Tag: mindfulness

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The First Threshold

the first threshold Coyote call of the coyote

The time had come for Coyote to cross the First Threshold. Since the fire had gone out sometime before dawn, Coyote had begun to get cold again, so he leaped up and set out on his journey. Following the directions White Buffalo Woman had given him, he ran north towards the mountains.

Coyote ran all day and most of the night, stopping to rest only when he was too exhausted to go on. After three days he had journeyed further than he had ever been before. He came to the river that marked the boundary of the tribal lands of his people. The snow was thick on the ground here in the north, but the river had not yet frozen, and he could not cross. So Coyote ran up and down the river bank looking for a way to get to the other side. The more he ran the more frantic he became. He could not find a shallow spot or a place with rocks that he could cross.

As he ran up and down the riverbank, Sister Beaver sat on a log by the river watching him. Amused at his antics, she called out, “Are you trying to cross the river?”

“Yes! I must get to the other side!” shouted Coyote, “Do you know of a way?”

Sister Beaver was wary of Coyote. He had played pranks on many members of her family, and in the spirit of vengeance, she was eager to do the same to him. So she said to him, “Continue on downstream and you will eventually come to a huge beaver dam. It’s old, and a bit rickety, but I’m sure one as agile as you could cross it with no problem!”

“Thank you very much!” shouted Coyote as he ran down the river bank searching for the dam.

Sister Beaver knew that the dam was too old and rotten to support Coyote’s weight for his river crossing, but she was out for revenge for his many tricks at the expense of her and her family. Anxious to see what happened next, Sister Beaver swam downstream silently, out of sight. When she arrived at the rickety old dam ahead of Coyote, she climbed out of the river and hid behind a tree to watch.

Coyote eventually arrived at the dam and began to make his way across, stepping gingerly on the rotting twigs that made up the dam. Things were going well, but about halfway across he stepped on a twig that gave way, plunging him into the icy water. The water was so cold that it took his breath away when he fell in. Gasping, he grabbed for a twig to keep from being swept downstream by the swift current. He managed to fight his way back to the shore. Shivering, he climbed onto the river bank, shook the icy water off his coat, and began again. Meanwhile, Sister Beaver stood behind her tree laughing at him.

Once again Coyote made his way about halfway across the dam, and once again he stepped on a twig that snapped beneath his paws. Once again he plunged into the icy river, and once again he barely managed to rescue himself before he drowned. All the while Sister Beaver gleefully watched his predicament, trying hard not to laugh out loud. She tried to giggle quietly while hiding and watching, but Coyote’s keen ears heard her snickering. Quick-witted Coyote soon deduced what must be going on here. Needing to cross the river, but not wanting to spend the day plunging again and again into its freezing depths, Coyote quickly formulated a plan.

As he stepped onto the dam for his third attempt, he said aloud, “I just can’t seem to find the right path across the river! If I do not succeed this time, I’m surely doomed, for Sister Cougar is hot on my heels, and she appears to be so hungry that even my scrawny carcass might look like a meal to her!”

Just as he expected, he heard a rustling from behind the tree where Sister Beaver was hiding. He knew what she was thinking; that if scrawny Brother Coyote would make a good meal for Sister Cougar, how much finer a meal would Sister Beaver’s plump, well-fed body make!

Sister Beaver hesitated for only a moment before bounding out from behind her tree and onto the dam. Leaping from twig to branch, she made it all the way to the other side of the river. Coyote watched where she stepped, and careful to place his paws only where Sister Beaver had stepped, he followed her path across, making it safely to the other side without falling in again.

Crossing the First Threshold

“In the universe, there is an immeasurable, indescribable force which shamans call intent, and absolutely everything that exists in the entire cosmos is attached to intent by a connecting link.”

-Carlos Castaneda

For every journey, there is a first step. For those of us who seek the path of the Vision Seeker on the Way of the Coyote, the Crossing of the First Threshold is that first step to a wider world. The significance of that first step is that it indicates a commitment to the journey. The reluctance and refusal are over, and the intention of the seeker has been set. Once your intention has been determined, and you announce your intention to the Universe, there is no turning back. Crossing the First Threshold means that we can never return to the way things were before, because our world has changed.

In our story of the Way of the Coyote, Coyote has learned that if he sits still long enough, the fire goes out. This coldness before dawn is a reminder that spiritual practice is a daily practice. If we don’t tend the fire daily the fire grows cold. So Crossing the First Threshold is an acknowledgement that we are accepting a new way of seeing and being in the world. With that new way of being comes a new responsibility of living intentionally.

As we talked about in an earlier session, the Hua Hu Ching, by Lao Tzu, says this about living intentionally,
“Those who want to know the truth of the universe should practice the four cardinal virtues. The first is reverence for all of life. This manifests as unconditional love and respect for oneself and all other beings. The second is natural sincerity. This manifests as honesty, simplicity, and faithfulness. The third is gentleness, which manifests as kindness, consideration for others, and sensitivity to spiritual truth. The fourth is supportiveness. This manifests as service to others without expectation of reward.”

As you set forth on the Way of the Coyote, make it a daily habit to intentionally practice these four virtues. Do so and see how your interactions with others, self, and nature improve. When you commit to living a life of intention, you will have crossed the first threshold.

Share Your Thoughts on the First Threshold!

What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Doing Mode to Being Mode

from doing mode to being mode

Moving from doing mode to being mode is how mindfulness helps you to deal with stress. When problems arise, they cause stress. When we experience stress the natural tendency is to try to do something about it. The problem with this is that if you could do something about the stress you would have already done so, and you would no longer be stressed.

By moving from doing mode to being mode, we are able to just accept what we feel, without feeling obligated to do anything about it. Stress is a natural feeling and a natural response to problems. To expect not to feel stress from time to time is not a realistic expectation, and telling yourself not to stress out is stressful in itself. Think of it this way: Suppose I expect the weather to be sunny all the time. I complain whenever it rains, and my mood becomes irritable because of the cloudy weather. If I have such an expectation, I’ve set myself up to be disappointed, because rain is a natural part of the weather. So by grumbling every time it rains, I’m complaining about something that’s a perfectly natural part of existence.

Now suppose I complain every time I stress out. Stress is also a perfectly normal part of existence, so expecting never to be stressed out is unrealistic.

The more I tell myself not to stress out, the more stressed out I become. Instead, if I learn to welcome the stress and simply allow myself to be with it until it passes it no longer has a hold on me. Note also that telling myself not to stress out is doing something, and not just being with the stress.

If I notice stressful events with the goal of “trying to relax” or “trying to calm down,” trying is doing, and not being. My goal is to be and not to do.

In being mode, we recognize that when we have strong feelings we don’t have to do anything about them. So if we find ourselves having thoughts of refusing the Call to Adventure, such thoughts are just thoughts. However, if we find ourselves wanting to act on those thoughts by refusing the call, we are engaging in doing mode. One way to escape the Refusal of the Call is to merely shift from doing mode to being mode.

The first step to leaving doing mode is to become aware of the ways in which we engage in it.

