A Shaman's Path of Unlearning

LIFE TAKES A TURN

In Mongolia I am called a shaman. To be a shaman is to be in service of the higher energies that some experience as Spirits for the benefit of all sentient beings. This includes benefiting all beings in physical and non-physical forms including other people, our animal and plant relatives, and the land. Shamans do not serve the individual. We serve the collective. Shamans are not unusual in Mongolia. We date back thousands of years in the regions of Siberia, Mongolia, and neighboring lands. What is unusual is I was born in the USA, I am of non-indigenous European ancestry, and I have a PhD in clinical psychology.

To arrive here was not an easy path. I made many mistakes on my way here. I have been the fool many times. Let me share my story with you and tell you about some of the hard lessons I learned along the way. Perhaps by sharing my story I’ll save others from my fate. I was working in my private practice when I was called by the Spirits. This was a shock. Such experiences were not covered in my graduate program. For many years I was private about this unexpected turn in my path. My initial privacy came largely from not knowing how to tell my story. Despite being an atheist at the time I was called, I never once questioned my sanity when the Spirits began talking to me. But deep down I was embarrassed. The culture I am from groomed me to perceive reality within a tight lens. The culture that raised me is most often associated with people of European non-indigenous decent. From this particular cultural lens I was taught there are different categories: sane and insane, rational and irrational, patients who are sick and doctors who do the healing. I accepted this all to be as true as gravity. Only now looking back after years on my less conventional path for my background can I see just how much I had been trapped in the stories of my surroundings.

(Protector, Outskirts of Ulaanbaatar, 2022)

A LIFE LIFTED OFF THE MAP

Going from an identity built on “I’m a psychologist” to suddenly hearing voices was quite a predicament. I found myself on the wrong side of the roles my culture created. Suddenly I was the one my culture labeled as mentally ill, yet I knew I was well. Experiencing this cognitive dissonance at such a deep level was the beginning of my learning. Life has a way to uproot what feels especially the most solid within and around us, doesn’t it?

By following the call of the Spirits my life began to dissolve. I left my profession and my marriage ended. My partner and I loved each other deeply but he was a mathematician and we considered ourselves “rational beings.” There was just no place for me to be in my life anymore. The Spirits swiftly guided me forward. I was constantly moving from one place to another. My Sky Team travel agents sent their itinerary through dreams and visions. Not an easy transition for someone who had relied on Google calendar to run her life. Suddenly instead of sitting with my partner in our garden and I found myself sipping masala tea on the Ganges.

(Frances, Varanasi India, 2017)

While there were beautiful moments in the first few years it generally was an extraordinarily difficult time. I was overwhelmed by my growing awarenesses of other realms. I was without any teachings to help me understand what was happening to me. And there was more changing within me than only these growing connections to other realms. Karmic lessons were erupting through me in ways only those who have experienced something similar can understand. I found myself isolated in unimagined depths, then in an abusive relationship, then living in my parents’ home as an adult (my nightmare). My soul responded with long periods of something my previous self would have diagnosed as depression. I was a ship lost at sea in a storm for many years.

There were two things that kept me moving: my very irritating and opinionated Sky Team directing me onward, and an inextinguishable determination within me to continue on. Neither fish nor foul, I was no longer the scientist and not yet a sacred healer. Sacred healer is the term I use for shamans and similar types of souls who are the spiritual healers in other cultures. No path, no map, carrying a belief I had lost my past, without a vision of a future to move towards. I had gone beyond miserable to despondent. Then the dispatch from above came for me to go to Mongolia. I was told my life would not make sense to me until I arrived there. Before receiving this message I had no more thought about traveling to Mongolia than to Mars. I initially refused but after over a year of being worn down I finally relented and agreed to go. How I arrived there is quite the story for another time.

(No Place For The Faint On Pathway of Fate, Western Mongolia, 2018)

I watched as the last threads of my previous life faded from view in the rearview mirror as I found myself and a new friend bumping over the roadless landscape of western Mongolia. Thankfully my new friend is as good of a mechanic as driver, and so he was able to get our jeep going again after it’s sudden stall in silent protest, when we were nearer the sky than any service station. I had no idea what was ahead. I knew only that my vision had told me to go this way. Now here is where we lift off the map completely. This absolutely cannot be proven in any “western” ways of knowing. After two days of adventurous travel including picking up an uncle elder on the second day who would help us find our way, my vision became reality. We found the shaman of my vision who has become a close mentor to this day. I met her in a remote province of northwestern Mongolia. Upon meeting us, she invited this stranger into her ger (also called a yurt in some places) and tested me for hours. Once I had been rigorously tested she confirmed I was a shaman from many past lives and in this life as well. We held the first of many ceremonies ahead for me the very next day.

