Shamanism

Money, Ethics, and Healing: An Ambivalent Brew

Posted by Chris Dierkes in Emotions, Healing Arts, Philosophy, Shamanism, Spirituality, The Soul

Introduction: Money and Healing Arts

Recently I was asked to speak on energy healing at a bookstore here in Vancouver. In the discussion period a gentleman asked me about my sense of how money relates to energy healing (or healing modalities in general). He wanted to know what were my ethics around energy healing–do I charge? If so, how do I decide what is a just exchange?

It’s an important question, one that too often is either not asked or dismissed altogether. It’s a complex topic to be sure, yet I find myself frustrated when it comes to this topic by what I perceive to be two dominant extremes.

One extreme basically equates being wealthy with higher consciousness (so-called abundance consciousness in a lot of New Age spirituality). In that camp, one should charge whatever others will pay. Anything less is to somehow be infected with the dreaded virus of “poverty consciousness”. I interact with folks advocating some version of this view very frequently. While there are more sophisticated and more gross versions of this one, the same basic philosophy underlies them all, i.e. the philosophy of capitalism. Namely individuals acting in their own perceived highest self-interest intrinsically leads to the best outcome for the common good. Unfortunately history has shown this view does not lead to the creation of just societies. There’s a great deal of shaming that goes into this approach since all the responsibility is directly laid at each individual’s feet. In other words, if you’re poor, it’s your own fault. This spiritualist view also holds a deep misunderstanding of the structure of capitalism as well as how money operates as a debt instrument within capitalism. It too easily denies the reality of material causality in favor of the notion that everything is about consciousness first and materiality is just simply the outward expression of intentionality and consciousness. As a consequence it’s views on politics, economics, and history are naive at best, oppressive at worst.

As but one example of how multifaceted a topic this is, consider the case of spiritual teacher Marianne Williamson. She recently ran for a seat in the US House of Representatives. One of her key criticisms was of the corrupting influence of unchecked corporate money in the US political process (she’s totally on target with that critique btw). At the same time however she published a book on Money, Work, and Consciousness that is oblivious to the similarly corrupting influence of excessive unchecked wealth in the North American consumerist spiritual scene. She failed to articulate (or perhaps see) how the spirituality of money she articulates in her book can easily co-exist with and even give support to the political and economic ideologies that create the destructive political and social situation she so rightly criticizes. (On the other hand she did take the piss out of some rich techies).

So the uncritical view of wealth = abundance consciousness really needs to be critiqued.

The other extreme, however, is to see all forms of specifically monetary exchange as inherently corrupted. This is not really the helpful critique it may look like at first. (These are the kinds of people the first camp always points to as a way to justify their own position). I encounter these folks from time to time in my work–they either explicitly or usually more implicitly criticize me (or others) for charging money for my work. Doesn’t matter the amount–it’s the belief that all healing or spiritual work should be free. In the worst of all cases, this is really just a spiritual rationalization for the fact that they don’t want to properly acknowledge and pay for the skilled work of another. They feel entitled to receive for free without any requisite reciprocity (i.e. they are being deeply unjust). Lot of self-righteousness in this camp in my experience, though a very different kind than the first one.

Fortunately my sense of the man asking me the question was he was sincerely asking. I felt like I had some space to explore this question. The honest truth is I haven’t yet found a way of being in this process that feels completely aligned for me. It may be that I never will reach that place. Perhaps at best I’m angling closer and closer to that mark.

Hell, there may not even be such a place. I think it’s a question those of us creating our own work and businesses in the world in the realm of spirituality, energy healing, coaching, personal development, etc. need to continually be asking. My experience is most folks actually fall somewhere along a spectrum, often an uneasy fluid space, realizing however implicitly, that both extremes are deeply flawed but not entirely sure what other options are available.

Over the course of the last year I’ve developed a diverse set of models that I deploy throughout this work. My hope in so doing is that I’m creating a practice that is balanced in terms of exchange and overall is a just one. Though as I said, it’s definitely a work in progress and I would never claim I’ve solved this conundrum (the more I delve into, the less convinced I am that there is a perfect solution).

Here are the different models I use. But more than anything if this serves any purpose, hopefully it will encourage dialogue on this important topic among practitioners.

Models

Set Energetic Exchange
This form is the most common one I employ. In other worlds it would be considered a fee or the price. I prefer the term exchange. There is a just reciprocity between one who offer gifts with their talents to another and that other then giving back proportionally in response. In this version that exchange comes through money. (Though as you’ll see I do include other forms of exchange in my work). Over the course of the last year I’ve increased the rate of energetic (i.e. monetary) exchange a number of times. I purposefully set the rate initially on the low side in order to gain a sense of facility with the process I was developing. Now that I’ve worked through that process for nearly two years and feel very confident in its beneficial effects, I feel it’s appropriate to set the scale of exchange at a different rate.

Pay What You Can
I’m experimenting with this model in terms of small group work. I learned about this model through a few articles on restaurants where customers can pay whatever they can (or in some versions what they feel the meal is worth). There may be a suggested rate but no one is turned away. Clients with more material means are encouraged (assuming they enjoy the service and meal) to consider giving a larger amount than the suggested rate, knowing that in so doing they are covering for others who can’t afford the suggested rate, thereby allowing the restaurant to pay its staff properly and to maintain itself as a business.

Donation (aka dana)
This one’s straightforward. From the Latin donatio (gift), donation is a pure free-will offering (sometimes with a suggested donation) but ultimately each person makes up his/her mind and makes a monetary offering (or none at all). When I worked in churches this was the dominant form of exchange. In my work now I incorporate donation typically for evening lectures, one off events, or open gatherings.

Gifting
I seek to give out gifts from time to time. I don’t take applications for this one. I simply make a choice depending on the situation or as I desire. The concept derives from the Latin word for grace (gratia, like gratis meaning free of charge), which has its roots in pleasing, favoring, good will. I find it a helpful experience to remind me of the feeling of giving on its own terms.

Barter
Barter is typically in my world called a trade. Trading one’s skill set and sessions for another’s–usually another practitioner of a different healing modality. I have related in that way in the past. I’ve also found alternative forms of trade, e.g. individuals cooking me meals (only really good chefs though quality for this category though!).

Service Tithe
This one is sometimes referred to as the sliding scale, though I don’t agree with that term. What it means in practice is I’ve set a certain number of spots in my work that are available for the right clients who have challenging circumstances around paying the full exchange. Someone very motivated who would connect well with the work but for whom that level of financial contribution is simply not feasible. Those spots only open when one of the individuals currently going through the process under this provision finishes.

Implications

I deeply value the notions of commerce, artistry, production, creation, exchange, currency. I even love the word economics, It was a word used in Christian theology to describe God’s saving relationship to creation. It’s root meaning is the system of fair and equitable distribution of food in an ancient household system (called an oikos). In fact many economic terms have their roots in theology (or alternatively, much of theology has its roots in economics). Words like redemption, which only remains in English in terms of redeeming coupons, originally meant buying the freedom of a slave.

Even the word business itself. Etymologically, it refers to one’s care. It connotes a sense of diligence, occupation. It has a historical meaning of ‘what one is about at the moment’, i.e. one’s business.

