Animá Lifeways & Herbal School

The following is excerpted from a much longer piece featured in the current issue of Plant Healer Magazine, and that will be included in Wolf’s next book, “Finding Our Medicine”.  As far as I know it is the most extensive and inspirational work ever done on the seldom explored subject of personal, practical plant totems.  Thank you for reposting and sharing this! -Kiva Rose

PLANT TOTEMS
Identifying & Learning From Our Most Personal Plant Ally

By Jesse Wolf Hardin

The Ojibway word “totem” originally refers to a plant or animal symbol for a specific family or clan, not unlike the creature emblems on ancient European Coat of Arms.  Thus we talk about “totem poles” when referring to trees carved into vertically stacked animals, each signifying a different clan of the Haida and other coastal Alaskan natives.

In the last century, however, “totem” has increasingly come to refer to an individual’s particular spirit helpers or signifiers.  This is more in keeping with the ancient shamanic sense of plant and animal spirits, teachers and guides, though the word itself wasn’t previously used in this context.  Most often, and in many different languages, the word used was “helper”… and help is something a personal totem can amply provide, thanks to its individual resonance, familiarity and similarity.

A totem is not “other-worldly,” no mater how mysterious or magical it might appear.  It is of, native to, and a component of this earth.

It is not just for Indians, for shamans, or for hippies.

Your totem is not your savior.  Not an authority that will tell you what to do.

It is not an English-speaker, and you will need to learn from it with more than your ears.

Your true totem is also not likely to be (as the website for one plant medium asserts) the “first plant that comes into your mind when you close your eyes and meditate.”

Your totem is not a visitation, nor a product of your imagination.  Not a foolishness or indulgence.  It’s probably not a broadly popular, charismatic or cliché species.  And it is not necessarily even your favorite!

It is real and measurable, and simply your single most revealing, single most helpful botanical ally and aide.

“…if we’re only listening for words – for language in human terms – then we’re barely listening at all!  The world speaks to us in the ancient tongue of touch and color, texture and fragrance, through taste and breath and every part of our senses.  Listening through our whole body teaches to be open to the world and each other in a whole new way and with a depth and subtlety that even the best words cannot begin to approach.”
–Kiva Rose

All of life speaks to us, though certainly not in a language most are used to hearing.  And no creatures or persons communicate more personally, bodily, relevantly or poignantly than one’s totems.

When practiced with intense awareness and uncompromised honesty, the plant totem quest and realization can be a functional method and means for increased self knowledge and self actualization, interspecies alliance, enablement and growth, a system or partnership which can result in a more effective herbal practice, improved learning and teaching, and a new or heightened commitment to a purpose beyond the narrow, predictable, conformist, mundane and unsatisfying.

We use a comparison chart of botanical designs and attributes to positively identify a new plant we discover.  A totem is a way to “key-out” our authentic personalities and personas, to help distinguish the pretend from the genuine, projection and spin from understanding and wisdom.  It can provide us with another way to see ourselves, and to honor our selves as we would honor the most powerful and significant of all the plant species to ever come into our lives.

Every plant, every creature, lives to serve itself and contribute to its ecosystem, with an intrinsic value and evolved roles irrespective of any service it ever provides to you or your kind, your culture or the herbal practice and field.  That said, a totem can serve to personify, inform, mirror, model, connect, inspire and initiate.

Seeking out one’s totem is a deliberate and sometimes lengthy process, not like giving job interviews to strangers, but more like rediscovering something that had all along been integral to their selves and lives.   I’ve heard people say they didn’t feel like they had vetted and selected their beloved spouse so much as fortuitously or even magically “reunited” with their “soul mate,” that after years of searching for a partner they’d finally “gotten out of the way” of whatever destiny or process that then brought them together.  They may feel they have found or been given the one person who could be their ideal partner in struggle and growth, bliss and purpose.  Similarly, we can methodically search from among our encyclopedia of plants, in yard and wilderness for years without luck, or – through a combination of our heightened awareness and kind synchronicity – feel we’ve been led to or visited by the one species that best serves as our totem.

For this quest to be successful, we first need to get past all assumptions, preconceptions, clichés, anthropomorphic diversions and narrow categorizations to gain a sense of the various possible totem plants’ core nature, attained through direct physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual interaction.  This is easiest done through a series of specific steps that Kiva Rose lists as “observation, sensory experience, emotional response, cognition, integration and application.”

We can then appraise and test any candidate species we feel profoundly connected to, whether seemingly revealed through method or magic, with a series of questions such as:
•Does it feel especially familiar, allied, relevant, related?
•Or significant, communicative, essential, momentous?
•Is there anything about its form, shape, color etc. that reminds you of yourself?
•Do you act on the world – or contribute to it – in any ways similar to how the observed plant does?
•Or do you respond similarly to stimuli, threat, reward, isolation, exposure, stress, nourishment or care?
•Has it been in your life for a long time, appearing again and again like someone seeking your attention?
•Or has it only fairly recently become significant in your life, but in a very dramatic, vital, extreme or timely way?
•Has it proven to be particularly potent medicine for a chronic ailment or imbalance of yours?
•Or has it been medicine for your emotional balance, helping you deal with especially difficult traumas or situations, to calm you enough to function or arouse you sufficiently to accomplish what needs to be accomplished?
•Do you find yourself thinking about it for no obvious or urgent reason?
•Or did it come to you in a vision, or appear to you in dreams?
•Does it feel like you have somehow dishonored or trivialized it, when you speak of it loosely, to those who may not care?
•When you have avoided it or ignored the thought of it for awhile, do you feel out of sorts, neglectful, unassisted or unmoored?
•Do you feel unreasonably relieved when reunited after a physical absence, or after a long period of not giving it any mind?

•Does it seem to ask anything of you, require response, point to a mission or calling, excite significant acts?

Please note that your totem is not always the plant you’d most like to resemble or emulate.  A giant redwood sounds like a strong and noble totem, many would like to think of themselves as being sweet as Honeysuckle, and I can’t tell you how many people I know that for good reason call themselves Rose!  It may even be a plant that’s not very popular with people, yet it may still be your totem, instructor, and significator… if a number of the following conditions are met.

Regional:
One’s totem plant will often be associated with a particular bioregion, so that when you say its name – Ginseng for example – people immediately think “Southern Appalachians.”  It is usually one that grows locally, native to or often associated with the region where you live.  But if not, it will likely inhabit the area you grew up in, or else where you entire being feels most at home.  Even if your totem proves to be a known world traveler, green gypsy, botanical opportunist or incessant vagabond – such as Russian Thistle (Sola tragus) – it will still be strongly associated with the place where you either are, used to be, or are drawn to and will probably end up one day.  It will thus be place-based, and inevitably recognizable, au fait, au courant.

Significant:
Your totem will seem imbued with significance, with the plant bearing, imparting or signifying meaning well beyond what any casual observer might glean.  For whatever personal reasons, you will experience it as personally and particularly notable, noteworthy, weighty and important.  You will find your plant to be signal, apparently calling for you attention, and expressive of a presence, quality, characteristic, form or way of being or doing that has uncommon relevance for you.

Familiar:
It will be a species that you feel highly familiar with, conversant with, specially informed by or about, no stranger to, at home with.  It could be a pervasive weed, a rare herb that you find special, or else a threatened or disappearing plant… but in any case, it will be one that when you see it, feels like “Aww, there you are!” as though an appearance by an old friend you can never predict the arrival of but who could always be counted on to drop by unexpectedly, at the most mysterious or fortuitous times.  No matter how rare the species might be, or how uncommon or bizarre its form or function, it can never be called exotic because it is too well known by you… and too close.

Intimate:
You will feel a very close connection, even when physically apart.  You will know details about it gleaned through personal interaction, facts and nuances that other people would not necessarily find interesting.  You may feel that the plant somehow recognizes you, resonates with you, knows you, that there is nothing you either can or need to hide from it.  If words passed between you, it would be as with folks who have been married for twenty years, with each of you finishing the sentences that the other starts.  It will also be like the newly in love, “in their own world” with an impassioned oneness that no few can see and none participate in, in the exact same way.

Discrete:
Being in its presence will seem in some ways like a shared secret.  You may automatically feel a need for discretion, to conceal or guard from the public that which your totem plant communicates or reveals, protecting it from misappropriation, trivialization and ridicule.  Even when there will seem to be no harm in telling people about the depth of your relationship, you will probably feel that it somehow dilutes, distracts or disrespects, to expose that relationship to the uninvited or unconcerned, uninitiated and uninvolved.  When you do share its story, you will wish it to be to people most attuned to hearing you.  And at those rare times when you lead others to your totem’s refuge – and into its presence – it will be those you most trust, who are most sensitive, respectful, and likely to learn from, benefit from such confidence.

