THE FORCE OF THE PRIMAL # 4

LESSONS FOR US

 

“I only went out for a walk and finally decided to stay until sundown, for going out, I discovered, was actually going in.” John Muir

 

Somewhere beyond the walls of our awareness, the Esau side, the hunter side, the seeking side of ourselves is waiting to return.” L. Van der Post

                                   

We cannot retain the purity of the hunter-gatherer's indigenous soul but we can retain their consciousness if we choose to appreciate and learn it. The best way to do this is to simulate the hunter-gatherer experience as much as feasible by having as little between us and nature as possible.

 

Nature’s Sacred Space.

 

The soul's fulfillment is through the experience of the senses.
The soul's conversation is not of the mind. It is best heard with the senses.

From my flesh shall I behold God.

The route to God is through the senses.

 

If we immerse in nature in the right way we can experience the sensory, "Soft Fascinations" that enable a meditative state. This can include a sense of equanimity, balance and harmony, recognized as an alpha rhythm on an electroencephalogram. 

These fascinations include: The meditative mantra of the bush - its plethora of insect, bird and animal sounds. The sound of the wind in the trees and those of a babbling brook. The sights, scenes, scents and aromas. The harmony and complexity of the “mini-fields” – an ant or termite colony or a beehive. They are further enhanced by the daily, monthly, and seasonal cycles leading to entrainment with the rhythms of the nature. The hunter-gatherers had their own zen or yoga in wild places. With right intention nature can also meditate us.

 

God’s rivers of pleasure and good are fed by the watershed of the soul’s capacity for enjoyment and of their emptying into its ocean.

 

The ancient sages taught that the mystery of who we are is contained in the four winds and that without them none of creation would exist.

 

Each of the Four Beings of nature is animated by the breath (wind) of the Creator. Each with its own unique vibration and each with its own consciousness, related to the density of that vibration. When we are alone in nature for long enough we can begin to sense this. Five days  would be ideal, also with a lot of alone time.

 

“If the people had not been gifted with Divinely inspired scriptures, they could have learned all they needed to know from the animals themselves.” The Zohar

“There is not a single blade of grass that is born of the earth that does not carry within her immense wisdom and immense heavenly power.

Humility and awe let one see most clearly and hear most truly.” The Zohar

“Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.” 
Kahlil Gibran

 

Before civilization developed the Hero/ine's quest of necessity occurred in wilderness. Today many are still venturing into wild places to attain inner guidance and hopefully a vision of who they are and what they need to do.

Wilderness, wild places - or nature in any ideal circumstance - can be used as sacred space for the quest. It may be done elsewhere but She is a preferred environment.

 

“A human cannot live and temper his/her metal without honor. There is deep within him/her a sense of heroic quest and our modern way of life with its emphasis on security, its distrust of the unknown and its elevation of abstract collective values has repressed the heroic impulse to a degree that may produce the most dangerous consequences.”  

 L. Van der Post

 

If we immerse ourselves inwardly in nature She can present us with all the polarities required for growth. Wildness was the classroom for  indigenous people – the supreme test that could test one’s metal.

 

“If we are willing to open up to it then it is just the unknown, the unplanned, the unexpected, the unfamiliar which can best teach us. In the tiny prefix “un” which so often spells trouble, lies the potential for change, for the new, for the hitherto unconsidered, unimagined, unrealized.” R. Hinshaw

 

The Vision Quest

"So the young man went North seeking the “Singing Stone.” After many adventures he arrived in the North and found his grandfather sitting upon a stone waiting for him. The Singing Stone is not to the North said the grandfather, it is to the South. So he journeyed South and after many adventures he found a dragonfly. The Singing Stone is not to the South sang the dragonfly it is to the West. So he journeyed West and found a mouse. The mouse answered the Singing Stone is not to the West it is to the East. So he journeyed East and after many adventures he arrived at a strange camp. He headed towards the camp but pulled up short when he saw the paintings and signs on the lodges were foreign. He decided to go ahead in spite of the “Bow of Tension Pulled within Him.” Finally he reached the circle of lodges. Then his sisters, mothers, brothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, uncles and aunts and all his relatives came out to greet him saying, welcome to our Counsel Fire Singing Stone." H. Storm

Many indigenous peoples had rites of passage and initiations for their youth - something lacking in modern societies. This enabled the initiate to cross the threshold from adolescent into adulthood and taking the appropriate responsibilities for sake of the tribe that suited their signature or core strength, their destiny or purpose. 

