vast majority of powers are not naturally disturbing, just vibrant, energetic, intense, or fast. Those kinds of natural presences, especially a lot of them, can distract or sweep away an un-centered person, or a person that just lives within the boundaries of the skin, cut off from the Greater power.

A person has to get purified in hot or cold water, or in the smoke of powerful plants- sage and sweetgrass are the unfailing pair of friends that I've always used. When you're pure, you need to get to a quiet place where you can see the sky and earth, and you should start by taking some time to really identify how similar all of your senses and body parts are with the ground and sky and trees and winds out there in the world around you. This is how I like to get "out of my skin"- by seeing how all of my stuff "in here" is the same as that stuff "out there".

If you see no real difference between the flesh on your arm and the brown dirt under your feet, you start to "expand" a bit, or flow out of yourself. The same goes for the heat in your heart and the heat of the sun, or the saliva in your mouth and the dew on leaves or water in a pond. You always have to "give up" a little- give up on the constant "I'm me in here" attitude you have for your mind and body, and let yourself flow out of that trap, and into the world.

This doesn't take a lot of effort, just a little. Mostly, you have to let it happen, and you'll see that it naturally occurs if you step aside and allow it. It’s like the powers in us are tired of being stuck in a human form, and want to get back "out there", want to expand. This greater “extended body of unity” is really a great truth about us; it's a great joy to really get into it and flow out there.

Once you're feeling the power I'm discussing, the next step, which should naturally arise in you, is to feel the immensity of the great lake or ocean of power that you're a part of. You can feel that by just closing your eyes, opening your heart, and really "opening your feelings"- and without fail, it will eventually be there to your awareness, because the Great Power is always there. This is where you have to accept that you are standing in the midst of forces that are very much greater than your small self. We are all particularly small compared to the Great Power that is our origin. Of course there's no part of you that isn't part of that Great Power, just like there's no part of you that isn't part of the whole world, But when we deal with the Great Power, we're also dealing with the "spirit" part of you.

The center of the Great Power is your center, too. This kind of talk has been repeated by many spiritual teachers, and some people may find it bland or cliché by this point, but it's actually a pretty layered observation. The Greatest Sacred thing isn't far away, outside the universe somewhere, but everywhere there is elemental material, or a being with a mind, like a spirit, a squirrel, a dog, or a person. Every thing is a vessel for sacredness in the most extreme form, and if you become aware of this about yourself, you begin to radiate a sort of light. Spirits will recognize that light and be well-disposed to you, and wicked spirits will fear it.

For now, when trying to use the Hollow Bone power, it's enough to give yourself up to the Great Power, literally offer your small self to this Greatness that you can sense around you and deep within everything, as well as (in a sense) beyond it all. So, after you've "flowed out" a bit, as I described before, you should turn your senses to "full open" until you can naturally feel the Great Infinity that stands behind and within all things. That infinity, our real and mysterious origin, is what you must give yourself over to. This is about recognizing and loving the power greater than yourself.

We’re dealing with an offering here; this process is a heartfelt opening and offering of self and everything about you to the sacred incomprehensible, to infinity. It can be done with or without words, eyes open or closed, hands spread out or at your side, however you feel it at the moment. Whatever you do, understand that it is the heart of this work. It is the most profound of all religious or sacred offerings. When you feel what you need to feel, or are meant to feel here, then you are ready for the Hollow Bone.

Your body is the hollow bone- or should I say, all of you is the hollow bone. Consciousness and body and anything else that might be a part of you, like the strange and mysterious spirit, is the hollow bone. Whatever “it” is, if it is part of you, then it is the hollow bone, or it should be.

Every being and every thing is meant to be a channel for the Great Power, and most things are, without even thinking about it. Humans, like some other beings, can get confused and distracted; instead of letting the natural power of life and mystery flow through them, flow through their minds and bodies totally unimpeded, they trap power and let it spin around in them and settle and stagnate. I don't guess any power can ever be "still" but it can certainly seem to get stuck in persons and seemingly stagnate. It goes from being a strong flow of forces that can make someone healthy and powerful, to being something that can kill them or drag them down to disorientation and angst.

So when you've done the two things I've talked about before, you're ready to let go of the power you've mindlessly trapped. You're ready to go back to what you were when you were born- a hollow bone, a free channel for power. You do this starting with your will- you have to will to let go of all the power you have trapped in you. That power takes many shapes, like bad memories, good memories, worries, fears, frustrations, hatreds, and sometimes, just feelings. You have to realize that the Great Power wants nothing more than to naturally pass through you and out of you, back into itself and everything else, and then into you again, forever. If you let it, you get strong, clean, and healthy. You become joyful, in place, and powerful. If you stop it, you become torn up by the tension.

Once you will to make it happen, you use your body to make it happen- stand up, straighten your spine, tilt your head back and imagine your body hollow. Let all that power flow quickly up your spine and out of your forehead, and way up into the sky. Will it to happen. Visualize it, if you want, but visualization is a little lame, when real power is involved. It's better to feel it than to visualize it. It may take some effort (but never too much) to really let go- let go- let go- and let all of it fly out of you. All the angst, worry, depression, hurtful memories, and even happy concerns and preoccupations- all of it goes out. Even your sense of self can go.

This won't be hard to accomplish, because you've already flowed out into the world of which you're a part, and you've already given yourself over to the infinite sacred. This last step is simple if you have those other two perspectives helping you let go. Many people have problems with “letting go”, especially of the hard things, the things that bother them the most or torment them the most- misery is a habit.

But not letting go is like grasping tight to a piece of heated iron that’s burning into your fingers, and letting go is always possible- it does take an act of trust, however, in the infinitely Greater Power and in the world of which you are a part. When you’ve exhausted every other means of trying to find relief from the things that have become stuck and tangled up in you, you risk nothing with that great trust, and the act of letting go, and you might indeed gain everything. Unbalanced things that flow out of you are destroyed by being forced back into balance, or dissolved in the greater flow altogether.

Some people can’t let go of the things they consider “good” and want to keep, but I always feel that we can’t really lose those things- they flow out of you and become a larger part of the world, of the greater power, and thus a greater, deeper part of your “extended self”- the “self” beyond the boundaries of flesh. By letting the Great Powers have these things, you aren’t just making a great offering of wisdom, and you aren’t just balancing yourself well; you’re living up to your sacred function in the unfolding of life itself. The best way to have the things you want the most is to let them go, and let them become a greater part of things, a deathless part of the all. You’re part of the all, so you always share, in some way, in the things you give away with a good spirit.

You practice letting go, but never with too much effort, and you'll finally feel the flow happening naturally. You need to realize that we all hold on to too much; it's okay to let everything, including the good things, go. These are powerful offerings of yours to the Six Worlds, to the earth-world, which absorbs them and to the world below the earth, which takes them away, and to the world above the earth, and the world above the sky, which takes them up to infinity. And the flow of life never stops, through you. Even when you're "running clear", cleanly flowing, you’ll see that a flow keeps coming.

I find that something even more powerful happens here, when I flow clean- my mind is also clean. I feel the part of me that forever knows, that "knowing" spirit in me, sitting there, feeling and observing this flow, purified and attentive. Attention- clean, open attentiveness to everything, is the real end of this power-work. Always cultivate attention; powers can't reach you or guide you if you can't be open, clean, and attentive.

That spirit, that “clean mind” that you discover sitting on the back of the hollow bone, watching the river go by, has always been there, journeying along through the world, from its source in Great Power, to this stand of woods I happen to be in right now, to wherever it'll be going after I die- when it moves with power into the ghost world, and maybe beyond. I know that if I'm all tangled up and not letting my whole being become a hollow bone daily, doing this power-practice until it becomes a part of my daily life, (something that I am more than something that I do) that my journey into the ghost world will be just as tangled up.

As a healer and power-worker, this is one of the sources of my strength. I don't pray or do anything with power until I've used the hollow bone to get clean and open. The hollow bone flow takes away stress and confusion and all of the harmful forces that kill us. It has great value for all who can find the time, ease, and attention to do it, until they become it.

I could spend all night listing the benefits of the Hollow Bone power-practice, beyond just cleansing and purifying oneself, and fulfilling one’s sacred role as a channel of power; if for some reason hostile spirits or curses were to attempt to lodge themselves in your very being, they could find no resting place in the tangles of power they require to stop and take up residence- they would be swept away in the flow through the Hollow Bone.

A Treatise on Natural Truth

2009-12-16T10:50:00.000-08:00

A Treatise on Natural Truth:
Organic Truth Perspectives on the "Nature of Nature" and All of Nature's Many Parts

* * *
"When I say "organic truth" or "natural truth", I am referring to those truths that we can see demonstrated to us by Nature herself, and which we can reason out or infer based on the appearance of nature's forces and their activities.

Natural truth is both experiential and empirical/demonstrable, and we experience it in the nature of our interactions with other persons in our natural environment, and the environment itself. Some aspects- the very deepest aspects- of natural truth are mediated to us in a personal, intuitive form through the sacred stories and spiritual metaphors utilized by primal peoples worldwide, past or present, in their various sacred and organic cultural expressions."

See this essay here

We Know Their Spirits Through Their Bodies

2009-12-10T17:26:00.001-08:00

Today, the Bangor Daily News published a story about Penobscot Indian veterans being honored by the Government. That story is reprinted here:

* * *

INDIAN ISLAND, Maine — Jean Francis Chavaree was 6 years old when her big brother, Donald, then 20, enlisted in the U.S. Army and went off to Fort Bragg, N.C. It was February 1942, just after the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor.

“Most guys got to go home before they were shipped overseas,” Chavaree said, “but we never saw him again.”

Donald Raymond Francis was reported killed in action in the Philippines on Feb. 5, 1945. His body was never recovered but is believed to have been buried near the battle site.

At an emotional ceremony Thursday on Indian Island, Jean Chavaree, now 73, accepted a folded Penobscot Nation flag from a senior Pentagon official in honor of her lost brother.

“We continue to engage in efforts to recover Donald’s body and bring him home to his people,” said Penobscot Indian Nation Chief Kirk Francis, as Danny Pummill, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, handed the folded flag to a teary Chavaree.

It was one of several moving moments during Thursday’s “Freedom Team Salute,” which also honored three Army veterans still living on the island reservation. The Freedom Team Salute program recognizes Army veterans and the families and communities that support them. The program was launched in May 2005 and is administered by the Office of the Secretary of the Army and the Army chief of staff. More than 2.2 million individuals have been recognized through the program since it began.

With commendation certificates and letters signed by Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey Jr. and by Secretary of the Army John McHugh, Pummill also honored these Penobscot Indian veterans: Master Sgt. Charles Shay, who served from 1943 to 1964 and saw combat in both World War II and Korea; Spc. Eugene Joseph “Chip” Loring, who served from 1966 to 1969 during the Vietnam War; and Pfc. Leslie Banks, who served from 1943 to 1945.

Banks’ son John Banks accepted the commendation materials for his father, who had stayed home because of the icy roads. Other Penobscot veterans stood to be recognized during the brief ceremony.

Chief Francis and the entire Penobscot Indian Nation were honored with a commendation for their support of Penobscot citizens who have served with the Army. Francis became the first American Indian tribal leader to receive this recognition of support from the program.

Pummill acknowledged the Penobscot Indian Nation’s historic support of the U.S. Army, from the Revolutionary War through the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

For Jean Chavaree, the event was bittersweet, bringing up painful memories and kindling new hope.

After the ceremony, she recalled the awful day when word came that her brother had been killed.

“My mother had to go into Old Town to get the telegram. Of course, we had no bridge at the time, so she walked across the ice with my sister. When she got to the Western Union office and opened the telegram, she just collapsed,” Chavaree said.

Her mother, Chavaree said, “lost it” for two years, and never really recovered from the loss of her only son. The family’s grief was compounded by not being able to bring Donald’s body back home to Indian Island.

For years, she said, they believed there was no body to recover, that Donald had been blown to bits when his tank hit a land mine. But within the past few years, she said, evidence has emerged that Donald was the only one of the five tank crew members to die in the blast and that he may have died from a broken neck. The son of one his buddies on the tank crew has been trying to find the site of the battle, she said, and, potentially, the site of Donald Francis’ grave.

Chavaree said Pummill asked her to contact him when he gets back to Washington, D.C., so he can expedite the search for the truth.

“Wouldn’t it be something if I could get my big brother back after all these years?” Chavaree asked. “It’s a dream.”

* * *

Few people really understand the force of emotion and connection that possesses those who have lost a loved one, and been unable to obtain their bodies after their deaths for a burial at home. Some people wonder at the wisdom of such a seeming attachment to a physical body- what would really change if Donald Francis' body was brought back to Maine? His spirit, surely, is long gone. What his family loved in him was something intangible, something that works together with earth and water to create a "person", right? Surely that "person" is gone now, yes?

I suppose there are a lot of Buddhists out there that would say the family of Donald Francis was just attached to his body. His sister seems to think that she'd be getting "her big brother back" if she could get his physical remains and bury them at home. But clearly, this man is not at all found in a pile of remains. The remains are remains. The man was something else.

But the story isn't finished there. What I said above is the prevailing view of many revealed religions, but it isn't a view that I prefer. For too long I've had my neck bent backwards by these transcendental religionists that want to draw harsh lines between matter and spirit. For me, this story and the emotions behind it are easily explicable. The spirit may be an intangible mystery, a seed of the Great Mystery which plays about every being- but we don't experience spirit in that way, when we join with our loved ones. Their spirits are with ours in every moment we are together, but we don't get just spirits, we get spirits and bodies.

The spirit of Donald Francis was born in Maine, among his people, because love bound it there. It belonged there, because that was the land of his people. The earth of his body, the water in his body, was the earth and water of Maine, of Indian Island. The spirit craved that earth and water. His spirit showed love and experienced love through that body, which was compounded from sacred forces of earth and water.

To return his body would be to return more than just "remains". It would be to return a piece of Maine and a piece of his sacred land to the greater whole from which it was drawn originally. Places are sacred, and the "home" of a person and their family is absolutely even more so, by virtue of how they bond with it and live on it. I can understand how a native family can experience emotions of loss AND a relieved sense of "regaining" if they could somehow get the remains of a family member back. No, they aren't getting their brother back just as he was when he left. But they would be getting back intimate reminders of who and what their brother was while his spirit lived here with the flesh.

We know our loved ones through their bodies. Their bodies are very important. Their bodies bear the imprint of their spirits, and are illuminated by their spirits, and shaped by the spirit. Even when the spirit is gone, the body maintains something of a vague power, a sanctification due to this precious relationship and experience. The body is not a mere vessel to be cast off and discarded. People who think like that are enchanted with the religions that teach us to turn away from this world and keep our eyes on distant heavens. This world is sacred, and so are its earths and waters, and so are these bodies that our spirits join with to have the experiences we call our lives.

Every human being who is sane, I think, will experience the loss of a loved one's body after their death as a hole, a void, an incompleteness for these reasons. Bodies are not "mere matter" to be placed vertically "far below" the spirit. These two poles of every life exist on an equal keel, in many important ways. We come to know people through their bodies. The earth and water of the body give a vibrant power of expression to the spirit. The body is not a lesser brother to the spirit, to be shunned for its mortality, but a part of spirit to be cherished.

There is an important reason why the ancients were respectful about burial places, and about the treatment of the body after death. And it has to do with some very deep powers, and a recognition of spirit as not alien to this world. If we ever loved the spirit of a person, then we must treat their bodies well, as well as we might keep safe a beautiful letter they once wrote to us- for the body is another expression of their will and their hopes and dreams. The brave spirit of Donald Francis has gone to the place where all the dead go, and gone on to meet with the Truth about things. But so long as his remains can be found, they should be returned to his home, for something that his spirit was involved in is still here, and in a broad sense, his power is still here.

The Five Principles of the Way of Life

2009-09-17T17:57:00.000-07:00

I've finally edited and made available a short essay regarding a synthesis of primal and animistic worldviews and conceptions of the sacred, to be found here.

Loneliness and Speaking with Spirits

2009-09-15T14:26:00.000-07:00

Cousin, after years of treading a spiritual path, and working to condition myself such that I was able to be consciously aware of the sacred and incomprehensible things, I have reached a point that I feel that I can speak of a certain mystery that intrigues both of us.

I get the idea that most human beings feel quite alone. Not always alone in the sense of lacking human contact, but alone in a broader spiritual sense. Where are the "spirits" of the natural world, the Gods, the unseen beings that so many sacred stories and myths talk about? The ancient humans don't appear to have been alone.

Aside from living in close, intimate harmony with one another, within family groups, their stories present us with adventures alongside animals that walk and talk like humans: the master-spirits of those animals, perhaps. Gods descend to marry human brides; the dangerous powers rear their heads and speak and act- the reaches of extra-sensory reality seem to have been closer, in those days.

You can't doubt the spiritual aspect of human life when the spirit world is walking and talking alongside you. Where have these powers gone? Naturally, I'll tell you they haven't gone anywhere; I can say that we have forgotten much about experiencing in that special way that gives us access to them- but such a statement can be unsatisfying. Dreams and visions are still real, and nearly everyone has had some hints of those- but we have enough reasons now to doubt our dreams and visions. Their sanctity has been greatly diminished because of the doubters and the materialists.

Certainly we have a destiny in this world, a purpose for living, a reason. This is my belief. Aside from the aid one can gain in discovering their path through life, there is another good reason to reach out to the Unseen and talk to the powers there: it will cure the human sense of loneliness- spiritual loneliness, which makes us mad in many ways. When we can't see the tree next to our window as a non-human person, all we are left with is some bark and leaves. When we can't see the river as a non-human person, we are left with some water.

Bark, leaves, and water don't make good conversation partners. They don't cry out to us to be respectful and treat the world well- if they did, we might have a hard time dumping waste into our water, or destroying our trees in our blind, money-motivated, and imprudent manner. A vegetarian once told me that "carrots didn't scream as loud as cows", as a justification for why she felt better killing plants for her food, rather than animals.

Even though I think she was wrong to prefer one sort of killing over another (plants are still living beings; they are non-human persons, sacrifice is sacrifice, and death is death) I think this principle applies to spiritual ecology and spiritual life as well. If we could speak to the unseen powers, or hear them and sense them, we would be encouraged through whatever shreds of decency we have left in us to live more harmonious lives with them- and you cannot separate them from this sacred, natural world.

If we didn't feel so alone in the forest- if we felt the reality of our situation- we would walk through the trees just as we walk through a human neighborhood, with a mind to respect and wary of offending others; with a sense of familiarity and a sense of community. We would be aware of how surrounded we are by other persons, persons who enjoy being well-treated and respected just like we do.

Our sense of "human aloneness" can be broken many ways; it must be broken, or we will go crazy (perhaps I should say "more crazy") and finish destroying ourselves. Our slow species suicide has already begun; maybe something I'll say here can reverse the trend, at least in the minds of individuals.

