Crazy Stupid Magic: Love as a Shamanic Journey

With metaphoric vision, empathy flows, knowing no borders. Both artist and shaman create harmony within an individual, and between the individual and the wider environment, a way of thinking essential for life. But ours is an age of lethal literalism that viciously attacks metaphoric insight and all its values, an age that burns the Amazon and mocks those who would protect it, sing it and become it. People are entranced by Debussy, mesmerised as by a magician. The shaman may sometimes act the part of a showman and, from Liszt to the Beatles, performers are glamorous , in a history older than they may know, for glamour was an old term for bewitchment.

In a painful transformation lasting months or years, the young shaman loses interest in life, eats little, is withdrawn or mute, sleeping most of the time. It reads like a portrait of the young artist in a devastating depression. The young shaman overcomes the illness through the practice of shamanism, just as many artists know that their own best medicine is found in their work.

Lit by their own sun, like Van Gogh, artists are guided by a vision from the dark side of the mind, fleet with the peculiar velocity of sudden stillness. Art creates an emotional catharsis, said Aristotle, which rebalances our emotions. With the shamans in the Amazon I felt a powerfully cathartic effect, when they used a medicine called among other things la purga , the purge, which is one translation of the Greek word catharsis. As intense as the flame absorbed by its own burning, as the wine intoxicated by its own alcohol, as the wind swept by its own gust, their paradoxical role of ferocious power is coupled with unshieldable vulnerability.

Shamans and artists alike occupy an ambivalent place in society, treated with both savage psychological violence and fear as well as deep reverence. Consider how viciously hated and profoundly honoured was Ted Hughes. If I had met him, I would have wanted to kneel, an ancient fealty due. The path known to be stony and lonely, the unknown destination known only to be beyond. In what is understood to be a self-portrait, Michelangelo painted the solitary, sad figure of a centurion in The Crucifixion of St Peter , and the young William Blake recast the figure, deepening the loneliness to accord with his own experience of being a visionary in a scornful world.

During one ceremony in the Amazon, I had the sensation that one of the shamans had sent his soul out to find mine. Although I was lost in the dark forest of depression, suddenly he was there, in a bright clear pool, healing and sunlit. A good healer of any kind can find people who are lost in the forests of the mind. Halfway through his journey in life and lost in a dark forest, Dante began his poem-path.

By naming his lostness to his readers, they, if they are lost themselves, may feel understood — found — by him. Artists send their soul out into the world in a parabola, thrown from the heart of solitude so that in the arc of its return it can comprehend and speak to the loneliness and separateness of other minds.

A book, as Franz Kafka said, must be an ice axe to break the sea frozen inside us. W ith his raw materials of rough magic, wax, felt, fat and coyote, the artist Joseph Beuys interwove art and the shamanic role. Max Ernst took on a shamanistic familiar, the bird-king Loplop. The violinist Yehudi Menuhin came to consider his playing a form of healing. They responded instinctively and empathetically, taking the role of healer as they would in later life, healing both the individual and the body politic through their music.

Shelley considered poets the unacknowledged legislators of the world. Lit by their own sun, like Van Gogh, artists are guided by by a vision from the dark side of the mind. Obscurity shines in its own night because their tricky truths triangulate a turquoise paradox, fleet with the peculiar velocity of sudden stillness. Mediating between a world of daylight sight and a world of night insight is the role of both shaman and artist. Offering a particular kind of attention yields a different kind of knowledge: At night, when the day closes its eyes, othersight is possible.

With our eyes closed, we see in dreamsight, sharing nightly the paradox of vision known to Tiresias, the blind seer. It is revealing that the first recorded metaphor is of sleep: To be a messenger, to negotiate between the real and visible world and the true and invisible world is, shamans say, a crucial part of their role; and the artist, too, is a messenger between actuality and imagination. The kinetic power of artist and shaman resides in their ability to return their insights to their communities, to go down with Dante and find the providential paradox that only in the depths can the high ascent begin.

