SHAMANISM and MY NORTH NODE

The North Node I interpret as the place of greatest potential growth in the chart. It is where life will tend to lead you. I guess it shows us what we are here to learn. It is not generally an easy place, because otherwise we probably wouldn't learn anything.

Mine is in Scorpio. Jupiter is my only personal water planet, and even he, with his generosity and connection to meaning, is edging towards the transpersonal.

So my Node pushes me towards learning about personal emotion (water) through the death and rebirth processes that are basic to the Scorpio paradigm. Pluto is the ruler of Scorpio, and I have natal Sun opposite Pluto. The death and rebirth processes have been activated for me when my Sun-Pluto is transited by outer planets. 

Scorpio, being ruled by a transpersonal planet (Pluto) is a transpersonal sign: you need something bigger and wider going on in your life if you are a Scorpio, that maybe involves helping others go to their dark places, or you will end up frozen, like the Medusa, mired in self-hatred. A similar principle applies to Aquarius and Pisces, ruled by Uranus and Neptune respectively. Aquarians can end up seriously cranky if they are not transmitting their progressive ideas, while Pisceans will tend to self-medicate if they do not create an outlet for their compassion and imagination.

My Scorpio North Node is conjunct Jupiter and Neptune in the 3rd House. So there is a load going on around it that is transpersonal.

Neptune particularly askes me to surrender to the spirit in doing the transformational work with others, and Jupiter adds growth and meaning. Being 3rd House, it can be through my writing, as I am doing right now. When I write, I follow my spirit, I don't plan it out in advance.

But it is also through the Shamanic work that I do.

 

Photo © Jesse Wild

 

When I journey, I am taken over physically (that's me in the photo). I call it Shapeshifting, and it seems to be allied to the way Shamans work in the Far East. It is a lovely place to be. The spirits, or whatever you want to call them, move through me. I surrender to them. I move as they want, I use my voice as they want. It is a deep and nourishing experience, and it may take some hours to arrive fully back in this world.

 I came to this way of working through trance dance: the deep, rhythmic beat that gets into your body and takes you places. In medieval times, they had dancing in churches. It was banned, because it gave people their own connection to the Spirit. The connection between Body and Spirit has been returning in recent times. Nowadays I don’t need music or drumming: the connection is always there, over my shoulder. And it seems to be effective in helping move energies along for other people.

I have been bringing the writing and shapeshifting together over the last 18 months in the fantasy trilogy that I am writing. I am currently on the 3rd volume. It is partly an exploration of Shapeshifting, and partly an attempt to bridge the old cultural divide between Spirit and Reason, God and Lucifer.

As an astrologer, my spirits are in the sky. But they still move through me, just as when I am doing my shamanic work. Which makes them the same kind of thing, a Neptunian thing. Also, Astrology divides the chart into the 4 elements of Fire, Earth, Air and Water, which are more fundamental than the signs. They are used in a very similar way in the Medicine Wheel, which I wrote a book about 2 years ago. So there is the more rational, 3rd House connection between those 2 callings of mine.

The astrology reading offer remains open indefinitely on my Medicine Wheel book and my Astrology book, Surfing the Galactic Highways: buy either of them and leave a genuine rating on Amazon, and I will give you a free (and thorough) astrological consultation.

Embodying the Sky Spirits

 I do Astrology. And I also do Shamanism. They are both in my bones, and they don't feel separate. Shamanism tells us that we belong to the natural world, and that world is alive, it is inspirited. That includes rocks and water. And the sky: that is where astrology comes in. If you are an astrologer, then your spirits - at least, some of them - are in the sky.

The ancients knew this. The sky spoke to them. Nowadays, we have to make a case for it. The sky spirits tell us stories about ourselves. When we do a reading for someone, we are passing on some of those stories, because we have the gift of listening to the sky. The sky stories about other people also speak to us. There can be sky stories about the world too: that is mundane astrology.

In a way, it is no different to reading a novel or watching a film. They too tell us stories, they may be about other people, but they are also about ourselves, which is why they grip us. The novelists and film directors are also passing on stories from the spirits, but they wouldn't put it like that, not nowadays. Maybe they don't have words for where the stories come from, or maybe they call it the Unconscious. Whatever they call it, it is a special place, a sacred place, even, that creative centre in you from where the stories come unbidden.

As an astrologer, you get a sense of the planets speaking through you. You can't pin it down, and you can't say exactly what came from your head and what came from the planets/spirits. It's not like that. But they are there as presences, one way or another. This is inspiration, which means to breathe in: we are breathing in spirit.

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I offer Zoom astrology readings, by donation. Contact: BWGoddard1 (at)aol.co.uk. My books, Surfing The Galactic Highways and The Medicine Wheel are available for pre-order on Amazon (or by post from me now.)

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Astrology easily becomes cerebral, because it is a complex subject. There are ten different planets, 12 Houses, 12 Signs, and a range of aspects between the planets. There are also any number of asteroids and techniques.

Complexity gives us more information, it gives us nuance. But it easily also takes us away from the felt symbolism. The stronger you are feeling the symbolism, the more the sky spirits can speak through you. In a way, you don't need more than the Sun and the Moon. We have such a strong relationship with them, that goes back hundreds of thousands of years. When we tell sky stories, we are also drawing on their collective power that has built up over time, which is a mysterious and wonderful thing. 

 

 If you call your chart to mind, and picture where the Sun and the Moon were on the sky at the moment you were born, that will tell you something that is both simple and powerful. You may not have words for it, but in a way that doesn't matter. It is the feeling of connection to that powerful god and powerful goddess that matters.

 Everything you need to know about yourself is in that felt sense. That sense of the planets is physical, visceral. This is something we can be shying away from in the retreat into complexity. It is easier to juggle concepts in our head: the felt sense makes demands of us, and maybe we can only take so much of that.

