Natural Beauty

I saw this photo on Facebook last week. Isn't he/she gorgeous?

The owl reminded me of a book I read and loved years ago - I Heard the Owl call my Name by Margaret Craven.

Here's a quote from the book...

“Here every bird and fish knew its course. Every tree had its own place upon this earth. Only man had lost his way.”

Being a Shaman

Native America - Ainu

Not many people know about the Ainu of Japan. They are a minority race, the indigenous people of Northern Japan. They are similar, in their genetics and culture, to the Siberian and Northern American peoples.

"the Portland Japanese Garden hosted a special exhibition in honor of the 50th anniversary of the sister city relationship between Portland and Sapporo, Japan. Entitled Parallel Worlds, the exhibition featured exquisitely designed traditional ceremonial robes created by Ainu artists from the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido and Native American artists of the Pacific Northwest. This groundbreaking exhibition became the first to juxtapose the textile arts of indigenous cultures on both sides of the north Pacific."

Some mesmerising Ainu music...

Hearing Beauty

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With beauty all around me may I walk...

If the secret to creating beautiful art lies in seeing clearly, then finding the beauty in sound is no different. It's fairly easy to find the beauty of sound in your favourite music but what about the everyday noises we often take for granted? What if we took an old sound and looked at it from a new perspective? That, in a manner of speaking, is what another artist did a few years back...

and a 'manner of speaking' is exactly what these videos are all about!

Marcus Coates, shaman-artist, looks at the connections between humans and animals - and humans as animals. He blends humour and amazement. The videos below are of his art exhibit 'Dawn Chorus', which was shown in 2007. It's my choice for the second in my 'Walk in Beauty' series.

Coates worked with wildlife sound recordist Geoff Sample to record a real "dawn chorus" of wild birds singing in the morning. He then slowed the sound down to a speed humans can cope with... and taught these "songs" to real everyday humans. He filmed these people singing their songs in their natural morning "habitats" - kitchens, offices, bedrooms, etc. Once everyone was taped he sped them up to bird speed and the results are amazing - human voices chirping and singing like birds. For the exhibit he had all the videos playing together in a room and the result sounds EXACTLY like real dawn birdsong.

Beautifully I will possess again
Beautifully birds

The first video shows each person singing their song individually. I so love the doctor and the old lady in bed. The cab driver and the old man reading the paper made me laugh.

The next video is about the making of the tapes and shows one of the people "singing" his song at normal speed. It also ends with the actual exhibit in the gallery with all the "birds" singing together. Do go to the end to hear them sing, it really is worth it to hear the entire chorus.

Beautifully joyful birds
On the trail marked with pollen may I walk

It is finished in beauty

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Shamanic Interconnections

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"Herne the Hunter." Online Photograph. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
http://www.britannica.com/eb/art-5906

When I was a kid my mom had this book of old English folk tales. My favourite story was Herne the Hunter. Herne rode with his pack of hounds wearing a hat decorated with stag antlers. There are many variations on the story, but the stag horns he wears remain a constant through them all. The reason there are so many legends is because Herne never existed. He is based on a Celtic god called Cernunnos..

..and Cernunnos is linked to the Greek god Hermes (or Roman Mercury)

..and the even more ancient god (depicted on seals dating back to 3,000 BC) found in Nepal and India called Pashupati..

..and some historians believe that both Cernunnos and Pashupati are based on prehistoric Neolithic shamans.

You can find an example of a Neolithic "shaman" in the 12,000 year old cave paintings in Ariege, France here

About.com says this about Cernunnos:

His Celtic name is unknown, although he may be associated with Derg Corra, the early Celtic "Man in the Tree." Cernunnos is a Roman name meaning "horned one." He is often associated with Herne the hunter, a character of British folk myth, and the "Green man" of European architecture. Roman invaders associated Cernunnos with the god Mercury.

The reason we don't know his real name is because the Celts had no written language, but they did leave us their art. Over 60 known depictions of the Horned god have been found in Europe, spanning a time period of over 500 years. The most famous depiction of Cernunnos is probably the one from the Gundestrup Cauldron, which was found in Denmark. Here, as in most of them, he's depicted as a man with stag horns sitting cross-legged in the lotus position. He's also usually surrounded by animals, especially a stag, and he's often shown holding a very odd animal - a snake with ram's horns.

