A shaman walks not only between the worlds of physical and nonphysical existence, she or he also walks outside of ordinary time/space. During a journey, while in the shamanic state of awareness, a shaman’s consciousness/spirit “travels” beyond the immediate moment—encompassing the past, present and future simultaneously. One can “see” a native settlement and gas lit streets and virgin woods and futuristic buildings and the time even before there was dry land—all overlaid upon a familiar cityscape. Through this experience, a shaman understands that real time has a depth of possible streams—possible pasts, presents and futures. In addition, the shaman learns that real time also has a concurrent quality as well in that all of those pasts, presents and futures are happening now.

Concurrent to that rather mind blowing experience, shamans also live the constant paradox of real time and the linear time that the body experiences. While I am writing this on what we have collectively agreed to assign as Sunday, the 7th of June 2009, I am also aware of real time. When I journey into the past or future, I am also aware of the urgency of living my life richly in the present since my body is aware that this moment disappears far too quickly. (I was reminded of this paradox recently as the little infant godson I held so brief a time ago is getting ready for college!)

So how does one hold these two completely different experiences of time without going mad? Through years of discipline, the shaman expands her or his mind’s ability to tolerate this strange perception of time/space. The shaman’s mind has to develop so that it doesn’t respond with fear to an experience of the unknown or when it has no familiar “landmarks.”

As I have explained in this column before, our minds are the product of our previous experiences. (Please read the June/July 2009 column, Coming Home on the Inner Tapestry web site.) We are only able to fully perceive those experiences for which we have developed a niche in our psyche. As soon as we are born, we begin to build a catalog of sensory input. We take all the input—most of which is not understood—and begin to synthesize and process it in our brain. It is sorted and eventually our picture about what the world is like is created. As we continue to develop we add more and more input, the sorting and storage of which is determined and shaded by previous experience, family enculturation and society’s definitions. This shapes our ideas of reality. For most people, this reality becomes fixed and doesn’t allow for experiences that don’t fit within it to be processed. It is as though we don’t have a circuit for the experience, which doesn’t fit the picture of reality we have created.

My spirit teacher, Grandma used post office imagery to explain this phenomenon. She told me to think of the mind as if it was a person sorting mail into an array of letterboxes. When new input in the form of experience happens, the mind scans it. It is comparing this new experience to all previous experiences—in essence, looking for what box it belongs in. Once the mind determines the proper “letter box” the input is filed away.

The flaw in this system arises when there isn’t a suitable box for the new input/experience. The mind reacts by either tearing the experience into smaller pieces to file or tossing it aside to the “dead letter” box. This mechanism is certainly seen when a person blanks out during a traumatic event. In that circumstance, fear causes the mind to shut down the filing process. However even in non-threatening situation, the mind can be unable to sort input correctly. In fact, this kind of lapse is also far more common than one might imagine. For instance, consider the phenomenon of “inattentional blindness.”

Inattentional blindness is an inability to perceive something that is within one’s direct perceptual field because one is attending to something else. The term was coined by psychologists Arien Mack and Irvin Rock, who identified the phenomenon while studying the relationship of attention to perception. They were able to show that, under a number of different conditions, if subjects were not attending to a visual stimulus but were attending to something else in the visual field, a significant percentage of the subjects were “blind” to something that was right before their eyes.

The most famous example is test subjects watching a video in which they were told to concentrate on a moving group of people wearing either black or white shirts who were passing several basketballs back and forth. The test subjects were told to count the number of passes that they saw. During the video, a person in a gorilla suit enters the frame from the right crosses thru the people passing balls and exits on the left. Astonishingly enough, very few of the subjects ever noticed the gorilla. Since their minds were focused on one specific visual task, three quarters of the test subjects never saw the intrusive element even though it was “right in front of their eyes!”

Here is a link to the video in which you will clearly see the event. Because you know to look for it, you will see the gorilla but will most likely be unable to count the passes. (http://viscog.beckman.illinois.edu/flashmovie/15.php)

I would argue that our mind's attention on its own definition of reality prevents us from fully being able to assimilate something that challenges our current perception of reality—at least at first. Once the new stimulus is repeated, the mind builds a new letter box!

