FYI, Winter Solstice, Northern Hemisphere, Dec. 21, 2014

Winter Solstice - Northern and Southern Hemisphere

Solstices are opposite on either side of the equator, so the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere is the summer solstice in the southern hemisphere and vice versa.

©bigstockphoto.com/Leonid Tit

Northern Hemisphere winter solstice

(North America, Central America, Europe, Asia, northern Africa)

December solstice 2014: December 21, at 23:03 UTC.

Southern Hemisphere winter solstice

(Australia, New Zealand, South America, Southern Africa)

June solstice 2014: June 21, at 10:51 UTC.

 

The winter solstice for the Northern Hemisphere is fast approaching.  All too often this time of year has us externalizing, shopping, buying and getting deeper and deeper into the material world, when in fact, it is most appropriate to get into the spiritual world, or your spiritual work during these times. It's a shut down time as the light duration of the sun diminishes and we experience shorter day light hours.
 

The animals seem to be more in alignment with this period, particularly those that hibernate during the winter months. Unfortunately, we live in a world that is so industrialized that we cannot "REST" during this time but must continue to go and go and go, through it all. 

If we are really and truly wanting to quiet ourselves we have to make a HUGE effort to shut ourselves down. Particularly if you are Christian or surrounded by Christians, and then on the other hand, let's keep religion out of it, let's just talk about the mind control and the push to consume, buy, consume, buy..... The pressure is at its peak during this time, and having Christmas & Kwanzaa and other "festivals" thrown into the ring, you will probably look not too far from crazy if you say, you cannot eat Christmas dinner, as you are fasting. It's definitely a battle for your spiritual well being, and to catapult you into a very depressed coming year with a calendar that is all off.

THE WINTER SOLSTICE MARKS THE REAL NEW YEAR FOR THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE!

Historically, it seems to be a plan to homogenize the entire world onto a specific pathway, how more manageable they are if they are all doing the same thing? In fact, the winter does not bring snow everywhere, but it seems, that is what is imaged as the true winter scene. 

THE WINTER SOLSTICE TIME IS THE BEST TIME TO MAKE YOUR RESOLUTIONS, VISUALIZATION, LISTS OF WHAT YOU WANT TO SEE HAPPEN IN THE COMING YEAR. 

When we do things in the alignment with natural cycles we tend to be more successful. The resolutions made on New Year's Eve, Dec. 31, are going to be more difficult to keep due to the fact they are being made during a mis-alignment. Not to mention, they are made with the big distractions of a just past Christmas and a coming New Year's Eve Party!!! Resolutions will shortly be barely remembered if at all with all that going on. 

When a farmer is aware of the best times for planting seeds, that is when the seeds are planted. Because of the general wintry climate and the shortness of day light, it portents a time for introspection, quietude, meditation, fasting and contemplation. Take a look at what the past year has brought and make changes in these quiet moments, moments that will hold your resolutions in longevity.  It may also help to get assistance, i.e., through a psychic reading, focused meditation, visualizations, soul searching, etc.; to help determine what resolutions are most apt to move to successful achievement considering the energies of the coming cycle. Everything is energy.

 

Nevertheless, if you persevere through the social opprobrium, you may find that you have moved a little bit further on your spiritual journey. 

I find it interesting that the same folks who speak of Awakening also Capitalize off all the Christmas rivalry that can happen during these times, it seems to be a huge chasm when it comes to Awakening and Commercialism. While I must admit that these folks are about selling, selling and selling whatever they are presenting in the form of the Way to Awakening, they do not appear to have the courage to tell folks to cease and desist being caught up in the Capitalist/Commercial bubble of Christmas. Maybe they are afraid they will lose followers, and if that's the case, are they really being sincere?? 

Knowing that many folks will still be doing what they are most familiar with, I have presented my thoughts. Below you will find some information on the Winter Solstice to help you understand better what it's all about. It is simply an FYI for any who may be interested.

In 2014, in the Northern Hemisphere, winter begins with the December solstice 2014: December 21, at 23:03 UTC. (check in you own area for a more exact estimation of the time)

Ø      The winter solstice is fast approaching.  For those who are interested in learning more about the Winter Solstice and its implications, there are listed several links to give you some information about the ancient celebrations and its correlation to today and the so-called “Christmas Season.”  Please read these links and research your own and by all means feel free to share what you discover.