The ram-horned serpent is particularly interesting. The serpent occurs in myths all across the world, and is nearly always associated with knowledge. Usually these associations are purely pagan, but remember that it was a serpent that tempted Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge. It is also commonly associated with death and the otherworld..

Quote from here

There is undoubtedly a connection between our modern horned devil and the Celtic Horned god. Since Biblical references never describe Lucifer as horned it is most likely that the early Christian church transformed Lucifer into the Horned god because of the snake-knowledge link, or because by making the opposition Celtic god "evil" they could more easily persuade his followers to convert to Christianity. So the angel of light was transformed into a Neolithic shaman wearing horns and carrying a hunting weapon? Maybe!

The god Hermes/Mercury carries something that echoes the twin-spiral theme of that ram-horned snake - a staff entwined by two snakes. Hermes was originally a herdsman, he was called "Master of the Animals". He eventually became a messenger and leader of souls to the underworld. Bringing messages from the Otherworld and helping the dead pass over are both traditional shamanic roles.

Shamans "travel" in trances or meditation - both Cernunnos and Pashupati are depicted in meditative positions.

Cernunnos on the Gundestrup Cauldron

Pashupati depicted on a seal

Traditional shamans wore animal skins, horns or feathers to heighten the mental/spiritual link between themselves and those animals - just as Pashupati and Cernunnos do.

Shamans believed their connection to animals allowed them to control them, a highly valuable skill to a Neolithic hunter!
Herne is the hunter,
Hermes is a herdsman and "master of the animals",
Pashupati is a shepherd and sometimes called "Lord of the Animals"
and Cernunnos, the Horned One, is both lord of the hunt and the animals.

So how does a symbolic shamanic figure depicted as a god in India end up all over Europe?

The answer may lie with the Celts. These nomadic people seem to have originated somewhere on the Indo-European Plateau. There is historical evidence that they were living around Kazakhstan, East of the Caspian sea, before 2,000 BC. They had many different tribes and clans. Each group had their own favourite gods, but one god they all had in common was Cernunnos. They were an adventurous wandering horse-loving people who roamed extensively through both Europe and Asia. Long before the Romans began conquering Europe the Celts had already expanded as far as Britain and into Asia as well.

Did the Celts take the idea of the shaman from Asia or did they have their own shamanic ancestral past, same as those ancient people who painted their shaman hunters in the caves in France? One thing is fairly certain - there are far more connections and links between cultures and continents than we often realise. Take a look at some of the Tungus people here and you'll see what I mean. They look more like the "Indians" you'd see in an old Western movie than Eurasians.. and their "shaman" is dancing wearing reindeer horns on his head.

When the first peoples made their way from Asia into the Americas did they take the idea of the "Saman" with them?

Perhaps the Indigenous peoples of the Americas practice Shamanism after all?

Shamanism or Neo-Shamanism?

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When I first started reading books stating they were about "shamanism" and/or "shamanic practices" I had no idea of the origins of the word at all. In the past the word "shaman" was used by a select group of people from one area of our planet, but in recent times it has been adopted to cover a vast range of similar or "almost the same" concepts that originally were never called shamanic. If you put the word "shaman" into a search engine I guarantee that at least two thirds of the websites you find will be dealing with "neo-shamanism" rather than the original thing.

Answers.com describes it as:

Shamanism is the oldest form of human healing. It is a type of religious medicine that originated over 25,000 years ago in the Paleolithic hunting cultures of Siberia and Central Asia. The English word shaman is derived from the Siberian Tungus word "saman", which is defined as a technique of ecstasy. The shaman is considered a great master of trance and ecstasy. He or she is the dominating figure in certain indigenous populations.

Over time people have used the word to label various primitive cultural healers who followed "shamanic" ideas or practices. Cultures where the priests/healers connected in trance and/or meditation to both the spiritual realms and the earthly world of nature. Thus the African witchdoctor and the Native American Medicine man can be called "shamans" even though in their own world this word was never known to them.

My first contact with the word "shamanism" came through two Native American friends. The one had a brother who was a medicine man and the other was studying healing himself. Neither of them ever used the word "shaman", but the links they gave me to read did eventually lead me to that word. They had no problems with the word themselves, but I have found that some Native American people find the fact that their varied beliefs have been swept into one basket labelled "shamanism" offensive. The peoples of the Americas have as many different spiritual and religious systems as any other continent. Labelling them all with one generic heading is unfair, but generic labels do make human communication far easier. In this case it might be better to say that what you find out on the net nowadays is most likely "neo-shamanism". A modern invention of "New Age" (another dreadful label) ideology.

