CELEBRATING THE CIRCLE OF LIFE
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.sacredhoop.org
ISSUE 64 2009
£3.50 UK $7.99 US $8.99 CN
HORSE WISDOM
RIDING to SEEK HELP
for an AUTISTIC SON
HORSE as HEALER
BEING REAL with
SPIRIT HELPERS
EDITOR, DESIGN AND PRODUCTION: Nicholas Breeze Wood
www.twitter.com/NicktheBreeze www.myspace.com/nicholasbreezewood DESIGN AND EDITORIAL CONSULTANT: Faith Nolton (Jan Morgan Wood)
PROOF READING: Janey Verney, Faith Nolton CONTACT DETAILS:
BCM Sacred Hoop London. WC1N 3XX. UK General Enquiries and Subscriptions Email: [email protected] Tel: (01239) 682 029 www.sacredhoop.org
www.myspace.com/sacredhoopmagazine FRONT COVER: © Nicholas Breeze Wood 2009 PUBLISHING POLICY:
SACRED HOOP seeks to network those wanting to learn the spiritual teachings of indigenous peoples as a living path of knowledge. Our contents cover the integration of both old and new ways, and insights that contribute to a balanced and sustainable lifestyle in today's world. We honour all paths and peoples and do not include material from, or give support to, any individual or group which seeks to oppress or discriminate on grounds of race, lineage, age, sex, class or belief. Nor do we knowingly publish any material that is inaccurate. Views expressed are not necessarily those of the editor. PRINTING:
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NORTH AMERICA & CANADA:
Disticor Magazine Distribution, Ontario, Canada UK & REST OF WORLD: Sacred Hoop Magazine ISSN 1364 - 2219
DISCLAIMER:
Whilst making every effort to be accurate, the editors will not be deemed responsible for any errors, omissions or inaccuracies appearing in Sacred Hoop Magazine.
© 2008 Sacred Hoop Magazine and-or individual contributors.
No part of this magazine, either written text or visual art, may be reproduced in any way whatsoever without the written permission of the Editor.
Jonathan Horwitz: honouring the spirits - pages 13-15
Seeking healing for a son in Mongolia - pages 6-12
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Contents
RIDING WITH THE HORSE BOY . . . 6-12
When his son, Rowan, was diagnosed as autistic,
Rupert Isaacson decided to travel across Mongolia
on horseback to look for a shaman to cure him.
OUR SHAMANIC INHERITANCE . . . 13-15
The spirits make shamanism real - it is not just the learning of techniques. Jonathan Horwitz explains why, if there are no spirits, there is no shaman.
CONTINUING THE JOURNEY . . . 16-19
On a workshop in, an empowered space, it is easier to feel connected to the spirits. But how do you maintain connection when you come back to ‘normal’ life? Faith Nolton gives a few pointers.
SONGS TO A FAR AWAY SKY . . . 20-23
In traditional societies, one of the roles of the shaman is to perform blessings. Christiana Harle shares her experiences of shamanic blessings in Tuva.
THE LORD OF THE LAKE . . . 24-26
In Central America, the Catholic Church did its best to wipe out traditional shamanism, but sometimes strange hybrids occur. Omar W. Rosales shares the story of the Mayan spirit called Maximon.
RIDING THE HORSE . . . 27-29
Spirit possession features in many shamanic traditions.
Raven Kaldera explains the phenomenon, and shares
what it is like to be ridden as a ‘horse of the spirits.’
POWER IN THE HAND . . . 30-31
The Celtic coins of Europe were often symbols of magical power as well as having monetary value.
Simon Lilly deciphers some of their hidden meanings.
ON THE FLIP OF A COIN . . . 32-33
The oldest coins come from China, where they have a long tradition as magical charms and aids in divination. Nicholas Breeze Wood introduces some of their uses.
POWER PARTNERSHIP . . . 34-36
The horse was domesticated around 6,000 years ago, and is a major character in folklore the world over.
Leanna Milward explains what we can all learn
from these gentle giants.
GOLDEN RIDERS OF THE GRASS LANDS . 37-39
Sweeping across the steppes, 2,800 years ago rode the Scythians - a warlike shamanic culture, whose frozen Siberian tombs often contain wonderful golden artefacts. BOOK AND MUSIC REVIEWS . . . 40-41 PEOPLE ON THE PATH - EVENTS DIARY . . . . 42-43
Golden art of the Scythians - pages 37-39
Bonding with power animals - pages 16-19
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Editorial Thoughts
“Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all,
and around and about me was the whole hoop of the world...
I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the
spirit and the shapes of all shapes as they m ust live together
like one being. And I saw that the Sacr ed Hoop of my people
was one of many hoops that made one circ le, wide as daylight
and as starlight and in the centr e grew one almighty flowering
tree to shelter all the c hildren of one mother and one f ather,
and I saw that it was holy
.”
(From the vision of Nicholas Black Elk - Lak ota Holy Man: 1863 - 1950)
The last few weeks before we go to print with an issue of Hoop it is generally pretty mad and rather full-on.
At the end of the last issue I had bad office-fever, and just had to get out for a while. So once the magazine had gone to print I went to a beautiful 5,000-year-old sacred site close to where I live, called Pentre Ifan.
It was a cold, grey winter’s day, out of the busy holiday period, and so I had the place to myself, and was able to stay there for a few hours, being silent with the ancient stones.
But then the thunder started, the thunder of hooves, as about a dozen wild horses came and galloped all around me as I stood by the
stones; at one point they formed a wide line and charged me, turning away at the last moment. I took some photos, gave thanks and came home on a high.
It was, I think, at that moment with the horses, that this issue of Sacred Hoop began. For the day after my visit to that ‘house of the ancestors’, I came across ‘The Horse Boy’ author Rupert Isaacson, who, I am pleased to say, agreed to write for us, sharing his remarkable tale about taking his autistic son to Mongolia to work with shamans there.
The horse spirits stayed with this issue, and as Jonathan Horwitz and Faith Nolton remind us, the spirits accompany the shaman at all times and are there for us at every turn if we allow them. Blessing is also a fundamental part of working with the spirits, as Christiana Harle reminds us in her article about Tuvan traditional healing songs.
But tradition is evolving all the time as Omar W. Rosales shows with the story of Maximon, a spirit from Central America. What happens, however, when the shaman is possessed by a spirit, as happens in many traditions? Raven Kaldera explains the process of using this connection in a beneficial way, as the shaman’s body becomes the spirits’ ‘horse’.
So what is it with horses - why are they special to so many people? Leanna Milward tries to answer that one - she has been led to working with these gentle giants as an equine assisted therapist.
And after all, horses have been in partnership with humans for thousands of years; the Scythians, the riders of the steppes of Central Asia, were remarkable artists and craftspeople, and horses are portrayed as part of their enspirited zoomorphic art.
Simon Lilly tells us what to look for in the ancient symbolism of Celtic coins, which show so much about the sacred life of their times if we know what to look for. We also explore how the Chinese, who have the longest history of coinage, have all sorts of uses for their coins beyond mere money.
So follow the sound of the hoofbeats through these pages, a trail that stretches back through time. Perhaps like me you will wonder what sacred treasures we will have left for our descendents in 5,000 years time. Only time will tell.
