Reclaiming the Shamanic Vision

"Your creativity does not belong to you....The Creative Force works through you. While you are here, you are the guardian of a small part of it. But it is not yours. You do not own it. So get out of its way."

Some years ago, during a particularly dry period in my creative career, I asked my spiritual teacher, a shaman, for guidance. Why was I so blocked? Had I simply run out of creative energy?

"Your creativity does not belong to you," was his reply. "The Creative Force works through you. While you are here, you are the guardian of a small part of it. But it is not yours. You do not own it. So get out of its way."

I was stunned. I had at least hoped for a little sympathy! My teacher sat before me poker-faced and unmoving. I knew from past experience what this meant. He had said all he was going to say on this subject. I could choose to take it in or not.

So I sat with what he'd said. What slowly seeped through my self-pity was the realization that creativity was never in short supply. If it seemed to be, it was only because I was standing in the light, my own shadow making it difficult for me to see.

Did I have to do a lot of self-examination to free myself of the problem? "No. Just step aside," my teacher said. "There is a larger force than you at work here. Get out of its way." I did, and it worked. Except when I momentarily forget this lesson, I have never been blocked again.

When I share this story with other writers and healers, it invariably strikes a chord. Most agree that it is their own doubt or fear, not their lack of creativity, that gets in the way of this wondrous gift.

When I was a young man, I read a lot of books about the creative process. Most argued that the creative impulse comes from a need to compensate for early deprivations or wounds. While it may be true that creative people have these wounds, is there really any civilized person who does not? Could it be that the early wounds the creative researchers find are, in fact, in all of us?

In early cultures, shamans and artists shared similar roles. Above all, they were healers. They stood outside society, at the same time providing a unique service -- that of transforming everyday experiences and perceptions so that their community might find lessons to transform their lives. Shamans of this kind reconnect us with the demiurge, reaching beyond our present circumstances to develop new physical or mental attributes to thrive. The shaman reflects on the present emotional, physical, or spiritual mindsets of an individual or the community, and offers a new way of seeing: a new hunting route, a new way for a couple to speak to each other, a new way to relate to our bodies, a new way for the community to relate to its neighbors.

Shaman, artist and healer recognize that most human limitations are found in human perception -- in how we look at life rather than in life itself. For example, early hunters plied a single hunting path, following it until there was no more game to be found there. Even after the route was no longer useful to them, they continued to follow it because in their minds this was the only path available. It often took the shaman, "magically" producing a new map, to convince the hunters to let go of the old and allow in the new.

Human perception is very strange. We cling to even the most dysfunctional and painful perceptions until something or someone changes our mind. But how does change occur? The phrase "changes our mind" is an important one. Our mindset, that is, our perceptions, can convince us that how we perceive the world is the way the world really is. Meanwhile, the world itself is filled with possibilities we can barely even imagine. Though that may be so, brief glimpses of these possibilities are frequently enough to change our mind, to allow us to either expand our perceptions of the world or change our lives altogether.

Storytellers, artists and shamans are all transformers; that is, they provide the magic that allows us to see the world afresh and move beyond the illusions cast by our own perceptions. Their magic prompts us to change our minds, if only for a moment. They liberate us from the habits of thought and feeling that confine us.

Most of us intuitively know that there's a vast world beyond our own perceptions, that reality is not what we think it is. We have had glimpses of something beyond but we don't spend a lot of time hanging out there. The shaman, healer and artist do, however. Something in their own life experiences has opened a door into the world beyond perception and although they don't escape the limitations of their own perceptual illusions for long, they do spend more time in this greater place of freedom than most people do.

The reality beyond perception is a reality that exists outside the limits of our five senses. Since it is mostly through the five senses that we receive the information upon which we build the world of our perceptions, this is an important point. Through science we know that much occurs in the universe that we cannot possibly see with the naked eye. Moreover, the same scientists will tell us that what they do observe beyond the five senses, made visible by electronic devices and research controls, is ultimately limited by the mind's ability to know. From all this, we at least have proof that there is a greater truth out there that we cannot know through the usual channels of human perception.

