Ep17 Nature Spirits and Faeries

Announcer 0:30

Hello, and welcome to speaking spirit where we talk about all things spiritual. Your host, john Moore is a shamanic practitioner and spiritual teacher. And now here's john.

John Moore 0:49

Hello, everybody.

My apologies, I have been a little bit remiss in putting out these podcasts, it's been a little while, I sort of did too close together back to back with guests. And you know, I, I'm not the kind of person to wear busy as a badge of honor. But I got incredibly busy. And so here is my triumphant return. I guess after a short period of time, I used to, I usually like to talk a little bit about what it's like where I am, I am talking to you from the state of Maine in the United States, it's early in the morning here, it's, gosh, it's 6:18am. As I read this, and I'm looking out in the sun is coming up and the birds are out and the small animals are playing. And one of the things I love to do, I feed the birds. And I feed the small animals around here, and I leave, I have a back deck that I look out over when I record these and I love to what I put peanuts out for the shell peanuts out for the Chipmunks and squirrels. And I've a little chipmunk that loves to climb up on my deck and stuff his cheeks full of peanuts, and it's pretty cute. And so why am I telling you this other than to give you a slice of a view into what I'm experiencing at this moment, which I think is important, right? I mean, I think you know, I don't get a good sense of who you are, where you are, other than your Look, your location, I can look at statistics and see that people are tuning in from all over the world. And I love that I love that. So I like to share a little bit of what it's like where I am, as I'm recording this. The ancients used to, you know, at least you know, in many, many cultures used to, you know, record astronomical observations. And I don't have to do that, because we have scientists and computer programs and all kinds of stuff for for doing that. Which, which is pretty incredible. The modern world is is interesting, and technology's incredible helps me talk to people all over the world. So today, I'm going to talk to you about a topic that's near and dear to my heart. And I'm going to talk in also leads a little bit from my introduction, I'm going to talk about nature spirits. And what do I mean by nature spirits? What are nature spirits? Where do they come from? What are their, you know? What are the cultural influences and all of those sorts of things. And I'm using the word, the phrase nature spirits, very, very broadly, as sort of this giant category of thing. It's as if I'm saying animals to refer to all the animals on the planet, right? From insects, to whales, to hummingbirds to human beings, you know, those are all animals. So there's a huge variety. And so it's a kind of a catch all phrase. And it's the same way with nature spirits, there's a huge variety of what we will call nature spirits, and I'm going to talk about that and obviously, you know, if you've listened to this podcast, you know that I come from a shamanic background. My my training and my spirituality is rooted in shamanism. And so I look at things from I tend to look at things from a shamanic perspective. This is not to say that my viewpoint is correct. If there is such a thing, it is my viewpoint and it's it's colored by my life. experiences, my beliefs, my practices, all of those things. And that's true for everyone. So I'm going to talk a little bit about different cultures today. And I'm not an expert, I'm not an anthropologist, I am just somebody who is encouraged, you know, through my spirituality, incredibly curious about different cultures, interpretations of similar phenomena. And so, if I speak incorrectly, you know, or I say something that's, that's a little out there, from your own belief system. That's fine. You know, that's okay.

take it for what it is, take it, take it, that I'm interpreting things through my own set of lenses, and you're interpreting what I'm saying through your own set of lenses. We all do that all the time with everything. And you know, if there's a correction to be made, you can contact me through my website or something, and I would be happy to, I'm happy to learn. I think that's a healthy stand point, right? to assume that you might not know everything, and that, you know, being open to learn, right come to things with a beginner's mind, you know, sort of a Zen idea. Right? In beginner's mind, there are many possibilities in the experts mind, there are few or none. So getting locked in, getting locked into our beliefs getting locked into our little reality tunnel, or reality box, we all live in a little box, which is bounded by our beliefs. So sometimes we can experiment we can try on different beliefs. You know, what if what if this were true? What if that were true? And see how that works for us. And that can help us grow as humans. So anyway, I digress a little bit. I'm going to refocus now. And I'm going to talk about nature spirits. And what do I mean by nature spirits. So from a shamanic perspective, right, shamanism is an extension, I guess, from animism, which is the idea that all living beings have spirits. Even, you know, some animists I happen to be one of them, believe that even nonliving things have spirits. So, things that we would consider nonliving rocks and streams. You know, even there is a, you know, a spirit of the internet, there's a spirit of everything. And it's again, like that's a viewpoint, right, that's a that's a point of view that I take that I address everything as a spirit, my car is a spirit. And that, you know, that might be a little shift to I don't think of things as having spirits, I think of them as spirits. So in my viewpoint, I'm everything there is is a spirit. Some things that exists have a physical presence have a physical projection, okay? So what that means is that, you know, if I'm looking at the tree outside of my window, that tree is a spirit that also projects a physical presence of a tree. But not everything that is a spirit has a physical presence. And so, this is where we get into the idea of nature spirits. So what am I talking about with nature spirits. So, nature, spirits are spirits of place, spirits that live sort of between worlds between what we consider the middle world in shamanism, which is the spiritual overlay of physical reality. And they, and they belong and they sort of belong here, right? They're not their native, they're native to this space. So there are as many I can't even think of all of the terms for the different types of nature spirits, but if you think about mythological beings, for a moment, excuse me. Almost every culture you can think of has some concept of what they would call little people, right? Little People as fairies, elves brownies, greenies trolls. In Hawaii they have the minute hooni the African shaman mala dama samay talks about the contemporay from his culture. in Southeast Asia, Indonesia, they have the orang pendek, which are the little, little people, which I'm not sure may have a physical presence or not. Again, I'm talking about cultures that I'm not native to. So I'm only going to speak as an outsider from from that perspective, but gosh, you know, all of these cultures that may or may not have had contact at some point in history, have this idea

of little spiritual beings. You know, and tons of them tons and tons and tons of them. If you think about if you think about these, if you think about the fairies, right, you know, fairy faith is still strong in some places in you know, what we would consider the United Kingdom and Ireland. Right, so the British Isles area. Um, you know, I know places, Iceland, for example, trolls are very real beings, they're trolls and elves, and that sort of thing. very real, very part of the culture. So what's know what's going on here? Are these just figments of people's imagination? Are they archetypal? Meaning that all of these cultures just spontaneously came up with these, you know, ideas of these little people that can flit in and out of view and can do magic and, you know, sometimes communicate with people sometimes, you know, make offerings or, you know, all of these, all of these ideas. What's going on here? So, in my perspective, in my view, these beings are very real, and they live in a place that is very, very close to physical reality. They live in what we, in the shamanic perspective, call the middle world, which is, again, it's this spiritual overlay of 3d physical reality that we experience with our eyes and ears and sense of touch. And that sort of thing. This wasn't always the case for me. I mean, you know, in English anyway, the word fairy tale has taken on the meaning of something that is untrue. Right, so fairy stories, fairy tales, they generally refer to, you know, mythological tales that we tell to children to teach moral stories or that sort of thing. But also, you know, if somebody is, you know, telling you a story that you think is untrue, you might say, that's a fairy tale. That's a fantasy, you have made that up in your imagination. Pardon me, and that used to be my perspective, that, you know, this was all made up, and I saw the, you know, watch the Tinkerbell movies about fairies, and, you know, the Disney perspective. And, you know, these things have really woven themselves into our culture. And they've always, you know, they've always been there. As far as we have written history. There are, you know, lots and lots and lots of history of interactions, you know, things written down, interactions with nature spirits with with the faith with the fairies. And I'm sure that's true in many other cultures that I'm that I'm not even, you know, not even aware of. Right. Certainly the, you know, there are legends in Hawaii, about the men who in a building things overnight building, you know, giant walls overnight, or temples or, you know, that sort of thing. And I don't, you know, I don't know the truth of those things. But these are very real beings in many, many cultures. And it's only sort of recently that we have said, No, there is nothing beyond the physical reality. You know, these, you know, when you're telling stories of these supernatural creatures, and I wouldn't call them I personally wouldn't call them supernatural. I think they're very natural. I think they they exist. So I'll tell you. You know, I'll tell you about a couple of my personal experiences that sort of drove home that these Are these are not necessarily made up beings. And, you know, I promise I am not having a psychotic break, I'm sitting here I am sitting here drinking my coffee, which is which is delightful

to have a little coffee when I do these, particularly because I usually record them in the morning. Um, so, you know, one story that I have this, you know, this happened to me personally, I used to, I used to live in Boston, Massachusetts in the US and I used to I trained in martial arts my whole life. And I used to train in this dojo, which is a dojo, if you don't know is a place where, you know, you go train Japanese martial arts. So is training in Japanese jujitsu, in this dojo, which was in the basement of this building. And I was training with my friend Jimmy one day, and we were the only two in this particular room in the stojo working together, and my teacher had stepped into the other room to, to do something. And you know, Jimmy and I were training and this little, I want to say little, you know, Little Green Man, that's gonna sound like I'm talking about an alien. And it may be that aliens are our, our, you know, our thing. And our nature spirits. Who knows, I don't know the truth of that. But this little man who was had sort of a greenish tint, was wearing sort of normal human clothes, but was about two feet tall. I saw him come running through the room, and run right through the back wall of the dojo, where we were training. And at first I thought, you know, I'm just seeing things that's not real. And my friend turned to me that I was training with he goes, did you see that? And I was like, Yeah, what did you see? And he described it to me as like, that little man just ran through here and ran through the wall. He looks solid to me. Like, it didn't look like a figment of my imagination, or a ghost or anything like that. And I was like, wow, I saw the same thing. How could that be, you know, it was really weird. And then my teacher, my teacher walked into the room and said, What happened? A little guy that just came running through here. So three people had seen the same thing. You know, one of them had not been listening to the conversation we were having. So you know, something, something clearly was going on there. And then, you know, later in life, I'm, you know, started studying shamanism. And I would journey and I would journey into the middle world, and I would realize that, oh, gosh, there are these nature spirits, everywhere, everywhere, it's crowded. The earth is a crowded place. And My take is that the ones that we sometimes see are, you know, are either able to sort of manifest in the middle world. And then you know, these are the ones that sort of normal, when I say normal, I mean, people not like me, normal folk, folk who are not practicing trance work or, you know, traveling to non ordinary reality like, like shamans do. There are experiencing beings that are very, very close to having physical bodies, or that have the ability to shift in and out of physical form in the middle world. Right. So for me, it's just a matter of like frequency about being able to tune to a certain frequency like when I when I do a shamanic journey, when I enter trance, I can you know, what, what's happening is my brainwaves are getting tuned to a certain frequency that allows me to perceive things that I normally wouldn't perceive, right, in 3d ordinary reality. And when I've done that, I have met all kinds of spirit beings in the middle world. nature spirits in particular, I remember meeting a being one time that was, you know, said something to me, you know, appeared, appeared female, and said, I sing the trees to sleep at night. And I was like, well, that's kind of poetic and interesting, but you know, trees are not

trees around animals, they don't sleep. And then within a week or two, there was an article that appeared in some nature journal about the fact that trees in fact do sleep. They do have sleep cycles, which I totally did not know, before, beforehand, you know, they, they have a, you know, it's obviously not sleeping in the same way that we think of animals or humans sleeping, but they do have these daytime nighttime cycles. So, um, you know, my brain was making making some sense out of some information, you know, I sing the trees to sleep at night my brain was making some sense out of some interaction with with a nature spirit, and, you know, which turned out to have some scientific background to it. So over the years, I've encountered, you know, lots of different nature spirits. And so, over this past weekend, in fact, I, I put, I put a small altar in a wooded area of my property I live on to the nature spirits, because I think it's good to particularly honor the spirits of place. You know, certainly they're in, in the fairy faiths, you know, in the places where they still make offerings to fairies, and that sort of thing. They can be seen as guardians, and they can, they can help protect your land, your home, you know, that sort of thing from calamity, right, protect you from fires and natural disasters and that sort of thing, and keep an eye out on things. And if they're unhappy, you know, certainly, they can let you know that as well. A lot of lot of weird things can happen, things can go missing, things can break, electronics can go wonky, it's, you know, it's an interesting thing. I've certainly experienced sort of both sides of that, and I would never, at this point in my life, having the experiences that I've had, I would never move to a place or have, you know, you know, live in a place where I have not made some contact with the spirits of place. And so in, in Norse belief in ancient Norse belief, you had the land veter, right, which landvetter are the spirits of the land? Okay, and then, um, you know, even in Taoism, you know, when you look at Fung Shui, which is, you know, a lot of people think Fung Shui is about situating furniture in your house. And that, you know, was certainly part of it, from my understanding, but it is also about geomancy it's also about looking at the flow of energy, in a place in situating things in such a way that they're in harmony. And I find that a really beautiful way of of looking at things because when you can get to the when you get to the point where you can perceive spirit and you can perceive energy and, and that sort of thing. You realize that there are flows and stoppages and different frequencies and that sort of thing. So I want to talk a little bit about the middle world as well. Because it's an important consideration. From you know, I do when I teach shamanism and I teach shamanic journeying in particular, we always caution people about the middle world a little bit, because it is a little bit like the frontier of the western United States back in the day, when before it was really settled, it was a wild place full of dangers. And you know, some people were friendly, some people were not, and, you know, that sort of thing. So, as I said, the middle world is full of spirits. You know, it can sometimes appear crowded, actually, interestingly enough, if you're, you're never alone. That's one. You know, that's one thing. So think about that, you know, before you litter or pollute something or whatever there are. There are people watching and as I say this, there's a chipmunk just came up on my porch and he stuffing peanuts into his cheeks and a crow just flew into my yard. So, these are, these are great omens, these are, you know,

you know, lovely, lovely spirits of nature with physical bodies that are that are showing up to say hi to me this morning. So the middle world is a very crowded place and you know, I I was taught about it, it's sort of like moving around in a foreign city that you're visiting for the first time, right? And you don't necessarily know where the good neighborhoods are the bad neighborhoods, or, you know, if there are pickpockets in one location or kidnappers or, you know, or where they're friendly folk, or, you know, that sort of thing. So I do caution people to be a little careful in the middle world. You know, and when we teach journeying in the middle world, we teach some safety protocols for that. The other the other aspect of the middle world are that there are spirits that I wouldn't necessarily consider nature spirits there. So when you hear stories about ghosts, or, you know, just Carnot humans who are, you know, quote, unquote, trapped here, you know, that, that part of them that is trapped here is is trapped. You know, stuck is a better word, it's not trapped. There's nobody trapping them here. People sometimes get stuck. Because they're, you know, they're killed in it's a surprise or they're not ready to pass on or there's some, you know, there's there's a myriad of reasons why human spirits get stuck in the middle world. So there are, you know, there are suffering spirits in the middle world. When, you know, when shamanic practitioners encounter these suffering spirits, even though they can sometimes appear scary or angry or be doing something that we would consider harmful. We tend to treat them like clients because they're their suffering beings. Right, and they deserve compassion. And so, we do work frequently. That's called psycho pump work. And psycho pump is a word word that is, you know, it comes from the Greek, which is sort of the, it means sort of the conveyor of spirits. Psycho, you know, even though we, we get the word psychology from it, and tends to mean mind in, in English anyway, psycho is actually a word that means spirit in Greek. And so psychology actually would be the study of the Spirit. But, you know, we know it as a study of the mind. And so psycho pomp is, you know, an individual could be non human individual, but an individual that helps shuttle spirits to where they're supposed to go. So if you think about Greek mythology, you can think about Karen who has the boat across the river, you know, Rose the boat across the river sticks, you have to pay the ferry man to shuttle your spirit to the afterlife. Okay, so they're, you know, if you think about Norse mythology, you have the Valkyrie, who worked for Odin, who took his, you know, the people that were going with him after battle up to Valhalla. So there's, you know, there's psycho again, there's this cross cultural many, you know, lots and lots of different cultures have this idea of a psychopomp. Well, in, in most, you know, most shamanic training, if you're trained as a Shimano shamanic practitioner, you do learn to do psychopomp work, because we, you know, we have this sort of equal vision of all spirits. So, again, we would treat discarnate human humans as as if they were clients and help them you know, we don't, we don't banish, we don't bottle spirits up, we don't enslave spirits. Any of those, any of those things, I know, there are cultures where that is. That is the thing where they, you know, they do that, you know, and I don't want to, I don't want to cast judgment, so I won't hold back. I would just say that that's not something that I personally would do, and or, you know, anybody in my tradition would would do that. So, I

will leave that to, I will leave that to you to the difference between sort of enslaving and capturing, and enshrining, there are cultures where spirits are enshrined. And they're sort of free to come and go and sort of, you know, that kind of thing. But, you know, shamanism takes a very level playing field view. It's not Um, you know, I am the king. I'm the king of the castle, I work in tandem with helping spirits. Some of those are middle world spirits sometimes. Um So anyway, back to nature spirits, I realized I go off on a lot of tangents. But I hope that's interesting. I hope that when I expand on the topic and go off in a little direction, that it's not too confusing and that you find it interesting. Because that's just how I am. That's just how I choose to talk about things. So, you know, I'm very, very curious about nature spirits and how they show up. And one of the interesting one of the interesting phenomenon to me, is that, again, there's this description of little people in many, many different cultures, right? The men are hooning in Hawaii, the fairies trolls, elves. I guess trolls aren't necessarily little people, but elves sometimes are perceived as little people. Sometimes trolls are. You know, leprechauns, certainly, all kinds of beings are perceived as little people. brownies, Greensleeves is another one, or not Greensleeves? I'm sorry, that's the song. Green coats is another word for them. Which is interesting because the first nature spirit I ever encountered, I can remember encountering was was wearing a green coat. Before I knew that, that was a thing. So you know, what's going on with this little you know, this little people? Why are they perceived as small? Are they actually small? Are they smaller than we are? So, the answer to that is a little bit complicated. One answer I will give you is that they're, you know, in journeying and doing shamanic journeying. nature spirits are all different sizes, from teeny tiny little beings, you know, the size of your you know, half of your thumb to giants, you know, giants are another thing right giants are lots and lots of different cultures have have this idea of giants. And whether there were physical giants or you know, just you know, the idea of you know, spirit beings that that are just really huge You know, that's been my experience I've experienced some very large spirit beings so if you journey in the middle world, you'll encounter nature spirits that are all different sizes that are small and tall and human size and you know, animal size and all kinds of stuff. Many of them take on many of them appear humanoid, I won't necessarily say human, because they can be very different morphologically, they can be very differently and have you know, for example, be sort of short and stout. Like I don't know a little little chubby elves. If you think about the I don't know if they have this in other countries but in the US we have the keebler elves that make cookies and live in a tree you know, is it's a brand of it's a brand of snacks and cookies that are you know, they created you know, commercials with these little little chubby outs so there's that there's a very long limbs there are creatures that appear to be part plant and part animal and you see the Green Man in Celtic culture right Who is this you know, usually pictured as like a face with leaves growing out of it kind of thing. I've experienced similar similar in nature spirits and I don't know for sure that the Green Man is a nature spirit, I'm just saying the appearance appearance wise. This This seems to be

the seems to be something I have encountered countered beings that are close to that. And, and so, you know, some of them fly and some of them swim or live in the water, and some of them walk on land. So again, there's this huge variety, right? There's this huge variety of these nature spirits. Most that I have encountered have been humanoid, but not all of them, certainly. And there are these. There's the idea of mythological creatures as well. So, you know, from dragons to, you know, sort of non human, non human mythological creatures? And do these exist in the middle world that I'm not sure about? I don't know, I haven't I haven't encountered a dragon in person. I suppose that would be really interesting thing for me to explore. But dragons seem to be part of every culture as well. So there's probably something there. Right? You have, you have certainly dragons appearing in European cultures, you certainly have dragons appearing in East Asian cultures. So, um, and, you know, how does that how does that happen? I know, I don't know. I mean, unless there's some sort of cultural, you know, cultural exchange of the idea of Dragon or it's an archetype or, you know, I don't even know. So, is it possible that, you know, dragons are spiritual beings that exist in the middle world, I suppose. Right? I do know, people who have encountered dragons in journeys, usually not in middle world realms. So there are, there are places where you can travel in journey where there are, you're more likely to encounter mythological beings. But there's sort of more ethereal than then kind of middle world and then there's, you know, in you know, I'm thinking of the, you know, St. George, the dragon slayer in, in, you know, the patron saint of, I think it's the patron saint of if it's England or London specifically, I think it's England, the patron saint supposedly slayed slew, right. slue is the past tense of slay, I don't know, slew a dragon. So that's kind of an interesting thing to explore, as well, like what you know, and in certain, certainly in European stories of, of dragons, and when we see like, Tolkien themes, you know, the, the Hobbit and all of those stories, you know, dragons are not necessarily nice beings. They hoard gold and all that sort of thing. And so I think they're, you know, there's some, there's definitely some cultural overlay there as well. We're in, you know, some East Asian cultures, dragons are seen as protectors, you know, and, you know, as protective spirits. So, I don't know, there's certainly some cultural overlay. So my experience with the nature spirits is that they, you know, the temperament really differs, right? It's just like human beings. You know, just like if you're wandering around, and, you know, a city, you don't know, if you're journeying in the middle world, and you encounter nature, you know, nature spirits. Some of them will be indifferent to you, they don't care that you're there. Some of them would be curious, like, Hey, what are you doing here, you can see me some of them will be overjoyed to meet you. Some of them will be angry that you've interrupted them, or, you know, entered their space without permission or without an offering or that sort of thing. So it's best to be careful about these things. And there are lots and lots of cautionary tales. Among the cultures that follow, sort of fairy faith or believe in little beings, or that sort of thing, and there are lots of you know, there are lots and lots of recommendations about leaving offerings or don't step into a circle of mushrooms or don't trot along certain trails or, you know, that sort of thing. My advice is, you know, just like if you are traveling to a foreign country,

it is important to do your best to respect the culture and respect the rules of where you're traveling. Okay, even though we live in the middle world, when we Trump along like we're the only beings here you know, you can you know, you can cause damage right if I just you know, walk around throwing my garbage everywhere you know, I'm I'm causing, you know, I'm causing damage and that's not right. So, in a fight, traveled to a foreign country, I tried to learn a little bit of you know, if, you know, they speak a language I don't understand, I'll try to learn at least a little bit. So I can get around, I will read about customs. So I will try not to do something that's deemed offensive. Um, you know, I will respect the locals, I will respect the law, I will, you know, embrace with curiosity and love and kindness. You know, people who offer up bits of their bits of their culture, right, people like to take pride in their culture have people come? If people come visit me, in Maine, for example, I, you know, we have a you know, I'm surrounded by beautiful nature and an amazing coastline with beaches, and rocky shores, and islands, all of those things. And they take pride in that, and I'd like to show people around. And so it's, it's kind of the, it's kind of the same thing. You know, with nature spirits, some of them are, you know, they're all you know, they all live here, this is their home. Right? The reason why they're nature spirits is that they live in nature they live in, you know, the world that we, that we look out at and consider nature. And, you know, so this is their home. And so it's important for us to respect that. And, you know, my work in shamanism shows me that we're, you know, there's this sort of infinite web of all living things. You know, of all spirits, and we're all connected. So if I disrespect if I, if I pollute, or I don't recycle, or I do all of these things, that's harming the earth. Like, I'm part of that web. I'm part of that net, I'm not disconnected, I'm not separate. And so respecting those things, at you know, even from a selfish superficial level is respecting myself, right, I'm affecting the world that I live in. So yeah, when you, when you walk in nature, when you go in nature, go in reverence. Right, show show, show, respect, whatever that means. Leave nothing. But footprints was sort of the, the camping motto, when I was when I was a boy, and I was in the Boy Scouts, right, we always left a place. At least as pristine as when we got there. Sometimes, you know, if we got to a camping spot or something, and some people had trashed it, we would clean it up. Right, we would leave it better than better than the way we found it. So the lesson there is how do we how do we as humans leave places better than when we found them. And it's hard because we make an impact just by living on the planet by eating food. It doesn't matter if you're, you know, it doesn't matter if you're vegan, you know, and, you know, power to you, if you are and you only eat, you know, you try to make as little impact as you can, you're still making an impact your food still has to be grown somewhere. fields have to be plowed. You know, territory has to be taken up to grow the food that you eat. Um, so we do make we do make an impact. So how do we, how do we look at that? How do we lessen that? How do we live in better harmony in you know, it's really about the small choices that we make? Do we choose to recycle? Do we choose to compost? Do we choose to, you know, participate in beach cleanups in our area? Or do we just treat the earth as if it's disposable? And, you know, and make the make the nature spirits angry at us, we don't want to do that.

When we live in harmony with them, they will take care of us. You know, most of them will take care of us they will they appreciate it. When you make offerings and offerings, you don't have to change your belief system, you know, or believe you know, or or do nature worship or become a shaman or practice animism, any of those things by making offerings. Um, you know, it could be simple, you could feed the birds, right, I have a bird feeder, and I feed the small mammals in the area, you know, put up put up That I'm very conscious of that are healthy for them. And it's especially important where I live over the winter, where a lot of birds have trouble. You know, have can have trouble finding food. So I do put, you know, I do put food out for them, especially in the winter. And it increases, you know, there's, there's research to show that increases the survivability rates. So, you know, I'm taking care of the animals and taking care of the environment, I'm very keen on recycling and, you know, taking a stance on things, you know, trying to be as ecological as I can be. But also keeping in mind that no matter what I do, just the fact that I exist on this planet, and I use electricity, and I use have to use fossil fuels for the time being, I don't have any other way to, to get around, I would love to own an electric vehicle. But that is, you know, a little outside of my price range at the moment, but someday in the near future, I'll be able to reduce my impact on the world. So it's about making conscious choices, it's about choosing, you know, choosing things that, you know, if given two choices, I, you know, I try to make try to make one that is less impactful. if you so desire, you can, you know, actually, you know, leave real offerings for nature spirits, you know, really, I find to, you know, you want to honor the spirits of place, and so we're, we're, I live this, you know, I live on land that was traditionally occupied by the wabanaki people, you know, at least you know, that my understanding is a big Confederacy of people, wabanaki people and, you know, one traditional offering for this area might be cornmeal. Right. And so I do, you know, I will offer cornmeal in this in this area, simply because that's a historic offering, right? That's something that has gone on here forever. Sometimes, I will also offer Mead, which is honey wine, you know, I'll put out a little cup of mead as an offering, in honor of my ancestors who were, who were Scandinavian, and you know, that sort of thing. And, you know, some other, you know, some other offerings as well. You know, like I said, I put out food for the birds So, if you so desire, you can put out offerings for nature spirits, and that seems to be a big part of animistic culture all over the world. And you know, it's, it's a way of living in greater harmony with the nature spirits that are around you, that are around you. So I hope this has been you know, I hope this has been interesting and certainly somewhat enlightening, enlightening about nature, spirits and what they are, and they have always been here, they will always be here, you know, time doesn't have as much meaning in time and space don't really have as much meaning in the spirit world. And that's sort of why sometimes these nature spirits appear appear to us as being small. But they do come in all different sizes and shapes and forms and that sort of thing. There's, there's quite a variety. Anyway, you know, I will leave you with that. I will get back to recording these on a more regular basis. I wish you all well, and we will talk to you next time.

Announcer 49:36

You have been listening to speaking spirit with your host, john more. For more info or to contact john go to MaineShaman.com that's maineshaman.com

Ep16 Living Shamanism

Announcer 0:29

Hello, and welcome to speaking spirit where we talk about all things spiritual. Your host, john Moore is a shamanic practitioner and spiritual teacher. And now here's john.

John Moore 0:48

Hello, everybody. Um,

I always have the urge to say good morning. And of course I never realize I don't. It's not that I don't think about. I really I do realize that you can be at any time of day listening to this podcast, but I will wish you a good morning or good day, no matter where you are in the world.

Today I have a I'm very excited about today's podcast guest. I will. I will introduce her to you in a second and we're going to talk about shamanism and shamanism as a lifelong practice and what that means and what's required and all that sort of stuff and who knows where the conversation will go. So my guest this morning is Dory Cote. And Dory is a nationally known I would probably say internationally known shamanic practitioner and teacher who brings passion and creativity to her teaching and healing, creating a safe, sacred and affirming place for students and clients. For over 25 years Dory, Cody has offered shamanic healings ceremonies,

and teachings for 1000s of clients and students from diverse cultural and spiritual backgrounds. She's a frequent workshop instructor at Kripalu and omega and with recent teachings at 1440 multiversity. And in full disclosure, Dory happens to be my teacher, and which is one of the reasons I'm so excited to have her on. And she's probably one of the busiest human beings I know. So I, you know, we'll start by saying thank you, Dory for offering me your time this morning. I know how busy your schedule can be.

Dory Cote 2:39

Well, I spy pleasure to be here with you and to offer what I can to your listening audience. And I, as you know, because I've said it to you personally many times I think you're an absolutely fabulous shamanic practitioner and teacher and it's my honor to be here to to have this chat. Well, gosh, thank

John Moore 3:05

you. Thank you so much for that. Um, we're gonna so as I said, we're going to talk what we're going to talk about shamanism today. And that's the thing obviously, that we have in common and talk about it really as as a lifelong practice. So I guess from my perspective, you know, shamanism is my is my path is my you know, spiritual path that found me and, you know, I'm I'm trying to live this shamanic life as best I can. But our you know, our listeners and and by the way, last I checked, we have listeners from 30 different countries. So that's pretty exciting to me. So we're talking to people all over the world, from India and Nepal, to you know, Australia and Europe and of course, the United States and Canada. Um, so people have different sort of ideas and shamanism has become a little bit of a buzzword. But if I were to ask you just to sort of make it clear for the listeners, when we use the word shamanism, what are I realized this is a really topic, what are we talking about? Like what's How would you define shamanism to somebody who had no idea or might have heard of it, but don't don't really understand what what shamanism is? Sure.

Dory Cote 4:28

Well, first of all, it's not a religion. It's a spiritual practice. It's available and accessible to anybody, regardless of their cultural or religious background, understandings, feelings.

History. It is a path of direct revelation. In other words, there are no there's no hierarchy within the public. Practice of shamanism there's no guru, there's no Master, there's no dogma, there's actually pretty much not even any specific teaching stat, one must follow to be in the practice of shamanism. There are, you know, there are definitely understandings and some basic tenets, you know, like being loving, compassionate, having reverence for all of life understanding that because there is no hierarchy in our understanding of spiritual dimensions, then we honor all beings, regardless of whether it's an ant or an elephant or a bird, a human, a tree, a Buttercup, all beings are equal in the eyes of the shamanic practitioner. So for someone to practice shamanism, I would say really, the only requirement is for that person to step into with time, maybe not necessarily the first day they take a shamanic journey workshop, but with time to step into the reverence for the life of all beings.

John Moore 6:31

Yeah, and I think I think you touched on something. Something important that that, you know, you know, about sort of the it's sort of hard to put shamanism in a box, right. And as you said, it's it's not there's not a specific dogma or there's, you know, there's not there's not a Bible, there's not an organization, there's no priest or Pope or guru or what have you. Um, but I think it's fair to say that she demonic, the shamanic worldview does embrace the idea of animism. Right? Yes, is the idea that everything had everything has a spirit? And yes, and as you spoke to the, the, you know, we approach beings with reverence and without hierarchy, we're, you know, equal to the trees and the grass and the rivers and the lakes and the birds and the Chipmunks. The chipmunks are eating peanuts off my porch this morning. So yeah, I mean, I think, you know, it's probably fair to say that to follow a shamanic path, one would have to at least accept the concept of animism. From a belief standpoint, do you think that Do you think that's fair?

Dory Cote 7:56

Yes, and it is fair, and it's true. And yet, you know, when people first begin to learn the practice of shamanism, and are curious, they may not embrace that at the outset. But as any person steps into the practice of shamanism by learning how to what we call a journey to the spirits of all beings, like the tree has a spirit that ant I was talking about has a spirit, once they embrace that understanding and become introduced to that concept of animism of there being no separation between me as a human and this beautiful, huge pine tree that I'm looking at right outside my window. Here we are one. Once people embrace that and understand that they as practitioners have the capacity to communicate and be in harmony, in a spirit of reciprocity, with the spirit of all beings that they are truly standing in the shoes of someone who is practicing shamanism actively. And then of course, there are degrees of practice, one, one first learns how to do a shamanic journey. And by the way, for the listeners, what that means is that the person who practices shamanism accesses other dimensions of reality beyond this space that we live in as embodied beings and through the sound of repetitive rhythms us you know, whether they're drums or Or rattles or, you know, didgeridoos, or bells or any other sounds, this particular rhythm that creates a cohesive connection between the heart of the practitioner and the heart of the earth that allows the practitioner or the person who is doing a journey to sink into the capacity to allow their not just their imagination, but a part of their soul self, to practice to leave the dimension of the embodied, to visit these other realms where spirits, speak with them, bless them, play with them, and engage with them in a harmonious sometimes teachings, sometimes healing kind of relationship. So when somebody first learns how to journey and they encounter this magnificent beauty, which is astonishing, like nine out of 10, people who learn how to journey are in absolute awe after their first weekend class, or even in a day, at what they are able to experience. You and I john just recently witnessed that as you were teaching an introductory workshop with some of your colleagues. And I forget how many students were there, but I think they were about 17 or 18. And, you know, from the first hour of the class to the end of the class several hours later, all of them I believe, had stepped into the shoes of all my right. This is real. Yeah, I'm not I'm not making this up. There really is, you know, another dimension where I can access spirits, benevolent, loving, compassionate spirits, who will engage with me, and help me with my own personal problems, my own, in, you know, my own questions from everything to you know, should I move to Denver or not? You know, should I get that divorce, you know, all those kinds of questions and issues and wisdom that is available to all of us. And

I know I've sort of gone off on a little wrap here, but I you know, as you know, I am very passionate about the practice of shamanism and all that. It has offered me personally in terms of my own development as a human being and a compassionate person. And I've had the privilege of teaching many, you know, hundreds of students who I get to watch then teaching others and, you know, that's that's how the practice of shamanism spreads. It's not that you know, there's anybody out on the street passing out leaflets saying, Yeah, come, right, come do a shamanic journey. It's because we, as practitioners love this work so much and love the experiences of expansion and beauty and and the healing that we're able to convey to others, whether human animal plant or elemental beings, that when I say this is a lifelong practice, what almost always happens with people is once they really fully immerse themselves into this practice. There's like no backing away. Right? It's like, like, this is it, this is my life path. This is it becomes not something you do, but it becomes who you are.

John Moore 14:46

Yes, yeah. I have found that as well. And it's, it's interesting that you you touched on something that that really jumped out at me like you were talking about it. exploring all of this beauty. And, you know, when I look out, we both live in the northeast, and it's, you know, there is so much natural beauty around us. But the practice of shamanism has opened my eyes to beauty that's even beyond that, even beyond what's, you know, the, what I can perceive with my 3d senses, that there's a whole other level there. And then there's a whole range. You know, I don't know if we know if they're infinite, but a whole range of worlds and spaces that are just as beautiful and justice full of spirits that we can explore through the the the experience of journeying. And it's funny that, you know, I think it's really a really common thing that I've experienced, and I know that you've experienced a lot as a teacher is, is in the beginning. There's always the question, am I just making this up? Like, when I journey? Am I just making this up? And I literally, I had a, I had a student that I'm that I'm working with one on one, you know, just over just last week that I taught how to sort of journey one on one and of course, that that question came up, you know, in advance, well, how do I know if I'm just making this up? And I said, Well, you know, the only thing I can say is just keep journeying. And there will come a moment, where you realize, okay, I can't possibly be making this up. And I don't know what that's gonna be. And her very first journey. She was Alright, that was totally real. I totally was. Yes, right. temprite complete confirmation.

Dory Cote 16:43

Well, and also what's true is that, you know, for, for many people who learn the practice of shamanism and journeying, they become interested in it not being just a self serving practice dot one that just is, you know, enhancing their own understanding of worlds beyond the scene world. But they then develop if they choose to the capacity to do healing work for others, or doing exploratory journeys to help their friends and family and colleagues or whoever, to, you know, to gather answers to some of their critical questions. And that, for me, is where I find most people discover that they cannot possibly be making it up, because they come back from a journey to ask a question on behalf of, even if it's somebody in this beginner workshop, or ask a question for, you know, a neighbor after they've gotten home from a workshop. And they get information and visuals and auditory experiences that they cannot possibly have known because the person they've journeyed for, they might have just met five minutes ago. So that for me is always like, where I say the rubber hits the road. People get it all my I am not making this up. Yes, your imagination is in some ways engaged because you have to go to these other dimensions of reality, and then come back, you have to have some memory of what happened. Right? Right. So some part of your conscious self is engaged. But it's it's it's not your conscious self that has these experiences. It's your own spirit, meeting spirit. And that's where the guidance, the healing, the wisdom, the power comes from is these other outside of the, of the, the embodied experience, that wisdom that resides all around us that is accessible by any of us.

John Moore 19:14

And I think you would probably agree that in traditional shamanic cultures, the role of the shaman was, you know, as sort of a functionary a spiritual functionary, that was sort of the frequently the center of a community that people went to for healing, to find out when to plant the corn to find out, you know, where the, where the, you know, the livestock got off to that they can't find all of those. All of those things were sort of in the in the more traditional role of the shaman in what we call shamanic cultures. Yes,

Dory Cote 19:57

that's absolutely true. And that's, you know, Where we as modern day practitioners derive our you know, our path to some extent, you know, the understanding that the practice of shamanism, although it can be, you know, the path to some extraordinary personal growth and understanding of self and the world. The initial understanding, you know from where we tap into the roots of our ancestors is that the shaman was the psychologist, the doctor, the, the spiritual leader, of a healer, the leader of the tribe, or a community or village in which he or she was found. And that isn't true in our modern day culture, of course, because we don't live in small communities or, for the most part, I mean, certainly we still have, you know, here in America, we have native american people who are still very much in tribal communities. But in general, Anglo Saxon, Christian, Judaic, Islamic people don't have that kind of leader in their culture. So it's often by accident, to some extent that a person finds a shamanic practitioner, that they're led to, to access some healing power for themselves. But that's the, you know, what I'm trying to get to here is that the initial function of the shaman in antiquity was to be the healer, be the therapist, be the spiritual guide, be the one who made decisions about everything, like you said, from when we plant the corn to understanding from being able to communicate with spirit when it was time to pack up and leave because the snow is coming. And the lives of the people were dependent upon the Shama. And, you know, the, I always like to say, when I'm teaching students, you know, the, the, the people didn't become the shaman in their culture, because, you know, they put their hand up and said, Yeah, I'll be the shaman. Right, nice day, they had to go through amazing initiations. Well, sometimes it was through ancestry, like, you know, your grandfather was the shaman and you got trained under him, for instance, to you know, to walk in his shoes when he left his mortal body. But for the most part, you know, the shaman was was chosen by having to go through numerous initiations, which would be in our modern day times. brutal and, and the person who survived you know, if there may be five people going through initiations, the one who lived through it was the one who ended up being the shaman because he or she had demonstrated that they had phenomenal capacity with communicating and being one with spirit. We don't do that, of course, because

John Moore 23:40

I'm happy you didn't put me through that door.

Dory Cote 23:43

Nobody in modern day culture would sign up for that, and it will make sense based on our current culture. However, what is true is that when, when modern day persons began to experience shamanism and throw themselves more intently in a committed way into the practice of shamanism, they to experience you know, more modern day kinds of initiations, like, you know what needs to happen in order for a person's ego to get out of the way for them to understand that the healing and wisdom and power that they're conveying has nothing to do with them. It is not about oh, I am really cool. I am really powerful. Watch this. It's completely about what we call becoming the hollow bone being the pure conduit between spirit, the formlessness of spirit and bringing that formless power healing wisdom and what have you into form or into, you know, the embodied middle world, culture of humans, trees, plants, birds and so forth.

John Moore 25:15

I think it's one of the things I love about shamanism is that it lets me off the hook a little bit. Yes. Because I'm not doing any of this. If I bring back information, and it doesn't make sense, I'm still gonna deliver it, because it's my job to step out of the way. And understand that my limited three dimensional human understanding of things is just that limited, three dimensional and human. And it's, you know, it not only lets me off the hook a little bit, but when I'm doing you know, when I don't know how to how to this doesn't sound the right term, when I'm doing work for somebody when I'm practicing with a client, for example. It's helpful for me, because it because there's because it takes some of the pressure off, I can I hand things over to helping spirits, right?

Dory Cote 26:15

Yes, in fact, you know, after 25 years of practice, I say to my clients, always, you know, we have a conversation, they tell me something about what's going on what's not working in their lives, you know, maybe they've just gone through a terrible divorce, or they're suffering some kind of physical ailment that nobody in the medical world is able to diagnose or, you know, whatever their, whatever is not working in their life, we talk about it. And, you know, I have some concepts in my mind, because I've been doing this for a lot of years about what, you know what direction we might go in with the healing work. But at the same time, I actually say out loud to the client, actually have no idea. It's really not what I think I could be completely wrong here about where we're going to go with this work. And so before I even begin the journey, I have to surrender my thoughts by beliefs, my understanding of what might be the core issue here that needs healing, and allow my health experience to guide me to what needs to be done. And I have to say that, you know, at least 50% of the time, my ideas were not, were weren't right. Okay, Dorian, that was a good thought. But you know, what, this is where we're going. Right? In? It's not what you think.

John Moore 27:46

Yeah, yeah. And sometimes there's, for me, anyway, sometimes there's a time component, right? where, you know, somebody might, you know, a client might come to me and say, you know, I'm dealing with the trauma of a relationship or something along those lines. And I'll say, Well, you know, that might mean, today is the day for some soul retrieval, or you might not be ready for that yet. Right? spirits are going to tell me what's to be done today.

Dory Cote 28:14

Exactly, exactly what is in the client's highest good today. And perhaps, you know, a client has a situation in their lives, like, like you just mentioned, like a difficult, you know, ending of an intimate relationship. And they're initially what they want they have contacted you for is, you know, help me with this because I have a broken heart. And I can't seem to get on with my life. But underneath the current trauma, may be something that is far older. Sure. And, and we don't know that. We just have to go with where our spirit helpers take us to, either, you know, if we're doing soul retrieval, bring back some essence of the person's soul that left when they were two years old, or, you know, remove some energy that is stuck in them that goes back to a relationship they had as a teenager. The possibilities are endless, and that's, you know, I like to say often, there's no way you could be bored practicing shamanism.

John Moore 29:32

That's for sure.

Dory Cote 29:33

Yeah. Because there is no repetition there is every situation is unique. Every journey is unique every I'm learning with every, every day, I am learning and deepening my practice. So there's no there's no humdrum to it. You know, I grew up as a As a Catholic, many, you know, many people practice shamanism had come from deep, you know, Christian roots or Judaic roots or, you know, Islamic roots or any particular religious background. And, you know, there, there's a certain humdrum pneus to most organized religions, you know, like, as a Catholic, well, you know, when you pray the rosary beads, you did it the same way, every time, right? Nobody changed the prayers. Like, just, you know, there, there was a good monotony to it, but yet, you know, what's never, never a unique in shamanism, every journey is unique, every experience is unique. And, and though, you know, we develop relationships, and this is really important to say that the listening audience is that we're not you know, as practitioners, we're not just grabbing on to any spirit that's passing by to, to, to gather wisdom and healing power from we develop long term relationships with a very specific, what we call helping spirits or spirit partners. And it's through that relationship that we are able to bring through the power and healing that a client needs, whether that client is a dog, or you know, a patch of land, or, you know, the spirit of a flock of birds. So, through those relationships, those deep, long forge trusting relationships, like I know when my helping Spirit gives me a piece of information, even if I in my mind, think, Oh, my God, how am I gonna say this to the client? I know that I have to, because I know that they understand things that is that are not possibly that I'm not possibly capable of understanding about this person, and what they need and what is happening. And every time without fail, when I dare, as I must, because that's a commitment we make as practitioners. say, Well, this is what I saw, this is what happened. And this is the message I got. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but I hope it settles well with you. And sometimes clients are like, Oh, my, how did you? You know, what? How could you have known that? How are you know? Well, I didn't know. That's the truth. I didn't know. But the spirits who are around us always always they never go away. The other ones who know?

John Moore 32:59

Yes, yes. It's one of the things that becomes really apparent very early on in anyone's shamanic tenure to realize that we are constantly surrounded by spirits Yes, all the time. You know, there's more I talk about you know, when I talk about sort of the middle world and the middle world is the where we live but there's a spiritual component to that as well. It's that the middle world is full of spirits and some of them have physical representation but not all of them and I don't think probably even the majority of them have visitation and that's just one world exactly in which there are many many worlds to to explore

Dory Cote 33:45

is a really good point john we're constantly you know, I mean we we develop sensitivity The more we practice shamanism to the presence of the unseen around us you know that there are you know, like in this room that I'm sitting in here I don't know how many spirits around me but I know that there are a lot and you know, I can choose to tap into their spirit energy or not because I have sovereignty as an individual and but if I choose to tap into it and really feel into Whoo, this room is really filled with beautiful light beings who are here to protect me and console the guide me and entertain me and help me see things that I might not see if I'm just in my thinking mind sitting out front of a computer.

John Moore 34:49

Yeah, yeah, I mean, and it's Yeah, having interactions with you know, other cultures. You realize how, you know, some cultures these spirits are in our, you know, if you live in a Western culture and I know that there are people listening all over the world, but you know, sort of the, if there is a single Western culture, you know, just in generally speaking, spirits aren't that present in daily life as they are in some other cultures. So, for example, in Japan, where, you know, Shinto is you know, Shinto and Buddhism kind of go hand in hand there, you know, you have a shrine inside your house, that enshrines you know, spirits, or is a seat of your ancestors or, you know, that sort of thing. And there are lots of cultures where spirits are more present in daily life, right, then the culture that you and I grew up in a very, very similar space. We both grew up in Maine, and it's, it's not as present and yeah, you go to church once a week or however many times and you pray, and that's your, that's sort of the limit of your interaction with spirit unless you're sensitive and being imparted with stuff you might not choose to be.

Dory Cote 36:11

Right. Yes, that's, that's absolutely true. And, you know, what, another thing that develops as people move more deeply into the practice of shamanism is that they recognize that, that there are no boundaries to being with spirit. You know, as as you know, john, we often create altars, you know, small altars. I have altars, all over by healing space here, you know, an altar to the spirits of my teachers, an altar to the spirit of myself as a teacher and honor, you know, honoring the spirits of birds and so forth. So it helps to remind us, shamanism is a way of life, it is not just, oh, I'm going to do a journey, so I'm practicing shamanism now, where once we really engage ourselves, and come to see that there is only oneness, there is no beginning, there is no end. We're not separate from all that is, there is no hierarchy, then we come to understand that this is a way of being It is not like having a time in our lives where we say, Oh, it's Sunday morning, I'm going to church. It's a daily, moment by moment. way of living?

John Moore 37:59

Yeah. So it's, you can't, I don't think you can, I mean, of course, thinking back to when I started practicing, you know, you're learning you're going through, and it's sort of something you do, but then it changes you in a way that you can't, you can't sort of undo and I liken it to, you know, you you blow up a balloon, you fill a balloon with air, which coincidentally, the word for air and a lot of cultures is the same as the word for spirit. And you deflate it, that balloon never quite goes back to the same shape.

Dory Cote 38:36

Exactly. That's a great metaphor. I also want to say to the, to the listeners that you know, practicing shamanism does not mean in any way that you have to leave your traditional, spiritual or religious background in the, in your rearview mirror. Many people, many, many, many people practice shamanism and go to church every Sunday, or go to temple or continue practicing their Hindu or Islamic or, you know, belief system, because it's part of their culture as part of their family as part of their ancestry. But it may change the way they view that practice. But it does not mean that they set that practices aside.

John Moore 39:29

Right. And I think one thing you know, one thing that I have sort of recognized in my own my own sort of nerdy research into shamanism and that sort of thing is that the shamanic figure and shamanic practice and what we call shamanic people exists in some way, in every culture that we can look at. And so when you look at like, you know, And I'm not I'm not an necessarily an expert in world religion, but when you look at like Islam and you have the Sufi practices, where they're doing meditations or they're doing movements that are altering their consciousness so they can be lifted up to commune with angels, that's very in line with what we would be doing as shamanic practitioners. When we look at even even some early Christian practices, we we see that we definitely see that in, you know, in, in ancient Greek and Roman cultures and Egypt and cultures and all of these cultures. Shimano practice went hand in hand, there wasn't, you know, some of them did not have a separate role. Yes. Like we would consider a shamanic culture to be sort of tribal and have this role. Some of them didn't have that role, but the practice the belief, the lifestyle existed, cross culturally. And really, if you look, if you look closely enough at any culture, you can find the practice everywhere, everywhere and at all times that we have records for.

Dory Cote 41:12

It's absolutely true, john, absolutely. The other thing that is, you know, is important to understand is that, you know, when when somebody seeks working with a shamanic practitioner, which by the way, we don't call ourselves shamans in modern day practice, because that's seem to be very egocentric. Somebody could call me a shaman, if they want to, they can say, Oh, she's my shaman. But I don't call myself a shaman. Because that's, that's taking on a little too much. Right? ego sense of self. So anybody, from any culture I have worked with, you know, 85 year old ladies who were like so Catholic, that it was completely ingrained in their sensibilities about everything in life. I've worked with people who are practicing suit who, you know, who are Sufi practitioners, I've, you know, it does not matter, because in the end, we're all praying to the same God, right? There is no, there's no separation. And so, in the practice of shamanism was sort of going underneath the dogma underneath the rules underneath all of that, and accessing the ultimate grains of truth, that we are all one, that we are all spirit, and that we all when we leave our mortal bodies, when our soul or spirit leaves us, we become part of the fabric, of of life. And we're not separate and a kind of way, it's not that Catholics go one place, and Sufi is go another when their souls leave this dimension of reality. We're all one. And coming from that place. It makes it possible to speak the same language to anybody, anybody who has any kind of cultural or spiritual or religious belief. Because we're going to the bottom, we're going to the foundation of it all, which is not wound around dogma or leadership, or, you know, as I said, at the very beginning, shamanism is a practice of direct revelation, there is nobody who is going to interpret what is happening, nobody who's going to say, Oh, no, no, no, no, that that breaks that rule. There are no rules, there are customs, but no rules.

John Moore 44:19

It's, it's a really interesting point. And, you know, we've said a few times that shamanism really has no dogma, and there are no rules and there aren't leaders interpreting revelations for us. And yet, integrity is really important in the practice of shamanism. And as I think there might be sort of, I have run into the concept I'll say with a number of people that, well gosh, if there's nobody there, to tell me what the rules are, I'm just going to you know, people are just going to live life lawlessly and go around and, you know, kill people and steal their things. And destroy the planet and do all of the all of this stuff. But what I think what I think happens when you practice shamanism, at least from my perspective is, you start to recognize why living with integrity is important. And you don't need somebody necessarily to tell you why or how or what that means

Dory Cote 45:30

is that that's absolutely true. Because the spirits teach you. Right? There's, there's no human, you know, between you and the spirits who are telling you, oh, you know, really? Do you want to chop that tree down? You know? How about if you go out and, you know, talk to the tree and see how the tree feels about being chopped down? And, you know, is there some other way that that tree can, can, you know, offer us some thing, you know, even though it looks like it's maybe going to fall on your house, just there? Is there some way that you can come to an agreement with the tree about how to proceed. So you know, that's where the integrity comes, you have you come to recognize that you're not, you're not alone, ever, you know, they're and, and you're living on this planet, in a body, accompanied by billions of organisms and plants, and the elements. And all of these beings play a role in how you are able to live as a human at this time. And so if you don't, if you don't proceed with integrity, the spirits who you're working with, will let you know. And perhaps, will stop working with you, you know, this practice is not something to be taken lightly. Like, you know, some people first learn and say, Oh, well, now that I have this skill, maybe I can journey and find out what the megabox numbers is. Next week, right, right. Well, and oh, no, that's not gonna work. You're, you're helping spirits. They're just gonna laugh at you. Well, they'll give you a number, but it won't be the right number. Right? Right. No, and it will be their way of saying, Yeah, go ahead, spend your money on these numbers. But we're not you know, that's not our purpose. We're not we're not here for your entertainment or for, you know, the gathering of more money or power or fame. We're here to advance your souls understanding of the grandness of a life.

John Moore 48:02

Yeah, and I I liken that to you know, a lot of people believe that they have incarnated into this body for a reason there are lessons they have to learn, there are things we have to accomplish contracts we have to fulfill. And there aren't really shortcuts to that. And you know, winning, winning the lottery is if if the spirits were so inclined, I think I you know, I can't interpret things for them, but just from my, my brain would be seen like a shortcut, like, no, you're not you're on this path, to learn these lessons. And part of that is not winning $100 million in the lottery to enrich yourself with with spirit in that way. Exactly.

Dory Cote 48:53

Right. Yeah, that's, that's not the that's not ever the purpose of your relationship with spirit helpers. It's the purpose is to gather spiritual knowledge, wisdom, power, healing on behalf of others, not just humans, but all beings and to live in integrity as you as you said, when a when a shaman, or shamanic practitioner stops living from a place of integrity. Then they've they lose their power, it's the spirits will not support them. I call it a shaman gone bad. Like, oh, oh, that is not the intention of doing this work. And when you veer from the path of love and compassion and integrity, then the spirit world is not going to support Your ongoing ability to gather guidance or healing or wisdom from them, they're just gonna shut you down. And, and that's the end. If that doesn't happen to most people, most people get it, you know, because the love and compassion and wisdom that they're able to tap into is life altering. It alters the person's heart, the way they understand the complexity of our relationships with all beings that, that we really are not separate, you know, and in our, in our culture, we've developed this belief system that humans are like, at the top of, of the evolutionary chain. Well, that's just a bunch of bunk. You know, there's no truth to that we are just one with the tiniest of creatures, the, the, you know, we think we're the only ones who have consciousness and the ability to make decisions. You know, when when you move into the practice of shamanism, and you pay attention, you become to understand that all of life has some consciousness of life, you know, what do people think, is driving ants to, you know, come out of the Earth at a particular time and work together as a team? That, you know, is yes, the scientists might say, well, there's a scientific design to that. Well, yes. And how did that happen? You know, what are the initial roots of that capacity for the ants to work as a team and know what to eat and what not to eat? And when to go in when the rain drops calm? And, you know, I was just reading an article about a plant. Oh, no, I'm not gathering it now. But there's a particular plant that knows exactly when to reach for something when it expands as leaves to reach for a particular something. And, and scientists are now studying in a well, what drives that plant to know. Right?

John Moore 52:33

Right.

Dory Cote 52:33

Well, it is, it's not. It's not that the plant has a brain, but it has a consciousness, it has an understanding of what it needs to survive, and what it needs to expand and what it needs to be a part of the fabric of life, which is really, ultimately, all that we

John Moore 52:59

are. I think one of the most beautiful pieces of research I've become aware of recently is about the mycelial network of Yes, fungus that lives underground, that trees actually use to communicate, so they live symbiotically, and they exchange chemicals with the trees. And if a tree you know, half a mile away, is lacking sunlight or nutrients or some somewhere, it can be delivered through this mycelial network. Underground from another tree. It's amazing. And we, you know, we don't necessarily think of that as consciousness because it is so alien to our human consciousness. Right? It is consciousness it is in consciousness is everywhere. And in everything. I think, in my existence. We're swimming, we're swimming in consciousness.

Dory Cote 54:00

We are absolutely.