For the shaman to be able to transverse the fabric of time/space where the familiar landmarks of realty break down or fail to exist at all, the shaman must be willing to continually re-experience new sensations until they are able to process the meanings they may contain. This involves intentionally broadening her or his perceptual context through journeying. This is accomplished by making journeys with the intention of stretching the mind’s capacity—setting it free from the limitations of ordinary reality.

Just as people who have extensively traveled the globe are far more able to adapt to an unusual situation such as being presented with unfamiliar food, so too the traveler to non-ordinary reality who has had extensive experiences that defy ordinary ideas of time/space can more easily adapt to a new situation. While traversing the realms beyond ordinary perception, the shaman has built her or himself a broader wall of “letter boxes.”

Since a well-disciplined shaman’s mind is able to respond without either fear or “blindness” to unusual events, she or he is uniquely prepared for new and rapidly shifting situations—more easily capturing their inherent meanings. To accomplish this, a shaman must have done extensive journeying with the intent of broadening the mind’s capacity and fully embodied the wisdom each venture has provided.

This reality stretching can be risky business for the psyche and so the shaman doesn’t go alone, but relies upon trusted spiritual protectors and guides to accompany her or him. The spiritual helpers assist the shaman to move through complex and disorienting states of reality and guide her back to ordinary reality. Once returned, the shaman takes the time to process and assimilate the experience. A shaman notices how and in what manner her perceptions have shifted—what gifts have been gained.

In becoming aware of changes within and around her or himself, the shaman begins to get a deeper and deeper sense of what remains constant. For many shamans, the constant is the energy of love and the connection one feels in the heart. In some ways, the shaman’s heart becomes a magnificent room in which they can safely dwell. At this point, the shaman’s heart offers them a kind of springboard into even farther and greater experiences. This happens because the still point of the shaman’s heart-center becomes a certainty that the mind holds onto—a central hub around which everything turns. This frees the mind enabling the shaman to engage in even more fearless exploration of reality, which produces a growing adaptability and flexibility. It is as if the shaman attains a kind of spiritual and mental nimbleness though her or his work.

This fluidity is critical to one’s success as a shaman since it is often the case that she or he is called upon to solve problems for which no ordinary reality solution has been found. It is that skill that has allowed shamanism to endure for between sixty to one hundred thousand years.

I can think of no better preparation for the unexpected circumstances that life provides than the practice of shamanism. Instead of a shaman’s extensive movement between the realms having the effect of taking her or him away from the “real world,” the opposite is true. A disciplined shamanic practitioner who does the journeying and processes the experiences is much more “present.” She or he is able to interact with all the richness life provides and is able to hold or quickly regain equilibrium in the face of turmoil.

Given the current state of our society, shamanism ancient practices may indeed hold the keys for us being able to move thru all of it with more grace and joy!

© 2009 Evelyn C. Rysdyk

Nationally recognized shaman teacher/healer, speaker, and author, Evelyn C. Rysdyk delights in supporting people to remember their sacred place in All That Is.  Whether though face-to-face contact with individual patients, groups and conference participants, or through the printed word in books, columns and articles—Evelyn uses her loving humor and passion to open people’s hearts and inspire them to live more joyful, fulfilling and purposeful lives.

She is the author of Modern Shamanic Living: New Explorations of an Ancient Path (1999), columnist and writer of numerous articles and features. Her writing and artwork have appeared in regional, national and international publications—both in print and online—and she is the executive editor of Spirit Living, an eco-spiritual e-magazine.

In joint practice with C. Allie Knowlton as Spirit Passages since 1991, she offers workshops in advanced experiential shamanism across the USA and Canada.  In addition, as founding members of True North, an integrated medical center in Falmouth, Maine, she and Allie collaborate with physicians, nurses, a psychiatrist, naturopath and other complementary health practitioners.  Evelyn may be contacted through her website: www.spiritpassages.com.