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Tonight I tried my first journey with a purpose beyond exploration. I had a favor to ask of Badger, and so I went to see hir. I had an offering in mind, something I could give hir now, and something later, if s/he would help me.
I asked Small Horse and Small Deer (the drum and beater) for their aid, warmed up the drum, then I played Small Badger’s song to ask him to help me to negotiate with Badger. He was quite pleased that I played the song for him and asked him for his help, though I may make it a habit to make a small offering besides that for the skin spirits and other helpers.
So we all went to go see Badger. I drummed for a bit to let Small Horse and Small Deer take me to the starting point. When I arrived, I sang Badger’s song as loudly as I could, just to let hir know I was there. In retrospect, I could have gone looking for hir, too, but s/he didn’t seem miffed about coming to me instead. This is probably at least in part because s/he was expecting me; we’ve already talked a bit about the situation, and this time I came armed with offerings.
Badger made hirself look very large and impressive, and s/he towered over me, even for being a normally close to the Earth animal. I was sufficiently awed, and s/he and I got down to business. I told hir what I wanted hir help with, and also what offerings I would make. S/he was surprised, though not unpleasantly so, that I was offering something now and something later. S/he knew how important this situation is, and also that it would take some time to complete. So s/he accepted, and I was happy. I sang Badger’s song for hir again, to boast about how wonderful s/he is, which tickled hir even more.
Then I came back, and sang songs for Small Badger and Small Deer, and played Small Horse’s drumbeat, though I don’t have a song for hir yet. I warmed the drum down, and set out to start making things happen on my end.
I am quite pleased to note that my ritual structure is coming together nicely. When I started all this stuff out last year, I was doing things in a much more generically neopagan manner. I did a circle casting with an athame still, and swept the place with a broom beforehand for purification. I won’t say that my ritual structure now is the exact same as such-and-such culture’s shamans do it, because it isn’t. However, the structure has changed quite a bit.
Part of this is due to my beliefs. I no longer feel that I need to create a “world between worlds” to practice in, and I see all space as sacred, even if the Land in one place is tougher for me to connect with than in another place. While I greet the totems at the directions, I don’t do this as part of circumscribing a circle to divide me from the rest of the world. I don’t see myself as calling them, either–they’re already there; I need only remember that.
As I’m also focusing more on journeying, the ritual structure has evolved to support that as a central practice in many of the rituals, preparing me to go in, and helping me to come back out, as well as interact with the spirits at all points throughout. And the drumming has become much more prevalent, essentially having replaced the athame in greeting the directional totems and others.
Obviously, there are things that are in common between the previous structure and what I use now. But these are the most significant changes I’ve ever made, taking whole sections and tools and things out, and adding others in because they work better. It’s made things a lot more effective, even in this relatively short period of time.
So we’ll see how things progress, and what Badger ends up bringing about. While at an earlier point in my life, particularly when I was heavily into Chaos magic, I was very focused on the end results of my magic to determine my success. While that’s still important, what constitutes a good result may vary more than “I asked for X and got X”. It may be something as simple as “I asked for X, but Badger decided that Y would actually be better–and s/he was right”. Or it may end up being something much more complex, something that can’t be quantified in a linear, cause and effect fashion. “Success” is a very subjective notion, and a ritual that didn’t result in the intended way may still end up being more success than failure.
Not that I’d mind getting what I asked for, of course 
Because I’m going to start doing more formal shamanic work, it became time to get a new drum. I’m still keeping the small goatskin drum I made for my Earth month a while back for practice purposes and backup as necessary (plus it’s quieter, good for apartment living). But I’d been told a while back that once I was ready to start practicing seriously, that I’d need to get a new drum for that. The timing was good–this is my last splurge for awhile, since I’m now a full-time student as of this week.
I chose to go to Cedar Mountain Drums, which is in my neighborhood. I’ve been there a few times, including when I got the kit to make my first drum. A couple of weeks ago, I went to a drumming circle they held there and had a chance to play a number of drums. I hadn’t been sure what sort of drum I was going to get, so this was a good opportunity to try out different sounds and creations. The one that I kept gravitating towards was a large horsehide drum on a cedar frame; the sound was lovely, other than a tiny, barely perceptible vibration at the end of the note.
So when I went today to get my own drum, I headed towards the 17″ unbleached horsehide on cedar frames. I was fortunate in that the owner of the shop had just made a few yesterday, and though they were just a wee bit damp still, they had a very lovely sound. It took me a bit, but I settled on one that had not only a nice voice, but also a good energy to it as well. I picked out a beater as well, and was ready to go. I paid, brought the drum home, and it’s now sitting up in the ritual area along with the smaller drum:
I won’t be playing the new drum yet, not until the Equinox when I’ll be doing a private anniversary ceremony, since it’ll have been a year since I first started on this path.
I do highly recommend Cedar Mountain Drums if you’re in the market for a drum; the owner has 17 years experience in drum making, and runs a very good business.
It is appropriate that the drum ended up being horsehide. I’m finding myself reclaiming some things from when I was younger, things that I had rejected or gotten burned out on. One of these is my relationship with Horse. Horse was the second totem to come into my life, after Wolf. When I was a preteen, not long after I turned twelve, Horse came in to the point that s/he temporarily replaced Wolf for a few years, staying with me until near the end of my senior year of high school.
This was an incredibly awkward time of my life. I was not the most socially adjusted teen in the world, and ended up being picked on more than just about anyone in the school. It wasn’t any one thing; I simply didn’t fit in. Most girls my age had been interested in boys and clothes and makeup for a few years. I was more interested in grubbing around in the woods, reading books about animals, and collecting Breyer Horses. Being in a small town with a small student population that was particularly prone to cliquishness, I didn’t have much in the way of friends. So I ended up spending a lot of time alone.
There were various attempts, over the years, to try to get me to conform in one way or another–a new haircut, an attempt to show me how to use makeup, an inquiry as to whether I should maybe try to make friends with such-and-such clique (who had never shown anything but contempt for me). None of it worked. I tried a few times to be like other people and blend in–and the results were usually disastrous. I simply didn’t get it, and wasn’t interested enough to try any harder.
What Horse did was support my independence, and show me that I didn’t need to conform. Unfortunately, I ended up blaming Horse in part for what I perceived as too much sheltering and the continued proliferation of my social awkwardness–instead of taking responsibility for my actions, as well as understanding that I wasn’t responsible for the emotionally abusive words and actions of my peers. So I ended up pushing Horse away once Wolf came back late in high school. For years I denied any connection with Horse whatsoever.
What was I so afraid of? Honestly, I think I worried that I would lose what independence I did have, and get sucked into some life that I didn’t want to be a part of. I wasn’t secure in myself at all, even into my twenties, and it took moving out on my own, along with some hard life lessons, to really begin to formulate a solid sense of self. Sadly, some of that was so wrapped up in being a Wolf person that I ignored most other totems, and deliberately avoided Horse.
Now, as I’m approaching thirty and looking back at the last decade, I’m beginning to reclaim some of the things I let go of which in retrospect were things I really do value. I don’t blame myself or castigate myself for my previous actions; in a way, these things had to happen for me to learn. But now I can look at them with more confidence, and not be afraid. I can still make boundaries with the things that I know even more don’t suit me, but still accept that other things are alright.
This includes Horse. I feel very honored that s/he has chosen to come back into my life. I’m hoping we can talk more about my experiences as a teenager and how they shaped who I am today. And I’m looking forward to Small Horse’s guidance as my drum.
Plus I’ll see what Horse has to say about the future, not just the past. I’m aware, for example, that the hide that is on my drum almost certainly came from a horse that died in a slaughterhouse. This is a charged issue; on the one hand, it’s been considered a victory that horses are no longer able to be legally slaughtered in the United States. However, this has led to an unexpected side effect–horses are now being shipped further away into even less humane facilities in Mexico. I wonder what Horse and Small Horse will have to say about this issue.
I am grateful for the return of Horse. May our relationship be renewed, and be healthier than ever.
My efforts towards creating songs for my dancing skins and their respective totems continue apace. I haven’t been blogging much about it, because it would essentially be “Today I practiced Deer’s song more, and came up with a drum rhythm for Small Deer”. Not particularly riveting when you’re not directly involved. However, I thought my recent work with Coyote was noteworthy.