John Moore 54:02

So. Um, so we are actually coming. Can you believe that? We're coming to the end of the podcasts? Wow. But I started your your Thank you. So I did want just sort of one final question. So you know, if somebody has been listening, if somebody's been listening to this podcast, and they're like, gosh, that sounds really interesting. How would I begin? If I were, you know, living somewhere in the world, and like, I'm really interested in in learning some shamanic practice and diving into the world. Where would I where would I start out? How would you find a place to start? Well,

Dory Cote 54:47

you know, 1010 years ago, I would have said, you know, find a local practitioner who you could go take a course with, and what's what's really wonderful about the advancement Technology and communication throughout the world is that now regardless of where you are, if you have the capacity to listen to a transmission, either via audio or a video, you can access, you know, beginner, our introductory courses online, you know, via zoom or via radio or via podcast or so my suggestion is that regardless of where, you know, the listener is resigning at this moment that they do a search, you know, online to find, you know, practitioner teacher, I mean, really a teacher, you want to learn shamanism from somebody who knows how to teach not just somebody who has taken a course themselves and thinks they know how to teach. So, you know, for you, for instance, john, have a website and you offer occasional classes and one on one teaching, and there are many other people like you around the world. I don't want to direct the listener to any particular website or place. But, you know, if, if you're listening to this, and you have the capacity to search through, you know, Google or any other engine, search for, you know, introductory courses in shamanism, and, you know, do your research, make sure that the person who is teaching this course has themself some that's a person who's offering this teaching has some background, some, you know, has themselves studied and also knows how to teach.

John Moore 57:04

Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's definitely a different thing. Practicing and teaching are are two very different two different skills.

Dory Cote 57:13

Yes.

John Moore 57:13

Although you do have to know how to practice to teach. Practicing alone doesn't necessarily give you what you need.

Dory Cote 57:22

That's right. Absolutely. As you know, john, I've, you know, been teaching a handful of students how to teach some of the advanced work that you know, I will eventually back away from because of my aging, even though I'm in excellent health, I you know, when one because when one gets into their mid 70s, they come to realize that there is there is a time when one has to back away from certain activities. So, you know, john, for the listeners, john is one of those students who has been studying this advanced work with me and is going to be, and he is really qualified to teach, you know, not just beginner work, but advance work. So I, you know, I can endorse him as a fabulous teacher and somebody that you could trust with, who has integrity and understands the work and is a loving, compassionate guide and teacher.

John Moore 58:32

Well, thank you. I'm blushing over here.

Dory Cote 58:37

Thank you can't see you. Right.

John Moore 58:38

That's what I have to say.

Dory Cote 58:42

So yeah, so there, you know, in this in this time, there are so many avenues for people to be introduced. But I caution the listeners to do their homework, make sure that they that they find a teacher who's qualified, who has done their work and has has studied how to teach.

John Moore 59:06

And if people want more information about you Dory, you have a really excellent website, which is, amongst other things, a really great

resource for finding out more information about shamanism and finding classes and teachers. And I really suggest if you're interested in shamanism at all, signing up for dories email list, which you can find on her website, which is DoryCote.com. That's dorycote.com. And definitely her her mailing list is a great place to start as well.

To get all kinds of to get all kinds of resources and learning and mailing lists are free. So that's, you know, That's a great thing as well.

Dory Cote 1:00:01

Yeah, thank you, john. Yeah, I love having people receiving my newsletter and other, you know, opportunities to do some things online that don't cost anything. And I, you know, we're, we're, We Are the World, we are the people. And you know, there is no separation. And so regardless of where someone is, you know, what's lovely is that they can they can access things today.

John Moore 1:00:30

It is it is amazing, like that giant mycelial network. Yes, exactly. Um, you know, we're imitating the trees at this point. So, with that, I want to, I want to say thank you very much for coming on. It's been it's been wonderful and taking time away from your very, very busy schedule. And I will actually talk to you in a couple days, but not on the podcast.

Dory Cote 1:00:57

Yes, yes. I look forward to it.

John Moore 1:01:02

Thank you very much, and you'll hear from us next time.

Dory Cote 1:01:07

Excellent. Thank you.

Announcer 1:01:38

You have been listening to speaking spirit with your host, john more. For more info or to contact john, go to Maineshaman.com. That's ma i n e s h a m a n.com.

Ep15 Love and Finding Your true Purpose

Announcer 0:31

Hello, and welcome to speaking spirit where we talk about all things spiritual. Your host, john Moore is a shamanic practitioner and spiritual teacher. And now here's john.

John Moore 0:50

Everybody, I'm going to say good morning, although I have no idea what time of day you're listening to this, it is morning where I am. It's a beautiful morning, and it's the day after the full moon, we had lots of great Full Moon energy. To celebrate this weekend, I am absolutely thrilled today to bring a guests to you. So you don't have to just listen to my voice.

Pardon me, by cough a little bit. I promise I'm not sick, I just having a having an allergy situation, it is beginning to be spring here. So my guest today is Rebecca qwave. And I am trying to remember when I met Rebecca, and it was at a seminar in Boston. And I remember that my children were infants, so it has to have been close to 14 years ago. So it's been a while. So my guess Rebecca qwave supports people around the world to rediscover and fully embody the love they are. Rebecca is a catalyst of transformation and expansion of consciousness. Her natural gift of activating you to your highest truth creates profound shifts quickly and easily. And after spending years caught up in the exhausting hamster wheel of striving for more, Rebecca began to you know, unraveling who she thought she was only to discover the indescribable life transforming love that was already there. Rebecca is here to lovingly guide and support you through your own unique process of awakening and transformation. And with that, good morning, Rebecca. It's so nice to see you.

Rebecca Quave 2:29

Good morning. It is it's wonderful to be here.

John Moore 2:33

And Rebecca, you are also on the I'm on the East Coast, you're also on the east coast. So at least we're talking in the same timezone today that we're you know, 1000 miles apart or something along those lines.

Rebecca Quave 2:45

Yeah, we've sort of covered the north south axis.

Yes, yes. from one extreme to the other, to have

John Moore 2:53

to have to work on some West Coast guests and then some some overseas at some point to bring on today we're going to talk about finding purpose of finding your true purpose. And we're also going to talk about love and love, maybe from a perspective that some people are not maybe not familiar with, right, because we have this to me, we have this word love in English, which is super generic. And we use it for all kinds of things. And I know like, I've heard I don't know this to be true, but I've heard that in, you know, languages like Persian, there are 85 different words for love. Right. And I know that you know, in other in other languages, there are many different words for love. So I might say for example, I love my children. And I might also say I love a hamburger, but I don't love them in the same way I hope. Right? Right. Exactly. Right. Um, so when I asked this question, I think of the the old you know, the old song What is love? Right, you know, from the Yeah, I did the Roxbury right yeah. I can't sing more than that or I'm gonna get in copyright trouble. So when we're talking about love what how do you describe it? How do you describe love? How do you talk about love from your from your sort of spiritual perspective of what that is?

Rebecca Quave 4:29

So anytime you hear me use the word love I'm not referring to the emotion love in any of its degrees, right? So not about a person that that you love and it's this intense emotional feeling. Or that you know, feeling of like you said of extreme like have a hamburger or pizza or whatever. Right. So because of the emotion, love has an Opposite, it can just as easily turn to dislike or hate, you know, anything on that spectrum. What I'm referring to is an energy that has no opposite, is boundless, is all encompassing, and is all embracing. And the way it acts is just in accordance with its nature. So what the love I'm referring to does, is it just loves, right, that's, it's not capable of anything else. So it always embraces and it it's a gateway to really everything that everyone's looking for. And this love people have such an innate yearning for that's so incredibly strong, that they spend their lives searching for anything that they think is going to be sort of a watered down facsimile of that right? And, and then are disappointed. But that yearning is so strong, it, it goes beyond even safety or survival, right, because if someone feels that they're so disconnected from having access to that level of what I'm describing as love, they'll take their own lives. Right? So the pain of believing that you are separate from that love, that pain of believing that you don't have access to that love, even though it's all pervasive, is intense, and is what really is at the root of so many experiences for people.

John Moore 6:41

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting that you mentioned that I know, I'm not a, I'm not a proponent or a strong believer in the concepts of the traditional concepts of heaven and hell. But there is a description of from somewhere, it's an old one of hell as being separate from the light or the love of God, right as being separated. And that is the ultimate torture, right? The ultimate state of human suffering is feeling separate from that all pervasive love. And that really, that sort of, really sort of rang true for me, in a way in my own life, where I discovered like, I was my own, I was my own jailer, I was my own capital. Yeah, I was the one who was creating those impediments. not consciously, necessarily, but my beliefs. Of

Rebecca Quave 7:40

course, no one would do it consciously. Oh, all pervasive all embracing boundless love with no opposite, oh, I'll just, I'll just throw that away. You just chuck that

John Moore 7:51

away and live in my ego forever. And suffer, you know, that. And there's, there's another word, you know, in my take, it might be synonymous, or you might have a different take on it. Or you might say, you don't care about that word at all. But there's another another word I like a whole lot, which is beingness. Which, for me, when, when I'm practicing, and when I'm when I'm trying to connect. I'm resting in this, this state of beingness, which is a little bit beyond description, but I will say that it is. It's a sense of stillness that has kind of an ultimate peace, but also that interconnectedness. And I'm wondering if you see a connection between words are so limited, right? It's hard to describe these huge, these huge, all encompassing concepts, in words. But I wonder if you see a connection between the concept of beingness and this, this love, I don't know, how would you? How would you eat? I realize I'm going off on like, 9 million tangents here. But how would you describe love? Would you describe it as a field? Would you describe it as? Or maybe it's beyond description? I don't know.

Rebecca Quave 9:17

Well, ultimately, it is all beyond description. But if we're going to use words and point in that direction, then there's absolutely a relationship because what you're describing is beingness. That's a great word to point two and represent that just innate presence that is nearness of you existing as the totality of what you are. And so love points to an aspect of them. Right, because love is that love is inherently what you are. Since there's excuse me, it says there's no way to separate from it.

John Moore 9:59

Yeah, I'm mean, right? You could not,

Rebecca Quave 10:03

you know, there's believing that you're separate from it, which of course brings what you describe that intense agony, you know?

John Moore 10:10

Right, right. And another another word sort of. And this is, this comes from my cosmology, for lack of a better term of my demonic practice. But we talk about the spirit as this undying, unborn incorruptible piece of ourselves that is, is never affected by external circumstances, it's never affected by our beliefs. It's never affected by our thoughts or injuries that happened to our body or any of those any of those things. Any again, like that idea, to me is hard to describe. I have you know, I, you know, we

Rebecca Quave 10:57

have because our whole language and our whole mind, and all of that is set up on opposites, right, it's set up in duality. So when you try to describe something that is changeless, that is beyond duality, then yeah, you'll run out of words.

John Moore 11:15

Great, right? It's hard language is. So language is so limited, but it's the tool. It's the tool we have. And there's the old, there's the old Zen saying that, you know, Bruce Lee made sort of famous that, you know, you can look at a finger pointing at the moon, but you're not looking at the moon. Right. And when you focus on the finger, you're focusing on a pointer. But you're not having the experience of gazing, gazing at the moon. And exactly, and I think that's sort of describing the limitations of symbols, right, symbols are powerful symbols are, you know, representational, but they're just representational. They're there in their, in their? That's, you know, that is the ultimate limit is that they aren't the experience. The the, you know, even the word experience doesn't seem quite, quite right. Here. Yeah. So if we're gonna have a podcast in which I get completely tongue tied, and I'm able to talk about the topic, deep and complex, but that's, you know, I think I, you know, I'm grasping what you're talking about, and I hope that it's, you know, it's becoming, it's becoming sort of clear. And so in your, in your work with people. And when you're teaching and that sort of thing, you're really trying to get people to identify with that love that they are at their core, or or is it something different? How would you describe that?

Rebecca Quave 12:50

Well, it's a process of exploration, right? The key component is curiosity. So what I see so often is people launch themselves into a spiritual path, that and it's really coming from the same places of expectation, and judgment and manipulation that they were doing before, right. So it becomes, oh, I have this new thing, that's going to make me feel better. And so I'm going to do it so I can feel better. And eventually, you're going to run into a certain limitation with that, right? It's going to, there's going to be a wall that you hit. Whereas when you're exploring from a place of curiosity, just for the sake of it, just because it's so alluring to you, and you leave behind the expectations about what your experience should be, or what you think this will produce, or what you think you'll find on the other side. That's when there's now finally enough open space and this fertile ground for what was there always right that changelessness to show itself to you. Right. So the process that people go through, and you know, you described it as reconnecting, and that's again, we're limited with words. Right. But it's Yeah, it's really just them becoming re aware of what's present. So it's a lot of questioning and exploring in a in a really open ended way. Because the point of the questions isn't an answer. It's you sort of letting yourself be pulled into the experience of that revealing itself.

John Moore 14:59

I really Love that

Rebecca Quave 15:00

that makes sense.

John Moore 15:02

Does it does and I really, I really love that because I am, my nature is super curious like I have, you know, I have probably donated a library full of books at some point that I personally owned and probably owned 1000s more that are taking up a good portion of my home. I'm always wanting to explore, and sort of learn, and particularly my spiritual bent is about, you know, going inside and learning and sort of learning what's there. And over this weekend, I taught an intro to shamanism class, which is, which is always fun. It's always fun, really to get new people to come to come in. And one of the things I like about shamanism is that it's a path of individual revelation, right? So I may be your teacher, because I'm teaching you a technique. But I can't tell you what that means for you what you get from that. I can't, I can't put my meaning and interpretation on top of that. And so I know because I've taught intro quite a lot. You know, people are they're going to journey they're going to have experiences, and they're going to come back and say, you know, this happened? Is that okay? Like? Of course, it's not for me to judge if that's okay, did you explore it with an open mind? Did you? Did you? Did it have a profound effect on you? And if it did, then fantastic. And if it didn't, fantastic, you know,

Rebecca Quave 16:39

well, and the flip side of that is people over emphasizing that, you know, peak experience or something, and letting their mind really latch on to it. And and look, right, everybody thinks that they're there after the what they expect is going to be instant gratification of the whole heavens opening and trumpet. Right? You know, everybody's kind of chasing that. And that's really not, you know, number one, it's not how it has to go for you. Everybody has their own way. So the second thing is that even if it happens that way, in this one moment, this one flash of everything, right, I can say from experience, it can then take years to integrate that, right. So there's never, there's never this instant way that people are expecting. And the emphasis doesn't really the experiences don't really matter at the end of the day, and experience is still just an experience. You know, what matters is? You know, and you're the only one that knows this is what's going on internally in you. And are you comfortable in your own skin in your world in, you know, in your experience? Or is there something else going on? Is there that push toward? Well, let's it needs to be something else. Right? That's at the end of the day, what matters,

John Moore 18:07

right? Yeah, I think I think the the author, I guess, shaunti, who's a meditation teacher, and pretty popular author. I wish I could remember the name of the book, I think he has a book that sort of talks exactly about that about having these peak meditation experiences. Even being on sort of the edge of what they consider enlightenment, and then kind of losing it for a while. Right and going going back because you're not always going to have

Rebecca Quave 18:36

Well, what seems like losing it, because what's happening is, it's this integration that has to happen. And that's what people tend to overlook, right? There's this expectation that you're going to hit some, you know, line that you cross that is the ultimate, and then that's how you're going to feel all the time as the way you felt in the throes of that experience. And that's just not what it's about.

John Moore 19:00

Right? You're gonna get a certificate to hang on your wall. William lines now

Rebecca Quave 19:05

certified, certified, whatever

John Moore 19:09

we're gonna give you like, yeah, we're gonna give you a colored belt to where and

Rebecca Quave 19:14

you see, you see how it is look at all of our systems and how they're set up to support that, because the mind really is comforted by that. Right? The ego wants to be told, this is your identity. And and because this is your identity, your now enough. And yeah, no matter what that identity is, you'll never actually feel like it's enough. Not really,

John Moore 19:40

for sure. And I think, I think part of that is this sort of Western patriarchal cultural pyramid scheme right where you have, you know, there has to be somebody at the top of the food chain, and you know, you work your way

Rebecca Quave 19:58

tell everyone else. What's what Maybe you could be that person. Yes. You just work harder to send

John Moore 20:03

more money, send more money, put it in the envelope and you will you will be right. You will experience a blessing right someday. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. And I get questions sometimes from, from students because, you know, my path is, you know, I, shamanism when I when I practice in a group I frequently the only male in the room, that's a very matriarchal system. It's very, you know, more feminine than traditional spirit, you know, spiritual systems, in my, in my view anyway. And I get questions, sometimes they're like, so what are the levels of, you know, what, there's no levels? Did you just practice you go, you know, train with a teacher here and train with a teacher there. And you just, you just practice? There's no levels? There's no, you know, exactly.

There's not a body stamping, you know, certificate. Although I think, you know, I do think some people have tried, I think there's some organizations out there. It's just not my thing, and power to anybody, and whatever they're doing, but it's just not my thing. I can't, I can't hack. It's not my

Rebecca Quave 21:17

Yeah, no, I get it. I same thing. I, I don't, I'm, you know, I operate outside of any particular, you know, tradition, yeah, method, whatever, whatever you would want to call it. Because it's, it's really about what everyone is, you know, and you don't need any particular structure for that. You know, you can you can and anything can be helpful to some degree, you know, right up until it's not sure, you know, if you were climbing a ladder to a to a second floor balcony, wouldn't really matter if you had a rope ladder, steel ladder, wooden ladder, any of that. The question is, would you just keep climbing up and down the ladder? For the sake of it? Because you got so attached to the liner? Or would you actually stand on the balcony and experience whatever was there that you were hoping the lion was going to give you this assist? You know, to reach?

John Moore 22:19

Yeah, but I

Rebecca Quave 22:20

see a lot of people just climbing up and down ladders really attached and married to the ladder.

John Moore 22:25

Right? I years ago, that's a great analogy. And I had years ago, I had a meditation teacher who told me meditation is like noticing you have a thorn in your finger. And then you pick another Thorn off the rosebush and pry the original Thorn out of your finger. Once the thorns out of your finger, you throw the second Thorn away, right, that's what you're supposed to do, you're supposed to take you know, once once this is once you're here, once you

Rebecca Quave 22:54

just keep poking yourself, don't just

John Moore 22:55

keep jabbing yourself with the thorny, you throw that away, you don't need it anymore. It's it's you know, but it you know, it is a lesson about attachment to methodology or, or that sort of thing. And I think that's an interesting segue into the other thing that we're going to talk about today, which is about finding your purpose, right? And really, if you're, if you're stuck in sort of rigid systems, or you're doing things habitually, without really kind of examining what you're doing, and not giving yourself the freedom to explore, and the freedom to experience different things. How, how could you possibly be following your true path? Your true will, right? How would you get it right? How would you get in touch with

Rebecca Quave 23:44

And currently, you know, in this moment in the world, there's tons of people who are about to be stepping forward in things that most people don't understand and won't understand. Right? And so it takes that that curiosity and then that that deep, deep clarity that's on a solid foundation of being rooted in that piece, and in that love that you are to be willing to step forward with it. No matter what the noise around it is, right? If regardless of anybody saying, I don't even know what that is, I don't even know what that means, right? Because that's the voices that go on in their head at first as well. When they come to me. They often times have kind of a sneaking suspicion about what some of their gifts are or what some of what they're like being asked to step forward with are but then there's all this other noise about what is that? How does that even look? How does that even show up? But we're at such a tipping point and such a transition point, that there's just there's going to be a lot of that there's going to be really valuable stuff that comes forward that people haven't ever heard of that doesn't make sense to people and that's the beauty of it right is that it is completely new so when people try to you know like pay their purpose from like a list of well you know we've got doctor lawyer firefighter and like well which one is it then they're going to come up empty handed because it's it's stuff is not already on the list

John Moore 25:25

absolutely absolutely it's it's like please describe yourself using a label that i'm that i'm comfortable with that i have right please cram yourself into a shoe box that i can put on my shelf somewhere so i can understand what it is about you i actually some frequently have difficulty answering the question which is a really common one is you know what do you do right

Rebecca Quave 25:52

i was about to say is like see you know me on a plane next to someone what do you do it's a different answer every time it's gonna come out in accordance with what they can understand like what it what their frame of reference is

John Moore 26:09

right absolutely absolutely do you ever do you ever just want to make something up i'm

Rebecca Quave 26:15

well i went through you know years and years ago gosh how old is my son now 20 so you know over 20 years ago before things you know opened up for me and change for me i would put just because i was a little bit of a smartass as well when i had to fill out forms because i was just at that time you know i had been a scientist before i was in genetics research but then i was staying home with him and when i had to fill out forms i would put i'm lactation engineer there you go that's what i felt i did most i spent so much time doing was nursing him 24 seven so rotation engineer and i would just watch people's faces with the form

John Moore 26:57

yeah yeah yeah it's you know it's in in and harmful ways it's fun to mess with people sometimes

Rebecca Quave 27:05

exactly no harm in that writing lactation engineer

John Moore 27:08

right and maybe you gave somebody a chuckle or or or a thought at some point maybe that's totally fine so if i were if i were somebody who you know i feel like i'm somebody who i'm maybe approaching some understanding of what my what my what i would consider my purpose like i'm i'm almost 50 and i'm getting to the point where stuff that doesn't make sense to me at all and i don't don't feel like it is coming from that place of love is falling by the wayside or if i pursue it obstacles you know the universe or whoever or you know places obstacles in my path to say you can go down

Unknown Speaker 27:59

so getting more aware of that natural alignment

John Moore 28:02

right right so there's this there's this alignment is is there you know if somebody were like gosh i don't even know i have no idea what my purpose is and i realized like i'm not asking you to condense everything you do with everyone into you know the remaining minutes of this podcast but where would somebody begin where would somebody sort of start to suss out you know i just feel like i'm stuck i feel like there has to be more in life i feel like i'm not you know i'm not operating from that place of that place of love identification how would one begin

Rebecca Quave 28:42

yeah so first of all with what you said of operating from that place of love identification that's really the primary purpose right that everyone has is to experience what it is to within this place of duality and physicality to to be aware of that simultaneously right that's what on a fundamental level everyone's come here to have the opportunity to experience so because inherently we all know what it's like to be 1,000% aware of that all the time that's what that's what our true being is is all about right so however to condense yourself into this extreme you know duality and limitation and and density of the physical world as as it exists currently and be aware of that is then this really new unique amazing experience isn't it so it gives it brings a whole new depth to our understanding of the flavor of that love right when we've now experienced it even through the limitation even through the density even through the physicality. So just to kind of throw that out there, that's really everyone's purpose. Then what gets layered on top of that the way that we, so everyone how I say and speak to this. So simultaneously, there's this universality to everything, right, and this oneness to everything. And that includes every every body. And then superimposed on that is everyone is this completely unique facet of this, you know, Kaleidoscope and, or the way I often describe it is like a symphony. You, you have this one sort of music that's coming out of this Symphony, that's incredibly beautiful. But you have all different instruments, and even amongst those instruments, the instruments are playing different notes, right. And that's what makes the symphony beautiful. So even though it's there is this oneness because it's producing this one music. It sounds different, and we appreciate it more than we do. If we hear one flute playing one note, and never changing. Right, right. So so then. So on top of that overall purpose that I just described, everyone is then here to bring their unique singular note through their particular instrument. And if they don't, then it's not this incredible Symphony, right? It's going to be, it's going to be dull, it's going to be off key, something's going to be interesting. So as far as them starting to connect with that, and your questions are, is to start at the center of their heart? Because they do know, there's nobody who doesn't know, there's nobody who doesn't have answers for themselves. It's just a matter of, are you listening? Are you aware? Are you letting it come through? Are you willing to connect with it? And does it scare you? Right? And do you have lots of other noise, you know, piled up around it, that now needs to be resolved. Because in the center of your heart, you know, there's something that you've all along been drawn to, and you've pushed it away in for dotnet.

John Moore 32:27

I would absolutely concur with that, and I love your, I love your analogy of the symphony, I'm gonna steal that I promise, I will give you credit for it. I will remember to say where I got it from, I'm gonna, but I'm gonna use that. And the other thing you mentioned, which I think would might be helpful to touch on, too is the noise that creeps up around this right? And that is that plays really well, on, you know, talking about the symphony, there is a lot of noise. And the noise can be our own noise, we create our own noise, right, from our past experiences from the culture that we impress with. And then there's a there's an awful lot of noise that comes from sort of x externally as well. And I'm thinking of a question,

Rebecca Quave 33:20

ultimately, then all the same noise.

John Moore 33:23

Yes, yeah. It's

Rebecca Quave 33:24

even the external noise. is the only thing bothersome or not to you about the external noise is if you have a reaction to okay. Yeah, right. Yeah, to two different people, the same external noise, one of them is not even going to notice it. And the other one is going to be deeply impacted by it.

John Moore 33:45

Yes, absolutely. I was thinking, I was thinking specifically of this client I had recently who is an amazing artists. And his work is profoundly spiritual, like I, you know, I'm not an expert in art. But when I look at this person's art, I am affected by it myself. So I know I'm like, Wow, that's amazing. And, you know, his thing was, I have a lot of haters out there. were like, how dare you put this out in this way? And do this and do that? And, you know, all of those things, and you're absolutely right, the thing that was holding him back was that he was taking that stuff on. And especially if, if anything you do involves stepping out into public into the public eye. There's gonna be that, that noise on it. And my, sort of my take on it was, well, you know, do you think what you have to share is more important, impactful and loving to the world than what the haters have to share with you. than the haters shutting you down. Or do you think do you think the haters shutting you down is more important than you sharing this profound art with the world and it sort of I think it like clicked in at that point. And like he, he realized that like, this is what I'm here to do this is my, this is my purpose is to share this share this stuff. And the way that I do that is with art kind of thing. And that's not to say, necessarily that anybody's true purpose has to be stepping into the public eye. Right? It could be could be anything.

Rebecca Quave 35:26

Exactly, exactly. So for some people, the the acceptance that they have to come to, you know, maybe their ego has been very fixated on that that's the only way to make a difference. Right. And their process is to find out that it's that it's not that right, that they're more seemingly behind the scenes, and that that has the exact same value. Yeah, so what you said about the person taking on I think, is the way you put it, what was coming from the haters, you know, when that happens, what's going on is what they're saying, has a resonance with what's unresolved in him. So for everybody, regardless of whether it looks like what's going on is internal is external, it's coming from society, it's coming from a loved one that's coming from a family member, any of that the exploration is to go deeply to the root of what interacts with that, and and resolve it. Because once that's fully resolved, then it completely changes.

John Moore 36:29

Right? Yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't matter anymore. I'm, you know, and I'm thinking of my, my daughters, when they were little, they would come home from school, and they would be upset, and you know, somebody, somebody said, Oh, you're stupid, or something along those lines, they would be upset about that. And I said, Well, you know, are you stupid? Is that a true thing? And they're like, no. And I would say, Well, why are you upset that that somebody? And I understand. And I like I did understand that? You know, social approval is really important that those ages, but it's trying to point out the sort of the folly of the situation. I said, so I said, are you? Are you a chair? And my daughter would say, No, I'm not a chair. So if I called you a chair, would that make you upset? Because it's not true about you, right? And then Oh, okay. And then it was, it would sort of, it would sort of it would sort of click, and I knew that it was about sort of pure disapproval. However, I wanted them to see the folly of of the, the folly of that of, you know, somebody calling you something and not, not hopefully taking that on board, especially at an early age where that's going to creep up later in life, where if you, the more you sort of buy into these messages that you are somehow broken or,

Rebecca Quave 37:57

exactly, because that's what it comes down to right, it comes down to that awareness of love, right, and that awareness of your own access to love in any moment. So the reason she had a different reaction to someone calling her stupid than and I'll just speak generally, right, because I don't know her experience in particular, that generally someone has a reaction to someone calling them stupid versus someone calling them a chair, is that there's no judgment about will that if I'm a chair, I then won't have access to love. Right? There's judgement about if I am stupid, I won't have access to love. So your whole system is on guard against having any identity that is on the list of if you're this, you don't have access to love. Right. So even though she knew as you helped her help point out to her she rationally knew she wasn't stupid, that that part underneath that's looking to always protect her and and be on guard for her and try to make sure she has access to love said, Oh, wait a minute, what stupid stupid is on the list of if I'm that identity, I won't have access to love anymore. And of course, there's not going to be the same reaction for a chair because we don't have that kind of judgment against it. Right. So ultimately, that's what's going on so deeply with people just across the board, whether about in relation to that willingness to step out and their purpose or just the seemingly smallest day to day moment to moment interactions with people is there's this whole system that's built around protecting you to say, do I do I make sure that you're this certain identity to ensure that you'll have access to love?

John Moore 39:45

Yes, that's that is. I think that's for me. That's the point of the day right there. Right? It's that. Yeah, I need to fit myself into this mold. That equals deserving of love. In in order to in order to have access to that

Rebecca Quave 40:02

or even that even that concept of being deserving of love right is is inherently part of that whole system because remember love just loves there's no deserving it there's no earning it there's no being worthy of it there's none of that and so even all of that is just built from this place of that initial agony that initial belief that says that we're somehow separate from it and so it builds all of these crazy ideas about well how do i get back to it well i'll earn it i'll deserve it all

John Moore 40:31

right no right right yeah i i borrowed a practice i think from eckhart tolay and it's been an important part of just my personal practice on a daily basis and of course COVID has really changed how many people i interact with on a regular daily basis and i'm an incredibly social person so i hopefully you know fingers crossed we get through this soon but as a mountain about with with people you know interacting with somebody at a grocery store for example they're they're ringing up my groceries or something i'm i'm making up effort to give that person at least a few moments of just absolute presence right and recognize just you know whether it's eye contact or through words or just hold the feeling in my heart that this is a this is a human being and you know this is a human being i need to give them they you know there's that word deserving just from the fact that they exist they deserve my presence and my and my love and it's something that i've tried to instill in students and and my children and that sort of thing and it i don't know if it makes i don't know how much of a difference it makes in the lives of the people i interact with but it makes a big difference in my life right because ultimately they're you know people interact with the reflections of me and if if i treat them if i treat everybody i interact with as equally deserving of love that i'm included in that circle right i'm included in the source of compassion and love like i deserve that too because it is my norm that every being that exists is equally deserving of existing and love

Rebecca Quave 42:32

yeah and that they do right and so what happens when you decide to step into operating that way like you just described for you to be completely open and present to offer that to your interaction it means that you're completely open and present

John Moore 42:53

right

Rebecca Quave 42:54

right which yeah so a question i often give to people and i think i'm not sure if i gave you this link for it's a it's a little i don't know if you'd call it a meditation or what but it all hinges on the question does love love this and it's not even about getting a yes or no or any other answer it's just using that question as an opening to let love show you

John Moore 43:35

i want to say i love that i do love that and i love inquiry as a form of spirit spiritual practice and i think that i'm gonna i'm gonna give that a try because that sounds definitely and

Rebecca Quave 43:52

it's just so simple it's something people you know we've reported back to me that they if they carry it through their lives and it applies to everything so what you would call external and even what you will call internal so if somebody has had a big judgment about their own grief or their own fear and been long on a spiritual path to you know purge themselves of all of that or whatever and get rid of it all it brings a completely different curiosity to okay so my frustration arises my fear arises my grief arises does love love it

and you find out right or it's a situation you're presented with is love love this or an aspect of yourself you know for some people they they look in the mirror and they don't like what they see and the question is does love love this or are there some aspects of their identity that they don't like or a behavior or habit they've been fighting up down inside Ways to, quote get enough motivation and willpower to break, which never works, not in a sustainable lasting way. And so that's the question does love love this? And does love love me? Even when I'm in the midst of this?

John Moore 45:17

I think,

Rebecca Quave 45:18

ultimately, right, the reason they want to break the habit is because they think the habit gives them a certain identity. And if they have the break it then they're going to have a different identity that they've judged as has more access to. All right, so it always just comes back through that thread.

John Moore 45:33

Right? Right. Um, yeah, I'm just from talking to you. I'm feeling I'm feeling more open and I'm feeling you know, just pondering the question in my brain. So I think that's, so first, I want to thank you for that. for that. That question that practice of inquiry, I just, I think that's beautiful. does love love this, I'm gonna, I am gonna practice that I'm gonna take, I'm gonna take that on. Challenge accepted, I guess?

Rebecca Quave 46:05

Well, like I said, it's just, it's about that light, easy, gentle curiosity, that's, that's really fun, and becomes really joyful and just takes on a life of its own. And it's about the depths of what reveals itself to you when you do that. And at the same time, you know, if your mind is going to be occupied and busy with something, you know, let it let it have a question like that. So and that's the, by the way, another thing that people get very locked up in that I see over and over again, is the battle against the mind the battle against the ego. And most people's minds need a real, there's a there's a bit of making up to do and bringing flowers and reconciliation, because they've been in such battle, right? How often do you hear somebody, oh, my mind just trips me up. My mind ruins it for me, my mind won't shut up. And they've been trying to silence it and shut it down. And is there a silence? And like you said before that total stillness that's available for us? Yes. But it's, it's, it doesn't care about if the mind is making noise or not. Right, you know, so the mind doesn't have to be like, shut down and destroyed. It has to be embraced and loved and understood, for what its purpose actually is. And, and, and be allowed to fulfill that purpose in an appreciated way. And then when, when that's what it has, when it's completely loved and appreciated and acknowledged for what it does know how to do, then it doesn't take on these extra burdens of I'm meant to protect you and organize your whole life and and answer all the big questions for you, which of course it isn't capable of. Right? So then it's then it gets quiet on its own. Because it's noise was really just motivated by these underlying things.

John Moore 48:08

It's, it's interesting that you mention that when I, sometimes I teach meditation, and the number one thing I get is, I can't meditate because I can't I can't stop my thoughts. And my answer to that is, congratulations, you're alive. And I guess I'm sorry that you're not the Buddha yet. But you know, they'll quiet on their own you don't

Rebecca Quave 48:37

but if you look through even that story, right as an example of the Buddha, he didn't get there by force rolling gets there by force. Right,

John Moore 48:45

right.

Rebecca Quave 48:47

By control regulation, you more of the same old same turn

John Moore 48:51

of the crank and tighter and tighter. I'm gonna push those thoughts out of my head really hard.

Rebecca Quave 48:57

Yeah, this is a thought.

John Moore 49:00

It's a thought and it doesn't work. It's Yeah, yeah. And the thing is, it's meant in my, in my experience, in my experience, there is a resting and being this arresting in love. There's a rare that that happens, and you start to like, stuff like that. I can't stop my thoughts stops to matter. And then they quiet down on their own. But it stops it it is about this concept, how things should be. Right. This is how it should be. This is how it's supposed to be.

Rebecca Quave 49:40

Yeah, expectation is the number one obstacle.

John Moore 49:44

Yeah, yeah. That's gonna w my next project, how to figure out how to get people to let go of expectation. That'll just Well,

Rebecca Quave 49:54

it's just the same as everything else. Right. You, you acknowledge that expectation is there, and you get really curious about what the root of it is. Right, and why you're attached to it. And somewhere down along that line, you'll find that there's, there's the idea that I have to have this expectation, because of the judgments I have about what will give me access to love and won't give me access to loan.

John Moore 50:25

Well, absolutely fantastic. Um, I feel like I could talk to you for 10 more hours, just on this topic alone, but I feel like we're, we're well, I don't feel like we're, you know, my, my external reality tells me that, that it's time to it's time to wrap up. Um, it's been really fantastic. And I want to thank you for coming on. And I know that I have gotten a lot out of this conversation. And if, if my listeners were to want to contact you and find out more about what you've you've got going on, I'm definitely I will add links in the in the show notes and that sort of thing. But how would How would I find out more about you were, were so inclined.

Rebecca Quave 51:13

Yeah, well, you can just turn up to my website, which is RebeccaQuave.com. There's, I do have an account on Instagram and on Facebook, you know, you could search me on those are not, you know, it's they're intermittently active. So if you expect to be flooded, influencer style, continuous posting or something, that's, that's not what you'll find there. If you're okay, with sort of a flow of things arising when they arise, then then it'll be

John Moore 51:53

nice. And do you have? Do you have a mailing list on your website? If I wanted to sign up for a mailing list of some sort? Yeah,

Rebecca Quave 51:59

for sure. So right on my homepage, you can actually you'll see the does love, love this ebook, right on the homepage, and there's a little forum that you can put in your, and that'll, that'll connect you to what I call love notes. where, again, it's just intermittently sent out reminders, and if there's announcements about whatever's going on, and then there's also I think I gave you the link for the it's a little more in depth, which is the truth about love, sort of three part gift.

John Moore 52:35

So I will I will definitely add all of those links to the show notes. Thank you so much, again, for coming on. This has been lovely and enlightening. And you know, hopefully we can we can talk again sometime soon.

Rebecca Quave 52:51

You're so welcome. It's been it's been a real delight. And I would absolutely love to just let me know.

John Moore 53:00

Fantastic. And here's here's our outro

Announcer 53:31

You have been listening to speaking spirit with your host, john more. For more info or to contact john go to MaineShaman.com that's MaineShaman.com

Ep14 You are a God

Announcer 0:29

Hello, and welcome to speaking spirit where we talk about all things spiritual. Your host, john Moore is a shamanic practitioner and spiritual teacher. And now here's john.

John Moore 0:51

Hello, everybody. My Love to You, as I am speaking to you, it is morning. It is where in my where I am, it's very foggy this morning. And I happen to be a person who loves fog, particularly if I don't have to drive in it. But you know, as a shamanic practitioner, we have a love for whether we work with nature spirits a lot and work with whether helping spirits and do all kinds of work. fog is to me it's beautiful. And it reminds me a lot of the mysterious nature of reality that we are what we see what we experience, what we hear is only a tiny, tiny, tiny sliver of what's actually there. Right? There's so much that's hidden to us. And fog is an interesting reminder of that, right? We can look out into the fog, we can see the fog, we can see shapes, as they approach as they get closer to us. But we don't get to see everything. And it's a reminder because we would normally get to see those things. We would usually get to see those things, but we don't necessarily so fog is you know, I love the atmosphere, it creates in the fact that I get to see the atmosphere, right? If you think about it, we move through the Earth's atmosphere all day every day. And we're not always conscious of it unless it's foggy or raining or the wind is blowing or something right. We don't think about the atmosphere. But we move through it. And spirit is the same way. You know, we I'm reminded of the old police song we are spirits living in the material world, right. But we're also living in a very spiritual world. There are far far more layers of spirit than there are layers of physical reality. physical reality seems like because it comes, we experience it through our senses and through our our, our egoic mind, it can very easily seem like all there is because we don't always unless you're extremely clairvoyant or you trained as a, you know, some sort of shamanic practitioner or clairvoyant or something, we don't often see an experience the you know, the spiritual world in a way that is comparable with our physical senses, that is as present as our physical senses. I can tell you that after I don't know years and years and years of training, and practice and daily spiritual work. You know, I do notice myself more aware of the spiritual component of the reality I live in on a daily basis. It's become, you know, when I compare my my previous experience, my present experience, it's like a night and day. So it's a capacity that can be developed. Today, this episode, The topic is you are a god and I'm going to talk about divinity and the Divinity that is the core of who you are. And it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter who you are, and I and I recognize that in some spiritual systems, I might be speaking blasphemously by saying you are a god. Um, I'm not necessarily saying you are the god although I'll get to that but you are God and I will talk about how that is not just me puffing you up or speaking in really abstract terms, although it can be really challenging to talk about divinity, right? We sometimes talk about God or divinity or the universe as the ineffable. Right that unnameable. And I like to joke and this makes, I don't know if this makes sense if English is not your native language, but you know, I like to ask the ineffable. Right. So if you know, at least in at least in US English, when you say I like to ask something, it's, it's short for an expletive, right? I'm gonna ask the ineffable. So there's a little bit of a double meaning there.

Which I find humorous and humor is great. And I think you can approach spirituality with reference and humor, right? I think you can, um, gosh, if we are created, you know, if we are created, however you think we are created by spirit with the capacity for laughter? Why should we not use that. And it's the same for anything, I think, if we're created for it, with the capacity for laughter, and grief, and pleasure, and pain, and all of those things, we're probably meant to experience all of those things. And I think laughter is a very high can be very close, help us get very close to divinity, we'll put it that way. Because laughter is a giant release, it's, you know, we're letting go of all of this tension we have built up and it allows us to sort of relax into ourselves into our beingness. So I'm going to talk about divinity a little bit in general. And I'm going to talk about our divine nature a little bit in general, and I'm going to give you some of my spiritual framework, right. And I call it my spiritual framework only because, you know, there's a few sort of propositions that I have our that I have articulated in a way that may not have been articulated before, specifically. But, you know, every, every spiritual system at its core kind of has these ideas, right. So it's, I'm not taking credit for the ideas, I'm taking credit, if I you know, if credit is due, the only thing I'll take credit for is the specific words I've chosen to put around these ideas. I don't want to give you, I'm not starting a religion, I promise I'm not into that. Just to communicate, it's just to communicate some ideas. And again, I love you know, if you've listened to this podcast before, I will frequently define my terms, right? If I'm talking about love, if I'm talking about spirit, if I'm talking about the soul, and today, we're gonna talk about divinity. And I'm going to define that, because you know, particularly an English language is really imprecise. And different people have different cultural ideas or different ideas from experiences or readings they've done or that sort of thing. And it's not to say that my definitions are the only ones or anything like that, that would be very egoic of me, wouldn't it? It's just that when I give you my definition, it's so that you can hopefully have a better understanding of what I mean, when I use these words. So when I talk about divinity, on a, on a broader sense, this is something that almost every spiritual system has a name for. Right? And, and again, every culture, every language puts different words on it. Okay, so in Sanskrit, we have the ottman, right, which is the soul the indwelling, permanent soul, so permanent, that's a word will. That's a word, we'll tack onto divinity, right? And what do I mean by permanent? By permanent, I mean, undying, unborn, outside of time, actually, outside of space. I'll talk a little bit about how that can be about how something can exist outside of time and space. But you know, this part of ourselves so, you know, you might think of it as your Buddha nature or your Christ. consciousness or any number of things, this oversold this piece of you that is undying, right? And I, in my tradition of shamanism, we just call this your spirit. Right? Your Spirit is this undying, perfect piece of yourself. So I called it permanent. And I also call it perfect. What do I mean by perfect?

By perfect I, you know, perfect is a term that's a little hard to define. But what I mean is that this is a part of you, that cannot be killed, because it hasn't, it's never been born and it will never die. It cannot be wounded. It is unaffected by the life you live on this planet, unlike other parts of yourselves. Right so we, when we experienced trauma, for example, we carry that in our, we carry that in our soul body, here, then our astral body, we carry it in our physical body, we carry it in our mental body, but the indwelling divine spirits does not carry that is not affected by that. Okay, so we have to sort of characteristics of this divine, this divinity, this divine part of ourselves, this is that it's permanent. It is outside of time, and so it is unborn and undying. And it is perfect in that it cannot, it cannot change. It's it's cannot be wounded, affected. You know, there's there's no place for it to go. It's perfected, this perfected part of us. Okay. And I and I've talked about how this exists in there are a lot of different ideas about this in different words and different metaphors that are put on it in different descriptions, from otteman to you know, Buddha nature to Christ consciousness, and I can't think of all the other terms but there are so many of them. Right. I'm I'm not an expert in Lima, the spiritual system of Salima, but I've been I've been watching. I've been watching the show strange Angel, which is about jack Parsons, the founder of Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who was also you know, into ritual magic and stone selima. But in the book of the law, which is sort of, you know, I guess the main book of Salima, you know, I don't I don't want to miss peak fear. If you're filling my I don't want to misspeak. So feel free to correct me. But the the main book affiliate, there's a passage that says every man and every woman is a star. And that's a really important point. And what does that mean? Right? What does that mean? So I will talk about that. And I always like to give something if I can, a little practical at some point in every episode of the podcast. And so I want to give you a practical exercise which will not necessarily turn you into an enlightened being that is fully embodied their divinity, but will give you a brief experience, I hope that will bring you closer to this to a state in which you can realize your divinity. Okay, so I'll give you a little brief meditative exercise towards the end, which will hopefully be, you know, somewhat lovely experience. I'll say this in advance if you're listening to this podcast, in a place where you need to pay attention. So let's say you're driving or you're, I don't know, stepping onto an escalator or operating heavy machinery or cooking or something along those lines, we need to pay attention. Obviously, you don't want to do a closed eye meditative exercise. So please be safe in the physical and physical reality. Because while your divine nature cannot be harmed your physical body shorthand, and you have that for a reason. So let's take good care of it. Let's take good care of your physical body. It's quite a blessing to be incarnated into a physical body. I know some systems are like, gosh, this is terrible. You know, you have to escape being incarnated physically. It's quite a blessing because not every being gets to experience, physical birth, and yes, there is suffering associated with having a physical body. As I'm getting older, I recognize that aches and pains and

you know heartache from loved ones dying and all of those things. There's a richness of experience there as well. And we're kind of, you know, we, we there is a purpose to it, I don't know specifically what your purpose is, other than it is to find your purpose and live it. Okay. And I'm going to have a grip my next episode, my next podcast episode, I have scheduled a wonderful guest, who is going to talk about exactly that, finding your purpose, why that's important, how to how to find it, how to crystallize that and how to live from your purpose. Okay, so here are here are going to sort of describe my, I'm going to talk about my ideas, the way that I have verbalized what I have experienced around this divinity and give you sort of a few, a few principles that I teach, and that I, you know, do my best to live by. And, you know, take them for what they're worth, compare them to your own belief system, throw them out completely if they don't work for you. But at least you know, if you hear them, you'll understand where I'm coming from. So the first, the first sort of principle is that if you go deep enough into anything, the deeper you go into anything, the more spiritual it becomes. So everything is a spirit, right? I come from an animistic tradition. So everything is a spirit. And the deeper you go into it, you peel back the layers of physical reality, whatever, um, the more spiritual it becomes. The more you know, and by spiritual I mean, the more formless, the less physical it becomes. I'm gonna have a brief sip of coffee while you ponder that. Coffee is divine. So I'll give you some examples of that. Right? Hmm, excuse me. Somebody who is an amazing artist, for example, who, you know, loses themself in the work that they're doing, loses their loses their egoic mind while they're painting, you don't have to be. You don't have to be, you know, Van Gogh or the, you know, the world's best painter. But just the art of going deep, deep, deep into this activity, this expressive activity where you start to lose your egoic self, the more spiritual that activity becomes. And that can be anything. And I noticed that early on in my life, when I was training in martial arts, I had kind of a brilliant but crazy teacher who would make us do the same movement over and over and over and over again. And at first, you know, and I'm talking for hours, hours and hours and hours, who do exactly the same movement. And at first, I'm like, the office is painful, this is boring, I hate this. And then the mind would quiet down, and then I would start to get insights, and then I would lose my sense of self. And it was almost like, the movement was happening.

And I was just along for the ride. What was left, what was still functioning of my egoic mind in those moments, was more an observer. So the movement was happening through me the expression was happening through me. Um, you know, if you watch somebody who's an amazing athlete, you know, they're, quote, unquote, in the zone in flow. That's, you know, where this principle comes in, they go very, very deep into this state, where the ego drop, ego kind of drops away, and allows their spiritual self to come through. So that's sort of the core idea is that the deeper you go into anything, the more spiritual it becomes, the more spiritual truth is revealed. And by spiritual truth, I don't necessarily mean words that you could write down or speak or hear, talking about experiential truth. Right? And so if there's, if there's a practical piece of advice here, that would be Find what that is for you find what activity or thing that you can do that you can do in a way. And I'm not talking about necessarily mindless activity like playing a video game or you know, stuff that just occupies occupies brain space. It has to be something that resonates for you that you love deeply, because love is a big part of this as well. And I'm not talking about the chemical love that we experience when we're with, you know, human being that we're very attracted to, and they give us attention and, you know, that sort of love. I'm talking about this Soul love. And I will talk more about that in my next podcast episode as well. Love as well, we could do a whole series of podcasts about love, and what Divine Love means and that sort of thing. So that's sort of the first principle. So the second principle is there is no more spiritual activity than going in deeply into yourself. Right? So yes, you can have a spiritual experience from cooking or painting or reading prayer or anything, right, as long as you have, understand that first principle that the deeper you go, the more spiritual becomes, there is no more spiritual experience than going deep, deep, deep into yourself. Because the there is nothing closer. Right? You can't, you know, to do these outside activities, there has to be some sort of recognition as to be some sort of ego recognition. That, you know, an ego is all about separation, these things exist separately for me, there are sets of practices where you recognize everything as an emanation of yourself. And I think that is a way of going deeply into yourself to. There are lots of lots and lots and lots and lots of practices for doing this, I'm going to give you one today, but oh my gosh, there are so many different practices. So again, if there's a bit of practical advice, here, it's find a spiritual practice that works for you. And meditation is the classic and there are millions of forms of meditation. Meditation is in, you know, one way it's been described to me is, it's like you're peering into a pond, and the wind is blowing and there are these ripples on the pond and you can't see into it. And you know, the, the silt is stirred up from the wind and the waves and meditation calms the wind, and the pond becomes still and the silt settles, and you're able to look clearly through the pond, at what's down there, while the pond, you know, obviously, that's a metaphor, that's you, you're the pond, you're pairing deeply into yourself, and meditation helps calm the monkey mind. And the chatter that's going on meditation is a beautiful practice. There are many, many forms of meditation. You know, and meditation, on a physical level is fantastic for you, it's really good for you, it's good for lowering stress and helping with blood pressure and all kinds of wonderful things, sleep and anxiety.

So, meditate, that's practical advice there. Okay. So, the first principle the more the more deeply you go into anything the more spiritual becomes the second principle is there is nothing more spiritual than going deeply into oneself. And that is where the gold lies in my opinion. And the third principle is, the more deeply you go into yourself, the more in flow, life will become, the more flow you will experience. You will be in harmony in much more in harmony with the universe and this is about living purpose as an expression of your divinity, your Divine Self, this is about living out your true will your purpose, the thing you the way you were meant to do. When you are living outside of that, when you were not in touch with your beingness that is beingness is another expression for the Divinity that is within you and Um, you know, when when you when you step outside of your being this life becomes harder. And I'm talking about at all levels, so physical life becomes harder. Because spirit is trying to make you have an easier life. And I don't mean necessarily that I'm going to meditate and tomorrow I will win the lottery and all my financial troubles will go away. What I mean is that when I, when I identify as beingness when I more fully identify as my beingness as my divine self, yes, physical life, you know, you this is where manifestation happens. So, you are, you know, you start to, you may develop the ability to manifest things that will maybe win the lottery, I don't know. But whether it will start to matter less whether or not you do, and, you know, the the external physical circumstances of your life, you know, they'll they will line up but also, at the same time, you just won't care as much when they don't you will live from a place of equanimity because, yeah, I can get sick, I can my body can get hurt, I can, you know, lose a job or have a relationship breakups are all of those things, none of that affects my beingness. So, let me talk a moment about the word beingness as an expression of divinity, this is another synonym, if you would beingness. So, how would I describe beingness okay. And this is, this is where the timeless part you know, when I described as permanent and perfect nature comes, comes in. So, spirit, ultimately, beingness is formless, it does not have a size or shape, it has no mass. And if you know anything about physics, time, and space are intimately linked to mass. Right, so something that has no mass, lives outside of time and lives outside of space. So your beingness again, your divine nature is formless, has no mass, and it is therefore timeless, it is outside of time, it is unborn and undying. And this is the perfect part of you, because also having no form, it can't be injured or wounded or any of those things. I think of it. And there are all kinds of different expressions. And again, I'm trying to F the ineffable. I'm trying to describe something that is indescribable. So I can only sort of describe it in very loose terms.

And again, here's this, if I were going to visualize it, I would visualize it as a point or a star of just infinite blinding, bright light. But in that there is complete stillness, complete and utter stillness, and peace. Right. And I've done spiritual exercises where you sort of you get in touch with the Beingness, and then you introspect it, you ask questions, and allow the answers to arise. Some of these questions are, does beingness experience fear? Well, there's a resounding no there because what does beingness have to fear? Again, it can't be wounded. It's undying, it's unborn, unchanged, unchangeable. Therefore, there is no fear there. Does beingness experience lack of a sense of lack again, no, for the same reason, so you can introspect, you know, when you get in touch with beingness, your divine nature? You can you can introspect it a little bit and yes, you know, your answers are sort of bubbling up into your consciousness, and we don't know exactly where they're coming from, and that's fine. That's totally fine. I'm allowing my egoic mind to have some, you know, get some information to get some alignment right. One way, another way, I'll give you lots of different ways to think about it. One way to think about this spirit, this, you know, divine spark, at the, at the center of us and this is the way I think of it is that there is divinity with a capital D, you might say God, or Brahman or the oversoul, or the universe, or you might have whatever word for the, the spirit of everything there is. Okay, and so my personal divinity is like a spark on that flame, or a drop in that ocean, or a beam of light from that star. One of those things, it is inseparable, it is connected, it is completely connected. But it is somewhat individuated. So that, um, you know, in some belief systems, it's so that I can, you know, if I, you know, if I identify as divinity, I can, the only way to reflect upon myself, the only way to observe myself, and the way for the Divinity to observe itself, is to have a part that is somewhat individuated. Right. And that's like saying, you know, I can, I can see with my eyes, my eyes are still a part of my body. And I can sense them as individual parts, right. But I can also since them is still a part of me. Hopefully, my eyes are inseparable. I don't, you know, yes, I can lose an eye. And this is where this metaphor breaks down a little bit, because you at your core are inseparable from the divine nature of all there is. We are inter interconnected in interdependent, interconnected beings. So, there's a beautiful exercise that is taught by shamanic teacher, Sandra ingerman, called transfiguration. She has a number of programs, I think she has a book called healing with spiritual light. And she definitely has a, you know, online program where you can learn this transfiguration exercise. It is an absolutely beautiful, fantastic exercise that I highly recommend everybody practice, I don't care, it's not the thing about this, even though Sandra ingerman is a shamanic teacher, and a teacher of teachers. This particular exercise is not not demonic, in that you don't have to know how to journey to do it. Anybody can anybody can do it without any sort of previous training or knowledge.

And it's really beautiful. And to me, it is settling in to that divine spark in experiencing that. And they've done some really cool experiments with transfiguration where they've taken polluted water, and, you know, brought it into a space where people were doing transfiguration and then sent it off to the lab, and the water gets clean, all of a sudden. So it's very interesting, it does have an effect on physical reality. So you know, to use another yet another metaphor for this divine spark is that, you know, we have all of these selves, right, I have a physical self and a mental self and an emotional self. And I have any theory IQ, or an A third double, and an astral body and all of these things. So I like to think sometimes of the Divine Self, the divine spark, as sort of like this light in the center of a bunch shining through a bunch of filters, says divine light is, you know, at my core, and then every layer of filter that it gets every filter, every body, every part of myself that it goes through filters that a little bit like if you had a bunch of colored lenses, and you were looking at the sun through them, you know, you would get sort of this interesting, distorted color changed picture of the Sun which is very different than looking at the sun itself. And so the You know, transfiguration some of these meditative exercises, allows you to temporarily take away some of these filters, and have a more direct experience of this divine inner nature. And you know, that experience does filter up into your egoic mind because you can remember it. But, you know, again that then you could start to identify with meaning. I don't think of myself as just a body anymore. I think of myself as having this divine light shining through me and yes, I still have I have a body but I am not a body. Okay. And there's a whole there's a whole exercise around dis identification as well. Right to have a body I'm not a body, I have thoughts, I am not my thoughts. I have feelings, I am not my feelings. What am I? What am I right? And that is, you know, the, the Indian saints Ramana Maharshi. You know, that was the core of his exercise, what am I asked, start over and over again, your ego starts to break down a little bit. Anything you can, you know, anything you can think of starts to starts to peel away until you get to beingness. So, we know, so what do we know about beingness so far, right? We know that it's permanent, it's outside of time. It's perfect, it cannot be wounded or damaged, has no mass has no form. It can be visualized as light. But again, that's putting you know that's putting a metaphor on it. It shines through. It shines through all that we are all of our bodies, like a filter. At its core, when you experience it, when you do an exercise you're really experiencing beingness The only way I can describe it, again, it it defies description a little bit is an ultimate sense of peace, stillness, love, divine, not love, not romantic love, although romantic love is beautiful, Divine Love, which is complete, utter surrender, acceptance. Right, so complete. So from the Sedona Method, courageousness acceptance and peace courageousness meaning complete lack of fear because you can't, that part can't die or be harmed. There's nothing, nothing to fear. acceptance, because you're a part of all there is there's nothing, nothing to push away. Nothing to cling to.

