Class/Book Notes – Teaching and Community

[[Note to readers; I’m starting a series of posts that are excerpts from either our trainings or one of my books. Hope you enjoy!]]

We put ourselves in the Circle. Enter from the Eastern Door. Circle the fire once, always clockwise. When leaving, always circle once, clockwise, then leave by the Western Door.

The Shamanic Community, as I have experienced it, is a very open place. Nowhere else have I experienced the acceptance, the patience, the peace, the love, the understanding, the kindness, as I have with these teachers.

For example, I’ve asked teachers to work with me and they haven’t been able to for some reason. They let me know it has nothing to do with me, it has everything to do with them. “I’m not prepared to teach you yet.” This is from teachers who let me know in no uncertain terms they will not take me on as a student. In other words, the entire burden of the teaching experience is on the teacher.

This is very different than in traditional Western educational systems where the student is obligated to learn. In shamanic practices as I have experienced them, teacher and student enter into a social contract in which a give-and-take will occur. For that give-and-take to occur, a mutual respect and sensitivity must come into existence. Shamanic practices are about how one lives one’s life. The designated teacher may know different shamanic practices, techniques and methods but the student knows their own life, so if the teacher’s experience is to benefit the student, the teacher must become the student, the student the teacher, so that the designated teacher can learn about the student’s existence, their needs, their wants and so on.

This role reversal is why The Practice appeals to me so strongly; it is a demonstration of the First Law of Semiotics, “The first communication must be instructions on how to build a receiver.”

I’m constantly amazed at how that phrase confuses and confounds people. To me it is obvious and also indicates why some people who hunger for the knowledge the Practice provides never achieve it. I’ve provided all the clues in the above. Are you able to figure it out?

Teachers teach because teaching is the function they have been called to do. In my case, I’ve been called to teach by my Grandfathers and Grandmothers. My male guardian and guide is Grandfather Wolf, the great teacher of the People. My female guardian and guide is Grandmother Spider, who gave us stories, taught us how to tell our stories, and taught us how to literally weave the fabric of the universe. On both sides I have a strong tradition of teaching and communicating.

In our travels and from talking with people, we have heard that these beliefs and ways of exchange and communicating knowledge aren’t always so with others who teach.

Teaching is meant to be a cooperative endeavor, an exchange between two or more people. As one who teaches, I have no idea of what you need to know. All I know is what I need to teach, meaning what the Spirits indicate I should share with you. You must teach me what you need to know by asking me questions. Because I am the teacher, I am the one being taught (A Healer Heals, a Pathfinder finds their own path, a teacher teachers themselves. Through these things we can help others learn how to do these things. Again, the First Law applies).

For example, years ago when Susan and I first started teaching and during one class, I discovered that Susan never gets wounded in her journeys.

I was explaining that in all of my journeys somebody comes up to me and rips me open, pierces me with fangs, holds me under the water until I can’t breathe, in some way or other I get wounded.

I thought I was typical. Some people claim that everybody who studies gets wounded so I figured what happens to me happens to everybody. Then in this one class Susan offhandedly said, “Oh, that’s what happens to Joseph. I’ve never been wounded.”

I spun around to face her. “What!?”

This was news to me. Not everybody gets ripped apart?

Susan, observing the participants while I was talking, saw several people getting concerned about being wounded and wanted them to understand that I was talking from my personal experience and that everybody has different experiences.

But my first thought was, “What’s wrong with me? I get wounded!” I contacted one of my teachers and asked, “Grandmother, how come I get wounded? Susan goes anywhere she wants and nothing happens, everybody’s happy to see her. I close my eyes and somebody tears me open. What gives?”

She answered calmly and laughingly. “Your medicine is very different from Susan’s. you are called to be a Healer.”

I didn’t understand. “Yeah, so?”

“So what does a Healer do other than Heal?”

This is an example of how we can learn together. I’ve since learned that lots and not all people get wounded, or at least not all in quite the way I am. Wounding is done to cause healing and not everyone needs to heal the same way.

The different ways of being wounded, of healing, of learning and teaching are all part of being in a shamanic community. In all our classes and trainings, the first “communication” is to create that shared community.