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)

Thursday, May 29, 2008

When Land and Water Merge

This is from Night Sings... I keep getting the post in my email, but it does not show up on the blog that I can find, and Night Sings gets an error message. Sorry this thing doesn't always work right! Hugs, Robin


Walks in Two Worlds noted the coming together of two different worlds at the beach (when the wind is present, it can make three). Recall that Heart of the Mother also gave a beautiful description of the ocean story as that of the earth's heart, which stayed with me. The piece below is a reflection from a couple of years ago (recently updated) that I wanted to share with you directly at the retreat but forgot to bring. To me, the beach is amongst the most healing and most powerful spots because it is a place of intersection and reflects so much about the human body and humanity. The different conditions of different paths on the earth, and the dance of her different elements: they weave the songs of struggle and harmony we live every day, and vice versa. This is what wise people mean when they underscore how much a seeker can learn from being in and understanding the ways of nature, in my view. It is a fertile place for the shaman to decode nature's stories.


Ocean and sand merge with great force and motion
Yet two opposites could not inspire
A more serene diversion to human ears
Than theirs

They are like two lovers
Separated cruelly
The wind their secret messenger
I catch their song of longing

A lullaby of hope,
Threads from their whispers
Form a rope
To my own grand conversion

For land, illusion is a rock
It supports the water's touch
Absorbing the caress of rolling waves as they rush to comfort
The shore's coast of open arms

Water seizes land's attention
With stinging raids of liquid leaps
That tease and please the land escapes its senses
Little golden shards release from these earth-water shattering embraces

When these two races meet
And catch a taste of some new way to be
To see and free another place and fall in love... and break

Oh yes, they'll break and part
For duality discontinuity dictates
At times, they'll clash, and thrash and
In an irreverent, uncompromising and impossibly offensive manner...smash each other's hearts

Day and night

The ocean, insisting on the certainty of the uncertain deep
Engulfs, envelops, floats ideas, and raises tides to prove it's point

The stubborn land sits squarely on its seat
It will be damned before it flinches or moves one inch from its solid
And unwavering beliefs

And so these worlds will part and turn away
So intertwined and yet so strange

In places where they've learned how to receive
Find calm and tenderness in their betweens

In the roughest parts where treatment has been harsh
They are restless, toiling and tempestuous
Their dance
Craves unmet unconditional surrender and acceptance

The Sun and Moon and Sky
Look on and laugh
At these two halves of the same whole
But they explain the human struggle between
Body, Soul, and Song
They are what goes on inside and in between
Amidst the eyes and all
Throughout the world of the unseen
They are what goes on
But they still belong
They still belong

1 comment:

Heart of The Mother said...

How Beautiful !

Thank you for sharing you...

I recently explained to a man and woman who moved here from Russia. As they consider moving to a more "wooded" development they expressed concern about wolves, coyotes, snakes, and animal attacks.

I said, "I live in the woods." And, the deal is: In order to survive, you have to 'ask to be accepted into the woods' and not move in with the intent to conquer." I added once, you're accepted you'll know where you should and shouldn't be at certain times--you'll learn to live in balance and harmonize with the woods. He was elated to hear this, and he said, "I've never heard that before. That sounds wonderful !"

I sense that, he walked a way with a whole new perspective...