 For myself, this is where Shamanism comes in. Shamanism takes the spirits seriously. It would have no truck with anyone attempting to make astrology 'scientific', as though these magical stories can be reduced to simple, repeatable concepts that validate our art. That is a grotesque idea. It disrespects the spirits. It is hubris.

But even with Shamanism, we are limited by our cultural background, that in the Middle Ages divided Body and Spirit, and then perpetuated that division through the modern scientific split between Body and Mind. The split came about because people used to dance in churches. I kid you not, it seems so unlikely. But that is what they did in the Middle Ages, alongside the priest. (See 'Dancing in the Streets: a History of Collective Joy' by Barbara Ehrenreich.) When you dance, you become inspirited, you feel your own connection to the divine. And if you are trying to control people, as any religion worth the name will attempt to do, you can't have people making their own connection to the divine. So dancing was banned, and the body became the realm of the devil. Or, nowadays, the 'dead' matter that is the vehicle for our consciousness.

Not only did they ban dancing. Astrology too was proscribed as a practice that summoned demons. And of course, they were right. Astrology done properly does indeed summon the spirits, the gods, and they were seen as competition by the church.

Modern Shamanism exhibits the Body-Spirit split through the way contacting the spirits is taught: through lying still while a drum is beaten. It works, I am not dissing it. But Shamans in the far East dance when they go to the spirits: or rather, the spirits dance them.

Any kind of ceremony we can do honouring the sky spirits before we do a reading, or even look at our own chart, will invoke this felt sense of the planets, which is also a sacred feeling. We don't talk about it lightly, and certainly not to those who dismiss astrology.

You can let the planets-as-gods move through you through movement or 'dance' (which isn't quite the correct word). If Pluto moves through you, welcome him, but be also in awe: he doesn't come lightly and is liable to be ruthless, even brutal, in the way he changes your life. But always so that new life can push through.

Pluto and Neptune are the two outermost, and most recently discovered, of the astrological pantheon. One is below ground, ruling the Underworld; the other is the Ocean. They are also, obviously, in the sky. But part of the meaning of their arrival, perhaps, is to take astrology away from an ascensionist model, and into one of immanence, of incarnation, of embodiment, in which Saturn also plays a key part.

I will be co-leading a 5 day event in North Wales from 22-27 June 2022, entitled 'Embodying the Spirits', in which we shall, hopefully be edging out of the old cultural divide between Body and Spirit and into the spirit dream of our bodies. The spirits love to be embodied. It is suitable both for people who work shamanically and astrologers, since we all work with spirits. There are still a few places left

This retreat will combine embodiment journeying, dream sharing, ceremony and walks in Snowdonia.

The venue will be Cae Mabon, a magical and jaw-droppingly beautiful eco-retreat in North Wales: a fairy-tale village hanging on a steep hillside, with stunning views across to Snowdon.

Barry Goddard has been involved with shamanic practices for 25 years, and before that Buddhism for 16 years. He has recently published two books: The Medicine Wheel, and an astrological book, Surfing the Galactic Highways. He lives on Dartmoor.

Emma Edgington lives near London where she teaches shamanic journeying and healing and is the creative director at Knowing Healing Hub.

Prices vary from £299-£369 p/p with the option to camp or book shared accommodation. A 50% deposit is required to assure your booking. Prices include food and accommodation.

For all enquiries and bookings please email Barry at BWGoddard1@aol.co.uk

SATURN-PLUTO, AUTHORITY and THE STOPPING OF THE WORLD

NB Please note the free email subscribe box at the top right of the page  
AUTHORITY
The Saturn-Pluto conjunction isn't obviously descriptive of the Coronavirus pandemic - that is more Neptune's realm - but the unprecedented state control that has come in as a response is perfectly described by that conjunction, especially in the sign of Capricorn.

You generally need a bit of hindsight to get a sense of these challenging aspects between outer planets, as their themes gradually unfold over a period of years, and re-define the character of the world we live in. But I don't think that state control will necessarily be an enduring theme of this conjunction: after all, the current control is just a measure to contain the pandemic, and will end when it ends - if you live in a democracy, that is, where any government that tried to maintain the controls would not find that going down well at the polls. But it will now be there in the background as a possibility. 

We no longer knew, and maybe governments no longer knew, just how powerful they can be when they choose. That can of course be abused, but it is also a security for us, it means that governments can protect us, and it is easy to overlook this because collectively we are quite paranoid and thankless in relation to authority. We are childish in this respect. The danger in this is that while we concentrate on our dark fantasies, a government could sneak something in while we are looking elsewhere. Balance, not paranoia, is the best way to keep an eye on governments.

Having experienced the benign side of government control, attitudes may shift. And particularly in the UK, where the government exercises a light touch - be thankful for that! Appreciate that aspect of being British! So this would be a great outcome of Saturn-Pluto in Capricorn: the collective ability to give authority trust where trust is due.

I think the presence of Jupiter alongside Saturn and Pluto points to an over-reaction on the part of governments. The numbers of dead can seem striking on their own, but in the larger scheme of things - in the UK, for example, about 600,000  people die every year - it is quite marginal. We don't know all the reasons yet as to why the governments have acted as they have done. But as I say, because of Jupiter, I think it will with hindsight be seen to have been an over-reaction.

I think the deeper meaning of the Saturn-Pluto conjunction will start to become clearer through the nature of the aftermath of the pandemic, and how it will change the way we live.

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I offer skype/FB video astrology readings, by donation. Contact: BWGoddard1 (at)aol.co.uk

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STOPPING THE WORLD
Coincidentally, I am re-reading the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. (I highly recommend the trilogy this book belongs to). It is set at that particular intersection where traditional tribal life was still being lived, but the modern world was starting to impinge. D’Arcy McNickle’s novel Wind from an Enemy Sky is similar, but set in North America rather than Africa.