A shaman was/is a healer "called" or chosen by his/her ancestors or God to heal and act as a bridge between the worlds of the living and the dead. You don't decide to be a shaman - it picks you. Neo-shamanism is a lot more complicated. Neo-Shamanism is gaining popularity, I suspect, because a lot of our modern religions have been losing touch with their mystical side.

Taking Christianity as an example - more and more churches are trying to be logical, Politically Correct and scientific. Being progressive is fine, but in gaining a more "modern" attitude they have lost a lot of their original mystery. Where in this modern world is there room for the visionaries and mystics? If St Francis was to walk into the wilderness today he'd most likely be taken away to a nice little mental home. As for those who see visions.. would anyone today build a new Lourdes based on a vision? If someone today wrote inspired by God would we add his/her writings to our Holy Books as was done in the ancient past?

Modern (Neo-) shamanism has spread to cover a vast range of ideas from the very good to the rather tacky, but all have one root - people wanting to deepen their connection to the mystical spiritual side of themselves. At its best this modern "patchwork quilt" can be amazingly beautiful and inspiring. Personally I have no problems with patchwork.. when it is done with love and respect for the cultures each patch piece is taken from. Some of the world's best Art and creativity have come from the sharing and patching together of the best of different cultures. ..

Photo property of Digiology@MORGUEFILE.COM

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Who am I?

Who am I?

I am Crow. :-)

But lately I have forgotten that, until Crow used ShastriX to remind me.

When I first started moving from being a (unorthodox) Christian towards Shamanism I asked God's opinion if the path I was choosing was the right one. In Dance I told the story of how I received a Crow from Jesus in a meditation. I told briefly what Crow means to some Native American people, but lately I'd forgotten what it means to me to be Crow.

Quote:

If you have a crow as a totem, you need to be willing to walk your talk and speak your truth. You must put aside your fear of being a voice in the wilderness and "caw" the shots as you see them. Crow is an omen of change. If he keeps appearing to you he may be telling you that you have a powerful voice when addressing issues that you do not quite understand or feel that they are out of balance.

Crow is the sacred keeper of the law. Crow medicine signifies a firsthand knowledge of a higher order of right and wrong than that indicated by the laws created in human culture. With Crow medicine, you speak in a powerful voice when addressing issues that for you seem out of harmony, out of balance, out of whack, or unjust.

When you learn to allow your personal integrity to be your guide, your sense of feeling alone will vanish. Your personal will can then emerge so that you will stand in your truth. The prime path of true Crow people says to be mindful of your opinions and actions. Be willing to walk your talk, speak your truth, know your life’s mission, and balance past, present, and future in the now. Shape shift that old reality and become your future self. Allow the bending of physical laws to aid in creating the shape shifted world of peace.

From http://www.birdclan.org/crow.html

Thank you Shastri, and thank you Crow. ;-)

Crow Feet and Elephant Eyes

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When a Native American internet friend introduced me to the idea of totem animals several years back it was more like reaching home via an unexpected new route than venturing into alien territory. I've always felt a strong connection to animals. As a kid I wanted to grow up and be a vet. The only ghost I can actually remember seeing was an animal. I trust animals. The whole idea that spirit animals might walk with us as teachers and guides seemed perfectly feasible to me. If I can have a guardian angel, according to my school Bible study classes, why not a guardian spirit-animal?

Since that internet friend sent me my first link to animal totems I must have wandered on through a dozen more websites related to the topic. I can't say everything fits my belief system, but it has a natural wisdom that appeals to that die-hard nine year old Pantheist within me. Some places talk about Life totems, journey totems, Power animals and dozens of other variations. Personally I don't think it matters much. Labels and symbols are man-made inventions. If we can use old ones created by our ancestors then why can't we create our own? It is a new Millennium, after all!

I have no idea if Crow officially is my "life totem" or "journey totem". All I know is that when I asked for a sign as to where next to put my feet... Jesus gave me a crow. It made perfect sense at the time. It still does. I can see myself in a crow. Smart, but a bit clumsy, whacky, but sometimes wise. Crow is the bird which some cultures say 'walks between worlds.' Crow is the bird in our back garden who slipped off the fence and got his head caught between the picket fence posts. Yep, I'm a crow! ;-)

As for elephant.. long before crow entered my life there was elephant, or elephants. When I was little I had several toy elephants. Up until recently I hadn't realised how many. A knitted one, a velvet one, a brooch one and loads of plastic ones. I drew elephants, made a collage of them out of felt, and in art college I painted my very first oil painting of the ultimate elephant-symbol - Ganesh.

