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Genesis
Origins
and Purpose, Passage and Place
By
Sharon Van Raalte
Getting Here from There
Long before the awareness
of shamanism made its impact on my life, I had an experience that
startled me but, at the same time, seemed perfectly normal. It
happened just outside the Arctic community of Cape Dorset on Baffin
Island, where we had come to shoot a documentary film. It was
April, which means, in the north, days of brilliant sunlight while
tenacious snow and ice still render the land navigable by foot
or skidoo. Walking with some friends, I paused to glance up to
a ridge behind me and saw a group of 5 or 6 Inuit, dressed in
caribou skin clothing, moving silently along the crest of the
ridge. I laughingly described to one friend what I “thought”
I had seen. “Maybe you’re a witch,” he replied.
“Maybe”, I answered. Suddenly, the possibility of
being able to see into other realms entered my consciousness and
found a warm, but timid, welcome.
In the intervening
years I have sought to clarify my worldview, to understand how
the shamanic way of being which now guides my life, has found
fertile soil in a questioning, testing, and often reluctant, mind.
Where do we come
from? Why are we here? These perennial questions have been repeated
for as long as mankind has been capable of reflection. Where are
we going and what is our place in the forward journey? Such ponderings
become even more urgent now as we witness the great earth changes
that are occurring.
With a shamanic impulse
now guiding my life, I know that when we come together in circles,
united by the practice of shamanism, we share a connection with
an ancient spiritual wisdom, one we could say is calling us home,
inviting us to remember.
The sentence that
begins with the words, 'In the beginning...' can be completed
in so many ways. Creation myths, using such words, abound as far
back as recorded time can take us.
When I was four years
old I still knew I was a star-child. One early winter evening,
muffled up in snowsuit, hat and mittens, I was waiting outside
on the lawn in front of our house for my father to come home from
work. The light of the street lamps and the passing cars was honey
gold. (The light pollution we know today didn’t exist in
the war years of the mid 40s.) I lay back on the snow and looked
up to the starry sky above me and drifted into my first experience
of unity consciousness.
I can still feel the soothing warmth of that starlight, even though
it was winter. There was snow everywhere around me and I lay on
it as though on a bed of feathers and felt myself floating up
so close that I was sure I could touch those glittering points
of light that were my source. I still tingle with the joy that
radiated down and through me. Any space between us ceased to exist.
Love poems to the beloved coursed through my young body. My launching
pad to the stars was the tiny front yard of a duplex on a busy
city street.
When I came back to myself, I was so filled with an overwhelming
sense of love that I began to greet everyone passing by on the
street, and was in turn warmly greeted back.
The people hurrying by on their way home that evening had no idea
that my smile and my greeting were a benediction, a message. I
can remember every detail. Now, more than sixty years later, I
am just beginning to understand the implications of that early
experience.
I also remember as
an older child playing the game that went...my name is Sharon
Anne Van Raalte, I live at 436 Sammon Avenue, Toronto, Ontario,
Canada, North America, Earth, Solar System, Galaxy, Universe...
until the brain could no longer sustain or comprehend. I know
I am not alone to have to have thrilled to that brainteaser!
What are the factors
in the process of our evolution that have caused us to forget
the importance of that childish recitation, that demonstration
of something so primal, but imperfectly remembered - the desire
to understand our place in the universe?
I returned to the
perennial questions: Who are we? Where do we come from? Where
are we going? Where does consciousness begin? These questions
are all too familiar, but sometimes familiarity obscures depth.
I wanted to find a way to plummet that depth and to dream deep.
I imagined myself as some kind of mystic mariner in a sci-fi adventure
journeying into the unknown in my tall ship, my submarine, my
space pod.
I decided to try
to put together a workshop, hoping that the discipline of fashioning
form and process would lead me to greater understanding.
Because the subject
is so vast I needed to find a point of departure, a compass. Fully
aware of how little I know and overwhelmed by how much I need
to discover, I decided to give myself a challenge. I would look
for inspiration and direction only in the writings I have kept
close to me over the years and in books and works that would come
to me serendipitously. My reasoning was, that if we are all linked
in some fundamental way to the larger whole, then the microcosm
of my life must be a fractal reflection of the macrocosm. This
would be a test. I started thumbing through my books, letting
myself be guided.
