Contributions Towards Integration with Modern Therapeutic Systems
25 Jun 2008
Toltec, Iachak, and Curanderismo Contributions toward a Shamanic Psychotherapy
A message from C. Michael Smith
I have long walked a shamanic path of the heart drawing on the indigenous wisdom traditions of the Americas, North, Central, and South, and my Kichwa (Quechua) teacher, the curandero don Alverto Taxo of Ecuador, was also initiated into the Mexico Toltec tradition along with shamanic traditions of Columbia, Peru, and Bolivia--as well as his own native Iachak tradition. I would like to briefly discuss the similarities and differences of the Mexican Toltec and the Ecuadoran Iachak shamanic heart-paths.
The Taita Iachak (Master shaman) and the Master Toltec both walk a path of the heart, "(camina del corazon"). Both traditions offer heart-centered wisdom for transforming your life, but each accents different dimensions of the human being.
The Iachak is a very gentle approach to opening and following the heart and bring the mind into proper relationship with the heart--as its servant. The Iachak ceremonies are very simple cleansings and greetings of each being you meet, and special focus is on opening to the Elements [Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water] of Earth Mother (Quechua: Aspamama) or of Mother Nature (Quechua: Pachamama) and so the accent lies on opening the heart and connecting with life in a natural way.
The Toltec path, also a path of the heart, focuses its wisdom on removing mental obstacles such as belief systems, opinions, and judgments, and victim mentality from the mind. If the Iachak path is gentle and natural in its practices, like Taoism, the Toltec path of transformation is more agressive in stalking down problem patterns and fear-based habits of mind, and dissolving them, replacing them with love-base patterns of living. this is sometimes called creating a New Dream. It has potent tools for stalking and recapitulating traumatic events and mental programms which have shaped and limited your life.
Both traditions aim to help you open and live from the heart. The Iachak teaches you subtle Judo like moves for moving the limiting mind and gently setting it aside while your heart-expression and heart-path become stronger. The Toltec path begins with the mind's programming and seeks to deconstruct it its basis in fear, judgment, and programming (conditioning or domestication)and replacing these limiting patterns with beautiful, loving, and creative patterns, so you can walk your heart-path fully and freely, becoming a master of Intent...a vehicle for Spirit to express its self beautifully through the life you create.
In my psychotherapy work and in my teaching I draw on both these traditions, using them with inspiration and intuition to help open the heart and transform the mind into a servant ofthe heart, and of the Spirit (The Great Force of Life, The One Life) which expresses itself through an open heart.
The Three Masteries
There are numerous Toltec and Iachak teachers who can assist in walking these heart-paths, although much of the work you do is on your own, with you taking action. Each teacher reflects the wisdom through his or her own experience and point of view, which is as it should be. My own background, experience and predilections involves the fields of Iachak and Toltec paths, classic shamanic initiation, and Mexican Curanderismo, and Jungian psychology. Various aspects of these influences are to be found integrated, in my own way, in the presentation here.
The three major phases of apprenticeship development are as follows:
I. The Mastery of Awareness (Observing, Focusing Attention).
In this phase you learn the principles of how the mind works, how it is programmed, and how it generates suffering through Judgment and blame, criticism and the toxic emotions they generate. The point of this phase is to awaken to the way your mind is using you to generate problems, suffering, and propel you to act or react the way you do. This prepares you for the second phase of doing something about these mental-emotional patterns.
I generally begin my work with students and therapy clients in the Iachak manner of developing the capacity to listen to and honor the heart, and gently set aside the critical and judging functions of the mind, and protecting the new growth and desires arising from the heart against inner or outer criticism and judgment, so that the new growth shoot has a chance to get strong. I teach them how to find and listen to the heart’s navigational system [NGS] which can be felt or sensed I the middle of the body and gives direct intuitive and bodily felt knowledge and direction in any situation. The person or soul is the life of the body. You can see it and feel it through the eyes, there is a being in there looking through those eyes at you. The heart is its central core, its ontological navel, its orienting center [ “axis mundi”]. As one learns to take steps in accord with its bearings and invitations, the person or being inside grows, expands, and comes more into its own.
As the “person inside” gets stronger and more established in heart-centered living, a phase comes where stubborn problem patterns [psychological “complexes”] that are in the way come more into focus. Then I introduce Toltec principles and invite the client or student to simply observe the mind’s judging patterns in the Toltec manner. In the next phase or Mastery, the client or student is supported in taking direct and intentional action root or extract out those patterns and replace them with heart-centered and love-based patterns which they create. Taking action, not simply reading and being aware is essential to transformation and retrieval of soul, such that you can bring all of You on line in your living.
II. The Mastery of Transformation (Taking Action: Hunting, Stalking,
Scenting, Recapitulation, Cleansing the Mind).
