"We must invent or re-invent a sustainable culture by a descent into our pre-rational, our instinctive resources...what is needed is not transcendence but incendence, not the brain but the gene...this intimacy with our genetic endowment, and through this endowment with the larger cosmic process, is not primarily the role of the philosopher, or the priest, or the prophet or professor. It is the role of the shamanic personality which journeys into the far regions of the cosmic mystery and brings back the vision and the power needed by the community at the most basic level...Not only is the shamanic type emerging in our society, but also the shamanic dimension of the psyche itself." ~ Thomas Berry, The Great Work
I've always dreamed of being a shaman or medicine man, but I've never known quite how to get there. You can't study and become a certified shaman, for instance, quite as easily as you can become a massage therapist or yoga instructor. During college I read Carlos Castaneda's books about the shaman, Don Juan, and spent three months alone in the Arizona desert without food and water hoping that the plants would speak to me. They never did, which I took as a signal that the supernatural capacities of Don Juan and his mystical profession were beyond me.
During my recent association with the Powers of Place Initiative, I've come to recognize that many of the earth practitioners involved with the initiative could be called shamans---if you define shamans as those who have a unique sensitivity to powerful places and an interest in engaging those powers on behalf of their own healing and the healing of their communities. These people don't look like shamans in the traditional sense. Few of them actually call themselves shamans but rather: dancers, singers, healers, activists, writers, students, farmers, web designers and even computer geeks. Whatever the diverse expression of their work, all of them are dedicating their attention to healing and transformation by bringing life, the sacred, and the mystery forward in all of its myriad forms and expressions. With these earth-and-body-centered mystics as examples, it's clear that shamanism is not some "supernatural ability" but rather a normal and even "everyday capacity" that we're born into that can be nurtured and developed over time. And, as Thomas Berry describes in The Great Work, it's an aspect of our psyche that is essential in navigating the critical times we are now facing.
One of the most sensitive and gifted shamans associated with the Powers of Place Initiative is Orland Bishop. I first met Orland in 2002 at a meeting in California. Although just 36-years-old at the time, Bishop's voice had a prophetic quality and an authority of a man three times his age. Born in Guyana, initiated into an indigenous tradition in South and West Africa, and studied in Rosicrucianism and Anthroposophy, Orland's way of thinking and speaking was the best synthesis I'd yet heard related to the subtle art of sensing and communicating with place. And, as the founder and director of an organization called "Shade Tree," which offers mentoring services to youth and gang members in the violence-infested streets of Los Angeles, Bishop's ability to articulate "the world behind the world," appears to be as practical as it is mystical. When I asked him what the Watts community most needed, he immediately answered, "to reconnect the young men to the earth."
In 2004, I invited Orland to a conference at the Fetzer Institute in Kalamazoo, Michigan where I was serving as a program officer. He joined me for a walk on the heavily wooded property that housed the foundation's retreat center called Seasons. I was interested in Bishop's take on the land as it was located at the intersection of two major earth lay lines. There were also Native American ruins and a burial ground on the property that were so ancient that no one could date them. My fledgling capacities at earth sensing could identify only that there were a ton of undifferentiated energies and subtle activity taking place. Beyond that, I didn't know how to read what was happening.
Our walk took us along a tree-lined dirt road near the top of the property. At one point, Orland headed cross-country into the woods to eventually stand between four trees. "Here," he said emphatically. "Here you need to create a sacred space and perform rituals so as to balance the more powerful energies on the lower half of the property."
In the weeks to come, I was to build a rock shrine between the trees, and many times over the coming years I'd go there to pray and meditate. When three Native American medicine men visited the property six years later, they walked to the exact spot that Bishop identified and performed a ceremony there.
Orland also led me to a spot on the hillside just above Dustin Lake and just below Fetzer's Seasons meeting house. "There are many elemental beings---nature spirits--- gathered here," he said. "They're playful, curious entities. They're attracted to the mental and creative activity at the conference center. Their presence at the meetings is very beneficial." At first I couldn't feel or imagine the entities that Oralnd was speaking about. But in the months and years to come, often at the opening circle of gatherings, I sensed them trouping up the hill and flooding into the hall. Their arrival, which usually happened without anyone noticing, always caused shivers to run up
my spine.
