Nicholas E. Brink's Blog, page 8
October 22, 2018
Shamanic experience of Drinking Artemisia
I have had something in mind for the last couple of weeks and this morning I was called to do it, that is to use ecstatic trance as a way to reach out to and learn from the plants in the area. I recently talked with a friend, Jennifer, whose life has centered around medicinal plants and found that she had been thinking in the same direction. On this windy morning, as I sat at our kitchen table next to the window, outside I saw the artemisia or mugwort swaying back and forth, calling to me. I had been thinking about which ecstatic posture to use and had earlier decided that I would use the Chiltan Spirit Posture, a healing posture, with the right hand place on the chest over the heart and the left arm along the waist. This posture typically brings a strong presence of a large number of spirits, traditionally forty. In this posture I could hold a piece of the plant over my heart.
I used walking the labyrinth as the way to quiet my mind before the drumming started. As I sat in the Chiltan posture I first felt sorry and apologized to the mugwort for the violent way in which I had picked it. I had taken hold of a fairly large stem and had to really yank to break it off. I should have taken a much smaller piece where I could have been more gentle. I held onto the sorrow and apology for a while before I thanked it for beckoning me by swaying in the wind. I felt it had something to tell me. Holding it to my chest I felt growing warmth coming from different directions, coming from the forty spirits, and I could smell the artemisia’s sweet smell. I began to feel very warm in this windy and cold morning. The wind was blowing against my back and blowing the fallen maple leaves past me. It was a very pleasant experience as I inhaled the steam of a tea and then drank it. I thought of using the mugwort in a tea so that I could experience more of this warmth.
Then with the wind and the many fallen maple leaves around me, I found myself in Lapland with the Sami sitting near their tent in the fall elements, near a fire where water was boiling and all were drinking tea. I found the cold and wind very invigorating and a pleasant experience in this warming community of family and friends. The 15 minutes of the ecstatic drumming went very fast.
When I returned to our cottage and as I let the mugwort leaves steeped in the hot water I read a little more about the plant and learned that it is good for the kidneys and can help dissolve kidney stones. I was recently diagnosed with a small stone. I knew beforehand from going to the dream conferences that mugwort is often placed under a person’s pillow at night to increase the vividness of dreams. As for visiting the Sami, through genetic testing I have learned that I have a gene that over half of the Sami have.
I am looking forward to visiting other plants and using this ecstatic journeying in our ecstatic trance group to learn more about medicinal plants. The tea I drank had a sweet piney taste.
I used walking the labyrinth as the way to quiet my mind before the drumming started. As I sat in the Chiltan posture I first felt sorry and apologized to the mugwort for the violent way in which I had picked it. I had taken hold of a fairly large stem and had to really yank to break it off. I should have taken a much smaller piece where I could have been more gentle. I held onto the sorrow and apology for a while before I thanked it for beckoning me by swaying in the wind. I felt it had something to tell me. Holding it to my chest I felt growing warmth coming from different directions, coming from the forty spirits, and I could smell the artemisia’s sweet smell. I began to feel very warm in this windy and cold morning. The wind was blowing against my back and blowing the fallen maple leaves past me. It was a very pleasant experience as I inhaled the steam of a tea and then drank it. I thought of using the mugwort in a tea so that I could experience more of this warmth.
Then with the wind and the many fallen maple leaves around me, I found myself in Lapland with the Sami sitting near their tent in the fall elements, near a fire where water was boiling and all were drinking tea. I found the cold and wind very invigorating and a pleasant experience in this warming community of family and friends. The 15 minutes of the ecstatic drumming went very fast.
When I returned to our cottage and as I let the mugwort leaves steeped in the hot water I read a little more about the plant and learned that it is good for the kidneys and can help dissolve kidney stones. I was recently diagnosed with a small stone. I knew beforehand from going to the dream conferences that mugwort is often placed under a person’s pillow at night to increase the vividness of dreams. As for visiting the Sami, through genetic testing I have learned that I have a gene that over half of the Sami have.
I am looking forward to visiting other plants and using this ecstatic journeying in our ecstatic trance group to learn more about medicinal plants. The tea I drank had a sweet piney taste.
October 12, 2018
The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible
The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible is the world we lost in the world of separation that began over ten thousand years ago since leaving paradise, the Garden of Eden. For many of us Our Hearts are remembering this Garden, the paradise of our ancestors that is now returning to us as we move into the new age. Moving into this new age of interbeing, of returning to the mind of nature, is, in using the words of Martin Prechtel, “the recovery of our own indigenous souls,” of reuniting spirit and matter.
Though many of us are working to save the Earth, to reunite spirit and matter, our lives are so ingrained in the dominant culture of materialism and profit that we find it most difficult to return to being one with the Earth and all of its inhabitants. There are many subtle and not so subtle ways we think and behave that run counter to opening ourselves to this new world of oneness with the Earth, of again finding our rightful place in the process of continued evolution. In thirty-six short chapters Charles Eisenstein beautifully describes how the ways we live inhibit this transformation and how to break free of that which separates us from reuniting spirit and matter.
Though many of us are working to save the Earth, to reunite spirit and matter, our lives are so ingrained in the dominant culture of materialism and profit that we find it most difficult to return to being one with the Earth and all of its inhabitants. There are many subtle and not so subtle ways we think and behave that run counter to opening ourselves to this new world of oneness with the Earth, of again finding our rightful place in the process of continued evolution. In thirty-six short chapters Charles Eisenstein beautifully describes how the ways we live inhibit this transformation and how to break free of that which separates us from reuniting spirit and matter.
