The Gift that Doubt Brings

One of the persistent companions for some people on the spiritual journey is doubt. Doubt puts us in a painful and lonely place and is even said to be a major block to our evolution. But, we’re human, and there it is, creeping up on us unexpectedly.

On the other hand, doubt brings us face-to-face with the very shamanic experience of having no solid ground under our feet. It calls in the ‘not-knowing’. The willingness to not know the answers, although it can be scary, is the fertile space of darkness in which new worlds are born.

For a little while, recently, I came to the edge of my courage and belief to a place of uncertainty: of my journey, my practice of shamanism and even of myself. I no longer knew myself as a 'hollow bone' or conduit of Spirit, and instead was asking whether I should even be doing this work.

But Spirit had plans and led me to contact Sandra Ingerman, an American shaman, one of the foremost exponents of world shamanism today. I put my doubts directly to her.

Here’s part of her response: “Shamanism is a practice of direct revelation. This means that it is up to the helping spirits to come up with healing methods and solutions to client's issues. The practitioner does not diagnose or perform healings without consulting first with helping spirits. For they see the issue from a different perspective than we can see from a human egoic level of awareness.’

This simple reminder brought me back to my courage. Of course the way to work with any issues, at least from where I am right now, is through my beautiful, reciprocal relationship with power animals and guides!

What joyful support from the other side of Mother Earth through the magic of both Spirit and technology.

Wanting to integrate this more, I asked in a shamanic journey to be shown the essence of Shaman. No answer. That night, I went to bed with the same request.

The next morning I received an email from Narelle Nicholls, a sculptor, who makes life-size clay ‘dwelling places for spirit.’ After a day of email discussion on a range of things, she offered to send a picture of her spirit home for wolf/shaman. This felt like an important moment.

It takes my breath away that Narelle’s vision so perfectly transmits the core of Sandra’s message. Here is power through the eyes of Spirit while Shaman takes the secondary role as ‘hollow bone’, channel, immersed in Spirit, ego-free and seeing from the heart.

I feel that I have a lot to learn from this teaching and this spirit being.