Bardic Kundalini

 

In Nepal, they have a term to describe aspects of shamanism that do not involve human teachers, they call this self generated or spontaneously arising shamanism. I have observed this certainly to be the case on my own journey and in the way my shamanic tools came to me.

One day, whilst reading a book by the late Mongolian/American shaman, Sarangerel, I discovered that one of the traditional grades of shaman is, a shaman with three drums and an altar. I found this quite astonishing as that is exactly the position I found myself at; spirits had guided me through dreams and visions to make three quite different drums and I did indeed have an altar. I had no real memory of consciously deciding to make an altar, it had indeed seemingly arisen spontaneously without intention or conscious effort on my part. It came about because I was being gifted so many spiritual objects that I needed a place to put them. A friend had given me some expensive whiskey, that came in a wooden box, lined with blue silk. The box seemed perfect to store my objects as it was also portable and I could bring it anywhere. I soon found myself using it as a handy altar, I could take what I needed out and set it up wherever I wanted. Upon further reading of Sarangerel I discovered that the Buryat shaman’s altar not only takes the form of a portable wooden box but that it is often lined with blue silk!

On my altar there are gifts from humans such as the knife and jingle cones, forged and gifted to me by a shamanic blacksmith, and the little Zuni bear, from my wife. There is also the piece of shed skin from a living female Komodo dragon, given to me unasked for by her keeper in Bali. Then, from nature, there is a stone with three lines on it, representing for me the Three Worlds of shamanism and a porcupine quill(used for spiritual protection in Mongolia) that I found on a beach in Sri Lanka. There is the impossibly beautiful and delicate shell of a wild bird egg(probably crow) and a pair of antlers brought to me by my dog. One is on the altar, the other became the beater of my drum. Within the drum there is also the wing of a buzzard. I found it dead on the road, its poor body was destroyed but the wings were perfect. Of the feathers, the tiny one is from a jay and the wing is from a small bird, which is how I sometimes see souls. The first striped feather is from a green woodpecker, this bird reminds me of a shaman, banging away on the tree trunk like a drum. The second one is from an owl and the last is from a crow but a specific type. I know this because when I found it, I sat and meditated with it. The spirit of the bird entered the back of my head and screeched its name, Rooook! This, is spontaneously arising shamanism.

This week has been quite intense spiritually. First, someone asked to see me for some shamanism. Before sleeping, I asked to be given some guidance on this and dreamed I was collecting jay feathers. The next morning on my walk, I found a beautiful jay feather and also a large crow feather under the oak where I meditate. The next night I dreamed I was gathering up huge amounts of crow feathers and I was shown two trees. The one on the right was full of crows and into the one on the left were flying orbs of pure white light, like bird-sized comets; a tree of Crows and a tree of Souls.

 

The following night I dreamed of hugging a tree in which were hanging all my shamanic paraphernalia, like in this picture.

Then, a young Irish traveller boy came and said to me, what do you know about the Nenets? I knew absolutely nothing about them but awoke with the word in my head and looked it up straight away. I was amazed to discover, that the Nenets are an indigenous people in Arctic Russia whose main subsistence comes from hunting and reindeer herding. They have a shamanistic and anamistic belief system which stresses respect for the land and its resources. The Nenet shaman is called a Tadibya and they acknowledge three different kinds.

• Vidutana, strong shamans standing in contact with the upper world
• Yanyani tadebya, shamans belonging to the earth
• Sambana shamans, shamans able to receive messages from dead people and to perform other rutuals concerning the dead.

Two of my drums are made from reindeer and so I feel a strong resonance with the Nenets.

This personal connection is reinforced by the Forest Nenets shamanic use of amanita muscaria. This plant spirit has been one of my most valuable teachers and in the same way that ayahuasca shamans sing icaros, the Nenet shamans have special Fly Agaric songs.

 

In my dream/visions the following night, my late mother-in law came, I know she is a protective presence as she transformed into a giant white cobra, rising high up into the air above me, at the same time a raptor with white feathers flew around us.

