Matching Mirror Turmoil

[kokopelle]

My lovely mate and I had a conversation about a certain spiritual group that was aggressively monitoring appropriation of its core beliefs. The guardianship of this group has increased as more and more people not initiated into the group used the name of the group as an identifier of their personal beliefs. There is now a push to take back the group's name and practices and hold them securely away from corrupting forces. These actions have disturbing echoes in my spiritual life. My mate tried to explain the situation to me.

My mate was explaining this to me as she previously a member of this group. To paraphrase her, she said that the group had an established set of beliefs that outsiders were corrupting or subverting. The outsiders were either those with incomplete training or no training. These people did not have the full contingent of teachings, and hence could be spotted because they did not use the right words or they misused words. Because of this, the fully vested members of the group could spot the imposters and choose to call them out for their misappropriation. The greatest sin of the outsiders was to say by inference of the shared group name, "the group believes this or that". While the group may or may not believe the thing, the outsider had no right to say what the group believed. Only those fully vested in the group could say what was right, and they could not because the teachings were wrapped in layers of oath bound instruction. What I heard her say was, "the outsiders are to be condemned. They misrepresent, taint and corrupt the correct teachings." My mind went one step further and interpreted this to mean, "the outsiders should stop there meddling and find something else to believe in."

I have to say that my mate is loving and compassion personified. I am sure that I heard much more than she said, but heck, I'm human with emotional buttons. Mine got pushed HARD.

I am one of those outsiders in the shamanic world. I stand outside of officiated indigenous teachings. I can only gleam what I can from the books I've read, the brief material taught by my native shamanic teacher, and my personal experiences. At the end of the day I am one of those people who are "misrepresenting, tainting and corrupting" the correct indigenous teachings. I HATE being this person. It sickens me to think I am doing this to another group, but who else can I be? How can I honor my calling and honor those indigenous people that came before me?

Here is the catch. For the most part the indigenous shamanic people are a closed book to non-natives. We white people are locked out of the native ‘classroom’. There is nothing inherently wrong with this. The teaching traditions are experiential one-on-one affairs. The indigenous people are striving to preserve their beliefs and this means teaching it to themselves before they share it with outsiders. There is even a reluctance to share with outsiders because the outsiders do not fully respect the oaths of the tribe, and there is little means for disciplining the outsiders. Instead the willing native teachers are disciplined and discouraged. From all this, the correct teachings are held close by those who have them, increasingly wary of appropriation and dissolution.

So here I am, hearing the words of my mate and seeing myself being told, “stop meddling (in shamanic ways) and find something else to believe in.” Part of me wants to give up this fight to have a vibrant spiritual life. The guardians stand with their doors partially closed or fully closed. More and more spears are appearing above the erected walls. “Be one of us or be gone” is their rallying cry. OK… I am being dramatic, but this is where I am. The shamanic path calls to me and I wonder how to navigate the increasingly clogged avenues of group ownership and guardianship. The more I learn the more it looks like I'm guilty as hell. Sigh...

Comments

[qassandra.livejournal.com]

My personal practice is eclectic, which means that I run into some similar issues. I don't think finding something else to believe is an option when you're called. I particularly resisted the Buddhist influence on my practice, because a lot of Western Buddhists irritate me, but Kannon didn't let me get away with it. I had a really intense experience in a temple in Nikko followed shortly thereafter by an opportunity to teach about Her (on such a basic level that I didn't really recognize what I was doing until afterwards).

My solution to the dilemma you describe has been to acknowledge that I am an outsider to the groups from which I borrow, try my best to respect them, and to try to make a virtue of necessity and derive some power from that outsider status. It's a bit difficult to explain directly, and I'm not exactly sure that it would work for the path to which you are called. It's also something I try to make a part of my poetics when I write about cultures other than the one in which I was raised.

[greensh.livejournal.com]

In another lifetime I would have been Buddhist. BTW, thank you for sharing your poetry.

