Liminal Songlines

Frank Ansell at TEDx Brisbane 2011

Frank Ansell recently gave this very generous talk about his life as a half aboriginal and half white person and the road he travelled to become a traditional Ngungkari healer. He left behind the spirit in the bottle, connected to the spiritual energies that are part of all of life and elders in is community introduced him to the traditional knowledge of his people. Frank’s healing work is guided by his ancestor spirits and by the healing power of the land and the many teachings and lessons that have been part of his journey. He understands the greater opportunity that lies in sharing his knowledge and gifts with all whose goal it is to heal themselves and their communities.

It has been a gift to know him.

 

Altered States or Alternate Realities

 
When I first became introduced into indigenous spiritual healing traditions I began to experience things that were out of the ordinary and outside of the rules of modern western conventions that I grew up with. Many of these extraordinary experiences deeply resonated with me and somehow they felt familiar. There was a part in me that recognized the wisdom, knowledge and healing powers present in these ancient practices. However when trying to articulate and research my experiences, I often wondered whether or not what I was experiencing was real or imagined. Was I actually entering different realities, worlds and places or did I simply shift into an altered state of consciousness or awareness? After some research into these questions I realized that whether something is called altered ‘state’ or alternate ‘reality’ depends on the cosmology or ontology that one uses to understand, interpret or relate to an experience.

A cosmology is a set of beliefs about how the universe works and ontology seeks to define the nature of being, existence and reality. Both of these belief systems can vary dramatically from one culture to the next and profoundly shape how we see ourselves as human beings and our relationship to the world around us. Usually these basic beliefs are deeply buried in our psyche and remain implicit and unexamined until we start to question them. I have found that whenever I enter a cultural context that is very different from my own, I encounter the boundaries and structure of my own basic belief systems and I am limited to seeing through the lenses that this belief system provides me with.

I have found that the belief that we can enter alternate realities, worlds and places tends to be more present in earth-based indigenous cultures, while shifting into altered states is more part of mystical and Gnostic traditions; though those distinctions can not always be clearly drawn and both can be present within any one cultural belief system. Generalizations by their very nature oversimplify the complexities that reside within any one culture. For example, the Andean indigenous tradition in Peru, while indigenous has a very complex belief system that blends shamanic and mystical elements. Even their p’aqos, which is the Quechua word for their traditional spiritual healers, are understood to be shaman/priests. My experiences within the Andean shamanic/mystical tradition included stepping across thresholds into extraordinary and futuristic worlds, becoming a large bird and flying high above a canyon, and opening to the refined awareness of the total interconnectedness of life on this planet and beyond.

Entering an altered state is a significant or unusual shift in our internal experience. In this view the actual world of which we are a part has not changed. What has changed is what we experience inside. Entering an alternate reality, in contrast, is a shift into a totally different space or location to which we bring ourselves—the world around us changes. Depending on our belief system, conscious or unconscious, we tend to experience one over another. And if our belief system opens up, other new experiences can be included.

To illustrate, here are some examples of belief systems that reflect notions of altered states and alternate realities. In many shamanic traditions there is the believe that we can leave this reality and journey into other worlds, the cosmos above, or the world below for the purpose of healing, or to attain knowledge or power. All or a part of the shamanic practitioner such as the shaman’s soul can go onto this journey. This also includes the belief we can shift from one location on another. Kalahari Bushman healers when conducting their healing dances can travel up the ropes to God and enter the schoolhouse of the universe where they attain their spiritual knowledge. Within that tradition there is no other location, school or training ground for these healers. The Amazonian medicine man or woman when conducting an ayahuasca (psychoactive entheogen tea) ceremony enters an altered world in which nature spirits assist him or her in the healing of the patient.

Aboriginal Healing with Frank Ansell

Earlier this month I hosted an event with Frank Ansell, an Aboriginal medicine man (nungkari) from the Central Desert and Sue Gregory, a leadership coach. Both of them have been exploring how Aboriginal healing approaches and coaching for professional and personal development can be complementary in their respective contexts. In a new blog post, Indigenous Wisdom: Healing Leaders, Healing Organizations, Sue reflects on what transpired over the course of the day. See what she has to say!