I would like to present a procedural framework for contacting spirits- for having a conscious experience of contact with non-human persons. There are countless ways and methods for this activity, born in every historical human culture; even in non-animistic Western christian culture, prayer and meditation is suggested for having a conscious experience of contact with God. But this is something very different.

This is a five-step procedure for contacting non-human persons of a more immediate variety; the kind that live unseen right next to you, pretty much wherever you are. I am speaking of the non-human persons of trees and stones, of rivers, the land itself, of springs or mountains, or hills. This would work for the spirits of animals as well, though it might be better to begin with the spiritual presences associated with things that don't fly or run quite so much- like trees or rivers.

This procedure was correlated by me from many experiences of my own, but it was the spirit of the river near me that taught it to me in its final form. There are understandings here that are purely sacred, and strong.

The five steps are as follows, along with a short explication for each:

1. Gaining proximity to a phenomenon related to the non-human person you wish to engage in direct communication with

2. Cultivating a sense of the non-humanness of this spirit or person

3. Cultivating a respectful attitude and heart towards this spirit or person

4. Formally gaining the attention of the spirit or person

5. Going into a passive mode of openness.

Gaining proximity

Not all non-human persons have a perceptual "outward form" associated with them- one good example would be the spirit of the wind. Wind is invisible, but when outdoors, one is nearly always in contact with the wind in some way- one is in proximity- so long as the wind is blowing that day, wherever you are. This procedure is more favorably and easily used with the powers associated with spirits that can be experienced in an easy way- trees, mountains, bodies of water, and the like.

Going to the tree, river, hill or mountain (and one really need only be at least in sight of it, though the closer one gets, the better) is the first step in this process. The "journey" to the place, no matter how short or long, is actually a powerful and venerable part of this process. One goes to this power's tangible presence with a reverential attitude. Before the approach to the place, one should wash oneself into purity, with hot water, steam, ocean or spring water, or some other wash, and/or smudge with a sacred herb that has the force of purification assigned to it by tradition.

Cultivating a sense for non-humanness

This portion of the procedure is one of the most neglected aspects of spiritual communion that I have encountered- and my personal realization of it represented quite a leap and evolution of my own ability to complete this work.

When we are attempting to speak with non-human powers, we forget often that they are, in fact, not human. This sounds trite, but from the perspective of a human mind and heart, it is a crucial fact. We aren't used to communicating intellectually and consciously with entities that aren't humans, that don't look and think like us, and use our language. We can communicate in various ways with our animal friends or pets, but in general, the vast majority of our conscious communication is with other people.

This fact conditions us to think of "real" communication only in human terms. It makes us consider the theoretical existence of any intelligent non-human power only in human terms- humans get angry; so what could anger a spirit? Humans have preferences- what does a spirit prefer? Humans look lustfully upon other humans- do spirits lust after the same things?

Sacred stories of spirits interacting with humans are also framed in human terms, though sometimes, the more powerful the story, the stranger you'll find spirits acting- the more ambiguous, the more mysterious.

Those who desire communication with spirits must focus themselves intently on the fact that these non-human persons are, in fact, not human; they have to let human-like preconceptions about the spirit go and open themselves to what it really means and feels to approach what is (from our perception) an alien being. I don't mean "alien" in the sense of being from another planet; I mean alien to our human thinking, motivations, and sensibilities- and the more powerful the spirit, the more this will be true.

Some things will always unite us to our brothers and sisters in the non-human range of life; that sacred stories present spirits with sometimes human-seeming motivations is not a mistake or a superstitious limitation. But to imagine the unseen powers as simply "humans writ immortal and insubstantial" is an extreme error. It limits the possibilities that a spirit-seer must remain open to.

My procedure is to look within, and sense a large distance between me and the spiritual power, and, distant from me, is the power itself, which I never visualize. I only know that it is there- after all, I can "feel" it by virtue of being near the physical phenomenon that I believe it is associated with- and I let it be a non-human, mysterious thing. I concentrate on the strangeness of non-human persons, how they must feel at least a bit strange or even disturbing from the human perspective, owing to our limitations as human beings. We see the world as we are- that is an unavoidable truth. Now, at this step in the procedure, we can break with that habit just a bit and let the powers out there be what they are.

Too many people go out to find "spirits" and forget that "us going to them" is an approach that is only half complete. One must realize that spiritual powers will respond to those they wish to respond to, and that they "come to us", as well. You can go as far as you like and try many things, but without certain key perspectives and ingredients in place, spirits aren't likely to just "come to you", thus making the contact whole.

You will discover that meditating on the strangeness of non-human persons, their mystery, and letting your human-shaped notions about them fall away, opens you up immediately to subtle levels of possibility for communication that you may never have engaged. The strangeness of non-human persons doesn't mean that they are not intimately connected to us, on the deepest levels; it does not mean that they are hostile, though some can be dangerous.

Cultivating a sense of respect

Once you have accomplished the first two stances of this procedure, this central third step may be the most important. One must make it clear, on the heart level, that one comes in a sense of total solidarity and respect for the spirit one wishes a communion with. You make this clear by filling the heart with respect and awe, a sort of admiration born in the fact that your hoped-for communication partner is another living being like yourself, but having a life-experience very much unlike you, and its life-experience is no less crucial than your own.

The more beings and persons that exist, and the more we can integrate consciously into our network of relationships, the more sacred power we will personally collect and manifest, and the closer we will come to our own destinies- for a part of every destiny is learning to live in harmony with all powers.

A note of caution here is, of course, required: there are powers who spend their existence being harmful to other living beings, including humans. This procedure really isn't for communing with them, nor should a communion really be an issue for them- they are best respected for their sacred necessity, but avoided or left alone, and at most, sealed out of near proximity to human minds and dwelling places.

Offering your heart in respect to the spiritual power that you are communicating with is the first of the two things you will do to gain its direct attention. This activity need not be complicated; if one has the necessary poetry in their heart for the sacred powers, it won't be hard to feel respect and awe and even veneration- the strong sense of sacred worth- for the spirits as a whole, and the spirit whose communion you wish.

Then, you let this feeling extend from your chest and middle-body to the direction of the physical, tangible phenomenon whose proximity you went into.

Formally gaining attention

At this point, one must make an outward demonstration of sound and offering to gain the attention of the spirit. Drums and rattles are the best, but the addition of burning sweet grass or other fragrant herbs makes a far more powerful demonstration.

Without drums or rattles (or alongside them) one may softly whistle, play some instrument, or sing. The real point and power here is in knowing that you are making these offerings of sound and herbs with the intent of gaining the spirit's attention.

At this stage, one may wish to speak ones intentions for the conversation or communion. One may speak them in the heart, but I find that they are more effective if they are spoken aloud on some level.

Going into a passive state of openness

The final phase of this procedure is the setting of the stage upon which this sacred drama can finally be consummated. You, as a human being, have gone as far as you can "towards" the spirit- coming, purified, into the presence of some item or phenomenon associated with it, losing ones' preconceived notions of it, allowing it to be the mystery that at heart, it truly is; emanating respect and kinship towards it, and calling it formally and traditionally. Now, if the contact is going to occur, it will be because the mysterious entity comes to you- and even if it did, if you are not passively open to its approach, you will not encounter it on any level.

At this point, the chest and middle-body must be opened to the power, and one must spiritually "watch" for the approach of the being. Watching in this way doesn't mean looking, though one may also look, if they like. It means being in touch with the "chest" sight, and with how one feels. One must not make an attempt to strain to "feel" this approach; one becomes passive, open to whatever arises. The spirit can come in many ways- as an animal, even; it can manifest as winds or sounds, as a vision or a feeling. The "feeling" of the presence of the spiritual power is normally one of the most profound aspects of this experience. But it can go much deeper.

An internal conversation can begin in some cases; these are more than just the classic "I'm talking to myself" quandaries; this natural and mystical internal conversation takes place as readily and actually as your communion with my words here on this paper- an "outside source" of intelligence and personhood speaks to you, shaping feelings and knowledges in yourself of its lore, responses, or intentions. Another "layer of sight" may open up near you or in you, "strong eyes" opening to show you something of the spirit in an inner-sight. Only those who have gained such an experience can understand what I am trying to say.

The greatest problem with these sorts of experiences is the degree to which our hearts can deceive our heads. If we wish for spiritual contact very fondly, we put ourselves in danger of "making it up"- and fooling ourselves. But real openness to spiritual contact only comes when we accord spirits the final and greatest respect we can give them: the option not to communicate with you. You cannot assay this procedure if you are obsessed, singlemindedly, with talking to spirits. You must go into it with the attitude that "if it happens, good, if not, fine. All is well either way."

If you know that you will be disappointed at failing to gain a communication-experience, do not try this procedure. If you intend to use this procedure as part of a vision-seeking, you must extend this attitude all the more. There is nothing wrong with working hard and trying multiple times, but you cannot let yourself slip into the state of obsession with result. This would not be respectful, and it will lead to self-deceit.

For those who are seeking a vision, this procedure can be used in conjunction with sleep- once the spirit is called, going "open" and going to sleep can allow a stage for a dream-vision to arise from the power. One must be open to any and all visions that arise in sleep, and have no expectation of outcome.

It is no accident that this procedure for speaking to non-human persons also outlines a very wise way of approaching and communicating with human persons as well: to let our preconceived notions of other humans fall by the wayside, to be respectful to them and cultivate a sense of our kinship, and to not be obsessed with the outcomes of our relationships with others- allowing them to be who they are. These stances in communication can help things between people immensely.

Pure and Without Any Darkness

2009-08-30T20:44:00.000-07:00

Becoming a father, and being allowed the great opportunity to observe in detail the growth and development of human beings- my precious daughters- has been the greatest blessing and privilege of my life. These years of being a father have brought me more joy than any other years- but it also brought up many personal challenges. These challenges are chiefly tied into how a father or a parent feels he is best able to guide and protect his children, as they slowly prepare to be launched into the world to live on their own.

Adults know the world- insofar as anything can be "known" when filtered through the lens of opinion and preconception. They know that the world is beautiful and wonderful (or at least most might use those words from time to time) and they know that it is full of perilous dangers, as well.

We were all children once, and we grew into adults- learning of the world's perils and gradually assimilating ourselves into the risky venture of human life. We adults have all come to grips, in some way, with what we face- as much darkness as the world contains, we find a way to rationalize it; we find a way to cope and survive and to sideline thinking about the darkness too much. We know the pitfalls of the world, but few of us go too far into addressing them directly.

We have all become used to "things as they are"- and this is not an entirely bad position to take, accepting as it does that some darkness must exist, and integrating that into a (more or less) stable condition of mind.

Becoming a father changed the extent to which I was content to accept "things as they are"- while I, like nearly all adults, have come to see threats and dangers to myself as acceptable and unavoidable on some level, I cannot tolerate the idea of threats and dangers to my children. My situation is further compounded by the understanding I have that I am not the author of Fate, nor the author of my children's lives and destinies. As much as I would like to protect them perfectly, I know that I cannot. I can only go so far- perceptually- towards fulfilling my fatherly desire to see to my children's well-being.

I can't make the world better for my children, in the way that it would need to be "better" to assure their safety and well-being perfectly. In our world, we have many religious traditions that cluster about and preach ways to understand darkness and light, to understand salvation and redemption. Many preach and teach about the real goal of an essential human's life, the "true" story of mankind, and the moral truths they say we should embrace, if we wish to be assured of lasting happiness. With so many voices raised to teach and guide, a din exists, a confusing din of fear and hope and conflict.

This is another danger for the world- the danger of being lost and confused. I worked for years to lift myself above this particular confusion- the lonely battle of the soul- and what success I achieved has also been brought into question by my children's young, innocent lives.

I say this because the world of religion and philosophical paths also poses its own array of dangers and risks. Who has the "right" way to live? I've studied and learned of so many- some threaten us with eternal hells; others with endless cycles of confusion and grief if we don't find the clarity they promise. People say, and have always said, many things. I was (and am) willing to "take the risk" of the soul with myself- I can and always have ignored the dire warnings of the hysteriarchs and fear-mongers, and chose the path of conscience and inner guidance- something I was dissuaded from doing at nearly every point. But I did it.

And I am willing to live as I live amid the confusion. If I fail, then it is my detriment. But my children? What can I tell them, how can I guide them, when it is their own metaphysical risk at stake? How I guide them now will influence them greatly in the future; what can I do for them? In the middle of the din, it is hard to know. My children are my flesh and blood, but they are not me- they have a path to walk that is not mine, life experiences to have that I may not have.

Any attempt on my part to truly impart my deepest values may harm them, in unexpected ways. This doesn't mean that I will leave them without guidance, or simply defer them to whatever random encounters they meet, to learn as they will; I will do my best to be honest, and to be intrusive to the smallest degree that I can be.

I want so much to shield them from the dangers and the traps of the world, but I have been left feeling helpless in the face of the sheer immensity and complexity of this world. I am not the sort of person who dulls out his feelings with the opiate of repetitive labors, or of "cheap good deeds", nor do I take shelter in the herds of people who gather to behave repetitively in the name of spirituality or to smile about the good deeds they have done for others.

All of that, as Nietzsche said, is contrary to the truly healthy person. I face my sense of helplessness and accept it as part of my destiny unfolding; I wait for it to change, on the tides of its own natural cycles, into something else, for change it must. While it is here, I endure and feel, and discuss my feelings, as I am doing now.

So I'm not writing this to lessen my distress; I am writing this, in a sense, to celebrate it- and to celebrate what places it led me to, this very day. For without it, some important understandings that I won today never would have come to me.

* * *

Like all of the many complex phenomena of this world, a precious insight or understanding is compounded of many parts- many threads of force drawn from many other experiences. We stand on the backs of our own histories and experiences when we move perceptually "forward" in our own minds. Many things that I have read before came together for me today, and it all began when I picked up a book from my local library called "The Vision Keepers" by Doug Alderson.

Doug's a guy who, like me, felt a calling back to the primal spiritualities of the "first nations" peoples of this planet- those people who still maintain some sense of what I have come to call "primordial sanity". Flipping through the book, I noticed a chapter about his time with Lakota Sioux peoples, in which he took part in two important ceremonies- "Releasing the spirit" and "Throwing the Ball". I was familiar with both ceremonies from reading "The Sacred Pipe" many years ago.

However, something had changed since the last time I had read them- especially the ceremonial throwing of the ball- I was a father now. It is because of this that I was able to see something in it that I never saw before.

The ceremony, like all Lakota ceremonies, is geared towards the goals of their community, and towards the supreme spiritual reality of their religion: Wakan Tanka. Wakan Tanka, despite the easy mental shelf that most whites try to put him on today, is not "God" in the usually accepted sense of the word. Wakan Tanka, before missionaries came and tried to change this into a monotheistic conception of "God", was the "sacred incomprehensible"- a mysterious power formed of the totality of all sacred powers that existed, and all forces.

In the throwing of the ball, a four-year-old girl is placed in the center of a large ring of participants, and given a buffalo skin ball, which is red and blue. The red symbolizes the earth, the blue symbolizes the sky. Together, it represents "earth and sky"- all powers, the world, the universe, and totality. She throws the ball to each of the four directions, and the people gathered around in that direction fight like mad to catch the ball or get their hands on it- it is quite a competition. The person who catches it, is symbolically catching "everything"- gaining his or her Wahupa, or enlightenment.

Thought many try to catch the ball, few do- which symbolizes how many people in life try to gain a special conscious relationship with Wakan Tanka, and how few actually succeed. If you are standing there, trying to catch the ball, you have a lot of competition- and the people around you, struggling against you to prevent you from getting the ball, represent the ignorance and delusions that stand against you. Because of the state of things today, the odds are always against any single person who strives for this special closeness. We are all beset by many opponents and contrary powers.

But why a little girl to throw the ball? Alderson recounts Black Elk's words on this matter:

"Black Elk said "It is a little girl, and not an older person, who stands at the center and who throws the ball. This is as it should be, for just as Wakan Tanka is eternally youthful and pure, so is this little one, who has just come from Wakan Tanka, pure and without any darkness. Just as the ball is thrown from the center to the four quarters, so Wakan Tanka is at every direction and is everywhere in the world, and as the ball descends upon the people, so does his power."

* * *

Something began to change in me when I read this. Memories came back to me of many things I had read throughout my life- all dealing with the concepts of "the sacred" and "youth". In the last months and years, I have watched my daughters explore the world- watched how they were able, with fresh, new eyes, to take in what they encountered- without malice or prejudice, with simple, open curiosity.

A father sees these things, and if he is a man of any depth, he greatly admires them. Because there is a connection between youth and the sacred that has been recounted to me all my life, from many sources, that only this day came to dawn in me, like the bright morning star.

In my Catholic upbringing, the typically cryptic statements of Jesus were tossed about like popcorn. I find that as the years pass, every now and again, something I was told that Jesus said suddenly falls into place- not in the sense of some "verification of the faith", but in the sense that these words attributed to Jesus had to come from somewhere- and the source of those words sometimes- but not always- clearly shares a root with the same pure core of ancient wisdom that Black Elk's words (given above) came from, or from the same place that the teachings of other sages came. In the gospel attributed to "Matthew", it is written:

Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."

The entire notion of becoming childlike to approach the kingdom of heaven also came back to me- and it was a Catholic saint- St.Therese of Lisieux- who said "Perfection seems simple to me. I see it is sufficient to recognize one's nothingness and to abandon oneself as a child into God's arms."

This theme of the relationship between the child-like and the sacred or the divine keeps coming up, from all points. The Catholic Church has long taught that children, if they die, go directly back to God, or to heaven, or what have you. Interestingly enough, there is a spiritual (and formally, a theosophical and even Buddhist) explanation for that statement. Black Elk said it best when he said "...just as Wakan Tanka is eternally youthful and pure, so is this little one, who has just come from Wakan Tanka, pure and without any darkness."

In the theosophical sense, when people die, their bodies die, and their minds awaken in an astral/etheric body, and continue on in a conditioned state, very perceptually similar to the world that their bodies inhabited, and which conditioned their astral and ethereal form. Some may not even be aware that their bodies have died, but they become aware, eventually.

From this point, the ethereal and astral bodies begin the process of decay and fading- just as the body had been doing all their lives. At some point, these subtle bodies are intended to fade, so that the mindstream can move into the mental and spiritual planes of experience, which is the theosophical equivalent of "heaven".

But this process- of passage into the higher planes- can be traumatic for those who are entrenched in the astral- it represents a "second death" of types, to fade from the astral level, and go on to a further unknown, because the mental and spiritual worlds are extremely subtle, and most people, in life, stay involved in the physical and astral/emotional realms almost entirely. Thus, this "between" state, this astral state after death, is "purgatory"- a person must be purged of their attachments to this life, their emotional entanglements, and entrenched habits, before they can let go and "move on".

But two categories of people do not arise to become "stuck" astrally- realized, spiritual adults, and children. Why? For two different, but similar reasons: truly spiritual people have already released themselves from attachments and entanglements in this life; they were already turned and open to the unknown spiritual reality before they died. Thus, they fade and move on quickly.