And peace, complete stillness, complete surrender, just rest in that moment. So spiritual practices or exercises that give you some sense of this, you know, I would refer to this work, maybe others would not, but I would refer to this as theosis or God work, right? This is where you are, you know, getting in touch with that inner part of yourself. That is no different than God for lack of a lack of another term. And I realized the term God is very loaded. We all have different concepts of what that word means. You know, whether you come from a Judeo Christian background or Islam or whether you practice Hinduism or Buddhism or Zoroastrianism or your gnostic, or you're an atheist. So that can be a very loaded word. So we'll you know, I'll try to do my best to stick with a word divinity. Divine Light, can you be an atheist and believe in your divinity? I don't know Probably. Probably you could be atheistic meaning you don't believe in. You don't believe in a in a God, a creator god or what have you and still understand that there are layers of yourself. That may be non physical, I think that could be, I don't know, maybe I'll, maybe I'll bring on some, some people who are atheists at some point and have a conversation with them, that would be interesting. I think, um, you know, I know people who are sort of materialist atheists. And, you know, from that perspective, the material world is all there is there is nothing else. That's challenging, because I have lots of, you know, on the daily, I experienced non physical reality. And even if, you know, their, their explanation would be it's all in my head. And it's just the, you know, all of my experiences are just subjective. And they're the result of electrochemical interactions going on in my physical brain. Um, that, you know, again, it's not my job to proselytize or change what anybody believes, but my experience is otherwise, and you know, there, I believe that consciousness is non local. And being non local, it is not. You know, it's not structured in that way. Consciousness doesn't reside in the brain, the brain is a receiver of consciousness, and it can tune itself to sort of different wavelengths of consciousness. That's what we do when we practice shamanism. We tune our brains to be able to do shamanic journeys. But the material the information we bring back sometimes is non local. Meaning we're not experiencing it from physical senses. And so there's a component of that, and hey, maybe someday. Maybe someday quantum science will explain that. But I honestly think that a lot, you know, when you read a lot about quantum science, and I'm no expert, but it seems, you know, very, it seems like sciences describing spiritual concepts. Right, and they're using, they're using scientific terms to do that. I think they're talking a lot a lot about you know, they're talking a lot about the same things that spiritual people are talking about using, using vastly different vocabulary. We think about quantum entanglement, how two particles, you know, that are not in contact with each other, sent, quote, unquote, communicate, right? They seem to have awareness not, you know, I don't know if awareness is even the right word. But if you change one, you change the other one, or simply observing one changes the other one. How does that work at a fundamental level? How does that work from a physical material reality? I don't know. I mean, I can't explain it from a quantum science perspective.

But from a spiritual perspective, we say that everything is connected to everything at a spiritual level, at a level that, you know, we cannot necessarily measure with scientific instruments right now. So, so, yeah, I think they're, I think there's room for overlap there. I think the subjective experience of consciousness is extremely difficult to describe as, as simply a bunch of chemical interactions going on in the brain. Right? The experience of the world you're having right now, listening to this podcast, that will be quite challenging to explain. As neuro chemical signals passing between cells. You know, we can see areas of the brain light up. But how does that give us the experience we're having? And, you know, it's possible that that can never be explained. on a physical level. I don't know. I mean, who knows what we'll learn, who knows what we'll learn, but, you know, I open the door to that I open the door to I'm open to the idea that the more we learn about the nature of reality, the more we learn about the nature of reality and the tools that we use, to plumb the nature of reality. are the tools that we use if your tools are science, that's great. If your tools are spirit, that's great. Okay, and at some point, maybe our vocabularies will overlap. Who knows? Who knows? That'd be a great thing. Um, so yeah, so I'm, I'm digressing, I like tangents a whole lot. I like to have things go off the rails a little bit so. So I have described divinity and I've described how at your core, you were this divine spark and or a beam of light from, you know from the star that is divinity or you are a star and a system of stars or, you know, what have you these are all metaphors, because, again, it's formless, you can visualize your divinity. And I've given you some ideas, hopefully about some places to look for practices, meditative practices, transfiguration, that sort of thing. And I'll leave you with, I'll leave you with a really short brief, but I think beautiful exercise that you can practice almost anytime you want, because it requires nothing. It requires nothing but yourself. And again, going into yourself, that is the deepest form of practice I can think of. So, this exercise is very simple to describe, but can get deeper and deeper, the more you practice it. So the practice is this, and it is easier, it is easier frequently with closed eyes, although you can try it with open eyes. So just for a moment, it doesn't have to be longer than that. Decide to let go of all of your desires. Just decide to drop all of your desire desires, for a brief moment. And just feel what that's like. Just be what you are. Without desires. Okay. And you can practice this for a minute or two, any sort of anytime you want. And it's just, it's just a decision on your part. Okay, for now, I'm gonna, you know, you probably unless you are fully enlightened, will not be able to drop all of your desires permanently, you will get thirsty, you will get hungry, we'll get physically uncomfortable, you will see an advertisement for that brand new car that you want. But just just try this for a moment, you can do it for a moment. Just drop all desires for a moment. And just be what you are.

And that will give you a little bit of an experience of your beingness which is ultimately desireless because it experiences no lack. There is nothing that lacks his whole complete and perfect. Therefore, at your core, you are also because it is you your beingness is you you are whole complete, imperfect. There is nothing to fix. There's no place to go. There is nothing to do. Just who you are, be who you are. I hope that I hope that you'll practice that from time to time, I hope that you will have an experience of your divinity. And if you choose to go down this path further and explore that more, I hope that you get to live your life more in flow. I will my plan for next week is that I will have two new episodes coming out because I have two people. I have two guests coming on. I am very excited about that. Just to tease it a little bit. I have somebody who's going to come. Somebody I've known for Gosh, a really long time. Who is going to talk about finding your purpose and living from that purpose living from divine love and living from your purpose. And that is such a wonderful, important topic. To me. I think that's I think that's that's bound to be an exciting conversation. And then later in the week, I will be talking to my teacher and Sean As I am very excited about this, she has agreed to come on and talk about living a shamanic life. So if you have any interest or desire at all to or you know, just are curious about shamanism at all and what it's like to live dramatically, um, you know, you'll, it's definitely something you'll want to catch. Once again, you can contact me through my website, which is maineshaman, maineshaman.com.

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You have been listening to speaking spirit with your host, john more. For more info or to contact john go to MaineShaman.com that's MaineShaman.com

Ep13 Lucid Dreams, Astral Projection, and Shamanic Journeying

Announcer 0:30

Hello, and welcome to speaking spirit where we talk about all things spiritual. Your host, john Moore is a shamanic practitioner and spiritual teacher. And now his john.

John Moore 0:53

Everybody. Normally, I record these early in the morning, I don't know there's something about sunrise that keeps my creative juices flowing and and I like that time in the morning it's quiet the the sort of mental noise of the world quiets down today, it's a little bit different. I'm recording this early in the evening. I don't know if that makes a difference to you or not. But I thought I would point that out. And it's kind of interesting. As I do this, it's the sun is setting I normally do this as the sun is rising. And sunrise and sunset are these beautiful, interesting transition times. In other powerful times of day, powerful times to meditate or to get things done or to soak in the beauty of nature, which is what I love to do. I am blessed to live in a place where I have spectacular sunrises and sunsets. Almost any time the weather is fine. And it was chilly but fine today where I am in the state of Maine in the United States, which is in the the northern Northeastern most corner of the of the continental United States. If you're not familiar with Maine, we're known for lobster and, and skiing and all kinds of stuff. Stephen King grew up here if you like horror movies and horror books, excuse me. Now normally some podcasters would edit out their little cough I'm not going to do that I don't edit these at all. Or thumping the mic as I just did. I do not edit these. So you get the raw, unfiltered me. And maybe I'm just too lazy to edit these. But no, I prefer to just have these come out naturally. So it's I realize it's one sided, but it's more like a conversation when when I'm talking to you. Today I chose the topic of dreams. I'm going to talk about dreams. I'm going to talk about lucid dreaming. I'm going to talk about astral travel or astral projection. And I'm gonna talk about shamanic journeying. And these things are all sort of Allied under a heading I will sort of, you know, sort of call it soul travel. Right. And we'll talk about why that is I'll talk about the differences between these things. Um, interestingly, I was watching or I'm still watching a series on Netflix called behind her eyes, which is based on a novel. I will not give spoilers but you know, there is some amount of soul travel lucid dreaming stuff going on there. And so, you know, kind of inspired me to talk about this. And I'm very, very interested in in dreams and dreaming in general, as a shamanic practitioner, I do. I do a lot of dream work. And I you know, locally here in my state I, you know, once a week, I actually am on the radio, doing dream analysis for listeners, which is mostly a fun thing. You know, it's a fun thing that I do and get to connect with people here and the gyms are always interesting. And, you know, sometimes I'm able to provide some clarity or some relief around some issues with dreams. So I'm going to talk about dreams. I'm going to talk about lucid dreaming what that is astral travel or astral projection and how that sort of equates to shamanic journeying. So let me start out With dreams in general, and again, I'm going to, I'm going to sort of present my take on dream material. And my feeling is if you're listening to this podcast, you have interested in spiritual topics, that your beliefs may overlap mine a little bit, and that what dreams are and what they represent. Now, from a psychoanalytic perspective, you know, we go back to young and Freud sort of big, big minds in psychoanalysis

particularly young, very interested in people's dreams, right? Very interesting people's dreams, because dreams allow us to surface a lot of unconscious material, a lot of stuff that, you know, we would not have conscious awareness of, and in my experience, doing dream analysis, dreams, kind of loosely fall into a few categories, right. One category of dreams, are I sort of how would I put this they're sort of warning posts or flags, you're particularly sometimes there's a recurring dream that happens. It's not necessarily a warning of danger, but it's your, your subconscious mind is trying to really get you to pay attention to something and you haven't you haven't figured that out yet, you haven't sussed out that information isn't dealt with whatever issue that is, yet it's buried somewhere in your subconscious. Now, your subconscious, your unconscious mind, processes things, very metaphorically, which is why a lot of dream material that comes up as metaphorical, and it's why dream analysis can, can be really helpful. If you, you know, talk to somebody who's intuitive, and works with dreams, and, you know, that sort of thing. can sort of help you walk through, you know, issues that are coming up. And that is something that I encounter a lot when I'm doing sort of dream analysis work. You know, somebody will tell me, you know, I dreamed about my dream about my father driving off a cliff or something along those lines. And as I suss it out, as I, I'm like, well, you really, you know, concerned about, you know, the driving situation is, you know, really a symbol of independence and, and, you know, being able to take care of oneself, and you know, your father driving off a cliff and you're witnessing it or you're involved and you're worried about, you know, your father's independence. And, you know, the person was able to oh my gosh, yes, my father had a stroke 12 years ago. And in this, this is really, really tiny example, and I'm sort of general, generalizing. Because analysis can take a long time, it can be very in depth, right? Um, very frequently, dreams can surface trauma. Right? So trauma is stored in the soul, from a shamanic perspective stored in the body, but stored in the soul body, from the demonic perspective. So things that happened to us can sometimes surface in dreams. So again, this is your this is your unconscious mind going, Hey, you know, there's something here that you really kind of want to deal with. Right? There's something here that you may, you know, you may want to get some therapy around or process or something along those lines. And that is another, you know, that's another really sort of common thing that comes up. Right. So, you know, I believe that all dreams hold some importance. I don't think, you know, I'm not sure what the exact scientific consensus is on dreaming. I don't think it's just random noise. Right? Why would that? Why would that possibly be? Why would we have evolved to just have random noise go through our head into our consciousness, right, on a nightly basis? Like, completely random, and ultimately, experience doesn't bear that out, you know, frequently, I'm able to determine with some degree of accuracy, some issues that are going on in somebody's life based on some dream material that may not be related to the actual issue right there, symbolic things are happening. So these things are related. I think it's the uncut, you know, the unconscious, if its surface to the surface of the consciousness, sometimes it's trying to pay attention to something sometimes it's trying to, you know, do what therapists might call processing, right processing. You know, you're going through this, you're going through this information and organizing it into You know, the way that your brain holds information and deals with it, that sort of mundane, everyday dreaming. Now I do have a number of people who tell me they do not dream, I don't, I do not dream.

And that is just not true. What you're saying, when you say that, when you say I don't dream, what you're actually saying is, I don't remember my dreams, but that doesn't mean you don't dream. Because if you take somebody who is, um, you know, asleep, and they're going through rat rapid eye movement, right, you can see their eyeballs moving under their eyelids, and you wake them up and you ask them what was going on. They could, they can say, you know, most of the time, nearly all the time they can, they can describe the dream that they were in. But what happens when we're dreaming, we're in a certain mind, state, a certain state of mind, meaning you have, you know, your brain is processing things a certain way parts of your brain to turn off parts are turned on, you know, the, the brainwaves going through your brain are not like you're waking consciousness. And when you wake up, your brain shifts, right, you know, some parts shut down, some parts turn on, it is a huge shift in consciousness to go from asleep to waking, even REM sleep, which is sort of close to your waking state from a brainwave perspective. So many, many people have the experience of having a dream and having it fade as they wake up. And that's really common as well. Right. So that's that process where, when we're shifting brain states, we often forget within the first five or 10 minutes. So if you're a person, you want to remember your dreams. My suggestion to the to you is keep a notebook next to your bed with a pen or pencil. And as soon as you wake up, as soon as you remember, take down some notes about, you know what you were dreaming of, write it down before it fades. You know if, you know, if it's not going to wake up somebody who's sleeping with you, you could also use a like a voice recorder app on your phone and talk into that and record, record your dream, you know, whatever, just, you know, if you get it out, you're gonna be less likely to forget it. And then the other thing that happens when you start to keep a dream journal is that you are sort of training your brain that you want to remember your dreams and you'll begin to remember them more frequently. Okay, so I talked about dreaming and sort of what dreaming is, from my perspective, and you know, that everybody dreams and they talked about a certain category of dreams, which I sort of are, you know, these metaphoric, signposts or, or pathways or pay attention to me pay attention to something, right, it's like a flag, pay attention to this. I'm not always on warning, not always, sometimes it's, you know, you have some untapped potential, you have some creativity, you want to get out, you are attracted to somebody and you're not willing to admit it. Those things, you know, those things can all happen. Um, you know, there's, you know, there can be some on it also some, you know, sort of a second category, which sometimes has some overlap here are the, on unresolved unresolved feeling dreams, right. So, you know, you break up with somebody, and you dream about them, or, you know, you never fulfilled a life dream and you dream about that. Even you know, in that in that category can also be overlap one another category, there's, you know, there's these categories are not really firmly defined. They're just sort of things that they're ways that I think about, you know, when I about dreams when I talk about them with people, right? Another big one is wish fulfillment. Right? And sometimes our wishes can be pushed down into our shadow. I did a whole podcast episode about the shadow. But very briefly, the shadow is the exiled part of ourself, it's the part of ourself that due to socialization, or our values or whatever, like we push thought, feelings and desires into that we don't accept about ourselves. So some of that may be sexual, for example, right. So if you have

dreams of a sexual nature with somebody who is not your spouse, or you know, somebody who is, you know, might be inappropriate to have a sexual relationship with, that can be that sort of thing, right. And, um, you know, wish people were sort of less alarmed about this, okay, you know, you can have a dream about somebody and never act on it. And, you know, some stuff can be some stuff can be coming up some thoughts, some desires, it's natural to have this stuff. When you when you, you know, when you push it into your subconscious, that's, you know, when you push it into an, you know, in your shadow, that's when it can become problematic. Okay, so that's sort of another category, then there's this, this sort of larger category that is, you know, sort of spiritual dreams, write dreams that are maybe pre cognitive, maybe they foreshadow something happening. Or maybe they're indications that something has happened or is happening. You know, a relative of mine, a very close relative of mine, woke up from a sound sleep, at the exact moment, another relative of mine was declared dead, unexpectedly in hospital, and, you know, knew that something was going on and said, I'm gonna go, you know, I'm getting up now, because of my phone's gonna ring anytime now with some, something has happened. So pre cognitive stuff can happen in dreams, and what's going on there? Right. So when we dream, our ego, our conscious mind starts to shut down. And I honestly think that we are normally receiving all of this, what you might call psychic input, these impressions, that we're getting these signals from the world. And they're not surfacing, they're not sort of loud enough, above the things that are coming in through our senses, our sensory input is overwhelming. All of that, right. So imagine that you're in a very crowded restaurant, and everybody in that restaurant is having a conversation at the top of their lungs, you know, as loud as they possibly can. And there's a couple sitting in the corner, whispering to each other? Are you going to be able to pay attention to that whispering? Are you even going to hear it or be aware of it? Probably not. And it's probably, even if you were aware that something you know, something's going on, there's a conversation there, they're whispering, the other stimulus in the room is going to overpower that so much, you're not going to be able to pay attention to it. And that's why a lot of, you know, many spiritual systems pay close attention to stuff that comes up in dreams. The issue here is not all dreams are pre cognitive, I have lots of people call me up. And you know, I dreamed about dying, I dreamed about this, but that dreams of death are not always pre cognitive, particularly if they're about yours. They're usually about a life transition. If you think of the death card and the Tarot deck, it is a card of change, transition, you know, that sort of thing. It's not about physical death. And I have never had an incident or an incidents where somebody talked to me about dying in a dream where that has been pre cognitive. So in my experience, it's just not it's just not the case, where those things happen. So that, you know, that can happen the other. Another thing that can happen is we can become really, really receptive to loved ones who have passed, for example, right? I talked to a lot of people who tell me my grandmother showed up in my dream, and said this to me, and it turned out to be true. Absolutely. your grandmother's probably looking at on you from the afterlife. And, you know, it took you entering a dream state to be able to hear that person. This is something so mediums who are really good, who can talk to people who've crossed over, they're able to enter that that sort of receptive state at will, you're able to train that. It's also why meditators like meditation, that centers around learning to quiet the noise in the environment is is an effective and important tool. For, for doing certain types of psychic development, right, being able to tune out the noise and listen to the signal that you want to listen to. And tuning is a really great

way of describing what the brain does. Okay? I personally, and I'm not alone in this, this is not my theory. I personally do not believe that consciousness that human consciousness or any consciousness is located in the brain. I believe that consciousness is non local, and outside of time, however, I believe that the brain, the human brain, and in my case, hope I have a human brain. Some people might say that I have a monkey brain. But as far as I know, I have a human brain. And I believe that the human brain is a receiver, very much like a radio receiver of consciousness, the signal of consciousness, right? When we go to sleep for the night, we the our brain, even though the sensory input is still coming in our brain changes frequencies, right and tunes out, tunes out the input, but also tunes, you know, changes to a different frequency of consciousness. And this is exactly what's going on with people who are clairvoyant, intuitive. Our mediums are our shamanic practitioners. They're people who have learned to intentionally change the frequency they're receiving, you know, they're receiving signals on in their brain. They're changing, they're, they're changing their consciousness. And there is evidence, there is a lot of research around the nonlocality of, of consciousness. Consciousness, if you think about it, right? consciousness is what we call a nominalization. A nominalization is a noun, it's a thing that you cannot you could not put in a wheelbarrow, right? So it's a noun, it's, we're talking about a process, something that is happening, but it's not a physical object, right? Most nouns are like, pen, table, lamp. ship, right. If you had a big enough wheelbarrow, you could put a ship in it. So consciousness, right consciousness, love, respect all these things. These are, these are nouns but they you couldn't put them in a wheelbarrow, they're formless. These are foremost nouns. And consciousness is a formless noun, we so often associate, ourselves or consciousness with our physical reality with our physical body, with a physical brain, with our sense organs, all of those things. Um, just empirically, I do not believe that to be the case, I do not believe that brain, the human brain is the source of consciousness, but it is a receiver of consciousness. And just like a radio set, you can tune that receiver to different channels, the brain is an absolutely amazing organ, it is an amazing thing that we have the fact that we're able to use it to tune consciousness, right. But saying that it's the source of consciousness is a little bit like saying, the radio show you're listening to, is actually generated by the radio. Right? The podcast that you're listening to, I'm sitting in my living room, talking into a microphone, I am not sitting inside your, you know, your computer or your phone and talking to you. So your computer, your phone is not the source of this podcast, the source of this podcast is, you know, me talking into a microphone. And yes, there's all kinds of stuff going on. As I talk into a microphone, my voice, the sound waves are changing to an electrical signal, which is digitized and recorded and then uploaded and downloaded and all kinds of stuff are going on. But it wouldn't be right to say that your phone, your computer is the source of this podcast in the same way. That is not correct, in my opinion, to say that the brain is the source of consciousness. Right? And so what happens when we die and I realized that's probably a whole other podcast, what happens when we die and the brain ceases to function or consciousness does not go away. It is not it is just not being received anymore by this body. Mind this brain is shut down. This brain is no longer functioning. But consciousness is non local. So it's it carries on. And trust me like this is

you know, this is something I experience every day as a shamanic practitioner, conscious being elsewhere. Okay, so I've talked a lot about dreams and a lot of the different categories of dreams. And I really like I want to talk a little bit about lucid dreaming. And if you haven't heard that term before, lucid dreaming is when you are dreaming. And you know that you're dreaming, if you've ever been in the dream and known that you were dreaming. That technically is what a lucid dream is. But there are a lot of other implications of the term lucid dreaming. One of the implications of lucid dreaming is that you can take control of the content of your dream, right. I do know people who lucid dream really regularly, and they're able to sort of shape their dreams into whatever, whatever they want. And there's lots of reasons to do that some of those esoteric, some of those merely recreational imagine, you could go anywhere in the world you want on vacation, do anything you want, eat anything you want, hang out with anything you want, and have a conversation with anything you want, that can be expressed through lucid dreaming. Um, what's going on with lucid dreaming in, you know, my take on this is that the, you know, so you're, you're there, your brain is not a simple system. And so, actually tuning to two different frequencies at the same time. So part of your brain that would normally be asleep, the cut, you know, the conscious, you know, what we might consider a sort of the conscious waking state of the brain is actually awake and active, and the dreaming part of the brain is active at the same time. And those signals kind of mixed together. And you can take control of the dream. And this is, this is pretty interesting. So this, as well brings me to another type of dream, another sort of category of dream that I have experienced myself and I know people have experienced and you know, I don't know how common it is. But is the category of dream I would call actually soul travel. And it is more common, in my opinion with lucid dreaming. And this is where the part of your, you know, your consciousness that we might refer to as your astral body, which is a semi formless body, but can you know you can perceive it as having the same shape and characteristics of your body? is able to travel? Right, able to go around looking on friends, talk to people talk to ghosts, go to heaven? Who knows? Right? wherever you want to go? How is this differentiated where like? So I want to talk a little bit about how this travel takes place. And I'll I'll use this to segue into talking about astral projection and astral travel as well. Where are you traveling? How are you traveling? How you know what? What's sort of the mechanisms involved here. These soul travel dreams are very closely related to astral projection, and they're very closely related to shamanic journeying. And so what happens is this formless part of you is traveling in other realms, and so in demonic terms, the world that we live in, in ordinary reality in your conscious waking state, the physical world that you walk through, we refer to this as the middle world. And the middle world

is also sort of a shorthand for the spiritual template, the formless templates in which ordinary reality exists. And I use the metaphor if you've ever had, like, if you're my age, you remember in school, teachers used to use overhead projectors, and they would have these clear sheets that they would project up onto the screen and they could write on them or they would have stuff printed on them and you could stack one on top of the other, or you might have seen in a book somewhere where you have these Clear acetate sheets maybe have saved the human body. And you can peel back the layer that has the skin on it and see the muscles and the organs and you peel back the muscles in the organs. And underneath that is the skeletal system. And you can fold it all over. And those, you know, shining light through them, you can kind of see all of those layers. The middle world is like that, right? The middle world is made up of lots and lots of different sort of frequencies of things. So we have this very physical reality that we move through every day. And we have physical light that we see and all these things. But every object every being that we encounter, in physical, everyday ordinary reality, has a spiritual counterpart, right? The chair you're sitting on is a spirit tool thing. As an object, it has a spiritual component, which if you were doing shamanic journeying, soul travel, astral projection, you would, you would see that you would see that in and might be a little different, because you're only because your perception is changing, you've shifted your consciousness. So this this sort of spiritual overlay of the middle world, the middle world, the spiritual aspects of the middle world, is also where we encounter sort of what I might call nature spirits, mythological creatures. You know, things like ghosts, right, a lot of paranormal phenomena happens in the middle world. And because, because the middle world frequency is, you know, the spiritual component frequency is very close to the physical world, sometimes, that's when we can have this paranormal stuff that affects the physical world. Okay. And when I talk about nature spirits for a moment, just really briefly, because that again, that's a whole other podcast. Um, so every culture that I can think of has some sort of concept of a nature spirit, right? So in sort of, in the, in the UK and Ireland, and you know, Scotland, Wales, so England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, sort of the Celtic areas of the world, we have things like fairies, Pixies brownies, the fairy faith is still in many areas of the world taken very, very, very seriously. In Hawaii, they have lots of spiritual creatures. But when I think of like, fairies, Pixies brownie sprites, they have what are called the mental hooni. And the men of hooni are these like little people, right? So they, these little spiritual people exist in so many cultures around the world. And so sort of Nordic countries, right, Scandinavian countries. You know, I don't know all of the words for them, but they have, you know, trolls, and elves, and, you know, that sort of thing. So all of those sort of little people, which is a weird word for it, because they're all different sizes. But, you know, these spiritual creatures, in these folk belief systems aren't just, they're not, for lack of a better term fairy tales. They're real, they're real creatures, that people who have spiritual sight can interact with. And, and I have, you know, I have certainly done a fair bit of work with nature spirits, there are religions existing to this day that that deal with them. A lot of a lot of folk religion, from Africa, to Australia, to the Pacific islands to United States, or, you know, the Continental North America, South America, not just the United States, but indigenous cultures throughout the world

have these nature spirits, and they all have different names, and they all have different characteristics because they're filtered through the consciousness, but what's going on here? What's going on with these cultures that were separate, you know, separated for, you know, for ever geographically separated and, you know, didn't necessarily have any recent interaction, any historical interaction or even like, you know, interaction with 10s of 1000s of years. How did they all spontaneously generate the same thing? Well, they didn't. I can, I can tell you that nature spirits are are real. And I will do a whole entire podcast on them, but we experienced them in the middle world. leprechauns sprites fairies can Tom lay men hooni I cannot. Someday I'll see if I can find a reference to to maybe there's probably hundreds and hundreds of names from all in all different countries, all different cultures for, for these nature spirits. And so you don't have to necessarily believe me, but I, you know, I believe in them and I have interacted them with them in shamanic journey. So sometimes, so these soul journeys, for the most part happened in the middle world, right? If you've ever dreamed of like, checking in on something or experiencing something, and then happens, some pre cognitive stuff is middle world. And the thing is this spirit world, the formless because you know, I'm not a physicist, I'm not a quantum physicist or physicist of any kind. But time and matter are really closely interlinked in ordinary reality, so when you get outside of the space, where things are solid and made of matter, time starts to break down. So that's why we can, you know, journey into the past journey into the future. Because those things like our human minds are going to place them in time. But they're not necessarily, you know, going to make exact sense, it's not going to be as linear, as we experience going through life in ordinary reality. Right, because time, really, really starts to break down. And I have had some pre cognitive experiences in journeys that have been sort of a sort of blown me away, you know, experience things that have that have come to pass. And I, you know, certainly have talked to people who have had had dreams where that's also the case. So soul journey, and let's, you know, so sojourning happens to, in my experience, primarily during lucid dreaming, happens primarily in the middle world, although when you're lucid dreaming, you can do things like fly, go through walls, that sort of thing. Because the part of you that's traveling is not made out of matter, in the way that we think of it. It's not made out of physical material. It is, um, you know, non physical, so you can defy the laws of physics. Most of them anyway, as far as I know, I don't have haven't tested a lot of a lot of physical experience experiments, while lucid dreaming, but maybe that'll be a thing. So yeah, I mean, and you can, it's beyond the scope of this podcast, but you can train yourself to lucid dream. You know, it takes a little bit of doing but it's not, it's not incredibly challenging to do, you will not be successful 100% of the time, but you know, you can get some successes. And there is a bounty of things that can happen from lucid dreaming, right, from being able to experience things to rehearsing activities to taking advantage of, you know, the dream state to do some spiritual work. That's lucid dreaming. And when you're traveling in the middle world, in a lucid dream, you're essentially doing the same thing is what we call astral projection, or astral traveling. The difference with astral, the only difference in my opinion, between astral projection and soul travel in dreams is that with astral projection, you are not dreaming. You're not asleep. Right? So, people do these meditation exercises to get into the right brain states, but they are they have not fallen asleep. And they're able to

separate their astral body from their physical body. Some portion of it, you're actually what you're doing is you're splitting off some piece of consciousness from your soul. And I'm able to travel that way in in the middle world. I will caution this. This is my I don't. I don't use scare tactics, tactics just to scare people. But when I teach people to journey to do shamanic journeys, which is basically the same thing as astral travel. Middle world journeys are not always 100% safe, and some of the risks of of traveling in the middle world without what I would call likes. demonic protection without taking steps to make sure that you're safe. You know, include you may you may encounter spirits that don't have your best interest at heart, you may encounter spirits that can drain you of energy that can attach to you that can do you know, some do some things that can cause some physical effects, right can cause you to get sick. Can you know if you've been doing this kind of work and you start having in your in, you know, you're not, if you've been doing a lot of astral travel practice or you've been, I don't know, playing with journeying in the middle world without proper training or that sort of thing. And you start to experience symptoms of psychosis, like breaks from reality, like when you're in ordinary reality, it's time to seek out a shaman and get some help for that. Could be lots of things. But you may have picked up a hitchhiker, which some people call possession. I don't need to find a better word for that. Because when I say position, people think of the movie The Exorcist, and they think it's like a demon is taking over their body, that's not always the case. Sometimes spirit will just follow you home. Because if you see them, they can see you kind of thing. And sometimes you're intruding on a territory. You know, nature, spirits can be territorial, they can be protectors of space, it's important to have good relationships with them. So you know, just be cautious when you're experimenting with this stuff. I know there's a lot of there's a lot of stuff out there about astral travel. And if you you have to imagine a silver cord back to your body. And if you don't, you know, if the silver cord gets severed, you'll die. And I you know, that's not my experience. That is, I don't know where that comes from. Maybe that's true. I mean, there are there are what we call a theory cords that attach people to things and to other people and all that sort of thing. Um, you know, and that's just the different to me and it's just a different phenomenon. When I journey I don't have to visualize or think about or, I've never even experienced a chord like that and I'm able to journey which brings me to shamanic journeying, which I've talked about a little bit already, but what, what are shamans doing when they journey when they go into trance and they journey? So a shamanic journey consists of three components. A shaman alters their state of consciousness, right goes into a trance travels in non ordinary reality. Right? So that's exactly what we're talking about here with astral projection and sometimes lucid dreaming soul travel. And the shaman the important differences is shum always works with helping spirits, right? We form alliances with spirits. Normally, if you're a shamanic practitioner, normally, you'll start to build relationships with lots of helping spirits. Because it can be like specialists, right? I work with one helping spirit for soul retrieval. I work with another one for doing past life work. I work with another one for doing, you know, divination, you know, they sort of specialize. But so. shamans, you know, the big, the big difference here between somebody who's just astrally projecting or whatever is that shamans are working with helping spirits will they do this?

The other the other aspect that comes from training and shamanism is that shamans don't only work in the middle world. shamans work in lots of different worlds, you know, a very broad, you know, painting, painting the spiritual world with a very broad brush. You know, the shamans generally work in what we call the lower world, middle world and upper worlds. But there are infinite worlds. And these are just really big distinctions. It's sort of like somebody's asking me for my address. And I say I live in the Milky Way galaxy. Right. So if you addressed if you wrote me a letter and addressed it to the Milky Way galaxy, it's probably not going to find its way to my house. So These are broad strokes, and it just helps us sort of talk about things. So the practice of shamanism over you know, over a really long period of time as you practice and you learn different ceremonies and you learn different healing techniques and you learn all these things. You know, part of what you're doing is you're also exploring other worlds and bringing back information, healing energy, all kinds of things, if you work with, if you work on behalf of yourself, or you work on behalf of clients, or you work on behalf of a community, you know, and then a lot of indigenous cultures, you know, shamans work for a, you know, whatever tribal unit they're a part of, right, they're doing lots of work for everything from determining the best time to plant corn to, um, you know, interpreting the dreams of an elders to, you know, doing his, you know, actual physical healing work. That sort of thing because shamans traditionally, have played the roles of doctors, spiritual leaders, storytellers, all all kinds of things. There are ways that the, the archetype of the shaman plays out and all these things. So all these things that I've mentioned, so soul journeying during dreaming and lucid dreaming, astral projection, shamanic journeying. They're all very related activities. And the reason we're able to do these is because human beings have, you know, all human beings have a number of things in common we all have. We all have consciousness, we all have soul bodies, we all have spirit, we all have a theory of bodies we all have, we're all made up of the same stuff. We're all very, very, very different. Right? No two people are alike. Everybody has different DNA. Everybody has different thoughts and feelings, and aspirations and all of those things. But we have a lot of stuff in common. We all breathe oxygen, we all have blood in our arteries and veins. We all have hearts and lungs. And you know, that sort of thing. on a physical level, and on a spiritual level, we have sort of the same thing. We're all made up of the same stuff in the same way. Even if you don't think you dream, you do. Right, you just don't remember. And I believe that anybody can learn how to how to do a shamanic journey. I'm firmly convinced that anybody can learn how to do a shamanic journey. Does that make everybody a great candidate for being a shamanic healer? No, I don't think so. It's sort of like saying, every anybody can learn how to throw a baseball. But not everybody can be a major league baseball pitcher, right? Everybody can, you know, learn how to apply a bandaid to somebody's arm, but not everybody can be a surgeon, right? You know, on one part, it's it's a matter of there is a matter of makeup, some of the differences and makeup. But on the other hand, it's it is also a matter of extensive training and focus. You know, if somebody was really, really, somebody has the calling to learn the stuff, they they will, they will learn it, they will do it.

But there's certain things that certain things that happen that we know culturally, that that make people naturally better at this stuff. Right? And so, for example, if you were, if you were a person who was genetically very tall, you might have a advantage playing basketball over somebody who is much shorter, somebody who's much shorter, learn how to play basketball and be a professional basketball player. Sure, absolutely has happened, right? There have been some shorter basketball players. It's rare though, right? Because there's certain advantages from being born tall. And not to say they, you know, shamanism is a genetic thing, but there's certain life experiences that make a shamanic calling, more likely to happen and that make you better at dissociating from your body. Which is kind of what we're doing. When we journey. We are leaving our body to take a trip. So that is a lot of information. This has been i don't know i hope packed full of information and interesting and I hope you learn something today. I will be Hopefully bringing on won't not hopefully I will be bringing on more guests on my podcast I'm very excited about some of them coming up. I would be remiss if I did not mention that tomorrow. The day after this podcast goes out is St. Patrick's Day. My grandfather was was Irish, so I guess I feel a special I feel a special kins kinship with the Irish because I'm, you know, I'm a quarter Irish. And so to those who are to those who are celebrating, and if you are not Irish, but still celebrate Happy St. Patrick's Day. And I look forward to talking to you again. I wish you peace and love and all good things.

Announcer 51:20

You have been listening to speaking spirit with your host, john more. For more info or to contact john, go to MaineShaman.com that's M A I N E S H A M A N.com

Ep12 Gratitude

Announcer 0:28

Hello, and welcome to speaking spirit where we talk about all things spiritual. Your host, john Moore is a shamanic practitioner and spiritual teacher. And now here's john.

John Moore 0:48

Everybody. I always have the urge to say good morning when I do these because I always record them in the morning, but I have no idea what time it is when you're listening to this. So I will say good morning. Good evening, good afternoon, whatever time of day, it is where you are. I'm really excited today, I have a special guest. My guest is Liza Dimitri. And she has made me she has not given me a bio to read to you. So I have to wing my, my introduction of her.

has and probably will continue to host a radio show. She is a small business owner. She's got all kinds of things going on. I know you're also on the library, the board for the library in the town that I grew up in. And Gosh, what am I missing anything? You've got a dog?

Liza Dimitri 2:15

I do have a dog. I have three kids. I'm actually on. Vice President of the Auburn. Lewiston Auburn Children's Foundation. I love that board. We only know once a year. It's fabulous. Oh, once a year.

John Moore 2:26

Yeah. I was gonna say where do you find the time for all of this? I now I guess.

Liza Dimitri 2:31

That's how I got on that board. I asked them how often that they were going to meet. They said once a year. I said Sign me up. Perfect. Perfect. Yeah, that's a good board to be.

John Moore 2:43

I wanted to have Liza on today partially be well, you know, mainly because she's, she's a friend. And she's very cool. And

Me to hearing I'm expressing gratitude. And I don't want to talk about well, we're gonna talk about a bunch of things today. But I want to talk about positivity. And not to take things in a in a podcast about gratitude and positivity, I want to take things down a darker road at some point.

Liza Dimitri 3:31

But that's kind of your style, john

will bring it back around,

John Moore 3:35

we'll bring it we'll haul it back around, you can rein me in at the by the end of the podcast. So we're back in a good space. But I want to talk about this. Also this concept of like toxic positivity, right and what that means, and along with sort of spiritual bypassing what I call spirit, well, not not my term, but a term spiritual bypassing what that means and how we can sort of live in gratitude in this world. But also be sort of careful about the the flip side, the darker the darker side of

bury things under positivity and that sort of thing. So does that sound good? That sounds good. Sounds good to me. Awesome. So what are you grateful for today?

Liza Dimitri 4:23

Well, it's funny that you said that I

this whole pandemic I've been sleeping in a little bit later than usual because the boys are remote. And so we don't have this hectic, crazy schedule, which is one of the silver linings of it. But anyway, I was lying in bed trying to wake up early for you. And I was like, Well, I'm grateful for my friend john and this opportunity to be on the radio again because I really miss that. Yeah. And also so today's International Women's Day. I don't know when you're going to you know publish this or

Whatever. But anyway, I ironically enough for that current use of that word, but anyway, I'm actually get to see my best friend today and my mom, we just kind of like, worked out that way. So I'm grateful it's gonna be a fabulous Monday. I'm super excited.

John Moore 5:14

Yeah, I mean, those are all good things to be grateful for. And, um, yeah, so this will this will go out today, I usually push these out the same day. So I'm happy International Women's Day, I should recognize that women obviously, you know, obviously play an extremely important role in my life, I you know, have have a mom like most of us and grandmother and aunts and uncles, but I also have daughters. I'm a dad of daughters, which presents its own thing, but one of the things I am really, really, really grateful for is the strides that have been made with, you know, women's equality, I know, we're not perfect, I know, we've got places to go, I know, we've got that, but the opportunities that have been opened up for my daughters, and, you know, on the, sort of, on the backs of the women that have come before, I, you know, I really appreciate that I want you know, I want a world for my daughters where they can be and do anything they want. And, you know, without any sort of restriction based on, you know, who they were born as, or who they decide to be or any, any of those things. And so, I always say that as as a man. I consider myself a feminist because I think the patriarchy is bad for everybody. I don't think it's particularly good for dudes either. Right? I don't think it's good for us men, either. We think it is because we're, you know, it's it's this giant pyramid scheme where we've put ourselves on on top of the pyramid for a couple of 1000 years. But I think there are some very serious repercussions to that. And again, I'm like, I'm going down this dark tangent, we're

Liza Dimitri 7:01

supposed to sorry, wait, let's, let's pin it. And that'll be Episode Two.

John Moore 7:06

Right? But Happy International Women's Day, even if you're not listening to this on International Women's Day, take a moment and appreciate the contribution. The the contributions of the women in your life and the women around you, and just take a moment to

Liza Dimitri 7:23

reflect maybe next year we can celebrate it and more than one day.

John Moore 7:26

Yeah. Yeah. It should be How about how about that a month or something? Right?

Liza Dimitri 7:31

I mean, yeah, I'll take a month with only 30 days. That's fine. Right? We don't we don't have 31. I mean, but more than the day, please.

John Moore 7:40

Yeah, for sure. For sure. That's the place to start. So so we were, we were talking about gratitude the other day, and it's really interesting that you mentioned the pandemic because as as sort of a life altering as that has been for the entire planet. You know, there are things that I have come to be grateful for and appreciate. And one of those is I don't have to take my daughters to school at seven in the morning. You know, they start school, they're remote as well. And they start school later, they sleep and they appreciate that I was talking to them the other day and saying, you know, want to be great, you get to go back to school in person. Next year, and I'm like, I don't know, if I, I don't know if I want to now I'm like, this is great. Like, you know, in the beginning, it was there, this is horrible. I don't get to see my friends. I don't you know, I don't get to hang out at lunchtime, I don't get to do this. And now they're like, I get to sleep in I get to so it is it is interesting to find the silver linings, and I get to have lunch with my daughters. And I wouldn't normally do that if they were at school, obviously. And we right. It's, it's like a nice little, little part of my day I get to you know, sometimes I help them with homework right before a class or, you know, that sort of thing. So there are a few things to be

Liza Dimitri 9:04

Grier green, same things happening over here. So, the boys and girls, right, right.

John Moore 9:12

Interestingly, we, you know, we were talking about I want to talk a little bit about the why of gratitude. And, you know, why, you know, gratitude has become this sort of important catchword in sort of spiritual and personal development. Communities are lots of books about gratitude. We have, you know, Platt platitudes This is going to be a rhyme the platitude of show the attitude of gratitude, right, which is

Liza Dimitri 9:40

sounds like a shirt.

John Moore 9:41

It does sound like a T shirt. I think I've seen that on a bumper sticker and

Liza Dimitri 9:45

something

John Moore 9:46

Um, so you know, what's the big deal with gratitude why, like what's what's important about it, like why would Why would it make any difference whatsoever I want to get I've got to take on obviously wouldn't be enough. If I didn't Have a take on it. But

Liza Dimitri 10:02

I want to know thing to say

John Moore 10:03

I want to Yeah, I have nothing to say about this, but let's talk about it. What's, what's your take? What's your take on? Why not just feeling gratitude, but expressions of gratitude are important?

Liza Dimitri 10:17

Well, I feel kind of, it's funny that you say that, because I was thinking about that, when we decided to do this podcast, and this may be a selfish, selfish reason for it, but I honestly, it makes me feel good. Like, right now. either doing little things for people or like, a, you know, for example, at the grocery store, I everybody, especially the past year, people complain, a drop of a hat, you know, and really, around here anyway, I think we're, we're okay. You know, like, I'm so grateful that we live in Maine for all of this as well, not to like, I'm not I'm spinning out of control. But anyway, but I'm at the checkout. I like, you know, this, is there anything, we can help you whether you have questions, or whatever, you know, how they always ask them, and I tried to compliment them on something or, you know, say it was fine, or whatever, because everybody's always complaining. And if I can, like, make that clerks, you know, 90 seconds with me, slightly better than the person before after, then, you know, I'm happy for that. And doing like I said, doing things like that. Make me feel good. So,

John Moore 11:29

I don't know. Yeah, I mean, you know, there's this interesting, there's this interesting thing that happens sometimes with people who work in service, right, where we, you know, it's easy to not treat them like human beings, sometimes as people with feelings, or, you know, that, that sort of thing, because they're, you know, we view them in sort of, not consciously, not, you know, we're not necessarily going into like, oh, that, you know, that lowly, you know, clerk or, you know, we're not doing that, but just unconsciously, it's a utilitarian. You know, it's, it's transactional, I'm having a transaction with this person. So we're just sort of like business only, you know, none of this, none of this stuff. So I do find, like, I try and make a point, I try to, at least have a moment. And this is a practice I think, I could be completely wrong about this, but I think Eckhart Tolle a talks about this, where you give somebody your attention and presence, even just for a few seconds in that moment, whether it's a, you know, a clerk, or a waiter, or waitress or something like that, and just, you know, stop what you're thinking about, and just give them a moment of your presence. And that's really sometimes lacking, you know, and that recognition, but also that personal contact that you have, it does, you know, having, you know, when I was younger, I worked in all kinds of service jobs, you know, before and through college and, and having a personal connection with somebody is, you know, it does make your day it does, it does make, you know, it does give you a little lift that somebody is treating you like a human being with feelings, and

Liza Dimitri 13:22

even smiling at a stranger like, yeah, just hard to do with a mask now until I really tried to smile with my eyes.

John Moore 13:28

Yes, yeah. But it comes, it comes through, it comes through and I have, I have a little, this is a little, a little, like, spiritual practice that I do. And I try to try to, I'm not always great at it, I try to stay consistent with it, but I try to, I try to bless everybody I come into contact with, and it's just a matter of taking a moment and everybody I have, you know, that comes into my consciousness, whether I see them down the road, or I'm passing them in traffic, sometimes it's easier than other times in traffic, right? Particularly if somebody is is trying to trying to not be such a great person with you. Um, you know, that can be that can be a challenge, and I recognize that, and that's totally fine. But I do try to like give people a little blessing in my mind. And there's, you know, I came up in a you know, I spent a lot of time practicing Buddhism back when I was in college, and afterwards and we sort of had this there was this saying, from the tradition that I practice that you know, treat everyone as if they were your like, you know, if you imagine the whole reincarnation thing for millions of years, you know, that the concept is that everybody at one point was your mother. So treat them like you treat them like they're your mother or another. Another viewpoint is you know, if you consider us all, you know, all children from the same source Which we are, you know, genetically, we're all, we all come from the same place. These are all your cousins, your brothers and sisters and right? treat people the way, you know the golden rule exists in almost every culture.

Liza Dimitri 15:12

No, I yes, I absolutely agree with you about that.

John Moore 15:16

I'm going back to gratitude, there was an interesting study. And because this is a podcast and not a paper, I'm not going to like, go quote, the actual study. So forgive me and have to Google this if you're interested in it. But I do remember reading about this study that, you know, they did years ago, where they think it was in Wisconsin, there was a nunnery, and they went through and the nunnery had been around for a couple 100 years or something. And all of the nuns kept diaries, and they kept the diaries even after the nuns died. So they went back through, you know, some team of researchers, and they analyze the diaries of the nuns that had lived there for, you know, 150 years or so. And the nuns that expressed that had higher percentages of expressions of gratitude, in their diaries lived on average nine years longer. Right. So that is a long time. Imagine, Imagine being able to add nine years to your life without diet or exercise? Well, I mean, that's huge. That's huge. And it tells you something, because, you know, these are people living in the same environment. So the environmental factors are all the same, they're eating the same food, drinking the same water, their days are pretty much the same. You know, they probably have genetic similarities. You know, I don't know, I don't know for sure what the but I would imagine the demographics of nuns living in Wisconsin are fairly, you know, fairly similar.

Liza Dimitri 17:00

Probably, yeah, that might be the only thing that might be slightly different. But still, but still very, very similar.

John Moore 17:06

Yeah. And the fact that these, you know, greater expressions of gratitude, and we were talking about you recommended a book, which I haven't had time to acquire or read yet, but that's something that we talked, we talked like, a couple days ago. But I think the book was called growing younger,

Liza Dimitri 17:22

younger. Yes. Yeah.

John Moore 17:24

And it specifically talks about gratitude, as well as a practice of as a way of, I don't know, making yourself healthier. Yeah,

Liza Dimitri 17:33

no, exactly. It's something along those exact same lines. And unfortunately, I haven't read the whole thing yet. So I hope we're not having a pop quiz here. But oh, no, I just kidding. But you're right, it, um, I, well, the author's polish, which I thought was cool and found about, you know, afterwards, because I'm quite a bit bullish. But also, the thing I thought was neat was, it just goes along the lines of things that I already do, it's like, I mean, yes, we eat a healthy diet, and all that kind of stuff. But you know, here and there, we have little treats, but mostly, it's like, being grateful for the things you have having close relationships with, you know, people around you, and doing things for these people. And just having a general, you know, positive outlook on things, helps you to be healthier, more than that morning, kale juice, or, you know, running a marathon or whatever it is. And they showed, again, you'll probably have to Google this. But she, at the beginning of the book, she talks about a study that they did. People that did things one thing a day for somebody else, and over a certain period of time, and then it actually changed their genetic makeup. When that short amount of time which I was like, Holy smokes, that's crazy. You know, I mean, I totally believe because like I said before, when I do things for other people, I makes me feel better. So I'm sure it has an effect on my health. And I think that's so cool.

John Moore 19:10

Yeah, there's, you know, the world of genetics, we think of as you know, our DNA and RNA which are made, you know, just an amazing thing in itself, but there's this whole other. There's this whole other world out there of what we call epigenetics, which are things that we do that they don't necessarily alter our DNA, but they change the way you know, they turn on parts of our genes, certain genes. And that, you know, that includes things that we can pass down from generation to generation, you know, so we know that trauma for example, like you know, massive trauma gets passed down, we can detect changes in the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors. For example, we can we been able to do it with certain types of worms, we've been able to detect epigenetic changes like 23 generations later. I mean, this is it's, that's crazy. It's a pretty big deal, right? You can turn, turn parts of your DNA kind of on, make them active. And we know from research now that some of those are health promoting, you know, the practice of gratitude can be health promoting, and the act of doing something for somebody else, right, the act of doing things for other people.

Liza Dimitri 20:32

And not expecting something in return.

John Moore 20:34

Yeah, yeah, that's the big one. I

Liza Dimitri 20:36

feel like that's part of it, too. Like any time Well, it's like, Christmas or holidays, or birthdays and stuff. I'm always more excited about getting people gifts, and then getting them I mean, don't get me wrong, I finally get presents. But I truly love the whole thing of like, well, I just sent my brother something the other day out of the blue, and I'm sure he's like, why isn't Why are you sending me precedence? Yeah, I just thought that he would enjoy. It's something that I have. And I was like, you would like this too. And just, you know, I even got it in Syracuse, orange, because that's where I graduated from, but also makes my skin crawl a little bit. But you gotta have this right?

John Moore 21:14

Yeah, you're gonna have those rival rivalries I went to, I went to a school that our colors were our colors were purple, purple and go out and you know, in Boston, but we didn't have a big sort of sports presence. So it's not, you know, not wrapping myself in any jerseys or anything like that. I like, yeah, I have purple sneakers, but you know, Oh, I

Liza Dimitri 21:38

love purple.

John Moore 21:39

Yeah, it's a good, it's a good royal color. Um, yeah, the, the, I think, I mean, you touched on something important. And that is sort of doing doing something for other people and not expecting anything in in return, it's nice to get the, it's nice to get the gratitude back. But you don't have to, like you can just feel good in the giving of itself. And it doesn't have to be a big deal. It can be that positive connection, it doesn't have to cost a penny, right? Kind of straight to kindness is free. That's right, right, a kind word, a kind grants.

Liza Dimitri 22:14

sense. And I like I have been writing my aunt who's approaching 90, in Pennsylvania, and just sending her you know, notes here and there. You know, emailing my uncle and just, you know, well, and my mom taught us when we were growing up, and now I've pushed it on to my kids lucky, those lucky ducks. Thank you know, which I think have completely fallen by the wayside. But, you know, I tell I try to tell my kids, I'm like, This takes you less than five minutes, guys, you know, and it means so much to hear. from, you know, from you guys, and they love to hear from you. They also appreciate that you're being grateful about whatever gift they gave you. And, you know, it really doesn't take that much time. So,

John Moore 22:59

yeah, yeah, it's a big deal. And, you know, you know, which remind reminded me of something like a little bit of, you know, one of the another positive of the pandemic is my daughter's started writing letters back and forth with their friends, like even friends that live in the same sign because they're not able to see them. So they send each other letters all the time. And I don't know, personally, I don't remember the last time other than, you know, cards, and thank you notes and stuff. I don't remember the last time I actually sat down and hand wrote somebody a letter, right? Um, because, you know, we send email and we send this and we send that but they Yeah, they make little packages, and they do. And, you know, my daughters have discovered the joy of, of gift giving as well, that they exchange gifts for their friends. And, you know, they love they, they love Christmas, they get excited about giving gifts. And my birthday was a couple weeks ago, and they kept asking me, what do you want? What do you want for your birthday? What do you want for your birthday? I'm like, I don't want you to spend any money. I want you to make me something and that will be the thing. You know, whatever. They went all out. They played First of all, they they crocheted me on blanket, which was like blew my mind. My

Liza Dimitri 24:23

gosh, that's awesome.

John Moore 24:24

But then they made me this scrapbook. They took all these about 50 or so pictures of us have me with them together and made this whole scrapbook and the scrapbook had like a playlist of songs we listened to together in the car. Wow. I'm gonna cry. Yeah, yeah, just the most must have been wonderful. It was it was the most amazing gift I think I've ever received from anyone because it was so heartfelt. They had put clearly put a lot of time and effort and thought and other than to and they were so excited. I picked them up from their mom. house and they're like, you have to open your gift in the car because we can't wait. Like,

Liza Dimitri 25:04

yeah, so the other thing too, I'm always like, open it now open it open. Right. So that's wonderful, john. So yeah, I

John Moore 25:12

mean, I couldn't be I couldn't be more grateful for for that. And for, you know, and for the thought and the effort that they put in, but also that they've learned, you know, that that sort of, you know, gift giving is not necessarily about who's going to go and buy the coolest thing or whatever that it's, it's about this exchange of love. Really, right. It's about this right. I love you. And I'm going to give you something that shows that and that's how I feel about cooking. Yeah, yeah, I'm the same way with cooking. I just.

Liza Dimitri 25:51

Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to sidetrack. No,

John Moore 25:54

I started thinking about the dinner I made the other night, which I know I made lasagna

Liza Dimitri 25:57

last night. So I woke up yesterday morning, and I was thinking like, what am I gonna make for dinner? And the boys have been wanting me to make lasagna, which? I mean, it's not difficult, per se. It's

Unknown Speaker 26:07

time consuming.

Liza Dimitri 26:08

It's just a lot of work. Yeah. Yes. Like, it's like when they asked me to make polpark. And like, is that difficult? No, but Jeez, Louise, guys. Did you just look at let's pour some cereal today? I don't know. But um, no. But as long as I have the time to do it, I don't mind like, that's kind of my my other thing that I think I've realized with a pandemic, as long if I have time to do it, I don't get stressed out. Like, I just don't want to have to rush to do things just right. You know, as long as I have a little music in the background, and give me some time, and I'll make whatever you want.

John Moore 26:42

You got to have the music. I find Yes, cooking, cooking and music go hand in hand. Definitely or listen to this podcast while you cook. We'll give recipes away next. I definitely I'll get your recipe for lasagna.