I opened myself to
the process of spiraling from idea to idea. In a conscious act
of faith I entrusted myself to what I could reach out and touch,
refining the process by limiting myself to what reached back and
touched me. And what I needed to know came forward, as though
it had been waiting to surface.
The ideas of Swiss
cultural historian, Jean Gebser came to my attention. In his book
The Ever-Present Origin he outlines five major stages
of social and individual development. Referred to as “an
analysis of the phylogenetic development of human consciousness
or an archaeology of consciousness”, these stages are: Archaic,
Magical, Mythical, Mental and Integral.
This reference prompted
me to look at the nature, history and evolution of the universe
and our place in it through the lens of several archetypes - The
Wild Child, The Hunter-Gatherer and The Dreamer (artist/poet).
Leaving aside the Mythical, with its rich and well documented
exuberance, and the Mental, the archetype in which our culture
is presently engaged, these correspond roughly to the Archaic
(Wild Child), the Magical (Hunter-Gatherer) and
the Integral (Dreamer) stages of development
of human consciousness. These three archetypes became a major
theme in the workshop.
From The Universe Story by Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme came
the concept of the cosmogenic principle, which
states that the evolution of the universe is governed by three
basic themes that are the fundamental and ever present intention
of all existence. They are Differentiation, Autopoiesis
and Communion.
Some synonyms describing
these themes help to clarify their meaning.
Differentiation=diversity, complexity, variation,
disparity.
Autopoiesis=subjectivity, self-manifestation,
sentience, inner principle of being, presence, identity.
Communion=interrelatedness, interdependence,
kinship, complementarity, interconnectivity, reciprocity.
A way of summing
up the cosmogenic principle could be:
There is no repetition in the developing universe.
Each thing emerges with an inner capacity for self-manifestation
and self-organization.
To be is to be related, for relationship is the essence of existence.
Even distilled down
to three sentences this insight was thrilling to me and has become
the matrix for my views on existence.
Those of us who are
drawn to shamanism and its role in contemporary times may find
ourselves in that space between notions of spirit and science
whether we realize it or not. The formula, E=mc2 is virtually
universally known. Many of us are fascinated by current scientific
enquiry into the origins of the universe - quantum mechanics,
chaos theory, string theory, M theory. The liturgy of this new
science is tantalizing - fractals, strange attractors, the pure
beauty of the Mandelbrot set demonstrating the elegance of design
that describes the never-ending flowering of the universe. In
many cases the sense of these patterns and forms can only be expressed
through mathematical equations, which are then translated into
our ken by symbol and archetype.
These amazing advances
in science reveal the pure wonder of creation, and mirror in many
instances a world-view shared by indigenous peoples all over the
globe and set down throughout the ages in myth and metaphor.
Berry and Swimme
point to the origins of modern science at the time of the Renaissance
and to the development of mathematics as an attempt to understand
and express the mysteries of the universe. This time of intent
observation and analysis fostered a desire to look back to the
mythic world of classical times and back further to neolithic
and even to paleolithic times, when a sense of the workings of
the universe was a continuous experience. It is only today that
we have insight into the chain of transformation that began as
galaxies and led to the birth of elements-solarsystem-planets-earth-seas-continents-atmosphere-oxygen-plant
life-animal life-human life. It is through human intelligence
that the universe has become conscious of its own story.
Imagine the effect
these ideas had on the part of me that still reflects that awestruck
little girl reciting her name and place. My name is…
Such reflections
help us understand the key role of the scientist in our times.
Berry suggests that the great work of Einstein was supported,
not only by his towering intellect, but also by his ability to
imagine shamanically. The great scientific minds that have come
after him are clearly inspired, as well, by this blending of great
intellectual skill and shamanic insight in their quest to unwrap
the secrets of the universe.
When we engage in
contemporary shamanic work we are in a unique position. We can
draw from both science and spirit - two aspects of the same mystery
- to inform our forward journey in this ever-changing world. And,
since we have the experience of shamanic consciousness and know
the realms of non-ordinary reality, we have already covered part
of the journey. There is an open door, a portal of transit already
in operation, a star-gate dialed.
