Just Walk On By . . . There is Nothing to See Here

His Holiness the Dalai Lama refers to compassion as the supreme emotion. In Tibetan the ability to show compassion or to empathize with another is shen dug ngal wa la mi sö pa, or “the inability to bear the sight of another’s suffering”. How many of us have developed that inability, or on the other hand have taken Dionne Warwick’s advice from her 1964 hit song, Walk on By, and just do as the song says and walk on by.

You know the stories as well as I do, they don’t make the short-term, attention grabbing news cycle on MSM but we see them on the fund-raising info commercials every night . . . children starving in (name your favorite continent), homeless walking the streets of (pick a city), violence against (name a group) in (just about anywhere in the world). Fifty five years ago my mother use to tell me “. . . eat your peas, there are children starving in Africa that would love to eat your peas.” The problems haven’t gone away, probably because we just walk on by.

When I think about how big the problems are and how little I am I feel overwhelmed and insignificant and it’s easy to walk on by. What can I do to show compassion to this big, beautiful, suffering world? Some of you, like me, are products of the 60s and we remember the phrase, “Think globally, act locally”. That has become my way to dealing with the too-big-to-handle social issues. I can’t solve world hunger, but I can help alleviate where I live. I can’t stop violence across the globe but I can mediate for peace wherever I am . In short I can develop the inability to bear the sight of another’s suffering where I am and do something about it here and now, one day at a time. When that seems too hard then I give a listen to John Lennon singing Imagine or even better Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwoʻole singing Somewhere Over a Rainbow. Both songs give me a kick in the pants, change my mind set and get me back on path. Find something that moves you too and get to work.

Try a Little Feel Good

The winter storm that hit the East Coast this week just about missed Central Virginia.  The Blue Ridge Mountains moved most of the snow to the Northeast and we only had a light dusting, about half an inch, of snow. However, its cold.  Schools were delayed two hours this morning and so many parents, like me, decided that it was too cold (17 degrees) to send kids out to the bus stop and drove them to school this morning.

I planned my route so that I could make a right turn into the school parking lot.  Unfortunately about 30 other parents, who had not planned as well, were stuck in line waiting to make a left turn across traffic to get into the parking lot.  I watched their faces and saw looks of frustration, sadness and anger as the cars in the right-turn lane kept turning into the parking lot oblivious to the plight (I hope) or callously uncaring (more likely) of the plight of the drivers waiting to turn left.

Every ten cars or so a driver in my right-turn lane would slow down and wave a car from the left-turn lane into the parking lot.  I enjoyed seeing the look of relief and gratitude on the face a driver who finally got to enter the parking lot.   I began to reflect on what was happening.

The drivers in the right-turn lane may have been extremely important people (at least in their own minds) so they had to turn first,  been very busy (but probably no more so than the other drivers) so the 3 second delay in turning would have put them way behind schedule, or had fallen into the dualistic trap of thinking me, me, me . . . me first!  When we take a dualistic point of view we isolate ourselves from others.  We become the center of our little universe and everyone else is outside.

As a practitioner of shamanism or someone who is interested in it I hope that you take time every day to view the world from a point of view of oneness.  Realize that we are all one and that what happens to one of us, even its its just being stuck in a line of cars waiting to turn left, happens to all us.  When you take that point of view something marvelous happens.  You become kinder and gentler.  You become one of those people who act out of kindness not me-ness, others feel better and it feels good inside.  You feel better too.

Make the world a little bit better today and try a little oneness, it will feel good.

Peace,

Dr. Dave

Buddhism and Shamanism

Who is The Buddha?  Are YOU The Buddha?

In addition to being a shamanic practitioner I am also ordained as a Buddhist Samana in the Hongaku Jodo Compassionate Lotus tradition.  The word “shaman” is generally believed to have originated from the Evenk language (Tungusic) of North Asia.   I think (and because I’m not a linguist I just 'think" because I don't know) that they may have gotten the world from India via China.  After all “sramana” (श्रमण) is a Sanskrit work and “Samana” (समण ) is a Pali word; and both words mean “one who strives” although it is also taken by some to mean, “one who knows”.