(Break Between Sitting With Families, Outskirts of Ulaanbaatar, 2022)

Since this time I have had several respected shamans in Mongolia confirm I am a shaman. Happily for me, the tests I faced to reach this place have nothing in common with the tests developed by clinical psychology. For these tests hearing the Spirits is an asset. How refreshing. These shamans have told me they see many of my past lives in Mongolia. I am now initiated into a lineage of shamans and live my life on this path of service. I have shaman mentors but my lessons are not from them. My teachings come from above. There is no class, no manual, no certificate for the ways I do what I now do. The same is true for them. The traditions are passed from teacher to student but the real training comes from elsewhere. No school can ever approximate the true path. Presently my Sky Team still sets my training as I spend part of my time in Mongolia, and the rest of my time I am sitting with people from all over the world. I still live out of my bags as I migrate across several continents each year. Poetically, many of the people who find me are at the beginning of their own sacred journey.

I cannot tell you why I took this path that is so radically against my upbringing. Science had been my religion before I was called. I had never even seen a deck of tarot cards. Now I’m living in ways that would be unrecognizable to me from my life before. This wild ride did not happen because I had consciously been seeking any of it. Certainly a part of my soul residing far from my conscious self knew who I was to become. Yet the human me is as surprised by all of this as you may be. This is my story that I share with you.

(My Sister My Mentor, Outskirts of Ulaanbaatar, 2019)

MY MISTAKES DON’T NEED TO BE YOUR MISTAKES

The reason I share this story is not so I can make some big ego show of calling myself a shaman. “Shaman” is just a word from one land describing the type of soul I am. I don’t need to be called a shaman to know the truth of who I am. Everywhere you find humans you will find the sacred healers. We are nothing special. In Sápmi we are called noaidi, in Greenland we are called angakkuq, and where I was raised we are called mentally ill.

If I am not seeking recognition or approval as a shaman why share this story with you? There are a few reasons. I share my story to be a light on the path for those of you from screwed up cultures like mine. May my story complicate what clinical psychology and psychiatry think they know to be real. A few people who I sit with have now shared my podcast "Not All Spirits Are Jerks" with their psychiatrists and therapists to tell them about my story. They use my outlandish honest stories as a way to open conversation with their mental health professional about experiences they are having. Now this is something that makes my heart swell. Please allow yourself to follow your intuition over what others have told you is possible. If you have had experiences which are beyond the understanding of psychology, your peers and even beyond what you know, don’t dismiss yourself. You are not crazy. You are not ill. Perhaps you could use some professional care to feel better but this does not mean you are sick. And perhaps these experiences are the emergence of your gifts and they are to be nurtured for the benefit of all. 

I also wish for my story to turn the light back towards the sick cultures many of us find ourselves within. It is because these cultures are sick that they don’t know how to raise healthy sacred healers. My first years on this journey were needlessly perilous because those around me didn’t recognize what was happening to me. They only knew how to pathologize what was in reality as natural as a tree that grows from a seed. Here is a test to see if a culture is sick. A culture is sick when they don’t have sacred healers as part of the fabric of the community. In sick cultures the holy men hold the DSM. Our seers forecast stocks. Our sacred calendar days replaced with sales on Black Friday and Boxing Day. In these sick cultures we have lost our way.

(A Shaman’s Door To The Higher Realms, Outskirts of Ulaanbaatar, 2019)

EYES CAN ONLY SEE WHAT THE HEART KNOWS

Now with some time to reflect on my journey I’ve come to see what I could not see before.

Clinical psychology and psychiatry are actually part of my culture’s institutions that keep so many of us in a state of disease. And I feel it’s important to say here that the reach of these dominant cultures in places like the USA and Europe goes far beyond their communities of origin. Indigenous communities, communities of color, and most minority communities are far more likely to experience the nastiest aspects of these dominant cultures, including loss of life and land. I find myself working on topics like how clinical psychiatry and psychiatry maintain disease in communities. But this just a part of a much larger conversation that I want to acknowledge even if it’s not the focus here. 

