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Invited Views
The following essay
explores a number of key questions regarding the revival
of shamanism and other ancient Pagan ways, and outlines some
approaches to viable ecospiritual work for today. The quotations
skillfully culled by the author are extremely helpful. Owen
Couch's cautious, well-informed assessment of ecospirituality
echoes some of my own concerns—especially, the lack
of connection to nature and Gaia in neo-shamanism—as
well as some of the approaches and aspirations developed
in this site. I am grateful for the opportunity to present
this seminal essay on Metahistory.org. JLL, April 2006
Ecospirituality – An Imaginal
Approach
by Owen Couch
In this worldview, there was an awareness
of the interconnectedness and sacredness of all life and the
acceptance of the possibilities of communication with the numerous
spiritual intelligences inhabiting nature.
Ralph Metzner, The Well of Remembrance
Ultimately, for me, ecopsychology becomes practical and relevant
only in spiritual practice. My interdisciplinary study and current
level of understanding of ecopsychology have led me toward a
spiritual path that does not so much worship nature as it celebrates
nature and our connection to it. It is through practice that
I can begin to overcome the perception of duality, of separateness.
Here then is an interdisciplinary nexus in ecopsychology studies.
The Buddha tells us there are ten thousand Dharma doors, which means
there are as many ways to enter into the divine, or in our terms, to
overcome duality, as there are people seeking ways to do so. So too
in forging a re-connection with nature. Each person must find his or
her own valid and meaningful way.
The Pre-Christian Heritage
Neo-shamanism, neo-pagan Druidic practices, Wicca, Goddess traditions,
and creation spirituality can all help us to connect. But these are
all keen, double-edged swords that could divert us into the realms
of fantasy and delusion as neatly and easily as a razor can cut to
the bone before you even realize it has broken the skin. Contrary to
what obsequious New Age sycophants would have us believe, practices
such as these are just as likely to lead to fantasy and delusion as
they are to a connection with something real. Master tracker and tracking
instructor Charles Worsham astutely warns, "Going back and copying
rituals from the past is a very dangerous thing because their rituals
did not come from the past, they came from their present. So should
yours." (Warsham, class lecture, 5/1/2000)
Nonetheless, there is a rich legacy of earth connective spirituality
in pre-Christian Indo-European heritage and some remnants of it can
be gleaned from mythological, historical, and archeological sources.
If we are careful of the razor's edge we can utilize this material
to both inspire and inform contemporary practice; if not, all we will
reap is fantasy and delusion.
Three contemporary modalities that I have found beneficial in this
study, though not without the very real pitfalls alluded to above,
are the Norse or Northern European tradition expressed in Ralph Metzner’s
book, The Well of Remembrance, and in the contemporary pre-Christian
religious practice of Asatru and Odinism; the contemporary practice
of Neo-Pagan Druidism and Celtic reconstructionist paganism; and Neo-Shamanism
as expressed by Harner's Core Shamanism and Noel's Imaginal Shamanism.
I had both the concepts of shamanism and druidism in the back of my
mind from the beginning of my ecopsychology studies but it was Metzner's
book that broke so powerfully and surprisingly into my consciousness
during my studies.
In a time when more and more Americans of European descent are looking
to Native American spiritual traditions for inspiration and guidance,
Metzner suggests that it is, "…Appropriate for Europeans
and Euro-Americans… to probe their own ancestral mythology for
insight and self understanding." (The Well of Remembrance,
p. 1) Metzner lays down a strong foundation for the importance of the
archetypes of the pre-Christian Germanic gods to the collective unconscious
of persons of Indo-European and Germanic ancestry. He then goes into
an in-depth discussion of the connections to nature within this mythology.
Much of the power in this book, for me, simply lies in the knowledge
that my own ancestors did have strong spiritual ties to nature and
that those archetypal ties still reside within my ancestral soul. "In
Jungian terms, we would say the archetypes that supported our ancestors'
sense of living connectedness with all of nature became submerged in
the dark unconscious underworld of the collective psyche." (Ibid.,
p. 58)
This being the case, all that is left wanting then
is a means of accessing these ancestral links where they reside
in the collective unconscious in order to build a strong, connective
spiritual practice.