I say coincidentally because of course Things Fall Apart is exactly what this coronavirus is doing to the world. In the book, there is a period of the year between the harvesting of the yams and the planting of the next crop where there is not much to do. Life in its usual busy sense comes to a halt. For them, this is normal. For us, our world is built in such a way, it is so busy, so extraverted, so fragile for all its economic power, that a major recession is being brought about, that will probably take years to recover from, by what is still just a few weeks of stoppage. Major Pluto aspects usually produce recessions, Pluto being a god of wealth. So I was kind of expecting one, but couldn't see why there should be. Now we know!

“What is this world, if full of care, we have no time to stop and stare,” sang the Welsh hobo William Henry Davies. 

WH DAVIES

To stop and stare, amidst the anxiety of which there is no shortage, is I think what we are being asked to do.  It is in this sense a natural balancing that is occurring. But because we are so out of balance, the remedy is extreme. And it is a remedy that we are collectively choosing, it is not just happening ‘to’ us. No-one is forcing the governments to shut everything down. We could have just carried on as normal, but with a higher death count. The governments have chosen not to. The governments are, ultimately, ourselves, they are a function of the collective, as Tolstoy was at pains to point out in War and Peace. Is this shutdown out of care for the older and more vulnerable people, or because the body count would look bad when it comes to re-election, or out of an exaggerated fear of death and of the unknown? Who knows. Probably all of those reasons and more.

What we do know is that collectively we have chosen this time to STOP, and therefore to align ourselves with what is within. An extreme of extraversion has produced its opposite, and I think this has an inevitability to it. Just as the boom times produce regular recessions, where we are forced to examine the imbalances of what has gone before. This seems to me to be the deepest reason that the world is stopping, and it has been our collective choice, as I am taking pains to point out! Somewhere, some deep part of our collective wants this. Hallelujah!

And this is Saturn in his role as guardian, instead of the denier, of the inner life. Saturn is usually the worldly taskmaster who is fond of telling us that only that which is observable and measurable has value. In this extraverted world of ours, it can be a lifelong struggle for introverts to feel the value of who they are. Remarkably, we are having a rare collective moment where slowing down and re-assessing is required. And maybe this will point to an enduring meaning of Saturn-Pluto in Capricorn: a time of proportion, of living more according to our means and our needs instead of  according to demented fantasies of unlimited growth and consumption. Jupiter, the planet that describes where we find meaning, has appropriately come up alongside Saturn and Pluto.

Now for a Shamanic interpretation, read no further if that is not your interest!

This is where, on the Medicine Wheel, healing begins: through the East, with an intervention from Spirit that we cannot directly cause, only prepare the ground for. That has been the coronavirus. We then have the choice whether to try and ignore that intervention, or to turn towards it. 

 

With that inward turning, which we have chosen through the lockdown, we can begin to move round the Wheel: firstly to the South, to the place in us that is wounded, in avoidance of which life has become so frenetic. So this will be the next stage of the coronavirus stoppage (perhaps): a sense of the inner lack that has been driving our thoughtless, thankless, taking attitude to our Mother, the Earth, and therefore to ourselves, for we are part of her, we are nothing but her.

And that will lead to the West, the Earth: incarnating those inner realisations. It is already clear that many more people will work from home in the future: this is slower, more reflective, and puts less pressure on the environment through travel requirements. And then to the North, the gradual integration of these new ways of living into our philosophies, into the ways we understand the world.

SHAMANISM DAY

You might have noticed that I have reactivated the mail-out for this blog after a year's gap. I found I just wasn't writing much astrology, but I was writing about Shamanism, my other big interest: you can find my shamanic blog here. It also has a free email subscribe. Anyway, I got the feeling to post more on this blog, so I am coughing up my $32 a month to feedblitz to get it mailed out again. Meanwhile.......

I am running a day near Swansea in a lovely village hall on Sun 9th Feb, set up for me by Annzella Gregg. It's the first Shamanic teaching I have done for about 15 years. I've been doing plenty of individual work with people in the meantime, mainly via astrology, divination being a respectable part of the shaman's function 😅

But there was an essential part of me yet to come. She came first as dreams of a woman within who I had forgotten, and I would wake up longing for her. And then when she felt I was ready - that I had learnt to live in a sufficiently surrendered way, instead of through my will - she turned up. That was last June. It has been life-changing, and I am still absorbing it. She is an adult, not to be messed with, and she is slender and compassionate and deeply connected to the power of the earth. And she has a lot to say, and wants to say it. This has been my dream for so many years, and it feels wonderful to be finally getting round to it. 

For me, Shamanism (as we have come to use the term) is fundamentally about becoming a whole human being. And for that we need to listen to ourselves - to the reality of the Spirit working through us, to the personal feelings and to the shadow elements that we need to make friends with, to the body and its belonging to the earth, and to the mind with its ability to discern and create community. Yes, I have just walked round the Medicine Wheel. And that is what we will be doing on the day I am running. Listening to ourselves, using the Medicine Wheel as a guide. And getting as far as we get. 

I work responsively - I like to follow the group, and trust where we go. And hopefully too, a sense of community can start to happen, based on that sharing of our stories, which is a rare thing but something that is so much needed. More details are in this blog posting.  Places are limited so that we can work closely as a group. Please let me know soon if you are interested.

PS I am open to invitations, I just need expenses

TO ALL THE ODD UNCLES AND AUNTS AT CHRISTMAS

The Jungian psychologist James Hillman talks about the importance of the odd uncle or aunt. We may not know them very well, we may only have ever met them once or twice, but they can nevertheless occupy an enduring and important place in our psyches. What they stand for is the possibility of a different life, a different way of being amidst the particular set of values with which our parents have brought us up. The possibility of living by the call of the outer planets.