There are some surprising parallels between shamanism and Buddhism.  For example, when compared to the “Book” religions, Buddhism and shamanism have a surprising lack of formal doctrines.  In addition, the Buddha avoided speculations about the existence of deity.  His dying words are reported to have been, "Be a lamp unto yourselves." or in other words, be your own light, your own authority, your own Buddha.  A common Zen Koan attributed to Linji is, “If you meet the Buddha, kill him.”  Zen master Shunryu Suzuki wrote in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, “Kill the Buddha if the Buddha exists somewhere else. Kill the Buddha, because you should resume your own Buddha nature.  One is only able to see a Buddha as he exists in separation from Buddha, the mind of the practitioner is thus still holding onto apparent duality.”

Apparent duality means separation.  I am me, and you are you, and we are both separate.  Both shamanic practitioners and Buddhists see the inherent oneness in all things.  You are and I are not separate.  To quote the Beatles in The Walrus, “I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.”  In addition to oneness, Buddhist and shamanic practitioners share some other common views.

The attitude of non-duality gives both traditions a deep sense of intimacy with the natural world.  My training by Andean shamans gave me an understand and respect for the spirits of the natural world.  When The Buddha attained his enlightenment he was challenged by demons who questioned, “You have no right to the seat of enlightenment.  Who bears witness to your right?”  The Buddha touched the ground with his finger  and Earth thundered back, “I bear witness!”

When I want to take a shamanic journey I enter the earth.  When a monk asked Master Gensha where to enter Zen the Master responded with a question, “Can you hear the babbling brook?”.  The monk replied, “Yes.” and Master Gensha told him, “Then enter there.”

As a Buddhist when I meditate I close off the outside world and enter an inner world, or in Zen terminology, to take a step backwards. Meditation is not an end unto itself.  Rather it is a way of training the mind to avoid needless attachment, to free my mind from distractions, and to just be.  Way too often I am a human doing not a human being.  Meditation gives me a chance to just be.  Listening to the drum in a shamanic journey also frees my mind from other external and internal distractions so that I can just be in an alternate reality.

Many Buddhist, including Zen and Tibetan, take the bodhisattva vow, a vow to postpone personal liberation to help others achieve enlightenment.  Essentially it means that I vow not to enter nirvana until we can all enter together.  Traditional shamans live in a tribal setting and their role is to serve their tribe or community.  Shamanic practitioners live outside this close tribal setting but I see the world as my “tribe” and my role is one of service (one of the reasons I left a promising career in public accounting to become an academic, and why I have abandoned my academic career several times to accept roles in development projects in lesser-developed countries in places most people would not go on vacation).  Service to others is everything. 

It doesn't really matter where you serve.  I doesn't matter if you serve your family, your community or the world.  What matters is that you serve others.  Think globally, act locally and find ways to serve in whatever path you follow to be of service to others.  Here are some questions to meditate on today:

1.     What path do I follow?

2.     How can I best describe it?

3.     Why do I follow it?  (Because my parents did the same is probably not a very good answer.)

4.     How can I be of service to others as I walk my path?

Peace,

Dr. Dave / Keisho Ananda

Newest Poems

January Morning at Smith Mountain Lake

Once in a while, when the mood strikes me, I write poetry.  That and playing musical instruments for my own amusement and amazement (I'm amused by the sounds that I make, and amazed when I get the fingerings right) keep me sane.  Anyway, here are two of my latest poems. Hope you enjoy.

Yellow

In a green forest

The first yellow leaf

Of autumn

     Silently . . .

          Falls . . .

To the ground.

Night

Well oiled,

Night

Got off,

To a rusty start.

Photograph and poems Copyright © 2013-2014 by D. S. Murphy

Soul Retreival

In a previous post I wrote about soul loss so this is a good time to finish the explanation with a discussion of soul retrieval.  Both shamanic practitioners and psychologists agree that part of a person’s psyche can become disassociated or lost.  Psychologists believe that the disassociated part of the psyche is in the unconscious mind.  Shamanic practitioners assert that the lost part of the soul is in the Lower World.

To execute a soul retrieval the shamanic practitioner enters into the shamanic state of consciousness and travels to the Lower World in non-ordinary reality, finds the lost soul fragment with the help of guardians and helping spirits, and asks it or negotiates with it to return to the person.  An ethical shamanic practitioner would never trick the soul fragment into returning; the decision to return must be made by the soul fragment. The shamanic practitioner then carries the soul fragment back to normal reality and reinserts it, normally by blowing it, back into the person and then seals the fragment within the person so that it completely reintegrates.

If you haven’t read my previous post (above) about Bill then you might want to go back and review his case.  While I gave you a lot of information about Bill’s traumatic experience I didn’t know all of that before the shamanic journey, just that he felt like he had never been a child and that he had trust and abandonment issues.  