Think about how you slip into Doing Mode throughout your day. Doing Mode involves solving problems, figuring things out, and participating in day-to-day activities. Right now, make a mental list of a few of the ways you engage in Doing Mode.

We sometimes create unrealistic expectations for ourselves by assuming that stressful or depressing thoughts and feelings are somehow not “natural.” In fact, just the opposite is true. It is perfectly natural to have stressful or depressing thoughts and feelings from time to time.

Try this sometime: Ask everyone you know if they’ve never in their entire lives had a depressing or stressful thought. I’m willing to bet that you won’t be able to find anyone who would say that they’ve never been depressed or anxious. That’s because, like cloudy days, stressful and depressing feelings are a natural part of being alive.

If we can accept that we don’t have to do anything to fix cloudy days, we can accept that we don’t have to do anything to fix negative thoughts and feelings as well. Sometimes our attempts to fix such thought cycles could be the very thing that makes them worse. Here’s an example of how this process works:

Suppose I am prone to panic attacks. One day I find myself feeling anxious. I can tell by the way my thoughts are racing and by the way my body feels that my anxiety is rising. I know from previous experience that rising anxiety has led to panic attacks in the past. As I realize this, my anxiety increases even more because I’m afraid that I’m about to have yet another panic attack. So I try to do something to stop it by forcing myself to calm down. But “trying to calm down” is doing mode. The harder I try to calm down, the more I stress out about the fact that I can’t calm down. The more I stress out about the fact that I can’t seem to calm down, the more my anxiety rises, because I’m trying to do something to fix it, and what I’m doing isn’t working. The more I fail at fixing it, the more I stress out and try even harder to fix it. This cycle builds and builds until I have another full-blown panic attack.

What if, when I felt my anxiety rising, I was able to say, “Oh, that’s another panic attack that’s about to happen. I’ve had them before. Yes, they’re unpleasant, but I’ve managed to survive them. No need to try to do anything to stop it.”
In this case, I’m not trying to do anything. I’m not trying to stop the attack. I’ve consciously chosen to sit with it and be in the moment with the natural experience, paying attention to and describing the sensations to myself. Because I’m not engaging in doing mode by trying to fix something, I’m not adding to the anxiety. I’m just allowing things to happen in their own time, while I observe with my senses. From this perspective, even if I do have another panic attack, I’m being still with it and observing it rather than interacting with it. I know from previous experience that it won’t kill me, however unpleasant the experience might be. I’m engaging my internal observer to be with the experience without having to do anything about it.

This ability to pay attention to the present moment is the essence of moving from doing mode to being mode.

One of the most basic ways to engage in Being Mode is to simply start paying attention to the sensations you experience in the world around you. One thing you can always focus on is your breath. This is because your breath is always with you. Try this now by going outside and taking a few deep breaths while noticing the sensations you’re experiencing. What did you feel in your body? Did you notice any smells in the air? Were you able to taste anything in the air as you exhaled? What does your breathing sound like? What physical sensations are you experiencing?
Leaving Doing Mode and entering Being Mode can be as simple as paying attention to what your senses are telling you in the present moment. Think about some ways you can engage all of your senses. For example, you might light a scented candle or go outside and smell the flowers.

From Doing Mode to Being Mode

Now that you have a list of activities you can engage in when feeling tempted to engage in doing mode, you can choose to be with these activities instead.

The Refusal of the Call often manifests in a temptation to return to the way things have always been. Change is difficult, and setting out on a path of personal and permanent change for the better can sometimes be the most difficult life-changing experience of all. We feel tempted to tell ourselves, “Change is too hard,” or “I’ve always been this way, why change now?” or “People won’t like me if I change.”

We’re very good at coming up with excuses because if we don’t then we have to take responsibility for our lives. That can be a scary place to be for those of us who have never done it before. When we take responsibility for our own lives we have nobody else to blame if we fail. What we sometimes forget, though, is that if we take responsibility for our own lives, then we are the only ones who can take credit for our successes.

Taking the leap of faith required to trust ourselves is a major step in answering the Call to Adventure. Sometimes it helps to have a little Supernatural Aid. We’ll talk about what this aid might look like in future posts and how it might help you to move from doing mode to being mode.

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Mindfulness and Ecospirituality

Mindfulness and Ecospirituality

Mindfulness and ecospirituality go hand-in-hand. Ecospirituality is the “what” and mindfulness is the “how.” This quote from Black Elk explains one perspective on this relationship:

“You have noticed that everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the Power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round. The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.”

–Black Elk, Oglala Shaman (1853-1950)

For hundreds of centuries prior to the Industrial Revolution, people lived together in small tribes, whether in nomadic bands or geographically fixed in locations in villages or towns. Evolution wired our brains for nature. But with the advent of agriculture, we settled down more and more, and built cities. With cities came modernization. First, we built machines, then, with the discovery of electricity, we began to build electric machines. Thomas Edison’s invention of electric light forever robbed the night of its power to evoke mystery and terror by creating a perpetual electric twilight in our towns and cities, making more hours available to labor in the factories. The more domesticated we became, the more the wilderness retreated beyond the city limits. We ceased to mark time by the cycles of the seasons and began to keep time by the factory whistle.

Our modern, mechanized lifestyle has brought about many changes for the better. We live longer and more productive lives, but our hearts still long for the cry of nature. Our minds retreated from nature, but our bodies did not. Evolution programmed us to need nature, and our bodies and minds still respond to it.

What is the relationship between mindfulness and ecospirituality? Ecopsychology studies the relationship between mental health and the environment. This field of research views the mental health of humankind as a part of the geo-ecosystem that is the living planet we call Earth. If all life on Earth is interrelated, and human beings certainly are a type of life on Earth, then what happens to the rest of the planet affects us all. Ecopsychology recognizes that not only does the environment impact our physical health, but it also has a direct influence on our mental health. While artificial, stressful, polluted environments have the power to harm, nature has the power to heal, both physically and mentally.

From the perspective of ecopsychology, everything is connected to everything else. According to this paradigm, people don’t exist in a vacuum. They are part of the larger system of their neighborhood, of the even larger system of their particular societies, and ultimately the system of all life on Earth, circles-within-circles. Each of these systems communicates to us in different ways, and we interact with each of these systems. The individual is not only a part of a system of interacting human beings but also a part of an ecosystem. We interact with the environment, and the environment interacts with us. For those who know how to listen, the wind in the trees can sing. The view of a mountain range or a moonlit ocean can tell a story. The smell of the first flowers of spring can speak just as clearly as a loved one’s voice can. The touch of a ray of sun can be as powerful as a lover’s caress.

On the other hand, a crowded, polluted city street can communicate as well. The messages we get from our environment have an impact on us, whether or not we are consciously aware of that impact. This environmental impact changes our sense of self and our sense of well-being. If we could make a paradigm shift to a lifestyle that makes room for nature, what would that do to our sense of well-being?

