The Shaman Within

Know you the Shaman? He dances with life, he pushes away illusions, he produces a space to heal into. We all have a Shaman within us. He is built into our nature (where do you think the idea of an ‘outside’ Shaman came from)?

In most cultures, of every kind, an acknowledgment of a Shaman exist, as a helper, healer and bringer of health, joy and balance. Some cultures use outside persons to participate as a Shaman, but it is possible and, indeed, healthy to develop and make use of the natural Shaman within our own psychic systems.

Often in our lives, we get balled up with cobwebby thoughts, griefs, feelings and situations that we have co-created within ourselves and with others. They are like black holes and most of our positive attitudes, feelings, and desires become sucked into them. It is like a downward spiral of negative emotions, feelings and attitudes feeding on themselves and we can't quite explain how or when we arrived in such an unpleasant place.

It happens during times of fear. Fear for our well being, fear for loved ones, and almost all the time, has to do with the unknown. We start making up stuff in our heads, in our hearts, a whole bunch of ‘what ifs’ that build upon themselves and produce fuzzy thinking, anger and deep unrest within ourselves and is passed on to others. The conglomerate we term ‘stress’. We ignore the facts and seem to concentrate on the building of these false ‘images’ (for lack of better word) and before we know it, situations are so clouded and crowded with our own thoughts and illusions, that we are unable to get back to stable, solid truths. It is, at this time, that the Shaman is needed and desired, for he can clear the cob webs, settle the sediments in our heads, and allow us to pause for a moment to contemplate the reality before the storm, before the fuzz, before the confusion, before the stress.

Taking our clues from film, the written word, and television, through shows like National Geographic, we can begin to relate a bit to the Shaman. The tasks he is able to accomplish and the healing he is able to set in motion. The removal, or change of confused, spiral thinking, feeling, and actions. The stopping of our participation with the stresses.

In comes the Shaman, headdress on, painted and dudded up in attire that befits the chaser of confusions, illusions and fears. He dances, he sings, he rattles bones, he chants, and he steps high, waves his arms, sprinkles magic dust into the fire of life and speaks in a tongue foreign to our controlled and contrite way of thinking. His job is serious and he behaves in ways that the controlled mind and the dead set emotions cannot possibly follow. This action, while, to the onlooker, may seem archaic and silly, breaks the thought process, stops the spiraling of negative progression, in the subject who has come for help. The ceremony, the dance, the chanting and the rattling creates a break in the confused state, a clear space, where a ladder to reality can be found. It stops the internal banter, if only for a few minutes, but long enough to allow the subject to reconnect to the reality of the situation. It clears the fog, chases the blues, produces a crack in the foggy midst.

The internal banter stopped, the gateway to a different way of thinking about the situation can be put into motion which will in turn change the reality of it. In other words, a different illusion can be born, one that suites us better, one that is based upon a different more truthful foundation, one that we can work with in order to avoid the stress and pain of the previous illusion. Back to what ‘really is’ instead of an imagined state of affairs.

There is the internal Shaman, which most of us never take advantage of, that can do the same thing. It comes in a form of repeated words, like the saying of the rosary beads, the repeating of a mantra, or the singing, at the top of your lungs, along with the radio in your car, or the getting down on a dance floor to a tune you love. It is letting yourself get so involved with something else, that it breaks the syndrome of the situation and therefore breaks the spiraling. It allows you to take a break from the situation and so when you look again, if you wish, you can view it with fresh eyes, with fresh clear emotions and begin the sorting of truths and illusions. Producing a path to create an emotional balance with any given situation, through clear thinking, if you desire.

It is that ‘if you desire’ that starts the ball rolling. There has to first be the desire, the intention to remove the confusion, the fear, the negative emotions, the stress. There has to be the desire to come to an evenness with something in order to sort it out. The desire to figure it out, to make a change. After that, the last point of reality has to be found. The last point of reality is the place where all agreed, where what was, was. It is the place where nothing can be argued against -- better known as the bare facts without the emotional entanglement, without the made up illusions. The place before you started participating with the ‘what ifs’. This space or place, can only be found when the ‘spell’ of the spiral thinking and feeling is stopped and it is the Shaman, with his rattles, chants and high stepping that can break the syndrome so that last point can be found. Then, and only then, can a different reality, different illusion, different space or place be created.

Emotions and mind sets can be changed. Not an easy task at first, gets easier with practice. But there are always choices and a gazillion ways to produce joy, peace and contentment, even in the worse of circumstances, if we desire.

