St. Patrick

The text that follows is adapted from the sermon I delivered at Michael Servetus UU church Sunday March 16.

To be human is to tell stories. It doesn’t matter if your stories are cloaked in the language of myth, science, psychology or religion, we tell ourselves and each other stories all the time. And most of these stories are about how the universe works, or how we should live inside it.

This brings me to one of my least favorite characters in all of western history: St Patrick. He is famous for converting Ireland to Christianity. Legend tells us he chased the snakes out of Ireland. Of course, the snake – the better word is serpent - is a symbol for pagans. The serpent is the symbol for the great goddess, and of people who see holiness in the earth, and who have divinities that take female forms.

To me the serpent is a symbol of the raw, untamable, awesome and frightening power of the life force that surges and courses through everything we see (and everything we don’t). And that energy moves not in straight lines but in pulsing waves or like lightning, in unpredictable jaggedness, or like in roots and branches (and emotions and ideas), in slithering serpentine wriggles. In springtime that energy becomes strikingly visible as it emerges out of the bleak quiet of winter and creation seems to awaken again, moving outward in writhing, tangling, unfolding patterns. For more about serpents in myth go here and here.

An old pre-Patrick Irish song to the Irish Goddess Bridget, the goddess of springtime, goes like this:
Early on Brigit’s morn
The serpent will come from the mound
I will not harm the serpent
Nor with the serpent harm me.

In these simple four lines are found a vow of a mutually fostering relationship with the wriggling life force that infuses everything.

What the tradition celebrates about St. Patrick – that he converted the pagan Irish – I reframe this way: In the 5th century, the venerable St. Patrick was able to begin the process of changing the fundamental cosmic story of the people of that Emerald Isle. He began the process where they stopped telling the story of mutually nourishing relationship with the serpentine energies of life on earth, and began telling (and living) the story of dominating and destroying those energies and eventually escaping them altogether.

This, of course, is the foundational myth of western industrial culture, the culture that poet Wendell Berry says “thrives on destruction.”St. Patrick was the bringer of amnesia, and now we celebrate him with a day devoted to drinking until we are stupefied. Matthew Fox called alcohol and all mind altering chemicals “liquid cosmos”: we, who feel alienated from the universe, imbibe to bring the awe of the universe back into our body. This is not so different from the church tradition that tells us we are fallen and then offers us the supernatural medicine to cure our falleness.

Now I don't meant to spoil a good day of drinking and celebrating the Irish. Patrick was a man and a worshipper of his time, and he truly believed he had found the keys to the mystery of why life is so difficult. We too are people of out time, and I hope all of us will take seriously what we believe and act on it.

The new story that Patrick began telling the Irish is described by theologian Thomas Berry as “the six transcendences.” [1] Transcendent means to become separate, to remove yourself from the action. According to Berry, the six transcendences are:
1. The transcendent, personal monotheistic deity. Berry says the first commandment should actually read: “Thou shalt not have an earth mother.”
2. The transcendent human spirit. The natural world is material. Humans are spiritual. We transcend the material messiness.
3. The foundational belief in redemption. Another way to say this is the world is fallen, and we need to be taken away from it to be saved.
4. The transcendence of mind. The mind is what links humans to the transcendent, male God, and it is the mind that is evidence of our own transcendence from nature. There is fallen, material nature, and there is mind. Mind and nature are of a different substance, and only humans possess mind which allows them to transcend nature. Nature is female. Mind is male.
5. Our transcendent technology: our creative discoveries and applications of technology, from fire to computer chips in our toaster, has allowed us to transcend much biological law that would otherwise limit our species’ impact on the earth.
6. The transcendence of historical identity for humans—that our destiny goes beyond earthly history, that our destiny is somewhere else. This world really does not matter.

I like to put what Berry is saying like this:Christianity is a heliumisitc religion. That’s a very complex, old theological term mixing Greek and Latin ideas. Okay not really, I made it up. It means “to be full of helium.” As soon as anyone becomes holy in the Christian tradition, the holy men come running out with the Helium taken and PFFFT! Up they go away into the sky. The tradition calls it ascension. Jesus. The saints. Mary. PFFFT! And if you believe the made for TV miniseries drawn from the mega best sellers, all believers on that glorious day of rapture. The story St. Patrick convinced the Irish to believe was that everything sacred lives above, and that nothing below matters. All float up and away, and, like my three-year old whose grocery store balloon with “free strawberries” printed on it came untied as soon as we stepped outside the store, we can only watch, aghast, as our delight vanishes into the airy expanse, and we are left behind, with strawberries that taste of vague disappointment.I believe you and I are alive at a point in human history where that fundamental story we tell ourselves about how the world works is changing. We are inside a change of seasons right now, and we are in an extended change of consciousness – one which is nourished and enlivened by our drumming I hope - one that is wishing to subvert Patrick’s six transcendences.