Then, I became aware of a multitude of shamans, they transformed into what I can only describe as a Sri Yantra of interconnecting reindeer horns expanding and contracting infinitely and simultaneously. I knew that these were my shamanic ancestors stretching back in time thousands of years, projecting the same into the future and that I was in the center of all this. The greatest respect an honour to the Nenets, the Sami and all traditional peoples who, despite the odds, are still following the reindeer.

Those who see all creatures in themselves and themselves in all creatures know no fear. Those who see all creatures in themselves and themselves in all creatures know no grief. How can the multiplicity of life, delude the one who sees its unity. The Isha Upanishad

Although the presence of such spectacular spirit animals as anacondas and bears, cobras and tigers was wonderful, some of my most beautiful experiences were with the smaller beings like molluscs and insects. At one point I had a succession of dreams. In the first I was standing in a room with a large window. The window was covered in bees. I opened the window to let the bees out, there was a beautiful garden outside.

Once the bees had gone, I could see a single small snail stuck to the window. In another dream I was cycling across a bridge. I stopped and saw a lake, lush vegetation and swans. Something on the ground caught my eye so I bent and picked it up. I found I was holding a tiny statue of a snail. The snail is hermaphrodite, symbolising the union of opposites, its shell a microcosmic spiraling reflection of the universe.

When I was very young my mother would read me stories and one of my favourites was about a little snail. The little snail lives in the rhubarb patch and is warned by his mummy not to wander off alone but of course he heads off on an adventure and gets lost. Eventually he discovers the snail trail he has left and finds his way back. This is the wonderful metaphor of how we ourselves discover our spiritual way home after being lost. Despite hearing this story over and over again, my five-year old mind never failed to be gripped by the tension of the narrative and the joy of the little snails return home. Perhaps it is like this for the Oneness, pure joy, as slowly but surely, we spiritual snails find our way home to the divine rhubarb patch.

This period concluded with a great dream-vision. I was in an old stone building and in front of me was a huge gothic archway. Through the arch I could see a beautiful garden. Hanging from the sky, framed in the exact centre of the arch was a single strand of spider silk. I watched as a green grasshopper flew down from the left and landed on it.

At this point I was looking at the grasshopper from the side. The grasshopper then turned to face me and spread out its arms. It grew to fill the whole space of the arch and morphed into a fractal grasshopper, each side mirroring the other exactly. The fractal patterns were gorgeous, in various stunning shades of green. It had fingers that extended into long green tendrils that connected to everything in the garden and the universe beyond. It stayed like this, looking at me for a few moments before blowing away in the wind on the strand of spider silk. I felt the connection of everything in nature, that it was the same thing looking out of every eye. The God in the Grasshopper, my mind was blown. (from A Shamanic Kundalini Awakening)

 

In a previous blog, Ancient Shaman Ancestors, I related how in a fully immersive vision I was visited by the Almas. For simplicities sake we may say that they are the Central Asian equivalent of Sasquatch (although they are quite different), to be found in the Altai Mountains of Siberia and throughout the Caucasus.  They came to me as shamans, they were dressed in Buryat costumes with colourful ribbons and they spun around whilst drumming. It is highly likely that the Almas or Almasty are a surviving hominid, most likely homo erectus and I sense strongly that homo sapiens may have learned shamanism from these beings that retained a deeper connection to the natural world than us. Furthermore, I sense that they act as initiatory agents to some shamans, in spirit and possibly physical form.  The images in the video below are eerily similar to what I saw.