Liza Dimitri 27:01

Well, that actually that brings up a funny story too, because I don't use recipes. I just Oh, yeah, mixed. Okay. And so then my husband will say, you know, how did you like? I just threw it together. But I probably could, I probably could break something down for

John Moore 27:22

the girls. The girls, mom is Filipina. And when we were when we were married, she would you know, she'd want to make something or her mom passed away. years ago. But before her mom had passed away, she would call her mom up and she's like, how do I make puns sit? Or how do I make this or how do I make that? And I was like, Oh, just you know, throw this in the pouch? Like how much will I don't know, you know, is like one of right one very similar situation. You know, I was like, yeah, you know, for cooking. Cooking is kind of an art baking as a science. But cooking is a little bit of an art where which is

Liza Dimitri 27:58

why I don't bake because it irritates me. I have to be too perfect. And I yeah, it's I can't play around with it. You know,

John Moore 28:05

I'm kind of the same way. I have a lot of respect for people who can bake and I have friends who do these amazing breads and all kinds of stuff. And I'm like, just, you know, just drop them off on my porch.

Liza Dimitri 28:17

That's I joke about it because my husband brews beer, two sides, and he makes all the baking things. I tell him I don't have patience for yeast. So I just avoid. I did. I did just,

John Moore 28:30

I did just make some I brewed I guess this would technically be considered wine. I made I just made some pineapple wine with you.

Liza Dimitri 28:41

I can't wait to hear about this.

John Moore 28:43

Yeah, so but it's dropped, dropped dead. It was dropped dead simple. Even though like the yeast reacted far faster than I expected and actually pushed. It actually pushed the airlock out of the I was

Liza Dimitri 28:57

gonna say did you have some explosions?

John Moore 29:00

A little bit of an explosion going on. There's a lot of sugar and in there. Yeah. And the yeast was like, Oh, that's really delicious. And make your stuff explode. And that's why

Liza Dimitri 29:11

lots of gobbling in carbon dioxide.

John Moore 29:13

Yeah, that's what we put an air lock on there. But yeah, I'll have to I will. It's it's in the fridge clarifying right now. But I did have to I did have to sample some. I don't know because I don't have. I don't have a gauge to check. But I think it's about 15% alcohol. So it's like, Hey, I can help you with that. We have hits hits really heavy. It's like a little glass. I'm like Oh, okay. Yeah, that works that way. Yep. But, but I don't I don't bake too much. Now and then I'll make you know, something simple like brownies or or whatever for my kids. Gosh, we could probably have a whole thing on food. Right?

Liza Dimitri 29:50

I know. I was just gonna say pinnate episode.

John Moore 29:52

I think I think it's dangerous because you and I are both foodies.

Liza Dimitri 29:55

I know. We can probably do a whole series on that. Yeah.

John Moore 30:00

For sure, for sure. So I'm gonna take, I'm gonna take a dark turn, that's my dark, that's my job term. Buckle up is my dark. That's my dark turn voice

Liza Dimitri 30:12

closer to the mic and get closer to the mic and speak

John Moore 30:15

slowly, slowly and slightly deeper voice. I'm a little bit, I have some allergy, some a little D nasal right now. So I can't go down in too far down in my lower register. But okay, um, imagine if you will,

John Moore 30:31

speaking of which, I mean, this is fun. This is an aside, it's kind of kind of funny, but interesting. A friend of mine is, you know, I have lots of friends who are musicians, I came up in music and came from a musical family, and I have friends who are performers out there. And a friend recently posted something on Facebook, and he's like, I'm trying to put together a recording of the Hallelujah chorus right handles, course. And I need people to can record at home who can sing a and who can record at home, I was like, yeah, you know, oh, I'll give it a shot. And he's like, thank goodness, we need men. So guys, I don't know what it is. But you got to step up in the singing department. Like you got to sing. So even if you don't think you're good at it, or whatever, you got to sing because I say all the time address my kids not to

Liza Dimitri 31:23

actually we have this running joke that they'll they will say something and that reminds me of a lyric from a song. So I start singing it and stop. And I was like, I challenge you just say something and I'll come up with them. They're like, yeah, so I can't remember what they did. But I did. I did like three or four examples right in a row. And, and David was like, Alright, that's I said, I told you,

John Moore 31:47

let's see, I sing and I dance. And I'm not to dance to I'm not a dancer, but I'll dance anywhere. And so even if like I'm in a in the grocery store and like something some really old song comes on over the piano because

Liza Dimitri 32:01

that's what they play in the grocery store sell Janet's music for

John Moore 32:05

quote unquote, oldies. Like I grew up listening this in high school, it's old,

Liza Dimitri 32:11

I know, which is like, I'm like, yeah, it's on and I'm like, oh, that means I'm old. But I don't care. It's a lot. It's just a number. Whatever.

John Moore 32:19

There's a lot of Billy ocean going on at the local girl.

Liza Dimitri 32:23

Yeah.

John Moore 32:24

I remember. I remember I was with the girls. I'm like, singing along to get out of my dreams get into my car. And they were like, what the heck is this song?

Unknown Speaker 32:36

Yeah, no.

Liza Dimitri 32:39

I mean, Oh, yes. Music videos. Yeah, right. Right.

John Moore 32:42

Yeah. Music Videos back when that was that was a thing.

Liza Dimitri 32:47

I mean, Michael Jackson one like was, it was like primetime TV, black and white, or whatever. They even that sound less. Yeah,

John Moore 32:53

yeah. black and white. That was a great one I remember was like morphing technology. Yeah. And being completely blown away by it. I was in. I was studying Mass Communication at the time and the technology. I was still editing video on tape, like, you know, had Yeah,

Liza Dimitri 33:09

multiple

John Moore 33:10

multiple decks and right, we're like one step above where that people would actually like cut videotape with a with a razor blade and splice. Yeah. We're just beyond that stage. And, you know, this video came out. And I was like, How the heck did they do that?

Unknown Speaker 33:27

I know,

John Moore 33:28

that was really cool. Um, nowadays, you wouldn't even need any actors to do that with all the deep fakes and all of that sort of stuff. Yeah, but very cool. But we digress, which seems to be really easy with us. And that's fine. That's totally cool. I'm sure people are really interested in our grocery store. dances,

Liza Dimitri 33:45

I'm waiting for your dark turn.

John Moore 33:46

Yeah. So this is I'll bring you back. This is this is the dark turn. And I just want to I want to touch on it briefly. Because, um, there's this, this whole idea of either toxic positivity, which feeds into what I call kind of spiritual bypassing. And there's this, there's this idea. So I, before the pandemic, I used to host this meetup, called spiritually conscious professionals meet up and it was sort of anybody, anybody could come it was it was pretty open, but we'd pick a topic and we talk about things. And I remember there was a time where these two these two young women came and they were, they were in, like, active recovery from, I think opiate addiction, like they were in a program together, going through some stuff, and they had sort of embraced some spiritual practice meditation or what have you to sort of help them get through that, that Stephanie, they came to this meeting to sort of connect with people and that sort of thing. And, and, you know, I just remember this one woman talking to me, she's like, Well, you know, I've been meditating all this time, and and This, you know, this guy cut me off in traffic, and I found myself getting enraged. And then I'm like, Well, I shouldn't do that I shouldn't feel anger. I'm this, you know, spiritual being who floats on clouds of you know, I was like, say float on clouds of unicorn farts, right? And I'm like, Okay,

Liza Dimitri 35:19

I'm on clouds of cotton candy. But

John Moore 35:21

yeah. And I'm like, so did you get angry that you were angry? And she's like, Oh, yeah. Right. And I'm like, Okay, and then did you get angry that you get angry that you get angry? And, and on down the line. And so there's this, there's this idea that you should, and shouldn't, I think are are not great words. Right, that you shouldn't experience certain things that you should be positive all the time. And, you know, there's this other thing that happens where, you know, like, somebody is grieving, for example. You know, let's say somebody loses a loved one, a loved one passes away, and people like, Oh, well, you know, they're in a better place now.

Liza Dimitri 36:02

And or Is that right?

John Moore 36:05

No, it's fine. It's good. And it's well intentioned, right? Of course, people are wanting to make you feel better. Yeah. But what they're asking you to do is to stuff your grief. They're asking you to repress what you're feeling. And that never works out. Okay? Now, that is not a good thing. You're supposed to feel these things. If you have anger about something coming up, and you're like, I shouldn't be feeling this. It's an indicator. It's an indicator that there's a wound there or a boundary violation or something. And it's not to say, you know, you shouldn't be introspective about that, like, wow, I keep getting angry about the stupid thing and I don't get it. No, there's gold there. There's gold to be dug. They're like, you get introspective about it and say why, you know, after the after the fact feel what you're feeling, let it let it go pass. But so there's, you know, there particularly in you, you may or may not have been around, like, sort of the spiritual community in the way that I have. Like, there's a lot of the unicorn fart cloud folks out there, right where I am. No, that's about I am. I am ascended. I am you know, I'm, I'm working on this. I'm Ascended Master and I don't have base human desires or emotions. Um, and 100% of the time, that's crap. Like, I have never, I have never met somebody.

Liza Dimitri 37:48

First. My second there, john, I thought you were saying that was you? That was

John Moore 37:52

like, Oh, that's totally made. I never complained about anything or have negative I have no, I said,

Liza Dimitri 38:00

no waiting for

John Moore 38:03

what, but I am ascended to the 49th plane of existence. No, I'm

Liza Dimitri 38:09

still learning about what what exactly that you do and stuff. So Is he serious right now?

John Moore 38:14

Nobody knows what I do. It's a secret. Um, no, I so I, you know, one of the things so my personal path. You know, the personal path that I have, sort of chosen or that has chosen me in this life, is that I practice shamanism as my main form of what I call like practical spirituality. It's like, that's my practice, I do certain things that are considered shamanic, I have training, and I have clients that I work with, and that sort of thing. And one of the things that appeals to me about this particular path is that my teachers are human beings. Right? And I always say, like, even people that I teach, I'm a guide, not a guru. And I had a, I had a client recently talked to me, and she's like, yeah, you know, my, I'm a little worried about, like, falling getting sucked into something or getting falling, you know, falling into something. And I'm like, I get that Me too. Like, that scares the heck out of me. I don't, you know, I guess if that's your path to follow a guru or whatever, that's totally fine. But that's something that that's something that I am not, and I don't place myself above anyone or anything like that or above. Human. I'm a human being. And as you know, shamanic practitioner, I'm supposed to be standing in both worlds, right? I'm supposed to like, there's somebody who has a shamanic podcast out there and she talks about all these practices, and then she goes at the end she go, but does it grow corn? Right. Does it grow corn? Because ultimately she

Liza Dimitri 39:53

from Indiana?

John Moore 39:54

I don't know. Um, she's from the US but you know, but I love that expression does it grow corn, like I can, you know, do all of these, you know, I can do all these practices, these cool meditative practices and shamanic journeying, and all of this stuff. But ultimately, I have to come back here and grow, grow corn. And it was the role of, you know, the role of the shaman in their cultures, not just to heal, but frequently, like, you got to know how to plant corn, you got to know how to do this and that. And so, you know, I think that I have a body and a physical existence for a reason. And then I have to show up in the world, and then I have to have these experiences. And I don't feel like I'm above that. And I think so I think what happens is that spiritual development can be very hubris, mystic, meaning it can develop an inflated sense of ego, sometimes, right. And, you know, it's something, some, it's a struggle, it is like, you know, your, your, you know, your development, you know, you might realize you have certain abilities or certain skills or certain things. You know, and it's really important not to place I don't, you know, not to place yourself above others in my, in my practice in my, in my belief system anyway,

Liza Dimitri 41:22

I don't Well, I think that's good in life period.

John Moore 41:24

Yeah, I think in general in life, but just so it's just something I know, it's something I recognize, and so it's the sort of toxic positivity that, and they did a whole podcast on the shadow, right? And about how we, as a culture, there's this cultural thing, where we're like, Okay, I have these desires, and or I have these feelings, and my culture tells me, I'm not supposed to have them. So what do we do with them is that we stuffed them down, and we pretend they're not there. And then we don't look at them. But they're still there. And if we don't address them, they're going to pop up in really weird ways, or really destructive ways. Because their, you know, their urges or feelings or emotions or things that we have exiled. Right, that we don't we don't look at that we don't, we're not in self examination of. And so when we talk about the shadow, a lot of times people are like, well, if I, if I embrace my shadow, I'm gonna become a serial killer, or a rapist or whatever. No, no, that's not how it works. How it works is if you don't address these things, then those are the things that come out. If you don't address Oh, man, you know, you know, this guy cut me off in traffic, and I really had the desire to punch him in the head. Right? I would never do that. I would never punch somebody in the head. Right? If I don't recognize that anger is coming from somewhere can never work on it. Right? That's not me. I don't have those feelings. I'm right. I'm above that.

Liza Dimitri 42:54

I know, I know. I totally know what you're talking about. And I never really realized, well, of course, everything has a name, I suppose. But if I I'm generally a pretty positive person, as I think you probably figured out Yeah, yeah. Happy, Happy most of the time, just because I choose to be, but when I'm not in a good mood, or something's really bugging me, and I am like, Whoa, why am I and I reflect and think and then like, Oh, it's because of that. And I'm like, That's stupid. I don't need to be this upset about that. You know, it's like, usually somebody's really trivial and, and it's already past and who cares anymore? So, but if you said, I acknowledge it, I'm like, okay, that's why I'm upset. And then I move on.

John Moore 43:36

Yeah, I mean, I think you, I think you hit on the key there, like you, you honor and acknowledge that you have a feeling and that that it's fine. Like you're a human being who has this experience. And then, but then you can be introspective about it and say, okay, you know, this is not something I really, you know, there's no, you know, we talk about like the amygdala, which is the part of the brain that gets triggered when there's danger, right? And, you know, human beings, we evolved, whether we're like saber toothed Tigers out to kill us in the grass, right? Right, we are amygdalas haven't changed since those times and so they get turned on. At weird times, with things that aren't actual existential threats to us, our brain treats them that way. And it's why there are a lot of stress related diseases. Because our cortisol and our amygdala is turned on all the time, this sort of low level that our ancestors never evolved to experience right it was like fight or flight. Okay, the the dangers over I'm okay, now I can reset. But we you know, many of us punch a clock from nine to five, five days a week in jobs that we don't really love. And so this is a sort of low level threat going along. And I think one way to counter what you know counter that amygdala core does All experiences with gratitude and some positivity and some, you know, this is may sound redundant but positive positivity as opposed to Yeah. toxic. Non non toxic positivity.

Liza Dimitri 45:13

Let's make it a thing.

John Moore 45:14

Yes, Yes, we should. we'll print the shirts and get the bumper stickers.

Liza Dimitri 45:19

Perfect. You

John Moore 45:19

heard it here first. I want stickers. Oh, stickers. Yeah, we can definitely do stickers and pins, little pins. Yeah. We'll do the whole thing. Um, but yeah, I think positive positivity. And there's a there's a practice. So, you know, gratitude seems like a really big seems like a really big word sometimes even though it's a short word, but gratitude, like feeling like, oh, what do I have to be grateful for? And, you know, maybe if you're listening to this, your life circumstances are not what you'd like them to be. And that's probably true for from, you know, most people. Gosh, I mean, I guess I would have to play the lottery to win. But you know, who wouldn't love to win? Who wouldn't? Like I

Liza Dimitri 46:01

wouldn't I know. I love what they say, you know, Money can't buy you happiness. I'm like, Well, I'm pretty happy right now. But I've thrown my way. I think that's Yeah, I

John Moore 46:09

mean, money can't necessarily buy you happiness, but it can sure, you know, pay off a lot of misery.

Liza Dimitri 46:17

You know, pay that bill. Yeah.

John Moore 46:20

Yeah. So I think, you know, that can be challenging when we're living in situations that actually feel really, like we're mired in sometimes feels really low and stuff. And so I always try to give people a little bit of like, practical stuff, like, what can I What can I do about that? And so a synonym for gratitude, I think, is appreciation. Right? Yeah, that's a longer word. Um, what can I appreciate? And I think you can start with really Oh, and as I said, That, my crow friend who I was gonna

Liza Dimitri 46:55

say, the crows back,

John Moore 46:57

the crow is back. I call her Crook Wing because she has a little wing show, one of her wings is injured, doesn't seem to affect her at all. But she hangs down. And I think she's, she's strong, she is strong. And I think she's in charge. But she literally just flew up in front of my window. So Oh, and there's her friend. So there's a couple of throat crows. But kerkeling is right in front of me at this moment. And yeah, I feed them and talk to them. When I go out. And they, they yell at me. I don't know what they're saying yet. But these days, I'll work it out. But I love crows. And I'm

Liza Dimitri 47:31

literally very smart.

John Moore 47:33

So like, I like to leave people with something practical that they can do. You know, based on what what I'm talking about during the podcast. And so you know, one of the things when I find it hard to be in gratitude, when maybe life is getting me down a little bit, or there's some circumstances that are sort of hard to get over. I start with what are the smallest things that I can appreciate right now. And this actually what it does is it trains my brain. Like we're conditioned, we're we're wired, but we're also conditioned to look for negativity to look for threats to look for things that are that are bad, you know, the tiger in the woods, so to speak, the saber toothed Tiger in the woods. So how do we start getting our brain to look for the positives? Right? How do we start to get out of that a little bit. And so there's a little exercise that I have done with some degree of success, and I'll share it because maybe somebody else will find some value in that. I'm sure they will. And that is like really, really small. How do you start a habit you start really small, small pieces of appreciation. What can I appreciate? Well, today, I can appreciate something small like having the electricity and internet connection to have this conversation with you. There we go. And to record this like that's really small. Gosh, do I appreciate the cup of coffee I have in front of me. small small things of appreciation, you do not have to go look for the large the big things to be grateful for right because life's not always like that. Life's not always like you know, oh, hey, I did just win the lottery or Hey, I got the greatest job. Or hey, I got you know, the love of my life showed up, you know, dropped dropped into my lap from the heavens. Mmm hmm. You know, it

Liza Dimitri 49:27

doesn't go ahead. No, I was gonna say that reminds me of something my mom wrote, you know, says a lot is God bless my rut. Like, I'm always happy when you know we've got heat in the house the powers on the kids are healthy, you know, the sun shining, like seriously, I I water's running out of my faucet. I can drink the water like a MP and that's why I think some people think I'm a little cuckoo, because I do get excited and happy about those things. But you know I don't know, maybe that's why I am the way I am.

John Moore 50:02

No, I completely agree. And I and, you know, the people that get cuckoo over the positivity part, you know, they're particularly we talked about this, like we live in, you know, I, I've listeners, apparently from 27 countries right now, which is pretty cool.

Liza Dimitri 50:18

So cool. I really matter today,

John Moore 50:21

maybe 20. After today, I'm really, I'm really grateful for all of my listeners, particularly all over the world, there's people in India and Russia and Bangladesh and Japan and Canada and New Zealand. And, you know, I apologize for not remembering every country that we have people listening from. Um, but yeah, I mean, it's, it's, you know, people are, you know, we, we grew up in this New England area of, of the US, and if you're not familiar, that's in the far northeast of, of the United States. And we, you know, this area was settled by the pilgrims who were Puritans, and they were Calvinists. And that has affected our culture, the culture here for hundreds and hundreds of years. And that philosophy was all about you, kinda, you know, to boil it down and make it seem really silly, was about you should be miserable to show God that you're worthy of going to heaven.

Liza Dimitri 51:23

Right? No, but that's pretty much Yeah, that's it.

John Moore 51:26

That's it. And suffering is, you know, suffering is holy, and pleasure is unholy. And all of these things

Liza Dimitri 51:34

are definitely not going to happen based on

John Moore 51:37

Total War. Nor am I and, you know, gosh, if I had to hang out with a bunch of pilgrims in heaven, although they did drink a whole lot of beer, apparently because the water so they made a whole lot. It was like one of the first thing like yeah, we're running out of beer, we better you know, make land. They drank a whole lot of beer, instead of water.

Liza Dimitri 51:59

So, so that has water. That's why you drink beer.

John Moore 52:04

That's right. And so that has pervaded the culture here, right? And so it's funny because you know, my relatives, I think about my grandmother's a really positive person, we're in really good person. She's 104, almost 105. And she now lives in real South Carolina, but she was born in Bath Maine in 1916. And, um, I met like, imagine growing up here, like I, I go outside, and like, Man, it's cold here, and, you know, whatever. And likewise, I'm grateful for heat and electricity and running water. She was born without all of that. Imagine bath, Maine. And if you're listening this and you don't know where that is, it's very cold in the winter. It's very cold and they didn't have cars. They didn't have electricity. You know, the

Liza Dimitri 52:53

beautiful there. I wouldn't mind growing up. And

John Moore 52:55

sure. They took one bath of water, one bath a week and all the kids shared the same water and it went. Youngest if you were if you were the youngest kid, you got the dirtiest bathwater. So yeah, you would have got the clean bathwater. All right, you would have been all set all set. And as I'm saying this a little chickadee isn't relative give me a play by play of the birds in my yard. But no, I

Liza Dimitri 53:19

watched the birds too. I love the

John Moore 53:20

birds, a pair of chickadees just flew into my yard and chickadee is the state bird of Maine. And there's a joke because they're the only bird not smart enough to fly. So there are a number of birds that don't fly south and winter but chickadees are very sweet. And they have a very sweet call. And there's

Liza Dimitri 53:37

no say they are there. No

John Moore 53:39

black capped chickadees they're they're beautiful little birds and they have the sweetest little calls and I just love them. I don't know if they're my favorite bird, but I do love chickadees Mm hmm. I don't know if I could pick a favorite.

Liza Dimitri 53:50

I know I was just thinking that when you said that. I mean I love Cardinals customer read. Yes, just yeah, you gotta fall but, and people like Blue Jays. But honestly, I find them highly obnoxious.

John Moore 54:02

They can Blue Jays can be very aggressive.

Liza Dimitri 54:04

They're so loud. Like, oh my gosh. They're beautiful to look at, but just don't open your mouth. Right? It's a big I suppose.

John Moore 54:15

There is a there is a raven that lives around here somewhere. And I only know because I can hear it and I have never seen it. But it lives close by and you can you know, it's so throaty and gravelly and like that's definitely not a crow. But I haven't seen him or her yet. Maybe Maybe one of these days he'll make an appearance. I don't know. But they're they're a little more solitary than crows. So it's probably not a whole lot of them out there. So I think it's I think it may be just one or two. But anyway, talk about tangents.

Liza Dimitri 54:50

That's Episode Four. I think we're at

John Moore 54:52

Yeah, we're gonna do birds and food and all kinds of stuff. And in you know in the demonic world, birds are frequently messengers. We look at them as, for me, crows are big omens they show up. Usually, usually if I'm saying something, it's like an or doing something, it's like an acknowledgment. Like, yeah, you should be doing this or talking about this, or, you know, they'll show up very frequently in certain numbers when you know, I'm, I'm about to go do something I remember going, you know, during my apprenticeship, in shamanism, every time I was going to go meet with my teacher, I would, there would be two of them, like just hanging out on the side of the road on the on the way every single time and I was like, Okay, I got it. I got it. I understand. I get it. Suppose crows are very cool. And they're smart. They're smart as heck. They are very smart. Yes. Um, love crows. Some people don't like crows, but I don't get that.

Liza Dimitri 55:51

Well, you know, they're picking around in garbage. So it's easy to you know,

John Moore 55:56

well, they do. I mean, they will eat they will eat crops too, and they'll be really smart about it. So some people don't. I'm not a farmer. I do live I live next door to a farm but I not a farmer. So yeah, I don't have to worry so much about them eating my crops, but you can feed them. They like dog food like kibble you can feed them Oh, really?

Liza Dimitri 56:14

Yeah. Yeah. Cuz they're nasty. What you've had a look at their meat

John Moore 56:17

eaters, they, they'll eat carrion. They'll eat seed, for sure. But they'll eat. They'll eat anything. There are kind of omnivores. haven't gone out. Like you can feed them like hamburger and stuff. But I have a thing about putting out raw meat. So

Liza Dimitri 56:31

yeah, that's probably not a good. Yes.

John Moore 56:33

Yeah. There are bears around here. So

Liza Dimitri 56:36

I know where you live. And I will say, I know pudding. I know where you live.

John Moore 56:44

This podcast if we don't agree.

Liza Dimitri 56:46

I don't agree with that i would not put out probably that's probably not

John Moore 56:50

wise. raw meat. Yeah, we would get all kinds of wildlife here. If I did. I mean, bears bears will go after bird feeders too. But not, you know, you know, only if they stumble upon them. They can't smell them some miles away. We're putting out raw meats, inviting. We have coyotes. We have all kinds of stuff here. It's cool. It's cool. I love that. I love that aspect of where I live that there's so much wildlife here. And there's a wildlife park about about a mile up the road from here that I'm sure

Liza Dimitri 57:18

you know, the people that run it. Oh, cool.

John Moore 57:21

Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing. They rescue all kinds of wildlife. And you can go see moose and bear and deer is really cool. All kinds of stuff.

Liza Dimitri 57:29

porcupine. Actually, it's funny that you say that. And so I'm going to take it as a sign since you brought that up to tell the story or maybe you want to tell me to be quiet. But they have ravens there. Yes. And so you're talking about how their intelligence and stuff and, and my friend Joelle was telling me that, you know, of course they be the animals on schedule. And I think the the raven learned about the weekends or something like that I'm trying to remember exactly. But anyway, the point of the story is that he would hide food to save for later like, he wouldn't eat all of it. And they and they found that he was like, just keeping it in another place. So he would have more fun later and stuff like that. I was just like, Whoa,

John Moore 58:09

yeah, yeah, they're pretty cool. They're so smart. They've you know, yeah, I could go off on on corvids and how how flippin intelligent they are. And they've shown they've shown behaviors that are we only thought that primates were capable of. So there's a lot of research with research with birds. parrots are another one that are that are just as smart and but corvids like crows and ravens and crows. Crows actually do social learning, which is incredible, if you think about that. So they actually, you know, they'll gather to, you know, witness something, and they'll remember human faces. So if you cross a crow, man, I'm telling you, they will remember they will remember you notice, but if you treat them well, they'll also remember you So okay, you can get it get into good relationship with crows in nature and stuff. So where, you know, we've been talking for like an hour.

Liza Dimitri 59:09

I know. I feel like we could still do more time. But

John Moore 59:12

yeah, we'll do we'll have to do some more. Yeah, well, we'll have to do some more. But I, you know, I do. I appreciate that we've gone off on lots of different tangents clearly we have lots lots to talk about. But, you know, we you know, just to bring it back about the practice of gratitude and positivity and spirituality and maybe wrap it up in a little little bow or something. I don't think you know, when you and I are, you know, I you identify as Catholic, I believe and I identify as a shamanic practitioner and stuff like that. But, you know, ultimately this, you know, the practice it doesn't matter, right because right practice, this practice of gratitude of, you know, of this positive, positive What are we calling it? I don't know. Yeah, yeah, about that. So well, we can

Liza Dimitri 1:00:03

work on it. But yeah,

John Moore 1:00:04

we'll work on the brand. Yeah. But it's, um, this transcends that this transcends any sort of differences that people might have. Because this is just a human thing. Right, this is a thing that we know, we even know. And this is an area that you know, and I always talk about, I like the intersection of sort of science and spirituality, right, where we have research around this, we have research that shows this as effective that this is, this is a practice that works. It can be part of your, it can be part of your daily meditation, or just whatever, or part of your, you know, and there are a lot of spiritual systems or religions where gratitude is part of your prayer practice, right? So this can be this can be a big part of it. And I would say that it's not thinking grad thinking thoughts of gratitude are, you know, is definitely a good thing. But expressions of gratitude, whether they're in a diary, or to another human being seemed to be an important part of that, like getting it out of you getting the gratitude out of you. And into the world, even if it's just a diary that nobody else reads. There's something about that, maybe there's some great research that I can turn up on that. Sure, sure. I will talk about it at some point in the future, but it's we've we've been talking for an hour I do need to wrap up is so I know uh, you know, I know you didn't come on here to like plug anything. But do you want to talk about your your business or plug your website at all? if people are interested?

Liza Dimitri 1:01:45

Oh, gosh, you know what? You say that I am small on purpose. And I'm scared to even say that. Oh, yeah, I think I'm gonna get orders from all over the place from Nepal. I

John Moore 1:01:56

don't know.

Liza Dimitri 1:01:57

I mean, so here I mean, international, because, because I well know I've shipped to Hawaii and Alaska, but that's about Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, so three spicy boys. The number three is a barbecue sauce that, you know, it grew from my love of cooking. And my mom said last night, you need to do something with it. And so it's our fault. That's my, my speech. I have eight flavors. And I just I just love to cook and I don't know.

John Moore 1:02:26

Yeah, and I know. So yeah, you do a lot of and I and I, I bought some I bought some from you to send down to my mom at Christmas time this year. And you know, I know you ship out and stuff. And then there's some local local places here. You know, if you ever traveled to Maine, and you go to

Liza Dimitri 1:02:45

evidence stores, there's a couple and Scarborough in Portland and Poland. And gray I think has to maybe look around. Yeah, and, and Auburn, loosen restaurants and stuff. So

John Moore 1:02:58

cool. Oh, yeah. And so you're in restaurants as well. Right. So

Liza Dimitri 1:03:01

yeah, so yeah, the Kibo is the library cafe. Oh, yeah. So they have it on pizza there. And great ingredients has a mainly Maple chicken sandwich. Which I think is our number one selling sandwich. Not to brag or anything, but Whoa.

John Moore 1:03:18

Yeah. I mean, actually, actually, I gotta say. So here's a little secret.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:22

I'm going to tell you. Okay. Get close. I

John Moore 1:03:25

think I think I bought three jars of sauce from you for Christmas to send to my mom. And I think only two of them got sent to my mom and one of them. The mainly Maple stayed here with me. Uh huh. So I'm gonna have to try it on the

Unknown Speaker 1:03:42

like, Oh,

John Moore 1:03:42

it's amazing. Absolutely amazing. Yeah, yeah, but I haven't tried to let chicken sandwich yet but I'm gonna go I might have to go. I might have to go to gritties and give that a shot. But I understand why that's their their best. Sandwich sauces, sauces, King. Yeah, I mean, that's, that's exciting. I mean, yeah, I know. Okay, so I know, you're interesting, staying small, but I was want to give people a chance. If they've gotten I appreciate

Liza Dimitri 1:04:07

it. It's okay. Because I, you know, I people don't need to go to Whole Foods or you know, Halfords, and I'm like, What if they say, yes,

John Moore 1:04:16

right, then you have to ramp up production? Yeah, I've known I've known people who had, like, a, like a small business, and then they got on QVC. Right. And, and they could not keep up with, like, QVC was like, we need, we need you to make up, you know, 100,000 of these things, right. They were selling and they were like, No, we can't. Okay, then we're done. You know, then we're done with you. So I get I get it a little bit. I understand. Yeah, I understand. But that's not you know, I'm sure you'd figure it out. If you had to

Liza Dimitri 1:04:55

figure it out. I was still trying to decide whether I want to go back to teaching this fall. So maybe I'll Yeah,

John Moore 1:05:01

yeah, if you ever need me to come over and stir the pot, I'm a good taste tester.

Liza Dimitri 1:05:07

In case I can't Yeah,

John Moore 1:05:08

I will sample I'm like, yeah, yeah. Okay, this one's good.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:12

Yep. Yeah,

John Moore 1:05:14

totally. Totally. Alright. Awesome. Well, it has been fantastic talking to you. I really I am grateful for you taking time out of your I'm sure extremely busy day today. And, and, and chatting with me. I wish you the best of luck and I hope that you'll come on again. We'll chat. Lower styling. Absolutely

Liza Dimitri 1:05:36

love.

John Moore 1:05:37

We can chat. We can chat about love languages in the spiritual nature of food. Sure how cooking for people can be a real

Liza Dimitri 1:05:46

Oh, absolutely. I'm, it's I made dinner for our family. I mean, now that sounds like I'm bragging. not bragging, but I'm just giving an example. So I made food for somebody last week and making some soup for somebody else tomorrow. Wow.

John Moore 1:06:00

There you go. There you go. Yeah. Cool. All right. Well, with that I'm gonna wrap up and you'll hear my you'll hear my outro next

Liza Dimitri 1:06:11

that's gonna say thank you, john. It was it's been so much fun. I really appreciate it but but a big smile on my face for most of this hour. Excellent. Excellent.

Announcer 1:06:50

You have been listening to speaking spirit with your host, john more. For more info or to contact john go to MaineShaman.com that's MaineShaman.com

Ep10 Overcoming Poverty Mindset

Announcer 0:29

Hello, and welcome to speaking spirit where we talk about all things spiritual. Your host, john Moore is a shamanic practitioner and spiritual teacher. And now here's john.

John Moore 0:46

Hey, everybody. I have a very, I hope exciting. definitely exciting for me podcast episode this morning, while I'm recording in the morning, you may be listening, whatever time it is where you are.

Today, I have my first guest. This is something I've been promising for a while. But you don't just have to listen to the sound of my voice. And I'm so excited to introduce you to my dear friend, Jessica verrill.

And I'll tell you a little bit about Jessica, and we're going to talk about something I think is of interest to everyone today. So Jessica verrill is the founder and CEO of blue indigo publishing services she provides so lead leaders a global platform to showcase their skills through the process of becoming best selling authors. Her skills as an intuitive coach and energetic Alchemist support high levels of growth and alignment with the intention of attracting high end clients and opportunities. Jessica resides in Maine with her husband and daughter, where she loves connecting with nature gardening and being of service. And amen to all of that, and I am so happy to have another maner on here.

Good morning, Jessica. How are you?

Jessica Verrill 2:08

I'm well, john. Thank you.

John Moore 2:10

Excellent. And we're gonna you know, we're definitely going to talk a bit about the, you know, the projects, I know you have a lot going on, I don't even know everything that you have going on. So I'm excited to hear about that.

you know, why don't you tell? Once you tell us all I'm sure I will learn a tremendous amount about that. And why that why is that an important topic to you?

Jessica Verrill 2:45

Yeah, awesome. Thank you for having me. Oh, you're so welcome. Yeah.

I'm excited to be here and your first guest. Yeah. Um, yeah. So poverty mindset is something that I've experienced myself and come up a lot with, with my clients, and now with the publishing aspect of my business is something that I'm noticing coming up a lot. And I think a lot of times, people in the spiritual community or in the helping professions don't even realize that it's something that they have, or that they're even aware of. Yeah. And, you know, it's like,

I sit here, and I think about it. And, you know, I think that there's always levels to everything, like there's always a next level that you can grow into. But looking back on how far I've come and how far I've come through, shifting my mindset around this, and how much has changed my life is something that I've been really passionate about wanting to kind of talk a little bit more about and dispel some of the myths. Yeah, I think it's such an important topic. I, I'm sure I had a similar similar experience and upbringing where, you know, I grew up, you know, and not so such great circumstances, and it sort of creates this.

John Moore 4:19

This sense of undeserving pneus I think, for lack of a better term is that do you think that that's a big part of it? Do you think like, up upbringing and how that affects you? You know, later in life, obviously, you know, I just, I just turned 49 I'm, you know, pushing half a century and I find my upbringing still having an effect on my life, and, you know, that sort of thing.

Jessica Verrill 4:44

Yeah, I mean, it definitely does. Of course, you know, our most formidable years are up until we're seven years old. So, of course, that's going to have such a massive impact on our lives.

I think there's such a strong past life component. as well. And definitely a lot of like societal in, like energetic agreements that we need to work through, when we're on the spiritual path and actually promoting ourselves as such, you know?

John Moore 5:18

Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's, it's funny that you mentioned that that somebody I don't even remember who at some point, somebody, you know, made the following statement. And I don't know how true it is. But it seems like it could be true that a lot of people who are on the spiritual path, you know, over many lifetimes, you know, may have been sort of monks or, you know, priests or something in past lives where, hey, I took a vow of poverty, right, I took a vow of not having any personal possessions and not owning things, and, you know, that sort of thing. And still living that out. Right. I'm still living even though that may have been many lifetimes ago, I'm, I'm still living that out. I don't know how true that is. Do you? In your work? Have you found? Have you found that to sort of be the case? Or is that just sort of a story somebody told me?

Jessica Verrill 6:16

I've definitely noticed that, when I've done, you know, past, like work and shipping for people, like, I've definitely noticed that there's a lot of vows of poverty. And the other thing that goes in along with this is the visibility, you know, it's really hard to really be prosperous and abundant in your life, if you have visibility issues. Yeah. You know, whether it's in our province poverty, or like the witch's wound, or or whatever, right, you know, what those lifetimes of those massacres and all of that, you know, I think between the two of them, they're, they're very powerful for a lot of people.

John Moore 6:58

Absolutely, absolutely. And we're, I mean, we still live in this culture, you know, where, you know, is commenting at one point that, you know, we still have witches, as the bad guys in our movies, right, we still so, you know, even though, that whole hysteria might have been hundreds of years ago, in the Western world, where, you know, anybody who was a little different, and particularly women were persecuted. You know, we still live in that culture, we still are experiencing those things coming up. You know, the Wizard of Oz with a good, which didn't quite do it for us completely. But, you know, in our culture, we're still exposed to those, you know, those images as sort of, I don't know what you want to say like this. Anybody who's sort of manifesting or changing their reality, or that sort of thing, there's a tint of evil, you know, placed around that sometimes. Do you find that as well?

Jessica Verrill 8:11

Yeah, you're so right, you know, it's still it's still definitely out there. And, you know, and some of the movies like Maliphant comes to mind. He, like, it turns out that it's like, they end up seeing her as just really wanting to protect her and being loving and all of that. And so it does shift some of the light on that, but there's still so many of those constructs of the, the villain being the, you know, the sorcerer, the witch, who's, you know, either power hungry, or just trying to destroy the world. Right?

John Moore 8:45

Right. And it's such an archetype. Well, clearly, it's coming through in our mythology, like most maleficence pop culture, but it's still a part of what I would consider our modern mythology that, you know, thank goodness for that movie. I, I love the message of that, right? Because I think these things, these sorcerers, these, you know, dark beings, I think they represent their archetypes. They represent parts of our culture, they represent parts of ourselves that are down in the shadow write down things that we aren't looking at. And when we work I did I did an episode on Shadow Work. And you know, when we work on these things, when we bring them to light, we realize that they have good intentions for us that they have so much power and so much light and so much good stuff to process.

Jessica Verrill 9:33

Totally, oftentimes the things that we're really trying to push away so much have their greatest gifts, you know, they're the they're the pieces that once we learn how to accept them and integrate them. You're like, Oh, this is here to serve me, not not hinder me or hold me back.

John Moore 9:51

Right. Right. For sure. I want to there's an aspect of How should I put the sort of prosperity or abundance or manifestation? Or, or what have you? There are these sort of two opposing viewpoints depending on who you talk to. One, for example, is that, you know, and I get this sometime because I, you know, I see clients as a shamanic practitioner and I teach, I teach shamanism and other you know, teach meditation and other classes. And sometimes I get, and I understand the whole putting yourself out there thing, right, the visibility issue, because anytime you're, anytime you're visible, you're sort of inviting, you know, you're inviting commentary or sorts of things for people that don't necessarily understand you. And that can be sort of threatening, but sometimes they get pushed back saying, you know, because I charge money for my services, right? And, you know, I get pushback, you know, spiritual teaching spiritual healing, you should never, you should never accept anything in exchange for that. The other side of that, which I'm clearly I'm on, is that there, you know, there should be an exchange of energy, right. And in our, in our culture, and in most cultures, not today, you know, money is money, it's just a symbol of energy that gets, you know, transferred for from one but, but that there should be some exchange. And, you know, for me, I live in a house that I have to pay for, and I have children that have to be fed, and I can't do this work if I can't take care of my needs. And so, you know, I guess maybe there's a third, third aspect is that it's just necessary to live in this culture. I don't live you know, I don't live in a culture where, you know, that's tribal, where a tribe is taking care of me while I'm dealing with the spiritual needs of the community. Right? I don't, I don't live in that culture. So that doesn't work for me. Do you find, you know, do you have you seen this dichotomy? I guess, is what I'm asking.

Jessica Verrill 12:13

Oh, definitely. Even even so much. You know, as, as recently I've had backlash towards myself from you know, quote unquote, friend who also isn't isn't spiritual work for charging for services. Yeah. And it's kind of like, you know, the, the whole energy behind it. And what I really believe is that it's, you know, I know that I came here for a big mission, I came here to change the consciousness. And I have experienced, like, so many of us, I've experienced so many trials and challenges, and hardships, and pain, because of that, like getting me to wear that I need to be now.

John Moore 13:02

Absolutely.

Jessica Verrill 13:03

I'm not doing anybody any good. If I'm sitting, you know, in a cardboard box on the street, because I don't have the money to provide for myself. So then, if my physical needs because we we are spiritual, but we have physical bodies in this earth plane, if my needs and my security are not met, then I'm not going to be able to get to that level that I need to, for myself, for my clients or for the for the mission that I'm here to do. And, you know, I really believe it. Well, there and then there's another aspect of it as well. I mean, there's definitely going back to what you were saying at the beginning, the whole like self worth, and all of that definitely comes into play. There's a lot of stigma still in a lot of spiritual communities about charging or charging while for the work that you do. But it's also when I have invested high levels to work with somebody. I show up in a different way. You know, I was giving the example of someone the other day I had, I had a session with someone the other day that was, you know, what someone called fairly expensive. I showed up, I had my questions I prepared before I was ready. And had that been a fraction of the price, I probably would have just showed up and been like, Okay, I'm here and just whatever's gonna come through. So there's a whole other level of, you know, really being able to charge in a way that's going to suit your needs, your education, you being able to continue to work and healing yourself, getting to those elevated states without worrying about Money. And, you know, really being able to show up fully and enjoy life. I mean, we came here with a big mission, and it's been challenging, but aren't we supposed to enjoy the earthly things along the way as well?

John Moore 15:15

I couldn't, I couldn't agree more. I, I, you know, I definitely it's interesting, because we haven't talked before this, but I didn't, didn't realize you'd receive the same backlash, but it's not surprising to me, either. But, you know, the story that you told us is extremely interesting, right. So, I do think that when people invest heavily in work that they're doing, you know, and that means different things for different people. But yeah, there is this whole, okay, you know, this is something that I have determined is important to me to this level, and I am going to get the most out of it. And I've done, you know, I have done my fair share of free work for people I have, you know, worked as a coach and, you know, done sort of pay me pay me what you want kind of situations, I taught martial arts for a really long time. And I was like, I just, you know, just show up and, and what I thought what I found in it's exactly what you're describing is that people just didn't show up, they just either completely no showed or just weren't present when they were there, because they weren't actually invested, they were sort of dipping their toes into whatever it was I was doing. And I do like, you know, I think that people who are sort of spreading light in the world, like yourself, you know, the work that you're doing is, is important, and you can find ways to touch communities. You know, I do this podcast, you know, and clearly, people can download this for free. And I hope that it's incredibly useful and that sort of thing. But I couldn't just do this for a living. I couldn't pay my bills, and, you know, some small fraction of people who I'm also on the radio every week, right, and some very small fraction of people who listen to this podcast or hear me on the radio, actually contact me for sort of deeper work. And then that's completely understood. And those are the people who are meant to sort of work with me one on one, right, and there's sort of self selecting. But yeah, there's this sort of, in the beginning, when I first sort of hung a shingle as a shamanic practitioner, and I was I was very timid about asking people to pay me for a session. But I can't do it for free. I've got to pay for you know, well, right now everything's remote, but, you know, pay for office space and pay for insurance and everything else that goes along with that. And you're absolutely right. I mean, we are we are living in bodies, and we're meant to experience the world. You know, we are we are spirits. But we're, you know, we have bodies for a reason. We're here to experience things. And there is nothing wrong with enjoyment. There's nothing wrong with with any of that. And there's nothing in my opinion wrong with wanting what you want, just because you want it. That's another another maybe aspect of poverty mindset, where there's a lot of judgment around the things that you want. boy did I grew up with that I think my parents had sort of the intention of, well, we can't afford a lot of things because I grew up fairly, not not materially comfortable a lot of the time. And, you know, my parents would sort of shamed me for wanting a new toy, or, you know, that sort of thing. Oh, you don't want that. That's a waste of you know that. So we've always sort of excuses. And I think they were trying to not make me feel bad about us. Not having, you know, not having material means, but I think it has the opposite effect in the long run.

Jessica Verrill 19:17

Yeah, it's, um, definitely, definitely the way that we're brought up and all of the, you know, and actually, I'm starting to write a book in the end, that's part of, of what I'm going into all the all of the the programming that we are brought into this, and and how, how most of the time, it really doesn't serve us.

John Moore 19:45

Yeah. Yeah, I couldn't, I couldn't agree more. I mean, and it's not I mean, not to go too far off on a tangent. It's not just about poverty mindset, and I know you and I have had at least brief conversations about this. You know, about toxic masculinity in this whole, you know, I do a lot of work in the space of divine masculine, divine feminine, that sort of thing and how? Yeah, I mean, even, you know, I consider myself a feminist because I don't think the patriarchy serves anybody. Like, I don't think it's good for men or women to grow up, where toxic masculinity is the norm. And I realized that's a tangent, but I'm going on. But yeah, I mean, we, you know, we're so conditioned by the culture that we live in, and we're soaking in, our parents were conditioned, and our grandparents and even just in this lifetime, and, you know, there's the, there's the ancestral connection as well. I mean, most of most people who are now living in the United States, if your parents and grandparents were born here, you come from an ancestral line that was usually escaping something, either, you know, poverty, extreme poverty, you know, I have relatives who came over during the Irish potato famine, for example. So people were starving to death. Or you escaping religious persecution. So there's that whole aspect of it. Or if you're, if you're native, if you're, if you're a Native American, and you your line was born here, you were, you know, the the genocide and oppression that you went through, and they're still going through today. So yeah, I mean, we we encounter so much of that along our, our ancestral lines as well, I'm, I'm sure. You don't want to put words in your mouth, but I'm sure you work with people in their ancestral lines, as well, as you know, sort of past life work.

Jessica Verrill 21:49

Yeah, that's definitely a big piece of it. And, you know, I think that's so much of what we are. What we're here to do is to shift into clear and to deprogram those things for us, and then for future generations. It's, that's, I mean, that's so much of what I feel like I've spent the last 20 years doing is really, like, deprogramming and clearing out and healing all of that. All of the societal and ancestral and past life stuff. So I could get to this point of being present and being like, Okay, and now my work has failed, like it shifted it where it's more like, Okay, now we're focusing on building the new now we're focusing on bringing in the New Earth and the new consciousness and shifting the paradigm on a global scale.

John Moore 22:42

Yeah, I think, you know, I think what you're speaking to is really how we all have to do our own work, right, individually and recognize, recognize our conditioning. First of all, right? What part of and vishen lakhiani, who founded mind Valley, he's got a book called the code of the extraordinary mind. And he dedicates a lot of time to talking about what he calls rules. And pardon my French, but that's short for bullshit rules. It's recognizing, you know, recognizing rules that, that don't make any sense, though, that we're living out. And that have actually like, Well, why is that? Well, because we've always done it that way. Or why, why is that? Why can't I do this? Well, you just can't, you just can't there's like, no, there's no good reason, there may have been a good reason at some point in history, or maybe even not so good reason, but we've adopted a lot of rules, from our culture, we live under them. And they're, quite frankly, sometimes bullshit, right? There's sometimes make no sense. And I do like the term rules. It's a little, you know, people don't understand it. I want to talk a little bit about if you recognize, so that, you know, there's work that we all have to do, right, and I, you know, I, I tell clients and people who study with me and that sort of thing, like I am, I am a guide, not a guru. I am, I will never say that I'm done doing my work, right? Because if I do, I'm putting myself on a pedestal that's just ego. At that point. I'm always, always, for the rest of this incarnation going to be working on myself. But because I've done that work, or I've done a lot of that work, and I know where some of my wounds are, and that sort of thing. I can sort of sometimes steer people around the rocks in the stream, right, and help them along along their path. And that sort of that's sort of where I am. But how, how do people start working on this mindset if they recognize it in themselves? Maybe recognizing it in themselves is an important, important first step, right? How am I? How am I showing up in the world that is, you know, ruled by this mindset. Do you think that's, you know, I mean, it's hard. It's when you're living in your own head, like, that's maybe hard to recognize, how would one begin?

Jessica Verrill 25:25

Yeah, so I think that there's two very important aspects to it, you know, first, like, you definitely want to see if there are any blocks or beliefs or energies that are that are limiting your ability to shift your mindset and to be visible. And, you know, those can usually be cleared pretty quickly, like, I'm not a big, I don't really like to spend a lot of time in the past and diving into all the details and moving into it, because from my perspective, that just gives it more energy, and it feels more and it is like wiring, all of the, it's wiring your brain to really put more energy into that. So it's like, we clear those out and the way that you can, but then so much of it has to be like this conscious choice, and this conscious, like, practice of checking back into yourself and saying, okay, so where am I not showing up? Why am I not showing up? What is going on? What are my beliefs around this? And how can I start to shift it, and so much of it really feels like it needs to be that conscious choice of continually coming back, and coming into yourself. You know, because I really believe that too. Like, we all, we all have the answers inside of ourselves, and really connecting back into our hearts and into our soul and, and the guidance of of that, and really harnessing that power to propel us forward and to move us through some of these limitations. But so much of it, you know, so much of it has to do with just reminding yourself like, so, I'm really, I'm running this program right now. And we've been talking about this ability. And it's, you know, I have to phrase it this way, for a lot of the people who are in the healing professions, and the spirituality and all of that, it's like, you may be the most gifted in whatever realm that you do, you may be able to see someone and instantly know, this is what's going on with them, I can shift it, I can help, you know, help them them through this, guide them to this next place. And if nobody knows you exist, who are you helping?

John Moore 27:56

Right? Yes.

Jessica Verrill 27:58

And then it goes into that poverty aspect. If nobody knows that you exist, and you can't feed yourself, you're going to be so stuck in your own fears and your own limitations and that survival instincts, that you're not going to be able to serve anybody. So by trying to be humble and not not step into this, honestly, like, what was that term you use? The brutal, brutal is bullshit. Yeah. Because like, it's just, it's just a, it's just a block is just a limiting belief. It's a way of protecting yourself from being seen. So if you think that you're serving other people by not being seen or not charging what you what you feel, would be worth your time and would give you a really good life, then it's not about them. It's about you. And why are you afraid to show up?

John Moore 29:01

Yeah, absolutely. There's a lot to unpack there. That's really good information. There was something you said about choice and about a continual process that I that that sort of stuck with me. Because, you know, I probably lived a lot of my life under the misapprehension. That once I made a choice that that was it, like it was a decision point and, you know, and I'm said, I choose that I'm going to not live in poverty, you know, poverty, consciousness. But the reality of it for me, and I think for most people is that choice is a continuous process. Right? I have to continue to choose my actions, my beliefs, my you know, that sort of thing because it's not it's not that simple. It's relatively Cuz like, you know, our stuff, whatever that is, whether it's stuff living in the shadow or things that culture is forcing on us or whatever. You know, there, it's multifaceted. And I think in any in any pursuit, and I remember talking to a family therapist one time, and I was talking to her about her marriage, and she said, You know, I, I choose, I choose my husband every day. Right? And that was sort of meaningful for me like, Oh, yeah, you make a conscious choice. Every day, when you get up that I'm going to do this. And I think, you know, just doing that has this huge impact on our, you know, whether it's a relationship or your relationship with abundance, you know, continually, continually making that choice is, is an important aspect Do you find? Do you find that that's true? that's been true for me?

Jessica Verrill 31:04

Yeah, I definitely agree. Um, you know, and, and that comes down to anything, it's like, I really, I really like to, to think of it in terms of our physical because it's so much more tangible for people to understand, right. So it's like, you know, if you are like, wake up one day, and you're like, I choose that, I am going to look like Jessica Biel today.

John Moore 31:32

I have honestly never said that when I woke up, but you know, I get it.

Jessica Verrill 31:36

You know what I mean? Or, yeah, whoever, like, I choose that, I'm going to have a six pack, and my body is just going to be really strong and healthy. And all of this, well, that's great. It's an amazing first step, but you have to continually choose and take the actions that are going to lead you to that. And it's like, you know, so if you're starting like a new exercise regimen, or restarting or whatever, it's Initially, the choice is a lot more conscious. And you might have to, like, work a little bit harder to have that choice come back. But then it gets to the point where you've, you've built up this muscle, no pun intended, but you've built up this mental muscle of, you know, being able to say like, Oh, well, I feel better when I choose to give my body this. So I'm going to continue to do it. And it just gets to the point where it's one of those habits, that becomes easier and a little bit more unconscious. And the mindset stuff is exactly the same way. You know, at first, it takes a little bit more effort, it takes a little bit more control, it takes a little bit more focus. But then the more that you do it, the easier that it becomes, and the more it just flows. And then the next thing you know, you look back and you're like, Oh my gosh, look at how far I've come. I used to be really caught up in my limiting beliefs about this thing. Are these used to control my life? And now I don't even that's not even an issue for me. And, you know, it's just, it's just continuing along the, along the path and, and working through these different beliefs in that way. And

John Moore 33:26

yeah, and I think it's about you know, you know, what you're talking about is building these positive habits, right, you know, habits were habit, humans are habit machines, we can build bad habits in a second, we can build. Not so bad habits, sometimes it takes a little bit longer. Because we're overcoming things that we that we have built as habits for so long, and we're habit making machines, you know, when we first learn to tie our shoes, we had to think about it, right? We had to think so hard about Okay, you know, the bunny runs around the tree and goes up to the hole. And now you don't you just have the intention, tie my shoe, but you've done it so many times that you don't have to think it's and I think you referred to this, it's moving it into that on the unconscious level, that level of unconscious competence. And I want to call out something else that you were talking about. And to me that's really, really important. And I am a fan in general of law of attraction stuff in that it has changed the mindset, the secret and all of that law of attraction stuff has changed a lot of the mindset around spirituality and brought a lot of attention to you know, to spiritual pursuits into self development and that sort of thing. And I think that's fantastic. I think there's, I see a missing piece out there frequently. That with a lot of a lot of attraction stuff. You know, To not to denigrate it, because I think some of the practices are absolutely beautiful. But there's this idea that if I sit on my couch, and I think hard enough, a box of money is going to drop into my lap. And, gosh, if that worked, would we not have all won the lottery by now? Right? Gosh, if it worked that way, I mean, that is a form of magic, I cannot imagine the amount of energy that would be required to produce a box of money dropping into your lap, and it would be far more, you know, far easier to put money in a manual, you know, doing manual labor or something, right. There's a missing part. And that's, that is about taking the actions that are required, you know. And I like to refer to like, inspired action, right, really, acting from the Divine Will, acting from spirit doing things that are aligned, and ethical, and all of those things. And I think that's, I think that's a missing piece. I think a lot of people I see so many programs out there selling this is, this is the missing piece from the secret, right, I've seen lots of people selling movies and books and that sort of thing. And clearly, there's a market for that, because clearly a lot of people, you know, watch the secret or read the book, and, you know, whatever they were practicing wasn't working to their working to their ability. But I think, I think the missing part is in sort of in that inspired action, the work that you need to do, it's not that it's not that those principles don't work, it's that we are a body, a mind and a spirit. And, you know, you're not firing on all cylinders, if you're not taking all of all of those layers of yourself into into account, I see you nodding. So that's good that we're in agreement.

