As shamanic practitioners reach back to our natural, human indigenous psycho-spiritual relationship with our planet, there are many far-reaching and deep issues facing us. Some of rest directly on the disturbing effects of more than two thousand years of evangelical monotheism. 'Savior cults' started attracting public excitement between two and three thousand years ago claiming a single great Spirit (God) would relieve human suffering. Human beings born of a dirty, animalistic Earth were supposedly incapable of spiritual attainment on their own, so a 'savior' would appear, and make everything alright again.
From this came centuries of ignorance and intolerance. Sacred focus and efforts became directed away from the Earth, and everything not human became mere tools and materials for human use and dominion. A kind of magical reliance on belief and faith became a higher authority than open-eyed awareness through direct experience and natural consequences .
The contemporary illness of our Earth due to human degradation is at least in part, undoubtedly a consequence of these misguided ideas. However, these same ideas became normalized in human consciousness.
A contemporary shamanic practitioner is likely to find him or herself within a persistent climate of monotheistic savior-cults, where the Earth was (and still is) a mere tool for human use, and within a cultural predisposition where the Divine is held separate from Earth. All such things and more, conspire to deeply affect practitioners trying to make sense of it all.
One of the more familiar of the awkward encounters between today's shamanic resurgence and the monotheistic environment in which this is largely taking place, is when we hear a clear but confusing dissonance between those who talk with 'Spirit', and those who talk with 'spirits'. This is something that is actually, quite often noticed, but rarely discussed.
I recently received a letter from a practitioner who led a group in the shamanic practice of 'calling in the directions' at their home. Sometimes referred to as 'calling in the spirits of the directions' or 'calling in the spirits', this practice differs throughout the globe, yet shares the common core of being human amidst the many cycles of human experience.
The practice calls to a participant's attention a number of markers within Earth-wide cycles, such as those of one's lifespan, the unfolding of a day, the seasons of the year, and even the whirring unfolding of moments of thought or existence itself.
I read the letter with heartfelt interest, as it recalled my own experience of bringing shamanism back to the monotheistic culture in which I lived. She wrote of her experience in Calling the Directions,
"I am aware of being very green in the sense of the spiritual communion I am invoking... Oddly, I feel much more reverential of the spirits I'm calling on now than when I called upon a singular sense of Spirit of all spirits... I'm not feeling fear necessarily, but a huge sense of 'the unknown'".
I can relate to a sense of unfamiliarity. I know I certainly went through much thought over this in my shamanic growth. Sorting out the 'spirit' vs. 'spirits' conundrum is to some degree, a concern that is either widely faced - or widely ignored - by shamanic practitioners within a predominately monotheistic culture.
An idea of there being just one god (a sort of 'super-spirit') has found its way over the past couple of thousand years into a normalized and broadly held concept. A shamanic practitioner today who begins working with 'spirits' as a multitude instead of working with a single, overarching spirit, assuredly makes a courageous leap. This is especially true when leading others, for there can be an unspoken, but palpable awkwardness.
So what do we call for: spirit, or spirits? Are we talking about an 'it', a 'them' or what? Some practitioners, even well known and respected ones, simply define practitioners who work with a single overarching spirit, as not practicing shamanism.
When I hear this, my response is: "Hold on!" Rather than make a serious leap of faith and presume that one, or another determination of reality is absolutely right forevermore and across all time and space, let's reconsider. To do presume one specific model of reality to be the 'true' model begs the foundation of shamanism itself.
A shamanic practitioner is very different from those who derive their ideas about spiritual reality from the texts of a faith-based religion. Shamanic practitioners do not start with beliefs about the world and then proceed to understand it according to those beliefs. Rather, shamanic practitioners start from direct experience, and then gather more and more direct experiences, and from these, proceed to put together a personal understanding of how the world is.
Shamans are like prisms: through themselves they gather their experiences and sort these out into the various 'colors' that they alone can see. In this way, no two shamans are ever alike: each understands ordinary and nonordinary reality in the way that their experiences suggest. When calling the directions, one practitioner may see many spirits in the East, another, only one. A third may see One Great Spirit that might manifest in different ways, while a fourth, observes none of these, but instead, the many essences of what directions such as the East bring to mind.
Which of these is right? The answer is easy. All of them.
Practitioners must individually come to their own conclusions about reality... I am not saying this just because I think it is a good idea, but because this is the nature of a shaman: he or she is recognized for setting aside their community's general consensus about how reality is put together, and instead, forms their own conclusions based on their individual experiences. This shamanic way of proceeding is actually a very scientific approach: let the data lead to the hypotheses.
We practitioners are each waiting for our experiences to provide us with the data from which concepts can be constructed, rather than approaching our experience with a preemptory model of reality and simply viewing and interacting from that assumption.
Language is heavily laden with concepts that have already decided how reality is put together. A culture's predominant language also reflects the basic ideas about the nature of reality for which there is the most consensus. When a shamanic practitioner is aware of this, we consider what words we use so that we leave the determination of the nature of reality - particularly spiritual reality - up to those with whom we are working.
Thus the frequently encountered practice of 'calling in the directions' can serve as a great case in point. Do we call to the 'spirit of the East' as if there was one East spirit to whom we beckon, or the 'spirits of the East' by indicating there may be several or even lots of Eastern spirits? Or, should we be calling to 'Spirit, who in the East..." as if there was but one transcendent spirit with different manifestations?
Before we too hastily assume that it should be one or the other, we might even further consider a 'spirit' of something to indicate a kind of deeper, shared meaning beneath something, such as how we think of the 'spirit of the law' as opposed to a law's literal reading. If 'spirit' is considered in this way, it can refer to innumerable associations with a particular direction entity. For instance, the 'spirit of the East' might be associated with 'new beginnings' or to birds, or the air, or to the dawn, spring, or childhood.
When I call in the directions, I like to provide many, various associations that may fit with each direction. I do not have a picture somewhere in my conscious or unconscious mind of some particular entity or entities. I form my words with a recognition that it is up to each human being with whom I am working to determine for him or herself their own, sacred and individual understanding of spiritual reality. After all, who am I to predetermine such a thing for them? I try to leave it to each practitioner to find their own way of sorting out how reality, particularly spiritual reality, is put together.
After all, this is what I would want for myself.