I’ve created a business as a means to enact this work in the world. I chose this path over my previous ways–employment in the non-profit sector and my earlier years as a monk with vows of poverty, living in a setting of communal property ownership. The business I’m creating and the revenue it is designed to generate is a means to facilitate the work I want to do as well as the way I am able to provide for the needs of myself and my family. The various models are simply various strategies of trying to balance a sense of personal well being, proper energetic exchange, and justice in an unjust society.

Sadly all of these processes–commerce, trade, exchange, production, artistry–have become funnelled through a very distorted and distorting reality known as capitalism (and money as a debt instrument within capitalism). In its globalized form, capitalism (on the large scale) it seems to me is increasingly driven to a vision of plutocracy–to the desires of simply generating more capital itself. Under the ruling economic ideology (neoliberalism), humanity is choosing to take off the restrictions on capitalism. Capitalism however has no mechanism within itself for the just distribution of the wealth it generates. The evidence is clear that without a contravening process (e.g. high taxation and strong social safety net) capital inevitably becomes massively concentrated by a minuscule percentage of human beings. That this massively unjust distribution and inequality occurs is not primarily due to the fact that the ultra-wealthy have higher consciousness than everyone else and that the masses are unenlightened in their poverty consciousness. Contrary to the New Age ideology, money is not a neutral energy. Everything is not simply a product of your thoughts and actions creating your reality.

It’s taken me a long time to separate out the business, commercial, production, and exchange side from the mechanism of the exchange (namely capitalism). Doing so has allowed me to redeem (there’s that economic/theological word again) a sense of business. But it does mean I do so with full recognition that my business and my service exist within a wider network of injustice.

So while it would be easy for me to rail against them out there, whoever they are, the truth is is that I’m implicated in what I criticize as well. I’m not immune from it. I have seen the enemy and he is me. (At least in part).

How to live with that dual recognition of the inherent goodness of what I seek to offer in this world and the natural reciprocal process of occupation that enables it (also good) along with the intrinsically destructive platform by which and through which it occurs?

Because the honest truth is that I’m not interested in these challenges slowing me down to a place of inaction. I do want to make a significant impact. But I do carry a grief within me–one that I think all of us do if we become sensitized to the injustices of the world. If we don’t cut ourselves off from our natural empathy and horror in the face of such wanton historical and present-time cruelty and brutality. At this point the New Age traditions would advocate that I shouldn’t go down this road because I’m attracting bad things into my life by thinking negative thoughts. But I’m not interested in a spiritual version of anesthesia, to numb out economic, political, and social reality.

So for now this concatenation of models is the best I know how to do. I will continue to seek to evolve those processes and move (hopefully) to a place where the business itself generates new forms of creative expression that instantiate the values I hold dear and reveal a different mode of being, one more aligned to the wisdom of life than our out of alignment and distorted reality known as capitalism.

08 Feb 2015 no comments / READ MORE

I’m Not a Lightworker, I’m a Darkwalker

Posted by Chris Dierkes in Mystics, Shamanism, Spirituality, The Imaginal

In the last year I’ve transitioned from working as a full-time pastor to now working more in the, how do I say this, non-institutionalized version of spirituality popular nowadays. Now that I work in the realm of soul readings, energy healing, and imaginal capacities, I keep coming across the term lightworker. It’s a common term, particularly in the New Age world. I’ve even been occasionally described by others at some gatherings as a lightworker.

This kinda irked me for awhile, but at first I didn’t pay a great deal of attention to it. I just mostly ignored it. Finally at a recent gathering someone introduced me as a lightworker and I gently corrected the person to say that I didn’t identify with the term and didn’t want to be called a lightworker. I said if others felt comfortable with the term I respected that, but personally I didn’t feel right being categorized in that way.

This caused a surprising bit of angsty energy in the room. I received some funny looks (by funny here I mean disapproving).

It’s a strange word, lightworker. First off it’s got the word worker in it, which I find not especially inviting. Worker like worker bee. Seems very corporate-cubicle to me. Very drone feeling.

And then there’s light. Light and work seem an odd pairing. Does light do work? I guess, in a manner of speaking. Light gives birth to plants and food. It warms and heats. But it’s definitely not work in the normal use of the term. There’s a certain ease when it comes to light that doesn’t seem (to me) to gel with the word work.

Anyway, the mechanics of the word aside, what’s the intention behind describing oneself as a lightworker? And why do I have a significant enough disagreement with the term to ask that I not be called it?

What I understand by the term lightworker is the notion that people see themselves as serving the light. The light as in The Light of Truth or The Light of Spirit.

That’s obviously a very honorable intention, one I seek to live out myself. But I find the word lightworker tends to come with a bias towards the heavenly realms. Light is often depicted to be up above. At best this suggests a model in which the Light is needing to be brought down into our human realm. At worst it suggests a seeking to go up and out of our daily existence. It can very easily become an escape.

Admittedly, the higher, subtle planes of reality are more comfortable, pleasurable, and filled with less pain than our everyday world. There’s no denying that truth. There’s less resistance in the subtle, heavenly realms. But as the Buddhist wheel of karma correctly teaches us, even the realm of the gods is still a form of very, very subtle entrapment. It’s the necessary inverse to the realms of hungry ghosts. If there’s a heaven there has to be a hell. If there’s a hell, there has to be a heaven. But what if both heaven and hell were to fall away, to melt into nothingness?

Another potential problem I see is the notion of being a lightworker can be very disempowering–suggesting we don’t have the resources necessary here in material, earthly existence. I’m not suggesting this is the conscious intent. In fact, I think the vast majority of folks who I’ve heard or read use the term seem to me very well meaning, conscientious persons.

Well-intentioned or otherwise, I still think there’s a problem here.

Two questions I often ask myself is: what is the dark side of the light? And what is the light side of the darkness?

I’ve written about this before in relationship to the religion of Jedi-ism (yes it’s an official religion in some places now). I wrote on the Jedi Code and how the original code included lines like:

Emotion yet peace.
Passion yet serenity.
Death, yet the Force.

And then in a later edition of the Jedi Code, the balanced view expressed in the original code became corrupted into a one-sided one with a strong spiritual (“heavenly”) bias against the earthly realm.

The code became:

There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
There is no death, there is The Force.

This is what I mean by an overemphasis on being a lightworker. We forget about the darkness totally and make everything “light” or conceive the darkness only as a force of resistance or evil.

Since we’re talking Jedis, a better term than workers would be walkers. Luke was a Skywalker. George Lucas, of course, based the Jedi on various traditions of Eastern monks, who are often said to be Cloud-Walkers (which is where Skywalker comes from). One who walks the high places.

Stephen Jenkinson calls himself the Griefwalker. He walks with people through their grief. The process of undergoing the death journey is called The Deathwalk. Shamans are said to walk between the worlds. My good friend William is literally a Walker (his actual last name) and he literally walked a pilgrimage of his ancestor across Canada and the US (read it, it’s mind blowing).

In other words, there could be a whole ecology of walkers. (I think walker is a much stronger term than worker). Walkers have work to do certainly but they also enjoy the sights.

I wouldn’t push this too far, but maybe I’d call myself a Darkwalker since I advocate for the role of entering into the darkness along the path.