Children are "naturally spiritual" in a sense- not so imprisoned in physical and astral cages of long habit- they do not have deeply imprinted and entrenched opinions and ideas and attachments to things, in the harmful sense that adults tend to. Like my daughter seeing new blossoms for the first time in her life, or airplanes, or cars, or animals, they take what comes before them as it is- it is we adults who decide whether or not what comes before us is acceptable, good enough, ugly, evil, or the like.

This is totally in line with Mahayana Buddhist sutras regarding the Bardo or afterdeath state- those with strong attachments and preferences, who lack the openness of sages or children, will struggle against the strange visions of the afterdeath transition, and create causes for more suffering, as opposed to simply "going into" the Dharmakaya, the infinite and timeless Body of Reality.

In ancient Greece, initiates into the Mystery cults were given the title "Kouros" (if male) and "Kore" if female- both names indicating a "youth". Even old men and women were "youths", if they had been initiated- something that is no longer a mystery to me. In Greek Mythology, when Heracles immolated himself on his pyre, his body is shown dying (in ancient art) but his Kouros- the eternally youthful part of himself- goes up to Olympus, to be with the Gods, because the Eternally Youthful part of all of us is a divine, undying thing.

Black Elk says that the spirit of humans and Wakan Tanka share the same center- wakan Tanka, the sacred incomprehensible power that somehow is reality, is described as "eternally youthful"- and so, by virtue of that powerful statement, is the Wakan Tanka of each of us.

In line with the Theosophical perspectives I was discussing above, the Lakota have an interesting and similar model of death and the journey after death- they believe that, after death, the ideal is for a spirit to move on to "union with Wakan Tanka"- harmony with all that is. However, the spirit in a conditioned state cannot do this, and must walk a long journey to the point where they may either fulfill that union, or be pushed "off to the side" by the guarding power of the sacred road, and have to stay in a conditioned state.

The Lakota ritual of the "Releasing of the Spirit" helps to ensure that the spirit of a recently deceased person will find that sacred union. A child, however, probably would not need that sort of help.

* * *

While reading "Steps to an Ecology of Mind" by Gregory Bateson- one of the greatest books I have ever read, by one of the wisest men this world has ever seen- I found, some months back, this discerning passage in his essay entitled "Style, Grace, and Information in Primitive Art":

"Aldous Huxley used to say that the central problem for humanity is the quest for grace. This word he used in what he thought was the sense in which it is used in the New Testament. He explained the word, however, in his own terms. He argued- like Walt Whitman- that the communication and behavior of animals has a naiveté, a simplicity, which man has lost. Man's behavior is corrupted by deceit- even self-deceit- by purpose, and by self-consciousness. As Aldous saw the matter, man has lost the "grace" which animals still have.

In terms of this contrast, Aldous argued that God resembles the animals rather than man: He is ideally unable to deceive, and incapable of internal confusions. In the total scale of beings, therefore, man is as if displaced sideways and lacks that grace which the animals have and which God has."

This passage struck me, and strikes me to this day. I see a great support in it for my contention that the sacred is not entangled with paltry purpose and the deep, deluded ranges of self-consciousness. And I see this in my children, every day.

Those of you who are parents will likely feel tempted to point out that children, even very young children, seem capable of deceit and manipulation. You may wish to give me the “bad child” speech, or engage the tired, bitter “children don’t stay young for long” line (to which I might say “they lose their natural grace quickly thanks to adults and their warped notions of “maturity” and the extent to which they seem hostile to childhood, or dismissive of it”) or you may wish to say that I am setting my self up for some “fall” when my children lose the innocence of this state they now maintain.

You may wish to be sagely and “balance me out”, strip the stars from my eyes here- but you would only be showing the extent to which you have fallen from the subtle realization that I am now enjoying. Any adult who had this reaction would be showing how little of the child was left in them. Unlike the Jesus of the New Testament who bade the children to come to him, saying that the kingdom of heaven belonged to them, my sagely tutors would be taking the position of the Old Testament patriarchs and misery-mongers who described “maturity” as “putting aside childish things”. I don’t normally quote the bible this much- nor will I again, likely- but the comparison is good, in my way of seeing. I see now that real maturity- spiritual maturity- is eternally youthful and child-like.

I know that children grow up. It is my intention here to discuss “youth” in a different manner, the occurrence of youth that we are all- child or parent- temporarily blessed with. I have seen how ancient and wise cultures and wise people of all ages have noticed the relationship between youth and the sacred- and it is worth pointing out. As crucial as I see it now, it is worth shouting from mountaintops- “Do not lose your youthful sense of wonder!”

My ultimate point rides higher than any worn-out parent’s dim perceptions: my point is that my children- as I have experienced them up to this point- evidence a grace that I certainly lack at most times, and which most people I know lack. My children are happy and content at play, even with simple things like sticks or rocks. They are enthralled and open to strangers, not immediately suspicious of them, as I am. They do not harbor prejudices against others, as I was taught to.

They do not make the judgments I make- all of these things that I know lead to my unhappiness and stress, and certainly which cause everyone I know to be unhappy, ill at ease, and unsatisfied with many aspects of their lives. When my children see blooms, they see beauty and simply enjoy it; I am fortunate if I am having the “good sort of day” that lets me just smile at it. Normally, I wonder at what species it might be, try to dig through a field guide to find out, or worse yet, I don’t notice its beauty at all.

I see the sacred operating through my children in a way that I know it must have operated through me once, and through all of us- but we have forgotten, and grown, and found our "darkness" as adults. Because of that darkness, and because of our entanglements and deceits (especially our self-deceits) we will face a hard road into the afterlife, just as we face a hard road now, in our everyday lives- but it is the pure minds of the very young that still enjoy a special closeness with the sacred incomprehensible.

* * *

I can share an interesting personal insight that I had recently that goes to relevance here. As an adult, I feel- I know- that I have a responsibility to the sacredness of life not to needlessly destroy life. This includes not needlessly hurting or disfiguring life and living systems- and that includes plant life. If I were to walk into a forest, and see a bush covered with beautiful blossoms, and tear the blooms off haphazardly, leaving them on the ground, I know that the spiritual power of that plant-brother or sister would be rightly angry with me; I know that it would be worse for me, lessening my connection with the spiritual community of wholeness, of which I am a part.

But my three year old daughter will grab a flower and yank it from a bush or the ground, to show it to me and glance at it, and eventually just abandon it to the ground. And as I watched her doing it one day, I realized something- looking with my other senses, I saw that the spiritual power of that plant was not upset by her taking of its body as she did- and I was confused about why this was the case. Before this, I had encouraged her not to destroy blooms or plants, and she mostly does not. However, when she does, she does not enrage the powers in the same manner that an adult would.

Then I realized it- the sacred is resonating purely from her; there is no failing on her part, no underhandedness or viciousness in her action, no treason or disrespect in her, when she plucks the flowers, that the other powers perceive it and understand. This has nothing at all to do with my daughter being "previous to the age of reason"- it has to do with her natural closeness with the divine. That is why the sacred powers do not look askance at her, as they would at me.

* * *

These experiences and understandings which coalesced in me in the last few days have left me at a new place on my spiritual path- a place that is both old and new, perhaps would be a better description. Looking at the world, inside and out, whole and one, and at the sacred powers, including the sacred incomprehensible that is the totality of all, in terms of youthfulness, has helped me to connect to this world in a way I never could before in my adult life.

The supreme spiritual power that is there, within and without all things, is not like a stern adult judge; it is not a blind, careless force. It is not best described as a loving mother or a strict father. It is like a young child, exuberant, free, honest and open. W. B. Yeats said it best when he described the Goddess of Ireland as "your mother... who is forever young." The sacred in the land and sky is eternally young- our experience of youth is an insight into what “eternity” may mean.

All of this has helped me to understand how I could help my children as they walked the path of a human life. I could help them in the same way that I was helped: I can help them to never lose touch with the eternal youth inside them. I can avoid chiding them and telling them to "grow up" in some scornful way, and never make light of their youthful insights into things.

I must always stay aware of what I have said many times before, but which never lacks a necessity to repeat: children are not just "adults waiting to happen"- childhood is every bit as needful and appropriate as adulthood, just as powerful and crucial to the causes of humanity, and spirituality. It is wrong to write off children as "not yet fully developed"- they are in a stage of development which has its own values and power, and should be honored as complete in its own way.

We adults should always look to see what the sacred power of youth has to teach us. I know, as most parents know, how the youth of my children has made me find parts of my own youth that I had forgotten about.

I can be a better father and spiritual journeyman by striving to find the youthful eyes inside this adult head; I can try to learn to give up my adult prejudices and preferences for things that really don't matter; I can try to re-appraise what it means for something to "matter". I can realize the extent to which my own darkness, self-deception, and opinions have walled me off from the direct experience of the world of the sacred. I can try to let those things go.

And I can do this, because the eternally youthful power of the sacred is everywhere around me and with me as it always has been- and now I have my children to remind me of it, to mediate it to me directly every day, with joy and love. My adult dullness needed a child to show me, to my face, what I was missing. My children have become my teachers, the bridge-builders for me, and I am thankful.

My guidance for them, from this day forward, will be to encourage them not to lose the fresh eyes and ears that they have now. When I was growing, opinions were given to me and sold to me as absolute, immutable facts. It took me years to realize that these perspectives were not facts, after all, and to return to some shadow of the flexibility that was once mine, when I had just come from Wakan Tanka.

I will help my children to remain flexible, as best I can. I hope that they will help me in the same way, as I begin the journey back to Wakan Tanka, here and beyond.

Inside and Out

2009-06-09T09:45:00.000-07:00

* * *

My house has a roof and many solid, sturdy walls. When I am inside, I see little of the outside, in any direction. This roof above me serves marvelously well to protect me from the rain and heat, and the walls protect me from wind and cold. I feel the change of the atmosphere inside my house, compared to the outside- the "wide open" feeling of the wind and air outside changes to a quiet, still kind of atmosphere when I go inside- a "contained" feeling.

The colors outside are different because of the natural light of the world. That light, more enormous than I can conceive of, dwarfs the tiny shards of glass light that illuminate the inside of my house. The light of the world is a living light, compared to tiny little bulbs slowly burning out, which can be too yellow or too white, too dim or too bright. Even when the sun seems garish or penetrating, my eyes adjust. Sometimes, they don't adjust to the low wattage that holds back the night inside.

When I step back out-of-doors, the world suddenly becomes expansive. New sounds instantly appear. It feels like coming out of a deep, dense womb or cave, and into a windy, bright space without boundaries. The air is almost always more humid, hotter, or much colder. The sort of relaxation I can find inside is not to be found outside- but the sort of alertness I can achieve outside can never be found inside. I really feel like two people when I pass to and fro indoors to out.

My thoughts inside of my house are different from my thoughts outside. Inside, I think about the things on the walls, on the tables, on shelves. I think about finances, family on the phone, news on this screen or that. I think about my life as a civilized, house-dwelling man. I think about what we'll need to do to keep the house around us. I think about the time I'll be parted from my family- which is normally the best part of any day- before I can return to the house, safe in the knowledge that we can hold on to it for at least a month longer.

When I go outside, I think about what lies over the horizon east or north, about the inexhaustible possibilities that the world represents to me. There's nothing stable outside my house; nothing calcified. I think about the other living features of the environment around me- trees, birds flying, wind moving, cats hunting, deer jumping fences. I think about how I am part of their great family, too. I have a family inside my house, as well as out. It's really one family, but this house has been built, which cuts everything in two, and pulls me away from the other half.

When I'm outside, the wind and the sky brings the best news of all: rain is coming; cold is coming; the heat is breaking; birds are migrating. It sounds so banal to some, but for me, the news the sky has brought me has never made me depressed or cynical.

The sky above me is the roof of my soul. My spirit has no walls; it needs none. It only has a neverending expanse of more and more living beings and sacred topography, spreading out to a world's edge that never comes. The roof of my house, and its flat ceiling just out of reach of my hands, is the covering of a civilized man's mind, a hoodwink, along with the walls, for a mind that thinks of numbers and practicality. I am a stranger to myself when I am inside, most of the time.

Late in the year, I tend to go camping a lot. Long ago, myself and a group of friends built tents, and we take our tents and set them up. They are wood and canvas, and they look very primal, standing with their tall, earth and wood-toned peaks, their cotton-spun cloth drifting in the wind, almost like they are breathing. When we are away in those tents, wherever we are, we have the same sorts of homes that the ancients had. And there is a difference, I find, in those homes than in the solid foundations of my house.

Even inside my tent, I don't feel like I am inside at all. When we set up our tents, we spend most of our time away from them, out walking, talking to one another, sitting around fires, hiking, socializing with others we meet, and eating under the sky. I'm never more social than when I leave my house far behind, and have only this light shelter, this movable, tiny hut of canvas, maple, and walnut with me. I am social with other human beings, but also with my non-human family. Something changes; I can talk to the oak near my tent-door in a way that I can't talk to the oak near my house-door.

The tent is there, a comfort for us should we need to take shelter from an especially hard rain or sleet, but we don't go there often. We really just sleep there, and even then, some of us don't sleep inside all the time. One of us sleeps under the sky on nearly every occasion- he's bear-like in every way but one: he can't hibernate in an enclosed space. He has to have the open.

My real home is outside. My second home is that building, but I prefer the tent to the building because the tent doesn't trap you inside. It doesn't create a new, deeper atmosphere that makes you forget about the outdoors. It's not too quiet in a tent; the most enclosed rooms of a house get too quiet. The tent doesn't stop the sound of the rest of my family's singing; birdsong cuts through it. The tent does not come with rent, or a worry that someone will take it from you or force you to leave; no one taxes the tent.

The tent may not shield me from a raging bear or a robber, but then, the shield of my house makes me feel distant from myself, in the midst of its security. What value is safety to me, if the best part of me, the part I love, the part that I value, doesn't even seem to be there while I am protected and secure?

I might suddenly change my mind if a bear tore my tent open and mauled me one night. But I must question the relationship between "safety" and my house- I know, as others have known, that too much safety creates its own sort of danger. Too much safety has an element of dullness and passivity which is poison to the spirit of any creature. People who live in houses like mine wonder at this talk, but then, dullness and passivity has a way of silencing the love of the wild.

The dullness has a way of redefining life, into parameters that life was never meant to have. Life is not "safety first, safety only"- life is safety often, and acceptable risks to allow for growth and enjoyment at other times. Life is not simply rational; it is reasoned out at times, and gone far beyond the rational at others. The human in us has a pause to think, but the animal in us has to run and leap. I've lived in houses all my life, and I know that I've committed some sort of crime against the wild spaces in my heart.

Sometimes we die while taking risks- but the spirit in us accepts that. It's better to have lived that way- an open sail in the wind- than to have sat in shallow water, bobbing there, waiting for something to happen. I shouldn't feel that secure in my house; after all, it is a huge bonfire piled and waiting to ignite; it even has wires all throughout its walls, carrying a current of fire near some very flammable sheets of insulation- and a dozen things may send the first flame licking away. Escaping my tent would be an easy matter, compared to escaping my house.

A robber can easily penetrate my house, and he could do it in such a way that I never heard him- if death is going to find me at the hands of a robber, I think it could happen just as easily behind walls as it could behind canvas. But death is not my main concern. Living happily is my main concern. When death finally catches up to me, I'll have new concerns.

I am surrounded daily by dullards who either hate the weather or fear it. They hate animals, or they fear them; they hate or fear anything that they can't control with a knob or a switch. For them, the pinnacle of human life lies in how far they can control the air temperature inside, and how hot the water in the shower will run. They smooth their skin out with every sort of soap and oil, and wash their hands all day long.

Any spot of mud or dirt, any blade of grass on their clean floors, and they shout, complain, get angry, get upset. Any bit of dust on their shirts, or a stain of earth, and they tear off the garment, hurling it into a washing machine, using quite a bit of water and bizarre chemical cleaners to get the garment right again.

These dullards would say that my earthy, sweaty smell offends them. I must say, their overly-clean, chemical sweet smell offends me. They disapprove of my dirty jacket or jeans; I disapprove of their clinically dead living spaces, where I am terrified to walk across a floor or carpet, or touch anything, for fear of setting off their whining. I don't want to be in such a place. I don't care if I have to sweat or shiver more. I don't care if I have to bathe every few days instead of once a day, along with countless hand and hair washings per day. My humanity is not in a tiny, enclosed shower or under an air-conditioning unit. My humanity isn't dependent on hospital-like standards of cleanliness. I like comfort, but I wont’ be a slave to it.

I don't care about the dull insistence that everything be spotless. Nothing in my true home is spotless, and my soul is an unwashed savage. Sometimes, my body is, too. How odd that these very clean dullards are always coughing and sick, while I seem to never get ill. Maybe the spirits in the wild that cause disease can't tell me apart from the other dirty animals and the dusty trees and rocks, so they leave me alone. I don't know.

When I sit in my tent, I have dirt and grass under my feet. I've walked across that floor many times, and never gotten it dirty.

My tent never takes me away from what's most real to me, the place where I feel best. I feel exposed, uncertain about the sounds cracking or snapping in the dark around me at night, more alert; I feel more uncomfortable in the tent when the cold rain pounds it and some leaks in, and I feel hotter inside it when the sun becomes baleful and dries the world out. I am comfortable in my very cool, dark shelter of a house. But I also feel human in my tent, in a way that I don't feel in my house.

Good and Wild

2009-05-29T19:04:00.000-07:00

Good and Wild
A Letter from Hinhan about Dualism, Freedom, and Wholeness

"In wildness is the preservation of the World. Every tree sends its fibers forth in search of the Wild. The cities import it at any price. Men plough and sail for it. From the forest and wilderness come the tonics and barks which brace mankind. Our ancestors were savages. The story of Romulus and Remus being suckled by a she-wolf is not a meaningless fable. The founders of every state which has risen to eminence have drawn their nourishment and vigor from a similar wild source."

-Henry David Thoreau, Walking

* * *
The Dualistic Conflict

All my life, I've been battered by the dominant paradigmatic metaphysical perceptions of my society. I say "battered" because in a world divided harshly between extremes of "good and evil" or "right and wrong", the sheer speed and motion of the simple binary mental machine, the back-and-forth dualism, can do nothing other than bruise and smash the skulls and brains of those who are sensitive enough to grasp moral subtlety.

I've said this for years- a world divided between "good and evil" will necessarily generate evil alongside its good- and in my experience of it, it seems to generate more evils than goods. The binary moral system is self-perpetuating, and, in the end, self-defeating, because it creates conflict only to continue conflict. The "good guys" of my society are only good insofar as they have fresh evils to face and defeat, or at least to sermonize against. Would a policeman ever want all crime to be done and gone? Of course not; the venerable Lao-Tzu was right to quip "a bad man is a good man's job."

In a strange sense, the whole root of the problem with neverending philosophical/dualistic conflict is found in the same tainted perception that gives rise to capitalism- the notion that people should be taught to prefer competition to cooperation. We are taught that good and evil have to compete, and taught to look forward to the day that good "wins"- just as we are taught that businesses have to compete, and taught to look forward to the day that the business you've invested in wins and absorbs the competition or drives them out of the market.