This emerging consciousness is telling us:
1. God – if there is a god - can certainly take any form God would want to take including earth mother, and sky father, and an uncountable array of other forms, and non-human forms. What’s more God – however you define God - is inside everything, or as the theologians say: immanent.
2. Our spiritual lives are intertwined with our physical lives, they are not separate, with one being real, and one an illusion. We are biospiritual.
3. Our pure spirit does not battle our corrupt flesh, but spirit is the unseen extension of the body: the soul is the part of the body undiscerned by the five senses as William Blake said.
4. Mind is the inheritance of all creation, though we may not perceive its entire workings. The body, the emotions, the imagination—these are also gifts of the Spirit and equal to mind.
5. Technology may make us comfortable, but it will not redeem us, it will not sanctify us and make us invulnerable to nature. Nothing can separate us from nature. Everything is nature.
6. We come from here and we return to here. And we are always intertwined with everything else.

I’d like to offer you a meditation to try. Go to the front or back door of your house, looking out at your own land – the land you live on. Call out to the spirit – that springtime spirit of life that is at this moment, waking up and beginning its gleeful twisting, cavorting, wriggling, dancing movement into our visible world. Try to see it. You might have to close your eyes in order to see it. As Ken Wilbur might say, close the eye of flesh and open the eye of spirit. Call to this spirit of life, and ask it to come into you and make itself more visible. Or ask it to heal you or make you new again. Or ask it how you can be in service to it.

I leave you with this:

How I become hyacinth
How I become daffodil
How I become hosta
How I become sedumeasily divided easily rooted
How I become the two tonewhistle chirp in that far off oak.
How I become something you never planted
How I green from brown
How I heave up your mulch and crawl to you in your winter slumber
How I spring from pruned branches
How I become again the weeds you poisoned
How I emerge out of dead vines
How the longer you know me the bigger I grow
How you think you can cultivate me
How long it takes you to see
How I become you.

©Jaime Meyer 2006

[1] Thomas Berry, Evening Thoughts (Sierra Club Books 2006) 25-27

Dear Drummers,

I may be one of only a very few people in our drumming community who have a deep, almost obsessive fascination with Christian evangelicals. Zealots are amusing until they get control of the army; then there is always trouble. History has shown us again and again that the more assured religious people are about their god, the more certain they are to use violence to shape the world.

But I have always admired evangelicals’ passion for their myth, and truthfully I admire their ability to spout certainties without wincing. Clearly, I am on the other end of that spectrum – I can barely say a few words about faith without backtracking, joking, and apologizing for the apparent hubris I am displaying. Well, that is a very old dichotomy in the life of religion: call it the tension between blinded faith and blinded doubt.

Three years ago I was listening to a radio interview with Rabbi Michael Lerner, an amazing thinker and speaker (http://www.tikkun.org/rabbi_lerner/bio). Someone asked him about the power of the religious right and he said, something like “Oh, that movement is already over.” I was astonished at how he could say that given the evidence to the contrary and also wondered how he could be so sure. He said that people are attracted to the conservative mega-church for the comfort it offers, but after a few years, they start to grow up spiritually and they just can’t be told anymore exactly what to believe – they assert their God-given talent and desire for personal exploration of truth, more subtle, nuanced and more beautiful. And more helpful to today’s immediate challenges.

Well, perhaps he was right. We see the neo-con paradise crumbling everywhere, and we see the puff-chested, sword-wagging, One-Truth-spewing men in red-striped ties scrambling to hold onto one last corner of their constructed empire by turning on one another like cowards, or more often, we see them jumping, trying to find a place to land where they can still make easy money by waving simplistic, large banners of fear and narcissism. For an interesting article about several prominent architects of the religious right and their repudiation of the movement, see (http://www.alternet.org/rights/78818/). One of my favorite quotes in the article is from Frank Schaeffer: "Pat Robertson would have had a hard time finding work in any job where hearing voices is not a requirement." Well, perhaps my fascination with these folks is that I see myself as just as nutty as I see Pat Robertson, except I’m a lot funnier.