Correspondent:
You and your totem plant will feature close, recognizable similarities in character (personality, style, energy, impression), form (aspects of actual appearance, shape, color, growth patterns) or function (you and your plant’s roles within the respective human and biological communities).  A redhead is more likely to have a red blossomed plant, an Oak woman likely to be broad shouldered and strong and a Willow man thin and flexible, a slow starting but perseverant and evocative person associated with Mandrake, an herbalist with a potent medicinal plant… though not necessarily so.  These may be analogous (performing a similar function but having a different evolutionary origin) characteristics, attributes, features, properties, essential qualities or peculiarities, and herbs actions and your own affects on people.  You might find patience exemplified by the ephemeral Desert Anemone (Anemone tuberosa) which can wait years for the right conditions to sprout from hidden tubers.  You may share insistence and movement with something like Wisteria or Bamboo, and share a preoccupation with the cracks between the worlds with the sacred night-flowering Datura.

Magical:
Your relationship with your totem plant could very well feel extrasensory, requiring and inspiring connection and communication at a level beyond the physical senses, unencumbered by conjecture and prejudice.  Your encounters with it may appear preternatural or ultra-natural, extraordinary or inexplicable, unaccountable, fantastic or even phenomenal, and the timing of its appearances or instrumental usage appearing incredibly significant and synchronistic.  If you come upon it with other people, it may seem an ordinary discovery to them and a momentous one to you.  You may have first become familiar with it at a time of bodily illness or emotional challenge and transition, or you may notice that it always seems to show up just when you need unburdening and cheering.  It may follow you from the field or garden into the house, as a picture or thought that won’t let us leave it behind, as the predominant inspiration for your art or recurrent feature of your poetry or story, or in dreams the come to you again and again.  It can serve as the flower that illuminates your quests or fuels your migrations, or as the heartful medicine leading you in the broadest and deepest sense to health and home.

Allied:
Perhaps not consciously, but certainly by its very nature, a totem is a plant in alliance with you and your greater intentions, mission or purpose.  It is your ally, confidante, guide, supportive reminder, co-traveler, and somehow even partner in your complimentary and overlapping roles.  More than reflecting or clarifying who you really are,  “resonating” with you or providing example and consort, it will seem to empower and motivate, instigate and percolate, to enable a connection, ability, vision, or your proactive efforts on behalf of some valued goal.  It can help you to not only treat ailments, but to also understand a condition or situation, find the resources you need, or recall your native talents and reservoir of strength and determination.  Your totem will serve, fuel and support not only your process of becoming ever more self aware, but also your most insistent calling and purposeful acts.

Initiatory:
A totem plant will never imply or tell you what to do, or what you should do.  “Should” is not even in the language of the natural and inspirited world.  What it will do is to help point you to or remind you of your own desires, needs, gifts and missions… and to help initiate your acting on them.  It can inspire you to realize your calling and actualize your dreams, to play your individual part in the conscious co-creation of a personal reality and larger world.  If your totem were a childhood friend instead of a plant, it would be the kid your parents don’t want you to play with because it has such a profound influence on you… worried in their motherly and fatherly way that it could be leading you to walk a wilder, unconventional path, inciting/exciting you to follow your heart rather than follow the rules.  Your totem brings to you not a sealed assignment or set of exacting instructions, but a mischievous dare to rally and risk, to move and progress.  If and when you identify your totem, look ever so closely.  Along with whatever other hints or gifts it may convey to you, is a most personal imperative.

“We need to treat plants, their spirits, our totems with more regard and reverence than we have. We need to stop only approaching them with the mindset of usefulness and consumption, and confront our biases and human chauvinism. We need fewer herbal[ist]s that treat plants and fungi as our personal medicine cabinet, and more thought toward dried herbs as sacred remains.”
–Lupa, Therioshamanism Website

You’ve noticed that when folks identify with an animal totem, they often create an altar-like space to honor it, gather historic and mythopoetic images of it, purchase an old ceremonial mask with its countenance, get a picture of it tattooed somewhere on their body, and carry or wear actual pieces of the animal such as a tooth necklace, bits of fur and bone in a medicine bag, or a fur vest rescued from a dusty secondhand store bin.  This is not macabre aesthetics, but a ritual honoring.  When they interface with any actual animal parts, they often treat them as not just representative of the animal but as spirited artifacts, venerable extensions of the once living creature that link us to them and the inspirited, informative natural world in powerful ways.  Yet when they collect dried plant parts, travel with an herbal sachet, or sleep with dream-stimulating Artemesia beneath their pillow, they may be thinking more often about what these plants can do to or for us, rather than feeling how they connect us back to the living plants themselves, to their species, communities and ecosystems.

With a real and awakened sense of what it means to find and ally with a plant totem, we become inspired to treat every bag of dried herbs as special and sacred, to arrange and appreciate old branches as much as fresh cut flowers, to heed the hints and proddings, to savor every blessing and utilize every lesson that totems or any other plant ever teach us… switching from asking what a plant can do for us, to what we can do together in partnership.

Our plant totems first contribute to our being and self knowing, and then – necessarily, essentially, wondrously – to our purpose and practice, to ever more effective ways of sharing our knowledge, contributing to the great healing, manifesting our love.

—————

(You can read more of Wolf’s writings in Plant Healer Magazine, in the archives of this Anima blog, and in the free Writings section of the Anima website.  Share freely)

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The Immortals:
Rueful Vampires and Delusional Technocrats

By Jesse Wolf Hardin
Anima Lifeways & Herbal School  •  www.AnimaCenter.org

It is death that makes us grateful and mindful of life… and living forever in this form, on this ol’ earth, wouldn’t be quite the picnic that you might imagine.

Technologists are always promising us the stars, so to speak, and whether we’ve really got a hankerin’ for those distant uninhabitable infernos or not.  And no doubt, they have a plan for upgrading or downsizing, compounding or breaking-down, extracting or eradicating, denaturing or artificially replicating, transferring genes across species or otherwise bioengineering, synthesizing and advertising – or in any myriad of other admittedly clever ways tweaking and twisting, messing with and marketing every single doggone element of the natural world and our own increasingly invaded and manipulated selves.  On the whole, we tend to support this perverting of life – from using nanotechnology and marketing bots to control our behavior and monitor our expenditures, to pharmaceutical dependance, the latest techniques for mind control and research on transplanting memories and identity into android avatars – out of an understandably human desire for improved comfort and ease, for ever more capable and interesting material goods and advanced medical treatment… and we support it out of fear, fear of chaos and crime, of poverty and disasters, and especially of disease and death.  It is this that they wish to sell us most, usurping a power reserved for God in the majority of the world’s religions: immortality.

What they seemingly never tell us, are the down sides and drawbacks, side effects and collateral damage, nor the ways in which even the most benign and helpful technologies can and inevitably will be put to dangerous or nefarious and dastardly purposes.  They brag on the latest mining technology, while downplaying the floods caused by mountain top removal and the deaths of miners in preventable explosions. They trumpet the suppression of once common communicable diseases but with no mention of the overprescribing of antibiotics has weakened the immune system of people throughout the entire “civilized” world, and resulted in the rise of new “Super Viruses” that nothing yet can treat.  They tout the success of genetically modified crop seed that can withstand the spraying of herbicides to remove their competitors, but without weighing in the unfairness of making farmers dependent on a single source of seed that is ever more expensive.  While no one may say so, those searches we do on the internet that make our research and shopping so much simpler, are also a permanent log of our interests and activities that is and will be used to not only market to us, but also to manage us.  While glossy brochures are available describing how fast a certain feed additive or injection can result in livestock putting on weight twice as fast, nowhere in the fine print is there any mention of can lead to a host of problems including infertility.  And while plastics sure as hell have their practical, low cost uses, the industry literature would be loathe to include how these chemicals are showing up in our drinking water, with the leaching xenoestrogens screwing up what is often our already compromised endocrine systems.

This isn’t to say that these technologies don’t have a purpose that is at times reasonable and appropriate, as anybody who’s ever considered carrying a moldy wood or easily broken glass canteen could tell you… or more poignantly, anyone who’s survived a brain condition thanks only to the detailed analysis of the latest high-tech machines.  We would, however, do well to make ourselves aware of, and then deeply consider, both the positive and negative consequences, for ourselves and our regions in the present but also for the generations yet to come.  We (hopefully) consider more than just the shining qualities and likely benefits of a relationship before deciding to make someone our husband or wife, of a home before we rent or buy it, or of job before we take it.  So why, then, would we subscribe to technologies that without investigation, without considering all the many helpful and adverse ways that it affects us, our communities and homes. Instead of a balanced assessment, the technologists leave any real critique to social and environmental public advocacy groups, making it look like it’s a simple matter of unreasonable, anti-progress Neanderthals versus our good friends at the various multinational corporations, God-like, all-knowing and omnipotent entities keeping the dark ages at bay while leading us into an every brighter-lit future.