Jessica Verrill 37:05

Yeah, and I think that that's so much of it, you know, it feels like mindset is just the first step, get your minds around and focusing on what you want is really important. But then it's also feeling into it, it's taking the actions, and then the energetic aspect of it is like, you know, I can sit there and I can think about, you know, box of money falling into my lap all day, or, you know, calling in the ideal clients that I want to work with. However, if I'm not working on my own energy to align that frequency is what I'm looking for. Anything that I do isn't going to be, it's not going to be fruitful, you know, that the mindset is definitely helpful and can help shift that a little bit. But if I have cords, or like, what I like to call energetic debris, or attachments, or any of that stuff, that's just like leaking my energy all over the place, and how am I ever going to be aligned and really be able to be that vibrational match to what I'm looking for? So,

John Moore 38:18

yeah, yeah, absolutely. I, you know, I know we have, we have done a lot of similar work. And, you know, one of the things I, it's something I work with clients a lot, a lot of courting a lot of, I think you use the term energetic debris. I mean, we just pick up stuff, right? We, we, we pick up stuff that doesn't serve us and having that, you know, working with somebody like yourself, who can help, you know, move through that cleared away. It's tough if you're not, if you're not somebody who's been through, you know, sort of a significant amount of training maybe to see that in yourself, where that's where that's been happening. So that's where that's where you call the, you know, I want to I want to be like, there should be a Ghostbuster song or something, right? You're gonna call? Call Jessica. You need a theme song when you get your theme song. But yeah, I mean, completely, right. And in, so I use the term firing on all cylinders, right? And that's a you know, if you if people out there don't know that it's a car term, right? So you have your engine in your car has cylinders, let's say you have six cylinders, and two of them aren't working, right? How much power how much energy how, how is the ability for your car, to work efficiently and get you from one place to another going to be impacted? It's going to be impacted significantly. And so I think if you think of human cylinders, right, we have our you know, we have all of our bodies for lack of a better term right? We have our physical Our body and our mental and our emotional body and our etheric body and our astral like all of these things, when we get them into alignment, that's when I think the magic sort of happens, right? When we take care of, we've got to take care of everything. We're, we're, we're systems of systems, we're complex and, and beautiful, you know, beautiful in our complexity. Here's a, this is completely random, completely random fact that just jumped into my head. So human DNA is, I think, I think it's two meters long, every strand of DNA is two meters long if you were stretched out end to end. And if you think about the, how small the nucleus of a cell is where your DNA is stored, somebody said, it's like packing 50 miles of kite string into a shoe box, like just kind of a miracle. And only 3% of your DNA is coding DNA, right? Meaning that it creates the proteins that build your entire body. And the other 97% scientists have, some scientists have referred to as junk DNA, right doesn't do anything, because we don't know what it does. But that some really smart people way smarter than I am, took that took that DNA, that, quote unquote, junk DNA and ran it through linguistic analysis software, multiple algorithms, and it codes as language. As human language has the same statistical patterns, we don't understand it. So even on the very physical level, and you're inside your nucleus, inside your DNA, there's so much complexity there. There's so much and that's just one part of you, I guess that's where this whole tangent is going about how we have to address ourselves at the, at different levels. And epigenetic research is really interesting. And it has told us what shamans from ages ago have told us that, you know, things like trauma, get passed down in, even on the physical level, even a genetic level, we can detect generations and generations ago, there's a study of the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, and we can detect epigenetic changes in the note a couple of generations. And I think they did a study with worms who have, you know, similar DNA, and they can detect changes 23 generations, obviously, that's hard to study with humans, cuz that's, you know, represents a really, really long time. But with worms, you know, they could detect epigenetic changes from things like starvation or trauma 23 generations later. So, I think my whole tangent is about how we have to address these things. And ourselves. I feel like we've gone way beyond poverty mindset at this point, but that's okay. It's all good. We never, we never know where this is gonna go.

Jessica Verrill 43:11

Exactly. It's so sure that epigenetics just fascinates me. And it makes so much sense to you know, we know, with our, with our training, and our work that we are energy is that that is impacting everything. So it's, um, it's really powerful to me, and that's, you know, before I was well on my, you know, my, my energetic training healing journey before I had my daughter, and I'm so glad that I was, and that was one of my things. Like, as I started to get older, it kind of fueled me, I was like, I need to clean up as much as I can.

John Moore 43:52

Yeah, yeah,

Jessica Verrill 43:52

I'm passing this on to her. And, you know, I think that there's, I'm sure that there haven't been any studies about this, but I think that energetically, you know, even still, the work that I'm doing is still shifting her. You know, and, and that aspect as well.

John Moore 44:10

Yeah. Um, so I like to say when you heal yourself, you heal the world, right? And, you know, the, the closer, people are definitely your daughter, right? Definitely, when I work on myself, it has a positive, I've seen it have a positive impact on on my kids. And, you know, the nice thing, in my opinion is that a lot of that energetic work, a lot of that spiritual work, it actually, this may be a little mind bending, there if you've never done past life stuff, but it actually travels in both directions on your ancestral line, meaning people who came before you are actually going to get a benefit from the work that you're doing. I know it's hard. You know, think about your great great, great grandparents getting a boost from the work that you're doing. But in the formless world of spirits, time isn't really the same thing as soon as in physical reality. But definitely in physical reality, when you do that work, and there's definitely, maybe not on a spiritual level, but there's definitely studies out there about how parents who do their own work on a psychological basis, right, so if I am suffering from depression or something like that, how doing, doing my own work. And that alone, just just having that change in myself has a huge impact on on my children. And that's, you know, that's always been a big driver for my own personal development in the way that I show up in the world. I know it is for you to like, what kind of a world do I want to leave for my kids, and you know, if they have kids and and that sort of thing. But it starts with the changes I'm making myself because I, this is the most control I have over anything. It's really the only control over anything. For sure, yeah, particularly, I mean, gosh, we haven't even talked about this. But you know, having, having kids, school aged kids during the pandemic, and they're, you know, being a parent and the challenges of all of that, you recognize, this is the only thing and I'm pointing at myself, I realize you can't see that out there in podcast land. This is the thing I have any control over whatsoever. So that's those are my handles, right? If you think about life as a machine with a bunch of handles, the handles I have that I can control things with really just pointing at myself, they're really just connected to parts of myself. And those, those are the things that and maybe recognizing that as part of escaping this, this mindset that might not be serving us.

Jessica Verrill 47:04

Yeah, definitely. And even like, even to take it one step further. You know, our kids are, of course, so intimately connected with us, but all of our relationships, you know, it's, I've talked to so many people about this for their, they're frustrated with a friend or their boss or their spouse, and it's like, you are the only person that you can control, you know, to so work on you work on how you perceive things, and take taking everything and this is going off. I'm not going to get too far into this because this is a whole other you know, it's like looking at everything as like, wow, okay, I was really triggered by that, or that really brought up a lot of things for me. So instead of being upset, at the out the external thing that is triggering you look at that and saying, thank you so much for showing me where I still need to heal. Thank you so much for this opportunity of reflection. And you know, I think kids are the biggest reflector of

John Moore 48:11

100% Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, I could tell you so I have. I have twins. I mean, you know, this, but I have twin daughters. And they each reflect different aspects of my personality. And when I look at some of the things they do that maybe you know, Trump kids do when they get into trouble or whatever, I'm like, Oh, yeah, I need to take responsibility for and their mom, their mom will tell you that, like you got that from your dad and I there's no, there's no fighting about that. That's, uh, you know, I'll own it. I'll own it. All of the mischief and trouble, that's all me 100% So, you know, I've earned it. I've earned those mirrors. I've earned that reflection and it's, you know, I check I laugh a lot. And so it's it's a good thing. We're coming to the end, can you believe that it's been, you know, almost an hour that we've been talking and we've been coming to the end but I want to this has been fantastic. It's definitely been eye you know, eye opening for me. As I'm sure it is, for all of our listeners, I want to I do want to because I don't 100% know what you're up to I want to find out like on a on a professional level what you're, what you're doing and what you're up to.

Jessica Verrill 49:31

Awesome. Yeah, so to be completely honest, I'm never 100% Sure.

John Moore 49:39

Okay, something else we have in common All right, I get it.

Jessica Verrill 49:44

I'm so guided that sometimes it's just an over this past year I've had pivot like shift after shift after shift. Um, so but in all reality, yes, I do have some some awesome projects that I'm Working on. So my biggest focus right now is I have been assisting these heart centered leaders who know that they're here to create big change. They're the the wayshowers, the paradigm shifters. And I'm helping them gets their, their voices and their, their work and their gifts out on a global platform through a multi authored book. And this is the one that I'm doing right now I have more projects that are kind of, this is why I'm saying I don't have full control over it, because I'm a very direct channel. So oftentimes, it's like, Okay, this is what you're doing next. And then right.

John Moore 50:46

Okay.

Jessica Verrill 50:48

Sometimes I feel like I'm just, even though I definitely have control and pretty well, it feels like with following that I'm just kind of along for the ride sometimes. Yeah, I hear you. So this, this current project, the title is called soul mission leaders ushering in the New Earth. And I'm designing it as a as a teaching platform. So each contributor is sharing a lesson a skill, a mindset shift through either a story or a written out lesson, or a combination of both. And I'm, you know, doing all of the the energetic, the mindset support, I have someone amazing, who's coming in and doing a couple of writing classes, I have all of these things in the works. And then I'm taking care of all of the backend things. So I'm, you know, hiring very, like premium editing, contextual editing, high end cover designer doing all of that, and pulling this together and getting this book out to as many people as humanly possible. So, yeah, that's, that's very good. Another one that I told you that will be in the works. And I haven't started on this one yet. But there's definitely an aspect about the toxic masculinity. Yeah. Coming in, because that's, that's so important. And, you know, we could go on, we could do a whole, like three hours just on this easily. You know, but it's very courageous of men to be able to recognize that within themselves, and to shift that. And then also, you know, be a gay guy and standing up for others to be able to do the same thing. And there's a lot of a lot of stigma against that, and a lot of pressures against that. So I'm really wanting to give, I and my guys give voice to that as well. So yeah, that is my main focus, I do some one on one coaching. But it's very limited, I usually only take two to three clients at a time. I like to really dedicate a lot of my my time and my energy to them. And so I'm focusing on my book project, I am still taking contributors for that, if anyone is interested, you can get

find out all of the details on my website is just JessVerrill.com. So it's Jess, V as in Victor, e, r, r i, l l.com. There's a whole section under there for blue indigo publishing. And I have some fun other things coming down the pipeline, too. I'm working on my own solo book and an immersion course that will go with that.

John Moore 53:58

So very nice, very nice. So I think what that means is that you have to come back and be a guest again, so we can find out what's going what else is going on. And I totally agree we could Gosh, I mean, I

I've written quite a bit about toxic masculinity. So we definitely spend a whole lot of time on that topic, how important and I think it's just amazing. I love the idea of the multi-authored book and bringing these spiritual leaders together and so I'm excited to read it when you're done with it and what an important task you're doing. Because taking care of all of the back end. Part of that is and doing the energetic support. Wow. I can't imagine how busy you must be. I'm pretty busy, and you're a mom. So Wow, that's Yeah, yeah. Um,

Jessica Verrill 54:55

I am pretty busy. But you know, that's such a limiting thing for so many people. You know, they don't Yeah, sure lots get their work out there and they want to write, but either they don't know how to self publish, or they don't getting into shouldn't traditional publishing contract as well, like 1% of people out there, do it. It's, it's so old school that, you know, and has so many barriers to apps that I really wanted to make it as accessible to so many more people.

John Moore 55:23

Yeah, I mean, I, yes. I completely, I completely agree. I have done the traditional publishing thing. And, you know, I work I do work. I have worked with a publisher and I do work with with a publisher, but it's challenging. And for me, it was, you know, not, I mean, yes, I've written book proposals and that sort of thing. But it's, you know, it's almost the kind of thing where I had to have a personal connection, and somebody come to me, kind of thing where I wasn't sort of randomly, I can't even imagine doing that in this day and age. The old traditional, like mailing a manuscript off, I mean, they're, yeah, they're publishing houses that do that, but it's, you gotta Yeah, definitely have to be prepared for a whole lot of rejection and paying for a lot of stamps. to mail stuff back and to get it mailed back to you or, you know, that sort of thing. But yeah, I think it's, I think it's a fantastic thing that you're doing, as I said that a giant crow just flew in front of my, my window and crows definitely a messenger spirit for me. This is this one's an old friend, who I see from time to time I try to try to I think it's a her and I don't know the difference, honestly. But I've I've said it to her, and I've tried to feed her and her friends. So it's usually a pretty good omen. But with that, we're almost at an hour. That's crazy. It's Time flies. I just want to thank you so much for coming on. I will. You know, there will be you know, information in the podcast notes. If you are interested in what Jessica's got going on. Definitely check her out, keep an eye out for her books. And I know I have enjoyed this conversation immensely. And so what I want to do is, I will cajole Jessica to come back in the future and talk about other things maybe as she you know, with respect to her with respect to her busy schedule, but super nice to see you. It's been a little while and fantastic to talk to you.

Jessica Verrill 57:47

Thank you so much. Um, one other thing that I just wanted to throw out there if anybody is on Clubhouse, I'm doing a lot of a lot of rooms and hosting and clubhouse so you can follow me on there as well. And my handle is at just

John Moore 58:03

awesome. So if you've got clubhouse, if you were lucky in your in clubhouse fine, just fine just there.

Announcer 58:43

You have been listening to speaking spirit with your host, John Moore. For more info or to contact John go to MaineShaman.com that's MaineShaman.com

Ep09 Miracles

Announcer 0:29

Hello, and welcome to speaking spirit where we talk about all things spiritual. Your host, john Moore is a shamanic practitioner and spiritual teacher. And now here's john.

John Moore 0:53

Hello, everybody.

As I record this, it is February 22 2021. Yesterday happened to be my birthday. And I don't make a huge deal out of birthdays. I haven't since I was younger, but I, you know, I will take some time to celebrate with family, you know, I made another lap around the sun. It's, you know, it's been quite a year, right? 2022 2021 has been quite a year, personally and on the global scale and all of these things. It makes me really, really grateful for what I have. And yesterday, I spent, I spent the day with my daughter's my twin daughters and my girlfriend, and we had a wonderful meal together. And, you know, it just made me feel full of life. And I think that's what birthdays should do, what celebration should do. Definitely spending time with the ones I love, you know, nourishes me, and I hope that you, you know, in this time of turmoil are able to connect in some way with you know, those you love those you care about people who nurture you. I think it's important to pay attention to relationships that are nurturing and equally important to pay attention to those that are that are not maybe and works, either adjust them or cut them off or what, what have you but do what's healthy and right and life fulfilling and good for you. So I think it was, you know, it's an appropriate topic. Today, today, the topic, I'm going to talk about miracles. today. I'm going to talk about them, I hope from somewhat unique perspective, right? I'm going to talk about, you know, I'm talking about finding the miracles in the mundane. And this is something that came up came up recently with somebody was talking to who was is probably still using, using plant medicine, hallucinogenic chemicals to have spiritual experiences. And I you know, I'm certainly not going to cast judgment on that. I'm not going to say whether that's whether that's bad or good. That's something that is practice globally, and, you know, that sort of thing. But what I will say is that, you know, shamanic work, it's not it's, it's really not necessary to use chemicals to do shamanic work, you can there are certainly cultures that do that, but there are other cultures who drive those brain states using drums or dancing or ritual or austerity or, you know, what have you. And, you know, if you're are, you know, depending upon your practices in whether it's using hallucinogens, or whether it's, you know, some other kind of spiritual work. If you're spending most of your time escaping reality, I'm not saying this person was spending most of their time escaping reality but it just this, this was something that came up in the conversation. You know, if you are spending time escaping, quote unquote reality We call ordinary reality your ordinary waking state and your you know, constantly having to walk around in a state of bliss, it can be very grounding for one, right? We all know those people we talk about who have, you know, quote unquote, their heads in the clouds walking around, dissociated, not really paying attention to the world around them.

But more importantly, I think, you know, when this is the case, you are missing so much of the world, so much of the world. And I understand that sometimes we have this, this huge negative bias, and we can look out at the world and see everything that's wrong with it. Right, we can look at the poverty and the crime and disease and all of these things, and the, you know, the problems with the environment, we can look all that stuff, and it can be overwhelming, it can be depressing, create anxiety, all of those things. But I am here to tell you that there is no matter what, no matter all of this stuff that's going on, there's still beauty in the world, there's still spirit that can be experienced firsthand, by paying attention to your senses, in ordinary reality, to you know, looking at a grain of sand or a mountain or even another person. And, you know, that leads me to talk about, again, the topic is finding miracles in the mundane. And that seems a little bit contradictory, right, because our idea of miracles are that they are not mundane, they're not. You know, they're supernatural. They don't happen very often. That sort of thing. I think that feeling is fallacious. And I'm going to talk about it in a few ways. But I'm going to give you you know, per usual, when I talk about a word, when I talk about an important word, a word like miracle, or a word, like initiation or a word like spirit, I want to define the terms and not just because I'm being, you know, a nerdy bookworm, or, you know, I'm trying to control the conversation or control the definitions that you think about, but I want you to understand what I am talking about, I want you to understand what my intention is, when I speak about miracles, and I can't really do that if you have a, you know, you have a vastly different definition of the word miracle than I do. And that's not to say your definition is wrong, and mine is right or whatever. But it's just for understanding, it's just so that you can know that when I use the symbol of the word miracle. Kind of what's in my brain, right? What am I thinking about? And I'm not saying you need to toss out your definitions. Please don't. I am not the authority on language or, or anything like that. This is just for understanding. So when I look to the dictionary and my phone, the word miracle has, has a few definitions, some of which I like, and some of which, you know, some parts I don't necessarily agree with. But the first one is a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws, and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency. So in other words, something happens. And it's surprising, and it's welcome. And it is a god or the God or something along those lines doing something and there is no scientific explanation for, for what's happening. The next one is, you know, and I'll read three of these, the next one is a highly improbable or extraordinary event development or accomplishment, that brings very welcome circumstances or very welcome consequences, right. So something that is unlikely to happen, but happens anyway, like somebody recovers from an illness that they thought was, and this definition removes removes the divine aspect, from miracle. And so the last one, and this is sort of a commercial definition, I guess, is an amazing product or achievement or an outstanding example of something. And you know, when I read this definition, I think of the You know, television commercials for laundry soap, which, you know, people are like, Oh, you know, it's a miracle I got the stains out of my shirt. So, uh, you know, I guess so that's, that's a little funny to me. But that's what that brings to mind.

So let's sort through these a little bit, from my perspective, right? So, from my perspective, you know, our reality, the things that we experience as being outside, you know, ordinary reality, things we experience as being outside ourselves, that sort of thing. That's all constructed in our consciousness, right? Your experience of reality, whether whatever the reality of the world is, everything you experience, touch, sight, sound, taste, smell, all of that even internal stuff, thoughts, feelings. By definition, you experience all of that inside your consciousness. Right? You things that are outside of your consciousness, you have no experience of what this means to me is that the entire universe, as you experience it, from the things that you are touching right now, to the sound of my voice to the thoughts you're having. All of that is constructed. All of that is built inside your consciousness. Right? What we see, I'm looking at, what am I looking at? I'm looking at a bottle right now, that is a pretty orange bottle that's full of Italian blood orange soda. Right? It looks delicious. I haven't tried it. But I'm not. You know, when when I talk about seeing, there's two parts of that, right? My sense organs, my eyes receive light that bounces off or is transmitted through this object hits the back of my retinas, it produces an electrical signal that goes into the parts of my brain. And I experienced the image of this bottle, this orange bottle. Okay, I'm not having a direct experience of the orange bottle. Because it is, you know, gone through all of these layers of translation, right? It's gone through, you know, from just photons bouncing off the bottle into my eyes, and then my eyes turning, you know, my retinas turning that into a signal, the signal going into the back of my brain, and I have no idea I couldn't tell you, I'm sure there are, you know, neuroscientists out there who could explain how sight is decoded in the brain. But I'll get on to why we can't ever really describe consciousness and conscious experience in a minute. But so my brain is constructing my cat inside my consciousness somewhere, it might be my brain, it might not be my brain is constructing the image of this bottle, right. And one level deeper than that. One level beyond that, beyond the fact that there is this constructed image in my consciousness of this thing that I'm looking at is that I'm actually having a subjective experience of this bottle. I'm a, I'm experiencing it. And this is a little bit harder to describe, right? It's that I'm aware of it in an experiential level. That's different than if I point a camera at this bottle, and it receives light waves and it transfer, you know, transforms that into a computer, for example, as a series of ones and zeros and the computer could reconstruct the image. The computer isn't aware, I don't care how smart your computer is, I don't care if your computer can pass the Turing test or pretend it is self aware or you know process natural language or even mimic emotions. The computer is not having a subjective experience of reality. I'm not experiencing a constructed feeling, experience of reality, not having an experience a computer can process bits and bytes, but it can't experience and the way we can you know, we can see Things we can hear things we can feel our emotions, we can sense our thoughts. However those come to you sometimes, you know, maybe pictures or sounds or, or maybe just an impression of something.

So, the reality, all of the reality that you experienced, and this is nothing new philosophers have been talking about this for a minute, you know, really, really long time, I was gonna say, a million years, but we didn't have philosophers million years ago, I don't think anyway. But a very long time, philosophers have been talking about this, you know, the matrix is a little bit of a movie about this, right? Where that's the whole head and a bottle kind of thing. If you you know, what is it's about the nature of reality and how it be can be completely constructed, although that was sort of mechanical, feeding sensory information into, you know, somebody's brain directly. But again, even that does not explain the subjective experience of reality that you're having right now. Right, it does not explain how you have the experience of what you're looking at. Just not decoding, right. And so, to me, to me, this experience is subjective experience, is a part of our divinity, it's a part of our divine nature, right? When you think about what the ideas of god or gods or you know, whatever they are, they are creators. Right? If you come from what you know, even if you're, even if you're in an atheist, you can understand that in the world's religious and spiritual stories, that it is divine, you know, some divine power that creates the universe. So what does that mean for your consciousness, where you're, you know, some part of you we call your consciousness is essentially constructing your entire world for you, you know, whether, beyond the reality of what, you know, what is out there in ordinary reality, you know, your consciousness can construct a whole world take, take, for example, when you're dreaming, right, an entirely constructed world. And I'll talk another time about the spiritual, you know, on the spirituality of dreaming in the spiritual aspects of dreaming, but you're, you're dreaming consciousness can create without, without a physical reality out there can create an entire universe for you. For me, this is the miracle, this is the miracle, and it fits a lot of those criteria from a lot of those definitions. Right? First of all, there is no scientific explanation of conscious, subjective conscious experience, there is none and I don't, you know, it does not matter what brain scans do, or we say, when you look at this, you know, there, this part of your neurology lights up, that's great, but that can cannot explain your subjective experience of reality. The fact that you are conscious that you are experiencing that is, to me the miracle, so that covers the does not have a scientific explanation. So, is this divine? is this? You know, does this have a divine source, which would cover one of the definitions? Well, you know, honestly, I believe it does. And so, you know, again, this is an this is a little bit of a matter of faith or belief or culture or what have you, or self examination. I believe that our consciousness, our, you know, I believe that our consciousness emanates from divine consciousness, that we are individual aspects of that. And so, without that divine spark that is at the core of all of us, that connects us to everything there is you know, we would not have, we would not have conscious experience and so Yeah, I do. I do think that it covers you know, it covers that aspect of the, of the definition of miracle. So I think that our, you know, just our day to day, consciousness that we take for granted is the miracle. That is the thing to be in awe of. Now, where this does not fit into a lot of the definitions of miracle is that this is our, you know, again, we

we live in this like a fish in the ocean, right? We live in our field of consciousness all the time, even when we think we're unconscious, there's still you know, even when you're in a dead sleep, there's some part of you paying attention. Because your fire alarm could wake you up or, you know, a loved one could wake you from that. So there's some part of your consciousness that's still paying attention. And I won't go into, you know, the whole down the whole, you know, what if somebody is in a coma, or that's kind of a kind of a rat hole, I'm just saying, if you're listening to this, if you have an experience of reality, even though you experience it out there, right outside of yourself. It's all actually happening inside of you inside of your, your consciousness, not inside your body, right? Not inside of you that, you know, my body encompasses the entire universe. Although that is an interesting meditation, I recommend practicing sometime, but that everything you experience is happening. happening in consciousness? And does consciousness live in the brain? You know, that's a big question. scientists and philosophers have tried to answer for a long time. My thought is, I don't think so I don't think consciousness itself lives in the brain. I think the brain is a receiver of consciousness. I think we live in a field of consciousness, I think his science finds out more, we find out that some parts of consciousness are what we call non local meaning they they happen when we aren't in direct connection to things. There's lots of anomalous stuff about low, you know, non local consciousness, there's, there's plenty of research out there. I think that even when we look into the body, we find neuro peptides. In every cell of the body, I think the guts, the human gut has been called the second brain recently by by science, and that it does do a fair amount of thinking for us. Although maybe not, maybe not at the level of consciousness, right. But the role of the brain in consciousness is not to be under estimated. But it's not. It's also not to be overestimated. Okay, and I, you know, I can tell you as a shamanic practitioner, having dealt with departed spirits, and that sort of thing that consciousness exists after physical after physical death, it exists before physical life exists after physical death, the amount of time you spend on a body is relatively short compared to compared to existence as, as a whole. Although time starts to break down, once you don't have a once you don't have a body time, as it turns out, our experience of time is very closely tied to our bodies. And that makes sense because we have to do things like eat and sleep. And you know, that sort of thing. Right, eat, sleep and go to the bathroom. And those are important biological activities governed a little bit by our experience of time. So So just to recap, my, you know, my my proposition, then is that consciousness, your experience of your subjective experience of consciousness of reality, that is the miracle. But what I promised you was today to talk about the miracles of the mundane and in a way, again, like we're swimming around in consciousness all the time. And so this is our everyday reality, and it might not feel so miraculous. But if you stop to appreciate for a moment, you will understand what an amazing thing your consciousness is. It's a little bit hard when you take the perspective of all of this stuff is happening externally, right. But I want to give you some things that you can do to have this experience that of how just amazingly miraculous and fantastic and wonderful Beyond all belief that your consciousness is that your subjective experience of consciousness is.

So I love music, for example. My daughters and I share a lot of playlists online I, you know, before the pandemic, I loved going to listen to live music. And sometimes I'll I'll listen to live music online and I have lots of friends who are musicians and I grew up in a somewhat musical family and lots of my family members play music, and I played music as a kid. And so musics very important to me, right. And when I think about my experience of music, and how moving it can be, for me, how emotional music can be, for me, music has the ability to you know, really change our experience of everything. It's why, you know, we play music when we are in church or temple and we pray, you know, we sing, when we celebrate birthdays, or weddings, or what have you, we listen to music to be happy, we listen to music to get over being sad. Music really is this thing that can shape our shape our experience tremendously. And it's a powerful tool, it's a powerful consciousness altering tool. And so when we think about what's happening, when I am experiencing music, let's say I'm listening to a symphony, over the radio, let's say there's a, you know, there's a symphony in London, England, that is performing, or had performed, and even their, their music was recorded. So these people with all of these instruments are making little vibrations in the air, it's picked up by recording equipment, these in these days, that recording equipment is most likely digital. So that gets transformed into these ones and zeros signals and either stored somewhere or broadcast out over the airwaves. My radio picks that up some, you know, a signal. Again, these days, it's a digital signal. So it's just a series of ones and zeros. And then my my radio translates those ones and zeros into some magnetic impulses and the magnetic impulses in the speakers vibrate the air. So causes you know causes wavy air, essentially, that wavy air causes pressure changes inside my ears. pressure changes vibrate, the my eardrum, the tiny bones in my ears, causing, you know, nerve impulses to travel into my brain into the auditory processing areas of my brain. From all of that from the ones and zeros in the wavy air and the electronics and the you know, everything that you know and and I you know, made that incredibly simple, right? That was really simplified explanation of what actually has to happen. I experience a symphony in my consciousness, I can have the experience, even if I know nothing about music, even if I have never heard those instruments before or whatever I can experience that music in my consciousness, my consciousness can assemble the experience of listening to a symphony from squiggly air, wavy air, pressing up against my eardrums, changing the pressure in my ears and causing vibrations and electrical send some signals to happen. Well, that's a pretty significant miracle when you stop and think about it. It's significant that your consciousness can do that. When you think about great composers from the past Mozart, Beethoven or whoever, whoever is important to you, in your culture, these people who wrote the symphonies who created these things. You know, they're celebrated as miraculous and, and, and they are and they're, and they're creators. And, you know, they had to have amazing an amazing level of thought to produce the things that they did. But without your ability, whether or not you appreciate classical music or whatever, you know, whatever music you like,

without your ability to construct that experience, and you don't even do it consciously, you don't even have to think about it. Music would just be wavy air, right music would just be way the air. And it's the same thing with poetry, you know, I can, I can write poetry and read it to you. And you can have the experience of, of a poem, or you can read a poem. And you know, the light bouncing off the page can hitting your retinas and creating electrical signals in your brain. You can experience up home. There was a funny description, I saw online somewhere of reading, right? It's one of these things where people break things down into absurd terms. And so they're reading is staring at pieces of a dead tree and hallucinating. Right. You know, when you're reading stories, you're, you know, if you're looking at paper, it is yeah, it's, you know, hopefully, it's recycled paper. But it's, you know, you're looking at these dead trees, you're looking at marks on dead trees, and hallucinating, you can experience all reality. And it's why books and novels are popular. Same thing, even if you even if you don't really read and you watch television, right your your mind, your consciousness, you're still constructing the stories that you're witnessing. And it's like that for every single thing you experience. When you taste something, right. Even when you're taking food into your body, and you're tasting it with your tongue and smelling it with your, you know, your olfactory organs, your your nose, or, you know, and you experience, the texture and your mouth and all of these things. You know that it's your consciousness that's having the experience of eating chocolate cake. You could break that down ad infinitum, you could talk about the chemicals and the receptors and say shitty how you measure measure, feeling satisfied. And you break it down into macronutrients and how, you know, blood sugar affects your brain and all of these things, you can break it down ad infinitum to the chemical level, and you can still not account for the subjective experience of eating a piece of chocolate cake. And that's sort of why I call it miracles, miracles of the mundane. Because we don't often, we don't often stop and reflect on that we don't often stop and reflect on just how amazing our experience is. Even if you are subjectively having what you might call a bad experience a negative experience, right? You see something that horrifies you, you hear something that's unpleasant, or, you know, or even just your life circumstances are not great. And you you know, maybe you're living in circumstances that are stressful every day. And gosh, you know, there's a lot of that in the world. There's a lot of that in the world. Unfortunately, there's a lot of starvation and natural disasters and all of these things. So even if you're living under those circumstances, or experiencing things that you subjectively determine are unpleasant or what you don't want or you know, that cause a negative emotional reaction for you. You still have the experience that's still occurring in your consciousness, you're still able to be aware of that. And that in itself is a miracle. And that's a miracle that you own right? barring somebody killing you are knocking you unconscious you know, we have sovereignty over our consciousness we are our you know, we are the ruler that's not to say, you know, you can bend reality to your will although you can a little bit that's magic. Not necessarily spirituality, but I guess that is spiritual. Bending reality to your will is, you know, sorcery or magic or, or that sort of thing, and it's Hard, gosh, it's hard work.

If it were easy, we would all be lottery winners, right? We would all be, we would all be billionaires, if, if bending reality to your will was a really easy thing to do. It's enough then just to experience reality from time to time as constructed as to, to understand that the entire world, the entire universe, exists inside your consciousness. And that you are the one creating that experience. You are the one your consciousness, the thing that you are, is what's creating that miracle of subjective experience. I, I do my best. I forget, I'm, you know, I'm living in conditioned human experience myself, I forget, I do not do this all the time. But I have found great benefit over the years from reflecting on that. Reflecting on that nature of reality. As constructed as miraculous itself, just everything as miraculous, as you know, when I'm looking at a, an orange bottle and experiencing that orange bottle that's both constructed and miraculous, it is coming. You know, the the capacity for consciousness is coming from my divine self. And the same is true for you. And I'll let the philosophers argue about what is real what's actually out there. And, and, you know, how would you know what's actually out there? If you're, if you're, you know, if we're living in the matrix, if we're plugged into a machine that's feeding us a sense of reality? How would we know? I don't have an answer for that. Clearly, that's, you know, where the where the questions of, you know, the matrix, and philosophers who talk about those things. You know, they can argue about that stuff. You know, and scientists these days, are actually looking for evidence that we may be living inside a giant simulation. Can you imagine? Can you imagine what would be required to simulate the universe into existence? That should be mind blowing. And so when you approach the world, when you approach everything as miraculous, as you know, the experience of everything is miraculous, even those things that we deem unpleasant. Bad, we put judgments on them. This hurts, or I have disease, or somebody I love died, or all of these things. It's not to say you should not be experiencing grief or anything that you're experiencing emotion wise, but even your emotions about that. Right? It's, you know, yeah, you, you know, we can talk about the chemicals that allow us to feel certain emotions, and the neural pathways and the beliefs and all of those things. We talked about all of that. But you're still experiencing grief or experiencing, feeling sick or experiencing anger, or all of those things. Again, that's a miracle. It's a miracle that you can have those experiences. It's a miracle that you can grieve. And, you know, those things are part of their part of human life and human existence. They're part of our incarnation on this planet. And a lot of people talk, you know, a lot of people live their life avoiding these things, or, you know, trying to overcome them. I, you know, in My take is that that's not exactly the right attitude. My experiences to go into them is to go through them. It's hard. I mean, that is not that's a warrior path, right? diving deep into your unpleasant feelings, diving deep into grief, diving deep into the parts of your life that you don't particularly care for. That is absolutely a warrior path. But what I think that does and has done for me is it does Give me

a greater experience of the Divinity that is inside all of us. That divine spark, the part of us, that is connected to everything that the part of us that is immortal, that is inseparable from the universe that is, you know, when I say part, it's really weird, it's like, there is really no part we can experience that as a part, it's easier to talk about it as a part, but it's inseparable. It's part of the universe, unity of the entire universe, our divine self, or spirit, the spark that's inside of us. It's sort of like, Well, one way to describe it, I guess, would be if I had, if I had a glass of seawater, and I took it into the ocean with me, and I dove into the ocean, right? There's sort of this you know, the, the glass creates this sort of experience of separateness with the, you know, the water that's inside the glass, but ultimately, ultimately, that water is connected to the entire ocean and is inseparable. That's a little bit what your divine spark is like. And so the things that can give you a greater experience of your divinity, I think are the whole point, you know, one of the one of the whole points, but you know, kind of the entire goal of enlightenment, awakening, spiritual development, whatever name you want to put on it. Labels don't really, you know, labels do not apply, well, whatever we call it, when we start to slap names on it, it's, you know, it's really, you know, the term they use is ineffable, right, it's unnameable. We try to slap a name on it. You know, for simplification sake, I speak about the universe, right? You know, what really is that it's, you know, it's one word that describes everything there is in this in this reality. That's a really big shortcut. So really what I want to leave you with, you know, and I try to be practical whenever I can on these podcasts. Oh, and by the way, I'm going to have an exciting guest. My next podcast, I have lined up a guest, a good friend of mine. I won't give away what we're going to talk about yet, but it will be my first guest. This will be my first she will be not yet she will be my first guest on this podcast. So stay tuned for that, make sure you subscribe. You know, however you listen to podcasts, make sure you subscribe to this one. So you don't you don't miss that miss out on that. But I'm going to leave you with a piece of practical, practical practice. That sounds a little bit redundant. I'll leave you with a bit of practice, you can decide whether or not it's practical. And this is something you do not have to make it a formal exercise or formal practice. But as you're going through your day, today and off into the future, whenever you think about it, take a moment and observe something in your experience. So look at something touched something, taste something if it's safe to do so. smell something, have a sensory experience of something or you know, do all of the above. You know, when I talk about eating, eating chocolate cake, look at the cake, taste the cake, smell the cake, feel the cake in your mouth. Was it sound like when you're chewing on the cake, I don't know. But have an experience. take a pause. Whatever you're experiencing at the moment. take a pause and just allow the understanding that I am constructing all of this. This you know, it's not to say there isn't cake out there. It's not to say there isn't cake in the world. But your experience of the cake is being constructed by your consciousness. just become aware of that allow that experience To allow yourself to feel that experience, What's that like?

And, you know, you could tap at the end of the practice, you could tack on a little thing like, Well, isn't that a miracle? Or isn't that miraculous, or what a miracle, or anything that allows you to just appreciate, have the experience of appreciation for taking a moment, and realizing that you are existing in a living miracle. Which is, you know, we'll use the word consciousness and again, consciousness is small word or for a really huge topic. So I will leave you for this episode. I sincerely appreciate everybody who listens. One of the things I love to do, when I look at the statistics for this podcast is I look at where people are listening to this, and I'm so excited. I'm excited for everybody who's listening. But I'm extra excited about the people outside of the United States, which is my home country, where I'm, you know, I'm, I'm recording this from, I am really excited to see that I'm really excited to be able to connect with people in Russia and India, and Japan, and Nepal, and Bangladesh. And I want you to know that I do love and appreciate each and every one of you. Just as human beings, you know, definitely especially that you're tuning into this podcast and letting me connect to you. It does, it means a lot to me. And I want to make this podcast as useful and lovely. And, you know, make your time listening to this worthwhile I want you to when you're you know, when you're listening to these things, you know, it'll learn some stuff or have a realization or you know, I want to pique your interest in something that maybe you do a little bit more research into. But I want you to find this useful, and I want you to find this time valuable. And I would encourage you to reach out to me through my website. If you have any suggestions for topics or things that you'd be interested in me talking about or want to learn more or provide feedback. I do love that. I do love it when people reach out. My website is maineshaman.com that's MaineShaman.com.

Announcer 48:17

You have been listening to speaking spirit with your host, john more. For more info or to contact john go to Maineshaman.com that's maineshaman.com

Ep08 The Shadow

Announcer 0:29

Hello, and welcome to speaking spirit where we talk about all things spiritual. Your host, john Moore is a shamanic practitioner and spiritual teacher. And now here's john.

John Moore 0:50

Hello, everybody. I'm talking to you shortly after sunrise from the great state of Maine in the US. It is, gosh, it's a beautiful morning. And it's one of those mornings that is so beautiful. And we know there's a there's a winter storm coming later today. And now like stormy weather, as long as it doesn't, you know, is not destructive. I enjoy all kinds of weather, but it gives you some appreciation for the day when it is beautiful right before a storm. It allows you to appreciate the contrast. And I enjoy that as well. It is, as I'm recording this the 15th of February, if you celebrate it, I hope you had a good Valentine's Day, yesterday, or whenever, you know, whenever that was to you. As you're listening to this. Today, I'm going to talk about a topic that I think is incredibly important. And I'm not the only I'm not the only person who thinks this is an incredibly important topic. So it's not just my ego that's speaking to you today, although that certainly is the case as well. And they recognize that. But today we're going to talk about the shadow, the human shadow, what that means, what it consists of what are some of the misconceptions about shadow and how to begin to do some work with your shadow, and why that's important why that's crucially important. So per usual, I like to start with defining what I'm talking about so that we are on equal footing. Now when I say the shadow, the human shadow I'm not talking about if you've never heard of this concept before, it's a psycho analytic, slash psycho spiritual concept. I'm not talking about the shadow eucast when you know, you block the light from the sun. In this case, the word shadow is an apt metaphor. And so the shadow refers to parts of yourself that you have disowned or hidden away. Sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. You know, the characteristic of the shadow is that these things are unconscious, whether you chose to push these things down into your shadow and have forgotten about them. That sort of thing. So what kinds of things are in your shadow are in everybody's shadow. So if you think about when you're when you're first born as a child, and you had no socialization, you just wanted your needs to be met, and you would scream for food or scream when you were cold or scream when you were, you know, scream and cry when anything sort of didn't go your way. And then you went through life you got socialized you were a child. And when you maybe when you were angry, you hit your sibling or a schoolmate and were chastised, you know, control yourself and that sort of thing. And so we go through this process of socialization that rewards some behaviors and punishes others and really depends on our culture. And culture really enforces norms, right? Like what isn't what do we consider normal behavior and our culture and normal things to feel normal things to think about? And so what happens is we often disown parts of ourselves that have been presented to us as morally bad or morally inferior. And those could be angry impulses, or, gosh, sexual impulses for sure. Right? How many problems do we have in society because

we live in cultures that teach us to repress sexual urges. Right, and that sexual urges are amoral, and sexual thoughts are amoral, and you are bad if you have these things that naturally occur in every, every person, at some point in their life, at least. And you are bad. And so we push a lot of that stuff down into the shadow, we don't look at them, we don't see them, we've disowned them, they're not in our conscious awareness, they're part of our unconscious makeup. Okay, and this could be all kinds of stuff. It's not just the quote unquote, bad stuff, right? It's not just, Hey, I, you know, this guy cut me off in traffic, and I really felt like murdering him. You know, it's not just that stuff, that impulse stuff. Sometimes there are some real gems there, there's some really beautiful things there. I can give you an example of that. So for example, maybe you sang for friends one time and and somebody made fun of you or laughed at you or said your singing wasn't good. And so you put like, you stop singing, and you push that desire to musically express yourself down into your subconscious. It's still there, but you've blocked it out. You're not you're not thinking about that anymore? Or maybe it's loving feelings towards somebody, oh, you shouldn't? You shouldn't treat that person that way. Because they're a bad person, or, or what have you. Okay. I can think of, you know, particularly sometimes, sometimes people who are, you know, I've had friends who have come out to me as gay later, really, really late in life. And I do know that, you know, some of them have expressed to me that they were in the closet, so to speak to themselves for a long period of time. And Gosh, what a, I can't imagine how challenging that must be to not be able to recognize that part of yourself, because it has been impressed into your brain that that is morally bad in your culture, that sort of thing. So we have kind of a modern, modern in recent history, so to speak. Guru shaman, whatever, who spoke a lot about the shadow. And that is Carl young, psycho analyst. And, you know, a lot of what young did a lot of his work was around, making a person more whole, by recognizing and incorporating the shadow aspects of the self. Right, like you can't, you can't be, you can't feel whole, you can't experience wholeness. If there are parts of you that are dissociated from the other parts of you. There are parts of you that you reject. Now, here's the thing. You may be thinking, well, gosh, you know, if I have this impulse to murder somebody who cuts me off in traffic, you know, I can't incorporate that into myself, I can't murder somebody who cuts me off in traffic, that would be horrible, that would be wrong, and I could, you know, go to prison for the rest of my life or, you know, and just, you know, killing somebody else's is, is a is a terrible thing. That impulse is a terrible thing. So maybe it's right to push that down into the shadow. Here's the thing. So in recognizing, incorporating and,

you know, bringing these net, you know, quote unquote negative impulses to light does not mean that you are going to suddenly become a murderer that you are going to forget who you are. That you are going to suddenly act out on impulses that would be harmful or inappropriate. It doesn't mean any of that. It really doesn't. It just means acknowledging to yourself that you have these drives. And when you do when you do this alchemy sorts of this, you know, this alchemy happens and Jung talks a lot about alchemy in his writings, right? These, these conversions these, you know, changing lead into gold sorts of experiences happen. It takes a lot, right, because we're, we're mostly subconscious. The issue with, there are a couple issues with, with the shadow and with shadow material, right. The first is, such as a poet named Robert Bly, who wrote a book about the shadow and he describes the shadow as a black bag that you drag behind you. And if you can imagine dragging a heavy bag behind you, everywhere you go, you can imagine these parts of yourself just pulling on your energy just dragging you down. Right. And so, you know, what young found is when we, you know, when we work with these shadow parts, what actually happens is there's a release a tremendous release of creative energy, and that can be used in wonderful and amazing ways. And as a human, you you just become, you just gain a greater sense of wholeness. And you lower the the sense that there's, gosh, there's something wrong with me. Right? That's a pervasive idea. pervasive in many cultures that I'm, I'm born into this human world, and there is something inherently wrong, bad, sinful, broken. All of those things with me. I think that's one of the greatest services humanity has done to itself, over the years is this shame complex that we all seem to have just by existing. And there are lots of people who would, who love taking advantage of that. So you know, the shadow can be this black bag that we dragged behind us. The other issue comes, and young is famous for saying that which we resist persists. So if we are resisting these things popping up into our consciousness, then they stay with us forever. So I'll use the example again, somebody cuts me off in traffic, and, you know, this flash of anger comes up. And, um, you know, I feel like, gosh, I really want to run that person off the road or do something bad to them. Um, if I recognize that feeling, you know, gosh, that came up for me, and don't judge and don't push that down back into my subconscious, the energy of that impulse can dissipate. Right, it can go nowhere, right, and it can free me up. But if I have to push that down, and say, I can't have that thought, I'm, you know, I'm a spiritual teacher, I need to be floating on a cloud and above these human feelings and all of these things. First of all, I'm engaging in self delusion. And that's not a good thing. That's not a particularly woke attitude to to use a modern phrase. By deluding myself, I'm not doing that. And then the other thing is I need to, to believe that live to believe the lie that I don't have these impulses, because I'm somehow a learner teacher, and I'm above human experience and human feeling. takes a lot of energy, right to push that stuff way down into my shadow, I have to push it there. And I use the metaphor if you've ever been, you know, swimming in a pool or a lake or something and you've been had a rubber ball and inflated ball that floats and you try

to push that ball underwater. It's really really hard. And what will happen is that ball will pop up somewhere and that's what happens. That's what happens with the shadow. That ball is going to pop somewhere and in an unexpected way, and maybe you're going to have some sort of crisis, midlife crisis, psychological crisis, health crisis, I don't know. Maybe you're going to become depressed. Because you're using all of your energy to repress parts of yourself and the split off pieces of yourself, are you gonna feel fragmented or, you know, maybe you're gonna have an, you know, irrational outbursts of anger. And you're gonna have anger control issues. There are lots of ways the shadow material can pop up, but pop up, it will, it will come up somehow. Right, it will manifest itself as addiction or anger issues or depression, or, in some way it will come up, you cannot cut off parts of yourself and expect an experience of true human wholeness. Because it's a lie, because ultimately, you are whole, complete and unbroken. And so maintaining that lie is dangerous to our psyche. Right, maintaining the lie that we are, you know, there are parts of us that are we've broken off because they're bad parts or whatever. That that I think is dangerous to the psyche. I think it's dangerous to the spirits. You know, what is the danger of not engaging in shadow work, if you're a really spiritual person, shouldn't the light you know, I'll use the, you know, there are a lot of, in this new age era, there are a lot of light workers out there, right, I hold you in loving light, there's sort of a loving light crowd. And this is not to put the love and light people down at all. There's nothing wrong with that. I love love. I love light to great things. There only becomes an issue when we have this thing called spiritual bypassing, right where I pretend like I am above everything because I hold everything in love and light. Because I convinced myself that I'm all about love and light and I don't have baser human instincts baser human impulses. it's problematic because, you know, I have not met somebody who thought they were above it all who actually was, and I have met. I have met some gurus I have met some you know, very learned spiritual teachers and, and the spiritual teachers I resonate with the most tend to be the most human. So my shamanic teacher, you know, is very open about things that she's experiencing things that she is going through, and you know, is, is very human, and that makes her approachable, understandable, right? It doesn't make her one of the things I love about shamanism is we don't I consider myself a guide and not a guru. You know, you might come to me for healing or to learn something, but you don't worship me. And that wouldn't make me extremely uncomfortable. If you did. You know, and when I've had students who studied with me for a period of time, and you know, maybe start to put me on a pedestal or something, which isn't, you know, which is sort of a natural thing, because we have that experience with spiritual teachers in this world. They're to be put placed above us. And, you know, that sort of thing. I very quickly when I when I recognize that happening, I very quickly moved to make a correction because I, gosh, I don't, I don't want my ego built up. And I don't want to I definitely don't want to build it up on the backs of students or people I'm working with on a healing basis. I don't want to engage in hubris. I don't want to think I'm above it all. I will always be doing my work. I will always be working on my shadow material, I will always be working on my spiritual development

in the realm of spiritual development, oh, well, let me first before before I talk about that, let me go back and talk about these. You know, these gurus, these spiritual leaders who haven't done their Shadow Work, right. We have seen lots and lots of stories of spiritual communities where the leaders take advantage, sexually, economically, are violent towards our, you know, whatever towards their, the people in their community. Right? And why is, you know, why is that happening? I mean, they're these people who have these amazing spiritual insights and you know, are revered by students and and followers and seem to have everything going for them and then they wind up sexually abusing groups of students or, you know winding up in court over financial impropriety or or what have you. So you can go through a significant amount of spiritual development and never clean up your shadow never work on never do the Shadow Work that you need to do. And because so there's just there's a statement that the brighter the light, the darker the shadow, right, so if I shine a really, really bright light on something, it will cast a very dark shadow in comparison. And so, you know, I've I, you know, known teachers who were revered, wrote amazing things and then secretly had suffered with substance addiction, or, you know, I knew a new teacher that wound up committing suicide very, very young. Because they weren't handling the, you know, the stuff that was coming up for them in a good way. So all of these things can happen when you don't, if you do, you know, you're doing spiritual development work, and you tried to ignore your shadow or pretend it doesn't exist, which just makes it darker, which just makes it more inaccessible, but doesn't prevent things from popping up. So you have to bring, you have to bring light to the darkness and darkness into the light. So the modern day philosopher spiritual teacher that I really like Ken Wilber, very prolific writer got lots of programs online, you can watch videos of him on YouTube. And he talks about sort of three aspects of modern spirituality. The first aspect is, you know, waking up, right, waking up, is recognizing truth, right? It's what we call, you know, awakening, woke the Buddha nature, what have you. It's becoming conscious of the truth of the universe, and experience and that sort of thing. Okay, so that's one aspect. And you can be super woke and still have a dark shadow. The other aspects, so he talks about waking up growing up and cleaning up three aspects of modern spiritual development. And growing up really, I won't go into too much, but it's, it's about sort of becoming, becoming conscious and responsible and, you know, connected to connected socially and recognizing that, you know, people need to be taken care of, and that sort of thing. Right. So it's a, it's a perspective of, you know, it's sort of a sort of a collective perspective. But there's, there's more to it at that, but I won't go too deeply into that in this section. Maybe I'll, maybe I'll talk about it in a future episode. And the last part is cleaning up and this is what a lot of people miss so many people miss and cleaning up is all about Shadow Work. It's about cleaning up after yourself cleaning your own house. There's lots and lots of ways to do Shadow Work.

My I am extremely lucky to have worked with my shamanic teacher who has a way of working with shadow. shamanic Lee. It's a pretty advanced practice you get well, you know, I think I received it during an apprenticeship or something And it's beautiful and it's highly impactful. Work and it's something I've returned to again and again. Because I don't think I will ever believe that I am done doing my cleanup work. Doesn't matter if I've, you know, written and published books or you know, do a podcast or have students all over the world or whatever, it doesn't matter, I will still always do my cleanup work. And that's part of my responsibility as a teacher, is to make sure that I am as clean a channel as I can be for spirit. There's, you know, there's lots of other ways to work on your shadow work you shadow material, you could, you could go see a union, psycho analysts you could, there are certainly books out there and other programs and that sort of thing. I'll give you a few tips about how to become conscious of your shadow material. And sometimes that's sometimes that's enough, sometimes that just awareness can start the work process. That's not always true. Sometimes there's some deeper stuff going on. I'm also I'm a big fan of parts therapy, have tried internal family systems therapy, I think it is amazing. If you you know, if you are somebody who finds value in doing therapy, those are a couple modalities that deal with parts and perhaps some shadow material, as well. But there's a lot of stuff built on built on top of this stuff. So how do you start to become aware of what's in your shadow. So I had a teacher a few years back, who gave us a wonderful assignment, and this is something you can do and you can return to and that sort of thing. So she had us keep what we what she called a trigger journal, right. And for a period of time, you were to write down all of the things that happened that left us emotionally triggered. And what is emotional triggering, I'm sure they're different, and probably clinical definitions of that, but it's when you know, something happens. And you're you're kind of suddenly overwhelmed with emotion, if you think about a trigger on a gun, you know, you pull it and it like it fires off, right? And so something that triggers you might be you may consider it upsetting or, you know, driving anger all of a sudden, or, you know, just sobbing sadness. You know, anything that triggers your fight flight, freeze response as well. So, there's, there's a couple aspects to this, right. So one, there's probably when you get triggered like that, there's probably some wounding there. Okay, there may be some trauma, and that might be some shadow material. I don't you know, I don't recommend exploring trauma by trying to relive traumatic experiences, I don't think current current psychoanalytic thought thinks that that's a great idea. Personally, personally, it's something I've done. And you know, it's really traumatizing. And unless something really great comes out of it. It's not, it's potentially not worth it. But what you can do is you can examine your responses to things today. Okay, so that that's one way is to look at things that trigger you and maybe you're somebody who's never triggered and that's fine, too. What's another? What's another thing you can look at, to sort of figure out what is in your shadow?

So, think about the things that think about pet peeves, or things that drive you crazy, particularly in other people, right? What is it that drives you crazy about somebody else I can give you I can give you One of mine. Okay, I can give you one thing that, that drives me crazy about other people. So an unwarranted sense of entitlement to the point where people become rude about it, you know, where people think they're entitled to something in an unwarranted way. It drives me, it drives me crazy. And why, like, why can't I just ignore that? Why can't I just, you know, whatever, what is it about that that makes me really upset? Well, there's some part in my shadow that I'm projecting onto those people. And this is what we do. Like we have these parts, and our shadow, and about herself things about ourselves that we don't like that. We project onto other people. And that's how that's one way that our unconscious deals with them. And so this is a way to recognize parts in you, if they're things about other people that you just don't like, there's a resonance with some part in your shadow. This is not to say, like, I really don't like it when people are rude to me, I really don't like it. You know, somebody stole something from me, and they don't like that. No, that's that's different. Right? That's a little bit different. There's actual potential injury there, right. But I just don't like that person who comes off being so entitled, I don't like that entitled nature. Somebody, what is it about me what's in my shadow? That that, that that really bothers me. Right? And does that mean that some part of me has this really entitled? unwarranted nature? Well, it may not be exactly. I may not be an exact match. Right. But what I do know is, you know, because I, you know, I had sometimes not such a great childhood upbringing. I know. There were times where I felt undeserving, or I felt deserving, but like, not getting the things that I needed. There was some, you know, there was some child abuse, domestic violence, neglect, that that sort of stuff going on in my early childhood. And probably, if I had to guess I haven't, you know, again, I'm always doing my work and trying to try and look at these things. If I had to guess, I would say that I probably had this feeling like, don't I deserve x, because I see my friends getting x, I see my friends getting these great expensive toys for their birthday, or I see my friends, you know, doing this. And don't I deserve that too. And what child doesn't think that right? What child doesn't look with jealousy. And I, you know, if I had to think about it, I would probably repress that because I wasn't getting those things. And so it was painful for me to think about. Think about what shame is right? Shame is about thinking that you are undeserving that you are less than that you are bad that you're broken, that there's some parts of you are wrong, and that sort of thing. And so if I felt deserving. But I felt like I wasn't, you know, I felt like I wasn't getting the things that I deserved, it was probably really painful. So I probably pushed that deservingness down into my shadow as a child. And so when I see people who are like, well, I deserve this, and it's unwarranted and people are feel entitled, like, I'm probably projecting all of that stuff onto them. Well, how dare you act deserving? How dare you? not deserving. But how dare you act entitled. So that's something that comes up for me, and it's something I work on, and it's something I will continue to work on, you know, at least for a while, at least until I don't

you know, it releases somewhat in me I have that I can reach a level of equanimity about it a level of what this spiritual teacher Lester Levinson called heartlessness. I don't give a hoot don't don't try, it doesn't bother me anymore. I will continue to work on that. So Those are two big ways that you can recognize some things that are in your shadow. Right? You can also just recognize impulses that you have, that you would not act on. Right. So these could be, you know, sexual impulses or impulses about food, or substances or impulses around anger or impulses around, you know, any, any sorts of behavior that you're like, Oh, I would never do that. I wish I could, but I would never do that, or not even I wish I could just, I had this impulse come up, and I need to stop myself. Right? Because it's not, you know, it's not okay for me to be that way. And again, when you work with you, you're, you know, I can, you know, I can tell you firsthand, because I do shadow work all the time, when I work on the shadow pieces of myself, it doesn't turn me into, you know, I don't become Jacqueline Hyde. I don't embrace impulses. And become a violent person, or suddenly, you know, start acting out sexual impulses that would not be acceptable to the people I love or the culture I live in. Or, you know, I don't, I don't do those things. And those things don't happen when you're doing actual Shadow Work. Those things happen when you don't do your shadow work, right. So this is, this is sort of a lie that your unconscious might tell you, oh, if I bring these things up, I'm going to act and I'm going to be powerless against them. Well, you're really powerless against the things that you can't see the things you are unaware of. And they do, in a way, run your life. If you look at a lot of mistakes you've made or you know, things that you wish you could have done and didn't do, and that sort of thing, these unconscious parts of you until you make them conscious will be in the background, manipulating your thoughts, manipulating your behavior, they're not evil. They're just disowns. Right there. Sometimes they're like little children that are trying to gain your attention. Pay attention to me, I'm, you know, I'm part of you. I deserve light too. And, you know, a really beautiful thing can happen when you do the work when you do Shadow Work. And you know, you know, I highly recommend, I highly recommend doing it, whether it's reading about how to do Shadow Work, or, you know, doing seminars with people who are really good at it, or getting one on one with a teacher who's trained in this type of work. The beautiful thing that happens is the shadow parts can become transformed. And a lot of them, are they all these parts, they all have some sort of best interest. At heart, they might, it might not seem of it seemed like it right? Like, how does a violent impulse have my best interest at heart? Right? I want to, I want to punch the guy who cut in line in front of me. How does that impulse have an impulse positive? Well, obviously punching somebody for cutting in line for view, would not be a good income, you know, a good outcome. And a good result would not come from that. But the impulse, if you think about it, what's the intention behind it, the intention is protective. I'm going to protect my space, I want you to see that I am important. When you cut in front of me, you're saying that I am less important than you and I am enforcing this boundary. And so when you work with these pieces, you can recognize what that impulse is what the positive impulse is, and they can be transformed. So it doesn't necessarily show up as the impulse to punch somebody.