Ø      Fasting is extremely important around the Winter Solstice.  Be sure to take special time to observe the Solstice, Dec. 21, 2006....  Fasting, praying, meditating...   This is the time of year when you should be making your resolutions.  That is write them down, make plans on how you want to accomplish them.  Pick accomplishable resolutions!!!!  Make intentions and affirmations.  Write them down.  Be COOL.  Try not to get hyped..

Ø      Fast in whatever way works for you, three days before, on the 21st and three days after.  I suggest something simple like no salt, no sugar, no junk food, no fried foods and no meat.  If you can do this for seven days that will be challenging enough.  I do not suggest a juice or water fast, it is too cold, it is winter and we need caloric foods to keep us warm......  Burrrrr!!!

Ø      On Dec. 21, attempt to fast from any negative situations, shopping, and large crowds.  See who can fast from talking...  Try 12 hours.... no talking to nobody.  That means e-mailing and social media as well...  Shut down communications.......  And if it goes sooo bad that no matter how hard you try, somebody, somewhere is trying to make you talk to them all day, Dec. 21, then when you go to bed, make the intention, that you will be quiet, at least in bed, while sleeping.  Try hard.......

Ø      After the fast, if you can keep those things out of your diet, good, if not, gradually introduce the things you took out, except, don't gradually introduce junk food, for crying out loud!!!

Ø      The Winter Solstice is known as the shortest date of the year, and it signifies the return of the sun. It is sometimes viewed as a time for rebirth, as we go from the darkest day of the year, and move into longer days. This can be a time to also look at what you want to create in the coming months, as well as clear out the old and release the past.

 

Ø      Let's dig deep into our souls and may everyone have a successful and blessed Winter Solstice...  

Some Solstice Links

Winter Solstice: The Unconquered Sun
Religious Tolerance  
Winter Solstice celebrations: a.k.a. Christmas, Saturnalia, Yule, the Long Night, etc.
Christmas/Yule   
Herbal Ceremony for the Winter Solstice
WikipediaWinter solstice 2014 is on Saturday 21 June 
Winter solstice - northern and southern  
Winter Solstice    
Get Your Psychic Reading for the coming Year, 2015
Esoteric Meaning Of Christmas And The Winter Solstice

Need A Psychic Reading?

Nana's Consultant Services

Everyone knows that we live in uncertain times. With all the memes on the internet via social media, and email, we are constantly reminded that we should live in the moment, because tomorrow ain't promised.

So How Does A Psychic Reading Help Us 

To Navigate Through The Moment?

Interesting How Much Of This New Age Shindig Seldom Mentions Getting A Psychic Reading, Or Encouraging Folks To Learn About Astrology, Tarot, Dream Interpretation, I Ching, Numerology, And A Host Of Other Ways To Check Out What Is Happening Around Us.

Where's the disconnect? Hmmm…. Wonder if it's a stream of money thing. If they direct folks to use their own Psychic abilities, things that will have them stand on their own, they may lose a lucrative stream of income.

The New Age movement has simply put a new face on the old paradigm. You need somebody to "show" you the way. You need someone to "channel" for you. If they revealed that you could uncover the truth on your own, and even expose their motives in the process, that would Counter Productive for them.

No Wonder You Never Hear 

About Psychic Readings In The New Age Circles.

I Use The I Ching along with 30+ years of consciously developing my intuition. You Are Guaranteed To Get A "Good Reading".

GOOD READINGS ARE THE BEST READINGS!

THEY:

Helps You To Navigate Your Present Moment

It Rarely points to Future Events in a Predictive Way

Offers Options and Possibilities

Gives You Choices

Seldom Fatalistic

Puts You In Control Of Your Destiny

Humanity’s Addiction To Being Spoon-Fed Keeps Humanity Powerless!!

GOOD READINGS ARE THE BEST READINGS!

THEY ARE NOT:

Fortune Telling Tools (Correct Knowledge Shows that the Future Cannot Be Predicted with Certainty. There are too Many Variables and Too Many Possibilities.)

