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Go Back   Spiritual Forums > Religions & Faiths > North American Indigenous Spirituality > Faiths of Indigenous Peoples

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  #131  
Old 23-04-2024, 01:51 AM
sentient sentient is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by eezi-ulgen
sentient
That's some real good stuff on the dog and the swan...
In the “Path of Souls: The Native American Death Journey”, the Mississippian Mound Builders had the Spider as well:
1. From a mound, Missouri.
2. From a stone-grave, Illinois.
3. From a mound, Illinois.
4. From a mound, Tennessee.

(The top one looks a bit like the “Central Sun”).
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4256.../images/61.jpg

Quite similar to the Udmurt/Komi belief, where the Golden Spider Thread can - like balancing on a tightrope - lead you past the Dark Rift, the Dark River into the Light, into the “Central Sun” (of ‘Enlightment’), but get spooked & all tangled up, hesitate, lose your balance or walk back and the Spider net will get you. Game over, reincarnate and try again …

So, the Spider is both the adversary and/or the ‘liberator’, depending ….

The name for the ‘ancestor place/shelf’ for my ½ Forest Saami ½ ‘Karelian’ (but from Komi/Veps ancestry as well) … gran was an Udmurt word. So, the ‘song’ within her, which identified her by her ancestral beliefs was the ‘Permian’ “Spider Mother”.

P.S.
Found a shortened version of the “Path of Souls: The Native American Death Journey”
Spider from 14:30 to 15:00
…. But here the Spider is placed at the Orion (hand), the first part of the sky journey:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c5p...annel=atagreg1

Last edited by sentient : 23-04-2024 at 02:53 AM.
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  #132  
Old 23-04-2024, 07:04 PM
eezi-ulgen eezi-ulgen is offline
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sentient

Okay,so here is an example of someone sharing their wisdom on how to do shamanic journey..

Shamanic journeying, I’ve learned, is simple. My steps are;
1. Establish the protected time and place
2. Set my intention
3. Open the space : I use something as simple as lighting a candle.
4. Set the boundaries of the space, inviting in the helpful energies ( whoever you work with; guides, deities, ancestors, spirits etc) and equally important also banish anything with negative intent.
5. Use my imagination to travel ( I usually find myself walking through a wood, getting to a shore and getting in a boat. I hold my intention/question in my mind but aim to maintain a neutral observing approach, I don’t “force” anything. Within the journey I usually have an offering in my pocket so I give that out when the time feels right.
6. Notice and interact with whoever turns up. Thank them.
7. Return to the place I started. Give thanks again and close the space
8. Write down all I can recall even if it doesn’t make sense entirely.


I don't like being negative but I sure hope this is not what my ancestors were doing...
This seems to be imagination work, which does have value but it is hard to understand
what people are talking about sometimes...Or should I say at what level they are talking from...
I understood shamans to work with actual Spirits and not just imagination...
I thought Spirit would actually posses the shaman to do the shaman work through various degrees of trance...
Alright I'll let this one go since I realize I am seeing things on the interwebs and probably not anything close to real traditional shamanism
and if I am to understand shamanism to any real degree I will have to meet one in person and go from there...

Oh, plus I do realize everyone is keen on using the word shaman for all kinds of things nowadays...
Another thing which I don't want to be missed is that, of course things can come through, but my imagination
can and will cook up all kinds of things that may not really be beneficial and may even be ego driven or subconscious garble...

...Peace...
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  #133  
Old 24-04-2024, 01:09 PM
eezi-ulgen eezi-ulgen is offline
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#132 continued...

I would contend there is something more than imagination going on here...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JJw5bTfUL8&t=59s

More than imagination or does it start with imagination??
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwe0yuDRh1U

I think the claims by shamans is that through the regalia and ritual objects and offerings and drum/music and trance the ancestral Spirits and natural Spirits
come into the shaman and speak through the shaman...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5NjH4xn03E

I think it is much more than clear your space set your intentions, light a candle and imagine...
These are practices that helped people to survive, these where and are Life and death...
Where to go, where are the game,how to heal, how to travel and survive those kinds of big questions I assume...

Alright I think I am done and I'll drop it...I'm way off the topic of this post...
I just had to say that there is a lot of people making money off what people today call shamanism...