Where Metzner stops at a reading of northern European myths as mythology
and archetypal psychology, Asatru goes beyond in an attempt at a neo-pagan
revival of pre-Christian Northern European spiritual practices. Though
it would be easy to condemn any such attempt as misguided, there is
some tendril of knowing that tickles the back of my conscious mind
and tells me not to be so hasty in judgment. For what reason I'm not
yet certain, but it lies somewhere in the tacit acknowledgment within
ecopsychology of the essential nature of ritual, in the power and potency
of the ritual elements I've learned from Navajo Medicine Man Emerson
Toledo, and in the unceasing call of my own ancestral rituals. No,
it is not so easy to dismiss.
In Asatru, however, lies a fine example of that razor's edge between
delusional fantasy and real connection. And contact with the community
of Asatru practitioners makes it apparent to me that many of them have
fallen on the wrong side of the blade, as I will discuss in a moment.
The Risks of Revivalism
Similar to The Well of Remembrance and Asatru is the reading
of Celtic spirituality and Druidism as archetypal psychology and informative
mythology on the one hand, and as attempts at neo-pagan Druidic revival
on the other. As in the first case, I will not be so quick to dismiss
any attempts at neo-pagan revival any more than I would be quick to
put on a druid robe and go dancing around the woods with a bunch of
wannabe Druids in some goofy attempt to become one with nature. It
would be easy, and not unreasonable, to dismiss all of this as romanticism.
Not surprisingly, undeniable elements of romanticism do exist in the
neo-pagan revivals.
Be that as it may, my overall sense is that there resides true earth-connective
power in resurrecting Indo-European mythology and archetypes and that
they are as powerful and valid today as they ever were at any period
in pre-history. And though there does indeed reside the potential
for true connective power in revived neo-pagan ritual, it is so fraught
with pitfalls as to be almost — almost but not quite — deleterious.
It is, to say the least, not the straight and narrow path and might
best be avoided, again, if it were not for the incessant call of my
own ancestry and the need for an effective and relevant contemporary
ecospiritual practice.
Neo-shamanism, or core-shamanism as presented by Harner in The
Way of the Shaman, offers yet another possible source of this
practice. It is a powerful methodology for connecting with the collective
and/or ecological unconscious. However, neither is it immune from slash
of "the razor, " i.e., critical assessment. And neo-shamanism
has the additional difficulty of, in Noel's words, "…The
colonialist fantasy of direct indigenous access." (The Soul
of Shamanism, p. 191) Or stated more bluntly, the rip-off of indigenous
culture and spirituality. Theodore Roszak warns, "There are uninvited
New Age enthusiasts who are already ransacking and freely borrowing
remnants of traditional and aboriginal cultures, often with little
study or respectful preparation." (Ecopsychology, p.
6)
Vine Deloria Jr., strikes to the very heart of the issue:
Whatever Don Juan is, he is far from a recognizable Indian except to
confused and psychically injured whites who have a need to project
their spiritual energies onto an old Indian for resolution. …[The
white man] will never let go of the Indian image because he thinks
that by some clever manipulation he can achieve an authenticity that
cannot ever be his. …The obvious solution to the whole thing
would be for the whites to achieve some kind of psychological/or
religious maturity. (The Soul of Shamanism, p. 212, 213)
The Don Juan referred to is, of course, Carlos Casteneda's imaginal Yaqui
guru in his popular series of books. Deloria's statement that whites
are psychically injured is supported by contemporary practitioners of
neo-pagan revivals who openly blame Christianity as the culprit of this
psychic wounding and spiritual immaturity. Christianity, it is assumed,
usurped our birthright of an authentic Indo-European spirituality. This
sense, expressed by Deloria, that whites need to, "achieve some
kind of psychological/or religious maturity" is a theme that runs
through all of this material on neo-shamanism, neo-paganism, pre-Christian
Indo-European spirituality, Asatru, Druidism, etc.
