Death And The Shaman Part III

Death – the cessation of life – or not...

Normally we do not like to think about death. We would rather think about life. Why reflect on death? When you start preparing for death you soon realise that you must look into your life...now...and come to face the truth of your self. Death is like a mirror in which the true meaning of life is reflected.
Sogyal Rinpoche.
Ancient Egyptians believed that upon death they would be asked two questions and their answers would determine whether they could continue their journey in the afterlife. The first question was, “Did you bring joy?” The second was, “Did you find joy?”
Leo Buscaglia.
We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.
Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
Psychopomping
For most people it is not the fact of death that they fear it is the mode of transport, and in some cases the concept of blame, also known as guilt.
Fear is a powerful driver; add to that the tag team of guilt and blame and you have a Bermuda Triangle effect, where everyone gets lost. People’s beliefs tend to become more adamant than ever when the perception of death is nigh or imminent.
This can be quite a turn around for some as they have perhaps eschewed all religious belief consciously. Toward the end of life the unknown inspires a search for a common thread of security. This they will find more often than not in a re-visiting of the beliefs of their elders; with the caveat that it will very much depend upon the values that are personally held most dear. It is not unusual to find someone who says that they are not particularly religious. That is until someone steps onto the toes of their values and a surprising effect will occur, a knee jerk reaction; surprising most of all to the person concerned.
Beliefs are very important in all aspects of life but most especially when it comes to death.
In saying that of course the one thing that transcends all belief is the fact that we shall all die.
In that respect we are all of us animal, vegetable and human, equal.
This is where the talent of the Psychopomper comes into play. How many of you have experience of, or have heard someone say, that having said their goodbyes and assured the dying person (even when that person is in a coma) that everyone will be looked after and all affaires managed appropriately, have reported that very soon afterward, if not immediately, the person has died.
We can call it co- incidence but then what is co-incidence? Again, it will depend upon your beliefs not only in religion but in your connection to the deceased.
What has this to do with it? Well, what has just been described is a form of Psychopomping.
At times the Shaman is called, compelled even, to areas of disaster or major accidents and incidents, which due to their very nature cause a lot of confusion not least to the newly deceased who can be lost and wandering in a state of shock having been evicted from their bodies so violently and unexpectedly.
The Shaman journeys to these incidents and becomes a guide for the souls of the deceased, comforting them and facilitating their transition.
Where there is terminal illness, a Shaman may be brought in to allay any fear. By acclimatising the patient to the concept of changing states and introducing them to their body on a metaphysical level they are encouraged to journey to the seat of their illness and to communicate with their bodies, connecting to the divine, by whatever name they choose to call Spirit.
Since the act of journeying involves trance this is beneficial in a lot of ways as this can relieve pain (which will also tend to increase with fear). This in itself is positively therapeutic. In the latter stages of terminal illnesses the patient, may feel totally isolated and alone; lost in a sea of doctors, nurses, beeping and flashing machinery, talked over but not spoken to, de-personalised. By giving them resources to enable them to regain control over some part of their situation it allows them to get as much as possible out of the time they have left in this reality.
Too often the visitors that come are already grieving and perceive loss first and foremost, forgetting that their loved one is still within this reality. They fail to understand that this is not happening to them it is happening to the person in front of them. If we manage in some small part to facilitate an awareness of how to be in the present and to celebrate what the dying person has brought not just to their lives but to those of the extended family and how it has enabled them to go forward and thank them for being – just for being, then perhaps everyone can accept the ultimate change and understand its place in the scheme of things.
It is crucial that this is done for children in this situation. A child reads the emotion of those around them. If they are reading fear and grief they will spend the short time they have left in that state. Sometimes they will be very brave for the adults and be congratulated for being so, but still are not given the space and respect to express their own emotions. They may feel responsible for the morale of the adults around them; children can take on a lot of responsibility without our catching on. All this will be age related and not surprisingly, it is from children that amazing feats of emotional strength are witnessed. It is also at this time in their lives that dogma and fear can be installed to great detriment. We can also steal strength from them, unwitting we feed our guilt on their courage. They will allow us to do so without rancour because they love us and they look to us for guidance and answers. Ironically, it is they who probably know more than we will ever comprehend. Connected still to their inner self so bright and strong, they move between worlds on a daily basis naturally. It is an ability so many of us lack and we should allow them to keep that to their advantage.
“Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life.”
John Muir

Daydream believer

Day Dreaming your life a – way…..

There is a theory about daydreaming. Let’s face it there is more than just the one!
My school report card was full of how much of a day dreamer I was in so many of my classes that it was a wonder there was any room left for anything else. Much to my chagrin this would be changed to “must try harder”, but daydreaming is something that you don’t have to try to do.
All of the adults in my life and some of my peers would be very upset with me for not being present while in their presence. It wasn’t as if there was a problem from my point of view, I would just get to a space where the words of the teacher, parent, sibling, friend or whomever would become a drone and life would become very still and quiet because I have a volume control inside my head and it would be slowly but irrevocably turned down to silence…………………..