Blessings to all Beings Nicholas Breeze Wood
'm sitting across the breakfast table from my son Rowan, seven years old.
“I am Iron Man!” he sings, imitating the Black Sabbath song he heard me listening to this morning (part of what my mother would call my Peter Pan refusal-to-grow-up complex, oi veh).
A red cardinal bird flits past the window. From behind the fence outside, my young horse, just beginning his training, snorts, wanting to catch my attention so I'll come out and grain him. The pygmy goats echo in demanding chorus.
“Better go feed them, Daddy,” says Rowan. Then adds: “In the Narnia book the talking animals listen to their God.”
I look up, shocked - still taken by surprise by this new, lucid, speech of his. Just 18 months ago I wondered if this kind of conversation would ever be possible. A few months before that, I didn't know if he'd ever be toilet trained, if he'd ever make friends, if he'd ever be free of the terrible, firestorm distress tantrums that used to wrack his brain and body as his over-stimulated nervous system misfired, like bombs going off inside his body.
“The horse and goats are hungry, Daddy,” he says. “Let's go feed them.” Sighing - half annoyed, half glad - I put my coffee down, get up, and go face the new morning, the animals upping the decibel level as Rowan and I step out onto the sunlit porch.
When my son was diagnosed with autism back in 2004, I never suspected that this thing, this horror which seemed to have descended on our family from nowhere, would lead me here, to this desk, writing a story that transformed my own and my family's life completely and utterly for the better. At the time all I could feel was grief, shame - this weird, irrational shame like I'd somehow cursed this child by giving him my faulty genetics. Watching, horrified, as he seemed to float away from me, as if separated by thick glass, or the see-through barrier of dream.
We tried everything -behavioural therapies, chelation therapy (trying to flush toxins like
RUPERT ISAACSON
When his son Rowan was diagnosed with
autism, Rupert together with his wife Kristin
looked for ways to help him - including
riding across Mongolia in search of
a traditional shaman to heal him
This is their remarkable true story
Photos Justin Jin
riding
with the
HORSE BOY
Above: Rowan in the full flood of an autistic tantrum Left: Rupert, Rowan and Kristin ride across the Mongolian steppes
heavy metals from his body), Valtrex (yes, the herpes drug, which supposedly helps calm down a nervous system overwhelmed by post-vaccine overload). Nothing seemed to work - or at least nothing seemed to work in the radical and positive way - ok, the miraculous way - we were craving.
Then came the day that Rowan managed to get away from me while we were walking outside.
We are lucky enough to live in a little house in the country. I found early on that when Rowan was tantrumming badly (autism tantrums aren't like regular tantrums - they come because of pain and neurological assault, rendering the child unconsolable),
if I took him out into the forest, just being out in nature seemed to calm him down.
So there we were, him running ahead of me along the well-worn trail through the underbrush, me letting my thoughts drift away... when suddenly Rowan made an unexpected turn and - faster than I could close the gap - sprinted up the bank of a dry creek bed, over the little stretch of grass beyond, and was through the wire fence on to my neighbour's horse pasture before I could grab him.
Five horses were grazing there. He ran in among their hooves, threw himself down on his back, and lay there, babbling happily, while I froze, thinking he was going to be trampled.
But then something
extraordinary happened: the old boss mare - Betsy - came and pushed the other four horses away, then bent her head to sniff at this little two-and-a-half year-old boy, lying on his back, babbling and kicking his legs - totally exposed to her hooves.
She sniffed once, twice, then bent her head further and did something I have never seen a horse spontaneously do to a human being before; she made the equine sign of submission - putting her head as low as she could and licking and chewing with her mouth, which is how a horse says to another horse, “You are the leader and I'm comfortable with that.” The equine equivalent of a dog showing its belly.
I'm an ex-professional horse trainer - so I myself have made a horse give me that submission by chasing it around and around a pen until it drops its head and licks and chews - what some people call 'horse whispering'. I had never seen a horse do it spontaneously to a human being before, much less an autistic toddler. But there it was, happening right before my eyes. In all my years as a horse trainer, I'd never seen anything like it.
And then I cried, because I thought - ‘Oh, he's got it; he's got the horse gene. But I'll never share it with him, never ride with him, because of his autism’.
It's stunning how wrong a parent can be. In fact, I was standing at the threshold of the greatest adventure of my life.
So I’m standing there, looking at this amazing, unfathomable communication passing between my son and this horse Betsy, and even then it takes a while for the penny
to drop. I assumed he was unsafe around horses - even after years spent as a horse trainer myself. It took me a little while before his repeated visits to the horse pasture resulted in my finally thinking -hmmm - maybe I should put him on.
We were standing there next to Betsy as she grazed, contentedly hanging out next to us, despite having ten green acres to roam on.
“Would you like to get up?” I asked Rowan. “Up!” he said - it was the first lucid, directed speech he'd ever given me. So I put him up. And immediately he began to talk.
At first, this new, astonishing language didnt translate away from Betsy. But after a couple of weeks or so, and by now I was actually riding with Rowan, he began bringing it home to the house. Asking for juice (“Want juice?”) instead of just taking mine or my wife Kristin's hand and leading us to the fridge, then melting down
when we didn’t immediately intuit what he wanted.
More than this, his tantrums -always close to his mood and ours, like a fist waiting to close at any moment around the heart - would end abruptly if I put him up on Betsy's broad, brown back. A calm would descend on him. He would stroke her soft coat.
One day, completely
spontaneously, he said “I wuv you Betsy.” He has never said it to either Kristin or I before. I didn’t care. He had said it. Our time would surely come.
And indeed he had much cause to say it to Betsy. Unlike Kristin and I, who did sometimes lose our tempers and shout, Betsy never put a foot wrong. If he ran his little red wagon obsessively into her back legs while I was putting the saddle on, she didn’t flinch, much less kick. If he yanked on her lip, ran under her and pulled her
mare's udders, in short did all the things absolutely guaranteed to completely piss a horse off, she didn’t move. Her eyes half-closed, that same blissful, almost trance-like state descending upon her whenever Rowan was near, she seemed to have accepted the role as his guardian.
We spent hours and hours in the saddle together, playing singing games, word games, spelling games, as we rode across the broad Texas pasturelands, through the wild pecan groves, through the oak and cactus scrub, sometimes surprising deer, coyotes, or snakes -Betsy never shying. I had found my way into his world. At least a little.
That same year 2004 -another amazing thing happened. I have this second career in human rights. My family is South African and Zimbabwean and very political. As a journalist it had been natural, Above: Rupert
and Rowan ride on Betsy at their home in Texas
Right & below: Mongolian shamans perform a healing on Rowan
over the years, to gravitate down there for my stories. To cut a long story short, I had followed a story -which eventually became a book, ‘The Healing Land’ - about how I had found that my non-white family (my South African family is a real post colonial mish-mash) was related to the last group of San (Bushman) hunter-gatherers living in South Africa. And this clan, reduced to just 30 people, had been kicked out of a national park back in the 70s and suddenly, post Mandela, had got themselves a human rights lawyer, and were asking for their entire hunting grounds back after some 25 years of living by the side of the road as beggars.