For all my work with the Big, Impressive North American Birds and Mammals (BINABM), I’ve only worked with Coyote in a limited way; once was in a ritual to help protect hir physical children. I also sporadically worked with hir a few years ago when I was more heavily into Chaos magic. At that time Coyote was teaching me a bit about facing my fears, with one particular memorable incident where s/he helped me as I drove my car down a very steep icy hill one winter without panicking! Coyote and Small Coyote were the most recent volunteers to step forward in this endeavor, and so I started with Coyote’s song.
When I speak of Coyote, I don’t only refer to the Coyote referred to in the myths of a number of Native American tribes. Coyote-as-totem, to my understanding, shares some overlap with that other Coyote, but is not one and the same. My experience with totems has been that while they may have a number of bailiwicks, their initial connection with me has a more specific focus, and then as we work more I learn more about what that totem has to offer.
This time, Coyote mainly told me to sing about change and adaptability, as well as the illusory nature of subjective perceptions of reality (though not in those exact words!). While s/he briefly touched on creation myths and the Trickster archetype, these plugged into a main theme of Change. To be honest, I was a bit worried about working with Coyote in a deeper sense. Some (not all) of the Coyote people I’ve met have been chaotic in a very unhealthy, destructive manner; other people talk about Coyote the way that some practitioners of Asatru talk about Loki–a dangerous being that you shouldn’t bother with if you can help it. However, this initial reconnection with Coyote seems to be on common ground that I can understand and have experience with. I don’t expect everything to go smoothly or perfectly–but I don’t expect that with any of the totems or other spirits I work with. Sometimes the lessons we learn are difficult; and if Coyote will be dealing with Change, then it won’t be surprising if there are tough things to learn. However, if I can learn more adaptability, so much the better–that’s one thing I need more of. While I can roll with the punches, I could stand to be less stressed about life’s ups and downs. I think, perhaps, the fear of chaotic change may make some people afraid of Tricksters in general–who wants their lives entirely shaken up? What I understand so far, though, from my work with Coyote is that she’ll help me to learn ways to cope with chaotic changes, both in myself and in others.
I’m also slowly beginning to shape very rudimentary connections with the locals, as it were. Living in urban Portland, the vertebrate animals I tend to see the most are scrub jays, crows, and fox squirrels, with the occasional robin or kestrel. I don’t even see that many insects beyond the pollinators in the garden.
I’ve seen criticism in various online communities of neopagan totemism, specifically regarding the fact that many people seem to have totems whose physical children they’ve never seen. I’m a good example. Wolf’s been in my life since I was very young; however, I’ve only interacted with wolves at rescue facilities, and only on the outside of the pen. I’ve never seen a wolf in the wild, and never really been to a secluded enough place that could realistically support them. Yet Wolf has been one of the most persistent presences in my life over the years.
I did read something that actually makes a good deal of sense to me in Totem Popularity Contests: Why Some Totems Are More Popular Than Others, written by Ravenari. While all of her points are excellent considerations that I think should be talked about more, I particularly am interested in the last one, the idea that “Some animals are popularity-contest winners”. In my experience, there are totems who are more outgoing than others, and there are some who couldn’t care less whether we work with them or not.
While it’s a very, very rough comparison, and should not be seen as a one-to-one parallel, I think we can look at some pre-Christian religions that had large numbers of deities, including a major pantheon. The Romans are a good example; while they had their major pantheon including Jupiter, Juno, Apollo, etc., there were also countless minor deities, local deities, demi-gods, and so forth. It’s not entirely inconceivable that within a neopagan context, where we have the influence of that somewhat tiered structure, that there could be some totems who roughly correlate to a major pantheon, perhaps due to a greater tendency to interact with more people.
Continuing with the pantheon comparison, and especially within a neopagan/modern pagan context, most of the people today who work with the Olympians have never been to Greece, or any of the places where these deities originated from in pre-Hellenic times (or, for that matter, where they travelled to in ancient syncretic blending). So is it really surprising that many people haven’t actually ever “met” their totems “in real life”?
That being said, I do think there’s a lot of value in working with local spirits; some would argue that in order to really practice shamanism that it’s a requirement. I’ve spent much of my time, especially since last spring when I went to Arizona, connecting with the Land here as a whole. However, I’m beginning to make more specific connections. Scrub Jay in particular stands out to me, though Squirrel has also made hirself known, albeit in sometimes irritating ways (squirrels in the attic, squirrels in the garden!). There are a number of plants, one tree in particular, that have become particularly important. And, of course, there’s my ongoing “romances” with several individual places, such as Laurelhurst Park, the Multnomah-Wahkeena trails, and Mount Hood.
I’m willing to bet that the quality of the relationships that I create locally will be different–not necessarily better or worse–than those that I’ve created with the BINABM. Historically my work with the BINABM has primarily involved more overarching concepts, especially involved with personal metamorphosis; for example, Deer has always been the Dreamkeeper for me, and Bear has taught me a lot about healing and balancing it with the ability to bring harm. It will be interesting to see how working with the totems whose children live in the same environment I do will go. Of course, this is mainly conjecture at this point, and the actual results remain to be seen. But that’s what this journal is for–recording of my thoughts as I go along, and later on I can look back and see whether I was right or not!
For now, I’m going to continue focusing mainly on the songs I need to be writing. I’ve asked the Powers That Be whether I should be doing something else, but the message is generally “Nope. Keep writing the songs. Once you have them, then we’ll get into more detail of what you can use them for. Still, keep your eyes and ears open.” Which is fine; I tend to do better focusing on one main thing at a time, building on what’s come before.
Tonight was the totemic drum and dance ritual. It went quite well, even with a relatively small turnout, and I was able to rework the format to fit the smaller group with a more personalized ritual. All told, it was about an hour and a half, one of the longest rituals I’ve done. And it was also my first planned group ritual which, all things considered, turned out better than I expected. (Of course, I do want to give credit to the other participants, corporeal and otherwise, who really helped to make it the awesome experience that it was
I started out with a brief meditation for everyone to get focused on the ritual ahead. Then I called the totems and other spirits of the four cardinal directions, as well as the Animal Father. I asked Small Wolf to aid me in evoking Wolf as the first (nondirectional) totem called, and we danced together. Then, the bulk of the ritual involved me and the other participants taking turns calling on individual totems, then drumming and dancing for each one to invite them in and to honor them, as well as give them the energy we raised.
I danced each totem’s energy as s/he arrived, and ended up dancing some new ones that I’d never worked with before. That was definitely good exercise for my ability to invoke! (Totemic improv theatre?) I was amazed at how energized I felt; I had assumed that dancing new totems would wear me out. Whether it was the general energy of the ritual, aid from the individual totems, or a really good burst of adrenaline (or some combination thereof), something kept me going longer than I normally am able to, even with a normal, nonritualized drum circle.
Then, at the end of the ritual, I acknowledged that there were so many totems that we hadn’t had time to mention, but that we were grateful for anyway. I bade farewell to all who had arrived, and ended the ritual.
I really needed this experience tonight. I’ve been feeling altogether too stagnant lately. I came home tonight with a renewed sense of purpose, and a good reminder of just why it is I’ve been dedicating time to “that shamanism stuff”. I have a much better idea of group ritual structure that works, and despite my nervousness at the beginning of the ritual, I’m more confident in my ability to participate in a group setting as a facilitator. However, there are some things that I’ll also be borrowing for my personal practices as well. All in all, another piece of the puzzle fell into place tonight.
There will be more rituals like this, though I’m not sure how often they’ll be, and I also need to fine-tune the format, especially if I get a group that’s too big for what we did tonight. But this is a good start.
I’ve taken a break the past week from drumming and other shamanic practice, as a number of other things have hit me from a variety of directions. On one hand, the Animal Father has been persistently reminding me of my responsibilities, particularly my primary project right now with the drumming and dancing. However, Bear has been countering some of his demands, reminding him (and me) that I need to rest sometimes, and that it’s okay to take a break now and then. Bear has always been supportive of me taking care of my health, and not just physically. This isn’t surprising, as I’ve always associated hir with healing. However, s/he’s really stepped up as I’ve been on this path, which is more demanding than what I did in the past, to remind me of balance and burnout.
