 |
 |
| |
| Departments |
Home
Columns, Special
Topics & Features:
The Columns:
Angels, Guides, &
Loving Spirits:
Ask The Psychics Q&A:
Reading by Adena
Reading by Aeon
Reading by Fyre
Angel Blessings:
with Dr. Doreen Virtue
Ask Valerie Morrison,
Internationally
Acclaimed Psychic
Trust Your Vibes
By Dr. Sonia Choquette, PhD.
Internationally Acclaimed Psychic Healer & Author
Love Letters
by Erika Morrell,
Soul Mate Medium™
Astrologer's Notes:
Carin Martin,
Astrologer
Donna Cunningham, MSW, Astrologer
Basil Fearrington,
Astrologer
Diana Stone,
Astrologer &
Huna Shaman
Jeff Jawer
Astrologer
Ray Merriman,
Financial Astrology:
MMA Market Week
Noel Tyl,
Astrologer
Daily Aspect Calendar
by Care
MoonWatching with Dana Gerhardt and Friends
Starlight Musings
by Nancy Sommers,
Mundane Astrologer
Creating Bridges:
The Spiritual &
Philosophical
Act of Power
Discovering the Key to Living Your Sacred Dream
by Lynn Andrews
Avant-Gardening:
Insights
by Frank &
Vicky Giannangelo
From The Heart:
Alan Cohen
Teachings from the Western Mystery Traditions: The Esoteric "Paths of Return"
by Jacquelyn Small, Eupsychia
Spirituality in Daily Life: by Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron
The Conscious Column
by David Ault
Spiritual Mastery
for the 21st Century
Dr. Gwen MacGregor
Encounters on the
Shaman's Path with
Dr. Hank Wesselman, PhD.
Anthropologist, Zoologist, Author, Shamanic Healer & Teacher
The Divine Human
by Ornesha De Paoli
Awakenings
by Karen Johnson
Worshipping by Wondering with
Sankara Saranam, MA Founder of the Pranayama Institute
Wisdom Walks in Circles
by Margaret Lewis
Author & Shamanic Practitioner:
Water For The Dry Sponge: Chronicles and Essays
by Shaun Brown,
Be Well Publications
“I of my own knowledge…”
by Frank DeMarco,
Author, Editor, & Psychic Explorer
Crystals, Minerals
& Gemstones
Light and Love with Crystals, Minerals & Gemstones
by Raven,
Raven Crystals
Furry & Feathered Family Members:
Dr. Carson's Holistic Animal Care
by Dr. Kathleen Carson, D.V.M.
Animal Insights
by Charlene Boyd, Animal Communicator,
talk-to-animals.com
Healing & Alternative
Health:
"Spirit and Practice
of the Wise Woman
Tradition"
By Susun Weed
The Holistic Mystic,
by Lonny Brown
Medical Intuition: Tune
in to Your Body and Improve Your Health
by Caroline Sutherland, Sutherland Communications
Transformational Healing through the Violet Flame!
by Eva Kettles
Herbs for Health
with Kami McBride
Cure Your Cravings
...For Life
Rena Greenberg,
Practitioner of Neuro Linguistic Programming & Hypnotherapist
Humor:
Wake Up Laughing.Com:
Swami Beyondananda
Interviews:
Watch for Upcoming Announcements
Kabbalah:
Kabbalah Revealed:
Rav Michael Laitman, PhD, Kabbalalist
Numberscope Forecast
by Vincent J. Barra
Oracle & Divination Systems:
Be Your Own Oracle
by James Wanless, Ph.D. Creator of the Voyager Tarot Deck
Resources:
Archives
Blessings & Messages
The Book Nook
The Directory
Event Calendar
Historical Notes & Data
The MetaPersonals
S.O.L.A.R.®:
S.O.L.A.R ®
Beyond Materiality. Beyond Spirituality. Toward the Complete Human Being...
