21st Shamanism...the Authentic "Old, Enduring Way"

Singe Medicine Man

When you gaze up every night and see the progression of the moon and gem-like brilliance of stars; when you live not with, but within, flora and fauna and old stone outcroppings, at rare moments, nothing is more real, more lucid, more explicit, than such as this rare view. 

And whether you look up or down, surrounding you, you not only might experience an intelligence in flora and fauna that is not only unexpected but beyond equal.  A “seasonal change” is a remarkable shift in coloration.  Light variations and temperature do this, and yet, variations and color changes are intelligent.  They can be “measured” mathematically at advanced levels.  And what can seem astonishing--this sense of the non-human, be it flora or simply stone or soil or water or air--is that these events are not simply surrounding us to cosmic depths. They are us, that they are in our identity.

But when the experience that comes to be termed shamanism becomes more visible, it seems to translate into spirits that look somehow like people, personality.  This is because we turn it into something that we think we need.  

Deep shamanism challenges us and is the the public, derivative game that typically references the authentic heart of shamanism. There are no spirits that meander around parallel to us.  There are no ghosts or spirits that meander around with us and speak with wisdom and offer us special powers.  This is not shamanism. This is the mistake that we make over and over again in spirituality and religion.  Right now in modern life, such facile, off-based interpretations still dominate our approach to shamanism.  We act as if these events “speak” to us, as if they are people-like, and are endlessly trying to tell us something very important, trying to “set us right,” if you will.

What we accurately sense is that we are missing something not just important, but essential, critical.  We sense that our science and our poetry is incomplete. Now we see a universe of galaxies comprising a universe and speculate multi-verses, but we realize we will never step back far enough to see life, reality, as it is.

We are Homo sapiens, not the "wise one" that we imagine ourselves to be, but rather the “Earth taster," more akin to trees and plants.  Our task is to access to reman alert to more than we can imagine ourselves to be, to be more than we can ever imagine.  

Shamanism is direct contact with Earth, with stone, wind, light, plants, fauna, smallness and largeness.  We aspire to stay connected more than to answer.  We try to see in the dark and open to the degree that we can.  

That which is “right,” “righteous,” is a win-lose game that is small and displaces our attention.  

Are we like a tsunami or volcano or beaver that alters the ecosystem on either/or a grand or local level, or is our real work, as Thomas Berry implores us, to integrate with the large ecosystem of the Earth.  We are wont to “believe” that our task is the latter, but is it?  

Our task is to listen, to flow, to continue to taste, to directly contact the experience that we reference as “Earth" as self rather than as something apart to remain fitted.  

Listening To Trees & Stones

Shaman

Lance Kinseth, Shaman, 18x24, pencil/bristol, 2017

Luis Tamani-Amasifuen

Shaman Gate

Winter Solstice 2016--a turning point in 1000 cultures across the eons--and yet,
now in this turning point,

Here is a Shaman Gate--How do we pass thru?