Easily Manipulated (Changes its direction due to pressure from the Querrent)

Dependent on Personal Desires

Changes its direction due to pressure from the Querrent

Need A Psychic Reading?

A Good Reading?

One Of the Best Readings You've ever Had?

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The Shamanic View of Mental Illness, Part 2, Ask Nana

Question: 

"I remember som'e writing about this in some other work; and it makes complete sense. my only question is for example, take the case of "L" here who developed intense "post traumatic stress" from witnessing  ongoing violence at home  when she was a baby and child. so is the experience of the violence the necessary divine experience so that the ancestors could use her as a healer, making her emotional open as a result of the experience. Or is the violent experience a suboptimal experience that then "opens" the way for ancestors to come and utilize her?

In either case, how does one inform someone, say, "L" about the possibilities of this shamanic process. real talk" SMR  

Trauma causes a split in the psyche. Imagine the psyche as an electromagnetic frequency flowing from the “brain” into the Universe, like a long cord of energy. What trauma does is cause breakages or blockages in that frequency. When there is a breakage, it opens a space in which other energies can enter. Couple that with the fact that most people are outside of their bodies during the traumatic experience.

While outside or when there is a breakage other energies can enter and effect the mind and affect the emotions of the traumatized person. In some cases the breakage can be repaired without outside assistance, in most cases there is a need for some help and assistance for the traumatized person. If the assistance does not come from the physical plane, i.e., counseling or mentoring, the person’s psyche may attempt to heal itself but this may not be as successful, it does depend on each individual. 

Nevertheless, the breakage and/or opening allows for other entities good and not so good to enter. In our African spiritual traditions we find that the “gods” come or possess quite strongly when a person is distressed in some way, mentally or physically. In this instance they come to heal the person, and the Africans know this and allow the person to go with the energy of the “god” and let it fill their bodies to cure and heal them.

Western culture does not allow this, particularly when they prefer to medicate or suppress the energy of these entities. They don’t understand the mechanics of it, and in many instances these people end up in insane asylums. Malidoma Some' may be calling them healers because in his tradition as it is in Ghana, when a person is mounted by a “god” the “god” is calling them to service.

On her part, Nana Maanu, a Nana Asuo Gyebi Komfo spoke about domestic violence and appealed to the government to enforce laws that takes care of violators.

Another aspect of this is blockage that may also occur during a traumatic experience. That may be two or more entities attempt to come in or non-productive energies come in and this alters the normalcy of the individual psyche and may lead to personality disorders such as schizophrenia, bi-polar, manic/depression, adjustment disorders, ADHD, ODD, etc. Depending on the energy of the entity, determines the manifestation of it outwardly through the individual.

When I first started my journey into African traditional spirituality, an Obatala Priestess told me, that many people in an insane asylum who appear to manifesting other than their own personalities are simply possessed with some “spiritual entity” and given the right rituals they could be “cured” or managed so that they can understand what’s happening to them. She pointed out that, for those who have eyes to see, the certain repetitive mannerism, facial expressions and bodily gestures point to the presence of a certain deity. I have often said, that at a spiritual ceremony, where people are possessed, if you turned off the African drumming you would think you were in an insane asylum due to the numerous repetitive sounds and gestures that the people do during a visitation.

Definable insanity is not always present to the point of needing to have the person committed. Addictions, anger, extreme passions, severe depression, psychosis, neurosis, paranoia, sociopathic and psychopathic behaviors often escape notice till the person does something extremely harmful to themselves or some one else. In other words, we are all a bit “touched” we just are able to manage our lives in a somewhat sane manner.

So, in the African traditionally spirituality, the so called Shamans know that something has caused a trauma for the person and therefore opened them up to have a visitor, or other entity take over their physical body. What they then do is determine what spirit it is and attempt to communicate with it. If it is an amenable friendly spirit, they engage it, ask its mission and allow it to do its healing work. If it is not, then they do a ritual to get rid of it. Whatever the case may be, the fact that the person was able to carry another spirit inside of them is a sign that the Ancestors, gods, etc are able to penetrate that person psyche. To them, anyone who can be penetrated is a healer because now they can use that same space to help others. In other words, they can learn to consciously “separate” and go into the other realm, commune with the Ancestors or beneficent entities and bring the knowledge back to the community. Thereby, helping and healing the community. That takes training. And while many people may have experienced trauma, that does not mean that they are psychically in a secure space to do healing and/or entertain other entities in their psyche.