by Martin Lass, Emissary
Tarot:
Moment to Moment
by Gigi Miner
Author, Tarot Consultant, & Teacher
Reviews:
Tarot, Cartomancy,
Oracle Decks,
Books, & Software.
by Bonnie Cehovet,
Tarot Educator
Tidbits:
Almanac of the Ancients
by TripleMoonGoddess
News Briefs
Op-Ed
Pearls of Wisdom
by Astro Aeon
& Astro Care
Symbols, Seals,
Amulets & Talismans
The What in the
World Department
Trivia & Life's Other
Novel Moments
Publisher's Corner
General Information:
Advertising Information & Opportunities:
The Directory Advertising Rates
Premium Pages:
Groups 1, 2 & Display
Advertising Rates
The BookNook
Advertising Rates
About
The Meta Arts Magazine
Editorial Submission
Information:
Contact Us
Legal Notices
|
|
|
|
|
|
Encounters on
the Shaman's Path
with anthropologist Dr. Hank Wesselman, PhD.
|
|
|
by Dr.Hank Wesselman, P.h.D. |
|
|
Aboriginal Wisdom
My last month’s column (2/08) was focused upon an extraordinary encounter in the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid during a travel group in Egypt in January 2003. In a nutshell (or bombshell), it appears that on that day, a connection was established across the space-time continuum between my conscious awareness and the mind of another sentient being in another star system.
To achieve this connection, I first used the shamanic method to expand my consciousness, and in the soaring ecstasy of this crystalline state, I then began to engage in an exercise that I learned from the indigenous peoples—one that could be called ‘deep listening.’
The rest then happened, facilitated at least in part by the pyramid itself. In fact it may be that the pyramid is a device specifically designed by its builders to facilitate inter-stellar communication. (See the Meta Arts Archives.)
Experiences such as this one may strike Western people as imaginary, fictitious or wishful thinking at best, yet they are familiar ground for the indigenous shaman. So I would like to say a bit more about indigenous wisdom in this month’s essay… but first a few ‘givens.’
We Westerners live in a world of continual and unrelenting distraction. Our days begin with the newspapers in the morning, our work world during the day, and varying levels of television in the evenings—the news anchors followed by various sitcoms and films and endless, meaningless sporting events.
In addition, there are our email accounts and the internet, our self-promoting schemes and our ever-changing life-styles, replete with families and friends, restaurants and films and various cultural events, all of which are continually injected with a vengeance into the multi-leveled template that we call life.
This means that we Westerners are in a state of continual motion (and emotion), both in the outer world in which we act, as well as in our inner worlds in which we think, feel and dream.
Throughout our days, and our nights, our minds are never, ever still. The internal chatter in our heads continues to surge this way and that, dealing with our problems and our fears and our widely-flung networks of relationships with everyone, everywhere.
In response to all of this, we Westerners worry… and we worry a lot.
This brings me to consider a quite different state of being, one that the indigenous peoples of the world know well—a state that few in the Western world remember or even care about, although as I make this statement, I have to acknowledge that those worthies who have a meditation or yoga practice will know exactly what I’m talking about.
Among some of the Australian Aboriginal peoples, this state of being is known as ‘dadirri,’ a term that literally translates into English as ‘deep listening.’
I recently received an email from some unknown soul—an unexpected missive that came in out of the ethers that included the words of an Australian Aboriginal elder named Miriam Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann.
I had never heard of her before, but as I read through her brief statement, I realized that her narrative was filled with power in its simplicity and directness. Miriam Rose’s message is clearly for all of us, and so I would like to share some of it with you here enhanced by some information about Aboriginal thought.
For starters, Miriam Rose defines the ability called dadirri as a special quality that allows us to make contact with a deep spring that lies within all of us. To connect with that spring requires that we achieve a state of quiet, still awareness—dadirri. It is similar to what we Westerners call ‘contemplation.’
