Surviving The West in Non-Ordinary Reality
For the last 8 months, my cohort at the Shaman's Way have spent one full Sunday a month in San Francisco's wooded Presidio, walking the Inka Medicine Wheel. We are now at the mid-point of our walk although 'walk' may be too generous and dignified a term. For the first four months, we tiptoed around The South, meeting Sachamama, the Serpent Goddess, and going to the place of stripping old skins and identities. The latter four months we've been trudging through The West, meeting Lady Jaguar and facing the darkness of both ordinary and non-ordinary reality and the faulty workings of our own selves. While The South was about letting go of fixed notions, The West has trained us to walk without fear in a world that can be egregiously unsafe. Before you dismiss this description as new-age gobbledygook, please know that shamanism is the oldest "religion" known to humankind. Many are loathe to pin it as such, preferring the term "technology,&