WALK WITH A SURGEON SANGOMA (SHAMAN) #1
The purpose of this series of blogs is not so much about my journey but more about your story, your own "walk" and how you can benefit from both my good and my bad experiences.
“While it is wise to learn from experience, it is wiser to learn from the experiences of others.” Rick Warren
This no doubt is true but sometimes as the Ancestors say;
It is better to experience the learning than learn the experience.
Kabir seems to agree;
"Kabir talks only what he has lived through. If you have not lived through, it is not true."
These two truths speaks to the value of a rite of passage or an initiation. We need to look at this aspect of our walk since this is always the most powerful, and not easily forgotten, as long as one can pause and see the gift in the pain.
There are two archetypes to scrutinize on your walk down memory lane - the Hero and the Warrior.
The Hero/ine's journey has three phases:
SEPARATION
THRESHOLD - the process itself
INCORPORATION - where we bring back the "grail" to the community of Beings, not just the Talking ones but depending on us, also the Wild, Growing or Still Beings.
The Warriors journey, however, has only two stages;
SEPARATION and THRESHOLD - the grail is kept for the warrior, the family or the corporation.
The intention of the blogs is to look back at all the Warrior's journeys you have done - of which there are many - and more especially the less frequent - Hero's journeys. Often we were on the Hero's path but we stepped away and we failed to incorporate the grail or the "aha" experience. Life got in the way and we experienced the "Fall."
We are much more than we think and know much more than we think we know. We have all gone through numerous life times and incarnations and there is wisdom imbedded in our "soul-lular" memories. We just have to re-remember. When we encounter these truths they often feel familiar to us and are more easily embraced.
The Hero's journey is as ancient as is our higher consciousness. It has also been part of indigenous rites of passage for eons. These rites of initiation are only now being slowly introduced in the West, but still minimally so. In the West we are usually forced on a journey of awakening by; loss of a loved one, of health or livelihood. Now with Covid, climate change, and political upheaval even more so. This may be the time for another such journey. If not, then at least to tell our stories, review and renew what might have been and learn the lessons of the past. It's not what happens to us that counts but what we do with it.
The Ancestors teach;
Take what you need from the past and leave the rest behind. Ancestors live in the moment (and so must we.)
Fear is present in all three phases of the Hero.
"The cave you enter hold the treasure you fear." J. Campell
Your teaching is in the shadow of your experiences (and especially your Heros' and Warriors' journeys.) Threshold is often a dark night of the soul.
The way to become more of you is not to become more of others.
The Ancestors
My first seminal Hero's journey was a trip I took in 1987 to the San Bushmen, the last hunter-gatherers in Southern Africa. At the time I was experiencing an existential challenge in my surgical practice after leaving the Ivory Tower of academics and beginning a private practice. I felt that I had at least previously been a bit of a "hero" by helping patients, teaching students (and receiving a reliable check at the end of each month.) I did not feel then that I was trying to run a business - that form of Warrior's journey had never been on my mind.
In order to balance my polarity and find equanimity I embarked on a regular yoga practice and for the first time came into contact with a lot of New Age thinking. Being a left brained medic I was skeptical of a lot of the claims being made. However, because of my South African upbringing I did believe that ...
I knew from my African experience that there was much indigenous wisdom that I had not been privy to growing up in the Apartheid era. This feeling was one of the reasons that compelled me to go and spend a few weeks with the San in the Kalahari. I had been taught about these magical people at school in Johannesburg and later at university and had always wanted to go and spend time with them on my own. Izak Barnard was the "instrument or power" seminal to the Separation phase of this journey. He and his group that I joined, spent several days witnessing their amazing survival skills. Izak had agreed ahead of time that I could stay behind with the San after he departed with the group. He left me equipped with a 4x4, enough food for my stay, a tent a sleeping bag and mat. Once on my own I became more interested in the San's intuitive skills than their technical ones - those beyond the five senses that enabled them together with their exquisite hard skills to survive and even thrive in this wasteland. I theorized if I could find any truth in New Age thinking it should exist here in the First people who could not have survived without spiritual help.
I was immediately adopted by several men and women who attended my wants and needs for the duration of the stay. I spent time foraging with the women trapping and tracking with the men and going more deeply into their incredible survival skills that they had already shown the group. The best part was their singing and dancing after the sun had set when the desert was released from the incredible heat of the day.
In the meanwhile I was validating what Einstein said;
"Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts."
They convinced me that divination worked, that dreams can be scripted by spirit guides and that in their trance dance they could travel out of body to the spirit world to glean information not localized in space and time. During this spirit flight and so called "Little Death" their body remained motionless on the ground until they came back down into the body again by means of the "Ropes to God."
Click on the link and play to view the out of body spirit flight of the San Bushmen shamans (Five minutes.)
When I left the San and returned to California I "incorporated" my experience into a book - Inner Passages Outer Journeys - the title of which I dreamt signifying that the Kalahari had already opened up something inside of me. The book was about the spiritual principles of attaining "Wilderness Rapture" which was similar to Maslow's peak experience. In its more diluted form it was a feeling of profound equanimity, harmony, balance and an Alfa mental state of consciousness. My idea was that the more we could simulate San's way of being in wilderness, by having as little between us and nature as possible, the more powerful the effect. I also formed a small company called Inward Bound and began taking folks out on wilderness journeys of healing and transformation. These trips took two weeks which included several days of travel in order to be in remote wilderness. It was costly of time and finances. The principles worked but it was hardly a practical form of alternative healing that I could add to my surgical practice.
The spiritual journey is like a treasure hunt - you have to follow the clues, the possibilities, your intuitions which will eventually take you to the next clue.
In retrospect there seemed to be a hidden hand that was laboriously and slowly attempting to guide me from the "Field" of spiritual potential. I had not yet identified any distinct spirit guides.
The hunt for you destiny is the hunt of your life, stick to the scent, stay on the spoor. The Ancestors
This journey is not dissimilar to a Bushman tracking his prey. He often loses the spoor but eventually finds it again and carries on with the hunt. Sometimes on the treasure hunt for your destiny, the path seems to lead backwards but if you did not follow that clue, you would not find the next crucial one. One had to trust, be patient and experience the learning.
“What you can do, or dream you can, begin it - boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.” Goethe
My journey began in 1987 in the Kalahari and it was going to take another 13 years to eventually materialize. Up until the turn of the millennium I had been only an observer, after the millennium, an active participant. For some of us the path may take a long time.
No comments:
Post a Comment