giving our attention to the values of the shamanic worldview is an opportunity to ponder the relationship of those values to the values of contemporary global societies.In some respects we are advocating, in this issue, for the shaman as a religious figure for our time. Most of our major religious traditions have become so attenuated in their ties tothe mysteries of Earth and cosmos, that they no longer fulfill their function of binding usto the sacred. The shamanic personality is not only a practitioner of the sacred, but onewhose central role is healing through contact with the forces of the natural world. Theneed for healing is something we all share today, whether we are an indigenous person,western industrialist, male, female, child, four-legged, winged, leafed, or finned.Another reason why this personality is needed now is that we require strength in dark times. We are faced with monumental crises–political and corporate greed, mass speciesextinction, a full frontal assault on the environment, global warming, terrorism andwarfare, the AIDS epidemic. On a more personal level, Martín Prechtel (page 24) relatesthe intense trauma he experienced in the Guatamalean village of Santiago Atitlán. TheMayan people who were his community were slaughtered by the hundreds at the hands of death sqauds and his village was destroyed. His shamanic initiation, he writes, allowedhim to come through the experience with his spirituality intact, without bitterness, toactually live in, and offer healing to, the very culture that was in many respectsresponsible for that slaughter. Furthermore, the village shamanism survived intact. Thereis an indigenous soul, he writes, that is older and more durable than anything happeningin our current situation, no matter how dire it seems (see back cover and pages 18-25).The focus of shamanism for this issue of EarthLight is not to encourage the expropriationof indigenous ways, nor is it to suggest that we all run off to do sweat lodges, makesacred pipes, and do shamanic journeying. Each of us has our own path of Spirit in thislife. These indigenous practices demand our respect. They require years, sometimes alifetime, of preparation. Our choice for this issue’s focus is more about getting to thespirit of what shamans have to teach us about ourselves. What does it mean that we are soalienated from the awareness that Earth is primary? What depletion of soul are weexperiencing? How do we find our way back to the healing powers of Earth and Spirit?There aren’t ready-made answers. We must each find our way, and reflect on what itmeans for ourselves, our families, our communities, and our culture.In so doing, we need to remember that we are each of us indigenous to Earth, eventhough some of us have fallen into a profound amnesia about that reality. Shamanism is aworldwide practice and we each are descended from ancient peoples who practiced it insome form. The impulse behind shamanism is universal and ultimately, we are one people(including the non-human), and the healing and growth which come from a path of Spiritis the birthright of each of us. The Shaman is an archetypal presence in our culturalcoding and our DNA. You might even say that when we are talking about the welfare of the planet and the unborn, it is our responsibility to find our way back to that path and tolive it, not just talk about it. Understanding what the shaman is historically and what theemerging shamanic personality consists of may be profoundly helpful to our understanding of what is required of us in a time when the very future of Earth is at stake.
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