Miriam Rose proclaims that this contemplative focus permeates their entire way of life, their whole being—that dadirri continually renews the Aboriginals on a day-to-day basis, bringing them peace, creating harmony where there is disharmony, producing balance where there is imbalance, restoring health where there is illness.
There are no great hidden truths here, no ‘secret knowledge’ hidden away for centuries, waiting for a bunch of New Age charismatics with power point presentations to rediscover them, excavate them, and write a book about them, proclaiming them as the solution to all our problems, personal and collective...
This Aboriginal woman’s message conveys a simple and unmistakable truth—that the practice of dadirri makes them feel whole again. She shares that the Aboriginals cannot live good and useful lives unless they practice dadirri and that they learned how to do this from their ancestors.
As a Westerner who is has done time in the indigenous world, I can appreciate this traditional woman’s words. During my years spent among the tribal peoples of Africa, for example, one of the things that I learned is that they are not threatened by silence. Au contraire, they are completely at home in it. Their traditional ways have taught them how to be still and how to listen to the silence.
Accordingly, they do not try to hurry things up. Rather they allow them to follow their natural courses—like the seasons… and they wait.
So the Aboriginal woman’s message from Australia conveys a familiar message as well as an extraordinary claim—that they don’t worry… that they never worry. They know that in the practice of dadirri—the deep listening and quiet stillness of the soul—that all ways will be made clear to them in time.
The Aboriginals are not ‘goal oriented’ in the same way that we Westerners are programmed to be from childhood, nor do they attempt ‘to push the river’ which they know with absolute certainty is an exercise in absolute futility.
In Miriam Rose’s words: “We are like the tree standing in the middle of a bushfire sweeping through the timber. The leaves are scorched and the tough bark is scarred and burnt, but inside the tree, the sap is still flowing and under the ground, the roots are still strong. Like the tree, we have endured the flames and yet we still have the power to be reborn.”
After more than 200 years of assimilationist practices inflicted upon them by church and state alike, the Australian Aboriginals are still here. They are used to the ongoing struggle and to the long waiting. In this sense, they still wait for the white people to understand them better.
They have spent many generations learning about Western ways. They have learned to speak our language and have listened to what we have to say. Yet they continue to wait for us to come closer to them. They long for those things they have always hoped for—respect and understanding.
In Miriam Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann’s words: “We know that our white brothers and sisters carry their own particular burdens. We carry burdens as well. Yet I believe that if they let us come to them, if they would open up their minds and hearts to us and hear what we have to say, we might lighten their burdens. There is a struggle for all of us, but we, unlike them, have not lost our spirit of dadirri.”
She concludes her message to us by observing “I believe that the spirit of dadirri that we have to offer to the world will help you Westerners to blossom and grow, not just within yourselves, but within your nation as well…
“There are deep springs within each of us and within them, there is a sound—the sound of the deep calling to the deep. The time for rebirth is now. If our culture (and your culture) is alive and well, as well as strong and respected, it will grow. In such a case, our culture will not die, (nor will yours), and our spirits will not be lost. We will continue, together, as this was always meant to be.”
This wonderful statement reminds me of a paper I read years ago, an essay in an anthology called Shamanism: Expanded Views of Reality edited by Shirley Nicholson and published in 1987. The paper is titled ‘The Dreamtime, Mysticism, and Liberation: Shamanism in Australia,’ and it is authored by the Venerable E. Nandisvara Nayake Thero PhD, then the chief Sanghanayaka of the Theravada Order of Buddhist monks in India.
A former professor of comparative religion at Madras University, as well as director of the Maha Bodhi Society of Sri Lanka and secretary general of the World Sangha Council, Dr. Nandisvara had recently returned from a research expedition with an anthropological team in Australia, where he had lived for some time with a native Aboriginal community—in his words, an extremely ancient race whose way of life (hunting and gathering) had not substantially changed for perhaps 35,000 years.
In his report, Dr. Nandisvara makes an extraordinary statement.