Mindfulness and Ecospirituality: A Paradigm Shift

Such a change involves seeking inspiration (or spirituality) from the natural world. It is a solution-focused approach. It’s easy to go into panic mode when we realize what we’re doing to the environment, but such stress and anxiety don’t do anything to solve the problem. A solution-focused approach helps us to find positive solutions rather than getting stuck in ruminations about the negative effects we’re having on the environment. It’s easy to get caught up in the doom and gloom, but that doesn’t solve anything. What’s needed is an intentional approach that works.

Such an approach to saving the environment means a grassroots, bottom-up approach. It starts with the individual. The most effective way to change a society or a culture is mindfully, one person at a time, through ecospirituality. Ecospirituality is about spiritual connections to nature, to your own higher power if you have one, to others, and to your own sense of True Self. Nature is the catalyst for such connections, and mindfulness is the pathway.

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Answering the Call

answer the call to adventure

Like Coyote in the story from last week, a person who refuses to answer the Call to Adventure has little or no confidence in themselves. When you have received the call, you stand at a crossroads. You have a choice. You are free to choose to continue to refuse the Call to Adventure. Such a refusal means staying in the familiar, but it also means accepting the status quo. It means surrendering to life as it is without considering the possibilities of future growth.

If you find yourself stuck here but wishing to answer the Call to Adventure, the first step is to ask yourself, “If nothing changed from now on, could I live the rest of my life this way?”

If the answer to that question is, “No,” then obviously something has to change.

To begin making this change is to begin trusting yourself. Out of the billions of people on this planet, the only person who is a true expert on you is you. You already have within you everything you need to know to begin the quest. All you have to do is to learn to trust your inner wisdom.

The path of ecospirituality involves following the Way of the Coyote. It is a spiritual journey…a hero’s journey with many signposts and crossings. Each one of these crossings represents a phase along the way to becoming a seeker and a seer of visions. When you have arrived at the end of this journey you will have discovered a new way of being in the world. The first crossing is to answer the Call to Adventure.

At this first crossing, we have to forge our will to commit to the path. When a vision seeker sets out on the path such a decision requires a firm and resolute will. The life of a shaman is not to be approached with an attitude of “I guess so,” or “I’ll do it when I have the time,” or “this looks like fun if nothing else is going on.” Such a path requires a complete commitment to the quest. Once you cross the threshold there is no turning back.

The journey of the vision seeker is one of lifetime dedication. If you’re saying to yourself, “I don’t have the time or the energy,” what you’re really saying is, “It’s not a priority for me.” If it’s not a priority, then you’re not going to put forth your best efforts, so it’s probably not the right path…or the right choice…for you at this time in your life. If that is the case, it’s better to set aside the path and return to it with a firm resolve when you are ready to commit to doing the work.

In many indigenous traditions throughout the world, the path of the shaman begins with a rebirthing ceremony in which the initiate is given a new spiritual name. This renaming signifies a person’s birth to the spirit world. The naming ceremony is the vision seeker’s announcement to the world that he or she has taken up the quest. Such a commitment is a death to the former way of being, and rebirth as a seer and a seeker of visions.

This rebirth depends upon conquering your own fears. Conquering fear doesn’t mean never being afraid. It means rising to meet the challenges of the Way of the Coyote in spite of the fear. It is the first landmark in the decision to become the person you were meant to be by embracing your True Self.

Answer the Call

As you contemplate answering your Call to Adventure, do any fears rise up in your spirit? If so, what is the nature of these fears? If you feel ready and unafraid to begin the journey, then think about what things might stand in your way in the future and use those things instead to answer the questions that follow.

  • What are your greatest fears?
  • How might you conquer these fears?
  • How might you forge your will so that you may take up the path of the vision seeker with a firm and steadfast commitment?
  • What Supernatural Aid might you require to help you succeed?
  • How might you strengthen your resolve to commit to the journey?
  • Which thoughts, feelings, and habits will you have to sacrifice to be reborn into the life of a seer/shaman?
  • What is your reason for seeking the path that leads to ecospirituality?

Over the coming week, contemplate your answers to these questions to determine if you’re ready to answer the Call of the Coyote.

What do you think? What would help you to answer the call to adventure? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Refusal of the Call

The Call

The Refusal of the Call happens when the pain of changing is greater than the pain of staying the same.

The People went in search of Coyote to ask him to go on a quest to find a new place for the People. Chief Buffalo sent Brother Eagle and Sister Cougar to find him.

They came upon Coyote playing in a field of fallen leaves and told him that Chief Buffalo had summoned him, so Coyote followed them back to Chief Buffalo’s lodge. When Coyote approached, Chief Buffalo greeted him politely.
Brother Coyote said in return, “Why have you summoned me here on this fine but chilly day, Grandfather Buffalo?”
Chief Buffalo spoke, “I have asked you here to request that you go on a quest for the People.”

“A quest?” Brother Coyote asked skeptically.

“Yes, a quest,” said Sister Cougar, “The days and nights are getting colder, and nobody can say whether they will ever grow warmer again. The People are afraid that the warmth of the Sun might never return, so we are asking you to go on a journey to find a new place for the Tribe to live.”

Brother Coyote loved to play tricks, but now he felt they were playing a trick on him. He felt the disbelief rising in his heart, and said, “You wish me to go on a quest? Are you mocking me? Surely this must be some jest! Brother Eagle, I do not have your keen eyes and ability to fly high in the sky, so I could not escape danger, nor could I see it coming ahead of time. Sister Cougar, I am no great hunter like you. If I were to go on such a journey, I would surely starve!”

Why not send Sister Doe, who can sniff out predators and run away quickly? Or send Brother Bear, who has great strength, so he could fight an enemy should one overtake him?

“Sister Doe is much too timid for such a journey,” said Chief Buffalo.

“And Brother Bear is sleeping and has been for many weeks. Nobody knows if he shall ever wake again.”

But Brother Coyote was not convinced. One by one he named all of the creatures of the People; but one by one Chief Buffalo gave him reasons why they could not go. He explained that if Brother Coyote could not go, it could be nobody else.

“I am not a warrior!” cried Coyote, “I am not a hero! I spend my days running through the forest, playing and joking with the People! I am not clever enough, or strong enough, or fast enough, or smart enough for such a journey! I cannot go!”

Chief Buffalo, Brother Eagle, and Sister Cougar looked upon Brother Coyote with sadness. They thought about pointing out all the ways that he was wrong about what he had said. They thought about listing all the strengths that Brother Coyote could bring to their quest, such as his ability to track, hide, and deceive a predator on the trail. But they had been down this road with Coyote too many times before. They knew that it would only lead to more arguments and more hurt feelings if they tried to talk him out of his decision. So instead they walked away with pity in their hearts.

As Chief Buffalo turned to leave, he said to Coyote, “I am disappointed in you. I thought you would be happy to help out the People, who have been victims of many of your cruel jests. I would think that you would like to make amends for your pranks. I can see now that I was wrong.”

And with that, Chief Buffalo walked away.

Of all the things Coyote had heard from the People this afternoon, the words of Chief Buffalo stung him the most. He had always admired and respected his Grandfather Buffalo, and it hurt Coyote deeply to see him so disappointed. But Coyote did not see what others could see in him. In his own eyes, he was just a trickster and a fool, incapable of great deeds.

