July 10, 2003
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More Adventures of Melody Andrewsdottir
Episode Eight
In the previous episode, everyone’s favorite Lady Shaman to the Rich and Famous had arrived in Parma where she was nonplussed to see her nemesis, Mad Dog, and gratified to meet up once again with her Bushwa Indian mentor, Naomi Chortling Wolverine. She is about to receive shamanic training in preparation for a journey to acquire a power animal.
In making preparation for my first serious shamanic journey, I had many unanswered questions. Should I go first class or coach, for example? Would I need to take along a change of underwear? How about a passport?
“So much to learn,” I sighed.
“And so little time in which to learn,” Naomi reminded me. “Even as we speak, Mad Dog’s power grows. And he at least is not unmindful of the ancient sacred Ahhooah Principle that power flows from a rubber hose. So let’s get with the program, girl.”
“Very well,” I acquiesced. “I do indeed wish to fulfill my destiny as a dues-paying, card-carrying member of the Sorority of the Sow, that ancient and powerful group of wise and compassionate women (plus a few moody bitches) who are dedicated to world peace, planetary healing, and making sure that everyone brushes and flosses after every meal.”
“Right! Now the first thing you must know is that the shaman typically works in an altered state of consciousness–”
“Jeepers!” I peeped. “You mean I can get high? I have papers here somewhere…”
Naomi looked pained. “No, that is not precisely what I meant. You see, your so-called normal state of waking consciousness is beta. You need to proceed down through alpha, down farther through theta, until you reach feta, the ultimate state of consciousness, in which you can commune with spirits.”
“Are they friendly spirits?”
“Please stop interrupting, and take off those silly aviator goggles and leather helmet. In this state, you can commune with plant spirits, animal spirits, mineral spirits and sometimes even the most powerful of all, neutral grain spirits.”
“Neutral grain spirits?” I asked.
“A small jocularity,” she admitted. “I get a little tired of feeding you straight lines all the time. But I digress.”
“Once you have attained the feta state, you will seek and visualize an opening in an enormous Swiss cheese, through which you will pass into the Lowerworld. You will pass through a tunnel which will eventually dump you into the Dreamtime, where you will encounter many strange and awesome animals.
“There are several ways to tell if a specific animal is meant to be your power animal. Say you see a wolf which snarls and wets on your shoes–not a good sign. If you see a grey fox in wraparound sunglasses, who tries to get you into a game of three-card monte, watch out. And by all means, avoid turtles wearing roller skates, especially if they are eating a pizza.” She paused expectantly.
“Are you expecting something,” I asked.
“Aren’t you going to ask me about the turtles?”
“Well,” I said slowly, “They are sort of cute little beasties, and Rocky kept a pair of them as pets…” At this point, Naomi sighed impatiently, but I continued doggedly, knowing her bark was worse than her bite. “In a larger sense, the turtle can be seen as symbolic progenitor of the world, hence the Native American term for the North American continent, Turtle Island. Beings of great antiquity, they perhaps spring from the collective unconscious of the entire domesticated primate species.”
“Well, I’ll be blowed,” Naomi said. “How did you know all that?”
“After all,” I sniffed, “I do read more than the occasional Cosmo, you know.”
“Stop sniffing and blow your nose,” Naomi said. “It is time for your journey.”
Now, with the momentous moment immanent, I had passed beyond the trivial concerns of would I need a passport, and should I take along a two-suiter or would a simple carry-on bag do the trick. No, indeed, I was facing sterner questions of self-examination. Was shamanism truly my right livelihood? Was I following the will of Spirit? And was my hair okay?
You see, I usually kept it in a simple page-boy bob… well, actually shorter, sort of a paragraph-boy. Would this do for impressing the spirits I would meet in the Lowerworld? My mentor usually kept her long flowing hair tied back in a bun, sometimes with an Oscar Meyer weiner, no onions. I must ask her about that sometime. But maybe–just maybe–I was being a tad superficial. Perhaps the purity of one’s heart and steadfastness of one’s intent were more important than the correctness of one’s coiffure. Naah. After all, I am a material girl, living in a material world. At least, I always had been.
“Melody, stop wool-gathering!”
Naomi’s sharp tone brought me back to reality. Discarding several handfuls of wool I had carded, I once again paid attention.