But what happens when a business finally out-competes all the others? A monopoly is created- the one thing that capitalism cannot allow, and cannot abide by. This paradox lives at the heart of the capitalist system, and a metaphysical equivalent exists at the heart of the "good versus evil" spiritual paradigm. A Buddhist prayer to wisdom states "If you abide in dualism, you live in the right and wrong country." What humor!

Defining Organic Evil

When people such as myself begin to rack on "moral dualism" or religions that teach absolute value-differences between what they call (and define as) "good" and "evil", there is a typical reaction from the "other side"- they love to toss pictures of raped women or dead, murdered children in your face and say "so you think this isn't evil?"

In no manner do I believe that naked, inexcusable violence against other beings to whom we are bound in a social contract of restraint, cooperation, and benevolence is "good"; I might even say it is "evil", so long as you allow me to define "evil" as "a situation, occurrence, condition, or rationale which threatens and/or destroys the healthy continuity of the mind or body of a person or persons, or the good, healthy continuity of a family or community."

If you give me that definition, I'm on board for the use of the word "evil". If you want "evil" to include talk about biblical devils, demons, or some failure to abide by the Christian God's rules that were supposedly given to the ancient Hebrews, or some other "godly law" that was passed down to some people somewhere, then I'm not on board. I'm not on board even if those laws seem pretty decent. They are still culturally encapsulated, and carry with them the prejudices and limitations of that particular culture, and cannot suffice to speak meaningfully to all of mankind.

I once tried to belong wholly to a culture, and later, other "cultures". I realized my folly when the sacred powers to whom I am kin made me realize that the world was different now- cultures and nations had made their transition into rivers of power, no longer mountain peaks and stones and pools. The powers of mankind, vital, living, flowing, had always been interacting in the past, changing one another, learning from one another, fighting, loving, and exploring with one another- but they had more distance then, both physical and mental distances.

Now, that was over. We are citizens of a planet now. The forms of ancient cultures that stand behind us are not useless; they contain beauty, wisdom, and usefulness, in most cases- and they certainly help us to understand our ancestors better, and this is important, because the ancestral powers also still exist. They can help us if we understand who they were and who they still are.

But "culture" is no longer a battle-standard, despite the fear that drives others to think so. Cultures have become shared songs of power, songs of memory, and songs of inspiration to help us as we go about in our new world. Our loyalty to them must necessarily take new forms. So many of our ideas of "good" and "evil" in the past were absolutely culturally defined- but what do we do when we encounter the massive variations of culture, and all their differing ideas of evil and good?

My answer is: "return to a simpler, more organic way of seeing." In the past, the most basic organic and spiritual realities, is found the future- when past and future meet, a circle is formed, and this world, this nature, this sublime spiritual field, is a circle, including all.

I seek an organic definition of evil, one that includes natural process for humans and communities, and the land itself. We need reason and wisdom to see precisely what each individual, family, or community requires with respect to "health" or "goodness"- we must have reason to see that there is no possibility of health or goodness without access to the basic necessities of life; but we have to have wisdom to see that there is no health or goodness without leaving people and communities their own private, sovereign space, a space in which to explore themselves without undue interference from others, or undue pressure to assimilate into a larger "meta-society" that may be far out of step with the natural rhythms established by nature herself in the lives of those individuals, families, or communities.

We have to be willing to "give room", to give respect, and not just give "necessities". Of course, in my way of thinking, room- or private, sovereign space of mind- and respect are necessities. Without them, we cease to live, and begin to just survive. These precious things should only be interfered with when there is a clear and present danger to the health of others, once again pursuant to the typical idea of a social contract.

We can have a social contract that includes many societies. But it will take respect- it will take a final admission on the parts of many that other people, different people, are not (as Wade Davis said) "failed attempts at being them"- that other people with all their differences are unique manifestations of the human spirit, deserving of the same care in preservation that we'd accord to an endangered animal species or a rare piece of artwork.

Good and Wild

What I have been talking about- our ability to recognize the uniqueness in other people, individuals, families, and cultures- and to restrain ourselves in a social contract which allows us to become self-sacrificing and sharing to aid in supporting a common welfare- this is my definition of "good". This is something that the true "wild" beast cannot and will not do- they do not see the "others" of the forest (beyond their mates or offspring, and even then, only conditionally) as beings that they must sacrifice to care for. They may look upon their own kind and see, in whatever instinctive social arrangement nature guides them to band into, some hope for survival, but this is not the same as human benevolence. It is a deeper, wilder law.

This is not to say that the wild is flawed somehow. It is marvelous and sacred, every bit as marvelous and sacred as the human style of socializing. What we humans must do is a monumental feat of spirit- to restrain the wild and embrace the good. By saying this, introducing this new dichotomy, I am not trying to start a new dualism. Wild is not in opposition to good. Wild is wild, and wild is good in its own way, serving its own valuable, sacred function for those beings who are immersed in it without choice, and (human) good is good in its own way, serving a valuable, sacred function for those beings whose destiny was to enter into it. Those beings are us.

And there is no need for competition between the "wild" and the "good". In fact, as ancient human societies all knew, their own good and the well-being of the wild, were tied together. They went hand-in-hand. Those societies- like ours- that have allowed "wild" to become associated with "evil" and "civilization" to become associated with "good"- have strayed into a deadly, fast-moving propeller of dualistic confusion. They have become blinded to the goodness in wildness, and the need to have a acceptance of, and even a measure of, the wildness in goodness.

"Good and evil" has now given way in my thinking to "good and wild". There is the good of social grace, whether it be the brutal social instinctiveness of the pride of lions, or the contrived social restraint and self-sacrifice of human beings for other beings, and there is the wild which is its own sacred, higher law- a law of non-restraint, of vital energy flowing defiant, of instinctive celebration of life, of no boundaries. In the wild, no being apologizes for being powerful, magnificent, faster than others, or vicious, and no Godly judge stands over them to punish them for pride. All wild power flows as far as it can, before it is checked by another, and the sun sets and rises as it always has.

In the human world, the wild must be restrained, true. But it cannot, like some evil demon, be hated or lined up for "final defeat" one day. The good and the wild must be seen as cooperating sacred forces, dwelling in their own specific metaphysical locations, thriving as they must alongside one another, but never as mortal foes.

It is certainly true that the most brutal crimes seen within human groups have everything to do with the "breaking loose" of the wild in us. I have no doubts of it; but this alone does not vilify the wild, or take away its sacredness or appropriateness. It merely highlights the point that the sacred powers require their own sacred manner of acceptance and handling, or they will, (like fire that is mishandled) burn all those around them, and, in the case of our wars, will burn down the forest.

We cannot wall ourselves off emotionally from the wild, as though it were some bogey-evil. It is the vital source of our lives, the wellspring of our passions and our creativity, even. Its raw power must be channeled with wisdom into a context of human good. Like fire it is sacred but neutral- capable of great benevolence and great destruction. The wild and the good must be loved, both; this is wholeness.

The great naturalist Henry David Thoreau has the single most powerful and beautiful thing to say about the good and the wild. He wrote, in his great work "Walden":

"As I came home through the woods with my string of fish, trailing my pole, it being now quite dark, I caught a glimpse of a woodchuck stealing across my path, and felt a strange thrill of savage delight, and was strongly tempted to seize and devour him raw; not that I was hungry then, except for that wildness which he represented. Once or twice, however, while I lived at the pond, I found myself ranging the woods, like a half-starved hound, with a strange abandonment, seeking some kind of venison which I might devour, and no morsel could have been too savage for me. The wildest scenes had become unaccountably familiar. I found in myself, and still find, an instinct toward a higher, or as it is named, spiritual life, as do most men, and another toward a primitive rank and savage one, and I reverence them both. I love the wild not less than the good."

Thoreau was blessed to live in tranquility and so close to the wild- and he was visited by the powers of the wild- true spirits- who appeared to him in the forms of these impulses and ideas that arose in him. He communed with the powers of the wild, and learned so much. May we all do the same, and find our way.

When They Realize

2009-05-13T01:29:00.000-07:00

"Peace... comes within the souls of men when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the Universe dwells Wakan-Tanka, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us."

~ Black Elk

Pte-Oyate

2009-05-07T01:14:00.000-07:00

An old story says that men and women were created to serve the sacred powers. "Therein lies your happiness..." go the words of the chief guiding power of the creation: Skan, the sky-father and creative power of the world-order. It was the spirit called Wisdom that he set to the task of bestowing upon the first humans intelligence, and teaching them language, and how to live wisely, to please the sacred powers.

The first men and women, it is said, lived in the regions under the world, and ate the white fruits of those places. The sacred powers that combined to become the mystery of their true origin were many; Nothing comes to be without the combination of many sacred powers. Nothing persists without the participation of many sacred powers, in the present; when powers diverge, they are still sacred and they move back into new combinations of mystery or the incomprehensible (wakan). The system of life is sacred, and it is all. It is what we have and what we are.

The true nature of all things is wakan or sacred, incomprehensible. Is there a more liberating idea, born in the truest of all organic traditions, that of the animistic well of life? We are free to enjoy the experiences of our senses and minds without burdening ourselves with endless argument, labeling, and fruitless categorizations and discussions. To embrace the incomprehensible is to become flowing and alive- not trying to capture anything with words, but being flexible and in touch.

If you can melt the ice that often comes to cover your heart, you will re-enter the stream of warm, living incomprehensible forces that flow, rage, create, vanish, arise, fall away, destroy, endure, and love. We are all part of a true dance of powers, and none can deny this who understand. Is there any need for anything else? What religion could add to this sacred way of being?

The following story is true: it is a prayer of honor for the Sky.

* * *
Great Skan, Father first and foremost,
You have placed Sun very high,
Made Sun the Great Above,
Placing him above the blue dome of yourself.
Sun governs the two times; you have made it so.
You are the source of power and spirit;
You keep this authority through all time.
You are with the superior wakan,
The four powers that are Great Wakan:
Rock, who was first;
Earth, ancestress of all things on the world,
Sun, light and warmth,
Sky, father and shaper.
Many wakan relatives exist
Alongside you and the sacred powers.
In the regions under the earth,
The sacred powers were gathered by you, Skan
To create a servant fit for the mysterious kin.
For yourself and for all the sacred powers
Were man and woman made, the Pte-oyate!
From Rock, you took the substance of bone,
From Earth, you took what was needed for flesh,
From the waters you took what was needed for red blood,
The power of Beauty,
Who carries all prayers to you and the sacred powers,
She brought the white fruits of the world below
And from them, you made the entrails of men and women.
Two figures you created from these things,
Sacred mother and father,
The mother of mothers was made in the image of Beauty,
The father of fathers in the image of the Cunning one.
To each you gave a spirit
That is like that of the Great powers, but lesser in force;
From within yourself you took a spirit
And made of it a gift, a spirit to guide all men
And women through life and to the afterlife.
To each of your good shapes you gave a living power.
Sun you commanded
To give the gift of warmth to the people you made:
Thanks to Sun, each of us is warm.
Wind you commanded
To breathe into each of them the breath of life,
Thanks to Wind, each of us has that ghost of breath.
Without understanding the first living people were,
Until you commanded Wisdom to bestow intelligence,
And teach to them language-
A gift we have never forgotten.
The Great Thunder-powers who give increase and growth,
They were there in the below:
You commanded them to give to man and woman the gift
That makes them healthy and growing,
And drives them to make offspring.
To Moon, you gave the task
Of planting in man and woman affection for each other,
And it was so-
Men and women still seek warm embraces.
To Beauty, you entrusted the task
Of placing a longing in men and women
To cherish and love their offspring.
That longing has grown in us ever since!
And it was so, from that time to this,
Before the first people and their offspring
Came to live in this world above.
Before they came
From the great below to this world,
This is how they were made,
And how all the wakan powers are still part of us.
No power dwells alone; all are kin.
To serve the sacred powers is to recognize them;
To wisely recognize what we receive,
To wisely recognize what we owe, and what we can give back.
All my relations.

* * *
The story given above is written by me, with information drawn from James R. Walker's "Literary Cycle", from Lakota Myth. It illustrates well in mythical language what the wise of the world, from every part of the world have always known- we are one with all things, made by all things, for all things, and one another.

Wolves no longer protected in northern Rockies

2009-05-05T14:28:00.000-07:00

How many times will we have to be at this point? Before you go on to read this story, be prepared for an interesting phrase- seemingly passed off like everyone just knew it was happening- wolves were once killed en masse by "government sponsored poisoning."

Government sponsored poisoning? Has dishonor sunk to new lows? What we poison out there, we poison in here, because in this web of living force, "outside" and "inside" are not absolute distinctions. They are poisoning more than animals, more than wolves; they are poisoning our right to exist in this world.

It grieves me to think that president Obama has decided to go forward with this, upholding a policy instituted by former president Bush; being an independent, I don't get involved in democrat/republican politics that much, but I was happier to see Obama in office than McCain, personally. However, I didn't have any hopes one way or the other; Obama, like all presidents, will have to prove himself. His "start" appears to be good- he certainly has a lot on his plate, (perhaps too much to care about wolves) but like with so many things in life, the true spirit is in the details- the trees that we can miss when focusing on the forest. And he, along with all government officials, has a sacred duty to care and to do better than this.

A good leader isn't just a leader on a macro level; they must love every grain of soil and every beast or bird that flies through their land. I am fully convinced personally that such a man or woman could not fail to be a good leader, because if they can care about something as "insignificant" (from most people's perspective) as wolf populations or Spotted Owls, they would have to have a care for people. It has to do with caring for the whole- not just the parts we single out for special treatment.

There is no such thing as "just" animals; there is only the immense sacred mystery that appears as both people and animals, and which demands from human beings a moral way of living that stems from the deepest places. And that moral way, for me, is demonstrated in how we treat every part of every thing.

Wolves no longer protected in northern Rockies
By MATTHEW BROWN, Associated Press Writer
Mon May 4, 8:46 am ET

BILLINGS, Mont. – Wolves in parts of the northern Rockies and the Great Lakes region come off the endangered species list on Monday, opening them to public hunts in some states for the first time in decades.

Federal officials say the population of gray wolves in those areas has recovered and is large enough to survive on its own. The animals were listed as endangered in 1974, after they had been wiped out across the lower 48 states by hunting and government-sponsored poisoning.

"We've exceeded our recovery goals for nine consecutive years, and we fully expect those trends will continue," said Seth Willey, regional recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Denver.

With the delisting, state wildlife agencies will have full control over the animals. States such as Idaho and Montana plan to resume hunting the animals this fall, but no hunting has been proposed in the Great Lakes region.

Ranchers and livestock groups, particularly in the Rockies, have pushed to strip the endangered status in hopes that hunting will keep the population in check.

About 300 wolves in Wyoming will remain on the list because the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rejected the state's plan for a "predator zone" where wolves could be shot on sight. Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal and a coalition of livestock and hunting groups have announced a lawsuit against the federal government over the decision.

Freudenthal, a Democrat, claimed "political expediency" was behind the rejection of his state's wolf plan.

Wolves were taken off the endangered list in the northern Rockies — including Wyoming — for about five months last year. After environmentalists sued, a federal judge in Montana restored the protections and cited Wyoming's predator zone as a main reason. In the Great Lakes, the animal was off the list beginning in 2007 until a judge in Washington last September ordered them protected again.

Environmental and animal rights groups have also said they planned to sue over the delisting, claiming that there are still not enough wolves to guarantee their survival. The groups point to Idaho's plan to kill up to 100 wolves believed to have killed elk.

"We understand that hunting is part of wildlife policy in the West," said Anne Carlson with the Western Wolf Coalition. "(But) wolves should be managed like native wildlife and not as pests to be exterminated."

The delisting review began under the administration of President George W. Bush and the proposal was upheld by President Barack Obama's administration after an internal review. In a recent letter to several members of Congress, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar wrote that he was "confident that science justifies the delisting of the gray wolf."

Willey said his agency projected there would be between 973 and 1302 wolves in the northern Rockies under state management, a number well above the 300 wolves set as the original benchmark for the animal's recovery.

More than 1,300 wolves roam the mountains of Montana and Idaho and an estimated 4,000 live in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

* * *

May the wolf-father protect his people.

Wanderer's last trail found after 75 years

2009-05-01T15:37:00.000-07:00

"Adventure is for the adventurous.
My face is set.
I go to make my destiny.
May many another youth be by me inspired to leave the snug safety of his rut,
and follow fortune to other lands."
"God, how the wild calls to me.
There can be no other life for me but that of the lone wanderer.
It has an irresistible fascination.
The lone trail is the best for me."

-Everett Ruess

Wanderer's last trail found after 75 years
After Everett Ruess vanished in Utah's wilds in 1934, relatives tried to retrace his steps. But a few overheard words are what have now led to his bones.

By Kevin Vaughan
The Denver Post

* * *

Archaeologist Ron Maldonado examines the crevice in the Comb Ridge area of southeastern Utah that held Everett Ruess' bones, above. The bones were from a man 19 to 22 years old who was roughly 5-feet-8, matching Ruess' age and size. (National Geographic Adventure magazine )

As the man's eyes wandered across the red-rock country of southeastern Utah, he first saw a weather-beaten saddle jammed in a canyon wall crevice and then, behind it, bleached bones sticking out from the earth — the keys to unlocking one of the West's enduring mysteries.

That discovery, made more than a year ago, came full circle Thursday with the announcement that the bones belong to Everett Ruess, a poet and painter, writer and thinker who vanished near the Four Corners area in 1934.

For 75 years, the answer to his disappearance at age 20 had been the stuff of speculation.

It might never have been solved but for a Navajo medicine man's admonition, a grandfather's story of long-ago death, a curious writer and contemporary forensic-science work conducted at the University of Colorado.

Maybe, some posited, he had slipped while climbing a canyon or met his end at the fangs of a rattlesnake. Maybe he'd been murdered.

Ruess died, not long after he was last seen, in a remote wash miles from anywhere.

"The family is deeply, deeply appreciative of everything that came together to solve the mystery," his niece, Michele Ruess, said Thursday during a conference call announcing that work by CU anthropologists and DNA experts had identified the remains as those of the wandering intellectual.

Tale of Ute chase, clubbing

Born in Oakland, Ruess was just a boy when he began writing, and by the time he was 16 he was exploring the West, on a horse or a burro or on foot. He trekked through the Sequoia and Yosemite parks. He crisscrossed the canyon country of Colorado, Arizona, Utah and New Mexico.

He painted. He made woodcuts of the beautifully stark images of the landscapes he visited. And he wrote of his own restlessness and the land.

He scrawled "Nemo" on rocks, maybe because it was Latin for "no one," or maybe because it was the name of the main character in one of his favorite books, "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea."

He was Christopher McCandless three generations before the subject of Jon Krakauer's "Into the Wild" wandered off in Alaska.

