15
SHAMANIC DIRECTIVES FOR ADDRESSING WORRY
For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
SHAMANIC TEACHING
And so it was that the Lord intervened with wisdom that was dispersed in the way of the sacred four. The sacred four became known as the four directions, the four corners, the four edges of the sacred cross. The shamanic cross of the Christian shaman constitutes a whirl of never-ending change. It is a cloud that blows itself from one corner to another. Around the four corners, the spirit moves. Travel within the cross. Do not stop on any corner, for to do so would be to spiritually die or hibernate until you are awakened again. Move from one corner to another without cessation. This is the way of the four-cornered shamanic cross.
The wolf of old came to teach. Without making a sound, the creature said:
Know that the lost teachings that have been given to you—the contemplations, meditations, lost parables, and active mystical practices—are the seeds for shamanic vision and direct mystical communion. They will carry you into deepened energetic expression and heightened understanding. But this is not enough in itself. After receiving a deep understanding or being blessed with a vision from on high, you must not sit still and ponder. Immediately, you must jump into a sacred baptismal pool, an immersion into childlike madness, a retreat into absurd experience that washes away unnecessary attachment to the newfound wisdom. The teachings of spirit can be held only for a moment. If they are not immediately bathed in nonsense and frivolity, they begin to harden and turn into an opposite reality. They lose their innocent beauty and become hardened truths, truths whose brittleness cracks under the test of everyday movement and life. The wisdom of a contemplation, meditation, and parable can be preserved only by submerging it in the absurd. This is an ancient truth that no one is expected to fully understand.
Why, dear brothers and sisters, do the ancient traditions honor the trickster, fool, clown, and troublemaker? They surely know something we have forgotten. The outsiders who are seen as absurd from the perspective of consensual logical reality are necessary to maintain the bigger balance, the holding together of ancient wisdoms in the heart of everyday contradictions, temptations, challenges, and suffering. Bring the merriment and tomfoolery into your life or risk losing any lesson momentarily granted through visionary reflection and contemplative realization.
Know this and never forget it: The sufferings and shortcomings and difficulties and challenges of everyday life are necessary for things to work. They must be present in order for the shamanic realities to emerge. When worry comes your way, do not run from it. Do not fight it, numb yourself to its effects, or direct heroic efforts toward its elimination. Instead, embrace it as a presence you need to evolve your shamanic and spiritual nature. Reach out and hold onto worries and all other irritating disturbances. But while holding onto them, proceed to play and alter your worries. Juxtapose their troubling presence with an altered presence that makes them child’s play. When the serious and ridiculous are juxtaposed and stretched, the portals to spiritual knowledge are opened.
As you practice the forgotten directives presented below, know they are not intended to alleviate your problems and worries. You can’t stop worrying. That is a given. But you can match the seriousness and despair of your worries with an oppositional force that plays with them. Yes, you will continue to worry and wake up in the middle of the night wondering how to solve your dilemmas. But now you can meet that serious worrying with some playful worrying. Playing with your worries in a shamanic way creates a shamanic dichotomy in your life. Now you are stretched between two poles: the pole of serious worrying and the pole of playful, frivolous worrying. As these two poles are stretched further and further, you make possible a new energy in your life, a creative tension that can break open an entry into the great mysteries.
DIRECTIVE: THE BOUNCING BALL
Obtain the tiniest rubber ball you can find and carry it with you. Whenever you catch yourself worrying, throw this ball in the air and pretend you’re going to catch it. Then purposefully miss catching the ball and let it hit the ground. Immediately say quietly to yourself, “You’ve got to fall all the way to the ground in order to rise again. In this way, the cross is stretched further and further.” Repeat this procedure every time you catch yourself worrying.
Considerations
DIRECTIVE: THE WORRY-FREE COINS
Make a list of three things that you can’t possibly imagine yourself worrying about. For each worry-free item, select a color. For instance, you might come up with something like this:
When you have made your list and color assignments, select three dimes. With a marking pen, color each dime. Make certain to color both sides of the coins with the colors you selected earlier.