I was thinking the other night–what if Bear, and the Animal Father, and all the other spirits I work with, are just aspects of my psyche, figments of my imagination? What if there’s no objective reality in what I’m doing? And I thought about it for a while, and realized that even if that were the case, I’m still happy that the Animal Father and Bear are talking to each other. While I don’t believe, personally, that they’re all in my head, I do see their influences in my life, and the corresponding behavior patterns I have. I do tend to push myself pretty hard sometimes, and I need to remember that I don’t always have to stuff as much activity and achievement into one day that I possibly can. (Not surprisingly, one of the biggest advocates of me remembering this has been my husband, Taylor, who incidentally is one of Bear’s own.)
Back when I was more heavily practicing Chaos magic, I spent some time stuck pretty firmly in the psychological model of magic, the idea that it’s all a part of our minds, complex as they may be. I eventually gave up on that model, and also distanced myself from Chaos magic somewhat, because for me personally I found it to be an ultimately empty and disheartening perspective. While I value psychology quite a bit (as my current studies and entrance into graduate school should indicate), I see it as just one layer of reality. I see reality as being multilayered, and the layers are more a convenient form of description than a concrete structure–they aren’t exclusive of each other. So I can look at something from a psychological perspective, and then examine the same thing as an animist, and then combine the two together for a third viewpoint. And I don’t believe that the psychological perspective is superior to the animistic one, or vice versa. Each perspective is a set of tools and pictures that allows me to better understand whatever I encounter, and the more perspectives I have access to, the more thorough my understanding. This is why I draw from multiple wells–psychology, neuroscience, animism, both traditional and neo shamanisms, basic quantum physics, and so forth.
However, it is not my knowing these things that is important alone. Instead, what also must be taken into consideration is how I utilize them–and that’s something that doesn’t necessarily come out of a book. I can theorize all I want, but unless I actually use what I have learned, all it is is a bunch of words. It’s taken me a while to loosen my grip somewhat on my enamorment of academic understanding; I haven’t let go entirely, and I still find value in it, but I don’t place it on the high pedestal I once did.
And I look at my situation, and I consider what’s more valuable. Is it more important that I should scrape together whatever mythological, psychological, and historical evidence to support the eclectic, syncretic path that I am composing as I go along? Or should I value the experience and the lessons learned more than that? While I don’t believe that we should ignore the experiences of others as they’ve been recorded over time, I do think that subjective, personal experience has an edge in one’s personal practice. Even if it isn’t corroborated by any known, previously existing religious path, if it’s leading the person who follows it to become a better person and/or make the world a better place, then I don’t think that its novelty should be too weighted against it.
To be sure, I don’t support the deliberate misrepresentation of one’s path. However, I think sometimes people try to separate out the historical/factual/etc. correctness of a path while failing to consider the experiential value of it. And you can’t separate the experience from the facts when judging the path as a whole.
So I accept the distinct possibility that there’s no way to prove that what I’m doing is anything beyond my subjective perceptions, and that the connections to other shamanisms are ultimately tenuous at best. However, that possibility is only part of the story, and it surely isn’t enough to discourage me from having experiences that I find to be not only personally beneficial, but which encourage me to be more aware of the world around me and what I can do to improve it.
The Song and Dance Project (as I shall irreverently call it) has been continuing apace. Working with Deer and Small Deer has, in some ways, been a sigh of relief after Badger and Small Badger’s rather complex songs. The Deer songs have been very simple, lyrically speaking, and in fact the vocals are less of a focus than the drumming. Deer’s sing is so vocally simple, in fact, that its lyrics consist of a single word.
Lately, every time I’ve gone up to drum, I’ve run through all the songs I’ve written so far, usually three times for each, before starting on a new one. I’m doing my best to commit these all to memory. However, there will be a few dozen songs just from the totems and skin spirits–and there’s no telling who’ll want a song after them. I do want to sit down at some point with an audio recording program and a good mike and do basic recordings of each song, just so I have them on hand. Even after I finish writing all the totem and skin spirit songs I’ll still be practicing them regularly, in addition to whatever actual ritual use they get. But as my memory is still a bit impaired from years of sleep deprivation, a little technological backup can’t hurt, so long as I don’t let it replace regular practice.
That’s pretty much been my main focus as of late with my practice. This is perfectly fine with me; the first six months were pretty intense, and after that things were a little up in the air. It’s nice to have something resembling a linear set of tasks for a little while, though–it helps to keep me focused. It’s also helping me build a solid foundation for when things refuse to even resemble “linear”.
In other news, life has taken an interesting twist. Dissatisfied with making my living in the field of technical writing and editing, which mainly benefits large corporations and does little to help make the world a better place, a while ago I began seriously questioning what I wanted to do with my life. In reviewing what really interested me, I found myself continually coming back to psychology. While I didn’t have a formal background in it other than a couple of courses in my undergraduate work in college, in my own readings in the years since I graduated I found that psychology was something I kept coming back to. Ecopsychology was a particular interest, not surprisingly.
An added perk was the fact that psychology could easily be applied to real-world efforts to help people–and healthy individuals contribute to healthier communities. So I did some research on local universities and found one that, while it didn’t have a full degree in ecopsychology, the community counseling program did have an ecopsychology track as one possible emphasis.
After going to an open house for the graduate department in May, and finding out there were still openings for the Autumn semester, I rushed around to get everything pulled together in the space of a month to apply. I had never taken my GREs, so I got them scheduled and taken; I also rounded up reference letters, and ordered a transcript from my undergrad university. I got everything in just under the wire.
And…..I got accepted! I’ll be starting in September. If all goes well, in a few years I’ll have a Master’s degree in community counseling, and after 2400 hours of monitored practice I’ll have my license as well.
This bodes well. While psychology doesn’t automatically equal shamanism, and vice versa, counseling is a profession that, besides being something I can see myself committing my life to, I perceive as being quite complementary to my shamanic practice. While I’d most likely keep them as relatively separate parts of my life (i.e., I wouldn’t advertise a private counseling practice as being “genuine modern shamanism!”), I can still see the experiences from one meshing well with the other.
The spirits I work with are pleased about this (just so long as I don’t get so overwhelmed by school that I neglect them, of course). So I’ll take it as a good sign.
This will probably mostly be of interest for people in the Portland, OR area. Wolf and Small Wolf wanted me to do something along the lines of my impromptu ritual at Sunfest, so I came up with an open to the community drum and dance ritual. It’s a fundraiser, too; while I personally have no problem with people being compensated for their time and energy, Wolf and Small Wolf made it clear they wanted this one to be not-for-profit. So anything beyond my cost for renting the space will go to the Defenders of Wildlife.
Here’s the text of the flyer I printed up:
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Totemic Drum and Dance Ritual/Fundraiser
Open to the Community!
Do you work with animal totems? Or do you simply appreciate their presence in the world, as well as that of their physical “children”? Then come join us at the Guiding Tree at 4831 SE Division St. on Tuesday, July 29 for a drum and dance ritual to honor the totems!
Starting at 6:30 in the evening, we’ll begin with an orientation workshop to explain the reasons behind the ritual, as well as answer any questions. The ritual itself will start between 7 and 7:30, depending on how long the orientation takes. We’ll go until a little before 9pm, when the ritual will be formally closed. Until then, though, we’ll be drumming, dancing and celebrating the animal totems!
Drummers–bring your favorite drums! Dancers—come ready to dance like the animals in their honor! Everyone—wear whatever ritual garb or costumery that reminds you of your totems. You may also bring representations of your totems to place on the ritual altar for the duration of the ritual.
Suggested donation is $10 per person; all proceeds beyond paying for rental of the studio at the Guiding Tree will be donated to the Defenders of Wildlife (http://www.defenders.org), a nonprofit organization that works to protect wildlife, especially large endangered predators. If you cannot cover $10, please contact Lupa at whishthound@gmail.com for potential alternate arrangements.
