I woke up this morning and said: “I was being taught all night long.”

“What do you mean, you were being taught?” Chuck asked.

“I was being taught something all night long in dreaming, the same thing repeatedly, but now I can’t remember what it was!” I whined. “Maybe I can call it up later, I’m pretty good at that,” I said, as I fought to hold onto what had vanished as soon as I opened my eyes. Synchronistically, this is exactly what happened last October when I was dreaming with the women shamans, asking them to teach me how to become a shaman and it is what I had been planning to write about today. So, wouldn’t you know, I had another experience to underscore the process of learning to become a shaman. Here is the experience I had last fall, as I wrote about it in my journal on October 23, 2009:

Dreaming was not as successful last night, though I asked for the next step in shamanic practice. Once again I put the dreaming pillow on my lower abdomen before I fell asleep. Whatever I got had something to do with the self, both the body self and the ego self, but it was not clear. Ironically, I fought with my body throughout the night, too lazy to sit up, reach for my notebook and write down what I was getting, clear or not.

“Write it down!” I commanded my sleeping self, but then I would argue: “It’s not clear!”

“Write it anyway!” I retaliated, but still I was too lazy to do so. I figured I would remember it, which I have failed to do, except knowing that it had something to do with the self. Perhaps it was about aligning the body self with the intent to do the work. The lazy body obviously got in my way last night. I will have to give it another go tonight and hopefully I will not have the same issue to contend with, my lazy self. Pretty interesting, I must say!

Later in the day I wrote the following:

Okay, so I get that I was confronted with my lazy self and that is my current challenge. This lazy self must be confronted in order to keep moving forward. This is the avoidant self, the reluctant self, the fearful self, but she is not as strong as she used to be. Now she is more like a slug in the way, not much energy, but still present and capable of sabotaging my progress. This sluggish self was, at one time, the depressed, traumatized self, immobilized by fear and unavailable to truly live until the trauma had been realized. In the old days, before I recapitulated, I remained caught in two worlds, never quite present in either, but now that I am awake I must remain awake and alert. The old sluggish self still tests me as she did last night while dreaming. I argued with her. Contending with this self is the third step in the practice of shamanic work, the whole physical self: the conscious mental self, the body self, the conjuring mind self, the ego self, but I see it as all related to the ingrained comforts of the physical body, the lazy self. (End of journal entry.)

My experience last night was very similar to that of last October. I still have my notebook open beside me as I sleep, a pen stuck into the page and all I have to do is lean over, pick up the pen and begin writing. I argued with myself again last night, thinking in dreaming that of course I would remember, I always remember, I’m good at that. All aspects of the physical self were present again last night, teaching me a valuable lesson; the conjuring mind, the ego self, the lazy physical self all in cahoots to show me that something else is necessary in order to truly do shamanic work, and that is: to get beyond the limitations of the physical self, which will always seek to remain dominant.

The other thing that strikes me today is that the two previous lessons that I learned in dreaming were also in play last night and in my dream of last October too. I was being shown again the workings of the two minds, the conjuring mind and the inner knowing mind that argue incessantly. I knew I should write down what I was getting on both occasions, but I could not get beyond the ego, which upheld its superiority. “Don’t worry Jan,” my ego self said, “you’ll remember!” The second lesson, the value of repetition, was also in action. In both instances I dreamed the same thing, over and over again, but since I also argued with my physical self, I failed miserably to recall what the lessons were. Once again, as I had done last October, I woke up this morning holding onto the fact that I was missing, because of my laziness, a very valuable lesson, but now I see the real lesson as being the repetitive, night-long fight between the two minds. The knowing mind was seeking to wake me up, asking me to shift out of the old lazy self and allow the new disciplined self to take over and push the ego, the conjuring mind, and the lazy physical self out of the way.

Alas! Now I understand the true value of repetition: to force a shift. But shift will only happen when we are ready; when we finally get just what it is that we are being taught or asked to do, when we have repeated the same lessons to the point of mundanity and boredom, until we say, hey, there must be more to life than just this same old stuff! And in the shamanic world the action of shifting is not an action of the conjuring mind, except in learning to know it, in understanding how it works to hold us in our old places, in our lazy body selves, in our comforts, in our egos, in our old places of trauma, until we have learned what they have been trying to wake us up to, in dreaming or in waking life. Pushing ourselves beyond the limitations of the physical, mind or otherwise, is the next step in learning to become a shaman.

Know your enemy. Know your mind, know your ego, know your limitations and then push beyond them. Wake up and remember! These are the real lessons in awareness that I have been taught by the women shamans. Whether you are interested in the shamanic world or not, awareness is the true key to evolving, in this world and in the next. Once again, this is all related to the practice of recapitulation too. The steps I have learned from the women shamans of don Juan’s line are steps in undertaking the process of fully understanding the self, because, in actuality, you have to understand and know the self in order to understand the shaman’s world and be able to maneuver in it. It is the same thing that we will be confronted with when we die. We must be prepared to maneuver in a world where we will no longer have a physical self to rely on, to blame, or to trust. No comforts of the physical will be available. Only our energy bodies will be available, and how will we fare if we do not know them?

Next week, I will bring you the fourth step in the process of shamanic work that I learned in dreaming with the dreamers. Until then, watch out for the conjuring mind! Pay attention to what the body is repeatedly attempting to say instead, as Jeanne suggests in her lessons in inner work; go deeper into the body self. Pay attention to the earthquakes within, as she mentioned in her message on Monday. The body holds more in its silent sinews than you know. And then go beyond to the energy that lives inside that lazy physical house of self and invite it to emerge from its sleepy state and enjoy a little of the energy of the spring with you!
With love and humble attempts to remain aware,
Jan