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

I learn much more by being an outsider and a sorjourner than any sort of insider. The irony of this is that I have been taught 'inside' things by members of 'closed' groups because I was detached from the politics of the group.

If I believe in anything, it is my ability to learn and grow. Nothing else matters. This isn't selfish- it is the ultimate map to success. I've been an 'insider'- and I always end up wanting to bust out of the walls.

[greensh.livejournal.com]

I've got to learn to play nice(r) with groups. Right now I'm a wall buster. My mate has also rubbed off on me when it comes to tilting windmills. Maybe I'll 'get over' this stuff. (smile) Probably not... I'll just get more and more convinced that people are wonderfully, divinely, out of their little minds. That thought brings me some peace.

[elnigma.livejournal.com]

In one shamanic tradition I know, the "outsider" bit isn't that someone's non-native its not having the lineage, not having the spiritual ancestry, not being personally taught by a qualified teacher and being responsible for your own behavior to them. Sometimes its not just the appropriation that is the issue, but the feeling that if they teach someone they are responsible for their students in a way, and how the information will be used, and their interest in preventing sacred things from getting destroyed. In Tibetan tradition for instance, though there's tons of books about some rituals, some are useless to those who haven't been given the wherewithal personally to use them.

[greensh.livejournal.com]

Good point. I was thinking about the responsibility angle this morning after I wrote the article. This is an argument put forth by others and it bears consideration.

I suspect guardians of a tradition feel that willy-nilly distribution of ideas is like handing out bullets. Yes, a person does have to find a gun. Some people would be clueless what to do with the bullets. There will be a select few that overachieve, find a gun, and then start hurting themselves and others. This is bad.

Part of me agrees with the argument. Another part of me believes that danger is part of the "growth" experience. People will strive beyond what they've already learned. The truth is probably somewhere in between "no access without an E ticket" and "have fun storming the castle!".

A writer, culture and teacher are all responsible to some degree. They cannot be held fully responsible for another when the human free will is involved. One person completely controlling another is unreasonable and crippling to both. Instead (IMO), moderation of control and teacher integrity are defined by both the dangers and rewards.

[elnigma.livejournal.com]

Oh goodness, and the more (absurdly) controlling a teacher, the less they actually TEACH.
They cannot be held fully responsible for another when the human free will is involved.
Of course not, but they do have a kind of parental-like thing going on, they are the ancestors in your spiritual line, so they do decide when to give you their car. They don't decide your life, but they do have part of what makes you *you*. :>

My teacher says to learn from everywhere and from everybody, and keep what's useful, and so I do.

A breath of fresh air?

[jagboh.livejournal.com]

Dylan reminds us that we WILL serve someone.

Will we serve ourselves, and the reasons and purposes we chose to come to this lifetime and this time space reality, or will we chose to serve another's reason for coming to their lifetime and their time space reality?

As I see it, kicking against those that want you to serve **their** purposes in life, instead of your own comes with the offering of contrast. I would suggest that clarity in your own purpose and reason for having this lifetime, will asssit you in deciding who you align your purposes and your life missions with. When there is clarity of our personal purposes (even if they change often) one has a picture, a map or a view of who one is, what one is, where one is going, and one's purpose. Only then can a person clearly evaluate another's choice clearly in the light of their our own ways.

This **can** give you some fresh air to comtemplate your situation.

[wulfwalker.livejournal.com]

what you HEARD and what I SAID were two different things. claiming something and being something are not the same. to proclaim yourself to be a wiccan/shaman/pagan/faery/otherkin could be the human attempt to define ourselves. if you don't have a lot of experience you pick/choose the broadest stroke of the brush because it will encompass your coalescing belief structure. the danger is when that person then goes on to proclaim what that belief structure should be for everyone. or worse, what it is NOT. looking for answers is not meddling. questioning is not threatening.
define who you are and what you believe in, does it really matter if you can't find a label for what that is? the best result of questioning our own beliefs is that it helps us refine, even if by exclusion, who and what we are. most of the true philosophers and explorers became outsiders because they questioned, questioned, questioned. you should do the same.