Applied Indigenous/Shamanic Psychology: Recovering Indigenous Soul.

Experiential Learning of an Emerging Participatory Worldview

In the development of western (European-centered) culture we lost our sense of participation with the natural world and related phenomena. With its rationalism and empiricism, western culture created an out-of-balance emphasis on mind and on control. In the process our world became something "out there" rather than something we participated in and felt part of. This was a tremendous loss and it is an important factor in most of the critical problems now facing our society and world. Indigenous or shamanic psychology is a psychology that helps to heal this split, this separation from phenomena and from the natural world. In the process of this healing, we discover who we really are and we create a real sense of participation and belonging in our world. We become able to envision solutions to some of the most challenging problems facing us such as our environmental problems, psychological and physical health problems, alienation and lack of meaning, violence, and the near epidemic of addictions.

In my work as a wilderness guide I have developed a model for personal growth and transformation that is largely based on the work of Jurgen Kremer and his writing on "recovering indigenous mind." This experiential learning process allows us to experience a participatory worldview, a worldview that is emerging in part as a result of the discoveries and theories of modern science (relativity and quantum theory). It is interesting that modern science and the growing appreciation and understanding of indigenous and shamanic cultures are both contributing to the emerging participatory worldview.

Shamans have pointed out that we all have an indigenous soul. We all come from people who were indigenous peoples and we carry them in our genes and in the depths of our consciousness. Therefore, it is possible to rediscover the indigenous parts of our selves. This discovery will help bridge the gap and heal the relationship between western peoples and indigenous peoples. This will allow us to work together to deal with the critical environmental, social and psychological problems that face our planet. Recovering our indigenous soul will also guide us in living within a participatory worldview that holds promise for our ability to overcome the world's critical problems.

This model of experiential learning emphasizes "remembrance." The central parts are:

1. Guidance in re-engaging and reconnecting with the natural world and regaining our ability to participate in the phenomena of the Earth and natural world. This is "remembering ourselves as part of a weave, as participating in all the phenomena," to use the words of Kremer. "Remembrance includes our reconnection with the wild and the understanding that we are part of the wild and as such carry responsibilities."
2. Guidance in the process of remembering "the grief for what we have lost and the experience of the pains which Euro-centered cultures have inflicted through colonialism, imperialism, genocide and geno-suicide, witch hunts, ecocide, etc." (Jurgen Kremer)
3. The process of remembrance includes connecting with and honoring our ancestors--our immediate ancestors and those going far back in history.
4. We have lost our awareness of the spirits and subtle energies. The work of remembering guides us in how to rediscover the invisible world of spirits and energies, and learn how to create and maintain a healthy and intimate relationship with them.
5. Remembrance of "our roots in community and our capacity to be in community." (Kremer) This includes the traditional ecological knowledge of what it means to live in balance in sustainable communities and how biodiversity is essential for our survival as well as for our spiritual health.
6. Remembrance of the indigenous knowledge of circles and cycles and our place in these cycles. This helps us move out of our dependence on linear thinking and linear time and prepares us for the more circular process that is part of the participatory worldview.

As we remember our indigenous selves we get in touch with our participatory relationship with the Earth, Ancestors, Nature, Cosmos, and Spirit. Doing personal growth work with this model allows us to move into the participatory worldview that is emerging and that holds promise for helping us in resolving many of the most challenging problems that confront us. Using this model you can create a new, intimate participatory relationship with the natural world, you Ancestors, with Spirit, and with the Cosmos. This prepares you to understand and feel a sense of belonging in the new world that is emerging, and this places you in a position to play an active and creative role in bringing about a healthier planet.

If you would like to engage in this growth and learning process, contact Dale Ellis, Wilderness Guide, at (925) 943-1137 or email: ellisdpsy7@cs.com

"Over the last two or three centuries, a heartless culture-crushing mentality has incremented its progress on the earth, devouring all peoples, nature, imagination, and spiritual knowledge. Like a big mechanized slug, it has left behind a flat, homogenized streak of civilization wherever it passed. Every human on this earth--African, Asian, European, Islanders, or from the Americas--has ancestors who at some point in their history had their stories, rituals, ingenuity, language, and lifeways taken away, enslaved, banned, exploited, twisted, or destroyed by this force.

Now what is indigenous, natural, subtle, hard to explain, generous, gradual, and village-oriented in each of us is being banished into the ghettos of our hearts, or hidden away from view onto reservations inside the spiritual landscape of the Earth Body. In shamanic terms, our minds are being taught to believe that whatever we can think is actually the center of a person's life, just like a conquering culture, or a modern culture which thinks with the mind, not with the ancestral soul.

Meanwhile, our natural souls, which are like Bushmen or rare waterbirds, know that our minds and our souls should be working together to maintain or replaster the crumbling hut of life. Instead, our indigenous souls are being utterly overlooked and pushed aside in the bustle of the minds' competitive activity, until our true beings feel just like a tribesman in a big, trafficky city: unwelcomed, lost, and homeless.

For there to be a world at all, every indigenous, original, natural thing must start singing its song, dancing its dance, moving and breathing, each according to its own nature, saying its name, manifesting simultaneously its secret spiritual signature. Every Gypsy must be singing her ancient tune, every Bushman, Croat, Arab, Jew, Chukchee, Hmong, Papuan, Celt, Yoruba, Saxon, Cree, Guarani, Sami, Inuit, Kazaki, Tahitian, Balinese, Han, Ainu, jaguar, honey creeper, anteater, shrike, beetle, butterfly, oak, birch, ceiba, boabab, dog, mosquito, shark, coral, lightning, tornado, mist, mountain, deer, desert, and so on forever, each must be making its magic sound. ....

...We need to find gorgeous, unsellable ritual words to reanimate, remeasure, rebuild, and replaster the ruined, depressed flatness left by the hollow failure of this mechanized, orphaned culture.

For this we need all peoples: our poets, our shamans, our dreamers, our youth, our elders, our women, our men, our ancestors, and our real old memories from before we were people.

We live in a kind of dark age, craftily lit with synthetic light, so that no one can tell how dark it has really gotten. But our exiled spirits can tell. Deep in our bones resides an ancient, singing couple who just won't give up making their beautiful, wild noise. The world won't end if we can find them."
---From Martin Prechtel, SECRETS OF THE TALKING JAGUAR, pp. 281-283.

Contact Dale Ellis by email on the bottom of the Home Page

"every individual in the world, regardless of background or race, has an indigenous soul struggling to survive in an increasingly hostile environment... For there to be a world at all, every indigenous, original, natural thing must start singing its song, dancing its dance, . . . saying its name, manifesting simultaneously its secret spiritual signature."
...We need to find gorgeous, unsellable ritual words to reanimate, remeasure, rebuild, and replaster the ruined, depressed flatness left by the hollow failure of this mechanized, orphaned culture.
For this we need all peoples..."