In the darkness is found light.

Consider this teaching from the Kabbalistic tradition (Jewish mystical tradition). In one version of Kabbalah, creation occurs by the Divine Self hiding into The Divine Self, creating a space, as it were, of ‘non-God’. Into this space creation comes forth. There were vessels created meant to help modify, contain, and mediate the Light of Creation. The Light to form creation however was too strong to be held and the light splintered the vessels of creativity, leading to shards (called klipot) scattered everywhere. In shamanic traditions, this is called soul fragmentation. Kabbalah suggests there was a kind of cosmic soul fragmentation–a fragmentation perhaps of the World Soul itself.

The shards are the painful jagged realities of our world. The brokenness, the suffering, the alienation, the loneliness, the enmity, the prejudice, the violence and the chaos that so mars existence.

The Kabbalist is one who neither fights nor succumbs to the shards. The Kabbalist rather transmutes them. For, as the story goes, hidden within each shard is a drop of light, a hidden remnant of the original Light, waiting to be released. When the shard is loved fully, the light is released.

The transmutation of the shards is an act of shadow work. It’s a restoration of the fragmented pieces. It’s a liberation of the light. It’s spiritual, economic, political, social, ecological all wrapped up into one.

This soul retrieval, somehow both personal and cosmic, happens by entering into the darkness. Notice–this is a very subtle and extremely important point–it happens by the embrace of the darkness not just by sending light into the darkness (though that may be a part of the process).

This is why I’ve sometimes half-jokingly/half-seriously said I want to be called a Darkworker. Or now a Darkwalker. Not because I serve the darkness in some demonic sense but I understand the place of the awakening of the darkness. It’s worth recalling that the character of Lucifer is said to be an Angel of the Highest Light who fell–there is then a potential darkness (in the negative sense) in being addicted to the Light.

Not only is there light to be found in the shadowy darkness, there is also a grace to darkness itself. (Darkness here not as the shadow but as the realm of Being).

The great Christian mystic, St. Dionysius the Areopagite wrote of the state of mystically uniting with The Source and Cause of All Reality as “Luminous Darkness.” It’s a light so bright it darkens our minds and hearts. Since we connect to The Cause in this space, this state of consciousness is known as causal.

Dionysius said that we enter into this Luminous Darkness by dropping all preferences. We can’t prefer up over down, left over right, right over left. We can’t prefer sorrow over joy or joy over sorrow. Crucially, we can’t prefer light over darkness. We have to let go, Dionysius would say, even our most subtle spiritual experiences in order that we might rest in Pure Mystery, beyond all words, beyond all concepts, beyond all conventional knowing.

We must be illuminated in the darkness of unknowing, guided only by our burning hearts.

Given Dionysius’ insight, does calling oneself a Lightworker prevent entrance into the Luminous Darkness? Does it perhaps make it harder?

I happen to believe so.

The language, images, and metaphors we use to interpret and frame our spiritual experiences are extremely important. They can push us to greater depth or they can subtly pull us away from certain types of realization and experience. Our frames, especially our spiritual ones, can start to form a deep bias in our minds. As a consequence, there are enormous implications to the frames we placed around spirituality.

So if you think this is all just some word play or heady spiritual talk, here’s a concrete example of how the Lightworker/Luminous Darkness plays out in terms of ethnicity and racial prejudice in the contemporary spiritual scene.

Lightworkers tend to be too addicted to the subtle, heavenly world of Light–chakras, meridians, auras, colors, etc. Those realities have their place and are important but they aren’t more important than the causal luminous darkness–which in turns isn’t more important than the waking-world, material day to day world. Each plays its role and supplements the other.

But because there is an overemphasis on understanding Light in its subtle form, we see a real bias towards light-haired (usually blonde) white woman in the yoga and spiritual communities nowadays. (There are also plenty of social and historical factors at play involved here, in terms of white privilege and power–I don’t want to discount those. But there is also a spiritual reason for this occurrence). I see so many white, often blonde woman, called radiant goddesses on Facebook. I much more rarely see a really very dark-skinned black or brown women called a radiant goddess. If we forget the beauty of the light in the darkness and the luminous nature of the darkness itself, this is what happens. For the record, I have nothing against beautiful white yoga women–I just don’t believe they constitute the radiant goddess norm.

That is just one example, but it points to the reason why I would rather be called a Darkwalker than a Lightworker. If we become overly fascinated with the subtle lights of the heavens, we forget the light trapped in the shadows and we forget there is a realm beyond the subtle, light-filled heaven, a luminous darkness, a Ground of All Being, from which everything comes into existence. Those deserve our time, attention, and love at least as much as the subtle lights (if not in our day more so).

I encourage you (wisely) to walk in the darkness. Walk into the Infinite Abyss of Love, the realm of Luminous Causative Darkness. Try also, when you feel ready, to gently walk with Love into the realm of our personal darknesses–our shadows. There is light to be found there as well.

03 Mar 2014 2 comments / READ MORE

Introduction to Shamanic Journeying

Posted by Chris Dierkes in Healing Arts, Shamanism, The Imaginal, The Soul

HEALING TRAVELS IN THE LOWER WORLD, FALL 2013 JOURNEYING COURSE

Shamanism is the most ancient form of human spiritual exploration. Journeying is a primary form of practice within shamanic traditions. In a journey, an individual enters into a light trance state where they become open to nonordinary experience.

In this course we will be taking a series of journeys to the Lower World–a realm of healing and integration. In addition we will learn the ethics of journeying safely and how journeying fits into a larger spiritual path and purpose. Each evening will include both a discussion and a group journey.

This course will be well-timed to nature’s season. Fall is a time where old patterns begin to change and release, creating room for something new to emerge. These journeys to the Lower World will heal of us of old wounds and patterns so that we might give birth to healthier and wiser forms of being.

Time: 7-9:30pm
Dates: Tuesdays, Oct 15 – Nov 5th
Cost: $200. Payment due by end of first class. Payment can be made by etransfer or cash.
Location: Westcoast Reiki Centre, 4424 Main St. (Main and 28th).

The Journeys:
Oct 15th: Discovering Our Soul Contracts
Oct 22nd: Calling Home Our Soul Fragments
Oct 29th: Meeting Our Power Animal
Nov 5th: Locating Our Medicine Gift

Solo Journeying: Included in the cost of the course is an opportunity for each participant to meet with the instructor in a one-on-one setting to facilitate a separate healing best done in a private setting.

Space Limited:  There are only 10 spots available for this course.

Questions or To RSVP: Contact Me

Please Note: For individuals who have experienced severe traumas please contact me first. Journeying is very safe and gentle but any form of consciousness state change can cause some difficulties or potential triggering for those with challenges like PTSD, etc.

23 Sep 2013 no comments / READ MORE

The Problem With Donkey Kong Spirituality

Posted by Chris Dierkes in Emotions, Mystics, Shamanism, The Imaginal, The Soul

Recently father and video game developer Mike Mika redesigned the classic game Donkey Kong to reverse the gender roles of the characters. In his version Pauline became the heroine saving Mario from the evil giant ape. Mika did this based on his daughter’s stated preference that she wanted to save Mario. According to Mr. Mika, his daughter seems to enjoy the game more since the switch. This story became widely distributed over the internet as a much needed victory for empowerment of young women. You can watch Mika’s version of the game here.

