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Encounters on
the Shaman's Path
with anthropologist Dr. Hank Wesselman, PhD.
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by Dr.Hank Wesselman, P.h.D. |
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The Wizard’s Glasses
I’ve decided to share an interesting story with you this month, an account of something wonderful that happened to me around the time of the Millennium change when we were all expecting the worst from Y2K—remember that one?
Well in this one, I had been invited to be one of the plenary presenters at a conference on the Hawaiian island of Kauai—an event put on by two producers, New Age Magazine and Inner Voyages, one that celebrated our transition from the second to the third millennium. The conference was held in a hotel next to where the Wailua River empties into the Pacific ocean on the island’s east side. Needless to say, it was a sold out affair, attracting more than 600 people.
There were lots of Hawaiians who participated as well. They came as wisdom keepers and story-tellers, as dancers and lei makers and musicians. Shakti Gawain, Alan Cohen and I were the three primary speakers, and the party lasted for five days and nights. It was very simply a grand affair and we all had a blast!
On the afternoon of my plenary talk, the hotel’s extensive lobby was transformed into a “ballroom” jammed with potted palms and a sea of happy faces reflecting the spirit of aloha for which Hawaii is so well known. During my talk, I reflected about where we had been and made a few predictions about where we are headed when my thoughts unexpectedly turned toward the great mythologist Joseph Campbell.
One of Campbell’s major contributions is his revelation of the monomyth—the single great story found at the epicenter of all of our cultural myths and stories, from classic literature to afternoon soap operas on television, from best-selling novels to kids’ comic books. This is and for forever will be the story of the hero’s journey (See my columns for 10/07 and 11/07 in the Meta Arts Archives.)
On that day in the hotel in Wailua, during the waning hours of 1999, I inhaled the fragrance of the beautiful tropical flowers in the hotel lobby and reveled in the fading light as I spoke about Joseph Campbell and his awareness that each of us is the hero in our own journey—that each of us has the ability to accept the call to adventure, traverse the treacherous field of initiation, call upon our spiritual allies for help, and achieve the goal of the quest with their aid, like Aladdin (and the genie) or Frodo (and Gandalf), returning to whence we came as heroes—as masters of the two worlds, the inner and the outer, with each of us possessing the potential to become world redeemers…
I concluded my talk by asking my listeners to reflect back on who and what they had become during their time in the second millennium… and with reference to the new millennium into which we were now moving, I asked them to carefully consider three questions:
Have you lived fully?
Have you loved well?
Have you walked your path with heart?
Needless to say, my talk was a grand success, and at its end, I was mobbed by well-wishers and fans who had read my unusual books who wanted to talk with me. As the afternoon finally came to a close, I noticed an attractive, dark-haired woman waiting patiently to speak to me.
When we finally managed to do so, she told me that she was the host of a local radio show and she asked if I would consider doing a taped interview with her while I was on-island. Her name was Lani Petranek and I agreed to meet her at the hotel the following day with whatever taping equipment she wanted to bring.
When she arrived the next afternoon, finding a quiet place to do the interview was a real challenge, so I invited her to come up to my hotel room where I had a balcony overlooking the ocean to the north. She agreed and when we took up our places, she on the couch with her tape recorder and various microphones, and me in an armchair facing her, a beautiful rainbow took form in the darkening sky over the ocean outside—a good sign.
We spoke of various things for a half hour or so, getting to know each other a little, then she turned on her machine and we began the interview.
Somewhere in the midst of the narrative, I once again felt the spirit of Joseph Campbell approach (he passed in Hawai’i in 1987) and I spoke of his life’s work as well as his contributions as one of the great sages of our time. At the end of the interview, Lani quietly turned off the tape recorder and remained in silence for long moments as she gathered her thoughts to speak.
With a sad smile, she informed me that (without my knowing it) she had been one of Joseph Campbell’s close friends and that she was now one of his widow Jean Erdman’s caretakers. A great dancer who had studied with the legendary Martha Graham, Jean was now quite old and in the embrace of Alzheimer’s disease.
Lani spoke about her great days with Joe and Jean (who were married in 1938) and then our conversation shifted once again to small things. At the end, Lani departed with a fond embrace and her expressed gratitude that I had honored Joe and his work in the world as part of my talk.
The conference continued for another couple of days, and on the last morning, I took the shuttle bus from the hotel back to the Lihue airport for the inter-island flight to Honolulu to connect there with my plane back to California. This was before 9/11 and in those days, folks could still come see their friends off at the gate.
I had checked in for my flights home and was sitting at my boarding gate, reading a book (as usual), when I became aware of someone standing next to me. I looked up in surprise. It was Lani Petranek.
She was staring down at me intensely, and without saying anything, she suddenly sat down in the empty seat next to me. In her lap, she held a woven basket with a top on it. I smiled at this unexpected pleasure and then looked at her questioningly. Neither of us spoke a word for long moments, then she silently reached down and took the top off the basket.
I glanced inside. It was filled with reading glasses—half frames—the kind you buy at Long’s Drug store. I glanced back at her and the intensity of her gaze riveted me in my seat. I raised my eyebrows as she continued to lock her gaze with mine and after long moments she spoke.
“These are Joe’s reading glasses. Jean gave them to me. I think one of them is for you.”
I was stunned as the implications of her words sank in. Then I marshaled my response, honored beyond belief. These were the great man’s glasses… the great mythologist and a wizard in his own right… the ones that he had worn while reading and while writing his marvelous books.
For a long moment I just stared into her eyes and then I dropped my gaze to the basket once again. With reverence, I reached in and selected the pair on top. They were half frames—the kind I used to wear when I was just getting used to wearing glasses in my 40s. I could see where his teeth had chewed thoughtfully on the end of one of the ear pieces.
I took off my own glasses and put them on, then glanced down at my book. They were my prescription. I looked back at Lani with Joseph Campbell’s glasses perched on my nose and raised my eyebrows to see if she approved. She smiled her sad smile in return. She had already put the top back on the basket, her job done.
I smiled at her once more, this time in gratitude, with all the enthusiasm I felt in those moments. Nothing more needed to be said, so she stood up and turned, and then she was gone. I haven’t seen her since.
But now, as I sit at my computer many years later and compose my thoughts for whatever writing project is at hand, including this column destined for your eyes and your consideration, I carefully put on the great wizard’s glasses, and after a few moments’ reflection… I smile and I begin to write.
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
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Dr. Hank Wesselman, P.h.D
Anthropologist, Shamanic Teacher, Healer, & Author
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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.
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