Saturday, December 12, 2009

I Keep Losing Things

I love the play of things in a world of magic and love. I am firm in my belief that the spirit world has a power dimension. I believe that the power issue was primary in the oldest forms of the spiritual walk, that the earliest human groups needed to get the world to cooperate, the prey to come to them, the storms to hold off at critical times, and similar issues, on pain of death. This was no joke. I believe the need for spirit power produced in certain locations a “science of spirit” over generations that in a certain sense could be handed down from master to apprentice.

After literally millions of years the institutions in place were tribal, forms of shamanism. In China, Tibet, and Southeast Asia this was brought forward and institutionalized in aspects of Taoism in China and other local forms elsewhere. These traditional forms of shamanism were deeply transformed by the advent of agriculture but in essence were unbroken.

The shamanic roots of Taoism remain in place still today, why Taoist thinking is overtly alchemical in many areas. Elsewhere on the planet, especially in the near East, India, Egypt and through that influence in Europe, the advent of agriculture broke shamanism and replaced it with priesthood religions that match the political power structures of empire. The shamanic traditions had to go underground, because spirit power could not be allowed to be that democratic.

I love the play of things in a world of magic and love. I am shaman at heart. I have taken my own spirit journeys. I believe music, art, poetry can be alchemical in nature, transformative in ways difficult to fathom without intimacy, magic, love. And with coyote, I say, “you better be able to take a joke along the way.” There is pithy bar talk for that sentiment, because drunks are sky pilots too.

I have a growing relationship with a practicing Homeopath. I know he is certain that spirit power is essential to healing, that the problem with mainstream western medicine is that it has divorced from spirit power in favor of “science”, as if western science is the only kind. This of course ignores literally at least 50,000 years of wisdom. It assumes the ancients were rubes and boobs, buried under ignorance. It is clear the ancients were at least as intelligent as we are all the way along. It is also certain they were highly motivated by their uncertain life to achieve success in marshalling spiritual power. Why would it be surprising that they achieved spirit power along the way?

Here is a poem that comes from another world strangely like this one.

I Keep Losing Things

I see you coming
my way out of the forest,
that place that the moons
of this world visit,
nestling in the trees.
You hold a basket of rose
petals and I know
you are going to
give me a shower of them,
expecting that I
hold the golden key.
I'm sorry, but I lost that
key two lives ago.

March 6, 2009 11:58 AM

10 comments:

  1. There's a strange arrogance in believing that modern science has all the answers. Why does science not sway our hearts the way that some ancient wisdom does ... why do we not "feel" it. I am bowled over by what science teaches us ... I love the power of rational imperically based hypothesis ... but my heart? My heart is swayed by ideas like Universal Life Force and the native Indian beliefs in Animism. Life is mysterious is it not? xx Jos

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  2. You saw me in the tree
    that day
    when I was looking out at you,
    I know you did,
    and I remember
    that when
    in this now

    we were always magic

    xxx

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  3. Jos, there are without question things about the sciences that do sway my heart. There are practitioners of science that present their passion and then I am moved too. Lewis Thomas wrote essays, for example, that not only taught me biology but taught me passion for the practice of science. It is not all arid. Many of the scientific stories of cosmology and ontogeny touch me on the level of passion. I do not concern myself so much with how the majority of scientists avoid this passion. There are always a passionate few who endeavor to communicate with us laypeople.

    It remains true of course that the practice of science in the trenches has little to do with this passion. But then I can say the same for the practices of Hindu daily life, or Buddhist, or Christian, or even my own.

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  4. {{{Michelle}}} :D This gift you choose for me, delightful.

    My Need For Fire

    I see my need for
    sacred fire, so I build one
    as you taught me to.
    Then I begin slow
    dancing with my dream of you
    around the true blaze
    that never fails me
    life after long life as I
    chase that one moment
    when we first appeared.

    ReplyDelete
  5. In your poem you are aware of someone's expectations and I like it that you are honest to let them know you aren't what they are looking for. I find that so often and I wish I had this poem printed on my forehead.

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  6. Ms Babe, Long time. Hi.

    Probably better my poem than a scarlet A on your forehead. :)

    Actually the poem seems a bit long for an ordinary sized forehead :)

    If you wish, Babe, you may have this poem for that purpose. I expressly give you fair use, but only for the purpose of fastening it in some way to your forehead.

    We do need a sense of humor, no?

    ReplyDelete
  7. i am
    individual
    like all others
    among the this and that

    all others, individual
    just like me

    it is always thus
    it is always this
    or that

    what?

    just trickling water
    down mountain stone face
    just waves that crashed
    on lowland sand

    just this
    and that
    and nothing unnamed

    Tao
    GD

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  8. The Tao is not the real tao
    unless it is the tao of tao.

    Ghost is not really Ghost
    unless Ghost is Ghost's Ghost.

    Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

    You must have had many spectral things to do out in the electronic ether.

    I have been waiting for you to offer this:

    Love is a many spectral fling.

    :)

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  9. Loving it and you!
    Clapping madly.....ahhh, life is a funny old thing :D

    ReplyDelete

The chicken crossed the road. That's poultry in motion.


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