From Activism to Shamanism
From a very young age, I was aware that there are many things wrong in this world, and I wanted to change them. I was politically active by the time I was eighteen. In 1973 I became an environmental activist, before the average person on the street had any idea that there were serious environmental problems. In 1977, I came out as a lesbian, and I was on the front lines of the feminist movement in England for a number of years, involved in a militant campaign to undermine male chauvinism. I was angry.
Now, in my mid fifties, I call myself a marveling mystic. Although I am still a passionate person, I am rarely angry. I don’t turn up for any kind of demonstration that is against anything, because I believe that whatever we resist persists. I am a Minister of Holistic Healing, active in Earth-based spiritual practices that are intended to empower the individual. I teach shamanic self-growth work. My favorite activity, which I find profoundly zen, is kitesurfing.
What happened?
Although I still wanted to change the world, I stopped being politically active in my thirties, mainly because I was working sixteen hours a day running an organic farm, and living in the boonies of northern California. I was still angry. The intensity of my anger forced me to recognize that it was far beyond any justification in the present moment, and I went into therapy. Thanks to some invaluable help from both paid therapists and good friends, I identified some childhood traumas, and moved beyond them. I began to study Earth-based spiritualities. A year-long training in Angeles Arrien’s The Four Fold Way introduced me to shamanic ritual work that helped me to move through my stuff. This work requires a level of honesty and self-reflection that felt very real and valuable to me. Over the next decade, I did a lot of that kind of introspection. I’ve always had a passion for the truth, and I wanted to get to the truth in everything. I wanted to understand what life is about, I wanted to find Truths that are universal.
Although I stopped being so angry, I was still dissatisfied, which often manifested as impatience and irritation. In my forties, my dissatisfaction and my search for Truth encompassed the whole way I was living life, making me question what life is for. This existential introspection went on for years, becoming quite agonizing at times, as I found no one able to give me answers that went anywhere near deep enough for me.
And then, over a period three or four years, I had some very remarkable experiences. Since these were experiential—in other words, they were on a feeling level, and there were no onlookers to identify any kind of happening—they are very hard to describe. The first of them was precipitated by a head injury that occurred when I was alone in the woods. Unable to walk, and too far from anywhere to be heard calling for help, I was astonished to find myself instantaneously transported a mile to the nearest inhabited house, where there was a person to take care of me and get me to hospital. It was a miracle along the lines of a mother who picks up a car when her child is trapped underneath it. Having done that once, surely I could do it again—and I really wanted to find out how, without having to injure myself.
The second, which occurred when I was driving, was an experience of bliss beyond anything that I had ever previously known. Perhaps it was what some religions refer to as enlightenment or satori. I certainly knew, in those moments, that this world is an incredibly beautiful place, filled with love. I knew that all is well. I knew that changing this world is more about who I am, than anything I can do, because no one could come into contact with me in that moment of my-knowing-of-vastness, without being affected. I understood that to be effective, doing must always arise out of being. All this I knew instantaneously, without thought. I saw that knowing, or wisdom, is a sensation, much greater than anything that can be computed by the rational brain. Even though the radiance of the sensation passed after a few hours, it was now with me forever.
The third occurred when I had a mysterious illness which, even back then, I knew to be a shamanic break—that is, an illness that was intended on some subconscious level, because I had become aware of the possibility of living in joy, and I wanted to change. I still wanted to know who I was. Who had moved my body when I lay sick in the woods? Who had put me here on this planet? In the process of recovering from my illness, I was advised to look into my eyes in a mirror, with the intention of seeing who was looking back at me. What I saw was simply my own face, yet it was shocking. I could not deny the presence of an eternal being, powerful beyond my wildest reckoning. I understood the truth of Marianne Williamson’s words, in her book, A Return to Love: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.”
