One of my long term hobbies- I think even longer than practicing shamanism- is, hold your horses, everyone- playing foosball.
Of course, playing Foosball is a lot more fun when you win. The winning itself is very enjoyable, but it also raises your social status, and there is the added benefit that there is a social consensus that when you just won a game of foosball, you are allowed to pull otherwise cringeworthy stunts- like performing a moonwalk- while bystanders and losers alike have to pretend like what you are doing is completely normal. There is no joy quite like assimilating and then subverting the tribal customs.
Now I'm a reasonably strong player just by virtue of doing it a lot. For the most part, the people who beat me are competitive players, but occasionally, I'll meet my match. Normally I play simply by intending to win, and letting my subconscious mind take care of all of the playing. This results in fluid maneuvers but also unconventional and downright infuriatingly lucky shots.
Last week I faced off with a friend of mine who is much less experienced than me, but has built in himself a tremendous mastery of the energy around him by working in sales. I dived in expecting to toy with him a bit and then go for a quick win, but suddenly I could feel him taking control of the ball and even the table. That took me by surprise and I couldn't respond in educating my ku about dealing with this new challenge before he had beaten me down ten to zero and general gloating ensued.
Now today, I faced him off again and I concentrated rather hard trying to figure out something I could teach my ku in order to counter his unconsciously applied magic. A couple goals behind again, I found myself staring at the ball rather intently, and I observed that he couldn't get it into the goal. So I did nothing different- I just concentrated really, really hard on the ball, noticed details about it, and then added my conscious intent to charge the ball with as much energy as possible, and won handily.
Energy really does flow where attention goes, and when you're competing for something, having a lot of that energy coming from you is a really, really good idea!
I didn't nudge the ball, I didn't twitch his wrist, I didn't do anything specific- I just concentrated on the ball until I could feel a charge.
This goes to show how every good coach is teaching energy manipulation, but as shamans we have a working theory of why it works. Keep your eye on the ball, they say! The wisdom of that is much deeper than knowing where the ball is. You don't keep your eye on the ball to know where it is, you keep your eye on the ball to charge it with energy and cause circumstances to arrange so that you are the one who is, literally, in charge of it. If you have the most energy on the ball, your intentions will influence it, and everyone else, the most, and you will win! It helps, of course, to teach your ku valuable techniques to work with, but don't overdo that one. Ku will figure out how to win.
Maybe next time I'll add a little energy breathing, and I most certainly will concentrate more fully on my opponent while I perform my victory dance.
More is one of my favorite words.
I get lot of flak in polite society for appreciating more a lot, because of a widespread belief that there isn't enough, so anyone who wants more must be selfish enough to want, there it is, more than their fair share.
But I don't want anyone else's share, and I couldn't have it if I tried. I can have that experience, though, if me and someone else agree that I will simultaneously expand my sense of possibility, and others will contract it. Now if I were to persuade other people to contract their sense of possibility, asking them to limit themselves in a way that really does not tend to be in their best interest, okay well then I'm as close as you can come in this universe to the uncle scrooge character. Because the easiest way for that particular thought pattern to manifest in all experiences is, indeed, you giving something to me, and getting little to nothing in return, or from anyone.
But why on earth would I do that? What possible advantage could I get from limiting other people? I would have to believe in lack myself for that to make any sense whatsoever, and since I have the choice, why would I do that? I don't want a weird non-appreciative coercive-feeling limited above-below kind of relationship with anyone at all, thank you very much! Subjects are like followers, they're just too much trouble. Give me peers any day of the week. I consider my 8 month old daughter a peer, and she can't walk yet, but that's nothing a little practice and growing won't sort out. I mean, if I were to surround myself with my inferiors, and perhaps even try to influence them so they stay that way, how uninspiring can surroundings be? And I do tend to notice among those whom I perceive to enjoy unequally-designed relationships that inspiration tends to be in short supply. Whew. Thanks, but no thanks, empires are so 20th century.
So, more. Yeah, more is what I would like, right now, copiously, and I also would very much like to be aware of more areas to want more in. Here's a list: I would like
- More money
- More power
- More energy
- More strength
- More relaxedness
- More friends
- More collaborators
- More sense of purpose
- More leisure
- More effectiveness
- More healing
- More respect
- More inspiring others
- More listening to animals
- More ideas
- More wisdom
- More connectedness
- More experience
- More love
I would like to add to this that more is an art form. Let's take money because it's such an obvious one and so far-reaching. When I say I want more money, I'm not talking about the old "oh I have lots of money but no time to spend it" deal. That's not more money, that's poverty in disguise. When I want more money, I want more money with equally many or fewer obligations than I have now. That makes life really easy. I don't have to worry creating some hip project or finding investors, because investors' money comes with obligations for the future, and my criteria preclude those. I don't have to go find some illustrious career, because those would tie me up for many more hours than at present.
Mind you, I could still go and get an illustrious career because that's rewarding, or go find investors because that's what my project calls for, but I don't have to do any of those commonly associated things when all I'm after is more money. That's probably the most important secret right there- and it's an application of the as-of-yet-unblogged-about seventh's principle, spoiler, it's about flexibility- if you want more, get rid of all the ideas commonly associated with more, and just go for more. There will be very little resistance.
Here's a couple of techniques to stretch the mind, in order to possess, well, more flexibility. Because if you are flexible in the mind, then, guess what, you are much better able to imagine yourself having more of those things you want, and when you can do that, you will have more energy, which will give you more power, which in turn means you will experience more love, because true power always means more life to all and less to none, and it doesn't get any more loving than that. The beauty is that it doesn't really matter which more you go for first, every other area will get so much easier. Pick one that's hard for you. Try money, that's usually hard, and the world certainly can use a lot less "uncle scrooge screwed me over" vibes in the world, I think we had plenty enough of those, thank you very much.