This theme is also echoed in Christian based creation spirituality of
Matthew Fox: "Many people leave religion… because they are
growing up and growing out of fear and into trust. And very often, they
do not find the Western religion adequate to their adult spiritual needs." (Original
Blessing, p. 82) The neo-pagan revivals and neo-shamanism are genuine
manifestations of (primarily) the Western psyche attempting to reconnect
with nature and grow into some kind of psychological/religious maturity.
A prolific author on contemporary northern European
spirituality, Edred Thorsson, (aka Stephen Flowers, Ph.D.) offers
a personal example:
I remember when I was about six years old on a trip to New Mexico and
Arizona and I cried myself to sleep one night wishing that I had
been "born an Indian." I was so struck by something about
these noble, authentic, and self-aware people. But what my six-year-old
mind could not understand was that it was not the Indians as such
that I found so inspiring, it was the things which they represented
and embodied for themselves. If you want to (re-)capture the loss
of nobility, authenticity and self awareness that the American Indians
or other traditional peoples have you cannot recover it from them
- you must recover it from within your own being and self. (Northern
Magic, p. xiii)
Noel recognizes this as well:
We whose heritage is European may need to find the Otherness in our
own history. This would be the pre-Christian wisdom left behind in
myths handed down or lingering still in the landscapes across the
Atlantic, the legacy of Merlin's cry." (The Soul of Shamanism,
p. 65)
Metzner recognizes this:
While conservationists are trying to replicate the sustainable land-management
practices of indigenous societies, ecophilosophers have pointed to
the ecological wisdom inherent in the nature-reverencing spirituality
of Native American and other traditional societies. Those of us descended
from European Ancestors are naturally moved to ask whether anything
in our own tradition is relevant to surviving the ecological crisis.
(Metzner, 1994, p. 2) Perhaps now is the time to recollect and remember
the scattered and fragmented cultural knowledge of our ancestors,
which was preserved in the animistic mythologies and religious views
of the pre-Christian Europeans. (The Well of Remembrance, p. 44)
And Quoting Thorsson again:
If you are interested in living a whole-istic life in which the integration
or unity of body-mind-spirit is gained and understood, it should
be obvious that a key to knowledge concerning your spiritual heritage
is to be found in the "heritage" of your body - in the "genetic
code" which you have inherited from your distant ancestors.
Thus your own most natural, most intuitive path is an ancestral path.
(Northern Magic, p. xii)
And Jung also recognizes it:
The existing edifice is rotten. We need some new foundations. We must
dig down to the primitive in us, for only out of the conflict between
civilized man and the Germanic barbarian will there come what we
need; a new experience of God. (Wotan: An Essay by Professor Carl
Gustav Jung)
The Northern Connection
Though there is tacit recognition here of the need for the Western
psyche to re-connect with a more genuine, eco-friendly spirituality,
the extent to which these contemporary attempts are successful is debatable,
as is the extent to which these attempts are fully conscious. The neo-pagan
groups that I have become familiar with during the course of my studies
certainly do pay lip service to this connection with nature in their
literature. The Ar nDraiocht Fein: A Druid Fellowship, claims:
Any Druidic ritual has as a primary intention the re-weaving of the
links between human-kind, the natural world, and the God/desses and
spirits who support both. …We work to reconnect with the powers
of the Land, Sea, and Sky, honoring the spirit that is in them as
well as their physical realities. (ADF, 1999)
The Order of Bards Ovates and Druids touts itself as the largest contemporary
Druid organization in existence. The introduction to their "Course
of Training in Druidry" states: " These rituals help to attune
you to the natural world, to the rhythms of the earth and moon, the sun
and stars, And as they do this, they help you access your Deep Self -
your soul -that part of you which feels at Us with all life. (Druid Grove,
2001) Asatru, as mentioned above, is a revival of Northern European spirituality,
which its practitioners claim includes all Germanic peoples. "The
English, German, Dutch, Icelandic, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish peoples
are all directly descended from this ancient Germanic cultural stock.
