WARNING: This is a personal post.

Daniel practicing the curandero art. Photo by http://www.elainag.com/.

The path of the curandero can be, without a doubt, the least gratifying vocation one could ever choose.  Truly, the only reason one chooses to do it is if they have a "calling." More often than not, it is a thankless gig where heart and soul is poured into a life serving others with very little returned in favor. Additionally, like any vocation there are hits and misses. Not everything is perfect.


I use Sharon's definition because that is primarily the lineage that I practice, as there are many different lineages of curanderismo throughout the Latin Americas depending on the country (or part of each country) you are referring to. Beyond that, there are a lot of misconceptions with this practice, especially as a Caucasian American practicing this work in a modern world filled to the brim with New Age self-help gurus on every street corner offering enlightenment at a specially priced package.

Let's run down the list of misunderstandings about what I do (or don't do):

1. I am not a shaman. Shamans are indigenous healers/priests that live completely immersed in a lifestyle of which I could only hope to aspire to. They truly walk between the worlds of the seen and Unseen (and I don't mean someone who can just snap right out of a 30 meditation and then drive on over to Whole Foods to get a smoothie). Some of the practices inherent in curanderismo are shamanic, per se (in the same way that some of the practices are also Christian or Buddhist) but that does not make me a shaman (in the same way that I am not a Christian or a Buddhist). I do try to live my life by a code of conduct as a priest would, as that is how I was trained and initiated.
2. I am not a doctor, therapist, or a life coach. Nor do I want to be. I provide this warning every single time I have a client that I choose to work with. I am not certified in psychology, psychiatry, or social work, though I may be knowledgeable in them all. If you want your life problems solved what I offer is a chance to cut into the Truth underlining your soul and pave a path for transforming your current circumstances to rise up to a higher potential. It is always up to you, the client, to make those choices. You are completely responsible for yourself. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to make money off of you.
3. I am a father and husband, first and foremost. I have a life. Although this is a vocation, it is not my primary source of livelihood. I have two full-time jobs already: the first is my day job to support my family, and then the second is my family itself. I will always do my best to help someone in need, but my life comes first. Sometimes I just may not be able to find the time. And that's okay, because (refer to number 2).
4. Yes, I charge for my time. I am not claiming to be a Lakota medicine man or a spiritual guru. I am trained within a specific lineage based upon folk healing practices. In this tradition, which stems from northern Peru, this is the primary vocation of those claiming to be curanderos and curanderas. This is how they pay their bills, it is part of their culture, and it has been so for thousands of years. Some of them even advertise. So, before getting triggered about someone "capitalizing off of indigenous spirituality" do some research first on the history of curanderismo, as well as take into consideration that for the 9 to 10 hours I work at my day job, then the raising of three children, as well as being a husband (and maybe even having some time to myself....maybe?) that my time does need to be compensated in some way shape or form. I don't gut my clients. I do not aim to make a living off of them. I certainly don't swindle. I try to be flexible or sometimes even accept trade if someone is in dire need. I'm here to serve to the best of my ability. But, the teachings of my tradition beg sacred reciprocity in all of life. That means giving must always happen before receiving.
5. You have to be ready to do some work. My job is to reveal that which you are unable to currently see. After that, I provide you with some breathing room as well as tools to be able to get the desired result you would like to have. After that, you have to get to work, because any true healing comes from you doing the majority of the work. I've always been taught that curing is likened to sitting in the passenger seat of the car . . . the client is driving, I'm just there holding the map. I can point the way, but you have to get there. If I did everything for you, you wouldn't heal. You would become dependent upon me, then hyper-dependent, and finally you would become worse off. You have to be willing to change things, change behaviors, change habits, as well as change addictions. Healing is transformation and transformation means turning one thing into another, lead into gold. It is not an easy-going process. It takes work.
6. Warning! Shadows abound! If you are looking for healing it's because something isn't working right in your life, with you. 9 times out of 10, something is not working right because you are not seeing something clearly and have developed habits that prevent you from seeing it. My job is to see it, then to get you to see it, so you can then do something about it. This often leads to very uncomfortable revelations that can turn your world upside down. If you are not ready for that, and especially not ready to do anything about it, then you may want to reconsider this modality and seek elsewhere. Most especially, if you get started and do not stick with it to address the unforeseen revelation, you may open a whole new Pandora's box for yourself that could potentially unravel more chaos into your life. Be ready to face anything, most especially your own self. 
7. I am not enlightened, or more spiritually special than you are. Curanderismo takes training, skill, and an artistic knack. To be a curandero doesn't mean God chooses me especially to be more spiritually better than anyone else. It's a craft. Some people just have a knack for being a doctor, a lawyer, a painter, or a project manager. Some people are good at those things, are meant to do them somehow. It doesn't mean they are spiritually enlightened or better than anyone else. In the same light, not everyone is meant to be a curandero; everyone has their own knack, their own purpose. Because I was trained as a curandero doesn't mean I am enlightened or a spiritual guru. Moreso, it doesn't mean I always have my shit together, either. I am a human being. I'm not perfect. But, I do have a knack for this particular craft and am definitely called to share it with the world. Do not hold me to a higher standard than you would hold yourself.  