After Bill asked me to journey for him we both laid on the floor, began to listen to shamanic drumming and I covered my eyes with a bandana (something I do ritually to signal to my mind that we are going to journey).  I began the journey and was quickly in the tunnel leading to the Lower World.  On the other side of the tunnel I was met by two of my power animals and I explained to them the purpose of my journey.  One of them agreed to lead me to Bill’s soul fragment.   I asked my power animal if we were going to the cave of lost children and thankfully my power animal said no. 

The cave of lost children is, for me at least, the most depressing place in the Lower World.  It is a dark cave in the lowest reaches of the Lower World that is filled with the soul fragments of children.  They seem to congregate there after very traumatic experience.  Entering the cave all I can see are the whites of their outlines of their wide-open,  sad eyes.

Back to Bill . . . my power animal took me to a far-away, dark, desert-like area of the Lower World, one that appeared to be completely deserted.  My power animal instructed me to begin to call for Bill, “Billy are you here?  Billy can I talk to you?”  Soon I heard  a small voice replying, “I’m over here.”  I found myself next to a little boy hiding in the dark.  I explained to Billy that Bill was looking for him and that Bill wanted him to come home.  Little Billy responded that he was afraid of going back because his mommy had gone away and he didn’t want to be alone.  I explained, “But you are alone here.  Bill is grown up now.  He is a big, strong man and he will take good care of you.  He misses you and wants you to come back.” 

Little Billy agreed to return but only if I would give him a piggy back ride so that he was behind me.  He climbed on my back, my power animal lead us back to the inner entrance to the tunnel.  I explained to Billy that we were going to go through a tunnel and back to Bill, which did.  Returning to normal reality I held Billy in my palms and blew him back into Bill’s heart and then shook my rattle around Bill to seal his aura.

Bill and I didn’t see each other for six months and when we met again he told me that, for the first time in his life, he was in a relationship where he was able to give himself completely to his partner.  About 18 months later I received an invitation of Bill’s wedding.  He is now the proud step father of two and reports that he has never been happier.

Did the soul retrieval really happen or was the change in Bill just a placebo effect?  Does it really matter?  Bill’s life improved and he is a different man.  You can draw whatever conclusion you want but to me the Lower World is as real as ordinary reality and Bill is more complete than he has been since he was six years old.

Introduction to Shamanic Journeys

Before we return together to soul retrieval I thought that it might be helpful to review shamanic journeys. This is an update to my post from 14 April 2012.  You don’t need to go back and read it because this post contains everything from my previous post and more.

If you have been reading along as I have posted about core shamanism you might be ready to try your first shamanic journey.  As I mentioned in a previous post, the big difference between a shamanic journey and a dream is that shamanic journeys are intentional.  Your intention guides you on your journey.  

I’m asked very often to distinguish between a shamanic journey, a dream and day dreaming. Unless you are doing conscious dreaming you have no control over what you dream about or what happens in your dreams (might write a future post about conscious dreaming, let me know if you are interested in the topic).  When day dreaming you let your mind wander.  Most people, when they take a shamanic journey, begin by using their imagination.  For example, when I journey to my favorite entrance I use my imagination to “walk” to the tree.  I use my imagination to “enter” through my portal.

My Favorite Underworld Entrance . . . Please Use It If You Don't Have One

Eventually, while imagining, things start to happen that I didn’t consciously imagine.  I recounted this experience in my best journey ever  about  my expectations and how I “saw” images that were different from what I expected.  That is a sign that Spirit has taken over.  Occasionally someone at a journey workshop will ask, “But what if I imagined everything?”  My response usually is, “Why did you image what you saw and not something else?  How do you know that Spirit wasn’t helping you select what to imagine.?” 

Another common concern that people have when they journey is, “What if I close my eyes and all I see is black?  I don’t see any images when my eyes are closed.”  Well guess what?  Many people, include me, have that experience.  I have learned to “see” in my mind.  I don’t “see” images, rather I know what is there as a thought and the thought creates a mental image.