But it might show up as Hey, you know, it's not okay that this person violated this boundary. And I'm going to speak up for myself, or, okay, I got angry, this person violated a boundary of mine, I recognize what this is. And I've decided, you know, I've made a choice, that it's not worth it for me to interact with this person. Or I can look at it with more clarity. Oh, this person just didn't pay attention and you know, probably probably cut in line didn't realize that we're cutting in line. Or this person is in a real Hurry, and you know I'm not and, but it allows you to have some discretion. If you just have stuff popping up that you have no, absolutely no control over, absolutely no knowledge of just popping in from your unconscious, it's like unwanted guests who just show up at your door and say we're here feed us. Right? You don't have any control over that. But if you can invite the guests over, or if they're guests that you know, and you like, and, you know, like, Hey, we're here, we're hungry, but we could order out or we could do this, or we could do that, um, you know, that's a little healthier, it's a little bit of a healthier relationship. So it's really important to pay attention to the clean up part of your spiritual development, a talk about this a lot, because I see it, I see it in the world of spiritual teaching, where there are a lot of spiritual teachers who are have very great deals of hubris. They lack humility, and they think that they are untouched by the world and, and all of these things and, and, you know, part of that is they have, I believe that most of these teachers have deluded themselves. And they may be able to achieve these really high states of consciousness, right, where, you know, most of the time, they're not there, they're high right from these spiritual states of consciousness. And they don't have to experience the crap that comes up the utter crap that comes up for them. And again, like I'm using a derogatory term crap, because that's how it's gonna show up, if we don't deal with it. And it's not to say that everything in your again, not, not everything in your shadow in your shadow parts are not junk, they're not crap. But when it pops up in unexpected ways, and you are powerless, and wind up acting out over it. That's when it's crap. That's when it's bad. That's when bad results happen. And, you know, can, you know, real problems can come out of this stuff. Really big problems. I recently watched a couple of documentaries on these cult groups. One was the Jim Jones cult, you know, decades ago that went up committing mass suicide. I think it was 900 900 people died. It's horrific. And the other was this Heaven's Gate cult that you know, a little bit more recent than that. Well, again, wound up in mass suicide. Mmm hmm. You know, and I, I have compassion for those people. Those followers I do think that the, the leaders of those groups we're not dealing with they're clearly not dealing with their shadow stuff. Jim Jones, especially the the, you know, the Jonestown the Jonestown stuff was horrific. He was clearly working right out of egoic unconscious impulse and what a, you know, what a terrible tragedy that was Heaven's Gate stuff, you know, a little, a little bit of the same, you know, quite a different sort of interpretation. But, um, you know, watching the watching the documentary about it, I was overcome with how people were expected to be celibate and not act on sexual impulses. And they thought that, you know, sexual impulses were to be quashed, and, you know, to the point where,

you know, some people opted to, you know, some males opted to get castrated, so they wouldn't have to struggle with these impulses anymore. It's pretty destructive. Right? And not to judge not to judge their beliefs too much, but they clearly, were trying to repress something that is quite natural in humans sexual impulse. Everybody has it. And we see in societies where that is heavily repressed, lots of acting out. You know, we see lots of sex abuse scandals in organized religions where sexuality is heavily repressed. And that's the shadow, that's the shadow acting out on these repressed impulses. can be a clear case for that. So this isn't to say that it's okay to go out in, you know, again, I'm not casting judgment, but I'm not saying you have to go out and be promiscuous or act on all of your sexual impulses, certainly not any that involve non consensual activity, right? We live in a society where all sexual activity needs to be, needs to be consensual between adults, and, you know, whatever, I'm not telling you what other than that, I'm not telling you, you should act, I'm not the moral authority, I'm just telling you that if you know you have, you have these impulses, and pushing them down into your unconscious is a recipe for disaster. So that is the shadow in a nutshell, and how to start to become aware of your shadow material, a couple of tips for that. I hope that's incredibly useful, I hope that you'll start looking at some of these things, both looking at your triggers, particularly things that surprise you, as well as pet peeves, or things or qualities or characteristics or things that in other people that drive you bonkers, drive you crazy, that you find upsetting and don't really have a great explanation. Why? Right. You know, I gave you the example of entitled, you know, sense of entitlement for me. It is something I'm working on, I promise, I promise to continue working on my shadow material, if you promise to keep working on your shadow material. I thank you so much for joining me, I look at the statistics of this podcast pretty closely on a regular basis just to see who's you know, to get a sense of where people are from. And I'm really excited to see that there are people listening from, you know, Russia and Bangladesh and Nepal and the UK and the US, obviously, and Canada, and Norway and Japan. And I just want to say that I love each and every one of you. And I'm so glad that you you know, I'm grateful that you have taken some time to listen to this. And I strive to make this as useful as possible and honor that you have given me your time and attention in a day and age where time and attention are absolute commodities, right. And I promise to keep doing the best work that I can do on this podcast. I'm looking looking forward to having some guests on here. So it's not just me talking, going into the future that should happen fairly soon. And I'm always happy to listen to suggested topics if there's something you want me to talk about as long as I can. As long as I have have something to say about it. I will be happy to do that. You can contact me through my website, which is MaineShaman.com that's maineshaman.com.

Announcer 49:19

You have been listening to speaking spirit with your host, john more. For more info or to contact john go to Maineshaman.com that's maineshaman.com

Ep07 What is Shamanism?

Announcer 0:29

Hello, and welcome to speaking spirit where we talk about all things spiritual. Your host, john Moore is a shamanic practitioner and spiritual teacher. And now his john,

John Moore 0:56

everybody. Thank you for joining me again, a little later, getting this podcast out than I normally would be. Forgive me for that in the realm of spirit, time doesn't really exist. So I guess it's okay. Anyway, at least that's what one of my teachers told me. It is just after sunrise here in Maine, and we had a couple of storms come through over the past few days, which, you know, dumped a little bit of snow on us. And it's just beautiful. The sun is out the sky is blue. The sun is streaming across the snow and through the trees. And it's just beautiful to look out. And I hope that wherever you are, you don't have to be in a spot as traditionally beautiful as Maine. But I hope wherever you are, you can find some beauty and some thing that you can see or touch or hear today, and you know, looking for beauty, you'll find it, your intention will guide you. So if you take a little bit of time, or just to set the intention to look for beauty today, something that really touches you and makes you feel good and connected. today. I think it'll make your day better. I hope so. Today's topic is near and dear to my heart. I want to the topic is What is shamanism. And I'm going to talk while I'm going to talk about shamanism. And that is my spiritual home for lack of a better term. shamanism is not a religion. So I don't can't really call it my religion, I could call it my practice. But it's more than that. So I'm going to talk about it, I'm going to shamanism is also a big buzzword right now. It's become increasingly popular, certainly in the United States, I see evidence of that happening in other places. And I will talk about why I think that's happening as well. It's not just in my opinion, a some kind of New Age buzzword. There is there is a reason why the shamanic impulse is waking up or waking people up across the world at this moment. So let's talk about what is a shaman and what shamanism is and where the word comes from. And all of those things in this will give you some, some background and why why this, you know, women are talking about in the, in the ways that I do. I'll say this, that we apply the word shaman and the word shamanism to a lot of different things. And some of that is because it's a challenging, they're challenging words to define. And another reason is their loan words into English. And their actual origins are a little bit lost at the moment, maybe some linguistic research down the road, but I'll talk about where we get the word from in English anyway. And the you know, the words have been applied cross culturally, to all kinds of spiritual workers, spiritual medicine, that sort of thing. And, you know, definitions are useful when they're agreed to, but there certainly may not be universal agreement. So when I give you my definition, that certainly is not going to agree with with other people and that's fine. We can disagree about that because words are words or symbols. They're not the thing that we're describing, right? They're shortcuts into our consciousness. I use that This, I use this example a lot if I use the word dog. That's not a dog. But if we have a common understanding of what the word dog means we can talk about a dog. The map is not the territory, the model is not the thing. The word isn't the thing that it describes. It's just a shortcut. It's a symbol. So, the word shaman

and I'll preface this by saying that in my tradition, I do not call myself a shaman I use when describing myself. I prefer the phrase, shamanic practitioner. Sometimes people will call me shamanic healer, that's also fine. If I'm doing healing work. I don't limit myself to healing work, but that's one type of work that I do. And I consider myself a teacher. I teach shamanism and other you know, spiritual topics. I teach meditation, Qigong, and some other you know, but my main, my main focus is shamanism. So it could be a shamanic teacher, shamanic practitioner, shamanic healer. I don't use the word shaman, and I'll talk about that a little bit later. The word shaman comes into English from Russian and German. Okay. And before that, before it was in Russian and German. It was a word from the Tongass people in Siberia. So it's Tim Lucic, I believe is how you say it in Siberia. And there it means you know what you think, you know, the word shaman means what you think it's this, you know, this holy person that you go to, that does spiritual work for you. They're a spiritual officiant for lack of a better term. However, roots of the word shaman do show up in some Chinese languages. They show up in Sanskrit they show up in Pali Lang, you know the language that the Buddha spoke. And so it's exact origins are a little bit lost. In in those cultures in Pali, and I believe Sanskrit and in the dialects of Chinese where it exists. It basically means like priest or monk or something along those lines. In the Tongass people, the word shaman means one who sees in the dark, or one who sees clearly. And if you ever see video or photos of a Siberian shaman, frequently they're wearing a cover over their eyes. What we would refer to as Siberian ikatan, sometimes it's, it's a hat with fringe that covers the eyes. And this is a tool that they use in their work. So what are we talking about when we talk about the word in English? To me, shamanism involves three main components. And if you're not doing them, you're doing something else. And it's fine that you're doing something else. But when I talk about shaman Ising, we turned that into a verb. When you talk about shamanism, I'm talking about three components, spiritual acts that comprise three components. And these will be at the center of what we're talking about. And these are things that, you know, back in the early 20th century, mid 20th century, anthropologists went around the world, looking at what we consider shamanic cultures, cultures, where they would have someone you know, fulfilling the role of shaman and looking at what these cultures did in common, what were the common practices, techniques, technologies that they were using. And so, there are three of them. One is a so the definition is a shaman is a, you know, a spiritual worker who uses altered states of consciousness to travel in or experience non ordinary states of reality. And who works with helping spirits to do work and that frequently healing or getting information or you know, other things, ceremonies, rituals, that sort of thing. Usually, there's a healing component of some kind. So those three components are using altered state of consciousness. That's component one, when to traveling in non ordinary reality, okay, so most shamanic cultures recognize spiritual worlds that they travel in and this is the main practices journeying in the spiritual worlds, okay, different words for them. In other cultures dream time other worlds in core shamanism we refer to sort of upper world, lower world, middle world. Lots and lots of cross cultural stuff here.

And then the last component is working with helping spirits. So shamans always working with other spirits. And they might do that in different ways that might involve, you know, in some cultures being taken over by the Spirit in some cultures, they're just communing with them or communicating or merging or calling upon them, evoking them, invoking them. But all three of those components are present when we're doing shamanism. So, let's talk about altered states. How do shamans enter altered states and a lot of people so there's a misconception that all shamans use drugs or hallucinogens, plant medicine, what have you. So in some cultures, I Alaska silicided. And there's lots and lots of chemicals and plants that can be used to enter altered states of consciousness. And it is true that the use of plant medicines exist in traditional cultures all over the world. So we see you know, the Sami people in you know, in in northern Scandinavia. There are rituals involving fly a garlic mushrooms. We see in you know, South America, South and Central America, we see things like Iowa aska. We see pod in the southwestern United States, we see Boga coming from Africa. So there's it, you know, these hallucinogens exist all over the place, and they are used and they are used. Shimano. For the most part, though, the majority of shamanic cultures use other means to alter their consciousness. A big one that I use a lot is to use sound, such as rhythmic drumming, or rattling or, you know, some sort of sound to enter the specific shamanic state. And what we know is that you know, there are different patterns of brain we know this now in modern times, obviously, before the invention of things like IE G's, and, you know, much more modern science, we didn't specifically have this information, but for 1000s of years, shamans knew what they were doing when they were altering their brains. And so they, you know, generate these brainwaves using sound called theta waves, right? It's around four hertz, if you're scientific or four cycles per second, or, you know, drumming at 220 beats per minute, would give you a theta brainwave state. And in this state, your ego breaks down a little bit, you become much more open, and are able to do the things that you need to do to get into a journey much more easily. So drumming is one another way. There are cultures. I'm thinking of Bushmen, cultures in Africa that use you know, this, use a sort of, like extreme form of dancing, where they might dance for 24 hours without food or water. It's put themselves in, you know, these crazy altered states. And, you know, dancing is another are another really common way to enter altered states. I'm sure there are lots of them. I'm sure there are lots and lots of ways. But there's a specific state that shamans use, whether they're aware of, you know, Eg research or not, but it's it's common all over the world. And people I guess, just knew that either through experimentation or through some sort of divine revelation that this particular state you know, brainwave state was tuning the brain to the correct frequency for doing shamanic work for lack of a better term. If we think of the brain, not as the generator of consciousness, but as the as a receiver of consciousness because I believe that consciousness is non local, but that the human brain is a As a receiver that can be tuned. And so tuning the brain to a specific vibratory pattern opens it up to shamanic work. So that's part one, so and then, so Part one is entering these altered states. Part Two, is,

you know, traveling in non ordinary realms, and again, like this, there's an, you know, as I said, shamanism appears all over the world, in every culture, it shows up in, you know, it's called different things. And it has, there's always a cultural overlay. Right, there's always, you know, the information about it comes filtered through the culture, and the cultural understanding of the people that, you know, the, the group that the, the shaman, you know, identifies with the culture that they've grown up in. So in, you know, in many cultures, they're, you know, the non ordinary reality exists and is called, you know, the other worlds or dream time, or lots and lots of different things. Okay. And what we find that's really common is, there is there are usually experiences of traveling down into the earth, which we have called the lower world. And don't worry, it's not, you know, those of us who grew up in a predominantly Christian culture might think that that's hellish, or going to hell, because we just think of Hell is down and lower, and that sort of thing. Those are just, you know, those are symbols that don't really apply here. It's, you know, from another system, those are symbols from another system, they don't really apply, I travel to the lower world nearly every day, and it is a beautiful nature like place, when you when you when you tune into that, and in the lower world, this is where we meet power animals, not to be confused with what have been called spirit animals, or totems, power animals are different, they're animal spirits, that we have sort of one on one relationships with. And in most cultures, you know, working with power animals is very common, very, very common, these spirit allies that are that come to us, as you know, sort of in the form of deceased animals. Very powerful work to be done with helping spirits. So a non ordinary reality that we also consider and what we call an upper world. And really, these again, these are models, these are labels that we're placing on states of consciousness that are experienced as traveling up or down in non ordinary reality. There are, as far as I know, infinite levels of, of reality, there's many, many, many, many, many, but it just makes it easier, we can't, you know, makes it possible to talk about it if we break it down into rather large chunks of description. And so there's an upper world and and, you know, a lot of shamanic cultures talk about being you know, born on the wings of an eagle or flying upward into heaven or being pulled up somehow. And it's a little bit of a different experience there. And there we meet teachers that might be more human, like less animal like, although that's not always the case. That's where you're sort of human like helping spirits hang out, where you might meet gods and goddesses and angels and you know, deceased ancestors, and that sort of thing, is the sort of upper realm and then there's this middle world, which is the world that we live in. In an Old Norse, we would call that mid guard, right? The middle world. And that's the world that we live in. But there's a spiritual overlay there. Right? This is spiritual overlay. And middle world is where we encounter things like nature spirits, fairies, and sprites and gin and genies and all kinds of stuff, right? So um, so that's non ordinary reality. And then I've touched a little bit on working with helping spirits, right. We have power animals that we work with to do a tremendous amount of work. We have what we call upper world teachers. Most people practicing shamanism will start to gather a community of spirits that they work with, and in my experience, these spirits are a little specialized. In other words, they work out I'll work with a spirit for a specific piece of work. One of the things we do one of the things that most practitioners do is a ceremony called soul retrieval. And it's a shamanic way of helping to deal with trauma amongst other things, but

it deals with soul loss, soul separation, soul fragmentation, that sort of thing. And I have a specific helping spirits that I work with for that work. And then another piece of work might be we call psychopomp work, which is helping helping people who are deceased to cross over to where they should be going, sort of, you know, helping with that kind of work. And I have other helping spirits that I work with for that, that type of work. And so they're a little bit specialized, and they're helping spirits for doing ancestor work for doing weather work for doing all kinds of stuff. Okay, so we normally we gather, we gather a team, right, a team of specialists. And that's really, that's really helpful. And, you know, one of the things I like about the practice of shamanism is one of the ways that it keeps my ego from getting really big is that it reminds me that I'm not the one doing the work. We always consider that it's the helping spirits actually doing the work. I'm just acting as a clear a conduit as I possibly can for the work to happen. Right. So that is that shamanism in a nutshell. Well, that is the definition of shamanism. In a nutshell, you have these three components, right? That I've been talking about. So why do we have people acting in the role of shaman in showing up in every culture in every you know, every location on the planet where people where there are people? You know, why is this? Why is shamanism this universal phenomenon? Right, why is it showing up everywhere at all times in recorded history, and it actually looks like shamanism is prehistoric. Slowly. We'll, I'll talk a little bit about that. But I think you could make a really good argument that would probably be backed up by modern science, that shamanic practice, the practice of shamanism is the oldest form of human spirituality, at least that still exists today. So we might say it's the oldest continuous form of human spirituality. Okay, so we think about, you know, the oldest, I don't, I don't know what the oldest sort of, you know, modern non prehistoric religion would be. But we'll say, you know, we'll say, Judaism is pretty old for Western religion. Right? And, you know, it's, I don't know, if I traces back five or 6000 years. I'm sure there are Eastern religions that are equally if not older than that. So religions in in Asia, I'm not sure how far back the you know, what we would consider the Hindu faith. We go go back. I know the texts are pretty some of the texts are pretty ancient. So yeah, I mean, there's there's, there are forms of spirituality that exists today that go back several 1000 years. The thing is, we have evidence now that we think cave paintings done by humans not but done by, you know, what we anatomically modern humans anyway, going back as far as 30 40,000 years, have are displaying. shamanic states of consciousness we see these things called m entoptic. patterns in this artwork we see therianthropy so we see paintings of things that are half animal half person. There's lots of evidence that this is the case and there is some support for that some belief for that. So we think that shamanism is probably the oldest practice of spirituality, that you know that that still exists today. Goes back 10s of 1000s of years,

we don't really have evidence of humans doing much more symbolic thought before that there was looks like there was a time about 50,000 years ago where humans started, you know, painting pictures having symbolic thought. But that's just current archaeological evidence. That's just what we have. Now, certainly things could become much older and new discoveries happen all the time that push timelines back for things. So it's possible then to consider that shamanism might be the original form of human spirituality, as soon as humans were able to alter their consciousness to experience, you know, experience what what shamans experienced, they were using that as a tool. And if you think about it, you know, we didn't have modern allopathic medicine developed yet, or even, you know, traditional Chinese medicine or a lot of forms of herb ology and stuff. And so humans had to survive as a species in conditions that, you know, can end with conditions and tools that weren't fantastic, right? Humans are not the fastest runners that we don't have the sharpest teeth, the biggest claws, we're not the strongest, we're not the best climbers. But what humans are there, we're adaptable. And we have, we're social. And we have the ability of symbolic thought, right? We have the ability to paint pictures, we have the ability to describe things using language. And that has been a huge survival advantage to us. Right? We, we, you know, that symbolic thought, that ability to form even spiritual ideas, and gather people together for a common good, though those things are what kept humans alive, while other ancestors died out. There's not evidence of Neanderthals, for example, doing cave paintings yet? I mean, I don't know that might, they might discover that at some point. You know, and certainly, Neanderthals were probably capable of some symbolic thought. But we don't really have evidence of the level that modern humans had Homo sapiens. And the same is kind of the same is true for other so you know, around. You know, in the early days of Homo sapiens, there were lots of other races of humans out there. And when I say race, I don't mean the way we think of race today, I mean, genus and species, you know, or at least species of humans were different. Right? We have Neanderthals denisovan, man, we had all kinds of hominids out there. And then the one thing that we definitely can see that's different about modern humans is this capability towards symbolic thought towards religiosity, for lack of a better term spirituality. Right. And, you know, the ability to do spiritual work really, I think provided a an evolutionary advantage that modern humans survived and other other species either, you know, interbred with humans, but didn't continue to exist as a species they died out, at some point. We did not still have Neanderthals walking around, although, you know, some people like myself, I've a bit of Neanderthal DNA. So there was some, there was some interbreeding going on there. But we don't have pure DNA, as you know, species of Neanderthals walking around these days. And there's a lot of speculation as to why that is, but I'm just saying that I think one strong advantage that Homo sapiens had was this ability for symbolic thought that at a level anyway, that we don't see in any other species on the planet. I do believe now they're doing research with primates and birds and showing that they are capable of some symbolic thought and perhaps, maybe even, you know, super primitive forms of spirituality or ritual. Certainly

And so, there is that, but certainly not developed to the level where human beings developed it. So one thing about shamanism is that, you know, we consider if you look at the work of young and he talks about the collective unconscious, and we have these archetypes that spring up, which are universal, they're universal patterns that exist in the collective conscious, right? We're not always aware of them. One example is the hero. And we talked about Joseph Campbell's, you know, the hero's journey, which is common in every mythology on the planet. Right? So the hero is an archetype. It's a pattern that shows up. And I think the shamanic archetype is the same thing. I think the shaman shows up I think every mythology on the planet contains elements of shamanic initiation, voyages to underworlds, to above worlds, dealing with spiritual creatures. All of these things I think, I think the shaman is, is, you know, on one level, you know, a shaman is an actual physical human being doing stuff on this planet. But I think there is an archetype, and I think it pops up everywhere in the planet, and I think it is as old as humanity itself. I think it'd be hard. You know, I, again, I'm proposing a lot of things that would be difficult to disprove. But this is, you know, I'm posting as this is my opinion, this is my thought on this, after having, you know, read significantly in this area and done a lot of my own research, and, in fact, journey and quite a lot about this. The shamanic archetype activates in human cultures and in human individuals as the result of crisis. And in fact, a lot of the literature talks about shamanic crisis and what does crisis mean? crisis is some sort of, we'll say abnormal threat. Right? So right now, as I record this, we are in the middle of a global pandemic. That is a crisis because it is an existential threat to many people, it has changed lives, it has threatened livelihoods, it has profoundly affected our culture, the way you know, no matter where you are, the way things have been done has changed. And in my opinion, this is one of the reasons why there has been this sort of wave like resurgence of interest. In shamanism, people are waking up to spirituality, they're waking up to this shamanic impulse, as a way of dealing with this. It's a response the awakening impulse, the awakening, demonic impulse is a response to crisis. on an individual level, most people I know who there are a certain number of people who are just interested in shamanism might take a weekend workshop or something like that. But most people I know, who go very deeply into shamanism become practitioners and teachers and that sort of thing. have gone through significant life passages. So this could be you know, I know someone who had several near death experiences. For me, it was, you know, it was a, what we might refer to as an have referred to as a nervous breakdown or psychological breakdown that I went through years ago that I didn't know that I could come back from. And it was a mental and physical crisis on an individual level. So we see this showing up again and again, and and in many, in many shamanic cultures around the world. shamans are chosen on the basis of having gone through some sort of crisis. Sometimes they have to be born with a physical deformity. Sometimes they might be struck by lightning. Have a mystery illness. This is called the demonic illness. And you'll see it frequently somebody falling ill with something that medical science has a hard time diagnosing a hard time treating that sort of thing, and they'll come out of it, you know, somewhat awakened or with the impulse to do shamanic work. I think I don't I don't know how really to estimate how frequently this happens. Everyone goes through crisis. Does that awaken the shamanic impulse in everyone? I think no. I think there are people who have a

Kind of a makeup that's geared towards that. And, you know, might have been drawn to spirit their whole lives but never really had a had a place to do it or a place to put it. But, you know, crisis kind of opens you up and kind of cracks you open. And in, it's in healing that those wounds where they're never completely healed, there's always a resonance there. You know, there's a, there's a poem that says the, you know, the cracks are where the light comes through. Right? It's that cracking apart, that breaking down of the ego, sometimes that allows people practicing shamanism to become clear channels, or in some cultures, it's called the hollow bone, right, the hollow bone that spirit passes through. So, yeah, so shamanism arises as a response to crisis, personal and cultural. So when culture goes through crisis, a lot of people sort of wake up. And that doesn't mean when I say wake up, but I'm not putting that in the sense of, you know, of like Buddhist awakening, or, you know, Ascension or any of those, like, you've reached another level. What I mean is, I've been going through my life, and then all of a sudden, I realize that, you know, there's this huge crisis I need to deal with, and ordinary methods I might use to deal with crisis are not working for me. And it's, it's a wake up call, maybe that's a better phrase wake up call, rather than than awakening. There's a lot of baggage around terms like awakening and ascension, and, and all of these things. So the shamanic viewpoint, there is a viewpoint, there is a way that shamans commonly look at things. And again, it's different culture by culture, of course, everybody looks at everything through the lens of the culture that they are, you know, they have been raised in or that they have adopted or that they have lived in for a really long time. It's good to be aware of these things. Right? So I'm speaking to you in English. And I know that for many of you English is not your first language. And so when I use words, I know inherently, that they may have slightly different meanings for you, and you might be looking at them in a way that you haven't, you know, I have experiences with certain words with certain symbols that you have, have experienced differently, and that's fine. So So when I say that, you know, there's a thing that's, that's common, it shows it does, you know, it shows up in different ways. But this is a fairly common thing. I, you know, I can't say if it's universal, because then somebody would, I said, This isn't every shamanic culture, you know, I'm sure somebody out there could say, Oh, no, this tribe from here does not believe that way. But when I say common, I would say almost every shamanic culture practitioner has a viewpoint that I would say describe as animistic animism is the belief that, you know, one way of describing the animistic belief is that it's the belief that spirit is in everything. This is the way I see it. So I see spirit in trees and grass, in rivers and rocks, in animals and people. I see spirit. I see the earth as a sort of giant spirit, a giant collective spirit. But spirit also exists in manmade things. So anything you can perceive as a separate object is a spirit. It just has a physical component to it. Okay, so if I make something, let's say I make I have this coffee cup in front of me and I have a sip as a matter of fact. Delicious, this coffee cup in front of me. So some human made that right, say, took some, some clay from the earth has some spirit, some bit of the earthly spirit was in that lump of clay and it was formed, it's the cup and then you know that there's this in non ordinary reality there is this spirit of the cup. But the cup also has a physical representation here on earth because I can pick it up I can put coffee in it and I can drink out of it.

So we see everything as a spirit, we can talk to, you know, we can talk to most things, sometimes they talk back, particularly during journey, middle world journeys, you can talk to trees and rocks and get information. And as I said that a blue bird just flew by my window, I'm, I'm, you know, not making that up. And it just flew by again, it's sweeping back and forth across my window. So it's lovely to see I talked to the birds, especially lots of birds where I am. And, and so the shamanic viewpoint is animistic that their spirits everywhere and travel, and I mentioned this before, but in the middle world, there are you do encounter lots of spirits that do not have a physical component, right, they do not have a physical body. And those spirits sometimes are seen as and, and Gosh, every culture has some name for little people, right? Little, little people that are sort of on the edge of spirit and physical reality. I can't think of the term but there's, you know, in Hawaiian culture, there are these little, little elves that build things overnight. Like they're, you know, giant walls are built overnight by these. You know, these, you know, these little elf like creatures and in, you know, in, in countries that were sort of Celtic at one point, so, you know, parts of, you know, UK and that area, we have a whole fairy faith, a whole faith built up around the faith of the fairies. But we have, you know, all kinds of, you know, European cultures, with fairies and trolls, and elves and gnomes, and all of these things. And we think of them as we have the phrase in English fairy tale write a story that isn't a story that isn't real, where we talk about fairies and supernatural creatures and that sort of thing. I'll tell you that, you know, reality is kind of a flexible thing. So are there things that are real, that aren't reflected in physical reality? Well, sure, your subjective experience of consciousness. You know, we can get it we could go down the rabbit hole of discussing consciousness, but your your entire subjective experience of reality does not really have a physical representation. And yes, I, you could, you know, go into a functional MRI machine and say, this area of your brain is lighting up in this area of your brain is lighting up. But none of that explains your subjective experience. That's electrical activity. But how do you go through life experiencing the world? How do you? How do waves made in the air sound like a symphony to you? How do you recreate a symphony in your consciousness? To me, electrical signals bouncing back and forth. can't really explain that can't really explain what I'm feeling when I touch something, or when I taste something. You know, my experiences of not of electrical symbols, passing back and forth to me consciousness is, is reality. And so is it possible then, that there are things that are real? I believe my consciousness is real, maybe I'm imagining my consciousness. But what is consciousness conscious of that? imagining? I'm sorry, as I'm kind of joking, but it's a little bit of a brain teaser, right? So consciousness is my experience of reality, and does not necessarily have a physical representation. So are there things that are real? I can make it simpler. If you have a thought, in your in your head, if you think of a if you think of a purple elephant, is that purple elephant real or not necessarily real? But is the thought real? Did you really have the thought the thought occur in this reality? Were you conscious of it? And the answer to that is yes. So even on just a mental level, there are things that exist that do not have physical represent Do not have physical bodies. And so whether or not you believe in fairy tale creatures,

and you think I'm psychotic, when I go out and talk to land spirits, or trees or whatever, is beside the point like we could, we could potentially agree that there are things that we would describe as real, that don't have physical presence. And, you know, there are no, there are no cultures, I can think of that do not have the belief in non physical entities, right. So every culture out there believes in spirits of some sort, whether that's the spirit that, you know, whether they're animistic or not, right, we believe that people have spirits that there are ghosts, that there are, you know, so these things are universal, these things exist in cultures that had no contact with each other for 10s of 1000s of years, at least, right? Maybe maybe longer. Right, when when humans started, you know, migrating all over the planet, and that that timeline keeps getting pushed back further and further, you know, they find evidence of human activity in Europe now going back, you know, 10s of 1000s of years earlier than they thought humans went out of went out of Africa. So that timeline keeps getting pushed back. So these are universal thoughts. These are things again, the shamanic impulse, the animistic impulse, the all these things are fairly universal. That doesn't mean every you know, that doesn't mean every human being on the planet believes in these things or believes in them in the same way. Right? There are atheists out there, there are material realists who think anything you cannot measure with equipment doesn't exist. And that's fine. That's their, that's their belief. That's their reality. It can't measure their consciousness, right? We can't measure can't attach, you can attach electrodes to your brain, that that is not your subjective experience of consciousness. So go back to the the idea that we can experience things that don't have physical representation. So I just want to recap a little bit and I hope this has been informative for you, but I talked about shamanism and how it is the, you know, it is a universal set of spiritual technologies, practices, ways of ways of interacting with spirit that go back at least 10s of 1000s of years, goes back into prehistoric times. It exists, the shamanic impulse exists, well, it is filtered through culture, it exists everywhere on the planet where there are human beings. It arises as the result as a response to a crisis, both on an individual cultural and global level. And that shamans are in general animists where we believe in spirits inhabiting things particularly in the natural world, but I extend that to things that are manmade as well. I really hope this has been informative. shamanism is my what I refer to as my spiritual home. please reach out to me if you have any questions or wish to contact me. You can find me at MaineShaman.com. That's ma i n e Sh aman.com.

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You have been listening to speaking spirit With your host, john more. For more info or to contact john, go to MaineShaman.com that's maineshaman.com

Ep06 Rituals and Ceremonies

Announcer 0:31

Hello, and welcome to speaking spirit where we talk about all things spiritual. Your host, john Moore is a shamanic practitioner and spiritual teacher. And now here's john.

John Moore 0:50

Hello, everybody. It is just after sunrise as I record this for you on February 1 2021. It is just before a large winter storm is about to hit here. And it's interesting to me I I love storms. I'm one of those people who love storms and as a shamanic practitioner, we do a lot of work with, whether spirits, the spirits of nature, that sort of thing. And there's always this tremendous power that comes you can, if you're sensitive to it, you can feel it. You know, part of it is physical, there's the dropping of barometric pressure that happens and you know that that sort of thing. But there is this electric spiritual energy that that proceeds storms. That's pretty interesting thing. And I do know a lot of people who practice whether shamanism, which is not, by the way, trying to change the weather in any way, but it's working with the spirits of weather and the spirits of nature. And we don't try to at least the folks I know Don't try to impose their will, over the weather. Not that not that you necessarily could, whether it's got a will of its own, but it just doesn't make for happy surfing. So we're about to get this big winter storm here. And, you know, somewhere between seven and 14 inches of snow supposed to fall. You know, that fairly significant amount, it is currently zero degrees Fahrenheit, which is about 18, negative 18 degrees Celsius, or I am so it's pretty cold out and it makes me grateful that I live in a house and there's heat and electricity and food and I don't have to go out and hunt for food. But it also makes me appreciate my ancestors who made it. Living in these conditions without all of those creature comforts and things that I would require for my survival. These days, I don't think I could survive very long. You know, in this kind of environment without you know, without these things, and so, you know, cheers to my ancestors, I'm raising my cup of coffee and have a little slip, slip here. For me, there is no shame in using without coffee. Someday I'll find out if there if anywhere there exists a deity, or God of coffee. Maybe if you know of one, you can send me a message through my website or something I would like to make an offering. If there is a deity of coffee. today's podcast episode, I'm going to talk about ceremony and ritual. I want to sort of define what I mean by those that can be a lot of confusion caused between those two, and sometimes they're used interchangeably. But also I want to talk about why they're important on the spiritual level. And, you know, sort of what we're missing when we forego these things. As a shamanic practitioner, we have lots of ceremonies that we perform, when we do a healing for somebody. It's called the healing ceremony frequently. And you know, that also lots of rituals that we perform as part of that. So let's talk a little bit about what a ceremony is, what a ritual is, and what's the difference. And then, you know, then we can be on sort of square footing. And, you know, again, my definitions are my definitions, yours might vary slightly. I give you mine because then you understand what I'm talking about. You know, words are complicated things. And I know from looking at the where people are listening to this podcast from that you are all over the world, and I am grateful for you, I am grateful. And I love you for listening to this podcast. And you know, it, it, it warms my heart that I can have this technology, again, to speak to people who are as far away as India or Nepal, or Russia or Japan,

Netherlands, Iceland, I'm trying to think of all of the different places I've seen people listening from the UK, certainly. So words can be complicated, and English might not be your first language. And I respect I respect that I really respect if you're listening to this podcast in English and English is not your first language. That's, you know, that's an amazing thing in itself. So, I'm going to give you a definition of ritual, I'm gonna give you a definition of ceremony, I'm going to talk about how they play together. And you know, what, again, why they're important, and what we can think about when we're thinking about ritual and ceremony and that sort of thing. So ritual, I have a very simple definition of ritual. And ritual is merely symbolic action, right? symbolic action. So a ritual could be something you say something you do a collection of some collection of activity that has symbolic meaning, right? And there is, there's a component in some definitions of ritual that it is prescribed, that it is repeated action, something that is done over and over again. I, you know, I struggled with including that with my definition, because sometimes a ritual could be performed once. And so it isn't necessarily repeated, you know, I might do a one time ritual, does that still make it a ritual? Is it symbolic action. Some examples of symbolic action might be, you know, for people who practice the Catholic faith, right, they might cross themselves when they enter a church, right, a ritualistic action, making them a sign of the cross is a symbolic gesture, symbolic action. I might, as a shamanic practitioner, I perform a ritual before I do work, where I what's called opening the directions where I rattle to the, you know, north, east, south and west and, you know, upper world and the lower world into the indwelling Spirit. And that is, you know, symbolic action that I perform, each time I do work, or I work with a circle or that sort of thing. So that you can think about all kinds of all kinds of symbolic actions that you might take during the day, and they don't have to be necessarily profoundly religious or, or profoundly, you know, profoundly spiritual to be. To be rituals, they, you know, it's just the fact that I'm performing some symbolic action, right? And if you think about, think about sports, I'm not I'm not a really big sports person, but, you know, there are lots of rituals to open up sporting events, right? There might be a coin toss or, you know, in a coin toss has a real world purpose sometimes, right? It it, you know, it defines who gets to start a game or that sort of thing, or, you know, there's a singing of anthems or there is a presentation of players or you know, whatever, you know, so, the way that we open things like that tend to be symbolic, symbolic action is the thing about the stock stock market, the opening and closing of the stock market. Those are, those are little rituals, right? They are prescribed they are, you know, they might not be in what we would consider intensely spiritual because they're not specifically spiritual or religious events. But the reason that ritual is important is that it does make all ritual all action makes an impact on the spiritual plains ritual ritual is designed Or has the effect I should say, because it's not necessarily designed, but it has the effect of, of having sort of an amplified effect on spiritual planes because our, our astral bodies, our spiritual bodies or our soul bodies have

deal with a lot there, they're formless. And they understand they communicate a lot through metaphor, right, you can think about dreams that you have, where you get symbols and dreams, and they're very metaphoric. And, you know, sometimes you, you may have to go to somebody to help you interpret those dreams. That is your, you know, that those are things that are bubbling up from layers of you that are entirely symbolic. And so ritual is one way that we can have communication with those parts of ourselves and those parts of spirit that are, you know, that understand things that are more symbolic, a really important component of ritual. And it's a component of most spiritual, most spiritual action, the most spiritual life, a really important component is intent, which is what it which is aim and action, right? intent is aim and action, what are you intending to do in your intent, we say in shamanism we say intent drives the bus, right intent is the engine, and the steering wheel of the bus, it provides the fuel in it in its steers things, okay, so when I, you know, I can make a ritualistic action. But if there's no intent behind it, it is not going to reflect or carry as heavily into the spiritual planes, where, you know, where symbols are better understood. So if I, you know, I am not a practicing Catholic, and so if I can make the sign of the cross in the same way, you know, I can imitate people I've seen on TV or people who are Catholic that I know, if I just do that motion, it does not have the same effect on me, it does not have the effect because it doesn't have the same I don't necessarily understand the intention, because I haven't been to Catholic school or, or been through catechism training or any of those things. So I don't, I don't get it. First of all, I don't understand it. So I can't put the intent behind it, that somebody who has done those things can do so it does not have the same meaning it does not have the same effect. For me. Likewise, somebody could imitate what I do, when I if I opened directions, and I use a rattle normally to do that. Somebody could imitate those motions, but not have the same understanding or intent and it in it, I you know, it will not have the same effect. So intent is a key component is a key component of both ritual and ceremony. So let me talk about ceremony, ceremony a little bit and differentiate that from ritual, although they do go hand in hand. And I'm gonna use a sort of a dictionary definition of ceremony here, I was trying to capture the elements of ceremony, in my own words, finding it a little challenging. So I went to my old friend Wikipedia here. And I think their definition is actually pretty good. And I'll talk about the components of it. So, I will read it to you verbatim, but you can obviously look look at this yourself, but a ceremony is a unified ritualistic event with a purpose usually consisting of a number of artistic components performed on a special occasion. So let me take that piece by piece. So, it is ceremony is a start with a unified ritualistic event. So unified meaning that it is singular and ritualistic meaning that it contains ritual. Okay, so this is why defined ritual first. So we can think of ceremony as one you know, a ceremony as a thing that begins and ends and has components of ritual in it. Okay, that's the first kind of the first component.

Right and the ceremony might contain a number of rituals. So I think about, you know, an obvious one is a wedding ceremony. Okay. And you know, different cultures have different ceremonies, but, you know, sort of traditional Western Christian wedding ceremonies, even if you don't come from that culture, I'm sure you've seen them in movies or TV, you know, there are different rituals. So there is an exchanging of rings. That's one ritual, right? There is an exchanging of vows. That is another ritual, but it's a unified event, the wedding is a unified event. I will skip the part about artistic components. They don't I mean, that that's sort of subjective, right? I mean, there might there certainly could be. There certainly could be, you know, again, the wedding ceremony, there might be music, there might be poetry spoken, or verses read from Scripture, that sort of thing. And it's performed on a special occasion, right? So this is another thing about ceremony is that ceremony marks a special occasion. And what is special mean? Well, specialist, very subjective, right, special means that it stands out from the ordinary, in some way. So a wedding is a special occasion because it marks the beginning of a marriage. You know, and initiation if you were initiated into some form of spirituality marks a special occasion, you know, a passage a rite of passage sort of thing. And, you know, we have all kinds of all over the world, we have different rites of passage. You know, in Jewish culture, we have the bar mitzvah and the Bat Mitzvah. You know, certainly in lots of indigenous cultures, there are rites of passage coming of age ceremonies that involve lots of lots and lots of ritual, and they take place over prolonged periods of time, or it might be marked by a special event. birthdays, right we have birthday celebrations, celebration could be, could be include ceremony, like if you have a, you know, blowing out of candles on a cake, right? That is symbolic action, that's ritual, marking a special occasion it's unified. Hopefully, your birthday party has a beginning and an end. You know, maybe you have an ongoing birthday party, and that would be fun. But, you know, so it's a unified event that contains ritual action. So ceremonies, again, have this connotation of the word special meaning not ordinary, not necessarily everyday, although there are ceremonies that are performed every day, but not maybe not continuously, maybe not something that is done continuously over and over again, but there's there's a, you know, ceremonies, Mark, Mark time and space of 3d reality. You know, we're sort of saying, you know, this is a special place, this is a special time. And we're going to mark that with some kind of ritual. And, of course, I'm sure you have experienced lots and lots of different ceremonies, you know, weddings, funerals, birthdays, religious ceremonies, observances of holidays, you know, spiritual holidays. So, you know, we have you know, Christmas, we have Hanukkah, we have Diwali, we have Kwanzaa we have all of those things, and there are ceremonies that can go with some of those things. And definitely rituals that that are, you know, contained within those contained within those ceremonies. Frequently, you know, one of the things that one of the healings that I get called on to perform pretty frequently

is called a soul retrieval. And we refer to that as a soul retrieval ceremony. As opposed to a ritual, right? That's, and soul retrieval is a pretty big deal. It exists in all shamanic cultures, it's a way of healing helping people heal trauma, by bringing parts sort of scared or lost or damaged parts of the soul back to be reunited and so it can help a person feel more whole. And this is, um, this follows very closely. Like if you look at the the language, the shamanic language that's used around soul retrieval, and you look at some of the modern research, psychological research. That's done. You know, in physiological research that it has taken place around trauma, I believe that they're really talking about the same phenomenon using absolutely different vocabulary, right? We talked about this trauma causing this fracturing of the psyche, these, you know, if you are a union, you know, psychoanalytic bent, you would talk about the subpersonalities splitting off where a shaman would talk about soul loss. And, you know, again, there, it's different terminology, but they're really talking about the same phenomenon. And, you know, understandably, there is a, you know, there's a medical model, which doesn't sort of recognize the spiritual aspect of soul loss. And that's unfortunate. I have been extremely fortunate in working with doctors and therapists who practice shamanism. And, you know, learning from them and talking with them. And, you know, having clients who have therapists who embrace the, you know, embrace the fact that their clients are seeing shamanic practitioners, I do think that, you know, there's a, there's a lot there, there's, you know, our ancestors experienced trauma, and, you know, the, the ways that they developed, healing for that are valid, and we should listen to those because, you know, they survived, again, going back to my ancestors who survived in conditions that I'm living in now. But with, you know, with, with a house around me with, you know, central heating, and electricity, and Internet, and all of those things, my, my ancestors didn't have all of those things, and they survived. And so those skills are not to be set aside as inferior to modern ways, necessarily, right. I mean, we have some improvement, we have lots of improvements, but we also sometimes lose some things. And that's really important when we talk about ceremony and ritual. You know, we lived most of human existence, practicing shamanism, you know, we see evidence of shamanic practices and cave paintings that are 50,000 years old. And, you know, ritualistic sites that are 1000s of years old, and, and all of these things. In many ways, we've lost a lot of that in the modern world. And it's a little bit unfortunate, because I think it puts us out of touch with this current of ancestral energy that we can tap into for healing and wisdom and knowledge and really knowledge about how to survive in the crazy conditions, we find ourselves in the world today. So going back to soul retrieval, and you know, we call this a ceremony, you know, there are several ritualistic actions that are performed. But it is a special event. You know, we consider it almost like another birthday, bringing these essences back that were lost, imagine, you know, a member of your family being lost for a really prolonged period of time, and then finding them then, you know, rescuing them again, and bringing them back into the fold. And what was what would be the first thing he says that Welcome home, I've missed you. Welcome home. Right. And it's very much like that with soul retrieval ceremony, because it's a real welcoming home of these, these parts of your own, you know, your own internal family, your essences, these pieces that might have been in hiding due to some trauma,

or, you know, or some other some, there are a few other causes of soul loss, but trauma is the big one, and it can happen sort of in an instant. And, you know, we get fractured and parts of us feel dissociated. And I do want to say, you know, if you we've, you know, we've all experienced some level of trauma, we've all gotten a fright or we've all you know, you know, almost been in a car accident or something along those lines or had to have surgery or, or any of, you know, anything that can be sort of traumatic for us. And I think almost every person on this planet could benefit from soul retrieval sent ceremony. I've, I've never met anybody who couldn't. I mean, that includes people who've been practicing shamanism for a really long time. Um, you know, your work is never really done. And so you know, it It's, it's a fantastic it's a beautiful life affirming empowering, work, it's, it's kind of the thing that I live for I do, you know, I love teaching, you know, it comprises the majority of what I do these days. But I do love working with people, and I do love. You know, I do love doing soul retrieval ceremony. So getting back to ceremony and ancestors and sort of what we've lost, you know, I've had lots of conversations with people of, you know, different walks of life, people who are a therapist, people who are semantic practitioners, people who, you know, are in non allied fields, just, you know, just people in life. And there's this sense, particularly in the Western world, of, you know, there's something, there's something missing, right? There's this feeling that there's something we're missing out on. And some of that comes from the depersonalized nature of technology. In one way, technology can connect all of us, right, it allows me to record this podcast and speak to people all over the world, and I love that it's fantastic. You know, zoom allows us during the pandemic, to communicate with one another over video, and, you know, social media? Well, you know, social media is, is a tool and so it can be used for good and used for harm. And, you know, I won't make any big judgments about it. But I will say that, you know, when used well, social media allows us to, to connect with people and, and so those are, those are really good things. And so I think a part of that is you know, we're, we're definitely feeling it now, during this pandemic, and a lot of us are socially isolated anyway. And so even more so during the pandemic, like we're feeling this, you know, this loss of connection, perhaps. And there's a lot missing, particularly in Western culture, we don't have you know, when I grew up, there was no, there's no rite of passage that I went through, there's no, okay, you know, I not have the Jewish faith and I didn't have a bar mitzvah, I didn't have a coming of age ceremony, I did not have any of those things that make an impression on sort of the astral body, the spiritual self. Now I have gone through lots and lots of initiations. with, you know, during my spiritual time, I have, you know, gone through. I've gone through Buddhist initiation, I've gone through, you know, initiation with certain what we consider, I guess, secret society initiations I've gone through, I went through a two year initiation process in shamanism, and, and so, those things are rites of passage, right? Those things are there are ceremonies involved with those things. And I, you know, I absolutely love them, I absolutely eat that up it changes who I am. Because the intent is there. You know, again, you can go through a ceremony with no intent, same way you can go through a ritual with no intent and just act it out and it does not make absolutely will not make the same impression. And 10 is 100% important. So I do believe that I'm particularly right now the world could use more ceremony. You know, if you if you regularly participate, participate in ceremony and that brings you a sense of connectedness then you are Consider yourself lucky.

If you are if you participate in ceremony and do so out of obligation or you know, just it's a thing to do. You might be missing out a little bit. Right, you might be missing out on some of the benefits that come from participating in ceremony or even observing ceremony I have observed some very cool ceremony one one that sticks out to me was watching. Watching Tibetan Buddhist monks finishing making a sand Mandala and you know, they there's a ceremony like it, I don't know if you know but you know they make these very intricate mondelez out of sand and they spend lots and lots of time on it. You know, whole group of monks will make this very intricate, you know, pattern out of colored sand Very beautiful. And then somebody will come in. And you know, I'm not using the proper terms, but with, you know, something that looks like a broom, I don't know what the term for it is. But you know, and sweep it away, and one fell swoop. And there's, you know, there's chanting, and there's, you know, there's all kinds of things that go along with that. And, you know, there's tons of ritualistic action and the, you know, the, the single sweep destruction of this piece of work that they've been working on for days, you know, again, it's symbolic action, it's meant to represent and drive home the idea of non permanence of impermanence, right, nothing is permanent, nothing stays, and so observing that was dramatic for me. And, you know, it was, it was definitely meaningful, I got a chance to talk to the monks afterwards, they gave me a little bit of the sand from the mandola, it was really beautiful, is a really beautiful ceremony. And just as an observer, who didn't necessarily understand all of the intricacies of the ceremony, there still was an impact, because I went with the intent to take it, take it all in, and, you know, to understand more about it, and to observe it with, with reverence, because it is, you know, it is sacred, and, you know, it is sacred to that culture, and, and that religion, and to sort of take that in, and so you can, you can just as an observer of ceremony have the certainly be impacted, right, we're definitely impacted by symbols. That's why advertising works. You know, it's why it's why art works, right? When you look at a piece of art, and it has an impact on you, at a very deep level. You know, it's kind of the same thing. So I would, you know, I would make a, I would make a sort of request, or I would urge you to, when you when the opportunity arises to participate mindfully, in ceremony, go with intent, even if the intent is I'm just going to be open to what's going on here, I'm going to take it in and be open to it. And that is sometimes enough of an intent to have a very profound impact on you. So let's talk a little bit about I do, you know, I do from time to time design ceremony for specific events, or specific things that are going on. So I want to talk about a few elements that might help you if you I don't know, if you want to, you know, if you want to develop your own ceremony for something, or, or to help you appreciate what's going on. What's going on in the ceremony, there are a few elements. And again, you know, if to speak in very general terms, because as soon as you say something like, all ceremonies involve creating sacred space. I'm sure you can think of ceremonies where that was not called out, right, where that was not a huge important part of the ceremony. Or, you know, something along those lines. Right. But

you know, you'll find that the, you know, ceremonies do happen in a specific time and space, right. And there's something special about both of those things, even if the ceremony is the throwing out of the first pitch at a baseball game, you know, opening ceremony baseball game. You know, the baseball diamond, you know, is yes, it's sports. Yes, it's entertainment. But there is this. There's this pattern there. There's this thing that exists in the psyche of people who've enjoyed baseball for you know, 150 years, or however long baseball has been around. And so, there is an impact there is there is a space. So one of the one of the items about ceremony is that it frequently happens in a special place or a sacred space. That doesn't mean All ceremony has to happen in a purpose built temple or church. It just means that there is a space that's marked out frequently, that is this area is somehow special. right in, you know, we refer to the inner part of the temple in Jerusalem as the Sanctum Sanctorum. Right, the Holy of Holies. The, the, the inner part, we're only the the elite is the separation from the sacred and the profane, or the divine in the mundane, right, this is the space. And that in sacred space makes an impression makes a serious impression. On the spirit on the unconscious mind on the symbolic, on the symbolic part of the astral entering sacred space. Definitely, if you are sensitive or clairvoyant or empathic. You, you definitely feel it. Right? And how do we mark out sacred space? Well, I mean, you can do all kinds of things physically to mark out sacred space, right, you can set up a temple or build a church. I remember walking into the cathedral in Cologne, Germany, which is I don't know, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years old, and it's about 300 feet tall, and you walk in and the it's like a giant cave, it's very dark. And you know, there is this immense sense of, of leaving the regular world behind entering a special place. So it's anything that sort of sets a space apart. Now in a lot of a lot of workings, a lot of sort of magical workings in shamanic workings and that sort of thing. They do what's called casting a circle. So it's sort of like, making a circle around which the work takes place that is safe from spirits etc. You know, it's sort of banishing saying, Okay. And if you spirits who are hanging out in the space, it's time to leave, because I only want the spirits in the space that are invited. And, and that's, you know, depending upon your belief system, you know, that's the thing, like we, we only want the energies in the space that we're working in to be there, we don't want to be distracted, we don't want you know, our work to be tainted by different energies. And if you if you aren't a believer, if you aren't animistic in nature, and believe in in nature, spirits, and that sort of thing, and other types of spirits are just hanging out, you can think of it as setting apart those parts of your psychology that might interfere with, with the work that you're about to do the symbolic work that you're about to do. And so there's always a creation of sacred space in these ways. So if you were to create a ceremony for some purpose, and again, it should have a purpose, you don't do ceremony just for the sake of doing ceremony, but the purpose can be you know, I'm going to celebrate the winter solstice, or the new moon or the full moon or a birthday or a birth or a death or, you know, whatever they're, you know, setting apart space helps you communicate on all levels of the human being. And this is what symbolic action really is about, right we have a physical body, we have a mind or mental body emotional body, we have an authentic double, which is our energetic body, we have this astral body, which is our soul body, and that communicates really well metaphorically. And you know, then we have this indwelling

Spirit. This the sort of the Ottoman in Sanskrit, right, this this over soul, this connection to divinity, and symbolic action, ritual and ceremony allows us to align all of those parts of ourselves, right? I do something physical, that impacts my etheric body, my astral body, my mental body, your your spirit body, your connection to divinity isn't necessarily impacted by that. But you can, you can align with it, you can align your other parts with that, with that part of you. Okay, and this can have effects that carry on for a period of time, you know, soul retrieval ceremonies, for example, and I keep going back to that because I, you know, because I'm a shamanic practitioner have tend to have a profound and lasting impact on people. You know, I had a client one time, who, you know, after after soul retrieval told me that he felt joy for the first time And as long as he could remember, I mean, that's, you know, I'm almost in tears talking about that that's profound. That's a profound change that happened as a result of that ceremony. I can't imagine going through life for as long as I can remember, and not having moments of joy. But to just feel that spontaneously all of a sudden, you know, and he was overwhelmed. And I understand that I understand being overwhelmed by that. So, getting these things in alignment, getting your, your physical, your, your physical self in alignment with the other parts of yourself. And that's really what ritual and ceremony is about. So sacred space. Also, we'll talk about time, right? Because ritual and ceremony happen in three dimensional reality we have they happen in time and space, we're doing something with our physical bodies that move through time and space, even though other parts of us don't experience time and space in the same way. It is important, right? So ceremony, rituals and ceremonies have a beginning have a definite beginning and end. Right. So in the, you know, Western Christian wedding ceremony. They begin when the, you know, when the bridal party does the procession, right, they mark they sort of March in, or they, they walk into some music. There's a bunch of ritual that happens in between. and then they normally end when the bride and groom walk out of the, you know, walk out of the place where the ceremony is being held. Okay? So there's a definite beginning, and an end, there's not this sense of, of this is something that's going on forever and ever and doesn't end. And that's important, right? Because you're telling yourself, you're telling all parts of yourself, okay, now I am doing this symbolic work. Now I am doing this ceremony, now I'm doing this ritual, it's, you know, don't get confused with other things I may have done before or other things that I have done after, right, so there's a separation. So when I, when I was trained in martial arts, my whole life and when I, you know, was training in a dojo, you know, when we walk in the door, we bow into the mat, we bow, you know, and that is a little ritual, right? This bowing, you know, it's a small ritual, but it's a little bit of saying, Okay, I'm putting the world behind me, and I'm showing respect, you know, to my classmates, and my teacher and to the school and to the ancestors who came before to give this art these arts to us. And we bow there's a, you know, a seat of the spirits in the front, which is a, you know, sort of a Shinto shrine, a small Shinto shrine of sorts, and you bow to that to show respect. So this is getting, again, it's getting into alignment, no matter what happened, if I was coming from work, or, you know, when I was living in Boston, I would take the subway, you know, a lot of stuff was going on, and, you know, my mind might not be aligned with my body, and my spirit might be doing something else. And, you know, who knows, right? And so this is about coming into alignment. Now, it is time to do this, this work. And so you can think about when you perform, you know, any sort of spiritual or symbolic action, meditation could be a ritual, right? If, if there's a symbolic component to your meditation.