We use ancient methods,
but we are different from those ancient people who practiced them.
Our sense of animism is, at first, intellectual, a kind of learned
behavior. Our DNA memory has witnessed a move away from the embrace
of nature, but includes a developing consciousness that is predicated
on reason and reflection. In some ways we are on the outside looking
in. But the same DNA memory that carries the gifts of all we have
learned up to this point of evolution also cradles the knowledge
of those earlier states of pure symbiosis with the natural world.
A return to a shamanic consciousness is becoming the renewed birthright
of our time, inspired and informed by both science and spirit.
We are all aware
of the importance of symbols throughout history. Symbols are the
visual reference to the mystery, used to describe the magic of
astronomy and astrology. Mathematical symbols help scientists
decode the mysteries of the universe. The flowering forms of sacred
geometry have been known through the ages. If we look at representations
of mythology and cosmology around the world, we find that the
use of symbols or geometric forms to express ideas and concepts
is abundant and pervasive, a kind of shorthand, dense with meaning.
The recent proliferation of crop circles in many places on the
globe seems to be bringing our attention back to these ancient
mysteries.
Journey for a Symbol
In preparing the workshop, Genesis, which I have now offered several
times, it occurred to me that a good way to begin to contain and
explore these emerging ideas, would be through an initial journey:
to find a pattern, design or symbol that could be a portal through
which to journey, but would also have a specific, imbedded personal
meaning and teaching for each person. Workshop participants were
to agree to follow up to learn about its meaning for them personally.
If they received a complicated or complex symbol they would ask
to be shown its simplest form. If the symbol were simple, they
were to ask to be shown some of its more complex variations. Once
they had taken note of the various forms of their symbol, I asked
that each one draw on a card in thick black pen the symbol in
its simplest form and to keep it visible throughout the weekend,
taking the time to give it their attention, be open to its teaching.
Not surprisingly,
the symbols were often geometric or spiraling in nature and the
symbols in each group were almost completely either one type or
the other. Some people remarked on the sense of group mind.
I have my symbol hanging on my office wall, always in full
view. (Maggie)
The symbol as
a portal to enter non-ordinary reality:
I was aware at the start of the journey that my drawing over my
fireplace is that symbol (a dark sun circling a light sun).
In the journey I saw a more complex form of the symbol as a spiraling
DNA matrix; one set of energy spiraling one way and the other
the reverse. It was too complicated to draw, and even the sketch
below does not quite capture it. (Linda)
The symbol was
in constant flowing motion. The whole image seemed to be unfurling
towards me, like a flower, moving all around me and passing on,
rather than me moving through it to reach the other side. At times
the lines of motion changed into orbs, but the configuration and
flow were the same. (Sharon)
In our shamanic work,
we are accustomed to using drums and rattles to call the attention
of the spirits. These are a stylized representation of a far earlier
connection to the sounds of nature that filled the ears of early
man - the wind, the sound of rain hitting various surfaces, the
rustle of leaves, the sound of hoof beats - connections to the
very vibrations of existence. Before we devised instruments, our
instrument was our body, music our voice, rhythm the clapping
of hands - we danced and we sang. We existed in our senses in
perpetual dialogue with the living world around us.
Another response to the call for
clarity from the fractal world of my bookcase came from David
Abrams' The Spell of the Sensuous. It reminds us that
as we touch the world, a leaf, a rock, the water in a pool, we
are in turn touched back. As we gaze upon the color of a flower
or the filigree pattern on the wings of a dragonfly, the flower
and the dragonfly are also gazing back at us. There are no boundaries
and we are engaged in a mutual dance of shared perception that
could not exist without both partners.
Most of the experiences I have had involving
a sense of being in compete interaction with nature have been
in the Arctic. Maybe only in these isolated and relatively untouched
places can we still witness and participate in the interdependence
and continuity of all life.
One such experience occurred years after
my first “sighting” of spirits on the ridge in Cape
Dorset. It was during another film shoot. This time we were filming
in the summer, camped on the land some distance from Cape Dorset,
where a vein of marble provided the site for a documentary about
the carving of life-size figures from marble, depicting the story
of the Inuit myth of Sedna.