Before the Journey

Before you begin your journey you need to do a couple of things.  First, determine the purpose of your first journey. To common objectives are to (1) explore the lower world just to get to know your way around, like how to get there and how to return, or (2) to meet your power animal.  The second thing that you need to do is to identify your portal.  I use an opening in the bottom of a big oak tree that is along a path where I frequently hike.  Your portal can be any opening into the earth, it might be a well, a lake, a waterfall, a cave, the roots of a tree, an opening in a wall  (see below) or you can borrow my opening at the bottom of the oak tree.  Don’t worry about the size of your portal.  You will not enter it with your physical body, rather your intention will lead you through the portal.

Portal in a Stone Wall

Your opening might be a place that you have seen before, once or many times, or one that you imagine.  I prefer openings that really exist in the physical world because they help me experience passing from one reality into another. I think that the best portals or openings are ones where you feel that the veil that separates one reality from another is thin.  The opening in the wall (above) is one that I dive through (it's less than a foot wide) so my imagination dives through it, not my physical body (which is a good thing because its about 30 feet to the ground on the other side of this opening).

Taking the Journey

At the end of this post you will find a short drumming video.  You might want to play it while you take your first journey.

1.    Lay down in dark, quiet place where you won’t be disturbed.  Get comfortable.  It may help to put a pillow under your head or knees.  You might want to put an eye pillow over your eyes.  If you don’t feel totally relax then tighten all of your muscles and then starting at your feet and working up to the top of your head slowly relax each muscle.

2.    Turn on a shamanic drumming track (you can download one from iTunes, get a CD of shamanic drumming, or check YouTube (I’ll post one later and will update this page with the link).   You can easily find 10, 15, 20 and 30 minutes tracks.  I usually use a 15 minute track.  I suggest that you use a track or have someone else drum for you until you are an experienced traveler, then you can drum yourself.

3.    When the drumming starts then find your opening.  I usually take a few minutes and walk, in my mind, through the forest to my portal.  Go through your entry point.

4.    As you pass through your portal see or imagine that you have entered a dimly lit tunnel, hall way, or passage way.  The tunnel may be only a few feet long or it may go on for hundreds of feet, either way see or imagine that you can see a bright light at the end of the tunnel.  That bright light is the opening into the otherworld, the lower world.

Note:  Some of you may be able to close your eyes as see visual images that are as real as the world around you. Others, like me, close your eyes and “see” darkness.  Your ability to “see” images with your eyes closed is irrelevant.  If you can’t “see” in the dark, then imagine or “know” what is around you.  Some people don’t “know” or “see”, they may hear.  Use whatever sense seems to work best for you.

Don’t worry if you have to “imagine” to get things started.  Aristotle said that image is the language of the soul.  It’s alright to help your soul get started on this journey by using your imagination to image a new reality.

5.     When you enter your portal or opening  don’t try to go into the ground.  Our objective isn’t to see the dirt, bugs, or roots that are under the surface.  We are traveling to a different realm that we perceive as existing beneath the surface of ordinary reality.

6.     Once you are in the passage way take a few minutes to get centered.  Breathe deeply, relax and become familiar with the sensations or thoughts of being out of ordinary reality.  You might want to look around and notice the texture of the walls, the smells, the flow of the air, temperature, humidity and anything else that will help you get a sense of the place.  If your intention was only to go and return then once you have soaked in the sensations of the passage way, turn around and move back up and out of your opening.

7.    If your intention was to meet your power animal then walk to the end of the passage way into the light.  Look around a get a feel for the other world.  When I enter the otherworld I don’t find myself in a dimly lit cave under the earth.  I find myself in a different reality, a different world with bright light, sky, trees, rivers, and mountains. Call to your power animal and ask it to accompany you and to introduce you to the otherworld.  Enjoy your stay.

8.    When the drumming changes (usually the drummer will stop for an instant, and then change the drum beat to a very fast beat for about 30 seconds, and then takes up a slow and quiet beat.)  you have your signal to return to ordinary reality.  Ask your power animal to take you back to your passage way.  Power animals sometimes take you back, retracing your steps, to your passage way.  Sometimes they just point and say, “There it is.”, and sometimes they use my favorite way and transport you at the speed of thought back to the entrance to your passage way.  Return through the passage way up through your original opening and back into ordinary reality.

To summarize, here is a general template for lower-world journeys:

1.    Lie on the floor, cover your eyes and relax.

2.    State the intention of your journey.

3.    Begin the drumming.

4.    Find your entry point to the lower world

5.    Go through the entry point and into the passage way.

6.    Emerge from the passage way into the lower world

7.    Call to your power animal.

8.    State the purpose of your journey to your power animal.

9.    Let your power animal conduct you on your journey.

10. Return to the passage way when the drumming changes.

11. Go through the passage way, up and out of your entry point, and back into ordinary reality.

Drumming Video

You may play this video to help you as you take your first journey.  Please let me know if you would like me to record a long version.  Click the drum above to view the drumming session on YouTube.  

