In a time of terror, where many powerful things hunt and eat humans, the shaman comes to the cave of the paintings to call forth powers that are greater. He can take on the form, as well as the force of the cave lion or the bison minotaur, that come alive in the flickering light of the pine torch. When he raises the skull of the cave bear, he assumes it mountainous size and strength. He can embody all these animal powers in the same moment.
Below the cave of the paintings, the dragon sleeps - to be raised and ridden in time of need, when the need is strong enough.
Bright jewels flash a color code on the breastplate of the scholar-priest who has come here from across oceans of time to reclaim the first, the primal symbols.
I am in his mind, as he is in mine, and both in the mind and muscles of the cave shaman.
[Report from a shamanic group journey into a prehistoric cave]
Feelings: exhilaration and light tristesse (at having to come back)
Reality: The cave resembles the Grotte Chauvet filmed in the new Werner Herzog documenatry "Cave of lost Dreams"; i had not seen the film at the time of the journey. There are descriptions of jewels on the breastplates of ancient high priests, including in the Temple at Jerusalem; I doubt that this "scholar-priest" comes from there. I know Bird People of this kind, from previous journeys. I know the Bear and the Lion rather well. Will I go to a place like this in the future? In vision, for sure. Possibly also in physical reality. Am I a civilized cave man? Sometimes.
I do past life regressions through hypnosis. I have regressed 3 people (separately) who have gone into detail of their life as a so-called caveman. All gave details on a life so very spiritual I had to wonder how far modern man has fallen and why. These people (in that life) knew (not just believed) that All were One. They had ceremony before hunting to ask the food to come to them. As one was dying, the only regret he had was in physically leaving his mate and family who depended upon him. Their holy wo/man was indeed spiritual and powerful enough to take on the guise of almost any being. Too bad they weren't powerful enough to take on the unholy change in store for their descendants. By the way, Cro-Magnon man was NOT related to Neanderthal. They walked in the same time.
ReplyDeleteI have been followıng your blogg since I happened to stumble on the workshops you gave earlier thıs year in the baltic area. (I lıve ın Sweden.) I tried to contact the organizer but got no reply... one day I have to attend (a lot of syncronicities) and maybe you wıll have to visit a cave in Turkey, nearby where I an staying right now. 25 years ago my relationship with that cave started... today when I left the Didim (Apollon Oracle) I saw the same lioness shape as you use as illustration on the mountain slope on the other side opposite to where the cave is located...
ReplyDeleteA depthless journey through time and earth. Unpolished jewels blink dully, history envelops like a cloud.
ReplyDeleteWhat a beautiful read.
Dee - I was just talking about the very same theme, while critiquing a recent "psychohistorical" approach by an analyst who contends that the experience of animal spirits and gods - then and now - is the result of dissociation disorders produced by childhood abuse. No kidding. We have magic and true power and perhaps even keys to partnership to reclaim from our distant ancestors, in the time of the cave artists and in the "partnership societies" of Old Europe under the aegis of the Goddess. I take whole groups in shamanic journeys to enter these worlds and reclaim what we can used today. Some of the results are reported in my books "Dreamgates" and in the chapter of my "Dreamer's Book of the Dead" titled "Death and Rebirth through the Goddess".
ReplyDeleteIrene - Ah, I would like to see that cave. I am teaching in Europe again in October - in Amsterdam and then for an advanced training near Montpellier in France. Details at my website www.mossdreams.com
ReplyDeletethecaferoyal - Thank you, and what an excellent screen name. I dined a few times at the Cafe Royal in London and have had some interesting experiences in dreams in its astral counterpart.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of embodiment of powerful animals, I suggest that anyone who likes horses see Bartabas & Ko Murobushi's new theater "Le Centaure et l'Animal." Bartabas has been doing theater with horses for years and his most recent play is about the fusion of man and horse. I just saw the play and loved it. He is a French artist but if you like horses, and horse medecine, I suggest you look at the video images of this play to be found on the internet. I especially like the scene where Bartabas is literally speaking through the head of a real horse.