It is a peregrine part, shamanism and art both, each stooping for their prey. Sometimes the journey is juddered, as the Man from Porlock cannons through the door. Sometimes the journey is a seduction and sometimes a refuge, often more real to the artist than anywhere else. Dwellers on metaphor dwell more truly in that other world. I f I were asked what is the greatest human gift, I would say it is metaphor. A little boat of metaphor chugs across the seas, carrying a cargo of meaning across the oceans that divide us.

Metaphor is how we relate to each other and how our one species attempts to comprehend others. With this gift, humans listen and speak more intensely and the meanings of all things — ocean or forest, snail or chaffinch — grow outwards in concentric rings of concentrated word-poems.

Metaphor works with the legerdemain of the psyche, the lightest of touches to shift the mindscape, transforming one thing into another, leading to new ways of seeing. So, slantwise, by Saturn-mind running rings around literalism, metaphor is a canted incantation, it breathes life into fact, it enchants. In Here Is Where We Meet , John Berger describes a moment in his childhood when on a visit to Epping Forest with a small friend, he drew an owl, and hid it in the hollow of an oak.

Returning later, the drawing had gone and the hollow was full of feathers. His friend said they could write with them. Shamanism and poetry both use indirect, implicit and enigmatic language to know and to heal. Artists know that blunt and obvious references militate against deeper thinking and prefer to work in subtle, oblique ways.

At my most depressed, in order to describe what I felt, I said I was drowning. No literal description was good enough. For some, elliptical language may be the only way to unwrap tight, compressed pain. For others, self-disclosure can only take place in language which conceals, even as it draws attention to itself. The shamans I visited used a metaphor common in the Amazon: Some stories can be spells to heal oneself.

What I find interesting is that, the vast majority of the time, a true shaman rejects their role for years before they are initiated into the tradition. For years, I considered myself a witch, a healer—many things— but I refused to associate myself with the word shaman.

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I never understood why that was, until I realized I was trying to avoid my own pain. A true shaman knows that being a shaman means pain, hardship, and a relationship with the cycles of death, life, pain, and joy. You experience overwhelming hope and light, but also overwhelming pain and sorrow and death, sometimes your own, and oftentimes that of others. That is part of the job description, so to speak.

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It takes a long time to come to terms with that reality. It is just reality. Too many people like the idea of the path, read a book and buy a bunch of paraphernalia, host a workshop or two, and thinks that this makes them a shaman. The truth is, that in order to be a shaman, you have to have suffered. That can be part of it for some shamans, but that is not the core of what being a shaman is.

If you do not know what the core is, you were not meant to know, because it can not be described with words alone. You might find drumming, journeying, and animal spirits to be very helpful. Many people who feel drawn to shamanism are in fact drawn to paths and works that come from traditionally shamanic cultures— or cultures that were either lead by or at least valued shamans in their community.

The fact is, if you are a Shaman, it is not a matter of choice. You can not choose to be a Shaman, and you can not choose to not be a Shaman. Do not go looking to create an ordeal in the hopes of becoming a Shaman. If you are meant to follow an ordeal path, that is your prerogative, and such a path can be meant for many types of people, but it does not ensure that you will become a Shaman.

The idea of being possessed is too painful for me at this point in time, given my history with human beings who were abusive and possessive towards me. Whether you horse or not does not guarantee that you are or are not a shaman. Whether or not you do dream work or spirit work the same way I do is also immaterial. If you are a shaman, your spirits, ancestors, and the constant stream of people asking for your help with healing and for advice, will be the ones to tell you, even if they do not use the word shaman. Trust me, you will know.

Listen to the signs, listen to the whispers. And above all, listen to what your own subconscious, your instinct, your intuition is trying to tell you. Listen to that voice. It will spare you some suffering. If you are a shaman, you and you alone are the one who can confirm this with your soul. The soul of a shaman is different from all others, and your own inner knowing and the voices of your spirit contacts are higher knowledge than internet trolls and academia combined.

Whether you use a particular method, or use a particular name does not matter. You may or may not have been chosen by your community. You may or may not come from a hereditary line of shamans. You may or may not have a day job in addition to being a shaman. You may or may not have a spouse and children of your own. You may or may not have an official title you go by, or have official recognition as a shaman.