- by Prissy Hamilton

The Worry Witch Speaks

I do a lot of 'Ising'. I learned to ‘Is’ a long time ago while meditating. ‘Ising’ is a form of meditation, as I see it. It just isn’t as formal. No mantras, no rituals, no structure. I just sit (and it can be anywhere at anytime) and ‘be’. Thoughts come and go, experiences are reminded and let go, it is a state of ‘evenness’ with myself and others. Often I have thoughts and ideas that I grab onto and run with - letting them unfold in my mind and emotions. Sometimes I learn wondrous things about myself and the world around me. That is how I met the Worry Witch.

Somewhere between the mental and emotional universities of my being came a sadness and I pursued the experience. There, in a crystalline universe, was a little chubby witch like character who began to tell me her story. Here it is:

I’m so fat and it is all your fault. You need to understand a few things about us and if you have time, stamina and an openness of heart, you can help both of us have a more joyful existence.
I was birthed a very long time ago in the human life line. I was birthed with purpose and intent and I did my job very well until recently when I have become too fat to really serve my purpose - to really help the human species. I was birthed to protect you. To help you out in times of danger. I click into gear during times of what you call the ‘fight or flight’ experiences. I enable you to run faster, pick up heavy items, think clearly, and, in general, enable you to suss out a situation and react in a way that will help you keep yourself and your species safe from physical harm. I am the one that tells your brain to release adrenaline.

Adrenaline is a powerful harmone, a powerful tool that you have at your disposal. It is not supposed to be released every day. Like every other powerful tool, too much of it can become dangerous and harmful to your being. But used when you are in true physical danger, it can and does save your life and many others.

I am not responsible nor should I be forced to deal with the mud on the carpet that the neighborhood children tracked in. That has nothing to do with your physical well-being. I am not responsible nor should I be forced to deal with the phone call that hasn’t come. But make no mistake, when a tiger fancies you for his lunch - I will be there. I will allow your legs to run faster, I will allow you to maneuver in order to get out of danger. When a car in the opposite lane careens into your lane, I will help you react in the best interest of all concerned. Then we can work together and truly produce miracles. I have grown fat with all the non- dangers that you force upon me and should a time come when you truly need me to help you, I will be too fat to ride my broom and help you out. I will be sluggish and stumbling - and I won’t feel very good about the job I am trying to do.

Often, you create a Warlock with your worry - that is a more powerful creation than I. Warlock is a worry witch that has gone wild and it is very powerful within your being. It is often very angry and nasty - teasing and pushing you to respond in ways you otherwise would not, ways that are not very helpful to you or to others.

The most worrisome thing to you is the unknown, the unknowable is the worry. Once you start to imagine on this trek - you don’t seem to know when to stop. You make up all sorts of stuff in your mind and you get yourself all tied up in knots and balls and then you are in physical pain because of it. You cannot change the unchangeable. You cannot use your worry to change something that you don’t know to begin with. You also cannot change the way others are or how they react and think. You cannot take on other peoples problems, they are not yours to own. If others reacted to situations the way you think they should, or the way you would, this would be a world of cloned individuals that aren’t very individual at all. Your beauty is in your uniqueness - not in your sameness.

Please realize that I am not supposed to react to small things that have nothing to do with your physical danger. The next time you start to pull me up and start worrying about something that you cannot change, something you have no control over, something that is not harmful to your physical being - you will hear a little voice which will be mine. And it will say, ‘Are you in physical danger?' and if you have to say no, in order to be honest with yourself and me, then I will do everything in my power not to react with adrenaline, but I’ll need your help, for we are in this together.’

Adrenaline, when used daily, will make you old, it will wear down your bones, wrinkle your skin, cause you to be preoccupied with things that aren’t yours to worry about, get you in trouble as far as your relationships are concerned and, in general, shorten your physical life and play havoc with your joy.

Pull a little discernment into your life and figure out the differences. You will be happier and I will be skinnier and able to help you better. We both will live long and prosper. Stop trying to turn house cats into mountain lions. You would have an easier time in doing this if you only allowed others to be, to do their thing, and not judge the journey they are taking. Discern when to face situations head on and when to hang back and allow.

I travel on a crystalline shaft (broom) which is called hope, don’t feed me so much otherwise I will break my broom - and hope will disappear. And in the years to come - hope is going to be a vital part of your well being. Together, let us protect and care for it properly.

