Shamanic Living Today: Healing Essence Level Of Story

WELCOME!

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, April 18, 2008

Healing Essence Level Of Story

I wanted to put this in a section by itself so others can easily find it. I've also made a few clarifications....

Levels of story, and we heal at essence level:

Story: A person is given two bottles of water, one from the pure runoff of an ancient volcano. The other, blessed by a holy monk known to pray 20 hours a day.

Possible Symbols: container, water, intermediary, purity of nature, prayer, purity of spiritual life, lava.

Essence: Powerful, clear nourishment of what we are all made of as a blessing/offering. Those essences are needs of everyone. They bypass the judgement (prayer, bottled water, etc...) of the story, and even the hidden prejudices of symbolic interpretation -- "something is about to erupt in your life, you need to go to a mountain to heal, you were a monk in a past life, etc......:-)".

Healing at the essence level bypasses all that can get hung up, and since there is nothing to get stuck on, releases the fullness of the life force/chi within the symbol.