By now, I was in the middle of the Three
Year program at the Foundation for Shamanic Studies and had even
brought my drum north with me. This particular year the sea ice
had not receded, even though it was July, and we had been forced
to take repeated trips by helicopter to the site, to ferry our
supplies, the carvers, their families, and the film crew. We were
cut off from the outside until the ice broke.
One evening, sitting near our
camp, on the marble slope that dipped into the sea, I quietly
drummed and journeyed to my teacher. He had been a well-known
hunter in the region and I had recently discovered that his former
camp was across the bay from where we were located. In the
journey I am swimming under the waters of this bay. A seal approaches
and we swim together, swirling in spiral formations. I feel an
ancient connection, a sense of complicity. The next day,
when we found that a seal had been caught by our fishnets, I was
filled with gratitude and an almost sobering sense of a covenant.
Not long after, we became aware of something
moving in the distance through the ice-filled waters. It was the
first boat to make its way to our camp, now that the ice was beginning
to break up. I hurried down to the shore to greet a woman who
was first off the boat and learned that she was the granddaughter
of my spirit teacher to whom I had been drumming the previous
night. It was as though land and spirit were communicating as
one. I felt that my teacher was manifesting through her.
In October we returned to finalize the
shoot. We finished just as the weather started to close in, so
we hurried to break camp. I was in the last boat to leave as a
storm began to develop. We were overloaded and the boat was hanging
dangerously low in the water. There was a sense of urgency to
get out as quickly as we could. Rain, wind and waves made the
going rough. Large chunks of ice floated by, shape-shifting into
ghostly human forms in the mist and the waning light, looming
like ethereal water spirits. About halfway back to the community
we abruptly turned toward shore. I looked and saw that two boats
had pulled up, but there seemed to be no one there. Then, as I
looked, the rock seemed to move, revealing three men who had been
so continuous with their environment that I hadn’t seen
them until they began to come toward our boat. It was as though
the rock had given them form and life, as though they had grown
out of the rock.
Here was a living, breathing expression
of the Wild Child!
The Wild Child
The Wild Child
corresponds to the Gebser’s Archaic stage
in the development of human consciousness.
The Wild Child is pre-personal and exists
without ego, is continuous with the environment. When we call
up this archetype, we become that which we were at the moment
of our birth, still in touch with the place from which we have
come, still remembering. As long as we are able to join through
our bodies with the body of the earth, in a place before or beyond
words or language, we can experience the Wild Child. Remember
that our DNA is encoded with the total blueprint of life right
back to the beginning of time.
Journey to the Wild Child
Another journey in the workshop was to meet our Wild Child, living
somewhere in the texture of the double helix–keeping alive
the memory of the senses/the sensual–the rain, the wind,
the sun, the feasting on berries–the natural life on the
borderlands between cosmic awareness and self-awareness.
What could we learn about this original
state of being that could be brought forward into our awareness?
How could we build an open dynamic between the awakened Wild Child
and the person existing in the ever-present moment? What could
the Wild Child tell us about the vibration of color, the song
of the elements, the teachings of the seasons? (I had asked everyone
at the beginning of the workshop to quickly write down without
thinking, the color, the element and the season with which they
most resonated at that moment.)
Of the two examples below, the first is
an account of the journey during a workshop and the second is
a recounting of how the Wild Child archetype came to help during
a woman’s subsequent work with a client. Other journeys
were alive with the various aspects of the chosen color.
I journeyed to the lower world
and asked my power animal to bring me to my wild child. We walked
in the tall grass. Someone was walking toward us. I assumed it
was my wild child. The man was carrying a tray with something
on it. I could not make out what was on the tray. I asked him
if he was my wild child. He said, ‘No, your wild child is
within you. Eat this and you will experience what you already
are’. I ate what was on the tray. I suddenly felt myself
becoming a luminous being; I became the long grass, swaying in
the breeze, soaking up the rays of the sun. I felt warm and lazy.