Malidoma Some' did not explain all of this because most folks reading it would not understand the mechanics of it and how it is done. In fact, if it is not done correctly it can send a person off the deep end, never to return again. Possessions of any entity are dealt with with the utmost of scrutiny, reverence, respect and control. So more than likely, that young man he spoke about went through some training to center himself and give him keys on how to handle it when he feels the “presence” of another energy within him.

As far as "L" is concerned, there is very little that you can do, because you have not been trained to deal with spirits. I also doubt if sharing this information with her will help her for a number of reasons.

1. Entities that have been with someone from childhood are not easily removed and put up a lot of resistance
2. Entities can turn the person against anyone attempting to help them.
3. If the person is medicated in any way or has a really poor diet, then a serious distortion can occur causing the person to be worse than they were.
4. Entities will feign saneness just to make you go away. Tigare was notorious for that, he would possess someone, fall asleep and you would assume he was gone, but those who know how he operates knew that there was only one way for him to truly leave.
5. Entities can harass a person while they are sleeping causing sleep disturbances, nightmares, sleepwalking and a host of other sleep disorders.

All in all, the article barely scratches the surface of the entire situation of mental health and mental sanity vs mental disease and mental insanity on a spiritual level, but it is quite clear to those who know that there is a need in most cases to have some type of spiritual analysis done and then a ritual prescribed so that the true healing can take place and the person can be released from the distortion cause by the breakage or blockage and move towards their destiny of being a healer.

Sango, Nigeria, West Africa 

In Ghana, you will see the priests as they come back asking questions about where they've been, what they said, and how they acted. They will also feel a bit “off” from their normal selves, etc. In these cases the community is there to assist and help them travel back to the physical world unharmed. And even that takes training on how to handle someone who has just finished being possessed. It is a serious science with several protocols in place to as not to make a mistake and harm the person physically or psychically.

Let me also add, that this does not mean that from the African spiritual perspective, all healers have been traumatized in some way. Some people are able to separate from their physical bodies and commune with entities in the other worlds quite easily and upon request. But, in the case where the behavior of the individual is distorted, counter-productive, harmful to themselves and others, a closer look is taken, and rather than simply punishing them or committing them to isolation, they look for deep spiritual indicators. Some of these indicators may manifest as what Western Society calls Mental Illness when in the African mind-set, these distortions need to be addressed, analysed, placated or banished through rituals designed for this purpose.

Further Reading: The Shamanic View of Mental Illness

The Shamanic View of Mental Illness

The Shamanic View of Mental Illness
In the shamanic view, mental illness signals "the birth of a healer," explains Malidoma Patrice Somé.

Thus, mental disorders are spiritual emergencies, spiritual crises, and need to be regarded as such to aid the healer in being born. What those in the West view as mental illness, the Dagara people regard as "good news from the other world."

The person going through the crisis has been chosen as a medium for a message to the community that needs to be communicated from the spirit realm.

"Mental disorder, behavioral disorder of all kinds, signal the fact that two obviously incompatible energies have merged into the same field," says Dr. Somé.

These disturbances result when the person does not get assistance in dealing with the presence of the energy from the spirit realm. One of the things Dr. Somé encountered when he first came to the United States in 1980 for graduate study was how this country deals with mental illness.

When a fellow student was sent to a mental institute due to "nervous depression," Dr. Somé went to visit him.

"I was so shocked. That was the first time I was brought face to face with what is done here to people exhibiting the same symptoms I've seen in my village."

What struck Dr. Somé was that the attention given to such symptoms was based on pathology, on the idea that the condition is something that needs to stop.

This was in complete opposition to the way his culture views such a situation.

As he looked around the stark ward at the patients, some in straitjackets, some zoned out on medications, others screaming, he observed to himself,

"So this is how the healers who are attempting to be born are treated in this culture. What a loss! What a loss that a person who is finally being aligned with a power from the other world is just being wasted."