There are many reasons why the Christian right is crumbling, and many books are being written now about it. One thing I’d like to point out is that “Christian conservative” is a completely inaccurate name for this movement. The real word is “Christian totalitarianism.” Apart from the fact that the neo-con policies have been revealed as sham, I see a theological reason for the crumbling, and it is this: if you are spiritually minded, you are seeking to come into contact with a Divine Spirit of love. The spiritual life is all about seeking love. Big Love. Cosmic Love.

Christianity came on the scene originally as a Bhakti Path – the Hindu name for the path of love, the path of ecstasy and openness. Jesus apparently healed anyone who asked, and his healing power is said to spring from his direct contact with the god of love. His main message was love, love, and love some more. Love God, love one another. Love enemies and strangers. Forgive and love more.

It is difficult to believe that the god of the Christian totalitarians is a god of love, and I think people have grown weary (for now) of the idea that if you repeat something often enough it becomes true. The totalitarians’' god is primarily a punishing god, as he must be to keep people obedient to the movement and to set people against one another which gives them the illusion of real spiritual energy.

If people move out of that myth, I believe it is because they need real love, not fake, twisted, abusive love. They need real love from their god so that they can recognize real love in this life and so that they can radiate real love and attract real love in this life. They need real love because life is hard and confusing we make a lot of mistakes and we need Big Love to help us through each day.

And so this brings me to Grace – a Christian word that I see as synonymous with Big-Cosmic-Love. To me, Jesus was and is all about Grace. Grace: Cosmic love, the love of the creator, given to everything that comes into being in this universe. Given freely, without conditions, without limit, without question, without doubt. And to me, the drum is all about that same love. (So by the mathematical transitive property of equality, Jesus is a drum. I believe that.)

This Friday we will drum our way down the Bhakti Path, the path of divine grace, the path of opening to Big Love. I’m not Jesus; I can’t promise anything except to try to open the door a little for you to peek through, or step through at your own comfort level. But let us drum the door open together and see where the path leads.

See you soon, Jaime

Biospiritual

Dear Drummers,

A word has been floating around in my mind lately: biospiritual. It is a word used by some to define our planet, and by extension, the universe. The word affirms the interplay between the physical (“bio”) and ephemeral parts of existence.

For much of the west’s religious history the physical and spiritual have been split apart and set in opposition to one another. Religion has viewed the physical world as fallen, unclean, sinful, or merely of no real importance. As science and religion came into increasing conflict during the Enlightenment (1700’s onward) the devout in both camps tended to preach that you must choose between poles.

Science told us that must grow up, become rational and intelligent and put away the absurd superstitions of religion. As the enlightenment wit Voltaire said: “It is an infantile superstition of the human spirit that virginity would be thought a virtue and not the barrier that separates ignorance from knowledge.”

Extremist religion told us that it is a sign of deep faith to resist any science that conflicts with the Bible, and to twist as much science as possible to fit the Biblical world view. For example, some biblical people accept the existence of atoms, but say that it is clear that the atoms are held together by Christ’s power. They go on to say that the atomic elements themselves are cursed by God because of Adam’s sin. The evidence is in the rocks that decay and give off deadly radiation.

Both sides agreed that there is and should be a split between bio and spiritual, and all of us must choose the right side or perish. But also, classically, both sides agree that that the material world is meaningless. Bible-wavers pine for the rapture to get us off this cursed plain. Physicists, who now know exponentially more about the universe than even only a few years ago, say things like “The more the universe seems comprehensible the more it seems pointless” (Dr. Steven Weinberg).

So we come now to that word, biospiritual, which recombines perhaps the two greatest gifts of humankind, our ability to reason, analyze and deduce, and our ability to dream, to speak in metaphor and symbol, and to create art – our seemingly inborn need to revere what we cannot see, touch or comprehend.

And that word, biospiritual, helps us to re-member what has been torn apart in us by the fight between science and faith – a wound that has so damaged our world both outer and inner. It is a good word, a word that perhaps could only come around to us at this time in history, a word that we are ready for now.

And this is why I love the drum! Anyone who has spent more than a few moments with the drum knows that it reminds you that you are biospiritual that you are an amalgam of physical and spiritual – because the drum is clearly this. And so is everything you can see and cannot see. When we gather together this Friday, we will explore our biospirituality with rhythmic exuberance!