While I definitely appreciate Mike Mika’s redesign I think there’s a deeper issue not being addressed by the gender inversion. Namely I believe Donkey Kong reveals a mytheme. A mytheme is the essential unit or kernel of a myth. It’s a structurally similar form seen across a variety of different versions of a myth. In this regard video games like Donkey Kong to me are a holdover, a residue, or perhaps better an echo, of a classic mytheme surrounding mysticism, namely the mysticism of ascent.

When I speak of the mysticism of ascent I mean a spirituality that emphasizes a transcendent reality somewhere up above this world that one must journey towards. One must leave or transcend this plane of reality to reach a more perfect one somewhere else.

This ascending mytheme evident in many video games has some potentially problematic aspects–aspects that are going unexamined and replicating themselves in human consciousness through the proliferation of video games. Donkey Kong is a primordial video game and therefore is a great example to use. It’s one of the first platform video games. It’s the first with a full narrative storyline. It’s also the first to introduce the mytheme of saving the damsel in distress (which Mike Mika’s hack so brilliantly deconstructed).

Whether it’s the Hero’s Journey on TV shows, Shamanism in Modern Day Fairy Tales, The Christ Story in superhero movies, or the Path of Ascent in video games, mythemes play themselves out in our media culture, however officially secular it may be. I see a strong resonance of the ascending mystical traditions in the tradition of video games, particularly in Donkey Kong. This deeper structure–with its potential problems–will not be unearthed simply by a gender inversion process however helpful that is on it’s own terms.

What exactly do I mean by the mysticism of ascent and how is it being replicated in Donkey Kong? Let’s consider some parallels.

The Great and Mystical Donkey Kong

pauline

In Donkey Kong there are levels. One ascends through the levels by mastering each successive one. This is literally the case in Donkey Kong as one scales up ladders and each new level is located up above the one prior.  Similarly, in the mystical traditions there are levels of ascent–usually depicted as planes of reality. The mystical aspirant is taught, through various techniques, how to “jump” up to higher levels of consciousness and being.

In Donkey Kong one must master (“beat” in original video game player-ese) each level and its attendant challenges and opponent. On the mystical path one must defeat various characteristic enemies in order to reach a higher level. Challenges and opponents on the mystical path include deep-seated fears, common misperceptions, potential fixation on pleasure-inducing mystical phenomena…as opposed to say falling barrels and moving fire.

Nevertheless the same basic mythic structure is in place in both–both are a kind of game, a form of hyperreality.

In Donkey Kong, as in mysticism, one is assumed to be a solitary individual who must ascend this obstacle course. Originally the character in Donkey Kong was known as ‘Jumpman’. Truthfully this is a pretty good name for the mystical ascender: A Jumpman (as usually, though not always, they have historically been men).

This solitary individual must journey alone (or perhaps occasionally with the aid of temporary helpers) and overcome various obstacles and challenges. These challenges are overcome through the use of some basic, repeated techniques. In Donkey Kong that’s jumping, ascending and descending ladders, moving side to side, and using the various tools on screen (e.g. hammer). In the mystical traditions these techniques consist of things like allowing energy to rise up the back of one’s body, opening up above oneself, closing the eyes and turning them upward, repeating mantras, guided visualizations, and the like.

In Donkey Kong, Mario (or Pauline in Mike Mika’s version) undertakes all these actions and seek to overcome these obstacles in order to unite permanently with his beloved. In the mystical tradition, one ascends to unite with the Transcendent Source.

Notice that in both the video game and the ascending spiritual tradition there is a journeyer, a set of techniques, a game of challenges, and a love or goal at the end. Having reached the pinnacle, this individual will conquer the final barrier and be forever united with his beloved.

(Sidenote: Though in a brilliant, perhaps even ironic twist, in Donkey Kong once one finished the original four levels and saved Pauline, the game restarts from the beginning in a more advanced form–leaving open the possibility that there never actually is a finish to the ascent, leaving the individual forever struggling upward. In the history of mysticism this is known as epektesis, and was actually the view of one of the greatest Christian mystics, St. Gregory of Nyssa, who argued we would never ever fully completely reach God but would forever journey more deeply into what we could experience of The Divine Mystery.).

There are many variations on this same basic theme of mystical ascent in the world’s spiritual traditions. In the tradition of Merkavah mysticism of Kabbalistic Judaism one meditates and ascends up to the Chariot of God (or the Throne of God). In Shabd Yoga one follows inner sounds upwards, through thee sound’s current until one reaches the Primordial Sound, seen as the Originating Source of all reality. In Kundalini Yoga, the serpent power lying coiled at the base of the spine uncoils and rises up the spine until it pushes through the crown of the head leading to an experience of ascended light. In the Christian mystical tradition primary images include the Ladder of Ascent usually up a mountain or climbing a staircase to heaven. Other examples could be given, these are not meant to be exhaustive, merely representative.

Critique of Donkey Kong Spirituality

ladderThere are some characteristic problems associated with the Donkey Kong-esque mysticism of ascent.

1. The Critique from The Absolute 

As I said the mysticism of ascent assumes the coherent identity and reality of a separate self-sense. It then uses certain techniques to effect a major transformation in this self-sense. Traditions like Zen Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta (along with many others) question the automatic assumption of a self-contained, individual self. They do this through processes like koans or inquiry, repeatedly asking “Who am I?” “Who is asking this question?” These traditions argue that it we follow these processes deeply enough they will show the insubstantial nature of the self sense. With no separate self, then there are no practices to do to effect change for that self. In addition there is no longer any objective outside world relative to that self, nor any prize that self must attain (whether Pauline or total absorption into the Source). The whole self-world-enemy-attainment-God complex falls apart once the separate self drops. No levels, no ladders, no up, no down, no climber–just free fall in space.

2. Critique of Ascent

This critique can be combined with critique #1 or exist on its own. The mysticism of ascent is, as the name implies, ascending in nature. As a result, the history of spirituality in the last 2,000 years, which has largely been dominated by the traditions of ascent, has left a destructive trail. When our ascent becomes driven by fear, then mysticism can become a cover for teachings and communities that deny the value of the earth, of the human body, of women, of sexual existence, of indigenous wisdom, and of our inherently animal nature and connection with all life. I don’t think I need to remind any of the pain that mistake has caused and continues to cause.

Now What?  

halo

Given these trenchant criticisms, is there any value to Donkey Kong spirituality? Is there anything worth salvaging in it? Anything worth rescuing? I think there is.

If we look at traditions of iconography–for example Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Sufi among others–we see halos. We see beings of grace who radiate a light that encircles their heads, shining outward. For our purposes here what interests me about a halo is that they reach up above the top of our physical heads. Our incarnation is more than our physical selves. We extend around, below, and above our physical bodies. The halo tradition is not simply a metaphor, it’s a clear artistic description of a spiritual reality. There’s part of us that are up above what we normally think of as our physically defined bodies. A halo reveals a person whose “higher” forms of themselves are open and full of light. I put “higher’ in quotes there because higher here doesn’t mean better–that was the mistake of many of the ascending spiritual traditions, to see these parts of our incarnation as our salvation and to seek to flee from our “lower” parts and live exclusively in our “higher” selves.

