In
the beginning of all things,
Wisdom and knowledge were with the animals;
for Tirawa, the One Above, did not speak directly to man.
He sent certain animals to tell men that he showed
himself
through the beasts, and that from them,
and from the stars and the moon,
man should learn.
Tirawa spoke to man through his works. (Chief Letakots-Lesa of
the Pawnee tribe to Natalie Curtis, c.1904)
The above passage
was taken from: ‘The Way of the Animal Powers –
Historical Atlas of World Mythology’ by Joseph
Campbell. This and other works by Joseph Campbell are the
major sources of my understanding of mythology and
therefore of life. This is because, in my opinion, no one
knows mythology, and especially primitive mythology, like
Joseph Campbell. He understood life and the importance of
myth so well that his work was the major influence in my
own transformation as well as the movie trilogy
‘Star Wars’.
Myths, like dreams, visions and to some extent
channelling, come from the energies of the universe that
are manifest in symbolic or metaphoric images. As Joseph
Campbell says in ‘The Power of Myth’: “Myths
and dreams come from realisations of some kind that have
then to find expression in symbolic form.”
Carl Jung referred to dreams ranging from personal
archetypes of the unconscious to universal archetypes of
the unconscious. It is the personal archetypal images
that come from our cellular memories, subconscious or
unconscious. These create our personal dreams, and it is
the universal archetypal images that come from our
spirit, soul or higher consciousness and that are common
to all human beings from all times and places, that can
be considered mythological. Myths are society’s
dreams.
According to Joseph Campbell, myths serve four functions,
which are:
1/ The Mythical Function.
Realising the wonder of the universe, and the wonder of
yourself as a living symbol of the Creator.
“If
mystery is manifest through all things, the universe
becomes, as it were, a holy picture. You are always
addressing the transcendent mystery through the
conditions of your actual world.”
2/ The
Cosmological Dimension. This is today the concern of
science, to show the shape and nature of the universe.
But it must be shown in a way that allows the mystery and
the experience of awe to still come through.
3/ The
Sociological Function. Where the myth is supporting and
validating a certain social order. This is where myths
vary from one place to another and from one culture to
another. According to Joseph Campbell, it is this
function that has taken over in our current world, and is
out of date, in all the pages and pages of rules on how
to behave and what you should wear etc.
4/ The
Pedagogical Function. This is the function that everyone
must try to relate to, and gain from the wisdom of
nature, realising the brotherhood we have with plants,
animals, minerals and all living beings of the universe.
This function of myths is the one that can teach us how
to live a human lifetime under any circumstances, as it
teaches us the stages of life from birth through maturity
and death to rebirth.
Today’s “New Age” movement has sparked a
lot of interest in spiritual matters, because spirit is
the healing force of life that creates harmony in the
world. It’s therefore natural that healing and
spirituality go hand in hand. And there is indeed a great
need for this healing energy, not only for all of
humanity, but for all of life on and within the earth.
For our Mother Earth is the one that gives us all the
matter and substance of the material world, and it is our
Father Spirit which lives and breathes through this
material world.
Enlightenment, Ascension etc. are all words used to
explain the unexplainable experience of oneness with all
life in the material universe or with the spirit of God,
Great Spirit, Creator etc. Everything in our experience
of life is an illusion because it is in symbolic or
metaphoric form. Our physical body is a symbol of God; it
is the manifestation, in symbolic form, of the
never-ending circle of life.
When we quit thinking about our own preservation, and
ourselves we undergo a truly heroic transformation of
consciousness, and what all the metaphors and symbols in
dreams and myths have to deal with is that transformation
of consciousness of one kind or another. Myths are, and
have always been, here to help us understand life; the
only trick is to find the message that is behind the
metaphors and symbols of the mythological stories.
Because all native people worldwide relate intimately
with the nature of earth and sky, they all have a
shamanic base; in fact, all different religions began
with a shamanic base, but in varying degrees have missed
the messages within the mythological stories and
religious texts. It is the native cultures that have kept
their simple shamanic ways of understanding the nature of
the universe.