The premise that I am stating here is that at that time – in days of yore there was no recognition that actually there was something I was good at. Their focus was on their criteria, mine was on my own; it was deemed inappropriate behaviour and ever so slightly arrogant that I should consider myself able to go into the dwam, trance or whatever they wanted to call it. Personally I believe that they were a bit envious of my ability to switch off. That what I was doing was not recognised as a positive is really not surprising – even today teachers are teaching with the same criteria as before and their criteria now has criteria from the Government as to how they should be teaching and what targets they should be reaching. Still they forget that a class of pupils is made of individual people. Some of whom have no idea what it going on as their method of learning is entirely different from the person they are sitting next to.

What happens when the brain is not being stimulated to learn? What happens when the inspirational button is not pushed? What happens when a child is left to flick between channels and not engaged by another human who can stimulate and inspire and motivate?

Look around you, how many children and teenagers and young adults are sitting in front of a box, playing monotonous games of destruction in order to get to a different level.

If we only stimulate one part of the brain then we lose the functional ability of the others. We switch it off. We don’t daydream anymore we go on stand-by.
White noise, the noise when the signal is not tuned in, the brain is constantly looking for a signal and at one point it will get hungry enough to latch onto the first strong signal it finds. So is this why some young people get into the wrong company, take drugs, seek authority figures by accessing a machine, since a machine has been a baby sitter and a trusted one at that; why should they not?

Stand-by on a computer or a television is when the machine is waiting to be fully turned on.

What is it that turns your nearest and dearest on – in respect of the choices they will make?

At what point do we realise the soporific effect of the box in the room whether it be a television or computer? At what point do we realise that time is being stolen from us?

At what point do we sit down and think that we are not day dreaming anymore we are on stand-by, ultimately at the mercy of a remote control?

Day dreaming is a useful tool – ask any creative genius. Einstein was a day dreamer and he dreamed up E=MC2.
Day dreaming can also be re-learned, not taught exactly – too restrictive and in some cases one persons’ day dream is another’s ennui, and it is an entirely personal thing.

Being able to ‘go with the flow’ is something that has even more relevance in the world today. Stress relief. People who are stressed have rarely any kind of good sleep patterns and if we don’t dream we become mentally challenged in different ways; allowing someone to daydream could be the way back to getting a hold on their lives – the Universe is full of such paradoxical games.

Like everything else that we dismiss as unimportant until we understand why we needed it in the first place; the ability and the need to dream is all to easily lost in the white noise of stand-by until we eventually experience burn out.

So get yourself a bit of space and make time to day dream – see where it takes you – write it down afterwards or even record it and read / listen to it again after a couple of days. Notice how you feel directly afterwards. Notice how it felt during and then realise that you were in a trance and then wonder what else you could do in that space, without some Ghengis Khan in twin set and pearls bearing down upon you to bellow in your ear to wake up and pay attention.

Instinctively self destructive...

The Outcome of Communication

One of the tenets of NLP is that the outcome of communication is in the result that you get.

I am discovering that in certain situations when I am being less than totally magnificent in my communication the results I am getting are on the surface, pleasing, however I am aware of their placatory and transient nature, particularly within the scenario I find myself playing out on a day to day basis at this point in time.

A friend asked me recently had I ever heard of the adage of ‘trapping more flies with honey’? Of course I have, my tendency though is to either leave them alone or kill them instantly.

Thinking about it dispassionately (?) I wonder if this has as much to do with my personal coping mechanism, as it has to do with my beliefs, which are of course inextricably linked.

This is something that I have learned about sentient beings, we make connections and having made them we use them as convincers banging home the rightness of it. For the reasoning and more rational animal this is a complicated procedure – or not. It can just as easily be a knee jerk reaction to an external stimulus that provokes an emotional response, jeez would that be the birth of a strategy that would possibly be compounded by proving it again and again – compounding itself, becoming rooted in our neurology. That old survival fight or flight still crazy after all these millennia, and still so strong.

In the aftermath of an adrenaline high response attitude there is only a need to rest, conflict especially within oneself is exhausting and it can be the result of a learned behaviour, a less than totally positive behaviour at that.

I know what my friend means about the honey. For me it’s a bit like learning something new and strange and until I am able to be secure in this alien world in all my states, I am likely to slip back to swatting the flies, irrevocably and taking the hollow victory of being placated until I go away and leave them to lick their wounds and build their walls of resentment so that I become the trigger for their adrenaline response.

Eventually this too will cease and there will be no communication at all. What is the point in that?
The self-fulfilling prophecy goes around again and nothing new is learned, only re-iterated.

So, in order to rewire my neurology I have to examine those static beliefs about myself, and change them now.