https YouTube’s bevy Chiba

As well as the Almas, Sasquatch also came to me in shamanic consciousness,

…as I stood facing the woods, a large creature walked upright through the trees in front of me. There was not much space between the trees, it was like watching a shadow repeatedly emerging then disappearing. I could see thick dark hair and sensed great power. It then stepped out into a clearing, it was Sasquatch and he turned to face me. Although he exuded tremendous physical strength, he showed no aggression and I felt no fear. It felt like he was simply presenting his existence to me. Then, I was given some special green herbs and plants and told that they were for contacting or shapeshifting into Sasquatch. I went deep into some forest caves and found him sleeping. I stroked his face with the plants and he opened his mouth revealing formidable white teeth. Somehow, I knew I must put my hand into his mouth, to show trust. I did and he opened his eyes and gave me a vision, showing that we have a deep connection, that part of me is in fact Sasquatch. I found myself in a primeval forest of very tall straight trees. Through the trees I could see a large rounded green mound, covered in moss and grass. I could see that my arms and hands were covered in thick hair. There was no sound or thought,just utter stillness of mind and environment, I was aware that this was home and I was my ancient Sasquatch self.  (from A Shamanic Kundalini Awakening)

Although I’m yet to find a connection between Almas and Siberian shamans (although I’m sure it’s there), I did find a link between Sasquatch and Native American medicine people.

…among the Yokut, Hairy Man (Sasquatch) was indeed connected to the shamans, but a Hairy Man shaman was extremely rare and unusual. The subject of a Hairy Man shaman was in itself very sensitive and so little is known about what specific powers such a shaman might have had. The elders told just one story, in which Hairy Man comes to give his healing power to the shaman. In the story Hairy Man insists that the power he will convey must only be used to cure and never to cause harm. It was also said that the shaman would make an amulet in Hairy Man’s likeness, swallow it and use Hairy Man as a bringer of dreams. (from Mayak Datat: The Hairy Man Pictographs. The Relict Homonoid Inquiry)

A recent conversation with a Nepalese shaman gave me a further confirmation that shamans and the Wild Peoples are intimately connected.  This concerns the Ban Jhankri or Forest Shaman.

…The ban jhankri (forest shaman) is both spirit and deity, as well as an accepted reality for most indigenous Nepali ethnic groups. The ban jhankri are said by many to be small creatures, hairy and golden, master healers and teachers of shamans. Those whom are “chosen” by the ban jhankri to be future shamans, are abducted and often taken to caves where the initiates receive shamanic training and instruction. The novice, who is typically young but may be an adult, is later returned to his/her community, several hours, days, or (rarely) weeks after being abducted. At this point, sometimes the initiate finds a human guru (teacher) from whom to continue to learn ritual methods and techniques of accessing spirit (i.e. ecstasy, trance, possession), but sometimes their training continues only through the agency of spirits, including contact with the initiating ban jhankri. Culturally, such experiences of “spontaneous election” are regarded as proof of being “chosen by spirits,” and hence, endow these jhankri with special status; those shamans so chosen are themselves referred to as ban jhankri, distinguishing them from other kinds of jhankri. Representative oral texts of the shamans describe individual experiences of consciousness transformation through these encounters with ban jhankri.  (from Encounters with Ban Jhankri: Shamanic Initiation by Abduction in Nepal,Leslie Conton, Fairhaven College)

In a fascinating paper entitled, THE “CALLING,” THE YETI, AND THE BAN JHAKRI (“FOREST SHAMAN”) IN NEPALESE SHAMANISM, I found that there are different types of Yeti and that the ban jhankri is considered to be one of these.

The smallest and fastest yeti is named rang shinbombo(lit.: “self-generated shaman”) by Tibetan tribal groups like the Sherpa and Tamang, and in Nepali he is called ban jhankri. The term bombo means shaman, as does jhankri in Nepali, and these yeti are often thought to have mystical powers.

Those shamans initiated by the ban jhankri are also considered ‘self generated’, they call it an, aph se aph experience, that is, it arises on its own, unbidden and automatically, to those chosen to be shamans by the spirits. It is a spontaneous rite of passage. Indeed the yeti and banjhankri are real. They are not just characters in a story told, but realities lived in the soul of the Nepalese shaman.

For me, these wild Forest Shamans from various parts of the world live in all our souls and are a forgotten part of us we need to remember.