But what if we don’t make that Donkey Kong mistake? What if we aren’t driven by a notion that we have to climb “up there”, to save some Prince/Princess, to finally and forever overcome some devilish or apeish foe? What then? Well, it means we could retain a, maybe the, central insight of the ascending traditions–we could open up these parts of ourselves and become responsible for the full range of our being here as human. Part of the spectrum of our being here does include parts of us that are more transcendent, subtler, more ascended in nature. (For readers interested in a somewhat more technical description of what these parts of ourselves are through the framework of chakras, see this piece I wrote on the subject.)

Responsible is the key word there. The Donkey Kong tradition of spirituality is too much of a game.* It’s too achievement-oriented, too immersed in a mentality of conquering and winning. Responsible, on the other hand, means realizing that these parts of ourselves are always operative. Either we will come into conscious relationship with these dimensions of ourselves and therefore become responsible for what we are putting out there or we won’t and they will unconsciously transmit their conditioning, potentially hurting us and others. (For the record, this exact same mechanism holds for the “lower” end of our incarnational spectrum.)

There’s no winning in the spiritual path.

With the current range towards embodiment in spirituality (one I’ve been critical of) I do think there’s a subtle bias against the ascended portions of ourself. By ascended I mean these parts of ourselves that are extend up above our heads–the subtler domains of ourself that are depicted with halos.

I think we should retain the opening of these ascended portions of our incarnation without this whole narrative of ascent. Ascended yes, ascent no. A model to consider for such a way of approaching the subject would be emotional literacy. Emotional literacy training is simply about learning to name and experience different emotions, recognizing the distinct role of each and how they work together, and how to take proper care of emotional boundaries. I could see an “ascended literacy” which would strip these domains of the narrative of ascent and spiritual heroism (and the subtle or not-so-subtle arrogance that inevitably comes from such a viewpoint). It would just be rather plain and straightforward–creative, fun, and interesting to be sure–but not a game. Not about who has the highest score and can reach the highest most spiritual state. It would just be about the learning the language, the experience, the strengths and limitations of the ascended portions of ourselves–and this would simply be one course, if you like, in a more integrated curriculum. A real spiritual path that would seek to welcome and work with our bodies, our emotions, our shadow, our beliefs, our souls, and so forth.

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* Another article for another day and for another person to write would look at the postmodern turn in video games, particularly multi-player online role games. i.e. The way in which video games are reflective of and furthering the movement towards postmodern consciousness. In the multi-player role games especially the landscape is arguably much flatter (more horizontal) than the vertical orientation of most classic video games. The storyline element, nascent in Donkey Kong, is much more in full flower. The way in which characters can co-construct collaboratively their environments (think 2nd Life). The way in which characters can create their own identities. These are all hallmarks of postmodern consciousness.

15 Sep 2013 no comments / READ MORE

Spiritual Bypassing of The Soul

Posted by Chris Dierkes in Emotions, Healing Arts, Shamanism, The Imaginal, The Soul

In 2010 Robert Masters wrote an excellent book entitled Spiritual Bypassing: When Spirituality Disconnects Us From What Really Matters.* The book explores how we use “spiritual practices or beliefs to avoid dealing with painful feelings, unresolved wounds, and developmental needs.”

Masters’ approach is, to use some jargon, psychospiritual in nature. It blends the spiritual with the human psyche–it merges spirituality in particular with the body, relationships, and emotions (see his latest book entitled Emotional Intimacy).

The spiritual bypassing critique–in the context of emotions, body, relationships–is very important. It’s real. It’s all over the place. And Dr. Masters insightfully diagnoses the disease and offers practical remedies.

I, however, see another form of spiritual bypassing and that is spiritual teaching that bypass our souls. I’m not claiming I’m the first to realize or make this argument but it’s been on my mind frequently of late. It’s this other form of spiritual bypassing that I’d like to explore a bit in this piece.

A few years back now I wrote a 3 part series that explored different identities we have as humans and how we might learn to bring them into greater harmony with each other. I wrote a piece each on the ego, Spirit, and The Soul.

Ego I defined as our human personality. Spirit I defined as The Ultimate, a recognition one essential nature shared in common by all, entirely free and full–what’s traditionally called Enlightenment, God Realization, or The Natural State. And I defined The Soul as our True Self, aka The Flavor of our Awakening. Each of us has a distinct expression of the awakened state and talking about The Soul as The Flavor of our Awakening is a way of giving voice to that part of ourself. As many mystics have said we are like unique rays (Souls) flowing out of the same Sun (Spirit).

That way of viewing The Soul (capital S) is a crucial one. It’s ignored or obscured in many of our contemporary Spirit-ual teachings. Nevertheless it’s an incomplete view of The Soul…or maybe I should say the soul (lowercase s).

By soul (as opposed to Soul) I mean a subtler dimension of our experience–one that is quite attuned energetically and empathetically to our environment and relationships. It’s a deeper layer of our being, a subterranean wisdom. And importantly, the soul, little s, is able to be wounded. Soul, Capital S, sometimes called The Oversoul, is not wound-able.

Little s soul is the realm of mythology. It speaks in the language of dreams, archetypes, and visionary experience. Often, it’s a quieter part of ourselves, one that therefore is easily drowned out by other voices and agendas.

To make it a little clearer why I mean by soul, here’s a list of the kinds of conditions we see that are unique to the soul (little s).

Auras–energetic and subtle emotional boundaries around ourselves. Boundaries that can be strengthened or depleted through intention and practice. Boundaries that can, under stress or trauma be pierced, leaving long lasting energetic marks.

Karma–aka Stories of Ancestral/Humanity’s Past Living Within Us. These are tendencies, conditions, and stories of personal, familial, and collective human consciousness that are still playing themselves out unconsciously in our lives. The soul is a realm of deep memory.

The World Soul–known traditionally as the Anima Mundi. Nature herself is conscious as are all beings. We can commune with these beings in non-ordinary states of reality. This is the realm of shamanism–the realm of power animals, nature mysticism, journeying, plant medicine, dreaming, and inspiration.

soul wounding/illness–there are many potential forms of wounding at the soul level. Shamans and healers throughout history have developed an intricate classification system as well as treatment modalities for these various afflictions. Ailments like soul loss and fragmentation; cords, hooks, darts, and other energetic enmeshments; attachments of all kinds. (See a list of such treatment modalities here.)

The Otherworld–this is the traditional Celtic term for the spirit world. The Otherworld is home of angels, departed loved ones, and guides. Our soul is the one who is connected to these domains and the various characters who populate them.

Astrology–not only are we in a psychic relationship with Earth, we share a connection with other planetary and cosmic realities. We are, after all, made of star dust. Hence we are intrinsically in communion with these forces and the ability to read those influences upon us is where astrology (done well) comes into play. That influence and mutual relationship occurs at the soul level (not at the personality nor at The Spirit level).

That list is by no means exhaustive but it’s intended to be representative. I hope you get the idea of the overall kinds of things I mean by referring to soul.