None of this matters, on the spiritual level. Even this is not full proof criteria. The only completely honest evidence is your soul. Just like a person can not help the language they were raised to learn, or how tall they are, a person can not help whether they are a shaman. This is meaningless, and is ultimately not worth arguing over. You can be a shaman and still participate in buying such goods or books, or what have you. This will not make you any more or less of a shaman. Shamans are a part of every culture. The Egyptians also had powerful magicians.

Shamans and magicians are really struck from the same lighting bolt. They both use rituals, potions, meditations, and journeys to heal people and to work magic for the betterment of the community. Shamans tend to be more connected to rural areas and work with nature spirits, while magicians tended to be more connected to cities and towns and used ritual magic and communed with angelic and demonic beings. Aliester Crowley studied all kinds of ritual magic, but he also spent a year in the Mexican desert taking peyote with shamans.

Most spiritual or magical people will become shamans, or they will have a period in their life where they turn to shamanism, for a certain time period, in order to heal themselves or discover deeper spiritual truths. Hello I have been reading your comments and would like to thank you.

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I am currently following my gifts and have recently discovered that I am a Shaman and Wizard. I also am a clairvoyant, psychic, medium empath and healer. That of which I believe is because of the Shamanic calling. I am still learning as I have much to learn. If you wouldnt mind helping me or give me any advice you have I would appreciate it. Look, im going to stop talking like im not talking about me.

I am experiencing an intense spiritual awakening and a calling which has brought me here. I had a reading done recently that said I am a Shamanic Wizard. I have had many hardships in my life and I feel like I am. Not sure where else to go from here about it. Any help would be appreciated or an email. You do not have to be a anything to see the world is going in the wrong direction. The birth, education, care, treatment, understanding, the environment,concern and compassion for all that take breathes,being,love, heart, feelings and sensations…we know that everything is wrong.

We feel truly acts and recognize what is just advertising. We know that we want different and better. But we feel stuck between the obligations….. I do not even know what a shaman is. With my bad English I read this text and uncontrolled crying on every word, every second of my life that I spent waiting for rescue, waiting for someone to take my hand and says …in that way is a happy place, there is a place where are people like you. I feel human suffering and pain …. Well, I want to be crazy … I do not want to live under other conditions.

Why is everything upside down? Until a few years ago I saw the occasional aura around people. Now I do not see it. As it is an impenetrable wall around me.

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My shaman friend and mentor shared this with me. To say these things out loud is so new that I still cower a little as the words slip through me and onto a public forum. I have been told and it was very specific that I am a shaman. The visions are Getting stronger and I feel terrified and alone and yet I want to know how to carry out my duty and to do it in a way that is the most helpful. Please help guide me as I need an elder or many elders. I feel I am having a shamanic calling! Feel like for the last twenty years or so maybe even long my life has been ripped apart by trauma after trauma that lead me to study spirituality.

Since such I have gained a few gifts downloads of information. I feel so alone never have ever fiited in society and always seen has the strange one! But who people turn to in crisis that leave once I have helped them.. Like I said they has been so much if anyone can be of assistance would be most gratful much love and gratitude to you all. I have this strange occurance happen often. I can be thinking about something that I want to mention to some one in the room with me. They suddenly start telling me exactly what I am thinking about to tell them.

It blows me away. I also think of calling someone and my phone rings. I dream of something happening and in a day or so it happens. Sometimes it is good and sometimes bad.

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I have been in stealth mode for much of my life, my intuition cautioned me to be discerning and I listened. The following is for anyone that chooses to benefit. We are indeed the bridge makers and holders, every gesture we make helps to usher in the continuing improvement of consciousness.

We are here to overcome our fears both together and alone, life in this material realm is hard because it needs to be in order for lessons to be consolidated. Each lesson learned contributes to a more evolved understanding that is instantly shared by all, yet not all are ready to accept and utilise the lesson, over linear time however, lessons do come through.