About the ritual host: Lupa has been working with totemism and other forms of animal magic for over a decade. She has publicly danced with a wolf skin at pagan events since 2002, and has danced other animals in private since then. Lupa’s focus is primarily neopagan totemism rather than the totemism of any particular indigenous culture. She is a practicing (neo)shaman with a strong ecospiritual focus, and this ritual is a part of her service to the community as well as to the totems and other spirits she works with. She is the author of two books on totemism and animal magic, and may be found online at http://www.thegreenwolf.com and http://therioshamanism.com.
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If you know anyone who’d be interested in attending, please feel free to pass this along!
In other news, I finished creating Badger’s song and now just need to keep practicing it to commit it more fully to memory. I also recently met a very cool person who reminded me, among other things, that I’m not the only person who still struggles to shove my ego out of the way. And I got a bit of very good news from the Animal Father, though it’s something to keep private for the time being.
Tonight I put the finishing touches on Small Badger’s song (Small Badger, of course, being my badger skin). I wasn’t happy with some of the lyrics, so I asked him if he minded me tweaking them. He said just so long as I said good things about him, he didn’t care. So I made my tweaks and was happy. He seemed quite happy with it as well, but I was boasting about him.
Small Badger does like to brag. However, it’s for good reason–he’s got a lot going for him! He’s a good teacher of healthy boasting, of being honestly proud of one’s accomplishments but without being a jerk about it. Too often in this society we’re told not to brag because it makes us look self-centered. Unfortunately this sort of stifling can lead to A) not talking about ourselves at all, or B) seeking too much attention (and thereby reassurance). Being able to speak of one’s strengths is vital in most things dealing with prosperity, which is the area where Small Badger and Badger have been of the most help to me. Whether it’s showing off one’s best skills in a job interview, or demonstrating responsibility in signing a mortgage, there are times where bragging rights come in handy.
I also worked on the drum rhythm for Badger (the totem). No words yet, but s/he definitely showed interest (and, not surprisingly, asked for sushi–or, to be more specific, sashimi. It’s become hir offering of choice.) So tomorrow I’ll probably work on the lyrics.
So this weekend marked a pretty significant shift for me (no pun intended). I went to Sunfest on the coast with my husband, Taylor. It was an excellent festival, and I highly recommend it to anyone in the Pacific Northwest. Anyway, it’s one of the few places in the Northwest that I’ve found where I can do fire dancing, which means it’s also one of the few places where I can do wolf dancing.
I’ve been dancing with Small Wolf, my wolf skin, since 2002. Folks who went to Sirius Rising from 2002 through 2006 may remember me as “the skinny chick in the wolf skin”. Since moving to the Northwest, I’ve spent more time getting settled in than getting out and about; I didn’t really do much while in Seattle, and now that we’ve been in Portland a year we’ve been working on finding more stuff in the area. I haven’t heard much about drum circles in Portland proper (gas prices prohibit regular attendance anywhere else, though occasional visits aren’t out of the question). So if any of my readers know of any options, feel free to let me know.
At any rate, I’ve been dancing with Small Wolf, the whole time. It’s generally been for the fun of it, both for Small Wolf and for me. I like getting a chance to see the world through his eyes, and he enjoys being able to move again, borrowing my body as I wear his skin. However, since starting on this shamanic path, the dancing has been moving towards something deeper and more complex than that. A lot of the threads of my practice over the years are beginning to come together into something more cohesive–which is exactly what I’ve been working towards in this endeavor.
This weekend, I had an experience that brought a lot of this purpose into sharp focus. I had brought Small Wolf with me expecting to get some dancing in, since Sunfest has a good group of drummers and a fire pit. I also brought my drum, since it wanted to come along as well. Saturday afternoon I had some time to sit and drum, practicing my songs for both Wolf and Small Wolf. I had a couple of folks come and share the drumming with me, which was nice. While most of my songs right now are still private, Small Wolf has always been a very public critter, and enjoys sharing with others (to an extent–not just anyone is allowed to touch him, and never without my permission unless you want to get yelled at). This was a good exercise for me, too, because while I’m fine with public speaking, I’m nervous about public singing. I’m not looking at huge concert tours and things of that nature, thankfully, but I will eventually need to at least be able to do the songs and drumming and such in front of other people as I take what I’m learning and use it to help others.
Last night it began to rain. Well, not really rain, so much as drizzle and spit. However, I generally don’t wolf dance outdoors in the rain because it’s really bad for Small Wolf–tanned furs are nowhere near as waterproof as the live deal. It’s tough to dry out the skin while camping, too, especially in a damp area. So I had originally figured I probably wasn’t going to get to dance. I had danced Friday night, and there were a number of people who had missed out on it. Apparently last year Small Wolf and I made quite an impression at our first Sunfest, and there were folks who were really looking forward to seeing us dance again (or who had heard about it but not seen it).
Our tent ended up being leaky, Taylor was recovering from a twenty-four hour bug, and I was wiped out from a busy weekend of vending, dancing, and socializing. So we decided to head home last night. This was perfect, because it meant that I could get a dance in before we left, and since home was only a couple of hours away I could get Small Wolf dried out since it was still only drizzling, not pouring. I made arrangements to get the folks who wanted to see the wolf dancing at the fire at an appointed time, asked a few of the drummers if they would be willing to show up, and managed to pull everything together in a short time.
The time came, and people were there at the circle, a couple dozen including the drummers. I had just intended to dance and be done with it. However, both Wolf and Small wolf had something else in mind. As I stepped into the circle, they made it very clear they wanted it to be a ritual. Small Wolf and I already have a bit of a rite we go through when we first get to the fire. First I walk around the fire a few times, greet it, and exchange energy with it to connect with it. Then as I prepare myself for the rite, I continue circling. After that I will carry Small Wolf over my shoulder and hold his head towards the fire so he may greet it. After that I put him on, binding his legs to my arms and legs, and tying his head over mine like a hood. I may then sit on the ground for a few moments, getting a really strong connection with him, and then we dance.
However, this time, after I connected with the fire and before I connected with Small Wolf, I called on the totems of the directions as well as various entities of Nature I work with, including the Animal Father. I don’t consider it evoking them, since they’re already there–the Green Mother is in the plant life, the Animal Father in critters great and small, the Wind and Water in the storm, etc. I don’t see a need to banish them, either, at the end–where would they go? I do acknowledge their presence, though, and ask them to witness the ritual if they will.
Only then did I ask Small Wolf to dance with me. I don’t just assume; I always ask. He’s generally enthusiastic–he enjoys it at least as much as I do. So I draped him over me, and we began to dance as the drummers drummed–they were so wonderful, those drummers! And the people watching were incredibly respectful and focused, sharing in the experience. A few had rattles and bells that they played with the drummers, and others I could see the wolf energy touch them. Small Wolf and I danced, and we danced, and the energy rose, and I began to show my teeth in the happy wolf-grin….
And then at the height of it, we invited those who would to come join us, to dance with us, to share in the wolf energy. Only a few did, but they settled into the current so easily, so smoothly. We’ve been able to share that current at more informal drum circles, and had people follow us in a line as we danced around the fire, but this was the first time that this was the sole focus of the dancing and drumming, and being able to feel that without distractions really showed me just what it was that Small Wolf and I have been building together for over half a decade.
I wish I hadn’t been so worn out; while I can channel energy with the best of them, I do allow my body to remind me of its limits. It had been a busy weekend, I’d done most of the setup when we arrived on site because Taylor was still sick, and I was potentially fighting off the bug as well. Plus cold rain will sap my strength more than just about anything. So I wish I’d had more strength, but when I reached my limit, Wolf backed off, and Small Wolf helped me to wind down. We left the wolf “flavor” in the drum circle–enough to let people keep the spirit of the ritual with them, but nothing that wouldn’t dissipate as the night wore on and other elements and spirits came in to dance with the people. I thanked all the spirits and beings who had witnessed the ritual, though they, like Wolf, had already begun to back off to their usual places as I began to tire. I think I wish I could have held out longer, danced more with the people who had been there; one person earlier in the day had been talking to me about how she and other people often felt intimidated by the fire dancing, too self-conscious to go out there and dance–and that sometimes what was needed was an invitation. I tried that, but I think if I’d had more energy I could have gotten people more involved in the ritual.