I have just been honoured with the presence of a new spirit animal and I have to say I am quite blown away, because in a sense, this animal is new to the Earth, and according to accepted scientific knowledge, shouldn’t even be possible! They came in a shamanic dream, I saw them above me, two strange looking bears, they were off-white with long necks and exuded a ferocious power. I ‘knew’ straightaway that they were the polar bear/grizzly hybrids known as Grolar Bears, or the term I like best, Nanulak, a word combining the Inuit-language words for polar bear and grizzly, nanuk and aklak.

These bears should not exist because in theory it is not possible for the offspring of two separate species to reproduce and the grizzly and polar bears are absolutely distinct species. The offspring of a lion and a tiger for instance cannot reproduce, yet for some reason these bears can! The result is a truly amazing bear, having the long face of the polar but the hump of a grizzly, the giant claws of a grizzly but with a degree of hairy under-paw like the polar. Polar bear hair is hollow, resulting in the illusion of it being being white due to the diffusion of light, however the skin of this ‘white’ bear is actually black! The hair of a grizzly is solid and again, the Nanulak combines both these features on various parts of its body, resulting in a sort of dirty looking bear.  It seems that climate change has caused the normally different ranges of these bears to begin to overlap, as polar bears, normally preferring the ice, travel farther inland as the ice is disappearing. What we are really looking at is a bear that is between worlds and perfectly adapted to survival in a new world that is emerging. I find the spiritual message of the Grolar Bear to be very relevant to shamanism today. The state of consciousness of the planet is resulting in more and more shamans emerging in non-shamanic cultures, this is down to the shamanic spirits and beyond any concepts of race or cultural mis-appropriation.  This makes sense, since most of the problems in the world stem from western culture and change needs to come from within that culture if things are to get better and shamanism has a role to play in this. We are seeing the universal truths of shamanism being expressed by those emerging as shamans in the West through direct initiation by spirits. The polar bear was the first initiatory animal to come to me, the connection I believe is that all living polar bears trace their matriarchal DNA back to a handful of bears in what is now Ireland! At the end of my dream a voice shouted, Come on the bears! and many bear cubs ran towards me. I see these cubs as the new shamans, like the Nanulak, a new being born to cope with a changing environment and changing times. Perhaps seemingly impossible to many, but real nevertheless, they are here, the new shamans are here!

                                            

Shapeshifting is a peculiarly shamanic and little understood phenomena. In my experience it manifests in different ways. It is possible for your consciousness to shape- shift into an animal in dream and journey states with various degrees of intensity. Once I found myself in the jungle with a curandero. He sat on my chest and blew tobacco smoke on me. My consciousness immediately shape-shifted into a mouse. Mouse-me ran into a mouse hole in the earth. In the hole I experienced exactly what it was like to be a mouse. The little hole was vast, like a cathedral to me and the other denizens of the earth like spiders and centipedes were uncomfortably large. Eventually my consciousness couldn’t hold the shift anymore and I came back to my human size, bursting out through the earth to the surface. The size difference aside, I felt there was very little difference between being a man or a mouse.

A more intense form of shapeshifting came when I was receiving initiatory experiences from the polar bear. Being attacked by an animal in a dream is a typical form of shamanic initiation and to this end the polar bear returned. I dreamed of being in a sea between Ireland and the Nordic lands. Whales were with me, teaching me to slow my heart rate and hold my breath to dive deep into this cold northern ocean of spirit. Then, a giant polar bear appeared, grabbed my arm and began to savage me and shake me like a rag. The polar bear then stood up and walked like a man into a clear icy sea. I was then pulled out of my body, the polar bear was standing waist-deep in water, its paws raised in the air. From between its legs a dark haired spirit child swam towards me. That the polar bear should be an initiatory animal for me did seem unusual as it predominantly associated with Inuit shamanism. However, I discovered that polar bears trace their family tree back to Ireland. Genetic evidence shows they are descended from brown bears living in Ireland during the last Ice Age. Scientists extracted mitochondrial DNA from the teeth and bones of seventeen bears found at eight cave sites across Ireland. Ten Irish brown bears from the ice age period between ten thousand and thirty-eight thousand years ago had the maternal DNA that is now seen in every polar bear. So, in this sense, the polar bear is a perfect animal to initiate an Irish shaman.