“To those who judge the degree of (a) culture by the degree of (its) technological sophistication, the fact that the Australian natives live in the same fashion now as they did thousands of years ago may imply that they are uncivilized or uncultured.
“However, I would suggest that if (a) civilization be defined (by) the degree of polishing of an individual’s mind and the building of his or her character, and if that culture (reflects) the measure of our self-discipline as well as our level of consciousness, then the Australian Aboriginals are actually one of the most civilized and highly cultured peoples in the world today.”
From his conversations with their shamans and spiritual elders, Dr. Nandisvara concluded that their spiritual tradition is highly advanced and that their religious beliefs are parallel with those found in the various branches of the Perennial Philosophy.
For example, the Aboriginal elders told Dr. Nandisvara that the spirit of a human being is always in contact with the higher spiritual realms of being, even if there may be no awareness of this contact in one’s ordinary state of consciousness. They informed him that this gives to each one of us an extraordinary gift in that there can be direct communication between the human and the divine planes of being without the need for any ecclesiastical intermediary or priest.
In other words, in Aboriginal thought, there is quite simply no great impassable gulf between the human and the divine—a perception that is in direct opposition to most esoteric schools of theology, including Judeo-Christianity.
This is why the Aboriginals had no need to develop any organized religion run by a bureaucratized and stratified priesthood. What they have instead is an authentic spiritual egalitarianism in which they, as individuals, can access the Dreamtime through trance, giving them direct and immediate access into the spiritual dimensions through the shamanic techniques of ecstasy.
This ability gives them an unshakable authority to make highly evolved philosophical observations. For example, like the religious thanatologies of other spiritual traditions, the Aboriginals describe the progression of human consciousness after death as “survival in infinity.” They know from direct experience that the individual point of contact with the infinitude of cosmic consciousness continues to expand after death until it is co-extensive with it… until it literally ‘becomes’ it.
This is not a theory for the Aboriginals, nor is it a concept. It is a percept based upon their own direct experience, a revelation that is revealed also in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. The Hindus and Buddhists use the word Samadhi to describe this state. The Aboriginals call it the Dreamtime, yet it is clear from their descriptions of it that empirically and phenomenologically, these states (Samadhi and the Dreamtime) are the same.
Dr Nandisvara’s essay also reports that there is a tradition of personal spiritual aspiration in Aboriginal society that is similar to that found in yoga. This is not surprising as the shamanic tradition is the ancestral precursor to the yogic tradition.
The four stages of life in Hinduism are: brahmacharya—unmarried student; grihastha—married householder with children; vanaprastha—forest dweller; and sannyasa—wanderer.
During the last years of their lives, many of the Aboriginal elders leave their communities and go off alone into the mountains to engage in spiritual practices, much as in the last two stages of the Hindu system which are characterized by solitary retirement to the forest, a striving for spiritual understanding, and preparation for death.
One of the techniques reported by Dr. Nandisvara practiced by such “renunciate Aboriginal elders” is gazing at the sky with wide-open eyes. This is not a type of astronomy or astrology. Rather it is a meditative method used to obtain spiritual inspiration and intuition directly from the cosmos.
In Buddhism, Yoga, Judeo-Christianity, and other relatively recent religious systems, ‘sky philosophies’ predominate in which the concepts of space and sky deities are of greatest religious import (i.e. angels, archangels and the Judeo-Christian sky god). In opposition to this are the earlier religious as well as indigenous traditions in which ‘earth philosophies’ were the norm, focused as they were upon the Earth as Mother as well as other earthly deities or fertility goddesses as the predominate objects of reverence.
Interestingly, in Aboriginal thought, both philosophies are present. The Earth is the basis for all spiritual studies during the first and intermediate stages of life. But with the approach of life’s end, the basic Earth study is completed and there is an ascent of spirit toward the boundless reaches of the sky.
Thus, for the Australian Aboriginals, the highest spirituality is associated not with the Earth, but with the infinity of space—with cosmic consciousness itself. This again is in complete alignment with the great teachings of the Perennial Philosophy.