Then I was the breeze playing in the leaves. I blew over the water
and became the water flowing down the river, enjoying the freedom
of flowing, and sparkling in the sun. I was a stone at the bottom
of the river, covered with soil and feeling very grounded as the
water flowed over me. I was the mist over the rapids. I rose higher
and higher in the atmosphere. I soared like Eagle; I became Eagle
swooping down and playing in the wind. I swooped down and merged
with Lion and, as Lion, I played in the field. I was back in my
body and Lion and I laid down in the field staring up at the sky
until night fell. We laid there in complete darkness, just content
in being. I was not cold, I was not warm, I felt this complete
sense of contentment. I felt deeply connected with everything
and everyone. I was an integral part of nature. (Francine)
I had a meeting with a client
well known to me last night where we did a soul remembering journey
and I just wanted to let you know how much it would seem your
workshop has changed and improved my work. The client and I work
well together, but last night the confirmations of my journey
manifested in real time at the end of the journey - it was so
amazing it brought tears to my eyes. I found the journey went
very deep and as I was entering part 2 of the journey, I realized
the depth needed so called upon Wild Child to take me to where
I was being guided - especially because it was in a time of no
words. We went to a planet that had caught my attention... and
it would seem it was a "beginning" time. It was amazing
to journey to this place with such ease and detail. (Maggie)
The Hunter-Gatherer
The elements and the topography within
which they lived took on special meaning for the first peoples.
As reflection led them to perceive themselves as other, they identified
their place in their reality based on the surrounding landscape.
They became the people of the River, the Mountain, the Plains.
Spirits of wind, sun, earth and fire were to be respected and
honored. Not entirely separated from their animal past, they maintained
a communion with the animals and identified themselves with totems
for strength and protection. They became the hunter-gatherers.
The Hunter-Gatherer
archetype relates most closely to the Magical
stage set out by Gebser.
As Hunter/Gatherers we are always in the
middle of our process, working at activities that are never completed.
The need to continuously seek out nourishment provides a unique
perspective – imbued with endless movement, choice, and
change. The work of survival is ongoing, never finished, its process
integrated into all phases of life. Gratitude is an ever-present
state, grounded in living ritual. In a paradigm based on process
everything is living. Therefore nothing is static, and nothing
can be taken for granted.
Here again, my direct experience of this
was in the Canadian Arctic, where I have witnessed over and again
hunters, by all standards modern, articulate, well traveled beyond
their northern realms, who, when out “on the land”
become the embodiment of their hunter-gatherer ancestors. The
caribou is caught and skinned where it fell, the meat wrapped
neatly in the skin and the remains either hidden out of sight
or left in the open for the ravens so that the land will retain
no visible reminder of the event. The seal is harvested from the
net, brought to shore and given a drink of fresh water from a
tin cup as the hunters look on. The skinning and the division
of meat take place in silence and the fresh liver is passed around
for all to share.
As Hunter-Gatherers we have the awareness of an animal moving
perpetually through the centre of its universe, alert and in harmony
at the same time, scanning.
Out “on the land”, being carried
by skidoo over an endless, snowy landscape, even I have found
myself, as though another aspect of my nature was evoked, scanning
the horizon back and forth and back and forth until this process
revealed something that wasn’t there a moment before, a
black speck on the distant horizon – a seal lifting its
head miles away.
This is the way of perceiving that goes
beyond the logic of the mind or the hints from intuition. It goes
back to a holistic perception, the scan, the immediate grasp,
the direct knowing. We need to bring our attention to inner and
outer process – a kind of scanning from a subtle higher
level of the whole, that place of creativity where everything
is joined, much like the hunter out on the land. To do this we
need to move beyond many of the assumptions held by our current
society.
Each of us carries in the fabric of our
DNA the precious perception of the earth seen through the eyes
of the Hunter-Gatherer.
Journey to the Hunter-Gatherer
Here was another journey for the Genesis workshop: to meet the
Hunter-Gatherer, to learn the gifts and skills from this consciousness.
Specific skills like silence, stillness and waiting might be shared.
Seeing the world through Hunter-Gatherer eyes might bring insight
to our place in time and space. Is my Hunter-Gatherer the same
or opposite gender? What are the teachings of the Hunter-Gatherer?
A hand grabs my wrist and
I’m pulled. I follow. Who is this? Earth Masculine–yes;
Hunter Gatherer–yes. This time he’s more instinctual,
less civilized in his interactions with me… very primal.