So let’s consider how clinical psychology and psychiatry play a role in keeping many of us sick. It’s lot easier to tell someone they are sick than to teach them how to live well, especially if there is no understanding of what true wellness is. Incredibly at this present time clinical psychology still has no definition of mental health. Imagine this! Reduction of symptoms is at best the aim of their game. It is a map that can only point out the wrong way and tell you to try walking backwards from there to get better. It’s a compass without north.

Instead of being a resource for living well, these fields participate in spreading the delusion that we are each separate beings living independent lives. We can see how deeply this belief is in us when we hear people say things like “my anxiety” and “I have depression” as if the problem resides solely in us and not the culture that has engulfed us. Nothing could be farther from true. So many other variables also need to be considered for a clear understanding of a person’s functioning. In reality our relationship to our ancestors, the land, ourselves, Spirits and other non-material beings, as well as our own karmic predicaments, and our ability to access necessities such as clean water and safe and affordable housing all need to be part of functional theory of understanding the wellness of a person’s mind.

(Five Elements In Harmony, Sápmi (Norway side), summer 2022)

A persons’ psychological functioning is as much related to their relationship with the land as their relationship with their mother. Maybe you have been given a diagnosis of “depression” when you are living a life that looks successful in the eyes of the dominant culture yet you are not honoring the truth of your incarnation. Or you may be diagnosed with “depression” as a way to describe your response to the stress of living under capitalism and experiencing lack of adequate transportation which impacts your ability to create a stable life. No talk therapy or medication in the world made for “depression” can overcome either of these experiences. So what is the value of this diagnosis if it does not tell us the root of the condition? Some people feel paranoid when inhabited by unwelcome spooky entities. Removing those entities and teaching some basic energy hygiene habits is a lot cheaper than long term medication. Some people are called dysthymic when living out of contact with the land, not living in the rhythms of nature, and not eating whole foods grown from the land. Not to mention the experiences many of us here have had like seeing or hearing our ancestors and other non-embodied beings. These examples clearly point to the ignorance baked into the pies of clinical psychology and psychiatry.

(Night Flight Flyover, Denver, 2021)

MODERN MINDS GROWN IN THE MUD OF EARLIER TIMES

Let’s consider how these fields came to be. This is how we can understand why these fields are so lacking in the basic understanding of what it is to be human. Here are some wild truths to consider. The introduction of the first John Deere tractor and the development of what we think of as the modern field of psychiatry are concurrent events in the early 19th century. It wasn’t really modern at all because at that time the standard treatment for people found to be “mentally ill” or with intellectual differences was to be forced into so called insane asylums that were filled with unimaginable horrors. Just a short time later in 1851 “drapetomania” was identified as a psychiatric disease found in people who were enslaved causing them to run away. This tells us a lot about the closed hearted perspective of the founders of modern psychiatry. Even into the 2000s I worked in a mental institution in graduate school. While the conditions were less deplorable I still found them to be exceptionally dehumanizing and horrible spaces where no soul was going to heal. I shudder as I recall some of what I saw there.

We can see the development of clinical psychology and psychiatry are very new myths with a pretty bad track record up until very recently. What these myths give us is the chilling story of each one of us as a completely disconnected being from other people, the land, spirits, and economic realities around us. These myths were written by people trying to understand the world around them. But they are not to be confused with truth. They are merely stories, just as we humans have always told ourselves as we try to understand this great big mystery we find ourselves in. Myths exist in all cultures which reflect back the values of the culture. I do believe the creators of these fields had good intentions. But what is missing in the foundations of these myths of clinical psychology and psychiatry is what makes them able to harm. Unbeknownst to the creators of these fields, they were trapped in an epistemology (a knowledge system and values) dating back hundreds of years that was severely lacking in what so many cultures still know to this day. Perhaps you are from one of the many cultures that still knows what my culture had lost.

(The Dream Of Avarice, The Carolinas USA, 2023)

We can trace this line of knowledge systems and values going back through the humorously called “Age of Enlightenment.” This is a movement that grew primarily in Europe in the 17^th and 18^th centuries that over-values reductionistic, individualist, rational approaches to knowledge production. It is a world view that distorts minds into seeing the world as separate inanimate objects instead of webs of sacred relations. This epistemology I could summarize as a lens of something like “Not related, not sacred, alone in this ship, my mind is my captain.” 

It makes me think of child stages of development. In earlier ages a child does not realize if you take away a toy from view it still exists. As a child matures she comes to understand objects exist even when out of view. She learns the five senses are not the only ways of perceiving the world. Her comprehension of reality expands. The lens of enlightenment was and is stuck in developmental stages other cultures have moved beyond. These other cultures know there is much more to reality than meets the eye.