Now that I had met myself, I knew there was no reason to be afraid of anything. I realized that the most useful thing I could do would be to get into alignment with that vast self. Although my rational brain is still prone to fits of anxiety, my belief systems have changed radically. The last few years have been about translating those changes into a different lifestyle, one that is based on joy and trust rather than fear about the future. I sold my house and most of my possessions so that I could be absolutely free. I am choosing to live in joy. That doesn’t mean that I don’t slip into fear. It means that I make sure that I get a daily dose of things that bring me joy, and I don’t allow my fears to motivate me.
Nowadays the doing that arises out of my being is about helping others to access the sensation of inner wisdom. This occurs through my writing and through coaching. The book I am working on now is The Art of Being Human. My existential questioning led me to investigate a number of different spiritual practices: Sufism, Buddhism, Wicca. Since none of them, in themselves, helped me to find answers to my questions, I don’t identify with any of them now. However, shamanic spiritual practices, which are about developing a personal relationship to Nature and learning to work with energy, are right up my alley. I’ve found journeying particularly useful and self-empowering. Journeying is too complicated a concept to explain fully in this article, but the word refers to going to other realms, or planes of existence, to get help and information. Guided visualizations and night-time dreams are about traveling like this. Many people think of it as their imagination. It really doesn’t matter what words you use, it is a way of accessing your own inner truth.
I’m perfectly aware that, on a rational-brain level, none of the above would persuade anyone that I’m talking any sense. This is all simply my experience. I am very sure of myself, yet I cannot communicate my certainty to anyone else, even if they consider themselves seekers, as I did. I certainly haven’t written anything that would change any skeptical minds. That’s not my intention. Life in human form is a personal experience, different for everyone. We all need to be doing whatever we are doing right now, and we are all doing our best. It’s not my job to change anyone else, and I could make myself miserable trying. It’s just my job to be me, as fully and joyfully as I can. My hope is that some people will be moved by my story in a way that will bring more compassion to this glorious world.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Here is the introduction to one of my latest books, Life, Lies, and Sex: a Manual for Living, which will be available in e-book format at the end of this year.
This book is intended as a study of the flow of energy in this Universe, with a view to examining how we as human beings can most comfortably fit into that flow. I was inspired to write because I see so much misunderstanding about the nature of reality, and so few people who are really making sense, while more and more people are searching for what does make sense. Sometimes when I hear or read things said by people who are well-respected teachers, I want to cringe. No wonder so many of us ordinary folks are confused, when our so-called teachers are spouting garbage. And then there are people like James Ray, who are killing us.
There is a tendency to believe that if teachings are really ancient, then they are always profound. We think that they will reflect a depth that is often missing in our modern world. Sometimes that’s true and sometimes it’s not. The teachings that some spiritual leaders are offering just aren’t relevant to this culture any more. They were learned and developed thousands or at least hundreds of years ago, for very different cultures and civilizations. In the West, human life has changed radically in the last fifty to two hundred years. Most of us have moved out of survival mode, and we easily grasp concepts that were impossible for people back then. We are ready for something new and exciting. We’re ready to move on to a completely new way of being in the world. Some of us are chomping at the bit.
How come I think I know any better than other people? Well, perhaps I don’t. Sometimes I’m certain I know nothing at all.
I’ve told the story of how I got this information in the last chapter. In the end, I can sum up my method in a few words: I allow the knowledge to come to me, with some prodding from AMAG (beings in spirit form who speak through Dayana Jon); and I spend a lot of time alone in Nature. If you are reading this book, the chances are high that you can also allow this knowledge to come to you. Some of you will have the same reaction as I did when I got the information I’ve written about: Oh! Now I get it! I know that some of the people who are reading this book will just think I am spouting garbage. That’s life on Planet Earth. A huge diversity of being is represented here, which is a wonderful thing.
This book is intended as a study of the flow of energy in this Universe, with a view to examining how we as human beings can most comfortably fit into that flow. I was inspired to write because I see so much misunderstanding about the nature of reality, and so few people who are really making sense, while more and more people are searching for what does make sense. Sometimes when I hear or read things said by people who are well-respected teachers, I want to cringe. No wonder so many of us ordinary folks are confused, when our so-called teachers are spouting garbage. And then there are people like James Ray, who are killing us.