That night a profoundly beautiful gift was given; the spirit Tiger took full possession of me. It was in a way similar to that time in Ireland all those years before. I awoke in the early hours and the Tiger entered me from the left hand side and again I felt thick viscous spirit energy. I was taken completely control of, the part that was ‘me’ in my body was very, very small, one percent, ninety-nine percent was Tiger. I was full of delicious spirit ecstasy, a sort of ‘wild’ kundalini, my spine was alight my whole body electrified. My hands became claws and I was growling. Although my physical body was still human, my spiritual body had shapeshifted into a Tiger. After this the Tiger energy remained with me and I received a profound healing on both the emotional and physical level. Emotional and health issues that had been troubling me vanished and I walked with the strength of the Tiger within me into a new life and way of being in the world.

The next night I awoke to see a tree in my third eye. It was a ‘dark tree’ glowing with dark light. The tree came towards me and I felt it enter into me. This time I internally shapeshifted into a tree, a different energy to the Tiger, softer and more sexual. I just lay there with the tree energy inside me. All through this I received a message, it was non-verbal, it didn’t even form words in my head. It was of the importance of always doing the right thing. I think perhaps that the druids may have specialised in communing with tree spirits in this way.

The Buryat shamans call states like these, ongon orood, which means ‘embodying the shamanic spirits’ and may induce it at will. There was a time, when Michèle had a sore back, so I gave her a massage. During this I felt spirit energy enter into me, I heard a voice say, THIS, is a jaguar walk, and suddenly there was the jaguar, leaping through my third eye. I knew felt the jaguar come into me and I concentrated on letting the spirit do the healing. The jaguar is of course associated with ayahuasca and it was the great purgative power of the plant that came through because Michèle then began to feel sick and spent the rest of the night on the toilets! This is the difference between shamanic healing and other spiritual healing modalities like Reiki for example. A Reiki practitioner channels chi, universal energy, Reiki in fact means, ‘high chi’. With shamanic healing, the shaman embodies the shamanic spirits and they do the healing. As Michèle’s case shows, the shamanic healing goes very deep, the bad back was only symptomatic of something else entirely, needing to be released. Western medicine often tastes nice initially, but may only masks the symptoms, shamanic medicine may be bitter and unpleasant initially but can dig down to the root cause of the sickness and expel it.

I’m quite sure that truly powerful shaman can take shapeshifting much further than what I have experienced. The Buryat shaman Sarangerel said,

‘Sometimes when you merge with animal spirits you will transform yourself into those animals-I have seen my teacher turn into a wolf and I myself have left wolf tracks in the snow!’ 

I feel that these shapeshifting experiences were a direct result of healing my cumha, I no longer had a sense of separation, the barriers between myself, the spirits, nature and ultimately the One Soul had been broken down. I felt a certain fluidity in my spirit, that I was no longer strictly confined to regarding myself as only a human being.

One night, I saw a standing stone in a field. My Sami drum appeared and entered into it. The drum began to play, it was beating both within the stone and upon it. I felt myself merge with the stone and the drum. I was, at the one time, inside and outside the stone. I was the stone, the drummer and the drum. I was the vibration, the sound and the listener. I was the observer and the observed. I was, in essence, everything.

(from A Shamanic Kundalini Awakening by Brendan Ring)

The area in which I live, in the south-west of France, is home to some of the oldest and most beautiful cave art in the world. The caves of Pech Merle have been the scene of a number of my shamanic visions. I have seen a shaman woman making handprints of ochre all over the cave walls and deep inside the cave system I have received teachings about the Body of Light, from children sitting on spotted animal skins.

Once, in shamanic consciousness, I was shown a book, as the pages turned in front of me I saw different scenes from the caves, until I saw the drawing that is now considered to be a shaman. A spirit-hand passed right through my body and pointed emphatically at this picture. It depicts a person with a number of lines extending from the body and a strange shape above the head.