It is inevitable, I think, that there will be rigidities and narrownesses in our parents, because that is the human condition. And, as we grow up, we may feel restricted by those values, because they do not reflect who we are. So the 'odd' uncle or aunt, who does not fit in very well with society, says to us by their very presence that there are alternatives, we do not have to be like our parents. And this is a powerful thing, we will probably remember that odd uncle or aunt strongly for the rest of our lives.

If you are on this site, the chances are that you too are an odd uncle or aunt :) So remember the unspoken impact that you have. And that the black sheep is often in reality the white sheep.

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I offer skype/FB video astrology readings, by donation. Contact: BWGoddard1 (at)aol.co.uk

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And that we probably have our own journey to make around feeling OK with our families. I think the main point here is to stop being critical of them, stop needing them to be something other than they are. Once I accepted that my Dad was essentially a simple materialistic guy, and couldn't help but see and judge things the way he did, then that freed me to become happier with who I am. When we are younger, we may need to fight our way out and be very critical. But then I think we reach a point where we need to let go of all that and just let them be who they are, and that enables us to be who we are. It is a relief. That took me until my fifties, but it was very easy once I realised all I had to do was accept him for what he was.

Meanwhile my Dad had an older sister who had a degree in literature. She had some education in the real sense, she knew things and was interested in things for their own sake. I grew up with money around me, and with a lot of pressure to be like that myself, but it was at the same time a cultural desert. This aunt was also quite troubled, but when I was talking about her at another relative's funeral a couple of years ago, I found myself in tears, because what she stood for to me when I was a child was very important. I was hungering for something richer and more cultured, and she embodied that possibility. And as an adult I have repeatedly put myself in situations that starve me, because that was what was familiar to me as a child, I do what I 'should'. But then I listen to that voice of something else in me, that my aunt stood for, and I get out, and I am one more round up the spiral of finding the centre of my wheel, of living closely to my Spirit - which is what this whole thing is about.

I think in a saner society there would be more elders around to take by the hand the children who have something else going on, so they don't have to go through so much of a journey of self-doubt. It is maybe the inevitable result of a large society that we end up living by rules instead of relationships. And that way tends to be more rigid. Though we do also have our freedoms in our current society.

So give yourself credit for the struggle you may have been through to become who you are. Yes you have a shadow side that maybe feels like a miserable worm, but we need that shadow: value that as well, it keeps our feet on the ground, keeps us humble and human, and keeps us learning. It will always be there. In your 80s you will still have sides that are problematic to you.

Meanwhile, don't undervalue what you stand for to others, not just nephews and nieces. The possibility of escape from the self-imposed strait-jacket (there is no evil conspiracy forcing us to be like that) that large societies seem to need to give its members a sense of certainty and security. We are the shamans, the medicine people, because we serve the outer planets. We do not need those certainties and rigidities. And because of that, Spirit can flow freely through us. That is where our power to help and heal comes from. And remember, we are not truly the 'odd' ones, we are the sane ones.

The Depth Psychology of Shamanism

I have a strong interest in both astrology and shamanism. And at the moment it's the latter that I'm writing more about. And I have a shamanic blog that's been on a bit of a backburner, but now I've started putting a lot more on it and building a (free) subscriber list. So if you are interested, go to www.shamanicfreestate.blogspot.com and you can sign up at the top right of the page. Meanwhile, here is one of the articles from that blog:



In 1997, I was organising some shamanic journeying at a small festival in the UK, and the space was packed for each session, like 70-80 people. The word shamanism had a buzz to it, and I think it still does, even though it can also be a cliché.

But the buzz was genuine, and I think it was about people wanting a taste of the Otherworld, something which has almost become a race memory, because it has been so squeezed out by religion and then science. But it is still there in us, this desire for an untrammelled experience of Spirit, that feels ancient, and that is not hedged around by dogmas of what is and is not possible.

It is Spirit that ultimately teaches us about Reality, not humans and their books. Shamanism – a recent, western phenomenon – is about that return to a direct experience of Spirit, that connects us to a universe that is so much more than the literal, material universe of modern science.

That taste of the Otherworld is, for some, enough as an accompaniment to their regular existence. For others, it is not enough. Or we may think it is enough, but the spirits have other ideas!

And this is where the idea of the 'shaman' comes in. A slightly problematic word, as it carries connotations of spiritual stature, which ain't a good thing to claim. And a shaman is technically also a healer and diviner, a spirit consultant.

But the spirits can drag us kicking through that initiatory journey without the end result being a healer. You may end up as a counsellor, or an artist, or a stand-up comic - or as Mozart: what was it that spoke through him if it wasn't the Otherworld? Or you may be nothing in particular that you can put a name to! You just have that look in your eye that says I've been somewhere else.

As Leonardo da Vinci said: “Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.”

Or as the Ancient Mariner said:

 

"I pass, like night, from land to land;

I have strange power of speech;

That moment that his face I see,

I know the man that must hear me:

To him my tale I teach."

The Ancient Mariner

The archetypal event has become, for us, the shaman's illness, which will often bring him or her to the gates of death or madness, and once she has accepted the wishes of the spirits to be a vehicle for them, he recovers.

And I think this illness, this trial, this ordeal, needs to be interpreted broadly within our shamanism, even though the original definition was quite specific. And I think we need to be quite broad too about 'the spirits'. Yes, some of us will have guys upstairs that tell us stuff, or who work through us. For others, it may just be this other place in us, and when we speak or act from it, there is some kind of deeper wisdom or insight there, that may not even make sense to us at the time, but we learn to trust it. The so-called 'mid-life crisis' (which can go on and on - see The Middle Passage by James Hollis) has a resonance of this type of ordeal.