These are just some of the misconceptions that float around about those who practice shamanic healing, or any other form of alternative healing modality. I cannot speak to other traditions, but I certainly can speak for my lineage.  Somehow, for some reason, I see many people in this tradition get a lot of flak, a lot of projection thrown at them for things out of their control. We are all human, and we need to treat each other such, at the same time holding each other up to an equitable standard of integrity and respect. 

I'm here to serve. There's no question about that. But, I'm also here to be vulnerable and make mistakes as well. It's a human experience and we're all here to paint the picture we were meant to paint.

Daniel and his beloved Autumn with their mesas. Photo by http://www.elainag.com/.

Previously published on The Tattooed Buddha.




"That's why I love shamanism," my beloved Autumn mentioned while we were laying down for the night. She does that sometimes, just pulls a statement out of thin air as if we were in the middle of conversation.

"Why's that?" I asked, immediately trying to find the answer to my own question.

"Because it grounds you. No matter what, it always pulls you back here, in this world, what's happening right in front of you."
 
She's right, of course (like always). She was referencing higher states of being, altered states of consciousness, meditation, and all that stuff which connects one to the big ol' Pie in the Sky, the Great Unknown, God, or what have you.

I am sanctioned a teacher in the Pachakuti Mesa Tradition, a lineage of Peruvian shamanism brought to the U.S. by maestro curandero don Oscar Miro-Quesada. I teach apprenticeships in this tradition regularly, in weekend-long intensives designed to initiate participants to a relationship with the unseen world, as well as enact a vehicle of transformation for themselves and the world around them. Therefore, I have a lot of touch-points with a wide variety of spiritual seekers and practitioners. 

One of my favorite definitions of shamanism comes from anthropologist and psychiatrist, Dr. Roger Walsh from the University of California. Dr. Walsh defines shamanism as "a family of traditions whose practitioners focus on voluntarily entering altered states of consciousness in which they experience themselves or their spirit(s) interacting with other entities, often by traveling to other realms, in order to serve their community."¹ This definition is comprehensive, and it acknowledges shamanism as a method of practice—or interaction—rather than a specific religion or spiritual path. 

In fact, almost any religion on the planet stems from, and comprises a branch of, shamanic practice. Some examples being:

The list goes on and on. Essentially, when going back to the origins of any religious/spiritual path around the world, you will find shamanic roots tied to it. It is humankind’s first spiritual tradition, spanning back to the Paleolithic age, and is what Dr. Walsh calls “the world’s oldest profession.”² It has definitely evolved over the centuries, becoming an all-inclusive, cross-cultural method for interacting with the spirit world, the Heavens, or whatever realm of “Other” applies to your spiritual worldview.

However, shamanism is not as “otherworldly” as this definition may imply.

One of the things I encounter most in spiritual communities is a strong drive for escapism. I can't tell you how many people I watch on an almost-daily basis get sucked in to workshop after workshop, self-help process after self-help process, looking for a way to relieve them of the burden of everyday life. They yearn for a meditation, a shamanic cleansing, anything to send them out and away from their 9-to-5 jobs, from the burden of their relationships, from war, from poverty . . . from the desolation of the world around them.  Seekers are always looking for something other, something beyond what they currently are.  Rabbi Gershon Winkler points out: “The shaman in the Judaic tradition does not rush into a spiritual experience like a famished desert traveler arriving at an oasis. Moses is not desperate for a vision because he knows that looking for one often gets in the way of seeing one. When we put all of our energies into seeking we risk not finding, we risk rushing past it.”³

The problem is, the audacious thirst for spiritual experience is a mode of self-deception, and shamanism does not condone this sort of delusion.