(Arctic Raspberries Freshly Gathered, Sápmi, 2022)

THIRD EYE BLIND

By analogy I see this epistemology as stuck in a stage of a human knowledge systems that is not complete. “I think therefore I am” is spoken in ignorance of deeper ways of knowing, doing, being, relating, and perceiving. Those under this ignorant epistemology have not learned how to break free from the illusions of perceiving the world only from rational thinking mind. The mind co-evolved with it’s relations in the natural world. The mind evolved to separate the world into objects for survival. With my eyes I see a raspberry and pick it to eat it. But the mind is a fool for a master. The heart sees the whole and deeply knows the raspberry is a gift from the land that my ancestors tended to and I eat it with gratitude for the Great Mystery that pervades through all of material existence making me one with the raspberry, the sky above, and worms below. The heart understands there is no separation between all. Today I am and tomorrow my body won’t be. But nothing much has really changed. I still am. When people are stuck in their rational minds with closed hearts they can’t see the true nature of reality. Without trust or understanding that we are all part of the same sacred web of consciousness, we in our ignorance take from ourselves. This is the line of knowledge systems and values that so warps the minds of humans that they were able to justify building nations and accruing wealth through murder and land theft, built upon the backs of stolen lives.

(Politics Of Privilege , Copenhagen, 2021)

Clinical psychology and psychiatry grew from within these globally minority Eurocentric systems of knowledge and values. What is missing in these methods of knowing and values is what I will call the Sacred Knowledge. The minds of the humans who created clinical psychology and psychiatry show no evidence of awareness of the fundamentals like the interconnectedness of all life, the reality of spirit realms, and ways of living sacredly and in harmony with all beings. This is basic knowledge in many other cultures. Ways of knowing become ways of doing, being, and perceiving. These men trapped by the epistemology of their culture could not see in others what they could not see within themselves. Through no fault of their own the creators of clinical psychology and psychiatry were people of closed hearts and unopened sacred eyes. And so they created a myth of the DSM in their own image. The DSM is the myth of each of us existing separately and in isolation and not in a network of sacred relations with every other living being.  

Epistomology matters because epistemology forms matter. Thoughts become actions. All is related. A real sacred healer understands that there is no wall that separates immaterial and material realms. Let’s consider how people raised within different systems of knowing and values behave differently in ways that can have a big impact on the world we are in. Minds from the culture I am from may see a tree and decide to cut it down without asking the tree for permission to make way for a home. We have forgotten the sacredness and interconnectedness of all life. In other cultures today a tree is not cut down without seeking permission first. These are living systems of knowledge happening now and I have personally been part of these ceremonies.

Real sacred healers also know there is no past. It’s all here now. If you are from a culture like mine, we have active work to do to because injustices don’t fade into history. There is no healing of the self without circling back to correct the atrocities that still reverberate in the energetic fields for us all. Those of us from non-indigenous Eurocentric backgrounds don’t need to feel guilty for what we didn’t do but we do need to address what has been done. If you are in a place of privilege for goodness sake use it for others! Give all your power away. It only will bring more lifeforce towards you. Do good, but don’t try to be good. More and more I see these as opposites of each other. Rock the boat, support indigenous led movements with no need for recognition or a new name in return, support queer and BIPOC owned businesses, welcome refugees, center voices other than your own.

(There is No Present Without A Past, Arizona, 2021)

LIVING SACREDLY IS THE MEDICINE

Which brings us to the beginning of my story. This very same Epistomology of the “Not related, not sacred” was embedded in my mind when I was called. And so I started out on this sacred path at times acting like a dang fool. I accumulated objects I didn’t need, I felt entitled to teachings from cultures that were not my own, and I had very little sense of gratitude or humility. It’s so embarrassing when I reflect back on it. On this ongoing path of growth for myself I can now recognize this pattern all too often in others on similar journeys. For some of us, even if we are met by the right teacher or ceremony we don’t come to it in the right way. We approach with greed and a sense of entitlement because our minds need some serious reorganization. We can see this same embedded Epistomology making an appearance in places like online groups and material world gatherings. It’s easy to spot flagrant acts of cultural appropriation, fake shamans, and predentians. But let’s dig deeper. Let’s look within. In very small subtle ways can you relate to what I am saying?