For Native Americans it was the Vision Quest where also adults seeking clarity would venture into nature's sacred space alone and fast for a vision, a dream or a message. Fasting was a key component of the journey. Westerners now are doing the same quest usually for four days of alone time with fasting followed by   a reintegration or incorporation phase.

The polarities they encountered may have included; terrified/tranquil, hard/soft, hot /cold, heat exhaustion/freezing, hungry/satiated, starving/renewed, thirsty/quenched, dehydrated/replenished, dark/light, sun/moon, sickness/healing, metaphoric death and rebirth. 

 

Without taking such drastic challenges - nature's polarities can still help us find either clarity or the middle way of the Buddha.

 

Balance is achieved by harmonizing polarities. Dualities come into harmony by negotiating a third or middle path... 

 

The fundamental notion of equilibrating the opposites is omnipresent in all beliefs. This universal truth is crucial to our understanding of how we transcend and transform.  

 

The most profound sound of all is that of silence – not the silence that is the absence of noise, of quietness, but that in which we hear the longings of our heart and ponder our response.

 

We are even able to hear the soft, still, silent voice of the Creator if ego is put aside and we listen carefully. God wants a personal relationship with us but most of us cannot imagine this is possible. We are here to co-create with the Creator. S/He needs us to help complete creation. 

If we venture forth into nature - the more wild the better - for a reasonable amount of time, we begin to bond with the three other beings of nature.  Power plants and or power animals present themselves in our relaxed state and can guide us with messages and metaphors of where we need to be next and what we need to release from in order to get to a new phase in our lives. Our dreams improve as do our intuitive senses. 

 

Magical Powers Continued #3b

THE FORCE OF THE PRIMAL

This blog is deliberately short to allow time to watch the links which speak louder than any words written.

To experience the wild beings you must dance with them

Shape Shifting and Animal Whispering

“All humans are endowed with the attributes of animals.” Cordova

“If the people had not been gifted with Divinely inspired scriptures, they could have learned all they needed to know from the animals themselves.” The Zohar

 Although I never witnessed shape shifting, on many occasions I witnessed the incredible ability some Bushmen had to mimic a particular animal's behavior which is key to shape shifting and "becoming" the animal. This also helped them in their hunting when they would "put on animal mind" and become the animal.

We are all one though not the same.

We are all connected, some of all in each. All are spirit manifestations and exist in one another.

“Earth am I, air am I, water, fire and spirit am I. Earth are you, air are you, water, fire and spirit are you…" Druid teaching

We are all made of the same elements and we will all return - dust to dust, ashes to ashes. Although not possible for the cognitive brain to comprehend, shape shifting appears to happen in a trance-like state or at least in the mind's eye of the practitioner while in that state.

The figure below is from rock art (rendered after the event) showing the trance dancer beginning to attain an animal like form. This is called a therianthrope - part animal - part human. Shape shifting is taking animal whispering to a higher level where the adept actually becomes the animal.

Below is a short extract from the movie The Great Dance by the Foster brothers of the Bushmen running hunt which is extraordinary.  It is powerful moment in time - fast disappearing - about how we used to be and what we could do spiritually. The end may be hard for some to watch although it is sacred. The bushmen cherished the animals for what they brought to them for their survival.

(Craig Foster also filmed My Octopus Teacher which many of you may have watched. Those who have not, should check Netflix.)

Click, play and enjoy the links

The Great Dance is a testament to the Bushmans' "animal whispering" for want of a better term even though that whispering was used on the hunt. It is only five minutes. Those who may be offended by it should stop at about four minutes. There is a full length feature as well.

The Great Dance.

"we put on animal mind and see how they are moving." 

PreviewPreview5:26

Many today are relating to animals in different ways as the animals themselves are seeming to relate to one another. Predator and prey are also befriending each other as seen on the amazing videos on social media.