But I think we made an impression on the folks who were there, and this was definitely a good start. It gives me more focus of where my work with Wolf and Small Wolf will go. While I don’t tend to believe everything I read in the dictionaries, the theme of Wolf energy as teacher energy makes a lot of sense here. One thing Small Wolf and I have always been able to do with our dancing has been inspire people; Wolf and Small Wolf have been good at teaching me to lead through example. Part of why I blog here is to show other people what I’m doing and to hopefully inspire them to walk their own paths more fully and without fear. There are too many problems in the world these days to waste time letting the naysayers scare you into not doing what you need to do for fear of being told you’re wrong–we need more constructive actions, not destructive ones. (And there are better ways to remind someone of their impact than to insult them and point out only their mistakes.)
So the role I seem to be moving into with Wolf and Small Wolf is that which will be the most public aspects of my practice–giving people something they can participate in not just as spectators, but as active participants in the ritual. Time will tell as to whether any of the other totems or skin spirits want to be that involved with people beyond private ceremonies. However, Wolf and Small Wolf have always been happy to accompany me in public dances at pagan gathers. This is a great opportunity, because just being able to watch seems to really get people thinking about the Wild. If I can take that wonder and joy and roll it over into more interactive rituals that have a theme of Wolf = Wild = Respecting the Wild, so much the better.
It’s also good for me for personal reasons. One thing that can be considered, I suppose, a personality flaw is that I love attention. Okay, I love good attention, not the kind of attention one gets when punched in the nose, let me clarify! While most people like attention, I sometimes go overboard, and it’s something I’ve had to struggle with for years. The shamanic work has been great for teaching me how to shove my ego out of the way when needed. However, the enjoyment of attention is actually coming in handy here, because I’m able to get over my self-consciousness and instead consciously attract attention for a specific purpose. Therefore I’m able to take a personality trait that could potentially be a problem (attention whoring, anyone) and instead channel it into something more positive and constructive. Not that it completely solves all problems; I do still have to remember that when I dance, it’s not all about me. But Small Wolf in particular has been a great teacher for working through that particular bit of conditioning, and instead of completely squelching the desire for
attention, I’ve instead been learning to use it for the Powers of Good (TM)!
It’ll be interesting to see how this Wolf/Small Wolf work progresses. They’ve already been strongly involved in the ecological aspects of my life and practice; it’s no coincidence that wolves have often been equated with the wilderness, and the need to preserve both. Wolf taught me to appreciate Nature from an early age, and Small Wolf has continued with that through our dancing. I’m going to find some ways to maybe do more regular rituals where others can participate, since there are a lot of things Wolf and Small Wolf would like me to pass on to other people, and this is a great way to do so.
Wolf, the teacher and my guide into the Wild, and Small Wolf, my dance partner and willing conspirator in impromptu inspiration, are definitely taking me in some good directions.
ETA: Here’s a brief addendum to this post that I added after the feeds picked up on it.
Tonight I made it back upstairs, after spending the past couple of weeks doing some serious cleaning up there. It was time for me to make a song for Small Wolf, my wolf skin. Apparently my mission, should I choose to accept it, is to create a song for every skin spirit I have for dancing (which at this point is over fifteen) and their corresponding totems. So I definitely have my work cut out for me! This will take a while, but nobody seems to be rushing me. The fact that I’ve been more consistent than in the past had contented them for the time being.
Part of the reason I’m being a bit flippant in this post is because Small Wolf was formal in a way I’d never seen him before. I’m used to him being eager to dance and happy to see me, but this was a side of him I’d not experienced. He wasn’t angry, but he was definitely in Serious Teacher Mode (TM). I sat down with him, and he instructed me to fold him up in a very particular way. Then he had me create words, then a melody, and then an accompanying drum beat.
This was tougher than last time, since with Wolf (the totem) I had already created the lyrics and song a while back, and the drum beat was easy to match with it. Small Wolf had me sing the song over and over and over again, having me memorize the words as perfectly as possible before tossing in the added attention-grabber of the drum. Of course, when I began drumming the song sort of fell apart–I sang the wrong words, switched lines, occasionally sang complete gibberish. However, Small Wolf kept me going, and wouldn’t let me quit until I’d smoothed things out for the most part. He said that I’d have to be flawless with the song and drumming before he’d let me dance with him and the song at the same time.
I wrote down the lyrics and an approximation of the drumbeat. I’ll go back tomorrow night and practice more. However, I am seriously considering recording all these songs for my own benefit; I have a bit of a memory lapse because of long-term sleep deprivation, and while I’ve recovered somewhat, my memory isn’t what it used to be. This will be a good exercise in rebuilding it, but just as a backup, I may take a cassette recorder upstairs–or maybe even my laptop–and record the songs. Over time they’ll lodge themselves more firmly in my long-term memory, but better safe than sorry.
Small Wolf also explained to me a bit more about formal ritual structure according to what the spirits I work with would like me to do. I do feel a lot more confident in myself, and I feel like I’m making some progress. A lot of it is because I’m gaining a better balance among the various parts of my life, and I’m able to give my shamanic practice more attention. However, it’s also because I’m not feeling pressured to do more, more, MORE. I was actually talking to Wolf the other night about when the next time I’d head upstairs would be, and s/he asked me whether my shamanism was a priority. I told hir yes–but I also told hir that so was work, and my social life, and creative endeavors. And s/he said, “Good.” I think that really went a long way in helping me realize that I’m doing just fine, and that I don’t need to push myself to superhuman levels of achievement.
Incidentally, I managed to track down a copy of Weather Shamanism by Nan Moss and David Corbin while at Powell’s Books today. I’ve had my eye on it ever since I first heard about it last year. It was only appropriate, then, that Portland was visited by the first decent thunderstorm I’ve seen in a while. I grew up in the Midwest, where thunderstorms are a major occurrence in Spring, but they’re a lot less frequent here (we mostly just get rain, and lots of it). As I was drumming tonight, the thunder suddenly became more frequent and loud, which startled me. While I’m more comfortable with storms than I was as a kid, they still scare me a bit. Small Wolf told me to keep drumming, and that the spirits in the Storm just wanted to drum along with me as they passed by! So I kept drumming and singing, with the accompaniment of the Storm spirits as they traveled through my neighborhood.
I’m glad I’m opening up to spirits besides the animals. It’s nice to be able to take the things I’ve learned with them and use those concepts to branch out more. It gives me a greater sense of connection, and also gives me a fuller picture of what the Land needs from me.
So. Back to drumming and singing and all that good stuff.
Oh, the joys of living in an old house. Double that with the high number of trees we have in the neigborhood. We are Squirrel Central, especially now that they’re all coming out of hibernation. And, more specifically to Taylor and me, we have a stowaway in our attic.
This is the second year we’ve unwillingly hosted squirrels. There are gaps under the eaves in the unfinished part of the attic, perfect for little fuzzy acrobats to come crawling into. Last year we called the rental agency, who had a humane exterminator come in, trap the family that had taken up residence in a pile of shredded insulation, and release them elsewhere. Unfortunately, they neglected to patch the hole where the mama had originally gotten in, and guess what? She (or another very much like her) is back!
It’s not that she’s really hurting anything; I haven’t noticed any chewing on the wires and things we have stashed up there (mostly cardboard boxes). However, every morning around 7 or 8 she starts running around, right above our bedroom ceiling. I’ve chased her out a few times, but she’s tough–I threw a few lightweight objects at her and she just dodged. Finally I had to charge (okay, stumble, hunched-over) at her with a flashlight and a stick to get her to leave. She was back that afternoon. Plugging the main passageway didn’t help; there are entirely too many gaps that she can get into.
After a week of this, I was about ready to snap. Yes, she needs shelter. No, she’s not harming anyone. But just because she isn’t chewing wires now doesn’t mean she or her progeny won’t down the line–and that’s a great way to start a fire. Plus squirrel poo isn’t exactly hygienic. And it’s only a matter of time before a crawlspace door blows open or gets left open by accident and we end up with a wild squirrel in our apartment. And there’s the fact that she’s a damned noisy neighbor!
So the other morning I talked to Squirrel. He wasn’t about to tell her to leave, since he thought she was pretty cozy up there. However, he did insist that I not cause her any direct harm (which negated any chance of me picking up a cheap BB pistol and doing a little impromptu hunting. Or baiting rat traps with peanut butter. Or otherwise bringing her life to a premature end.). And what good would it do anyway? Another squirrel would just come along and take up her place.