October 8, 2018
The Ecstatic Postures
Felicitas Goodman reached a real breakthrough in her research on ecstatic trance when she realized the importance of particular postures in giving direction to the ecstatic trance experience. From an article by VF Emerson, a Canadian Psychologist she learned about the effect of various postures on trance . She then went to books and museums to find what she believed were the postures used by ancient and contemporary shamans and identified approximately 50 such postures. In leading her students at Denison University in the use of these postures while going into an ecstatic trance she found that they brought direction to the trance experience whereas before while using the ecstatic trance induction ritual she developed, though the students did go into a trance the trance was undirected. She found that certain postures brought to the person a healing and strengthening energy, while other postures led the person to find answers to questions, i.e. the divination postures. Other postures were for traveling into the spirit world, some postures for going into the underworld, some for going into the middle world or Earthly realm, and some for going into the upper sky world. Then there were the metamorphosis or shape shift postures, leading the person to become some other life form or Earth feature. Some postures were for initiation or for providing a death-rebirth experience, leading the person to let some unhealthy part of the self to die with the rebirth of a healthier innocent part of the self. Finally there were several postures for celebration or for calling the spirits.
When I first used these postures in workshops that I led at an International Association for the Study of Dreams annual conference I was very impressed by these postures and how they did what Goodman discovered. It was this experience at the conference that led me in my last ten years of work with these postures, and the groups that I have since led continue to validate the purpose of the posture.
When I first used these postures in workshops that I led at an International Association for the Study of Dreams annual conference I was very impressed by these postures and how they did what Goodman discovered. It was this experience at the conference that led me in my last ten years of work with these postures, and the groups that I have since led continue to validate the purpose of the posture.
October 1, 2018
Returning to Our Great Mother
Regaining a Matriarchal Life
For the last ten thousand years our society has rapidly become patriarchal, a patriarchy that has placed women in a secondary status, caused them to be abused, discredited by and subservient to men. For the last hundred years women have been rising up to this oppression and inequality. With the now #metoo movement, the current Kavanaugh nomination, and MoveOn.org’s support of a 100 candidates in the November election of which 70% are women, this oppression and inequality seems to be rapidly coming to a head, hopefully bringing an end to white male supremacy. Some women I have talk with thing the answer is for better balance between the two genders. I think this is insufficient and that it will take a serious swing back to matriarchal society if there is any hope.
There is considerable evidence that contemporary and ancient hunter-gatherer societies are/were matriarchal with the worship of the Great Mother, and that these societies lived in greater harmony with all that is of the Earth. From Jean Auel’s last book of the Earths Children Series, Land of Painted Caves, this veneration of the Great Mother ended when men discovered that they had a role in procreation of the species. From Felicitas Goodman’s book, Ecstasy, Ritual, and Alternate Reality, the earlier matriarchal era was paradise: “In a very real way, the hunter and gatherers open the first chapter of our human history. And fittingly, this dawning was as close to paradise as humans have ever been able to achieve. The men did the hunting and scavenging, working for about three hours a week, and the women took care of daily sustenance by gathering vegetal food and small animals. It was such a harmonious existence, such a successful adaptation, that it did not materially alter for many thousands of years. This view is not romanticizing matters. Those hunter-gatherers that have survived into the present still pursue the same lifestyle, and we are quite familiar with it from contemporary anthropological observation. Despite the unavoidable privation of human existence, despite occasional hunger, illness, and other trials, what makes their life-way so enviable is the fact that knowing every nook and cranny of their home territory and all that grows and lives in it, the bands make their regular rounds and take only what they need. By modern calculations, that amounts to only about 10 percent of the yield, easily recoverable under undisturbed conditions. They live a life of total balance, because they do not aspire to controlling their habitat, they are a part of it.” (pg. 17-18)
Though apparently most of the daily chores were carried out by the women, their role was respected, and they had control of these daily activities, not the men. Though living in this way would be impossible today -- for one the limited animals to hunt -- but we can turn to and venerate our Great Mother Earth. We can again listen to the Spirits with ecstatic trance. We can grow and raise what we need to live, again becoming one with all that is of the Earth. We can live more comfortably off the grid with our knowledge of how to use the heat and energy from the sun and wind, avoiding the privation of this earlier life. There is much we need to learn, but this learning can be exciting as we again become one with the process of evolution and our matriarchal heritage rather than putting men superior to it.
For the last ten thousand years our society has rapidly become patriarchal, a patriarchy that has placed women in a secondary status, caused them to be abused, discredited by and subservient to men. For the last hundred years women have been rising up to this oppression and inequality. With the now #metoo movement, the current Kavanaugh nomination, and MoveOn.org’s support of a 100 candidates in the November election of which 70% are women, this oppression and inequality seems to be rapidly coming to a head, hopefully bringing an end to white male supremacy. Some women I have talk with thing the answer is for better balance between the two genders. I think this is insufficient and that it will take a serious swing back to matriarchal society if there is any hope.
