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Equinox
The past few days have been lovely. The sap is running furiously. Sunlight fills the house. Outback, in the woods, the first greenery of spring has risen to replace the departing snowbanks. Given a spell of warm temperatures, and ample ground water, Life’s green fire moves to fill the world. At first, this movement towards…
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Shamanism and the IMF
I’ve been reading Laura Kendall’s new ethnography of South Korean shamanism, Shamans, Nostalgias, and the IMF. Traditionally, Korean shamans have been mostly women, rural, and low in social and economic standing. In the second half of the Twentieth Century, they were often regarded as backward, and as representing a rapidly retreating, agrarian past. By the…
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On not being, and being, Native American.
My father died a few years ago. A day or two before he died, My sister asked him whether we are Native American. My father sat up in bed, smiled, and said with great pride that, yes, we were, and on both sides. Stunned to have our question answered, we did not ask about tribal…
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Amazonian Shamanism, Part Two
Several years ago I spent a couple of weeks with friends and teachers on the Rio Negro, in northwestern Brazil. One day we were visited by a local healer and her daughter. The healer spoke to us about her practice, then went into a trance lasting two or three hours. During that time, she channeled…
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