The story led me inevitably into human rights advocacy. I became active in their struggle and saw them win their land claim against the odds. Then another, larger clan, up in the neighbouring country of Botswana, got kicked off their land to make way
for diamond mines (don’t buy diamonds, people - way too much suffering involved even from those that come from African countries away from the classic war zones). I said “Uh, OK...” and next thing I knew I was having to escort a delegation of Bushmen across the USA, to speak at the United Nations and on Capitol Hill, to protest their cultural genocide.
Some of these Bushmen -from the Gana and Gwi clans of Botswana's Central Kalahari Game Reserve - were trained healers, or shamans if you like, in their own culture. Rowan came along for part of the trip. They offered, rather casually, to do some work on Rowan. Kristin and I said “Why not? Can’t hurt him”.
The results were extraordinary. For about five days Rowan began to lose some of his autism symptoms - began stopping his obsessive behaviours, using
complex language, showing his toys to people, pointing. When the Bushmen went back home at the end of the journey, he fell back into his autism again.
But I couldn’t help but wonder: what if I was to take Rowan to a place that combined that kind of healing with horses? These, after all, were providing more radical and positive results than the more orthodox therapies we were trying. What if we were to do something crazy like that? Did such a place even exist?
I did some research. It did. Mongolia. The place where the horse as we know it - equus
caballus - evolved. the place where humankind first got on a horse 6000 years ago. And the one
The following
morning our guide
had organised nine
shamans to come
heal Rowan at the
foot of a sacred
mountain. Some
had travelled
hundreds of miles
place on the planet, I found out, where shamanism is actually the state religion, alongside Buddhism. The word shaman is actually a South Siberian-Mongolian word meaning 'he who knows.'
What if we were to take Rowan there, riding from shaman to shaman? What if we were to do that?
No way, said Kristin, when I put the idea to her. Not just no -bleeping no! We fought about it for two years. In the end, in the summer of 2007, we found
ourselves boarding a plane to Mongolia, setting out on the adventure of our lives.
So we get to Mongolia. I had to admit that the capital, Ulaanbaataar, wasn't exactly what I'd had in mind - a kind of depressed, post-Soviet slum stretching some twenty miles of broken concrete, smokestacks, and old apartment buildings, down a long narrow valley between high mountains.
But the following morning Tulga, our guide, had organised nine shamans to come heal Rowan at
the foot of a sacred mountain called the Bogd Khan. Some had travelled hundreds of miles to come do the healing. We drove out to meet them - the city stopping abruptly at the mountain wall, and wild nature taking over with no suburban, farming, or transitional zone.
And at first I thought I'd made a huge mistake. The shamans' drumming, whirling, chanting were all too much for Rowan at the beginning. As for Kristin and I - we got whipped with rawhide. Kristin was made to wash her vagina out
And right at the end of the cer emony,
Rowan turned to this little
Mongolian boy who had been
standing with the rest of the
crowd, watching, opened his
arms and said, “Mongolian
brother.”
Rowan, Tommoo, a lion and a cow, ride together across the open
with vodka - I thought she was going to divorce me! Vodka and milk were spat in our faces. The day grew hot and humid. Had I grossly misjudged this whole thing? Was I going to have to pack the whole thing up and go home?
Then something shifted. Rowan became suddenly comfortable, happy. Started laughing, giggling, playing with the shamans, trying to grab their feathered headresses, drum sticks, and round drums, even as they whirled and danced, deep in trance.
And right at the end of the ceremony, Rowan turned to this little Mongolian boy who had been standing with the rest of the crowd, watching, opened his arms and said, “Mongolian brother.”
He'd never done anything like that before. The little boy was called Tommoo - the six-year-old son of our guide, Tulga. Seeing the boys' interaction, Tulga decided to bring him along on the trip. Rowan - right there in the ceremony - had made his first-ever friend.
So... out into the vast interior we went. At first in 4x4 vans -Rowan laughing delightedly as we were tossed about, hour after hour, as if in a cement mixer, as the van lumbered over rough terrain. We switched to horses, and Rowan at first worried me hugely by rejecting the animals, not wanting to get on, then relenting, enjoying himself again, then rejecting them again as he went through the inevitable mood swings of the first few days.
It was stressful - imagine taking an incontinent kid, who soils his pants three times per day, to a place with no washing machines, and little surface water. But Rowan loved the open steppe, playing with his new friend out there in the great vastness.
There were hazards, alarms, falls from horses, wolves coming round at
night and causing the horses to break their lead ropes and flee, having to be tracked down next morning. Our cameraman, Michel, got sick (not Rowan, luckily - I was very anal about making sure all his water was ultra-violet cleansed before he drank it).
But eventually we found ourselves at the edge of Siberia -into whose mountains we had to climb on horseback in order to try and find a shaman of the reindeer people. A man called Ghoste. A man who, it was said, was the most effective healer in all Mongolia. So, up into the wilderness we climbed, fording rivers, crossing great meadows of white edelweiss and blue mountain lupins, entering and leaving the great stands of Siberian pine, until we crested the high pass, 12,000 feet up, that heralded the start of the summer pastures of the reindeer herders.
Finding a shaman isn’t so easy, however. For example, the reindeer people (Dukha) are nomads, moving between fixed points of summer pasture and winter forage. So assuming you’re going to find them just like that is, well, an assumption. And assuming you do find them, then you have to hope the shaman feels that he or she can help you. And agrees to.
We were lucky: the Dukha were about to move to another site, but we had hit them before they moved their tipis. If you ever wondered whether it was true that Amerindians moved across the Bering Strait from Siberia, then one quick look at the tipis of the Dukha and other cultures like them and, it all looks pretty familiar.
Ghoste, the shaman, asked us to visit him in his tipi that night. We were all exhuasted from two 10-hour days in the saddle (it had
taken that long to make the ascent), but Rowan seemed to love being in Ghoste's tipi.
The shaman was perhaps 70 years old, and still fit and lean, with a face crossed by weather, experience, humour. He took dried herbs, and singed them on the stove that sat in the middle of the tipi. He then began to brush Rowan with them, as if feeling him out. As he did so, Kristin, who held rowan in her arms, leaned over to me and whispered: “Can you feel it?”
“No” I answered. “What?” “It’s like pins and needles, really strong pins and needles.”
I couldn’t feel a thing, but then Kristin was the one holding Rowan. Could he feel it too? He did seem strangely calm.
That night, after dismissing us, Ghoste said he had to take a night to commune with the spirits to see what he could do for Rowan. Specifically, he needed to take a spirit journey to talk to Betsy's spirit.He said he felt she was still Rowan's principal protector and guide. OK, we said, not really knowing what else to say, and off we went to our tent to sleep. Rowan slept 14 hours that night - unheard of for him, usually so hyperactive.