There is considerable evidence that contemporary and ancient hunter-gatherer societies are/were matriarchal with the worship of the Great Mother, and that these societies lived in greater harmony with all that is of the Earth. From Jean Auel’s last book of the Earths Children Series, Land of Painted Caves, this veneration of the Great Mother ended when men discovered that they had a role in procreation of the species. From Felicitas Goodman’s book, Ecstasy, Ritual, and Alternate Reality, the earlier matriarchal era was paradise: “In a very real way, the hunter and gatherers open the first chapter of our human history. And fittingly, this dawning was as close to paradise as humans have ever been able to achieve. The men did the hunting and scavenging, working for about three hours a week, and the women took care of daily sustenance by gathering vegetal food and small animals. It was such a harmonious existence, such a successful adaptation, that it did not materially alter for many thousands of years. This view is not romanticizing matters. Those hunter-gatherers that have survived into the present still pursue the same lifestyle, and we are quite familiar with it from contemporary anthropological observation. Despite the unavoidable privation of human existence, despite occasional hunger, illness, and other trials, what makes their life-way so enviable is the fact that knowing every nook and cranny of their home territory and all that grows and lives in it, the bands make their regular rounds and take only what they need. By modern calculations, that amounts to only about 10 percent of the yield, easily recoverable under undisturbed conditions. They live a life of total balance, because they do not aspire to controlling their habitat, they are a part of it.” (pg. 17-18)
Though apparently most of the daily chores were carried out by the women, their role was respected, and they had control of these daily activities, not the men. Though living in this way would be impossible today -- for one the limited animals to hunt -- but we can turn to and venerate our Great Mother Earth. We can again listen to the Spirits with ecstatic trance. We can grow and raise what we need to live, again becoming one with all that is of the Earth. We can live more comfortably off the grid with our knowledge of how to use the heat and energy from the sun and wind, avoiding the privation of this earlier life. There is much we need to learn, but this learning can be exciting as we again become one with the process of evolution and our matriarchal heritage rather than putting men superior to it.
December 18, 2017
The Magical Powers
Magical Powers
What is power? Men, and as a result many women too, have come to believe that power is the ability to control others and the environment. They have forgotten the real magical power of those ancient times when people worshiped the Great Nurturing Mother in her ability to sustain all life on Earth. The power to control is a false and destructive power that promotes distrust and resentment in those who are controlled and fear in losing control in the controller. The power to control leads to war and the destruction of the Earth, destruction that is leading to our demise.
Real power comes not from control but from listening to, respecting, and nurturing others. Real power is experienced magically in the depth of loving others and all that is of the Earth. Everything of the Earth is interdependent. Taking indiscriminately from the “natural resources” of Earth is bringing about our destruction. The Native American Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of the Seneca Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy Oren Lyons has observed that the people of the dominant culture see everything around them as natural resources, but the indigenous people of the Earth see all as their relatives. Real power comes from treating all that is of the Earth as our relatives.
In the era of when people tried to explain the nature of the world around them through myths, this battle between the need to control and the power of nurturance and mutual respect was played out in the battle between the Asir and the Vanir, the two tribes of gods and goddesses of the ancient North. This battle led to a stalemate with Odin, Thor and the other gods of the Asir not understanding the power of the magic of love and nurturance of the fertility goddesses and gods of the Vanir, deities who venerated the Great Mother. But this stalemate eventually gave way to the destruction of Asir at the time of the final battle, Ragnarok. It is this magical power of the Vanir that I write about in my book, Baldr’s Magic, especially the second half of the book, and to which I return in my book, Beowulf’s Ecstatic Trance Magic.
Jean Auel, the Finnish-American writer of the Earth’s Children Series of books, concludes in her series that men took advantage of control when they discovered that they had an important and necessary role in procreation of the species. Until then women were in charge of life. Until then, during the matriarchal era, the nurturance of the Great Mother was the focus of worship.
Nick
What is power? Men, and as a result many women too, have come to believe that power is the ability to control others and the environment. They have forgotten the real magical power of those ancient times when people worshiped the Great Nurturing Mother in her ability to sustain all life on Earth. The power to control is a false and destructive power that promotes distrust and resentment in those who are controlled and fear in losing control in the controller. The power to control leads to war and the destruction of the Earth, destruction that is leading to our demise.
Real power comes not from control but from listening to, respecting, and nurturing others. Real power is experienced magically in the depth of loving others and all that is of the Earth. Everything of the Earth is interdependent. Taking indiscriminately from the “natural resources” of Earth is bringing about our destruction. The Native American Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of the Seneca Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy Oren Lyons has observed that the people of the dominant culture see everything around them as natural resources, but the indigenous people of the Earth see all as their relatives. Real power comes from treating all that is of the Earth as our relatives.
In the era of when people tried to explain the nature of the world around them through myths, this battle between the need to control and the power of nurturance and mutual respect was played out in the battle between the Asir and the Vanir, the two tribes of gods and goddesses of the ancient North. This battle led to a stalemate with Odin, Thor and the other gods of the Asir not understanding the power of the magic of love and nurturance of the fertility goddesses and gods of the Vanir, deities who venerated the Great Mother. But this stalemate eventually gave way to the destruction of Asir at the time of the final battle, Ragnarok. It is this magical power of the Vanir that I write about in my book, Baldr’s Magic, especially the second half of the book, and to which I return in my book, Beowulf’s Ecstatic Trance Magic.
Jean Auel, the Finnish-American writer of the Earth’s Children Series of books, concludes in her series that men took advantage of control when they discovered that they had an important and necessary role in procreation of the species. Until then women were in charge of life. Until then, during the matriarchal era, the nurturance of the Great Mother was the focus of worship.