There is a tendency to believe that if teachings are really ancient, then they are always profound. We think that they will reflect a depth that is often missing in our modern world. Sometimes that’s true and sometimes it’s not. The teachings that some spiritual leaders are offering just aren’t relevant to this culture any more. They were learned and developed thousands or at least hundreds of years ago, for very different cultures and civilizations. In the West, human life has changed radically in the last fifty to two hundred years. Most of us have moved out of survival mode, and we easily grasp concepts that were impossible for people back then. We are ready for something new and exciting. We’re ready to move on to a completely new way of being in the world. Some of us are chomping at the bit.
How come I think I know any better than other people? Well, perhaps I don’t. Sometimes I’m certain I know nothing at all.
I’ve told the story of how I got this information in the last chapter. In the end, I can sum up my method in a few words: I allow the knowledge to come to me, with some prodding from AMAG (beings in spirit form who speak through Dayana Jon); and I spend a lot of time alone in Nature. If you are reading this book, the chances are high that you can also allow this knowledge to come to you. Some of you will have the same reaction as I did when I got the information I’ve written about: Oh! Now I get it! I know that some of the people who are reading this book will just think I am spouting garbage. That’s life on Planet Earth. A huge diversity of being is represented here, which is a wonderful thing.
Friday, January 1, 2010
The Pitfalls of Healing
The Pitfalls of Healing
A few years ago I was ordained as a minister of holistic healing. Since then, I’ve stopped using the word healer to refer to myself because I found that lots of people don’t really want to be fixed, and although I may be certain that I know what someone needs to do, that does not necessarily translate into being helpful. And wanting to be helpful in itself is questionable, since it often stems from an ego need. The truth is that I don’t know what will work for someone else. Sometimes people who read my books and articles get quite a different idea than that which I intended. I’ve learned to trust that they are getting what they need, and it’s not my job to put them right.
This brings me to the question, what is healing? As the Earth shifts into her new way of being, we are presented with a different paradigm. At its most basic, in the old paradigm, healing is simply alleviating discomfort. At the other end of the spectrum, in the new paradigm, I would say that it is about whole-ness, which means being in alignment with all-that-we-are. From that perspective, health is not about overcoming discomfort, because even while we are railing against it, we may (in truth) want to experience discomfort so that we can experience end results which our limited human perspective is incapable of grasping. From the perspective of all-that-we-are, discomfort (even extreme pain) is not a bad thing. In fact, from that perspective, there is nothing the matter with anything.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m into alleviating discomfort — I don’t think it does my body any good to be in acute or chronic states of pain. But whether or not you treat the symptoms, it is necessary to address the cause. Pain is usually a messenger.
There are a number of potential problems for healers in dealing with this changing paradigm. The old question of when to leave well alone and when to step in is just as present as it always has been. I’ve avoided having to make this judgment by writing books—if someone doesn’t get anything from reading my books, they will simply dismiss it as a bad book. They’re not likely to demand their money back. For healers who have all kinds of people coming to them for a myriad of different reasons, it’s not so easy. The healer must remain in that place of knowing that the client knows best, even when she perceives the client as determined to ignore the message. The fact is that all clients must be allowed to do what they want to do.
There have always been different levels of healing but in the new paradigm they are very different. A healer may be presented with situations as varied as helping people who want to stay fast asleep, to helping people who are very wide awake and trying to find a way to remain in human form while being fully aware of the vastness of being. There is nothing wrong with being asleep, it’s just different from being awake. It’s not the healer’s job to decide someone needs to wake up—but it might be her job to judge whether someone is asking for help in waking up or help in staying asleep. And then judge whether she can offer anything appropriate.