Carry these worriless coins in your pocket or purse. Whenever you start to really worry about something, pull out all three coins and shake them in your hand. Let them fall from your hand onto a table surface. Carefully note which ones fall as “heads” and which as “tails.” If there are any heads, place them on top of your own head for five seconds. For any coins that land as tails, pick them up and spank them with one of your little fingers. If you don’t get a head, then repeat the procedure until you do get one. After the heads have been placed on your head and the tails have been spanked, place the coins back into your pocket. Say quietly to yourself, “It is important to stretch my foolishness. May the arms of the cross come forth.”
Considerations
DIRECTIVE: CHALK MAGIC
Obtain a magnifying glass and a tiny chalkboard. Before retiring one night, plan to wake up ten minutes earlier than usual the next morning. When you awaken, get up, go to your chalkboard, and write down what you are most spiritually worried about. If you aren’t sure, just write down your best guess. For the next five minutes, focus all your attention upon examining what you wrote. Do this by looking at it through a magnifying glass. You are not to look at your worry without magnification. When you are finished looking, wipe the board clean with your fingers. Open your Bible and rub the chalk along the page that is opened. You can decide for yourself whether you will read the page that has been whitened. Repeat this procedure every morning for two weeks. After that time, limit studying your worries to three mornings a week.
Considerations
DIRECTIVE: SHAKING THE RUG
Obtain a small rug that you can roll up and hide in a place that will remain undisturbed by others. When you find yourself worrying too much, pull out the rug and place it on the floor. Take off your shoes and socks and stand on the rug while holding a cross.
While standing, tap your head with the cross and imagine all of your worries traveling from your head to your feet. Ask your mind to let go of holding the worries in your head. Allow gravity and the tapping of your cross to drop those worries to the bottom of your feet.
As your worries begin moving toward your feet, wiggle your toes, pretending that this is caused by the worries entering the lowest place on your body. Wiggle them for at least ten seconds and then stomp and move your feet on the mat so that you completely shake out those worries. When the worries are out, close your eyes and imagine that your body has grown taller. Imagine this as a stretching of the vertical pole of your internal cross. When you have vigorously completed this task, pick up the rug, take it outside, and shake it so your worries won’t stick to your rug. Roll up the rug and give it a rest so it will be ready the next time you need to use it.
DIRECTIVE: THE ANGEL’S PIGGY BANK
Make your own piggy bank out of a jar or box. Attach cardboard wings to its sides and call it the angel’s piggy bank. Place it on top of your television.
Every time you find yourself worrying for longer than a minute, place a quarter into that bank. You must be honest and feed the bank whenever you worry too much.
When the bank is full, donate the money to a worthy spiritual organization that works with children. Tell yourself that you can now stop worrying about your worrying because you have put that worrying to work. Your worrying now helps others, even when you’re unable to help yourself. Continue this practice for as long as you feel it is providing a teaching.
Considerations
DIRECTIVE: WORRY-OF-THE-MONTH CLUB
Go to a print shop and have some stationery made for you with these words printed on it:
On the first day of each month, select a worry you will focus on. Using your stationery, write yourself this letter:
Dear Worrier,
This month’s worry is_________________________. You are to pledge that no matter how many worries you have or however much worrying you take on, this worry is to be worried about the most.
Sincerest worrying,
President, Worry-of-the-Month Club
Write and mail this letter to yourself every other day throughout the month. When you receive the letter, say the Lord’s Prayer before opening it, but make sure that you leave one or two words out of the prayer. Worry about which words to drop.
Considerations
DIRECTIVE: WORRY SWAPPING
Find another spiritually inspired person who worries as much as you do. For one week, swap your worries. Each person must make a list of his or her top worries and give it to the other. Be sincere in your efforts to worry daily about the other’s worries. Always say, “God bless these worries” before you start worrying. You may find that learning to worry about the other person’s concerns helps you put your own worries in a different perspective, thereby making you a better servant of God’s will.