Nick
October 16, 2017
Learning from our Ancestors
Learning from My Ancestors
We are in the process of moving to High Falls, NY, in the Mahikanitak (Hudson) Valley. We are on an acre of land that has become overgrown though mowed since the house has been vacant and remodeled by our son-in-law, so have much work is ahead of me. I’ve move up three compost bins, Lee Reich’s design, that I am ready to fill and hope to soon move our worm composting boxes. Outside my bedroom window is a massive arbor of kiwi-wisteria mix that needs to be trimmed way back while eliminating the invasive wisteria. The area is much hillier than what I have been used to the last 47 years in Penns Valley. Just got my computer working and it has a much better internet connection than in Penns Valley, but I am looking forward to getting out tomorrow to begin caring for the land around the house, including getting rid of the invasive bushes in the wooded section of the acre, especially the barberries that are magnets to ticks. Anyway, much work is ahead of me in this land of my ancestors who have something to teach us regarding their relationship with the Esopus Lenape.
My 9xgreat grandparents, Lambertse Huybertsen Brink and his wife Hendrickje Cornelisse of Wageningen in the Netherlands, settled here in 1660, a few miles from High Falls. They were among the original settlers of Wildwyck, now Kingston. Before it was Wildwyck it was Esopus, the name of a major creek in the area that flows into the Mahikanitak. The Esopus Lenape were the original inhabitants of the area and I am looking forward to learning about them and their way of life. During those early years there was considerable conflict between the Dutch invaders and the Esopus. The tension reached its first climax on September 20, 1659 when a group to soldiers encountered a party of four Esopus huddled around a campfire drunk from brandy provided them by one of the English settler in exchange for husking corn, one was killed, one taken captive and two escaped though injured. As a result the Esopus laid siege to the settlement and began destroying the livestock outside the fort. Five or six of the Dutch were wounded and one was killed. The troubles continued but by the following April a truce was finally reached and there was three years of peace.
In 1662 the New Village or Nieuwe Dorp was settled along the Esopus Creek two and one-half miles southwest of Wildwyck, to be later named Hurley, about ten miles north of High Falls. It was in Hurley that my 9xgreat grandparents built their home which still stands and was in the Brink family until I believe 1948. In June of 1663 the Esopus attacked the two villages, “The Second Esopus War.” The tensions between the Dutch and the Esopus had been again growing, again caused by the selling of liquor to the Esopus, but also because of the Dutch alliance with the Mohawks, resented by the Esopus because of their subservience to the powerful Mohawks. Roeloff Swartwout had been appointed the first sheriff of Wildwyck in 1660, and in a letter to Governor Stuyvesant who resided in New Amsterdam (New York City) Swartwout told of his fear of another Esopus uprising. Roeloff Swartwout’s daughter would married the son of Lambertse Brink, Huybertse Brink, thus Swartwout is also my 9xgreat grandfather. In this attack Nieuwe Dorp was burned and ten women and children were taken prisoner, including Hendrickje Brink and three of her children including Huybertse. They were held in a Lenape village near what is now Newburgh for three months until they were released as a result of a new treaty. As prisoners they were treated very well, incorporated in the village life as members of the village. Another of the captive women decided to remain in the village in which she was held because of how well she was treated, something we can learn in how to treat prisoners.
We are in the process of moving to High Falls, NY, in the Mahikanitak (Hudson) Valley. We are on an acre of land that has become overgrown though mowed since the house has been vacant and remodeled by our son-in-law, so have much work is ahead of me. I’ve move up three compost bins, Lee Reich’s design, that I am ready to fill and hope to soon move our worm composting boxes. Outside my bedroom window is a massive arbor of kiwi-wisteria mix that needs to be trimmed way back while eliminating the invasive wisteria. The area is much hillier than what I have been used to the last 47 years in Penns Valley. Just got my computer working and it has a much better internet connection than in Penns Valley, but I am looking forward to getting out tomorrow to begin caring for the land around the house, including getting rid of the invasive bushes in the wooded section of the acre, especially the barberries that are magnets to ticks. Anyway, much work is ahead of me in this land of my ancestors who have something to teach us regarding their relationship with the Esopus Lenape.
My 9xgreat grandparents, Lambertse Huybertsen Brink and his wife Hendrickje Cornelisse of Wageningen in the Netherlands, settled here in 1660, a few miles from High Falls. They were among the original settlers of Wildwyck, now Kingston. Before it was Wildwyck it was Esopus, the name of a major creek in the area that flows into the Mahikanitak. The Esopus Lenape were the original inhabitants of the area and I am looking forward to learning about them and their way of life. During those early years there was considerable conflict between the Dutch invaders and the Esopus. The tension reached its first climax on September 20, 1659 when a group to soldiers encountered a party of four Esopus huddled around a campfire drunk from brandy provided them by one of the English settler in exchange for husking corn, one was killed, one taken captive and two escaped though injured. As a result the Esopus laid siege to the settlement and began destroying the livestock outside the fort. Five or six of the Dutch were wounded and one was killed. The troubles continued but by the following April a truce was finally reached and there was three years of peace.