And if you think about sitting down on your, on your mat, you're setting out sacred space, there's a beginning to you know, there's a beginning you sit on your cushion, there's an ending you open your eyes, you get up you ring a bell, or whatever you do, to set yourself in time and space for performing ritual or ceremony. As I mentioned before, intent is really is really the key to almost any kind of spiritual work that you do. intent creates the change intent creates the impact of any work that you do. Okay? If I you know, if I, I don't know if I perform again, if I perform a ceremony that or if I perform a ritual that I don't have a connection to, and I don't know what it's for, and I don't have direct intention behind it. It's Not going to have the impact that I wanted to. So again, if I make the sign of the cross that, you know, from the Catholic religion, it does not necessarily have the same impact or meaning for me. If I chant in Sanskrit, say, for example, like there's an impact from the sound of the words, but if I don't understand the words that I'm chanting, or if I don't have, and there's no intention behind them. They're just sounds. And yes, there are sacred sounds, and they have, they have a definite impact, but there's not going to be as much of an impact if there's no intent there. Okay. So think about sacred space, a beginning and an end, and intent. And that will, that will take your, you know, anything that you do that's sort of ritualistic or ceremonial, it will, it will take you further in that, again, includes just observing ceremony, attending ceremony that is being performed by somebody else. You know, examples of that, obviously, are like religious ceremonies that are led by LED, led by religious leaders rights, you know, where you're not the one who's conducting space, but if you have the intent going in, of being open, or being impacted, or making a greater connection, or whatever the intent is, when you when you attend, like hold on to that, hold on to that through the ceremony, and it will have a bigger impact. Because again, it gets your parts in alignment, I like to talk about the expression. I don't know if this exists in other languages besides English, but we talked about firing on all cylinders, which we're talking about a car, right, if we're talking about a car that has cylinders in the engine, right, that's where the combustion happens that causes that causes the engine to run, and, you know, makes the car go. And so if you have six cylinders, and there's a problem, and only three of them are firing, you obviously only have half as much power in your car. As, as you should, if things were aligned, if things were working properly, if all six cylinders were firing. So it's the same thing with human beings, if we get all of our parts in alignment, using intense using ritual using ceremony, it's like you're firing on all six cylinders, it's like your impact your spiritual development, the things you know, your healing, any of these things will have a much greater effect. So, when I, when I work with clients, clients come to me for some kind of healing, you know, I always tell them, you know, shamanism works on the level of the soul body, right, which is one layer of, of the human being. And so, you know, and that can provide some profound healing. But really, you need to be in absolute alignment, you know, mind, body, spirit, soul, all of those layers need to be in alignment for the maximum effect to take place. So there may be some physical action that has to take place. You know, if somebody has, you know, think about somebody who has,

you know, horrible allergies from food that they're eating, you know, shamanic healing might help, it might give them some more energy to regulate their immune system or whatever. But you also have to stop eating the foods that you're having allergic reactions to. Okay, I have seen absolutely have I seen healing that could be defined as miraculous I've seen, you know, people heal from surgery faster after shamanic work, I've seen you know, lots of trauma, healing, you know, holding certain things at bay and that sort of thing. But you always do that work in conjunction with, you know, with other with other healing work that you're doing with the physical level with the mental level with, with all of those things. I don't say you know, shun modern allopathic medicine, for you know, spiritual healing only are firing on all cylinders. So is the same thing with ceremony and ritual. We want to fire on all cylinders. We want to get into alignment. intent is a good way to do that. Setting up physical symbols of sacred space, whether that's Lighting a candle somewhere or having an altar at home, I you know, I do have many altars in my house as many shamanic practitioners do but I'm having an altar, something I highly recommend, you know, it's, it's a place that you can go to that is marked, marked out sacred space, even if it's tiny, even if it's a shelf, or a windowsill or a small table or something like that. It's an area that's marked out as sacred. Right? And has, it's a place to come into alignment with spirits on on the physical plane. And it's one of the things one of the tenants of of shamanism is that we walk in, we walk in multiple worlds simultaneously, we do not forego the physical world for the spiritual that's called spiritual bypassing, I will probably do a whole podcast on spiritual bypassing because it is honestly, it's a big problem in the spiritual development community that I that I see, today. It's the you know, everything is fine, because I'm an Ascended Master feeling, you know, ignoring the house being on fire, right? When the solution is leave the burning building. Yes, you can still, you know, maintain your calm and not be not be affected by by your house burning down as much. But if your house is on fire, you know, there's a simple physical solution to that, and that is walk out of your house, and save your life because you have a physical body. And, you know, it's not necessarily to be ignored. So, this is, this has become one of my longer podcasts. And I realize there's a lot of tangents here. But I did want to talk about ceremony and ritual is very important to me. You know, we do a lot of ceremony, I do a lot of ritual.

And, you know, hopefully this has been interesting to you, I would love to hear if you, if you do want to go to my website, it's maineshaman.com. I would love to hear if you have topics you'd like me to cover, or guests you'd like me to talk to, I will promise that I'm going to figure out the technology for interviewing

guests very soon. Obviously, I have to do that remotely during the pandemic for for safety sake. But you know, I will, we'll be working on that shortly. So it's not, you know, hopefully bring in some, some very interesting guests very soon. But please feel free to contact me that way. And I look forward to speaking to you more in the future. And I love to see the listeners, you know, from all over the planet, really, you know, really coming in and listening and that makes me very happy. And so I wish you a wonderful day. I wish you more love not less. And with that. I will leave you.

Announcer 53:48

You have been listening to speaking spirit with your host, john more. For more info or to contact john go to Maineshaman.com that's maineshaman.com

Ep05 Spiritual Hygiene

Announcer 0:29

Hello, and welcome to speaking spirit where we talk about all things spiritual. Your host, john Moore is a shamanic practitioner and spiritual teacher. And now here's john.

John Moore 0:49

Hello, everybody.

feel free to contact me through my website if there are topics you'd like to like me to cover. I am at MaineShaman.com that's m a i n e s h a m a n.com. And with that, I will leave you and I hope you enjoy your week and I hope to talk to you soon. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast. And

John Moore 0:52

Welcome. And if this is your first time listening, I guess a double extra special welcome to you. I'm really excited that, you know, I've been doing this podcast for a short period of time. And to see, listenership picking up kind of all over the world. And that's really exciting to me, I'm recording this from my space in the state of Maine in the United States. But I see I have listeners from I've had listeners from lots of listeners in India, and as far away as you know, Russia, and Japan and the UK, and Iceland, and all over. And, you know, that's one of the exciting things about technology. You know, we talk about technology, sometimes as a separator as a way that we avoid interacting or avoid connecting with other people. But it's a tool and we can use it to connect or we can use it to disconnect. And I think it's beautiful that this is, for me, at least there's a way that I can connect with people that I wouldn't necessarily have the opportunity to connect with. And I just want to let you know that if you are listening to this, I do appreciate you, I do love you. And I, you know, I mean that from the bottom of my heart, I you know, just appreciate the fact that you're listening to things that are important to share with the world. And today, I'm excited to talk about a topic that is, you know, I've been teaching for a little while. And it's part of a larger body of work that I have taught live, it's part of a book that I'm working on at the moment. The topic for today is spiritual hygiene. And I'm going to talk a lot about what that means. And then I'm also going to give you hopefully, some very practical tips on spiritual hygiene. And so, obviously, I should probably start and talk about what I mean by spiritual hygiene. So when you think about hygiene, in general, we think about the body mostly right? We think about, you know, brushing our teeth, and washing ourselves and that sort of thing. And it's things that we do, to generally keep us healthy. Right. But there's all kinds of hygiene, right? There's, you know, there's Mental Hygiene, there's, you know, physical hygiene, there's sexual hygiene there's, and their spiritual hygiene. And it's a term that I use to talk about the things that we do to take care of ourselves spiritually, so that we can stay healthy, we can pursue the, you know, our path in this world. And with fewer interruptions with fewer sort of crises. Sometimes crisis is important. But that's a different topic for a different day. It did talk about initiations previously, and talked about how crisis frequently as a call to initiate or as part of an initiation. But I'm not necessarily talking about that. And so one of the models I use to talk about spiritual hygiene. And again, like models are not, they're not the thing that they're modeling, right? If I show you a toy car, that is not a car, it is a representation of a car, and it does not have all the parts of a car, it doesn't work the way a car does, and doesn't provide the same features, but it represents that in the words that we use or models, right, if I say the word dog, that is not a dog, it is a representation of the animal dog that that we can use to communicate, and so I'm going to use a model And like all models, it is imperfect, it deletes a whole lot of material because we could, you know, talk for years probably about this model and not get to every single detail. And it isn't an It is, in fact imperfect, but it will allow me to communicate some ideas to you, and hopefully a way that makes them clear.

So the model I'm going to use to talk about spiritual hygiene and why it's important and how you know, and how neglecting it can can create situations that you don't want as I'm going to talk about the model of bodies that a human being is like an onion, that has many layers, consisting of bodies or shells or things that we occupy and use. And again, this is imperfect because it's using a physical representation of things that are sometimes non physical. Okay, so we know we have a physical body, right? And if you've ever done martial arts, like Tai Chi or you've practiced going or you've gone to an acupuncturist, or you've done Reiki or any of those things, you know, you have an energy body, right the this, these things work on the level of your energy body and I will, I will call that the etheric body. Okay. And again, I may be using this term differently than other people use it. But I'm just defining my terms so that when I talk about stuff, you'll understand what I mean. But if you use the terms differently, that's totally fine. There is no authority on how to use these terms correctly or incorrectly. Okay, I'm just telling you how I'm using them. So when I refer to the etheric body, I'm talking about the energy body, it's very close, shaped very similarly to the human body, sometimes it's perceived as aura we've got energy channels that run through that we've got chakras that are there we've got all kinds of stuff and people who are clairvoyant sometimes can see the energy body people who are medical intuitives can sense it or you know, diagnose there. And there's a lot of overlap with the physical body meaning the physical body affects the etheric body, the body affects the physical body. So one example, right is acupuncture you get acupuncture which stimulates a Meridian, which may or may not lie along a neural pathway. But you know, some healing takes place. You know, what you're doing is you're, you know, affecting the etheric body in a way that sort of spills over into the physical body, right spills over in a good way, and create some healing. And, you know, I'm not an expert in Reiki, but I think Reiki is, is sort of the same, you're, you're putting some energy into healing the etheric body, which is kind of a template for the for the physical body. Okay. And so those are a couple of bodies and in so again, like with the physical body, you think about how complex just the physical body is, right? We have organs and bones and muscles and skin and different types of cells and chemical processes and 100 I think there are 100 trillion neural pathways estimated to be in the brain, I can't imagine anybody actually counting all of those, but it's an estimated 100 trillion neural pathways in the brain that is a pretty complex system, and set of systems and overlapping systems, right? And where, where do things like the endocrine system and the nervous system overlap and interact? And it's the same thing with the you know, your spiritual bodies, right your authentic body is in is just if not more complex than your physical body, and it is almost impossible to determine where that ends and something else begins. But for our purposes, we're going to talk about the etheric body quite a bit today. You have another what I will refer to as a body called an astral body and this in shamanism, which is the system of spirituality that I practice. This is what we would call your soul body. Right? So you have this soul it's

you know it one way to perceive it as relatively formless but this is the part when you dream part of this breaks off and trout can travel. astral projection is sort of the same thing. shamanic journey is the same thing. You can perceive form the astral body is very metaphoric. This is why dream material is so rich and the astral body overlaps with the etheric and the astral body can when the when trauma takes place. And I mean, it could be physical trauma like you know, a car accident or it can be emotional or mental trauma like something that is shocking or extremely scary. Parts of parts of your astral body can sort of split off and hide for safety sake. And when those pieces fail to return, we in in shamanism that's called soul loss. And so loss is sort of the chief symptom of trauma when viewed through the shamanic lens and a lot of work that I do with clients that other shamanic practitioners all over the world do is called soul retrieval, where we, with the help of our helping spirits reignite those lost essences, those those parts of the soul body or astral body, okay, and then a very deep level, you have what in shamanism we call your spirit, and your spirit is your, the, the piece of divinity, that you are attached to the creator of the universe, that everything in the universe is attached together, we are part of this unity, we, this part of you cannot die, it cannot be ripped away, it cannot be damaged, it's unaffected by your life experiences. This is your spark of divinity, and if you are alive, or even if you're not alive, but if you're listening to this, you have that spark of divinity. And this can be a hard thing to grasp through the, you know, with human mind, but every beam, no matter how small, large or in, or how we feel about it from the saint to the serial killer, has this spark of divinity inside of them, it's just that we have this other stuff, we have this other stuff we have, you know, we have our soul body which can experience loss and carries our experiences with us. And you know that, you know, things that go on there can be reflected in our psychology and our in our physiology. And most shamanic healing happens at that level, those two work that shamans do happen at the level of the soul body. And then you have this authentic body, which is energy body, and then you have this physical body, right. And so all of these things affect each other in lots of complicated ways. And again, this model is an oversimplification, because there are, you know, there are models out there with seven different parties, and there are models out there with tons of different, you know, ways of describing non physical reality, there are mental bodies and causal bodies and emotional bodies and pain bodies, and but that's a big rabbit hole for another day. We're just gonna focus on these three bodies, and staying healthy, and, you know, trying to experience yourself as a clear channel for spirit, all of those things that we aim for with our spiritual life. And so spiritual hygiene really is about taking care of our bodies. And that being said, you need do nothing to care for your spirit body, right? This is the part of you that can be that is unaffected. This is your slice of your own personal drop of divinity shining out through every layer of your being. So there's at least one body we don't have to care about, right? We don't know that we don't care about it, but we don't have to worry about it. We don't have to take care of it. And that's kind of a relief, right? So we don't have to, we have to spend a lot of time talking about that. There's a beautiful practice called transfiguration, which is taught by the well known shamanic teacher, Sandra ingerman.

You know, she's got lots of online courses that teach this in books and that sort of thing. And this is really about getting in touch with that, that piece of yourself and allowing it to shine unhindered. And I think it is an absolutely beautiful practice. I think it's incredibly healing practice. It heals the environment. It's, it's, you know, it's it really is magic. And they've done a lot of research with it. They're continuing to do research with it, on using it to heal the environment, using it to heal people who, you know, cardiac patients, that sort of thing. So if that's, if that's the thing you're interested in, I would, you know, Google Sandra angermann transfiguration, see what's available, it's, you do not have to be trained in shamanism to practice transfiguration, it's kind of its own thing. And it doesn't take, it's not awfully complicated to learn, and it is a beautifully transforming practice. And I should say, you know, talking about spiritual hygiene, you know, if you do you know, if transfiguration is part of what I would teach if I were teaching a class in spiritual hygiene, because it has this effect of clearing away a lot of the muck, clearing away pollution that happens in your energy field and that sort of thing. So why is, you know, why is spiritual hygiene important? Why would we want to pay attention to that? Why would we want to spend time on that? Why do we want to work on that? And the answer is, for a lot of the same reasons why physical hygiene is important, right? It's important to stay healthy. Because we know that spiritual afflictions, things that, you know, whether we call them infections, or wounds, or what have you, that happen on a non physical level, can filter through into your physical world very easily. And this is why energy healing and shamanic healing and, you know, spiritual healing of all sorts work. Because these, you know, these things might, you know, some physical symptoms have roots in non physical, not all of them, not all of them, but some of them do, and, and they have non physical roots. And so, what happens to me, if I do not pay attention to my you know, if I do not pay attention to my physical hygiene, my spiritual hygiene rather, is that I can start to feel really rundown, I can become depressed or anxious, I can have symptoms crop up of old things. And so, I know, like, those are indicators to me that I haven't been haven't been doing my work. And this is not to say that you should ignore the physical causes of disease or discomfort you should not, and I tell my clients who I do healing work with, you know, we want to, we do work, we do healing work, we want to fire on all cylinders, if you've got a six cylinder car, you want all six cylinders to be firing, or your car's not going to be operating efficiently. So if you have a broken arm, you go to the doctor and have that set and have a cast put on so it can heal. And then maybe you see a Reiki practitioner to give you some extra healing energy to help ensure that the, you know, damage done to the etheric field or, you know, anything that's might be preventing you from healing quickly is sort of taken care of as well, right? So we're firing on all cylinders, we're working on healing at different layers, so do not ignore physical causes of issues. And that includes, you know, that includes mental health issues, right? If you are struggling with if you're struggling with mental health issues, you know, see a therapist, see a psychiatrist, see a psychologist.

You could and and this is happening more and more frequently, particularly with my clients, you know, they will, there'll be sort of a cooperation that's happening, you know, I will ask, you know, if somebody is coming to me who has an ongoing mental health issue, I want to make sure that they're seeing at least seeing a therapist, if they're taking medications that they don't stop doing that without talking to their doctor. And sometimes, you know, therapists and psychiatrists and psychologists are becoming more and more open to things like working with a shaman or working in other spiritual ways, sort of help solve those problems. So, again, we'll you know, a little bit of a disclaimer to like, you know, see your doctor. Don't, don't say, Well, I'm just gonna, you know, I'm just gonna meditate this problem way. I mean, it'd be fantastic. If that happened. But you know, why not? Why not throw everything at? at a situation? If you're experiencing some sort of problem, why don't you see your doctor and meditate, and maybe you'll heal faster. I know I, you know, I have a teacher who had some surgery done and had a bunch of healers working with her after the surgery was done. And her doctor is like, I've never seen this type of surgery heal so fast before, you know, surprise, surprise. So she had the benefit of having surgery, but she also had the benefit of having a group of fantastic healers working with her at the same time. So I like that approach. It's, it's an approach, I would recommend pretty much for everyone. So we've talked about the bodies, we've talked about the different bodies, and we can talk about some of the ways that we can be affected as we move through the world. From a spiritual hygiene perspective, one of the things we see one of the things we see demonically, when I do what's called a diagnostic journey for somebody who just I'm looking at, you know, what's going on, for them on a spiritual level, you know, you can see sort of little things floating around in their energy field. And this is just energy we collect, right? on a pretty regular basis, like we move through the world. And, you know, there's all kinds of, you know, if you can perceive it at all, there's all kinds of like, we're constantly moving through different energy fields, some of that gets stuck. This is not the same thing as being possessed. These aren't intelligences, it's just like, it's just like, you stepped in something, and you haven't wiped it off your shoe. Like you're collecting stuff as you go along. And so this is sort of one of the, you know, when you would go, if you go see a shaman, sort of the cure for that, for lack of a better term is called extraction ceremony where they would remove, they would remove that energy from your energy field, that stuff that didn't belong to you. And I can remember doing an extraction for someone. Someone who was actually a Native American elder, which was so is my very, you know, it was my honor to work with her. And, um, you know, she's an elder. And so I did this extraction ceremony, and she was a were of the time what was going on? And when we were finished, she said to me, she is, that was a lot of crap. I was like, Uh huh. Uh huh. So stuff that I've been collecting for a while. And so this can happen. And, you know, we can avoid some of it, maybe we can avoid all of it, but we can avoid some of it. And so, some of the ways we avoid that are by, you know, taking care of ourselves taking care of where we spend time, and sort of shielding ourselves against places and situations that have energy that that doesn't make us feel very good. So for me, you know, large shopping centers are an example of that large crowds. I don't like large crowds, does this mean I have a phobic reaction to walking into a large shopping center at Christmas time? Well, not exactly. I mean, I don't, I don't enjoy it. It's something something I have teenage daughters walking into a mall is something I have to do every once in a while, right? Although, obviously,

you know, I get to avoid some of that during the during pandemic times. But, you know, it's something I've done, and will probably continue to do, you know, just to interact with the world. But what they do is I take caution to consciously shield myself from the energy there. And it's just that there's so many people there, and not all of them are happy, not all of them have you know, there's a lot going on, right when you're interacting with crowd in general. And so, one of the ways that, you know, really, really simple ways to shield yourself is through intention. So have the intention. I'm shielding now, I'm shielding now. And if you want to, you know, visualize a bubble of blue, blue energy, like a blue egg around you, that can be really helpful. Right? And again, like the blue energy, that's it's metaphoric. It's just a symbol being sent to your, you know, your spirit body saying, Okay, now it's time to now it's time to shield up and blue is a very protective color. Right blue is used in a lot of protective symbols. In many different cultures, blue is very protective culture. So, color. So this is something that you can something that you can use, imagine this blue bubble and have the intention to shield up. That's, you know, and you can do this on a regular basis, anytime you feel pay attention, pay attention to how you're feeling when you walk into a new space, or even a familiar space, right? Certain people's houses. You know, even if they greet you, as a friend, you don't know what's going on in that house, if there's a lot of angry energy or a lot of sad energy or, and if you're listening to this podcast, you're probably somewhat sensitive, you're probably at least somewhat empathic. I think everyone is an empath at a certain level, but many, many people have blocked that out. Because it can be painful, right? It can be painful to be sensitive, particularly if you're not sort of differentiating, these are my feelings. These are somebody else's feelings that I'm picking up on. The other thing I'll mention about spiritual hygiene, is that anything you do that promotes physical health also promotes spiritual health. So things like eating right exercise, you know, things we know that we should be doing. also build up your energy fields, and particularly things, things that we're gonna talk about consumption a little bit. So consumption, anything that you put into your body, mind or spirit you're consuming, right? So if I consume junk food all day, I will eventually get sick from doing that, because my body's having a hard time processing that the vibration of junk food is such that it does negatively affect the etheric field. And ultimately, that will make me sick. So part of spiritual hygiene is self care, taking care of yourself. This includes things that are stressing you out, stress reduction is an important part of self care. So what are you consuming that's causing you stress? Are you working in a job that is stressful? How do you how do you reduce or mitigate that? I would say consuming the news obsessive Li I know people who, you know, have developed high blood pressure and heart issues who sort of were religiously watching the news, particularly during, you know, political elections and that sort of thing in the political climate. And a lot of places in the world, I mean, particularly in the United States has become so divisive and so angry. And so you know, just just so crazy, that, you know, sometimes taking going on a fast from the news is a really good idea. If you find yourself getting really caught up social media is the same way. If you find yourself getting caught up if you find yourself fighting with people online or taking things in that are causing these huge emotional reactions, so pay attention to the things that you consume. One of the things I need to talk about that is particularly important is mind altering substances. And I'm not going to be puritanical or judgmental about that if

you enjoy Margarita or you use cannabis for medical reasons, or what have you, or if you have experimented with hallucinogens, I'm not going to judge you for that. I'm just going to tell you about my experiences with people who have used some of those things, unwisely, I will tell you that alcoholism, addiction of any sort is a serious physical and mental health problem. And if you are struggling with addiction of any kind, I would emphasize getting getting qualified help in that department. These are not addiction is not weakness, addiction is a disease and that the consequences of addiction are that they that you do become weakened, you become it becomes harder and harder to resist but also the physical and mental effects of addiction can weaken all of your systems and that includes your energy systems. So addiction is one area where you know you really should be seeking professional help if it is even, you know, cigarettes are, you know, I know people who absolutely absolutely struggled and still struggle to this day with quitting nicotine. That sort of thing. And I and I understand, you know, when I tell people I practice shamanism, they always think of That use plant medicine, you know, I Alaska or pod or psilocybin or, you know, whatever in flight, a garlic, and I understand the ritual uses of those tools. But I also think there is a lot of unwise use of those tools going on today. You know, there has become an industry, an industry has grown up around Alaska and in particularly people are traveling to, you know, Peru and places like that and consuming without qualified sort of oversight without going through the steps that one has to go through to use those plant medicines. And there are people dying, there are people you don't hear these stories, but I know of I know of shamanic healers, who are working with multiple multiple people who have been hospitalized after I Alaska experiences. And I can tell you one story from my, from my personal perspective, I, you know, was hosting us hosting a meeting one time, it was sort of an informational meeting about shamanism. There was a, you know, somebody with me, who was also a practitioner, woman, and, you know, was open to the public and all, you know, people could come in and ask us questions and that sort of thing. And this sort of young couple came in, I thought they were a couple that turns up, turns out, they were brother and sister, but when this young man walked in, I looked to my, you know, the person who is with me, also giving this presentation, and we locked eyes, and we're like, oh, my gosh, what is going on? What I can tell you that I perceived, and this, you know, this other practitioner perceived when she looked at this person, it looked to me, like if you've ever watched a cartoon, and anime, you know, an animation for child where somebody gets bumped over the head, like with a sledgehammer, and little birds fly around their head, and their eyes kind of go all wide. And, you know, that sort of thing. It looked just like that, I could tell you that there were things whizzing around this person's aura, his eyes, his pupils were sort of permanently dilated. And he was just completely dissociated when he came in. And so, you know, had a conversation with him. And it turns out, he had been experimenting, not, not even that day, he was not actively using hallucinogens, that day he was using, you know, he had done Iosco journeys, and psilocybin and, and all of these things, you know, and I told him, I said, you know, when I journey I don't use chemicals I use, you know, rhythm or drumming or dance or something like that, because I feel like I have more control. And his

his metaphor, which I think is appropriate, he said, Yes, he goes, when you use these chemicals, you've bought the ticket, and you're going for the ride, and there's no getting off. Once you're on it, you can't get off. So what I think he had done is he had, you know, blown some walls of his energy body wide open, he'd blown the doors wide open, stuff was just sticking to him, there was, you know, I never worked with him. As a healer, I've never done a healing session with him. But I think to get him back to a state where he, I think he'd also experienced a lot of soul loss. He'd been, you know, during the sort of uncontrolled drug induced journeys. You know, experimentation is, you know, sort of uncontrolled experimentation. And this is not to take anything away from the therapeutic uses of plant medicine, I'm particularly interested in the ways that science is backing up the uses of these, you know, indigenous medicines that we've known about for 1000s of years, but this person is not, you know, this person and many people I have seen are not using them the way that they have been used for 1000s of years, the way that in the context in the culture that they have been used, they have been taken out of those and used in unscientific ways and caused unknown side effects. It's like some random chemical, you're sticking in your body sometimes. And in the case of this person, many, many different types of chemicals, putting them into his body. And Gosh, there can be huge negative effects from that. So this is definitely something I would be careful of from a height from a spiritual hygiene perspective. This person had very poor spiritual hygiene. He was dissociated probably all of the time. Afterwards, which it's tough, it's very tough to go through life being dissociated very ungrounded. State, I do not know if he had physical effects from all of this, but other than the constantly dilated pupils, which has to be a problem and sunlight. But I'm guessing they will manifest at some point, if they have not already, he's gonna have some physical effect from this, he already has profound mental effects from this. And, you know, the other part of this is, you know, here's somebody very interested in spirituality. And my guess is that meditation would be very hard for this person, because he's going to have all sorts of like, intrusive thoughts and energies, like, distracting energies to deal with, you know, that sort of thing. So again, about, you know, it's about consumption, it's about not, not not consuming things, or being very aware of the things that you're consuming and how they're having an effect on you, and not just throwing stuff into your, into your energy system. That's a, you know, a particularly important part. Another, another thing that I will talk about, from a spiritual hygiene perspective. And this becomes, you know, I'll give you my own story about this. But something I called DSP, which is daily spiritual practice, you may have a daily spiritual practice, and that is fantastic. And I would say, keep up with that, definitely do if it's working for you. definitely keep doing that. If you meditate every day, if you pray every day, if you light a candle at an altar, if you do that, you know, whatever it is, that gives you that connection to that which is greater than ourselves that which is infinite. Do that and do that every day. And that's hard. And I will tell you that this is an area where I sometimes fall down, sometimes I get busy with physical 3d world life stuff, and I don't do my daily spiritual practice every day. And what happens is, I notice it. I notice if a few days have gone by, and I'm starting to feel slow, sluggish down, having intrusive thoughts, all of those things. So I like to think about daily spiritual practice as the same as brushing my teeth. Okay. Although,

I will say that I'm a little bit better about brushing my teeth, I do brush my teeth twice a day, religiously. Very important, right? It's important to brush your teeth every day. And they say twice a day, right? So I do brush my teeth twice a day. If I forget to brush my teeth, if I go, you know, if I go an hour in the morning without brushing my teeth, I'll notice you know, my mouth doesn't taste so good. My my teeth feel fuzzy, right? Those are symptoms. If I go a couple days without doing my important daily spiritual practice. Believe me, I noticed it, I notice the symptoms of that. So pay attention to that. Pay attention to on pleasant feelings, intrusive thoughts, you know, old habits happening physical, old physical symptoms popping up again. And again, you know, if you've got physical stuff going on, don't forego proper medical attention, please. You know, but pay attention to your spiritual practices as well. So, just to sort of recap, and this is I'm just touching the surface of spiritual hygiene here. Obviously, this is a short podcast, this would be you know, maybe spend a day on this in a two day seminar. And, you know, work work on you know, it's at least a full chapter in a book that I'm working on. Probably more than that, probably more than a full chapter. You know, the things that are important for spiritual hygiene are to you know, pay attention to the environments that you're in. have the intention to shield when you're there so you're not collecting intrusions. Pay attention to the things that make you feel better physically. You know, any of the physical health hygiene things. You know, staying healthy, affects your affects you on a spiritual level as well. Particularly Of particular importance, anything that you consume, and by consume I mean, Eat Drink. Smoke, breathe, take in through your senses. So if you're listening to violent music, for example, it might create a certain energy in your field or if you're listening to, you know, something that you know something that uplifts you pay attention to how you feel when you're listening to things that you listen to pay, pay attention to, if you're reading, you know, certain websites, or you're on social media a lot, how does it make you feel it's a good indicator, it's a good tell some of the things you know, and I'll add one more thing. Not all spiritual practices are safe. Most are but not all are. So there's a lot of stuff and what we call the middle world, which is the spiritual template of this world. There are a lot of spirits not necessarily malevolent. Although there are malevolent spirits, there are entities that you can think of like if you're out in nature, and you would encounter a wild bear, a wild bear is not evil. Wild bear is just a wild bear. And it might be dangerous, because it has a certain set of behaviors that pose pose a risk. So kind of the same thing right there kind of the same, same situation on the spiritual template in which we live, which our physical bodies move through on a daily basis, which we call shamanism. We call that the middle world. And there are tons of spirits in the middle world, and some of them don't want anything to do with humans. And some of them are curious about humans. And it's as different, it's even more varied than the people that you encounter. Right. Some of them are highly intelligent, some of them have, what we might consider lower levels of intelligence, or being more instinctual, all kinds of things. You know, if you learn how to journey to the middle world, like you'll, you'll encounter all all kinds of things. And so there are, there are spiritual practices that can leave you very open. And I don't want to put down anybody's in particular spiritual practice, I'm not judging, that sort of thing. But if you're doing any sort of

experimentation with things that might be considered, like sorcery, where you're opening portals to things or calling in things, or, you know, that sort of thing. Just pay attention to what happens afterwards, pay attention to how you feel afterwards, you know, if you start getting physical symptoms, or that sort of thing you can, you can be opening yourself up, you can be inviting things in that you might not want to be there. That's not to say that, that there aren't safe types of sorcery and magic and, and, you know, witchcraft is very, the way that most people practice is very, very safe. But just pay attention. Just pay attention. Some of the things you might need help with, obviously, if you're having if you're having mental or physical symptoms that are distressing, or show up as disease in any kind of way. Clearly, seek professional help for that. If you are some of the things that you might need help with, you know, clearing extraction, or doing extractions, clearing intrusions, you know, that can, you know, any sort of anybody trained in shamanism should be able to help you out with that. And, you know, if you just feel gunked up and run down, and, you know, you know, even if you're having immune system problems, again, still seek medical help, but you know, something that you could talk to a shamanic practitioner or somebody who does some other type of healing, that that does extraction work. So there are, you know, things like curses and possession and things that we see on TV that are very dramatic and still still, you know, exists. You might think of them as fictional, they they still happen. They're not as dramatic as they are on TV. But to take care of these issues. Generally, you'd want to seek the help of somebody who is trained in this type of thing. And my preference, obviously, is to seek shamanic help. I don't know enough about other types of other types of practices. In shamanism, you know, we don't do exorcism, we do something called Deep possession. There's a school of thought out there called compassionate deep possession, where we look at the possessing beings as suffering beings because they are, or they wouldn't be doing what they're doing. And we treat them like clients and help them move on. And to me there is it's a very ethical way of approaching that issue. Right? Obviously, it's an issue that needs to be resolved. But we can do it in an ethical, loving and compassionate way. So, you know, there's some issues, there are some issues like that, that you can't necessarily take, take care of just with hygiene if you are under spiritual attack from someone. And there is, you know, there's lots and lots of cases of this, there are people out there doing all kinds of practices, I won't. I won't limit it to any one system I know of, there are cultures where shamans are attacking each other all the time. There are attacking practices in all kinds of magical systems in I think in Voodoo, although I don't want to malign Voodoo, it is a legitimate spiritual system. If you feel like you're being attacked by somebody that's time to seek some, maybe some professional spiritual help, unless you have the tools to deal with that yourself. So those are some things to think about with spiritual hygiene. I hope this has been extremely helpful. I hope that you will

there will be more to come.

Announcer 47:27

You have been listening to speaking spirit with your host, john more. For more info or to contact john go to MaineShaman.com that's maineshaman.com

Ep03 Spirit, Soul, and Ego

Announcer 0:29

Hello, and welcome to speaking spirit where we talk about all things spiritual. Your host, john Moore is a shamanic practitioner and spiritual teacher. And now here's John.

John Moore 0:49

Hello, everybody. I'm talking to you just after sunrise. It's a beautiful morning. It's a little overcast here. But I always try to greet the sun, the provider, the source of life on Earth, in one, you know, in on a physical level and a spiritual level. My topic for today, I'm going to talk about spirit, soul and ego and what those are and how they relate. And Gosh, I hope I have some good news for you today, not news. But I hope I have some good information for you that I'm going to do my best to inspire a little bit today. And the reason for that is, you know, the global situation is pretty crazy right now, we have, we're obviously in the middle of a global pandemic, that is affecting every human being on this planet. At this moment, whether you are sick have been sick know, people who've been sick, known people who have died, all these things, and I'm talking to you from the United States. I know I have listeners all over the world. And that's fantastic. And I and I greet you and thank you for listening and tuning in to me. Special greetings to my friends in India. But wherever you are, know that you are loved and appreciated. And I, you know, I do this for you. And I do this to reach out. And I do this to help hopefully bring us together and you know, maybe bring a little bit of light, where things may seem dark. And I'll talk a little bit about that as well. In my last podcast, I talked about the divine masculine, divine feminine, and what they look like and how they how they take place. And I'm going to talk a little bit more about that today. But in the context of what we might call spiritual development. spiritual development is a big topic. Obviously, if you walk into any bookstore, there's a huge section of books on spiritual development, there are courses online, there's everything you can think of every type of practice meditation, shamanic journeying, you know, everything, everything you can think of out there. So I'm going to start today, and I'm going to give you my definitions of spirit, soul and ego. And I realized that my definitions may not match up with your definitions or other people's definitions. And that's fine. we sort of have to be okay with that. Right? Words are models. And I'm gonna talk a lot about models today. But models are not the things right, if I say the word dog, that is a word that represents the animal dog, but that is that word is not the dog. Right? We say the map is not the territory is a pointer. It's a reference to something. And, you know, the spiritual realm is primarily invisible. Not to everyone but it you know, for for most people as we go around in our daily lives, we experience sort of 3d reality where time flows in one direction only and effects have causes and, and all of those things. And so, the definitions of things can be sort of loose. And the other thing that happens is that everything we experience on a spiritual level

is filtered through our culture. It's filtered through our ego, we're going to talk about what that is today through our own personal experiences, all of those things. And so there's, there's nothing wrong with that. And there's nothing wrong. If your definitions of things differ from mine, it's, I'm going to give you mine so I can have. So you know, I can have a common language with you. So, when you're listening to me, you know what I'm talking about. So you're not, you know, hopefully less confused when I use these terms, because I may be using them in a way that you haven't experienced before. And of course, my, my definitions, my you know, they're not necessarily mine, they come from my shamanic practice, and were given to me by my teachers and that sort of thing. When I say my, I'm just saying the ones that I'm using, not things that I have made up, I don't want you to think that I've invented some new system of explaining reality, there's nothing new about what I'm talking about. I have a perspective, but even that is informed by my culture, my my teachings, my, you know, studies that I've done journeys that I've done as a shamanic practitioner, all of those things are, so I don't, I don't claim ownership to them when I say mine. And that's the difficulty with words, right? In English. When I say my this, it could describe ownership, or it could describe, you know, just something I've I've adopted. So let's talk a little bit about spirit and soul first, and then we'll talk about ego after that. And then a minute, spend a little time on what, you know how to sort of go a little deeper if you're interested, how to go a little deeper into this into this learning. And so my first, before I get into spirit, soul, and ego, I'm going to talk to you about what I mean, when I say the word spiritual, right? This is speaking spirit. This is a podcast when I talk about spiritual topics, and what is what do I mean when I use the word spiritual? To me, spiritual is anything that gives you a connection with something greater than yourself. something beyond your physical self, your ego, that sort of thing. And that's a very broad definition, right? Because for some people walking in nature, might give them a deeper connection. Would I describe that as spiritual? Absolutely. No, it wouldn't be a spiritual experience. Meditation when you go inside, and touch a part of yourself that is connected to the entire universe. Absolutely, spiritual. If you pray, if you're a religious person, and you pray, and that gives you a sense of connection to deity, absolutely, that is spiritual. That's a spiritual practice. When I hug my children, and I feel this unconditional love for them, and from them. Absolutely, that is a spiritual moment for me. lovemaking, sex can be a very spiritual experience. It doesn't have to be. But it certainly can be if it gives you again, this sense of greater connection. So that's my take on, you know what the word spiritual means. And I have this theory that the deeper you go into anything, the more spiritual it becomes. And I'll give you a few examples. I have practice martial arts since I was about five or six years old. I'm in my late 40s right now. So it's a lot a lot of years. And in the beginning, you learn punches and kicks and you know, arm bars and all of those things. But the more you go into it, the more spiritual it becomes, the more connected you feel, the more in rhythm you feel, even with your opponent. Even you know, when you're practicing techniques that may seem, you know, violent, you know, hopefully, with practice, you become more peaceful and you become it seems like a contradiction, but it's true. You become more peaceful. You abhor violence you become softer, you become more connected with energy.

When I see somebody who isn't for example, in a Amazing basketball player. And they're what we call in the zone, right? Where they're just in rhythm and flow with what's going on, that seems like a very, I'm not a great basketball player. But that seems like a very spiritual experience for me. Recently, I was watching a cooking show, and Chef on the show was talking about how for him, cooking was all about finding this moment. And the second, he described that I'm like, Oh, he's having a deeply spiritual experience with cooking food with preparing food. He's got this emotional connection to what he's doing this spiritual connection. So the deeper you go into anything, the more spiritual it becomes. And when I talk about, you know, in a moment, when I talk about soul and spirit, I'm talking about how going deeper into yourself is probably about the, you know, the most spiritual thing you could do. So let's talk about those. Okay, so again, these are my definitions. And again, when I say my, I mean, adopted from my teachers, and that sort of thing. And I recognize that some people use these words interchangeably. So some people use spirit and soul to describe the same thing. And some people use spirit and soul with sort of opposite definitions of the way I used them. But I just want to give you these definitions so that again, we can have a common language so you, I'm not confusing you by what I'm talking about. So when I say spirit and soul, so in the shamanic world, one of the main practices that we do is called soul retrieval. And this is in response to some sort of trauma that somebody has experienced or an injury to a limb or shock to the system. And you know, this jives actually really well with modern psychological models of trauma, there's a splitting off, there's part of your soul breaks away. So your soul is this sort of body of spiritual energy that you carry around with you. And it is affected by your life experiences, it reincarnates with you, when you go from life to life, and it's, you know, can can sort of take on wounds and injuries and carry those, carry those along. So a lot of the work we do in shamanism is healing those parts, right finding, you know, recollecting and reuniting and integrating those parts. And this jives really well with sort of union part psychology, you know, family, internal family systems, therapy, those sort of modern psychological models, right, of this fractionating of the self, the soul. Okay, and, you know, we, you, we all have a soul and is closely in close contact with our body. So what happens, you have a physical body, you have lots of different bodies, right, you have a physical body, you have a soul body, a spirit body. When your soul body, completely leaves. That's when that's when you die, right? That's when your physical body dies. Your soul body does not die, and neither does your spirit. But your soul body can carry sort of baggage wounds, that sort of thing. It's affected by your life experiences. You know, it gains experience and it can be wounded, it can be healed. It can be developed, this is most this is what we're talking about. When we talk about spiritual development. We're talking about developing the soul or astral body, that non physical part of you. And so when I talk about spirit, what I'm talking about in so in, in Sanskrit, there's the word Atman, which is this like internal dwelling, undying slice of divinity. This is your this is your Divine Self. The part of you that is absolutely undying, indefinable, does not get wounded does not is not affected by life experiences. It is just this divine light that is at the center of you.

And there's some really amazing meditational practices that happen. There's one taught by the shamanic teacher Sandra ingerman, called transfiguration. Which is an absolutely beautiful, beautiful practice and, and simple and extremely deep and profound spiritual experiences do not have to be complex, or take years of training. Some of them can be extremely simple and experienced by anyone. Why because we all have this indwelling Spirit, this this part of ourselves. And this, I hope is a little bit of light, if you're experiencing some of the tumult of the world right now, in any sort of way that is painful to know that there's a part of you that is completely unaffected, that is just perfect love and perfect peace at your center, if you want to visualize this, you can visualize this as just an intense light, somewhere in the center of your body, usually in your, in your chest area, just that shines in all different directions at all times, and can never be dimmed can never be injured or affected. And this is your connection to divinity. So let's talk about let's talk about your bodies, let's talk about your different, different bodies. And so, again, all of this comes from a cultural context, right. So in you know, if you go back and you look at ancient Egyptian religion, they described all of these soul parts, and they had these, you know, huge system of religion around funerary rites, and this part of the soul did this and this part of the soul that this, you know, went off, and there's, you know, that that whole funerary ritual thing was about their, their model of, you know, the afterlife, and the parts of the soul and that sort of thing, right. And, again, this, this is filtered through their culture. In Norse belief, there's, again, soul, there's all different parts of the soul, right? There's, you know, there's a part of the soul that gives you luck, for example. And it's located, it's like a backpack in your back. And, you know, that's recognized in many different cultures. So the way I like to look at it, a metaphor that works really well for me, is that human beings are like an onion, a multi layered onion, we have so many layers that you can peel back, one after another after another after another, right, we have a physical body. But when you get beyond, you know, when you you know, that's a super oversimplification of even our physical presence, right, because we have, you know, a circulatory system and a skeletal system and a neurological system. And then we have all kinds of biochemistry going on. And we have all of the processes that go on we have, you know, respiration and cellular energy production, and all of that stuff, right? The stuff that goes on just to give us this body that we have in this physical world, and your, your other bodies, your soul body, your energy, body, all of these things are equally complex. So you could study these for many lifetimes and never get to the end of them, which is why we create these super oversimplifications. We say we have a body, we have a mind we have you know, we have a spirit we have a soul. Those are super oversimplifications. But it's necessary so that we can have a conversation about it so that we can talk about it. Again, I can talk about I can use the word dog, but I, you know, which represents it's a pointer to the animal dog, but I can't, you know, I could spend the rest of my life describing every thing that makes up a dog from you know, behavior to history to how their, you know, their body, you know, it could go into Veterinary Science, all of those things. So, just just an oversimplification, we have all of these bodies, and I view them as these overlapping layers and the

they really blend into each other. Right? So for example, we all we know about, we know that humans have an energy body, okay, this is how a lot of energy healing works, how a lot of you know, acupuncture or Reiki or any of those things, work on the level of the human energy system. The human energy body is close to overlaps with, interacts with the physical body very close very, very closely. And they overlap in such a way that it's almost impossible to really pull them apart and differentiate them. Right. So some of the meridians, some of the acupuncture meridians closely follow, you know, the nervous system and some, some do not. And so trying to separate those out is a little bit, you know, it's necessary if you're studying, studying something like acupuncture to think of them as separate things, but they're really not. Okay, and the same is true. The same is true for the soul body, right, you have the soul body, which is a little bit removed from the energy body. It's a little bit further inside that onion. Right, but they overlap, they interact and and they and they affect they can affect the physical body. So a lot of shamanic healing works on the level of the soul body. So we've talked about soul retrieval, there's other, there are other, many other practices that shamans do all over the world, that affect the soul body. And that can provide a template for physical healing a template for mental healing, a template for, you know, healing, you know, some of that comes through the energy body, some of it does not. You know, again, we could study this for forever and get to the bottom of it. And that's, to me, that's a really cool thing to think about how amazing we are as human incarnations, how lucky we are to have incarnated in the physical body. And I realize some religious systems say that that's a terrible thing to have to incarnate because we have to experience pain and loss and suffering and all of those things. And I get that. And we we do like having a body is not, it's not a walk in the park, right? It's not, it's not all pleasure, it is certainly the ability to experience pleasure and pain and all of those things. And those dualities exist in the human body, but we're lucky because we do get to interact on this plane, we do get to do things that develop our soul body that develop our astral body that develop our mind develop our these things. So that's my takeaway. And I promised I was going to talk about ego and I will talk about ego a little bit. And ego is one of those things. At least in the US, it's a little bit of a dirty word. In that when you describe somebody as having a big ego, for example, that is not a compliment, right? We say that little check out that guy's ego, um, you know, meaning that they have an inflated sense of self that they think very highly of themselves and perhaps should not should you know, that this is a judgment about somebody not showing humility. And humility isn't humility, humility, humility is a wonderful trait to have. So what are we talking about when we talk about ego? So ego ism is a mental construct. So it it takes place, sort of, it's not its own body. And my my take it is simply your sense of who you are, your sense of I, and all of the sort of complex things that that comes with, right? So when I think of myself, you know, my, my name is john, something my parents gave me when I was born.

That's a part of, but something that I you know, I happen to like, if somebody says, john, I'm gonna turn around, right? Because I identify with it. That's my name. That's one part of my ego, but I'm also a dad, that's a concept that I have about myself. So it's about your self concept. It's about who and how you I identify, okay. So, we can develop problems with our ego, right, we can develop problems. One problem is we can develop hubris, right? We can develop this inflated sense of self. And that certainly can happen with some types of spiritual development. And so the astral body, the soul body, is has this sort of hubris effect on the ego because it does affect the mental body. Certainly, it affects our consciousness. And I certainly have known people who consider themselves ascended or above others or beyond. You know, beyond flaw and that that sort of thing in that is a real trap. That is a super serious is a terrible trap to fall into. In spiritual development. If you ever think that your work is done, you are probably wrong, you're most likely wrong. Unless you are the Buddha or, or are actually, you know, some sort of enlightened master The problem is that people think they are, and they aren't. And they might have developed amazing spiritual abilities, you know, we think about, um, you know, I think about a Buddhist teacher that I studied with decades ago, who was considered by some of his students enlightened and had all kinds of special abilities and things like that. And, you know, he, he wound up taking his own life later, which is both tragic, but also an indicator that he hadn't done the work that was necessary to clean up, you know, cleanup is the shadow parts, which I, I talked about in my first podcast on darkness and light being two sides of the same coin. You know, the Shadow Work is super important. And if you don't do it, it will, it will come, it will come back and bite you, you have to do that, you're gonna come back again and again and again, and have to work on the same thing over and over again. So that can, that can definitely happen. And that's a problem that can happen with ego. Where, and this is where I hope there's a little bit of light pouring in here as to what I'm talking about not just warnings. What can happen though, is you do the work. So he goes about identification, right? It's about identifying who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Right? You can ask that you can use that as a mantra, who or what am I could be a mantra that you repeat. And the the, you know, the Indian saint Ramana Maharshi. You know, that was his mantra, that's what he taught his students to repeat over and over again, to get at the, to get at the core of the self, this feeling of being unified with divinity with being unified with a source and that's where you can go with, I think, almost any spiritual practice that helps you turn inside. And in my last podcast, I talked about the divine masculine and the divine feminine. And so, um, you know, and again, there's no one is better than the other, there's no, they are, they're co they're co equal, as long as they are treated as such, as long as they aren't misinterpreted or, or, you know, as long as there's not power over, right? There's power with, okay. So, divine masculine spiritual practices are the things that we do, outwardly, such as making offerings, praying to a deity, you know, setting up an altar, you know, all of those things are these sort of outward expressions of spirituality, divinity. And they are, they are absolutely valid, and they are in a prayer, chanting, anything that that comes from within to without

equally valid is the turning inside, right? Remember, I said, the more you go inside something, the more spiritual it becomes. And that includes yourself, the deeper you go into yourself, and you reach that point where you identify this is where the ego comes into place, right? The ego is a tool that, when used correctly, allows you to identify more and more with that divine part of yourself. And that is the Divine Feminine part of spiritual development. And hey, you don't have to choose just one avenue, you can do both things. You can make offerings, and you can meditate and turn inside. You can pray to a deity and you can take up shamanic journeying and, you know, get more insight by by turning into the inner realms. You can do both at the same time, and it's a very, very powerful combination. This divine masculine and divine feminine practices, the outward practices, the inward practices. And if you separate them out too much, if you focus on one area, a little too much, they can become out of balance. Right? I mean, you know, we all know I've lots of friends who grew up in a religion and may even Don't go to church every week and don't actually really believe or practice, they just, it's a thing that they do. It's this, it's this, you know, well, you know, I went to church every week as a child, and I still go to church, but I don't really practice and we don't really believe, you know, which to me, is it unfortunate and a missed opportunity, right, either to dive deeper into that religion or to find one that you do believe in and can practice both externally and internally, right, there's not much spiritual development going on there. Unfortunately, this is not a judgement, you're free to do whatever, whatever you want, I just see it as a missed opportunity, it makes me a little a little bit makes me a little bit sad, although, you know, I'm sure there's a benefit from that I'm sure. People who do that are able to make some kind of connection, at least on a social level. And, you know, ritual is important ritual is any sort of symbolic action that we take, right. And ritual is important. Even on a psychological level, we actually, in the Western world, I think are missing a lot of ritual that exists in other places. We stripped that out of our daily lives a little, a little too much, in my opinion. So you know, a lot of people are starting to bring that bring that back, a lot of people are starting to explore more here. But we became, you know, we went through the Industrial Revolution, and we spend a lot of time working and focused really on day to day physical survival stuff. And it's an interesting note, I realized this is a complete tangent, but it's an interesting note that studies show that, you know, in previous times pre Industrial Revolution, you know, even during hunter gatherer times, people had more free time, right, they didn't, they weren't hunting and gathering all day, you know, eight hours a day, every day, they had more free time to do things like develop art and music and, and religion and culture and, you know, build giant stone monuments, places and things like that. They had the cycles to do that we don't in this modern world, because we spend a third of our time sleeping a third of our time working, and the other third of the time, usually, you know, some, hopefully, some of that, you know, resting, relaxing, going inside doing development, but it's a very limited window for that sort of activity. Right. And we have all of the other things we have to do, we have to go shopping and feed the kids and you know, just day to day life stuff, clean the house. And so it becomes a little bit out of balance. So when you can, when you do have the opportunity, it's important. It's an important part of spiritual hygiene, it's as important to me as brushing your teeth, which is very important to spend some time daily in spiritual refresh, reflection, spiritual practice, any of those things. So with that, I'm going to bring this podcast to a close. You know, we talked a little bit about what I mean by spirit, soul and ego.

I hope, I hope that you learn something, I hope that you, I can, you know, maybe give you a little push to spend a little more time turning inside, finding that divine part of yourself. I don't care who you are, I don't care what your life experience is, is a real beautiful thing to me that everyone every single individual on this planet. And that includes people who no longer have bodies and may still be around have that divine spark they have that they have that divine aspect, that divine nature that they are absolutely connected to the unity that is the universe. And and it's, it's absolutely beautiful. It's an absolutely beautiful thing. If you can get any sort of experience of that it will it will change you it will change it for the better. So if you would like more information about me or what I do, or this podcast or if you're listening to this somehow and don't have access to previous episodes, you can go to my website, which is named shaman comm that's MaineShaman.com. And I mean like the state because that's where I live. In March, I am co-teaching a an introduction to shamanic journeying class online. You can find more information about that on my website. And I'm co teaching that with three other really amazing shamanic teachers. And we're doing this because we are in the middle of a global pandemic, and I am not teaching in person at this, you know, at this time and so this is a good opportunity, if you have ever wanted to learn about shamanic journeying to do that, and will take place over a weekend at the end of March. And again, there's, there's more information on my website, you can check that out. If you have, you can contact me through there. If you have questions or suggestions for podcast topics. Gosh, I would love that I would love to make this more about what you want to hear about. And or guests. I'm, I am fully intending on having having guests so it's not just you listening to the sound of my voice and me listening to the sound of my voice in the future. I want to thank you so much for listening. It's it's very important to me right now to be reaching out to other people in in any way that I can. And I do love you and I don't care who you are. And that may sound a little weird. But you know if people can there's a saying that if if people can hate people they have never even met that I can choose to love people I have never met and and just know that that that you are loved no matter who you are, no matter where you are. And I'm I am going to be a part of that I'm going to be a part of the ones who are who are loving in this in this crazy world and bring hopefully some healing and sanity to the to the world as it's being shaken up. With that I will leave you have a blessed day.