The following day was peaceful - Rowan playing with the baby reindeer, riding reindeer, playing with Tomoo. We waited to hear from Ghoste what he thought could be done. Finally, at 9pm, with the sky still light, the latitude being so northern, we were
ushered into his tipi once more. The ceremony was so low key, so gentle, compared to the high
It was stressful
-imagine taking
an incontinent kid,
who soils his pants
three times per
day, to a place
with no washing
machines, and little
surface water
drama of the ceremony outside Ulanbataar. Rowan loved being in the tipi, crawling around saying “I’m a baby elephant!” and again “There's an eagle, a hawk in the house!” when he looked up at Ghoste, as he stood in the half-light, drumming, the feathered headdress hiding his face as he sent prayers up to the Lords of the Mountain.
And then, quietly, without fuss, it was done. “Go sleep now,” said Ghoste, doffing his shaman's coat and sitting down to light a casual cigarette. “There's too much spirit activity here right now. Go back to your side of the river. Tomorrow, before you go, I'll come and say goodbye.” Rowan burst into tears at having to leave Ghoste's tipi. Real tears of loss. Heartbreak even.
Next morning, Ghoste came as promised to say goodbye, and worked on Rowan a third time, running his fingers lightly over Rowan’s spine and skull, up and
down, as if pulling some thing - or things - out.
Finally, when he was done, Ghoste said something that surprised even me, with all my years of having worked with Bushman healers in Southern Africa. He said that Rowan would get gradually less and less autistic till the age of nine. But he also said that the stuff that really drove us crazy, the incontinence, the tantrums - these would start to leave now, like today. I was guarding my heart. I didn’t want to allow myself to be disappointed. But as we rode away and down the mountain, that indeed, just as Ghoste had said, was when everything began to change.
About 25 hours after coming down the mountain from Ghoste's camp, Rowan squatted down on a sandbank in the river Orghon, where we had stopped to swim and pitch tents, and did his first intentional poo. And cleaned himself. On camera. We couldn’t believe it.
Three days later, when we reached the nearest town, Rowan, for the first time in his life, pooed in the potty. We drank the ger camp out of beer that night. And as we celebrated, Rowan joined the other kids in their evening games. One of them. No longer the odd kid out.
From then - for about the next three weeks - we had perhaps six tantrums of any note. Before Ghoste that would have been about half a day's worth.
By the time we got back to the US, they had gone completely. Rowan arrived home and
immediately started making friends with the kids in the neighbourhood. He started riding Betsy by himself.
That year he had his first birthday party. All the kids in the neighbourhood came.
Now - 18 months or so on from our return - Rowan is doing a first grade curriculum, but reads and does math at 3rd-4th grade.
We have also started an equine therapy center near Austin, Texas, where we live - the Horse Boy Foundation. Every day we have between three to seven kids coming through, some are autistic, some are not, but just want to learn to ride. We make sure they mix, and spend good, long periods of time in nature, playing together. Rowan did not come back from Mongolia cured, he is still autistic.
But he did get healed of the three terrible dysfunctions that so plagued him and so impaired his quality of life and ours: the incontinence, the tantrumming and being cut off from his peers. All those are a memory.
Rowan's autism comes across now as more of a charming quirk. It’s who he is. I’m starting to realise that you can be an incredibly effective, productive human being and also be autistic. Its another type of person, rather than necessarily a disorder per se.
Ghoste also told us that we should take Rowan for at least one good healing a year, every year until he's nine. What a brilliant excuse for a yearly family adventure.
Last year we took him down to the bushmen in southern Africa's Kalahari. This year, because of the book tour, we'll be in Australia, so I am looking for the right
Aboriginal healers. The adventure continues.
One last thing - whenever I have tried to pin one of the healers down about how it all works, this shamanism thing, they all of them - whether Mongolian, bushman or from wherever - give me the same answer. “It’s just love” they say. “Pure and simple. Only through training you can learn to direct it. That's what we do.”
Rupert Isaacson is an author and journalist. He was born in London to Southern African parents and now lives in Austin, Texas with his American wife Kristin and their son Rowan. He is the author of several books, including ‘The Healing Land: The Bushmen and the Kalahari Desert’ and ‘The Horse Boy’ (see the review in this issue of Sacred Hoop).
The Horse Boy Foundation runs a small learning and equestrian center - The New Trails Center - in Elgin, Texas, just outside of Austin.
www.horseboyfoundation.org
There is also a film due for release about his healing trip to Mongolia.
www.horseboymovie.com www.myspace.com/horseboymovie All photos (except photo of Betsy p8 and Ghoste on p12): © Justin Jin
Justin is a former Reuters correspondent, for China, and now works as an independent photojournalist tackling such themes as authoritarianism in Russia, exploitation in China, and illegal immigration in Europe. His work appears in leading magazines and newspapers world wide, as well as in galleries and museums. He lives in Moscow. www.justinjin.com
Sacred Hoop wishes to thank Justin for his permission to use the photos in this article.
Ghoste came and worked on
Rowan a third time, running
his fingers lightly over his spine
and skull, up and down, as if
pulling something, or things, out.
Things have changed a lot since the old days. By the old days I don’t mean twenty-three years ago, when I first started teaching courses in shamanism. No, I mean the old, old days - long before the Vikings, long before the Druids, long before the megalith builders, back to that time when our ancestors sat around campfires fashioning wooden tools with stone tools, listening to the silence, feeling the presence of the spirits. And even though things have changed, still there is a connection to that time.
I find it wonderful that we, as shamanic practitioners, are the ones who are consciously carrying that connection to our most remote ancestors, and yet this is something that we forget, question, and often fail to realise to its full depth.
We make comparisons. “Why can’t we be like the shamans of old?” I have heard people ask. The answer is, mainly, because we don’t live in the past. We are here, for better or worse, at the
beginning of the 21st Century. Once, a participant asked if we weren’t just ‘playing Indian.’ It’s a fair enough question, because to the untutored eye, that’s how it may appear.
There we are, twenty-some people, sitting in a circle, a circle which was originally made around a fire, then moved to a skin tent, and which we, in our time, have rediscovered is the best way to sit, especially in a square room, if we are going to talk together. And talking together, we find out that this rediscovery of our inheritance, our true nature, is what some people not only want, but also need.
And some people ask "But how
can I bring my shamanic practice into my 21st Century life?" Again, this is a fair question, and many people ask it. But first - what is it we want to bring back into our lives?
Many of us are urban or suburban dwellers. We are surrounded by modern
conveniences, which we eagerly consume, pre-packaged foods, synthetic materials, and air pollution. If we are lucky, we have a job which we enjoy on some levels, and live with people who are supportive of us, and for whom we try to be supportive.
And we have our shamanic practice. But what is that shamanic
practice? The answer to this question is as different as the people reading these words. My experience from teaching
shamanism tells me that the majority of people who practice shamanism today do not do so because they want to bring back the past.
For me, and for many others, the reason for practicing shamanism is to maintain our contact with the Spirit World, and to bring the power of that contact into our lives and to our world today. This power is our spiritual heritage.
We do, however, live in the computer age and not in the stone age. The power from the Spirit World is the same as it always was, but the world around us has changed.
About fifteen years ago a Sami friend of mine arranged a course for me in arctic Finland, primarily for Sami people. One of the things that struck me was the difference in the quality of the intention of the journey missions. While I was used to hearing such missions as “How can I heal my inner child?” from course participants in England, a Sami man asked his spirit helpers “Where on the river can I catch most fish?”