It is also important to realize that they left their indelible mark on
the cultures of the French, Spanish, and Italian nations…" (Thorsson,
1998, p. 3) Asatru is said to mean "true to the Gods," or more
literally, true to the Ases, the Aesir gods of the Germanic peoples.
One Asatru organization, The Troth, claims, "…It is sure that
the Troth is, and always has been a nature-religion." (Our Troth,
2000) Another organization, the Asatru Folk Assembly has this to say:
We treasure the spiritual awe, the feeling of "connecting" with
the Gods and Goddesses, which can come from experiencing the beauty
and majesty of Nature. Our deities act in and through natural law.
By working in harmony with Nature we can become co-workers with the
Gods. …For us, following a "Nature Religion" means
recognizing that we are part of Nature, subject to all its laws. We
may be Gods-in-the-making, but we are members of the animal kingdom
nonetheless. (Asatru Folk Assembly, 2000)
In The World Tree: An Introduction to the Ancient European
Ancestral Faith of Asatru, Edred Wodanson, refers to the
Asatru ritual called blot. ( Blot, pronounced "bloat",
is a simple ritual which uses mead or ale in the place of the
blood sacrifice used in pre-Christian times. "The word
Blot literally means 'to sprinkle with blood,' as does the
word blessing." (Wodanson, 1997, p. 21) ). The author
tells how it serves to connect the practitioner to nature:
Few realize the importance and difference a change of attitude can
make in the world - and that's where the rites that observe the passing
of time within nature come into play! It is through these blots that
we "re-attune" to the pure essence of the "divine
reality" within us and around us, and come to realize our position
in all of this - that of being an intricate part of nature… rather
than the modern (monotheistic) religious view of being separate from
and the "dominator" of nature.
(Wodanson, 1995, p. 38)
Neo-Shamanism
The third modality, neo-shamanism, differs in several respects from
neo-pagan revivals, the first and foremost being that shamanic practices
have been, and presumably still are, studied directly rather than attempting
to piece them together from mythological, historical, and archeological
sources. Shamanism differs also in the fact that it does not claim
to be spirituality, per se, neither does it make any overt claims to
be some direct conduit to understanding of, or connection with nature.
Harner explains that, "A shaman… enters an altered state
of consciousness - at will - to contact and utilize an ordinarily hidden
reality in order to acquire knowledge, power, and to help other persons." (The
Way of the Shaman, p. 20)
Noticeably absent here is any mention of using shamanism
to connect to nature.
Neo-shamanism can, however, be said to connect us with levels of the
unconscious and "alternate" or "nonordinary" reality. "The
shaman has the advantage of being able to move between states of consciousness
at will." (The Way of the Shaman, p.xviii) It is also commonly
understood that shamans work with and contact various spirits during
their shamanic journeys into non-ordinary reality. These journeys also
provide the shaman, "…With profound information about the
meaning of his own life and death and his place within the totality
of all existence." (The Way of the Shaman, 1990, p. 22)
All of these modalities accept the very real possibility not only of
connecting with an ecological unconscious, but of communicating with
the spirit or spirits of nature as well. The question remains, however,
is the practice of these traditions effective in re-forging a genuine
connection, or is it merely the practice of some elaborate fantasy
role-playing game, like the pseudo-religion of "Dungeons and Dragons" so
to speak? The difficulty here lies in differentiating between fantasy
and reality. The danger, which seems to be well supported by "New
Ageism," is to indiscriminately accept fantasies as reality. It
is not difficult to see how this can lead away from true connection,
resulting ultimately in psychosis or neurosis rather than balance and
wholeness.
In The Soul of Shamanism, Daniel C. Noel explores in depth
the same concepts of subjective reality and intentional use of imagination
that Dr. Sewall espouses in Sight and Sensibility. Noel's concept of
imaginal reality, which he expands to a concept of imaginal shamanism,
is a powerful tool for accepting that which is beneficial in a subjective
experience, such as we might experience in a shamanic journey or a
neo-pagan ritual, without falling into the dangerous trap of believing
it to be literal reality and/or universal truth.
