Sacred Dancers and Shamanic Transformation

Jade Wah'oo, a shaman whose lineage goes back thousands of years, is a frequent contributor to our magazine. This month, he shares with us his vision of Spirit Dancers that live within us — and a shamanic ceremony that can help turn our own dance into one that wholly affirms life.

The Soul is comprised of 22 Sacred Dancers — archetypes, in Western terminology. These 22 aspects of the Soul are depicted in the 22 Major Arcana of the Tarot, the 22 letters of the Hebraic alphabet, the Mayan Calendar's 22 cycles (of 52 years each), and in our own DNA, which has 23 pairs of chromosomes, one pair determining whether we are male or female and the other 22 pairs determining our characteristics.

Each of the Sacred Dancers carries, implicit within its structure, a capacity of development and empowerment that is engendered by our emotive responses to life's situations and experiences — our programmed conditionings, beliefs and feelings, and epiphanies or traumas.

Depending upon the quality of emotional response — whether life-positive or life-negative — the Sacred Dancers' qualitative nature is created.

If, for example, one should experience a reverent, heart-felt, and honoring feeling in the presence of a person who exhibits a positive role-modeling, the appropriate Sacred Dancer within the Soul is enhanced in its nature with an infusion of life-force that carries with it a life-positive charge.

Conversely, if an individual has experiences of revulsion and disgust, learning to mistrust and fear others who express a particular archetypal stance, the Sacred Dancer within is endowed with a dissonant quality of life-force associated with that particular archetype.

Examples of these differing models abound. One such example involves the archetype of Father. When a child is treated with respect by his or her father (or other Father figures) — offered guidance and spiritual direction in a relationship where love is openly expressed and concern is shown and given through encouragement and discipline — the child empowers the Sacred Dancer of Father in a life-enhancing state.

When, on the other hand, the child's experience of the Father is debilitating, demeaning, and lacking appropriate guidance and support, the quality of life-force fed into the structure of the Sacred Dancer is disruptive and degenerative.

Every culture has stories of the Sacred Dancers woven into its mythologies. The archetype of Father is embodied within Odin, Zeus, Yahweh, Sun Father, and the Tarot's Emperor.

Mother is exemplified as Demeter, Mary, Earth Mother, Frigg of Norse mythology, and the Empress of the Tarot.

Likewise, the aspect of Trickster is to be found as Loki, Coyote, the Tarot card of Fool, and Hermes, while Persephone, Isis, Astarte, Magdalene and the High Priestess of the Tarot are all archetypal expressions of the intuitive function, the Inner Feminine.

Dancing the Hero

For purposes of this discussion, the culture figure I will utilize is the Hero.

In Greece we find Hercules, and in Norse mythology it is Thor, while in Native America, Monster-Slayer appears as Hero under many a name and guise.

Every Sacred Dancer has specific attributes by which it can be recognized, regardless of the culture of origin and Hero's attributes are these:

The Hero is born in a place or manner that is different from the general populace;

The Hero has a garb or regalia which denotes that difference; and

Due to the Hero's supernatural manner or place of birth, he or she has special powers, abilities and gifts that are used to rescue those in need.

In the 20th-century United States of America, there is a culture figure who portrays all of these characteristics: Superman! In addition to the inherent attributes that make him recognizable as a culture Hero, Superman has qualities of consciousness that make him distinctive. Superman has a conscience, seeks justice for all, and has a guiding principle of moral rightness, shown at times by way of an excruciating inner conflict as to the correct course of action.

Superman exemplifies the life-positive expression of the Hero.

Another semi-popular culture Hero of the latter 20th century is a character from the TV show "A-Team": Mr. T. He is born in a place "other" than that of the general viewing audience: the Philadelphia ghetto. He displays a garb and regalia that shows his uniqueness: gold teeth, hefty gold chains, and a Mohawk haircut. His special powers, abilities, and gifts are not just his brawn, but also his intelligence, which enables him to manufacture weapons of great destruction from household items that he uses to rescue those in need. But in so doing, he may lay waste to an entire city block.

Mr. T is vile, cruel, demeaning, arrogant, and violent. He is the epitome of the life-negative expression of the Hero. And yet he is a Hero!

Just as an archetypal figure may be seen to have either the qualitative nature of good or ill, so do we, as individuals, have the capacity for life-enabling or -disabling expressions of any given Sacred Dancer.

Extending the example of the Hero, let us suppose that any Sacred Dancer within our Soul has the capacity of holding a hundred units of life force. We will, due to societal influences, modeling our behaviors through admiration or refusal, emotional traumas or inspirational events, empower the Hero (or any Sacred Dancer) in the proportion of those imports.

If we each have 100 units of life force available to the Hero, we might empower the Hero with 60 units patterned from Superman, or from an uncle who risked his life to save another, or perhaps from Mahatmas Gandhi — and the remaining 40 units after the manner of Mr. T, or the local "Made Men" of the neighborhood gangsters, in admiration of self-serving abusers of power.

A Sacred Dancer may be called forth into conscious embodied expression in two manners. The first is through conscious, willful evocation. The second is as a spontaneous response to a triggering situation.

Assuming good will on the part of every person, none of us wishes to express ourselves in a life-denying manner. Unconsciously, then, we set the life-positive element of the Hero-within to nullify the corresponding life-negative element.