In 1662 the New Village or Nieuwe Dorp was settled along the Esopus Creek two and one-half miles southwest of Wildwyck, to be later named Hurley, about ten miles north of High Falls. It was in Hurley that my 9xgreat grandparents built their home which still stands and was in the Brink family until I believe 1948. In June of 1663 the Esopus attacked the two villages, “The Second Esopus War.” The tensions between the Dutch and the Esopus had been again growing, again caused by the selling of liquor to the Esopus, but also because of the Dutch alliance with the Mohawks, resented by the Esopus because of their subservience to the powerful Mohawks. Roeloff Swartwout had been appointed the first sheriff of Wildwyck in 1660, and in a letter to Governor Stuyvesant who resided in New Amsterdam (New York City) Swartwout told of his fear of another Esopus uprising. Roeloff Swartwout’s daughter would married the son of Lambertse Brink, Huybertse Brink, thus Swartwout is also my 9xgreat grandfather. In this attack Nieuwe Dorp was burned and ten women and children were taken prisoner, including Hendrickje Brink and three of her children including Huybertse. They were held in a Lenape village near what is now Newburgh for three months until they were released as a result of a new treaty. As prisoners they were treated very well, incorporated in the village life as members of the village. Another of the captive women decided to remain in the village in which she was held because of how well she was treated, something we can learn in how to treat prisoners.
August 21, 2017
In Community
The other day while using the Priestess of Malta posture and listening to and feeling the drumming I found myself in a hunter-gathering village. The drum was calling the people of the village community together. In experiencing the village community I felt the closeness and mutual understanding of the community members and realized that the closeness of the community was an important feature in their ability to communicate at a distance, of the ability to know what other village members were doing when at a distance from each other such as when a group of the men were out hunting.
Ecstatic trance experiences offer many and regular examples of mental telepathy. The villages’ drumming and dancing ceremonies as an avenue to ecstatic trance keeps this ability to communicate at a distance alive. Though we now do not live in such village communities but at a greater distances from each other, the coming together regularly with practice and the beat of a drum can again bring us together in communion with each other. In my continued search to find those ways to experience and live the ways of the hunter-gatherers brings me to the hope that we can again regain the power to communicate with each other even when at a distance from each other. Meeting together in ecstatic trance and sharing our trance experiences brings us this sense of closeness and communion.
Ecstatic trance experiences offer many and regular examples of mental telepathy. The villages’ drumming and dancing ceremonies as an avenue to ecstatic trance keeps this ability to communicate at a distance alive. Though we now do not live in such village communities but at a greater distances from each other, the coming together regularly with practice and the beat of a drum can again bring us together in communion with each other. In my continued search to find those ways to experience and live the ways of the hunter-gatherers brings me to the hope that we can again regain the power to communicate with each other even when at a distance from each other. Meeting together in ecstatic trance and sharing our trance experiences brings us this sense of closeness and communion.
August 14, 2017
This I Believe
My Monday Blog: This I believe
Last Friday while using the ecstatic trance Freyr divination posture with my query of what is important in life, the answer came that we are approaching the destruction of life on Earth as we know it. For the last 10,000 years we have consider ourselves above all other life. We have come to see ourselves as the culmination of evolution and not one with it, continuing to evolve in our position in the process of evolution. We, in our greed, have systematically destroyed the Earth. We have forgotten that we are one with nature and interdependent upon all other life and substances of the Earth. Our ancient hunter-gathering ancestors lived in oneness with the Earth, valued their relationship with and protected all other life and substances. Though we generally think that the life of the hunter-gatherers’ life was one of misery, but in my reading (Sahlins’ Stone Age Economics, and others) I am finding considerable evidence that for 200,000 years they generally lived a healthy and longer life than the following generations of agriculturists who put themselves above and sought to control the Earth. I believe that central to all that we are doing and need to do to save the Earth is to return to the attitude of our hunter-gatherer ancestors in living in oneness with the Earth. This does not necessarily mean giving up the comforts of the way we live, but to give back to the Earth as much as we take from it, support and value all other life and substances, and to thank our Great Mother Earth for how she provides for up.
I believe that Mother Earth is a living being, Gaia, and since the beginning she has led all life and substances of the Earth towards a harmonious balance that we have continually destroyed. In his destruction of the balance we have placed ourselves in a position that is leading us to our own destruction.
Last Friday while using the ecstatic trance Freyr divination posture with my query of what is important in life, the answer came that we are approaching the destruction of life on Earth as we know it. For the last 10,000 years we have consider ourselves above all other life. We have come to see ourselves as the culmination of evolution and not one with it, continuing to evolve in our position in the process of evolution. We, in our greed, have systematically destroyed the Earth. We have forgotten that we are one with nature and interdependent upon all other life and substances of the Earth. Our ancient hunter-gathering ancestors lived in oneness with the Earth, valued their relationship with and protected all other life and substances. Though we generally think that the life of the hunter-gatherers’ life was one of misery, but in my reading (Sahlins’ Stone Age Economics, and others) I am finding considerable evidence that for 200,000 years they generally lived a healthy and longer life than the following generations of agriculturists who put themselves above and sought to control the Earth. I believe that central to all that we are doing and need to do to save the Earth is to return to the attitude of our hunter-gatherer ancestors in living in oneness with the Earth. This does not necessarily mean giving up the comforts of the way we live, but to give back to the Earth as much as we take from it, support and value all other life and substances, and to thank our Great Mother Earth for how she provides for up.
I believe that Mother Earth is a living being, Gaia, and since the beginning she has led all life and substances of the Earth towards a harmonious balance that we have continually destroyed. In his destruction of the balance we have placed ourselves in a position that is leading us to our own destruction.