“By taking the pulse of the metaphysical, the paqo learns to reveal the condition of the physical,” explains Joan Parisi Wilcox, a shamanic initiate of the paqokuna lineage.⁴ Paqo is the term for the shamanic priests/healers of the Quechua peoples of Peru. The goal of a shamanic practitioner is to have touchpoints with the otherworld, but to bring back the information for healing and renewal in this world, the here and now. Any information gained in the metaphysical that is inapplicable to this world is moot and counter-productive.

Shamanic ceremonies are designed to heal conditions of this world, to bring the soul in contact with the Earth and your physical senses. From soul retrieval to pagos (offerings or payment to spirits), from animal allies to trance drumming, shamanic rituals are designed to cement the person in their bodies, in the acceptance of the physical life in which they are living now. “The wisdom traditions practiced by our ancestors,” as stated by curandero don Oscar Miro-Quesada, “provide for a very sensual and earthly experience.”⁵

This earthly experience, induced by shamanic ritual practices, reminds the body of its place in space and time. We spend so much of our waking day distracting ourselves from life (via television, internet, jobs, phones, traffic, alcohol, etc.) that when it comes to having a spiritual experience, we often clutch to practices that end up doing the exact same thing these other distractions do: take us away from the present moment.  The shamanic experience, though, thrives on the present moment. It supports the fact that right now—with your aching back, your hungry stomach, your kids banging on the walls, your glasses cracked in the left lens, your neighbors barking dog, your dirt-covered floor—that is your spiritual experience, that is your experience of God, of spiritual union with the Source of All Being.

“The physical world is the world which should be throroughly grasped by the soul,” says Gareth Knight, a mystic in the Western Mystery Tradtion. “The physical world, in that one has to return to it time and time again, must hold the key for spiritual development. And this development is surely not to be gained in regarding all physical nature as a trap and temptation which must be strenuously denied and put away form one.”⁶

In this way, shamanism is much like Zen practice. Both are based upon the philosophy that the pursuit of the “good” without the recognition and acceptance of the “bad” is an illusion. To become more than what you are now is folly; for you are already whole just as you are. Even when you are sick, even when you are depressed, even when you are poor, you are already exactly what you need to be in order to have a vital spiritual experience of union in this life. 

Zen philosopher Alan Watts explains: “For all ideas of self-improvement and of becoming or getting something in the future relate solely to our abstract image of ourselves. To follow them is to give ever more reality to that image. On the other hand, our true, nonconceptual self is already the Buddha, and needs no improvement.”⁷ It seems ironic, or oxymoronic maybe, that the goal of all of these rituals, practices, and philosophies would be to realize that we don’t need all of these rituals, practices, and philosophies . . . but that is exactly how it is. Shamanic ritual pulls you out of the distraction, out of the pipe dream, and opens your eyes to what is truly around you. “Through participation in earth-honoring ceremonies,” says don Oscar. “We are able to shift from fear to love, from desire to grateful acceptance of ‘what is,’ and from separation to wholeness.”⁸

When we seek for answers from some great unknown, we separate ourselves from our own inherent wisdom. Shamanic ritual connects us to our own intrinsic wholeness which allows us to see the beauty in everything, to see God in everything, so that one does not have to stick to flights of fancy in order to feel union. Shamans do not travel to other worlds for kicks. They do it “to serve their community.”
So, the practice of trance and altered states of consciousness shouldn’t become a staple of the everyday experience, but a rarity to remind the everyman that true divinity and harmony resides in the material world: the world of matter, the world of relationship, the world of incarnation. This is the world we must all participate in. We have a lot of problems here on Earth: racism, sexism, terrorism, mass-consumerism, environmental destruction.  We can’t solve them in the clouds. We can only solve them here.

This is why I, and my beloved, love shamanism. Because shamanism has no room for delusions; it is about reality. For all the people we see around us continually floating on air, never knowing what is real and what is illusion, shamanism roots our feet to the ground and provides the understanding that practicality—most often just plain ordinary things—are the means to having a full, rich life. 
Give me that over fantasy any day.