Another way to say this, which may make more sense to the Western mind, is that we in the West are not trained in how to deal or even taught to acknowledge the existence of psychic phenomena, the spiritual world.

In fact, psychic abilities are denigrated.

When energies from the spiritual world emerge in a Western psyche, that individual is completely unequipped to integrate them or even recognize what is happening. The result can be terrifying. Without the proper context for and assistance in dealing with the breakthrough from another level of reality, for all practical purposes, the person is insane.

Heavy dosing with anti-psychotic drugs compounds the problem and prevents the integration that could lead to soul development and growth in the individual who has received these energies.

On the mental ward, Dr Somé saw a lot of "beings" hanging around the patients, "entities" that are invisible to most people but that shamans and psychics are able to see.

"They were causing the crisis in these people," he says.

It appeared to him that these beings were trying to get the medications and their effects out of the bodies of the people the beings were trying to merge with, and were increasing the patients' pain in the process.

"The beings were acting almost like some kind of excavator in the energy field of people. They were really fierce about that. The people they were doing that to were just screaming and yelling," he said.

He couldn't stay in that environment and had to leave.

In the Dagara tradition, the community helps the person reconcile the energies of both worlds,

"the world of the spirit that he or she is merged with, and the village and community."

That person is able then to serve as a bridge between the worlds and help the living with information and healing they need.

Thus, the spiritual crisis ends with the birth of another healer.

"The other world's relationship with our world is one of sponsorship," Dr. Somé explains.

"More often than not, the knowledge and skills that arise from this kind of merger are a knowledge or a skill that is provided directly from the other world."

The beings who were increasing the pain of the inmates on the mental hospital ward were actually attempting to merge with the inmates in order to get messages through to this world.

The people they had chosen to merge with were getting no assistance in learning how to be a bridge between the worlds and the beings' attempts to merge were thwarted.

The result was the sustaining of the initial disorder of energy and the aborting of the birth of a healer.

"The Western culture has consistently ignored the birth of the healer," states Dr. Somé.

"Consequently, there will be a tendency from the other world to keep trying as many people as possible in an attempt to get somebody's attention. They have to try harder."

The spirits are drawn to people whose senses have not been anesthetized.

"The sensitivity is pretty much read as an invitation to come in," he notes.

Those who develop so-called mental disorders are those who are sensitive, which is viewed in Western culture as over-sensitivity. Indigenous cultures don't see it that way and, as a result, sensitive people don't experience themselves as overly sensitive.

In the West,

"it is the overload of the culture they're in that is just wrecking them," observes Dr. Somé.

The frenetic pace, the bombardment of the senses, and the violent energy that characterize Western culture can overwhelm sensitive people.

Schizophrenia and Foreign Energy
With schizophrenia, there is a special,

"receptivity to a flow of images and information, which cannot be controlled," stated Dr. Somé.

"When this kind of rush occurs at a time that is not personally chosen, and particularly when it comes with images that are scary and contradictory, the person goes into a frenzy."

What is required in this situation is first to separate the person's energy from the extraneous foreign energies, by using shamanic practice (what is known as a "sweep") to clear the latter out of the individual's aura.

With the clearing of their energy field, the person no longer picks up a flood of information and so no longer has a reason to be scared and disturbed, explains Dr. Somé. Then it is possible to help the person align with the energy of the spirit being attempting to come through from the other world and give birth to the healer.

The blockage of that emergence is what creates problems.

"The energy of the healer is a high-voltage energy," he observes.

"When it is blocked, it just burns up the person. It's like a short-circuit. Fuses are blowing. This is why it can be really scary, and I understand why this culture prefers to confine these people. Here they are yelling and screaming, and they're put into a straitjacket. That's a sad image."

Again, the shamanic approach is to work on aligning the energies so there is no blockage, "fuses" aren't blowing, and the person can become the healer they are meant to be.

It needs to be noted at this point, however, that not all of the spirit beings that enter a person's energetic field are there for the purposes of promoting healing.

