Animá Lifeways & Herbal School

Teachers & Seekers:

Opening Up to Being Taught, and Awakening to the Fact That We All Have a Role to Teach

By Jesse Wolf Hardin

When I was a very young child my mother told me what a little teacher I was, somehow showing adults how to look at things in new ways in spite of my obvious lack of experience on this planet.  I didn’t fit in at school and never felt like I had any close friends, yet when my fellow students had something deep or vulnerable to share, a poignant and debilitating fear to deal with, a nagging question to be explored or important choice to make, they would search me out for insight and advice.  Forty years later, it is as a teacher that I am most known, even more than as a historian in spite of my many writings on the subject, more than as an accomplished artist, lover or land restorationist, outlaw primitivist provider or admittedly wild-eyed activist shaking the pillars of an unjust and ecocidal power system.  And I accept the role of teacher as a primary responsibility… not because humans are more deserving of my attention than art or wildlife, but because of the fact that it’s people’s adopted ignorance, dearth of self-knowledge and self-love, degree of unclarity and depth of insecurity that are most impacting the health and integrity of the entire planet and everything on it large and small.

The rewards I get from this are huge.  Just as I take great satisfaction from seeing this canyon flourishing with a forest of wildness I myself planted, so too am I made content by the expression of gratitude from folks that I have inspired assisted, instructed, guided, empowered and supported.  There is little that could be more touching, than for my partners and I to regularly hear from our students, clients and readers that “you have changed my life,” or that “thanks to you, for the first time I feel wholly, completely alive!”

As much we appreciate the credit and feed on the gratitude, sometimes I find the only way I can help is by allowing someone to act as if they had come upon the insight on their own, independent of my orchestrated assist.  And there are a few others (usually male) that I cannot seem to get through to at all, their boundaries so practiced, identities so fragile and thus resistance so great that I am unable to penetrate.  Of these relatively few disappointments, there have been some who have denied and decried the very concept of teachers and teaching.  Usually these have been politically correct egalitarians with a need to feel that everybody is not only equal but in possession of equal amounts of knowledge, experience or insight to share.

It is actually a core tenet of the Animá practice we teach, that we are all teachers of a sort, responsible for our effect on the larger living world.  It would nonetheless be a mistake to downplay the importance of wizened human mentors and other (including plant and animal) instructors and inspiriteurs.  There are no true “solitaries,” only those unaware of their teachers, or who have yet to meet and align with their allies on their path.  If the fact of ecology and the dynamics of spirit and magic tell us anything, it is that we are inextricably interconnected and fully interdependent, and that none of us really “get it on our own.”  Almost every correct conclusion or healthy choice has benefited from the examples and wisdom of other people, of the generations who came before and evocative more-than-human nature.  And even when we hear truth from our hearts, we are speaking from and for the needs and will of the entire sacred planet we are a part of.  Even our instincts are handed down, palm to paw to hand, from distant primal ancestors, the result of hundred of thousands of years of challenge and mistake, opportunity and fear, elation and pain, persistence and reward.  Insight, revelation and even seemingly extrasensory perception all draw from and are informed by a reservoir of accumulative memory, pattern and association.

All of us human recipients and repositories are also designed to be vehicles and transmitters, with the capacity to be conscious instructors and role models.  On the other hand, only a small percentage of those who have an impact on other’s lives, are by nature equipped for and devoted to teaching others, and who thus become defined first and foremost as teachers.  The depth and integrity of knowledge, breadth of experience and enthusiasm for passing on their lessons and gifts is what distinguishes and defines such teachers.  For these relatively few, it feels not only personally satisfying but somehow essential that they pass on their lessons and gifts, just as true artists – those essentially defined and completely dedicated to creativity – not only construct occasional expressions of beauty but actually live and breathe art… and just as true leaders are those naturally committed to doing the crucial work of moving forward regardless of the costs and rewards, not feeling fulfilled until certain they have left sufficient blazed trails for others to follow.

