Spirit Woman: The Teachings of the Shields - Brossura

Andrews, Lynn V.

Brossura

ISBN 10: 1585425761 ISBN 13: 9781585425761

Casa editrice: Penguin Publishing Group, 2007

Riassunto

Lynn V. Andrews takes the reader with her as she goes on inward journeys with the help of the Sisterhood of the Shields, and relates the stories of others.

Join her as she is initiated into the Sisterhood and creates her own shield, which will show her the nature of her spiritual path (Spirit Woman). Follow her to the Yucatan, where the medicine wheel leads her, and she is faced with the terrifying reality of the butterfly tree (Jaguar Woman). Enter the Dreamtime with her, where she emerges in medieval England as Catherine, and encounters the Grandmother, who offers to show Andrews how to make her life one of goodness, power, adventure, and love (The Woman of Wyrrd).

Not all these stories describe the author's own spiritual experiences. Meet Sin Coraz?n, an initiate into the Sisterhood, whose husband abandons her. She nearly succumbs to her inner dark power and unleashes her rage on men and the Sisterhood (Dark Sister). Andrews also writes about the elder women of the Sisterhood: their loves, their lives, their losses (Tree of Dreams).

Andrews shows us how to channel our own spiritual and intellectual energy and balance the need for love with the desire for power (Love and Power). She takes the reader on numerous spiritual journeys that inevitably uplift.

Su questo libro

L'autore:

Lynn Andrews is the author of nineteen books, including the New York Times bestsellers Medicine Woman and Jaguar Woman. A preeminent teacher in the field of personal development and spirituality, she is the founder of the Lynn Andrews Center for Sacred Arts and Training.

Estratto. © Riproduzione autorizzata. Diritti riservati.:

Praise for Lynn V. Andrews

“Lynn Andrews continues to write of her apprenticeship to the Native American shaman Agnes Whistling Elk in this companion to her earlier Medicine Woman. The most remarkable element of this book is its ability to communicate a sense of both the physical and spiritual lessons that Andrews has learned during her stays with the Cree Indians.

“Her previous book detailed her initiation into the teachings of the Sisterhood of the Shields, a secret society traditionally the sole province of Native American women, and in this account she continues her education, revealing in the process why she felt compelled to return to Whistling Elk for further study.

“Both books are notable not only for the glimpse they provide of an unfamiliar culture, but also for Andrews’s quietly powerful style and the humility with which she opens herself to new and often seemingly alien experiences.”

—Booklist (American Library Association)

“We are lucky that the likes of Agnes Whistling Elk still exist, and that one such as Lynn Andrews has had the opportunity to experience the ways of a medicine woman and has lived to write about it. Andrews’s books are a glimpse into a world of the miraculous and the eternal, and intimate a true understanding of the extraordinary laws of nature.”

—Yoga Journal

“A beautiful study of an unfamiliar culture . . . excellent reading.”

—The McCormick Messenger, McCormick, SC

BOOKS BY LYNN V. ANDREWS

Medicine Woman

Spirit Woman

Jaguar Woman

The Woman of Wyrrd

Dark Sister

Love and Power

Tree of Dreams

The Power Deck

Teachings Around the Sacred Wheel

Writing Spirit

This book is dedicated to my mother Rosalyn and my daughter Vanessa whose love and understanding have made my journey possible.

With special appreciation to Twila Nitsch Yehwehnode of the Seneca Nation and Paula Gunn Allen for being the medicine women that they are.

With great thanks to John V. Loudon, my editor, whose thoughtfulness and dedication have helped me tremendously.

THE MOON IN YOUR HANDS

If you take the moon in your hands and turn it round

(heavy, slightly tarnished platter) you’re there;

if you pull dry sea-weed from the sand and turn it round

and wonder at the underside’s bright amber, your eyes

look out as they did here,

(you don’t remember)

when my soul turned round,

perceiving the other-side of everything,

mullein-leaf, dogwood leaf, moth-wing and dandelion-seed under the ground.

—H.D. [HILDA DOOLITTLE],

from The Selected Poems of H. D.

Preface

This is a true story. Some of the names and places in this book have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved.

I am a woman.

The last several years of my life have been spent on a spiritual quest. My path led me first to many male teachers. Each of them, in their own way, gave me startling insights into my own nature. Still, something was lacking. I knew I wanted to learn from a woman—for me, that was the only way. I was lucky. After a series of extraordinary events, Agnes Whistling Elk, a Native American Medicine Woman living in Manitoba, Canada, became my teacher.

When I first met Agnes, I asked her if she thought it was strange for someone from Beverly Hills to be sitting in her quiet cabin in Manitoba asking for help.

“There are always helpers and signs to point the way for anyone who is willing to follow them,” she said. “Unknowingly, for the first time in your life, you have followed your true path. No, it is not surprising that you are here. Many omens have spoken of your coming, and I would be surprised if it were any other way. You know that enlightenment is arrived at in a different way for a woman than for a man.”

