Until recently, the idea of "community" did not appeal to me much. The compromise and consensus processes that I've witnessed in the few commune-style communities that I've been tangentially involved with have always bored and irritated me. Which probably marks me as somewhat antisocial. Part of this has to do with growing up in a family the emotions modeled were either suppression (my dad) or explosion (my mom), and it has taken me most of half a century to figure out how to safely embody other emotions and to speak my mind truthfully without screaming and having a meltdown.
Really. I still have to watch it, especially when I'm tired.
"Community" was something I never really wanted to have at all since to my inner child it meant "discussions" which meant "scary screaming arguments" or merely "seething, un-expressed emotion". So, it's come as a bit of a shock to me that for the first time in my forty-seven year life I'm cultivating an actual desire, a need to be connected to people. And shamanism is teaching me this. Last night I surprised even my own self when I saw one of the particularly difficult people from my shamanic drumming circle as I walked into a local buy-it-all-here retail store, and my first reaction was one of delight and to immediately yell "Hey! Good to see you!" and run over to her and give her a big hug.
In mid-hug I marveled a little at myself.
A couple of years ago when I was a shiny new student of shamanism, I came across the book Stone Age Wisdom by Tom Crockett. From a powerful journey, he espouses five simple "stones" or tenets of shamanism:
- Everything is Alive
- Everything is Aware and Conscious
- Everything is Dynamic and Changing
- Everything is Connected
- Everything Responds
In that hug moment, I realized that I had somehow, over the past several months, shape-shifted into something different, into someone new.
One thing that has helped this occur is that I've consciously tried to stop seeing what I want to see in others, and instead have been keenly observing what's actually there. Who is this person, really? Have I ever seen them clearly? What I've been finding is that, no, I've never seen anyone clearly! If I have seen them at all, I've seen them dimly, through the smoke of my own expectation and projection. Giving up wanting people to be who I want them to be has been a relief, and has been fun watching these "new beings" unfold. They're so much more wonderful, complex and oddly beautiful than I could ever make up in my wildest dreams :-)
And so much more fun to have as friends and neighbors.
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1 comment:
Yes, my fellow anti-socialist :-)
I too have only recently (because of shamanism) started feeling a desire for community... or felt myself to be part of one. I've always been a loner, much more comfortable with a very small handful of close friends & assiduously avoided crowds & parties. Part of this, for myself, probably stems from growing up with 2 brothers & three sisters, along with myself & 2 chain smoking parents crammed in a station wagon going camping when I was a kid; I'd either be barfing before we were 50 miles out of town, or feeling like I couldn't breathe. In my later life, just being in a crowd or enclosed space could provoke similar reactions.
Then, (because of your encouragement), I started attending shamanic workshops & found myself in a crowded room full of strangers... but they didn't stay strangers long. In fact, very quickly I was quite at home with them. Once I opened to it, instead of being fearful it was quite liberating. To simply BE myself with these fellow travelers, to be accepted as myself... wow! And to find so many kindred spirits? Priceless.
Even earlier, what started that opening for me was the Medicine Cards. I first did my own "totems" with them back in 1994 & sat & wept after reading the animals who'd chosen to walk with me. I was so honored, so surprised & so thoroughly told "you are exactly as you're meant to be" that it changed everything for me. Oh, I'd found God in nature all right... but people were a big-assed mystery, myself included. The Medicine Cards sorted that out for me, became an invaluable tool for me in understanding people... a pathway through nature back to understanding humans. In the years that followed I "did the totems" for family & friends, even both of my parents, by this time in their 70s... & these 9 card spreads became little "snapshots" of insight that helped me appreciate the people they actually were.
The shamanic community that I'm now a part of, thanks to you, is expanding on that opening & weaving me into the tapestry of a larger world that just keeps expanding. Looking for what is there rather than what you think is there is an act of expansion in itself... the Art of Allowing, as Abraham would call it. And yes, the beingness thus discovered is much deeper, richer, fuller than any stories about it could ever be.... including the discovery of your own beingness & allowing it the same measure of attentive wonder.
OneTree
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