Imaginal reality is, in essence, subjective reality and is
essential for ecopsychological/ecospiritual connection.
Literal reality alone is not enough. It is dysfunctional because
it is not whole. "Neither the literal reality of the conscious
world nor the nonliteral reality of the unconscious world is
absolutely real." (The Soul of Shamanism, p. 175)
As Sewall suggests above, as quoted in the first section of this
paper, there has to be a different, more holistic perception
of reality if we are to effectively make a connection to nature.
Imaginal Reality is almost too over-simplistic a term for such a loaded
concept. It is a concept that I feel is critical to this problem of
perception we have been discussing. Noel developed his concept of imaginal
reality from the work of Jung and Hillman and compares imaginal reality
to Casteneda's non-ordinary reality. Other comparisons might include
the Australian Aborigine's dreamtime and core shamanism's SSC - shamanic
state of consciousness. (Harner, 1990, p. xix) Imaginal reality is,
as Noel quotes Hillman, "…An issue of a nonmaterialistic
view of the real, the reality of private knowledge, and, ultimately,
the reality of the soul." (The Soul of Shamanism, p.
124)
Back to the Dreamtime
Trying to explain the reality of imaginal reality to the rational Western
mind is rather futile as the concreteness of the words used just get
in the way. It is like trying to "herd water", the harder
you work at it the more it just keeps slipping away. The rational mind
just keeps saying, "Yeah, I understand what you are saying, but
its not really real is it?" The difficulty in excepting the reality
of imaginal reality is compounded by semantics, the difficulty is not
so much with reality as it is with the imagine in imaginal. Westerners
are taught from birth to believe that reality and imagination are mutually
exclusive. Reality is real and imagination is make-believe, not real.
But Noel tells us:
Imaginal reality… is no more something the human ego simply 'makes
up' than is the underworld or upperworld of the tribal shaman. Imagination
is a larger affair by far than 'make-believe,' and much closer than
Western science has supposed to something… that is happening
to us. (The Soul of Shamanism, 1997, p. 61)
This again affirms that imaginal reality is something that happens
to us rather than something we do, something we make up, something
we imagine. This shifts the intention of the imaginal away from
us as the imaginers and onto nature as the imaginer. We might
say that imaginal reality is reality that nature imagines, or
creates, for us. Another way to approach this is through the
concept of the Dreamtime, which avoids the loaded semantics of
imaginal.
The Dreamtime is at once sensation and knowing, a seamless form of
perception. It is both the profound observation of the physical landscape
and a sophisticated form of knowing within the metaphysical realms. …"[The
Aboriginals see a] profoundly symbolic language in topographical features" thus
weaving together the visible and invisible realms. (Sewall, Sight
and Sensibility, p. 54) From this perspective the powers of symbol
and metaphor are built into our way of seeing and "sacred" is
simply that which unfolds from such a view of the world.
In the Dreamtime, what appears as possibility is, the ancestors are
there, the Dreamtime beings are in the bushes, just there, beyond
the light teasing and telling you where you really are, "where
you're at" in the truest sense. The world signifies, beckons,
speaks, as if to say, "Now see this." Look, see the image
emerging, arising between the named and known things of the world.
(Sight and Sensibility, p. 61)
Imaginal reality, literal reality, objective reality, subjective
reality; these are all perceptual modes and the key to forging
a valid nature/psyche connection is in understanding and learning
to work with various perceptual modes. Experiencing an imaginal
reality as objective, or an objective reality as imaginal, presents
a problem, and connection will certainly not be the resultant outcome.
Likewise, if we are limited to the ability to experience imaginal
reality, or conversely, the ability to experience objective reality,
connection will not be the result either.
It is this understanding of perceptual modes that appears to be missing
in contemporary neo-pagan and neo-shamanistic practices.