Prissy Hamilton - all rights reserved

What Exactly Do We Mean by Energy?

There is energy around us all the time. We, generally, have normalized it to the point that we don't consciously recognize it.

Here are some examples:

Electricity: We can feel it when it shocks us, it is in all our light bulbs, our televisions, and our hair dryers. We can see the effects of it in the form of lightening in the sky, we can hear it's effects as thunder, but we never truly see electricity. We are all aware of static electricity when we shock ourselves after walking across carpet in dry weather. We see the spark and feel it, but we don't actually see it being created.

Electricity is even in our own bodies. For example, our body's electricity powers the neurons in our brains so they can speak to each other and they send messages that travel from 200 - 400 miles per hour. This enables us to think. We don't see it nor do we consciously feel it.

Emotions are energy. We can feel them, we can see them displayed in various forms, but we never actually see the emotion/energy itself. Joy and excitment puts a bounce in our walk.

Wind is an energy. We see its effects, the trees bending and the leaves moving, we see the damage it can do in hurricanes, but we never see the wind itself.

Some of this energy science can measure, others science has not created the equipment to measure it with yet, but it exist in everything.

Some of us can feel energy, some of us are capable of seeing energy in the form of 'auras', and some of us don't see them or feel them at all, but have a kind of 'knowingness' - a sense about it.

It is entirely fair to say that there in 'unseen' energy all around us - in everything we think, everything we do, everything we see. We live, virtually, in a sea of energy. So can you really say that you don't know about energy? Of course you do, you just haven't given it much thought!

Fall, an internal busy time of year

Fall is looming. The last vestibules of katydids are singing and the fire flies are long gone. Squirrels are rushing to and fro, gathering and storing and the leaves of a spent summer are falling. Even I can feel a solemn withdrawal within myself. Frost will soon fall on the land.

This is the time of year that I become the observer of myself and the universe. I watch and listen, I piece together insights, connect with my sixth sense and withdraw the facades. The facades melt easily in the presence of fall and winter.

The Chinese call it a Yang time of year. A tightening in, a coagulation of what the fullness of summer spawn.

It’s a time of micro thinking unless you step through the thin veil and allow the macro-ness of the whole of life to come into consciousness for understanding and observation. It is the ‘in-breath’ time of year and it is perfect for is-ing, for discovery, insights, answers and ideas. It’s a play ground for musings, silent meaningful gifts to the self. It is the conception of ideas, thoughts, ponderings that will produce the coming spring’s crop.

It is the time for inward feeling and outward thinking. It is a duality that we experience year after year. It is an opportunity to settle in and get serious about what we want, the steps we are willing to take to get there and the fearlessness with which we are going to accept it.

It is a time to clean emotional cobwebs lurking in the corners of the lofty rafters of our inter emotional and thinking laboratories. A time to count coup with self sabotaging stratums and self defeating mechanics. Time is allowed to sweep the floor and clear it of all remnants of past regressions and present frustrations.

It is filled with moments to shop for the bulbs we want in our coming gardens, to figure out the floor plan of the coming season, to entertain fancies and projections of what we would like to bring into reality, third dimension solidity. Indeed, it is a time to play with ‘what might bes’ and put away thoughts of ‘what was not’ and ‘if onlys’.

So, in these days of gatherings, of musings, of inter contemplation and projections, I wish you well, my world, my universe, my people, my sisters and brothers. Sow it with well-meaning thoughtfulness, think it out, macro-nize it and visualize it into a balance, a centered-ness so that spring can manifest for the goodness of the whole.

Prissy Hamilton - all rights reserved

My Yellow Bucket - a finding of self

It was midmorning. A fire was softly crackling in the wood stove and the room was bright and calm. I sat in front of the Story Teller once again.

“Have you seen your yellow bucket?” he asked of me in a soft voice.

“No”, I replied slowly, as my mind raced to find a memory of a yellow bucket.

“Well, you will see it,” he said in a confident sort of way.

“What is it?” I ventured verbally.

“All of your life,” he began, “you have carried your Yellow Bucket with you wherever you have gone. Over the years, you have put in it all those many many things that you chose to keep. Your bucket, now, has become very heavy and filled with so many things that it will not hold any more. Not long ago, you found an emerald and because there was no room left in your yellow bucket, you have been carrying it around in your other hand. Now, you see a beautiful diamond and you desire to have that, too, but no longer do you have any way of carrying it.”