There are negative energies as well, which are undesirable presences in the aura. In those cases, the shamanic approach is to remove them from the aura, rather than work to align the discordant energies
  

Alex: Crazy in the USA, Healer in Africa
To test his belief that the shamanic view of mental illness holds true in the Western world as well as in indigenous cultures, Dr. Somé took a mental patient back to Africa with him, to his village.

"I was prompted by my own curiosity to find out whether there's truth in the universality that mental illness could be connected with an alignment with a being from another world," says Dr. Somé.

Alex was an 18-year-old American who had suffered a psychotic break when he was 14.

He had hallucinations, was suicidal, and went through cycles of dangerously severe depression. He was in a mental hospital and had been given a lot of drugs, but nothing was helping.

"The parents had done everything - unsuccessfully," says Dr. Somé. "They didn't know what else to do."

With their permission, Dr. Somé took their son to Africa.

"After eight months there, Alex had become quite normal, Dr. Somé reports.

He was even able to participate with healers in the business of healing; sitting with them all day long and helping them, assisting them in what they were doing with their clients... He spent about four years in my village."

Alex stayed by choice, not because he needed more healing.

He felt,

"much safer in the village than in America."

African Shaman/Priest

To bring his energy and that of the being from the spiritual realm into alignment, Alex went through a shamanic ritual designed for that purpose, although it was slightly different from the one used with the Dagara people.

"He wasn't born in the village, so something else applied. But the result was similar, even though the ritual was not literally the same," explains Dr. Somé.

The fact that aligning the energy worked to heal Alex demonstrated to Dr. Somé that the connection between other beings and mental illness is indeed universal.

After the ritual, Alex began to share the messages that the spirit being had for this world.

Unfortunately, the people he was talking to didn't speak English (Dr. Somé was away at that point). The whole experience led, however, to Alex's going to college to study psychology.

He returned to the United States after four years because,

"he discovered that all the things that he needed to do had been done, and he could then move on with his life."

The last that Dr. Somé heard was that Alex was in graduate school in psychology at Harvard. No one had thought he would ever be able to complete undergraduate studies, much less get an advanced degree.

Dr. Somé sums up what Alex's mental illness was all about:

"He was reaching out. It was an emergency call. His job and his purpose was to be a healer. He said no one was paying attention to that."

After seeing how well the shamanic approach worked for Alex, Dr. Somé concluded that spirit beings are just as much an issue in the West as in his community in Africa.

Yet the question still remains, the answer to this problem must be found here, instead of having to go all the way overseas to seek the answer.

There has to be a way in which a little bit of attention beyond the pathology of this whole experience leads to the possibility of coming up with the proper ritual to help people.
 

  

Longing for Spiritual Connection
A common thread that Dr. Somé has noticed in "mental" disorders in the West is,

"a very ancient ancestral energy that has been placed in stasis, that finally is coming out in the person."

His job then is to trace it back, to go back in time to discover what that spirit is. In most cases, the spirit is connected to nature, especially with mountains or big rivers, he says.

In the case of mountains, as an example to explain the phenomenon,

"it's a spirit of the mountain that is walking side by side with the person and, as a result, creating a time-space distortion that is affecting the person caught in it."

What is needed is a merger or alignment of the two energies,

"so the person and the mountain spirit become one."

Again, the shaman conducts a specific ritual to bring about this alignment.

Dr. Somé believes that he encounters this situation so often in the United States because,

"most of the fabric of this country is made up of the energy of the machine, and the result of that is the disconnection and the severing of the past. You can run from the past, but you can't hide from it."

The ancestral spirit of the natural world comes visiting.

"It's not so much what the spirit wants as it is what the person wants," he says. "The spirit sees in us a call for something grand, something that will make life meaningful, and so the spirit is responding to that."

That call, which we don't even know we are making, reflects,

"a strong longing for a profound connection, a connection that transcends materialism and possession of things and moves into a tangible cosmic dimension. Most of this longing is unconscious, but for spirits, conscious or unconscious doesn't make any difference."

They respond to either.

As part of the ritual to merge the mountain and human energy, those who are receiving the "mountain energy" are sent to a mountain area of their choice, where they pick up a stone that calls to them.

They bring that stone back for the rest of the ritual and then keep it as a companion; some even carry it around with them.