It’s hard to believe they could ever overcome all the obstacles to the preservation of the human body, but even if they could – though injections of purposed stem cells or some as yet unimagined means – it would bring with it some less than pleasant consequences that we might want to consider.

Just as in the spate of vampire stories, anyone living forever on this planet would have to suffer a series of attachments and heartbreaks as each loved friend or mate ages before you and then dies.  And would an immortal person with tons of experience under their belt really find even the most attractive 20 year old very intriguing?  You know how frustrating it can be to tolerate a teenager’s naivety when they’re only a decade younger than us, now picture trying to keep the conversation interesting when they’re hundreds or even thousands of years our juniors?

A few things should be obvious:  It would be a very bad idea to ever do anything to earn yourself a life sentence in prison.  It would be a very good idea to be careful what you promise you’ll do or feel “forever”.

And what if you were immortal but not invulnerable, free from old age and yet still subject to blunt trauma like car accidents or falling into a trash compacter?  Just imagine the pressure, how tentative you might become, how afraid to ever get in a vehicle of any kind or hug someone whose sick, knowing that accidents are inevitable and how the odds against you grow with every year you enjoy without a mishap, knowing that slipping up will shorten your existence by tens of thousands of years instead of only by a few relatively brief decades.  Unless immortality included being immune or impervious to all disease, you could end up wearing a herpes sore on your lip or dealing with the symptoms of testicular cancer for millennia.  A lovely thought, eh?  Then there’s the problem of mental capacity, even if the technologists were able to created resistance to all illness.  An immortal’s brain may be saved from the dementia of the decrepit, but it’s unlikely storage could be increased without a mechanical “external hard-drive” of some sort.  While some people are able to remember and recall more information than others, there is still a finite amount of memory storage and processing paths, not nearly enough to maintain a data-rich record of thousands of years of lived experience.  Already it seems I have to forget some numbers and internet passwords in order to make space for others, what experiences, friends and loved ones would I have to let go of, as the number of experiences and people are endlessly compounded?

To be generous and fair, and in order to ever be able to say we have some “old acquaintances” in our lives, we might hope our vampirish bite results in there being other immortals in our world.  In this case, of course, an exponential compounding of the number of people would mean an endless compacting of bodies into a limited amount of habitable space, the elimination of rural lifestyles and traditional cultures followed by the end of the suburbs, then of farmable land and essential drinking water, and all the while the compaction of individual rights and liberties in favor of technologized management.  Who wants to live forever, on a planet with no asphalt-free hills green with medicinal herbs and edible plants, no deer hunting woods or garden or pasture, no way to discern oneself or even to misbehave, and no place to do it in?

Worst of all, immortality could mean an end to what little humility humanity has left, as we assumed the mantle of unaffected lords of a diminishing domain, supermen acting is if we were the chosen and elite, removed and elevated above all except for that government and technology that may have made living forever on the earth a possibility.  And it would almost certainly result in a serious reduction in appreciation!  The more rare we perceive something is, the more likely we humans are to appreciate, conserve or celebrate it, evident in how much more we value scarce diamonds and gold, limited edition firearms or art, white robed buffalo, hard to find spices and limited lakefront properties.  Likewise, the more we have of anything – whether lovers or dollars – the less we tend to notice, value, acknowledge and treasure them, to the point of taking for granted something as vital (if voluminous) as the air that we breathe.  In this technologized society, we already show a tendency to gloss over the qualities of what we have and who we are, and give the preponderance of our attention to the new and novel, what we think we want or lack.

Better, perhaps, not to allow ourselves to become be subject to, controlled by or dependent on our technologies, no matter how useful or salvational the claim, and with open eyes and mind, to weigh carefully the consequences of our every choice.  Then we might find ourselves more grateful just to be wholly flesh and blood creatures with a fairly decent span in which to face our challenges, taste our rewards, and fulfill our most meaningful purpose, giving our best to our loves and this world as if any moment could be our last and our every act could end up our one final gesture, the concluding lines of a story that will be remembered… at least by those mortals fortunate not to live so long that they forget.

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Introduction: Last week we ran an inspiring post by committed Anima mentorship student Jenna.  The many reader responses were touching as well as inspiring, and if you haven’t seen them yet we suggest you scroll down and click on the post header in order to view it with the thoughtful comments.  Tonya and others have requested a look at one of my essays describing more of the process of the Burden Basket ceremony.  There will be an entire 8 week course on this process available by the end of March, complete with detailed instruction, exploratory questions, assigned practices and our personal response and counsel.  But with the help of this piece, you should also be able to accomplish much of this on your own with enough commitment.  It is terrifically difficult to truly empty, but only then can we be sure that all we carry and devote to is what we have consciously chosen to do.  We welcome any reports on your own earnest efforts, and on the results of honest and courageous follow-through.  With blessings, -Wolf

Emptying Our Burden Baskets
A Most Intense but Necessary Ceremony

by Jesse Wolf Hardin
www.animacenter.org

More than a rite of passage, a complete stripping down and remaking of our ways and beings, relationships and promises.

Kokopelli!  Kokopelli!   His is a most melodic name.  It rolls off the tip of the tongue like a child exiting a slide, its consonants forming notes that rise and fall as the laughter of rivers.  Go ahead–  say it aloud:  Ko-ko-pel-lee.  He comes from the South, the direction of intimacy and trust, and among the many gifts he brings is a particular lesson…  especially for us.  Yes, his is the figure of the “hunch-backed flute player” carved on the pink and purple cliffs of  southwestern mesa and canyonland, from Casa Grandes in Mexico to the San Juan basin, from the California desert to the pueblos of the Rio Grande.  Petroglyphs of Kokopelli (carved into the dark surface patina to expose the lighter rock below) and pictographs (daubed on with a brush of pounded plant fiber soaked in earthen pigment) date back to 200 A.D. and earlier, recording his influence on far-flung cultures over a long period of time.the hump on Kokopelli is obviously no hunched back, no deformity.   It is, rather, his burden basket.

The Burden Basket is a metaphor for the load we carry on our shoulders, including obligations, schedules and plans.  The worries and fears we’re attached to.  The weight of what we think we know, of the categories in which we file everything, the preconceptions that limit our understanding, the dogma and certainty, comfort and assurance.  The career we are bound to.  The family and other people we are promised to, and the ways in which we are expected to be with them.

Most of the time we may choose to just keep adding to our Basket, without taking time to do a comprehensive inventory, to see what has grown or otherwise changed since we first put it in there, to assess what is still real and relevant to us, to determine what is still worthy of being carried through the mountains and valleys of our lives.  On occasion, we may reach reach around our back and blindly shuffle things around.  Or perhaps pull one particularly bothersome thing out, without dealing with the rest.

At the bottom of the Basket is likely to have settled those things that are most taken for granted and thus either treated uncritically or totally forgotten.  These can include culturally or religiously determined assumptions about good and evil, what is considered attractive or unattractive, what kind of sexuality or other behavior is moral or acceptable, or what our obligations to family or country are.  They lie so deep that they never see the light of day, and we never see them clearly enough to question them even if we don’t consider them unquestionable.

Near the top of the basket are those burdens we have most recently taken on, and those that seem most pressing or urgent, as well as those that we are most aware of for whatever other reasons.  But even these we cannot assess proportionally, from where they hang on our backs.  It is for this reason that we need to take the Basket off at key times in our lives, not just because we find the load tiring or formidable.

That is, after all, the difference between even the heaviest Basket and a prisoner’s load or chains.  It is not welded to our frame with unbreakable links, and no authority figure stands over us to make sure we don’t put it down.  As free, conscious, response-able beings, we have at every moment the opportunity to toss off our pack and run, to ease it off our shoulders, rest and have a look… or to dump absolutely every assumed thing out in this proposed ceremony, facing the combined terror of complete freedom and painful deprivation, facing having nothing and being all alone at least long enough to determine what is real, what has changed, and what still matters.

Those who never lay their burdens down – who never eject anything from the Basket, or who keep endlessly adding more to it – are sometimes those running fastest as though to get to the end of their difficult course, or acting as if they can outrun the things they have strapped to their backs.  They are also likely to be those that you see collapsing as if under a great unseen weight, energetically, emotionally and spiritually exhausted and unreplenished, unable to meet any goal due to the combined weight of static or forced obligations, accepted limitations, and an increasing amount of preconceptions.  The depressed are sometimes seen slumped against the wall or moving very slow, yet clinging tightly to the Basket’s straps, attached to not letting any of it go.  The anxious are often not as spooked about the impending future, as they are afraid that they would be nothing without their Basket’s pressing contents.  The diagnosed “nervous breakdown” is in some cases simply the moment of not being able to carry any more, of falling under the load, and of not being able to get back up or see which way to go.

