20/02/2026
THE SHAMANIST
I once thought of myself as a shaman,
as if the soul could be contained in a name,
as if the wind could be kept in a jar,
as if the river could be held by a fist.
But Infinite Spirit does not live inside such limiting identities.
It moves through them,
and then it moves on.
To call myself “shaman”
Is to harden into a mask,
to become a statue
where I was meant to be flame.
For the true shaman
is not a title,
but a listening.
Not a role,
but a way of being porous
to the living world.
Better to say my path has a shamanist flavor.
A shamanist is the one
who remembers
that the Earth is not dead.
That the trees speak
in green syllables of silence.
That the lake holds ancient medicine
beneath its shining skin.
That fire is a teacher
who burns away what is false
and warms what is true.
When our ancestors sought healing:
They went to the Mountains.
They walked into the Woods.
They sat by Water.
They knelt beside Fire.
Because something in the body remembers
what the mind forgets:
Nature is the old altar.
And the elements are still holy.
The shamanist path is not linear.
It is the circle of seasons.
It is the serpent shedding.
It is the moon darkening and returning.
It is the death of yesterday’s self
and the birth of tomorrow’s form.
We are not meant
to remain the same.
Even the caterpillar
dreams the dragonfly.
Even the seed
carries the oak as a secret.
So too the human being
carries a future selfhood
hidden inside the heart.
And the soul is not a fixed identity, however unique it may be.
It harbors a continual Invitation.
That comes as a dream.
It comes as a strange longing.
It comes as a sudden image
that feels more real
than the life we are living.
A vision arrives,
and we feel its magnetic pull.
It is not fantasy.
It is the Great Force of Life
whispering through the heart:
“Come.
Become.”
And yes, the Wounded Healer ordeal is necessary.
For no one can guide another
through the dark night in the forest
without having come through it.
Those wounds are not shame.
They are the doorways
where light is waiting to enter.
The Shadow is not an enemy.
It is a buried child,
a forgotten self,
a fragment exiled from love.
And the work is simple,
though it is not easy:
Return to the Core.
Return to the Heart of the Heart.
Return to the place
where awareness is still radiant
and love is still unbroken.
There, in the Living Field,
the world becomes transparent again.
The stone is not only stone.
The bird is not only bird.
The stranger is not only stranger.
All things are within one another,
and Spirit moves everywhere
like breath.
Sacred breathwork
is a doorway into this remembering.
It loosens the knots of the small self.
It opens the inner sky.
It takes us down into death,
and up into vision,
and back again into the world
with medicine in our hands.
Some come to breathe
to heal their sorrow.
Some come to breathe
to worship life.
Some come to breathe
because joy is burning inside them
like a hidden sun.
And some come
because the future is calling,
because they can feel the next step
trying to be born.
For the planet itself
is molting.
The old skin is cracking.
The old stories are collapsing.
The old forms are trembling.
Earth is in labor.
And in times of labor,
humanity must become more human,
not less.
More awake.
More imaginative.
More loving.
More courageous.
This is why the shamanic potential
must awaken in all of us now.
Not as a costume.
Not as a borrowed title.
Not as a spiritual ego
But as something far more humble.
It really is a natural capacity
of the heart:
To listen.
To attune.
To heal.
To dream forward.
To receive the Divine Lure.
To become a vessel
for the next beauty
seeking embodiment.
So let us not call ourselves shaman,
as if Spirit could be owned.
Old Frank Fools Crow, the Grand Teton Sioux medicine man said he was a “little hollow bone” for the Great Spirit to work through.
Let us become like little hollow bones.
Let us be a listening field.
Let us be a clear fire
in the midst of winter.
Let us be a human being
who remembers the sacredness of life,
and serves the Great Becoming
with open hands.
And when the invitation comes,
when the future-self appears
like a luminous animal at the edge of the woods,
let us not hesitate.
Let us follow.
For this is the true shamanism:
Not the name.
But the surrender
to the living Heart of all beings who live in Mother Earth.
——-
TuKuy, Friends❤️
Mikkal
——
Photo: don Alverto Taxo, Attis Kichwa Taita Yachak of the High Andes of Ecuador.. The seeds of this poem were planted in my heart nearly 30 years ago in my long apprenticeship with don Alverto. Con todo mi corazon, muchas gracias, maestro ❤️🙏
