(artist: Frank Howell)
This is a contentious topic in some circles and I tread here with some hesitation. But I am asked about this a lot and so I like to approach it with respect for all of us and our many different perspectives, backgrounds and understandings as well as respect for both the benefits and failings of language and the varied cultures from which this all arises.
There have always been medicine people in every culture we know of. The names given to these people befitted the culture and conveyed among their populace what was needed. In present time, all over the world we still have medicine people who are now often called by the singular term shaman, especially by those outside the specific culture. As far as we know, the word “shaman” was originally popularized by an early European researcher who was studying the medicine people in Siberia who went into sonic-driven trance states, connected with non-corporeal beings for assistance with healing and guidance, and who opened themselves as conduits for the healing energies of the spirit realm to come through. This is a bit simplistic, but workable for now.
That researcher used an Evenki (Tungusic dialect of Siberia) word whose root meant either “to know” or "to see" or “to leap, jump, dance,” (there is difference of opinion about this) and applied it to the trance practice he was documenting. From this beginning traced to the 1600’s, other European invaders and anthropologists as well as other Russian travelers spread the use of the word shaman outside of its own ethnic area to other areas where the dialect words for similar practices had been eradicated during the persecutions of religious Europe when the spread of Christianity decimated so many indigenous European spiritual practices. And so over the centuries, riding the trail of deepening colonization, that term became applied to any tribal based medicine person who worked in a similar fashion. The word as a term describing that practice really does not belong to anyone except those Siberian medicine people and they don’t often seem to be saying much about their exclusivity; some Siberian shamans are even quite happy to have their culture—it’s languages and practices better known, used by others in other cultures and part of the conversation out in the world—as long as it’s done with respect. And that is one of the issues; what do we consider respect in this area, who determines it and how do we navigate when there is a lack of it?
In many tribal cultures, someone who displays a sensitivity for certain kinds of what we now consider extra-sensory perceptions, nature spirit connections, trans-rational knowings, particular markings, omens, occurrences at birth or in childhood, spontaneous healing abilities, and/or who comes from a lineage of medicine people, but mostly someone who is very obviously “called” by the spirits in some noticeable way to work with them, is usually then called by and supported by the community to undertake what is often a very arduous and lengthy process to “stalk” their medicine, or healing ways. These medicine people, who we now in modern usage often refer to as shamans, usually go through many difficult initiations that can involve near-death experiences, isolation, illnesses, physical deprivations, depression, accidents, cycles of ego-death, and sometimes separation from the heart of the culture while they’re learning. It’s different in every culture and none of what I say is to be taken in absolute terms, but this tends to be somewhat of a pattern. It is the community that essentially recognizes and names the medicine person as being just that, and this ultimately depends entirely on the person’s effectiveness---can they help in locating (hunting/growing) food? water? plant medicines? can they affect cooperation and harmony among their people? do they bring balance between the human community and the beings of the earth/spirit realm? do the Ancestor spirits assist them? do the nature spirits work with them in helping the community? do they put the well-being of the community before their ego and comforts? These are some of what tribal people look for in their mediators between form and spirit that the rest of the world, and even now some tribal cultures, call shamans.
We don’t have these recognized patterns in contemporary culture. We don’t have communities like this nor do we have ways of acknowledging or supporting those who are still being called by the spirit realm to do this work. We lack loving familiarity with wise and stable Elders mentoring us from childhood and exemplifying what is needed. It is much harder to perceive this call in modern culture and when perceived or experienced, there is little support or understanding from community or an open and sane path to explore for learning. We don’t have spiritual lineage wisdom teachers to initiate us and carry traditions forward. We don’t usually even acknowledge that such a thing as Spirit (or spirits) exists, much less interacts with us in a conscious way. However....people are still people...and the spirit realm still calls those who are willing and able to work this way to be cooperative partners, and it calls modern Euro-settler people who have relationships with the spirit realm much like the Siberian shamans. But there is little available for this way of being that is wise and nurturing for those who are actually called and who have a sincere, committed response. And as is obvious now in our culture, there can be much hype, glamour, and drama around the entire idea of being a “shaman” for some.