Being awake is not as straightforwardly obvious as it might appear. We’ve all heard the phrase, all is well, and most of us have thought, at one time or another, Wake up and look around—clearly everything in this world is not well. The irony is that the people who are sleeping are the ones who are rushing around trying to fix everything, while the ones who are awake know that their only job is to appreciate this amazing planet. The true meaning of health is being awake: coming into alignment with all-that-we-are so that we perceive the truth of the phrase, all is well. True health is a state that does not need healing. We understand that this wonderful diverse planet Earth is a place of duality: peace and war, right and wrong, good and bad are opposites that need each other. Outside of that, when we are awake, we are learning how to choose a state of unity where we can experience peace that is absolutely something else; where the words right and wrong have no meaning. How different would our lives be if we operated from that perspective? Healers who are working on that kind of level can be accused of a lack of ethics by people still operating in the old paradigm, who don’t understand these concepts.
It is always important not to get attached to a particular image of who we are in the world, especially in these rapidly changing times, but because a healer’s job is specifically to divine what is wrong with someone and tell that person what to do about it, they very often get attached to being good at that, and then they are not able to step out of the role of the advice-giver. The healer is expected to know best. I’ve found this a problem with a number of the psychics I know—they assume that I am asking for help when I simply want to discuss how to be in the world. Being attached to the image of being a good healer is particularly tricky, because you are messing with people’s heads.
It is not just her image of herself that a healer needs to be aware of, but also her image of who her client is. Again, we are living in a world where all kinds of new and wonderful things are coming into form. Some of the beings around us do not fit in any standard mold, and yet a healer often learns to operate within a limited awareness of a standard mold. It makes her job easier in general, but she may be making inaccurate judgments of some of her clients. We humans are manifesting our individuality as we never have before. Like a photographer who doesn’t see the beauty because she is so focused on getting exactly the right shot, a healer may not be able to step back and allow new ideas to enter.
As more and more of us come into a daily awareness of the vastness of being, we tend to be dealing with two ongoing problems. The first is how to keep the physical form in good health although it is vibrating at a much lower frequency than that which we are getting in touch with. This gives rise to a lot of unusual physical symptoms that may require treatments very different from those that worked in the past. Moreover, the treatments may be quite different from one client to another. Healers have to be thinking outside of that old box. The second is how to be with other humans (the majority of the population) who are not going through the same kind of intense changes. Most healers, if they understand these questions at all, are busy working out their own answers. We’re all stumbling around in the dark—or rather, the light! We are on the cutting edge, forging our very own paths, and looking for help wherever we can get it. I revere all healers who working towards that knowing of whole-ness, both because it is such a responsibility and because it is so important. In the same breath, I revere all of us who are coming to accept that there is nothing which needs to be healed. We live in paradoxical times!
Bio: Mikaya Heart’s greatest desire is to inspire humans to follow their hearts and live their dreams. Her most recent book, My Sweet Wild Dance, which is in the running for the Lambda Literary Awards, is about a woman who claims her own power in a world where powerful women are not popular. For more information, see www.mikayaheart.org
A few years ago I was ordained as a minister of holistic healing. Since then, I’ve stopped using the word healer to refer to myself because I found that lots of people don’t really want to be fixed, and although I may be certain that I know what someone needs to do, that does not necessarily translate into being helpful. And wanting to be helpful in itself is questionable, since it often stems from an ego need. The truth is that I don’t know what will work for someone else. Sometimes people who read my books and articles get quite a different idea than that which I intended. I’ve learned to trust that they are getting what they need, and it’s not my job to put them right.
This brings me to the question, what is healing? As the Earth shifts into her new way of being, we are presented with a different paradigm. At its most basic, in the old paradigm, healing is simply alleviating discomfort. At the other end of the spectrum, in the new paradigm, I would say that it is about whole-ness, which means being in alignment with all-that-we-are. From that perspective, health is not about overcoming discomfort, because even while we are railing against it, we may (in truth) want to experience discomfort so that we can experience end results which our limited human perspective is incapable of grasping. From the perspective of all-that-we-are, discomfort (even extreme pain) is not a bad thing. In fact, from that perspective, there is nothing the matter with anything.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m into alleviating discomfort — I don’t think it does my body any good to be in acute or chronic states of pain. But whether or not you treat the symptoms, it is necessary to address the cause. Pain is usually a messenger.