I asked Agnes if she taught men the same as woman. She laughed and said I should discover that answer for myself. “Teach the next ten men you meet how to have a baby.”

Spirit Woman (previously published as Flight of the Seventh Moon) describes how Agnes initiated me into my womanliness and selfhood. Through a series of visions and ceremonies, she took me around a circle of learning, and gave me a working mandala, a shield that I can carry in my everyday life. Within the experiences of my rite of passage is the ancient wisdom of woman. My story is like the story of all women involved in search. Our situations are different because we all are unique, but our source of understanding is the same.

Agnes has never told me what I must learn. She has simply put me into situations where I must grow and change to survive. Medicine Woman tells of how Agnes guided me through the four aspects of my beginning work. Much of this involved making me physically strong, because she feels that there must be a balance between spiritual learning and physical endurance. Agnes also placed me in situations where I learned to balance the male and female elements within me. Much of that training had to do with the search for the sacred marriage basket. Finally, she taught me about making an act of power or an act of beauty in the world. For me that was writing a book. I learned that the reason for an act of beauty is to create a mirror for yourself so that you can begin to know intimately who you are. Agnes also made it very clear to me through paranormal events, my travels to Canada, and the work in dreaming that it is very important for us to be lifted out of our mechanical existence so that real change—perhaps even transformation—has a chance to occur. Our structures and beliefs must be suspended so that something new can be heard.

I once asked Agnes what she thought about the biblical expression, “many are called but few are chosen.” She laughed and said that we are all called and we all are chosen if we simply have the courage to step into the unknown. I have written so that you may also share in the ancient traditions as memorized by Agnes Whistling Elk and the Sisterhood of the Shields.

The Sisterhood of the Shields is a secret society based in the ancient traditions of woman. Although its membership has long been limited to Native Americans, the energy changes on our planet have made it necessary to initiate women of other races. We share our knowledge collectively, between tribes and nations, in an attempt to bring balance, wisdom, and a more complete view of truth to the land.

 

Protector-of-Children Shield: South

Sometimes I go about pitying myself,

and all the time

I am being carried on great winds across the sky.

—OJIBWAY, adapted by Robert Bly

from the translation of Frances Densmore

I stood at the entrance to the Beverly Hills Hotel. The warm wind from the south rippled like clean silk on my skin. The air smelled of honeysuckle and I took a deep breath, trying to relax. I was nervously waiting for Hyemeyohsts Storm, the author of Seven Arrows and medicine man from Montana, and two film producers from New York who wanted to make a film based on my book, Medicine Woman. The thought of seeing Hyemeyohsts again relieved some of my anxiety. I glanced up at the ominous black clouds overhead and wondered what could be keeping him so long.

As I waited for the valet to take my car, I gazed at the hotel’s sixteen-acre parkland. The pool, cabanas, and fabulous guests—kings and queens, movie stars, business executives—made the hotel very special, and ordinarily I would have been happy to be here. But today was different. I was on my way to Canada to stay with Agnes Whistling Elk, the Cree Indian woman who had become my teacher. I had rented my home a few days early, and planned to stay at the hotel in the interim.

As the valet took my car and bags, I was distracted by the arrival of a flesh pink Cadillac Seville, from which a gorgeous girl emerged. All eyes were riveted on her, and no wonder—her outfit was flesh pink, and so was her tea-cup poodle. That’s Hollywood, I thought ruefully. A limousine with license plates that read “FATHER” had also pulled up to the hotel, but with much less fanfare. As I watched from behind a tall pillar covered with ivy and flowers, all the doors to the limousine suddenly burst open at once, as if they had a mind of their own. No one got out for a moment, and then there was a flurry of activity as uniformed attendants scrambled to help an elderly gentleman out of the back seat and into a waiting electric wheel chair. I didn’t recognize him, but he seemed somehow familiar. He had a distinctive way of lifting his gnarled hand and impatiently directing everyone. He was almost growling at his embarrassed young chauffeur, who tripped and nearly fell over the wheelchair as he lifted it up over the curb.

As the distinguished gray-haired gentleman rolled past me, he suddenly swerved, brushing my leg and sending me tumbling toward the flower bed. I could hear the pansies being crushed beneath my high heels and I swung my arms around wildly, trying to keep my balance.

A hand grabbed my elbow. It was Hyemeyohsts, who had rushed up just in time to steady me. I lifted my foot out of the newly watered garden and removed my mud-covered high heel. One shoe on and one off, I hobbled my way into the hotel lobby with Storm, where I excused myself and went into the powder room. As I stood in front of the sink wiping the dirt off my high heel, I caught the reflection of a medium-tall blonde woman in a white silk dress staring at me from the mirror. I hesitated, peering at her image. She kept going in and out of focus. With a start, I realized I was looking at myself. My head ached.