Even in our day and culture, people come to see shamanic practitioners for physical health
EMPOWERMENT
~ our Shamanic
Inheritance
Jonathan Horwitz
Jonathan at his centre in Swedenthe reason
for practicing
shamanism is
to maintain our
contact with the
Spirit World
problems; but, unless they know about shamanism beforehand, the shaman is often the last of the health practitioners to be visited, and often only when all other practitioners have signed the case off as hopeless.
But in many cases, people who don’t know much about
shamanism come to see shamanic practitioners about ‘life issues’ rather than ‘health issues’.
I feel there is a tendency in the western shamanic revival to (psycho-) therapeutise shamanism, and given the life-style of the 21st Century, this is natural enough. Probably more than at any time in the history of the world, people are daring to ask the questions of themselves and their lives that only
philosophers asked before. We dig deeper. We want to know the answers. We want to do better, better at least than how we were doing before.
So not surprisingly, one of the big drawing cards of shamanism is soul retrieval. People who know nothing about shamanism hear the phrase ‘soul loss’ and it rings a bell. This is because so many of us suffer from soul loss. The result of this is that pressure is put on the shamanic practitioner to perform the soul retrieval ritual in such a way as it is palatable to our times’ taste, even in cases where it may not be appropriate. And this presents an interesting cluster of related conundrums.
I feel a major problem for people interested in practising shamanism in the western world, is that shamanism is viewed simply as techniques we can learn. However, it is the spirits who empower, not the use of techniques.
Workshops can inspire and give introductory experience. You can learn to journey to the spirits. You
can learn the basics of power or soul retrieval. You can learn to diagnose, to find the spirits of illness, and how to remove them. And this is all very valuable.
Sometimes when I teach a basic technique someone says ‘Oh, but I’ve done this before.’ This is what I call the ‘Pepsi view’ of life - ‘been there - done that’.
Fortunately, life is not like that. Each moment is new, each experience is new. It is just our closed minds which keep us from seeing and experiencing the ever-changing colours of the sunrise.
Detractors of shamanic healing often say that the patient has to believe in shamanism, that is, believe in the spirits, for it to work. This is patently not true.
One of the most graphic examples of this was when I was doing an afternoon healing workshop at a conference on shamanism held at a University in northern England, some years ago.
The person we were working on was very ill with colitis and had been for two years. She was a psychologist working in a psychiatric ward of a large hospital. She had no previous knowledge of shamanism
whatsoever, except that one of her colleagues had told her it was like stone-age psychotherapy. She had come to the conference to learn about shamanism.
Fortunately, there were sixty rattling singers and an excellent drummer on hand.
While I was doing the diagnostic work, I was shown a huge sleeping snake some thirty feet long and a yard wide, right where her lower intestine should have been.
“What’s THAT!?!” I shouted at my very relaxed looking healing teacher spirit, who was sitting right next to me. “Oh, yes, that’s her power animal. It’s making her sick because she refuses to recognise it.” my teacher replied to me.
My healing teacher then told me how to remove it, and to put it into a small piece of amber which I had been carrying in my pocket for the past two years, and then told me to give the amber - and the snake - to the woman.
Three months later I received a letter from the woman. At the moment of healing at the conference, all the symptoms of the illness had totally disappeared.
Petroglyphs in the Superstition Mountains -Arizona, USA
Perhaps from her point of view, I did the healing. But from my point of view, it was my teacher, my power animal, and her’s who brought her the power which restored her health. Yes, I was the conduit - and the power flowed through me - but it was the work of the spirits.
For non-practitioners, the shaman’s relationship to the Spirit-World is problematic, to say the least. Those who do not
experience the Spirit World, and its power, view shamanism with an intellectual interest or a beneficent tolerance; still others with irritation, or even fundamentalist rage.
This is something we have to live with. But what has interested me increasingly over the years, is the effect this has on some shamanic practitioners.
For many, the result has been to emulate psychotherapists, even to the extent of getting an education as a therapist in order to have a façade of respectability. The result of this is that the burden is put on the practitioner to use ‘techniques’, be they
shamanic or psychotherapeutic. But where are the spirits in this? The techniques are the beginning. But with each gift comes
responsibilities, and for shamans the responsibilities are spiritual. If we do not accept the responsibilities, then the techniques - together with their shortterm peak experiences -become empty rituals. The spirits want us to learn from our experiences, change, accept responsibility, and become as powerful as the power they offer us.
Shamanism is not
psychotherapy. The person visiting a shamanic practitioner may well have worked with a psychotherapist before and, not unreasonably, may be expecting something similar to whatever that was.
In psychotherapy, the relationship is between the therapist and the client. In shamanism, the relationship is between the shamanic practitioner and the spirits and the client. This means that from the shaman’s point of view, the power she is working with comes from the Spirit World through her to the client. The shaman’s relationship to the spirits is the very essence and foundation of shamanism. No spirits - no shaman. The shaman’s power
comes from the spirits. This is one thing that has not changed for the last quarter of a million years.
This is also what differentiates a shaman from a so-called ‘normal’ person. A normal person may well know who their spirit helpers are, but a shaman knows how to communicate with their spirits and how to interact with them1
. It is practice that takes us further. Practice, practice, practice. What I mean by practice is: manifesting in our lives what we learn from our spirit teachers and guides.
This is why I have started doing individual practice trainings at my simple retreat center in the woods of southern Sweden. I start with where people are in their practice, and listen to where they want to go. So many people don’t even know what they want, but if you listen you can generally hear it.
The interesting thing is that the spirits know well what we want, but they are more interested in giving us what we need. The tragicomic truth is that often we are presented with what we need and we reject it because our tightly clutched agenda keeps insisting on what we want.
I know a lot of people who argue with their spirit teachers. I’ve even heard myself doing it. There are two key words in successful spiritual practice, shamanism included. The two words are trust and surrender. We have to trust our spirit teachers if we are to surrender to their power and wisdom, otherwise we cannot receive what it is that they have to give us.
By this I am not saying that we should resign all responsibility for our lives to the spirits. We have responsibility for our lives. Our shamanic practice is a part of that responsibility. When we go to them, do we listen or not? Do we receive their power? Do we follow their teachings?
The experience you get from practicing, from doing the work, builds on itself and is ever expanding. Every time I do a healing I learn something new, as with the woman with colitis, because each case is different.
True, I am often slow to learn, for instance, up until then, it had never occurred to me that one’s own power could make one sick.
But not only did I learn from my teacher that unaccepted personal power can make you ill, I also
learned new techniques on how to take care of the situation. And this is how I continue to learn, by giving the spirits room to work, not only with the person coming for treatment, but also with myself. Shamanism is a demanding practice for many reasons, but in one very special way it is not. When we work with the spirits they give us the power we need to do the work. The hardest part is learning to hold onto the power.
The reasons for this being difficult are many, but it is often because we do not feel ready. But, both with myself and the people I work with, what I find is that when I am journeying, the further I get away from the ordinary reality of my ego, where I formulated the mission, and go deeper into the world of the spirits, the further I get away from what I want and closer to what I need.