The option to any the above scenarios is the timely ceremonial emptying of our personal Baskets, not constant housekeeping or rearranging, but a potentially traumatic bottoms-up dumping of even the most treasured and sacred burdens that need only happen at a couple of special points in one’s path and life.  We can know when those times are, by how directed or confused, panicked or paced, restricted or empowered, drained or fed, fulfilled or unfulfilled, frozen or furthered that we feel.  It may be when we think we can’t move, or when we can’t stop running.  In all cases it will a period of ultimate and unrelenting intensity, combined with either a forced collapse or courageous self questioning.  The rage and wonder that attends the transition from child to adult would be one good time, when one needs to get past trying to be who their parents think they are and start manifesting their true nature and needs, break the rules and discover personal values.  So would be times of whirling disorientation or sense of defeat, of rootlessness or rejection, when losing a long held job or ending a powerful marriage, after a near-death experience or period of debilitating illness, when losing legs to a car accident or being betrayed by the institutions you gave your all to.  Or when from wherever you sit, nowhere looks like a clear direction, and you have this strong feeling inside that you need to go.

The Basket Emptying Ceremony is not something you can successfully do piecemeal, by working on it one day a week or a little each year.  While it is never a bad idea to cast light on and reconsider our burdens and contracts, the process we are talking about must be complete and at once.  When the time is right (or ripe!) for this, it is best to go on sabbatical from school or a leave from work, to take a vacation away from family and friends even if it is simply a sequestering into a private room or a tent in the yard free of the distraction of visits, movies and books.  Two weeks would not seem like too much, for this complete look at, reassessing and remaking of our beings and ways, relationships and promises, purpose and priorities.  And it would seem impossible to do it in a meaningful way in less than two days. There is a tremendous investment of emotion, as we honestly evaluate what we may have been more comfortable viewing as indecipherable, inescapable or inalterable.

The first step is a commitment to the process, followed by explaining the importance of and reason for this effort to one’s spouse or friends, getting their support in guarding your privacy and giving you the needed space.  They need to know to leave you alone, even if you need to sob or cry out.  Arrangements may also need to be made for child care or days off away from the job, calls need to be routed to an answering machine, and food or at least water made available.  Consider sitting next to a fireplace or campfire for the ceremony, or stay up in the pitch black of night.

When you have sat down to your purpose, grounded in place and calmed and quieted your mind, begin by trying to identify all the burdens in your life, all the heavy things, everything you feel you bear.  Call forth and optionally write down each of them, the enjoyable as well as unpleasant, those burdens you are attached to carrying as well as those you have resisted or resented.  This includes your contracts, agreements, debts, obligations, schedules and plans.  But also your habits, so be sure to name every one of them.  Your hopes and fears.  Preconceptions and illusions.  Your normal ways of believing and seeing.  Your coping mechanisms and support systems.  Even your parents, children, husband, wife and very best friends… as if you could never have any of those people or things again.  I mean to suggest feeling the terror that comes with the possibility of becoming lost or unrecognizable by those people and systems you have been a part of, knowing that even if we turn to them again they will appear different because they have been changing, and so will have you.

The Emptying of the Basket is analogous to the ritual “death” of the shaman at the onset of his or her rising to the calling, in the totality as well as the deliberateness of the loss, the Shaman’s dark ride through the subconscious, shredded and stripped to the bone, rearranged into something ancient and familiar and yet somehow wholly new. Only when the basket is completely empty and we are down to our true natures, to our uninfluenced and unencumbered elemental beings, are we ready to begin the slow and totally intentional taking back up of what needs our attention, attention to be given in an ever more conscious way.  Out with the easy stuff first, the debts to society that you wonder how you earned, the habits you are tired of, the university you know longer know why you are attending, the holidays you are supposed to gather for with people you no longer enjoy.  Then out with the harder stuff, the comparisons that have made you look too skinny or fat in the mirror, or that seemed to make being repressed and unsated seem somehow okay.  The sense of being a victim, that has at least spared you from taking difficult responsibility or facing any blame.  A relationship that may not be serving you or your path, but that has seemed too comfortable or practical to leave.  Pull out the “death do us part” so that you can measure what you want to give to in life.  Cry, to chance the disappearance of old foundations, holding up structures that no longer reflect or serve who you are or how you feel.  Shed a tear when you visualize beloved homes, neighborhoods, associations, parents, sweethearts, old friends or dependent children, set aside at least the length of this ritual transition, turned away from, knowing they could look different when you return with your eyes wider open.

When you can think of nothing else that weighs on you, nothing else to which you promised to serve or care for, nothing that limits, obstructs, distracts, tries, taxes or strains, the basket is empty.  It helps to picture it such, and hold that image for the hours that it takes, to experience what we feel like unburdened and for the truth and value of that to really sink in.  Imagine the inside of the basket scraped clean, and for as many hours or days as you can spare focus intently on the freedom and possibility you have opened yourself to, sense and luxuriate in what it means to owe nothing to past moves or mistakes, to be beholding to no larger authority or culturally sanctioned way of being, to have no one but yourself to tend and feed, no work for now besides embodying, understanding and coming to manifest all we really are.  It is only here in this exciting frightening place, in this liberating moment, that we can see clearly what matters most.  And it’s only then, that we are able to make the best conscious choices as to what to reincorporate and recommit to, as to which people to bring back into our promissory fold and also in what ways we will relate to them or be treated by them from now on.  And as to which weighty ways of being, means of income, behavioral habits and systems of perception, long term efforts and worthy pledges to willingly and happily put back into our basket.

Visualize putting the re-prioritized Burdens back in, one at time, slowly and methodically.  Speak out loud or to yourself, your commitment to bear them and your reasons why.  Be sure you are seeing them in their true current form, and that you not only accept but promise not to let them down.  You have every right and reason to make it conditional, such as “I take this belief back into my life, not because it was taught to me but because it has proven subjectively true and beneficial,” or “I commit again to this marriage, but on the condition of my spouse truly seeing, hearing and supporting the whole me.”  Done well, there will not be nearly as many items in the Basket, with the unreal, illusory, outdated, unhealthy or no longer relevant left lying on the floor or ground.  And even if perchance the total weighs as much, you will then be able to shoulder it again with satisfaction as well as determination on your face.  You will no longer do anything out of unconscious habit or unhealthy custom.  And you will no longer feel like a victim of commitment and circumstance, but will proudly and purposefully be able to re-enter the larger world you will help create, bearing responsibility but not obligation, carrying forward in your treasured Basket what will then be your glad, glad Burdens.

(To learn about the various Anima correspondence courses, or to read more of Wolf’s work, please go to the Website at www.animacenter.org)

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THE PRACTICE OF AWARENESS

The Animá Approach to a More Aware, Decisive & Satisfying Life

by Jesse Wolf Hardin

www.animacenter.org

The Call to Awareness

Awareness is one of the most precious opportunities and essential life practices, determining in part the richness, health and even length of our finite existence.  It is vital for presence, necessary to notice and learn from, to discern and evaluate, understand and appreciate.  It’s crucial when it comes to avoiding accidents or improving technique, defending ourselves or our loved ones from attack or getting the most from our exposure to a potent work of art.  It is an ingredient that we cannot do without, if we are to truly taste the intermingled flavors of our food or fully savor each available moment.  The better we become at being aware, the better choices we make, and the better we are able to give, whether in the role of healers, teachers, craftspeople, parents and providers.  And the more aware we become, the more flavorful and meaningful our world becomes, the more wondrous and useful what we are given.  Awareness is – optionally, ideally – our simultaneous work, art and reward.  It is not simply what we seek or grow, it way that calls to us.

How aware we are is a matter of how much we notice, how broadly we perceive, and how deeply we understand.  As an Animá practice, awareness is intentionally noticing/engaging as many aspects of ourselves and the world around us as possible, consciously making choices as to how much attention and focus to give each element, each moment.

The word “aware” comes from the old Germanic “war,” or “wer,” meaning to “watch” or to “take care.”  When we’re aware of something we are not only observing but evaluating – in the sense of continuously estimating the immediate value (significance, relevance, importance) of each.  We give it care, being either careful of it or with it.

Make no mistake, awareness isn’t a state or condition so much as an activity!   It’s not where we rest or reside, it’s something we naturally – and preferably intentionally – do.

