THAT DAY

I just reread Sandra Miesel's "Dreamrider" (reissued as "Shaman"), one of the few seriously researched novels about shamans and dreamwork that I've found. It echoes much of my real life so vividly, I get upset--feel so inept, so inferior, next to these shamans, Kara and Lute and their reluctant pupil Ria... these fictional shamans!

DREAM 1: MIDWAY TO ALPHA CENTAURI

I'm on the first starship to Alpha Centauri. We're a long way out; even Jupiter's invisible now. The sun, dead astern, is just a bright star. We argue whether we could tell it's the nearest or not, without a computer or charts. It's very bright, but is it the brightest? I say it can't be because Sol's about as luminous as Alpha Centauri, and they're about equidistant now, and Sirius though further off has always been brighter. I forget that we're midway between Sol and Alpha Centauri, so they're each only two light years off, not four. Twice as close and four times as bright as Alpha Centauri is from Earth! So both may be brighter than Sirius, and Sol may still be (marginally) brightest. I don't know.

The crucial fact is, we're midway. We've been accelerating out of Sol's space all this way, instruments focused on home. Now the two stars are equally far, equally dim. This transition point is the darkest time. But not for long. Alpha Centauri will soon visibly dominate. It will be the sun.

Time to turn the ship around and begin decelarating.

And focus on the new sun.

Time to reverse my orientation! So far, I've been past-looking. Shift to the future! Time to look ahead to the new sun. The dream emphasizes forward-looking, not just by the symbolic content, but by the future setting.

Yet, ironically, my first thought on waking was disappointment. After all, we were only half way to Alpha Centauri! Such is the cultural trance...

DREAM 2: MY MENTOR'S ADVICE

My mentor sits in the shadows, and says: "Shamanism is like sailing into the wind at an angle: a long fast reach, then a short tack to get upwind; or weaving on a handloom, where the thread goes in and then must be checked and tamped down before the next is thrown. Progress, then consolidate! Eat, then digest!"

And right now... I'm digesting. He uses different images, but his gist is the same as my previous dream--the darkest passage in interstellar space is also proof that I've gone "where no one's gone before." Disorientation and darkness are natural now.

My teacher adds "Shamans, unlike scientists, must not trust rules. If you get a regular routine, a set of firm laws, axioms, assumptions, and let them carry you along, you lose your own awareness of life. You stop swimming and sit on the raft you've built. Eventually, you forget how to swim."

You have to stay limber and aware and not get too much help from tradition and rules. Shamanism is the art of awareness. But unlike Buddhism and other organized religions, we don't just observe and renounce. We act on our deepest inclinations, whatever they are, trusting our natures, like the animals we are: we become the wisest most alert animals we can be. With both human and animal senses, we're hybrids--centaurs. With hybrid vigor, we can guide our herds and packs.

Alpha Centaurs.

FOOTNOTE

Weaving as a metaphor = In DREAMRIDER, Kara the teacher weaves. She uses the learn-to-swim metaphor too. Kara consistently emphasizes practice--not rote learning, not theory. Only direct experience teaches true magic.

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