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Ad Break: I offer skype/FB video astrology readings, by donation. Contact: BWGoddard1 (at)aol.co.uk

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As an astrologer, I encounter these trials in the form of Neptune and Pluto acting on people's charts. I had my own experience of Pluto for much of the 90s: after 10 years running Buddhist institutions, I was unable to do anything for several years. Anything I tried to do wouldn't work. And it was like the plug on my life-force had been pulled. I realised that it is not 'I' who lives, it is something from deeper within that calls the shots, and it was saying we're not going to let you carry on in that wilful way, we're going to fuck with you until you listen to us. And there was this deep, magical pull towards that other voice. 

Abdominal Surgery

At the same time, I felt like I’d had major abdominal surgery, and that I’d been brought about as low as I could be, to this faraway place. And after a few years I had a dream telling me to pursue shamanism - as well as something else, which was a trick dream that catapulted me out of my old life.

And since then there has always been this place within me that is a kind of dark wisdom, that I can forget about sometimes, but when I'm coming from there I am aligned with my life. It is the glittering eye of the ancient mariner. And in the last few years it's been happening all over again, but under Neptune's rule, and I'm still in the thick of it, so I can't say too much. But it's been like this overwhelming call that I haven't quite known what to do with.

Pluto with his hellhound

The classic story behind Pluto, who is Lord of the Underworld, is that one day he abducted Persephone, daughter of the nature goddess Ceres, who went into mourning and the earth went into permanent winter. Eventually it got sorted, but Persephone was by now Pluto's wife, and spent half her time in the underworld.

So this is a good way of understanding the shaman's illness. There is another side to life, beyond what is presented to us by society, and you can be taken there forcibly by the demands of the spirit, which has no regard for conventional niceties and sanities. And in a deeper kind of way, you grow up, move on to the next stage - as did Persephone, in becoming Pluto's wife.

A traditional society understands this ruthless dimension to Spirit. As Holger Kalweit writes in Shamans, Healers and Medicine Men: 

“The suffering and exhaustion that accompany a vision quest do not correspond to the mild and gentle style of modern psychotherapy. Westerners do not want to have to exert themselves to solve their problems.” (p102)

And Goethe understood what happens if you resist the call:

“And so long as you haven't experienced this: to die and so to grow, you are only a troubled guest on the dark earth.”

So this initiatory journey that the shaman undergoes isn't just about acquiring magical powers under duress. I don't think it is like that. The main emphasis is on the development of psychological depth, in the sense of moving beyond the narrow, conventional self that tells us how to live, and whose rules are shared by the other members of society. That kind of living is 'normal', it gives a kind of psychological security to many people, and it is necessary for the stability of society.

But that ain't what the shaman lives by. No, he/she has another loyalty, a deeper loyalty, that is not to the rules and 'shoulds' of the tribe, but to the spirits, to the daimon, to the Otherworld, to the Jungian Self. And that other place to which we have our loyalty is more real, for it recognises that the world isn't what it seems, it is not to be taken at face value, for it is only one pole of existence, the other being the spirit world, and these 2 poles are profoundly interconnected. The world is not an absolute, it is fluid.

So it is this loyalty to the Otherworld that is the real qualification to be a healer - or whatever. It is the shaman's wholehearted response to the imperatives of the Otherworld and its values that make him/her a shaman. Once you have that new basis to your life - that look in your eye - then the spirits will allow you to be a healer, or require you to be.

Of course, this is a kind of ideal scenario, because we are human, and we fuck up, and sometimes people have real healing abilities who seem in other respects to be such messes.

But the principle remains, and it is the 'depth psychology' of shamanism referred to in the title. It involves a radical turning about, so that the guiding principle of our lives becomes not what society expects, nor is it based on our personal desires, but on a commitment to something beyond us, that also is us, and that is more real than a purely conventional notion of existence ever can be.

It is a completely different basis for living, and that is why the shaman's illness can take him/her to death's door: the conventional, which is so deep-rooted, has to die. It can almost be like I cannot continue to live like I have been, so how can I live? And the answer is there within, and always has been.

TRANCE DANCE

I'm running a TRANCE DANCE on Sun 26th March, 2pm, Jubilee Hall, Chagford, Devon, UK.

Cost: £10 Contact: BWGoddard1@aol.co.uk Tel 01647 253241 Facebook: Dartmoor Trance Dance

Since the late 90s, Trance Dance has been my strongest and most natural way of connecting to what one might call the Spirit World. And I'm mobile: if you're in the UK and you hire a hall, I can come and run a dance. And/or do some astrology readings.

And this is what Trance Dance is about, at least how I see it:

People have been dancing to rhythmic music for thousands of years. The dance acts as a gateway to ‘non-ordinary’ consciousness: to the Spirit world, the Otherworld, the Unconscious…. There are many ways of framing it. In this sense it is a ritual, a ceremony.

We are much more than our everyday ‘rational’ selves. This understanding was basic to early peoples. It is a perspective, a way of being in the world, that has been largely lost in the modern West. And with it, a source of deep nourishment and guidance.

Trance dance helps us re-establish that relationship with the larger self, which knows no boundaries, that connects us to the whole of life. At the same time, the dance journey is personal and practical: we can bring those ‘close-to’ places that trouble us, or a desire for guidance, or prayers for others. Whatever we bring, the Spirit world has a way of addressing it, of helping it move on.

There is no defined form to the dance. ‘Movement’ might be a more accurate word: we go where the music, and the spirit, takes us, and that can range from a still contemplative space to something very vigorous. And it is not a performance, because no-one is watching or judging. Along with the rhythmic music, we wear a blindfold, a further prop to moving our attention inwards. (As facilitator, it is my job to keep an eye to ensure you don’t bump into anyone or anything!)

