03-20-2011, 12:00 AM
You know, the western world doesn't have all the answers, there is no sensible reason to lay ones eggs in only that basket. I can see that sometimes those meds for instance, are a help and sometimes even life-saving but they are a poor patch for a bleeding artery that in part proceeds from the civilized paradigm as it manifests in our lives and in their quality. The artery that is bleeding is draining our heart and some folks, theirs is dry already. People become numbers and statistics and dollar bills get big in their eyes.
This world view alienates us from our heart.
One of the first things a kid learns in this world is that crying bugs people--many of them get beat for it-battered for having a heart that soon shrinks to hide from beatings of all kinds: verbal, visual, auditory, physical, spiritual and emotional. the child soon shrinks in many ways to blend in with the surroundings.
We live next to neighbors we don't know and drive around in killing machines, most don't think twice about all the dead yotes and crows on the side of the roads or consider they might die a not too good death just to get to work at a job they likely dislike. Maybe in your country Scout, they ride more in mass transit but it still has the same killing effect and not only the beings that get violently ended under a vehicle but also the Gulf and too many to count other oil spills.
The most personal and spiritual aspects of life are subjected to intrusive violation from the state; they tell you how you are to be born and how you are to die and they use force.
Consider this, I would like for my corpse to be treated such: I would like it to be allowed to decay and when the flesh gone, bones bare I would like my corpse to be taken by my good friendswith whom i have enjoyed so many musical and blissful experience and I would like them to make percussive instruments with my bones and they could make music with me. My friends would do that but they can't because of someones else's beliefs about death.
The state imposes that on me.
You can't even bury your own dead anymore, you go to a funeral home and "make arrangements" and pay exorbitant prices. You can't be born without getting a number and a value, you can't be educated at home by your parents without the States approval. You can't just leave your belongings to your family or friends when you die, instead at this very deep time of life your family will have to deal with the state's intrusion with legalities concerning wills and probate, usury and debt. Again, with exorbitant prices in more than one way and long and drawn out bureaucratic hoops to jump through.
Money is valued above people, bondage is the way, bondage to an insane tyrannical force that forbids critical appraisal lest it be seen for what it is and left to rot.
To get back to what I started with, it is from within this matrix of illness that the western world defines the experience that is called schizophrenia, I am reminded of what Christ is said to have said about motes in one's eyes. How can some way of looking that has such a big log in it's eye be accurate about anything? especially illness?
Until the physician heals himself he is no good!
And now back to what we call shamanism, and what is known as the shammanic illness does bear resemblance to what is called schizophrenia: they sometimes have what the western world calls hallucinations, they sometimes use language in odd ways which the West calls echolalia and sometimes poetry : ) and other names. They sometimes experience dissolution of personality, sometimes they are possessed by spirits...the West, they call that superstition and delusion. The thing is, in shamanic cultures, they know how to put the pieces back together, how to heal.
Here our way of looking at the world and the loss of the knowledge for repair gets in the way.
May the west learn to see with new eyes, The best of all worlds!
This world view alienates us from our heart.
One of the first things a kid learns in this world is that crying bugs people--many of them get beat for it-battered for having a heart that soon shrinks to hide from beatings of all kinds: verbal, visual, auditory, physical, spiritual and emotional. the child soon shrinks in many ways to blend in with the surroundings.
We live next to neighbors we don't know and drive around in killing machines, most don't think twice about all the dead yotes and crows on the side of the roads or consider they might die a not too good death just to get to work at a job they likely dislike. Maybe in your country Scout, they ride more in mass transit but it still has the same killing effect and not only the beings that get violently ended under a vehicle but also the Gulf and too many to count other oil spills.
The most personal and spiritual aspects of life are subjected to intrusive violation from the state; they tell you how you are to be born and how you are to die and they use force.
Consider this, I would like for my corpse to be treated such: I would like it to be allowed to decay and when the flesh gone, bones bare I would like my corpse to be taken by my good friendswith whom i have enjoyed so many musical and blissful experience and I would like them to make percussive instruments with my bones and they could make music with me. My friends would do that but they can't because of someones else's beliefs about death.
The state imposes that on me.
You can't even bury your own dead anymore, you go to a funeral home and "make arrangements" and pay exorbitant prices. You can't be born without getting a number and a value, you can't be educated at home by your parents without the States approval. You can't just leave your belongings to your family or friends when you die, instead at this very deep time of life your family will have to deal with the state's intrusion with legalities concerning wills and probate, usury and debt. Again, with exorbitant prices in more than one way and long and drawn out bureaucratic hoops to jump through.
Money is valued above people, bondage is the way, bondage to an insane tyrannical force that forbids critical appraisal lest it be seen for what it is and left to rot.
To get back to what I started with, it is from within this matrix of illness that the western world defines the experience that is called schizophrenia, I am reminded of what Christ is said to have said about motes in one's eyes. How can some way of looking that has such a big log in it's eye be accurate about anything? especially illness?
Until the physician heals himself he is no good!
And now back to what we call shamanism, and what is known as the shammanic illness does bear resemblance to what is called schizophrenia: they sometimes have what the western world calls hallucinations, they sometimes use language in odd ways which the West calls echolalia and sometimes poetry : ) and other names. They sometimes experience dissolution of personality, sometimes they are possessed by spirits...the West, they call that superstition and delusion. The thing is, in shamanic cultures, they know how to put the pieces back together, how to heal.
Here our way of looking at the world and the loss of the knowledge for repair gets in the way.
May the west learn to see with new eyes, The best of all worlds!