With a sad and heavy heart, he walked away from the Chief’s lodge to return to his own den.
 


Answering the Call: A Change of Context

Change is scary. The comforting thing about the familiar is its familiarity; we know what to expect. This can even be true if the familiar situation is grim. Quite often we’ll stay stuck in a bad situation because the fear of the unknown can be worse than the current (known) situation. Such a sentiment is often expressed in the phrase, “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know.”

The familiar, however uncomfortable it may be, is at least familiar. We often choose to stay in a familiar, yet miserable, situation rather than to fly off to ills we know not of. When faced with the possibility of change in such a situation, an element of the unknown must be dealt with. We don’t know what to expect. What if, by acting, we make things worse? What can we expect to happen if we leave the familiar for unknown, unexplored territory? Sure, things might get better, but they might get worse too. When we let our fears of the unknown overwhelm us, it is easy to, like Coyote, refuse the Call to Adventure. It’s simply easier to stay in misery than to set sail on uncharted waters.

I was once traveling to a workshop on shamanism. This particular seminar was being held in a hidden-away corner of the Southern Appalachians. This was before the days of GPS, and I was having difficulty finding my way, so I stopped at a little country store to ask for directions. When I told the clerk where I was going, he jokingly replied, “You can’t get there from here. You have to go someplace else and start over.”

Of course, he was being facetious, but his answer was a great metaphor for the journey into the world of shamanism. If you plan to journey to the Otherworld which is the realm of the shaman, you can’t get there from here. This is one of the reasons for the death and rebirth experience so common to shamanistic paths throughout the world. The shaman must die to his old way of living and being in the world and be reborn into the life of the shaman. Sometimes the rites required to complete this task may seem odd or downright silly to modern eyes. Celtic shamans were required to stand on one foot like a crane, with one eye covered, while seeking visions or pronouncing prophecies. Some Native Americans stood for days with pebbles between their toes to keep them awake while seeking visions. Some shamans painted their naked bodies, lay down in boats at sea, ate special foods, slept wrapped in a buffalo hide, or engaged in drumming, singing, chanting, and a variety of other behaviors all designed to put the shaman’s consciousness in touch with the Otherworld.

So it’s pretty obvious that some of the rites, rituals, and tools of shamanism will feel weird at first. That’s okay. If they didn’t feel strange, you’d already be doing them. Given time you will become accustomed to these new ways of being and new ways of doing as part of your spiritual practice. If you cannot get past the unfamiliarity with drumming and chanting, wearing a feathered cloak, or performing rites, then you “can’t get there from here.” In such a case, you are not ready to enter the Belly of the Whale, and you are still in the Refusal of the Call. Answering the Call of the Coyote means setting forth with purpose, with determination, and with will. There’s no, “I guess so” on the Path of the Coyote. If you are not certain that you are ready, then you are in Refusal of the Call and are not ready for ecospirituality.

The way out of this Refusal of the Call is to trust the process. Trust your own instinct, and trust your own Supernatural Aid. Trust in your connections to others, to nature, and to self. Meditate on what your inner voice may be trying to tell you. The way to know if you are ready to take the call is to know with certainty that it can be no other way.

When you achieve this sense of certainty, you will be ready to die to your old way of being and to be reborn as a follower of the Way of the Coyote.

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Creating Your Reality

creating your reality

Creating your reality is a process that happens on a day-to-day basis. We all create our own reality through our assumptions and our perceptions. Our assumptions about life influence our perceptions. Taken as a whole, all our perceptions add up to our own version of reality.

If your assumption is that the world is flat, how would that influence your daily perceptions and your daily reality? What if your assumption is that the world is round? Each of these choices comes with perceptions about the way the world works. If you assume the world is flat, how would you feel about sailing in a ship to the ends of the earth? If you assume that the world is round, would you feel the same way? What reality would you create for yourself in each of the scenarios above?

You create your reality through your assumptions and perceptions. To illustrate how this process works, consider for a moment that you have an assumption that “Everybody is out to get me.”

If your assumption is, “Everybody is out to get me,” then that assumption is going to set your perception filter in a certain way. With this assumption, your perception filter is set so that you only notice instances of behavior that confirm your assumption. If your perception filter has been set by the assumption that “Everybody is out to get me,” then you’re only going to notice when people act in a way that confirms your assumption, and you will ignore any behavior to the contrary.

If this is how your perception filter is set, then you are going to ignore it when people act in such a way that they demonstrate that they are not out to get you. Not only that but when people act in such a way, you’re going to take it as evidence that they are out to get you because you’ll think that the only reason they’re being nice is that they’re trying to get something from you.

Now this assumption and this perception will work together to create your reality for you. Here’s how it works: If you assume that “Everybody is out to get me,” and your perception filter is set only to see examples that confirm your assumption, how are you likely to treat people who aren’t out to get you? If I’m a person who’s not out to get you, and I’m doing nice things for you because I like you and want to be your friend, yet every time I do something nice for you, you treat me as if I’m up to something, how long do you think I’ll stay around?

If you treat everyone as if they’re out to get you, even when they’re not, you will eventually drive away anyone who’s not out to get you. At that point, the only people who are still in your life are people who are out to get you. So by choosing your assumptions and your perceptions about the way the world works, and by acting upon those assumptions and perceptions, you create a reality based on those assumptions and perceptions.

Let’s look at another example. If you are seeking to follow the path of ecospirituality, you are seeking to walk the path of an ecospiritual shaman. To walk in the path of a shaman is to interact on a regular basis with the Otherworld. Therefore to be a shaman, you have to have some concept of the Otherworld. It can be a real place, or it can be a psychological place, but it is a necessary place for shamanism to exist and work its magic. So if you seek to walk the path of the shaman, but your first assumption is, “The Otherworld does not exist,” then you are going to set your perception filter to only notice things that confirm your assumption that the Otherworld does not exist. As you continue to ignore all evidence for the existence of the Otherworld, it will retreat further and further away from you, until, for you, it does not exist.

On the other hand, if you assume the Otherworld does exist, even if it’s just the collection of archetypes that Jung called the ‘collective unconscious,’ then your perception filter is set to look for evidence that confirms this assumption. The more evidence you find to support this assumption, the more you make the Otherworld real in your own mind.

When considering the Otherworld, don’t forget that just because something is happening in your own mind, that doesn’t mean it’s not real. The Otherworld might be a real place, or it might just be a place of psychological processes lying between the conscious and subconscious worlds. In either case, if you experience the Otherworld, then it has become real for you.

I prefer to focus on the utility of these experiences instead of whether or not they’re happening in a “real” place. The more I use my assumptions and perceptions to create my own reality, the more real the Otherworld becomes for me.

In the coming weeks we’ll be exploring the concept of creating your own reality by visiting the Otherworld of the collective unconscious.

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The Call to Adventure

Buffalo Bison the call to adventure

Coyote’s Call to Adventure

In the time of the beginning, the People had come up out of the ground during the first spring. They had never lived on the earth before, so everything was new to them. The Sun was warm, and the land was abundant. They went about their business through the first spring and summer, never planning for the future, because life was so easy.