During the past few months I've engaged in a series of conversations with Orland on behalf of the Powers of Place Initiative. During these interviews, Orland described in more detail the philosophical underpinnings of his work which has helped me better understand what had been happening on the FEtzer property and at Seasons over the last decade. Presented here is an edited version of our conversation:
TC.: Will you speak about the process of walking on the land and describe what was happening when you walked with me that day?
O.B.: Our walk was not casual. We walked in a particular way as a contemplative act that I refer to as "earth walk." When we earth walk, we walk with reverence and a particular way of listening that awakens us to the sacred and to the prophetic nature of the place. We attune ourselves to the energies of the land and its prophetic potential.
T.C. What do you mean by "prophetic potential?"
O.B.: A prophecy is something that is potentially wanting to happen, an emergent future. Every place, like every person, has a particular prophetic potential or destiny. The prophetic potential of a place can only be revealed in partnership with humans. The land can't accomplish its potential on its own just as we can't awaken to parts of our potential without the aid of people and places. We come into our destiny by finding a piece of land where there are corresponding earth forces and energies to ground and unfold our destiny. The place becomes a host for our initiation at the same time as we become a host to fulfill the creative potential of the land. In other words, we awaken into and fulfill our prophecy and the creative potential of place in partnership with place.
The most powerful prophecies are collective in nature. When we share a connection to a place with others, we also share an ecology of consciousness that allows us to understand a common emergent future. The place becomes a platform for recognizing our common heritage. It gives us a task, a way of relating to each other, and a way of entering into our collective consciousness.
T.C.: What were you sensing on the Fetzer land, and how did you sense it?
O.B.: When we walk on the land in this way--- with this kind of reverence---what builds up in us is an intuitional field of connection to the place. When we reach a saturation point, an image is revealed. That image might be of a being, or it might be a picture of something that needs to occur out of our own creativity. The Fetzer property has a prophetic nature similar to many conference and retreat facilities. It's a place of convergence where all kinds of complex energies and potentials are present. With some land, the potential is pretty simple and straightforward. With most farm land, for instance, the destiny calls for the land to be cultivated, and all its energies are aligned in that single direction. The prophecy of Seasons calls for it to be a meeting ground and a host, not just for human beings, but for earth forces, plants and animals, nature spirits, spiritual energies, and the spirits of the dead who have inhabited the land for generations. This diverse convergence of energies can be a strength, just as diversity within an organization can lead to enhanced creativity and innovation. But the diversity can also be a weakness if the energies aren't aligned. Facilitators and conveners of gatherings like the ones at Seasons often pay very close attention to aligning the human diversity that's present but neglect the other unseen dimensions of place.
T.C.: How do we best attend to the unseen elements?
O.B.: The same way we attend to people. We walk together. We sit. We listen. And we create ritual spaces that act as portals for elemental energies to enter and communicate with us.
T.C.: So the place we walked to at the top of the property?
O.B.: Yes, that was a portal. And by building a shrine on that location, you created a place for the land to speak. This was required to balance all of the building that had taken place on the lower half of the property that is dedicated solely to human engagement. Similar to peacebuilding efforts that create spaces for both sides of a conflict to be heard, you create earth harmony and balance by creating spaces, not just for human engagement, but also for the earth to presence itself.
T.C.: Tell us about the elemental beings by the lake. Have they always been there?
O.B.: Just as the human psyche or soul is a non-physical element of our being that is more of a movement than a fixed reality, so too nature is more of a movement than a fixed reality. That's why we say that prophecy is a connection between the movement of nature and our soul. In a similar way that our soul acts as a non-physical intermediary between our physical form and Spirit, so too elemental beings act as non-physical intermediaries between humans and nature. The human psyche communicates in subtle language with these elemental beings. It's our relationship to these beings that makes a place accessible to us.
There's no place on earth that's devoid of elemental beings. The reason for them is to make contact with humans and to help us see. We're searching for belonging. That's our task---to find true relationship and community. It's through these elemental beings that we actually gain access to the deeper wisdom within nature. Elemental beings emerge directly out of nature but they are enhanced or diminished by human engagement. Elementals are attracted by mental and creative energy. If the mental energy is artistic and ethical, it attracts elementals of high quality. But elementals can also be aggressive and violent. They express the qualities and tones of our emotional and relational habits and dynamics. A place carries this byproduct of human experience in elemental form.
T.C.: What can you say about the particular elemental energies by the lake at Seasons? Why are they gathered there and how can they be sustained and maintained?
