A shaman may put fringes or feathers over their eyes. This dims the everyday world so the underworld may be seen inside of it. The shaman’s veil is like X-ray spex, revealing the bones of the world.
Normally the everyday world is so vivid to the senses and so demanding of our attention that we cannot be aware of any other worlds which may coexist. The shaman’s veil obscures the everyday world just enough to make it seem dreamlike, insubstantial, a vaporous tapestry. When the overbearing noise of the living is muted, we may hear the voices of the dead. Thus the shaman may move simultaneously in the world of alive people and in the world of ghosts and skeletons.
In the darkest moonless forest, growth has its fresh glow, and decay has its luminescent embers. In such darkness, or even in clear moonlight, spirit animals and angry ghosts swim in shadow. Only by dancing may you charm or evade them.
Life feeds upon the dead, and growth emerges like mushrooms from decay. The potential of rebirth resides at the heart of both the living and the dying. That mojo can make dry bones get up and dance. That mojo bridges the chasm of annihilation.
A shaman said our World is a Tree. The trunk of our body and the body of our community is the trunk of this tree, growing stout and sturdy. We all have roots in the Earth, the underworld, the land of the dead.
A Tree’s roots communicate with other organisms and draw moisture and minerals and organic matter from the soil. As human beings, our roots are in Earth, but also in our history, our ancestors, our culture, in the dead that still drive us, be they our heroes or our demons.
Our roots are in Earth but our branches reach to the Sky. A Tree takes in energy directly from the Sun and Wind and Rain. Here on Earth orbiting Sol the tree is spun in the cycles of Sun and Moon and Stars. Such cycles give birth to Time, and Time gives our human lives meaning. Our aspiration, our great work, reaches always toward something beyond ourselves. Call it God or call it the Universe, either way it’s astonishing.
We live only when we have both roots and branches working: a solid ground and an expansive spirit. Drawing from earth, drawing from sky, acting on the ground, we grow a body to know the world.