Life in this realm is also glorious in moments. Courage, kindness and respectful conduct with all that you encounter will help heal the wounds that bind us all. I am grateful for the whole experience and look forward to seeing balance being restored. The spiritual truth with bring sanity back to the material realm and nature will once again feel the peace it deserves. I was wondering if you had any statistics on how many people or what percentage of the population US, the world would answer yes to 10 out of 10 signs?

You say all this and then you want me to buy your book. It always seems to come down to money. Finally found the name of my true calling. I am a shaman. Life has moulded me from the days I was born, and I could make a profound tick against each point mentioned here. The Shaman archetype is a good experience but also a bad experience.

How can one have both? Only the shaman knows. I had to check-mark every point that you made. Shamans not only experience these things, but the deeper your call is, the more intense the ecstasy of it, but also the pain. Shamans often feel deep pain when they are mistreated or see others mistreated. They often watch their dreams of fame, money, and cultural respect vanish before their eyes over and over again until finally, at age 50, they give up on their dreams and become the true shaman.

Good shamans are very humble because they have been crushed and wounded over and over again by the divine and the spirits that are part of that divine. Many shamans live on low incomes but have learned to be happy because of the joy and ecstasy of the power that resides within them. Shamans often have evil people thrown on their path to rob them, wound then, gossip about them, and injure them. Shamans often have interesting sex lives. They also get free stuff, such as NFL tickets, from people who appreciate their healing power.

They also can become fairly well off in the end because the divine can bless them out of appreciation for their service. You will not find rest or happiness until you embrace it. The powers that you will experience are hard to define and can be very uncomfortable for years, but as the years go by you will begin to embrace that power as the most important thing in your life. Sometimes my hands get so hot. Her alone I am saying this with my own mind then she was smiling and brought her complete attention to me.



I have so many things that are so unexplained in my life I need some kind of answer. Ithink there are only mayne one of these i dont understand the rest even my husband agreed are dead on!! We all come in different colours. You, however, are pure filth. How awful to be you. This is so weird. I was able to truthfully answer 9 out of the 10 questions. There is something different going on with myself and it started with some unexplainable thing since I experience all of this..

Let the pain pass through you. By becoming one with darkness, you will find the light in the dark. Lissa this is amazing, just got back from Standing Rock and a whole big story— is there a way to consult with you or talk to you? I see it in the rocks lately!!!!!! I am a shaman I just found out about myself 2 years ago please give me an advice with way I need to go next? But, sometimes I feel being marginalized and my capabilities on healing, knowing, or anything are just being obstacle for my life.

This is sad for me to read because before I involved myself with negative entities, I fit all the descriptions. Ah ha, your article speaks volumes. I have not communicated with any spirits actively, but for the past months, I feel like I know how to, but know as soon as I do, I would always actively have to seal the box for some sanity in our mainstream.

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This is some real magic right here. Everything comes from a seed and then it decreases in potency whether an idea, a construction, or an edible. When you find the source of everything, you wake up to this devolved nature. Who gave us imagination though. I guess we did really. I think of it however as like being a beauty spot on this part of Earths skin. My big question to be quite frank is whether I bring light or joy into this world from now on I have to some extent already what difference does it make when I will perish and ultimately everybody else too at some point.

I have no faith in there being an afterlife or spirit world, so you could just as well argue that you are doing people a favour by not bringing life or light into this world. You have open the door of true wisdom , I only hope I can walk through to gain a more enlightened way. I have never had any direction in life avoiding being trapped in one way or another. My dog Finnegan is also a healer he helps the dogs with anxiety issues and calms them right down. I read your page here. And sounds like you was describing me. Where can I go to learn more? And are there places in Wisconsin that can help me know if I fit this?

I am interested in learning more as i said it sounds like you are describing me. Thanks for your help an time reading this. The people I care strongly for I send my energy to and I know it works I am felt heard and use my power in the best form. For the ones who try and have hurt my loved ones r seen so much from now from all sources.

Thank you for the powerful and important information. I am a bridge worker and I communicate telepathically with animals, know my guides and work with the Ascended Masters. My book is done and is all about the direct learning I experience with my animal friends on the 4th and 5th dimension.