O.B.: The elemental energies near Seasons have been attracted by the human conversation and mental energy happening at the center. They're peaceful, contemplative, curious spirits that are in alignment with Seasons' purpose. They're down by the lake because it's a natural portal just as many lakes, streams, springs, mountains, and large stones are natural portals. Our relationship with elemental beings must be actively maintained or the energy will dissolve and disappear over time. Building a retreat center, a garden, a labyrinth or a shrine will attract a lot of energy initially but the spaces must be maintained similar to a garden. The place that is Washington D.C., for instance, has begun to loose its power because there are no priests who are looking after its energy. For many years parades, demonstrations, and protests were able to activate huge elemental forces, but now much more attention is needed.
T.C.: Looking beyond the place that is Seasons, and even beyond places like Washington D.C., what can you say about the role that land and place is playing in our current world situation?
O.B.: The human soul and psyche, (both individual and collective) is now more active than ever before in seeking to fulfill our collective prophecy in evolving toward a more harmonious way of living. As we stretch further, we're naturally beginning to resonate with the dynamism of the earth that's ready to support the evolution of this new type of consciousness. The earth and its huge storehouse of wisdom is a valuable partner in our next step of evolution. The most valuable thing that we can do at this particular time is to connect to a place and create a prophetic partnership.
****
Last September, during the time that I was speaking with Orland about our relationship to place, I moved to a house on seven beautiful acres bordering a National Wildlife Preserve near Santa Cruz, California. I began practicing what I'd learned from Orland. I walked the property each morning with a sense of reverence. I built a simple rock shrine to provide a portal through which the earth could speak. I imagined that I was aligning my energies with the land and that an image or prophecy would be revealed that would have meaning for my future and the future of the land. I also began to sense the presence of elemental beings everywhere, but especially within a grove of redwood tress just 50 yards from my home.
In early October I was sitting at my kitchen table eating lunch when a bobcat walked across my front lawn moving as casually as if she were headed to the corner cafe. Despite the fact that bobcats are typically solitary and elusive, I saw her again the next week and then almost every week thereafter. Each of the sightings came at times when I felt that my personal circumstances were need of "bobcat energy." I took on the bobcat as my animal totem and then one night she came to me in a dream, sat on my lap, and licked my face.
At a recent gathering of close friends, I found myself speaking in a prophetic way as if the spirit of the bobcat and the power of the land were coming through me. It didn't feel like I was speaking at all, but some larger force was speaking through me. A friend jokingly referred to me as "the preppy shaman." Now, I don't think of myself as a shaman any more than Orland Bishop thinks of himself as a hedge fund manager (which he isn't). But I think that my association with Orland has nurtured the shamanic aspect within me, and my association with the land and the bobcat as its' emissary has helped catalyze a process of "incendence" and deep healing within me that sometimes helps me tap into larger cosmic forces and visions that are useful for me and my community.
Since then this shamanistic presence has come forward more often, not just in special encounters but also in everyday events as pedestrian as washing the dishes. I've come to identify this presence, not as something supernatural as Castaneda's books led me to believe, but rather as something deeply rooted and grounded in the ordinary but very dark soil of this land. My spiritual practice and healing process, once a solitary and sometimes even a lonely endeavor, is now rich with a feeling of partnership and potential. Whatever's happening within me, I have a very tangible sense that the bobcat and the land are there supporting me.
In a recent article in Earthlight Magazine, K. Lauren de Boar spoke eloquently about the implications of this shamanistic presence for the earth and for all people.
"we need to remember that we are each of us indigenous to Earth, even though some have fallen into a profound amnesia about that reality. Shamanism is a world wide practice and we each are descended from ancient peoples who practiced it in some form. The impulse behind shamanism is universal and ultimately, we are one people (including non humans), and the healing and growth that comes from a path of Spirit is the birthright of each of us. The shaman is an archetypal presence in our cultural coding and our DNA. You might even say that when we are talking of the welfare of the planet and the unborn, it is our responsibility to find our way back to that path and to live it, not just talk about it. Understanding what the shaman is historically and what the emerging shamanic personality consists of may be profoundly helpful to our understanding of what is required of us in a time when the very future of Earth is at stake."
I hope and pray, for your sake and for the future of the earth, that the shamanistic personality continues to come forward within you and within all peoples.
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Perspectives, Issue No. 5
Powers of Place Correspondent: Tom Callanan
September 2011
