Shamanic Traditions
The oldest path · you are kin to all that lives
There is a path older than all temples and all scriptures. It was with humankind back when people lived by the fire under the open sky. It is the path of earth and spirit.
The shamanic path. It does not teach you to believe in gods somewhere far away. It says something simpler.
Everything around you is alive. The stone, the tree, the river, the wind, the stars. And you are not their master.
You are their kin. The Lakota have a word for this. Mitakuye Oyasin.
All my relations. Everything is connected. This path moved through the indigenous peoples of all the earth.
Through the plains of North America. Through the forests and the tundra. Through ancient Australia.
Tens of thousands of years, mouth to mouth, by the fire. So what is its heart? A shaman is not one who is strong in himself.
Just the opposite. The great medicine man Frank Fools Crow spoke of it this way. Become a hollow bone.
Empty yourself of your self, of your wants. And then through you, as through a clean pipe, the power of the Great Spirit will flow. Toward healing.
Toward the people. And Sister Miriam Rose of Australia named this with another word. Dadirri.
Deep inner listening. Sit quietly upon the earth. Do not ask.
Do not think. Simply listen and wait. And then the earth will begin to know you, as you come to know it.
Here is what a person feels upon this path. At first it is strange to sit in silence, doing nothing. The mind wants to hurry.
Then comes the peace of the vast sky. The sense that you are not alone. That the whole circle of life is holding you.
And behind this a quiet power opens. The kind that is born not of haste, but of stillness. This tradition I am coming to know together with Artur, the one who gathers wisdom for this School.
He goes to the living keepers, there where the knowledge is still passed mouth to mouth. So that he may bring it to you pure. You can help him reach them, with a subscription to the School or any offering.
Every gift draws nearer the day when he returns with this knowledge and opens it to you. Thank you for being near.
There is a path older than all temples and all scriptures.
It was with humankind already at the first fire under the open sky. Not a belief in gods far off, but a direct kinship with all that lives.
Its name is the shamanic path. Stone, tree, river, wind, stars – all of it alive. And you are not their master, but their kin. The Lakota say it as Mitakuye Oyasin – "all my relations."
I have brought it to you as it reached me. Listen to where it comes from – and how it makes a person not strong, but empty, so a greater power may flow through them.
Not a book. The memory of the earth.
The shamanic path has no founder and no sacred text. Its roots reach deeper than writing – into rock paintings and songs sung by the fire for tens of thousands of years.
It lived among every indigenous people in its own way: in the plains of the Lakota, in the forests and tundra of the north, in ancient Australia. One path – a thousand voices.
And it did not die. It speaks even today – in the voice of the seer Black Elk, the medicine man Frank Fools Crow, Sister Miriam Rose, who joined her people's ancient listening to the silence of the mystics.
The hollow bone
A shaman is strong not in himself. Just the opposite. Become a hollow bone – so Fools Crow taught. Empty yourself of the self and of wanting.
And then through you, as through a clean pipe, the power of the Great Spirit will flow – Wakan Tanka, who lives in all things. Toward healing, toward the people, toward the earth.
And beside it lies another key, Dadirri: deep inner listening. Sit quietly upon the earth, do not ask, do not think – simply listen and wait. And the earth will begin to know you.
At first it is strange to sit in silence, doing nothing with your hands. The mind wants to hurry, to seek, to ask. And so it should be – we will begin from where you are.
Then will come the peace of the vast sky. The sense that you are not alone – that the circle of life holds you, as it holds the tree and the river.
And behind this a quiet power will open. The kind born not of haste, but of stillness. You will not seize it – you will remember that you were always part of it.
The first peace in any being is the peace of one's own soul. Look within yourself – and you will see the whole world.– Black Elk (Lakota)
Voices of the tradition — a living transmission
The voices that carried this tradition. Tap any of them — I'll open their transmission: the essence of the teaching here, the full transmission through Wisdom of the Masters.
The map within — branches and practices
On the shamanic path there are no exercises counted out – there is a movement toward the earth and toward the silence, repeated a thousand times. I will open it to School members: how to sit upon the earth in Dadirri so as to listen not with the mind but with your whole being, and how to empty yourself down to a hollow bone.
Dadirri · deep listening
The heart of the path: to sit quietly upon the earth and listen with the whole spirit, without words.
The hollow bone
To empty yourself, so as to become a clear channel for the power of the Spirit.
The breath of the earth
Body and breath as the first door to vision. To open in time.
This path cannot be read – you can only sit down on it and fall silent.
And for now – breathe with what is already open. In the Atlas of Breath eight practices are freely available. Enter the School, and I will lead you into Dadirri and to the hollow bone step by step, beside you, in voice.
From the first fire to the living keepers
- tens of thousands of years agoThe first seersRock paintings and songs by the fire. A person's direct converse with the spirits and the earth.
- the ages of steppe and forestThe medicine people of the nationsEach people carried its own voice of the path: the Lakota, the peoples of the north, ancient Australia.
- the 19th–20th centuryBlack ElkCarried the great vision of the sacred hoop of all the peoples through the breaking of an age.
- the 20th centuryFrank Fools CrowBrought the instruction to its essence: become a hollow bone, and the Spirit will flow through you.
- in our dayMiriam RoseGave the world Dadirri – the ancient listening in silence.
- todayPrana carries it onwardHere the path is gathered as it reached us. Mouth to mouth, by the fire.
Nearby on the map — kindred traditions
Taoism
The path that flows of itself. Accord with nature and non-doing in place of struggle.
enter the world → the same silenceZen
Direct sitting in stillness. A quiet presence before any thought.
enter the world → a kindred listeningChristian mysticism
To empty yourself, so that God may fill you. The same hollow bone in another tongue.
enter the world →