I think I made a pretty good case that more is good and that calls for moderation are misplaced, quite simply because there are no limits, and if there are no limits, there is inherently enough to go around. So, aside from the Haipule, which is so good and flexible that it can be used to bring about just about anything, including more of anything, here are some suggestions for imaginary experiences are great and enjoyable ways to connect you with the idea of more.
Recently I decided my budding Shaman Blog had enough stuff on it to be considered started, so I decided it would be a good idea to share it with the pack, so to speak, and put it in front of the people who really know what I'm talking about- the Kahili Huna group- and then clean up my kitchen. First things first.
I'd only shared it online with what I would call "seekers", people who might be interested in various spiritual practices, and shamans of varying skill and different traditions, for whom this somewhat different blog was most likely to be peripherally interesting, just some shamanic articles to gloss over and come back to later or not.
What I didn't consider is that when you reach out to a bunch of the most powerful shamans in the world with something that's really relevant to them, you are getting a response. So while I was scrubbing away and piling dishes, I turn around and my back kitchen wall is gone, and there there are all these pairs of eyeballs checking me out, and I can see my ku happily taking questions in a kind of Greek auditorium. And I think, boy, I wish I'd cleaned up my kitchen beforehand. I could picture how this went down- OK, so who's the new guy, got anything on him? Wait, Let me check... I see a man... in an unhealthy environment... making it better... yeah, he checks out. He's doing some kind of healing, but I'm not sure I want to know what it is.
So I went down to see Mr. Tree again, the friendly soul, and this time, something was different. Someone was there. A very friendly lady was introducing Mr. Tree to her friend I just happened to be there at just the right time so she kind of naturally included me in the conversation.
Turns out I'm not the first human Mr. Tree has taken an interest in. She said she was a bit of a spiritual networker, and went to visit Mr. Tree almost every day, and he really helped her get over some trouble she was having. She even showed me her favorite spot to sit on his roots. Mr. Tree had tried to show me on his own but I didn't quite get it at the time, I just politely sat down a bit and then rolled out a blanket nearby.
As if all that wasn't enough, she very matter-of-factly let me know that there used to be anti-chernobyl dance sessions there. It would appear that Mr. Tree is one political animal.
The second principle of the Kahili Shamanic Tradition is about as bold as it gets.
There are no limits.
This might seem too silly to even consider, but if you go deep enough, it looks pretty darned true- and boy is it every practical to think that way. So much so that everyone else can seem incredibly fenced in. Honestly, this idea is the ultimate liberator- ever since I decided to accept it, I have never felt so free.
The funny part is, it's not an illusion of freedom that superstitious people cling to in order to enviably, but self-deceivingly, make them self feel good in a naive way. Nope. I'm talking honest to got, real freedom here, available right now.
The key to that is that it's not that we tell ourselves we're free and then justify it sort of a little bit and call it a day. It's that we actually already are free. Not metaphorically. Not in mind only but not in body. Not for the afterlife, later, before, or in parallel. Right here, right now. Free. Pronto.
My tradition of Hawaiian Shamanism is commonly told as seven principles, which were put together in this way buy an extremely competent shaman who first was taught the shamanic meaning of common cultural proverbs, and then organized them in an ingenuous way.
Mind you, the system is still arbitrary. He made it up. It's special because it works so well. You've got a problem you can't quite put your finger on, you go through the seven principles to see which apply most, and by golly you start seeing ways to apply it by deriving very simple logic from the principle. It works wonderfully, and it brings much needed clarity to something as vast and rich as the nonphysical cosmos.
So let's jump right in. The first principle is called The World Is What You Think It Is.
What this means is that there is very little, and one might well argue nothing at all, that doesn't come down to how you interpret things.
I had a little chat with Mr. Tree the other day. Mr. Tree is a large tree near a river in my city and he invited me over when I was looking for a place to sit down and play with my baby daughter. I was sitting down nearby, and the phrase "your place is right over here" popped into my mind, and there was this really powerful looking tree, like he was bursting with zest.
So I sat down and let the baby play with some of Mr. Tree's leaves that he had shed, admired him, and blessed him, and asked him what he's got going on.
In traditional Hawaiian shamanism, you think of a human being as made up from three distinct selves- the lower, the middle and the higher.
They are not really separate, but more like different aspects. Your liver isn't really something different than your kidney, it's all you, but they work differently and do different things.
If you know how to direct your lower self, and how to be inspired by your higher self, you can pretty much guarantee that you will enjoy your life, have love, power, material things you need, and deep, deep contentment.
Most fundamentally, we are energy, obviously. The world may seem dense- but energy can be dense! So if it's all energy, just as obviously there will be an interaction between different kinds of the same stuff, much like steam can condense into water and water can form into an icicle. It takes a whole lot of water flowing to form a big icicle, but it doesn't take very much to create some small droplets on a cool surface. So when you start directing your energy flow, in some ways, you will get a very quick response. In other ways, it will be a lot less obvious. But an effect it will have.
The most basic way to consciously direct your energy, and perhaps the most immediately practical, is the love light.
There is a place in the clouds, so the legend goes, where powerful healers gather to do good for the world, to help the needy, and to influence the energies of the cosmos to cause powerful shifts as a force for good on a global scale.
If you've been taught the shamanic worldview, it makes a whole lot of sense that that place isn't a place you take a boat to, or dig for, or look for with a telescope, but it's a place you visit quite simply by thinking about it.
The most powerful technique in the world to use your mind to change your life that I know of is called the Haipule.
It's deceptively simple.
- Speak your truth
- Imagine your truth
- Breathe your truth
- Act on your truth
That's it. You are now able to reshape your life.