On Nov. 11, 1934, Ruess wrote a letter to his older brother, Waldo.

"As to when I revisit civilization, it will not be soon," it said, in part.

The next day, Ruess set out from Escalante, Utah, with his two burros, heading off on the Hole-in-the-Rock Trail. A week later, a sheepherder talked to him close to where the Escalante River emptied into the Colorado.

He was never seen again.

Daisy Johnson was a young woman in 1971 when she walked in on a conversation between her grandparents.

"Grandmother was getting after him, saying, 'You should have never, ever messed with that body,' " Johnson said. " 'You should have left him down there.' "

Daisy asked her grandfather, Aneth Nez, what they were talking about, and he told her the story of sitting on desolate Comb Ridge, of sometimes seeing a young white man riding a burro in the canyon below him.

He told her about the day he saw three Ute Indians chase down that young man, club him and leave him for dead, and how he later sneaked into the wash, where he picked up the bloodied body and carried it up the canyon, then buried it in a crevice.

Now her grandfather was sick. A medicine man blamed his cancer on what he had done with that corpse, and said he needed to return to it and take a lock of hair that could be used in a ceremony to cure him.

Nez had Johnson drive him out to Comb Ridge, and then set out on foot into the desert while she waited. Two hours later, he returned with a lock of hair. He lived another 10 years.

Bones, family's DNA a match

Uncle Everett was always a part of Michele Ruess' life. Paintings and prints hung on the walls. Books bulged with his writings. On a rock slab, her grandmother painted one of her uncle's favorite sayings: "What time is it? Time to live."

And her father, Waldo, spent his life trying to uncover the mystery of his brother's death. He went to Utah in 1964 to see whether any human remains had been found during work to build a dam, creating Lake Powell. He wrote to magazines imploring people with information to come forward.

Waldo Ruess died in 2007, still wondering what happened. He was 98.

In the spring of 2008, Daisy Johnson told her grandfather's story at a family gathering. Her brother, Denny Bellson, had never heard it before.

Bellson searched the Internet for disappearances in the Four Corners area and found stories about Ruess. He got a map of the Comb Ridge area and had his sister show him where she had taken their grandfather.

On May 25, 2008, Bellson drove to Comb Ridge. He parked and descended into Chinle Wash. In a slot in the chalky red rock, he saw the remains of a saddle. Bellson moved closer. There, behind the saddle, were bones.

"I looked around and I knew it was him," Bellson said.

Bellson took a friend to the site. That friend knew the Ruess story, and he knew David Roberts, a contributing editor at National Geographic Adventure magazine. Roberts had researched the Ruess mystery extensively in 1999 for a story.

Roberts approached CU anthropology professor Dennis Van Gerven, asking whether he would examine a jawbone discovered on Navajo land.

"I was actually not interested, but David persisted," Van Gerven said.

Van Gerven and doctoral student Paul Sandberg carefully exhumed the remains and determined they were those of a man between 19 and 22 who was roughly 5-feet 8-inches tall. All of that matched up with Ruess.

They photographed facial bones and superimposed them over pictures of Ruess. They matched .

Next, they turned to Ken Krauter, a CU biology professor, who directed the process of extracting DNA from a leg bone unearthed from the grave. They compared that to DNA obtained from Waldo Ruess' four children, and it matched exactly as one would expect between an uncle and his nieces and nephews. Krauter called it "an irrefutable case."

The scientific work and Nez's story answer many questions about Ruess. But they don't complete the tale.

There is no proof of how — or when — Ruess died, or how he ended up 60 miles from the place he was last seen. And there is no way to know who might have killed him.

Still, the discovery of his remains brought a measure of peace to his surviving family members.

"Even though it's very sad to imagine the manner in which he died, we're happy to know how it happened and where he's been resting all these years," Michele Ruess said, "and that there was such a man as Aneth Nez who cared for a fellow human being."

Her uncle's remains will be cremated, she said, and scattered in the Pacific Ocean near Santa Barbara, Calif. It's the same place where the ashes of Waldo and other family members have been scattered through the years.

It's the place where Everett Ruess will be one with the earth forever.

Making the Shamanic Journey: Basic Instructions

2009-01-12T11:53:00.000-08:00

What follows is a paper I wrote to help a colleague during her first attempts to utilize the Core Shamanic trance-journey.

Part I
Radically Short Introduction to Shamanism

Now, I'm going to attempt to type something that can't be worded with any sense of justice or completion. The task you will attempt to undertake- that of the classical "Underworld Journey" or "Lower-worldly Consciousness Regression/Alteration"- is something that goes back to the roots of humanity, and it would take months to really explain and analyze in satisfactory detail.

If you have not read "The Way of the Shaman" by Michael Harner, please do; it is the work (still in print) that presented the “Underworld Journey” to the west in a rather academic fashion, while still keeping an eye to the practical use of this ancient and foundational pattern of spiritual experience. It is easy to get through Amazon.com.

The entire edifice of tribal shamanism- from any culture, worldwide, and from any time- rests on the shamans, either male or female, being able to alter their state of consciousness at will. To alter their state from an "OSC" (Ordinary State of Consciousness) to a "SSC" (Shamanic State of Consciousness" gives them a new way of experiencing reality.

Like Harner, I use the term “Shaman”, even though my use is a modern one. Each primal grouping of people on this planet had their own culturally specific term for their “consciousness alteration specialists”, but the Siberian word “Shaman”- which, ironically, may itself have roots in an ancient Indo-European language- has become a commonly used word to refer to the general and primordial act of altering consciousness at will for the purposes of accessing extraordinary powers or knowledge, and on behalf of a client in need of guidance or healing, or on behalf of a group of people. Some Shamans act on their own for personal reasons.

Shamans can alter their state of consciousness at will, and become able to experience the world in a new way. In this new way, this "non-ordinary state of consciousness", their experience of reality can be framed in extraordinary ways. This is the classic "trance" state in which extra-sensory reality can be reached; the "strong eye" or the inner eye can be opened.

These spiritual specialists- these psychonauts, as it were- are specialists in accessing reaches of the mind that most people don't get to consciously experience very often. As I said before, they access these reaches of experience so that they can "bring back" or access divinatory information, information regarding how to heal people of various mental and physical illness, and for other reasons of power-acquisition.

The "Underworld" is a description of the "world" or "way of experiencing" that shamans universally access for the purposes of healing power and divination, though other "worlds" exist within the cosmologies of primal peoples, and can be accessed in the same methods that you and I will discuss.

When we say "underworld", we are talking about both a spiritual/cosmological "location", but also a descriptor of something that can be framed as a "deeper" state of consciousness, perhaps cognate to the subconscious mind, but you must realize that this sort of comparison and this sort of terminology is definitely a western way of rationalizing or framing the "Underworld" experience. I'm not saying that this is "wrong" per se, but from the fresh perspectives of primal peoples, the Underworld is its own place, and not just some "state of mind"- though I can say with certainty from my own philosophical research that "worlds" and "states of mind" aren't so different after all.

Of course, we are not dealing with any religious notion of "hell" in the pejorative or evil sense, though elements of mainstream Christian culture have always thought so and preached as much when they encountered shamans among native peoples accessing this deeper world. In reality, the Underworld is the interior of the Land itself, the sacred depths from which all things grow, and the source of life- and the source of wisdom and healing. The "deeper world" or the "world inside the world" is the "layer" of reality that underlies our common perceptions, and when we "go inward" and experience it, we see things closer to their roots.

Seeing things in this way puts us closer to the "time" in the spiritual "past" (as it is normally perceived) in which animals and other creatures (like trees, rocks, rivers, winds, etc) were not simply "beasts out there" or "lumps of stone" or "senseless trees", but instead were "non-human persons", capable of communicating with mankind and with each other. Such a strange idea is captured in most "shamanic" mythologies worldwide, and even hints of it arise in the book of Genesis, wherein Eve and a well-known serpent had no trouble conversing with one another, in that ancient setting of primordial creation.

The Underworld journey is a "return" in the mind, a transformation of the mind, into a condition in which extraordinary experiences are possible, and vast amounts of personal insight can be acquired. Healing- of the mental kind, as well as the physical kind, is possible. I cannot explain, of course, how it comes about- but I can say that I have experienced enormously powerful effects on both fronts, for myself and for others.

The shaman of any primal grouping, worldwide, does not act alone- spiritual powers help them in their consciousness-alteration work. The concept of "helping spirits" is universal, captured in terms like "nagual" or "totem" or "familiar" or spirit-helper. The extraordinary journey and effort to acquire such helpers, and then the career spent interacting with them, is the career of the shaman in nearly all societies. These helpers are companions and helpers to the shaman; the shaman must (normally) do services for them, repay them in some way, for their help. A relationship has to be maintained with these spiritual powers, and in so doing, the shaman maintains the powers that are their living link to the altered states of consciousness that they need to access.

For the main purpose or function of these helping spirits is to help facilitate transition into extraordinary states of consciousness on the part of the shaman. These helpers appear normally as animals of various kinds, but can appear as humans or humanoid beings.

There are many theories, some tied to the mythologies of primal peoples, explaining who and what these helping spirits are; sometimes (oftentimes) they are tied to the ancestral chain of relationship that the shaman descends from; since primal people believe that human beings and animals are all from the same family, it only makes sense that many helping spirits or ancestral spirits can appear in animal shape. We are all related, and each human bloodline (shamanically speaking) is more or less related to various animals that are alive out in the world right now.

Other times, they (helping spirits) are simply spirits that are attracted to humans who wish to deal with them in such a manner that some mutual benefit can occur. Sometimes, helping spirits can be the spirits of ancestors or family members, or deceased members of the tribe/clan/extended family group, some being who would have an understandable reason for wanting to help. Whatever the case, discovering, forging, and maintaining relationships with these beings is a crucial thing to the success of shamanic operations.

As you can see, the worldview that these shamanic operations arise from has within it an implied notion of an "afterlife" for all once-living beings. Of course, westerners categorize "life" as something that only happens between conception and physical death, but to many primal peoples, life is an ongoing and perpetual process, though it undergoes (in common with all powers) many changes and transformations, some of which manifest outwardly (like the growth of a child into adulthood) and some manifest inwardly (like the process of emotionally maturing or having spiritual experiences).

Death, in this model, is an outward expression of a deeper transformation of life into a new condition, and often enough, dead people and animals are believed to descend into the Underworld, where they join the spirits of other deceased people and beings. Our European ancestors believed many variations on the very same thing, as you no doubt already know- crossing the river below (such as the classical Styx or some sort of barrier) and entering the Underworld was a common pre-Christian model of transition after death. It was a common model all over the world, even in places in Native America.

Thus, the "Underworld journey" or the transition into a "deeper state" of consciousness can possibly facilitate contact with those who have gone before. Shamans worldwide are expected to be able to access the dead, to gain the wisdom and guidance of ancestors that lived long ago, and who (in common belief) are thought to have a lot of crucial wisdom for human beings who are currently alive.

No one alive truly knows what happens when we die, though it appears that consciousness continues, and whatever our "consciousness principle" might be, it continues to experience things in its own terms in whatever state it inhabits.

This entire issue is one of perception. No one really knows what "we" truly are, or what spirits truly are. Who knows why some things appear one way and others appear in others? I hate to venture too deep of a guess at the "purpose" of our perpetual spiritual existence, except to say that finding a way to live in lasting harmony with ourselves and the whole of which we are an inseparable part would appear to be life's true sacred purpose.

I can also say with some certainty that the collection of all individual powers that exist- whether human or otherwise- seem to form an organic whole that is divine in its own right, though it is a far cry from the standard notion of "God" found in most western religions. It is more of a "Mystery"- and thus it is called in most primal religions: Great Mystery, Sacred Mystery, or Great Power.

It is at once the ground from which all beings arise and which forever sustains them, and (somehow) the force that unfolds intelligibly through them and through all interactions, appearing to have some sort of will or intentionality. It is the cosmos of interactions that can be experienced in an extraordinary manner as more than just material and measurable process, but also as spirit. The universe as experienced by shamans is not a threatening or meaningless place, but a place of never ending life and goodness. Dangers certainly exist in this universe, but they too, have a sacred purpose.

All communications or interactions between you and me, or between me and my helping spirit, or between any and all beings is a sacred transaction of power. All events are "religious" in this sense; all events have a sacred aspect about them and learning to see them this way is the key to "living and perceiving in a sacred manner" that primal peoples all speak of and put so much value on.

Part II
Altering the Consciousness and Journeying into the Lower World
In the matters of which I am about to write, I can only speak for myself and from my perspective of what you are about to undertake: the Shamanic Journey. The shamanic journey is intensely personal and subjective, though categories like "subjective" and "objective" cease to apply outside of our western expectations and other epistemological limitations. My instructions here are based largely on the techniques taught by Michael Harner and his Foundation for Shamanic Studies, but they contain some of my own notes and modifications that I have discovered really help facilitate the transition from one state of consciousness to another.

Shamans worldwide have used sound as their chief “practical and technical” method of achieving altered states of consciousness. The sound of rhythmic drumming is a common means for altering the consciousness and allowing for access into hidden reaches of mind. I normally drum for myself or have an assistant do it; I also have several recorded tracks of various simple drum rhythms that I use from time to time. I will provide you with samples of them for your use, and I urge you to purchase your own at your first convenience.

When you deal with peoples who don't believe in an absolute division between "person" and "world", then accessing the deep places of the mind is the same, in a direct way, as accessing deep places in the world. This is why trance is more than just a personal experience; it is an experience of the whole world in a new manner.

The mind and this world cannot be separated; without the world, there would be no mind, and (when you think about it) vice versa. This idea of "mind" is very different from the western materialistic notion of it; this idea teaches that what we call "mind" is a more fundamental strand in the web of creation than we imagine. "Mind" in this sense also doesn't really refer to the individual personalities or memories of people, but to the capacity for experience that humans all share, and which, as the theory goes, is shared by all life and even all things that seem "inanimate" to our ordinary state of perception.

You desire to seek guidance and insight through extraordinary states of consciousness. This is great; this is the cornerstone of the entire human spiritual quest and spiritual experience. You have always had all you needed to gain this guidance; what I will tell you here (and what I have told you here) is only a quick "pointing at the moon"- you will very easily use these words to fall into a surprisingly familiar "way of being" that will give you more conscious access to aspects of yourself and this world that you will likely be quite amazed at.

What you must do first is discover an entrance into the Lower World. It may sound strange, but again, when you realize how connected we "humans" and "this world" are, you can begin to see how a hole in the earth, or a cave, or a well, or a dark passage under a tree-root system can simultaneously act as a "door" that gives access to deeper places of consciousness. Traditionally, these sorts of phenomenon (caves, holes in the ground, etc) were seen as entrances to the Underworld, and were held in high sacred regard in many ancient cultures worldwide.

So you'll need to find a place that fits the description I just gave: I personally have a tree in the forest near my house that has a very deep "natural entrance" under its roots, going down to darkness. A body of water will work too- so long as it is not man-made. All bodies of water are seen to give entrance to the world below.

It works best if you can physically visit the place, in this world, and stare at it, committing every detail of the place to memory. However, if you only have a picture, you can use that image too, as long as you know where in relation to your current location that place is, and can create inside yourself a "feel" for where it is. If you know of a nice natural lake or river, or a natural cave or fissure, or any impressive entrance into the ground (tree root holes are my favorite) then please go to it, make a trip of it, and memorize how that entrance looks.

If all you have are pictures, then memorize every detail from the picture, and get an idea of where that place is in comparison to where you are. You have to make it as "real a place" as you can in your head.

When you are ready for your first journey, and when you have your "entrance" well memorized, you will take yourself to a room where you will not be disturbed for 15-30 minutes, by anything at all. No phones, no knocks, nothing. Any disturbance during these operations can be quite devastating on many levels.

Lie down comfortably and put on your MP3 player headphones, with the track ready to go- I suggest you "practice" a few times with the 15 minute track, before moving up to the 30 minute track, which is a pretty long journey. The "virtual time" that you experience on these journeys can be remarkably different from the “actual time” that your track is limited to- just like in a dream, what is 30 minutes in so-called "actuality" can seem like hours in the deep state, or it can seem like only a minute or two. There is no predicting it.

Lie comfortably and cover your eyes with a dark cloth. Always cover your eyes, no matter when you work. Also, do not ever undertake one of these journeys if you are tired- for you will fall right to sleep. I find that I get the best results when I work a few hours after I've woken up, right in the middle of the day! But I have had amazing results at night, too, so long as I wasn't too tired when I "went down".

Once you are relaxed, comfortable, eyes covered, and your track starts, you will hear the drums. The first thing to do is focus on the drumbeat and let it just "wash over you and through you" and relax into it. The sound is deep, repetitive, and simple. Just "go with it"- let it rumble along through your head and being. Let it relax you; it seems odd that a beat as rapid as that one can relax you, but you will discover that it has a strange effect. Think of it like a stream- literally a stream of power- and let your mind and body sort of melt into the stream of power that you are experiencing as drumbeats. When you feel like you are sort of "moving" with it, then you go to the next step.

Visualize your "entrance". See your hole in the earth, body of water, root-tunnel under a tree, cave, or whatever you picked. Let yourself really "see" it with your inner eye. "See" it as though you were walking up to it- and if needs be, you can "shrink" yourself to be small enough to walk right into it (as in the case of most tree-root holes). Really let yourself "see" as much detail as you can, but focus most on the darkness of the entrance, and always, always, always KNOW that the darkness beyond- the darkness that hides so much- hides a deep shaft that leads straight down into the earth, and into a world below.

You have to see the darkness of the entrance as concealing a shaft that falls straight "down", a tunnel that may go a ways "in" before slanting downward and slicing deep down into the earth, to the strange and mysterious world below.

Then, go in. Walk a ways in, visualizing the dark tunnel however you think it would look, and then, when you feel the "tunnel" starting to slant downward, (they often slant steeply) plunge into it. Go down. Maybe you'll be falling down, maybe flying, maybe running, whatever it takes- the most important things for this stage are as follows:

1. Some people find it hard to visualize the descent; it is FAR MORE IMPORTANT TO FEEL the sensation of "sinking" or "going down" of "falling way down" than it is to SEE it. You have to really feel that you are sinking deep, deep down, going far below the earth. You have to feel like your body is "up above you" somewhere, and "you" are going down into a deep, dark place. A sense of “separation” from the “ordinary world far above” and “where you are at this moment, deep below” needs to arise in you.

2. Do not try too hard, in any part of this. Do not ever in your journeys try too hard. Too much effort to "visualize" and "move" will block the state of consciousness that you are trying to summon. Of course, you do have to try somewhat- there is a perfect "middle ground" you have to reach to make this work, which is somewhere between trying too hard and not trying enough. You will know this "sweet spot" of the mind when you hit it.

Some people have trouble with visualizations- you do not have to "see" everything clearly. You simply have to know what you are "doing" in your inner experience, and "feel" the falling, sinking, or descending feeling as you make the descent.