From the time I ran away from military school as a young pup, I searched high and low for those individuals who might be able to best teach me, or inspire me by daring example, in the ways of being real and purposeful in a culture of artifice and distraction.  Some, like the revered philosopher Alan Watts, did indeed offer words that were like brilliant stars to navigate my life by.  I was encouraged by the audacious authenticity of Ken Kesey, and the ways of the traditionalist Native American elders that I hung out with.  The primary author of The Great Cosmic Mother, Barbara Mor provoked me to go beyond the simplicity of black and white and into the world of layers and twists.  Experiences with others – indigenous shamans and control-freak charismatics alike – taught me about the human absurdities, contradictions and failings of even the most brilliant of our kind.  I learned that we should give thanks to every influence whether flawed or not, just as we are grateful for every mistake we learn from and every poignant test that we survive.

To the degree that we in this culture have come to disrespect or feel leery of leaders and luminaries, elders and teachers, it is the result of witnessing or hearing about people from politicians to gurus who practice “power over,” whose insecurities result in their coveting rather than inspiring and engendering power in others.  Such people tend to claim that they have exclusive knowledge and abilities unavailable to their students no matter how much they might study and practice.  They fear they would lose their following, and thus their identity, if they were to teach that others have the capacity and responsibility to learn and then make important choices themselves, and the means with which to grow and to know.

My partners and I are here to help awaken and embolden the teacher within everyone who works with us.  We will neither force nor allow anyone to become a dependent.  Every session I hold, every line I write, is meant to be a full class from which you the seeker or reader graduate, and with which you are then impelled to act.  The work of the Animá Center is to aid others in the honest realization of their individual medicine ways, to help lead you to the lessons of dynamic nature, the place of both knowing and doing where truth and purpose reign.

———————-

Sidebar: Teachers & Seekers

The following lines from my book The Way Of Animá, are like all of my knowings, the result of a great listening.  You could think of them as Gaian Sutras, passed from the inspirited all-knowing whole to this wordsmith in moments of confusion or need, insights and aphorisms that cut to the chase, practicable tools for clarification and choice that beg to be embodied, implemented and lived:

• This inspirited planet we are extensions of, is our original teacher.  Thus one of the first steps in becoming an effective teacher ourselves, is to become a lifelong student of the natural world.

• Every exchange of information is an alliance of purpose, between that which expresses, and that which hears.  That purpose is not only the education of the individual, but also the informing of the earthen whole… to our mutual and collective benefit.

•  All things have something to teach us.  All things capable of learning, are students.  All students of life, have learned lessons they can then share with the world.

• Seek what is true, and then honor what is found.  It is always as close and connected as our hand, as expansive and complete as this ever unfolding universe.

• A seeker becomes a teacher whenever she or he shares the truths they’ve found with others.  At the same time, no viable teacher ever quits being a seeker.

• The purpose of the teacher is to point to phenomena, reveal connection, heighten
awareness, and encourage engagement and depth.  To nurture the seeker’s compassion, and affirm their intrinsic beauty, practiced skills and developing love.  To encourage healthy skepticism, expose harmful untruths and help eliminate self serving lies.  To instigate response and direct action, inspire service and purpose, and foster fulfillment.

• The most conscious, experienced or innovative of human teachers are more the vehicles for practical and spiritual truths than they are their source.

• A teacher does not explain mysteries, so much as illuminate and acknowledge them.

• Anything we learn from, is a teacher.  Thus to resist the idea of teachers is to deny that we have anything to learn.

• The problem is not so much that we have a hard time trusting the sources of truth, but that we are sometimes unwilling to give up those ideas that we wish were true.

• Teaching is a joint accomplishment.

• For seekers to fully “own” their abilities, accomplishments and purpose, they must personally and willingly pay the cost… and learn to take credit for having done so.

• Once we know that everything we are and do affects those around us, we become partly responsible for what effects we have.

• For ideas to affect the world, they must first be translated into action.  For these reasons, a good teacher makes sure the student is in touch with her feelings — and that she feels empowered to act on them.