Most of these experiences (and the kinds of teachings that relate to them) would in our day be labeled New Age. I think of them as primarily shamanic and quiet ancient in pedigree. But in our contemporary spiritual environment, these kinds of processes and domains are dealt with by New Age teachings, if anywhere.

And this segregation is problematic. Because by and large New Age teachings can be guilty of the various kinds of spiritual bypassing at the human physical, bodily, and emotional level that Robert Masters warns about. New Age teachings tend to emphasize ascending energies and currents. New Agers often call themselves “lightworkers” (as opposed to one who embraces the darkness). They typically interpret states like Peace, Love, Joy as “higher” than ones like fear, anger, or sorrow, leading to a strong bias to maintain a “high vibration.” (This over-emphasis or bias towards ascending energy is not found in the shamanic traditions).

New Age teachings also typically don’t include teachings like Dzogchen, Mahamudra, Zen, Advaita, Inquiry, and the like which are about Spirit Awakening. In turn, those traditions of Spirit Awakening typically deny these soul-level teachings.

Many of The Spirit teachings of Awakening are spiritually bypassing our bodies and emotions. Some aren’t. But all of them are essentially bypassing our souls. Conversely our soul teachings aren’t often recognizing our Spirit teachings. And neither is doing a very good job with our emotional, bodily selves.

This disconnection is one of the primary reasons why spirituality is in a such a poor state currently.

In his book on Spiritual Bypassing, Masters vividly portrays the kinds of problems that continually manifest when spirituality acts to numb us emotionally or disconnect us from pain. It shows what happens when our spirituality breaks our connection to ourselves as emotional, incarnate beings.

The spiritual bypassing of the soul similarly leaves spiritual aspirants with missing pieces of themselves (though they’re often different pieces than the ones Masters focuses on). Spiritual teachings that bypass the soul leave us in a state I often refer to as “energetically skinny”. There’s a certain kind of energetic emaciation that results from teachings that deny our souls. Power and artistry come form the soul realm. Teachings that don’t include the soul often lack power, a basic umph.

The soul is true. It’s a substratum of us, a finer form of resiliency, like a spider-web. Regardless of many of the very real problems of the packaging of soul teachings in our day through New Ageism, this part of us is genuinely alive. It’s significant. It seeks to be honored, heard, respected, incorporated as part of our daily lives.

I referred earlier to the word psychospiritual. I said those were teachings that included both spirit and our psychological selves. By psychological I meant there things like our emotional patterns, personality, and ego. But the original meaning of the word psyche means soul. It could be understood to include both what we typically think of as human egoic personalities and these subtler dimensions of our being…things like soul illness, karma, ancestors connections, The World Soul, and so on.

That fuller psychospiritual teaching is still waiting to be discovered, taught, and embodied. Until then we are left cobbling together bits and pieces here and there.

—

* The term spiritual bypassing was coined by John Welwood, another wonderful psychospiritual author and teacher.

07 Sep 2013 1 comment / READ MORE

Meeting The Spider-Lady: A Shamanic Journey

Posted by Chris Dierkes in Shamanism, The Imaginal, The Soul

A number of spiritual traditions, particularly in the Americas, speak of a medicine wheel. These traditions seek to orient us to the four cardinal directions, the earth below, the heavens above, and the self connected to them all. (You can read more about this practice of orientation here.).

Different traditions will often also experience certain animals as totems or guardian figures of the four directions. A person may take a shamanic journey to any of the directions or to the totem animals, to meet them and be taught by them. In a journey one enters into a light trance state–the state that we experience often as a ‘twilight’ state, when we are neither fully asleep nor entirely awake. One then journeys, with an intent, and enters a non-ordinary set of experiences that offer us greater insight, harmony, inspiration, and healing. (Unless you’ve been called by a guardian figure and directly instructed in journeying, it’s best to learn a safe modality to journey from someone experienced in this art.)

One possible journey is to meet an oppositional figure in each of the directions. This oppositional totem animal is not an enemy, so much as one who brings us face to face with something we fear, are neglecting, or trying to suppress within ourself. The following piece is a description of a journey I took to the land of the South to meet my oppositional totem–in this case, the Spider-Lady–and what she taught me. It helps to know that the South is often seen as the realm of fire, summer, instinct, and healing.

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I journey to the Lower World as usual, climbing down a hole next to the tree that I spent so many hours under as a little boy. I pass through a tunnel-like cave and come out in an Edenic paradise. I meet my guide and ask that he journey with me. I connect to my intention to meet my oppositional figure in the South.

We journey across open fields amidst scorching heat. I feel light and relaxed. At some point however I begin to feel the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stand up straight. It’s that feeling of heightened awareness right before a Midwestern summer thundershower. I can feel the storm coming.

Instantly, I see large, hairy legs, with incredibly sharp pincers, like swords. Before me stands an enormous frightening Spider. Before I have time to scream or run or even really ready myself for the inevitable, Spider rips me to shreds. I should have expected Mama Spider. I had seen smaller spiders upon my entrance to the cave, but I didn’t really pay much attention to them at the time. By now, it’s too late as I’m being dismembered.* The terror is washing over me; I feel like I’m dying though it’s strangely peaceful. My point of view shifts more to an observer, watching my body (or carcass I guess) be sliced and diced.

Strewn in pieces, Spider then begins to weave a web and puts me back together. I move from this state of peaceful but quasi-frozen terror above my body to an experience back within the flesh. I feel the sinews and the webbing linking me back up. I’m feel wave upon wave of extreme terror at this point.

When she is finishing recreating me, I stand up. Lady Spider simply looks at me through her numerous eyes. I force myself to stand there, to be able to take in the face that instinctually is so terrifying. My sense of her eyes changes. It’s not love that she’s communicating (definitely not that). But a kind of well wishing. Sorta good luck or something. It’s hard to communicate precisely what it is, but I can sense a change within me and a change in our relationship.

I ask her what gift she has given me, what I’m supposed to have learned from this experience. She leaves without answering. I’m left to explore the question and find the answer for myself.

I search for awhile, ask other characters around if they know, but none do. Or if they do know, they don’t share the answer with me. I eventually leave the Lower World and come back to The Middle World, moved by the experience but confused as to it’s meaning.

I take other journeys over the next few weeks to the Lower World. On each occasion, there’s a huge number of smaller spiders there to greet me upon my entrance into the cave. They don’t seem so thrilled to see me and move into attack mode, trying to bite me. At first I think I have to surrender again to them as I did to their Mother, but as they keep biting me it’s clear this doesn’t feel right and I need to put a stop to this. I create an energy field around myself to keep them out. This affords some initial protection but still seems like an incomplete or even wrong response.

I keep finding spiders only in the cave and sometimes just outside the cave–which is the transitional point from our normal waking consciousness in the Middle World to the Lower World proper.

Why are they only here? And why are they so hyped up? I find them very annoying and wish they’d just go away–this of course only riles them up further. I try conversing with them. I begin watching their movements and trying to imitate them. None of this works.

We’re weeks into this now and I’m feeling really frustrated, even angry at this point.

Finally, who knows how, the thought enters my mind when seeing them yet again:

These spiders are not outside your mind, they are your thoughts.