At some point, you'll find yourself in the transitional stage- going down, down, down in your tunnel, feeling the descent, and hearing the nonstop thunder of the rhythmic drums. At this point, simply let it all go on- keep going down, down, down. If your motion seems to be interrupted, then let the drum "carry" you- let the beats "force you forward and down" with every "thump thump thump"- the drum is truly the "horse" of the shaman.

Now, we reach the part where I can say little more. But I will try.

If your chosen entrance is indeed an Underworld portal- and not all are- then you will, at some indeterminate “time” after you start going "down", arrive at a tunnel exit. Your tunnel will literally end and you'll find yourself in another "world". It looks different to everyone. It may be some forest, or plains, desert or sea-shore, or city streets. It can be day or night. You never can tell. It may be easy to see, or very unclear and distorted.

At this point, you must realize that you are still under the influence of the drum beats. You still have some power to "co-create" this vision, so as you walk through the inner landscape, or float, or fly, or just move through it in some strange, indeterminate way, you may doubt yourself and think "I'm making this up". That's fine. Keep going, and keep seeing things, and as you go, just accept what you see. Don't try to avoid "making things up", and don't try to "make things up". Just go and accept what you see, wherever you might think it came from.

A point will come when you will run across something- or some place- or someone- that you will realize you most certainly didn’t "make up". This is when the trance deepens closer to a pure vision. It may seem to "get out of your control". That's fine; you want this to happen; you want the vision to become a strange sort of lucid dream, generating images and experiences itself- for those images and experiences are the upwelling of the deeper reality, of the mystery. You must keep your wits about you. Don't let yourself forget what you are doing; don't surrender to sleep or unconsciousness, and yet, don't try too hard to stay "awake", or get too energetic, because you'll wake yourself up. The "middle way" of effort is very, very important.

At this point, your body should be lying still and relaxed, and even though you might still have a sense for the room you are in, and still maybe feel the headphones in your ears, you can also be "experiencing" this otherworld landscape in trance. This is normal. Sometimes you'll lose touch with your body totally, like a great numbness has overtaken you. Other times, maybe not so much. There are many levels to these trances, and until you get really used to this weird "between state", you'll have lots of variety to the experience.

I can't say much more except that it is possible in your experiences that you will meet some animal (it can be any sort of animal) who will never act threatening to you. You may meet it after you emerge from the tunnel into the Lower world. It will help you greatly to make this contact and talk to this being or beings, to get their help and guidance. Ask them questions. Follow them through the interior/Lower-worldly landscape. The answers you get can come in words from these animals, or in things you see or are shown in the deeper landscape. You may see people; there is no telling, really. The best way to acquire true “helping spirits” is to need their help, and journey specifically with the intention of meeting those helping spirits that have a destined relationship with you.

There are two levels of vision- you may find yourself lucidly interacting as I describe above, or you may slip into a deeper, half-conscious state, in which you experience all manner of dream-like images, with less notion of "where you are" and much less notion of "control" for the experience. Either way, try your best to remember what you saw in the Lower World, when you return.

The recorded drum-tracks have a natural end-time and a "call back" drum. Your drum-beat (which you will discover does change you and sustain you in these innerworldly visions) will suddenly end- changing your mind-state suddenly, and then "call you back" with some swift strikes, before starting up again, though this time far more rapidly. The rapid "ending cadence" is meant to drive you "back up" the tunnel, and back into ordinary consciousness. Visualize yourself "running or flying" back up the tunnel and back to yourself. If you can, run or fly back to the tunnel entrance before shooting up it. Then the track will be over.

Remember that we live in a world of communication- even communication between the surface places and the deep places of ourselves, and between the world that is seen and the world that is unseen. The shamanic journey is an ancient thing, and part of the oldest religious tradition imaginable.

People like you have taken it, or found others to do it on their behalf, since the dawn of history, for the same purposes you want it for now- guidance for the direction and purpose of your life, and possibly insight into ways you can heal yourself of any of the things that may be tormenting you. The sacred powers in the unseen world seem to be willing to help us if we are willing to suspend what we think we know about things, and venture into strange states.

They seem to be willing to help, out of a sense of kinship, perhaps, or out of a sense of feeling pity for us confused beings trying to make sense of things. Maybe we'll help others one day, just as we are helped. Who can say? But don't ever think that your time and effort on these journeys is wasted. It may take several attempts, but you will discover that your skill at achieving this altered state grows with time. Success at this is worth any effort you put into it.

Good Journeys!

Fire in the Mountain

2008-12-04T17:25:00.000-08:00

Love is the name given to our experience of the sacred connection between ourselves and all other things, places, times, and beings. Experience it just a little through the mind and body of another person- all their appearances, words, emotions and actions- and you'll feel great love for them. Experience it just a little through the rolling shapes of the land around you, and you'll feel great love for that place. Experience the entirety of your connection to all things, and you'll love everything.

If you can relax secure in the knowledge of your connection while you are alive, death will let you have it all. Death will strip away the blinders and let you have it all. If you can't relax in this truth during life, then death won't be near as grand. We all have to die. Go to your death as far more than you ever imagined you were. Let your death be the ultimate act of love and the experience of love. You can do that by letting your life be the ultimate act of love and the experience of love. Then, there won't be any "life" or "death" at all.

Love is the death of death.

The Soul Speaks

2008-12-04T16:55:00.000-08:00

I've heard a lot of people talk at length about how westerners have "forgotten" how to listen to the voice of nature, and forgotten how to communicate with the unseen powers of this world in the natural, extraordinary way that human beings can. For a while, I was in agreement- a sad time, indeed, that we've forgotten such a natural and powerful thing.

Later I realized that we never "forgot" anything- most people today, east and west, have never known how to speak with the unseen world. After ages of living apart from our native animistic traditions and cultures, we found ourselves feeling very alone in the world. Then, we encountered other cultures that were still mystically awake enough to both hear the voices of the unseen, and speak back. Our reaction was understandable enough- we wanted to see and hear, as well. We wanted to speak. Not all of us did, but those who felt the pain of isolation strongly enough were desperate to do whatever they needed to do to get the voice and the sight back.

And we tried to get them, and failed. The reason why we failed is because we heard the words "hear" and "see" and "speak" and assumed that these words were directly describing the experience of soul-talk, of extraordinary communication. But they aren't; they are just the closest words available to try and express the inner reality of this experience. We weren't just isolated from the direct experience of the sacredness of things; we were imprisoned by the concreteness of our thinking with respect to words and concepts.

Life is nowhere concrete; the stone is all in our heads- life is water. Thinking is fluid, even if people try to fix it into stone. And experience itself- on any level- is foggy, permeable, fluid, and strange. We only really get a taste of that directly in our dreams, nowadays. You can fight with the rock-hard understandings that words create in us, and fail, or you can let the hardness go and fall back into a stream of experience that ties us inseparably to things.

This is where the soul can get its voice back, and open its eyes again. Even words like "song" or "chant" or "spell" or "speech" have an inner reality, a truthful nature that escapes the usual understandings attached to them.

We live in a world of sacred powers, and we are ourselves sacred powers. There are many ways to communicate in such a world, and human speech is just one way. I have always believed- and continue to believe- that the soul of each person, the non-ordinary aspect of each human being, is in constant communication with non-ordinary powers all around them, day and night. Even if we don't realize it is happening, we are having conversations, singing songs, and chanting constantly. We are both sending information and receiving it, in a great hoop of joy and rich experience. Sometimes those communications can become fearful or sharp- and we know it when it happens because we feel "spooked" or ill at ease, and usually, we can't explain why.

Every place, and all its powers, is singing away, day and night. And some part of us is listening. Some part is singing back. Trying to hear the song of a place is a good, wise thing, but learning to hear what you are saying back is harder, but perhaps wiser.

The soul speaks and sings to things. If you want to learn to "talk to spirits" or communicate in one of the many non-ordinary ways that you can, you must forget about your mouth and eyes, and let yourself become aware of what the deeper parts of yourself are saying. This isn't hard, and any thoughts of it as "hard", or beliefs that it will be "hard", will render it almost impossible. You let go, because water isn't hard. It's fluid. And what the soul is singing, and hearing, appears first to you as feelings.

Every morning I go out and greet the Sun with a song. I find it, look at it as much as I may, let its light fall all over me and through me, and, facing it in this way, I let myself hear what my soul is saying to it. I've never heard a "word", and yet, I've heard entire themes and conversations, entire songs of praise. The "Song to the Sun" every morning is a tradition found in more than one indigenous group- and it happens to be indigenous to this soul, as well. I think it's native to all souls, because the sun is one of the three greatest powers to bless mankind- so singing to it is easy.

This is the key- not given and yet given- to "speaking" to any spirit or power. You have to realize that there's no need to "begin" a conversation that has been in progress for quite a long time already. You just have to slide in and let yourself become a part of it. The soul speaks to everything already. Go outside tomorrow morning, and let yourself feel it.

We didn't forget how to speak to the sacred powers. We lost awareness of the fact that communication with the unseen world doesn't cease. We just became afraid to feel, and began questioning our feelings, explaining them away somehow. Stop the explanations. I've discovered how useless they really are, at least from the perspective of perfect happiness.

The soul- without a need for explanation- speaks to everything already, and always. Go outside tomorrow morning, and let yourself feel it. You'll find your voice easily enough under the face of the sun.

Ecstasy is the real "Old Time Religion"

2008-12-02T20:58:00.000-08:00

Q: "What can Christianity learn from other religions?"
A: "That God is not a Christian."

-Archbishop Desmond Tutu

"Shamanic ecstasy is the real "Old Time Religion," of which modern churches are but pallid evocations. Shamanic, visionary ecstasy, the mysterium tremendum, the unio mystica, the eternally delightful experience of the universe as energy, is a sine qua non of religion, it is what religion is for! There is no need for faith, it is the ecstatic experience itself that gives one faith in the intrinsic unity and integrity of the universe, in ourselves as integral parts of the whole; that reveals to us the sublime majesty of our universe, and the fluctuant, scintillant, alchemical miracle that is quotidian consciousness. Any religion that requires faith and gives none, that defends against religious experiences, that promulgates the bizarre superstition that humankind is in some way separate, divorced from the rest of creation, that heals not the gaping wound between Body and Soul, but would tear them asunder... is no religion at all!"

-Jonathan Ott

By Your Life, I Will Serve

2008-12-02T01:37:00.000-08:00

I had need.
I have dispossessed you of
beauty, grace and life
I have taken your spirit
from its worldly frame.
No more will you run in freedom
because of my need.

I had need.
You have in life served
your kind in goodness.
By your life, I will serve
my brothers and sisters.
Without you I hunger and grow weak,
Without you I am helpless, nothing.

I had need.
Give me your flesh for strength.
Give me your covering for protection.
Give me your bones for your labors.
And I shall not want.

-Ojibwe Prayer to a Slain Deer

* * *

"Shoot your four-legged brother in the hind area, slowing it down but not killing it. Then, take the four-legged’s head in your hands, and look into his eyes. The eyes are where all the suffering is. Look into your brother’s eyes and feel his pain. Then, take your knife and cut the four-legged under the chin, here, on his neck, so that he dies quickly. And as you do, ask your brother, the four-legged, for forgiveness for what you do. Offer also a prayer of thanks to your four-legged kin for offering his body to you just now, when you need food to eat and clothing to wear. And promise the four-legged that you will put yourself back into the earth when you die, to become the nourishment of the earth, and for the sister flowers, and for the brother deer. It is appropriate that you should offer this blessing for the four-legged and, in due time, reciprocate in turn with your body in this way, as the four-legged gives life to you for your survival."

-Instruction to Sioux Hunters on Hunting in a Sacred Manner

The Story of a Place: Religion Doesn't Travel

2008-12-02T01:13:00.000-08:00

You cannot bring a "religion" to a new land. Each land is different and sacred, and has its own powers, its own stories. A set of customs and Gods from somewhere else simply cannot and will not thrive as it did back where it came from. Over time, it can become integrated with the powers of a new place, of this I have no doubt. But it will necessarily be changed if the integration is done properly. To fail at the integration is to invite disaster and loss of spiritual power. To succeed at the integration is to accept a new sacred story, complete with its own secret history and its own powers, into your way of seeing. This changes a lot about you, as well as your "religion", if you happen to carry one of those around.

Some things, to me, are not "native" to any place- they can travel anywhere because they belong everywhere. The belief in the spirit, the belief in sacred powers, the belief in the need for respect or inter-connection between all things; these ways of seeing are parts of a universal truth about our existence here in the middle-world. They are not the "religion" I am talking about. You can't carry The river-God of one people into a land of rivers that is thousands of miles away, which has its own river-Gods; to do so is at the very least rude, rude to your new hosts- and at most dangerous. I think that the river God of the distant country might still be able to "see" or "hear" you in some extraordinary way, especially if you make the effort to contact it, but the local river-Gods in whose presence you immediately dwell certainly are aware of you. Just as you wouldn't think to enter a person's home and ignore them as they try to speak to you, so you shouldn't ignore the beings of the sacred story that is embedded in whatever land you come to inhabit, should you move across the land and change your home.

Coming to live in a new place always entails learning new stories, new secrets, and learning to interact with new powers. I can go so far as to say that each place has its own "religion" naturally carved into it, in many ways seen and unseen. Keeping your old religion means integrating it with the voice of your new place, and that means that it may change. But life is water, not rock- change is no evil thing. Perhaps the religion you were born in has undergone many changes long before you knew it, or your ancestors knew it, and so who can say what "it" really is supposed to be. I think our respect for our ancestors is the only and best reason to keep a religion you know they cherished, but no one- our ancestors included- can make life into rock. We have to live as they did, and engage places and powers with flexibility and wisdom. Living respectfully demands no less.

When I come to a new place- at some point, I set about opening my mind to "learn the story" of that place. That story, learned piece by piece over time, learned through visions and dreams, must become the basis of my "religious" practice in that place. Religious practice is really just a formal way of showing respect to a story- whether the story of a place, the story of your ancestors, or what have you. There are many ways to show respect; some ways are shared by many people, formed into traditions over time, and others are personal, but no less important.

I bring my seven basic beliefs- described in my last post here (and in other places) everywhere I go. To them, I add some things I know my ancestors believed, but always- now more than ever- I set about learning the story of a place, to add to the mix. That is my way. When I leave this place, this place that I have lived in for years, and whose story is still being revealed to me slowly, I will find a new story. Discovering that is part of life's enjoyment. Life and religion is water, not stone.

Seven Sacred Things

2008-12-02T01:10:00.000-08:00

I practice seership, and perform the rituals of an ancestral faith, but at heart, I'm really a seeker of stories and songs- and a person who seeks respectful, harmonious relationships with the many powers in this world. I seek for simpler things, too- but things no less important; the safety and happiness of my family, and my own peace of mind.

That might sound lackluster to some people, but I've come to find that a great and holy power dwells in such simplicity, almost as if this world itself orients us towards those sorts of ends, and sanctions a sacred path to them. When we're living right, living on the heart, we know it, we just know it, though many people have learned to doubt such thinking.

If life is a power-story, then here is what I bring to the story- the bare bones of a personal epistemology. I have seven basic beliefs: a belief in the natural goodness of humankind; a belief in a lasting spirit for each person and an unbroken communion with other powers who are also lasting spirits; a belief in the interconnectedness of things and the need for respect; a belief in the sacred powers, the three worlds and their ongoing contact between one another, a belief in the importance of dreams and visions, and in the purifying power of certain plants and other powers which are helpful to man.

I've been a part of many spiritual traditions, and what I always found, at the end of my days with them, is that life is water- not stone. Ideas and perspectives came and went, had their seasons with me, but eventually faded. But these seven beliefs of mine never left me; they became refined over time, and remain with me now, hovering about, healthy in their power but always ready to undergo a revision here or there. Still they are always with me, my seven primary beliefs.

I don't even "call" myself anything anymore; everyone loves those names and titles, but I'm just a guy looking for stories, looking to hear stories from the land itself. I sometimes do healing, and sometimes look for visions, and I sometimes get visits from my helping spirit, but that's it. I don't know what that makes me; just a guy who focuses on strange places and things, I guess. There's help there, power there, and it's what I have to do to be on my heart's road, and so off I trot.

I give details on each of my seven primary beliefs here, now- and I say pretty much all I have to say about them. The rest you'd have to be me to know, or experience as I do, and well, that can never happen. No one can live another's life. So here is more clarification, for myself (for I like to spell things out for "me" every now and then) and for you, if you're interested.

* * *

1. I have a belief that humankind is not a foreign power to the world, not a temporary visitor, nor an exiled, accursed species, suffering from the spiritual transgressions of mythical ancestors, nor in need of some redemptive grace from spiritual powers. Humankind is a natural and normal part of this world, and of the cosmological schema of nature as a whole. It bears no innate flaws or unavoidable wickedness.

2. I have a belief that humanity, like the other animals who share our common world, are not beings that vanish utterly into oblivion at death; the idea of "non-being" is refuted due to the impossibility of "being" arising from "non-being". "Being", whether in the general sense, or in the "embodied" sense of a human or animal life, is seen as perpetual, and continues on through many times, phases, and worlds, as marked by transitions like birth or death.

Each person, like every other part of nature, has a "non-ordinary" aspect, a "non-ordinary body" which is similar to the idea of "soul" in mainstream religions, but different in other ways- my concept of "personal identity" is more fluid ("life is water, not rock") and I believe that this "non-ordinary aspect" of a human being is at the core of what we call the "mind".

Neither mind nor personality has a "fixed" state which never changes, though I believe that the wholeness of things- the wholeness of sacred reality- is at heart unchanging, despite the paradoxical appearance of change. For me, this "sacred stillness" is also part of the mystery of silence, encountered by indigenous spiritual workers in many cultures, and used by them as a route to spiritual insight. This "sacred silence" ties into both the experience of isolation and quests through night or darkness.

Just as a person is conditioned by many occasions and experiences in life to "be" one way or another, to develop personality in one way or another, or believe one way or another, this process of personality is always changing and in motion, and even in death, there is no firm or fixed "identity" for the fluid power that resides with each human person. I also believe that human beings communicate with and interact constantly with sacred powers- seen and unseen- via the "non-ordinary" aspect of themselves. I believe that the results of these ongoing communions- most of which are normally unconscious- arise in terms of intuition and dreams.

3. I have a belief in the necessary interconnectedness of all beings- human or otherwise- and of all ecological systems, and powers, whether seen or unseen, all acting together as a sacred and natural whole. We rely on so many others, and so many others rely on us; the implications of this belief necessitates for us human beings a sense of respect, first and foremost, as the central guideline for our interaction with any other part or parts of the whole. I believe that those who disrespect others enough to needlessly hurt or kill, or disrespect the world enough to damage it cannot rest in death. Living in harmony is living respectfully, and harmony follows a person in death.