July 30, 2017
Ecstatic Trance
Ecstatic Trance
In most all my blogs I have mentioned ecstatic trance, the topic of five of my books. It has been a while since I described the nature of this trance. It is trance induced by the rapid stimulation to the nervous system by such activities as the beat of a drum, the shaking of a rattle, or by the energetic dancing as performed by many tribes of people of the Earth.
Felicitis Goodman, who received her PhD in 1971 at Ohio State University recognized that ecstatic trance was akin to speaking in tongues as occurs in the apostolic church. Her research in ecstatic trance thus began with her dissertation research on the speaking in tongues in the Spanish and Mayan speaking Apostolic Churches of Mexico. Her research led her to identify four necessary components to induce the state of trance that produced the speaking in tongues:
• An open mind and relaxed body, along with the expectation of a pleasurable but nonordinary state of reality.
• A sacred space, one separate from the activities of everyday life.
• A meditative technique, such as counting one’s breath, to calm the analytic mind.
• Rhythmic stimulation of the nervous system through rattling or drumming.
These four components were evident in the worship services of the Apostolic Churches with the congregation’s expectation of speaking in tongues, the sacred space of the church, of quieting the mind with prayer and of the rhythmic stimulation of hand clapping.
Goodman then designed a ritual with these four components that separated them from the context of the church. Her ritual begins with a discussion of what to expect from ecstatic trance and the answers to questions, then the sacred space for this ritual is designated by smudging the space and each participant with the smoke of burning herbs, and by calling the spirits of the six directions. Following the litany of calling the spirits, a meditative technique to quiet the mind is offered that entails sitting in silence in a comfortable position while counting one’s breath for five minutes. Then the stimulation of the nervous system with drumming or rattling commences and lasts for 15 minutes. The beat is approximately at a rate of 210 beats per minute.
After receiving her PhD Dr Goodman took a position at Dennison University in Granville, Ohio, a position that lasted until 1979 when she was forced to retire at the age of 65. With her students at Dennison University she experimented with this ritual and found that the students did go into a trance, though she concluded from this experimentation that the trance lacked direction or meaning.
Sometime later Goodman read an article by the Canadian psychologist V. F. Emerson who, in his research with various meditative disciplines, found that different body postures had a specific but different effect on such body functions as heartbeat, breathing, skin moisture and bowel motility. With this discovery, Goodman searched ethnographic journals, books and museums to find what she believed were the body postures used by both contemporary and ancient shamans, body postures that suggested religious ritual activity. She identified approximately fifty such postures that she used in her continued research. Following the ritual that she had already developed she add a body posture, having her students sit, stand or lie in one of these postures while she shook her rattle or beat her drum.
With this addition of a body posture which was held by the participants for the fifteen minutes of drumming or rattling, she found the direction and meaning that was initially missing without the use of these body postures. What she found was that some specific body postures elicit the sensation of bringing a healing or strengthening energy into one’s body. Other postures are for divination, for seeking answers to questions or for looking into the future. Then there are those postures that bring about the sensation of shape-shifting or a metamorphosis in becoming some animal, other living being, or some inanimate substance or feature of the Earth. Some postures are for journeying into the underworld, others for journeying in this world and some for journeying in the upperworld. Then there are the postures that bring about a death-rebirth experience of initiation. Besides these seven ecstatic trance experiences, several other postures were determined to offer a celebration experience or an experience of calling the spirits.
After reading her book, Where the Spirits Ride the Wind. I was quite impressed such that in 2007 I offered a workshop using ecstatic trance at the annual conference of the International Association for the Study of Dreams. The workshop was offered each of the four mornings of the conference and we used eight of her ecstatic postures. I was astounded by the results that matched the results of the postures as used by Goodman. As a result I returned home to start a group using the postures, a group that at first met weekly, but now meets monthly and has continued for ten years. From the ecstatic experiences of the participants of these group sessions as well as a number of other workshops I have offered around the country, I continue to be very impressed with the power of these ecstatic postures and the power of ecstatic trance.
It is also evident that Felicitas Goodman experienced this same power in the use of the postures and ecstatic trance in that she started what is now the Cuyamungue Institute on the Pojoaque Pueblo north of Santa Fe, New Mexico, an institute that has continued to function and grow since her death in 2005.
In most all my blogs I have mentioned ecstatic trance, the topic of five of my books. It has been a while since I described the nature of this trance. It is trance induced by the rapid stimulation to the nervous system by such activities as the beat of a drum, the shaking of a rattle, or by the energetic dancing as performed by many tribes of people of the Earth.
Felicitis Goodman, who received her PhD in 1971 at Ohio State University recognized that ecstatic trance was akin to speaking in tongues as occurs in the apostolic church. Her research in ecstatic trance thus began with her dissertation research on the speaking in tongues in the Spanish and Mayan speaking Apostolic Churches of Mexico. Her research led her to identify four necessary components to induce the state of trance that produced the speaking in tongues:
• An open mind and relaxed body, along with the expectation of a pleasurable but nonordinary state of reality.
• A sacred space, one separate from the activities of everyday life.
• A meditative technique, such as counting one’s breath, to calm the analytic mind.
• Rhythmic stimulation of the nervous system through rattling or drumming.
These four components were evident in the worship services of the Apostolic Churches with the congregation’s expectation of speaking in tongues, the sacred space of the church, of quieting the mind with prayer and of the rhythmic stimulation of hand clapping.