For me what stands at the foreground of the day is the vibrational impact of the songs and the bush medicine that Frank shared with us. Through his guiding words and tacit way of sharing his expanded inner state he was able to shift ours. We all relaxed into a gentler and more joyful place. Singing aboriginal songs, he demonstrated how the quality of a song can shift our sensitivities and awareness and can put us in touch with different capacities within us. For example, a song can makes us  feel gentler, more powerful, connected to different energy centers (like chakras) in our bodies or increase our perceptive ability. A song can connect us to the earth or the sky, plants or animals. He taught us how to use his ointment for self-healing and self-protection. Daily, as I apply his ointment, I hear his song in my mind and I focus my attention on what needs cleansing, what needs healing or what needs protecting. These practices are not only intended to bring healing to ourselves. Within us lies the potential to open and fine tune these sensitivities and the ability to direct these healing energies to others.

Life as Ceremony

 A few posts ago I shared my perception that ceremonies are a collective healing response to the existential experiences of being human. This clarity crystallized when I participated earlier this year in Women’s Business (Ceremonies) with Aboriginal Elder Women in the Central Desert. Previous experiences with indigenous ceremonies elsewhere, helped shape the foundations for this understanding.

Ceremonies in general are a way to step out of the ordinary goings-on of daily life to enter a sacred space for personal and collective healing through praying, singing, dancing, silence and the laying on of hands. Ceremonial practices generate movement toward wholeness and wellness by removing the blockages and heavy energy that we accumulate as part of living daily life. These blockages and layers of heavy energy prevent us from feeling and recognizing one’s belonging to this world, that we are an integral part of the great weave of life,and that the living energy travels among, through and between us.

My experience in the Central Desert reflected and confirmed other experiences I have had with indigenous people: in Africa with the Kalahari Bushman, with the Andean indigenous People of Peru, and with Native American ceremonies in the US. While there are great differences between these indigenous traditions and while their ceremonies follow specific cultural protocols and practices, what participating in these ceremonies has taught me is how to connect to the healing power that is based in the natural environment around us, the sky above and the earth below. From an indigenous perspective the living energy universe includes every aspect of nature: animals, rocks, trees, rivers, oceans, mountains, rain and sun, stars and other celestial formations, everything that has come before us, and everything that lies ahead. Indigenous ceremonies, essentially, have a way of transcending time and space so that we feel we have entered timeless time and are connected to all of life. Ceremonies also tend to work with a particular healing energy that may be present at a particular sacred site or energy that is held and transmitted by a particular entity, such as gods or spirits that are culturally significant to a particular tradition.

Rites of Passages - Pivoting on the Edge with Spirit

Please feel free to Download Understanding Rites of Passages for a more conceptual overview, its traditional use and application to our contemporary experiences of change. It also provides a few essential references.

Change is central to the human experience. Its patterns and rhythms follow ancient archetypal processes that can be observed wherever a death and birth cycle takes place—in nature or the human community. Indigenous traditions have a rich repertoire of knowledge about these archetypal processes and have developed practices that support individuals and communities to more fully and consciously engage, guide and work with the momentum that is present in change. Rites of passage is one of those archetypal processes. Compared to many contemporary models of change this model acknowledges the centrality of the spiritual nature that is at the core of transformative change. 

Recently I led a session on Rites of Passage for the Sydney’s Facilitators Network that was entitled Change Agents at the Gates of Transformation: Using an Ancient Approach to Harness the Vital Forces in Contemporary Experiences of Change. I designed the session so that the participants could explore an experience of change in their own lives through the rites of passage perspective and then for them to examine the unique roles and responsibilities of the ritual guide and the community supporting the rite of passage. An insightful and intimate interaction ensued between the participants and I about the nature of change and what the rites of passage framework revealed about the changes they were in.