There are a number of potential problems for healers in dealing with this changing paradigm. The old question of when to leave well alone and when to step in is just as present as it always has been. I’ve avoided having to make this judgment by writing books—if someone doesn’t get anything from reading my books, they will simply dismiss it as a bad book. They’re not likely to demand their money back. For healers who have all kinds of people coming to them for a myriad of different reasons, it’s not so easy. The healer must remain in that place of knowing that the client knows best, even when she perceives the client as determined to ignore the message. The fact is that all clients must be allowed to do what they want to do.
There have always been different levels of healing but in the new paradigm they are very different. A healer may be presented with situations as varied as helping people who want to stay fast asleep, to helping people who are very wide awake and trying to find a way to remain in human form while being fully aware of the vastness of being. There is nothing wrong with being asleep, it’s just different from being awake. It’s not the healer’s job to decide someone needs to wake up—but it might be her job to judge whether someone is asking for help in waking up or help in staying asleep. And then judge whether she can offer anything appropriate.
Being awake is not as straightforwardly obvious as it might appear. We’ve all heard the phrase, all is well, and most of us have thought, at one time or another, Wake up and look around—clearly everything in this world is not well. The irony is that the people who are sleeping are the ones who are rushing around trying to fix everything, while the ones who are awake know that their only job is to appreciate this amazing planet. The true meaning of health is being awake: coming into alignment with all-that-we-are so that we perceive the truth of the phrase, all is well. True health is a state that does not need healing. We understand that this wonderful diverse planet Earth is a place of duality: peace and war, right and wrong, good and bad are opposites that need each other. Outside of that, when we are awake, we are learning how to choose a state of unity where we can experience peace that is absolutely something else; where the words right and wrong have no meaning. How different would our lives be if we operated from that perspective? Healers who are working on that kind of level can be accused of a lack of ethics by people still operating in the old paradigm, who don’t understand these concepts.
It is always important not to get attached to a particular image of who we are in the world, especially in these rapidly changing times, but because a healer’s job is specifically to divine what is wrong with someone and tell that person what to do about it, they very often get attached to being good at that, and then they are not able to step out of the role of the advice-giver. The healer is expected to know best. I’ve found this a problem with a number of the psychics I know—they assume that I am asking for help when I simply want to discuss how to be in the world. Being attached to the image of being a good healer is particularly tricky, because you are messing with people’s heads.
It is not just her image of herself that a healer needs to be aware of, but also her image of who her client is. Again, we are living in a world where all kinds of new and wonderful things are coming into form. Some of the beings around us do not fit in any standard mold, and yet a healer often learns to operate within a limited awareness of a standard mold. It makes her job easier in general, but she may be making inaccurate judgments of some of her clients. We humans are manifesting our individuality as we never have before. Like a photographer who doesn’t see the beauty because she is so focused on getting exactly the right shot, a healer may not be able to step back and allow new ideas to enter.
As more and more of us come into a daily awareness of the vastness of being, we tend to be dealing with two ongoing problems. The first is how to keep the physical form in good health although it is vibrating at a much lower frequency than that which we are getting in touch with. This gives rise to a lot of unusual physical symptoms that may require treatments very different from those that worked in the past. Moreover, the treatments may be quite different from one client to another. Healers have to be thinking outside of that old box. The second is how to be with other humans (the majority of the population) who are not going through the same kind of intense changes. Most healers, if they understand these questions at all, are busy working out their own answers. We’re all stumbling around in the dark—or rather, the light! We are on the cutting edge, forging our very own paths, and looking for help wherever we can get it. I revere all healers who working towards that knowing of whole-ness, both because it is such a responsibility and because it is so important. In the same breath, I revere all of us who are coming to accept that there is nothing which needs to be healed. We live in paradoxical times!
Bio: Mikaya Heart’s greatest desire is to inspire humans to follow their hearts and live their dreams. Her most recent book, My Sweet Wild Dance, which is in the running for the Lambda Literary Awards, is about a woman who claims her own power in a world where powerful women are not popular. For more information, see www.mikayaheart.org
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