When we have, as in the above example, a 60/40 composition, it takes a full 40 units of Superman to nullify the existent 40 units of Mr. T. This leaves us only 20 percent effective in our capability to express the Hero in the situation that demands a heroic response.

Eventually, we find that we are ineffectual in our ability to meet the needs of the situation. This further defeats our self-esteem, feeding the life-negative emotional state of our Hero-within. And now, perhaps, we may have empowered our Hero with 80 units of Mr. T and only 20 units of Superman.

At this point, forcing Superman to try to defeat Mr. T uses up all of our life-positive capability, while leaving the life-negative expression functioning at 60 percent. And when this has happened, we will express the Hero in a life-demeaning manner, seeking self-aggrandizement and glory rather than selfless service.

In such a dynamic, when an archetype has been endowed with so much life-negative force, we may then refer to it as the "Adversary."

And when an Adversary is the expression of the Sacred Dancer that comes into conscious embodiment, we find ourselves acting out in manners and with behaviors that we consciously have no desire to express. These may show themselves as phobias, neurotic fixations, self-sabotage, poor habits, and out-of-control behaviors.

In the situation where an Adversary has come into presence, we find that the Will is not sufficient to counteract the influence the Adversary exerts.

Sacred Dancers and the Window of Identity

For the purpose of examining the further dynamics of the Sacred Dancers, imagine that all 22 are arrayed in position on a wheel. This "Wheel-of-the-Sacred Dancers" normally spins with ease, allowing for spontaneous expression of any given archetype respondent to the needs of any given situation in life.

We also have a "Window-of-Identity" whose sole expression is to say "I Am."

Whichever Sacred Dancer is residing in the Window-of-Identity is what we, in that moment, proclaim ourselves to be. If we are called upon to be fatherly, the Father archetype emerges into the window, and we say, "I am Father."

Should we find ourselves romantically engaged by our mate, Lover rises into the window, replacing whichever archetype had previously been residing there.

When we are about to enter a ceremony or session where we are to assist another in their healing, the Sacred Dancer of the Healer comes into focus. And so on. The Window-of-Identity is, for all practical purposes, known as the Ego.

Should an Adversary rise into the Window-of-Identity and refuse to be replaced, even though another archetype's need of expression arises, we then say that the Adversary has become a Usurper.

A Usurper's appropriation of autonomous and authentic self-expression brings about a behavioral condition that is generally recognized as an ego-fixation.

For example: "Hello. I am Dr. John Smith, D.D.S. This is my wife, Mrs. Dr. John Smith, D.D.S. And this is my son, John, Jr. He is going to be an orthodontist when he grows up." Here is a man whose entire identity is fixated upon, or usurped by, the Healer archetype. Unable to perceive himself in any manner but that of a dentist, his every perception of himself and even his family is shaded by the Usurper.

We all know individuals who are similarly affected. It may be a woman whose only experience of relating to her family and herself is as Mother. Or a young man is a Don Juan, the Lover archetype having taken over his ability to interact with women in any manner other than sexually. There is the drug addict, who can only envision self and world as an extension of getting high.

A person who has a Usurper in his or her Window-of-Identity is addicted to the self-perception as that particular archetypal embodiment.

The typical references of a person usurped by an Adversary are that they indulge in emotional crutches, addictions, self-perceptions of importance, lack of confidence, low self-worth, over-identification with a skill, trait or characteristic (racial, religious, political, etc.) reliance on irrational beliefs to bolster a cherished world view, and an inability to be flexible in response to new situations. They are the epitome of the person with a weak ego.

Yes, weak egos. A strong ego is a silent ego. It says only, "I am." Ego is weak when the Adversary is constantly proclaiming itself as necessary and important.

Shamanic Ceremony: From Adversary to Advocate

The Shamanic ceremonial utilized to alter the usurpation of our Will requires that the affected individual be guided into the realm of his or her own Underworld or Dream Soul. There, the person is aided in calling forth the Adversary.

Through the intercession of a Helper Spirit, the Adversary is transformed from its life-negative state into a life-enhancing state of being.

Once this transformation has occurred, the life-force charge carried by the Sacred Dancer, once malignant, is now, in its fullest charge of empowerment, accessible to the individual in the form of an Advocate.

An Advocate is a Sacred Dancer endowed with life-positive qualities. These self-empowering qualities are then available to the person who has undergone this ceremony as a Soul Principle that intercedes in any situation appropriate to its calling, bringing forth the full value of its nature as an Advocate on behalf of the individual.

Where once there had been debilitating behaviors and conditions, addictions and indulgences, the resultant consequences of undergoing this Shamanic Journey are a newfound freedom of expression. In the course of the two-hour ceremonial, one is enabled to fully engage his or her own most deep-seated obstacles and impediments and bring into existence a freer and fuller functioning experience of life.

In addition one also has in one's spiritual arsenal an Advocate-Helper who has been born of the triumphant engagement of one's own Adversary.

Jade Wah'oo Grigori lives in Sedona, Arizona, where he holds workshops and sweat lodges, teaches shamanic practice, and performs shamanic services. He also travels extensively, teaching and doing shamanic ceremony wherever he is called.

You can reach Jade through his website at Shamanic.net, or by sending him an email at JadeWahoo@Shamanic.net.

To learn more about Jade's philosophy and teachings, please see his letter to our readers in the January 2001 issue of the Spirit of Ma'at.