One and One make Three - Relationship Dynamics

When two people meet, they begin to create a relationship creature which is separate than the two of them. They each put into the creature, feelings, thoughts, desires and hopes that they want. Sometimes it ends up looking like a fuzzy, cozy white polar bear and sometimes it ends up looking like a vampire. No matter what it ends up looking like, it is seemingly alive and well and after nurturing (for the best or for the worst), it begins to take on a life of its own. Relationship creatures are created with emotions, assumptions, and non spoken agreements, verbal communications as well as non-verbal communications and the inability to recognize that we are separate individuals and need to keep it that way. Women, especially, have the tendency to forget that last part.

Without spoken agreements, clarity and discernment, the common tendency is to fall victim of the unspoken agreements and often times, begin doing each others dirty laundry (metaphysically speaking and sometimes literally speaking).

We each bring into relationships our own special way of thinking, our own emotional bag of tricks, we pedal our own wares. Some of them belong in the make up of the creature and others do not.

The formation of unspoken agreements leads down paths and creates things that we seldom really consciously comprehend. If you do something once, it is accepted by the other as chance, do the same thing twice and it is noticed, do it for the third time and it is considered by the other person as an (unspoken agreement) - they hire you for that job forever more. Take the garbage, for instance. The first time you take it out, is a nice act on your part, appreciated and is considered considerate. The second time you do it, it is noticed. Gee, the garbage is being taken out, I like that. The third time you do it, you better be prepared to do it from now on because it is now considered your job. You agreed silently to take it on as well. You co-created this job as being yours. And on the fourth day - if you don’t take out the garbage, then you face righteous indignation from the other person. You have been taking out the garbage, why didn’t you do it today, I expected you to do it and had a guest for breakfast and there was the garbage smelling up the house. I was embarrassed and it was all your fault. But, if you were to put a verbal response to that action in the first place - it would be a different story and the creature would be created in a different way. You could have said, I’m taking out the garbage again today, but don’t expect me to do it every morning. I am not agreeing to do it every day. Or, the other person could have said, I see that you have been taking out the garbage for the past several days, I want you to know that I won’t expect you to do it every day as it is our house and our garbage. And the other person might reply, Well, I will take this on as my job. I will be the garbage remover, I will agree to do that. This sort of verbal response and communication sets up a whole different ambiance within the relationship, and creates a relationship creature based on actual spoken agreements, that can be changed any time and adjusted, but can be counted on while they are in place.

There are some personal things that do not belong in a relationship creature. Our personal baggage, our personal trials, worries, concerns, needs and things of that nature. We each have to maintain our own sandbox and we have no business asking others to come clean up our sandbox just as we have no business jumping into someone else's sandbox and trying to fix it, either. As my friend once said to me, this is my problem, I get to fix it and sort it out. If you jump in and try to fix it for me, then you take away the chance of my fixing it myself, learning how to do it and feeling good about it.

A real good agreement to have in a relationship is that the other person agrees not to own your personal stuff and you agree not to own their personal stuff. When you have a problem, and you want to discuss it with someone, you can say, Please don’t own this, it is my concern, but I would like to share it with you in the form of you listening and perhaps giving me your point of view.

After a while, relationship creatures take on a life of their own. They are made of energy, and they get to pull energies from places that humans can’t and they can create magic - white or black depending what energy they have been created of.

When a relationship is over, and there is only one person that is putting into a relationship creature, it starts to die. It pulls at you, nags you, prompts you to hang on. These are the times, when we want to let go of a relationship and find it almost impossible to do so. It is a help to know that it is the relationship creature, going through it’s own stuff. If we recognize this, we can allow it, acknowledge it and say, yes, I sense that you are sick and unhappy, I’m sorry, but it is not mine to fix. Sometimes this is a way of breaking loose from the ‘tie that binds’ us to relationships that are over.

It is interesting to me that people think about relationships as being ‘joined together’ - who wants to be joined with someone else? - I have enough trouble just figuring out my own sandbox.I mean, even Siamese twins are separated - and besides, I like my sand box. I like being able to look at it and say, Oh my goodness, I sure have created a mess this time, so I think I’ll create something else because this doesn’t serve me very well. When I create a nightmare - I try to wrap it in love to remove the sharp edges and send it on its way. I have created many things in my life, I have danced with lots of illusions and I am aware that I can change the agreements and therefore the way the illusions look.

© Prissy Hamilton - 7/2008