Here is a link to a blog about the drum that I built and which I am playing in the YouTube video.

Enjoy your first journey . . . more next time.

Soul Loss

In this blog when I mention the word “soul” please think of the Oxford English Dictionary definition where a soul is defined as “the principle of life, commonly regarded as an entity distinct from the body;  the spiritual parts in contract to the physical.”  We all have a soul and unfortunately for some of us a part of our soul has gotten lost or has gone into hiding.

Soul loss can occur to anyone at any time.  Among the indigenous people of the world it is generally understood that serious traumatic life experiences can cause the soul to fragment and for a soul fragment dissociate resulting in a phenomenon generally known as 'Soul Loss'.  Soul loss an adaptive coping mechanism that helps an individual survive and continue to function after terrible experiences.

We are all different and have different levels of soul resiliency and so the triggering traumatic event may be different for each person, and some people, fortunately, never suffer soul loss.   However, common causes of soul loss include:

• physical, emotional, or sexual abuse,

• childhood molestation,

• a bitter divorce, a shocking betrayal,

• sexual assault,

• serious surgery,

• a terrible car accident, or

• an experience that is so personal at the perceptual level that no one else would know that a trauma had occurred.

Take the case of Bill (name changed).  He was the oldest of three boys aged 6, 5, and 4 in the late 1950s the summer when his parents were separated by work.  His father, a college student at the time, took a job in a laboratory on the other side of the country leaving his wife home alone with three young and hard-to-control boys.  One day the boys were playing with their mother’s jewelry box and accidently dropped several cherished items down the cold air return in the floor into a coal-fired furnace.  The mother in a furry declared that she was going abandon the boys and was never coming back.  Bill, being the oldest, instructed his younger brothers to sit in front of the back door and to not let their mother abandon them.  Bill took his position by the front door and by his admission protected the door so firmly that his mother finally curled into a ball of the floor and sobbed. 

Hours later a neighbor stopped by and found the mother unresponsive in a fetal position on the floor.  It turned out that she had suffered a nervous breakdown.  She was taken to the hospital, the three boys where farmed out to friends’ homes, and Bill said that his childhood ended that day.  He walked to each home where his brothers were sleeping to check on them and said that, “It was my job to keep the family together until my dad came home 3 weeks later.  By the time he returned I was a man with no childhood.”

When I met Bill he was a serious man is his late 50s who said that he couldn't ever remember smiling or playing, and that he had a very difficult time being trustful in relationships, always afraid of being abandoned.  Bill had suffered a traumatic event as a child that resulted in soul loss.  After discussing the event and the shaman’s approach to dealing with soul loss he asked me undertake a soul retrieval journey for him.

This post has gotten sort of long so I’ll tell you about the journey to find his missing soul fragment in my next post.  Until then, live in peace with Pachamama, Intitayta, and your ancestors.  May they smile upon you and walk with you.

Dr. Dave

More Turmeric

Turmeric Plant

Back on 5 January 2014 I wrote about turmeric and health and cited a couple of studies about the cancer fighting power of turmeric.  I told you that I would write more about it, so here it is . . . .

Turmeric and its major active ingredient curcumin are among the most clinically studied spices and herbs today. I just did a search on the National Institute of Health web site for “turmeric” and it came back with 127,000 hits.  A search of “curcumin”, which is the major active ingredient in turmeric, resulted in 112,000 hits.  Not bad for a little herb. 

Dr. Wanwarang Wongcharoen led a research team from Chiang Mai University at the University Hospital in a recent study involved heart bypass operation patients in Thailand and their study was published in the American Journal of Cardiology. The research team followed 121 consecutive patients who had non-emergency bypass surgery at the hospital between 2009 and 2011.  All of the patients were given one gram pills four times daily for three days before the surgery and five days after. However, half were given sugar pills (placebo group) and the other half was given curcumin capsules. Neither group of patients nor their doctors knew who was taking what. This was a well-designed, double blind study.  The results were impressive.  The curcumin group had a 65% lowered risk from post bypass operation heart attacks. That group also showed significantly lower levels of inflammation and oxidative stress markers in their blood. 

