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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, June 10, 2008

Spirit Expression

When you work you are a flute through whose
heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.
. . . And what is it to work with love? It is to
weave the cloth with threads drawn from your
heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that
cloth . . .

- - - Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

2 comments:

Allowing the light said...

I meant to share with the group that a few week ends ago, I went to a Native American flute workshop. It was a gift from somebody for whom I did two healing sessions -- a great gift indeed as it allowed me to start connecting differently with the Native American spirits through the beautiful flute I now have and the music we play together.

I am planning to bring her to Sedona (she will be close to her home town as she was hand made in Patagonia, AZ) and hoping to work with her more to deepen our connection.

Also, I will be in France the first two weeks of July and plan to bring back a small drum (djembé) from Senegal I have there (I used to play drums in Haiti and West Africa); I have thought that it would be a way to (re)connect my current path with my previous connections. I will bring both the flute and the djembé at our next gathering in the Fall!

Let's be a hole in the flute and the skin on the drum that Spirit's breath and touch moves through!

Night Sings said...

There are many translations of Rumi's "Song of the Reed" Here is the first part of one, which shares a flute's story:

Translation by Lewis, 200
1. Listen
as this reed
pipes its plaint ***
unfolds its tale
of separations:

2. Cut from my reedy bed ***
my crying
ever since
makes men and women
weep

3. I like to keep my breast
carved with loss ***
to convey
the pain of longing --

4. Once severed
from the root, ***
thirst for union
with the source
endures

5. I raise my plaint
in any kind of crowd ***
in front of both
the blessed and the bad

6. For what they think they hear me say, they love me -- ***
None gaze in me my secrets to discern

7. My secret is not separate from my cry ***
But ears and eyes lack light to see it.

8. Not soul from flesh
not flesh from soul are veiled, ***
yet none is granted leave to see the soul.

9. Fire, not breath, makes music through that pipe -- ***
Let all who lack that fire be blown away.

10. It is love's fire that inspires the reed ***
It's love's ferment that bubbles in the wine

11. The reed, soother to all sundered lovers -- ***
its piercing modes reveal our hidden pain: