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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)

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Feeling Stuck

Well, quite a few times now I have sat down to post and found it difficult to come up with something to contribute to the group. Those who know me would be surprised at my coming to this place. Someone with few topics and few words hardly would ever describe me. Yet, here I am.

I have been reading the Emerald Tablet and feel it sinking in yet I have no solid tangible thoughts or opinions about what I have read. Again, very unusual for me. I feel something brewing below the surface. Shifts are occurring, because on some level I feel very different. Something is happening! However, I don’t know what it is. There are no words to accurately describe it other than this wonderful yet frustrating nothing.

I have attempted to journey to this place below the surface, yet no images arise. I just settle into the dark space and feel its richness and try to fill up my senses. Who knew nothing could be so empty yet so rich all at the same time.

I have been feeling stuck and frustrated by my apparent inability to post a topic that I feel would be beneficial to the group. I have been reading the posts and have felt their fullness and have found myself speechless.

It appears that my feeling senses are currently at the helm and it is how I am interpreting and processing information. My mental capacity, in some sense, seems to be on vacation.

Feeling stuck, I was then provided with the brilliant recommendation to post about my feelings of being stuck and the heart of nothing!!

So, here is my heartfelt contribution. Anyone else feel the same way?

SWR

4 comments:

Heart of The Mother said...

Oh yes... In fact, I've been processing my "assignment" from our last weekend. I've taken outdoor pictures that seemingly capture the essense of the written piece. However, getting that image from my dig card to a folder and out for other use...well that's a whole other story.
As I just told Robin, I've been doing the work--however, I have nothing tangible to show for it.
"It's a lot of nothing on the outside, but alot of "BEing" on the inside." So, I'm just going with that for now !

Allowing the light said...

Thanks for being able to put into words out there what you are feeling SHR! I recognize so much of what you describe. Each of us has a very specific path but, in many ways, we share that feeling of having already moved in part to another reality, being deeply shifted inside, seeing and knowing but not enough yet, not always, not the way we would like to, not in a way that makes us able to transform our reality, at least not all of it. I had very clear dreams about that (that's a consolation for not being always able to "see" things in my journeys either). In some ways, through this apprenticeship, we have re-encountered our own divinity / oneness / light inside but it does not seem to always inform our daily reality, not all of it, not yet. So we feel "stuck". We feel that we don't "do" things (including some of our assignments!) or can't, or don't do "enough" but as HTM so beautifully wrote, there is so much of "being" into what we are experimenting and we certainly need to honor that. So thank you SHR for emphasizing that challenge and the beauty of being on the path, not arrived yet, so having so much more to learn and discover!

Rainbow Warrior said...

I too have had many of those feelings myself lately, especially after our last workshop. While I certainly feel I am being cooked, and something is definitely changing within me, I can't really put my experience into words.

I've also felt like I have not had much from my own personal experience to contribute and that when I had an epiphany or something tangible in value to share with the group, I would post something. I realize now that sharing our frustrations in this process of becomming a shaman is just as vital because it is something the whole tribe can relate to and others can learn from who are going through the same experiences.

They say it is always darkest before the dawn. I am slowly beginnig to see the Light and open up to so much more that the veil of Ordinary Reality has been covering. We are all undertaking a great transformation and that down time is necessary for our muggle bodies to catch up our shaman spirits.

fearless.woman said...

I also feel that I have been stuck, as though I have put a toe in, but have not been able to fully live and experience what I am working with i.e, walk the walk, not just talk the talk. I, too, have been aware of something percolating inside, and I remember that although we are self-selected to join this tribe, there is also the matter of Sirit having answered us, it is for us to now show up for Spirit. For me, that has involved some changing, some superficial, some less so, but just because it doesn't always show, don't think that nothing is happening. When we responded to Spirit by joining this Tribe, we gave Spirit a go ahead for remaking each of us to serve better. Sometimes its nothing we do, but what we are, a lot about changes in our essence and spirit. You can't judge the qality of that, especially if its going on on the level below consciusness. So that stuck feeling most certainly does not mean nothing's happening.