ReplyDeleteIrene - Thanks for the tip. The scene where the man speaks through the real horse's head is extraordinary, and evokes those primordial images of theriomorphs with animal heads.
ReplyDeleteDue diligence: Reviews of "Le Centaure et l'animal" are mixed. The most frequent complaints are that there is too much of the slow human butoh dance, when we would like even more of the equine magic, and that for those listening to the words, the recital of Lautreamont's dark fantasy Maldoror is very unpleasant. See, for example, http://sideshow-circusmagazine.com/magazine/reviews/bartabas-ko-murobushi-centaur-and-animal
ReplyDeleteThank you for your timely post and the wonders of synchronicity. I'd been asking for dreams about shamanism by the ancient cave dwellers.
ReplyDeleteI had a dream about a woman with wild, white hair playing a flute in a cave. As she played, all of the stones and earth started to vibrate and buzz. Patterns, sort of like from smoke, started to form. But they were flat and above the ground, as if being drawn on an invisible table. Her spirit had to fly upward to see the message. When she did that, the smoke reformed into 3 dimensional animals. Some roared out into the world, while others chose to remain and went back into the cave walls.
A dream fragment and maybe a bit of music for a civilized cave man...
Anne - That is a powerful dream image, one I might try to use as the portal for a shamanic journey to that cave and that woman, especially if I had some of her melody to hum and use as what shamans call a "wing song". I am intrigued by your vivid description of the horizontal patterns in the smoke. Paleolinguists inspired by the work of Marija Gimbutas are researching sign languages of early Europe that predate writing as we currently understand it. All such arts were originally regarded as magic, with the power to manifest.
ReplyDeleteah how exciting! Your account touches my heart and thrills my soul. I remember the night we went on the journey. I brought my cave dream to the group. In my original dream I had a sense of wonder and reverence in the cave. I slowly reached out to touch the paintings on the cave walls, to trace the lines. As I did so, the animals became alive. I experienced their living power in a cave, in time beyond time.
ReplyDeleteThank you for reminding me of the wondrous experience!
Carol - Yes, I think you were dreaming into the ancient ways. I notice that more and more people are making similar connections, while more and more images and artifacts are being brought to the surface by archaeologists and spelunkers, and slowly assembled, and sparking ancestral memory.
ReplyDeleteIn my dream, it was like the patterns were a kind of message. Butthe shaman didn't read it in sequence the way I read a sentence. It was like all the different 'pieces' fit together and she could instantly read them.
ReplyDeleteWhen the pattern shifted to a new one, the way they shifted contained information too, and it wasn't just about 'reading' the new
image.
It was a glimpse into a very different way of seeing.
Between such fragments, your posts, and visiting a cave (on July 1 with the energies from ancient shaman as well as stone relics such as a standing bear, mammoth, bison, adorant/worshipper, and stone flute), an very much wanting to learn more. I'll be looking up Marija Gimbutas, thank you for the suggestion.
The sunset after the meeting with fellow healers was incredibly beautiful, huge vast pinks and blues and a red crimson red sliver of the red sun. Driving back on I5 down to Settle.
ReplyDeleteAt 4 am I woke startled from a dream. I was on a high ridge overlooking a vast beach. I could see for miles and miles. The sunset was beautiful, the sky was pink and blue, the ocean magnificent; and then there were these huge explosions, same color and I didn't know if they were like fireworks or what, blended with the sky, but then more of them spaced out every so often on the horizon and I became scared. Could they be nuclear explosions? more and more of them and I knew they were. I was waiting for the roaring wind of them to hit me, waiting and all I wanted to do was to get to my wife and be with her at the last moment. I awoke from the dream and went downstairs to her and the cat in the living room. She was up and said " What? Are you have weird dreams again?". I thought, well maybe I was just tuning into movies and mass media consciousness and the day's sunset. Or maybe something more.