Jaime

It's okay to feel a little broken

Dear Drummers,

Recently I discovered this hot new singer, Bon Jovi. Okay, he’s not new, he’s one of the kings of the 1980’s big hair bands who has survived and kept maturing. But I was in a sustained trance for the entire 1980’s and missed all the pop music of that decade. That may have been a great blessing, by the way.

On his newest album, Lost Highway, Bon Jovi sings a song with amazingly simple lyrics: “It’s okay to be a little broken/Everybody’s broken in this life...” I’ve been listening to this song constantly for three weeks now. (Listen to it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj00ncx-X6U)

When I worked in the liberal Christian world, this was also a guiding image, that we are all broken (and that through Jesus we are made whole again, or healed). This phrase, “we’re all broken in this world” was tossed about constantly. It irritated me because it smacked of original sin – the idea that because of Adam’s disobedience of God, we are all born broken, or infected by sin. This is a horrifying theology to me in so many ways. If this is a topic of deep interest to you, I point you to Mathew Fox’s book Original Blessing. It can change your life.

So I’m in the car with my 3 ½ year old, Ethan, listening to a different Bon Jovi Song, what my son calls “the new Yeah-Yeah song.”

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s4xQ6dqdhQ)

We stop in front of the house and he asks if we can listen to the rest of the yeah-yeah song. I want to say no because of all the practical reasons – its dinner time, I’m tired etc. But I say yes and we sit in the twi-lit car as traffic on our busy street rushes by and I reach back and hold his tiny smooth hand and we listen. I look back at him and he has a slight, calm smile on his face and there is something radiant about him – not because he’s my child but because he’s a human being listening with great calm joy to music – such a distinctly human act, to stop your life for a moment to allow the ephemeral to wash over you. And I think, “No. HE is not broken, not yet.” And of course I know life will break him in many ways, and I know that he will most often be broken by other human beings, and most often by those who he loves in one way or another. This is how it goes. So original sin may be a bad theological conclusion to why life is so hard, but there is no debating that we get broken and battered by life. It reminds me of what Frederick Buechner said: Be kind to everyone you meet because everyone you meet is carrying an enormous burden. Everyone who walks into our little drumming room is carrying an enormous burden – I try to remember this.

And it reminds me of the passage from Kahil Gibran’s The Prophet:

You have been told that life is darkness,
and in your weariness you echo the words of the weary.

At work someone had a really bad day and they sent out an email to the whole staff essentially shaming everyone for a mistake that was really the responsibility of a couple of people, including me. Here is how we spread our brokenness, yes? – we broadcast it to the wind in hopes of removing it from ourselves? This is so human, and so common. How often have I spread my brokenness to others, through malice, or anger, or trying to unload my disappointment or fear, or by sheer clumsiness?

In the shamanic cosmos as I understand it, we are not born broken because of disobedience, and then saved by Jesus (and obeying the church fathers). We are not broken throughout life until we are reassembled in glory after death, making this entire world simply a torturous bus stop. In shamanic thinking as I understand it, we are indeed broken by energies that come to us and break us, or eat at us, or sicken us, or block our flow of energy which we need to grow green and fruity and fragrant and colorful. These energies can be called spirits, or curses or many other things. And this makes sense to me because it matches my experience, and perhaps sometimes these are free floating spirits but most often they are generated by other human beings and sent into the world to eat.

All religions have their cleansing ceremonies. The Christian ceremony of the Eucharist – the eating of the little round cracker and drinking of the wine – is a way to ceremonially bring the power of Jesus into our body to cleanse us of the disease of original sin (in the catholic world) or remind us that God’s enduring love saves us (in the liberal Protestant world). These are effective for many people. We have our Eucharist cracker too – it’s called the drum. We don’t eat it, we whack on it and it makes us dance, to shake loose the spiritual barnacles eating our hull.

Over the years I have found that winter is a time for cleansing ceremonies – at the last drum we focused on resentment and blame. We’ll continue our string of cleansing ceremonies this week by whacking and shaking. I leave you with the complete passage from the Prophet:

You have been told that life is darkness,
and in your weariness you echo the words of the weary.
And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,

And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,

And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,

And all work is empty save when there is love;

And when you work with love
you bind yourself to yourself,
and to one another,
and to God.

