Imbolc Drum - The Great Goddess Awakes Wahoo!

Dear Seekers of Earthy Wisdom,

Welcome all to the warm wonder of the wild Wahoo! You have two chances to drum this week - in ecstatic south Minneapolis, or in sublime Burnsville. The Burnsville drum is a smaller space, a smaller group (for now) and it makes for an intimate experience.

This week we find ourselves at Imbolc - the midpoint between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. February 2nd is the holiday in European traditions that honors the great mother-grain goddess, and, in the Celtic world, the goddess of springtime, Brigit. February 1 is the Christian holiday Candlemas.

In the British Isles (and places like Seattle) this time of year really is the beginning of spring. Crocuses are emerging. You could dig the first furrows in the land for the seed. There are all kinds of rituals around this ancient act of co-creation with the Great Mother. But here in our arctic tundra, it is too much of an abstract leap for me to say that February 2nd is the beginning of spring. The ground remains un-plantable until nearly the end of May - another three months.

However, I do want to offer you what I hope is a powerful meditation on, or direct experience with, the Great Mother this Friday. We will drum for awhile - maybe 90 minutes or so - as a way of de-stressing, of shedding the weight of the world, of boosting our immune systems (yes, science that's true), opening the spiritual imagination and feeding the heart of compassion and forgiveness that beats in each of us (and is so often buffeted and silenced by pain and worry). We drum for all of those reasons.

Then we'll have an intermission where you can enjoy crumpets or small pancakes (a traditional image of the Goddess because they are made from grain, and of the sun because of the round shape and golden color).

Then those who want to can rejoin the circle for a ceremony of taking awakening warmth into the earth as an offering to the Great Mother. Those who wish may also seek guidance, solace or healing from her (in whatever form she may take at the moment).

Part of this ceremony will involve building a cairn - a pile of rocks that honors the Great Mother. In the Celtic world, cairns were used for mundane purposes like marking the boundary between lands, and also as a marker and a cover for tombs, which are the passage way into the realm of the Great Mother. If you want to, please bring a fist sized rock (smaller will be fine too). If you can't, or forget, don't worry, I'll have some. You'll get the rock back.

Stay warm, see you soon.

For more on Imbolc/Candlemas: http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=mekxtcdab&et=1104331122069&s=0&e=001ZfXgZOQ0mRrhTkBFwkyTlStndel6Jt8-MZc4tuWj0LLQMmsQ4GTUBJTtAgGVzpGOW-mAKQswFUWENix-QvT-NF5CRE6QoD3hwJhQ1KtgisDtH1W1DfDPrn6mtEODnj_74nY2iO9JljE=

By the way, I have one spot left open in the Shamanic Intensive: a three month study program. More details are found by clicking here. The group closes in two days.

Jaime

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It's all a Dream

I love the shamanic path for many reasons, including that it makes me agitated and freaked out. I have a finely tuned woo-woo meter and the shamanic path constantly sets the needle jiggering. I love that.

Today’s needle-jigger comes from the notion promulgated by so many teachers that everything is a dream: that we live in a constant dreamtime, and there is no difference between night dreams, reveries, day dreams and what we call waking. Night dreams are a form of reality where energies are less dense; my waking life is a dream where the energies are hardened into forms. But waking is a dream just the same. Waking is a shared dream. I dream I have a car, and my neighbor also dreams I have a car, and that’s why there is one parked in my dream driveway, right by the dream Azalea that Ralph, my dream neighbor surreptitiously tosses the dream poop squished out of his dream Schnauzer while walking by my dream house.

According to the teachers, when you realize that all is a dream, it empowers you to act by dreaming your own dream, and not being bound by the dreams that others try to perpetrate upon you. The opposite is true also: it is an act of weakness and complacency to claim that we are victimized by outside circumstances or trapped by fate.[1] The dream universe is not just New Age fritter-flutter. Leading edge science is increasingly telling us that reality is more fluid, less “real” and more multi varied than we ever imagined.[2]

So the woo-woo meter jiggle and shakes. Not because this dream idea is crazy, but because it is clearly true and I just do not understand fully how to deal with it and that makes me agitated and freaked out.

Humans are storytelling creatures. We create stories for ourselves and each other all the time. We then begin to live those stories. Some stories become accepted by ever larger groups of people, and those stories become enforced on children and on those who have not yet accepted the stories. This is clear in religion, but every culture is a story, every family, every company. Economics, science, relationship, psychology – each and everything we do is an act of story making, or, in other words, dreaming. Science tells me that the table on which my laptop sits right now is only solid when viewed from one layer of reality – the farther down you go into the atomic structure of everything, the less solid everything becomes. At the atomic level there is as much space between atoms as there is between stars in the galaxy.

