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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)

Monday, May 5, 2008

What Water Can Do...

In Preparation of our WATER retreat...

Come with me now, down this garden path, and sit with me at this
stream. Watch how the water flows by. See how it flows over and
around the rocks. See how it flows even where there are obstacles;
even a dam of rocks, higher than the bed of the stream, cannot stop
the flow. It may hold back the water for a time, but eventually, the
water will prevail. It may rise up and flow over the top of the dam.
It may simply leave the banks of the stream, spread out and go around
the dam. Or it may find the weakness in the dam and through its
relentless pressure cause the dam to crumble as the water is let
loose to flow freely again.

This water is love, the source of all being. It is freedom and power,
unrelenting, unending. It overcomes all barriers which lie before it
through its unending flow.

But yet its pressure is gentle. For the rocks over which it flows, it
is soothing and purifying. For that which dwells within it and on the
banks along the side, it is a life giver, flowing and gentle. And
yet, when it is thwarted, as with the dam, it prevails through its
unrelenting nature.

There is nothing that you can do, nothing you can fail to do, that
will keep love from you.
There is no blame you can place upon
yourself that will stop the flow of love in your life.
Love is the
blood that flows in your veins, the breath the goes in and out of
your body. Love is an essential part of who you are. It cannot be
stopped. It cannot be overcome. And even if it is forced underground
for a time, still it flows and will again be made visible in your
life.

You are blameless before this love. You are not judged and found
wanting. You, exactly as you are right now, are deeply loved, are a
part of love, are made of love eternal.

You breathe and it flows. You live and it flows. You are love.

The life-giving source is within you and it is the foundation of your
freedom. The more you allow yourself to become one with the flow of
love, the more freedom you will experience in your life. The more you
give it away, the more it will flow in to fill you. The more you
acknowledge its presence within you, the more you will flow and glow
with love and freedom, going so deeply into the holy center of love
that you finally see and know and feel who you are: a shining beacon
of love and light in human form, as holy and free as anyone who has
ever walked the earth and ever will. You—yes, you—are the ultimate
expression of love.

The rocks of fear may pile up around you and in front of you, but you
are not those rocks. You are the flowing stream of love and you will
prevail over the barriers and watch them crumble and tumble before
you. Such is your power, the power of love.
~Quado by Carrie Hart

5 comments:

Still Waters said...

Thanks, Walks in Two Worlds for this post. Water truly is amazing in its power and perseverance. I have often leaned on the Spirit of Water in tough times to become fluid in a situation where I feel stuck. Water's way of working through situations without becoming entangled in the rocks is a lesson we all need to learn. Similar to wind but completely different in its approach. Water can move mountains, over time.

fearless.woman said...

Thank you for this post. I'm reminded of the geode, which is hollowed out by the forces of water, but gains a new and beautiful heart from the gift of water passing through it and bringing a life blood of crystalline fluid to deposit layer upon layer of shiny glowing crystal - beautiful and open.

Heart of The Mother said...

Speaking of water...

This weekend, I had the privledge to spend some time along my favorite creek. Recent spring rains have raised the level of the creek. The water was high and fast. Any fisherman knows the that the rules change with the water level. Flocks of kayakers made their way swiftly down stream. The watersnakes quickly appeared and could mostly be observed swimming "upstream." I still remain in awe of the snakes ability to swim with such ease and grace in turbulent water. One snake stopped long enough to check us out, then took a deep dive, and emerged several yards further upstream ! I sighed, and thought, "wow, I want to do that!" Perhaps, my next visit to the creek, snake will teach me.

Truth on the Wind said...

And as you watch that stream, rolling, roiling, swirling; listen ever so carefully and you will hear it say, "I am the giver of life".

Allowing the light said...

I have always had a highly ambivalent relationship with water, particularly the sea – and it has always been much related to my relationship with my mother (In French, the same world is used for both the sea and the mother -- albeit with a slightly different orthography). In my childhood, the water was mostly the one of the big river which we had to cross several times a day; each time we would walk on the bridge, my mother would hold so tight to my hand that it would hurt; she would pull hard at my arm, look at me very upset and tell me that the water was ‘attracting’ her. And of course, each time, what I understood was that she was about to throw me into the water... A few incidents in which my head was kept under the level of water in a sink or a container did not help either. I never learnt how to swim properly. And although I love watching the sea, I rarely go into it. Last summer, while I was in the jungle in Ecuador, in two occasions, I voluntarily went under huge water falls (those are sacred for the local population). I will always remember the first time. The water fall was so high and big that it was impossible to see the top of it, so powerful that it took my breath away. And for a short moment, I thought that I was really going to die right there. I immediately felt the presence of my mother and my fear of her killing me. And then I just let it go, and I said aloud (with the noise of the waterfall, nobody could hear me anyway): OK, that’s OK, I am OK, I can be in the flow, I can do it! It is so hard to accept to be one with the flow, it is so hard to be one with love without being afraid that it is going to kill me!