The ingredient to whispering is having unconditional love without any fear. It requires bonding with the animal and identifying in the imagination with all its amazing characteristics. Imagine oneself being that animal. 

This video below by Anna Breytenbach, a renowned animal whisperer, is short and gives us an idea of what is required. Those who do not know of her may be interested in her story of Diablo, the black leopard, also on You Tube.

PreviewPreview6:30

 

 

THE FORCE OF THE PRIMAL # 3a

Lessons from the hunter-gatherers and other indigenous wisdoms

 SKILLS RESULTING FROM THE PRIMAL LIFE 

The Field

Most of the Field is Unknowable – more was made knowable to indigenous peoples, yogis, sages and mystics.  

“Whatever being (Still, Growing, Wild or Talking) comes to be,     be it motionless (Still Beings) or moving, derives its being from Field and Knower (The Creator) of the Field.” Bhagavad Gita

"Out there beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a Field. I will meet you there..." Rumi

Information, knowledge, doubt, denial, disbelief, ego and judgment get in our way of being there.

 God’s voice is heard in quietness and stillness. Beware the noises of ego which drown out the Divine Spirit.

"Blessed are the meek..." Jesus

The Bushmen easily adopted qualities usually seen in mystical communities. In my time with them they seemed to naturally embrace humility and ego subordination, a lack of judgmental attitudes, an unconditional positive regard for each other and an unconditional love for children. Their healers especially had open and loving hearts. They slept on the earth together around the fire. It was all for one and one for all in order to survive.

The indigenous mind was schooled by their experiences in nature. 

It is better to experience the learning than to learn the experience (we usually do the opposite.)

“Kabir talks only about what he has lived through. If you have not lived through it, it is not true.” 

Wilderness was their Yoga and their Zen until civilization’s temptations intruded. Before that they were mindful of needs, not wants. They enjoyed the magic of polarity balance and entrainment in the natural meditation offered by the wildness around them. This helped them to find the middle way of the Buddha. They learned to coexist with the dark, the negative and the profane with acceptance and realizing it was part of the necessary tension required for the magical to occur.

Balance is achieved by harmonizing polarities. Dualities come into harmony by negotiating a third or middle path, a path not of assimilation but a path of coexistence.

    They adopted a profound connection to Gaia - their Earth Mother.    Their spiritual practice of being immersed in nature gave them the vibration required to travel out of body during their healing trance dance and obtain non-local information, protection and healing critical to the clan. 

There are many paths to the mystery wisdom exuding from the growing things that surround us, from the color of the sky and  from all the Beings of nature.

Magical Powers

The Out of Body Spirit Trance Dance

With their trance dance and mastery of Num the San Bushmen describe similar energetic phenomena mostly seen in advanced spiritual practitioners such as; heat rising up the spine, creeping sensations, tingling, vibrating, shaking, light experiences, inner sounds and smells, an empty mind (“my thoughts were nothing in my head”), connection with Self (“I feel my-Self again”), out of body experiences and astral travel, paranormal powers, spontaneous movements including adopting yoga-like postures, paralysis, falling and mastery of fire.

Rock art left by them showed some of the visions they experienced in trance such as: The large body experience – as they travelled out of body they saw themselves below, as a much larger, elongated figure. We also see this in Native American rock art.

Beyond the veil they connected with their ancestors and some, even saw an anthropomorphic representation of the Great Spirit; "when I make myself very small," (Bushmen healer to Richard Katz in his book Boiling Energy.)

The Medicine Person or "Shaman"(The Seer")

and Healing

With our potions and charms we arouse in the sick one’s brain the will to be healthy. Without the strong will to be alive a human can be carried into the valleys of death by even the mildest sickness.” Credo Mutwa

 Credo Mutwa a Zulu sangoma, or more accurately a sanusi or prophet, was profound in his spiritual teachings.

The soul is like an orb inside which are two worms, one blue, the other red that move constantly. The blue represents good and the red, evil.  These components balance the soul. A balance of the two is essential for all souls to exist. If there is only blue or good, the soul cannot long survive. If there is only red or evil the person deserves not to survive”
Credo Mutwa 

There is similar Native American teaching about a grandfather explaining the soul to his grandson. “Within all of us there are two wolves fighting for domination – the one good and the other evil.” His grandson asks, “which wolf wins?”  and the elder answers, the one you feed.

