take that step...

Without lineage

During a long dance years ago... probably the most amazing one i had danced...and the hardest and most frenzied... while dancing teachers of the ceremonial leader and chaman i was studying with came to me in spirit and started dancing with me... i could see their teachers as well... and so on and so on teacher after teacher to the beginning of their lineage and tradition.... and then i saw my teacher, the ceremonial leader of the sanpedro long dance we were dancing in... and i saw how each of these men and women had their own medicine their own special way of allowing the spirit of the totality to work through them, and how each of them had passed on in their own way a way of assisting the teacher to come how to open in their own unique way... i saw that when a chaman or ceremonialist did his or her work they were supported by all of the teachers spirits living and dead that came before them all the way to the very fist of them... who learned on their own... how to let the land work through them, to let spirit do what needed to be done through them, how to carry and work their medicine in the world...
these teachers of my teacher told me that i needed lineage i needed that support to do my work... that there were going to be times when i didn't know what to do to help or heal but one of the members of the lineage would and they would guide it and step in to effect the change that needed to happen through me...

at the time i was convinced that this was what i needed to do... but something nagged at me... the other lessons i had been slowly receiving about learning from the bio region... from local spirits...
i had all ways figured things out on my own... being self taught was my art... and i learned along time ago that the greatest teacher available to any of us lays within us...
i start to think about the beginning... the beginning of these lineages... what came first the chicken or the egg... sort of thing lol... who ever started the lineage had no one to back her or him up... the had no human being to stand behind them and teach and guide them...
i began to imagine how they learned... who was their teacher... slowly but surely... spirit started to show me that if there was a need some one would find away to learn how to open up on their own and allow the whole to work through them... that the bio region they lived within would support them in this every step of the way, teach them, guide them... and then i looked back and i saw that standing past the first shaman of a tribe was the land, was spirit... that the original founder of the lineage was not a human person after all... but that which we are one with...

so this gave me something to chew on... i was becoming more and ore resistant to becoming fully trained by a shaman from another bio region, let alone from a culture i did not belong to.... i started to see the value in allowing the land to teach me directly... as well as the difficulty of being the one who started with the aid of the bio region something new... a new tradition or way... it gave me a sense of starting from scratch.. a deep connection to the primordial to the original... i started to feel a sort of confidence that comes from intentionally doing something that hard way so that you could get the maximum benefit of learning... i started to feel a kinship with those who out of a need for wholeness and health in their bio region become the first to do something amazing and powerful as well as extremely difficult and down right scary! i started to feel how much guidance was available to me from this way and that those that were first long long ago were willing to come to this time and teach, or at least give insights into the work... i began feeling that the land needed and wanted it to happen and that it offered its self to the work... as much as i offered myself to it.

so i tell this story... because i know there are those of you out there that need the courage to step up and be the first... to make something new that is also very ancient... who feel that they need support and assistance from traditions and guides and teachers... i tell you this story because that's all available to you... that if you work hard to begin something for the benefit of the whole.. for the land and for all the people, human and other then human... then you will have every thing you need to begin... to start a way that is perfectly adapted to the needs of NOW.
those spirits were right i needed lineage... but not in the way their student had lineage... but in the way of finding lineage directly from that which brings wellness into the world in the first place... that part of creation that makes it possible for teaching to manifest its self in the universe... that's the lineage that all bio regional animists have.... that's the gift i want to give to all of you whole feel the authentic needs for wellness around you... i want you all to feel empowered to be the first... to make those steps to feel the confidence that comes from the hard work and perseverance one must manifest with the aid of the land under your feet and the sky over your head and all of the other then human persons who like you just want to be well and depend on us and the whole to make it so...
that's my prayer gift... my offering, and my burning desire... my hope that if any thing this tribe can inspire those of you to be the first.. to be one with the primordial that makes it all possible...

its said that the shamans of old the first shamans were the most powerful and that since then the shamans that have come after them have become less and less powerful, less and less effective... many tribes around the world say this...
i often ask my self if its because its too much water added to the wine over thousands of years?
can we not become the first again? start anew... and reinvigorate the primordial shaman? that healing forces that embodies all that is? be a force of renewal our selves?
yes YES we can and are doing this... i am seeing it here in bio regional animists! and i have to say its amazing to watch this unfold before me... it truly is....

bless and be blessed
LLB