This is a very important subject for all of us.
To begin I want to create a few artificial categories, which nonetheless are significant. Just within this exposition, I will use the word ‘shaman’ to describe the person who lives with/in a tribe. ‘Sorcerer’ for the person who lives outside any tribe, and ‘Man of Knowledge’ (sorry girls, but it was DJ’s term and I don’t know a better one, still it includes women also) who goes beyond the realm of both shaman and sorcerer.
The shaman, sorcerer and Man of Knowledge all belong to the one inner tribe - it is a special tribe that does not live together, but occasionally meet and immediately recognise each other. In the astral homelands they are a tribe.
The sorcerer is the master of both the first and the second worlds - the physical and the astral. They are feared as they can manipulate across those worlds and because they do not belong to any social construct. The Man of Knowledge is the one who has gained entrance to the third world. They may or may not have gained mastery of the first and second worlds, but without a good deal of knowledge and competence in both those, they would not be able to cross into the third world.
The shaman’s dilemma, is to be torn between the role they play in the tribe and the desire to journey on as both the sorcerer and Man of Knowledge have done. But it is also about how they are to live and act within the world of the ordinary tribe members.
The shaman is called by the spirits, is called by an inner yearning to be free, to journey out and away, and never return. Called by Spirit. But the shaman lives with her tribe, and has an important role therein. The shaman often lives with a partner and family who are not of the inner tribe of the shaman. When I say outer tribe, in modern terms that means also the shaman’s world of friends and extended family. The shaman lives on the edge of her tribe - that part is almost always common to all shamans - but is drawn into the affairs of the tribe in periods of crisis. That is mostly health crises, but also political and war situations.
The tribe members are not comfortable with the shaman, as they sense she is ‘different’, but they have nonetheless an intimate relationship with her as it is to her they turn in times of personal trouble, so the shaman knows many secrets of people’s lives. Also due to the shaman’s inner sight and superior sensitivity, she perceives truths that are not seen by the others. Much is revealed in plain day to her that is hidden to ordinary people.
The tribe lives within a ‘known’ circle, which is a physical, mental and emotional sphere. The shaman roams outside this circle in a wider circuit of surpa-natural influences. It is her primary job within the tribe to patrol this wider sphere and to protect the tribe from things past and future which press on the tribe.
The shaman is torn, for two reasons.
First, because although she loves the people of her tribe, she knows there is a deep unbridgeable gap between her and them, that will never be closed. Inside she is just like the sorcerer and the Man of Knowledge, but outwardly she belongs to her tribe - she belongs to two tribes, and that is the problem. That is an impossible position, yet one she has to live with as long as she decides to remain in the tribe, and fulfil her role therein. This is observable in all shamans, and can also be seen in some forums on the internet. The shaman wants to fly, but has to step down her inspiration to apply healing balm to the mental, emotional and physical wounds of her people, who are like her children. Plus she has to do battle with other psychic powers which try to attack her tribe, but generally she doesn’t mind that as it’s in her field, and matches her powers.
She is torn because she loves her tribe people, but she can never be one of them. She will always be alone, and never completely accepted, even in her own home. She will carry the label of being ‘weird’. Some shamans (like myself) have developed a very good camouflage, and can get about with no one knowing who they really are, but the down side is that they are really not shamans in my temporary definition, they are simply sorcerers or Men of Knowledge who happen to be living among humans, and to whom, all is concealed. So they cannot help the people they live amongst, as an essential ‘shamanic’ bond does not exist.
The shaman is called upon, and responds. In that is a beautiful relationship, which the tribe mostly highly appreciate, and without the presence of the shaman, the tribe would be very vulnerable - those tribes who have known a shaman, will immediately feel the danger should she leave or die. But inside the shaman knows there is no real bond - it is a bond of sorts, and a strong one at that - many shamans place their life on the line for their tribe - yet inside she knows no one understands her, and she can never have the depth of connection that is promised by that bond. Because in her core she belongs to another tribe, and she will go on, while they pass like shadows. Thus she lives with a sadness and anguish which can never be healed, and is all the more poignant because she remains in the tribe. She remains like a lover who can never touch her beloved, a friend of real value who can never share her soul.
This is all the more difficult with her own family, as her children and partner are often sympathetic and attuned with her, but if she looks honestly, she will know they also can’t see her. Even in her own home she is alone in her soul. Most shamans come to accept this, as they know it is the way of all their inner tribe, just that shamans have it rubbed in their faces every day.
Second, the shaman is torn because she longs in the very core of her being to fly away and never return - ultimately to fly like the moth, into the sun, into the Spirit. Also she yearns to meet with her inner tribe, and explore the hidden worlds, to experience the intensities that only her real people know, and can sustain. But she can’t, or rather she can only do this in her secret ceremonies, then always return to the mundane troubles of her outer tribe.
She is torn between staying with her outer tribe and cutting all ties with the ‘people of the world’, and their endless stupidities, squabbles and concerns. This is the deeper pain, the deeper crisis in her life. She is like the school child always looking out the window. She longs to live her soul to the full, to fly free and endless in the vastness of Mystery. But she can’t. She is a trapped bird, who outlives her captors over and over and over. She is an ancient spirit, held to the role of spiritual protector for a passing parade of phantoms, whom let us not forget, she also loves.
Which love will she follow?
I’ll tell you the answer. The secret is so simple. It is written in her bones. She need only use her superior sight and look within, to find the choice has long before been made. And if she tries to follow any other path but that which is written, it will not work.
The path of the Man of Knowledge is a true choice, and most sorcerers will not choose it, as it requires relinquishing the very thing sorcerers cherish - their immortality. But the choice of whether to remain a tribal shaman, or walk out into the world of Knowledge or sorcery - to become invisible, and seek eternity, to leave absolutely everything behind - that is not a choice but an acceptance. Only you know what is your written path if you are a shaman, and by looking honestly within, you will know when your time has come, your time to leave your tribe, to walk away never to return.
But if that is seen, and the shaman has parents, partner and/or children, what then? Again the answer is still simple. If you must go, it is done inside, and one day you will know - it will well up, and break like a cold wave. From that moment you have no family, no children, no parent, no partner. But you will also see you have an obligation that must be fulfilled, or there is no way you can fly free. So you will in heart and in body when necessary, remain with your family to play out the tasks, the karma, the debts of the past, but you will be free in your soul, and that will sustain you. In fact it will free you to love unconditionally.
So let me finish with this secret - that type of love, as an inner freed soul, is in fact the only unconditional love, and the only true love.
What a paradox! In leaving you are free to love what you have left.
Michael Maher 2007