It is increasingly easy these days to go to a few workshops or attend a short-term training and come out feeling this is your path and then advertise as a practitioner. But as within the tribal communities, the true acknowledgment that this is a genuine path tends to come from many life experiences over a more extended amount of time that strongly indicate the influence and call of the spirit world and the subsequent initiations, as well as results that demonstrate effectiveness over time. And it is poignant as well as disturbing at times to observe people's true neediness, longing and naivete about this path for it is not at all glamorous and certainly not easy. Traditional cultures are often amazed, offended or find it bizarrely funny when some Westerner claims they "want" to be a shaman or medicine person, for they know what this path can actually be like. How do we appropriately address the longing within Western culture for true connection among all relations, living and dead, human and other, for it is often a genuine longing and a need to be fulfilled if we are to affect any actual balance on this planet?
What can prepare someone to work deeply in this way are not the life experiences most people willingly seek, as often the spirits work with those who have been scoured and opened by pain, rather than becoming closed; those who have come up against their limitations; with those who have innate sensitivities to the subtle realms and spirit presences which can often make adapting to and functioning well in everyday community more difficult; and with those who have submitted their own will in learning countless challenging life lessons which shatter, reorganize and soften their self-image and personal need for life to be maintained in certain, self-managed ways.
You will also recognize the spirits tending to work with those who have surrendered their egoic fixations and their withholding from Life; with those who will learn what true power is and not be afraid to use it fully with humility; they work with those who will step into their sovereignty backed by Spirit and not be swayed by external conditions or influences; and they work with those who widely open their hearts in compassionate service while maintaining discernment and accountability for all their actions. In this way the spirits can work through a person with purpose and power. So... those in modern culture who have been called to do this work in ways very similar to Siberian shamans can be confused as to what language to use to self-identify, or what to accept when called by certain names by others. However, in our culture where there is such overwhelming diversity of life expressions, there has to be some way to designate what your line of service is based on the language and agreed upon terms your culture uses for definition. So... what do we do?
First of all, I believe we could stop calling all medicine people of diverse cultures by the term shaman and reserve that for those of a Siberian lineage, or at the very least begin applying it only to those who practice similarly and with similar trajectories and consequences. We can also learn what medicine people are called in whatever culture we are interacting with or learning from and consequently, through honoring the language and ways of traditions who are so often overrun by the insanity of western culture we can bring acknowledgement and honor to all the sacrifices made to keep a tradition active and alive in the face of threat. Secondly, those of us who have experienced this call and work in this way now often use the term “shamanic practitioner,” a term using an adjective rather than a noun and hence a description rather than a title, to identify the practice of having loving, deeply tended relationships with the unseen energies of the spirit realm and the Earth, that they were called by the spirit realm and almost seem to have no choice in the matter, and who use trance states and/or varied means of expansive consciousness to access guidance and healing energies from these relationships on behalf of people, animals, the dying, the dead, and all beings/elements of the Earth and cosmos, seen and unseen.
I personally find this term to be somewhat tepid—not engaged enough with agency—and it lacks resonance for me for all that the work entails. As an alternative, we can deeply feel into what our work is, where/who ancestrally our practices have come from, and use the terms once used in the prevalent lineage of our present practice, if available. Some of us have so many different ancestral lineage currents running through us that inform our practice it can be difficult to know what to use. Some of us don't self-refer as shamans--occasionally leaving that to our communities if they so choose--out of respect for traditional cultures who so often have their lineage-based ways co-opted by contemporary people who don’t apply the essential principles of humility, rigor, unity consciousness and sacrifice that are distinguishing traits of those who have worked in this way for time uncounted.
I prefer to courteously deflect the use of the word shaman when called that by others. I understand that people are often trying to either show me respect or else describe what they’ve learned are the hallmarks of this practice and way of life and yet it has become so ubiquitous, so laden with destructive thought-forms, and unfortunately has sent the Ancestors of those of us from wiped-out European and British spiritual traditions even further into the mists, or else created disruptive commotions in the psyche/soma of the living, so that I prefer not to accept it as a title. Many of us remember and acknowledge with great gratitude, respect and humility how untold millions have died, been brutalized, oppressed, enslaved and/or rendered invisible while holding with great courage and fortitude to the beauty ways of their traditions on behalf of the entire web of life.
Some people do accept the designation of shaman for the reason that it is a term that generically conveys, based on the historical and linguistic evolution of this term, just what it is they offer and do. And many who do this---not all, but many--do not consider it to be a form of elitism or special prideful status, but simply now a time-honored name to designate a beautiful and needed area of service. I don’t argue this with those whose work is deep, good and true, and which leads people to begin a return to the sanity of the Earth and relationship with the wisdom of other than humans and with the dead and other discarnates. Nor am I at a point where I will denigrate the people or the work I know to be good in this way, based on a theoretical stance that the work can’t possibly be healing or good if it’s coupled with an unawareness of the reported harm the use of this term can do.
