Recently on the Evolver network, I read a comment on someones blog asking the Evolver community how they make money so that they can raise enough capital to enjoy the shamanic spiritual lifesytle... There was talk of investment profiles and such, and I felt my already high blood pressure start to boil. Its very disappointing for me to see these sorts of posts in spiritual communities. I know its there, Ive been to Toas, and Ive met the wealthy spiritual seekers, and Ive been to enough weekend warrior shamanic retreats to still need a good shower to cleanse myself of it.
Why the disconnect? Why the desire to serve the self over others? Why is it so difficult to see that shamanry and living as an animist does not require affluence?
My greatest spiritual advice has always been to be homeless for a little while... I wonder if they have homelessness spiritual retreats you can pay for these days?
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I don't know, being homeless is different as a woman than a man - It involves a lot more sexual predators. I did it for 6 years as a teenager not by choice and it was horrifying. The having to nice to murdering drug dealers to have places to stay and not take action when drunk men beat their girlfriends unconscious so you don't get hit - All in all I found homelessness a terrible experience like being in a world run by drug crazed warlords. On the good side, I did learn all sorts of ways to stay fed that involved dumpsters and to forget about the time world of clocks. This and my hardcore off the grid upbringing has made it so I don't really understand the need for things or the joys of shopping, so I do value that. I will say that being a squatter in London during the Poll Tax Riot times was very easy - we had squat day cares, squat cafes, squat nightclubs, squat hottubs, many squats ran businesses, and more art than I have ever fund in any US city. But squatting the LES of NYC involved giving money to crack dealers so they don't kill you. From watching my friends lives, being homeless seemed easier as a man - more women with housing want to take in and nurse a street manb, while men who want to do that for street women are usually pimps. The men tended to get beaten by strangers and cops a lot more, but the men tended to be beaten by the men they needed to protect them. Let's not get into all the rapes, shall we? The biggest threat for humans is other humans. We are our own predator and prey.
But yes, I definately agree about the money thing. I have heard it said that SSI's $700 a month with or without $200 foodstamps (depending on what state you live in) is the government unwittingly subsidizing art and spirituality in this cultural wasteland. Other countries support the arts in more effective, less humilating, and more generous ways. Then there is the fact that in a lot of societies the shaman or medicine man or whatever was in the fields working just as much as everyone else - and being shaman on top of that. If you truly have been given the gifts of healing, divination, magic, etc, the spirits will make your life hell if you don't them - trust me. This is when there is some bargaining, about stuff like "If you want me to do your work, I need food and shelter etc." It's not really a career path you plan for with 401Ks. If people are choosing to become these things, I am not sure if they were called and I am not sure what they expect to get from this "lifestyle". Raven Kaldera said some nice things to me about how it sucks to be "Gods-bothered" - his term for when Gods or spirits want to use you for their plans in our realms. In most traditional societies no one is clamouring to be chosen for that work! It is a sad commentary on our culture that people are so straved for meaning in their lives that they want to be "shamans".
I've been in that culture, I've scene all of that in different varying degrees. I think the difference boils down to voluntary vows of poverty VS absolute nessecity. Intention always seems to make the difference. There were campers who would pouch small game in parks, work for people who they could gain the trust of, and buy beads to sell beautiful jewelry so that they could be free, it was a much different game for them, and my game was different from there's, I worked and had no home because Iived as a warrior monk so to speak.
I hear ya, and don't get me started on those who are suffering with ssi, that's my day job.
But I really like the term god bothered, wonderfully put! But I think it's a matter of preserving and culture as well. How we relate to being bothered by the gods is individual as well as socially set. There are many many examples of animist societies that choose and even pay to be in the shaman role. There are societies where every member of that society is encouraged to take on that role to such a point it is no longer a role but a trait that can be cultivated or not.
What I find interesting though is that there are all of these other examples of how shamanry works or is non existent in animist societies yet we glom onto and exemplify only one way. This one way says more about western society and our individualism I think then shamanry as a phenomena in the worlds cultures.
Money is a kind of poison, although it's necessary so you don't land on the street, as Heather describes. I reject the spirituality of any person from any path who makes money a priority over persons, art, kindness, relationship, health and other values. Take Christians, for example. Why are they worrying about the cost of universal health care? They should be saying, "Here, take my tax dollars! Use them to heal in Jesus' name, as he commanded us to do."
Hello LLB! How's things in the great northwest?
Puny
Landing on the street I think is different if it is voluntary. And it's very possible to disconnect from the economic tredmill. Ianto Evans teachs about that! Very cool
Workshop
Lifes going on puny hanging in there, how about you?
Recently I've been imagining a society whose base value was health rather than wealth: health of ecosystems, populations, and individuals, without a care for capital. Everything changes under that alternate paradigm, but the new reality would work on every level. I think animists would take to it instinctively and thrive in it.
It's hard but lovely to imagine such a system!
i spent a winter on a beach, in a small 2 man tent, and it was a truly epic experience. my partner & i could have landed on the street... and we chose instead to carve out our niche, against public sentiment, under a large cedar on a storm~tossed beach. stripped of the insulation & false security of so much of our modern 'culture,' the spirit realm & our engagement focalised. there is a primacy & a viscerality to life lived stripped down that brings great insights & inner joy. it was hard, it had rough edges, but i am undoubtedly wildiferously richer for it. the weekend warriors, to me, are ersatz. well-intentioned, perhaps, but padded. isn't animism really about direct vibrant connection? to the stones & bones & feathers & trees!
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