Goodman then designed a ritual with these four components that separated them from the context of the church. Her ritual begins with a discussion of what to expect from ecstatic trance and the answers to questions, then the sacred space for this ritual is designated by smudging the space and each participant with the smoke of burning herbs, and by calling the spirits of the six directions. Following the litany of calling the spirits, a meditative technique to quiet the mind is offered that entails sitting in silence in a comfortable position while counting one’s breath for five minutes. Then the stimulation of the nervous system with drumming or rattling commences and lasts for 15 minutes. The beat is approximately at a rate of 210 beats per minute.
After receiving her PhD Dr Goodman took a position at Dennison University in Granville, Ohio, a position that lasted until 1979 when she was forced to retire at the age of 65. With her students at Dennison University she experimented with this ritual and found that the students did go into a trance, though she concluded from this experimentation that the trance lacked direction or meaning.
Sometime later Goodman read an article by the Canadian psychologist V. F. Emerson who, in his research with various meditative disciplines, found that different body postures had a specific but different effect on such body functions as heartbeat, breathing, skin moisture and bowel motility. With this discovery, Goodman searched ethnographic journals, books and museums to find what she believed were the body postures used by both contemporary and ancient shamans, body postures that suggested religious ritual activity. She identified approximately fifty such postures that she used in her continued research. Following the ritual that she had already developed she add a body posture, having her students sit, stand or lie in one of these postures while she shook her rattle or beat her drum.
With this addition of a body posture which was held by the participants for the fifteen minutes of drumming or rattling, she found the direction and meaning that was initially missing without the use of these body postures. What she found was that some specific body postures elicit the sensation of bringing a healing or strengthening energy into one’s body. Other postures are for divination, for seeking answers to questions or for looking into the future. Then there are those postures that bring about the sensation of shape-shifting or a metamorphosis in becoming some animal, other living being, or some inanimate substance or feature of the Earth. Some postures are for journeying into the underworld, others for journeying in this world and some for journeying in the upperworld. Then there are the postures that bring about a death-rebirth experience of initiation. Besides these seven ecstatic trance experiences, several other postures were determined to offer a celebration experience or an experience of calling the spirits.
After reading her book, Where the Spirits Ride the Wind. I was quite impressed such that in 2007 I offered a workshop using ecstatic trance at the annual conference of the International Association for the Study of Dreams. The workshop was offered each of the four mornings of the conference and we used eight of her ecstatic postures. I was astounded by the results that matched the results of the postures as used by Goodman. As a result I returned home to start a group using the postures, a group that at first met weekly, but now meets monthly and has continued for ten years. From the ecstatic experiences of the participants of these group sessions as well as a number of other workshops I have offered around the country, I continue to be very impressed with the power of these ecstatic postures and the power of ecstatic trance.
It is also evident that Felicitas Goodman experienced this same power in the use of the postures and ecstatic trance in that she started what is now the Cuyamungue Institute on the Pojoaque Pueblo north of Santa Fe, New Mexico, an institute that has continued to function and grow since her death in 2005.
July 3, 2017
Where are we going?
Where am I going in writing about Ecstatic Trance? In what direction is the Cuyamungue Institute going? Five of my books on Ecstatic Trance have been published by Bear & Co. and are available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, the publisher Bear & Co. and your neighborhood bookstore. Where am I going with my writing? Felicitas Goodman, Belinda Gore, and Nana Nauwald have provided us with a great number of ecstatic postures, and the institute continues in this direction of identifying the intent of new postures. But beyond identifying and evaluating new postures and teaching ecstatic trance, Felicitas had broader interests. When I was first introduced to the ecstatic postures I learned from Belinda that Felicitas was quite interested in the research of Rupert Sheldrake who has been researching the mind beyond our personal mind, a mind available to us that offers us information from the beginning of time from what he refers to as the Morphic Field. With this suggestion from Belinda I began my pursuit of what Rupert Sheldrake has to offer us with regard to ecstatic trance. Ecstatic trance suppress our overly rational and conscious mind, thus opening the door for us to access the information available to us from the Morphic Field, or what I call the Universal Mind.
My reading of Sheldrake led me to other writers, Ervin Laszlo who extends this research, showing us how we are able to perceive this information through the cytoskeletal structure of our brain. His name for this universal mind beyond our personal mind is the Akashic Field. Then there is the research of extra-sensory perception that has been re-examined by Dean Radin. I have written extensively of this research in my books, and these concepts of a mind beyond our personal mind and extra-sensory perception have a lot to offer in where our knowledge of ecstatic trance can take us. Just as our hunting and gathering ancestors communed with their ancestral spirits, spirits of the Earth, and with animal spirit guides, spirits that showed them how to live sustainably on our one and only Earth, these same spirits are available to us through ecstatic trance. The only reason that we have not been listening to them over the last several millennia is that we embraced what we have call rational thinking, calling communing with the spirits a superstition. But we now better understand and are in the position to regain the power gained from communing with the spirits, from the Universal Mind.
