Ya gotta post this...

Following the advice of my friend, quasi editor, confidante and twisted sister Marie, She said; "ya gotta post this.."

Ok I will post. These musings are a wee bit different as they have to do with an area of my life that I don't focus on with this blog, my Shamanic practice. A friend of mine was wanting some insight with getting parts of his life on track. I can't offer too much help but I did mention the power of "intending". Intention has recently been made popular by the book and video franchise called "The Secret". Shamanism along with most mystical traditions have incorporated the principles of manifestation and intending since the time before time. The terminology may be different but to me that's more semantics as it would appear that many spirituals laws are immutable and the only difference is how one chooses to describe their workings.

I'm not a big fan of "The Secret" take on the whole process. When I watched the movie, the concepts felt like a form of "Intending for Dummies". Information abounds within literature, websites, gurus, intuitive counsellors, angels, channels, mediums, infomercials, mystics, healers and the never-fail magic 8 ball about how to get what you want out of life. No doubt that nuggets of truth reside in all these modalities. But I do have some skepticism about the newer-age idealism that if we all think happy-wonderful-thoughts THEN... the world will be a happy-wonderful-place. Really? REALLY? Soooooo then from the dawn of man to today with fighting, wars, strife, man's-inhumanity-to-man etc etc that all occurred because.... our thoughts were wrong? Seriously? Me thinks there may be more to it than meets the eye, like oh... Karma for instance. When Karma opens up a big can of whoop-ass all over you I'm not sure if clicking your heels and saying "There's no place like home" is going to help. I've been taught that the principle of karma suggests it's an "opportunity" to learn and develop as a human. Ok, but that doesn't mean it feels good. I don't think the Buddhists would have devoted so much time to the concept of suffering if wasn't in place for reasons I don't pretend to understand.

So with regards to "the secret", I'm not buying that T-shirt and I'm not able to pick up what's being put down. If it were that fucking easy we'd all be singing Koombai-ya right now and have managed to have psychic communication with the animals so they could teach us their version of Koombai-ya too. Personally I have a suspicion that their version would sing about how great it will be when the humans die out because they can't live in a world without petroleum products.

Jesus this is the longest intro EVER... :-)

I'm not a teacher, I'm not an intuitive counsellor, my secret dream is not to have a healing centre in the woods and mend little birds' wings in my spare time when I'm not balancing my chakras. I like GOING to those centres, eating all that hmmm good organic food and chillaxing. I like those centres because it feels like restorative therapy and it's a break from the Shamanic approach. Dig your own grave Dude, now GET in there and examine your life to see who you are and once you've done that, sit outside in your medicine circle for a while, stop the spin you've been telling yourself, cry for the vision of who you came here to be; let nature teach you. See the difference? Shamanism, at least the style I follow is not for the faint of heart. It's dirty, gritty and for me, well it's real. It reflects what I sense to be true. Life isn't easy, its not all cupcakes and candy floss and nor should it be. If we're here to learn while walking on this earth as a spirit in a human body, if that is true, and most mystical traditions says it is, then I expect there will be some lumps and bumps along the way. I've learn as much through my "downs" as my "ups". I do like the "ups" way my more, I ain't gonna lie, but you get the point.

I'm a shamanic practitioner. I wake up in the morning and try in my very flawed way to get through the day without doing harm to others. And even that's a joke as I eat meat, gobble up resources with the best of them and swear like a truck driver on a good day. Let's just say that cultivating peace in my heart is a moving target. But I try, I really try and I've taken vows that I will endeavour to add positive energy to the world the best I can. Whether it feels good to do so or not, when I don't feel like it, when there are no high fives, when it's a glorious experience, when love is present or not. I'll keep at it until my last breath leaves me and I get to go home. That's about it.

My thoughts on intending and manifestation are my own based on what I've learned through teachings, what I've read and what I know to be true for myself. They don't represent any organization and I speak only for myself. Now if you would kindly hit the accept button that indicates you understand the terms and conditions of this blog we can proceed.

Here are my thoughts...

Some background on the basics of Shamanic principle of intending and manifestation.

The use of magic is not really so magical... it is the redirecting of energy from where it currently resides to where you want it to go. That's it, that's all. But redirecting energy takes some skills most of us didn't learn.

What is needed are desire, focus, commitment, discipline and follow-through.

Even the order of what I wrote is important. Most people have desire for many things and that desire can change with the wind. I want THIS... now I really want THIS oooh look at that I want THAT. Desire is important but its not helpful to keep shifting your focus, it scatters energy. This is the crucial difference between "wishing" for something and "intending". People who wish for things don't want to do work, they are like children. To really intend one must stay focused. Most people cannot focus on their desire for longer than a month, they will even forgot what they thought they wanted because now they want something new. So they give up, they decide it doesn't work for them. But they haven't really committed, they haven't used discipline when things get difficult and they haven't followed through with concrete action. Not unlike training for climbing, nothing happens until we work at it.


Something does need to be said here, it's important.

Energy is neutral, it doesn't know good nor bad. But a little knowledge is dangerous too.

Lets say you have a very fast car, amazing handling and it goes faster than most cars out there because it has such a high performance engine. If you drive at the posted speed limit things are fine. However you better know how to drive that thing if you are blasting 200km down a busy street simply because you can and you enjoy the excitement and the power. It won't matter how good of a driver you are at high speeds if you don't have other skills too. If someone pulls out in front of you and you don't know how to drive out of the way and NOT hit someone else in the process, then someone gets hurt. You didn't mean to do harm but life has turned into a car wreck because of disregard for others. We call this unconscious incompetence.

With magic comes responsibility to act in accordance with the ethic of doing no harm. No one can force you to do this, and there are plenty of people out there who do whatever they want and they don't care. We call them dark-sorcerers. I call them assholes actually. They take candy from babies and laugh while they do it because they think people are stupid and deserve to be mistreated. Also it is not a good idea to intend things you know in your heart could cause harm to others but you convince yourself otherwise. For example, let's say a man really desires another's wife or girlfriend and has convinced himself it is ok, she would be much happier with him anyhow. Or perhaps he thinks he will only borrow her and give her back, what's the harm in that? :-) With some magic, seduction and perhaps a bottle of wine :-) who knows what could happen. Could he get what he wants? There is a good chance that magic could make this process much easier. What if the woman he desires has been seduced enough to be in full agreement, now they are consenting adults. But others are being harmed, specifically the husband or boyfriend of that woman and I doubt that guy would agree this is a good idea. This is a crude example of course. But being aware of consequences is very important. As shamanic practitioners we take vows against hurting others in this manner. We make agreements about how we will choose to live in the world and the type of actions we will take or not take. We have taken a vow to make the world a better place for everyone, not just ourselves.

Having said that there is so much abundance in the world and PLENTY of fun to be had honestly and ethically - hell yes! :-)