Because they had never lived on the earth before, they did not know about the seasons. They lived as if spring would be eternal.

But soon came the first autumn. The trees were ablaze with bright reds and golds of the season. The People did not know what this meant, as they had never seen it before. They had assumed that it would always be spring and that the weather would always be warm. But as the first autumn began to give way to the first winter, they soon came to know that things were changing.

Since this was their first winter, they had no way of knowing that spring and summer would eventually return to the land. As the nights grew cooler the People began to panic.

“Is this the end of everything?” they cried, “Someone must do something! What if the Sun never returns?”
They all went to their Chief, saying, “The days and nights are getting colder! If you do not do something, we will all surely die!”

So Chief Buffalo held a Council to figure out what to do.

After many days of thinking about the problem, the People finally decided that they should elect a scout to go out and search the world for a warmer place to live. One by one all the animals were considered for this quest.

“What about Brother Eagle?” the People asked.

“Brother Eagle flies high and sees far,” said Chief Buffalo, “But he is far too serious. He might choose a warmer place, but would he also be able to find a place where the children can play and be happy?”

“Then what about Sister Cougar?” the People asked.

“Sister Cougar is crafty and wise,” said Chief Buffalo, “But she is also a loner. She might find an excellent place with plenty of sunshine, but since she prefers her own company, she might like it so well there alone that she would forget to return and share it with us.”

“How about Brother Bear?” the People cried.

“Brother Bear is indeed strong, and wise in the ways of healing, but since the nights have grown colder, he has withdrawn to his cave to sleep and nobody has seen him since. He may never return!”

“What about Sister Salmon?” They asked in desperation.

“Sister Salmon has disappeared upstream,” said Chief Buffalo, “And she too may never return.”

One by one the People named all of the animals of the forest, and one by one Chief Buffalo found a reason why they could not go.

Finally, the only creature left was Coyote. Because Coyote loved to play tricks, and because every one of the People had been the victim of one of Coyote’s pranks at one time or another, nobody wanted to name him as the scout. They did not think him responsible enough to determine the fate of the entire tribe. But they soon had no other choice.

“What about Coyote?” they asked Chief Buffalo.

“Ah, what about Coyote indeed?” asked the Chief.

“Coyote is certainly fleet of foot for such a journey, but who among you trusts him?”

The People admitted that Coyote was not very trustworthy, but they were out of options.

“Perhaps,” they said, “His trickery may come in useful on the journey!”

The People were hesitant, but since they had ruled out all the other members of the tribe for one reason or another, they were finally willing to settle on Coyote.

So it was agreed that he would be chosen for the quest.

The Call to Adventure: On the Nature of Reality

I moved to Pensacola, Florida shortly after graduating high school in 1978. I had begun investigating alternatives to the religious dogma of my Southern Baptist upbringing a few years before that time, and I was still trying to figure it all out. One day I was at the beach, wading in the water while meditating and taking in all the scenery, when I had a revelation.

If you’ve ever been to Pensacola Beach, you know that the water is crystal-clear. Or at least it was back in those days. I had waded out on this particular day to about waist-deep and was staring at my feet through the water. As I looked at my feet, I watched the image refract, expanding and contracting with the motions of the waves. I remembered from my high school physics class that matter is essentially vibrations of energy patterns. As I watched the patterns the water made across the images of my body, refracting them and bending the images at random, I began to see myself as vibrating waves and not as solid matter.

Pensacola Beach, Florida

The ripples of the ocean waves made my body appear as if it were dissolving and reappearing in clouds of probability around the center of my being. As I watched these ever-shifting images I had my revelation. The ripples represented the atoms and molecules that make up my body. They vibrated in and out of existence, just like subatomic particles do. Yet my body was still there. I looked out across the sea, watching the ripples recede into the distance. All of those ripples were separate and distinct, yet all were interconnected by the waters of the sea.

As I watched, I realized that this was a perfect metaphor for existence.

Each group of ripples could be seen as an individual entity. The subatomic vibrations that make up a human body or an animal, or other living thing, are all groups of vibrations resonating at a shared range of frequencies. The ripples could represent any inanimate object as well. By focusing on a particular group of ripples I could see that group as separate from the whole, but eventually they melted into other ripples, which melted into other ripples, and so on into the infinite horizon.

All of these ripples were separate in a way, but they were all interconnected to one another in another way. As I stared out across the surface of the sea, I saw it as a metaphor for the Universe and all the energy it contains in all of its myriad shapes and permutations.

At the time I had been reading materials on the ideas of clairvoyance and premonition. It seemed to me at the time that if people could really see the future, then this gift should work all the time, and not just intermittently, as was so often reported. My scientifically-minded viewpoint was that if there was such a thing as clairvoyance, it should work 100% or not at all. But as I stood there in the waters, watching the waves come and go, I began to see things differently.
As I stood in the sea, I saw one wave rise, only to be obscured by another wave. I could see the peak of one wave for a moment, but as another wave rose up, that wave was hidden from sight. I saw the ocean as a metaphor for the fabric of time. What if time isn’t linear, but vibrates like waves on the surface of the ocean?

I pictured the waves as the sea of time in which we live our lives. What if those with the gift of clairvoyance can see the future, but only when the waves of time are in proper alignment? That would explain why clairvoyants aren’t able to be 100% accurate 100% of the time. Time is not a solid thing, but a pattern of waves, like an ocean. If an event occurs, it is like throwing a stone into the sea. That event produces ripples that change the pattern of time. If a large event occurs, like a war, a cultural revolution, or a change in consciousness, it is like a storm at sea. That storm makes a huge change in the patterns of the waves. As the waves spread out from the events that cause them, it changes the pattern a person with psychic abilities might see. So a vision of the future might vary from moment to moment as circumstances change.

What is the dividing line between one entity and another? How do we decide when one collection of vibrations is separate and distinct from another? For me, the answer is that there is no true separation. The idea of separation is an illusion that we have consciously chosen to accept for our own purposes. So if I perceive any separation between you and me, or between me and other living things, or between you and the inanimate objects in your environment, then that separation doesn’t exist in reality. It’s just a temporarily useful framework our minds have created to more easily make sense of things until a better hypothesis comes along.

Einstein demonstrated that there is also no separation between space and time. Space and time are part of the same thing. Time is just another aspect of space. Because of this “wavy” nature of reality and time, what we mean by “reality” isn’t necessarily written in stone. So there can be multiple realities based on where you choose to place your perceptions and how your consciousness chooses to organize those perceptions.

One of the characteristics of a shaman is the ability to walk between the worlds. In most shamanic traditions, this means that the shaman has the ability to go into the Otherworld where the spirits of the dead lie. Some people like to think of this Otherworld as having an actual independent existence outside of our own minds. For these people, the Otherworld is an actual place where the spirits of our departed Ancestors dwell. Others prefer not to declare that the Otherworld is a real place, but instead is the realm of what Carl Jung called the Collective Unconscious. In this place of Collective Unconscious, the Otherworld lies in our own unconscious minds and does not have any independent existence outside of our own thoughts and perceptions. In this case, the Otherworld, or the collective unconscious, is the repository of all our unconscious archetypes. It is the genetic memory shared by all human beings.

