mosquito
25th November 2013, 05:30
I’ve been thinking about writing this for a few days now, and the following 2 threads have spurred me into action (a rare event indeed !):
http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?65688-Embracing-the-shadow
http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?65693-Letter-to-Bright-Garlick
I want to talk about “the sins of the fathers” and our inherited karma, if that’s the way you want to think of it.
To start with, I don’t much like the notion that I should be held responsible by some angry deity for the shortcomings of my forebears. The whole idea seems ludicrous to me. Nor do I subscribe to the idea of a collective guilt-trip, that is absolutely NOT what this thread is about. So what is it about ?
Last week I watched a video made by the people I went to the Amazon with in 1996. It documents our journey to the Santo Daime community in Brazil, and our experiences there. I recalled the extensive purging I went through, and got to thinking about all my other Ayahuasca experiences. All in all, I’ve taken Ayahuasca 32 times, and without exception, the experience has been one of purging. Heavy purging. I could never fathom why. I’m basically a nice person, never done anything harmful to anyone. Yet I purge and purge and purge. I’ve had food poisoning, I know what an emptying digestive system feels like. The Ayahuasca was always something more, from outside my digestive tract. (That will only make sense to you if you’ve had the same experience). My confusion was further compounded by the fact that many friends and acquaintances, who have not all been goody-goodies, get nothing but unconditional love in their sessions. What the hell is going on here ? I remember one session, with 2 Shipibo shamans, and I could hear them chatting while I was in the toilet … “What’s happening ? His spirit is clean”. If THEY, the experts were confused, imagine how I felt.
So, after watching the video, I thought about all my experiences, and remembered one of the key visions I had in the purging phases of every session, which was of me travelling along my DNA. And then it dawned on me …. Some of this, not necessarily all of it, comes from the past. Call it ancestral, call it past-life, whatever.
The next trigger was reading Wade Frazier’s excellent essay on Columbus:
http://www.ahealedplanet.net/columbus.htm
… the atrocities committed by our ancestors were horrifying. And every one of us has this in our ancestry, without exception. So the penny dropped – I’ve been clearing out my history, personal and transpersonal. The sh*t coming out of my body, far too voluminous to be connected to my food intake, was coming from my ancestral DNA. The “sins of the fathers” are visited on us NOT by a god, but by our DNA and the spiritual equivalent thereof.
My current understanding is that this is like a collective shadow. We bury our national and family history in tales of heroism and glory. We find all manner of means to justify what was done, not necessarily out of any evil intent, but through a lack of true awareness. I reiterate – this is NOT about us having a collective guilt trip, it’s about us healing.
Shamanic traditions around the world emphasize that the healing we do is not only for ourselves, but for our families and our ancestors. And that’s one of the things we are here to do.
Things have been swept under the metaphorical carpet for far too long, let’s NOT leave them there while we have another drink, let’s lift the carpet, have a good look at what’s there, and clean it out, for ourselves, our ancestors and, importantly … those yet to come.
http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?65688-Embracing-the-shadow
http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?65693-Letter-to-Bright-Garlick
I want to talk about “the sins of the fathers” and our inherited karma, if that’s the way you want to think of it.
To start with, I don’t much like the notion that I should be held responsible by some angry deity for the shortcomings of my forebears. The whole idea seems ludicrous to me. Nor do I subscribe to the idea of a collective guilt-trip, that is absolutely NOT what this thread is about. So what is it about ?
Last week I watched a video made by the people I went to the Amazon with in 1996. It documents our journey to the Santo Daime community in Brazil, and our experiences there. I recalled the extensive purging I went through, and got to thinking about all my other Ayahuasca experiences. All in all, I’ve taken Ayahuasca 32 times, and without exception, the experience has been one of purging. Heavy purging. I could never fathom why. I’m basically a nice person, never done anything harmful to anyone. Yet I purge and purge and purge. I’ve had food poisoning, I know what an emptying digestive system feels like. The Ayahuasca was always something more, from outside my digestive tract. (That will only make sense to you if you’ve had the same experience). My confusion was further compounded by the fact that many friends and acquaintances, who have not all been goody-goodies, get nothing but unconditional love in their sessions. What the hell is going on here ? I remember one session, with 2 Shipibo shamans, and I could hear them chatting while I was in the toilet … “What’s happening ? His spirit is clean”. If THEY, the experts were confused, imagine how I felt.
So, after watching the video, I thought about all my experiences, and remembered one of the key visions I had in the purging phases of every session, which was of me travelling along my DNA. And then it dawned on me …. Some of this, not necessarily all of it, comes from the past. Call it ancestral, call it past-life, whatever.
The next trigger was reading Wade Frazier’s excellent essay on Columbus:
http://www.ahealedplanet.net/columbus.htm
… the atrocities committed by our ancestors were horrifying. And every one of us has this in our ancestry, without exception. So the penny dropped – I’ve been clearing out my history, personal and transpersonal. The sh*t coming out of my body, far too voluminous to be connected to my food intake, was coming from my ancestral DNA. The “sins of the fathers” are visited on us NOT by a god, but by our DNA and the spiritual equivalent thereof.
My current understanding is that this is like a collective shadow. We bury our national and family history in tales of heroism and glory. We find all manner of means to justify what was done, not necessarily out of any evil intent, but through a lack of true awareness. I reiterate – this is NOT about us having a collective guilt trip, it’s about us healing.
Shamanic traditions around the world emphasize that the healing we do is not only for ourselves, but for our families and our ancestors. And that’s one of the things we are here to do.
Things have been swept under the metaphorical carpet for far too long, let’s NOT leave them there while we have another drink, let’s lift the carpet, have a good look at what’s there, and clean it out, for ourselves, our ancestors and, importantly … those yet to come.