"The presence of the stone does a lot in tuning the perceptive ability of the person," notes Dr. Somé.

"They receive all kinds of information that they can make use of, so it's like they get some tangible guidance from the other world as to how to live their life."

When it is the "river energy," those being called go to the river and, after speaking to the river spirit, find a water stone to bring back for the same kind of ritual as with the mountain spirit.

"People think something extraordinary must be done in an extraordinary situation like this," he says.

That's not usually the case. Sometimes it is as simple as carrying a stone.
  

A Sacred Ritual Approach to Mental Illness
One of the gifts a shaman can bring to the Western world is to help people rediscover ritual, which is so sadly lacking.

"The abandonment of ritual can be devastating. From the spiritual view, ritual is inevitable and necessary if one is to live," Dr. Somé writes in Ritual: Power, Healing, and Community.

"To say that ritual is needed in the industrialized world is an understatement. We have seen in my own people that it is probably impossible to live a sane life without it."

Dr. Somé did not feel that the rituals from his traditional village could simply be transferred to the West, so over his years of shamanic work here, he has designed rituals that meet the very different needs of this culture.

Although the rituals change according to the individual or the group involved, he finds that there is a need for certain rituals in general.

One of these involves helping people discover that their distress is coming from the fact that they are,

"called by beings from the other world to cooperate with them in doing healing work."

Ritual allows them to move out of the distress and accept that calling.

Another ritual need relates to initiation. In indigenous cultures all over the world, young people are initiated into adulthood when they reach a certain age. The lack of such initiation in the West is part of the crisis that people are in here, says Dr. Somé.

He urges communities to bring together,

"the creative juices of people who have had this kind of experience, in an attempt to come up with some kind of an alternative ritual that would at least begin to put a dent in this kind of crisis."

Another ritual that repeatedly speaks to the needs of those coming to him for help entails making a bonfire, and then putting into the bonfire,

"items that are symbolic of issues carried inside the individuals... It might be the issues of anger and frustration against an ancestor who has left a legacy of murder and enslavement or anything, things that the descendant has to live with," he explains.

"If these are approached as things that are blocking the human imagination, the person's life purpose, and even the person's view of life as something that can improve, then it makes sense to begin thinking in terms of how to turn that blockage into a roadway that can lead to something more creative and more fulfilling."

The example of issues with an ancestors touches on rituals designed by Dr. Somé that address a serious dysfunction in Western society and in the process "trigger enlightenment" in participants.

These are ancestral rituals, and the dysfunction they are aimed at is the mass turning-of-the-back on ancestors.

Some of the spirits trying to come through, as described earlier, may be,

"ancestors who want to merge with a descendant in an attempt to heal what they weren't able to do while in their physical body."

"Unless the relationship between the living and the dead is in balance, chaos ensues," he says.

"The Dagara believe that, if such an imbalance exists, it is the duty of the living to heal their ancestors. If these ancestors are not healed, their sick energy will haunt the souls and psyches of those who are responsible for helping them."

The rituals focus on healing the relationship with our ancestors, both specific issues of an individual ancestor and the larger cultural issues contained in our past.

Dr. Somé has seen extraordinary healing occur at these rituals.

Taking a sacred ritual approach to mental illness rather than regarding the person as a pathological case gives the person affected - and indeed the community at large - the opportunity to begin looking at it from that vantage point too, which leads to,

"a whole plethora of opportunities and ritual initiative that can be very, very beneficial to everyone present," states. Dr. Somé.

 What a Shaman Sees in A Mental Hospital

Return to Shamanism

Return to The Psychic Universe

Return to The Deadly Industry of Psychiatry

The Value of Nightmares

Jeremy Taylor, Guest
Waking Times
Whenever any dream is remembered, it is an indication that the waking mind has a creative, transformative role to play in the evolution of whatever issue the dream is presenting. For millions of years, the ability to pay immediate and focused attention to nasty, threatening stuff has been a primary survival test. The creatures who pay effective attention to threats tend to survive, and the ones who don’t tend not to survive. In this way, we have been shaped by natural selection to be inherently predisposed to pay attention to ugly, scary, and menacing experiences.