First of all, cultures since recorded history have borrowed and used what has worked and the terms associated with that when it comes to better ways of survival. This is true on all levels of human need and expression, from spiritual practices to food systems to habitation to education to hunting to travel to warfare, and the language that defines them. etc. Secondly, we do not learn, change or deepen our consciousness in linear, completed ways. There is much imperfection, surge, collapse and reorientation, and considerable room for growth and change. We are in a time of great transition in relation to this way of being and my hope is that we can mature not only into authentic practice and relationship with the spirits, but reflectively into a language that is both descriptively accurate, referentially potent, and that doesn't in any way contribute to homogenizing or diluting the presence and power of the traditions and languages of present and past indigenous cultures, including those of Euro/British settler lineages.
At this point in my practice I refer to myself as an Earth/Spirit tender or Earth/Spirit-based practitioner and will occasionally use the defining term "shamanic" when describing something. Whatever name we use, it is accurate to reflect that modern people doing this work are in a state of infancy with it now, until we re-develop over the generations, a stable, respectful and strong relationship with our Ancestors, with the land and seen and unseen beings of the world that are anchored in everyday practices.
On a corresponding note about compensation for healing services: In many Earth-based cultures, those who the community eventually regarded as their medicine people were generously supported for as long as they served in this capacity. Often they were conferred resources, status and privilege way beyond that of the rest of the community as the people regarded their essential well-being to be sourced in the medicine person’s relationship with the spirit realm. In other cultures, the medicine person might do other work as part of the community and offer their gift as purely a service due to a belief that things of the Spirit should not be tied to commerce. However, even in these cultures, the medicine person was still often gifted with what was needed for them to continue to work on behalf of the community. Balance, need, gratitude, how energy works as a give and take, and the circle of reciprocity and how all this ties into survival have always been key acknowledgements within human cultures, albeit also complicated and subject to many differing beliefs, experiences, dogmas and transitions. The main point in my own stance however, is that this work is not done from a desire for power, status or privileged resources, but from a desire to serve Spirit and the Web of Life.
Although my work is partially based on my belief that many of our cultural systems need to be deeply dismantled and utterly transformed in order for us to live in alignment with the Earth and all life, I am still tied into this system willy-nilly even as I try to extract from its sticky threads. I continue to learn and change constantly. And although there is certainly negative practice within the rising shamanism movement that calls for our discernment, dialogue, and truth-telling, I also strongly feel that the current state of the world needs those of us in Western culture who are sincerely committed to working this way, to do so with everything we've got, no-holds-barred, full-time, and to be willing and grateful to receive adequate, life-sustaining support from our communities when possible in order to continue to do so. I have many colleagues across the country who designate as shamanic practitioners, as I once did, or something similar, who are deeply dedicated this way, responsible, humble, joyful and incredibly effective in their relationships with their spirits and community, as well as extremely giving with their time and efforts in regard to compensation.
I have quite a mixed biological background: Mongolian, Finnish Sami, Irish, British, Hungarian Roma and Sicilian Mafioso. None of the old terms for a medicine person who works the way I do have had resonance for me yet and so, as stated above, I presently self-refer as an Earth/Spirit tender, a phrase I made up because that is where most of my learning has come from—directly from the earth and spirits—and it is what I do: I tend relations with the Earth realm and with the Spirit realm, and in-between. If someone wants to know more what that means, I figure they can ask. It might not give as much immediate information as using the term shaman, which also carries a heavy load of misinformation, but it feels like a better fit for who I am and to honor who has resourced what I do; and who I am and all my resources is what I bring to my practice.
As we grow a more sane culture may we have some understanding for and give actual support to, and designated as needed by, the cultures who have been marginalized and whose people have suffered for long generations, as well as some understanding for the trauma-based cluelessness of those in greater positions of power and privilege in contemporary culture while also dissolving these systems and concurrently experiment with finding how language can be an actual ally in bringing this kind of perspective and work into greater understanding and acceptance, with deeper peace, tolerance. clarity and non-biased communication and creative actions; cultivating ever greater discernment as we learn, evolve and blend the old ways with the new, for our precious Earth needs us to be fully resourced in true and effective ways......now more than ever...
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