“Melody, I have told you of what to be wary–the urinating wolf, the fox playing three-card monte, the Greeks bearing gifts, the frumious bandersnatch, the partridge in a pear tree. But I have been remiss, in not alerting you to the more positive factors in helping you distinguish a guardian spirit.
“A guardian spirit is indeed a friendly spirit, and this will manifest itself in any one of several unmistakable ways. For instance, should a bear come up and offer you some honey, that is a favorable sign. If a rhinoceros should approach and roll at your feet like a puppy, that is another good sign. If a unicorn should sidle up and whisper in your ear something like, ‘Happy Daze in the fifth at Belmont,’ that is a very propitious, and quite possibly profitable, sign.
“Above all, you must be open to spirit.”
At this point, quite frankly, what I was open to was grabbing the phone, hitting 911, and summoning several husky lads with butterfly nets. Naomi was going seriously weird on me here.
“No, Melody,” she said quietly. “I am not yet ready for a ride on the happy wagon. Know you that the shaman is a technician of ecstasy, and while yet touched by the divine madness, which even Western mystics and masters have praised and striven to emulate, the shaman remains in control. He, or she, can see, or hear, those things which you can, or will, not.”
I was touched and impressed. Six commas in a single sentence! And it made sense, more or less.
“Forgive me,” I said tritely. Contritely, rather.
“Cheer up,” she boomed heartily, giving me a slap on the back which loosened my bicuspids. “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try, sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.”
Wise words, indeed, worthy of a philosopher. I was ready.
“I am ready,” I said.
“No you’re not,” she said.
“I am not ready,” I said.
She smiled. “In the words of the Yanquidoodle Indians, close, but no cigar.”
She frowned. (Naomi was prone to mood swings.) “That was a very confused tribe,” she said. “But then, they smoked a lot of peyote.”
“Aren’t you supposed to chew peyote?” I asked.
“Most people do, although you can avoid the nausea by inserting it rectally. But I said they were confused, didn’t I? Let us continue. In order to attain the feta state, you can use one of several means, such as drugs, meditation, rubbing two stones together, chanting, ecstatic dancing, or drumming.”
“That first sounds pretty good. Do I get a choice?”
“Nope!”
“Rats!”
“We will use drumming,” she said.
“So, what do we do for a drum, ring room service?” We were in the Parma Hilton.
Ignoring my sarcasm, she said, “No. We will use a technique endorsed by Joe and Rena Beleevens.” Then she produced, from her brown paper Gucci bag, a Quaker Oats box and an unsharpened pencil. Eberhard Faber #3, to be precise.
She instructed me to lie down on the floor, while she lit a candle. This struck me as superfluous, since there was bright sunlight streaming through the window.
“Cover your eyes,” she said, “and focus on the beat of the pencil on the box.”
She began drumming. I began visualizing, seeking an entrance to the Lowerworld.
TO BE CONTINUED….
This episode was first published in Volume 4, Number 1 of The Shaman Papers, Spring 1992. That issue also contained a number of book reviews and reviews of shamanic sound CDs. There was an article on Surviving a Shamanic Initiation Crisis, and a followup to the earlier article on Theta State as Therapy.
In the first of our extended series of articles on the metaphysical properties of minerals, Getting Stoned with Rock Stars: Part I, Greyfox wrote, on the subject of belief:
…The clearest statement of this concept I have ever encountered is in The Newcastle Guide to Healing with Gemstones (Chase & Pawlik): “When you sense the non-physical properties of a stone, your conscious beliefs have a direct impact on what you perceive… When you work with stones, you interpret their consciousness according to your own spiritual understanding… It is best to form your own relationships with the stones and trust your perceptions and beliefs.”
Personally, I’m more interested in results than explanations. I do better psychic readings when I wear a bracelet set with an azurite cab. Maybe it is a placebo effect, maybe the stone opens or sensitizes my third eye. I know hematite is the best grounding stone for me, but as to why, I neither know nor care. (Ignorance and apathy strike again.) I am particularly sensitive to the vibrations of amethyst but could only speculate as to a reason. Sure, I could journey and ask the amethyst deva, but why bother her with trivialities? When I am directed in a journey to recommend or send specific stones to a client, I don’t ask for a rationale. Let the left brain go figure. The right brain is doing this job.
Comments (1)
Learning from this. Only, would an Ebergard #2 be okey? That’s all I got.