In the Bible, Paul the Apostle spoke of this phenomenon when he spoke to the Corinthians of that which "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard" (I Corinthians 2:9). And further on, in the same book, he spoke of the ability to see beyond our own limited perceptions when he said, "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known" (I Corinthians 13:9-13).

So where does shamanism, healing and the creative process fit into all this? And what is it that shamans, healers and artists have in common? The explanation goes back to the "magic" that allows us, if only briefly, to see beyond the limits of our own perceptions. It lies in the magic that allows us to at least see that what we've assumed to be truth is only illusion and that our lives need not be limited to that aberration. The shaman does it with ritual, the artist or healer by skillfully immersing us in another world, a way of experiencing our lives in a way so different that we are forced to relax the grip we had on our own perceptions. Shamans, healers and artists create the magic that allows us to change our minds.

In those intuition-based societies where the shaman's special talents are valued, he or she often plies magic through storytelling. Dancing, drumming, chanting around the campfire, the shaman might also weave a story that transports the spectators to a world beyond their everyday experience. For a while, the spectator sees through other eyes and hears through other ears. Although he or she would not permanently adopt this other way of seeing, the experience would help to create a space in which perception itself is seen as illusion, freeing that person to let in at least the possibility of another way of looking at the world.

In that space created beyond the illusions of human perception, we might just discover those insights ordinarily described as belonging to the spiritual realm: concepts such as living in harmony with the natural order, feeling the presence of a force greater than yourself, or recognizing the power of love.

Through shamanism, healing and art we can be fully immersed in an emotion yet feel no need to act on it. In this peculiar state of being we stand at a threshold where we can let go of our sense of self-importance. We can surrender to our passion for justice to right a terrible wrong in our life, and seek healing instead of vengeance. We can let go of grief or the pain of unrequited love. We can yield to our fear of death. And as we do, a whole other world opens up to us.

We step into the world that some call "the invisible reality." We step into the "other side" of life, the parallel universe where we are free of the encumbrances of the physical body, a universe where imagination takes flight. Here the creative spirit is master. Here we discover a brand new perspective on our passions; we find that we can mold them into a new story, or a new product, service, ritual or program to help others find comfort.

We all have much to learn from the shaman's art. If you have ever become immersed in the creative process, be it while writing in your journal, performing music, healing or exploring a new mathematical formula, you know that moment when the outside world fades away and you forget your physical surroundings. That is a basic trance state where the shaman steps outside everyday reality and passes beyond the threshold, stepping through what Aldous Huxley once called the "doors of perception."

Growing up in a culture that celebrates rational processes much more than intuitive ones, we've lost our capacity for enchantment which shamans know so well. With the reintroduction of shamanism into modern life -- thanks to writers like Carlos Castenada, Lynn Andrews, Terence McKenna and others -- we are reaching back to capture the creative spirit that our love of the rational has shrouded.

Can we, given our prejudices against "magic and superstition," once again embrace the trances and alchemical pranks that shamans employed to psychically transport us beyond the limits of everyday perception? Do we dare step outside ourselves once again, to allow the creative demiurge to work through us?

Living as we do in the scientific age, with our fierce faith that unless a phenomena can be objectively verified, it does not deserve our attention, we've lost the magic. And in that repudiation we diminish our lives. We stand in our own light.

Times are changing. Our renewed interest in the intuitive and spiritual, our restored belief in the human soul, our reconnection with Gaia and the feminine force -- all these are beckoning us back to the magic. Slowly, we are daring to step aside and let in the Light.

Hal Zina Bennett, Ph.D. is the author of more than 20 books on creativity, healing, shamanism and human consciousness. His books include: Spirit Guides and Follow Your Bliss, with Susan J. Sparrow; Write From the Heart; and Zuni Fetishes. He and his wife/co-author, Susan J. Sparrow, teach workshops on writing and personal development. For more information about his books and workshops, call Susan: 1-800-738-6721.

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