Friday, March 6, 2020

Shamans and the Ego

One sacred plant medicine, which has taught me a lot, is Huachuma, also known as mescaline, from the San Pedro cactus. It is an integrative plant, meaning it teaches us how to connect with nature and with spirit.
Years ago, I was at the Amazonian Shamanism Conference in Peru where I met a Curandera. At that time, she was the only female shaman I had had the opportunity to be in ceremony with. Through her, I worked with huachuma plant medicine for the first time. Wendy seemed very humble, preferring not to have a title. She was said to have trained with shamans from all over Peru for many years.
During the conference, I sat with Wendy at a day ceremony at the zoo in Iquitos. At one point we were standing in front of the jaguar enclosure where I witnessed something I had not seen before. Wendy stood looking at the big cat for a while and then he came over to the fence. He stood on his hind legs baring his belly and leaned up against the bars, looking at her and purring. I was amazed! Even a house cat does not bare its belly so easily.
Wendy explained to me what had happened. She said that she had gone into a space of shifting her energy to be on his level, focusing on feeling who he was. She did not ask him to do what he did. She just opened up to who he was and he felt her connection. He then returned her honoring of him with that gesture, showing his honor of her as well. He felt a connection, without any threat and felt safe enough to bare his belly, the most vulnerable position for a cat to put itself in.
She had me do an exercise to understand this myself. I focused on the tree I leaned against and began to truly feel its connection to everything around us and me. I felt its acceptance of everything exactly as it is. And I felt like I was part of the tree. It was a powerful early lesson in connecting with nature. 
Wendy was reminding me that as humans we do not take the time often enough to relate to the natural world around us. Our minds are always going and they make a grinding sound that the plants and animals can hear when we come near them. If we can take the time to connect with nature, the noise stops and then nature is more open to sharing its love and lessons with us.
           I invited her to come to the US after that, and share huachuma ceremony with my community in Atlanta. She was a powerful healer. At first, the ceremonies were beautiful and Wendy helped many people to heal, including close friends and family. But before long, as can be typical with powerful healers, ego took over.
           I soon learned that Wendy had an eating disorder. One night I watched her eat a gallon of ice cream and a pound of M&Ms in one sitting. Something I had not thought humanly possible until then. I had to wonder, “How many people were living inside of her?”, literally. It made sense that she could not take off the weight. We had talked about her weight problem and its effects on her health when I last saw her in Peru and she had promised she was working on it. That was not the case.
Then things got even more bizarre. She began to accuse me of things I had not done as if I was out to get her. Her eyes did not sit even in her head and I started to feel like I was dealing with multiple personalities. In one minute, she could be so kind and humble then suddenly a harsh angry personality would take over. Sometimes she even behaved like a little child. She did her best to belittle and berate me whenever possible for the most minuscule things. That was my cue. It was time to say goodbye to Wendy.
           Despite feeling abused by her it was difficult to let her go. I had thought of her like family and she had come to live with me and my partner in Atlanta at the time. It took days to convince her to leave my home. I tried to be as gentle as possible despite her harsh responses. Even though my partner knew how she had been treating me, he seemed to get gaslighted by her and was taking her side. He even went to check on her at the hotel she was staying at, against my wishes.
When I sent a message to my community that I was no longer working with her I got very little response and mostly resentment. I only said that I was disappointed that I could no longer have a relationship with her or host ceremonies for her. I said that I would not discuss why in an email but if anyone wanted to talk to me about it to feel free to call. No one wanted to believe me. They almost all took her side, without even knowing what had transpired between her and me, or even asking. That is the power that a shaman can have on a community. People become so transfixed by the idea of having a “spiritual teacher”, a personal “shaman”, that they will not even question the integrity of the person they now call their “spiritual leader”. This is the problem with the ego. Each of them felt so righteous in their belief that this person was all sacred, that they did not want to hear anything I had to say about my experience living with her.
Sadly, this had not been the first time I had left working with a shaman who had become a dear friend. Only the year before I had been bringing another Ayahuasquero to the US when I accidentally learned of his adulterous ways. Somehow my computer had deleted all of my contacts and when I reached out to him to let him know I would not be able to host ceremony for a while, he quit responding. He quit communicating knowing that I could no longer provide him with customers. I talked to the friend who had introduced me to him and she told me all about the troubles she had come across with him and the adultery. She even found that when she was around him, her body formed large boils that only went away when he was gone. I stopped bringing any more shamans to the US after that and went into my own practice of spiritual study again.
           Years later I found some redemption when I saw one of the people from the ceremonies I hosted for Wendy, at a Sundance. He told me that he was sorry for how people had treated me and that I had been right. He too took her into his home only to be treated badly and then for her to leave in the middle of the night with no trace. The friend who introduced me to her in Peru even apologized for ever getting me mixed up with her. It’s been consoling to know others could relate to my experience with her.
           The universe has blessed me with meeting some powerful shamans for teachers. Many I have had beautiful and healing experiences with, including those who lost their integrity along the way. But the greatest teachings have come from the plant teachers themselves. It is the spirit within them that has enlightened and healed me, showing me how to change my life for the better. I have been blessed to have known and continue to learn from these enlightened spiritual beings. I no longer take psychedelic plant medicines to learn and heal, they told me I did not need to anymore. They helped me learn to connect naturally with all plants and animals. They already taught me all that they could.
Since then, I have had other truly humble human teachers. They are of high integrity but I do not forget that they are human and have flaws. I learn from them but the real lessons are in the experiences the universe provides me and how I respond to that experience. I believe that what is most important is to listen to your intuition about everything a “teacher” is telling you. Decide for yourself if that instruction or healing is beneficial or is it feeding their ego. It is up to you to be aware and to notice when a healer or teacher is not living in integrity. You always have the choice to continue working with someone or not. Be careful that your ego does not decide for you.

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