How does one integrate the intuitive - how does one learn it?
The thing about a shaman is that s/he is able to integrate left brain - right brain and have whole brain function and this comes out of initiation.
You cannot just "think" it for it to happen – it is a process that comes from the training.

“Shamanism as an inner experience is timeless. It as old as the moment when humans first observed that night follows day and day follows night. The shaman is s/he who walks with the elements, he who speaks with the wind, he who travels through space, and who sings to the music when the music dances his song. The shaman is the son of the fire. The shaman is s/he who keeps himself like a river – never the same but always one thing. The shaman is the son of Pachamama.” James Chaski Arevalo

“He is the best physician who is the most ingenious inspirer of hope” Samuel Taylor Coleridge

All medicine men and women, shamans or similar, inspire hope through their charm, charisma, compassion and their competence in doing magical divinations or rituals. They enhance the power of placebo. Allopathic medicine, often unknowingly, does the opposite by invoking nocebo with prognoses and describing every detail of all the mishaps that could occur when obtaining the legally required informed consent.

"Only love can generate the healing fire,”  

Agnes Sanford 

Possession, trance channelling and getting scripted information from spirit guides in and out of the dream state

Indigenous peoples were connected to their ancestors and guides in the dream state and in real time. Some hunters did not follow the spoor they just "knew" where to go. Their guides were telling them in one way or another.

Spirit guides are not subject to time and space. They are always around but not always to be known, always within call but not always to be heard, always present but not always to be sensed, always holding us, but not always to be felt.

The San Bushen travelled out of body - astral travel - in the trance state to get information that told them where to find water and where to hunt the next day, who might be sick, how to find a lost child...

The Bantu healers of Southern Africa differ from their Bushmen neighbors in getting "possessed"during trance.The healer's ego would step aside and the spirit of an ancestor would take over and impart information not confined to the space-time continuum. 

This differs from trance channelling when the spirit is giving the channel the information without taking over the body. 

In Kabbalah this information is provided in other ways short of giving up one's free will to a spirit which is not sanctified.

“The sages who have died are present in this world to a greater extent than when they were alive.” The Zohar

“When a word is spoken in the name of its speaker his lips move in the grave. And the lips of him who utters the word move like those of the master who is dead. A sage cannot speak words of teaching unless he first links his soul to the soul of his dead teacher or to that of his teacher’s teacher.” Talmud

Knowledge of Plants

If you want to learn the language of rocks and trees you must first slow to their pace 

which is different from animals and wild flowers.

Although they are soundless they are not silent, so listen long and deeply in order to hear what hearing ears do not. 

Sacred plants are there to help us but they also have to be honored and respected. Only what is needed should be taken for the task at hand and one should show gratitude in some way.

Being of the breath of God, all creation is responsive to love, gratitude and petition.

Each as it is acknowledged becomes receptive to giving and receiving. That is how we experience the other.

 Music of the Spheres

"ˆWhen the stars of the morning sang together." Job

Pythagoras was said to be able to hear the music or singing of the spheres or the stars as did the ancient Chaldeans. The Druids called it the Oran Mo'or, the sacred tune of the universe. 

The Bushmen too talked about the singing of the stars as did the Zohar. To hear the music or sounds of the spheres requires an exquisite purity and an absence of ambient noise.

The Silence of the Stars
 
When Laurens van der Post one night - in the Kalahari Desert told the Bushmen he couldn't hear the stars singing they didn't believe him. They looked at him, half-smiling. They examined his face to see whether he was joking or deceiving them… . 
Then they led him away from the crackling thorn-scrub fire and stood with him under the night sky and listened. One of them whispered; Do you not hear them now? And van der Post listened, not wanting to disbelieve, but had to answer - No. They walked him slowly like a sick man to the small dim circle of firelight and told him they were terribly sorry
And he felt even sorrier for himself and blamed his ancestors for their strange loss of hearing… David Wagoner

“Because we are stars we must walk the sky.”                      