In either case, whether you believe in the Otherworld as an actual place or as a construct of the unconscious mind, what matters is our perceptions of the Otherworld. If the Otherworld alters our perceptions, gives us useful information, and teaches us about ourselves and others, does it really matter whether it is a “real” place? What do we mean by “real” anyway? From this point of view, the Otherworld of the shaman is simply a non-ordinary reality created by altering our perceptions and consciously re-ordering those perceptions.

Coyote Walk Meditation

I imagine that a great deal of time and effort has been wasted on arguing about the “reality” of the Otherworld. I for one don’t care if the Otherworld is ‘real’ or not. I’m far more interested in whether or not the Otherworld is a useful concept when it comes to re-ordering perceptions and changing consciousness. If the concept of the Otherworld is helpful to me in any way as I answer the Call of the Coyote, which is the Call to Adventure, then it has fulfilled its purpose.

The Call to Adventure is the moment in a journey when we leave the familiar “real” world for a quest filled with growth opportunities. In ecospirituality, the Call to Adventure happens when we realize that we can no longer continue on the road we have been on and that something has to change. This change happens when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of answering the Call to Adventure and making changes in our lives.

While the Call to Adventure may be a challenge, it is also an opportunity to create a new, life-changing reality for ourselves and for the loved ones in our lives.

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The Monomyth

letting go The Monomyth: An ecospiritual shaman's journey

The Monomyth was the creation of Joseph Campbell, who was an American mythologist best known for his works and lectures in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His personal philosophy is often summarized in the phrase, “Follow your bliss.”

One of his areas of study was the archetypal nature of world mythologies. He noted that myths from around the world followed a pattern. Campbell conceptualized this pattern, calling it the monomyth. The monomyth is the archetypal mythological journey of discovery. The monomyth is often referred to as the Hero’s Journey. Elements of this journey show up in sacred texts of most religions. It is the journey of Moses, of Jesus, of Krishna, of Mohammed, of the Buddha, of King Arthur, and even of Luke Skywalker. George Lucas relied heavily on the works of Joseph Campbell when crafting the original Star Wars saga.

The template for the monomyth, along with an explanation of the phases, is outlined below. There are three major phases, with steps for each phase. The three major phases are: Departure, Initiation, and Return.

As you read the descriptions below, see if you can identify where you might be in your own ecospiritual path.

Phase One of the Monomyth: Departure

In the Departure phase, the hero leaves the familiar on a journey of self-awareness that will ultimately make or break him. The Departure phase is about a way of doing things differently than they have been done in the past. It is an awakening to the world of wider possibilities. For an ecospiritual seeker, it means challenging your own accepted notions of what spirituality means. It means going against the dogma and finding your own individual path. It means trusting yourself and your own supernatural aid enough to take that step.

The Call to Adventure
The Call to Adventure is the catalyst that sets the Hero’s Journey in motion. It could be an inner need to change one’s circumstances, or it could be an external event that triggers the journey. For Buddha, it was the inner desire to seek enlightenment. For Luke Skywalker, the Empire forced his hand. In either case, the hero recognizes that something fundamental has changed, and he/she can never go back to the way things were.

Refusal of the Call
Change is scary. The comforting thing about the familiar is its familiarity; we know what to expect. This can even be true if the familiar situation is grim. Such a sentiment is often expressed in the phrase, “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know.”
The familiar, however uncomfortable it may be, is at least familiar. When faced with change, there is an element of the unknown that must be reckoned with. No matter how bad things are, the thought that they could potentially get worse always hovers in the back of our minds. By making a change, chance has entered the equation. What may you expect to happen when walking into uncharted territory? Things might get better, but they might get worse as well. Because of this doubt and uncertainty about where the path may lead, many people refuse the call to adventure.

Supernatural Aid
Sometimes when we get stuck in our refusal, we need a little push to get going again. When this happens, the universe tends to align the stars in such a way that we have to act. If we choose not to walk through the open door out of fear or uncertainty, the universe begins to close all other doors one by one until we have no choice but to walk through the open door before us.
This supernatural aid doesn’t have to come from some deity. Sometimes it is just as simple as a moment of inspiration or a flash of insight. Whatever it is, it sets our feet on the path in spite of our reluctance to embrace the journey.

The Crossing of the First Threshold
As Bilbo Baggins says, “It’s a dangerous business, going out your door. You step into the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

For every journey there is a first step. The Crossing of the First Threshold is that first step. The significance of that first step is that it indicates a commitment to the journey. The reluctance and refusal are over, and the intention has been set. Once your intention has been determined, and you announce your intention to the Universe, there is no going back.

Belly of the Whale
To learn new ways of being, we must first cast off our assumptions about the way things work. Our assumptions create our perceptions, and our perceptions create our reality. If we’re journeying to new realities, our perceptions and assumptions have to be discarded. This can be an especially difficult task since many of our assumptions and perceptions are involved in our own sense of identity. If we cast them off, we lose who we are. But to become someone new, we must lose who we are. Percival had to cast off his armor before he could receive the Holy Grail. Since he was a knight, this meant casting off all outward appearances of his former identity in order to discover something new.

Jonah spent three days in the Belly of the Whale after his Refusal of the Call. This was Jonah’s casting off of his former identity so that he could step into his new role as a spiritual leader. This time in the whale’s belly is a time of reflection and of challenging preconceived notions before initiation into a wider world.


Phase Two of the Monomyth: Initiation

In the Initiation phase, the hero must “die to herself.” Many religious and shamanic rituals involve a symbolic death and rebirth to a new way of being. Initiation is an emptying of your cup so that it may be refilled with new knowledge. For a spiritual seeker, Initiation means being open to new experiences and being willing to experiment with new ways of being.

The Road of Trials
“The word ‘ashes’ contains in it a dark feeling for death; ashes when put on the face whiten it as death does…some men around thirty-five or forty will begin to experience ashes privately, without ritual, even without old men. They begin to notice how many of their dreams have turned to ashes.”

–Robert Bly, Iron John: A Book about Men

The Road of Trials begins with what Robert Bly calls “Time in the Ashes,” or “Ashes Time.” Sometimes things get worse before they get better. The Greek katabasis literally means “to go down” or “to descend.” Katabasis is the idea that it is always darkest before the dawn. As the spiritual seeker’s old identity is stripped away in the Belly of the Whale, there is nothing yet with which to replace it. To a spiritual seeker, this katabasis may feel like the end of the world. Sometimes it manifests as a sense that one’s entire life has been meaningless up until this point. Author Richard Bach, in his bestseller Jonathan Livingston Seagull, describes this feeling best: “I gave my life to become the person I am right now. Was it worth it?”