A true path of the sacred will tear you apart and uproot everything you thought you were to make room for something so much greater than you ever knew could be hidden within you. This is not just a path for the healers. To me this is the great path we are all on together. This is not a path of ego to become something bigger and more. This is a path of emptying out so the universe can move through you. I invite you to gently look inside yourself. Is it possible there are some old myths inside that are ready to go to create more space within? I’m inviting you if you wish to join me on this Path of Unlearning. Those of us especially from cultures like mine, let’s be the ones to heal our family lines so all may cause less harm to others and live in harmony with others and the land. We have forgotten who we are but there is a way to remember.

(Fires Above Igniting Our Fire Below, Outskirts of Ulaanbaatar, 2022)

A GIFT FOR YOU

Here is a little gift for you if you feel called to take up this Path of Unlearning. It is absolutely yours now and you can share this with others.

This path is deceptively easy. Our minds can look for the most elaborate rituals and ceremonies as if it will bring greater wisdom. In my unlearning I now understand many of the greatest teachings come in the simplest of form. So if this practice I share sounds too easy to you please dismiss it.

Let me begin by assuring you everything you need to take up the practice is already within you. No sacred objects or empowerments are necessary. Not in this moment. We are unlearning here. I have found as a mind unlearns more and more, we naturally remember skills like how to trust the ways of sacred time. In sacred time the teachings, objects, people, and ceremonies come just exactly at the time they were meant to arrive. Today all you need is your breath and a willingness to explore deeper inside you.

This is a daily practice of about 20 minutes for 30 days. It is so easy that in my experience this means most of you can’t complete it. Humans are funny creatures this way. To begin, each day chose a time to sit quietly for 20 minutes or so with your awareness resting gently in your energy heart center. You can sit longer if you wish. If today it is too painful to sit in your heart then try resting your attention elsewhere, perhaps on the bottoms of your feet, perhaps where you can feel the support of gravity keeping you in connection with the earth. If you only have 5 minutes as you are falling asleep you can start there. Where are you called to sit? Maybe you find yourself called to sit by the sun of the kitchen window, or perhaps in the dark with a blanket around you. Perhaps today it feels better to lie down as you do this practice. There is no right answer. Music can be nice for some. I like to start by resting my hand on my heart. 

We start by opening sacred space from within. Begin by resting your attention on the spot you have chosen for yourself. Now invite in all the helping and healing energies and Spirits around you. Allow your breathe to slow and deepen. After inviting in support let your attention settle. I like to envision a hot white light shining from within that radiates outwards. Others tell me they use a different color or even an image. Just for today keep it simple. And now just rest with your breath. That’s all. Nothing to do. Nothing to be. Rest there. Images, memories, sounds, or sensations may arise. Just observe them and let them go. Continue resting your attention gently where you begin. Continue to breathe deeply.

When you are done close this sacred space with a moment of gratitude for the energies and Spirits that came to support you in your practice. I promise you they are there even if you were not aware of them. End by naming five things you are grateful for. Sometimes the smaller it is the more impactful it can be has been my experience. I like to start with gratitude to toothpaste. Of course gratitude for this precious life is a nice one also, if you feel like it. What comes to mind for you? There are always things to be grateful for even in the darkest of times. My Sky Team has taught me gratitude is one of the most powerful tools in a shaman’s armory.

For the few of you how do this practice, this is a pathway to begin your Unlearning. The lessons come differently than those we can learn in books and workshops. Let go of expectations of immediate insights, or gaining any insight at all. Let go of needing to know. Let yourself be moved in unexpected ways by practicing returning to the sacred within yourself.

Try it for 30 days. This free gift comes with a money back guarantee. If you find this practice useful continue. Please know that everyone’s healing path is different. Here are some things people experience as they begin the unlearning. There is a good chance you are unlearning when you notice you come to your already established practices a bit differently. This shift often comes slowly. You may feel just a bit more spaciousness and centeredness, less ego and more humility, less a sense of lusting for the next experience and more a sense of trusting what you need will appear when you need it. This is a sacred path that is here for any human who is ready.   

Interested in the advanced course? Meet with a tree routinely for four seasons. Rest with your back against her sturdy trunk, or sit facing her as you breathe together. You’ll learn more in your time together than you ever could from even the greatest of human minds. Just remember to ask the tree being if she is taking students. And bring her offerings to show your gratitude. Report back. Let me know all you Unlearned.

Thank you for sharing space with me.

(Forest Being, A forest north of Stockholm, 2020)

(Wise Teachers, Inattentive Student, A forest north of Stockholm, 2020)