 
FOOTNOTES

AN AGONIZING REAPPRAISAL

A Letter to the New Spirituality

It has been a while since I've been attentive to this site and it's about time here in the Year of Our Lord 2014 that I take up the pen (or keyboard, rather) and make a go at blogging again. A lot has happened in the past year or so, including teaching my second round of shamanic apprenticeships in Peruvian curanderismo as well as finding and moving in with the love of my life, Autumn Paige (see below):

I may look asleep but I was just trying to save my soul from the camera. Poor Autumn!

Autumn and I are working on new high-brow spirit-led adventure that's akin to taking a year-long road trip through the many vistas of consciousness. We are calling it The Mystic Path.

The Mystic Path is our endeavor to explore and deepen our relationship with God (the Divine/Great Spirit/ Jehovah/the Universe/whatever) through a series of cooperative workshops based upon the Qabalistic Tree of Life. Noted as being Judaic in origin, the symbol designated as the Tree of Life is claimed by some esoteric scholars to have more ancient roots, stemming from Egypt and even Atlantis (if you believe in that sort of thing). It is a tool which acts as a road map of the Universe, leading from the individual to God and back again, with many stages and pathways in between.


Initiates in the Mystery Schools of old (and most recently, secret societies and Western-based esoteric lodges) used the Tree of Life as a meditative and divinatory device. This assisted the Initiate in facilitating their own relationship with the many aspects and manifestations of God, as well as their own Soul. This process is typically called a  Pathworking, which is an intensive meditation communing with each pathway and sphere (called a Sephiroth) on the Tree to deepen one's understanding of the many symbols and meanings hidden within it.

With a total of 32 paths embedded within the Tree of Life, there is an almost unlimited number of ways to go about this process; however, some of the greatest Masters of the esoteric arts have contributed to perfecting this process over time, and with successful results.

Our Mystic Path program is designed to take Autumn and I's years of spiritual and philosophical tutelage in the shamanic arts, as well as the yoga tradition, to facilitate a series of Pathworkings exploring all 32 paths on the Tree of Life. There are many different traditions and practices within the Qabalah (some orthodox, some not); the Mystic Path involves the knowledge and practices as provided to us by the founder of the Institute for Spiritual Archaeology, John Nichols. John has worked within the lineage directly connected to one of the greatest mystics to have sprung out of the Western Mystery Tradition: Dion Fortune! I'm thrilled, as Dion has been one of my heroes for years and years, a prime inspiration for my spirit-walk. Dion Fortune was a big-time guru in the British occult scene back in the early 20th Century. A prolific writer and successful psychologist, Dion was instrumental in formulating the most comprehensive synthesis on the Qabalah  with hermetic magical arts to date. She dubbed this ancient practice: "The Yoga of the West."

Below is the family tree of the lineage we are working from, connecting teacher-to-apprentice four generations back. It is important to Autumn and I to honor those that have passed down this knowledge through the generations:


John has an incredible mind and heart, and is a true friend! Right now, he is Florida currently getting his hands on a boat to discover if there is anything to the recent claims of underwater pyramids in the Bermuda Triangle. You can review his exploits on the Institute for Spiritual Archaeology's website! Good luck John!

Our Pathworkings will begin the Spring Equinox of 2014. With a total of 32 paths, each path lasts for two weeks each for a total Pathworking series of 64 weeks (15 months). It is a long endeavor which will require a lot of discipline. But, my apprenticeship in the Pachakuti Mesa Tradition was longer, so I imagine I will be fine. We are currently gathering like-minded folk who are willing to participate in the journey with us, not as spectators, but as active and equal participants taking responsibility for their own Pathworking, at the same time adhering to the integrity of a group consciousness. If you are interested, let me know!


The Lodge of the People Mystery School (Autumn and I's educational community) will be offering two classes before the actual Pathworkings begin. The classes will assist in preparing individuals for the 15 months ahead. They are:

• TREE OF LIFE 101 - An introduction into the Qaballah Tree of Life, the theory and cosmology behind the Tree, as well as various practices of working with the Tree both magically and mystically. 
• RITUAL SPACE 102 - Importance of establishing a ceremonial ground for the Work via integration of various spiritual disciplines. Includes creation of altar and ceremony to use during the Pathworkings.