In reality or in history, many sorts of things have occurred and therefore stories of these histories allow you to look at many different possibilities.
One that comes to mind, and is what you might call ‘ancient’ perhaps, not really ancient, rather they were nomadic.
So in this nomadic group/tribe/clan, there was a woman and she was the Chieftain’s wife. She was quite beautiful, dark hair, a very generous soul, kind of heart. So this woman was called Orella, they were married young as they did in that time. At the time of this story, Orella was almost considered old, as back then people did not live as long as they live now, so when we say she was nearing thirty that is old for that time.
So, when they got married, they had two children very quickly, two boys but after that she did not produce any more children. The boys died of illness and, which was quite rare actually, because there was not the same sort of infections and things that you have now. It was quite rare to die of illness and because you lived more in the elements, there were shelters and so on, but still – you were in the elements you were tough, you were physically tough and you did not succumb to illnesses very easily, but these boys did.
So, there is some question about whether they were poisoned or whether they had wounds that became infected because badly looked after, deliberately not looked after of what. So, these two children, the boys they died and of course as we said she had not produced any more children after that.
And for her there was this incredible sadness, not just because she had lost the two children but because there was no heir for the husband, the Chieftain to pass onto.
But not only that for her, but her responsibility to her group, her clan, her Tribe also was very strong for her and so there was an element of her letting the whole tribe down because this was seen as a failing on her behalf and of course women were the only ones that could produce children so it was very important they fulfilled their role, even though she had fulfilled her role, these children had since died.
So, grief became so great that she became almost incapacitated. So, when they moved camp, she couldn’t even make the walk, they had to build a pallet and slide her on the pallet. Orella became completely incapacitated. She could not really eat and this actually brought a real darkness over the whole tribe. It was as if, with her kind and generous heart she was the one holding the light for the whole group, the tribe. Whether they had placed that light into her, or whether she naturally, automatically had it, that, of course, is debatable.
So, they had a Shaman, but as a Shaman cannot really interfere unless they are asked, so they act on things by-request, they cannot go forward and interfere.
Now it was interesting that it had to get to this point before the Chieftain went to ask their shaman for help. This point. So, when they had only the two children and could have no more, they did not ask for help. When the children died and she fell into grief, they didn’t ask for help. It had to get to this point where the light of the whole tribe was fading, then he went to the Shaman and he asked for help.
And it was at this point that you can see that what we are talking about with our tradition, that the person themself needs to lead. The one that needs the healing, or wants the healing, they need to lead.
So, it wasn’t so much that the Shaman had to perform a ceremony, or perform a ritual, had to go into a trance or anything like that, they had to somehow get the woman, the Chieftain’s wife into a state where they could get up and lead their own healing and in the ‘getting up’ they brought about the healing, not only of themselves, but their Tribe.
And that was the journey of the Shaman and this woman, it was not about healing the woman and producing more children, it was about guiding this woman, helping this woman to get up and start to look for healing.
So, how did that happen? The Shaman, of course, went into a journey state, went into a trance state to connect with the spirit of the Tribe, not the spirit of the woman, or the spirit of the children, but the spirit of the Tribe and in that space, it was discovered that there was a wrong committed within the Tribe and that wrong had not been acknowledged and this woman, the Chieftain’s wife, because she was the ‘light of the Tribe’ because of her kind and generous life she had taken that energy.
Now she didn’t know what this wrong was. Her husband knew what it was and he didn’t act appropriately. She didn’t know what it was. So once the Shaman knew that and was able to understand that aspect of what had happened and what could be done to remedy that situation and replicate that energy that had been created, she was able to call the Chieftain and the perpetrators of the event to her.
She didn’t go to them, she called them to her. That is a very important thing to understand because we are talking about the Chieftain.
So, in normal circumstances, she would go to the Chieftain, but in this circumstance, it was very important that he came into her space and perpetrators came into her space. None of them knew that any of the others had been invited. As soon as they all turned up, they knew that she knew.
She probably knew from the beginning, but again things have to play out. Things have to be processed. So, she calls them in, they are in her shelter and she doesn’t think to say anything. She just sits there; the fire is going and she just sits there. Doesn’t really look at them, she is just looking into the fire and of course, it all comes tumbling out, the perpetrators know why they’re there, they say why they are there and the Chieftain, however, is the one that needs to take full responsibility because he did not act when he should have acted, but he did not act and that as a Chieftain was a fatal-failing for the whole group, for the Chieftain not to act when he should have acted.
So, without even saying anything, he leads: calls the group together, explains the situation and tells them what happened, what he did, what he didn’t do and now how he is going to remedy the situation.
So, these perpetrators are banished from the group to fend for themselves, this, of course, causes distress but it is understood, then the Shaman goes to the wife and only then does she go to the wife and she sits with wife, holds the wife’s hand and she goes into a trance-journey type space herself and it is as if the information is being transmitted to the wife.
Not about the perpetrators, not about the husband but about the energy that was in the tribe that caused her life to go out. It wasn’t the death of the children that caused the light to go out, it was this situation that caused the light to go out.
So, she was able to get up, exist once more in the group. She was still suffering the grief of the loss of the children but she was able to regain herself because herself had been lost when this situation had occurred and it had been mistaken for the grief of losing the children.
Of course, then that had made the situation caused by the perpetrators, that situation where the husband did nothing, it had made that much more because the grief was piled onto that so it had become so much bigger.
So, in this situation the wife was ‘freed’ if you like from that burden, of course, she still grieved for her children but the grief was more of a-natural-grief, it was an understanding of the mortality of humans, of the difficulty of their life and the realisation that is wasn’t just her children that died, there were others that had died, and that was the thing that got her over to the ‘other side’ if you like.
And of course of in all good stories, there was a happy ending because having this situation resolved, then she went on to produce another two children. One boy, one girl and there was an heir and then there was the girl who was able to provide solace and love and what have you.
The interesting thing is it wasn’t what was seen that was the problem, it was what had not been seen and had been hidden that was the problem.
So, if the Shaman was just focused on the woman, then they would only have seen what was seemingly grieving the woman, but they viewed it as a Tribal thing, not as an individual thing.
What is interesting about that for many people the problems that they have in their life, you can never ignore the Tribal aspect and by that we mean ‘ancestral’. You can never ignore that. It’s not always the problem you need to look at.
Now when we say ancestral, we do not necessarily mean the direct family members, it can be an energy of that particular group, so let’s say that they are white and they were in an area where there was slavery. They might not have been slavers, but they are in that energy because they are white.
That ancestral energy that is around them is going to have an effect on them. Do you see what we mean?
So, journeying, especially as a Shaman, or doing work as a Shaman it is incredibly important to be able to see the whole picture and the only way you can do that is to have no expectations of what is the problem, you must let spirit open up to show you what the problem is.
Brad & Caroline.