Why Nightmares Are Good

As a consequence, when the deep source within (from which all dreams spring, spontaneously and unbidden) has potentially important information to convey to the waking consciousness, it is very likely to dress that material up in the form of a “nightmare,” simply to get our attention. This leads to one of the most ironic general principles of dream work: the more horrifying and distressing the dream experience, the greater the potential gift of increased understanding and creative energy the dream has to offer.
We usually call such dreams “nightmares.” The generic message of any nightmare is: Wake up. Pay attention. There is a survival issue being brought to your attention here! Sometimes the “survival issues” raised by nightmares are related to actual physical health. Most often, however, the nightmare is trying to draw attention to questions of emotional and spiritual authenticity in the dreamer’s life.

Why We Remember Nightmares

In my experience, all dreams (and particularly nightmares) come in the service of health and wholeness. This means that no dream, no matter how distressing or menacing, ever came to anyone to say, “Nyah, nyah, you’ve got these problems and you can’t do anything about them!” The very fact that a dream is remembered in the first place means that the dreamer actually has at his or her disposal all the courage, creativity, strength, and wisdom necessary to respond creatively and transformatively to even the worst “problem” that the dream presents. (If the dreamer were not in possession of all the energies required for positive, creative, transformative response, the dream would simply not be remembered.) This is true not only at the level of individual, psychospiritual health and wholeness, but at the level of world society, culture, and collective human struggle as well.
Ironically, for this reason I take heart every time I have (or hear about) a dream that involves large, planet-wide problems like destruction of the environment, plague, military conflict, or other massive disruption of society. The fact that we remember such dreams suggests that we are able to respond creatively and effectively to these problems, in the same fashion that dreams addressing seemingly “insoluble” personal problems always indicate our ability to deal with those problems. Nightmares may also provide symbolic suggestions and specific creative inspirations, provided we have the wit and wisdom to pay attention.

Historical Nightmares

However, in some cases the specific creative possibilities proposed by the dream are even more challenging than our immediate experience of the problems themselves. Among these challenging dreams are the really terrible nightmares I call “worst case dreams.” Hindu and Buddhist dream workers have understood for centuries that these worst case dreams are deeply associated with the dreamer’s effective spiritual development.
It is interesting to note that John Newton, the composer of the hymn “Amazing Grace,” was converted to Christianity and transformed into an ardent antislavery activist by just such a nightmare: He dreamed of seeing “all of Europe consumed in a great raging fire” while he was the captain of a slave ship.

Dreams and Spiritual Development

One reason why such distressing dream experiences regularly come to people who are deeply engaged in their own spiritual development, or those working in the world to relieve the sufferings of others, is that the only place where evil can truly be faced and overcome is within. This means that people who are sincerely engaged in trying to make the world a better place must face and overcome this order of evil if they are to succeed. The more sincere and effective one’s spiritual development and one’s reconciling work in the world, the more likely it is that one will have worst case dreams of this archetypal order.
In that sense, the worst case dreams are little “training films” for the spiritual warrior. Another way of looking at such dreams is that they are “rescue missions” undertaken by the dreaming psyche in the as-yet-unredeemed depths of the archetypal Shadow and the Inchoate Potential in the collective unconscious.

The Magic Mirror that Never Lies

Initially, it always seems as though the most difficult task faced by the dreamer is to look into the “magic mirror that never lies” and take more responsibility for the symbolic reflections of our weaknesses and failures. However, over time, it becomes clear that an even more challenging task is to acknowledge the size and scope of our creative gifts and our ability to transform ourselves and our world. The worst case dream calls upon the dreamer not only to see and accept the depths of depravity that reside in every human psyche, but even more importantly, to become more conscious of and responsible for our ability to face, overcome, and give transformative, creative, and spiritual expression to those archetypal shadow energies.

About the Author

Reverend Dr. Jeremy Taylor (USA) resides in California and works and teaches around the world. He is one of the original founders, and past president of the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD) and is the author of several well-respected books on dreams and dream work. He is a pioneer in the field of group projective dream work, and has blogged on dreams for Psychology Today magazine.
Copyright Jeremy Taylor 2013

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