If life were to have a "purpose", it would be (to my way of thinking) to find a state of lasting harmony, through a lifelong negotiation of power between those things we experience as "self", "other", and "world". One quick road to the proper state of mind needed to successfully make that life-long negotiation is to overcome our idea that we are ultimately "divided" away from those "other things", accept our full sacred participation in the unity of things- and accept it without reservation of any kind. You don't get to be even a bit "separate" from this world and this universe. It's home; its our natural environment, our source, our origin, and our eternal stage of activity. It always was and always will be.

4. I have a belief in "sacred powers"- some of whom are experienced directly as natural phenomenon or creatures, or as the non-ordinary aspect of those same phenomenon or creatures, and some which are experienced only in terms of non-ordinary reality, but who are just as real as those who are more immediate to human perceptions.

These powers are, like humankind, natural and necessary to the world; all of these powers are non-human persons, with will, volition, memory, and reason; some are benevolent to human beings and other creatures; some are not. Some played a large role in the shaping of the world as we see it or in the early development of humanity and other beings in our world; some did not. All are worthy of respect and have a lot of wisdom to share. The dangerous powers should be avoided, but not hated.

All sacred powers can be approached, or conceived of as a "collective" of great spiritual presence/totality, further conceptualized as a "Great Power", though without the usual limited associations given to such an idea by monotheistic religions in the west.

5. I have a belief in a "three layered" cosmological schema- that this "middle world" is below an "upper world" which is populated by spiritual powers, and above an "underworld" which is also populated by spiritual powers, as well as the spirits of departed human beings and animals.

There is a webwork of power-transactions between all three "layers" of this basic cosmological schema, including places and events that can be conceptualized as "connecting points" between the worlds- tunnels, holes, and caves in the earth giving access to the Underworld, or rainbows and the rising smoke of fires giving access to the Upper World. The "power transactions" between the three worlds also include communications like prayer. Power-transactions also occur within each world (of course), making a horizontal and vertical web-work of communication, which is ongoing.

6. I have a belief that human beings can have visionary experiences of a sacred character- including experiences of the other worlds above or below this one- under the influence of certain things like repetitive drum beats, rattle shaking, certain vision-inducing natural substances, or extremes of pain, hunger, or exposure.

The idea of a "mere hallucination" is not valid to my worldview; all non-ordinary states of consciousness or subjective experiences falling outside of the range of what is called "normal" are still experiences of some aspect of this sacred reality and can be taken within a sacred context of understanding. Dreams are likewise important as conduits of non-ordinary experience.

Guidance can be sought for a people or a group of people through such experiences. It can come from the synchronicities of natural phenomenon (whether experienced normally, when walking and "seeing" in a sacred manner or in a non-ordinary way, in dreams or visions) or from interactions with sacred powers or spiritual beings who act as tutelary powers, protectors, guides, or helpers to human beings.

7. I have a belief that fire, sunlight, and water are three sacred powers that are also sacred gifts to human beings, and that they can do more than just slake thirst, cook food, or drive away cold- they can also purify a person if they are approached with the proper respect. The sacred powers of sage, sweetgrass, cedar, and other aromatic plants and woods can purify a place when burned, keeping away dangerous powers. Living respectfully is the best way to keep dangerous powers away. Acceptance of wholeness, perpetual life, and all-around sacredness is the greatest healing power there is.

The Half People

2008-04-27T22:39:00.000-07:00

When we ignore the gifts of our humanity
They become a great burden.
Imagine it, but don't try too hard,
Because you live it everyday:
A world of people afraid
To listen to their own voices
And to go where their hearts push them.

I've made a lot of decisions
In my time:
But when I decided with my head,
And not with my heart,
I've always ended up a half-person
Half-alive, half-guided,
With half of the joy that power promises.

Half-people are half-protected;
Some powers circle us in the world
Like sharks, waiting for bloody injuries.
A half-person is half-injured,
Half-bloody, half-awake
And pursued day and night
By their failure to themselves.

Wholeness is easy,
And wholeness is very hard,
Because it offers itself constantly
But expects us to offer back.
To offer oneself takes courage
And courage is born in faith
Faith in what?

That we are not alone;
That our lives are sacred;
And that the world will show us the way.

The Still-in-Danger Gray Wolf

2008-04-27T16:59:00.000-07:00

Published: January 28, 2008
This editorial was found here from the New York Times.

* * *

One of the great wildlife management stories of our time is the reintroduction of the gray wolf to the Rocky Mountains. From a few dozen animals released in Yellowstone in 1995, the wolf population has grown to about 1,500 in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. This remarkable comeback means that later this year the gray wolf will be removed from the list of endangered species, at which point its fate will be entrusted to federally approved state management plans that conservationists warn are unacceptably weak.

Yet the wolves could find themselves in trouble even before they are removed from the endangered list. At the same time it was negotiating the state management plans, the Bush administration was quietly revising an important rule in the Endangered Species Act. The purpose of the rule is to give states flexibility in managing reintroduced species. As revised by the administration, it would require only that each state protect 20 breeding pairs and 200 total wolves. That could allow as many as 900 recently protected wolves to be slaughtered.

The revised rule is aimed not at protecting cattle or sheep but at protecting elk and deer for hunters. In our view, hunters would be wise to oppose this. The question for them is whether they want to hunt in what passes for nature, complete with a predator like the wolf, or in what passes for a game farm.

Since the gray wolf was reintroduced, studies have shown its importance to the balance of nature. What matters isn’t just the presence of wolves in the landscape, though that is profound in itself, as anyone who has seen a wolf pack crossing Yellowstone can attest. What matters is the effect they have on their ecosystem: suppressing coyotes, changing the behavior of elk and benefiting grizzly bears, which routinely take over the kills wolves make. The wolf has had to wait eons for humans to become wise enough to coexist with it. That can’t happen until this cynical loophole in the Endangered Species Act is closed.

Wolf Kills To Begin Again

2008-03-30T02:12:00.000-07:00

A Yahoo! news story today has spelled out some distressing news about the Gray Wolf.

Gray wolf hunts planned after de-listing

In a remarkable and oft-repeated example of how much the United States Government doesn't care about the sacredness of life, and how much people do care about money, Gray Wolves- once on the endangered and protected list, are now off, and an army of morons is preparing to hunt them back onto the list.

In the Yahoo! story I linked to, there is a pretty telling quote. It reads:

Wildlife biologists estimate there are now 41 breeding pairs in Idaho, in 72 packs. If that number falls below 10 breeding pairs, or 15 during a three-year period, the wolves could be brought back under federal protection.

It's outrageous to me that 15 breeding pairs in Idaho is considered "endangered" for the Gray Wolf, but 41 isn't. One would imagine that they'd be taken off the protected list only after they had expanded in population a bit more. But before these (and many other) perplexing questions are asked, we might as well level the playing field and just say what's really going on: these proud and powerful creatures, whose spirit has been part of the continent of North America since time immemorial, are a danger to the contrived and overblown hunting industry. The myth is that they depopulate elk and deer populations, thus preventing bored idiots from hunting them for sport, and from bringing revenue to the states.

How terrible that doctors and lawyers from the city might have their hunting vacations trod upon by other creatures that actually need to hunt to live, and who never kill for sport! Imagine it!

It goes deeper- how people are choosing to deal with this "problem" is reflective of the distance people have grown from the simple animistic duty we all have to respect life, and to respect the well-being of the animal nations that live alongside us. Farmers claim (as they have always claimed) that wolves destroy and harass their farm animals, and indeed, the government has given farmers a free pass to shoot as many wolves as they can claim are "stalking" their livestock.

So money and guns once again take the center stage of human thinking on these matters of spiritual importance. Why not just get dogs? Since very early times, humans have used herd dogs and sheep dogs and just dogs in general to protect their livestock from wolves. It worked then, it would work now. Instead of going straight to bullets, why not re-engage the rules of nature, and have these canine creatures place each other in check, as they will? Why not consider better ways to contain and protect livestock?

These people are really wrapped up in the myth that they "own" land and that they have the moral ground to decide life and death for other creatures that have been living on this land far longer than they. We may have papers saying that we have the legal right to stay in a place, but we don't "own" land in any sense beyond the shallow perceptions of our ownership-obsessed society. And we certainly don't have the right to hunt creatures onto endangered lists, when the real issue is our lack of flexibility and creativity for learning to co-exist with them.

Farmers were the original cause of the wolf exterminations of the last three centuries- to "protect livestock", wolf populations were excoriated as "pests" and "intruders" and hunted to near nothingness.

The Master Spirit of Wolves will not be an advocate for humanity on the day that our species is represented before the powers of life. If humans can't think more systemically and ecologically about how they approach this matter (and don't get me started on the other animal nations that have suffered at our lack of wisdom) then perhaps we don't deserve the friendship or advocacy of the spiritual powers that we refuse to live in harmony with.

If you want to find out more about this travesty, and find out what you can do to help, EarthJustice has an excellent informative article about it, and lots of contact numbers for environmental protection groups that are fighting for the wolves. You can see it all here:

EarthJustice Press Release

And long live the fighters!

Jill Bolte Taylor's Vision

2008-03-28T17:49:00.000-07:00

"The Great Power is mysterious; it is not for you to know, it is not for me to know, and it is not within our power to know it, but we are parts of it, in common with all things. There are some things you can know about the Great Power because there are things that you can know about the world you live in. What you can know about your world reveals something, however small, about the Great Power, because this world is a part of it.

Most of all, by knowing yourself and your own place in this world, you can know something very special about the Great Power. But no matter how much you gain in wisdom, the Great Power will be vaster still, larger than the wide earth and the night sky. It is enough that you are a part of it; this connection is sacred and unbreakable."

-Owl's Vision

* * *

I got a link to a story today about a neuroanatomist who realized one morning that she was having a stroke. She took this as a golden opportunity to study what happens as the brain is slowly shut down and damaged by this experience, and her story (she has recovered now) is nothing short of amazing, at least to me.

The reason why I find it amazing is because the things she says coincide nicely with many of the theories and beliefs that I hold as my positions about this sacred experience we call "life"- especially some of my ideas on death. Before I write a little about the shamanic and mystical aspects of her experience, here is a link to the story. Please read it in it's entirety; it is a very eye-opening account that will make any thinking person question their beliefs on reality and what it means to be human:

Jill Taylor's account of her stroke

I think that this account reveals the truth known by indigenous peoples all around the world, but which is so startling to many modern people: we have a twin existence. We are not merely bodies, cut off from the world; we are also part of a great power that overflows our boundaries of flesh, of thinking, and of experiencing. Where do these "boundaries" that we live our lives surrounded by come from in the first place?

It is a curious part of our destiny that we should come up from the deep, from the wholeness of things, from that infinity that is our origin, and learn to know ourselves in very limited terms. I believe that it was part of the intentionality of the Great Power that we should exist in this way; but when I speak of "intentionality" on the part of the Great Mystery that is life, bear in mind that I don't mean to compare it to the intentions of humans or animals to find food or mates or anything like that. I'm saying that life's deepest mysteries are just that- mysteries- and I don't believe that we can understand all the powers and conditions that lead up to our emergence as human beings.

But we can see some things about what "being human" entails. It entails the perceptions we have that we are separate, individual, and "cut off". The life-way of animism and mysticism takes us beyond that, to a conscious experience of our origins: of our great participation with the Power that underlies everything. As we will see in Jill's vision, her "leap" into the greater "self" or the greater perspective she felt did not obliterate her, except in one very important way- her sense of "self" was not extinguished but greatly and enormously expanded- so much so that she felt distant and apart from all the petty things she had once considered so important. She had peace. The expansion moved her far beyond the tiny boundaries of ego that she had once thought were so absolute. This is the very core of both the "death" experience, and the genuine shamanic awakening, or the experience of "enlightenment" as it is recorded in many places.

For me, death is a sacred time in which we may rediscover our most authentic being, and our origins. I do not believe that everyone will do so at their death-journey, but I do believe that a chance exists for most. I look to the wisdom of the past for my ideas regarding who will go on to "union" with the Great Power or the Great Mystery of the Wholeness, and who will have to remain in the conditioned, limited state. I do believe that at death, two important things happen- we lose our sense of "distinction" with the world around us (an experience that Jill recounts with much simplicity and beauty) and we lose our sense of "self-governance" or the ego-centered feeling that we are "in control".

If you consider what it would be like to lose these two things- boundaries and self-willed control- you can have, for a moment, a tiny taste of what the "greater self" may be like; to consciously experience the great power that is the world and all things in it, to taste participation in the greater bulk of life. There is no human "control" at this level because the Great Power's motions are massive and universal, and at this point, the "dead" person senses them and experiences them in a more direct, whole way. Life ceases being a personal narrative, and becomes a "world participation narrative", to use a term that I invented a while back.

I think it is important to point out that the "greater self" should not be taken as a self of identity in the same way we consider our "selves" now to be an identity; in no place, either this life or the next, do I necessarily believe in "identity" in some hard, eternal, or unchanging sense. "Identity" for humans is largely a social convention, something we find in the mirror of other people's expectations and reactions to us, and in the things we decide about our bodies and experiences and internalize as the "facts" of our personal narrative.

Jill's experience allowed her to see outside of her personal narrative- and in that freedom, she found a great sense of peace. We don't have to be "someone" in terms of a "hard identity" to exist, to experience things, to feel things, and to operate in this world, either the world we all experience as the "ordinary" world, or the unseen, non-ordinary world. In fact, I have an idea that freedom from "hard identities" greatly expands a person's ability to act and exist in a more free way, a more compassionate way, and makes a person more able to adapt successfully to situations. It also affords them many opportunities for wisdom that people who are obsessed with "hard identities" may miss.

Neither the Great Power nor its parts need "identities" to be what they are; reality goes on, unfolding, sacred and powerful, without the need for such conventions. We humans may have a great need for conventions, as complicated as our world is, and as complex as our interactions through language are, but it is a mystical perspective that all who experience Power must come to internalize that freedom and wisdom, as well as much power, flows from making the leap beyond "hard identity", and after that, "identity" at all.

To consciously stop the ordinary cognition of "me and other" and to enter into the great wholeness is one of the keynotes of shamanic experience that we have encountered worldwide, and it is an integral part of some Dharmic religious expressions in Hinduism and Buddhism. Of course, I do not mean to suggest that there is some "cosmic soup" that we all vanish into on some level. Such an idea would be incoherent; the fact of perception on any level is unchangeable, for the power of us is a power of awareness, of primordial perception.

The point is that many human ideas about things as odd as the "collective mind" or the "over mind" and the "many" and the "one" are all simply matters of perception. They are not eternal, unwavering objective things. Wisdom is found in the journey through perception and the realization of what it really is and what it means, and how it defines our narratives.

I'd like to quote Jill from her account here, and make a few points. The "normalization story" that Jill had internalized all her life- her personal narrative, and all its assumptions about herself and reality, began to fade early on in her experience. In a very powerful yet creepy part of her account, she recounts seeing her own hands and body become "weird looking". How amazing is that? What could be more normal looking to us than our own bodies, which we have experienced every day of our lives?

Jill says:

On the morning of the stroke, I woke up to a pounding pain behind my left eye. And it was the kind of pain, caustic pain, that you get when you bite into ice cream. And it just gripped me and then it released me. Then it just gripped me and then released me. And it was very unusual for me to experience any kind of pain, so I thought OK, I'll just start my normal routine. So I got up and I jumped onto my cardio glider, which is a full-body exercise machine. And I'm jamming away on this thing, and I'm realizing that my hands looked like primitive claws grasping onto the bar. I thought "that's very peculiar" and I looked down at my body and I thought, "whoa, I'm a weird-looking thing." And it was as though my consciousness had shifted away from my normal perception of reality, where I'm the person on the machine having the experience, to some esoteric space where I'm witnessing myself having this experience.

Jill's account of her loss of boundaries between what she once considered "herself" and "her body" and the rest of the world is very intense- she begins to sense things in terms of an undivided field of energy. The fact that her entry into subtle states of awareness marks a crossing "away" into what she terms an "esoteric space" from which she can witness "herself having experience" is telling, as well; the condition of mind that she maintains through this, complete with her own awareness, is not dependent on the brain. The idea that our entire range of cognition and awareness is dependent on the brain is simply not true; only certain portions of the spectrum of cognition or "body-centered awareness" is dependent on the brain's healthy functioning. The "esoteric space" she encounters is the entry-ramp into her greater "body", which is not dependent on a few organs all operating correctly.

Her perceptions were returning to wholeness, as we see here, but to a person caught unawares by such a thing, the experience can be disconcerting. She says:

And I lost my balance and I'm propped up against the wall. And I look down at my arm and I realize that I can no longer define the boundaries of my body. I can't define where I begin and where I end. Because the atoms and the molecules of my arm blended with the atoms and molecules of the wall. And all I could detect was this energy. Energy. And I'm asking myself, "What is wrong with me, what is going on?" And in that moment, my brain chatter, my left hemisphere brain chatter went totally silent. Just like someone took a remote control and pushed the mute button and -- total silence.

And at first I was shocked to find myself inside of a silent mind. But then I was immediately captivated by the magnificence of energy around me. And because I could no longer identify the boundaries of my body, I felt enormous and expansive. I felt at one with all the energy that was, and it was beautiful there.

It is important to note here the power of silence to awaken extra-normal perceptions; as anyone who has dealt with trance-work knows, it is either a great silence, or a singular focus on a single, simple stimulus that has the affect of silencing the chatter of the mind, and allows for extraordinary feats of perception. The Eskimo shaman Aua, whose shamanic enlightenment experience occurred in deep silence, tells us the belief among the Eskimo or the Inuit people that experiencing silence is a path to gaining power.

Jill, who is having a spontaneous and trauma-caused shamanic experience or a non-ordinary cognitive episode, is also in danger, owing to the nature of her injury. On some level, she knows she needs help, and so she finds herself making efforts to get it, but in the interim, she is experiencing a freedom from the issues and stressors of her ordinary life. She writes:

Then all of a sudden my left hemisphere comes back online and it says to me, "Hey! we got a problem, we got a problem, we gotta get some help." So it's like, OK, OK, I got a problem, but then I immediately drifted right back out into the consciousness, and I affectionately referred to this space as La La Land. But it was beautiful there. Imagine what it would be like to be totally disconnected from your brain chatter that connects you to the external world. So here I am in this space and any stress related to my, to my job, it was gone. And I felt lighter in my body. And imagine all of the relationships in the external world and the many stressors related to any of those, they were gone. I felt a sense of peacefulness. And imagine what it would feel like to lose 37 years of emotional baggage! I felt euphoria. Euphoria was beautiful -- and then my left hemisphere comes online and it says "Hey! you've got to pay attention, we've got to get help," and I'm thinking, "I got to get help, I gotta focus."

The full power of her experience, along with the wisdom it affords us, comes out after help has reached her and she actually faces the possibility of her own death. She writes:

A little while later, I am riding in an ambulance from one hospital across Boston to Mass General Hospital. And I curl up into a little fetal ball. And just like a balloon with the last bit of air just, just right out of the balloon I felt my energy lift and I felt my spirit surrender. And in that moment I knew that I was no longer the choreographer of my life. And either the doctors rescue my body and give me a second chance at life or this was perhaps my moment of transition.