Announcer 37:33

You have been listening to speaking spirit with your host, john more. For more info or to contact john, go to Maineshaman.com that's MaineShaman.com.

Ep02 Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine

Announcer 0:29

Hello, and welcome to speaking spirit where we talk about all things spiritual. Your host, John Moore is a shamanic practitioner and spiritual teacher. And now here's John.

John Moore 0:50

Hello, everybody.

This is my second podcast.

If you have not listened to my inaugural podcast, the first episode, I talked about how dark and light on a spiritual perspective are two sides of the same coin.

And today I'm headed straight down that duality pathway. Again, we're going to talk about divine masculine, divine feminine. You know, it's interesting. We aim for non duality and in spirituality. But it's useful, I think, to think of the way that the universe is abundant and diverse, and the way that spirit expresses itself. In all its very many ways. But it's all part of one divinity is one thing. And we're all a part of that. And that's the beautiful thing. And today I'm going to talk about divine masculine and divine feminine and how that can be sometimes a sticky topic, particularly when we get to talking about gender and how we represent gender, spiritually, there is the principle of gender in, I'm just going to pull this up. So I can read the exact the exact quote here. So the Emerald tablet, if you're not familiar, this is a pretty ancient piece of writing, we'd have no idea where it originates, there's lots of legends about it, originating before Ancient Egypt and showing up in all kinds of different cultures. Whatever the truth of the history of this document, we got an emerald tablet, because originally it was supposed to be inscribed into a green stone tablet. It has had an effect on spirituality, particularly in the Western world, for millennia, like it's been around for a very, very long time. You see it showing up in Greek, you see it showing up in, you know, the thoughts that get filtered through Western religion. So regardless of its, you know, its history of its actual history, which is, frankly, probably lost, we, you know, we don't really know, it's had a real effect, and it is a foundation of Western spirituality. It's attributed to somebody called Hermes trismegistus, which means, you know, Hermes, the thrice great, also known as both, both being associated with the, the Egyptian god of writing, and knowledge, and that sort of thing. And, you know, there's lots and lots of legendary stuff about different incarnations and that sort of thing. Again, regardless of its actual history, you can't deny that it has a profound effect on Western spirituality, Western thoughts, there, there are whole systems of hermetic spirituality that get filtered out, if you look at any of the sort of occult traditions or the secret society traditions, you know, Freemasonry, to the Golden Dawn to any of those things, this hermetic thought, absolutely permeates that stuff. And if you know, so, I'm, you know, I'm coming to you from the United States, if you know, the history of the United States, a lot of our founding fathers were, in fact, Freemasons, and, and filtered a lot of their belief systems into what we have, you know, our form of government, everything from our form of government to the way that monuments were laid out in Washington, DC and all kinds of stuff like that. It's cool stuff. If you're really interested in an alternate history, you can really go down the rabbit hole with that one, but from the Emerald tab tablet, there are these seven hermetic principles. Right and so So these are their spoken sort of as truths. And I'm going to talk about this particular one, which is the principle of gender.

And it states and again, this is an English translation of who knows how many translations down the line. The English translation is gender isn't everything, everything has its masculine and feminine principles. Gender manifests on all planes. Okay, that's pretty big statement, right? Everything has its masculine and feminine principles. In, in the Western world, in the world that I grew up in, you know, I grew up in a time, where mostly, you know, men were men, burly, you know, the the stereotypical, you know, the stereotypical thing Boys, boys, or blue girls wore pink, that whole deal, right? This is where gender, the idea of gender gets a little sticky, because they're all of these cultural overlays with what, what it means what masculine and feminine means. And it's important to point out that, you know, the, the tablet, this quote about masculine feminine, is not necessarily about biological sex, although it does apply. And it's not necessarily about gender identity, although it does apply, right? We're now living in an age where gender identity is, you know, it accepted that it's a little more fluid, that people don't necessarily comply with the gender they were assigned at birth, they don't necessarily identify with their, you know, their chromosomal sex assignment, that sort of thing. And, you know, obviously, that bucks the system, that bucks the tradition, and there are a lot of anytime you, anytime you change the way society is there, there is backlash. Um, that being said, there are traditions all over the world for more than two genders. You know, they're, in some cultures, they recognize as many as five genders, and, you know, they're they, they recognize intersexual people and all those things. This is not really about that this is not really about those things. I just want to say personally, you know, in my life, I want people to be who they are, I want people to be able to be comfortable, to be free to express themselves however they identify. And, you know, to me that it's a beautiful thing, to me, it is diversity is, is wonderful, if you look around the universe, diversity is the rule, it's not the exception. If you look at the animal kingdom, the plant kingdom, the minerals, the elements, the stars, everything. We live in such a diverse universe, how could we not reflect that as human beings? Right? How could we not accept and reflect that, that diversity is, you know, it makes us stronger for one thing. But again, we're going on to sort of divine divine masculine, divine feminine, right. So if this principle holds true that gender exists on every claim, there's a masculine or feminine on every plane, that would include we consider sort of the Divine plane, the unity. And it's interesting to think that the Unity could be divided into two things, but the Unity the non dual reality, you could call it God, you could call it the universe, you could call it the multiverse, you could call it the source, whatever your word for that is, that extends into everything, it is everything, it is everything that there is, right. And I want to give you some examples of how masculine feminine show up and everything, but let's talk a little bit about what we mean by masculine and feminine. And it's a little weird. Those words, some people are starting to replace those words when they're talking about spirituality, because they get wrapped up in the whole politics of gender and sex and that sort of thing.

But these are, this is the, you know, this is the tradition, this is how things have been described for 1000s of years, the masculine feminine principle, if you think about, you know, sort of Eastern spirituality Taoism in particular. You have yin and yang or in in yo and in Japanese, you have yin and yang and you know, the the sort of the representation of that is the story. symbol of dark and light. Right. So again, going back to my, my last podcast, we talk about darkness and light being two sides of the same coin, the light side was seen as young or masculine, and the dark side were was seen as yen or the female side, feminine side, not necessarily female, but feminine side. And there are principles associated with the ideas of masculine feminine. The other thing I'll say is they cannot be separated, you can't have one without the other. Right, you can't pull those principles apart, in isolation. And so the masculine or young side was seen as active light, you know that, you know, that sort of thing. So anything that's sort of active, was seen as as young. And so the, the dark side was seen as passive or dark, right, and that's the inside the feet, the feminine side. This does not, you know, language is hard, because I'm not meaning to assign value to anything, there is nothing better or worse about active or passive, they are equally important. I'll give you an example of that from human life. Right? We cannot, you know, we're active during the day, and we sleep at night. And if you think that being passive is not as important as being active, I don't recommend you try this. But if you've ever I have, I have twin daughters. And I think at one point I had gone without sleep for three or four days in a row when they were first born. I can tell you, that being passive is critical. You cannot separate one from the other. You realize whether you use if you've if you have children, particularly if you have multiples, you realize why they use sleep deprivation as a form of torture, right? You have to go through that you have to go through the rest stage, it is so important, it is about renewal It is about gathering. So gender, in this perspective, like it's weird to think of waking and sleep as gender, but this is really what the Emerald tablet is talking about. Right? The active principle, if we replace, if we replace masculine and feminine with active and receptive or active and passive principles, it might make a little bit more sense. But traditionally, we've used masculine and feminine. And I'm going to talk about the divinity of that today as well. So just in human life, we have times of activity and we have times of passivity. And rest is rest is as important if not more than activity. Anybody who has worked out been a bodybuilder tried to build up some muscle knows that the active part of your workout, right? When you go to the gym and you lift some weights, that's a stimulus for growth. But the actual growth, your actual time that your muscle grows, is when you are resting. And if you don't get enough rest, if you go to the gym, and you work out every day and don't give yourself enough time for recovery, you get injured, you don't get stronger, you get weaker, you get injured. And that's you know, that's that's a truth and that shows you why both parts are equally important. So, I know I quoted him in the last podcast as well, but I think he's he's a brilliant dude. And you know, there's the western philosopher for lack of a better better term for him, Ken Wilber and he talks about the principles the the masculine and feminine principles of divinity as these sort of impulses and I like that I like I like these these drives and it makes a lot of sense to me the way he describes them. So, the masculine Divine Principle in this case, he calls arrows right which is the which is a love principle, that the arrows impulse is the impulse for things to evolve to be active right, we go through evolutionary stages as a species, we go through evolutionary

processes as an individual, okay. So we started out as children and we grew up and we went to school and we bettered ourselves and that impulse, that is, that is part of the divine masculine, divine masculine is to evolve back to divinity is to evolve back to the needs to become a greater whole line right and individual package as it Right, and it's very individualistic. In that respect, the Divine Masculine is somewhat individualistic, it's about sort of personal development and bettering oneself and that sort of thing. On the other hand, the divine feminine, he calls by the name a god Bay, which is another word for love, right. And this is about gathering, community building, pulling, as you develop through the masculine, it's about pulling others up. And those principles acting together in any individual make for a much higher level of spiritual development. If you get either one of these things out of balance, and frankly, they're out of balance everywhere, right, and I'll, we'll talk about that, if you get any of these principles, these general principles out of balance, you get lots of repercussions from that. A good example, is when you get the masculine principle out of balance, you wind up with patriarchy, which we've been suffering under for, I don't know 1000s of years, right, you get the you get, you get this individualistic dominated culture, which is set up as a, you know, very much as a hierarchy, right, you always have, you have your religious structures, your political structures, your, even your, you know, community structures set up with one person on top, and a couple of, you know, somewhat less powerful people under them. And then, you know, the majority of the people have no power, no, say no voice. You know, we used to forbid people from learning Latin and require that all all Bibles were written in Latin, to keep people ignorant. And only the learners a few very, very wealthy people could could access what was, you know, their only outlet for spirituality. Okay, so that's, you know, that's super out of whack, right, that there's no, no movement. You know, there's no movement for bringing people up. There's, there's a movement for keeping people down. And it's about power over and not power with. And that is, that is way out of balance. And we've been there for way too long. The pendulum is swinging back, we always move from individualistic to collective and then back again. And we've seen some minor movements that way. Obviously, the 60s were a big upheaval of, of that system, you know, with the hippies in the peace movement, and civil rights movement. And a lot of those movements were about that feminine principle of pulling others up. Right. Again, out of the out of whack, sort of side of the feminine, is, um, you know, you know, shows up in political systems, like oppressive, communistic regimes, right, which are, you know, again, they can have a patriarchal structure because they, you know, definitely have people on top. But, you know, instead of pulling people up, they serve, too, they serve to push people down and make everybody the same, but make people you know, not get better, like, if you stand out from the crowd, you're going to be repressed. And so both sides are capable of a great deal of repression, both sides are capable of a great deal of violence. And so that's not good. So either way, things are out of whack. So there is there is gender, there's passive, and active and everything. And one of the great goals of divinity, the alchemical process of reaching our own, you know, our own, our own divine spark, you know, identifying more and more. You know, my hopes, there's lots of different types of spiritual development, but my aim is always to more and more identify with the divine aspects of myself. And, you know, I hope that I hope that is true for other people as well.

And take a really balanced approach to that. So, you've got to balance those, you've got to balance those things out. You have to balance personal development with pulling other people up as well, with the arrows in the GOP as two sides, two sides of the same coin. So I want to talk I want to talk about a TV show I've been watching and I haven't read the books, but now I'm inspired to read the books but There's a show that's available on HBO, right now called His Dark Materials. And it's based on a book series by the same name. And you might have seen that or seen the Golden Compass, which is, I guess, one of the books in the series. But I'm prompted to go back and read, read the books from from watching the series, I realized that that's probably the logical opposite way of doing things. But whatever works, and this isn't a really interesting piece of fiction, that it is, in my opinion, pregnant with symbolism, with deep spiritual meaning. There's a lot of political stuff in there, it's obviously very entertaining. Very well done, the acting is great, the the, you know, the way it's put together is great. What's important to me is that, you know, if you're not familiar with a series that takes place in this alternate universe, where there is this patriarchal system, that's really the government called the magisterium, which is a thinly veiled allegory to you know, that when the church ran the government, and they, you know, they run things from very patriarchal, patriarchal perspective, and their, their leaders are sort of priests and bishops, and they're all males and that sort of thing. Very, you know, obviously similar to our, to our own history. And in this universe. Humans are, you know, their soul, part of their soul anyway, takes takes the form of an animal. So this is different than a power animal. I'll explain how in a moment, but you know, that humans walk around with this animal companion, but it's part of their soul. If they die, the animal disappears, if the animal is killed, the person dies, and, you know, vice versa. So they're intimately connected. It bears noting that the animal, at least in the series, I'm watching on TV is normally the opposite gender of the human. Now, I haven't seen any transgender individuals in the show, so I don't know how, you know, or if that if that shows up in the books at all and or how that how that works out. If it's a, you know, if this is a principle, but it's just something that I noted. And it reminds me of this concept. There's this concept in Norse spirituality, Northern European spirituality that shows up in Celtic spirituality as well. There's the idea of the fat twitches this spirit that is part of, you know, the the Norse idea. There's this very complex thing called soul comp, I guess, soul complex for lack of a better term, it's like your, your spirit, your soul is made up of all of these different identified pieces. One of those is in English, we call it a fetch in I believe ancient Norse called the field Gaea, or philia. FYI, lgi. A. And the way that shows up in Norse spirituality is that it either takes the form of an animal or it takes the form of a spirit that is the opposite gender of the person. In my understanding, and I'm not I'm certainly not an expert, but my understanding is that this is a spirit and opposite gender spirit, in Celtic beliefs that shows up when if one sees it one is about to die or one is close to death, or one is on you know, in mortal danger, that sort of thing. Very shamanic, right? Because in in shamanism, you know, when you you shift realities, you can start start to see spirits like, you know, there's this, we know, scientifically, there's this mental shift in brain states. Now, we know because we have eg equipment, but we didn't. We didn't know 1000s of years ago that if you had a lots of theta brainwaves, that you would be able to start to see spirits.

We just knew that if you drummed or took certain plants or or sang for really long periods of time, or did certain dances that that would occur. But what's happening in all of these cultures is people are shifting their brains into a state where they are receptive. They're in a, what we call a divine feminine state receptive to impressions from the spirit world. So this concept of This concept exists. And I don't know for sure if the author, you know, made that up out of the collective unconscious. If he used materials from other spiritual systems when he wrote us books or whatever be really interesting for me to dive into that, at some point, I highly recommend the series. Again, I read the books, but I hear wonderful things about them from people that I know. So check it out, if you get get the chance. It's called His Dark Materials. So, I believe that Carl Jung the, Carl, you know, Carl Jung was a Western. He represents the western shamanic impulse, right. So the psycho analyst who was contemporary of Freud's and then went off and did his own thing, and is responsible for terms like complex like psychological complex and collective unconscious and archetype like becoming, you know, defined the way they are and coming into popular ideation. And he definitely went through. If you read his life story in his autobiography, you he, he definitely went through shamanic initiation. He was definitely experiencing shamanic states, he was channeling divine information when he came up with all of this thing. And it's important to recognize that the word psyche, which is the root of psychology, psychiatry, all of those things, to us, it means mind. In ancient Greek, the word psyche actually means spirit. So, you know, when he, when he talks about psycho analysis, he's actually talking about analyzing the human spirit. But Carl Jung came up with this idea of animus and Anima, which meant that, you know, we have, and again, going back to this, these components of the human soul, we have parts, right, and you have experienced parts of yourself coming forward throughout your life. You know, there are parts that might, for example, take over when you're angry. If you've ever done something, and gone, gosh, that's not like me. Right? It may be that there's this part that you're not in touch with. That is you know, you're you're just not aware of, but but it's, it's a part of your psychological makeup, your soul makeup. And, you know, there's part parts that he came up with, that everybody has called autonomous and Altima, right? autonomous, being the masculine and Altima being the feminine, right? This is a part of you, that is your opposite gender. It is so all males have an Altima an all females have an autonomous so we all have that side to us. And so the So the interesting question is What if you are what if you don't identify with your you know, the, the gender you're assigned at birth, or the your biological gender or you've changed genders or that sort of thing. My take, and I am not an expert on autonomous and or Anima is that this part of you takes on the opposite part that you identify with, most closely psychologically. So I identify I was born a male I identify as male, I have an Altima, which is a feminine, feminine part of my soul, a feminine aspect of my soul. If I, I, I believe this to be true, but if I identified as a female, even though I was born as male and have the genetics of a male, I would probably have an animus, which is the masculine side because again, there's the principle that there is gender, that there's masculine and feminine and everything it's not, it is not there is masculine or feminine in in everything. And that is an important distinction. The principle is that there is masculine and feminine in everything.

Now, what about people who are gender fluid or non binary or don't identify with a particular gender? To be honest, I don't know. I would be very very curious to find out I would be more than curious to find out I would be really happy to work with somebody who is gender fluid or non binary to figure out what those parts of themselves are, maybe it's complex, maybe it's something unexpected. My guess is that there are there are parts that sometimes are more masculine, sometimes they're more feminine. And again, this isn't about the cultural overlays of masculine and feminine. This isn't about, you know, boys wear blue girls wear pink, this is about this is about the soul parts of yourself, the parts, parts, and again, you know, we talked about, we talked about parts of a hole, right, it's important to go back to the unity, it's important to go back to the divinity, your Divine Self is, is one, it's inseparable. But then it sort of divides itself. So that one story is that God or the universe or everything or source, whatever, whatever name, you want to call it by one and two to, you know, was was everything there is and wanted to experience wanted to have certain experiences. And so the universe was created. And in that universe is all kinds of diversity. But first, there was, you know, basically, there was nothing and then there was the one thing and that split into two things. This is from the Tao, and I'm paraphrasing, because I do not have Lao Tzu memorized, but this is you know, the, the, the nothing became the one thing the one thing became two things, the two things became the 10 you know, they say the 10,000 things 10,000 just a number, that means, like, more things than you can count, right became everything. And the two things in this case are yin and yang are these these principles, these divine, this is when the, the, you know, the driving principle of the universe, the divinity of the universe, split itself into active and passive so that it could create which brings me to creation, which brings me to manifestation, right? So there's, and I realized in the animal kingdom there, and in the plant kingdom, and in other kingdoms, there is the idea of asexual reproduction. And I'm not a biologist, so I could not, you know, I could not divide that up necessarily to into how that works on a masculine and feminine principle perspective. But there is there has to be that principle for creation to happen. Interesting to note, I read recently that funguses sometimes have up to five genders, and they you know, fungi, particularly mushrooms, do reproduce sexually. Even if, you know you think of you think of fungus as not, you know multiple organisms, but they produce different types of, you know, spores and mycelium and that sort of thing that have that have that have different genders and interact with each other to create that genetic diversity. We think about creation, you think about biological creation, you know, at least on the animal kingdom level, in the mammal level, we've got, you know, the sperm and the egg coming together the masculine and the feminine. Sperm being the active component, the feminine being the receptive component, right? We don't have to say passive we can say receptive. And without that you don't get you don't get life you don't get you know, we need both components. So from a manifestation component, you know, perspective from a spiritual manifestation perspective. You know, manifestation is a hot topic ever since the secret came out However, many years ago, you need both the active and the receptive component of manifestation to bring things about in the universe, how that takes place in your life, that's a topic for another day. That's a very big topic. Obviously, there's, you know, you can probably if you type manifestation into Amazon, you'll get a bazillion results. But, you need both of those components, you need to have an active intention, and then you need to be receptive to what comes your way and actually be able to receive that, for manifesting anything in the universe.

intention is a very masculine tool. So in in shamanism when we journey so, I journey using drum most of the time sometimes rattle, but most of the time I journey using a drum which means I go into an altered state and I do some work with helping spirits on behalf of myself or other people or the community or I go there to you know, travel and non non ordinary reality to gather information or get healing, that sort of thing. So, the intention is, you always journey with an intention, right, I'm going to meet with my helping spirits to do XYZ. That's masculine principle, that's a masculine principle of spirit. But then I have to become, once I have that intention set, I have to become receptive, I have to be able to enter into the trance state, using the drum or whatever method you use to enter trance states and people dance. Some people take plant medicine, whatever your method is, you have to be receptive to that, or it's not going to be effective. So you have to, you have to embody both masculine and feminine principles and your spirituality. And so that, you know, spiritual work takes place is much more effective when you embrace both sides when you embrace the active and the receptive, the masculine and the feminine. It's super, super important. Um, you know, one last thing I'll talk about before, before I leave you this time, is you know, so I sit with a lot of shamanic circles, I have taught numerous classes I have taken years and years and years of training. And in my experience, um, I am frequently either the only man in the room, or one of very few. You know, I think the most number so, you know, let's say I, you know, I went and I took a class, I went and took a class on, you know, teaching, teaching shamanic journey to others. years ago. I think there were two other men in that class of about 24 people. And that was the highest ratio I've ever experienced in any class, I've taught any training I've given any class I've taken, that's been the highest ratio. So there's this sort of mystery to me, that I'm plumbing the depths of why more men don't get involved in this type of work. In it's not just shamanic work, any type of spiritual work when I do I used to before pre pandemic, I used to hold meetups for. We called spiritually conscious professionals, which were people out in the world who were practicing any form of spirituality and wanted to come have conversations with like minded people. And, you know, frequently, maybe, maybe one, one man out of 10, or 12, or 16, or 20, people would show up to these meetings, so I don't think it's just shamanism. I think it's lots of forms of non traditional non Western, non church, spirituality. There are very, very few men doing this work. It's, uh, you know, I understand part of it. But part of it is a mystery to me. And it's tough because it's, it's a little unbalanced. I would love to see more men do this work, I think it is important. My take, and I'm not 100% sure my take on why more men don't do this work is a it's a cultural thing. We do not train men through our, through, you know, particularly culture in the US that Western culture that is prevalent in the US and I realized the US is a very multicultural place. But there's still this cultural force in the US that men don't do this kind of thing. Right. And for a lots of different reasons. shamanism is also gonna put you in touch with some really deep feelings. And again, there's this cultural thing, where it's not acceptable. It's because it's changing. Thank goodness for that, where it's not acceptable for men to have

deep feelings, deep feelings of grief or sadness or love, or, you know, this a gap, a feeling of love of community where you pull everybody up. That's one. That's one aspect, you know, call that culture pushing that thing down. And, gosh, any sort of any sort of shamanic initiation shamanic training is gonna make you confront that stuff. It's gonna pull it up. I have it I have cried in circle ugly tears I have ugly cried in circle and it I gotta tell you I'm, you know, I'm a fairly sensitive emotionally vulnerable man and that is super uncomfortable for me where you know, and I have to confront that in myself I have to say why is that uncomfortable for me? Why is that not okay? Why is it okay? If a woman I'm sitting in circle with like touches something touches some deep trauma in her life and you know cries about it and everybody's comforting her but I feel uncomfortable if that happens to me that's work I need to do and and wow, what what a treasure that is to discover that what a treasure for me to discover the way that cultural forces have pushed, you know, made me push stuff into my shadow and and start to confront that stuff. So I do you wish more men would become involved in this work. The other side of that coin. Right. The other the other aspect that I see happening is that shamanic Practice, practice in particular, and lots of alternate forms of spirituality are non patriarchal, right, we do not have a hierarchy, we do not have authority. I mean, we have, you know, by authority, people who have authority, or people who've practiced for a long time, and our elders that we go to for wisdom. But there's not a structure, there's no Pope and bishops and cardinals and that sort of thing. Right? It is not pyramid shaped, it is circular. And I honestly think that, at least on a subconscious level, a lot of men are uncomfortable with that. There is pressure, you think about the, the the phenomena of mansplaining, right? There's a phenomena you know, the alpha male concept where men feel pressure to be the smartest person in the room, the most powerful person in the room to stand out in some way. And, you know, when you sit in circle, you have to set that aside. And I think that can be uncomfortable for, for a lot of men. You know, you approach everybody, including spirit as equals. And so that is, you know, that gets away from that pyramid structure, that hierarchy, that patriarchal structure, and I think it's so ingrained, it's so ingrained in everything we do you look at the way we set up companies, you look at the way we have schools with principals and vice principals, and department heads and teachers and all those things, you look at universities, where we have, you know, presidents of universities, and then we have boards of directors, and we have Dean's and we have tenured professors and we have, you know, almost every cultural structure we have is a pyramid. And, you know, shamanism and some of these alternate forms of spirituality. And when I mean alternative, I just mean, historically, historically, not the dominant spiritual culture. I don't I don't, I don't take shamanism as alternate to anything. It is my It is my way of being spiritual. I just mean, it's not hasn't been the dominant paradigm, in the culture I live in for my wife's for my lifetime. And for many generations back, okay, so I don't mean any, and I don't mean to denigrate anybody's form of spirituality, I'm just trying to point out things that I'm experiencing, okay, if you are happy in a patriarchal religious structure and power to you, and that, if that empowers you, and you're not disempowering anybody else, then fantastic. That's absolutely, that's absolutely great. Where we get into trouble is where you feel the need to disempower others.

And that is not a place of power, that's actually a place of fear. It's a place of weakness, if you if you feel like you need to repress other people or oppress other people or put other people down or look at them as less than and not equal to, that's where we're gonna run into some problems. And that again, that's a place of fear, not power. Okay. And so, again, onto the sort of divine masculine, divine feminine, the Divine Masculine being these arrows this ability to pick oneself up as a unit and develop and evolve and become closer to spirit and identify more with the undying divine spirit that is the spark inside you at the core of your being and the spirit of a GOP a which is this love this collective. I'm you know I'm divine, your divine, let's bring everybody together. Those things working in tandem, are are pretty unstoppable. It's pretty amazing. Is it a challenge to balance those things in your life? Absolutely 100% that if everybody had that perfect, we would all be enlightened beings, I guess, or something. Something along those lines, it is always, you know, to me, my spirituality, my spiritual development is always a work in progress. I don't believe I'll ever say that I'm done. Not in this lifetime, certainly. Maybe not in 10,000 lifetimes. I don't know. But I actually like that I actually like that I'm a work in progress, right? Because I do not float on clouds. I do not ride a unicorn to kind of circle any of those things. I am. You know, the inside of me, the divine part of me is as perfect as everyone else, which is absolutely perfect, whole, complete and unbroken. And the human parts of me are just as flawed, broken mess as anybody else. And so how can I? How can I identify with anyone? How can I? How can I be on that level of a god Bay, if I can't get down in the muck, with anyone that I'm working with, with anyone that I'm helping if I can't talk about my trauma, my pain, my wounds, that sort of thing. So with that, I'm going to bring this podcast to an end, I hope that you'll subscribe and listen as I as I move on in the future. As I stated in my first episode, my hope is that this will expand that in the future, I will interview other people so I'm not just listening to the sound of my voice. And you're not just listening to the sound of my voice, but that I will bring in other perspectives with people with more more and different knowledge than I have and that sort of thing and I hope to grow. You know, my real hope is to grow a community out of this, you know, podcasts in the other things that I'm doing. I will say and here's the here's the pitch I guess if there is a if there is a pitch here, I hope a I hope you will subscribe. Be coming up in March of 2021. I will be doing a first I will be first of all I am teaching an intro to shamanic journeying class online. I have taught probably dozens of those in person but because of the pandemic. That's just not possible. It's not possible to sit in a room with you know, with 20 people and drumming and journaling safely at this point. I hope it's something I absolutely love doing. So I hope to restore that once the pandemic is under control. So I will be in March I will be teaching over over a weekend, a two day online intro to shamanic journeying class, if some if it's something you've ever wanted to learn. The second part of that that's new for me is ob teaching with three other amazing shamanic teachers. It's, you know, it's a fantastic opportunity for me to experience other people's teaching styles, how they interact with students. And you know, I think it's a great opportunity for anybody who takes the class to get gosh to get four different perspectives and the learning really kind of goes in that way. So you can get more information about this course there's a banner at the top of my website if you click on it will take you to info about the class

which has registration everything and I am at Main shaman, ma i n e sh aman.com that's mainshock calm and if you just want to go find more information about me read articles look at other episodes of this podcast. You can go there as well. I do have a link to the podcast the top which should have every episode This is episode number two. So if you're interested in listening to episode number one, you can go there or find me on everywhere we find podcasts. I have Hope that you're having a fantastic new year I hope to see the end of this pandemic soon. It's my my intention. I know that every shamanic practitioner I've talked to sees this whole global pandemic as an opening to an opening to initiate it's a call to shamanic initiation. And I don't just mean like, people need to everybody needs to start studying shamanism, it is a call, it's a crisis, it's a call to do inner development for the entire planet. And, you know, if some good can come out of this, that that might be a part of it, it might be a part of, you know, you know, well, recognizing the lives lost the lives interrupted, you know, the, the effect on the world, in general, is pretty horrific when you look at it. Um, you know, if we can get good out of this, it's about how we can pull together how we can individually develop, how we can be stronger apart and together, that sort of thing. So with that, I will leave you and I will hope that you will continue to join me in the future.

Announcer 51:31

You have been listening to speaking spirit with your host, john more. For more info, or to contact John go to MaineShaman.com that's MaineShaman.com

Ep01 Darkness and Light Are Two Sides of the Same Coin

Announcer 0:25

Hello, and welcome to speaking spirit where we talk about all things spiritual. Your host, John Moore is a shamanic practitioner and spiritual teacher. And now here's John.

John Moore 0:43

Hey, everybody.

I'm called john. And this is our inaugural speaking spirit podcast.

It is

sunrise where I'm at at this moment

in between

sort of the winter holidays, Christmas and Hanukkah, and you will, and the solstice and New Year's, and it also happens to be during the cycle of the moon. That is a full moon. And it's a absolutely beautiful sunrise this morning, the skies look like pink and blue cotton candy. We're where I am in the great state of Maine, in the United States.

And given that this is my very first podcast, my inaugural podcast, what I want to do this morning is to introduce myself a little bit and introduce the podcasts and how it's how I think it's gonna work going forward. You never know spirit always has other plans for life and everything that you're going to do and that's totally fine. In the meantime, I will say if you hear some slurping noises, hopefully not too many. I'm trying to be a little professional here.

That's my coffee. There is no shamon Ising without coffee.

So to talk a little bit about myself, so you know who I am. I am

as the interest as a shamanic practitioner. And what that means is, I have been gone through some initiations, I went through what's called a shamanic crisis at a point in my life, I had a pretty severe physical, mental, emotional, spiritual breakdown a dark night of the soul. Some part of me recognize that as a call to action, the smarter part of me recognize that as a, what's called the shamanic call, which is an archetypal call to dive into the ways in and be initiated into a shamanic path. I do not in my tradition, I do not refer to myself as a shaman, I call myself a shamanic practitioner, one who practices the ways of shamanism. And you know, it's interesting, I'm going to talk a little bit about that later. The topic of today's episode is darkness and light being two sides of the same coin. And that's gonna play into, you know, titles in the way that I refer to myself and the way that others refer to themselves. And you know, that that sort of thing that's gonna play into what we're going to talk about today. The podcast today is just going to be me. And in the future, I hope that we're going to be able to have some other people join me, you know, this isn't going to be just about me hearing my own voice. And I, you know, want to seek out other perspectives, people with more expertise than myself in different areas of spirituality. And this is speaking spirit, and the topic is spirituality. And we're going to talk about all things spiritual. And again, you know, there's that whole spiritual but not religious thing. I'm not going to go into too much hopefully religion and politics. I'm going to talk about personal relationship with spirit, my own path in shamanism is one of individual personal revelation, personal development, those sorts of things. So, because that's my training, that's my background, and this is my, this is ultimately this podcast is for you, but this you know, it's my gig and so that's, that's where, you know, that's where this is gonna. That's where this is gonna lie. I don't have a lot to say about organized religion. In organized spirituality, I don't, I don't practice those, I don't hold anything against those who practice those. They, you know, everybody's on their own path. It's just not my expertise. And I try not to talk too much about things that I don't know much about. That may not stop me in the future, we'll see. Hopefully, we'll get some guests in here that can that can enlighten people. So given that the topic of this podcast is spirituality, you know, I hope to cover all things that are

on a spiritual dimension. And, and my definition of spirituality might be a little bit different than yours or, or other, certainly, certainly others, right. And I think, for me what spirituality is, it's whatever you practice, that gives you a sense of connection to something greater than yourself, right? It's very broad definition. And, you know, that can encompass a lot of things. Some people have very spiritual experiences, walking in nature, for example, really connected with nature, this is something that, that I experienced when I'm out in nature, you know, I'm just amazed at the natural world, and all of the forms that it takes, and, you know, the glorious sights and sounds and smells and feels that are out there. And it gives me a sense of being connected to something greater than myself. For some people that might be prayer to a deity to God or to Buddha or to, you know, to what, or whomever, and that gives them a sense of greater connection to themselves. In human beings seem to be hardwired for this seeking of connection, right? There's, you know, there's scientific evidence that they call religiosity is built into human beings. And so, you know, clearly there's a reason for that, clearly, there is a, you know, biological advantage to that, clearly, there's, you know, we would say a spiritual advantage to that, of course, right, that connection to something greater than themselves. I also have the feeling that the deeper you go into anything, the more spiritual it becomes, right, I'll give you an example. I used to train while I still do train, martial arts. And although this is you know, we're doing a pandemic, so I can't currently train with partners. But I trained, I've trained in martial arts since I was about five or six years old, I'm pushing 50 years old now. And so that's a really long time, it's decades of training. And so in the beginning, you know, you learn punches, and kicks and stances and all of these things. As you progress, you get to a level where you get deeper and deeper into the work, and it becomes more about energy about sensing energy moving energy around. And it becomes a very deep spiritual practice if you're doing it. Well. I think the same thing, if I watch somebody, say, who is an amazing chef, really into the experience of cooking. You know, you can see somebody having a spiritual experience, I think of a cooking show, I watched recently where, you know, the chef was talking about, for him, cooking was all about a moment, there's a moment when he knows things are, are ready when they're perfect when they're done. And he's just connected. And there's a real mindfulness to that. And so your personal spirituality can be anything that you do deeply, that gives you a greater connection to yourself. And, you know, for some people, that's art for some people, that's music, all of these things touch us at a really deep, deep level, and give us a sense, that sense of connection. And we again, we seem to be wired for that. So it's a little bit about me and the podcast and spirituality. And I'll talk briefly about shamanism just because it's my, you know, it's my personal path. And most of what I'm going to talk about, at least today is going to be through a somewhat shamanic lens, meaning, you know, as with everything, my personal experience, my personal training, my development is going to flavor my perception of everything. And that's true for For everybody everywhere, we do not, unless you're an infant, a newborn infant, and even then you're going to have some past life stuff that you're going to be filtering through. We all have our filters. And becoming aware of those is part of our spiritual path as well. Right, recognizing that we don't look at anything with fresh eyes, we're actually constructing our reality, you know, the, we see and hear and touch and taste and smell things. But it's our consciousness that assembles that into the three dimensional world that we live in. on a regular basis, our ordinary reality is sort of assembled for us by our consciousness. And that in itself, to me, is a miracle. When we talk about miracles, we think about people levitating or healing the sick or, and all of those things are fantastic and are in fact, miracles. But we missed the day to day miracle, the fact that you can turn on, you know, a radio or mp3 player, or whatever you listen to music through and have sound waves hit your eardrums. And in your consciousness, that creates a song that moves you, right? It's not the song that's hitting your eardrums. It's just pressure waves, just waves of pressure and your consciousness turns that into a symphony, or your favorite country music song or your favorite spiritual music, something that moves you, you look at a piece of art that touches you deeply. And, you know, that's lightwaves bouncing off that Canvas or that sculpture or what have you, and hitting the backs of your retinas. And that sends an electrical impulse into your brain and your consciousness assembles that into the experience of a piece of art. Isn't that amazing? When you think about it, to me, that is the everyday miracle this morning, when I looked out my window, and I saw this gorgeous sunrise, to me, takes my breath away. Right that consciousness can provide that gift for me the experience of that. And so that's something I'm thankful for everything every single day. And I try. I try every single day, to have a moment of gratitude for the fact that I have consciousness and can experience these things. So today's podcast, the topic of today's podcast,

Oh,

I'm sorry, I didn't really talk. I realized I skipped the part where I said I was going to talk about shamanism and I actually didn't, only because I want you to understand my perspective a little bit. So things hopefully will make sense and we can, you know, we can communicate on that level. So shamanism is a practice that goes back to prehistory. We actually don't know how old it is, it might be as old as humanity itself, we find. We find cave paintings from 10s of 1000s of years ago, that seemed to indicate shamanic states of consciousness. We find shamanic, continuing shamanic cultures 1000s of years old, notably the Aboriginal cultures in Australia, which are 10s of 1000s of years old, continuous cultures, that practice what we would define as shamanism. And we see shamanism popping up in every single culture in the world, without exception. And so it is the original, you know, to our, you know, our best understanding it is the it is the original sort of human spirituality. And what happens is that there is this archetype, there's this archetype of the shaman. And if you know anything about yoga knew about archetypes, they exist in the collective unconscious, which means they exist throughout human consciousness. And they pop up we call it the shamanic impulse pops up in every culture, in every era of history. Now sometimes, in that impulse is for what we call shamanic initiation for shamanic individuals, practitioners, people we call shamans. Every culture has their own word for it. You know that in you know, we have you know, Celtic Celtic shamanism we have Norse shamanism, there's, you know, West African shamanism Siberian Mongolian shamanism. There's shamanism. Korea and Japan. So every culture, this pops up and in. And there is, you know, every culture has its own word, word for it. We have adopted the word shaman from, you know, from Russian and German into English, and they borrowed it from the tongue sick people in Siberia. And there's evidence that the word might come from Sanskrit or Chinese or Pali. We don't know, we don't know where it exactly originated, but, you know, maybe further research will will show that someday. So traumatic individuals pop up in every culture now in Western culture, you know, European culture and the culture of the United States. You know, sometimes when that shamanic impulse popped up, we would burden those people at the stake or, you know, just repress them in general. So it's been a repressed part of our culture. You know, when I think about the, the Celts, and I'm not saying that Druids were necessarily shamanic, I don't actually know. But I think about the Romans going in and cutting down the sacred groves where the druids communed with nature and did their thing. So there's just, you know, long history of repression, repressing the shamanic impulse. So, you know, some years ago, there's an anthropological research that went on and said, you know, all of these cultures, you know, what do they have in common? What are they doing? What are the practices that they do, and that became what's known as core shamanism, which are like let's boil it down, let's strip away the cultural, you know, culturally specific things that that these you know, different shamanic cultures are doing. And so, there are basically three elements of shamanism in shamanism. One uses altered states of consciousness, to travel and non ordinary states of reality. That's element number two. So altered states of consciousness number one, traveling and non ordinary reality traveling and non ordinary realms. That's number two, and work working with helping spirits. So a shaman anyone who's practicing shamanism, a shaman, shamanic practitioner is going to be doing all three of those things. If they aren't, they're doing something else. So for example, I might meditate and that alters my consciousness.

And but I'm not necessarily traveling in non ordinary states of reality or working with helping spirits and so we wouldn't necessarily call that a shamanic practice. Although meditation is fantastic, I do it. I separate that out from the shamanic work that I do. And when we say when shamanic people monic practitioners or what have you are, are doing those things. We call that a shamanic journey. And in my tradition, we use rhythm to enter the altered state of consciousness, particularly drumming or rattling or some sort of musical repetitious and we know that there are specific brainwave patterns that we're trying to generate now, our ancestors 1000s of years ago, didn't have ecgs and didn't know what these you know, theta brainwave patterns looked like but they figured it out they figured out you know, if I listen to this rhythm, this drumming rhythm you know, I go into this trance and I can start to see spirits and communicate with them and bring back healing energy or you know, do work for my community. Um, so let's talk about dark and light being two sides of the same coin and that might be a little weird. There, there are a heck of a lot of very spiritual people out there who will use phrases like I'm all about the light and love or I'm holding you in the light or you know, these sort of light light chaser light holder people and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that I'm not here to shame anyone or or denigrate any particular path or or anything like that. But there is an old expression that says the brighter the light, the darker the shadow. And I'm going to talk in a moment about what we mean by shadow and what the shadow is and and how we have come to understand that and all of those things. But having light and dark as the sort of duality right? This sort of Star Wars mentality Are you in the light side or in the dark side? All those Star Wars, interestingly portrayed the fact that if you remember, Empire Strikes Back, okay, I'm a little bit of a nerd, and I apologize them and talk a little bit about sci fi, if you remember, Empire Strikes Back, it's very demonic, right? Luke Skywalker has to go into the swamp to meet Yoda. And he goes through the he goes into the cave, where he meets Darth Vader, and he strikes him down, and it's an image of himself. And I realize, you know, my, my young self was a little bit confused about what was going on there. And that might be confusing for some people. But this was about confronting his own shadow. And again, I'm going to talk about what we mean by the shadow in a moment. But Luke, who's embracing the light, still has a shadow, we all have a shadow. I do not, you know, unless maybe you're Buddha. And if you are, thank you for listening to my podcast, you have a shadow. And in fact, in the, you know, in the story of Buddha's enlightenment, he and you know, he has to fight off the armies of his, you know, his shadow, the loose, you know, the illusion, you know, the illusions that his shadow workers were throwing up to him. This is going to be the same for anyone for everyone forever, until I guess you become an enlightened being or, or whatever, but we all have a shadow. And it is,

it is, no matter how much you embrace the light, it is there. And in fact, there there is, you know, there's a problem sometimes that comes up from embracing the light too much, which is that we ignore our shadow, we think it's not there, or we convince ourselves that it's not there. Um, what happens when you head down a spiritual path. So, you know, embraced, shamanism is my path, I did it. I continue to train in shamanism I continue to learn, it will be it will be nonstop, my my teacher continues to learn and her teacher continues to learn. It's one of the things I love about the path is that the learning never stops. And, you know, it goes on and on. And, to me, that's very stimulating, right? But when you go down this path, when you get on any path of spiritual development, what you're doing is you have this astral body or this soul body and you start to develop that and you might achieve some successes, right? You might achieve some healing, you might be able to heal others, you might be able to divine information or who knows, you might be able to perform a miracle or something along those lines. The astral body for some reason, which is still unknown to me, and maybe I'll figure it out at some point is what we call hubris stick, right? It enjoys hubris, it gets inflated very easily. It's, um, and that filters through to the ego, right? The ego is our sense of who we are, is our it's our Im sense. No matter what anybody tells you, the ego is not evil. There's nothing wrong with the ego. It's healthy to have an ego it's necessary. It's a part of you. It's like saying, I don't like my left arm. I need to get rid of it, or I need to ignore it. Or I need to pretend that I don't have a left arm. You have an ego, if you can say I, you know, I am. I am going to have a sip of my coffee right now. The I sense that is doing that is ego. It's just your it's just your sense of differentiation. Where the ego becomes problematic is where it keeps us really separated from the world where it makes us think that we're not a part of the world, that we're not a part of nature, where we're not a part of spirit where we don't have a divine nature. That's underdeveloped ego. The ego can also experience hubris, when we say somebody has a big ego, that's what we're talking about is this inflated sense of self? Right? in the spiritual world, we see this a lot with spiritual leaders who wind up abusing their followers, for example, right? You can think of all of these, you know, suicide cult leaders or these Yogi's who sexually or financially abuse their followers, right. They're, you know, they have done a significant amount of spiritual work spiritual development. But what they haven't done is they haven't worked on the shadow impulses. So the philosopher, a guy who I really like Ken Wilber He talks about three aspects of spiritual development. He talks about waking up, growing up, and cleaning up. You know, waking up is you know about recognizing, recognizing non duality, it's about recognizing the spiritual nature of everything and sort of awakening to, you know, what reality is, you know, growing up is about, you know, maturing, becoming more compassionate, all of those things. Cleaning up is about and that's the work, I think a lot of people are missing. And that is, that is dealing with the shadow, right, your shadow aspects. So let's talk about what's in the shadow. So the shadow, the concept of the shadow exists in all cultures, because it's something that everybody has. Um, but it was really Carl Jung, the psycho analyst who explained it in a way that Western minds could kind of grasp and understand and start to work with. So what happens is, we have normal human impulses, we have wounds, we have all of these things, these parts of ourselves, these, you know, psychic and psychophysical parts of ourselves.

And a lot of these get disowned, right? Meaning, that's not a part of me, I'll give you some examples in a minute.

As we're growing up, we are socialized, right? We, our parents raised us and say, Don't cry, don't do this, don't do that. You're a bad kid, if you do this, if you if you touch yourself, that's naughty, and you're going to hell, if you you know, you know, particularly stuff around sexuality is repressed in this culture, you know, spiritual impulses, I, you know, I know, somebody who was having visionary dreams, and her parents, you know, you know, basically beat that out of her, um, you know, all of these things. And so we say, these are bad, these are bad. And so I'm going to push them away into my unconscious, into an area where I can't see them. And we call that the shadow, because it's area, it's a part of ourselves, where we collect our disowned parts of ourselves, right, our fractured, disowned parts of ourselves. The other part of that is wounding that we receive, right. And so particularly, say childhood trauma, we may lose memory of that, because it's too painful for us to look at an experience at that time. And, you know, the, the shadow has been referred to as this bag that we dragged behind us, if we don't work with the shadow, if we don't do the cleanup that is absolutely necessary. It's like we're trying to go through life, dragging this bag behind us. I have a little bit of a different metaphor, things that are in the shadow are like a basketball that you're trying to push underwater. You might be successful for a moment, but it's gonna pop up somewhere. And again, this is where we have these, you know, these Yogi's, these spiritual leaders, these gurus who wind up sexually abusing or, you know, financially abusing or embezzling or doing all these things from their followers. That stuff's gonna pop up because the work hasn't been done. You know, and it's popping up in weird ways, particularly because the spiritual light is so bright, that the shadow is really dark. it darkens the shadow. And there's nothing wrong with turning your spiritual light up very bright, as bright as you possibly can. But you got to do the cleanup, you have to do the Shadow Work. And there's all different kinds of ways to do that. I regularly do Shadow Work, shamanic Lee. And that, you know, this is not hubris or to brag or to say that I'm complete, because I am not, I don't think I will ever be complete. I think, you know, one of the things that happens as I clean up stuff from this lifetime, you know, stuff from other lifetimes may crop up. The other thing that occurs is that we have stuff we have ancestral stuff, right stuff that's passed down our ancestral line. I wish it weren't true, but we inherit the sins quote unquote, Sins of our parents and their parents and their parents and their parents. There are we now know there are epigenetic changes that happen with trauma. So we can detect trauma in I don't know how For many generations now in some animals, I think it's more than 20 generations later, we can detect genetic changes, or epigenetic changes in the actual DNA. So the physical, there's a physical representation of trauma that gets carried along the ancestral line, they're able to detect epigenetic changes in the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, for example. So on human level, we know at least a couple of generations, trauma, and that sort of thing, affects people. Um, so there's ancestral cleanup that has to happen as well. The nice thing is, if there is a nice aspect to this, that when you do ancestral healing, you wind up healing your whole line, and that includes your children as well. And so that's a nice, nice thing. So light and dark are part of the same, two sides of the same coin. You cannot, if you think you don't have a shadow, well, then your, your the existence of your shadow is in your shadow. I'm sorry to say this, but you do you do have a shadow.

And the work, you know, part of that cleanup work is to address those things in whatever way that that works for you, you can you know, you can go train in shamanism from a cheap teacher who teaches Shadow Work, you can do all kinds of different types of Shadow Work, you can go through psycho analysis and do it that way. Everybody, everybody should do this work. He doesn't use the word should but we'll put it this way it would be beneficial for anybody to do this work to do Shadow Work, particularly if you are spiritually inclined, spiritually oriented. You should be working on your shadow again, there's that word should, right. Wow, there's very few shoulds in this world, but I can honestly say that's a thing. I have encountered so many people who become who are struggling with this, right. You know, I'm regularly met for pre pandemic I regularly met with you know, I had a group for spiritually conscious professionals and I met people from it was fantastic. I hope to resume it once the pandemic is over. I meet people from all walks of life, all spiritual practices, everybody from you know, ministerial counselors to, you know, energy workers to clairvoyance, Tarot readers, acupuncturist, all kinds of people who are working with energy and spirit. And that sort of thing. And this is something I've run into an interesting story about this, I had a couple of young women who showed up to a meet one time we had an open meeting. And they were just starting down the spiritual path. And they were both in recovery. And using spirituality as a way to get them through dealing with recovering from addiction. And one of them related a story to me where she said, you know, somebody cut me off in traffic the other day, and I got really angry. And then I realized I was angry. And then I got angry that I was angry. And my question to her was, well, then did you get angry that you were angry that you were angry? and so on and so forth, ad infinitum. There's this idea that again, in so this is where shoulds come into, this is where shoulds are a not so great thing. There's this thing where I'm a spiritual person, I should do this, I should not do that. I shouldn't feel anger, right? You're a human being you feel anger, where that comes. where the problem comes is where I take that anger and I stuffed it down into the shadow, and they don't deal with it as it comes up. I don't recognize that as a signal to say, Okay, what, you know, what's going on here? There's an opportunity, the anger was an opportunity, why am I angry at this person for cutting me off in traffic? You know, maybe it has something to do with lack of human respect, or the fact that they, you know, maybe I'm actually frightened. You know, and anger is a way sometimes for people to express fear. Right? fear and anger are close together. And sometimes when people are frightened, they express that as anger. I've seen that a lot, particularly with youth who don't want to appear appear weak. So the shoulds the shoulds become a problem here because they're, I shouldn't feel anger. I shouldn't feel sexual excitement. I shouldn't shouldn't touch myself. I shouldn't eat these things. That I like I shouldn't do this, we shouldn't do that. We cram them down into the shadow, and there's this tension there, they don't go away, we might not see them, we may not consciously be aware of them. But there's going to be some tension. And, you know, we've all seen, you know, we've all seen people who cram their anger down. And don't, don't allow it to come up, don't allow themselves to feel it, and then they explode one day. Right, they explode with anger, and it comes out in an uncontrolled way. And they're potentially serious, very serious repercussions for that. And this culture puts a lot of pressure, it puts a lot of pressure, one of the ways that the culture puts a lot of pressure is so with, with men in particular, and I know this because I'm a man, there are certain emotions that are okay to express and others that are not right. As a man, I'm allowed to express anger or frustration or laugh at things.

But there's a lot of pressure for, for boys when I was growing up not to cry, not to be sad, not to express tenderness. Anything that was seen as maternal or feminine, or that sort of thing. I see that changing our culture a lot, I think that's a really good move, I think, you know, this repression of emotion has caused a lot of violence, a lot of sickness in our world. with women, the same thing is true, but it's a different set of emotions. You know, and I can't I'm not a woman, but I know this from talking to lots of women, where, you know, women who express anger are called bitchy, or, you know, difficult or, you know, whatever. And that's not okay either, right. And so, women have to repress a lot of stuff. And men have to repress a lot of stuff. And that gets pushed down. You know, these cultural forces that weigh down on us, force us to push a lot of stuff into our shadow. And so we have to work in the darkness we have to descend into into darkness. And one of the interesting things that was proposed to me recently, and when I think about it, it rings really true, is that most myths, most cultural myths, whether we're talking about you know, Norse mythology, or you know, Greek, Roman mythology or other, you know, other forms of mythology, most involve stories that reflect shamanic initiation, there's always a descent into the underworld, a death and rebirth sort of allegory. Even in Christian, you know, we see that in Christian tradition. We see that in everywhere, right? This is a common thread that runs throughout cultures, this descent into the underworld, is about working with our shadow, it's about going deeply into our, our wounds and healing them. That all being said. Depending on your past, this may not be work that you can do on your own, you might need the help of someone. You know, there's a reason we, you know, there's a reason the shadow exists, particularly with wounding, particularly with trauma, you know, trauma that happens. And when I say wounding, I'm talking about sort of psychic wounding, right, wounding on our soul, wounding, emotional wounding, which is also reflected frequently in the body as sickness, disease,

that sort of thing. You know, sometimes it's too much to go it alone.

You know, if you're doing work on yourself, and you're feeling something like emotional flooding, or you go into a deep depression, or you have suicidal ideation, or any of those things, those are good indications that it's time to seek out some help. Definitely seek out some qualified licensed counseling. Definitely seek out the help of a shamanic healer effect, I would suggest doing both because there's some overlap one deals with the mind the other one deals with the soul. Those things aren't set exactly separable, but you know, or, you know, we're work with somebody, we're, you know, seek out some professional help there. If you're finding that you start to do this shadow work where you do any sort of Shadow Work, and it becomes overwhelming in any way for you. And overwhelming, I would say, you know, emotional flooding, meaning the sudden onset of uncontrollable emotion that's interfering, interfering with your life. That's a good indication that you know, you've unpacked something that you need help with any sort of suicidal ideation, seek help for that any sort of long term depression, anxiety, anything that we would consider sort of I almost hate to use this phrase but mental illness, mental disease, dis ease, right? Like depression, severe anxiety, it's definitely time to seek out some help for that. There should be no shame in that here's another should but this one I think is a good one. There should be no shame in that I still think there people have a complex, it's becoming less so about seeking, seeking professional help for stuff I've you know, in my work, I've talked to lots of people where I'm have suggested they seek counseling, and some people are okay with that. And some people are really resistant to that. There should be no resistance, mental health is your mind, your body, your spirit, all overlap, mental health is the same as physical health, it's the same as spiritual health. And so taking care of all three is really the way to all around health, you're then firing on all cylinders. When you get money, body, mind and spirit working in sync. You are, you know, you're firing on all cylinders, you're working at maximum efficiency towards health, well being and wholeness. And with that being said, sometimes you can feel fractured, sometimes you can feel unhold, sometimes you can feel broken. And none of those things are true, your whole complete and perfect, just as you are. But that's not to say there aren't some things that you can work on to help you recognize that you are whole, complete and perfect, just as you are. You can have wounds but that doesn't make you broken. That doesn't make you you know, incomplete. And when we do in shamanism with the soul work, one of the ceremonies that we do is called soul retrieval. It's sort of helping you find a piece of yourself that feels fractured, that feels broken off and returning at home. And again, that's not to say that you are incomplete, it's just to say, there's this wound, there's this peace that's temporarily lost, and we're going to bring it back and bring you some bringing some power that you might not have had before. And help you feel better, help you feel that completeness that you are and it's all good things. So this is bringing me to the end of this podcast. I hope you have enjoyed it. I hope it's you know, you've gotten something from it. Again, this is my first inaugural one so be gentle with me, please.

I

I really enjoyed putting this together. I'm going to do them somewhat regularly because I like doing this I like talking to people and again, I'm gonna hope to have other you know, men hope to have guests on here. I figuring out the technology as I go along. I think I've got it figured out I bet I'm at least able to record myself. So that's a good thing. So I will do that as I as I go along. Please feel free to contact me if you are a spiritual person and would like to appear as a guest or you have a topic that you're interested in or you'd like to send me feedback. You can get in touch with me at my website. It's main shaman, ma i n e s h a m a n.com.

And, again, I'm called john Moore. And you can you can reach out to me and I will we will talk to you next time.

Announcer 43:58

You have been listening to speaking spirit with your host, john more. For more info or to contact john go to MaineShaman.com that's MaineShaman.com