THOUGHTS OF
BECOMING A SHAMAN ©
by Tira Brandon-Evans
THE CALL
Shamans are called and not made but we have the choice to refuse the
call or not. Many of us walk the way of the shaman easily and naturally when
we are children but abandon the way when we reach our teen years because we
want to 'be like everyone else' and fit in.
We are allowed those years of freedom — and quite often we are also allowed
the time to start a family — but if we drag our feet much beyond that point
many of us fall ill. This may happen because of an accident but more usually
we end up with debilitating and painful conditions such as fibromyalgia or
arthritis or rheumatism.
Why? Because we are being shown in no uncertain terms that we have to return
to the Door Between the Worlds. We still have the choice not to go. But the
choice is sometimes this: "Go on being really sick or return to the Door."
Someone once asked me what would be considered "outside the norm" regarding the
calling to initiation of a shaman?
It is hard to answer such question because the calling to initiation of a shaman would be
considered way outside the norm by those who aren't shamans. Some of us are
dragged kicking and screaming onto the path — others answer the promptings
of the still small voice within.
This same person pointed out to me that bringing a new life into the world is sometimes a shaman's task and I agree. That is why we are given a 'time out', which starts in puberty and goes on until around age thirty, so we may settle into marriage and have children. But I have noticed many shamans today choose not to have children. Traditionally this is not true
and many shamans in existing indigenous cultures are expected or even required to hand their skills and wisdom on to their own offspring.
SHAMANIC ILLNESS
It has been observed that many called to be shamans suffer from a severe illness immediately prior to hearing or responding to the call. I am often asked if it is possible to be a 'real' shaman if one has never suffered through the shamanic illness.
I think there are several reasons so many shamans experience a shamanic illness just before they respond to their call. Many of these relate to how people lived in the old days but still apply to
today.
In the old days everyone had to pull their weight in their clan if the clan
was to continue and increase. So children with a disability that prevented
them from working with their clansfolk were pretty well left to their own devices
most of the time. They were not deliberately isolated perhaps, but they were
isolated by circumstance. A child who was blind, had asthma, was very lame, and so on,
was left out of most of the activities of their peer group.
I understand this isolation very well because I have had asthma since I was around eleven years of age. Rescue inhalers were not available until I was eighteen. I remember, sitting propped up with pillows in my bed, and watching the other kids playing on sunny summer days. My friends did not mean to isolate me but I was isolated by illness from their games and from normal socialization. I became very solitary. I was literally outside looking in.
Now, people who are outside looking in tend to see the people who are inside
in a very different way then the people who are inside see themselves. This does not mean
the outside view is better, but it is certainly different.
There is a tribe of natives in South America who call themselves the Elder
Brother People. It is their custom to take any newborn they believe is
marked to be a shaman to a cave in the hills near their mountain village.
There is the baby is cared for by one person. They allow only enough light into the cave to
allow the child's eyes to develop and only enough human contact so the child
understands it is human, and learns to speak and understand human speech. They are
very strict in how much interaction there is. The child is taught all the
tribe's oraliture especially the genealogies of each family.
When the child — it may be a boy or a girl — is about nine or ten they
start to move it nearer the mouth of the cave but never let them see outside
until the day of their emergence.
On the day of their emergence, the shaman child steps into the mouth of the cave and looks out
on the wide world for the first time. At that moment an elder standing by asks: "What
do you see?"
What the shaman child sees with wondering eyes is memorized and carefully
considered for years by the elders.
Of course, in our society this would be called child abuse. It is, nevertheless, clear
the Elder Brother People understand that by isolating the child they end up
with a seer who sees clearly because their vision is not blurred or distorted by any
societal filter or lens.
I think one of the things we find with the shamanic illness if it occurs
in the very young is that it isolates the child and thus they see things
differently than their peers.
When the onset of a shamanic illness is later in life it may also isolate
the shaman. It is very hard to lose your job because you are too ill to work
or watch your children growing up without the care you feel it your duty
and joy to provide.
In either case, child or adult disability may engender in the shaman
feelings that they are different, not worthy, cursed, a changeling, and so on.
The solution to this alienation, for some people, is to seek meaning in their isolation. Why did
this happen to me? What does it mean? What good can come from this? And
sometimes the answer is that god, goddess, an angel, a faery, or some other
supernatural being has brought this about so that I can work for them for
the good of all my relations.
We all want to be valued by our peers. We all want to feel we have something
to contribute to the general welfare of the clan. And even if we are
disabled we can help by being the one who mediates between this and
Otherworlds on behalf of the clan.
Also, shamanizing quite literally begins in dreams and daydreams. Disabled
adults and children have more time to daydream than people who are involved
in the daily hustle and bustle of hunting, gathering, commuting, working,
driving kids to lessons, and so on.
A third factor, especially in childhood onset disability, is that the disabled or sick child
spends a great deal of time with the family elders. They hear the stories and they benefit from
the wisdom of the elders in ways the healthy, more active, children don't. This is why the only
child is often more mature than the children in families where there are many
siblings close together in age. Children who relate exclusively or most
frequently to adults from the time they are toddlers until school age tend to find their peers childish and uninteresting when they do start school or are cast into a group of their
peers for any reason.
In adult onset shamanic illness, I think the isolation leads to people
reading more and thinking more than they otherwise would. And this, of
course, may lead to people developing a deeper understanding of themselves
and their place in the world.
Those are, I think the main dynamics at work in the 'making' of a shaman
through shamanic illness.
Of course, it is clear that some of these dynamics
may work without an illness. Being born an only child may work as well as
being disabled. Moving to foreign land as an adult and thereby becoming the stranger in
a strange land, may cause an adult to see the world with new eyes.
In other words, I don't think the illness itself is as important as the
results of an illness — isolation, independence, self-reliance, development of interior
resources.
BECOMING A SHAMAN
Finally, I think no one 'becomes' a shaman in the sense of taking a class and ending up with certificate that makes them into a shaman. All the classes and certificates in the world are useless if you don't have the gift. But many who do have the gift may benefit from the self-discipline of an apprenticeship.
No one can make you a shaman. Only you, working with your own Ancestor and Animal Guides, can walk the way of the shaman.
Being a shaman is not about what you do, it is about who you are. This is the great work of the shaman — to make and mend, help and heal, to dwell in the perfect shining moment in the heart of the mystic rose and be love in action.
Tira Brandon-Evans is the Founder and Moderator of the Society of Celtic Shamans, editor of Earthsongs: Journal of the Society of Celtic Shamans, and is, herself, a Faery Shaman. Her books, The Green and Burning Tree: A Faery Shaman's Handbook, Portals of the Seasons: A Celtic Wheel of the Year, Through the Unremembered Gate: Journeys of Initiation, The Labyrinthine Way: Walking Ancient Paths in a Modern World, and Healing Waters, are all published by Elder Grove Press. She is presently writing a book about the Ogham. You may contact Tira by email at info@faeryshaman.org.
Thoughts Of Becoming A Shaman copyright © 2005 by Tira Brandon-Evans, all
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