That she experienced the loss of ego-centered control is clear when she says the profound statement "I felt my spirit surrender... and in that moment I knew that I was no longer the choreographer of my life". I would submit that even when we are fully involved in our ordinary lives, and living under the sense of "control", we are not ultimately the choreographers of our lives; we may not ordinarily sense the great motions of Power that stand behind causality and event, but we are not the authors of those things, and those things have everything to do with how we think and react. Better than tying up ourselves in ego-reinforcing notions of "control" is the wisdom of letting the world be as the world will be and letting yourself be a part of it all; life is too big for our ordinary sense of self- the self we live most of our lives in- to think it can take it all upon its shoulders.

At any rate, Jill knows- apart from it all- that this may be her end, and she has peace with the fact. It is interesting that she had this peace after a "spiritual surrender"- such a surrender is what Carlos Castaneda meant when he wrote:

"The end result which shamans... sought for their disciples was a realization which, by its simplicity, is so difficult to attain: that we are indeed beings that are going to die. Therefore, the real struggle of man is not strife with his fellow men, but with infinity, and this is not even a struggle; it is, in essence, an acquiescence. We must voluntarily acquiesce to infinity. In the description of sorcerers, our lives originate in infinity, and they end up wherever they originated: infinity."

The center of Jill's experience came later, when she faced death and came out still alive. She says:

When I awoke later that afternoon I was shocked to discover that I was still alive. When I felt my spirit surrender, I said goodbye to my life, and my mind is now suspended between two very opposite planes of reality. Stimulation coming in through my sensory systems felt like pure pain. Light burned my brain like wildfire and sounds were so loud and chaotic that I could not pick a voice out from the background noise and I just wanted to escape. Because I could not identify the position of my body in space, I felt enormous and expensive, like a genie just liberated from her bottle. And my spirit soared free like a great whale gliding through the sea of silent euphoria. Harmonic. I remember thinking there's no way I would ever be able to squeeze the enormousness of myself back inside this tiny little body.

For me, this is the climax of her realizations- what a powerful image, of her truth-body being an enormous and connected power, which could never "squeeze" back into the tiny limitations of the ordinary body. She felt liberated, soaring and free- the true original condition of life, and the condition to which we will be resolved, at some point.

Jill ends with speculations about "who we are". She says:

So who are we? We are the life force power of the universe, with manual dexterity and two cognitive minds. And we have the power to choose, moment by moment, who and how we want to be in the world. Right here right now, I can step into the consciousness of my right hemisphere where we are -- I am -- the life force power of the universe, and the life force power of the 50 trillion beautiful molecular geniuses that make up my form. At one with all that is. Or I can choose to step into the consciousness of my left hemisphere. where I become a single individual, a solid, separate from the flow, separate from you. I am Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, intellectual, neuroanatomist. These are the "we" inside of me.

She says "life force power" of the universe; I simply call this the "Great Power", and I believe that the awareness of this sacred totality-force has informed much human religious and spiritual activity worldwide, leading us even to notions as Fate, Wyrd, the Great Mystery, and the like. In no manner do I consider this reality of power to be a "god" in the Judeo-Christian sense of the word, though many try to make these two concepts fit together by reason of how much they treasure the notion of "God" that they were usually raised with.

I feel that something is lost when people try to insert their particular cultural name for some "supreme being" into the sacred narratives of other people. The real danger of these attempts to homogenize all human spiritual thinking is that we insert our assumptions about things into the beliefs of others, and make it quite possible that we will miss the essence of their message- far better to forget what we think we know and really listen to others, before we decide that we've already got a handle on it.

For me, such experiences as Jill's carry us beyond classical monotheism and into a sacred, interactional, and immediate reality of power that we are all participants in, and which can be called "Great" because it excludes nothing, no force, no person, no phenomenon, no spirit, nothing. This Great Power is no universal demiurge, no cosmic judge or lawmaker standing ready to punish the wicked; this is a more profound reality that collectively and mysteriously stands within everything, and whose workings, when realized, lead to the undying harmony and peace that all people seek, but few find. This is "animistic salvation" if such a phrase may be used- this is the peace and knowledge that delivers us from meaninglessness, fear of death, and from evil. The Great Power belongs to no one and everyone at the same time.

Jill realized the truth about things because of her "wise wound"- a wound inflicted on her, I think, by the powers of the unseen world, so that she could see, and talk to others about it. Some may say that she simply suffered a catastrophic injury, and that her visions and insights were just electricity and chemistry being rattled. And to those types, I say it is very sad that they cannot separate the subtle from the obvious, nor meaning from circumstance. I further imagine that they are the types of people who can't see animals and faces in the clouds, or who can't enjoy a peaceful walk in the forest, but I may be wrong.

Jill had an experience of secret modes of cognition that only the dead or mystics ever really get a chance to experience. I think it is very amazing how well she handled it. I hope that everyone can learn from it.

You do not have to be good

2008-03-27T20:33:00.000-07:00

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of rain
are moving over the landscapes
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese
high in the clear blue air
are heading home again.
Whoever you are
no matter how lonely
the world offers itself to your imagination
calls to you like the wild geese
harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

-Mary Oliver

Tasteless: Towards a Food-Based Approach to Death

2008-03-27T13:18:00.000-07:00

Here I have an excellent article, written by a late environmental philosopher who died in her home in the Australian wilderness of a snakebite. My friend Kangi showed me this; it is yet another thing I am indebted to him for. This article certainly brings an interesting new angle to an old perspective: our need to consciously situate ourselves in the ecological story that we all naturally belong to.

The name of this article is "Tasteless: Towards a Food-Based Approach to Death" and it is by Val Plumwood. It can be found here:

Tasteless: Towards a Food-Based Approach to Death

I hope to snare your interest by posting the first three paragraphs of this excellent and important work here:

“Tasteless: Towards a Food-Based Approach to Death” by Val Plumwood

Food/Death
Two encounters with death led to my becoming radically dissatisfied with the usual western selection of death narratives -- both Christian-monotheist AND modernist-atheist. I think both major traditions inherit the human exceptionalism and hyper-separation that propels the environmental crisis. However, there are encouraging signs of a developing animist consciousness and mortuary practice that challenges exceptionalism and grasps human of death in terms of reciprocity in the earth community.

Some years ago, as an already established environmental philosopher, I had a close encounter with food/death, death as food for a large predator. I was seized by a Saltwater Crocodile, largest of the living saurians, heirs to the gastronomic tastes of the ancient dinosaurs. By a fortunate conjunction of circumstances I survived – slightly tenderized, but basically set aside for another occasion. Since then it has seemed to me that our worldview denies the most basic feature of animal existence on planet earth – that we are food and that through death we nourish others. The food/death perspective, so familiar to our ancestors, is something the human exceptionalism of western modernity has structured out of serious comment. Attention to human foodiness is tasteless. Of course we are all routinely nibbled both during and after life by all sorts of very small creatures, but in the microscopic context our essential foodiness is much easier to ignore than in one where we are munched by a noticeably large predator.

Modernist liberal individualism teaches us that we own our lives and bodies, politically as an enterprise we are running, experientially as a drama we are variously narrating, writing, and/or reading. As hyper-individuals, we owe nothing to nobody, not to our mothers, let alone to any nebulous earth community. Exceptionalised as both species and individuals, we humans cannot be positioned in the food chain in the same way as other animals. Predation on humans is monstrous, exceptionalised and subject to extreme retaliation. Horror movies, stories and jokes reflect our deep-seated dread of becoming food for other forms of life : horror is the wormy corpse, vampires sucking blood and sci-fi monsters trying to eat humans ("Alien 1 and 2"). Horror and outrage greet stories of other species eating live or dead humans, various levels of hysteria our nibbling by leeches, sandflies, mosquitoes and worms. Dominant concepts of human identity position humans outside and above the food chain, not as part of the feast in a chain of reciprocity. Animals can be our food, but we can never be their food. Human Exceptionalism positions us as the eaters of others who are never themselves eaten.

From Surviving to Living: The Animistic Life-Way

2008-03-27T10:42:00.001-07:00

Chief Seattle is said to have spoken these words in a speech to the United States Government:

"Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? The wild horses tamed? What will happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills is blotted by the talking wires? Where will the thicket be? Gone! Where will the eagle be? Gone! And what is it to say goodbye to the swift pony and the hunt? The end of living and the beginning of survival."

I was always struck by the last line in this paragraph. Whether or not the old chief made these speeches (and there is a controversy there) means little to me; the words have powerful meaning. It comes home to me clearly that most people today- myself included, for the longest time- have a way of falling victim to a "slow burn" life which isn't really worthy of the term "life". We associate eating, sleeping, and making money directly with "living", and we associate the mere fact of respiration, heartbeat, and blood pressure with "living" in the same way, but "life", for people who have seen more clearly, is more than survival; it's more than the accumulation of wealth or the prolonged operation of organs and brains.

"Life" in the truest and best sense of the word is firstly about knowledge. Knowing the truth about one's place in the world, knowing the truth of one's firm and unbreakable connectedness to all things, and celebrating this fact makes simple survival into true living. It is not enough to have some shallow ideas about some "biological" reality you share with other animals or with some nebulous term like "nature"; that is not what I mean by "knowledge of one's place".

Neither we human beings nor any other creature can be reduced to a few scientific-sounding "rules" or diagrams. It isn't what we "are" that joins us to other things, but what we do, how we participate in life. What joins us all are sacred processes- processes by which we seek out our own kind, share love, come into the world, grow, learn, take chances, feel passions, search the world, become wise, and die. Everything in its own way joins us in this way of life's unfolding. It's a high mystery and a most sacred thing. Even those parts of our experience that we have long ago written off as "inanimate"- such as rocks or mountains or rivers- join us in the great vision of interaction, and they are no less related to us and no less necessary to this world as any thing we call "animate" or "living".

When we encounter so-called "inanimate" things in the context of non-ordinary reality, such as in sacred moments of trance or vision, we see that they can be experienced as non-human persons in their own right, and if you believe like me, the non-ordinary context is far more important, when it comes to human understanding and behavior, than what we have come to call the "ordinary".

Our place is within the great web of life itself, with all its boundless activity, and our connectedness to things is obvious to those who have to do things like find water, grow food or hunt it, build fires to protect from the cold, rely on others for companionship or well-being, raise a child, learn from teachers, create art or crafts, encounter the wisdom and stories of the past, or suffer from the misdeeds of other people. There are many more examples of connectedness, but these few will suffice for now.

It isn't enough to intellectually know about our place in this great realm of powers we call "nature", nor to comprehend how inter-connected we all are only with our thoughts; if one does not actually feel the awe of it, feel the beauty and joy of it, then one has not experienced it in its fullness. When one does so, one celebrates the wonder of it all, the joy, the fear, and the mystery of it- and that raises us from the simple and well-worn "mundane" experience of our daily grind into real life.

In real life there is a sacred context there for any experience we may have- it is more than just a hunger pain or a drive for food; it is more than a tear or a laugh; it is part of the great mystery of things, sacred and inexhaustible. For people who understand the sacredness of experiences, their every breath is an awesome thing, an expression of the sacred. For those who do not understand, their every breath is a clock ticking down to the time when they breathe no more.

"Life" in the deeper sense of the word is also about wisdom- and what is wisdom? I've heard many fine definitions for the word, but "wisdom" for me flows from the special sort of knowledge I discussed above- when we know our place in things and our interconnections, then wisdom is born, and wisdom is nothing more (or less) than the internal guidance and voice that leads us to live well. Wisdom leads us to live as we should live- and living as we should, we find that the web of life- both the web of our own lives, and to an extent, the greater web that touches us, flourishes and becomes healthy.

What is wisdom's great guidance? How do the wise treat the world, themselves, and others? I have heard many fine answers to this question as well, but the best I have ever heard is this: "With respect". The wise live according to the idea of respect for the web of life and all its sacred powers, including oneself and other human beings. All are equal and sacred in the round of life; there is no first or last, no weak or strong. Wisdom leads us to wholeness and equality, but it only does so if we give ourselves to the idea of "respect" and give ourselves to it fully.

This is what it means to "live in a sacred manner". Whatever one must do, one does it respectfully and with full awareness. One lets their actions be guided by necessity and moderation, but always with respect in the forefront of their mind. One treats life- all life- with respect. Some wonder at how warriors in the old days (or now) can kill others, people or animals, if they believe in such a way; but death is not the evil that immortality-obsessed western societies often take it for; death is, in fact, unavoidable, and how we live- REALLY live- is far more important than our eventual deaths. That being said, when one must kill for one's survival or the survival of family and friends, one must never be cruel. That is respect, even in such a situation.

This same idea leads us to what "evil" really is- for humans, as well as for sentient non-human persons (such as spirits), evil is a lack of respect which is born in a selfish turning away from the truth of our inter-connectedness and the sacredness of things. Evil is not the self-existing opposite of some force called "good"; it is just a lack of respect; it is a poverty of goodness.

People's doubts about death have a way of fading swiftly if they can open their hearts to nature's simple teachings on the subject. We are an inseparable part of a system of sacred ecology, and no amount of ignoring this fact will ever change it. There is fear and pain in ignoring this fact, and joy and peace in accepting it. Accepting this means accepting our deaths every bit as much as we accept our lives, but as the old stories tell us, death is hardly the beast we've long considered it: the dead live on in other ways. The dead must live, for while the web of life includes events and occasions that we describe as "death", it always remains a web of life. What is good for us is to live well, and not think that we can control the outpouring of life's many processes and interactions, nor life's ends.

John Muir said:

"Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life."

When a person touches such wisdom and when they let it lodge in their heart, they stop surviving from day to day and they begin living the way they should live. A joy of belonging settles on them, alongside a joy of fearlessness, and these joys transform survival into life. The powers of knowledge and wisdom awaken us from our dazed, drugged, or zombie-like stumbling of day to day survival, and they shake us awake into real participatory living, real sacred living.

This is why I have taken the slogan "The End of Survival and the Beginning of Living" as my personal motto; for too long I was sleepwalking through life, and just surviving. When I opened my heart to the sacredness of things and the connectedness of things, I felt the true life that was asleep in me awaken. With my own vocation of shamanic healing, I hope to impart this same idea to as many people as I can, because I believe that these very ideas are the heart of any successful healing, on any level.

I find that the process of "opening oneself" is not as simple as it sounds, and yet, it isn't really hard- it so happens that many of the "calcifying powers" that trap us in the modern day have a way of covering our bodies and minds with a weight, a dense darkness that can make us feel like our efforts to "open" are useless.

I have discovered that the only way to combat this dense feeling, this spiritual anesthesia, is to try to open yourself anyway, and believe in the goodness of things. Strive on, despite the initial lack of feeling or excitement, and you will see the light through the darkness; the greatness of life and the Great Mystery is far older and far more powerful than the comparatively recent negative changes in human society and the recent losses of wisdom that have created the cobwebbed nightmare of global materialism and greed that affects all of us so profoundly.

In that nightmarish world, people only survive. I want to live. I want you to live. Our real inheritance from this sacred world, along with the possibility of our greatest peace, is being wasted every moment that we forget about life and let ourselves be satisfied with survival.

Owl Lore

2008-03-26T22:01:00.000-07:00

"In many tribes, owls were seen as most closely allied with medicine men, rather than warriors or hunters. Lakota medicine men or peju'ta wica'sa respect the owl because it moves at night when people sleep, and the medicine men get their power from dreams at night, clear dreams like the owl's sight, so many Lakota medicine men wear owl feathers and promise never to harm the owl, or else it is believed their powers will leave them. Creek medicine men often carried an owl skin or feather as a symbol of their calling. Ponca medicine men also used owl feathers in their healing ceremonies and Ojibway medicine men placed a stuffed owl near them while they were making medicine, so that it could "see if they do it right." The Pawnee used an Owl Medicine, and among the Pawnee it is said that "the owl is the leading medicine-man among the birds." Finally, owls were said by the Alabama, the Caddo, the Cherokee, and the Lakota, to bring prophetic news, either of the future or of events happening at a great distance, to the few medicine men who could understand them.

The owl's association with medicine men can also be bad news for ordinary folks. If a medicine man used owl power on your behalf, great, but if the medicine man of another tribe used his powers against you, then he could be an evil witch or bad medicine man trying to steal your soul. Because witches or bad medicine men were believed to be able to transform into owls, or to use owls to send death or disease, you could never quite be sure if an owl you saw was a real owl, a transformed witch, or an owl sent on a mission by a witch. The owls most often believed to be shapeshifted witch's were, the Great Horned or Screech Owls. So among the Cherokee, the same word, skili, was used to refer to both witches and Great Horned Owls. The Alabama, Caddo, Catawba, Choctaw and Menomini also associated Great Horned Owls or Screech Owls or both with witches, and the Wisconsin Ojibway also link witches and owls. Small wonder, then, that among many tribes, seeing or hearing an owl is believed to be a bad omen, often signaling serious illness or death to come, especially when a night owl is seen during the day, or an owl is found hanging about the home or village instead of the woods.

It is their connections with death, the afterlife, and rebirth that truly mark owls as a force to be reckoned with for most tribes. First, owls are either considered to be embodied spirits of the dead, or associated with such spirits, by a very wide range of tribes, including the Lakota, Omaha, Cheyenne, Fox, Ojibway, Menomini, Cherokee and Creek. Several of these tribes also have stories of an owl being that stands at a fork in the road in the sky, or the Milky Way, that leads to the land of the dead, letting some souls pass, but condemning others to roam the earth as ghosts forever. Among the Lakota, the Old Owl Woman or hiha'n winu'cala who guards the road to the afterlife at the end of the Milky Way assesses the merits of the souls of the dead with their deeds on earth, letting the good through and sending the bad over the edge and out of the afterlife to wander earth as a ghost or wana'gi for all eternity. A similar belief among the Cheyenne, is that the Old Owl Woman, who is the gatekeeper to the land of the dead, it sits atop the junction at the fork in the Milky Way and decides which souls are shunted onto the dead-end branch.

Among the Ojibway, one word for the bridge over which the dead had to pass to the afterlife is the Owl Bridge. The Lake Superior Ojibway also mention a spirit being with horns called Pacugu which might refer to the tufted "horns" of a Great Horned or Screech Owl, that stands at a fork in the road to the afterlife, blocking the way for evil souls, but helping good ones along on their journey. Another Lake Superior Ojibway story mentions that the last obstacle the soul must pass on its way to the land of the dead is an old woman, perhaps an Owl Woman, who questioned the soul about its life and decided which souls to turn back, punish, or let pass. The Wisconsin Ojibway have a story that relates how the culture hero Nanabozho's brother placed an owl being as the second test for souls as they pass along the road to the afterlife.

The Fox tribe also speak of a soul-bridge that leads to the land of the dead. They say that there are two paths at the soul-bridge, one is red and one is gray. The red path is followed by men, the gray by women. It has been suggested that this is in reference to the two color phases of the Screech Owl, which are also red and gray."

-From Red Nation