The shamans of the world have been given different names
in different cultures, just as the different cultures
have different names for God. The Native Americans refer
to them as Medicine Men and Women; the Traditional
Aboriginals here in Australia refer to them as Clever Men
and Women.
These shamans are those people who have been called to
the spirit realms, often via a type of schizophrenic
crack up, and from this time on they become personally
familiar with all the natural forces, energies, or
spirits of the universe. This is because their
consciousness spends a lot of time travelling with spirit
to the many realms of The World Tree, from the
Under-world roots of birth, death, survival and
unconscious energies to the Upper-world fruits of higher
consciousness and being at one with The Creator, God etc.
Most people, on the other hand, spend most, if not all,
their conscious time and effort in the Middle-world of
conscious thoughts but visit these other worlds at night
in dreams. The Middle-world is governed by our normal
material five senses, but there are another five mythical
senses that shamans use, which I will go into in the next
issue.
The shamans and mystics of the world are equivalent to
the artists and poets of our modern Western culture. In
fact, the shamans of the past have been responsible for
much of the rock art and mythological stories that are
still relevant to us today, if only we can understand the
messages behind the symbolism. These shamans, mystics,
artists and poets have experiences with the spirits or
energies of the ‘Other-worlds’ in an altered
state of consciousness. Then they come back to the
Middle-world of physical consciousness to try to
communicate to the rest of us what they experienced and
learnt in the Other-worlds, which is an experience that
can only be described or communicated in symbolic or
metaphoric form.
It is because of this symbolic nature of dreams and
mythology that I teach no belief system. As I only ask
everyone to experience their own worlds, discuss or share
their experiences as best they can, and to follow their
own path of heart, or as Joseph Campbell calls it, their
BLISS.
The most important underlying aspect of Shamanism and all
of the native mythology is the connectedness of all
things, and the experience of nature, both the human
nature within and the universal nature around us. The
best example of discussing this connectedness is with the
words of Chief Seattle as follows:
“The president in
Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. But
how can you buy or sell the sky? The land? The idea is
strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air
and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?
“Every part of this earth is sacred to my people.
Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist
in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect.
All are holy in the memory and experience of my people.
“We know the sap which courses through trees as we
know the blood that courses through our veins. We are
part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed
flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great
eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the
juices in the meadow, the body heat of the pony, and man,
all belong to the same family.
“The shinning water that moves in the streams and
the rivers is not just water, but the blood of our
ancestors. If we sell you our land, you must remember
that it is sacred. Each ghostly reflection in the clear
waters of the lakes tells of events and memories in the
life of my people. The water’s murmur is the voice
of my father’s father.
“The rivers are our brothers. They quench our
thirst. They carry our canoes and feed our children. So
you must give the rivers the kindness you would give any
brother.
“If we sell you our land, remember that the air is
precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all
life it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his
first breath also receives his last sigh. So if we sell
you our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a
place where man can go to taste the wind that is
sweetened by the meadow flowers.
“Will you teach your children what we have taught
our children? That the earth is our mother. What befalls
the earth befalls the sons of earth.
“This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man
belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the
blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of
life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to
the web, he does to himself.
“One thing we know: our God is also your God. The
earth is precious to him and to harm the earth is to heap
contempt on it creator.
“Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen
when the buffalo are all slaughtered? The wild horses
tamed? What will happen when the secret corners of the
forest are heavy with the sent of many men and the view
of the ripe hills is blotted by talking wires? Where will
the thicket be? Gone! Where will the eagle be? Gone! And
what is it to say good-bye to the swift pony and the
hunt? The end of living and the beginning of survival.
“When the last Red Man has vanished with his
wilderness and his memory is only the shadow of a cloud
moving across the prairie, will these shores and forests
still be here? Will there be any of the spirit of my
people left?
“We love this earth as a newborn loves its mothers
heartbeat. So, if we sell you our land, love it as we
have loved it. Care for it as we have cared for it. Hold
in your mind the memory of the land, as it is when you
receive it. Preserve the land for all children and love
it, as God loves us all.
“As we are part of the land, you too are part of the
land. This earth is precious to us. It is also precious
to you. One thing we know: there is only one God. No man,
be he Red Man or White Man, can be apart. We are brothers
after all.’
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