One day, when I was doing my morning ritual, suddenly several of my spirit helpers were standing before me in my room. I was stunned. One of them said: “Now you have given yourself to us.”
“Wait a minute!” I protested, rattle in hand. “I didn’t ask for this!” I felt faint, and began to fall. One of them caught me before I hit the ground. “Don’t worry,” he said, and continued, “We have also given ourselves to you.”
Jonathan Horwitz has been practicing shamanism since 1972, and teaching courses and retreats since 1986. He set up the Scandinavian Centre for Shamanic Studies together with Annette Høst, and regularly runs courses in the UK, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Russia and Hungary.
For the last two years he has run a small retreat centre in southern Sweden. All his courses and information can be found at www.shamanism.dk
I feel a major problem for people
interested in practicing shamanism
in the western world, is that
shamanism is viewed simply as
techniques we can learn.
However, it is the spir its who
empower, not the use of tec hniques
Jonathan Horwitz and Nicholas Breeze Wood will be leading a workshop together on Spirit Blessings, at the Conference for Shamanic Practitioners at Gaunts House, Dorset, England in September 2009 www.shaman conference.co.uk NOTES: 1: ‘Aspects of the Moral Compact of a Washo Shaman.’ (Handelman, Don [1972] in: Anthropological Quarterly, 45, 2.)
People who contact me for
mentoring have often done shamanic journey training. This is the process of entering an altered state in a controlled way, usually with a drumming rhythm played to assist the change of awareness, and with an intention or mission – a question for their spirit helpers in ‘Non Ordinary Reality’, where they live.
One of the first such ‘journeys’ that people often go on is to find a spirit animal helper (sometimes called a power animal), who guides and aids them in their experiences in the spirit worlds. In the journey, at the end of a pre-decided time, the journeyer is called back to ‘Ordinary Reality’ by an agreed signal; they then reflect on all that has happened as a response to their original question.
When people call me for mentoring, sometimes long after their original training, they often ask whether their previous experience with their spirits was real or imagined. I can only say that over the years, life with the spirits has been very, very real for me.
On one occasion I was putting up a large tipi in a very gusty wind – not a wise move. The poles were in place and I was inside the familiar cone shape, about to tie the canvas - and therefore the whole structure - to the ground. In effect, I was holding an umbrella of heavy canvas and small tree poles.
A gust of wind suddenly got under the canvas and lifted the whole thing, and it was about to collapse in on itself – and me.
At that moment my wolf spirit helper came to me and somehow guided me through the only available exit, the door opening that was hanging a few feet from the ground, some yards away.
I am not athletic, but amazingly in that split second we leaped together, and apparently were seen to shoot out horizontally just in time. A second later the tipi was a tangle of canvas and broken poles behind us.
Another time, a young woman told me about the strong relationship she had with her two tiger spirit helpers. Returning home late one night, her thoughts far from shamanic matters, she was the only passenger in an underground train carriage.
At a station several youths barged on just before the train moved off. They were clearly off their heads on
C
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JJO
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life with the spirits after the workshop
FAITH NOLTON
After more than 25 years’ working
alongside my spirit helpers, I now
work as a shamanic mentor and
listen to other people’s soul travels
And I am often the one to say
“It’s OK – that’s normal - good job!”
drink or drugs, and began jeering, and advancing on her. She had no doubts about their intentions.
As she braced for attack, her tigers appeared to her, standing in the central walkway between her and the youths, growling and snarling and ready to defend her. The youths instantly stopped in their tracks, backed off and remained cowed at the other end of the carriage until the next station, where they beat a hasty retreat. Then her power animals stood down.
Of course our life with the spirit helpers is not often that dramatic, thank goodness, and one cannot rely on leading a charmed life – but it can happen that way. Life with the spirits relates to real life situations, not just personal development or therapeutic concerns.
This connection with our spirit helpers, and the wider awareness it brings, develops over time, and through our time shared together.
As a mentor, I often get contacted when people have not managed to journey in their home space, or have lapsed in their practice for a period of time, sometimes several years. They may really miss their power animal, and the world of the spirits - it is still nagging inside.
The spirits may have been giving them a nudge in some way in their everyday life, maybe an odd page falls out of a workshop journal, or someone sends them a card with their animal on and they feel the heart connection again. Whatever the reason, they have not got going with journeys, and feel out of touch and isolated.
For their world changed when they met their spirits; they took a step into a larger view of the reality and got a new skin, whether it feels comfy now or not. Experiences can’t be un-experienced.
The initial shamanic workshop space may have been exciting and real for them. They had the support of a ready-made, safe and
empowered space to work in, the safety net of a group of fellow-travellers and an experienced guide.
This safe containing of the workshop setting is often not noticed. But back at home, where they cook supper for the kids, or make sure the car is serviced, go to work each day, and deal with their personal relationships, all that workshop stuff can look very, very unreal.
Often people feel they are the only ones having difficulties, that they have let themselves down in some way, and it has been hard to ask for help. So I would like to share with you some of the typical questions that arise.
And before I do, let me also say that all practitioners find
mentoring, or reflection from others, invaluable at times, regardless of their length of experience. I have people I can meet or phone when I get stuck with my practice or my life. And I value this greatly.
These are some of the very typical questions I have been asked by people:
“Wasn’t that journey just my imagination… how can I be certain it was real…?”
Of course there are no absolute proofs. Imagination, however, is not a sign of mental insufficiency, or something we should have grown out of; it is a vital tool which we understand more as we use it, like a muscle.
As we gain experience with the shamanic journey, we learn to distinguish between fantasy, our own busy mind-stuff, ‘self-scaring’, and connection with the real world of the spirits. This discernment grows with experience – and if doubts set in before that experience is gained, it can be a big stumbling block.
“I have no power animal yet, after lots of attempts to find one – haven’t I got one?”
In my experience -and traditionally - we all have at least one. When there is a difficulty connecting with the power animal it is often we who are not seeing them. This is often through feeling we don’t deserve one, fear that spirits might be real (or not real), belief that we are ‘always left out’ (Lonely Playground Syndrome), trying too hard, not finding what we expect, or the very common ‘Helper Retrieval Dysfunction’ – if you failed once, it’s for sure gonna happen again!
You can always ask a
practitioner to retrieve your power animal for you, then it is up to you how you get to know each other.
This is a process there is often not time for on a workshop, but it
is really important. If you feel you are going to meet a familiar friend on the journey, it becomes a much less daunting prospect.
“My power animal doesn’t seem to be around, but a new one keeps appearing on journeys – do they change?”
Ask it if it is a new helper for you. Ask, ask, ask - a golden rule on journeys. Sometimes power animals seem to take a back seat for a while – but I find this is more about what our soul and
development needs are at the time. They will get closer again when the time is right.
Recently I had been missing one of my original helpers, whom I had known over twenty years, but who was not accompanying me much any more - just a quick hello at the
start of the journey. Then on a recent workshop I took part in
the drumming - which I don’t usually do - and there he was, right in close, relishing the drumming and dancing around. So it seems like I
found out a bit more about him, and will try doing some drumming to invite him to be with me.
