Of the Blood

Originally my interest in Mongolian shamanism centered around the training and initiation I received from a person whose family practices the old ways up in the tea producing mountains of what is now Bangladesh. I learned so much from her. She was a great teacher and generous benefactor. Wow.

My interest was rekindled after reading about Chinkiss Khan, but I've had a hard time finding sources of good information about anything Mongolian. Obviously, it's not a topic that mainstream readers are interested in - I can't understand why - I find it fascinating. And it's not that different than the other earth-based religions, like Native American trads and western European pagan customs, all of which have become tremendously popular in the last twenty years. What, are the Mongols chopped liver?

Well, there are extenuating circumstances, it turns out. Mongolian shamanism was repressed under the U.S.S.R. - that could account in part for its obscurity. The Soviets took Chinggiss Khan's spirit flag away from the Tibetan monastery where it had been kept for hundreds of years. No one knows what happened to it. Mongolian shamanism was ... outlawed?

Hard to imagine that some guy on a horse in the middle of Mongolia, making offerings to the Eternal Blue Sky, could possibly interfere with things occurring in the Kremlin - what was the threat? Except - the Soviets took a dim view of all religions - maybe they were just being thorough.



I should go down to the Library of Congress - maybe I'll find something really good there. In the meantime, I'm slogging through Shamans and Elders, Experience, Knowledge and Power among the Daur Mongols by Caroline Humphrey with Urgunge Onon. She's an Oxford anthropology Ph.D., so you can imagine how difficult it is to read, like plowing through mud. Well worth it, though, for all the information I can understand. (Why do academics write like that? Sheesh.)

For comic relief from Ms. Humphrey's Oxford-speak, I've also been reading a popular book about the history of Chinese medicine, written for the lay person. Ahhhh. The most ancient acupuncture needles yet discovered were found in Manchuria, a part of Inner Mongolia. They estimate the age of the stone needles at 8,000-10,000 years! Isn't that crazy? At the end of the last Ice Age, somebody in Mongolia was using stone needles on his or her fellows, using a style probably not that different than the Sufi acupuncturist's 21st century brand of healing. He has much thinner needles, thank God. Wow. Acupuncture has definitely stood the test of time - and it's so old (they guess it's much older than herbal medicine) that it has to be shamanic at its roots. No wonder I'm having such a dramatic and completely unexplainable experience as a receiver of this ancient healing art.

A salute and respectful gassho to you Mongolian shamans, both ancient and modern. Thank you!



In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
a stately pleasure-dome decree,
where Alph, the sacred river, ran
through caverns measureless to man
down to a sunless sea,

so twice five miles of fertile ground
with walls and towers were girdled round.
and there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
where blossom'd many an incense-bearing tree.
And here were forests as ancient as the hills,
enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

--Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Many different spiritual traditions have a theology of triple souls, including Judaism. The Mongolian/Siberian shamanistic version is so interesting. One of the souls becomes a bird and flies to the upper world after death. Nice. The second soul belongs to nature. It will only incarnate as a human once. After death, that soul returns to nature, never to return in human form again. They say that when a person has a strong nature soul, they command respect, admiration, even awe, the kind of thing you would feel when looking at beautiful mountains or rivers.

The nature spirit can never leave the body. Once it's gone, you're dead. But the other two souls regularly come and go from the body. It's the soul of the lower world that so often gets lost or stolen. The underworld soul is the one shamans usually go after when doing a soul retrieval.

I know what those shamans mean when say someone has lost a bit of themselves. Anytime I see George W. Bush these days, I'm struck by how blank he seems. I believe he needs a shamanic soul retrieval ritual. Or ... maybe it's too late. It would be an interesting task, trying to bring his soul back. Or anyone's, really. Whew.

What I'm undergoing right now in conjunction with the work of the Sufi acupuncturist and the newly released seven dragons, feels like an extended soul retrieval ritual. That's why I can't write a post to save my life of late. I don't have words to explain my current experience. Hope, though, that you've enjoyed the pics.

Gratitude to Old Teachers

When we stride or stroll across the frozen lake,
We place our feet where they have never been.
We walk upon the unwalked. But we are uneasy.
Who is down there but our old teachers?

Water that once could take no human weight--
We were students then--holds up our feet,
And goes on ahead of us for a mile.
Beneath us the teachers, and around us the stillness.

--Robert Bly

When Seasons Collide

The poor trees. First there was the drought. Finally that pattern broke and the rains came. But it was hot and humid until the very end of October. Naturally confused as to what season it was, the trees hung on, continued to feed chlorophyll into their leaves. Some of them were still operating in late summer mode this week, before the snow, that is.

All those nice green leaves are on the ground now, brought down by the heavy snow. As you can imagine, the trees that shed them are looking a little dishevelled, maybe even forlorn. I would be, if I were a tree.

Spring was too cold, summer was dry and congealed, and went on way too long. Fall was very nice, though late, and now winter has jumped the gun, slipped in a bit ahead of schedule. What ill-mannered seasons we've endured in 2007!

I wonder if the trees agree. Happy weekend ya'all.

The Seven Dragons, et. al.

S N O W !!!

There wasn't a lot of it, but that's fine. This early in the season, snow is a wonderful surprise. It's fluffy and drifty and beautiful - and still falling at 3:00 pm on Capitol Hill. Snow cleans the air and, if it accumulates, temporarily transforms the landscape into an open body of water. I love snow.

I watched the snow begin in earnest this morning through the window of the Sufi acupuncturist's treatment room as I lay on the table, receiving a treatment called Release of the Seven Dragons. For awhile he held my head and chanted prayers in Arabic, too. He waved his hands around me just the way I do when I'm re-arranging a client's energy field. What, I ask you, is not to love about the Sufi acupuncturist? Meanwhile in shamanic alignment with the treatment, frozen crystals fell from the sky and a firetruck (so like a fire dragon) roared past the office building. The timing was perfect.

This morning I was the lucky recipient of a multi-dimensional healing in which early season snowflakes, the DC Fire Department, a Sufi acupuncturist and even the dragons were involved. Isn't that cool?

To all the natural forces that came together so magically for me today:

I am in awe. Thank you, I salute you. Well done!

Life Among the Subterraneans

A client came in today for the first time in weeks. She's been in Argentina and had many fine stories to tell. The whole time she was on the table, I was wracking my brain, trying to come up with even a mildly entertaining anecdote from my own life these last three weeks, anything I could share in response to her question, "So what's up with you?"

Could have talked about Mongolian shamanism, I guess, something I'm currently studying, along with the history of Traditional Chinese Medicine. TCM arose from shamanism in extremely ancient Manchuria, which is part of Mongolia. The two traditions are deeply entwined. Wow. Even separately, these subjects fascinate me at the moment, though, for most folks, all my thoughts about ancient China would be completely:

B-o-r-i-n-g-.

Oh well.

In shamanic alignment with the season of inwards and downwards, I've been virtually 100% internal of late. Not all of it has been uncomfortable. I'm healing now, a kind of private affair, isn't it? Thank God for Otis Redding.