The term stealth is a term I used in my book too. Peace and Love to All. I was always fascinated by shamans, the native tribes, ancient civilizations, the spirit world and I absolutely love animals. Does that make me a shaman? I knew who I was, now I know not who I am. I have so many questions though most of the answers I already know. I thought I knew until about 4 months back in March. Shortly after my 60 year young Birthday, I was told by my X that I had the eye. I was born with it and never knew what I had been given.

To say the least an eye opening life changing event. Since then I have been methodically searching for answers. I go where the path leads me. So now I am here. I will stop for now just to hear your response. I have made things move without touch such the volume on stereo up and down, opened a door without touch, summoned bat, dogs, pigs, birds, telepathically reached out to people, healed people I.

I qualify on 7 counts except 7,8,9. Even when I was very small 4 to 7 years , I felt that the world is a very strange place and I will never be able to adjust with it. I have a childhood in which the caregivers themselves persecuted me and observed teachers persecuting innocent kids. I hoped that I will die soon or my life will take a positive turn. None of it happened, I have crossed For a passive observer I am leading a successful life. But I am lonely and was lonely for most part of my life, and I am looking forward to my death. I would not think about suicide, since I am afraid that the God may send back me to earth again.

If it was within my power, I would have created websites to organize people about mindless corp orates. Does he thinks that people do not have any other business other than figuring out how the new system is working? Gates telling the world what they should use, if the people who use his software unite in an online forum and start telling him what improvements he should bring in his product or the need to bring an abridged version of his software it would end the quest for seeking mindless self importance. Welcome your conected to the network of all who were before and the present.

Im in need of a Native American Shaman. I feel the calling from within my soul. I need to be healed and taught to protect myself spiritually. You can check my Three books by xiong fong one is playing to throne the second is 12 power of the throne and third is path to freedom.

I recently plucked up the courage to open up to a group of people for help, and many of them suggested I might be a shaman.

10 Signs You’re a Shaman & Don’t Know It

Having no idea what that is, I was lead to this article. I am a surgical Technologist. I am very spiritual and I get feelings I. I am not sure really how to do this. If a patient expires I do help with cleaning up the body for the family to view. I was wondering if their is a process to assist the soul to move on, that I can help with. I have worked in the health care system for many years.

I need to find myself!! Here I am, due to, a woman that directed me to, Shamanism, from facebook. At 69 years old this November, recognizing, feeling, a pull in many different directions, and doing my best to focus. I was walking the land near where I stay. I have always been drawn to this area as long as I can remember. Is this a hint of something…like…pertaining to any native traditions? Perhaps a sign that I am a Shaman? Since then I have amassed a large collection of stones.

In fact, today I found a pea sized one and it lead me to another, much larger stone of many stones. I can definitely vibe with this. I did go to the Amazon jungle, alone, to partake in 3 ayahuasca ceremonies with an actual shaman. Severe time alone until all words dissapear and you meet you. From there, you will know if the path is for you and then you will know the way.

And we must remember that in the circle of life, we are one. Amazing how this and other posts are popping up like wildfire in my browser. Today I cleared relationship issues and made way for forgiveness and love. I discovered that I am a rare personality, a type of sensitive. I accept my psychic gifts where before kept hidden to avoid ridicule. I find confidence in my aptitude for nursing and my interest and care for animals..

I finally feel ok for being different. My soul purpose is to seek union with source. I strongly feel that we are one yet appalled at the many divisions. I seek peace in nature, in breeding ragdoll cats and chinchillas. I have no idea where this will lead but my depression is leaving and finally I am beginning to be at peace. Gratitude for each word in this article.

It was absolutely helpful in my process of seeing myself as a shaman, someone who wants to heal people and heal people though healing situations. Thanks, now my world makes sense to me! Thought I was going mad. In which culture does surviving a lightning strike indicate a shaman? This seems like a very broad, bold statement to make as every place around the world has a different shamanic tradition.