Animá’s 7 Elements of Awareness

There are seven definitive aspects of awareness that we teach students to develop.  Though they can be derivative, successive and even progressive, we don’t like to refer to them as levels.  That tends to make them sound disconnected and unmoored, otherworldly, stratified and even hierarchal.  Nor do we say “degrees,” because while one builds from the other, and they are related aspects and capacities more than degrees of ability.  We prefer to think of them as elements instead, even though they are multifaceted rather than singular.  They are decidedly elemental, not in the sense of inert ingredients but in the same way that air, fire, water and earth are all energetically interconnected and interactive, feeding, informing and enabling each other.  Each of these seven elements of awareness are stages that we don’t move on from, but rather, that we incorporate, integrate and utilize.

The necessary first such element exists at ground level if you will, the initial awakening of the senses,  and becoming increasingly conscious and feeling, without which none of the others are possible.  The second is increased awareness of self as a definable subject of experience – awareness of the self that feels – along with an ever deepening sense of one’s inner states and increasing awareness of our subconscious processes.  The above two correlate with “earth” in elemental theory, with the living planet, our original nature and innermost essence and core.  From that can follow an increasing awareness of the world outside our skin, contexts and situations, revealing patterns and evolving interrelationship.  This make possible increasing awareness of self in relationship to the world, of one’s daily choices and their criteria in making them, of the potential consequences and benefits.  The fifth element is an increasing awareness of past and future, of the distant or unseen, un-sensed or for now incomprehensible, of impending death and its attendant mysteries, of the finite nature of our mortal lives and the importance of how we spend it.  These three could be seen as relating to water – overflowing its vessel, probing and making contact, as well as seeking out the depths and those secrets that await there.  The sixth element is an increasing awareness of the timeless nature of existence, or more clearly, of the unified presence of past and future as well as of the continuity and continuousness of the Anima or life force.  The seventh is akin to the Chinese element of wood, ceaseless movement and consistent fruiting: awareness of a need to initiate action or respond in ways that further our growth and better the world, inspired, informed and motivated by all that we become aware of.

1. Awakening, Becoming Conscious

In the beginning, we awaken from an unconscious or less conscious condition, from death into life, from less discernible oneness to distinguishing consciousness.  Such consciousness is the beginning of and foundation for awareness, not a thing that proceeds from it.  The start of life –  and of each day of our lives – is an awakening into consciousness, bringing with it only the option for differing degrees of awareness.

To be conscious requires only that we be aware of the world outside of our narrowly defined selves.  It doesn’t require that we understand much of what we sense, or even that we sense it in more than one way.  Someone coming out of a coma after an accident can be said to be conscious even if they are unable to open their eyes or move, and even if their brains are unable to make sense of the information their ears receive.  Even the most distracted and habituated of modern men and women – oblivious to their surroundings, shopping for matching fashions instead of developing an opinion on what to wear, voting the way their friends vote rather than studying the issues, unaware of their own feelings as well as their spouses, stepping off of curbs without watching for traffic – can still said to be conscious… though not necessarily to a survivable or even personally satisfyingly degree.  Even to be ultra-conscious is simply to be fully awake, a term that we prefer for several reasons.

There are, in fact,  few other situations in which we even use this term “consciousness” in the teaching of Animá.  First, because there is so much disagreement, from spiritual figures arguing its meaning to medical ethicists offering contesting definitions of what constitutes consciousness, unconsciousness and the so-called “vegetable” state where further medical life support may no longer make sense.  Secondly, consciousness is too often described as a state that only humans are capable of, when so much of other-than-human life is clearly more awakened, aware and responsive than all too many of our own blessed kind.  And thirdly, the related expression “higher consciousness” is too misleading to be useful, evoking as it does an out of body, unearthly location or condition, an imagined way of knowing suspended somehow above messy bodily and planetary experiencing.

To the contrary, what is needed to further develop our awareness is to (as the saying goes) “come down to earth,” ground in presence and place, reconnect to the living land and the seeming secrets that such connection affords, and to revisit our feeling beings and sentient bodies, natural abilities and informative challenges, needs and proclivities, callings and dreams.  Awareness requires we not ascend so much as dig in and delve, submerge and insinuate oneself in the web and weft… that we take the time for long explorative journeys into the winding labyrinths of our energetic and creature beings, into the context of relationship with other people, the food we eat, the plant whose breath we breathe.  To notice – often up close and intimate – the interacting world, our place within it, and the ways we can most powerfully receive and give.

Awareness isn’t a subcomponent of consciousness, it is its expansion, prioritization and application.  Consciousness and awakeness constitute the basic and fundamental level of awareness from which we can then further develop and expand… through not only intently sensing but emotionally feeling,

2. Self Awareness & the Subconscious

Once conscious – and consciously feeling – self recognition becomes possible… for our kind, as well as at least a handful other species.  Wild creatures are usually and necessarily more awake and notice more than civilized human beings, with quicker response times.  For the most part they are not, however, able to form a mental image of themselves, or hence to imagine themselves in new situations.  When confronted with its reflection in a mirror, a rat seems to see only light or space, a dog will run or bark as though spotting a stranger in the neighborhood no matter how closely the movements in the mirror match its own.  Using the Mirror Self Recognition Test, only our closest relatives the apes, dolphins and elephants have so far shown to know that a reflection is of them, with both of the latter rubbing the appropriate part of their face after noticing a mark that researches had daubed there.  What appears to be exclusively human is what’s sometimes called meta-awareness, an awareness of the self that feels, self as the knowable and definable subject of experience… and awareness of one’s feeling process itself.  This occurs not when some inner witness separates itself from the input and effects of emotions or action, but when the observing self begins to actively relate to its own shifting feelings and processes.  In a healthy person emotions aren’t objectified and analyzed so much as plumbed, and then weighed-in.

Deepening awareness of one’s inner states includes not only feelings, emotions and moods, but also our ongoing subconscious processes.  By definition, much of what goes on in the subconscious occurs unnoticed, and yet we can increasingly get glimpses of our subconscious issues and icons, patterns and tendencies through self exploration, artistic experimentation, vision questing, meditation and dream work.  And self-awareness and self-understanding can be greatly served by our uncovering of that which is ever being confronted or tested, assayed or inflated, deconstructed and re-created there.

Self awareness is essential to a healthy ego, not be confused with the negative “egotistical.” Ego is simply sense of self and identity, not self-centeredness.  Most of the problems in our world our brought on not by inflated egos – nor even for egotism – but by people’s generally undeveloped sense of self, a remarkable lack of self awareness, self knowledge, and thus self esteem.  People blindly react, lash out, suffer depression, remain in unsatisfying or abusive relationships, subject themselves to toxic food additives and soul deadening jobs, silently enable ecological destruction and permit their governments to wage unjust wars, largely because they are unawares… not just of the facts and mechanics of the food industry or Congress, but unaware of how they feel and the origination of those feelings.  Of their values and the basis on which those values were formed.  Of their habits, both those the bring order and repetition to healthy behaviors, and those that trap them in harmful and unproductive ways of perceiving or acting.  Of their personalities, their tendencies, or where they are on their personal Medicine Wheels.  Of their real needs, let alone how to meet them.  Of their repressed desires, untended dreams and unanswered callings.

Self awareness provides some of the necessary information and input we need when consciously contacting and interacting with the world.  By making us familiar with our needs and desires, it makes it possible to act to meet those that benefit, as well as to transform those that cause stress or harm.  Awareness of our true nature helps us to serve that nature, as well as capitalize on it, knowing what our honest weaknesses are means we can address and strengthen those areas, recognition of our true abilities means we can better trust them, grow them, apply them, take pride in them.  It makes it possible to align our behavior with our values, standards and intentions.  Equipped with an intimate understanding of, and personal acceptance of who we really are, the less likely we are to feel insecure and act of that insecure place.  Regardless our degree of awareness of external happenings or outside factors, increased self awareness means we become more confident, which makes us more motivated, thus more effective and potentially fulfilled.  And knowledge of our own inner workings, brings greater ability to understand, assay, predict, empathize with, help heal, clarify, assist, affirm, empower or transform the feelings and actions of others.

Like the apes and elephants in the MSR experiment, we come to see ours selves mirrored in the world around us.  And then there’s the next element or step, where we see in the world more than a reflection of ourselves.

———————-

Postscript:
The above explains in depth the general principals and first 2 Elements of Awareness, as taught by Animá.  Following Awareness of Self comes 3. Awareness of the World, Noticing & Orienting; 4. Awareness of Self in Place, Relationship & Dynamic; 5. Awareness of Finite Time and the Importance of Timing; 6. Awareness of Timeless Nature & the Animate Whole.  7. Awareness of Callings, Purpose & the Need to Respond.  The entire 10,000 word essay will appear in the book in progress known for now as the Book of Animá.  Meanwhile, those wishing to delve deeper will find an entire lesson of the redesigned Animá year-long Mentorship program devoted to this skill and topic, as well as an entire, new 8 week long Animá course on Awareness that will include self exploration questions and assignments for implementing. We expect to be able to accept registrations for this and a number of other courses within the next two weeks.  Your comments and responses are valued as always.  It is important that I am clear with this, as there are so many contrary approaches and beliefs out there, and it is so easy for us humans to hear only what we are comfortable hearing.  Hence the stress… on awareness!  be well, live fully, love deeply.…
-Wolf

(Please forward and post freely)

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~~~

Every year this special and very focused workshop becomes a little (or a lot) more intense. With the approach of each Shaman Path Intensive, Wolf and Loba and I are all filled with excitement and anticipation of the wonder sure to come! Remarkably, this year’s transformative event created a new threshold for what can occur when we’re focused and open. In fact, when I asked Wolf his assessment, he had only word for it: superb!

