The concept of spiritual energy is common across cultures. Here are some of the various names and descriptions of spiritual energy from different cultures.
Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine
Gender is in everything; Everything has its masculine and feminine principles; Gender manifests on all planes.
-Hermes Trismegistus, The Emerald Tablet
Underneath all that we think we are, is a pure spark of divinity connected to absolutely everything. There is no separation, and all is one. That inner spark is unborn, deathless, cannot suffer injury, or be affected by your life events. Good news - what you are is already whole, complete, and perfect.
That divinity, in order to experience itself, creates an illusion of separation. Matter appears to be separate from spirit. We appear to be separate from each other. Cats chase mice, Red Sox fans hate The Yankees, etc., etc, etc.
Divinity, in order to create, expresses itself through two impulses - the divine masculine, and the divine feminine. Just like with sexual reproduction, these two impulses combine to create the universe and express themselves through it and through every living being.
I want to call out an important point here - that the gender referred to here is not necessarily a political or biological construct - though those reflect the principle. Gender identity is another concept II won’t address here other than to say that every being has both masculine and feminine divine impulses - regardless of gender identity.
Politically, here in the West, we have been living in a patriarchal hierarchy for several thousand years. This extends to religion, politics, and culture. This out-of-balance expression of the masculine is like a giant pyramid scheme. There are always very few people at the top enriching themselves at the expense of those below. There’s always a king, or a guru, or a priest putting themselves between you and divinity.
Patriarchy is not really an expression of the divine masculine, but a perversion of it. It is entirely out of balance.
Divine Masculine
The divine masculine impulse, which Ken Wilber refers to as eros, is the impulse of the individual to grow. Spiritually this is the impulse to practice, to seek knowledge, to supersede where we are at the moment.
While this impulse is individualistic, it wants to lift the individual rather than making the individual seem greater by oppressing the masses. Think of the Buddha who sat under the Bodi tree in meditation until he reached enlightenment.
Shadow Aspect of the Divine Masculine
The out-of-balance, corrupted, or shadow-side of the divine masculine is the power hungry, abusive, or violent. Think of this as the cult leader who abuses their followers, or the inflated ego of those who declare themselves “ascended”. This is not the divine impulse, but a corrupted version of it. It seems power over others at all costs.
Divine Feminine
The divine feminine, which Ken Wilber refers to as agape, is the impulse to gather, nurture, to tend to. On a spiritual level, we find words like Earth-based, community, motherhood. The divine feminine concerns itself with the whole, bringing the many along and nurturing them.
This impulse is egalitarian, it wants to see each individual cared for, but not at the expense of the whole. Think of a human body. If one critical organ fails, it can cause death or, at least, the failure of other organs.
Shadow Aspect of the Divine Feminine
When the shadow aspect of the feminine is at work, there is stagnation. It brings individuals down to the same level as the whole rather than bringing the whole up. “Rocking the boat” is seen as a threat. It shuns new ideas and outsiders.
Balancing Masculine and Feminine
In alchemy, there is a stage in the great work (magnum opus) referred to as the Rebis. This is the unification of spirit and matter into a divine hermaphrodite. This symbolic language is not describing a single person with two sexes but is describing the combination of opposites into a nonduality.
Recognizing nonduality as a worthy spiritual aim, how do we accomplish this realization? One way is by emulating the impulses of both divine masculine and feminine.
Embrace the impulse to develop; this is the masculine impulse. It is important to do your work, whether that’s meditation, study, ritual, shadow work. As an individual, you work to grow spiritually. You look at yourself with brutal honesty and evolve from a place of love - not to be better than anyone else, or to wield power over, but simply to experience more of your own spiritual nature.
Embrace also, the impulse to take care, nurture, gather, and commune. You look to raise everyone up rather than drag everyone down. As you evolve and do your work, you do it for the betterment of the world. You recognize the underlying unity of everything. There truly is no separation.