It is true that neo-pagan literature is rich with references to our connection
with nature. However, through numerous correspondences with neo-pagans,
through "lurking" and interacting on their internet chats and
bulletin boards, and through reading articles in their periodicals it
is clear to me that, for the most part, they are self-consciously pre-occupied,
consumed even, with questions regarding the legitimacy of their religion
and practice, questions regarding what constitutes legitimate interaction
with their gods, and with questions related to the formation of community.
Nature rarely, if ever, comes up in conversation. In other words, though
there is strong reference to human connection to nature in neo-pagan
literature, it is a topic that appears to manifest rarely in the day-to-day
goings on of their practice.
This would appear to call into question how effectively these practices
actually serve to connect the practitioner with nature. I believe the
answer lies in the way that the practitioner imagines, in the sense of
imaginal reality, his or her practice. If the practitioner does not come
to neo-paganism or neo-shamanism with any particular interest in nature/psyche
connection they are not likely to stumble upon it there. On the other
hand, if the practitioner comes to these practices with intent to discover
some level of connection to nature they will, I believe, be successful.
In this sense, imaginal reality is the razor's edge I have been referring
to.
Ultimately, however, the value of such practices as neo-shamanism and
neo-paganism may not lie so much in their ability to connect us directly
with nature as it does in their ability to connect us directly to the
modes of perception we lost when we left the old gods behind in the primordial
forests of our ancestors. These modes of perception then become the invitation
to the land of faerie, the key that unlocks the passage back to connection
with the earth mother.
The capacities for visioning, divination, healing, and problem solving
that we have allowed to atrophy for many generations can be developed
again. Using the time-honored methods known to our ancestors, we
can remember and reexperience our deep connections with the spiritual
intelligences of the Earth and the universe. (The Well of Remembrance,
p. 211)
____________________________________
Owen Couch is a spiritual seeker with an extensive professional background
in outdoor experiential education. Owen has a keen interest in
Jungian psychology, Grail, Arthurian, and Indo-European mythology,
the neo-pagan revival, and neo-shamanism. He recently earned a
bachelor’s degree in Ecopsychology from the Prescott College
Adult Degree Program (2002).
References:
"ADF Neopagan Druidism – Liturgy and Ritual – Honoring
the Gods, The Nature Spirits, and Our Ancestors." Ar nDraiocht
Fein: A Druid Fellowship, Inc. <http://www.adf.org/> Copyright
1999
The Asatru Folk Assembly. February, 8, 2000 <http://www.runestone.org/faq.html>
Fox, Mathew. Original Blessing. Santa Fe, NM; Bear and Company,
1983
Harner, Michael, The Way of the Shaman. New York; Harper
Collins, 1990
Jung, Carl G. Wotan: An Essay by Professor Carl Gustav
Jung. Stockholm; Cymaphone Publishing, 2001
McNallen, Stephen, “Asatru and Earth.” The Asatru
Folk Assembly. February, 8, 2000 <http://www.runestone.org/asaearth.html>
Metzner, Ralph. The Well of Remembrance: Rediscovering the
Earth Wisdom Myths of Northern Europe. Boston; Shambhala,
1994
Noel, Daniel C. The Soul of Shamanism: Western Fantasies,
Imaginal Realities. Continuum Publishing Company, 1997
Roszak, Theodore, Ed. Ecopsychology; Restoring the Earth,
Healing the Mind. San Francisco, Sierra Club Books, 1995
Sewall, Laura, Ph.D. Sight and Sensibility: The Ecopsychology
of Perception. New York; Jeramy P. Tarcher/Putnam; 1999
Thorsson, Edred. Northern Magic: Rune Mysteries and Shamanism.
St. Paul, Minnasota; Llewellyn Publications, 1998
Wodanson, Edred. The World Tree: An Introduction to the
Ancient European Faith of Asatru. Union Bay, British Columbia;
Wodanesdag Press, 1995
------ A Way of Wyrd: Part II of The World Tree, A Practical
Guide to Living With Asatru. Union Bay, British Columbia;
Wodanesdag Press, 1997
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