Trance dance can be like a shamanic journey, or like a big dream. We are taken somewhere else, and it can have a profound effect on our daily life. Everyone’s relationship to this other world is personal to them, there are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ experiences. And it takes time afterwards to reflect on and absorb what has happened. Like dreams, the implications can sometimes take years to unfold.

The dance itself lasts about an hour. We are in ceremonial time, so it can seem much shorter or longer. And there is plenty of space around it: beforehand, to quietly gather ourselves and find our intentions (if any) for the dance; and afterwards, to slowly make the transition back to this reality.

Modern vs Traditional Shamanism: Ponderings from the Front-line

I've been blogging about this Shamanic thing since January this year. 3 days after my Dad died, to be exact. A few weeks before, in my last conversation with him, he said twice that I must be thinking of retiring now. Well I'm some years off that yet, I hope, and he was in a morphine-muddle. But it was interesting in that for him, material achievement, and the social status that comes with that, was all. And it was as if, in my last conversation with him, he was releasing me from that shadow that has always hung over my life. Because for me, it is the soul-making that has always mattered.

And then after he died, I had dreams, and in one there was a young polar bear. And then a few weeks ago, I spent 5 days on my own own in a yurt in Wales, and the polar bear was there the whole time, adult now, protecting me. And I was reading about the Medicine Wheel, and as I left the site, I was shown by the owner how the whole place was dedicated to medicine wheels, one for each element. I hadn't known!

And when I got home, I built a wheel of stones, about 18ft wide, outside my caravan, and then I painted the stones. And I am with that wheel a lot, it represents a dream for the future, but for now that dream is taking care of itself. I just sit and wonder.

Some people say I shouldn't be saying this personal stuff, that I shouldn't talk about the polar bear. They are right, but only up to a point. I love that she is there, and I want people to know about these things, because they can happen, maybe already do, in their own lives.

And I feel like I'm at an interface, trying to work out what this shamanic thing is about, for myself at any rate. In the 90s I did lots of the things many of us have done - shamanic journeying, healing work, sweat lodges, trance dance, pipe ceremonies, being buried, medicine wheel, vision quest, ayahuasca in the jungle.... and I loved all of it. And it was with westerners. And I ended up teaching some of it.

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And then in the noughties I began having a Canadian Indian come to stay with me, and I began learning (informally, around the breakfast table) in quite a different way. Unfortunately, he was also quite dismissive of all that 'New Age' stuff (as he called it) that we do over here, and it faded from my life. And I was also teaching myself to write and to practise as an astrologer, which was a great adventure in itself. And I was also slowly sorting stuff in myself that would, eventually, give a bit more depth to what I had to offer.

But now all that 'New Age' stuff is coming back at me. I love it. And I also have in me something of the more traditional spirit. Something, not all, by a long chalk. I'm not being modest. And I want to put those 2 things together. That is the interface I am at. I am trying to work it all out, and I'm using this blog to do so, so it needs to be treated as work in progress. In fact, I hope to always be work in progress.

And there are certain things I think as I try put together what I learned from the Canadian guy (and another Indian who more recently came my way) and modern shamanism.

1/ This thing is essentially about becoming a balanced human being. It is not about becoming a healer or a teacher or about being able to talk to spirits or about getting 'qualifications'. We may or may not end up doing stuff that helps people in various ways, but I think it gets diluted, and creates a superficial attitude, by being presented in course-form that most people can attend, as an 'add-on'. And it's not the main thing, either.

2/ Change takes a long time, and it's not under our direction. It takes a whole lifetime. Traditionally, it is the guys in their 80s and 90s who are the elders, who are seen as really having something to say. In our culture we want quick change, and we want something to show for it, an identity, perhaps. So this can be very hard for us to understand. As well as being more real, this perspective takes the pressure off us to 'achieve' or to try and 'be' someone.

3/ Shamanism requires an engagement with nature that we have forgotten. Everything is grounded in our relationship to the natural world. That is what we pray to, what we are grateful to, what we feel to be sacred, what we are part of. If we approach nature in this way, she will respond. Her messages may be symbolic, like when an unusual event occurs. But not everything that occurs is symbolic. And we will feel cared for.

We started to lose this being in nature thousands of years ago, and I think in our short lifetimes we can only ever get part of the way back. I recommend The Dream of the Cosmos by Anne Baring, who traces, through the gods and goddesses we have worshipped, our gradual distancing from nature, and evokes very well what that closer relationship would have felt like.

4/ A good teacher does not make claims. Nowadays it seems very common for shamanic healers/teachers to present themselves in terms of their connections to spirit guides or their childhood experiences, as if they are 'born' seers, or as visionaries, or as having experienced the shamanic illness, the closer to insanity the better.

It is an authoritarian way of functioning. The teacher becomes the one with the special vision, and everyone is meant to look to that. This way of presenting oneself has become embedded, but I also think it is untraditional and egotistical. My Canadian Indian friend never presented himself like this, as having 'special' experiences that qualified him. No, he used reason and experience. One of the guys I learned off in the 90s, Leo Rutherford, also declined to operate in this way. But he was an exception, it is that common.

Maybe it is because our religious history in the west is authoritarian. It is the priest who has the hotline to God. It seems to me that is what we are replicating. Like a bunch of Old Testament prophets mouthing off what 'the spirits' have told them. Even with their hotline, Christian priests don't do this, why do we?

If the spirits tell you something, and you want to persuade others of it, you need to use reason, not the 'authority' of where it came from: if you say 'the spirits told me', many people will then take what you say on board, but for the wrong reasons.

A good teacher presents themselves as an ordinary person who has some worthwhile things to say. He/she will, if they are the real thing, be substantial within themselves, have their own inner knowing. But that is for the pupil to spot, not for the teacher to boast about. 