Just to a degree off course, but enough to realise that they needed to work on themselves before anything else. I hope that you address the time needed to be alone. Without knowing one self, you can never know your true path. Shamanism is a path that finds one. It is the path of no label, no name.

We are no one. You must have darkness to understand light and if you accept that you can love all and when you love all you do lift the world up little by little but combined and collectively that is a huge lift! But something bought me to this sight and propelled me to share! I am too a shaman. Out of Singularity We Arrived Made from the dust of long ago burnt out stars which went super nova where the iron in our blood carries the oxygen to or brains for a thought of awareness that we are still one all formed billions of years ago brought into the now.

By definition the eternal remains the same but from it comes the forces some call OEM others creation salvation and the holy ghost like a string pluck on a musical instrument with 3 parts attack sustain and decay but what underlays it all is the eternal. Let us go down and create so here we are part of a pattern that weave through the days and nights of space and time. With each breath fell the vibrations, see the lights flicker and be true to oneself this is your time to life in harmony.

Out of Singularity We Arrived Made from the dust of long ago burnt out stars which went super nova, where the iron in our blood carries the oxygen to or brains for a thought of awareness that we are still one all formed billions of years ago, brought into the now. By definition the eternal remains the same but from it comes the forces some call OEM others creation salvation and the holy ghost, like a string pluck on a musical instrument with 3 parts attack sustain and decay, but what underlays it all is the eternal.

Let us go down and create, so here we are part of a pattern that weaves through the days and nights of space and time. With each breath fell the vibrations, see the lights flicker and be true to oneself this is your time to live in harmony. Either way, you are being rude and you should delete the comment you made. I am that I am , All of our mountains and all our beaches are all that ewe are. Please stay close to your family ,even if no good. If family poision walk far away but not too far! Then as shamen Us will find a soft sweet good way. As shamen we will walk softly close but too close to family.

Than as we grow old shamen moves with family to cure out of balance things. I applaud your apparent devotion in the face of disbelief and ignorance. It is a sin that Truths have been perverted to suit self centered gains. A focal point a so much illness. Take courage, it IS the good fight! Please try to find a answer for me everyday I feel more confused about myself. Please can you help me?? Simply , all life is one. You have to remove the Monkey Mind as it just wants more and more Bananas. This is the basis Core of all of Existence.

We are the Children of the Universe. In moments when everything as we know it is shattered and our minds start to fill with fear the only answer is surrender, trust, release and receptivity, so love can enter and fill all the spaces not living any room for doubt or fear to enter. Everything that comes our way is part of our journey to the source of all. I am working on surrendering and trusting. But still a long way to go. It is actually very dependent on the degree to which the practitioner is trained and experienced and has cleared significant 'personal baggage' - i.

Transforming our inner and outer "demons" is the source of the "radiant power" [inner peace, humility and capacity for unconditional love] that marks out the accomplished shamanic healer. Mending the Fragmented Self by Sandra Ingerman With warmth and compassion, Sandra Ingerman describes the dramatic results of combining soul retreival with contemporary psychological concepts in this visionary work that revives the ancient shamanic tradition of soul retrieval for healing emotional and physical illness.

Well, the world always was, and always will be, a magical wondrous playground. We CAN recapture the excitement and joy of that magical way to live Even sad, weary, burdened, unfulfilled, disillusioned adults can return to wonder, amazement, lightness and a deep inner sense of nourishing love and connection to life! We can once again experience that upsurge of playful, joyous energy within us! Shamanism Healing in the 21st Century.

These trainings cover a wide range of Soul-Connection and Soul-Retrieval practices including traditional SRJ work and also some less well-known,but often more sustainably effective practices, such as Shamanic Timeline Healing, Frustration-catharsis, Primal Scream Work and Shamanic Rebirthing. Details of coming events can be found here: SR is not simply about following a technique, it is also about knowing how to prepare ourself and the client for this type of work, and being aware of the legal and ethical implications. This means working regularly with the processes for bringing our personal subconscious "issues" [" inner demons "] and "ego-agendas" into awareness, and knowing the technologies for clearing or transforming them.