Latest Shamanic Weekend: Sirius and Sacredness, Part 1

Hoo-boy, it's always a challenge to distill these weekends into something digestible. Let's just get to it. I'm going to have to split all this up into several pieces. I started writing this one and aggravated my CTS!

The double star Sirius A and Sirius B as taken by the orbiting Chandra telescope

First a few basics:

Last weekend was the 6th workshop in the Shamanic Mystery School, which I've been participating in since August 2008. This was the Temple of the Galaxy, focusing on the 3rd eye, or brow, chakra, sacred geometry and "galactic citizenship" (I'll get to that). There's always so much deeper to go with these topics, and I'm just scratching the surface. Each workshop takes me deeper, requiring longer periods to let things settle internally and figure out what to do with it all.

Given our focus on the 3rd eye, this workshop dealt with moving between realities and working on changing our perspectives or our ability to see things in different ways. In other words, paying attention to our intuition, the varieties of perception that exist in the world as well as the ability to concentrate.

This one had a particularly difficult start since it began on a Friday night, after work. I was out of sorts coming into such a different setting than my workaday world. But hey, shamans must have the ability to respond to any situation!

This weekend was also much more experiential, with several different meditations. It's becoming clearer that the facilitator wants us to become comfortable leading meditations ourselves. He also talked a lot about serving others, which I was pleased to hear, coming from a Christian background myself. As skeptical as I am, it's refreshing to hear how strongly he believes in what he's teaching and how it can help others. It's certainly helped me, so what more proof do I need?!

America's Next "Chant" Idol!
Well, if there was such a competition, I'd enter it! I really got into the chanting this time. Each workshop, we participate in a ceremony to activate the particular chakra we're targeting, and each chakra corresponds to a different tone. For the 3rd eye, we chanted a long "a." Don't know why, but this felt so groovy, and it was quite moving to be in a room with 20 others chanting the same. Very powerful.

I also noticed how comfortable I've become in these group settings. When I began the mystery school, most of my beliefs and interests were deeply private, and sharing them with strangers made me slightly self-conscious. But now that I'm past that, I can better sense the power of what we're doing, the connections we're forming and the changes that are manifesting.

"Hermetic Wisdom" Doesn't Refer to Smart Sandwich Bags That Seal Themselves
As in "hermetically sealed"--get it? Ok, I never claimed to be a comic. But I had never heard of the so-called Hermetic Wisdom, the works ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus. Have you?

Often grouped with gnostic literature, these writings (also called the Corpus Hermeticum) were created by unknown Egyptian authors shortly after the time of Christ. They share characteristics with Christianity and Neoplatonism, and touch on topics such as the nature of the mind and mysticism. While it seems now accepted that H. Trismegistus was not a historical individual, the writings were believed to spring from ancient primordial wisdom traditions, and they may have influenced Christianity. It is believed this wisdom was even referenced in the Biblical book of Exodus. The writings were the basis by an effort in Europe during the Middle Ages to re-establish magick as a socially acceptable spiritual practice in the West.

Obviously, every shaman worth his salt has to know this stuff! We only skimmed it, and it generally aligns with the principles of shamanism I've mentioned previously. Cool stuff, and I need to delve more into it.

Sacred Geometry Doesn't Mean Trig Class Was Ordained by God
I did know a little about sacred geometry, but I do remember snickering the first time I heard the phrase. This section will be woefully short, unfortunately. The topic was woven into everything we did in the workshop, and it's difficult to tease it all out. I'm quite interested in this, and would love to have explored it further. You could probably do an entire weekend on this alone. Suffice to say that sacred geometry helps you see the underlying form and foundation for everything in the universe, from the cells in our bodies to the components of stars.

Not to get to "creationist" on you, but it does appear there is some "intelligent design" here. For example, measure your foot. Now measure from your elbow to your wrist. Those measurements should be roughly the same! How does that happen? Think how funny you would look or how clumsy you would be with really looooong forearms and super-short feet! The width of your palm should also roughly match the distance across your face from one iris (eye) to the other. We take all this for granted and yet, how do you explain it?

If I'm stating this correctly, check out why the 5 Platonic solids make up, at some level, everything in the world. Who knew math could be so fun? I would've paid more attention in high school if we had studied this! And if you're going to be an effective shaman, it's critical to know how the universe works.

reminds me of D&D dice! But I digress...

Come back for Part 2!
That's all I got today. As a preview, look for updates on what "sacred" means, my minister ordination and on meeting Jesus on one of my shamanic journeys!