I sat down on a pink velvet stool in front of the mirror and tried to clear my vision. Waves of nausea passed through me. I shook my head and watched the unfamiliar blurred image in the mirror. I looked awful and felt even worse. I felt like a patient coming out of anesthesia, who wakes to see unfamiliar walls and feels frightened and helpless. I wished Agnes could tell me what to do.

Agnes Whistling Elk is my teacher. This Native American medicine woman has many truly formidable qualities. She is old, yet often appears young and agile. For several years she has been dedicated to teaching me how to use the ancient wisdom of woman.

Agnes is often assisted by a medicine woman named Ruby Plenty Chiefs. Ruby is more gruff and often times rude. She makes me feel unsure of myself, and seems to reflect my own inner fears. She seems egotistical. But her powers are also formidable, and her every move has a purpose.

My training, as I see it now, had to do with breaking the cultural limitations imposed upon me—and, by inference, imposed on all women. When I told Agnes of my intention to write Medicine Woman, she warned me of the struggle I faced:

“You are writing about the ancient power of woman, about a teaching that has been nearly forgotten. There are some people who will fight against your message, but it is so necessary that it be heard that you must try. You are a white woman from a glamorous city, and they will find it hard to believe.”

Agnes believes deeply in the need to restore the balance between male and female energy on her beloved mother earth. She feels that we live in a time of vision, a time when the people of the earth are once again ready to hear many secrets that have long been hidden. This is a time of cleansing and breaking away. We can destroy our earth mother or learn to live in harmony with her. To learn to live in harmony in this day, both men and women must reeducate their femaleness. Agnes sees that it is the woman in all of us that needs to be healed and reborn.

It was in seeking to recapture this female energy that I encountered my adversary, Red Dog, who had stolen it, in the form of a sacred marriage basket, for himself. He is a white man who sought out Agnes in order to restore the female balance in his own consciousness. But Agnes is a hard taskmaster, and Red Dog was cruel. When he tried to take all the power for himself, Agnes cut him off and he became not a shaman but a sorcerer, who turned toward evil instead of love. I was and am more frightened of Red Dog than of anyone on earth.

My reverie was suddenly broken by a familiar voice. “Lynn, listen to me. You are in grave danger, and something must be done.” I heard Agnes’s voice so clearly in my head that I looked around for a moment to see if she were there. But there was only a well-dressed young woman washing her hands at the sink and the sound of “Strangers in the Night” on the piped-in Muzak.

“You have no shields, no protection. You are wide open and asking for attack. If you don’t want Red Dog to attack you, you must learn to make shields.”

“Shields?” I wondered, fear crawling up my spine.

“Yes,” she said, answering my thoughts. I closed my eyes. I could almost see her sitting at the wooden table in her cabin, an intense look on her ancient Indian face, her long grey braids brushing her red Pendleton shirt. “You see, your light is growing on the other side and you’re attracting all kinds of influences—good and bad—like moths to a flame. What is born into the physical world also exists in the spirit world.”

I thought to myself, “What kind of shields?”

Again she answered, “The kind of shield that allows only the thought forms of light to enter and returns all darkness and destruction to the sender.” Then she repeated slowly, in a far off voice in my mind. “Back to the shooter. You’re in trouble because you stole back the marriage basket and defeated Red Dog. You wouldn’t stand in front of a bobcat and ask him to leap on you, would you? You’d protect yourself, wouldn’t you? Well, you’re in a lot more danger than that! When you achieve a dream, you take that dream to the Spirit House for the Kachinas, the Keepers of the Great Dream, to manifest. So why didn’t you ask them for protection?”

“I didn’t know I was supposed to,” I said, as if I were actually talking to her.

“Protection is always the first thing you ask for.” She sounded impatient. “The second thing is direction. I didn’t think you were that stupid.”

“What do I do, Agnes? Will you help me?” I asked out loud. The woman washing her hands looked at me strangely and left quickly.

Agnes started to laugh. “Lynn, you’re playing the part of Poor Cow again, indulging in your own lack of courage.” And then her voice was gone.

I felt exhausted. Was Agnes’s voice a delusion? I had been in a trance. How long had I been in the powder room? It seemed like days. I glanced at my watch. Only minutes had passed. I hurried down to the lobby, still feeling quite ill.

“Hey, Lynn, are you okay?” Storm asked, obviously very concerned.

“Yes . . . I feel a little weak, that’s all. Probably need something to eat.” I must have looked awful, because he grabbed my arm and steered me across the red-carpeted foyer, his eyes never leaving me for an instant.

We sat down in the Polo Lounge and ordered lunch. The first thing I...

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Penguin Publishing Group
• Data di pubblicazione: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1585425761
• ISBN 13: 9781585425761
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 224