And now it all starts to make some sense. These spiders of my mind are only showing up at the transit point between my normal waking consciousness and the deeper portions of the altered trance state of the journey. I’ve been trying too hard to skip over this part of myself and immediately go from regular mental state to deeper trance state. I was impatiently attempting to bypass this middle zone of my mind. So these thoughts were “fighting back”. Just surrendering to them didn’t work because that was just creating more thoughts in my head. Trying to get rid of them by wishing them away didn’t work. Putting up the barriers temporarily cooled things off certainly but still left thought disowned…on the outside looking in.

It was at this point that I owned these spider-thoughts. I embraced them rather than letting them overrun me. But nor did I push them away.

I simply stated that as my thoughts I recognized and appreciated them but that also they were for the next little while to remain more quiet.

At that point, spontaneously the spiders relaxed. And they began to weave a web. The web was stunning in its intricacy and subtlety. Through this marvellous display the spiders taught me when the mind relaxes and is embraced then it will weave beautiful tapestries of thought.

Sometimes in my journeys to the Lower World the spiders return, sometimes not. When they do, they are reminding me of this lesson, to contemplate their stunning creations.

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* Experiences of dis-memberment and re-memberment are common throughout the shamanic traditions. Something dies, so something new can be born.

01 Sep 2013 no comments / READ MORE

Welcome: A Spiritual Practice

Posted by Chris Dierkes in Healing Arts, Mystics, Shamanism

Welcome to this site. Welcome to this place. Above all welcome to this work.

Welcome is a crucially important element necessary to live a human life. It’s one that I think is so often overlooked in the contemporary Western world. It’s an art we’ve lost, though it’s definitely still a finely honed art in many places around the globe. Hospitality is the fancy more ancient word of what we’re talking about here.

Welcome is not only a metaphor but a practice. It’s a way of being.

In my own practice and in my work with folks, welcome is immensely valuable.  Welcome is more than worth it’s weight in gold. Fr. Thomas Keating once said that we should have “a jolly attitude to even the most horrid of thoughts.” That jolly attitude he speaks of is a welcoming posture.

A woman comes in struggling with anger. Her family taught her that ‘good girls don’t get angry.’ She’s shown anger–maybe healthy, maybe not so healthy–in her adolescence and someone labeled her a bitch. That someone who called her that name was very possibly another girl or woman, probably herself struggling with anger.

This hurts her…badly. Not surprisingly, she doesn’t try to show anger anymore. She tries not to show, not even to feel, anger. This approach doesn’t work so well. She finds herself grouchy, ill-tempered, even worried she is in fact becoming the ‘b’ she was called.

A man comes in real suffering. His five year relationship with his sweetheart has just ended. He’s wracked with pain, guilt, grief, and sadness, among other feelings. But he can’t show or express these feelings to his friends. They’re all too busy trying to fix him up with someone new to able to listen attentively and compassionately to his pain. They sincerely mean to console him, reminding him of all the fish in the sea. He’s supposed to get “back up on that horse” (why eligible women are horses in this analogy I’m not quite sure, but that’s a story for a different day I guess). His mother is not so secretly pleased with the situation because she never really got along with his ex anyway: “She wasn’t marriage material”. He feels really alone even though he’s being swarmed by people trying to help him. He finds their help, well, the opposite of help.

He can’t show vulnerability and pain. He’s supposed to be a real man (whatever the hell that is). He’s afraid he’ll be called unmanly if he cries or has to admit defeat. Meanwhile his body is sending him signal after signal that he’s not well and needs to take a break. He doesn’t listen. He’s afraid to face these feelings alone. He feels unequipped to handle them.

First off, what they both need is welcome. They need to create a space–perhaps with someone skilled in facilitating such a space–where they can welcome these feelings. These feelings are harbingers of healing. These feelings are helpers, teachers, and friends for them, intimates who actually know how to deal with the challenges these two people are facing.

When the beautiful mystic St. Francis of Assisi was in his final days and hours, he asked to be taken outside. He wanted to die in the arms of Mother Earth. His friends were around crying. But Francis said, “Let us welcome Sister Death.” 

Similarly, let us welcome Brother Anger, Sister Grief, Grandmother Sadness, Grandfather Guilt, Mother Fear, and Father Vulnerability.

Our sister begins to embrace her anger and finds she can set much clearer boundaries. She has more energy. She actually feels happier. Contrary to her fears, she’s not angry all the time. She’s not bitchy. Her expressions of anger are becoming cleaner and cleaner. She finds, amazingly, she can express love at the same time she can express anger. And she now knows if she needs to go away for a little bit and just have a rant in private to exorcize some deep frustration, she can do that. She’s going to be responsible for she what she does. She’s not going blast somebody and hurt them because she knows what the pain of unhealthy and unwelcome anger did to her. She doesn’t want to inflict that on anyone else.

Our brother, after a number of false starts perhaps, with grace, begins to welcome his pain, his loss, his tenderness. He finds in them a deep strength. Not an all-powerful, all-conquering kind of strength, but a genuine source of help in time of need. It takes him some time, more time than his friends and our culture tell him he is “supposed to need”–though interestingly he notices that none of them seem all that content in life (weird huh?)–but he feels that a dawn is starting to shine after a long dark night. He comes to learn skills that serve him and a future beloved better in his next relationship. He forgives his ex and asks for forgiveness from her in return. He finds he’s more patient with others, slower to jump in with advice for them in their struggles, and more willing to listen and simply offer attention and care. Quite incredibly, increasing numbers of his friends, family, coworkers, and acquaintances start sharing their pains and their hurts with him.

Both our sister and our brother find moments, sometimes only fleeting in duration, when they sense a peace, a deep reservoir of something they can’t exactly name. It feels like an undertow pulling them in. They find themselves both fearful but also strangely attracted to this pull. They don’t really know what to call it, though spiritual comes to mind. Except they’re not really sure they feel comfortable with that word. Spiritual. It seems too heavy, too cold and formal. But never mind, somehow when they relax their thinking they simply return to this sense of….whatever it is. This ‘thing’ they like, this ‘thing’ that draws them in. They welcome this feeling, this experience as well.

This whatever-it-is feels somehow different than yet connected to the moments of welcomed anger, grief, sadness, and pain. They are really unsure how to talk about this experience with others. They’re concerned they’ll be branded weird or be misunderstood. Yet this feeling is one of coming home and they can’t ignore that truth.

They are learning to welcome the moments of clarity as well as confusion.

21 Aug 2013 no comments / READ MORE

Establishing a Sacred Container

Posted by Chris Dierkes in Healing Arts, Shamanism, The Imaginal

How we create sacred containers for prayer, meditation, or energy work. 

A long time ago there was a Jewish mystic named Honi, known as the Circle Drawer. In one story about him, there is a drought in the land and Honi draws a circle in the sand and tells God that he will not leave the circle until it starts raining. (By the way Honi called God ‘Abba’, which is the same term Jesus used. It’s a term that indicates deep intimacy and closeness).

Honi drew a circle around himself and then set an intention. He felt a deep, intimate connection with the Source.

In a similar manner, The Buddha sat under the Bodhi tree seeking enlightenment. He placed two fingers from his right hand on the ground. His fingers indicated that he was calling the Earth to witness to his enlightenment in the face of temptation and fear.

