Introduction to "The Shaman and the Medicine Man," by Evelyn Eaton:
The title of this book has no reference to the author, but
rather indicates the Shaman in the collective sense. I am not a
Shaman. I am a Me'tis Medicine Woman. This is the personal log-
book of a Journey, a sequel to "Snowy Earth Comes Gliding" and "I
Send A Voice," earlier accounts of experiences among Paiute,
Arapaho and other tribes following traditional ways. It begins
where "I Send A Voice" broke off and might be called an attempt to
travel the Shamanic Journey into a realm of experience we usually
believe belongs to specialists, Medicine Men and Women, Lamas,
Saints, Enlightened Ones. We are not to leave it respectfully to
them. It is the journey all of us will take when the time is
right, and the time may be right for many who do not realize it,
*now*.
I am, as we all are, traveling the evolutionary path to the
Center and the Source of All, and like any traveler, wanting to
share news and maps with others, and to learn from the experience
along the way. What I have gathered so far is that we are
expected to graduate from this School of Life upon our Mother
Earth with the degree of perfection we can manage to achieve. The
ideal set before us is perfection--"Be ye therefore perfect, as
your Father in Heaven is perfect," was urged by One who never
jeered or mocked or demanded the impossible. The goal will
therefore eventually be reached, sooner by the generous, later by
the laggards. It is up to us which we choose to be.
Those on the Christian path were told, "Know ye not that we are
*all* called to be saints?" The church set apart a day to
consider this injunction, All Saints' Day, November 1st, and for
those who cannot or will not graduate this time around, the next
day is set apart, All Souls Day, November 2nd.
Those on the Buddhic path are urged to graduate into
Bodhisattvas, and in the meantime to become Gurus. A Dedication
of Merit runs: "May I quickly become Guru, Lord Buddha, and lead
each and every sentient being into his enlightened realm, due to
these merits."
Those on the Rainbow Path of the Native American are urged to
follow the example of the Great Ancestors, through purification
and sacrifice (another term for "merits" perhaps) in the Sweat
Lodge, in the Sun Dance, round the Medicine Wheel, and with the
Pipe, that in our daily living we may help to spread the splendor
of the Vision which the whole world needs. The point is we are
*all* called to live up to and reveal the Light Within--to find
the way no one can travel for us and to follow it to the end, the
end that is likely to be a new beginning, unimaginable to us until
we reach it.
--
daveus rattus
yer friendly neighborhood ratman
KOYAANISQATSI
ko.yan.nis.qatsi (from the Hopi Language) n. 1. crazy life. 2. life
in turmoil. 3. life out of balance. 4. life disintegrating.
5. a state of life that calls for another way of living.