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Near York, U.K.
Shamanism
Considered the oldest spiritual practice known to humanity, Shamanism was globally practiced at one time in very similar ways across several cultures.
Spirituality had an underpinning of Cosmology, including knowledge relating to the different Realms of existence:
The Upper Realm
The Middle Realm
The Lower Realm
Those Realms are further subdivided. In the Indian system for example, 7 heavens (lokas) above and 7 hells (talas) below are described, the Middle Realm being very similar to our consensual reality.
Within this tradition, Shamans or Medicine Men for example would protect and guide the tribe.
They would help:
The warriors of the tribe find the animals to hunt
Lead rites of passage
Sick tribe members heal
Mediate between tribe members and outside tribes
Stories were told as ways to pass on this knowledge, a tradition that was mainly oral.
There was an awareness of how the unfolded cosmos interconnected with one’s own divine potential or inner cosmos as a human being.
Shamanism is not a course, but a life journey.
Alberto Villoldo
Enter the world of a shaman
One way to get a sense of a shamanic life lived would be to read a book from the Native American Tradition of the Oglala Sioux.
Black Elk was an elder and healer of the Oglala Sioux and a spiritual leader.
The book gives a sense of the life of the First Nation prior to the settlers destroying a way of life.
In the book, there is a description of a ‘mysterious illness‘ that gripped Black Elk as a young boy, resulting in his development as a medicine man, now more commonly called a shaman healer.
Having a mysterious illness suddenly afflicting a person can be a spiritual event.
One could also read about the life of Padre Pio whose poor health resulted in being continually discharged and recalled into the Italian army until he was declared unfit for military service and discharged. Padre Pio had already consecrated himself to Jezus age 5.
In his book ‘Black Elk speaks‘, one can get a sense of how life in nature and in harmony with nature also connected to Moon cycles.
Shamanic Journeying
There are various shamanic traditions still existing around the world.
Shamanic Journeying without taking in psychoactive substances
This is the method practiced at Ark healing.
A further distinction can be made.
1. Leaving the body for Soul Flight
Leaving the body to either enter another body or explore has been described in certain yogic texts.
In Western culture, this has also been described with helpers protecting the body of the person leaving the body.
The risk in such an approach is that during absence from the body, there could be what’s called a ‘walk-in’, an intrusion of another roaming soul or harm could come to the seemingly ‘dead’ body.
Sometimes one hears of people waking up in hospital and ‘behaving’ completely differently, even speaking languages they had never spoken before.
2. Indwelling in the Space of the Heart
Dwelling in the Heart is the method used at Ark Healing, the way of finding Sacred Space from where to Journey.
As one journeys within, as the Soul journeys through the different Realms, closed off aspects of the self can be retrieved and healed. Those closed off parts could for example relate to traumatic experiences during which part of the awareness has been sealed/closed off to allow the person to survive.
When the time is ripe and right, those closed of parts of the self can be revisited, opened, cleansed and healed. The aim is for those split off parts to be reintegrated, towards a greater wholeness of the person.
Shamanic journeying with the intake of psychoactive substances
This practice is not used at Ark Healing.
Examples are Ayahuasca or Bufo toad venom. The reason this method is not used is that it creates a dependency of sorts on ‘external’ substances to reach what’s inherently an inward, non-physical, spiritual focus.
The psycho-active substances may well give extra-ordinary experiences but it may bring with it on a subtle level a need to re-use this substance in order to achieve extra-ordinary experiences or to speed up a natural process.
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