Archeologists have speculated that the lines are arrows or spears, and that this is some kind of ritual or symbolic death. They have further suggested that the shape above the head is a stylized bird, representing shamanic soul flight. To me however, a different interpretation reveals itself. The spears or arrows do in fact correspond closely to the main chakra points. There is one at the base of the spine, at the sacrum, the point where kundalini is most strongly felt initially. Then there is one going directly into the belly button, again a very important kundalini centre. There are three more spears going up the spine corresponding with the other major chakra points, except for those in the head. This brings us to the stylized bird figure. My sense is that rather than a bird, what is being shown here is a diagram of the spiritual nervous system in the brain. The three most important chakras in the head are Ajna(third eye), associated with the forehead, Sahasrara(crown, above the fontanel) and the lesser known Bindu chakra. All these chakras are connected. In kundalini yoga there is a meditation called Kirtan Kriya, during this, the yogi visualises drawing energy down through the crown chakra and out of the third eye in an L shape. If we follow the top of the ‘bird’ down, then turn left, we have this connection.

If we turn right we have the connection between crown and Bindu chakra. This interpretation is backed up by the line connecting the ‘bird’ to a point on the back of the shaman’s head. This is the exact location of Bindu chakra, where Hare Krishnas have their ponytail.  So to me, what we have here, is a detailed representation of the human spiritual nervous system, and at 25,000 years old, perhaps the earliest illustration of advanced yogic knowledge in the world!

This however is quite recent, compared to what has been found only a few miles from my house in the Cave of Bruniquel.  Here, archeologists have discovered what appear to be ritual enclosures made from stalagmites. What is astonishing is that this site is 175,000 years old and was likely constructed by Neanderthals!

Even earlier than the Neanderthals was their ancestor, homo erectus, also connected to this region as Tautavel Man.

 

In one of the most spectacular shamanic visionary experiences I have undergone, I made a direct connection with this most ancient ancestor, which I relate in my book, A Shamanic Kundalini Awakening.

Suddenly I became aware of a figure standing against the glass double doors that lead onto the patio. I felt a sense of recognition, and shouted, ‘look, they’re back!’ This brought me into a shamanic state of consciousness, a state of total awareness in which I was fully immersed within the vision and I was filled with wonder and excitement. The being at the window was about five feet tall and of a squat muscular build with no neck. It had its back turned to us revealing a body covered entirely in short grey- blue hair. Although I was behind it, I could simultaneously see its face, which was hairless with a sloping brow. It was like a small wild-man, a miniature Sasquatch and I ‘knew’ absolutely this was one of the Almas. Then I saw three other figures, also about five feet tall but these were wearing shaman costumes. No part of their bodies was visible, the costumes covered their faces down to their feet. The costumes had ribbons in the colours of the rainbow on them, like those used by Siberian shamans. They each held drums, and as they drummed they spun around, the ribbons swirling around them. Three Siberian, Almas shamans, drumming and whirling like dervishes on my terrace! 

The height and build of these shaman Almas corresponds to the traditional descriptions of them being between five and six and a half feet tall, not gargantuan like Sasquatch. It has been suggested by the great cryptozoologist Dr. Bernard Heuvelmans, that the Almas may be a surviving population of homo erectus.   Some reconstructions of Tautavel Man do match very closely the appearance of my Almas. I think the Almas came to me, as they have such a close connection to this region where I live, they too are of this place and are still here, at least in spirit form.  For me they are my shaman ancestors. The message I receive from them is, we are a part of you, that you have forgotten, and need to remember.

We certainly interacted with Neanderthals and it’s possible that homo sapiens and Neanderthal also interacted with homo erectus and other hominid species.  The archeology, combined with my own visions and experiences convinces me that, although shamanism may be our earliest form of spiritual expression, it was not confined to our species and may in fact be a legacy from those relatives and ancestors quite different from and very much more ancient than us.