When people call me for mentoring,
sometimes long after their or iginal
training, they often ask whether their
previous experience with their spirits
was real or imagined. I can only say
that over the years life with the spirits
“My power animal got cross and attacked me in a journey. Is she trying to tell me to back off?”
You went to ask the spirits a question – your ‘mission’. Everything that happens on a journey is part of the spirits’ response to that. Always.
I have been cuffed round the ear by my helpers, even knocked on my back, been roared at … all part of responses to my question. It is not personal. And helpers won’t give you this kind of response until you are experienced enough to get the message – even if it takes you a while! They are there to help, but not make it easy. Otherwise we would never learn, push our boundaries, get out of our comfort zones.
This response can also be a way of testing our intent, our commitment, our trust. We are being trained by the spirits. This is not human territory but it is in my experience deeply loving.
“I have tried to journey with several practitioners, but when I imagine going into my entrance tunnel there is just blackness, no vivid scenery like I hear other folk describe. What am I doing wrong?”
Nothing, except maybe doubting yourself, and comparing your experience to that of others. Ask your power animal to help you. Work with all that you experience – with the nothing: the quality of it, the sound of it, the smell. Reach out, walk forward – don’t assume you are suspended in a void. Don’t assume anything!
It is so important to be pro-active in journeying, not float about without direction. So keep repeating your mission to the ‘nothing’ and pause
for any new response. Explain that you cannot see. Use your
imagination to try out different ‘tools’. One woman I worked with was stuck like this, and eventually remembered she could use imagination to picture herself a flashlight. She switched it on and yes, there was the entrance tunnel around her; and when she looked up she saw a circle of sky, the hole at the start of her entrance tunnel she had just stepped through, with her power animal peering down at her.
Many traditional shamans have little replicas of such tools tied to their costumes, their drums, painted on their rattles – each person’s tool kit is different, according to his or her needs. It might be a ladder, grappling hook, light sabre, scissors, axe, summoning trumpet, fear dispersing wand… There are no rules or right aesthetics – just what works for you.
Also, not everyone ‘sees’ in technicolour pictures. Some people navigate by sounds, smells, patterns… it is a conversation with the spirits that we are learning to interpret.
“I have had a power animal for a couple of years, but now another animal is joining us on journeys – can I have more than one, and what will my original one think?”
Yes, there is no limit to numbers, but usually there are one or two main helpers; the others may visit in different situations, contributing their particular energetic powers. For example, I have one who tows me in the spirit world to where I need to go; there is another crowd who turn up to encourage and cheer me on when I need it.
Ask the new animal if it is a power helper for you, and if so, thank it and acknowledge the relationship. Your original helper will probably not see why you are concerned about its feelings – emotional hierarchy is a human pre-occupation. But by all means check it out with them. Again -ask, -ask, ask.
“I used to be close with my power animal but have lost touch through not journeying for quite a while. I feel like journeying again now, but wonder if they are still there for me and if so, will they be angry?”
We may really feel we have blown our relationship through neglect.
We just have to take the plunge and go and ask.
Recently during a mentoring session one client was moved to tears as he realised that the spirit animal he felt he had abandoned some years before, had been patiently following him. Once he took off his ‘guilt blinkers’ there in my practice room, in a safe space, he sensed the presence of his power animal so strongly.
He realised it was still by his side and the reunion was heart-to-heart and a privelege to witness. I have known this happen over and over. And when that man reflected on the events of his life during the ‘separation’ period, he could see the influence and presence of his helper all along.
We do not know what timing schedule we are part of, on our soul journey. Sometimes an apparent absence from a spiritual process like journeying – it could as easily be meditating or ceremonial work – is simply a detour of learning and growing that we have to do as part of our own soul growing process.
If your helper seems withdrawn, or not enthusiastic - ask why, and ask if there is anything you need to do or know in order to re-connect again. There may be a teaching you are being offered, so note your own feelings as this is going on – it is all part of the spirits’ response to the mission.
“I have been told by a teacher that I trust that journeying is not for me. How else can I connect with the spirits?”
Shamanic work through journeying is not for everyone. Not all shamans work with journeying – there are many ways. Indeed, you may already have a practice that is working fine for you. Or it may not be the right time for you for other reasons that you do not know about. And you can always ask other people to journey to ask questions on your behalf.
The spirits have not shut you out. This is not a rejection – you simply need to find how to connect with the spirits in ways that suit you. Spirits are an integral part of the many dimensions of life, part of the soul landscape. You can no more be separated from them than the wind can avoid contact with the land.
Prayer is a powerful – though often neglected – way to connect
one client was moved
to tears as he realised that
the spirit animal he thought he
had abandoned some years before
had been patiently following him.
Once he took off his ‘guilt blinkers’
he sensed the presence of
with your spirits too, as is ritual, dancing and dreaming.
“Every time I try to journey something in this reality stops me, whether it’s the phone ringing or the washing machine leaking ….. is it a sign I shouldn’t be journeying?
Ah yes - that old problem of omens and signs! The difference between superstition and discretion can be a fine line. Superstition operates on irrational fears, whereas discretion operates on logic and reflection. And of course fear happily uses interruptions and distractions as a way of avoidance. Also we might wait for perfect conditions – those don’t often happen, and are not necessary. One day you might need to do a journey to ask for help in much less ideal circumstances.
To check out the fear option, consider what you might be avoiding. Are you making your missions a bit too challenging? Or are your questions to the spirits ones you don’t really want to hear the answer to?
Take small steps: get familiar with the practicalities of journeying at home, organising the space you are using, settling yourself beforehand. Practice setting up your journey space in different ways, different rooms, sitting, lying down… experiment! It is important that you are comfortable with the process and there are no rules.
On that original workshop all the preparation of space and energies was done beforehand by the workshop leader, and now you must find out what suits you in your particular circumstances.
RECAPTURING THE MAGIC
People often seek mentoring because they feel isolated, with no shamanic connections now they are back home. They feel they have lost contact with a beautiful and fulfilling place and the spirits that live there. They need to regain confidence.
The first message has to be that that beautiful place is still there for them, when they are ready.
To get the feel of working in your home, why not settle down in the place you are thinking of using for journeying, maybe light a candle, and take some quiet time to reconnect with the circle by reading through your original journal entries and notes. Send good wishes out
to the circle you learned with, and to your trainer. Send love to your spirit helper(s) and recall how meeting them had felt.
You might play a short track on a shamanic drumming CD, and go to the place you originally pictured to start your journey. This starting place, or gateway to the spirit worlds may need changing and experimenting with.
No need to make a journey this time, the intent is simply to go visit, reconnect with the place, review it, take a look around and then come back.
You may ask your power animal to meet you there and hang out for a while. The helpers work with us as real people, not spiritual performers. They, too, are concerned to have strong, clear communication.
Whatever our human world situation is, whether we belong to a drumming group, or have friends who journey, the helpers are always there in their world as a support system and community.
On an everyday level, there are online shamanic forums,
associations or web communities. But don’t expect perfection from other practitioners or circles – or teachers - just because they have a spiritual tag; people will be people, fallible in all the same old ways.
If you are seeking to re-start or deepen your practice, you might choose to repeat the basic training to give yourself a boost, or consider finding a phone or email buddy with whom you can swap notes and check out progress.