ACK! Jiggle-jiggle goes the meter. (As you can see, it’s not really a woo-woo meter, but a “cosmic miasma meter”)[3]

Every human-made story is accompanied by (an often invisible) “therefore, you must live like this…” There is the idea or story of how the universe works and then there is the in imperative to make decisions and act in certain ways in order to live in harmony with that idea. This is true in economics, religion, lifestyle, family – on and on.

The difference between being an explorer of a path and walker of a path comes when you decide to engage in the “therefore live like this…” If you accept the Jesus story, you must live in certain ways to be “Christian.” Otherwise you are merely a student of an idea.

So if I accept the shamanic notion that “all is a dream,” what is the “then live like this…” part? Why do I seem so powerless to change reality if reality is only my dream? Do I have any responsibility to stop other people’s “bad dreams” from being perpetrated on the world?

Comments please.

[1] Jose Stevens, quoted in Sandra Ingerman and Hank Wasserman, Awakening to the Spirit World (Sounds True, 2010) 134
[2] It’s a comedy show, but check out The Steven Colbert’s interview with Brian Green, string theory guru, who suggests that what we call reality may actually be a vast hologram. http://www.colbertnation.com/home/?xrs=sem_b_col_colbert_report
[3] Miasma: noxious exhalations from putrescent organic matter; poisonous effluvia or germs polluting the atmosphere. 2. a dangerous, foreboding, or deathlike feeling hanging in the air – in the case of challenging spiritual ideas, it is the ego that experiences the miasma.

image: Digital Expressionism

Dear Seekers,

I’ve been asked many times to provide intensive shamanic training. I’ve been able to wrestle my schedule and create a four-month session, described below. The group will meet six times, but the bulk of your work will take place outside of those meetings, and will be created by you and me for your individual needs. My job will be to listen to where you are and what you want, and to find the right ways to move you to the next level.

If you are interested in this, you’ll want to be available for these Saturday mornings:
Feb 12, 26
March 12
April 2, 16
May 7

And you’ll want to contact me soon: drummingthesoulawake@gmail.com

The Next Level: Personal Shamanic Soulwork

Beginning early February, meeting approximately twice per month on Saturday mornings through May 7. The Saturday meetings will be mini-workshops on a theme and will include shamanic journey work or ceremony and individualized consultation. You will begin by completing a questionnaire, followed by a conversation with me about what you are deeply yearning for and a divination from me. This will create the outline for your individualized, personal work during this training. It doesn’t matter where you are starting out; the goal is move to the next level from where you are. Your training will involve some or all of the following:
· shamanic journey work on your own once or twice per week;
· prayer, indoors and outdoors;
· individualized personal ceremonies and other tasks assigned by me;
· reading assigned by me;
· memorizing some poetry;
· A commitment to confidentiality inside the group;
· A willingness to be open, honest and vulnerable to both your group-mates and the teachings;
· work outside in nature, sometimes not so comfortable;
· service to a community of your choosing. Part of that service will include our drumming community.

This work requires commitment on your part. That commitment will include:
· Attending at least 4 of the six Saturday sessions. (Understand that missing a session means missing assignments and the growth that comes from them.)
· Attending a Friday drum at least once per month or more.
· A fiery desire to go to the next level.
· Openness to facing fears and swimming through ambiguity and confusion.
· Trust in the process, trust in the teacher
· Payment of $600. $350 is due before the first session, and is non-refundable after the work begins. $250 is due by April 2. I can be somewhat flexible on payment schedule and I can be somewhat flexible on the amount. What matters to me most in a student is commitment. If money is not the form that the commitment can take, then we can find another way.

Deep Winter Blessings,

Jaime

Openess, Fear, Trust

All true spiritual work is about the tension between being open and being safe. That sounds lovely to say, but in practice it becomes difficult at different times because openness and fear are in a constant dance. You fear your experiences, or you fear what you imagine you may experience if you are too open. There is a point where openness becomes naiveté. Sometimes you are encouraged to be afraid, and sometimes that's good advice. So how does a seeker make their way? How do you navigate the tension between openness to new experience, trust, and fear? What has worked for you?

Thank You, Sosltice Blessing

Jaime does the reindeer dance. Photo by Theresa Savina.

Thank you, thank you to the 425 wild and wonderful folks who attended Winter Solstice Blessing!

Here's wishing you a fabulous holiday Sseason and a new year of beauty, depth, glee, love, poetry and abundant Wahoo.