He makes us squat down and points at the ground. All I feel is
the sensuousness of being close to him… I look at him, but
he indicates with a jerk of his head that I’m to scan about
the tundra landscape and use this state of heightened awareness.
I do. I feel my mind (mental thinking) overrides this instinctual
connection. I must work to rebuild it to use in daily life; it
will expand my intuitive process; the instinctual battery for
psychic awareness. (Linda)
Some of the teachings: …
no boundaries, all life one continuous thread…talk less,
accept the obvious…everything is connected, create a strong
web of support (like a trampoline); take what you need, careful
to leave the web intact; trust the web to provide what you need;
abundance is available…enjoy the moment…take time…listen
with all your heart. (groups)
The story of our evolving consciousness led inevitably to the
development of language.
At first the sounds of language reflected back the description
of what was being communicated. Even in our common language of
today we can hear the “crackling fire”, the “whispering
wind”, the “gurgling water”.
Language among oral peoples was used to
converse not only with one another but to maintain communication
with the animate and inanimate world around them, invoking the
eternal relationship with the surrounding embrace of earth and
sky. They spoke to the world, not of the world. At its best, language
becomes poetry.
The cosmogenic principle is still
very much in evidence. Greater complexity flows into new examples
of self-manifestation, all seeking new forms of reciprocity.
While the next two stages in Gebser’s outline of the development
of human consciousness, the Mythical and the Mental, have been
noted for the sake of continuity, they did not seem to require
an archetypal examination in the context of what I had set out
to understand. At another time, an investigation of the archetypes
of Mythmaker and Thinker would most certainly be warranted. They
are mentioned here to demonstrate that these stages and the realities
they have conjured, both beneficial and destructive, simply describe
the inevitable flow of diversity, subjectivity and interrelatedness,
a chapter in the cosmogenic process that has had to exhaust its
potential before a new cycle of cosmogenesis could flow from it.
With this new cycle has come the
Dreamer.
The Dreamer
This is the Integral
stage in Gebser’s list, which he calls the time of the ever-present
origin.
He characterizes it as a new order of time
erupting into consciousness. The creative space-time of the physicists
and the timeless time of the mystics are together creating a flow
that is pushing aside the dualities and polarities that defined
the period of Mental (Rational) consciousness. Integral thought
is comprehensive, its consciousness planetary, its way of being
holistic.
This is the time of the Dreamer,
the poet, the artist in all of us, a time that scans the horizons
of the imagination.
“…that which we call imagination
is from the first an attribute of the senses themselves; imagination
is not a separate mental faculty, but a way the senses themselves
have of throwing themselves beyond what is immediately given in
order to make tentative contact with the other side of things
that we do not sense directly, with the hidden or invisible aspects
of the sensible.”
During the time of the oral cultures the
languages of such peoples as the Navajo and the Hopi demonstrate
an understanding that human desire and imagination can exert an
influence on a world that is ever-emerging, ever-manifesting,
in a perpetual mingling of time and space. This suggests a linking
back to the intuitive time of the Wild Child. Here was the original
Dreamer, the one before words. Now we have words and not only
the dream of what was and is, but the bourgeoning dream of what
will be. This is truly the playground of the artist and the poet.
Journey to the Dreamer
With these thoughts in mind, I asked the groups to journey to
meet their Dreamer (poet, artist, creative one) and ask such questions
as: What are the qualities of the Dreamer’s imagination
and creativity that I can awaken in my life? Show me a quiet place
where, as Dreamer, I can return whenever I wish to dream my life
and with it the world.
As I watch I see something
coming toward me. I see the air morphing around an energy form;
like a mirror reflection around a body. It’s as if space
is folding / morphing as the energy form comes towards me. WOW!
Awesome! I feel like a child watching something so magically amazing.
I sparkle / glisten with Spirit’s flowing love. I touch
with my hand the embrace of this pseudopodal elemental. Tears
flow. This is so beautiful. This is solar feminine. It reflects
all. How am I to use you? I’m shown to lean forward forehead
to forehead. ‘It’s not what I mean. When do I use
you?’ ‘Every moment.’ (Linda)
There are no limits to what the Dreamer
can teach us, especially as we move into this time of new consciousness.
What are these times?
