SUSAN LYNCH SHAMANIC SERVICES












​Blog

​

  • Home
  • About
  • Services I Provide
  • What's It Like?
  • What To Do
  • Soul Retrieval
  • Order a Service
  • Testimonials
  • Blog
  • Core Shamanism
  • What Happens in Remote Session
  • Shamanic Initiation

12/9/2013

Signposts on the Pathless Path

0 Comments

Read Now
 
Picture
Truth is a pathless path, reminded Krishnamurti in his 1929 speech to dissolve the Order of the Eastern Star, a worldwide organization of thousands for whom he was the World Teacher. His speech gently but firmly and in no uncertain terms declared his considered opinion that following anyone would not get you where you signed up to go: to Truth, that is.

As a Power Animal, Cougar medicine means to lead whether or not anyone is following. This relates to Krishnamurti's point. Throughout indigenous wisdom and learned philosophy – east west, ancient, modern, religious, secular – the pathless path reappears, or rather continues to be present by its inscrutable invisibility. The spiritual path, the path of heart, the way, the soul's path, your life path, the path to Truth, to freedom, to enlightenment: all, um, sorta pathless, truth be told. Unlike the photo at left, which is quite a defined path, with very old hawthorn trees lining the way home. 

This is the road to the Manor at Water Eaton, a path I was delighted to walk each day for nine months, in all weathers, in and out to Oxford for my studies a few years ago. While there, I studied many works of literature from the categories mentioned above. I walked many miles, carless, through well-worn paths in the ancient city, around the stone circles in Wiltshire, and in pursuit of the Pictish stones in the Scottish Highlands. In wider scope, my life is a series of pathless paths that I don't know I'm on before I find myself walking them. Where do they lead? This is a question each of us wants answered.

What Krishnamurti was getting at is at the heart of a leadership dilemma, and also a point of ethical consideration for people who help others, through many positions and modalities, including shamanic services. This little blog post can't fully fathom it, but it is something I'm contemplating. It's one of life's little whammies, so I say in a line from a recent poem. In this day of amassing followers, the ascendency of the very terms followers and following to new heights and ascriptions, there is a swirl of expectation and perception no less befuddling than in 1929. Leaders may run the risk of being defined by numbers of followers, by thumbs up or clicks or stars, by books sold, numbers charted, venues filled. With this comes the imperative to help others by creating titles and programs that promise results, that vow to give the secrets to individual freedom, success, and happiness in a nutshell, or, in the wildly popular numbering game, ten easy steps. A few sessions. A course. Krishnamurti begged to differ. Ain't no way, he said. I'm paraphrasing.

In working with a teacher, and in working shamanically, there can be a tendency to endow that position with a key they cannot possibly possess. With this often comes a wish to be approved and a giveaway of our own abilities. We do this also in love, in relationship, with world leaders, even with deities. To promise or be promised a path that is guaranteed to get us there, when there is no path. There are sign posts. There is experiential knowledge and knowledge transmitted through thoughts and words, through energy and received information; these can be very helpful for each of us walking the pathless path. That, and creating space within which truth can be found from within, is the work.

As a penniless young girl in the wilds, I would leave the campfire to make my way into the forest to the treehouse where I slept. I wore no shoes, and carried no light. The forest was thick and dark; there were animals who lived there and hunted at night, like the cougar. I had to walk slowly, using my bare feet for eyes. The footpath, made by deer, was very narrow and long, going up and down hills a quarter mile or so. I developed my 'night eyes' and ears, and calmed the fears darkness can hold. It was simple, really. Because of my bare feet, I knew, instantly, when I stepped off the path. 



 

Share

0 Comments
Details
    Picture

    Archives

    December 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    September 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    March 2017
    December 2016
    August 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    October 2015
    September 2015
    December 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013

    Categories

    All
    8/8
    Alice Sara Ott
    Alignment
    Amanda Hesser
    Ancestors
    Artiacts
    Beatles
    Bees
    Beltane
    Caitlin Matthews
    Celtic
    Channeling
    Chocolate
    Chögyam Trungpa
    Clairaudience
    Cloud Augury
    Cloud Gazing
    Columbia Gorge
    Conditions
    Confidence
    Cooking
    Cougar
    Creating
    Crystal Healing
    Daryl Hannah
    Dead
    Disentanglement
    Divination
    Don Juan
    Dragonfly Medicine
    Dreaming
    Druidry
    Elk Medicine
    Encumbrances
    Energy
    Energy Body
    Environmental Work
    Extreme Weather Events
    Family Dysfunction
    Fearlessness
    Flash Oracle
    Flicker
    Flicker Feathers
    Flight
    Flow
    Fluidity
    Fluorite
    Following
    Food52
    Four Dignities
    Fuchsite
    Future
    Geese
    Genii
    Genius
    Grand Cross
    Gratitude
    Group Work
    Guilt
    Hawk
    Hawkwood
    Healing
    Heightened Awareness
    Hummingbird
    Imagination
    Inscrutaility
    Invisible
    Invisibles
    Island Visit
    John Matthews
    Joni Mitchell
    Journeying
    Journeywork
    Krishnamurti
    Lao Tzu
    Learning To Journey
    Lion's Gate
    Listening
    Lower World
    Luminosity
    Magical
    Malibu
    Manifestation
    Mark Kelz
    Middle World
    Mycellium
    Mystery School
    Native Spirits
    Nature Work
    New Year
    Non Being
    Non-being
    Non Ordinary Reality
    Non-ordinary Reality
    Northpoint Astrology
    Nothingness
    Nowhere
    Oracle
    Ordinary Reality
    Outrageousness
    Pam Grout
    Pam Younghans
    Past
    Pathless Path
    Paul Selig
    Perkiness
    Pestle
    Phenomena
    Pictish
    Poetry
    Present
    Rainbow Body
    Raven
    Reinvention
    Remote Journeying
    Repatterning Thoughts
    Rob Brezsny
    Samhain
    Sandra Ingerman
    Seasonality
    Selenite
    Seventh Dimension
    Shakespeare
    Shamanic Journeying
    Shamanism
    Shambhala
    Shapeshifting
    Should-ers
    Sirius
    Smoky Quartz
    Socrates
    Soul Retrieval
    Source Of All That Is
    Spirits Of Place
    Springs
    Stone Giver
    Swallows
    Synthesis
    Thanksgiving
    Thistle
    Thought
    Tibetan Buddhism
    Totems
    Transformation
    Transmutation
    Triskele
    Trust
    Truth
    Universe
    Upper World
    Vashon
    Vashon Intuitive Arts
    Vashon Island
    Wands
    Water Eaton
    Wheeler
    Winter
    Work
    Yew Wood

    RSS Feed

Picture
  • Home
  • About
  • Services I Provide
  • What's It Like?
  • What To Do
  • Soul Retrieval
  • Order a Service
  • Testimonials
  • Blog
  • Core Shamanism
  • What Happens in Remote Session
  • Shamanic Initiation