Our class had gone on a religion themed field trip through churches, synagogues and the brand new temple the local Indian community had just finished building. From the outside it was a square glass-walled building supporting a fresh new pine wood dome. Inside it was a glowing frosted glass meringue filled with marigolds. There, surrounded by other gods I never noticed, "he" sat watching me... Ganesh. Carved in India from the finest marble, now he sat in Africa dressed in silk and flowers. He stared down at me with dark and beautiful eyes; It was love at first sight. This amazing god with the head of an elephant. I couldn't wait to capture him in a painting. I wanted to show how I saw in him the way everything connected. Nature, animals, God and people.

The emotions were splendid... the painting wasn't. :-( Ganesh ended up a very frightening neon pink. The only thing I got right were the eyes. Those lovely deep wise god-in-elephant eyes.

Over the next twenty years I can't remember thinking much about elephants. Now and then I'd stop to admire a statue or painting of Ganesh at the shops in the Indian section of town, but that was all. Then one day (five years and one week ago) I stepped onto an airplane on the most important journey of my entire life. I was very excited and also very nervous. Not because I was taking the first long-distance flight of my life, but because I was also taking the biggest leap of faith of my entire life. I was on my way to visit the man I was to marry. A man I had never met before.

As I went to sit down I saw that there was a magazine on my seat, it had been left behind by another traveller. I picked it up and it fell open at an article on photography and Art. Below each photo there was a famous quote and on the page the magazine had opened at was a full page photo of a statue of Ganesh. Below the photo was this quote...

"A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step."

..and I knew I would be fine.

After that I started reading more seriously about Ganesh. I still only know a tiny fragment of all there is to know about this wonderfully embracing Indian god. I wouldn't even dare to presume to write about him. All I can do is write how that wise elephant-eyed god brought me one step closer to my love.

A few years later (married and moved to the other side of the world) I dreamt that God came down to earth as a real elephant, unlike Ganesh with his elephant head. In my dream I was told that to look at this elephant-god would bring about instant death. Everyone fell to the floor, or closed their eyes, when he entered the room, but I tripped and fell. Even in dreams I have the grace of a crow! He put out his trunk to catch me and I looked up... into God-as-an-elephant eyes. I did not die, instead he stared into me and I felt such peace.

I met an elephant in another dream a few months after that. This time I asked, "are you an Indian elephant or an African elephant?"

The elephant looked at me with those deep brown sad clown eyes and said, "All elephants are family. We are One."

For the believer God IS and for the atheist God Isn't.

For some God is an old man with a beard or an earth mother with a swollen belly.

...for me God lies in elephant eyes.

Dance

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Last year I watched a TV documentary series called "Extraordinary People". The episode I enjoyed the most followed the life of a blind brain-damaged young man who is a musical savant. He has the intelligence level of a four year old and yet he plays jazz like a genius. At one stage he was given the chance to listen to an entire orchestra. He then "translated" the entire performance into a piano solo. It was awesome!

He flew from the UK to Las Vegas (with his toy beanbag elephant for company), to do a concert to raise money for disabled kids. There he met a boy with autism, who is also blind and plays classical music. They then both met two other gifted musical kids: a blind girl on a violin and another autistic boy who plays the keyboard. Together they had a jam session that rocked the roof off.

They were brilliant.

The one psychiatrist studying them said that they are now thinking that music is the "Universal code" that drives us at a deeper level than language or any other sense-related ability.

Three years ago I popped on some soothing music to try to meditate. I've always liked the idea of meditating, but it just doesn't work for me. My mind does not understand the concept of emptiness. It is a cage full of budgies all wanting to scream their favourite word the loudest. But this one time I actually got it right, one of those rare perfect moments when things just click together. Maybe it was because I didn't try so hard? Maybe it was because I was desperate for an answer that my conscious mind couldn't provide.

I was desperate for an answer to a crossroad I'd reached in my life regarding my religious/spiritual beliefs.

I was born into a family that, counting both my mother and father's sides, span almost every variation of Christianity out there. As a result my parents had a more laid-back attitude to church attendance than many. Being a church-goer was never viewed as the only road to Heaven. I grew up with the unspoken message that all religions lead to God and therefore were of equal value.