In one of those interactions I asked the participants to notice the feelings, sensations or images that surfaced for them about the change they had chosen to work with. One woman who was perhaps in her late 50’s shared that she had seen the image of a florescent skeleton with butterflies. She revealed that this change had been especially challenging for her and that it had been going on for a while. She also described that the internal aspect of the change she was moving through was bringing about healing for experiences she had much earlier in her life. Most recently she had begun to get glimpses about what is possible for her in the future and she felt hopeful.

The skeleton with the butterfly is a powerful image and poignantly reflects the tensions that define the threshold experience of a rite of passage. This image she saw puts side by side the dying to the old and becoming transformed into the new. In shamanic rites of passages especially, the skeleton signifies the dismemberment of the old self and the death that is necessary for a rebirth to take place. In contrast, the butterfly is a symbol of transmutation and signifies the next step in the transformative process. Richard Back in the book Illusions captured this when he wrote, “What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the butterfly calls a new beginning.”

Once a few more heartfelt comments were made by the participants about the sense of loss and excitement that is part of change, an authenticity developed in the group that illuminated how experiences with change that seem so unique to the individual reflect basic human experiences that we are all familiar with. Participants were listening deeply and the authenticity that was generated amongst them was palpable. A sense of our shared humanity was present. Rather than just meeting as individuals interested in the topic of change, we had become for a short while, a group that was journeying together across the uncertain territory of change that shapes so much of our lives. 

Dreamtime or Time for Dreaming 2

Dreamtime

Sometime after the painting Incubation: Lizard Dreaming was done, I looked online to find any references to animal totems in Australian Aboriginal culture. This is when I gained my first real understanding of the concept of Dreamtime. The English word ‘Dreamtime’ is a significant idea that tries to capture how aboriginal people relate to their period of creation that are expressed in their many tribal and land specific creation stories. Generally, Dreamtime refers to the time of creation, the time before time, when the world came into being. It was during the creation period when ancestral beings created landforms such as lagoons and mountain ranges as well as the first plants and animals.

Aboriginal people often interpret dreams as a memory of things that happened during this Creation Period and consider dreams as a means to transport us back to Dreamtime. The term “Dreamtime” in Aboriginal mythology is not really about a person having a dream or a vision but rather a dream is a reference to this Creation Period. Given this understanding, for example, this incubation time in my life, where I am nurturing a vision for my future and receive significant imaginal material in waking states and dream states, is not Dreamtime in the Aboriginal sense.

If you ask an Aboriginal person today, they will tell you the Creation Period/Dreamtime goes back 40,000 to 60,000 years depending on what archeological studies they are familiar with. However, before aboriginal people incorporated Western science into their understanding they referred to creation time as being about five to six generations ago or as far back as they remembered specific knowledge of certain relatives such as great-great grandfather. Relatives living in creation time took on forms of certain animal people or plant people, which made them the owner of a dream such as the honey ant dreaming, kangaroo dreaming or lizard dreaming. A complex land-based and kinship system lays out how these dreams and stories are passed on and only the keepers of a specific dream are allowed to share the dream through story or art. Many aboriginal people try to maintain these traditional practices today, especially when it comes to representing a story in art.

Direct Knowing

 A couple of days ago I was reading the book, Yorro Yorro: Aboriginal Creation and Renewal of Nature and I came across a section that caught my attention. In this section Mowaljarlai, an Aboriginal Elder and co-author of the book explains his way of relating and interacting with the natural environment to a photographer, who is traveling with him to photograph ancient rock art. His description reminded me of a perspective Juan Nunez del Prado, a Peruvian Mestizo and p’aqo (shaman/priest), shared with me some years back. I was struck by how Mowaljarlai and Juan help us see how we can know the world through our senses, and what phenomenologists call direct encounter with nature, a way of knowing that is unmitigated by the intellect.

In the western world, this direct way of knowing has largely been undervalued and our capacity for relying on and working with our subjective experience has been greatly diminished. For centuries, with the rise of industrialization, we have put emphasis on knowledge processes that rely mostly on objective and scientific observation rather than subjective experience. Fortunately, however, this shift in our knowledge processes form subjective to objective now seems to be slowly moving toward a more balanced approach.