The Meeting with the Goddess

“For she is the incarnation of the promise of perfection, the soul’s assurance that, at the conclusion of the exile in a world of organized inadequacies, the bliss that once was known will be known again…”

– Joseph Campbell, The Hero’s Journey

The Goddess here isn’t necessarily an actual divine entity, although she can be. Since the heroes in most of the myths Campbell studied were heterosexual males, the Meeting with the Goddess represents the ideal partner. Since we’re talking about a spiritual and metaphorical level here, the Meeting with the Goddess symbolizes the idea of completeness and perfection. After having our former identities stripped away in the Belly of the Whale, and after our Initiation in the Road of Trials, the Goddess appears to us in ideal form with the promise of what could be, if we persevere. The Goddess represents perfect love. It is a love that is truly unconditional; a love that applies not only to others, bur to self as well.

Woman as Temptress
Again, the gender bias of referring to the Temptress as a woman is a by-product of centuries of male heroes in mythology. The Temptress can just as easily be a Tempter, as when Lucifer tempted Jesus with all the wealth of the world if he would give up his seeker’s journey.

Whichever sex you choose to picture the Tempter/Temptress, its purpose is to entice you with the easy way out. The Temptress manifests in shortcuts, laziness, and leaving things half-done. The lesson of the Temptress is that if we cheat by taking a shortcut on the road to enlightenment, we are ultimately only cheating ourselves.
The Temptress will test your integrity and character, but there is a purpose in this trial. By testing your character, the Temptress gives you an opportunity to display your honor. True honor is how we act when nobody is watching, and the Temptress gives us the opportunity to practice that honor. She will attempt to sway us from the path and try to prevent us from owning the darker parts of ourselves. If this happens, we will fail to achieve Atonement with the Father.

Atonement with the Father
The poet Robert Bly, in Iron John, talks about the son receiving an injury from the father. Often it is this injury that sets the son off on a journey of self-discovery in the first place. In primal cultures this injury is sometimes ritualized. In some African cultures, the father knocks out one of the son’s teeth in a rite of passage ritual. In some Native American cultures, the son receives some other form of injury, as in the ritual tearing of the pectoral muscles practiced during the Sun Dance of the Lakotas. This dark aspect of fatherhood is reflected in the idea of the Shadow from Jungian psychology (more on this later). The psychoanalyst Carl Jung believed that all human beings have the potential for all behaviors. The most moral among us have the potential to become serial killers, and the most immoral among us have the potential to redeem themselves. Since, according to Jung, all humans have the potential for all behaviors, the behaviors we choose not to express are suppressed. The part of the psyche in which these behaviors are repressed is what Jung called the Shadow. The behaviors we choose to express, the mask we wear in our daily lives, is what Jung called the Persona.

The Atonement with the Father is the integration of the Shadow with the Persona. Although the Shadow is where our dark, evil impulses lie, it is also where our creativity lies. Without it, we can have no imagination. So Atonement is literally “at-ONE-ment,” meaning that the Shadow and the Persona become one. This does not mean that we consciously choose to act on those evil impulses. It means that by acknowledging their existence in the first place, we can move towards mastering them. When they are mastered, we can achieve apotheosis.

Apotheosis
This word, Greek in origin, means, “To deify,” or to “become godlike.” According to Joseph Campbell, apotheosis is, “The pattern of the divine state to which the human hero attains who has gone beyond the last terrors of ignorance.”
Apotheosis is the ability to rise above the chess board and recognize that one has been a pawn in the game. By seeing the whole board, we gain a new perspective. It is a shift in perspective; the solving of the puzzle of existence. Once the hero has achieved apotheosis, he can never go back to the way things were before. Apotheosis is the gaining of a godlike wisdom. Adam has eaten the apple, and gained the godlike knowledge of good and evil.

The Ultimate Boon
The Ultimate Boon is the treasure at the end of the journey. It is the Holy Grail; the elixir of life; the reason for the journey in the first place. For a spiritual seeker, the Ultimate Boon may be the gifts of wisdom and enlightenment.

Phase Three of the Monomyth: Return

In the Return Phase, the hero has gained wisdom about the nature of reality and consciousness and is now faced with the challenge of returning to the world to teach those who are willing to listen. It is the process of coming home with the Holy Grail. It is the act of bringing the Ten Commandments down off the mountaintop. It is the act of helping others to achieve what the hero has achieved while avoiding the temptation to turn them into carbon copies of himself. For a spiritual seeker, this means applying lessons learned in the spiritual realm to daily life. It means learning to see the bigger picture and to trust the vision.

Refusal of the Return
When you have tasted the milk and honey of Paradise, why would you want to leave? When you’ve experienced perfection, it can be difficult to summon the energy to return to an imperfect world. There is also the consideration of trying to communicate your experience to others who have not had the same experience. You will lack a common frame of reference. Once your perceptions have been transformed and you learn to see things in a new way and speak a new language, it can feel like it’s impossible to communicate with those who haven’t learned the same language.

In Plato’s Cave Allegory, the Seeker learns to see beyond the illusion and into the real nature of things. In Plato’s Cave, these illusions take the form of shadows projected on a wall. The shadows are of people. The shadows are not the people; they are merely an illusion and a projection of the real people behind the shadows. In Plato’s Cave, the Seeker sees the real people behind the shadows for the first time. But when he tries to explain the concept of real people to the others in the cave, they cannot understand what he means, because they lack a common frame of reference.

A return to the “real” world of shadows after living for a time in the world of true substance can be a frustrating experience if you hope to share your newfound wisdom with others. Because of this, it is easy to refuse the return, especially if you have attained paradise along your journey.

The Magic Flight
“If the hero in his triumph wins the blessing of the goddess or the god and is then explicitly commissioned to return to the world with some elixir for the restoration of society, the final stage of his adventure is supported by all the powers of his supernatural patron. On the other hand, if the trophy has been attained against the opposition of its guardian, or if the hero’s wish to return to the world has been resented by the gods or demons, then the last stage of the mythological round becomes a lively, often comical, pursuit. This flight may be complicated by marvels of magical obstruction and evasion.”

-Joseph Campbell

Sometimes the hero can escape with the Ultimate Boon. But sometimes forces conspire to prevent the hero from returning. Even paradise can be a prison if you can’t leave when you wish to leave.

For the spiritual seeker, the Magic Flight may consist of letting go of forms of spirituality that are no longer meaningful. One warm spring day. I was at the lake with the woman I would later divorce. We were having a picnic by the lake. She’d brought along her collection of talismans and other New Age paraphernalia and was busily trying to read portents in a deck of Tarot cards. Unfortunately, she had the habit of consulting the deck for every little aspect of her life to the point that it was almost an obsessive-compulsive disorder. It’s fine to see portents from time to time, but she couldn’t seem to see anything else.

As we sat there, she dealing out her Tarot and obsessing over it, a cardinal appeared on a tree branch just above our heads. Seeing an opportunity for another omen, she looked up at the bird and said, “Hi, do you have a message for me?”

The bird, in response, cocked her head sideways and dumped a prodigious load right onto her head.
I laughed, looked at her and said, “There’s your message.”

Spirituality is only good when it isn’t taken too seriously. This is the ultimate lesson of ecospirituality. If you find yourself in a space where the tools have become more important than the message, then you may be in need of a Magic Flight.