At this stage, both the body and the mind are absolutely still. This is not the same state associated with the chakras as described in kundalini yoga and the other esoteric schools, for it is beyond such experiences. It is in fact a withdrawal of energy from the charkas so that they no longer have any effect on the mind whatsoever.
This is the state of dadirri, a form of deep listening.
Dr. Nandisvara describes this state as the borderland between the mind that is connected to this world, and the mind that is not connected to this world—the mind that is absolutely free.
This is the state that the Aboriginal elders seek as they leave their homes and go off to live in the mountains to practice gazing at the sky. This is the shaman’s invitation to the spiritual cosmic force to approach and embrace the focus of our mind. It is and was and will forever be, union with the infinite—authentic non-dual mysticism.
This is why the philosophical models of Ken Wilber, Jurgen Habermas, and Jean Gebser, and the writings of such seekers as Duane Elgin are flawed.
These ‘armchair theorists’ lack any direct experience of the indigenous world and from their decidedly Eurocentric perspective, they simply cannot accept the fact that tribal peoples achieved many millennia ago the authentic mystical connection with the transpersonal worlds that they believe is only available to the “advanced” mystics of the eastern and western religious traditions…
It is also interesting to me that the writings of these theorists sidestep the whole issue of spirits.
Although we Westerners do not live in societies in which experience with spirits is part of our daily reality, the fact remains that more than 300 years of ethnographic writings from travelers, seekers, and the early anthropologists confirm that shamans are able to enter into relationship with spirits, and through their assistance, accomplish various things—like healing for example.
It is time, I think, to acknowledge that the indigenous tribal peoples were not and are not at some child-like form of awareness. Rather, the time has come for us allegedly ‘civilized’ Westerners to seriously reconsider their worldviews and their spiritual practices.
Their ways of being in the world have kept them and their societies alive and well for 40,000 years and more… while we who consider ourselves so highly evolved have only been here for a few hundred… and things are not going well.
Dr. Nandisvara also discusses something else of interest with relation to last month’s column about my connection with another mind on another world.
Along their way to achieving the higher states of consciousness, the shamans in Aboriginal societies are able to develop various sorts of psychic abilities. They possess, for example, the capacity to travel out of the body across the sky in an altered state of consciousness and visit any place they wish.
It is also known among the Aboriginals that their shamans can journey to the moon, or to any other planet at any time they choose. This is why they were not particularly impressed when the Apollo missions flew to the moon and back. In fact, they failed to understand why we had needed machines to go there.
Dr. Nandisvara concludes his essay by observing (with considerable reverence) that those Aboriginals still involved in their traditional lifeways are so peaceful and quiet, as well as so harmoniously in tune with Nature and the spiritual dimension.
By contrast, the rest of the world around them, including most of the so-called ‘civilized’ societies, are in crisis, dominated by murder and mayhem, political mendacity and corporate greed, killing each other in the name of whatever god they espouse, exploiting the environment and their fellow living beings of this beautiful world, only some of whom happen to be human.
There is little doubt that we are the Romans of our time. Is it therefore surprising that Dr. Nandisvara, the ‘Pope’ of India, has chosen to describe the native Australians as one of the most civilized and cultured peoples on the planet today?
Until next month, allow me to invoke the spirit of Chief Hale Makua, my great Hawaiian friend… and with his blessing (and his words), I extend to each of you the Light and the Love of the Ancestors, The Source of Life, rejoicing in the Power and the Peace, braided with the cords of Patience, revealing the tapestry of the strongest force in the Universe… your Aloha.
With warm thoughts—Dr Hank
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Dr. Hank Wesselman, P.h.D
Anthropologist, Shamanic Teacher, Healer, & Author
|
 |
Dr Hank Wesselman PhD., holds advanced degrees in anthropology and zoology from the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Since 1971, he's conducted research with an international group of scientists, exploring eastern Africa's Great Rift Valley in search of answers to the mystery of human origins--fieldwork that has allowed him to spend much of his life living and working with traditional peoples, rarely, if ever, visited by outsiders.