Finally, after calming down a bit, I was convinced by my husband to call the rental agency again, who is supposed to be sending out an exterminator again (hopefully before she has a litter!). Beyond that, that’s about all I can do at this point. I’m just going to have to live with a noisy, squirrely neighbor for a little while longer.
Today, I came to a realization with Squirrel’s help. A lot of the people in life who can be downright irritating are, for the most part, just squirrels in the attic. Generally they aren’t causing any actual damage, just some annoyance (and maybe shredding a little insulation). And for the most part there’s not really much you can do. Do what you can, and then wait for things to calm down. If nothing else, when Autumn hits, the squirrels will go back to hibernating–and then you can murder them in their beds!
Okay, maybe not that. But there is a good lesson in this. Unless the wires are getting chewed or the squirrels are nesting in the lingerie drawer, don’t worry overmuch. Do what you can, then get on with your day. if they’re causing damage, then act on it; otherwise, relax. In the grand scheme of things, are the squirrels in the attic really worth that much attention?
I went up tonight to work on my drum rhythm and song for Wolf. One thing I’m finding that’s already characteristic of my drumming is that it tells a story. Granted, I am far, far away from being unique in this regard. However, my main exposure to drumming has been A) core shamanism with the 180-220 bpm rhythm, and B) neopagan festival drumming, which is less about telling a specific story, and more about a group of people getting together and getting a good rhythm on all night. There are, of course, exceptions to the latter, such as the Dragon Ritual Drummers (whose work I absolutely love and recommend to anyone who thinks percussion can’t be music on its own). I am pretty sure there are other people in various cultures who use specific drumbeats to signify/evoke certain beings or phenomena, though I couldn’t give you specifics; drumming isn’t yet an area I’ve done a ton of research into. (Research leads are appreciated, as always!)
I sort of had it easy tonight, since way back last Autumn I actually wrote a repeating verse for Wolf, partly inspired by reading Primitive Song by C.M. Bowra. So the words and basic rhythm were already there; I just had to match them to Wolf’s energy and refine them further. Next, though, I need to come up with one for my wolf skin spirit.
Now, I’m not a gifted poet by any stretch of the means. My talent lies more with prose, and not particularly poetic prose. So dipping into the well of inspiration may prove to be a challenge. Fortunately these songs will be for personal use–don’t expect Therioshamanism: The CD! any time soon. On the other hand, I may take advantage of modern technology and record the songs and drumming for my own benefit, since it’s been almost two decades since I last actually used sheet music, and my sheet music skills are, well, rusty to say the very least. And while I’ll be doing my best to improve my memory by remembering as many of the songs as possible, sadly between modern technology (didn’t I just say something good about it earlier in this paragraph?) and long-term sleep deprivation, my memory isn’t quite what it could be. On the other hand, this could prove to be a healthy exercise for that, among many other reasons!
Sunday afternoon, my husband Taylor and I went for a seven mile hike out at Multnomah Falls. It was the first time I’d been out there since last November, and I really had missed it there (it missed me too, apparently!) We went on a trail I hadn’t walked before, though Taylor had been there on his own. The weather was perfect, and I felt rested and energized–I didn’t really feel tired at all until the last mile. Of course, such a long hike called for a post-hike trip to Burgerville, the Pacific Northwest’s regional chain of sustainably produced, not-full-of-ick-and-grease, burger joint.
But I digress.
It being the first really nice weather we’d had in a while, and being a Sunday, people were out in force; Multnomah Falls is a popular place, and you have to do some hiking to get past the touristy areas. It took longer than I expected, and I started to get grouchy. For me, hiking is a way to get away from most people, not hang out with them. I started getting snarly after a while.
At one point I complained “I wish these people weren’t here. The sad thing is, they’re probably mostly just going to go back home and keep living their usual lives, never thinking about the connection between the pristine condition of this place, and their environmentally unfriendly actions every day”. To which Taylor (who is used to my rantiness on the occasions where my temper still gets the best of me despite my efforts to the contrary) replied, “So how do you know that’s what they’re going to do?” I think I sputtered something about the litter on the ground, and other such things. I tend to be territorial about places I like, even when I have absolutely no claim to them whatsoever (yes, it’s silly of me).
Tay then said, “You don’t know what these people will do. Maybe they are learning and gaining an appreciation for this place. And after all, if your role as a shaman means teaching people to appreciate the wilderness, maybe you need to remember that people need to have this opportunity. Maybe, like me, they’ll get it figured out in time”, and he had a point. When I met him, he wasn’t all that interested in environmentalism, though he wasn’t against it, either. However, I’ve had a pretty solid impact on him in our relationship, and he’s adopted a lot of the same practices and mindfulness I have. We’ve had some good discussions about it, and that’s gotten us both to think.
Then I decided to talk to the Land. I went on a side trail down to the river we were walking along, and opened myself to the Land. What s/he said supported what Taylor had told me. S/he said that hir role at this point was to teach people to appreciate what was still relatively clean, though a bit of pollution had taken its toll in recent years. S/he told me to bring people to hir and to help teach them that appreciation and to make that connection with their everyday lives, that places just like hir had been destroyed or were in danger from our everyday practices.
S/he talked to me further about the concept of teaching, and basically explained that I did not (as I had been concerned in the past) have to take on full time students at this time. Instead, I mainly need to be teaching various lessons through various means as I learn and become comfortable with them. So, for example, my Three Seeds workshop that I held a couple of weeks ago, wherein I brought paganism, environmentalism, and community building all together in the process of gardening, counts as one way of fulfilling this need. Another is a proposed series of animal magic classes I may be teaching later this year in Portland. I can start with relatively short-term, low-commitment things like this, and then work up to more intensive things as I go along. This is a huge relief, believe me!
So that was a good reminder to me, that if I am going to help other people to understand that the Land and all hir denizens are sacred, then I have to accept that they all have equal access, and that some of them unfortunately will still do dumbass things like litter, and break down saplings for no reason, and so forth–but others won’t. It’s a good reminder of one teaching of Wolf’s that really rings true to my experience–Wolf connects with all to connect with a few. One would hope, though, that more than a few would “get it”!
It is good to also be reminded that lessons come in many ways and many forms. (Another one of this basic things that is good to remember no matter how long you’ve been practicing!) Just another good reason to keep one’s ears and eyes open (and, sometimes, one’s mouth shut as well).
Later on, as we stopped at our usual crosstrails to rest before descending the mountain, I heard an owl hooting slowly and quietly maybe 200 or so yards away in the woods. at the same time, I felt the presence of the Animal Father. No, I don’t think it was a disembodied voice–I’d lay money down that there was a physical owl there. However, I firmly believe that deities, spirits, and other such beings may use physical phenomena to make themselves known. I do not think it’s nearly as common as people might think–just because a squirrel runs across your path, it doesn’t automatically mean that Squirrel is your totem. What separated this event from any other encounter with critters that day (including a chipmunk, a hummingbird, and a bunch of white butterflies) was that I definitely felt the Animal Father’s presence. He was pleased that I was there, out in the wilderness again. He likes being in contact with me there more than other places, and he simply dropped by to say so.
Since I’ve started my new telecommuting job, I’ve started my day with meditation. Wolf has made it clear that s/he wants me to start working with hir more intensely, so tonight I’ll go up and start working on a drumbeat and song for hir. I’ve been taking it easy because of all the changes recently, but the spirits are letting me know it’s time to get back to business, as it were.
From time to time people have had the dubious pleasure of reading/hearing me rant about totem animal dictionaries and why I loathe them so. The Dictionary Dilemma was my first formal article on the topic, though I’ve waxed eloquent on it since then, including good reasons to Go to the Source!, and it’s one of the driving forces behind DIY Totemism. And here I go again!
I was thinking this morning about how people who don’t identify themselves as therianthropes still may identify with (but not as) their primary totems to one extent or another. There’s no problem with this in and of itself, mind you. We can learn quite a bit through emulating the totems we work with, and not just our primaries. While not surprisingly I model Wolf quite a bit, I’ve also deliberately adopted traits of other totems to help balance out some of Wolf’s less desirable habits.