• Likewise, the best teachers will strive to be catalysts — and never a surrogate – for the student or seeker’s direct experience and personal revelations.  Such teachers will direct focus away from themselves and, instead, in the direction of that which they have been fortunate to see.  Rather than imposing definition or interpretation, a teacher leads or excites us in the direction of meaning.

• The teacher’s purpose is not to criticize or judge, but to awaken, alert, inform, unsettle, positively correct, inspire, encourage and applaud.  At the same time, it is as important for a teacher to capitalize on a student’s challenges as on their abilities, as crucial to point out any illusions as it is to point to the truth.

• Not all lessons or gifts are accepted, fewer are understood, and fewer still are really put to use.  Thus a student must open to new lessons without any expectations.  And a teacher would best share her or his vital lessons without expecting anything in return.

• An Animá teacher plants the seeds of awareness and empowerment that he or she were themselves given… and with no certainty of results.  They water them with tears.  Feed them with their hopes.  Anoint them with their heartfelt prayers.  Support them with honesty and affirmation.  And embolden them their cheer.

(Please copy, forward and post this piece on appropriate forums)

Wolf – your message to Tara about the frozen-in-fear deer is all too true, yet harder than we ever realize to break out of.

Not only your message but those incredibly beautiful and insightful ones by Kiva Rose and Loba bring tears to my eyes every time I read them ~ I print them out at the library, store them, read and re-read and gather sustenance. You really must compile a book of all your articles!  I have come to find Anima so recently and was immediately spellbound, barely even 9 months or less, and regret that I didn’t have this incredibly sane and sage advice when I was at the threshold of life in my 20s — years of wasted actions and floundering.   Being a baby boomer female I was a hippie at heart but lived some wild decades while being a loner by nature and never quite fit into any slot; always enjoying the intellectual exchanges of city people yet finding the simple, perhaps “trashy” country folk more comforting and approachable – not being judged nor being defined by what one does for a living.

The Animá Center provides that refuge for those of us who long to find their meaning in life ~ please write more articles for those of us who are STILL wondering what they will be when they grow up ~ is it possible to never know one’s purpose?  How can one even take an action step when the direction or purpose is totally blank?

Also is there any advice for someone who’s environment and climate is the most influential factor of loving where they are?

Perhaps you have already written an essay on this topic, if so please direct me.  Any advice on what your family/tribe’s spiritual path and source of energy is would be so appreciated.  At least I have a supportive husband but this anguishing search is a solitary one!

Keep up this great Work, all of you!
In peace and gratitude,
Juni

Dear Juni

We all appreciated this comment, and it can’t go unacknowledged.  If our touches you deeply enough to earn a tear, then all the time and love that goes into this has flowered and fruited.

Much of my work is already found in available books which we would be happy to send you (see the books page of the website for complete titles).  Those that are not in completed book form now or yet, can be sent digitally for computer viewing or printing out.  The best and newest work is all going into the Book of Animá, which I can only hope will become an available tool for every deeply feeling and increasingly uncompromised seeker.  To be there for any 20 year old, and perhaps spare them some distractions and limiting habits, would be wonderful.  But to affirm, inspire and empower someone like yourself is no less important.  At any age, every moment is beginning from which we will never go back, endless possibilities and scary but wondrous choices that are always ours alone to make.  What you will be when you “grow up,” is what you consciously and purposefully do right now.  Do what your hear implores and your world seems to need.  Like the child’s search and find game of “warmer, warmer,” continually adjust your course towards what feels most helpful and healthful.  When it feels “cold,” distracting, disempowering, soulless, move away from it… and in this way find you are ever more on the path of your wholeness and wholest giving.  Purpose is not a destination, it is a process that is never complete yet always fulfilling.  I hope this helps.

For more about the path we teach, turn to our writings page on the website, search the past blog articles in the archives there, and request our books as appropriate.  And for the deepest understanding of yourself, we recommend a commitment to completing the studies and practices in the Animá Correspondence Courses.  The energy we run on is the same resource you do or will tap, from the inspirited living earth we are extensions of and the powers and memories stored and drawn from there.  And besides the energy and inspiration, it is the passion that makes us insistent and driven, passion fueled by both discomforting awareness and overwhelming love.