You will need to have a contract for confidentiality, and promise each other to say if the contact is too frequent, or if the timing needs organising better. It can help
confidence to have a shamanic friend to phone before and after a journey in real time and share your journey with.
Supervision from a practitioner can be very helpful too, to advise on the wording of your journey missions and share the results with, or you might book to have a couple of one-to-one sessions with a trained shamanic counsellor. In shamanic counselling the spirits are the counsellors, you do the journey, while the practitioner holds the space, supports and witnesses.
You can always get in touch with your original trainer to see if they can recommend possible contacts for any of this.
For those of you who have felt stuck, I hope this has opened some doors that seemed shut. And I wish you a close and supportive relationship with your
spirits that unfolds in beauty
and truth.
Faith Nolton (formerly Jan Morgan Wood) is a shamanic artist, mentor and trainer and also works with the Medicine Wheel teachings. She founded Sacred Hoop Magazine, being editor until recently. She is author of the illustrated workbook ‘Easy to Use Shamanism’. She offers workshops, talks and individual mentoring sessions on shamanism, soul awareness and creativity. Faith’s visionary artwork is in collections worldwide and can be seen at www.soulgardens.co.uk She lives in West Wales
(01239) 682 071 www.soulgardens.co.uk (artwork gallery) www.earthstarcentre.com (soul and shamanic work) Tigers on the train photo © Nicholas Breeze Wood
We are all stuck in our own stupidity and narrow-mindedness, in our own limiting and border-filled worlds, walking with a closed heart. Especially me. But that is who we are at that moment, and if we are blessed enough, then maybe we will open up, maybe we will learn something. I like to think that I have, as time has gone by.
But what is blessing more than simply a well-wishing for others? And who has the rights to perform a blessing? The priest? The official? Me?
Raised in a Christian
household, actively participating in choirs, attending and/or leading Bible studies, and later doing healing work through the Holy Spirit, I grew up thinking that it was only the priests and ministers who could bless others; thinking that they were endowed with exclusive special rights and authority. I experienced their blessing at the end of a church service as a powerful tool which was somehow intimidating. I never even noticed my father blessing me all those years when he said grace over dinner!
When the spirit of a magnificent fir tree came to assist me in my healing work, my road with the church split, and I became seen as someone who was not working through the Holy Spirit. I began to spurn the prayers of my family, friends and church ministers and of anyone associated with Christianity. I didn’t want their blessings because they seemed only to want me to convert back to the ‘true path’, their path. They didn’t want ‘good’ for me; they just wanted their way because it was the ‘right way’.
And so I thought and believed then, and for the next nine years or so lived that truth.
What closed eyes and heart I must have had! Why was I running around thinking of protection from other people’s energy? Thinking that others were trying to
manipulate me and my path? Was it that their Christian blessings were expressed from a place of love for humankind and humanness after all? Were my eyes and
heart so closed as to not see the
blessings that were being given all around me?
Songs to a
Faraway Sky
The use of blessings in Tuvan Shamanism
Christiana Harle
Blessings are a
an important part
of the role of most
shamans, bringing
the gifts and grace
of the spirits
to the people
Opposite page:
dark skies and a rainbow over Tuva’s wild landscape Opposite page -bottom: Tuvan shaman drums during a ceremony Tuvan mother and child AN EYE-OPENER
I didn’t get much information on blessing during my initial shamanic coursework with the Foundation for Shamanic Studies in early 1990’s. Reviewing notes taken on journeys and teachings, it wasn’t emphasized much back then.
Spirit helpers did give me blessing or healing songs however, and I experienced blessing in my journeys to the Spirit World from my helpers, but not so much from us humans on this side of the fence. It wasn’t discussed in ethnographic literature very much either, and when it was, it was degraded, misinterpreted by the reporter.
My path led me to Tuva (see Sacred Hoop, Issue 25, 1999) where I found shamans spending most of their time blessing people, and their animals, places and things; where the everyday human would bless the sky, their home, their path. And they weren’t Christians!
Something snapped inside of me. Something was healed, for wounded I was.
BLESSING: SALT OF LIFE
In Tuvan culture and elsewhere -blessings are an integral part of daily life. They are everyday commonplace occurrences. For example, when a blessing is offered in the morning with the first milky tea made by the mistress of the yurt, she will burn artysh (juniper) by the door of the yurt and offer her tea with her tos-karak1to the skies, mountains, forest and to the rivers.
After completing the ritual she will say something like:
Be merciful, my Khaiyrakan2! Be merciful, my mountains!
Be merciful, my sky! Be merciful, my earth! When she has offered the morning tea to the Universe first, she then offers it to the host of the yurt to drink.
Blessings are part of celebrating and marking the seasons and the rhythm of nature in Tuva, and they are carried out by both the common human (in Tuvan,
someone who does not ‘see’ and work as a shaman) and the shaman.
Offerings and blessings are part of daily life. For instance, under a spring sky, during a thunderstorm, a Tuvan mother might offer milk to the sky, to the khan (Lord) of the azars3 living in the White Sky who would then become glad and peaceful.
The yurt’s mistress’s blessing prayer would be:
The head of the year is coming, Khaiyrakan!
The snake’s head is shedding, Khaiyrakan!
Let white food be abundant, Khaiyrakan!
Let milk and dairy products be tasty, Khaiyrakan!
Let coughing be still, Khaiyrakan! Let snot stop running, Khaiyrakan!
Let the grass and plants be lush, Khaiyrakan!
Let our native-place be prosperous, Khaiyrakan!
BLESSINGS AND THE FAMILY
Shamans are called in to bless the immediate family and relatives.
The shaman Kuular Makar-ool told me how he experienced healing, power and Spirit. He said there is an egg-like orb of protective energy surrounding an individual; another orb around their family, and still another larger orb around near relatives and their aal (a group of yurts situated near one another, all members having kinship; sharing in daily work) which contained also their belongings, animals and even drinking water.
The shaman is called in
specifically to bless them when there is some new event. If the orb is broken then malicious energies enter: people fall ill, or there is ‘bad luck’ or fights occur or animals disappear, etc.
If this happens, the shaman’s job is then to close this energy-orb by blessing and purifying.
I assisted Makar-ool during one house call: a family’s son was moving to the
Tuvan capital Kyzyl to attend technical school and the parents wanted Makar-ool to check the path: to make sure that his road would be clear, to bless the road and family while he was away, as well as bless the relatives also.
The ritual lasted over six hours during which he drummed, sang, ate, made divination, and washed the immediate family’s bare feet and hands; he even included instructions in right living!
I was too busy working and was unable to record his shamanic song, but this one below by Kuular Chanzan-ool Bulunmayevich, an old shaman born in 1901, was recorded in 1990 by Mongush Kenin-Lopsan4, and it contains similar elements.
With golden hair you are my children! Let your mountain pass
to cross over be low, Let your horses be fast, Let your food be satisfying. You are beautiful my children! Let your river-crossing be shallow,
Let your path be fulfilled, Let your happiness be complete.
blessings are an integral
part of daily life.
They are everyday
common place
occurrences
shaman’s ritual milk spoon