However, one thing I am very careful of is to ask the totem what s/he can teach me before I start working with hir. The relationship a particular totem may form with me is not necessarily the same as the relationship s/he may form with someone else. This includes the relationships formed with any totem dictionary author. It’s easier to open up a book and read predigested information than to meditate or journey to get into direct contact with the totem to get more personalized information. Sure, the book might be right, but what if it isn’t? Additionally, what happens if a person ignores what the totem is trying to tell them, instead looking only at what s/he’s been told the totem stands for?
Let’s take Coyote, for example. The first attribute most neopagans will probably come up with for Coyote is “Trickster”. This is based on a body of folklore from various Native American tribes (a good collection of Coyote stories can be found in Barry Holstun Lopez’ Giving Birth to Thunder, Sleeping With His Daughter).
Additionally, this adherence to stereotypes can lead to justification of unhealthy, destructive behaviors. In keeping with the Coyote vibe, I have met several people who claimed Coyote as a totem who justified being utter and complete assholes to others simply by saying “I’m a Coyote person”. And people around them sometimes turned a blind eye to this behavior with the same justification! Yet just because a person lies, plays a trick, or pulls someone’s cover, does not mean that A) Coyote said to do that, or B) Coyote would appreciate this being done in his name. Some Coyote stories are pure silliness, to be true. However, in my understanding of Coyote, there is a method to the madness, and people are often (though not always) meant to learn from his tricks. While Coyote may have done some things out of maliciousness, or “for the lulz”, that doesn’t justify human beings doing the same thing.
We are not gods, or totems, or other such beings. Some of us may consider ourselves to be no less and no more than them, and I won’t disagree there. However, what’s good for the totem isn’t always good for the human. Coyote’s worldview and experiences are likely to be very different from those of even his closest (or so they may claim) devotees. We can emulate totems, but that does not make us totems, or even mean we entirely understand them. Like deities, they are much larger, more complex beings than we currently are. Just because Coyote floated his penis across a river so he could have sex with some women on the far bank does not mean that he would automatically condone rape (even if it were supposedly to “teach the victim her place”). While I haven’t seen that particular permutation of attempted justification, I have seen the same type of justification of harmful actions done by one person against another–and supposedly Coyote said it was okay.
Part of the problem is when people take a stereotype and run with it. The Trickster role is a lot more complex than “I’m going to do whatever I want because I feel superior to these people and I think they need to learn a lesson”. The Trickster also has to learn lessons, too, and Coyote may abhor a spiritually blind person as much as anyone else–in fact, he may throw tricks at his supposed devotees to help them get past their arrogance, and yet have them completely miss the point.
Additionally, “Trickster” is not all that Coyote is. As I’ve mentioned before, totems “include” all the traits of a given species, not just the human lore. In fact, in order to understand the human lore, it is essential to study the natural history of the physical animals, since that sort of observation is largely what formed the basis of the lore to begin with.
So who is Coyote besides being a Trickster? Coyote is….
–A hunter, as much as Wolf or Cougar, and with the capability to be a social canid, as well as being capable of bringing down large game such as deer
–A loving parent, again similar to Wolf
–An intelligent nonhuman animal with keen problem-solving abilities, like Dolphin, Octopus and others
–Highly adaptable to human encroachment
–Capable of symbiotic relationships with badgers
There’s a lot more to learn here than the sneaky one–which, honestly, could be applied to many animals that work to avoid humans at all costs, or which try to adapt to a changing environment.
And these are just my thoughts on one single totem. It’s just not enough to go on human lore, traditional or neopagan. We need to be paying attention to what the totems have to tell us, not just what they’ve told others. Otherwise we stand to miss out on a lot of important information and lessons, as well as developing a potentially incomplete or skewed picture of the totems themselves.
I’ve been chewing some more on my conception of totem animals within a neopagan context, specifically my personal neopagan context. (I’m not the only one; while I was still chewing, Paleo beat me to the punch on the topic with this great post. Zeitgeist!)
Unlike most people, I have worked with numerous totems over the years. Wolf’s just my primary; there are plenty of others, from Deer to Silver Dollar, who have graced my life for various amounts of time. Totemism has been central to my practice pretty much from the beginning. It’s a neopagan form of totemism, rather than anything traditional–I work with totems on an individual, rather than group-based, basis.
I don’t see the totems as individual spirits; Wolf is not just a random wolf spirit, nor is Wolf really Greymuzzle the Ancient Wolf Spirit Reincarnated Fifteen Times. I don’t see totems as a replacement for power animals, skin spirits, and other helper spirits. While I haven’t yet determined my power animal(s) (if, indeed, I have any) and I’ll be spending the six months between the Spring and Autumn equinoxes finding and working with spirit helpers of all sorts, I don’t confuse the power animals with the totems. Wolf the totem is a very different animal from a wolf spirit that becomes a power animal. Additionally, Bear the totem is a different being from the bear spirit that resides in my bear skin that I dance with (and which could potentially be a power animal at some point, if my understanding of power animals is correct).
As I’ve mentioned in the past, I perceive totems as archetypal beings that embody all of the qualities of a given species of animal–natural history, human lore, and the relationship between humans and that species. However, unlike a strict interpretation of archetypes, totems don’t solely exist in my head. They’re independent beings with their own existences. It is simply in their nature to be archetypal; they are embodiments of their species.
And they’re much “bigger” than individual spirits. I see totems as akin to deities; deities can also be archetypal in nature, but are not just constructs of our minds. Deities are to humans as totems are to nonhuman animals, very roughly speaking. So sometimes it boggles my mind that the totems rarely seem to mind when I contact them for various purposes, whether to ask for help with a particular situation, or to satiate my curiosity about them. I find them to be much more approachable than deities. How many people can just “walk up” to any member of a given pantheon of deities and start communicating? There seems to be a lot more protocol and pageantry associated with that particular endeavor. Totems, on the other hand, seem to not mind what I’m wearing, or how much formality I go into before talking to them. If anything, they seem to get impatient if they need to talk to me and I spend a lot of time setting the stage, as it were.
I wonder if this familiarity with them is really so unusual. Sometimes I feel like such a small being surrounded by great giants, and yet they seem to respect me just the same. And it’s been that way from the beginning; while they haven’t always been happy with me (especially when I screw something up, or neglect something I said I’d do), they nonetheless seem to appreciate my place in their lives as much as I appreciate their places in mine. I’ve even had them be downright overjoyed to see me and work with me, and not just because I’m paying attention to them.
I think the nature of our mutual relationship is part of why I’m so invested in them. As Paleo mentioned in her essay, linked above, if you work with totems long enough there’s a tendency to take the relationship deeper than the initial “Bear is the Healer, Wolf is the Teacher” dictionary and stereotype interaction. People who work with totems long term, and as a significant part of their paths, almost always become more aware of physical animals and their needs, whether domestic or wild. (This also goes for people who work with animal spirits and other animal entities.) For me, at least, it’s a way to help the totems that have helped me so much. The physical members of a species are the young of their totem; part of that totem’s existence is completely concerned with their safety and well-being in this world.
I’m currently working on DIY Totemism: Your Personal Guide to Animal Totems. One entire chapter is dedicated solely to offerings to the totems. This isn’t just things like leaving a bit of food in the woods (which I argue against for a number of reasons). How better to help a totem whose children are endangered than to take part in activism to help those animals? Or to work magic on behalf of the totem to help with something s/he’s concerned with? When we work with totems, we aren’t just working with abstract concepts; it’s too easy to anthropomorphize a totem to the point where we only see what benefits us directly–and what we can get out of the deal. Yet it’s a two-way street. What do we give back to the totems? What do they ask of us? Where do their physical counterparts figure in? For that matter, are we really listening to anything but our own wants and needs?
Left to my own devices, I doubt I would have seriously considered shamanism as a life-path. I was pretty content with what I had. However, one of the main reasons I’m developing therioshamanism is for the totems. They’ve done a lot for me over the years, and this is one way for me to give back to them. They asked it of me, as I’ve asked so much of them, and I decided to at least give it a try. If it works out, then great–this helps me to help them. If it doesn’t, then we figure something else out.