Now is always the time.  Do not let self doubt or hesitation keep you from your magical dance, your ever evolving calling, your fullest satisfaction.

Blessings from us all,
Wolf & Family

Fathers Day, Every Day

 by Jesse Wolf Hardin

www.animacenter.org

Happy Fathers Day, we wish to every man who has helped create a life and then done what he could do tend and bless their precious children.  And to those of us who have both seeded the field, and gathered close to our hearts the wild sprouts.  “I love you, Papa!,” our soon to be 9 year old Rhiannon tells me, with enthusiasm, several times a day… making every date this father’s happy day.

I know it is not the same for everyone.  There is terrible number of dads who mentally or sexually abuse their kids, or who simply take away their choices and try to control their very lives.  While that needs to be addressed and dealt with in order to move on, the fact of such unfatherly behavior also makes it more incumbent on us to acknowledge those fathers – ours or those that we know – who instead protect and tend nurture and empower their onetime charges.  I know it makes me all the more grateful to have had a dad who, while he didn’t have much of a clue as to what I was about, nevertheless lovingly supported me through every phase and whim, struggle and fall, who encouraged me to live my dream even if he in some ways had not.

I know that I’ll never forget my now deceased Papa, nor how he quietly gave his all to me and Mom.  I can still picture him reaching to get the candy off the top of the refrigerator where she would put it out of reach of their pesky little rug rat, as well as the image of him waiting patiently when I impatiently left him for the better fishing holes on the far side of the bass pond.  And it’s more than a matter of simple recall.  Since his death, I’ve been able to feel the many ways in which I am as him.  His worrying about his kid has become my way of worrying, and the pleasure he found in family is now my source of happiness as well.  My hands have started to look like his once did, mine kept busy typing magazine articles and planting willow trees while his maneuvered a Forschner butcher knife through many sides of gourmet beef.  Some days I can feel the soreness that was his shoulders, from those glad and proud burdens the man once bore.  The teens of every generation do what they can to prove how different they are from their parents, but for better or for worse, a gal looking in the mirror likely faces a reflection of her mother… and in time most boys will come to see a degree of their fathers in themselves.

Once a year American families set aside a day to honor the dads in their lives with cards and sentiments that warm us to the core, or at least a Hallmark tip of the hat.  But then in another way, every day really is a fathers’ day: a day to kiss his kids good morning, and make sure they’re tucked in at night.  To guide and reassure them when they screw up, and teach them the importance of doing what they fell in their own hearts is right.  Making sure that when the school bell rings their little darlings aren’t late, and doing his part to ensure there’s plenty of healthy food to fill their dinner plates.  Knowing when to hold them close, and when to give them rein to risk and learn.  Joining with a beloved spouse, in building an Old West fort or a dreamy little girl’s fairy goddess playhouse.

As every day of the year is a day for some of us to fulfill the role of a father, so is each of them an opportunity to acknowledge, share moments with, love and honor our own dads, and also any other dads we know who are giving to their kids the best of their hearts, their wisdom, their time and life.  I’ve come to think of myself and these others as “founding fathers”: guys who found what it’s like to help bring life into the world, and how much is involved in taking care of a child once they have one.  Fellows who have found themselves running to change diapers, as well as running short of change.  Men who have found what it means to be responsible fathers, no less affectionate and willing to listen than a loving mother.  Dads and granddads who have found the meaning of life, of contentment and joy, in the priceless love of a little girl or boy.

My little Rhiannon brought tears to my eyes this year, bringing me a hand drawn card a full three days early.  It means all the more to me, since I’m not her biological source, but in every way feel and accept the responsibilities of being her father.  I want to be proof that the love that counts most, is the love that stays.

The lovely card she made features an otter frolicking next to a river, since that playful but wise animal is the one that she relates to most.  When I opened it up I could see a wolf howling at the moon, her representation of me since that’s been my nickname since clear back to my Mt. Man Rendezvous and outlaw biker days.  “Thank you,” I tell her, for being closer to me that all others, “my precious otter daughter.”

