In my Blue Man, I quoted Milosz, who had just won the Nobel prize for literature in '81. I was working at a bookstore in Ann Arbor when I wrote the Blue Man. Milosz (x-Lithuanian) came to the bookstore looking for me and right there in the store he and I had an animated conversation. I found myself defending my (younger, more radical) view of the state of the world to this elder Noble prize winner who was trying to convince me that technology would ultimately save us from annihilation. We were both visionaries but our visions of how things might pan out were very different. We both entertained two antithetical outcomes. That there were two possible outcomes was the only thing we could agree on: One was a violent end to Western civilization and the other was a kind of spiritual renaissance for the human race.
The Blue Man was republished by a small Portland OR Press in 2018 (Two Plum Press, http://www.twoplumpress.com/bookshop ), with a Forward telling the story of my conversation with Milosz. It was this book that helped me make a quantum leap into trusting in my own vision! (We moved to Baltimore where I was poetry editor for City Paper. We lived in Catonsville, just outside the city where my son was born. I became active in the Freeze movement and zealously opposed the National Aquarium's acquisition of baby belugas, all of whom died far from their pods.)
#6 Forward to 1988. Our move to VT afforded me the opportunity to spend countless hours in wild forest places and natural power-spots, atop remote ledges and in ravines by waterfalls. I Vision Quested periodically and, as with poetry, I experienced what I can only describe as epiphanies, highlighted by remarkable synchronicities (involving weather and animals). I realized that I was on that old but vitalizing path, the Red Road. Eventually we started hosting sweat lodges on our land. (Second marriage.)
I started rereading Black Elk Speaks in 2012. In his visions (that he had at age 9) the tree of life was right at the intersection of the Red Road (of wisdom and balance) and the Black Road (of power over). I realized that what he was saying was, if we walk both of these roads prayerfully and with intention we might make it. But if we only walk the Black Road we will succumb to the seductions of power or fall victim to its ascendency. We'll be back in the stone age throwing stones at each other and fighting over water holes. (He had his visions at the end of the 19th century.) [See my New Wasichu, Crossing (2014)]
#7 Shamanism was the next logical path for me, following Michael Harner's lead. M Harner separated the principles and practices of shamanism from its specific cultural grounding, calling his version of shamanism - Core Shamanism. Core shamanism is transcultural.
I am careful not conflate world views but the older the world view the less it requires explaining, the less it can be explained, it can only be experienced, hence the importance of vision questing and other forms of initiation. I do find, for myself, that it is necessary to live in more than one reality and to know when I am in one or the other . . . I try to continue to live a prayerful, intentional life and I stay connected with nature.
All living things are equal in my eyes, and everything in creation is alive, and conscious in a way that I go to a lot of trouble in my books and poetry to explain prosaically and through metaphor (via poetry), drawing on my experience. I do not feel superior to any living thing. Sometimes I forget to feel this and I fall into imagining that I am special, but that only lasts until the next time I pray!
#8 I studied ecstatic voice for my MA, after having read (pretty-much) only one poet for over a year - Rumi (Coleman Barks transl). Only after I started writing ecstatic verse of my own, did I decide to focus on ecstatic voice in poetry (prayer and ritual) for my Masters thesis. In that thesis I differentiated between two kinds of ecstatic voice (let me just stick to poetry for now): 1) poetry that is meant to foment an ecstatic or altered state 2) poetry that comes from and directly expresses an ecstatic state of mind or being. Applying this to other kinds of work: I would say that it is important to know whether we are in an altered state (of truth or vision) or whether we are trying to convince ourselves or others that we are there, in that place of greater awareness or truth. Being able to differentiate between the two helps avoid inflation and falling into the shadow.
I would say, my relationship to / with the universe is personal. Prayer keeps it personal. Prayer can be a communal activity but, personal or communal, it is my way of sharing space with the creative intelligence of the universe.
#9 My worldview is much deeper than the corruptive, shadowy reality that plagues us. I mean the Jungian view of things and the shamanic worldview. I've had big dreams that have helped to pull me off this existential flypaper, and plenty of visionary and one-of-a-kind life experiences that have served the purpose of initiating me almost completely (on a good day) out of consensus reality. Yesterday 3 of us were sitting around the fire and I suggested we each come up with one word that describes our passion or vision or sort of crystalizes the essence of our work on this Earthwalk, mine was "Dreaming", my friend said "soulwork". The third, an elderly woman (and elder), couldn't or wouldn't play along. I surmise that means she didn't want to name it? Anyway, few in our cultureless culture dream. I mean few remember their dreams, and of those who do, only a very small number know or care what their dreams are telling them. And yet we spend 30% of our lives asleep, and about 2/3s of our sleeping hours inside a psychic body, in a psychic dimension. When people don't dream (own their dreams) they project them. So, what I am saying is, during much of our lives, as we experience them,we are only, at best, half conscious or half-lucid. This state of affairs is what horrifies indigenous folks. (It horrifies me.) They see how dangerous we are. I see how dangerous we are.
#10 I'm finishing a book about my experience working with Ayahuasca at a remote retreat in the Peruvian rain forest (2016). ("My Heart was Dipped") When we showed up, we had already been off sugar, TV, computer, sex and any kind of drug for two weeks, but the shaman wouldn't let us be in ceremony until we had maintained a special dieta for 5 days (plantain, Amazonian fish and rice), and then there were tobacco purges. Native tobacco is considered one of the most powerful plant-spirit medicine-allies. Not only is it a powerful medicine but when ingested it is extremely toxic. A tobacco purge consists of swallowing a ritually administered sip of concentrated tobacco juice and then ritually drinking a gallon or two of water until the diluted tobacco comes back up with the water. Only after fasting and purging and acclimating were we ready to imbibe the ayahuasca but even then ayahuasca can be merciless, depending on how much we cling to our illusions. The way the shaman sees it, when we come down, we are toxic: our bodies are toxic, our minds / thoughts are toxic and our souls are troubled. The shaman, by putting us through the mill, is only doing us a favor. In his eyes we are all dangerously deluded. Spend enough time in that environment and you begin to undergo a profound change, a seachange. There were a few people who had been there for months working with the plant-spirits who claimed that their minds were quiet. Their eyes were also extremely clear. When I returned (we were advised to avoid mainstream culture for at least two weeks, which I did, with the support of my wife Shirley), but circumstances ambushed me and all hell broke loose. I write about it in my little book, which is part field-journal. You see what I'm saying: Down there, in remote places, there is a different Dreaming, but you have to work to tap into it, and you can't just bounce around or dip in and out. Our Dreaming in the Western world is an unconscious kind of dreaming. I don't even feel like capitalizing it.
(Article changed on Nov 19, 2021 at 9:39 PM EST)
(Article changed on Nov 20, 2021 at 11:23 AM EST)
(Article changed on Nov 21, 2021 at 8:15 AM EST)
(Article changed on Nov 21, 2021 at 8:27 AM EST)
(Article changed on Nov 21, 2021 at 8:58 AM EST)
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