And I think that’s part of why I’ve worked with them for so long. I don’t just feel like they’re trying to get something out of me, or get me to worship them or follow their rules and taboos. They genuinely like me, and we’re involved in mutually beneficial and enjoyable relationships. I help them, not because I feel like I have to, but because I want to–and vice versa. I’ve been approached by a few deities over the years who wanted worship, attention, power, energy–and I turned them down because I simply wasn’t interested in that kind of relationship. I had gotten spoiled by the totems, who actually worked with me even before I met Artemis. (I don’t worry too much about getting harassed by rejected deities–some of the more protective totems in my life, Wolf in particular, have proven to me in the past that they’re not just going to stand aside and let bad things happen for no good reason.) Why would I want to be in a relationship where I felt like I was being essentially bullied, when I have numerous relationships with powerful beings who genuinely like me?
Tonight I finally did my ritual to officially finish off my Water month and head into the final month of my six months. I know the full moon was a few nights ago; however, I caught yet another cold which developed into a sinus infection, and Bear told me to spend a few more days healing (she didn’t mind keeping me a bit longer). However, the transition has happened, and the last month has begun. Once again, as with my first month, I examine all four elements together, only with the experience of the previous months to use as well, and reflect on what I’ve learned so far. It’s definitely going to be a powerful experience.
The Animal Father called me into the ritual room and had me sit in the center where the four directions/etc. meet. Then he told me to start drumming. At first I got distracted by the drumbeat; I kept speeding up and slowing down, and I was a bit irritated with the tone because the drum head was just a little bit damp. But he reminded me to focus, and over time I felt myself at the center of all four of the directional totems–Wolf, Hawk, Fox and Bear. It was an incredibly powerful combination, the totems and the god, all there at once. And apparently, this is supposed to be my starting point for journeying in general! No wonder I’ll need practice.
The Animal Father had me recount, briefly, what I had learned from each of them. We distilled these into four basic values:
North - Wolf - Earth - Grounding
East - Hawk - Air - Communication
South - Fox - Fire - Love (Passion)
West - Bear - Water - Healing
These are very much shorthand for a lot of complex concept and multifaceted interpretations. It’s easier to say “Grounding” than “Finding the basis of what’s most important in your life; figure out where you stand and where you’re coming from; etc.” as well as extending concepts to other people, other beings, the world around me, and so forth. “Grounding” is therefore a convenient tag for something much bigger.
I felt very safe and very centered during this time; it was much stronger than the neopagan circle castings I gave up early on in my therioshamanic work. I had a very clear idea of my cosmology, and it imprinted itself more strongly on my brain. However, I’m still building up endurance in my rituals, so the Animal Father had me begin to drum down again, to say farewell to the totems and to get myself downstairs and fed. We’re going to work on lengthening my rituals over time, especially as I start doing more complex things, but for now I need to be focusing on consistency.
So I’ll be spending the time between now and the spring equinox not only preparing my everyday life for a schedule change to allow more time for shamanic work, but also reflecting on the cosmology I’ve helped to develop over the past five months. It still has a very neopagan feel to it, which is fine, because it’s built on the concepts that I’ve adhered to most strongly in the past twelve years. But we’re definitely taking it to a higher level here, as far as intensity of work goes. I’m excited, and nervous, but also confident in my ability to continue with this.
This evening as the eclipse hit, I was walking home from the bus stop. I asked the spirits if I should take advantage of the rare full lunar eclipse and do any magic. Their reply was a very loud “No”. When I asked them why, they simply said “Bad energy”.
Whether that holds for this eclipse or all of them will remain to be seen; they’re being a bit tight-lipped about it. However, I’m glad they told me to stay indoors. Not long after I got home, I heard a bunch of shouting and noise on the next street over, followed shortly thereafter by sirens. Normally this is a nice, quiet neighborhood, but the full moon brings out the crazies…and perhaps people took advantage of the darkness of the eclipse to do something nefarious? Though it got nowhere near as dark as in a blackout.
Meh. I’ll bother the spirits about it later when they’re more prone to talking. Tomorrow is the beginning of my final month of my first six months, so I’ll have plenty to keep me occupied in the meantime.
Ravenari made an excellent comment to my bunny hop post from the other day. This part in particular got me thinking:
I wonder as well, if that sort of familiarisation with each animal spirit (even onces you’ve danced with before) is also a method to broaden your base of animal helpers. Because I feel that as you become more familiar with the energies as you skin dance, more will come through as clear helpers.
It’s one of those moments where I smack my forehead and say “Geez, why the hell didn’t I see that before?” This is sort of a continuation of our conversation a couple of weeks back about spirit helpers in general–and how it’s not a great idea to go journeying with just a power animal. I’ve been more aware since then of how the various spirits in my life interact with me, particularly as I walk along this particular path. I’ve been particularly focused on the totems, since they’re at the center of a lot of my elemental work in my six months. But I haven’t been too sure as to what would happen after March when the six months were up.
The Animal Father telling me he wanted me to work with the skin spirits on a daily basis after my six months was my first indication, along with him making it clear that part of the transition from the six months to the next stage of my training would involve dedicating myself to him. However, Ravenari’s comment above made it hit home to me that I’ll probably spend the second six months (at least) just working on strengthening my relationships with the spirits and determining who’s willing to help me and how. These first six months have been a process of cosmology building, creating the setting for the work to happen in, and next I’ll be figuring out who’ll be walking the path with me the most, at least to some extent–spirits may come and go as they please, as the relationships change, etc.
So this helps me make some sense of what’s going on. This is why I believe it’s crucial for those of us who work on a solitary basis to talk shop with others regularly. Other people can have perspectives on things that we may have totally missed. Ravenari is a practitioner of a traditional Russian form of animism/shamanism, and her viewpoint gives me something besides the neoshamanic/core shamanic/etc. material that’s a lot more common in neopaganism. It’s not so much that I think I should be a practitioner of Vilturj, mind you–it’s that what she says makes sense to me in a way that core shamanism and its derivatives haven’t, at least not on the subject of spirits. Most of the neoshamanic material deals a lot with the shaman doing most of the work, with little “interference” from the spirits. And, as she noted in her original post on the topic, it’s not a great idea to go journeying with only a power animal, because a power animal only has so much influence in certain places. (Granted, it’s dangerous to go alone, too.)
My point is that while I may not personally draw on every single thing Ravenari has in her practice, in both her original post, and her comment to my post about her post, she was able to offer me a unique perspective based on her experience. It may have gone against conventional neoshamanic wisdom in a lot of ways, but that doesn’t mean it can’t ring true to me, a neoshamanic practitioner. We don’t always have to toe the party line, and when something works with what I have, I’m going to run with it. And it does make a lot of sense that the various spiritual relationships I’ve been cultivating over the years–not just the skin spirits, but many others–would come into play as I started on my shamanic path. I think there was part of me that was expecting to have to find a whole new “set” of spirits for this work, and perhaps I will meet some new faces along the way, but it is quite comforting to realize that some of my best allies have been around all along.
All this does make me feel better overall about what I’m doing. I think there’s a certain amount of uncertainty that comes from “creating” your path rather than working with one you’ve been raised with. It’s so easy to be led astray by one’s own UPG; I’ve been exceptionally cautious about my discoveries. There are things that I’ve discovered but haven’t yet talked about or accepted because I’m still waiting to see if they pan out into something more substantial or not. But while I don’t expect to have everything I do verified by someone else before I accept it, the external validation I got in this case was a nice treat. Obviously, if the second six months end up being entirely different, then I’ll of course change my views. But the idea that cosmology comes first, then comes learning how to work with the spirits more effectively, makes perfect sense with what I’m doing.
One final thing I do want to make clear, on a bit of a tangent. I am not yet a practicing shaman, though I may refer to myself as a therioshaman for short. Therioshaman-in-training is a better term (but it’s a mouthful!). While I’ve made a few practice runs journeying with the drum, and done years of trance-dancing and shapeshifting, I won’t start with the actual shamanizing for a while yet. It looks as though the spirits want me to have at least a solid year of training in the basics–cosmology and working with spirit helpers–before I even get the bike with training wheels, never mind taking the training wheels off! Occasionally it’s frustrating, because I realize how much work there is to do once I am practicing. However, mostly it’s a relief, because I know I’m not going to get sent off unprepared.