“I love you sooooooo much,” she wrote on the card, with more o’s than we can spare room for here, “I’m so glad to have a Papa like you!”  And I hope that every single day of the year can be as happy a Father’s Day for all you other fellows, too.

(Please copy and share this article with others… thank you)

Greetings everyone.  We are fully into the busy season for guests, with two women here into the weekend, and a deeply feeling Becky having just arrived for a level one quest.  I completed my newspaper articles ahead of time this week, as there are several magazine deadlines coming up at the first of the month.  Kiva has been sending back lots of online course responses, but I have postponed replies to my students until after the Shaman Path Intensive on July 4th weekend.  Of all the seemingly vital projects, I am feeling extra anxious to write the essay and curricula for the Shaman Path “Awareness” lesson, something that has never been covered from our particular nature-informed perspective.

We’ve received advance copies of the hardbound version of my “I’m a Medicine Woman Too!” book, and it looks even better than we imagined.  Thank you Thomas Elpel and Hops Press!  Kiva is completing a special website just for its promotion and sales, and we will post a new announcement for it here as soon as we are ready to fill orders.  To compete with the discount sellers of this title, all copies directly from us will be signed by Rhiannon and I.  In addition, we will include a signed, numbered, limited edition Medicine Woman color art print that you will get to see a preview of here first.

For a break the other day, I took the camera out for a study of the plants blossoming from the early June rains.  I started with the Sage growing in our garden, a European immigrant that – like us – has rooted and adapted long enough to this continent to earn a degree of native status.  Its petal shapes fascinated me, held me rapt as I caught them straight forward at first, then backlit with the last rays of the sun illuminating them as if from within.

I was drawn next to the new growth on the Snakeweed contrasting against a red volcanic rock, and then to a composition of flowering vervain below a flourish of Silverleaf Nightshade.

A nearby Bladderpodc caught my eye with its bright yellow blossoms and swollen pods, and then the budding Beeweed which I caught from straight on first, and then shot from directly above for a trippy Beeweed Mandala effect.

For those of you with fathers deserving of recognition, or who know of fathers who do, on Friday I will be posting a short essay reflecting on the subject of fatherhood that you may want to share with them: Fathers’ Day Every Day.  It was inspired by the card Rhiannon made me, and all the thoughts and feelings it brought up.

To all of you, have a wonderful weekend.  And even if you have nothing else to commemorate or celebrate, celebrate the truth of your being and the great beauty and challenge of life.

-Wolf

Intro: When we first met Kiva, “Poet” was one of the roles or identities that she identified with most.  She wrote for herself first, as every poet must, but the revealing honesty and excruciating intensity burned, blew, rooted and grew with a message for everyone.  That poetry is generally such an under-appreciated form of literature anymore, is a sad statement on our kind… for the poem is beauteous, heartful, dancing truth stripped of all else.  And of all the poets and poems written, I know of none better than those of our own scribe, Kiva.   -Wolf

Morning River

(Within Walking Distance)

by Kiva Rose Hardin

(www.animacenter.org)

With the ground warm
and wet underfoot
I unfurl myself
into the morning -
a fern frond unwinding
from the earth,
hair loose and
catching in the junipers
as I stretch my face
out towards
sky and the sweet
blossom smell
of seven o’clock
in the mountains

everything worth having
is within walking distance -
dirt under my toes,
leaves and bark
brushing my face,
and my love’s fingers
reaching out in sleep to
curl against my calf

and always -
always the song
of the rushing river
rising from below

everything I love
I hold close to me -
my daughter dancing
wild and sleepy-eyed
at first light,
forest creatures
walking past my bed
late at night,
the taste of berries
sweet and tart
and jewel red,
blooming reckless
against my tongue

I hold it close -
I press it against my lips,
and in the morning
I walk to the river,
step into the current
with a rustling of leaves
-breath, birdsong-
and close the distance
between myself
and everything
I have ever loved

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!