...Peace...
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  #134  
Old 25-04-2024, 12:49 AM
sentient sentient is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by eezi-ulgen
shamanic journey...
I don't like being negative but I sure hope this is not what my ancestors were doing...
Of course, it is not the real deal – it is only ‘becoming a shaman’ in the New Age imagination.
It is good to learn the workings of one’s mind and the subconscious, but here if ever - sober and critical thinking/awareness is needed as it doesn’t serve anybody’s soul to go into fantasylands.

I do not believe in the “Path of the Souls” either, not in a literal sense. They are all myths, but since there are no words to describe awareness shifts into different, non-material dimensions, those descriptions are still useful as a cognitive aid or map and once one has had the experience, an NDE or a ‘shamanic death experience’ – one will understand why things were described in that way.

Oh, found another – a pdf link about the “Dogs”.
‘The Black Dog at the River of Tears’: Some Amerindian Representations of the Passage to the Land of the Dead and their Eurasian Roots”
https://anthropologie.kunstkamera.ru...2_berezkin.pdf

Quote:
Originally Posted by eezi-ulgen
I understood shamans to work with actual Spirits and not just imagination...
I thought Spirit would actually posses the shaman to do the shaman work through various degrees of trance...
Mongolian shamans do seem to work with actual spirits of the departed – and sure, they can see what is wrong with a person and see into their future, but doesn’t the “Spiritualist Church” do a similar thing – teach people how to become mediums?

The actual, most basic, fundamental, literal truth shamanic worldview teaches one from an early childhood, is that everything is energy (vibration) - one learns to ‘listen’ and to discern within the emptiness - the silence and stillness of one’s being.
Discerning from where the energy is coming from, in mythological language, is best described as the Upper, Middle and Lower worlds … Then tuning into that wavelength, visions, trance may ensue ….
Etc. etc. etc.

A favorite picture by an Udmurtian (?) artist:
https://i.ibb.co/3Y60QTV/Uralic.jpg
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  #135  
Old 25-04-2024, 02:13 AM
sentient sentient is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by eezi-ulgen
I think the claims by shamans is that through the regalia and ritual objects and offerings and drum/music and trance the ancestral Spirits and natural Spirits come into the shaman and speak through the shaman...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5NjH4xn03E
Well, first one creates a sense of “Sacred Space”.
Then again, for us the "Eternal-Primordial-All-Pervasive-All-Accommodating-Unconditional-Space” was/is considered as Sacred. It is just, that through ‘ceremony’ a person is taught/shown how to attune to Space as such (with a Sacred Centre, I may add).

Imo. all that regalia and ritual objects etc. are teaching tools also, plus they show the animal-spirit-helpers the shaman has.
Our shamans did not have such elaborate costumes, although they had special hats and belts.
Protection was gained by tuning into one’s link with Spirit (I don’t mean the spirits of the dead here) ….

But all that pattern of learning accompanied by the imagery made deep impressions into the collective and personal subconscious …
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  #136  
Old Today, 02:04 AM
sentient sentient is offline
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Originally Posted by sentient
But all that pattern of learning accompanied by the imagery made deep impressions into the collective and personal subconscious …
To illustrate:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FQ5__dwi3dw

Shamanic ramblings ....

With mindfulness meditation we gain insights into our own thought, emotional and behavioral patterns, like taking a stock in a non-judgmental way of “What Is”.
The insights gained aren’t always pretty, but one learns to trust the process, because what one doesn’t acknowledge one cannot change and/or heal …

In the past the persecutions of our shamans and the proclamations that all our beliefs were evil, of satan and how we therefore were/are condemned for generations to come left in its wake a transgenerational trauma.
I don’t know about all the others, but this was the reason why I needed to revive “shamanism” in my own life - in a non-judgmental way take a cold hard look of “What Is” and face the music.

The New Age Harner shamanism – I think – teaches that:
Quote:
According to shamanic cosmology, there are three inner planes of consciousness [1*]: the Upper, Middle and Lower Worlds. The three realms are linked together by a vertical axis that is commonly referred to as the World Tree or Axis Mundi. This central axis (spinal column)[2*] exists within each of us”.

