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This is an ongoing US and global project to help enthusiasts, scholars, practitioners, and curious parties learn more about shamanic living in a contemporary culture. The space here is devoted to sharing info, experiences and opinions about all forms of shamanic expression covering shamanism's multiple permutations. Among subjects explored are traditions, techniques, insights, definitions, events, artists, authors, and creativity. You are invited to draw from your own experiences and contribute.

What is a SHAMAN?

MAYAN: "a technichian of the Holy, a lover of the Sacred." CELTIC: "Empower the people...by changing the way we think." MEXICAN APACHE: "Someone who has simply learned to give freely of themselves..." AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL: "...a teacher or healer, a wisdom keeper of knowledge... (who) takes people to a door and encourages them to enter." W. AFRICAN DIAGRA: "views every event in life within a spiritual context." HAWAIIAN: "...human bridges to the spiritual world and its laws and the material world and its trials..." QUECHUA INDIAN: "embodies all experience." AMAZON: "...willing to engage the forces of the Universe...in a beneficial end for self, people, and for life in general."


-- from Travelers, Magicians and Shamans (Danny Paradise)

Friday, March 21, 2008

Walking Up the Hill, Between Two Worlds

As the awareness lense seems to clear, I am fascinated by the presentations of standing between the Ordinary and Non-Ordinary worlds. Time/no time, inside/outside, and stillness/movement within are several unfoldings that I have experienced at a deeper level, in the last week. Last evening, when walking the fairly steep, long hill from the car to the house, I felt I was existing in several worlds at once...I was walking and could fell the muscles contracting in my legs (the body WAS moving forward kinesthetically), but it was if I was walking in place (tactially outside of my body, all was still with no movement = my body was not moving the space around me). I sensed I was remaining in the same spot, with body movement but was not going forward up the hill. It was as if in freeze frame of the physical world and at the same moment, time around me stood very still - though, I was engaging the mind with processing the experience.
Now I realize this is the space I have been drawn to during experiencing the black and white dimensions, though very important to immerse into them both, now the grey space is now opening to give a deeper merge into process of the universe within and the outer universe.

Enjoy (In Joy) !
AWR

1 comment:

Night Sings said...

I feel perception level enhancements as the apprenticeship progresses, and a new awareness of the behaviors/thought processes/tensions that get in their way.

Feels like growing new antennae, although I'm not sure how to process most of the messages. Your post came across to me as your learning a new dance with the shadows and shades of light in between-a reacquaintance or reconnection with a part of us quarantined or asleep.

Is your post any different to one expression of being deeply in love? When I think of the language you use, it reminds me of the lyrics of the Duran Duran song "Ordinary World," a ballad, which I first interpreted as a story about moving on after heartbreak. Another way to read those lyrics, thanks to your reflection, is a lamentation. A grieving and call for help after the end of a love affair; though, not with a person, but a love affair with the Divine (and the sensations you describe that I believe go along with that affair). How many songs/poems/books play on this same theme?

Just as the Emerald Tablet suggests, the loss of wonder/ sensation/imagination seem like a pre-requisite for "Ordinary World" living among Mutants. Celebrating those feelings and honoring the consequences of repressing them may be a serious part of getting closer to the "Non-Ordinary".