These are times when even consensus reality is breaking down.
Morality and integrity are almost questions of personal choice.
We have no shared cosmology and therefore no point of reference,
no reverence.
Thinkers like Joseph Campbell and Thomas
Berry refer to the loss of myth in our time.
At the same time, psychologist/philosopher, Jean Houston, points
out that every kind of society that has ever existed can be seen
to-day. Couple that with the knowledge that our DNA contains the
memory of all existence, the phrase “as within, so without”
takes on deeper meaning.
Houston says the world may be ready for
a whole system transition. The signs are there. She suggests that,
“there is a lag between the end of an age and the discovery
of that end. We are the children of the lag, the people of the
time of parenthesis–and there is no juicier time to be alive.
For the future is open in a time of parenthesis–the new
age is being seeded; the new myths are beginning to appear…”
Journey for a Myth
These ideas suggested another journey for the workshop. I decided
to bring the groups back to the symbol they had found during the
beginning hours of the workshop. I wondered what a journey through
the symbol, as portal, would reveal with the intention of being
shown a new myth for our times. The symbol itself might reveal
a deeper aspect of its nature and its relation to the emergent
myth. How might it manifest? How can each of us participate? What
will be the new myth for our times?
The journey for insight into
the new myth of our times was quite a surprise. Went again through
the portal, which turned into a huge snake... a new power animal.
I felt fear and discomfort. The snake bit me all over then ate
me! I went through him and we intertwined and continued the journey
and came out in the Lower World where he sat coiled up in front
of me. He was huge. I felt fear. He said: NO FEAR! You need to
let go of fear and embrace me. I am knowledge. I am enlightenment.
I am the new myth of our times. I am the kundalini rising. With
that, he went up my spine eating all my chakras and spewing out
of my head. It was painful and I wanted to scream out. He said:
This is purification. It then flowed from the Earth, up my back
and out my head, showering back to the Earth. He showed me groups
of people sitting in a circle doing this. He told me that knowledge
changes as we evolve, it is not static, but changes with us. See
my skin? And then he shed it. This is old knowledge, old reality,
my old eyes. Today is a new knowledge. (Glenn)
What an opportunity for the process to
come full circle even as it spirals forward in the one, two, three
dance of cosmogenesis. The Dreamer, the descendant of the Wild
Child is yearning to come home, to complete the loop back to the
dance of co-creation with all the energies of the universe. The
Dreamer carries the knowledge of all that has gone before and
stands on precipice of all that is to come. The Dreamers will
dream the new myths, will be the mythmakers of our time. And we
are all Dreamers. We are here now embracing ideas about time and
space that the ancients understood and we welcoming the new thinkers
as the new storytellers. Physicists and mathematicians who are
probing the universe for answers become poetic as they reach for
imagery to describe the mysteries they are unveiling. Those of
us returning to a shamanic way of being have the tools to walk
between the worlds and to bring back, not only stories of our
adventures in other realms, but a renewed understanding of the
importance of our way of being on this earth.
Journey to All
Finally, to bring together the archetypes we all embody, I asked
each group to journey to meet with their Wild Child, Hunter-Gatherer
and Dreamer together and ask to be shown our
purpose here, the gift of our individual and unique presence in
this unfolding universe.
…be a transcriber to
birth desire and intention into existence…explore divers
realms and synthesize what you find to bring to others who might
wish…live in passion and laughter; there is no other thread
like yours…with the precision of the archer, walk into the
unknown; give voice to the marginalized…hang onto the web
with one hand and, with the other hold on to all of us, making
place for us on the web…you are the gift / a work in progress…be
the color you are, just be…(groups)
The universe is unfolding, evolutionary, emergent. We can’t
know what awaits us. The cosmogenic principles continue to be
creative, producing new variations, including the human mind.
We are the sum of all that has gone before. Our only path is forward.
To the extent that we are one of its most intricate forms, the
universe celebrates itself through us. As we change, self-manifest
and enter into community, we participate in the unerring
wisdom of the cosmogenic principle. We are its living flag bearers,
its representatives.