In another study researchers assigned 32 women to either take a curcumin supplement, engage in moderate aerobic exercise training, or undergo no intervention at all. The researchers measured participants' vascular endothelial function at the beginning and end of the study.  This measures the responsiveness of the layer of cells that line the blood vessels and is a key indicator of overall cardiovascular health. They found that while there was no improvement in the control group, endothelial function significantly increased in both the exercise and curcumin groups. Most surprisingly, the improvement in the two experimental groups was identical.

A similar study examined curcumin's effects on the responsiveness of arteries to changes in blood pressure, or arterial compliance, which is another key measure of cardiovascular health. In this study 32 women were randomly assigned to receive either a curcumin supplement or a placebo pill, or to undergo an exercise routine plus either a curcumin or placebo pill. No significant improvement was found in the control (placebo) group.  Significant (and equivalent) improvements in arterial compliance were reported in both the exercise-only and curcumin-only groups. Finally, the greatest improvement was found among the study participants who exercised and also took the curcumin supplements.  These results are summarized in the diagram below.

	Exercise
Supplement	No Exercise	Exercise
Placebo	No improvement	Significant improvement
Curcumin	Significant improvement	Greatest Improvement

Do your own research and make your own decisions about your health because I don’t give medical advice, I just report what I have read in medical journals.  However, I bet you can guess what I do and what I take every day.

The Fairy Doctor

In Celtic lands the world was/is viewed differently from the view that most of us modern, sophisticated people take. As in most cultures there is the world that we inhabit and an Otherworld.  The Otherworld is the world that we can’t see and most don’t interact with.  It is the Lower World, the Middle World and the Upper World.  The Otherworld that some Celtic people call the Sidhe (pronounced "shee") consists of the fairy world and the fairies themselves.

According to ancient Irish tradition if a healthy child suddenly drooped and withered then that child is fairy-struck and a fairy doctor must be at once called in. Young girls who fell into rapid decline were said to be fairy-struck.  They were wanted in Fairy-land as brides for some chief or prince and so there was a risk that they would pine away without visible cause till they died.  In both of these cases the children were believed to have suffered from a fairy stroke.

The Irish, before the advent of modern medicine and even afterwards in places without Western medicine, were also wary the Wind and the Evil Eye. The evil power of the Wind is called a fairy blast.  One suffering from the Evil Eye they say he has been "overlooked."

In these cases it was necessary to call a fairy doctor.  The fairy doctor would pronounce from which of these three causes the patient is suffering, the fairy-stroke, the fairy-blast, or the Evil Eye.

Fairy doctors in rural Ireland and other Celtic lands treated people suffering from illnesses and misfortunes attributed to faery influence. Fairy doctoring was strongest in areas without western medical care and where the presence of the Otherworld was recognized as one of the realities of daily life. However, like shamanism it has never completely disappeared.  Fairy doctoring holds much in common with shamanism and like shamanism and other indigenous practices it is undergoing a revival. It seems that fairy doctors, shamans, and druids reappear in every age when needed.   

The dis-eases treated by fairy doctors remarkably similar to the symptoms of many modern ailments: tiredness, lack of energy, depression, listlessness, low enthusiasm for life, and an inability to focus attention that suggests partial soul loss. As shamanic practitioners we can orient our practice to faery doctoring traditions and also discover new ways from the faery world itself to apply our skills. Learning healing methods from the faeries is a major part of the tradition.

The Sidhe has been "returning" in the sense that more and more people are becoming aware of its presence and of its influence. Among some there is a growing realization that our two worlds must live, work, and play in greater harmony.  The Sidhe take energy and vitality from humans to restore and rebalance the life force that we consume wastefully, selfishly, and in great quantities.  This energetic “borrowing” results in an epidemic of fairy illnesses.  

As we learn to take better care of ourselves and the world in  which we live we decrease the need for the Sidhe to “borrow” our energy.   As we become more aware that there is more to this world than what we see with our eyes we can begin to work as friends and partners with the Sidhe.

May the saddest day of your future

Be no worse

Than the happiest day

Of your past.

  -- Old Irish Blessing

The Cauldron of Poesy

The thought of a fire burning under a bubbly cauldron of potato soup is particularly appealing this morning.  I heard on the radio, before the sun poked his head up, that this is the coldest morning in Central Virginia since 1912.  By my thermometer it was 3 degrees Fahrenheit (-16 C) at 5:00 a.m. and the wind was blowing.  I don't want to know what the wind chill was. 

