What is a shaman?

What is a Shaman?

I believe it is a spirit person. It is an initiated person, who is aware of the deep spiritual side of life and is able to see it in the unfolding of personal events. A Shaman is, also attuned to the context of a particular culture, the political scene or the health of the planet. But a shaming first concern is the healing of individuals within these spheres. A Shaman, for me, is a type of medicine man; the shaman is someone who is constantly healing the self and offering his lessons humbly to others. A Shaman may also be a prophet, a person naming those things in the culture and society in need of reform in order to bring about healing. The process must be out of a source of compassion and a willingness to bring about healing.

By working at healing myself, others may be healed. For instance, the same sex marriage issue in our society is about healing. Healing for our gay community because it opens up our visibility in the society, healing for the straight community because it drains fear from the popular psyche and brings about a degree of reconciliation in our woundedness.

For me, it is related to my gay-self. I said in my first post, "letting go of fear" was the intent of my process. As an HIV positive man, this may be meaningful to others living with life threatening illnesses.

Andrew Ramer, in Gay Soul relates, "how gay men as nurturers" have become through the experience of the AIDS crisis, "midwives for the dying." He states that this capacity is "innate within us." I know so many gay HIV positive men, who feel that have been disenfranchised and that life for them no longer has a productive purpose other than mere survival.

This is because of value on work in our culture that is influenced by a rigid religious-economic complex that is male dominated. Ramer mentions, how these structures are threatened by "the round fluid energy of men who love who love men, just as women in their own power threaten the system." (Gay Soul, 71-72)

Gay men have a purpose and it is related to soul and our capacity to empathize with others. When we heal ourselves, we are able to be vulnerable and therein lies our power!

I know, I have much work to do although I intend to enjoy life and live it as fully!

The glory of G-d is every creature fully alive! ( Irenaeus as quoted in, Life Abundant: Rethinking Theology and Economy for a Planet in Peril, by Sallie McFague 3)

Both, Soul Beneathe the Skin and Gay Soul, books, I mentioned in the first post, tell us that we have this work to do, so we can offer it to our communty and then to society in general. Ramer says: we have four attributes,

1. Because we live on the edge of gender and on the margins of society, we are consciousness scouts.
2. Our energy so often is expressed in the arts and so much of our artistic endeavours have added to the quality of life for society in general.
3. We are the midwives of death, whereas women are the midwives of birth......( He adds, some men became confused and started killing.) But men in general, and specifically gay men are nurterers.
4. We have an innate "hunter energy" as opposed to "warrior" where we like to go and bring back ideas or methods helpful to society; men like Dag Hammarskjold and Bayard Rustin. ( Gay Soul, 70-71)

I feel our Gay, Queer community has much to offer the world. I want to play creatively to make a better place and a healthier planet!