The monsoons arrived early this year and the Southwest’s wild rains provided us with an unseasonably lush and verdant canyon to revel and play in. Lightning-spiked storms rumbled through nearly every afternoon or evening of the event. The sweet serenade of warblers and thrushes and the gentle “meeps” of Muskrats sang alongside the river’s rippling lullaby.  A particular Blue Heron flew over our group several times a day, graciously gifting us with its harsh but beautiful call. The gorgeous Rocky Mountain Beeweed stood tall as trees and wide as groves alongside the river, blessing us with their delicate purple blossoms. Closer to the ground, the magenta and lavender Beebalm and brilliant orange and yellow Butterflyweed illuminated the rocky arroyo near the lodge.

A primary part of the deepening of this experience has to do with our exceptional and truly diverse participants. They ranged from herbalists and acupuncturists to scientists and school teachers to dreamworkers and caretakers, creating a rich tapestry of personality and life experience that wove together into a circle of unique power. Many in the group were very familiar with the Canyon and its magic, having been repeat workshop participants, retreat guests, students or apprentices. Several though, were brand new, and brought their freshness to the dynamic while our more seasoned members contributed a depth and knowledge born of experience.

Sonoran Desert herbalist, Darcey Blue and I worked plant and healing conversation into every little break we could find and she lifted everyone’s spirits with her baskets and bunches of herbs gracing the lodge. I’m sure we were a constant source of intrigue and amusement with our multitude of mysterious tincture bottles, salve jars and botanically complex beverages.

One special afternoon, the women (and Rhiannon!) took time out to journey to the river and plunge ourselves into its refreshing and gentle flow. Each of us lay back in the water and let it soothe the tension from our bodies and nourish us with the primal rhythm of the wound, the tides of the water bringing us ever deeper into ourselves. We painted ourselves with mud, danced on the sand, laughed and cried and sang before finally walking softly back the way we came, filled with a new sense of belonging and purpose.

Wolf provided us with many hours of thought-provoking, assumption-challenging and incredibly insightful talks. The topics ranged in subject matter from finding our calling and living our dreams to death and the Shaman’s inevitable dark night of the soul. Through it all, his immense compassion, wry humor and effortless eloquence carried us to new depths of understanding and feeling. This year’s workshops were extra exciting and we managed to record all of them so that we can offer mp3 recordings to you in the near future!

While age provides the opportunity for wisdom, it is certainly not the measure of it. No one embodies this quite as well as our little Rhiannon, whose wild spirit and perceptive eyes teach more in a leap and a glance then any textbook could hope to inform us with. She reminds us that teachers come in many ages and guises, and provokes us to watch for what we can learn in each moment, if only we are present and paying attention.

On our last evening together we journeyed downriver to the base of the sacred cliffs to honor the spirit of the place and drink in the power and magic of the land as it funneled through Wolf’s drum and into each participant. Above us, the moon poured through the clouds to kiss us and all around us the heady perfume of Sacred Datura flowers imbued us with the enchantment of this special inspirited land. Afterwards, Loba sang long and sweet into the darkness before we began our long journey back to the lodges by starlight.

Each individual was touched in a different but equally important way, from one woman’s profound understanding of her place as a creatrix rather than as a victim in the story of her life to our apprentice Resolute’s newfound alliance with a special medicine plant to another’s recommitment to nourishing herself to Darcey’s emerging understanding of the necessity of her voice and song in the web of the world. The vulnerability and openness of so many of our participants was certainly an inspiration to each and every one of us, and their example allowed everyone to get more from their experiences.

A consistent part of every event here at Anima Center is the phenomenal food and feasting! Fresh veggies from gardens as well as sweetly chosen organic and local produce came together under caring and conscious hands to create meals that were not only nourishing and beautiful but tasted so good that the woods were filled with mmmm’s and yummmmmm’s and wowwwwww’s several times a day. Warm loaves of hearty rye and nutty flax breads dressed with sweet cream butter sat alongside wooden bowls filled with golden yellow Calabacitas, ruby red Tomatoes, vivid green Cucumbers and the garnet tones of sweet Cherries. Fresh fragrant Basil, pungent Beebalm, Venison, handmade sun-dried Tomatoes, River Mint, Mustard flowers, Watercress and many many Wild Grape leaves made their way into our dishes, infusing us all with a special wildness and place-based delight.

