Living Well

    Oftentimes, I wonder if I am on the right path, and if I am living well.  I want to go up to someone, someone who has a deep understanding of me, an awareness of what is to come, and knowledge of what is right, and I want to ask them if I am doing it right.  I think we all want that reassurance, at some level.  I’m finding though that those nearly omniscient sources are hard to come by.  But what if I told you about Paul: a vegetarian from London, a practitioner of many spiritual arts, and the first none-Mongolian shaman to use Mongolian traditions to accept a spirit into his body.  And what if I told you about Joshua Roosevelt, an ancestral spirit from 17th century Russia who Paul successfully linked with, and the time I asked Joshua how to live well.
Our group had met Paul before his ceremony, and we were bubbling over with questions about shamanism, which he answered graciously and thoroughly. Shamanism is not a religion, it is a belief and a practice that connects our world with the spirit world.  The shamans themselves spend their lives helping others by using that connection with the spirit world to relieve suffering here on earth.  Every civilization around the world has its own unique type of shamanism, and Mongolian shamanism is considered to be one of the strongest types of shamanism in the world.  When we met with Paul the second time, we were much more hesitant and shy.  This time we knew that he had connected with his ancestral spirit, and I personally was wondering if Joshua was close by and could hear our questions.
We were the first people with which Paul called down Joshua without the help of his teacher.  He wore a loose black outfit embroidered with golden dragons, a large silver medallion, and several necklaces and rings.  Around his head he wore a black headdress with a feathers sticking up in the back and an embroidered face of white thread and seashells while black tassels that hung down in front of his own face so we could not see him.  We were quiet, tense with anticipation of the unknown.  Paul sat in front of our makeshift alter, prayed three times, then he took his animal hide drum and drum stick, sat deeply bent in a chair, and began to drum.  His head swayed back and forth like a snake, the headdress moving back and forth while the drum beat faster and faster until BAM! Joshua jumped up with a roar, crouching like a warrior, drum and drum stick extended like weapons next to our whiteboard.  One of the students led him to the seat we had prepared for him, and he asked for vodka and tobacco, which we also had waiting.  (Paul had told us that Joshua liked to drink and smoke.)  Calm after smoking his pipe and enjoying several shots of vodka, he called us to him, one by one.

It’s hard to know what to ask a spirit when the time actually comes.  What is the spirit world like? Why are you here? Why am I here? Am I doing the right thing? Am I living the right way? What should I be doing? Will everything be alright?  The room was quiet and respectful as we each revealed our deepest worries, questions, and confusions while we asked for reassurance and guidance.  Joshua answered in chopped sentences and a husky, barking voice, grunting loudly on nearly every exhale.  He was here to help us and would stay for as long as we asked him, taking vodka and tobacco breaks between each consultation.  The warm smell of juniper and tobacco filled the room, and as Joshua talked, the headdress that Paul wore seemed to become more animated and alive in the darkness.  Its eyes could see me, its ears could hear me, and its mouth was talking to me.   Eventually I found myself talking not to the tassels hanging in front of Paul’s face, but the seashell face.
I sat cross legged in front of Joshua, so close that our knees touched each other’s and I could feel warmth radiating between us.  He took my head with his hand and held my forehead against his own, the feathers in his headdress brushing my hair softly.  How can I live well? I asked.  He told me in halting sentences to sit quietly every day and reflect and think  What did I do well today? What did I do badly? How can I change?  It is a simple way, but a right way in the complicated times we are living in today that make our hearts and minds crazy.  He then gave me his blessing, blowing tobacco onto my head, and as the sweet smoke tendrils weaved through my hair, he took a colorful cloth whip and brushed the my back several times.
To get rid of bad energy he said.  I asked him if there was a lot of it.
Relative.

These are from a different shamanic ceremony from the countryside, but they have the same drums and masks..