Prayer, Symbiosis, and the Shamanic Ways of Life

I have been reflecting on the nature of symbiosis and its relation to the shamanic ways of inter-relations.

The ridiculous idea of freedom often vehemently raised like a flag in spiritual communities is a broken belief coming directly from the capitalistic and colonized way of seeing ourselves.

No being is free from the system that it lives into. As an individual, you are never truly free from your family, your country, your human kin, and the greater animal - plant - life forms kin.

In the same way that no cell of your body is free from the rest of the body.

We are not only interdependent for our survival but also directly connected through visible and invisible webs, networks, and energetic systems.

Even the spiritual idea of healing or awakening is completely false if it individualizes and separates itself from the circles of life. We will always be sick in a sick world. We cannot escape suffering if the world suffers. No amount of ceremony, rituals, or prayer circles will ever keep the world "outside" of our circle.

Give it time, and you will find the same level of repressed anger, rage, confusion, and separation in those "sacred" circles as the one you see at your family gatherings...

Indeed, the sacred is not a place or a belief but the ultimate reality of all of creation. You can not create it. You can only allow it to permeate through the veils of illusion and the immensely painful dissolution of them...

Symbiosis is nature's ultimate prayer. A web of collaboration between all there is. So, anything that creates or seeks separation will ultimately be killed and digested back into new creations.

Indeed, having the heart to choose connection instead of belief is a difficult task. Certainly, strong boundaries and immense authenticity are required to weave deep connections, and sometimes "fuck off" can be the most spiritual thing to say and the greatest self-love tool.

Because there is no safe connection without full transparency. And there is no full transparency without full humanness. We need to live our deepest prayers more than we share about them.

The Creator sees all. And recognize what lives in good relations. What beams unconditional love.

The more Human you are, the more Divine you are.

Angell Deer

Photo credit: [symbiosis] 014 Yosemite

► © Andrea Costantini •