Sunday, 06 July 2008

Shamanic Journeying

My journey still amazes me, the witness. I see that at my core I have a very still, very attentive space. My consciousness flits from place to place. It is an awareness of all the spaces, and all the potential spaces that I have inside of me. It also seems to live in some sort of terror of dissolution, of not BEING. As if it is surrounded by all these non-beings, it is afraid of becoming one. Though if the goal is absolute and complete unity with the Oneness, the All, merging with the energy of the Beloved so completely that one cannot tell the difference between the Beloved and the Lover – is that not annihilation? How can I retain memory and concept of who I am, if I am in You, nay, have become You! So I walk the tightrope between those two, complete dissolution and complete resolution, attempting, again, to find that core of myself that I know is truth.

The images around me change. The players now have different faces, different names, yet are the same. I, though so different, am the same person being someone else.

Each culture has its way, its portal(s). A certain woman travelled to the United States to complete her Shaman training. For 5 days she was with 5 Shamans becoming ordained after 5 years of intensive training. An English girl, born in Africa, trained by Native American shamans, who have themselves studied under Peruvian teachers. In South America, those of the shamanic tradition often use entheogens. The sangomas in Africa use potent herbs and alcohol. Those of European descent have also potent alchemical mixtures. The North Africa and Middle Eastern dervishes used dance and song. The Eastern sages used meditation and stillness. The Jews use the Holy names of G!d, may She be Blessed, whenever our tongue calls Her Holy Name.

The only way I can walk through the pain of the disjunction, of the sudden parting and change, is to emerge. Like walking through the fire, only the material can burn – spirit cannot. As the sword of the warrior needs to be tempered, a sword so fine that every impurity has been burnt off it, so the spirit needs to emerge fortified from the flames. Daniel and … walked through the flames, protected by G!d, so we have to be brave and believe. Find the knowing, however absurd it might be.

I have found a way to the knowing - at least for some of us. Perhaps those that have had the entheogenic experience. Our great explorers, Ram Dass and James Alpert and Timothy Leary, all came to the same conclusion. It is a means to an end. It/they can show you the portal, but it is necessary to lean to consciously walk through those portals. Our life is in so many ways imagined, and hallucinogenic, we do not need that to get out of our bodies.

Call it lucid dreaming, call it shamanic journeying, call it prayer even – it is acknowledging that a certain imaginal space exists within and around us all. Women are more often in touch with it, so it seems. Perhaps because of the veil being so thin during their moon period, the dream time, of the journey to her inner spaces. Perhaps that cycle reflects the basic cycle of life, and she turns upon it, like the moon around the earth.

There is a method in the Jewish tradition, called Merkava Descent that enables its practitioners to enter these same spaces. These spaces are not acknowledged at all by our present day society in a remotely healthy way. As a result, many of us suffer a type of internal hell because it is helter-skelter in that inner space, and we are afraid to enter it alone.

What if this was, if not a way of organising that inner space – although there might arise the genius who could find the method to do that – then at least of becoming more conscious of it, becoming more aware of its geography and topology, learning correct placements in that inner space? What if we could walk, consciously, into our private mansion and sort it out? I cannot say what that will bring. I can only say that it exists, and we need to begin to take cognisance and care of it.