you know, every time i see the title of this thread i keep thinking to myself something like how many shamins does it take to screw in a light bulb. the training thing sounds right. every culture and society has its own ways of doing things, but whatever you want to call the knowledge and skills of 'shamining', it is just as much rigourous studying in its own way as like med school or engineering. as for being certified, that's another thing. the only thing like that i've heard of is within a village or a tribal society, the way anyone is certified anything is that everyone calls on him on the baiss of their own trust in whatever indicates to them that he knows what he's doing, or at least everyone in the sub society of the 'doctoring' within that culture feels secure in considering that person 'graduated'. again one or the other, depending on how things are done in that particular culture. =^^= .../\...
maybe i mislead you, im not training to become a certified shaman or shamanizes for others, i use it for personal means of expression, relaxation and self-recognition, while still maintaining the beliefs, though not actually trying to become and certified shaman, though that would be quite interesting...
Heron, playing devil's advocate, here's a quote from you in another thread dated June 7th..."somtimes, analogies are cop out explainations for something otherwise unjustifiable."...and yet, here you are a month earlier with...an analogy. LOL!
Do Shamans have to have licenses to drive before they can proclaim themselves Shamans? LoL to all the young "Shamans" here...to the original poster...Based on your other post about you beginning your Rasta journey, am I to believe that you're going to be a Rasta Shaman?!?! You need to lay off all of your self-labeling & grasping at self identity. Let go completely of your ego and THEN you'll be on your way to some real self discovery...
actually, i love analogies. Technically, that wasnt an analogy though, more like an example. And notice in your quote, i said sometimes..
LOL! As you've gathered, I love analogies too. I find 'em very useful in illustrating otherwise quasi-abstract concepts. I'm also guilty of sometimes excessive comma use, to the degree that in college my peers nicknamed me "commakaze"!!!
I don't claim much since I'm a student. But look up the meaning of my nick on the net and that should tell you something.
1 to invent it, 22 to manufacture the bulb, 2 to load it, 1 to deliver it, 2 to unload it, 3 to stock it on the shelf, 1 to buy it and take it home, 1 tall one to screw it in, and 1 to flip the switch. 34 I dont know bout all this shaman stuff, youre all just a bunch of humans, you can call yerself a christian, buddhist, shaman, lawyer, banker, mother, father, son, daughter, teacher, student, whatever, but in the end, youre just a silly human bean we are all human
Thank you for the dose of humanity.....but what an obvious retort....no one denied the fact that we are all human....but..above being all human, we are all Children of Earth.....puts us in the same place as the plants, animals, oceans and forests.... Why take it to the "human" degree of seperation? Call yourself a human...and buddhist...a hippy....a tree....we are all the Earths Children..
Why stop on the planetary level and degree of seperation? All things have a spirit, the trees, rocks, plants and animals, all spirits can communicate with each other.imaginean infinite ocean which consists of everything, it expands into infinity in all directions, never ending. Since everything makes up this ocean, no thing is ever seperate from it. All things are just drops in the ocean, so they are the ocean, they are what makes up the "cosmic" ocean, though each drop is different, unique, individual, all are on big ocean, theres drop 1, drop 2, drop 3 and 4 and etc. etc. but the ocean the drops came from is zero, the drops themselves make up zero, all the drops are really all ones, even if you are counting drops, you are just counting one, I, II, III, IIII, IIIII, same as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, but now you see all the ones involved, the fifth drop would be the 5th "One"! 0=ocean, 1=drop, 1=0
I got a funny story about shamans every year I go on a canoe journey in the Northwest coast, I go with my first nation tribe from village to village. last year I met a wise old man who gathered a bunch of youth together and made a challenge for some of us to accept. the challenge was to go back to our villages and collect data on traditional plants and what uses they had in medicine. he wanted both drawing and writing about these different plants. me being both an artist and a scientist i accepted the challenge. so this year I went back and talked to him because I never got mine finished and he told me that it did not matter if I never had it done because I have my whole lifetime to learn how to be a shaman and that this was just one of the first steps of becoming one. I was surpised because he never mentioned any of this at the start. I have no idea if I will ever finish this but maybe one day.
there's a catch to everything, that is, calling yourself a shaman might be benificial or not, commenting on one that does also. But what it actually means is that you have no way to understand one another appropiately. For what is to defend? And what is to be?
I am not a shaman, however I AM a student of shamanism. It is my hope that one day the shamans that teach me will take me on as an apprentice, but it will probably take quite a few years to accomplish even that.
Devin...doesn't matter if you are a shaman or not, you have a good heart. Checked out your profile, nice to see you want to be a healer. ( alot of kids out there in the world wanna be a gangsta ). The Earth needs healers. Ever checked out the website "Path of the Feather" I found it interesting....
Im a shaman, i bought my certificate on the internet that says so. You know what makes me laugh most of all. Your all f&$king kids who know nowt about nowt, you hav'nt lived yet, If the lad wants to declare himself a shaman does it really matter if his roots aint in it. Everyone has to start somewhere, let the lad discover for himself without having to slag off and bitch. If your not Shaman or interested in what it has to offer then why the f*ck are you on this page.
I am EXTREMELY interested in Shamanic practices. I find Shamans fascinating and admit to wishing I knew more.