It’s not often a group comes together to create and tend quite as well as this particular one and Loba and Wolf and I are deeply grateful for all the care that was given to this place during the event! The love each person invested in their actions was seen and appreciated. To all of you who blessed the Canyon with your prayers and presence, with your love and gratitude and attention, we want to thank you! May your journey be powerful, and your life fully lived.

 ~~~

All Photos (c) 2009 Kiva Rose, Jesse Wolf Hardin, Darcey Blue, MaryAnn and Elizabeth!

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First Lessons

2nd in a series by Resolute

(Animá Apprentice)

“Why is it that I don’t do that which I know I want to do?”  We were sitting in session at the Shaman Intensive workshop, each with our own puzzling questions.  This is one that had stymied me for an aeon or two, it seemed, with the overwhelming enormity of never quite finding an answer.  For so long, just when I would find myself on the cliff-edge of a great discovery, understanding, accomplishment, adventure, I would be at a standstill, unable to move forward or backward. Watching my dreams die as I felt as though the very foundation under me crumbled, leaving me to painfully clamber back up the cliff’s crags with all energies focused on the survival of the bloodied, bruised soul of myself, once again.

I sat with crinkled forehead, quizzical eyes, yearning to solve the mystery.  Wolf nodded, looked into my soul-eyes and spoke.  “Consider the deer on the highway, frozen in the headlights of approaching danger. It would be helpful for the deer to run.  When you are frozen, look at what it is you need to run toward.”

It was my turn to nod slowly, taking in the magnitude of the lesson, its impact as heavy and enormous as the frustration, fear and sadness I had known as the underlying song of my life to that point.

When I returned home, I plastered reminders on computers, mirrors, kitchen counters. “What is it that I need to run toward?”   The awakening began, slowly and yet inexorably, as moment by moment, I surprised myself by noticing I was able to move after all!  It felt at first as a flexing of limbs as I was roused from a long sleep. Sitting up dizzy in the breaking dawn of my new way of life. And beginning to do the simple things – making a cup of tea, sitting out of doors, noticing, allowing life to flood back into my spirit.

“What is it that I need to run toward?”  And daily tasks became lessons in presence, and less the excruciating terror of tumbling down the cliff of my previously created reality.

“What is it that I need to run toward?”  Ah!  Of all else, I needed to run toward myself, embrace myself!  Ah! Yes!  And so began the journey that continues today, and stretches long ahead of me, each moment now a decisive moment, awake, with a new song, and the inspirited earth joining in with all her supporting harmonies, joy and sorrow in turn, ecstasy balancing the inevitable pain, an alchemical blending I could never know until I took the many melodic themes of my life, owned them, sang them together into wholeness.

And, as I prepare for time again, at the upcoming Shaman Intensive, I am standing once more on the edge of a cliff.  I spread my owl wings, and fly!

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Shutting Down, Numbing Out, Coming Back to Life

“…glorious as a rainbow, a rainbow sorely missed.”
-Anon.

It’s unlikely I’ll ever forget the day that the very essence of beauty breezed into my life, when I thought myself the agent of its demise.

It was a warm Spring day, with all the doors to my heart and two of the windows to my house as open as innocence itself.  It had only been a matter of weeks since we last found a layer of ice in the rain barrels upon getting up in the morning.  The nearness of Winter past meant that there were few flying insects to contend with yet, and I chose to leave the screens off in order to enjoy a wholly unobstructed view.   Only after the rush and buzz of tiny, rapidly moving wings past my head, did I consider there might be a pitfall to my designs.  An emerald bellied hummingbird had flown into the room and become alarmed, then in its rush to escape had begun to throw itself repeatedly against another window’s still closed glass.  Quickly as I could, I cupped my hands around its tiny form and carefully carried it back outside, but instead of celebrating its regained liberty it now lay like death in the sweating bowl of my palm.

Lightly probing beneath the feathers of its iridescent breast, I could feel a pulse barely perceptible compared to its species’ normally speeding heart rhythm.  Eyes that had moments before taken in every detail of color in my room, in a compulsive search for nectar laden flowers, now appeared dull and unblinking.  Seemingly absent was the will to prevail that had in previous days fueled its jousts with other hummer contenders.  What had appeared luminous and multi dimensional on the wing, seemed made fragile if not defeated there on its back.  I recognized it as torpor, as much as I feared it could lead to its death – a kind of suspended animation that these and certain other species revert to when they are terrified and can’t deal.  It seems their hope is to appear lifeless and insignificant, on the chance that they will either be overlooked or spit back out by whatever predator threatens them.  Or at least, that if and when the jaws of some beasty finally closes around them, they might feel the bite less.

Curiously, it is this incident that comes to mind and heart, as I pause to rue the degree to which modern humanity increasingly sleepwalks through the finite blessing of inherently sentient existence, numbed out, zoned out, dumbed down or opted out.  While it can hardly be called torpor in humans, there is a disturbing similarity in the way so many of civilized kind choose to shut down when faced with a stressful situation, in many ways “playing dead” in the hopes of either being spared or reducing any inevitable pain.  Unfortunately, by going out of our way to avoid danger, we consequently lose out on opportunities for challenge and growth.  By persistently looking away from bodily suffering and death, we miss out on the depth and breadth of experiential reality.  By so thoroughly, continuously – and voluntarily if unconsciously – choosing to notice less, feel less and therefore care and do less, many of us sidestep not only the fullest experiencing of any moments that might include pain but also the vital, vibrant pleasures of relational life consciously attended and wholly experienced.

Insulating ourselves from hurt, our padding limits the amount that we can experience true bliss.  By learning to block out the unpleasant noise of sirens and traffic, we become less likely to notice the subtle twitters of birds, savor the music of the rain, or be alarmed in time by the sounds of impending nature.  By training ourselves to ignore the ill odor of asphalt and the rotting garbage of alleyways, we progressively sacrifice the ability to discern the scent of the diverse wildflowers growing next to the sidewalk or to recognize the distinctive aroma of one’s lover from afar.  Eyes averted from the fight down the street, the wino in the gutter, the blackened smokestacks, the glaring chrome of commerce or the eyes of passing strangers, are all too likely to miss the graceful swoop of the city pigeon, the details of an important encounter and the delight-evoking, wind drawn patterns on the surface of a child’s swimming pool.  Shoes that shield the feet from stickers and heat, steal from us the sensation of feeling our way with sensitized feet, from the sensation of grass on our soles and mud tickling its way up between our toes.  Physical and perceptual barriers erected for our emotional and bodily protection serve neither in the long run, easily blocking sight of the interactive and message filled world, and of our unfulfilled animal as well as human potentials.  Through the processes of padding, diluting, averting, avoiding, ignoring and denying, we may longer survive… but with a result being that we’re less alive.

That which deadens pain, more often than not also deadens life.  You’ve likely noticed how the chemicals used to spare us much of the sensation of a dentist’s probes and drills also temporarily robs us of our sense of taste, making every food from ice cream to soup seem much the same, and leaving the mouth so numb that we are in danger of biting our tongues.  So do the mechanisms for feeling less mean a reduction in not only suffering but the literal as well as metaphorical flavors of our lives.  And just as the numb might bite their tongue, we are most likely to make choices and act in ways that harm us when we are oblivious to the consequences or immune to the sensation.  While it would be unhealthy to seek out or become attached to discomfort and pain, it is equally unhealthy to choose only those ways and paths most likely to keep us pain free, comfortable and safe.  Risking less, doing less, being less adventurous and sensuous is a terrible price to pay, leaving us possibly out of pain but also dangerously out of body and thoroughly out of touch.  Any reduction in sentience is in fact a sad departure – a process of gradual distancing from our true natures and knowing selves, from direct experience as well as from the rest of the contiguous living world we’re each an integral component of.

To better understand awareness, picture it as something that can both broaden and constrict.  At its high water mark, our awareness reaches out not just into nearby or personally significant people but also into the being and experience of the natural world surrounding us, affording us the perspective of earth and others.  In this expansive state, we are afforded information that feels strangely more familiar or remembered than new or imported.  Those who do this naturally, often and well are true empathics, with empathy being the fact of feeling through (not for) the sentient vessels of other people and lifeforms… not simply a personal emotional reaction to what we imagine to be the feelings of others.   At the low mark, we have for whatever reasons drawn our awareness up out of our bodies and the body of the world, until sequestered in the illusory safety of the objectifying left hemisphere of our brains.  Trauma, insecurity, fear and rejection are just some of the triggers that can cause us to retract our probing channels of awareness like an octopus withdrawing its arms at the approach of a predator… but then it can become a habit to loiter in that separative place, circling the confines of the narrowly defined mind in an endless tape loop of disembodied reflection.  It is a strange kind of inward turning that provides neither self knowledge, self realization or self love, this isolation of our awareness in a hall of mirrors within mirrors, within mirrors.

One need not “astral project” in order to have an “out of body” experience, merely a typical civilized human with the habit of only marginally experiencing what could be the intense sensations of life wholly lived.  We are out of body whenever chewing a delicious bit of food without fully noticing and engaging its texture, temperature, flavor and smell.  When driving down a road thinking about either diversions or one’s destination, and not taking in the reality of where we are right now.  When thinking about other lovers or acts during sex, to the exclusion of the person you are bodily with.  When relating to someone through previous judgments instead of our immediate sense of their intention, integrity and vibe.  When suppressing our feelings, instincts or sense of right and wrong in order to conform, appease others, avoid making waves, obey orders or get paid.  When it takes a ton of sugar in a cookie, a sudden loud noise or terrible stench to get your attention, and when you are able to ignore or become oblivious already to the third bite of cookie, continuous clamor or ill smells.  When your trained reaction to something unpleasant, evil or inappropriate is to ignore or deny it instead of seeking remedy, wholeness or change.  When I – like the world – can approach you without hiding and “catch you unawares” every time.

That so many modern folk identify ourselves as victims – of our spouses and bosses, society and politics, life or death, our destiny or devils – explains in some ways how we, like that hummingbird, could ever choose to turn off the sensors and turn out the lights… how we could possibly suppress our inner wild will in order to await the hopefully benevolent but potentially dangerous whims of forces outside ourselves, self-anesthetizing to lessen the piercing ache of what we fear will be the pointy teeth of fate.

The cure for our shutting down is a courageous opening to sensation, awakening the physical sensate, emotional, instinctual and intuitive capacities we were each born gifted with.  The perfect symbol for such a coming-back-to-life, may be that unfortunate hummingbird bursting into an explosion of light and sky once taken outside.  Like that precious hummer, we need only shake ourselves out of our fear-induced torpor in order to wholly feel, risking and learning from any pain, embracing the overwhelming joy… all our lovely senses alerted, our wings spread, our eyes again opened wide.

-Jesse Wolf Hardin

(For further exploration and personal application, consider enrolling in the Shaman Path course – dedicated to our awakening and empowerment… described on the Correspondence Courses page at www.animacenter.org) 

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The second annual Shaman’s Path Intensive took place July 4th weekend, 2008, a yearly immersion into the dynamic connection and communication of human, earth and other. This workshop often draws some of the most sensitive and motivated participants, and Wolf, Loba and I are always excited to see what opportunities and gifts each new event brings.

The weather was beautiful and enchanting in itself, with dark clouds dancing in each afternoon with light showers blessing us and keeping the temperatures cool and sweet. The Rocky Mountain Beeweed is flowering in all it’s purple glory, covering the riverside with their six foot tall spires, leading us like living candles deeper into the canyon.
Our gatherings are well known for their feasts, and this event was no exception! From chocolate acorn cake to Loba’s Mediterranean extravaganza to the blackberry studded beauty of the closing circle’s creamy chocolate pie we ate very well indeed. Many meals were wrapped in the jewel tones of wild grape leaves, and fresh berries accompanied nearly every eating experience. Herbed flax bread as well as a hearty rye caraway loaf were set out to be smeared with sweet cream butter by eager fingers and spoons. Veggies and meat were roasted on an open fire while fresh raw salads were prepared with vibrant greens and colorful sweet peppers. All our eating took place out of doors, on the Gifting Lodge’s wide wooden porch so that we were sheltered from the rain while letting the trees, sky and stones in. Many thanks to the caring hands of each person who invested love and intent into each meal, helping to make every eating experience yet more satisfying and tasty!

One of our most popular workshops was the afternoon devoted to the study of the Animá Medicine Wheel. Together we gathered the stones to form a medicine wheel for an afternoon of exploring self, earth, energetics and relationships through this tool created from the direct observation of nature. While very different from indigenous models, the Medicine Wheel has become a foundational understanding and teaching of our work here. More than one person told us that their experience of the Wheel has forever changed their perception of themselves and others.

Some wonderful highlights included seeing our Medicine Woman student Stacey joyfully receiving the many gifts of the canyon. Whether spending time with the river or climbing high into the Alder trees, she listened and learned. She is beginning to accept her gifts as a healer, visionary and teacher as her own, and to know herself fully. Allison and Dave, themselves passionate teachers and facilitators of Earth-based wisdom joined us in deep connection to place and self. Their openness and understanding is huge, and their presence very meaningful to us! NancyAnn, a gifted woman who has spent her life serving as an intermediary between the sensory, sensual earth and people, shared her experiences with us even as she immersed herself in the magic of the gathering. Carol arrived from her home in the desert searching for a deeper understanding of her purpose and self and walked away with a full heart and plans to undertake a vital and courageous journey of transformation in her life. Our wise apprentice Shay has now taken the name Resolute as part of her solid commitment to her self, to the earth and to Animá. Her exceptional capacity for integration and sensitivity coupled with her intense desire to learn makes her not only a great gift to us, but to the whole world as well. Student Suzen returned to the Center for yet another pilgrimage of healing, growth and magic. Her openness to the power of this place and to her own deeply feeling nature provide an excellent example for us all. Everyone was so generous, bringing with them gifts of food, financial assistance, wisdom and most importantly, an open and receiving heart!

One special evening we silently journeyed downriver, carrying dry wood to the foot of the sacred cliffs. During the time fading into dusk we each found a special place to rest, cooling our feet in the river or curling up under dangling grape vines. Coming back together, we all crowded around an exceptionally beautiful Sacred Datura plant, three and a half foot tall and flush with flowers waiting to open. We praised the intricate spirals of the bud, noted the blue purple tinge running the length of the plant and remarked over the extreme contrast between flower fragrance and the strange scent of the leaves. And we watched – ever so closely- for the night blooming buds to unfold. As we stood, patient and admiring, the flowers began to open –slowly at first — petal tendrils unwinding moonwise until they burst in a three second show of the night arriving in a flower, rich with the intoxicating fragrance so particular to the nightshades. The group exhaled a simultaneous breath, full of the oohhs and ahhhs of wondrous children.

As night fell, we built a small fire and circled round it, speaking quietly of the history of this place, of the miracles that were required to sustain and restore it, and of the transformation and healing it gives to those who journey here with an open heart. Wolf slipped out of the dark with drum in hand. As we each turned to face outward into the canyon, he played for us an ancient rhythm. In the sound of his music was the bliss and agony of a world in transition and a species that longs for the vital connection to place that has been stripped from so many of us. In his beat was the heartbeat of each one of us — he walked the circle, pausing behind each individual, giving a profound gift of unique and deeply needed energy shifting rhythm. The drumming was a dance between drummer and land, land and person, drum and heart – altering and opening us, bringing us closer to an awakened and aware relationship with all things.

We walked back together in a line under the dark of a new moon, weaving and twisting across the textured terrain of the riverbank. Laughter, song and tears could be heard as we slipped through the night, and the echo of the drum followed us all to our beds.

Throughout the weekend each individual spent special time with the land, and especially with the river and its iridescent dragonflies. The medicine of this place sparkling and swirling into the touch of every bare foot against smooth rock and fingertip rippling the cool water. There were so many special people at this gathering and so many searching for profound transformation and personal self-discovery.

Even as the last of the guests walked slowly out of the canyon towards their individual homes and purposes, I could still hear their voices, still feel the imprint of their footsteps against the soft ground and still sense the great love of their hearts and hands, all woven together in the canyon’s wide open arms. To each and every one of you, thank you. We are honored to serve you in your journeys towards wholeness, authenticity and connection. The river’s song remembers you and our hearts hold you.

-Kiva Rose