Well, ok – but this [1*] is only a half-truth told imo.
When you get a telepathic message from a friend; - when you ‘distance view’, get a premonition vision or when you directly know within (but don’t know how) who is calling and why they are calling before the phone rings – that is the “Middle World” in my books.

When a departed pays you a visit, telling you they have passed, showing you their freshly dug grave, that is the “Lower World”.
Both - the still living (Middle World) and the departed (the Lower world) person’s energy fields can attach themselves to your Aura influencing your thoughts and emotions. Here if one is mindful (knowing one’s own mind) the sudden change to odd thought patterns or emotions is noted.
Like for example staying at home in a cruisy ‘alpha brainwave’ neutrality; - when all of a sudden, a deep, deep depression overcomes you. WT! About ½ an hour later, your friend arrives unannounced in a deep, deep depression because xyz had happened to him and he now wants to unburden it all onto you.
When feeling an energy-field attachment – the feeling is quite similar be it a person still living or departed, so here one needs to pay attention to the subtle differences of the Middle and Lower World “energy signatures”.

The Upper World spiritual guidance is quite miraculous, highly synchronistic aimed at teaching you a lesson which will enable you to move forward on your spiritual path.

Still, It Is All Energy, just different wavelength vibrations one learns to discern where they are coming from and as energy fields, - “What Is” - is that we are both receivers and transmitters of energy.
In multidimensionality we are already participants in all the levels of creation, but not always consciously aware participants.

Axis Mundi as spinal column – well …. yes and no because this [2*] is also only a ½ truth told.
Axis Mundi is more like seeing your reality as a Mandala set up: "a center and a fringe."
I have used this example before I think ….. As a hunter-gatherer you enter into a forest. At the ‘boundary’ - you empty your mind of the local “I am” notion and enter/tune into the presence of the Totality of the forest.
Whenever we tune into Totality – our minds, our awareness naturally creates a Center within that Totality. Yes – No?

I loved this Buddhist description which I see similar to shamanic Axis Mundi:
Quote:
The Tibetan word for mandala is "kyilkor," which means "center and fringe." Therefore we're talking about a circle, a center and circumference, which establishes a complete world. At the center of the mandala is always a central deity. This deity is the buddha principle, i.e., it stands for nothing, the emptiness that pervades the mandala. It says, in effect, nothing is at the center, and this then is the central gateway into the absolute buddha mind.

I call that ‘Central Deity’ of Totality – “Spirit”.
So, there is no Axis Mundi in a physical sense, but it teaches us how to orient ourselves in “The Sacred Space of Totality” we all are, everything is but a part of.

The Axis Mundi as a spinal collum – well, sort of …
Image from “Riding Windhorses” (a book of Mongolian shamanism) by Sarangerel:
https://i.ibb.co/ThL3B8K/3-souls.png

When we do attune/align with our personal link with Spirit, at one point our Crown Chakra pops open in a conscious way:
https://i.ibb.co/8xJGzY7/Gotland1.jpg

& Why the ‘Fire’ at the centre of the tipi was considered Sacred and the smoke hole above it as Sacred.

*

I am not against “shamanic journeying” as such, it like mindfulness shows insights into ourselves, but journeying shows more the stuff we have stored in our subconscious. The problem though is that subconscious is also a rubbish dump and the New Age seems to ignore the whole picture Mythology paints, which is seeing Spirit and Matter in union in our awake daily lives.
It is as if Harner, as an outsider to Shamanism took the “inner journeys” (similar to taking drugs) to mean “shamanic spirituality”, then called it “core shamanism” – yet ignoring the actual core, where the nonduality of the Axis Mundi transcends both this and that, brings union to inside and outside, ‘emptiness and form’ as Buddhists might say … Spirit and Matter for us to witness and participate in irl.

Still, I am really curious what ‘visions’ shamanic journeys bring to people who do come from shamanic backgrounds like Saami or Karelians …
Yet imagery such as “riding the white reindeer to a world tree from where one enters the crystal palace of the holy mountain” … leaves me scratching my head wondering how it connects/relates to the “Sanity of Earth - the real life of the Middle World”.
Isn't this Christian duality again, where this world and another are seen as being separate ...
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