The Shaman Tree Pt. II

Knowing spirit as a state of being, an energetic frequency you can feel flowing through you, is a state of pure presence. Imagine a loud hum that drowns out everything else, filling up your experience with the awareness of only this sound. In this presence, there is no self, no thing to understand, only the hum of existence to guide you forth. From this formless place, all arises. The big bang, your ancestors, you, your next big idea, and your vision for the world. It may not happen on the timeline you are used to, but with practice you can trust that all is provided in this state of presence. Of course, it is not necessarily practical to expect to live in this state at all times, but you can visit this energetic home and come into alignment with it as much as possible. Remember that much of your personality - your thoughts, your worries, your stories - is a layer of clothing you wear based on your conditioning and it cannot touch or disrupt this essential state. If you are searching for “truth,” search no further than this state of presence. Your truth is not something to understand, it is something to experience, and the more you practice coming home to this frequency the more you become a vessel for experiencing your truth.

Recognize that your beliefs about yourself, others, and the world, including all you believe needs to be fixed or understood, stems from the mind. All witnessing and creation stems from the root of your being, literally the lower part of your body of the bottom of your spine. Not only do you create life itself from this part of you, but all things grow from the root.The more you practice being rooted, the more you become like the tree, deeply connected to your essence and a vessel for your creative power. You can be still in this place, feeling the nervous system settle down, while simultaneously reaching out and expressing your truth in action. From the root, you need not hustle. Hustle stems from the mind - the thinking brain and your conditioned beliefs about who you are supposed to be - and has no place in the truth of your experience. Like leaves on the wind, you may become flexible to the circumstances of your environment, but inside you remain still, deeply connected to your source which moves at a slower pace and rhythm. The rhythm of your root does not get caught up in the anxieties of the mind and the minds of others, it remains grounded and knows its place amongst the dance of all things. Whenever you forget who you are and what your role is in this world, come back to the root. Glance at a tree, they never forget.

‘Shaman’ can be a pretty abstract, ‘woo,’ or grandiose term you might think. But I use the word simply to mean being in deep connection with the root of creation, the energetic source of all things, and the power of transformation. At this root is where darkness can be transmuted into light. Just as a tree uses photosynthesis to transmute carbon dioxide into air, the shaman transmutes the darkness of human experience into light and shares this light with all beings. You may not consider this your mission as I consider it mine, but know that all have the capacity to transmute at the root, if not for others then for yourself. My journey has led me to the practice of being the shaman tree. In meditation, I call upon this energetic source within me and allow it to fill me up, bringing me into the intensity of the present. With complete focus, I am in alignment with this source and I transmute the energy within me and outside of me. I allow this energy to spill out from my being and fill up the room, the home, the neighborhood, and the world of which I am contained in and a part of. I do not conduct this practice with the thinking mind, in fact, the thinking mind gets out of the way to allow this expansion at the root to take hold. I envision a direct light from Spirit cracking me open at the crown of my head, bypassing my mind and connecting through my heart to the source of creation at the root of my being. Specifically, I feel this sexual, grounding, and creative power burgeoning at the root chakra, the area at the bottom of the spine. From this source, you can literally create life, but this source is not only about sexual practice, it is about all expression of bringing formlessness to form.