Introductory Course: Shamanism as a Spiritual Path

Dear Drummers,
Below is an outline for a six month introductory course I'd like to lead. Please let me know if you are interested. The class is limited to 15, but I need a minimum number of about 10 to get started and pay costs. If you are interested, please send me an email at jaime@drummingthesoulawake.com

Thanks!

Shamanism as a spiritual path - Level 1

This six-month course will introduce students to the core concepts and cross-cultural practices of shamanism. This course is ideal for persons who want to formally learn the core skills and ideas associated with shamanism, who are motivated by a desire to expand and deepen their spiritual lives through earth-centered spiritual practice, and who want to engage with a community of like-minded seekers. This course sees shamanism, or shamanic spirituality, as a practice and a way of life of a person who is skilled in crossing into non-ordinary reality for the purpose of creating balance and healing of self and others in the community. This course does not involve the use of psychotropic plant substances, and is not recommended for those currently using substantial dosages of mind - altering medications or chemicals.

The course will not only teach common shamanic techniques and practices but also provide students with a broad cultural context for shamanic practice in the modern world, touching on art, psychology, and theology. Students who take the course will exit with an understanding of many core shamanic practices and confidence to continue building their shamanic skills. They will also have a greater understanding of their own shamanic call and how it fits into today’s world and in their own creativity. In this sense, shamanic practice is about learning ancient methods of gaining insight to today’s life issues. Students will leave the course with a greater understanding of their own spiritual power, how to cultivate it and how to bring it into the world for good.

The class will meet approximately once per month for a 4-5 hour workshop (specific times and location TBA). An outline of the curriculum follows below. Each workshop will contain 30% lecture/demonstration and 70% experiential work with opportunity for discussion and sharing of ideas and experiences. Students will be assigned homework to complete before the next monthly workshop. The homework will involve some reading and journaling, but mostly practice. In addition, each student will receive two individual consultations with the instructor during the six months to help set individual direction and answer specific questions.

Students are urged to bring a drum and rattle with them. However, some drums and rattles can be provided and the instructor can also help students find ways to purchase or make their own drum and rattle. Enrollment is limited to 15. Prospective students will be asked to submit a brief essay outlining their interests, prior experience, history of spiritual practice, and expectations for this course.

The course begins near the Spring Equinox (March 2008) and ends near the Autumnal Equinox (September 2008). The six workshop dates will be on Saturdays or Sundays in the Twin Cities metro area for 4-5 hours (specific times and location TBA).

Class 1 (March 2008)
Lecture/presentation: historical overview of shamanism; the shamanic cosmos; the science of shamanism and trance; sonic driving & visions.
Experience/Training: basics of the shamanic journey, safety, protection, openness.
Homework: Reading, journey practice, journaling.

Class 2 (May 2008):
Lecture/Presentation: Comparative theology of spirit guides and relationship with Spirit
Experience/Training: Finding a power animal or spirit guide
Homework: journey practice, dancing a power animal, following instructions of spirit guides, looking for “signs” in the natural world.

Class 3 (June 2008)
Lecture/Presentation: The shaman’s task: creating balance between spirit and humans realms; ideas of the wounded healer; identifying the call.
Experience/Training: Working with the spirits of nature
Homework: journey practice, dancing a power animal, following instructions of spirit guides regarding balance.

Class 4 (July 2008)
Lecture/Presentation: Spirit and voice, the singing shaman, song as power
Experience/Training; Finding a power song and its use
Homework: singing your power song and learning to use it, memorizing poetry, journey practice, journaling.

Class 5 (August) 2008)
Lecture/Presentation: Shamanism and personal creativity, art-making
Experience/Training: Becoming a storyteller (tools of the trade).
Homework: journey practice, dancing power animals, learning a story to tell, memorizing poetry , journaling.

Class 6 (September 2008)
Lecture/Presentation: Shamanism and psychology; the “transpersonal”
Experience/Training: Working with the different types of ancestors
Homework: Journey to the ancestors, telling the ancestors’ story, memorizing poetry, power song practice; connecting the past to the present and future community

The cost for the six month course is $550 covers the costs of the course, handouts and some other ceremonial materials. Students will provide their own journals and some other ceremonial supplies at minimal cost. A deposit of $250 is required before the first class with the remaining $300 due before Class # 4. Some flexibility on payment schedule can be arranged. Some scholarship support is available – just ask.