Song of the Bushmen Lion Shamans

We should thank the stars for their song. Their light emanates from their singing and when they sing they glow. That is how they reveal themselves. 

The Zohar teaches when we pray in the morning it is a continuation of the singing of the stars.

Aldo Leopold who was a wilderness adept also seems to have heard them.

The sound of waters is audible to every ear, but there is other music in these hills, by no means audible to all.  To hear even a few notes of it you must first live here for a long time, and you must know the speech of hills and rivers.  Then on a still night, when the campfire is low and the Pleiades have climbed over rimrocks, sit quietly and listen for a wolf to howl, and think hard of everything you have seen and tried to understand.  Then you may hear it—a vast pulsing harmony—its score inscribed on a thousand hills, its notes the lives and deaths of plants and animals, its rhythms spanning the seconds and the centuries. Aldo Leopold

In the next blog we will look at shape-shifting and animal whispering #3b

THE FORCE OF THE PRIMAL # 2

Lessons from the hunter-gatherers and other indigenous wisdoms

“The consciousness of the seer is a greater power of knowledge than the consciousness of the thinker. The perceptual power of inner sight is greater and more direct than the perceptual power of thought.”

 Sri Aurobindo

 

The primal mind was able to commune intimately with nature as well as obtain non-local information from the Field of spirit. Without their intuitive abilities they could not have survived. These ancient medicine men and women and shamans were the original seers. Genomic studies have shown that the San Bushmen were the first people. Humans first arose out of Africa. There is rock art in the Apollo cave in Namibia going back 25,000 years ago showing evidence of shape shifting (therianthropes, human figures - part animal part human) which occurred during trance dancing. We were able to attain advanced states of consciousness millennia ago not easily achieve today. 

“Wilderness holds the answers to questions we do not yet know how to ask.” David Brower

“In the realm of nature there is nothing purposeless, trivial or unnecessary.” Maimonides

The deeper we go, the less we know. More information does not make it any less mysterious. It helps us spiritually to be in awe of the mystery rather than trying to explain it.

Behold all creation with awe – seeing into it its sacredness.
Sacred mystery is to be experienced not to be deciphered. To be entered not to be decoded.
The mystery is not to solve problems or overcome temptations. 
The mystery is to behold wonder and embrace joy. 
The way is not to God but with God.

The force of the primal manifest as love, is the glory of God.

 

The saddest and most impoverishing notion human beings cling to is that we are limited by laws of the natural world.
There is a crucial difference between being subject to, and being constrained by.

“Miracles happen not in opposition to nature but in opposition to what we know of nature.” Augustine of Hippo

Miracles do occur within the natural world but are outside our limited understanding of the dynamics. 

We are not restricted to the laws of nature, only to those laws we ourselves have contrived as to how nature works. These are limited. The hunter-gatherer mind was not inundated with the type of information and knowledge acquired through education or infatuated by technological wonders. Hence, they were able to access information not confined to the space-time continuum which escapes most of us educated beings. During sleep they received similar information in their dreams.

When we observe the intuitive abilities of primal peoples we see magic. When they look at our technology they see magic.

 

“The Kundalini in the form of latency is coiled like a serpent. One who impels this Shakti to move will attain liberation.”                              Hatha Yoga Pradipika

Manipulating this life force which caused consciousness and energy shifts was easy for primal peoples.  We all have this universal, feminine force - Shakti, Kundalini in Yoga - though few of us nurture it. The Bushmen call it Num, the Zulus, Umbilini. Many tribes in Southern Africa recognize it as snake like and resting dormant in the lower belly as is the Kundalini serpent energy until it is moved by some form of spiritual practice. For indigenous peoples it was mobilized  by drumming, dancing often with rattles around their ankles and chanting.  This power is key to spiritual transformation and accessing non-local information on the other side of the veil between the worlds.  Indigenous tribes in Southern Africa are masterful in using this for healing, cleansing, protecting and accessing vital non-local information from the Field. Indigenous peoples in the Americas  also used entheogens, sacred, mind altering plants in ceremony and ritual to access non-local information.

Click and play this short video of the Bushman trance dance taken in the Kalahari 22 years ago.

San Bushmen Out of Body Spirit Healing Trance Dance