The Irish text The Cauldron of Poesy speaks to the three cauldrons that reside within us all.  They are called the Coire Goiriath (The Cauldron of Warming and Incubation), Coire Érmai (The Cauldron of Movement, Vocation, Aptitude) and Coire Sofhís (The Cauldron of Wisdom and Spiritual Knowledge). The three Cauldrons are related to the three worlds. (If you have read some of my previous blogs about shamanism then you should be familiar with the concept of three levels or worlds.)  The three worlds in the Celtic tradition are the World of Land, the World of the Sea, and the Skyworld.

Before we go on, please consider the state of your cauldrons.  Are they upright and able to contain their fill? Are they turned on their sides so that their contents start to run out?  Or, are one or more of you cauldrons turned upside down so that no matter  how hard you try nothing can enter?

The Cauldron of Warming is the source of life in each of us. This cauldron is placed upright at birth and remains that way throughout our lives.  However, I believe that traumatic events can tip the cauldron and that causes us to spill some of our life force.  This cauldron represents the fires of emotion, vitality and power that sustain all of our activity within the Three Worlds. The Coire Goiriath represents the connection between the self and World of the Sea, the world of existence and emotions.  To better understand the World of the Sea think of the power and action of waves crashing on the shore and the different emotions expressed by the sea from a calm and tranquil sea to one that is raging in fury.

The Cauldron of Movement is tipped on its side when we are born and we, through our efforts or lack thereof either invert the cauldron or place it upright.  When a person becomes aware of their gift they begin to turn this cauldron upright.  With training and perseverance the cauldron becomes fully upright and then starts to fill. The Coire Érmai represents the connection between the self and the Middleworld of Land, the realm of most of our actions. 

The Cauldron of Wisdom and Knowledge was said to be upside down at birth because most of us forget our previous lives from the shock of passing through the Otherworld. Some spend an entire lifetime refilling and changing the position of this particular cauldron in their search for wisdom and knowledge. In the celtic tradition it was thought that the cauldron would stand upright after a strong major emotional event, like extreme sorrow or extreme joy. Once upright the Cauldron of Wisdom and Knowledge is capable of holding much more knowledge and wisdom.The Coire Sofhís is emblematic of the connection between the Skyworld of the Gods and the spiritual and mental aspects of life.

The Three Cauldrons at Birth

I hope that your cauldrons are upright and full, that the rain of heaven continues day-by-day to fill them to overflowing.

The Three Cauldrons Upright

May you find peace and may your cauldrons be full,

Dr. Dave

Interconnected . . . And How!

To say that we are all interconnect sounds nice but sometimes it is hard to visualize.  So this morning let's try a little exercise that I use in shamanism workshops.  Imagine that you stopped on your way to work this morning and bought a cup of coffee.  Start making a list of all of the people that you interacted with.  Were this a real workshop I would leave you alone to work on your list.  But it's not so let's walk through the process together . . . I expect that there are two people on your list, the barista and the cashier.  Good start.

Now, let's start adding all of the hidden people to the list.  What about the coffee shop manager, the person that orders the coffee and makes out the work schedule.  Oh, and then there is the owner that hired the manager.  Better add at least two more people to the list.

How did the coffee get to the coffee shop?  Well, maybe a UPS delivery person made a delivery, a couple of boxes filled with bags of coffee.  This is going to get complicated.  Try to imagine and list all of the people at UPS who were involved in getting the delivery to the coffee shop.  Then how did the coffee get to UPS?  Was it delivered by ocean freighter from Colombia?  We need to include all of those people on our list.  Now still working backwards how did the boxes filled with bags of coffee get to the ship?  There had to be an in-country packaging and delivery system.  And that system probably received the coffee beans from a wholesaler who sent out buyers to the coffee plantations.  Guess what, now try and list all of the people involved in growing the coffee, buying it bulk, roasting and packaging the beans, getting the beans to a ship, navigating across the ocean to a port where the container full of boxes full of bags of coffee was off-loaded and delivered to warehouse until an order was received and the boxes were entrusted to UPS for final delivery  Wow, that's lots of people.

You probably wish that we were finished but we're not.  Did you drink your coffee out of a paper cup?  If so, where did the cup come from.  Tracing that process backwards will take us all the way to lumberjacks who cut down trees that were sent to a pulp mill.