Of course, we may well have unusual or profound experiences that we'll want to talk about, and there will be times when it is important to do so. But I think that needs to that occur in the context of relationship, not in the context of presenting your services to people you don't know.


5/ A bit of contact with indigenous people doesn't make you an authority. A little knowledge is dangerous. This is the other side of the interface. On the New Age side, we want quick results, we treat shamanism as an add-on, and do not understand the profound relationship with the natural world we need to build. On the Indigenous side, we can think that a few weeks in Peru with some 'elders', or inviting a few over to run some events, counts as an initiation on our teachers CV, and gives us an authority to speak on what shamanism is and isn't. It becomes another 'claim'.

Real teaching, or learning, is being-to-being, it is about developing an inner attitude towards oneself and towards the world, that one gradually absorbs from someone else. And this takes personal relationship, and it takes years. And one may learn something of the traditional attitude through that. But even that does not make one an authority. It can become yet another identity. You may not be a born seer, you may not have had the shamanic illness or the prophecies from spirits. But you have had a bit of contact with the 'real thing'. And that is also another trap that I have observed - another way of becoming stuck.

6/ Let us get away from the emphasis on talking with spirit guides or other forms of non-ordinary awareness, as though that is what shamanism is about. I don't at all want to undermine those of us who do, it can be profound.

It's probably got to do with origins: the shaman is originally a guy from somewhere in Siberia who can talk with the spirits and do healing work and offer counsel on that basis. That, I think, is why we have that emphasis in shamanism in the west, even though it has come to mean something much broader: the whole western attempt to engage with, and be inspired by, indigenous ways.

Many of us our drawn to this project. Only a minority will have that natural leaning/ability to talk with spirits. I certainly don't, and I spent years feeling inadequate on that account! I'm good with words in this reality, crap in non-ordinary reality. When called on, something takes me over and I seem able to do some good work from that place, or rather what comes into me is able to. I guess that is shamanic in the formal sense.

But it's not the main thing. The main thing for me is becoming a balanced human being, and having a strong relationship with the 'spirit' side of existence is central to that quest. And we all have that relationship, and it is very important to find and develop our own particular relationship with that spirit side.

If you're going to run courses in shamanism - and why not, if it doesn't include a qualification - then I think they need to be grounded in this very broad approach to spirit.

That is why I like the Medicine Wheel - it is an approach to the whole human being.

7/ Rationality and discernment are needed as to what is and is not 'spirit'. When I learned shamanic journeying, we were told over and again that the spirits know you perfectly, and that we need to learn to trust what we get told or shown in our shamanic journeys.

I don't think it's quite like that. Shamanism came in on the counter-cultural wave of reaction to western one-sided rationality. And I think that rationality can need reclaiming. What is needed is a sense of attunement to Spirit, and if you're having a bad day, what you see in your shamanic journey may well be bilge. Just like someone who functions psychically, if they haven't trained themselves well, personal stuff and moods will get in the way.

So far from blindly trusting 'the spirits', we first need to develop self-awareness, and that takes time. It is ridiculous to ask someone to trust everything they get shown in a shamanic journey. What they need to find out is what they can trust and what they can't.

And it's the same with prayers and calling on Spirit for help. I read someone the other day saying you need to 'know' you will be answered. Again, that is blind faith. It is our Christian heritage. If you are wanting 2 plus 2 to equal 5, that ain't going to happen. You need to ask and to pray from a sense of attunement to Spirit: then you will be answered, but quite possibly not in the way you intended!

There is This World and there is the Other World. A solid grounding in This World is needed as a basis for navigating the Other World. Practices in self-awareness are, I think, needed alongside practices such as shamanic journeying. The dis-identification of the North of the Medicine Wheel, the bodily awareness of the West, the awareness of the emotion of the South are all needed to encounter the Spirit presence of the East.

8/ I think that shamanism needs to find ways of integrating some of the understanding of ourselves that western psychology, particularly perhaps the transpersonal forms, has developed. Many western Buddhists have found that Buddhism is not necessarily very good at addressing the particular psychological issues that we in the west have. And I think the same can be said for many indigenous ways, acute as their psychological understanding can be. At the same time, we can bring to psychology some of the transformational methods that it does not have so much: energy work, putting back bits of soul, ceremonial work. This is a big subject.

9/ How long are we going to keep looking over our shoulders to the indigenous people for authority and for authenticity? Especially when the great majority of us have no direct experience of them, certainly in the matter of what counts, which is personal relationship.

What we DO have is our own inner knowings, and that is what any tradition worth its salt promotes. Religion goes in the opposite direction, encouraging reliance on the teacher, which as I have said is what many teachers are doing when they advertise their 'special' experiences.

And I think if we do look to indigenous people - and remember some of them can be dodgy too - then it is the spirit and attitude we need to look to, and if we encounter that, it is a great gift.

But quite possibly not the letter. I will never the learn the letter of a pipe ceremony done traditionally. But I have been around them enough to get at least some of the basic attitude, and it is a beautiful and helpful and connecting ceremony, and currently I do them on my own and kind of make it up as I go along.

So I think absorb the indigenous attitudes where you can, if you have the chance, but ultimately it is our own inner knowing that matters, and that will go on to create a distinctively modern shamanism, which I think is the thing that the world needs more than anything.

The Depth Psychology of Shamanism

In 1997, I was organising some shamanic journeying at a small festival in the UK, and the space was packed for each session, like 70-80 people. The word shamanism had a buzz to it, and I think it still does, even though it can also be a cliché.

But the buzz was genuine, and I think it was about people wanting a taste of the Otherworld, something which has almost become a race memory, because it has been so squeezed out by religion and then science. But it is still there in us, this desire for an untrammelled experience of Spirit, that feels ancient, and that is not hedged around by dogmas of what is and is not possible.