You are conditioned to use the thinking mind to solve problems, to fix, to achieve, and to act. However, true action comes from the root, and once you align with this, you can with conviction. Society fawns over the power of the brain but seems to miss the power of the root and its role in bringing formlessness to form. Many of us hold trauma at the root and, therefore, stay safely trapped within the thinking brain and its analytical, doubting ways, far away from our sexual and creative powers. We allow the brain to develop all of its protections against opening our heart and clearing out the root. We become talking heads, consumed by the brain’s survival mechanisms, its anxious thinking, and what it can “know.” I do not mean to throw the baby out with the bathwater so to speak. Thought, or the crown chakra, is an important energetic tool and many, including myself, use thoughts to access visions and ideas that color and create our world. However, much of thought is naturally conditioned by our trauma and our fear and needs some deep cleaning. I was unable to transmute my darkness into light with thought alone, in fact it often led me further astray, and so my journey led me to find transformation at the root instead. I now write from the root, play from the root, dance from the root, and live from the root as much as I can. I access and direct the power of the thinking brain when I need to, but only if it is in alignment with the rest of me. The second I notice my thinking being led by anxiety, tension, or the pressure to perform, I do my best to come back to the root. It is never, and has never been, in my best interest to act out of this anxious thinking. Even in endeavors that seem logically brain-oriented like leading a workshop or guiding others, I channel wisdom and guidance from the root. I am rarely “thinking” in the traditional sense. I may seem aloof or irritating to some based on this different rhythm, but I am simply practicing beating to a different drum that has brought me more joy than ever before. When you practice this way of being, you quickly notice other people’s minds attempting to pull you back into the thinking process because that is the rhythm of communication you are used to. Of course, I do my best to be flexible and not be too off-putting to my loved ones in conversation… But these days, I notice I rarely I have “answers” to others’ questions in the traditional sense. “Why did you make that decision?” … “What is your plan for the future?” … “How are you doing today?” … I do my best to accommodate these questions while knowing my answers are rarely a true reflection of my state of being at the root. The words that flow and filter through my mind are often of a different, more scattered rhythm. The words may come out jumbled, disconnected, or tangential. My brain’s wiring was always a bit amiss in this way, overcome with so many thoughts and feelings. When I find myself getting pulled back into this thinking rhythm, I practice coming back to the root. 

At the root is your light, your beacon that shines like wonder through the eye of a child. The more you practice, the more this beacon of light intensifies within you and begins to shine. Like a lighttower, there is nothing to be done but shine bright and allow yourself and others to bathe in your awesome glow. Ideally, this root of light connects to your heart and opens up to the world, though trauma often distorts this connection. The connection between my head, heart, and root was badly ruptured for most of my life. I did not understand the connection between love and sex for example, let alone love and creation. I grew up feeling very uncreative and could only produce things with intense effort in thinking and intellectual ideas. The practice of healing trauma, as I see it, is a practice of clearing access to the root. In doing so, you also clear access to the rightful use of your brain by clearing the cognitive fog and lowering the protective mechanisms of hyper vigilance, impulsivity, and defensiveness. The real access to your truth comes not from seeking outside yourself but from this direct line to the root of your being where all manifestation emerges. By healing trauma, you learn to dance with the intensity of uncertainty and not “knowing” in the mind. The intensity, which feels a lot like fear at first, becomes the fuel that amplifies your presence and your energetic power. Rather than spending time in the mind deliberating, you act! Not with impulsivity, reactivity, or carelessness, but with grounded alignment. As your trauma clears, your life path begins to take shape more clearly and intentionally. I have found that the path that emerges tends to involve a natural form of service to yourself and others, just as the tree naturally supports its community through its presence and photosynthetic process. Furthermore, I find the path emerges not through striving and immense sacrifice but through passion and joy. You no longer “work” from the mind; you play from the root.

When a group gathers to collectively align with this energetic source and to know the Spirit within, there is a shamanic power and intensity that builds. Like the power of a forest filled with the energetic source of trees communicating and connecting at the roots, human beings connect at the roots of their being and manifest a collective glow more powerful than any individual. This, in my humble opinion, is how we heal ourselves and the world. By recognizing the connection at the root, beyond our individual personalities, egos, and traumas, we co-create an energetic home that calls us back to where we all originate and where we will all one day return. We create heaven on earth from within these collective healing spaces. I believe this is the true power of my workshops and of all sacred spaces. We do not gather simply to learn new information, but to become a collective of shaman trees, converting darkness to light, breathing new air into the environment, and calling new life into being. Our bodies become vessels for this transmutation and from fertile soil we manifest a brave new vision for the world.