Considerations
DIRECTIVE: GOD’S WORRIES
Have three people who know you well write down what they think God should worry about, if God were to worry. They are not to show or tell you what worries they choose for you. For a week you are to worry about whether or not you can guess the worries they selected. At the end of the week, they are to tell you what worries they chose for you so you can find out whether you did a good job. If you guessed most of the worries correctly, spend the evening worrying about how you should celebrate your victory. If you guessed most of them incorrectly, then spend the evening worrying about how to do the exercise over again for a more successful outcome, entitling you to worry about a future victory celebration.
Considerations
Get yourself a small box, the kind of box jewelry stores use for gift wrapping merchandise. Make certain it has a soft piece of cotton in it. Decorate the outside of the box with religious symbols that have meaning for you. After you have set up this box, spend some time looking for and purchasing a toy ring.
Place the ring on the middle of your forehead and pretend to send all of the worries in your mind into it. Go through some improvised shamanic motions to make that ring vibrate on your forehead. After you have done this, carefully center the ring in the small box. Allow the ring to spend the night in the box. The next day, take the ring out and wrap the empty box in some interesting wrapping paper. Attach the ring to the outside of the box as if it were a decorative part of the gift wrapping.
Contact a friend or relative and ask them to do you a favor. Tell them you are worried about mishandling an important spiritual gift you’ve recently wrapped. Ask if they will keep the gift for you for the next two weeks. Don’t tell them what it is. If they ask, say it’s a shamanic surprise and you can’t tell anyone.
After two weeks, ask your friend to give back the gift. Take your friend to lunch and bring the gift with you. After you’ve eaten lunch, tell your friend the gift was a spiritual gift for yourself. Explain that you knew you wouldn’t be able to keep from meddling with it unless someone else kept it for you. Thank your friend for helping you and go home with the unopened gift. If they ask what’s inside the box, simply say, “Oh, I can’t say, but it’s really nothing. It’s a kind of Zen gift for shamans.” Never unwrap the box.
Considerations
DIRECTIVE: BIG AND IMPORTANT SPIRITUAL WORRIES
Ask everyone you know to list the three most important spiritual issues every person on the planet should worry about. Write down these responses in a notebook. Conduct this research in a very determined way. Do your best to find out what others believe should be the BIG AND IMPORTANT SPIRITUAL WORRIES.
When you believe you have identified these big and important spiritual worries, write the following letter:
To Whom It May Concern:
I am a concerned citizen who on my own began asking as many people as I could the following question: “What are the three most important spiritual concerns everyone on the planet should worry about?”
Based on this research, I found that most people believe we should be spiritually worried about:
As someone who cares and worries about the future, I sincerely ask you to do some thoughtful worrying about these three spiritual issues. I can assure you that I will be doing my own worrying. Will you please consider doing your part?
Most sincerely,
A World Worrier
Make copies of this letter and place it everywhere you possibly can. Give some thought to what it would be like to devote your life to a project of serious spiritual worrying.
One month after leaving as many of these letters as you can around your community, turn to the appendix “Message for the World Worrier” and read the message as a consideration of your work (try not to read it until that time).
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
The Christian shaman knows that everyone will worry. What matters is whether you are engaged in unhealthy worrying or resourceful worrying. Unhealthy worrying is psychological quicksand—the more you worry, the more worried you get. The problem doesn’t get resolved, but escalates in its intensity. In the beginning of your encounter with any particular worry, it is wise to pray for help, asking God to take over your worries. That’s always a good thing to do. However, if you keep praying to God for help, it may send the message that you don’t think God is listening or that you doubt whether God can help. Pray once with sincerity and then let it go. After that, prayer isn’t needed.
After the prayer has been made, it’s time to bring levity and shamanic play into the picture. With this posture you trust that God will take care of things and that there is nothing left to do on the serious side of things. Now it’s time to give the trickster part of you its due. Meet the arrival of worry with strategies of absurdity. The directives in this chapter have shown you ways in which you can experiment, tinker, improvise, and play with your worries. They show how worry can be the existential core for you to process and refine into nuggets of learning, teaching you how to be a trickster shaman. We will continue looking at how other daily nuisances and problems can be similarly utilized so as to help you stretch the arms of the Christian shaman’s cross.