During this time, he has worked with many notables including Prof F. Clark Howell, Dr Don Johanson, "Lucy's" discoverer, as well as members of the famous Leakey family.
He is currently engaged in fieldwork in northern Ethiopia with the Middle Awash Research Project headed by Prof Tim White, where he is reconstructing the paleoenvironments of sites dated between four and six million years old that have yielded the fossilized remains of humanity's earliest ancestors.
Dr Wesselman has taught anthropology for the University of California at San Diego; the University of Hawai'i at Hilo's West Hawai'i campus at Kealakekua; California State University at Sacramento; American River College and Sierra College in northern California; and Kiriji Memorial College and Adeola Odutola College in Western Nigeria, where he first became interested in indigenous spiritual traditions while living among people of the Yoruba Tribe as a US Peace Corps Volunteer during the 1960s.
Dr Hank (as his students call him) is also a shaman in training, now in the 23rd year of his apprenticeship. His autobiographical trilogy Spiritwalker, Medicinemaker, and Visionseeker describes an ongoing continuum of visionary experiences that began spontaneously out in the bush of southern Ethiopia in the 1970s, resumed in Hawai'i in the 1980s, and continue to the present day.
Combining the sober objectivity of a trained scientist with a mystic's passionate search for deeper understanding, Hank's books and teachings contain revelations about the nature of reality, the self, as well as the shaman's spiritual worlds.
Since 1994, he has offered seminars and training workshops at many internationally-recognized centers such as the Esalen Institute in California, the Omega Institute near New York, and the New Millennium Institute in Hawai'i.
Hank's newest books include the Journey to the Sacred Garden: A Guide to Traveling in the Spiritual Realms, and Spirit Medicine: Healing in the Sacred Realms (co-authored with transpersonal medical practitioner and soul retrieval specialist Jill Kuykendall).
He currently serves on the advisory board of the Society for Shamanic Practitioners, is a member of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, the American Anthropological Association, the Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness, and is featured in Traveling Between the Worlds: Conversations with Contemporary Shamans by Hillary S Webb.
In addition to his scientific publications, he is at work on a book about his expeditionary field experiences in Africa.
He has also written a small book for children: Little Ruth Reddingford and the Wolf.
Contact info and workshop schedule:
www.sharedwisdom.
com
email:
hw@sharedwisdom.com
Notes & Updates
from Dr.Hank
Descriptions of the workshops and presentations offered by Hank Wesselman and his wife Jill Kuykendall, as well as the website links to the centers where they will be held in 2007, are now taking form on their web site:
www.sharedwisdom.
com
Soul Catchers
I discovered, quite by accident almost 15 years ago, that I am married to a great soul catcher. My wife Jill Kuykendall was trained in the Western medical paradigm and has worked as a physiotherapist in acute care rehabilitation in hospital as well as home health settings for more than 25 years.
Today, Jill works primarily in transpersonal medicine and has a private practice devoted to soul retrieval. Clients come to her from all over the country, as well as from abroad and she is usually booked up months in advance.
Interestingly, the transpersonal nature of this work means that it is “nonlocal’ and is just as effective when done long-distance, revealing that Jill can still do the work on behalf of those who cannot travel to meet with her in her office.
Jill is the co-author with me of Spirit Medicine and wrote the chapters on soul loss, soul retrieval and more. As you may be aware, we have a website <www.sharedwisdom.
com> where Jill has a page describing the nature of her work in soul retrieval.
For those interested, there are also two hour-long interviews with me posted on the Broadband Learning Channel <www.bblc.tv>, one of which is focused upon health, illness and healing the soul in the indigenous perspective.
|
 |
You'll find it in
The
Directory! |
|
|
|
|