What do these spirits have to teach us? From my experiences with ecstatic trance, I have experienced its tremendous healing power as I wrote about in my first ecstatic trance book, The Power of Ecstatic Trance: Practices for Healing, Spiritual Growth, and Accessing the Universal Mind, and also my most recent book, Ecstatic Soul Retrieval: Shamanism and Psychotherapy. Then with my continued ecstatic trance experiences I discovered that I was connecting with my distant Scandinavian ancestors, thus the book, Baldr’s Magic: The Power of Norse Shamanism and Ecstatic Trance. But with further trance experiences I realized that many of the spirits I was visiting were not specifically of my ancestors, but of the Earth, from those places I visited, spirits that came from the Universal Mind at those places. These spirits of the Earth during my time in Scandinavia, especially southern Sweden and Denmark, told me a more complete story of Beowulf, thus the book Beowulf’s Ecstatic Trance Magic: Accessing the Archaic Powers of the Universal Mind. But in considering our problems with global climate change and what we must do to prevent the destruction of life on Earth as we know it, I continued to go to the spirits of the Earth in an attempt to find some answers. This pursuit led me to writing Trance Journeys of the Hunter-Gatherers: Ecstatic Practices to Reconnect with the Great Mother and Heal the Earth. Ecstatic Trance is much more than just collecting a growing number of ecstatic trance postures. But where else can it take us?
For the last ten years our local ecstatic trance group has met, first weekly and then monthly. Over this last year my hearing has deteriorated such that I did not feel competent in leading our ecstatic trance group so Amalia Shatiel who has been involved in the group over the last several years was prepared to take over a leadership role. She has two monthly groups, one meeting in Spring Mills, not far from State College, PA, and the other below Sunbury, PA where she lives part-time. She is an exceptional instructor and I hope she will attend the instructor training at the Institute this next year. Along with other insightful people in the group such as Deb Kline, Amalia has been taking the group in a little different direction in that she has been selecting new postures from specific cultures, and we have been exploring what the trance experiences have to say about the culture from which the postures came. In my connection to Scandinavia, I did a similar thing in finding Scandinavia postures that led me to connect intimately with the ancient cultures of the far north, but now Amalia has been leading us around the eastern Mediterranean. Thus we have a new direction in keeping the postures connected to the cultures from which they come. We as an institute have much room to grow in new directions to understand and live the ecstatic powers that were available to our ancient hunting and gathering ancestors.
A side note, I have recently received a cochlear implant so I have high hopes that I will be regaining some of my hearing.
Nick
My reading of Sheldrake led me to other writers, Ervin Laszlo who extends this research, showing us how we are able to perceive this information through the cytoskeletal structure of our brain. His name for this universal mind beyond our personal mind is the Akashic Field. Then there is the research of extra-sensory perception that has been re-examined by Dean Radin. I have written extensively of this research in my books, and these concepts of a mind beyond our personal mind and extra-sensory perception have a lot to offer in where our knowledge of ecstatic trance can take us. Just as our hunting and gathering ancestors communed with their ancestral spirits, spirits of the Earth, and with animal spirit guides, spirits that showed them how to live sustainably on our one and only Earth, these same spirits are available to us through ecstatic trance. The only reason that we have not been listening to them over the last several millennia is that we embraced what we have call rational thinking, calling communing with the spirits a superstition. But we now better understand and are in the position to regain the power gained from communing with the spirits, from the Universal Mind.
What do these spirits have to teach us? From my experiences with ecstatic trance, I have experienced its tremendous healing power as I wrote about in my first ecstatic trance book, The Power of Ecstatic Trance: Practices for Healing, Spiritual Growth, and Accessing the Universal Mind, and also my most recent book, Ecstatic Soul Retrieval: Shamanism and Psychotherapy. Then with my continued ecstatic trance experiences I discovered that I was connecting with my distant Scandinavian ancestors, thus the book, Baldr’s Magic: The Power of Norse Shamanism and Ecstatic Trance. But with further trance experiences I realized that many of the spirits I was visiting were not specifically of my ancestors, but of the Earth, from those places I visited, spirits that came from the Universal Mind at those places. These spirits of the Earth during my time in Scandinavia, especially southern Sweden and Denmark, told me a more complete story of Beowulf, thus the book Beowulf’s Ecstatic Trance Magic: Accessing the Archaic Powers of the Universal Mind. But in considering our problems with global climate change and what we must do to prevent the destruction of life on Earth as we know it, I continued to go to the spirits of the Earth in an attempt to find some answers. This pursuit led me to writing Trance Journeys of the Hunter-Gatherers: Ecstatic Practices to Reconnect with the Great Mother and Heal the Earth. Ecstatic Trance is much more than just collecting a growing number of ecstatic trance postures. But where else can it take us?
For the last ten years our local ecstatic trance group has met, first weekly and then monthly. Over this last year my hearing has deteriorated such that I did not feel competent in leading our ecstatic trance group so Amalia Shatiel who has been involved in the group over the last several years was prepared to take over a leadership role. She has two monthly groups, one meeting in Spring Mills, not far from State College, PA, and the other below Sunbury, PA where she lives part-time. She is an exceptional instructor and I hope she will attend the instructor training at the Institute this next year. Along with other insightful people in the group such as Deb Kline, Amalia has been taking the group in a little different direction in that she has been selecting new postures from specific cultures, and we have been exploring what the trance experiences have to say about the culture from which the postures came. In my connection to Scandinavia, I did a similar thing in finding Scandinavia postures that led me to connect intimately with the ancient cultures of the far north, but now Amalia has been leading us around the eastern Mediterranean. Thus we have a new direction in keeping the postures connected to the cultures from which they come. We as an institute have much room to grow in new directions to understand and live the ecstatic powers that were available to our ancient hunting and gathering ancestors.
A side note, I have recently received a cochlear implant so I have high hopes that I will be regaining some of my hearing.
Nick
