Shamanistic Dismemberment

Shamanistic Dismemberment
a rite of passage

There is no way around it: the word dismemberment conjures nasty images and most folk just don’t venture further -

but for those who do, dismemberment becomes sacramental(1) …

albeit, a seemingly distasteful sacrament to be sure …

but then, isn’t it true that letting go is hideous sometimes?

ritualistic dismemberment is all about letting go --

it’s about relinquishing in the highest form –

in order to boldly break out of the old and seize the new -

it’s about dying to the illusion, to the darkness,
and being reborn into the light, into the I AM –

when years ago i was introduced to the shamanistic concept of dismemberment, given my personality
i was at first and naturally repulsed,

but as i contemplated the concept’s deeper meaning,

i decided that belief is power

and

who am i to judge the power of another's belief?

thus  i moved along my path, 
and dismemberment fell from my radar -

that is, until a number of years later
when Spirit provided me this Dreamtime(2) experience:

i found myself at the bottom of an extremely narrow canyon
where i lay
prone and loosely tethered to a cold slab
of marble or granite with only a slit of sky above -

the space was filled with an energy foreign to me.
and while all logic screamed "danger!"
i was calm and yet unafraid

slowly my eyesight brought in a golden firelight
which cast more shadows than clarity in the space -
but by them i could feel but could not see
the sea of palpable vibrations on which i rode the silence,

broken only by quiet brief vocalizations here and there
about the work at hand …

when my sight had at last adjusted to flame flickers,

i realized in fact that i had no eyes –

yet, i could ‘see’ the energy surrounding me

and counted a baker’s dozen of Crow
standing tall as humans, led by the humblest among them -
my heart leapt with recognition at the source and conduit

of love that i have known since forever
(3),
and which now filled this chamber slashed into Mother Earth -

this Crow i have known as my corvine mentor

from many many many many lifetimes

wordlessly he communicated to me that the task was nearly completed now,
and as i watched unaffected,

the last bits of flesh were beak-scraped from bones(4)

which i knew to be my own …

this meat of my body was then flown bit by bit up through the cavern's slit

and offered to the eagles and bird of prey,

reminding me of the Tibetan sky funeral.
i felt at once conflictingly unworthy and deeply honoured …

from the dwindling pile of bones, each Crow took another,
then flew off somewhere and returned until there were no more,
and only a fresh fleshy mass remained on the table.
When the last Crow paused slightly before reaching for what remained of me,
my mentor spoke softly,
"Leave her heart - it is already broken.”

NHT

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(1) sacrament – comes from the latin sacre- meaning sacred … literally, a sacred action

(2) Dreamtime – NOR (non-ordinary reality) – medicine dream – these are culturally informed, anthropological terms used to distinguish a specific shamanic experience from normal sleeping/dreaming -

Dreamtime experiences are unique in that from them something becomes manifest in OR (ordinary reality) - in normal dreaming, this does not occur …

for example, in real life (OR) i was bitten by a brown recluse -- i received Dreamtime (NOR) medicine which Spider delivered directly into my eyes - in the morning each of my eyelids bore a bite mark … further i followed Spider’s Dreamtime instructions (a continually refreshed poultice of MSM and 'holy basil' as referred to by the Hindus), and the brown recluse bite healed without a trace… this is significant - brown recluse bites can kill (i lost a friend) and leave a typically deep pitted scar from necrotic tissue.

(3) Crow has been a lifelong teacher ... i was beaten more than once as a child for talking to Crow
(imagine: a white trying to help an NDN 'fit in' not realizing that the child was Crow 'cawing' not to be impudent, but because it was impolite not to answer when spoken to ;) )

(4) there’s something to be said for DNA memory because i learned of Choctaw bone pickers, long after the dismemberment experience …

Nay_ho_tze's Medicine Musings