When “Thrice Great” Hermes said that gender is in everything and on all planes, he meant we express it on physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual levels. The underlying unity of everything means that our divinity can express through both polarities. On a spiritual level, you are neither masculine nor feminine, but both at once and always. You are both a god and a goddess.
Every man and every woman is a star.
- Aleister Crowley, The Book of the Law
How to Make Holy Water The Shamanic Way
Shamans use a lot of spiritual tools; Our shaman ancestors had to make their own tools. Obviously, they couldn’t order a Remo frame drum from Amazon or buy a totem of their power animal from Etsy. Beyond the practicality of living in a pre-industrial world, there is a spiritual reason for making your own tools.
Anything you make yourself, especially with helping spirits, will be imbued with your own energy and intention. When you were in school, you may have magnetized a piece of metal like a needle by drawing a magnet along it. When you create and use objects in a sacred way, they become attuned. They pick up blessings. Those objects lead their power back when we use them later.
In my own work, I have made a drum in a drum birthing ceremony. I have made masks, bags, altar cloths, totems, Florida water, etc.
To follow this process, you will need to know how to journey, and you should have at least one relationship with a helping spirit.
Why make your own holy water?
Consecrated water, which I’ll use from here on out when referring to what I am doing, is a useful tool. You can think of it as a spiritual wash - used to clear away and dissipate unwanted spiritual energy.
In the movies, holy water is used to chase away vampires and demons. There’s something to this. Consecrated water disburses energy and can send unwelcome beings packing.
Some other uses include:
Purifying and consecrating other spiritual tools
Cleansing sacred space - such as an altar or meditation room
Cleansing oneself and others - like smudging but with water
Use in healing rituals.
Use in ritual baths
Use in spiritual self-defense
And I’m sure there are as many uses as you can think of. Any time you want a little cleansing or feel some unwanted energy, this is a real go-to tool.
The Principles of Consecrated Water
There are two principles at play when you make or use consecrated water:
1 Physical
The physical properties of water and salt - the things you physically make consecrated water with - reflect on a spiritual, metaphorical, and spiritual level.
Water in itself is the universal cleansing substance. It’s used in rituals in many different ways all over the world.
The crystalline nature of salt makes it a great absorber and transformer of energy - electric, etheric, astral.
Combined, these two substances can cleanse, transform, scatter, and disrupt spiritual energy. Note: I would not use consecrated water on items that had a charge you want to maintain.
2. Spiritual
When you consecrate water, you will use intent, focused will, and spiritual power from helping spirits to imbue the water with power. You essentially are changing the water's spiritual structure that lies on the etheric and astral levels of existence.
Intent is the key. Almost everything else is flexible, but a focused intent will make it work.
The Process
When I decided I wanted to consecrate my own water, I did what good shamanic practitioners do; I went to my helping spirits. They gave me this ritual to use. You should feel free to adjust it or receive different instructions from your helping spirits.
What you’ll need
Some water (I use filtered)
Salt (I use sea salt)
A surface you can use as an altar.
A candle on the altar
A drum and rattle
The steps
Set up your altar with a small amount of salt, water in a glass or a bowl, a lit candle, and perhaps totems representing your power animals or images of other helping spirits.
Use a rattle to open the directions. If you have training in shamanic journeying, this should be something you know how to do.
Use your drum to journey to your helping spirits with the intent to merge with one or more of them to consecrate the water. Merge, then open your eyes while still merged.
Hold the palm of your hand over your salt and imagine the energy and intent of purification flowing into it.. You may choose to say a blessing, tone, or stay silent.
Hold the palm of your hand over the water, likewise imagine and intend that purifying energy flow into it. Say a blessing if you choose to.
Pour the salt into the water, hold your hand over the now combined water and once again bless and imagine the purification energy flowing into the now consecrated water.
Thank your helping spirits, ask them to unmerge, then snuff the candle.
If you’re not using it right away, you may want to keep the water in a special container on your altar or elsewhere. You can carry a small vial with you for use throughout the day.
How Does a Shaman See People?
Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes.
-Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back
When a shaman looks at a person in nonordinary reality, or during a journey, they see much more than a physical body. For that matter, all sentient beings appear as wildly complex energetic constructs. Further, many beings who do not seem conscious to physical eyes are sentient when viewed through a shamanic lens.
I will start by saying that the following description is merely a model. Mere words cannot describe the totality of even a single being. I will also use words in ways that others may not - and that’s OK too. If I say the word “blue,” I might be thinking of sky blue, and you might be thinking of a dark blue. It’s just a difference, and neither is “wrong.”
Shamanism is animistic and sees spirit everywhere. The natural world is full of conscious spirits - of trees, wind, animals, the Earth itself.
I like to use the analogy of an onion. Sentient beings, such as humans, have layer upon layer of “stuff.”
Most spiritual systems recognize that the physical body is the surface “layer” and acknowledge at least one other part of the person. We might call that spirit or soul. There are words in every language for this part of a being.
To create a model with huge pieces that can be easily understood, I’ll talk about at least three parts or layers of a person. Each one of those layers is infinitely complex.
Take the physical body. The human body has approximately 30 trillion cells. Medicine recognizes dozens of individual organs. The chemistry of the body is incredibly complex and not fully understood. And there are differences between each particular body.
You can see that the concept of the body is a massive oversimplification of an uncountable number of things working in concert. But us useful to be able to refer to the physical body as a shortcut.
I will refer to the three simplified parts of a person as bodies.
Physical Body
We’ve already discussed the physical body. This is the part of the person that has mass and exists in ordinary reality. Most people strongly identify with their physical bodies, even though it is one small part of them. It’s a little like saying, “I am my toenail.”
Astral Body
The next, more subtle body is the astral body. This is what many shamans refer to as the soul. Some would call it your spirit or your ghost. The astral body is an energetic part of you - you may have heard of astral travel. This part of you can be split into pieces, and parts can travel in nonordinary reality—this is what shamans do when they journey.
The astral body is some blend of form and formlessness. It is much subtler than the physical body. Shapeshifting in the astral body is quite natural. In trance states, shamans may perceive spirits as having specific forms, even if they are physically disembodied. This is the way spirit can communicate with the minds of humans in ways we can understand.
Essences or parts of the soul can also become lost during trauma. A soul retrieval ceremony is shamanic healing intended to heal this type of spiritual injury.
While you are physically alive, your soul is somewhat attached to your body. This connection is severed when you die physically. If you were to lose ALL of your soul, your body would not survive. I will talk more about this in a bit when I discuss how the bodies interact.
Causal Body
The causal body is entirely subtle; it has no form. I refer to this layer as the spirit. It is unchanging, whole, complete, and incorruptible. It cannot be injured or harmed.
The causal body is your spark of divinity. If you think of the creator (God or whatever name you have) as an ocean, this is like a drop in that ocean. Inseparable from divinity, yet still an individual.
At this level, time and space break down, so no form can exist. There are shamanic practices to access this level of Self (capital S here). It can be experienced as a center point of pure light that radiates infinitely in all directions. Even that is a mental construct to help our physical minds.
You can also think of the causal body as a field of pure consciousness in which everything you experience arises. It is the container for your consciousness and your cradle of creation.
How does this relate to shamanic healing
Shamans work primarily at the astral or soul level. You might see a doctor to work on a strictly physical issue, and a shamanic practitioner to help with the spiritual aspects of an issue that is reflected physically.
The astral body and physical body are close together; they are overlapping layers. Issues in one can affect another. For example, long-term physical illness may result in soul loss. Likewise, soul loss may result in physical problems.
There is a practice called transfiguration, where a healer journeys to identify with their pure soul essence, and this can provide needed healing energy to the spirits of others.
Since the causal body cannot be injured, there is no need and no technique for healing this aspect of another person or being.
Again, I would remind you that these descriptions are just pointers, like a map of a large territory. They aren’t meant to be exhaustive, and no map is 100% accurate.