Both Honi and The Buddha combined physical posture along with intention in their prayer or meditation practice. I’d like for a few moments to explore this use of physical posture to establish space in meditation or prayer practice.

Drawing a circle around oneself is a spiritual practice seen in many different traditions around the world–not only in ancient Judaism but in aboriginal spiritual traditions of The Americas for example.

What is very important is that the circle is actually drawn–whether literally drawn in the ground like Honi did or visualized around oneself. I use this practice myself. I will typically trace the outline of a circle around my body with my index finger as I sit down to pray or meditate.

The circle has no beginning and no end and therefore represents the Infinite. The circle is whole, a representation of healing. Every point on the circle is equidistant from the center of the circle, representing the ultimate oneness and equality of all things.

The circle does however create a boundary and arguably this is the circle’s most important function. First it offers psychic protection. You may choose who or what is able to enter into the circle and conversely what is to remain outside the circle.

By drawing the circle we place ourselves in a spiritual container, in a sacred space. The circle inscribes a space of holiness.

Try it for yourself. Sit down and relax yourself and begin to meditate. Do this for a few minutes…

What do you notice? 

Now, sit down but before beginning to meditate, draw a circle around yourself. If you are a very visual person you may visualize this circle being drawn but I find it is helpful to have some physical gesture to instil the act in your bodily being.

Draw the circle around yourself, sit for a moment in the circle and notice what arises for you.

Now begin to meditate for a few minutes.

Notice if there is a qualitative difference between these two mini-meditation experiences. 

In my experience in the second version I most often feel a much deeper sense of connection and peace.

Further Variations/Additions:

–Orienting to the Directions

I’ve been very influenced by the traditions of shamanism, which is where I learned this practice. Some folks will actually stand and face the various directions often opening the hands to the direction as a sign of reception. They may even call out to the directions, invoke a prayer or chant or beat a drum or shake a rattle. For those who are more extroverted or kinaesthetic I encourage trying that process. I’m generally more introverted so I prefer simply to sit within the drawn circle and to bring my intention in turn to each direction, offering thanks and asking for support. I often point a finger or move a hand towards each direction rather than my whole body. I’ll share the method I follow (taught to me by Alberto Villoldo), but of course I encourage individuals to develop them as they need to in their own creative ways.

The order of the directions I follow:

1) South. South is typically associated with the season of summer, with the element Fire. Here I ask for heat that might burn away that which needs to be released.

2) West. Associated with the season of autumn and the element Water. The West is where the sun sets and is traditionally associated with dying. Here I ask that whatever needs to die within me may do so.

3) North. Season of winter and the element Earth. This is the realm of journeying. I often imagine a vast, dark, snowy landscape and see myself walking out in this land, into the dreamy darkness.

4) East. Season of spring and the element Air. Spring is associated with the rising of the sun and therefore new life. I sometimes imagine flying with the perspective of an eagle, soaring in the clouds with a panoramic view and diving with precision into life. This dimension is about creation.

5) Earth. This realm nurtures us, sustains us, and gives life. I connect here for a sense of grounding and healing.

6) Heavens. Not simply the airs, the rains, and the stars (those it includes those), but by heavens I also connect to a sense of the transcendent and the spirit world. This connects to me a long line of wisdom figures. I feel the sense of inspiration and grace. I feel myself opening to that which is far greater than me.

7) Self. Lastly I bring attention to myself as one being within this vast array. I feel joined to all these dimensions, offer gratitude for the gifts of all of these dimensions, and seek to serve with love and kindness.

–Buddha pointing to the ground

I employ this posture whenever if I ever feel beset by potentially overwhelming thoughts or emotions arising. If I experience deep movements of fear or anxiety (which happens from time to time), then I place my two fingers on the ground and feel the Earth offering her strength to me. I also use this posture when I feel that I’m not paying attention particularly well during prayer or meditation. Immediately I notice a more focused quality once I place those fingers on the ground.

23 Dec 2012 no comments / READ MORE

Shamanic Modalities

Posted by Chris Dierkes in Healing Arts, Shamanism

A shaman is something of a doctor of the soul. Like a doctor, a shaman can make a number of different diagnoses. Also, the shaman has a number of tools at her disposal.

Below are the various modalities I offer in my work as a a shamanic practicioner.

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Opening and Closing Sacred Space

At the heart of shamanism lies the ability to orient oneself to The Universe and to the forces within it. In this practice, a person will learn a way to open a sacred container for a time of prayer or meditation (of whatever style). This practice deepens any meditation or spiritual practice a person already undertakes.

Journeying for Healing, Wisdom, and Insight

Journeying is a foundational practice of shamanism. A person learns to journey to various locations (e.g. into the earth) for healing, to gain wisdom, and to commune with the spirit world. Journeying involves being guided into a light trance state. The state is very similar to the state between dreaming and fully waking up. It is not hypnotism. A client is perfectly safe in this state. The client’s conventional rational mind is still conscious and the client always has choice about how to proceed in the process. The typical first journey a person makes is to the lower world to experience a place of rest and healing to which they can always return to be spiritually resourced.

Locating Guides

The shamanic traditions teach that there are guides to help us along our journeys. In this process we learn to locate and establish a connection with these guides. This connection is established through journeying.

Chakra Healings

When a person suffers a wounding that goes unhealed, these wounds leave marks in the energy field of a person. Those marks often manifest themselves through one of the charkas. In this process we work on establishing whether a wound has been left in the energy field and if so which chakra it is connected to. We then open that chakra up and remove the negative energy affecting a deep cleansing. Afterwards, we use energy to mend and strengthen the energy field.

Extractions

There are times when wounds leave what feel like objects or at times foreign energies. The Extraction process exists to remove these objects or energies, accelerating physical and emotional healing.

Decording

Shamans throughout history have sensed cords: energetic ties that bind us to each other. Normally these cords are healthy and a source of loving connection between us and others. But when we find ourselves in unhealthy patterns or relationships we can form negative cords that weaken us and drain energy from us. In this process we locate some of these negative cords and cut them.

Soul Retrieval

The shamanic tradition our souls (or personal essences) are thought to consist of parts. Certain traumatic events, it is believed, can cause these soul parts to fragment and go into hiding. This results in soul loss which in turn causes increased anxiety, loss of energy, and so on. In a soul retrieval the shaman undertakes a journey seeking to retrieve any lost soul parts that desire to return to the person. The shaman then brings these soul parts back and blows them into the person’s energy field (usually their heart and/or head). The individual then has work to do to welcome this returned part of themselves home. If they do so, they will experience greater trust in life, healing, courage, and strength as a result.

Creating Protective, Healthy Boundaries

We live in a fast-moving, often chaotic world. We are bombarded daily by electronic messages, advertisements, and commercials. We also are highly influenced by the energies of those we interact with–friend or stranger. This practice teaches the person how to create energetic safety for themselves, to take responsibility for what they are putting out in the world energetically, and to defend themselves against forms of negative energy that they interact with (whether intentionally or unintentionally communicated).

Death Rites

The traditions also offer practices to prepare for the end of one’s life. This proces involves more than just simply what occurs after death. In other words, this process is best begun while a person is still lucid. Please contact me about this offering. For more information on what is involved, please see here.

04 Dec 2012 no comments / READ MORE
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