~~~All pics (c) 2008 Kiva Rose~~~

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The photo is of an ancient spiral carved into a 10′ high boulder at one end of the Anima Center property, concealed from casual observation by a thick cloak of wild grape vines. It symbolizes the simultaneous journeying outwards into the world and our destinies, and inwards and homewards to our authentic selves, heart and source. Thousands of years old, it marks a place sacred to the ancient Mogollon who so long cared for it, a people served by the vision and skills of certain called and driven Adepts such as we now call shamans. Shamanism is a powerful perceptual and practical tool, available not only to the adepts of primitive cultures but to us as well, with our mission or re-creating our lives and co-creating our reality.

Forget the stereotypes, a shaman is simply one who senses the unseen, inner, spiritual and energetic, and commits to utilizing any insights and lessons to stimulate changes in the visible realm… in the physical and sometimes ailing body, the culture, the environment, and the course of events. These shamanic understandings and techniques can aid not only the dedicated shaman, but also the everyday woman or man seeking a more wholly sensed, engaged, committed and satisfied life.

Regardless of their recognition or stature in their society, shamans cast large shadows. They are the select, individuals who find life so beautiful that it’s almost excruciating, and pain so significant that they have to act to heal and mend the rips. Their intent, and their intensity, can either make them stand out in crowd or help them remain invisible. No matter what their “day jobs,“ their real work is ecstatic, going again and again to the edge where magic happens, and acting as in intermediary between the different ways and ”worlds,” between the spirits and the people. They are agents in one way or another of awakeness, reintegration, healing and transformation.

What most of these shamans from around the world share in common is a world view on which all practices are based, and upon which all results depend. These include the “knowing” that all things are both interconnected and interrelated. That the unseen and the immeasurable can effect physical and visual reality, and that those unseen energies and patterns can in turn be influenced by the efforts of the practitioner. It is these rudimentary understandings that motivates the shaman’s dedication, their contribution to the harmony and balance of the body, mind, spirit, community and land. They may do this through healings, counsel, public speaking, teaching, performance, or assistance with deaths and teen’s rites of passage.

Regardless of their life’s traumas or shifts they’ve gone through, the shaman’s first charge is always to heal (make whole) the fractured selves, and only then can they credibly heal (make whole) other people and the larger community. This does not mean simply the alleviation of natural ailments, but a healing of the soul that can turn any persistent diseases or difficulties it can’t eliminate into spiritual boons and practical learning experiences.

Needless to say, after the reintegration of one’s lost parts, or after any successful healing, the shaman can still help the person or situation return to a state of balance. Nor is the subject’s own involvement over. We still need to commit to a partnership with power, acting on what we see, manifesting our visions, correct our misalignments and imbalances, employ our expanded awareness for the good, using our fears as fuel for positive movement and change, and living our dreams.

While not everyone is meant to be a full-on shaman, shamanic practice can vitalize and deepen anybody willing to authentically do the work. Even for those with other callings, it can serve as an energetic vehicle, assisting passage through the portal of the feeling heart, taking us into deeper connection with the miraculous, inspiring us to take response-ability as conscious co-creators of multi-dimensional reality and our wonderful shared world.

Earth-Path shamanism is a heart-stirring journey into Anima and the reintegrative experience of planetary consciousness. It is the actual moment to moment utilization of any messages and tools revealed during that exploration… and the maximization of our physical and more-than-physical senses, including instinct, intuition, empathy, energetic discernment, clairvoyance and precognition. It is identifying and then being true to our unique, individual, most meaningful purpose… as well as the giving of the whole self in the most powerful, beautiful and effective ways possible, for the benefit of the greater whole.

The hopeful result of shamanic study and practice is: An understanding of the fundamentals of pan-cultural cosmology and earth-informed practice. Conscious interaction with the spirit realm. Heightened skills to effect the world. Furthered ability to heal and bring to balance both individuals and the society of which we are a part. New means for improving relationships with coworkers, allies, friends and spouses. More intuitive presence in personal business, that can lead to better decision-making and a deeper measure of mission success.

Earth-Path shamanism offers a means for re-creating primal/primary ritual, ceremony, practice, tradition and tribe true to our usually mixed blood ancestry and these contemporary times. Enlisted to reconnect rather than disembark or transcend, such shamanism may be even more important now than in our tribal and prehistoric past. At its most vital best, it can lead to the recognition and affirmation of our latent, pre-existing shamanic abilities, propensities and potentials. And to the development of personal criteria for its honorable application… in these times of personal and global transformation, unequaled struggle and unparalleled reward.

We awaken to the shaman now, under virtually the same stars as the ancestors, penetrating the same darkness with the same insistent light.

-J.W.H.

To register for the Anima Shaman Path Intensive held in N.M. the July 4th weekend, click on: shamans-path-intensive-reg.doc

For information on the Shaman Path Correspondence course, please go to: www.animacenter.org

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