Dispatch

 

 " I tell you how I am experiencing it...at least today. Shamanism is an evolving wisdom culture. I see this particular response to existence as a series of knowledge gathering practices and applications inside a habitat of varying degrees of agency and power. A shaman, though that term is more of a polemic and invention within Anthropology, we need another locator for all those who are healers, by the way, and, remember healing is different than cure... these kinds of folks that are ceremonialists, artists, leaders, healers, yes, warriors, teacher/students, story tellers, and so on, bring wholeness and vision to a community. There are a lot of ontological postures available in our century: Materialism, Idealism, Nihilism, Agnosticism, not to mention all the Metaphysical and religious takes on what having a pulse or not is all about, Mystery Schools, and their countless hybrids... For me, at least the way I understand it, the Ultimates remain mysterious and wild. Shamanism is a participatory stance rooted in love and open-ended knowledge as death/dying set horizons for how to respond to what gets co created within each unique life span and the culture one works with. A shaman or curandero, or exosentient ( i am hustling that alternate term)... is someone who brings "medicines" ("quickenings" into superlative locations of the heart and mind) to a collective and themselves. The Arts and Techniques of Relation vary according to what is needed in a specific context ... intrapersonal, interpersonal, and transpersonal. And, even more due to our inextricable embeddeness and interconnectedness not only to the Earth but to a shifting and expanding Cosmos at all levels of intelligence and organization the engagement is superb, complex, and at times demanding. But, as a great sorcerer once said, "it don't mean a thing if ain't got that swing." So, go forth and labor for the exquisite and delicate." 

Excerpt from a recent interview I did a few months ago soon to be out.