It was only when I went out into the world that I began to realise that not everyone was as open-minded. I was warned I was "in danger of being a Pantheist" by a teacher, when I was in Junior school. I had to go look it up in a dictionary at the time. I had to admit, what I read did sound a lot like me. It was the first time I remember feeling both relief and a vague guilt/unease at who I was. So I was a Pantheist.. why was that a dangerous thing?

In high school and college, more devoted Christian friends tried to convert me to their "way". Although they meant well they left me feeling less acceptable and worthy. Sometimes depressing. Sometimes annoying. Why do some people think they know what is best for you better than you do? It's like they see you happily being a square peg in a perfectly geometric world of your own and simply cannot stop themselves from trying to squash you repeatedly into a round hole. Or, worse still, they whip out all these abrasive words in a desperate attempt to file the corners off your square soul. Words that imply you are "wrong", or "bad", for simply being true to yourself. Ultimately there are only two people who know you: yourself and God. Other people have a right to their opinions, but that is all they can ever be - opinions.

That was why I found myself trying to meditate; to try to find the "me" I had lost along the long journey through so many other people's opinions. As a child and in my teens I'd known who I was and been happy. In my twenties I'd faced confrontation on who I was and fought back, the way you do when you are young and rather full of self-righteousness. In my thirties, I'd expanded my friendships to include a wonderful range of equally wonderful people from a variety of different belief systems: Neo-Pagan, Wiccan, Buddhist and Native American Shamanism.

My thirties were a time of tremendous personal expansion, but it was also a time where I started to wobble like a spinning top that has hit the edge too many times. It was clear I had wobbled so far off the path that I didn't know how to find my way back. A friend suggested meditation to clear my mind and see the way home. I tried... nothing. Or to be exact, too much! I'd sit there and my mind would gabble and chatter about everyday life until I either fell asleep or got bored and gave up.

Then one day, I was pottering around the internet and read a woman asking similar questions. She was a Catholic considering becoming a Neo-Pagan. She was standing at the edge of everything she had been taught to believe was good and evil. She had left a message asking for help, and someone had replied, "Pray for guidance - then listen."

Seemed fairly sensible advice. I decided to try it myself. For once and for all, I needed to know if being ME was okay with whoever/whatever was "Up There." I said a small prayer to that extent and sat down to wait and listen... and for the first time EVER all those manic budgies in my brain finally shut up.

Silence

Real silence

Cellular level peace and quiet

Was this meditating? I closed my eyes and let the silence take over... I found myself standing at the edge of a lake at sunset. Someone was walking across the water towards me. A bearded guy in a long robe.

Jesus?

Hell...  Jesus?

I dismissed the thought as stupid, but as he walked up the shore to me I could see the holes in his hands and feet. I didn't know what to do. So I was honest and I said, "You're the last person I was expecting to see."

He burst out laughing and it was such a joy-filled infectious laughter that we both fell about laughing for a while. Then he took my hands and we walked out onto the water together and we danced. With stars above and stars reflected in the dark water below, we danced. And as we dance he "exploded" into the stars and became the Universe itself...

...and then I found myself back on the shore.

I'm not sure how long I stood there before he appeared, walking back across the water towards me once again. Only this time he was carrying something. A crow. He said, "This is for you," and the crow hopped from his arm to my shoulder.

I opened my eyes and I was back in the same room in my same house.

I have a Native American friend who had sent me an internet link to totem animals a year before. I went and looked up crow. I saved some of the bits I found there. Can't give credit to the author as I lost the links a few years back so apologies for that.

"Human law is not the same as Sacred Law. More so than any other medicine, Crow sees that the physical world and even the spiritual world, as humanity interprets them, are an illusion. There are billions of worlds. There are an infinitude of creatures. Great Spirit is within all."

"Crow is the totem of the Great Spirit and must be respected as such."

The bringer of the Holy Spirit had brought me the symbol of another culture's Great Spirit.

Now, I keep thinking about those supposedly "disabled" kids and how they've tapped into creativity and Creation at a level we can only daydream about. Music and Creation. Music and life itself. Dancing on water and amongst the stars. Ancient peoples using dancing and singing to connect to the Source...

Is faith merely (re)learning how to dance on water?

Was the world created in seven days or seven notes?

I think I really like that idea! Holy and Great, Human and Sacred exploding together in a universe of infinite possibilities. Different music, different steps, but always the same Dance.

I have found my way back to the Dance.
I hope you have found yours.

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