It is Spirit that ultimately teaches us about Reality, not humans and their books. Shamanism – a recent, western phenomenon – is about that return to a direct experience of Spirit, that connects us to a universe that is so much more than the literal, material universe of modern science.

That taste of the Otherworld is, for some, enough as an accompaniment to their regular existence. For others, it is not enough. Or we may think it is enough, but the spirits have other ideas!

And this is where the idea of the 'shaman' comes in. A slightly problematic word, as it carries connotations of spiritual stature, which ain't a good thing to claim. And a shaman is technically also a healer and diviner, a spirit consultant.

But the spirits can drag us kicking through that initiatory journey without the end result being a healer. You may end up as a counsellor, or an artist, or a stand-up comic - or as Mozart: what was it that spoke through him if it wasn't the Otherworld? Or you may be nothing in particular that you can put a name to! You just have that look in your eye that says I've been somewhere else.

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As Leonardo da Vinci said: “Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.”

Or as the Ancient Mariner said:

 

"I pass, like night, from land to land;

I have strange power of speech;

That moment that his face I see,

I know the man that must hear me:

To him my tale I teach."

The Ancient Mariner

The archetypal event has become, for us, the shaman's illness, which will often bring him or her to the gates of death or madness, and once she has accepted the wishes of the spirits to be a vehicle for them, he recovers.

And I think this illness, this trial, this ordeal, needs to be interpreted broadly within our shamanism, even though the original definition was quite specific. And I think we need to be quite broad too about 'the spirits'. Yes, some of us will have guys upstairs that tell us stuff, or who work through us. For others, it may just be this other place in us, and when we speak or act from it, there is some kind of deeper wisdom or insight there, that may not even make sense to us at the time, but we learn to trust it. The so-called 'mid-life crisis' (which can go on and on - see The Middle Passage by James Hollis) has a resonance of this type of ordeal.

As an astrologer, I encounter these trials in the form of Neptune and Pluto acting on people's charts. I had my own experience of Pluto for much of the 90s: after 10 years running Buddhist institutions, I was unable to do anything for several years. Anything I tried to do wouldn't work. And it was like the plug on my life-force had been pulled. I realised that it is not 'I' who lives, it is something from deeper within that calls the shots, and it was saying we're not going to let you carry on in that wilful way, we're going to fuck with you until you listen to us. And there was this deep, magical pull towards that other voice. 

Abdominal Surgery

At the same time, I felt like I’d had major abdominal surgery, and that I’d been brought about as low as I could be, to this faraway place. And after a few years I had a dream telling me to pursue shamanism - as well as something else, which was a trick dream that catapulted me out of my old life.

And since then there has always been this place within me that is a kind of dark wisdom, that I can forget about sometimes, but when I'm coming from there I am aligned with my life. It is the glittering eye of the ancient mariner. And in the last few years it's been happening all over again, but under Neptune's rule, and I'm still in the thick of it, so I can't say too much. But it's been like this overwhelming call that I haven't quite known what to do with.

Pluto with his hellhound

The classic story behind Pluto, who is Lord of the Underworld, is that one day he abducted Persephone, daughter of the nature goddess Ceres, who went into mourning and the earth went into permanent winter. Eventually it got sorted, but Persephone was by now Pluto's wife, and spent half her time in the underworld.

So this is a good way of understanding the shaman's illness. There is another side to life, beyond what is presented to us by society, and you can be taken there forcibly by the demands of the spirit, which has no regard for conventional niceties and sanities. And in a deeper kind of way, you grow up, move on to the next stage - as did Persephone, in becoming Pluto's wife.

A traditional society understands this ruthless dimension to Spirit. As Holger Kalweit writes in Shamans, Healers and Medicine Men: 

“The suffering and exhaustion that accompany a vision quest do not correspond to the mild and gentle style of modern psychotherapy. Westerners do not want to have to exert themselves to solve their problems.” (p102)

And Goethe understood what happens if you resist the call:

“And so long as you haven't experienced this: to die and so to grow, you are only a troubled guest on the dark earth.”

So this initiatory journey that the shaman undergoes isn't just about acquiring magical powers under duress. I don't think it is like that. The main emphasis is on the development of psychological depth, in the sense of moving beyond the narrow, conventional self that tells us how to live, and whose rules are shared by the other members of society. That kind of living is 'normal', it gives a kind of psychological security to many people, and it is necessary for the stability of society.

But that ain't what the shaman lives by. No, he/she has another loyalty, a deeper loyalty, that is not to the rules and 'shoulds' of the tribe, but to the spirits, to the daimon, to the Otherworld, to the Jungian Self. And that other place to which we have our loyalty is more real, for it recognises that the world isn't what it seems, it is not to be taken at face value, for it is only one pole of existence, the other being the spirit world, and these 2 poles are profoundly interconnected. The world is not an absolute, it is fluid.

So it is this loyalty to the Otherworld that is the real qualification to be a healer - or whatever. It is the shaman's wholehearted response to the imperatives of the Otherworld and its values that make him/her a shaman. Once you have that new basis to your life - that look in your eye - then the spirits will allow you to be a healer, or require you to be.

Of course, this is a kind of ideal scenario, because we are human, and we fuck up, and sometimes people have real healing abilities who seem in other respects to be such messes.

But the principle remains, and it is the 'depth psychology' of shamanism referred to in the title. It involves a radical turning about, so that the guiding principle of our lives becomes not what society expects, nor is it based on our personal desires, but on a commitment to something beyond us, that also is us, and that is more real than a purely conventional notion of existence ever can be.

It is a completely different basis for living, and that is why the shaman's illness can take him/her to death's door: the conventional, which is so deep-rooted, has to die. It can almost be like I cannot continue to live like I have been, so how can I live? And the answer is there within, and always has been.