I bet that the lights were on in the coffee shop.  That means that they had electricity.  Who strung the power lines?  How was the electricity generated?  If it was from a coal-fired power plant then who was involved in mining the coal and transporting it by rail to the power plant?  Lest we forget, there is a small army of managers, accountants, and clerks at the power company measuring usage and making sure that it is appropriately billed and that the account are paid so that they can continue to generate electricity as well as the engineers and technicians who run the plant.  Who built the power plant?  Who designed it?  Where did the material come from to build it?  Our list could get really long.

Far enough?  Getting tired yet?  Just one more step.  By now you have probably thought of hundreds if not thousands of people who made your cup of coffee possible this morning.  And you, along with millions of other coffee drinkers helped ensure that all of those people have job today.  But we are forgetting someone.  We are forgetting spirit.

Plant spirit was there tending the coffee plants, sun spirt was there to provide sunshine and warmth.  Earth sprit provided nourishment for the plants.  The spirit of the ocean helped support the freighter.  Earth and rock spirits were in the ground with the coal.  Let us not forget that spirit interpenetrates all.  Spirit was there first.

You are not alone.  I am not alone.  Everything we do affects the web of life.  Enjoy this day, find joy in your interconnections with others and with spirit.

Peace,

Dr. Dave

Turmeric and Your Health

Turmeric

Research is consistently reporting the health benefits turmeric.  You remember turmeric, right?  It is the herb that gives curry its distinctive flavor and color.  It’s the herb that I sprinkle of zucchini every morning will I sauté it for breakfast and then mix it with homemade humus.  What a yummy, vegetarian breakfast!

Anyway, some of the latest research  highlights the how turmeric fights cancer. A recent study published in the Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention, found that a dose-dependent administration of curcumin (the primary active component in turmeric) effectively activated apoptosis of liver cancer cells.  This means that it prompted these harmful cells to die. In their conclusion, the researchers involved with this study declared curcumin to be a "promising phytomedicine in cancer therapy."

Researchers from the Department of Gastroenterology at the Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center in Israel published their findings of a 2007 study in the journal, Liver International.  They tested the effects of curcumin in mice with chemical-induced liver damage. Compared to hepatic damaged mice not given curcumin, those given the spice effectively averted developing liver cirrhosis, an outcome that researchers attributed to turmeric's anti-inflammatory properties.  In their conclusion they wrote that, "As curcumin ingestion is safe in humans, it may be reasonable to assess in clinical studies the beneficial effect of curcumin in slowing the development of liver cirrhosis. . . .”

Researchers from Taiwan published a study  in 2008 that demonstrated that curcumin can also benefit in the treatment of lung cancer.  Not only did curcumin demonstrate a unique ability to prevent cancer cells from invading and spreading, but it also activated key proteins responsible for naturally blocking and suppressing tumors from forming. The team from the National Yang-Ming University in Taipei ultimately declared that their findings support the application of curcumin in anti-cancer metastasis therapy.

A study published  in the Journal of Ovarian Research in 2010 found that patients with ovarian cancer, which is difficult to treat conventionally due to chemotherapy and radiation resistance, can be effectively "pre-treated" with curcumin to improve the efficacy of conventional cancer treatment.  They reported that, "Curcumin pre-treatment enhances chemo/radio-sensitization in ... ovarian cancer cells through multiple molecular mechanisms. . . [C]urcumin pre-treatment may effectively improve ovarian cancer therapeutics."

The Life Extension Foundation (LEF)    has conducted extensive research into the anti-cancer properties of turmeric and found that the spice targets ten causative factors involved in cancer development, including DNA damage, chronic inflammation, and disruption of cell signaling pathways. Countless hundreds of published studies, it turns out, have also shown that curcumin is a potent anti-cancer food that blocks cancer development in a number of unique ways.

A precise cancer-prevention dosage of turmeric has not been established, studies involving human patients with diagnosed cancer found that curcumin doses of about 3,600 mg (3.6 grams) induced paraptosis; targeted destruction of cancer cell mitochondria; disruption of the cancer cell cycle; cancer cell down-regulation; and arrested stem cell development.

Turmeric, is available at most well-stocked natural health store and online through places like SwansonVitamins (I don’t work for Swanson and receive no compensation from them . . . that’s just the source that I use. You can find them at  )  Where every you purchase your Turmeric, make sure that it is high quality.

Check back in a day or two and read more about the heart-healthy benefits of turmeric.