When we come together in groups to explore
ideas such as these, we listen, experience, share, touch upon
connectedness. Perhaps each coming together is random or a part
of a larger order. But, for certain, any coming together is only
one of an infinite number of possibilities, a metaphor for existence–flexible,
ever evolving, learning, and adjusting. Pushing homeward, mystic
mariners all, we are guided unerringly by our own north star.
POSTSCRIPT
Although I have only offered this workshop a few times, the response
and feedback were most rewarding. Some people applied the concepts
and their experiences directly in their shamanic work. Others
experienced personal healing through their encounters with the
archetypes. Most said that the content of the workshop continued
to work on them long after the weekend ended. There was a consensus
that two days were not enough time to integrate the material and
some suggested either a longer residential program or continuing
gatherings to explore the subject. There were useful comments
about how the material was organized in relation to the journeys.
I look forward to expanding and refining the material and to offering
Genesis again in the future.
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I loved the workshop.
As with all the Shamanic workshops I've done with you there has
been much work done and reflection on myself and my own relationship
to my inner demons. The wild child was an interesting discovery.
The way it blended itself to all that is about me. I particularly
like how one of the journeys brought the wild child and the inner
child together to heal misunderstandings, conflicts etc from past
moments of my life. Although this workshop did not primarily concentrate
on healing there was healing done. Certain moments were so intense
that my male bravado & facade forced me to remove myself and
go walk to collect myself, my decorum and my thoughts.
Gus
It was a wonderful workshop.
I'll be processing it for quite some time. However, I think that,
ideally, it would be better if it was spread out over more than
one weekend. I don't know if that would work, since I see how
the different threads are interconnected, but it really does seem
like it would be better to go into more detail but as a longer
and more detailed workshop it might be a bit overwhelming. Anyway,
thanks for the experience.
Don
Genesis is the opportunity
to approach a threshold; and with Spirit’s guidance to cross
over into the next level of work; of unfolding who one is in this
physical reality;
For me this threshold experience is a very primal and sub-verbal
articulation; it manifests in the physical level of the sensate;
it equates to the fetus in the womb; it is a very subtle level,
which takes time to manifest in my awareness and conscious understanding.
This was the second time I’ve had a journey that was as
if I was in direct connection with Spirit. This time it was seeing
the creator through that which physical space manifests around
its energetic form. Previously I stepped through the eye of a
dragon into an empty void where the darkness pulsed with a glow.
Both times I was in awe and emotionally overwhelmed.
Linda
Having never heard of archetypes before, learning about them during
the Genesis workshop was an eye opening experience. With this
new awareness at hand, I feel that these archetypes have quickly
and easily become an important part of my healing work. This has
enhanced both the understanding of myself and energy in general.
Knowing of them and what they represent has also given me a system
of places/dimensions that I am guided to go to when doing healing
work. At times each archetype seems almost to reflect a representation
of the body, mind and spirit. I would relate spirit to the Wild
Child, body to be the Hunter/Gatherer and the mind the Dreamer...
By understanding or relating to the different archetypes on an
energetic level I find my imagination has been broadened, thus
I have become more open to even greater possibilities of energy.
Often times now during a healing journey I will find myself in
one of their existences, usually Wild Child or Hunter/Gatherer.
Each of them brings their own knowledge about my client and I
am easily provided with a place to do some energy work in their
time frame. Each also has a unique way of communicating messages
so it allows me an understanding of what time frame (term used
loosely!) I am working and what the clients need help with. In
most sessions I find myself in the Wild Child's time- the time
before words - when energy was pure and unobstructed - it is here
that I find healing begins to take place on a multidimensional
multi-lifetime level, and while it is hard at times to decipher
the information, the energies flow freely and easily. Wild Child
also provides the best place to access historical information
and cosmic wisdom. In the end it takes a lot of faith to work
without words, just energy, yet doing so promotes my own inner
growth and makes it very rewarding.
Maggie
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i
Referenced in Life Force by Jean Houston
ii Abram,
p58
iii
Houston, p5
BIBLIOGRAPHY/SOURCES
Abram, David. The Spell of
the Sensuous. Random House, Inc.: New York; 1997
Houston, Jean. Life Force, Quest Books; Wheaton, Ill.,
U.S.A.: 1993
Swimme, Brian and Berry. Thomas The Universe Story. HarperSanFrancisco;
1992
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