Rescue from Without
As the end of the path draws nigh, the hero may be exhausted and spent from the journey. If you have cast off the weary world, you are probably in no hurry to return to it. If this is the case, then the world may have to come and get you. For a spiritual seeker, this rescue from without may come from a friend or a family member who needs the wisdom you have gained from your journey.

The Crossing of the Return Threshold
The Return Threshold is the doorway that lies between the spiritual world and the “real” world. In order to cross the return threshold, the spiritual seeker must complete three tasks. First, she must retain all the wisdom she gained on the quest so that she may share it with others. Next, she must find a way to integrate that wisdom into a human life without pain or regret. Finally, she must find a way to share that wisdom with the rest of the world in such a way that they receive it with welcome. This last task is especially important, as we humans tend to make martyrs out of messiahs. This is another powerful way that coyote magic may be used. Sometimes people have to be “tricked” into enlightenment to bypass their preconceived notions of what is and what should be.

Master of Two Worlds
Once your basic needs of food, clothing, shelter and love have been satisfied, how much do you truly need? We often confuse our wants with our needs. The Master of Two Worlds has learned to reconcile these dualities. Such a Master has found a balance between the spiritual world and the material world. This seeker has also found a balance between his Shadow and his Persona; his light half and his dark half. Such a person has moved beyond seeing the world in black-and-white terms, and can see the gray areas, where most of life happens.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s famous philosophical device, commonly known as the Hegelian Dialectic, is a triad consisting of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, where the thesis is an idea, the antithesis is the idea’s opposite, and the synthesis is the blending of the two. For example, if the material world is the thesis, and the spiritual world is the antithesis, then a synthesis of the two would be finding a way to live spiritually in the material world. The Master of Two Worlds has achieved this synthesis.

Freedom to Live
Once you’ve conquered your fear of death, what else can stand in your way? If the soul is the only thing in the Universe that is truly indestructible, then death is just another way of being. Even if you are atheist or agnostic, and have no belief in an afterlife, this is still true from the point of view of your own consciousness. If this life is all you will ever know, and there is no afterlife, then it is impossible to ever be conscious of your own death; therefore there is no way you could ever know that you have died. How can you be conscious of your own death, if death is the end to consciousness? So from the perspective of your own consciousness, you are immortal for all practical purposes. When you die, your Universe ceases to exist, and you are no longer the Center. With this knowledge of death comes the Freedom to Live. Soul musician Ray Charles said, “Live every day like it’s going to be your last, because one of these days you’ll be right.”

Freedom to Live means that you have mastered death.

A ecospiritual seeker can use this monomyth template as a road map for following the way of the ecospiritual shaman, or any other spiritual path. As you look over the phases and steps above, you can probably readily identify where you are on the journey. You can also identify what lies ahead, and get some idea of what skills and tools you will need to meet those upcoming challenges. In the weeks that follow we will go into more depth about what some of those challenges might be and how to overcome them.

The rest is up to you!

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What is the Ecospirituality Group Program?

This Ecospirituality Group Facilitator Certification Program teaches you to be an  Ecospirituality Program facilitator. The Ecospirituality Group Program is a 12-week nature-based spiritual self-improvement program. Each session meets outdoors for about 90 minutes and is guided by a trained Ecospirituality Facilitator. The word “spiritual” comes from the Latin spiritus, which means, “breath.” Originally, that which was spiritual was simply that which was breathtaking. From this perspective a spiritual experience is an awe-inspiring experience. People of all religions…or none…can experience such awe-inspiring events. You can be spiritual without being religious. Spirituality doesn’t rely on a set system of teachings or dogmas. Spirituality is the joy of being present in the moment and experiencing the awe and wonder of living. When a seeker of the ecospiritual path has completed such a journey, they will become an ecospiritual shaman. An ecospiritual shaman is a practitioner who integrates spiritual and shamanic traditions with a deep ecological consciousness, emphasizing a sacred connection between humans and the natural world. Such a person has become fully integrated within themselves and is able to live in their True Self as the person they were born to be.  

Program Description

This program certifies you to be a facilitator for the Ecospirituality Group Program developed by the Mindful Ecotherapy Center, LLC. The Ecospirituality Program is a 12-week nature-based spiritual self-improvement group program. Each group meets outdoors for about 90 minutes and is guided by a trained Ecospirituality Facilitator. There is a companion workbook for the program that is available for purchase here. A FREE copy of this workbook in pdf format is included in the course documents section of the Ecospirituality Group Facilitator Course included in this bundle. This workbook was designed to accompany the 12-week program. Each course of the program includes ecotherapy and mindfulness activities and worksheets. There are also optional activities for each course of the program. This program bundle includes all of the three courses required to be a Certified Ecospirituality Group Facilitator. The courses in this program are:

There are no other fees or purchases required to complete certification. Once you have completed all three courses, email chuck@mindfulectherapy.com. When your completion of all three courses with passing grades has been verified, you will be emailed a Certificate of Completion in pdf format indicating that you are a Certified Ecospirituality Group Facilitator. You will also be eligible for a FREE listing in our Directory.

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Meet Your Instructor 

Charlton Hall, MMFT, PhD is a former Marriage and Family Therapy Supervisor and a former Registered Play Therapy Supervisor (now retired from both those roles).

In 2008 he was awarded a two-year post-graduate fellowship through the Westgate Training and Consultation Network to study mindfulness and ecotherapy. His chosen specialty demographic at that time was Borderline Personality Disorder.

Dr. Hall has been providing training seminars on mindfulness and ecotherapy since 2007 when he founded what would become the Mindful Ecotherapy Center, LLC, and has been an advocate for education in ecotherapy and mindfulness throughout his professional career, serving on the South Carolina Association for Marriage and Family Therapy’s Board of Directors as Chair of Continuing Education from 2012 to 2014.

He served as the Chair of Behavioral Health for ReGenesis Health Care from 2014 to 2016 and trained all the medical staff in suicide risk assessment and prevention during his employment at that agency.

Dr. Hall is also a trained SMART Recovery Facilitator and served as a Volunteer Advisor in South Carolina for several years.

Dr. Hall’s area of research and interest is using Mindfulness and Ecotherapy to facilitate acceptance and change strategies within a family systemic framework, and he has presented research at several conferences and seminars on this and other topics.

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Course materials for all three courses in this online home study package are evidence-based, with clearly defined learning objectives, references and citations, and post-course evaluations. Upon request a copy of this information and a course description containing objectives, course description, references and citations will be given to you for your local licensing board.

All of our courses and webinars contain course objectives, references, and citations as a part of the course materials; however, it is your responsibility to check with your local licensure board for suitability for continuing education credit.

No warranty is expressed or implied as to approval or suitability for continuing education credit regarding jurisdictions outside of the United States or its territories.

If a participant or potential participant would like to express a concern about his/her experience with the Mindful Ecotherapy Center, NBCC ACEP #7022, he/she may call or e-mail at (864) 384-2388 or chuck@mindfulecotherapy.com. Emails generally get faster responses.

You may also use the contact form below.

Although we do not guarantee a particular outcome, the individual can expect us to consider the complaint, make any necessary decisions and respond within 24 to 48 hours.

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