In this phase you take action for the purpose of transforming your mind from a tyrant into a servant of the Heart, of Life. Letting go of old the baggage, cleaning out the wounds, soul retrieval, death and rebirth are apt expressions for this work. It is intensive work and involves what are called “Inventories,” and they involve intensive journaling in which you hunt down problem mental-emotional patterns to their sources in childhood programming and life-traumas. From the Toltec tradition, Inventories (using lists) of significant relationships, events, and crises are written down, and each one thoroughly recapitulated-- gone into to expose the mental and emotional damage, the victim patterns, the fear-based beliefs generated, self condemnation, hatred of whoever hurt you and so on. It is indigenous psychotherapy, but it cuts all the way to the heart of the problem and removes it. The old beliefs, judgments, and emotional patterns are released, put to death on your home altar or backyard funeral pyre, symbolically, the other is seen with Eagle eyed objectivity, and as your consciousness expands (assemblage point shifts) your old resentments melt into pure acceptance and loving, and you can feel the energies invested in those old emotions, beliefs, and memories return (energetic or “soul” retrieval). You now have new life energy, no longer encumbered by the presence of the past in your own mind. You are freer to live from the opened heart. The death/rebirth process has occurred as old ways are released and new life energies and potentials come on line in your living.
For shamanic-healer apprentices, the Mastery of Transformation is basic “wounded-healer” work, whereby through the inventories and recapitulations the apprentices gains direct experience at going into the core of his or her own wounds and learning to clean them out and heal, thus transforming old wounds into “Allie”s as a kind of shamanic data-base the healer or teacher draws upon in helping others. The wounded-healer work is essential to shamanic healing and teaching work and is not a phase that can be skipped over. Intellectual knowledge is of very limited use…direct, experiential knowledge is of high potency.
III. Mastery of Intent (Aligning with Spirit, Expressing the Infinite, the Great Force of Life inspiring and directing your steps.).
As Toltec Warriors (Iachak Warriors of the Heart) our lives are spent in ongoing refinement of the connection we have to Spirit, Intent, the Infinite, the Great Force of Life. We increasingly learn how to open the heart to It, so that its inspiring power comes through, and our intention becomes aligned with its Intent. The Infinite or Intent cannot be thought, it is, rather, felt, bodily sensed, is “silent knowledge” arising in the heart. The more faith or trust we have in the heart’s navigational system [NGS], and the more we honor and enact it in our living, the more blissful, creative, free, and loving our lives become. Everything progressively comes into alignment, inwardly and outwardly. Tension caused by conflicts in the mind is a rare thing as we surrender to Life, to Spirit. Challenges and problems in living still arise, but now we know how to use their boost as rocket fuel. We know how to observe, transform, and use them to align with and surrender to Spirit (to Life).
Sacred Ceremony and the Path of the Heart
At any point along the way, and as is appropriate for the client or student, sacred ceremony (ritual) may be introduced to support the work of transformation and surrender. There are the simple Iachak practices for opening the heart more by greeting the Elements and using them for cleansing the mind and emotions. There are altars and talismans for symbolic and spiritual support of the process of learning to walk the path of the heart, of cleaning out old wounds and putting to death old problem patterns, and making of masks to symbolized retrieved soul parts and energies.
I use many sacred ceremonies I have learned from my indigenous American teachers, and all sacred ceremonies, of any world tradition, are portals to the Infinite, to Spirit and can greatly help in setting your intent and focus on what you want to transform, let go of, develop into a new thing, and so on. The classic shamanic soul retrieval journeys may be especially helpful in the mastery of transformation, and may interface with it nicely. Quests for Vision, Power Quests, Divination Journeys with Spirit Guides, Pilgrimages to Power Spots and sacred sites, Fire Talks, Curanderismo Platicas (Heart to Heart Talks), Sweat Lodges and Prayer Pipes, Direct Inquiry, Meditation, Limpias, smudging, and other cleansings.
Even in my psychotherapy practice I have altars in the consulting room and frequently do smudging, but prominent, subtle, or no use of them depends on the client’s situation and needs, and what Spirit directs me to do. Toltec and Iachak wisdom, however, need not be accompanied by overt ceremonies. The power of many of their principles and practices are quite naturally therapeutic and can be used in therapy sessions with tremendous results. Any influence in the sacred ceremonial resources that I use clinically and with students is derived from Central and South American Curanderismo, which I advise my students to become familiar with.
Curanderismo:
A Bridge Between Ancient Shamanic Wisdom and Modern Context
“Curanderismo” is the name the Spanish Conquistadors and Catholic priests gave to the indigenous tribal healers of South and Central-America. From the Spanish root “curar’ (which means “to heal”) the term “curanderismo” refers to the shamanic-based healing systems that syncretically blended with the Catholic overlay brought by the Spanish conquistadores. It is a rich and complex field of study in itself and there are many types of practitioners, curanderas (female healers) and curanderos (male healers). My teacher don Alverto Taxo is an Ecuadorian curandero, a healer as well as teacher or Taita Iachak). Eduardo Alexander Calderon, is a famous Peruvian curandero. Mexico has an especially rich and diverse variety of curanderismo practitioners. I am especially influenced by the Mexican type because of the way it can adapt to modern contexts, and because of its skill in working with any individual regardless of the culture, religion, or belief system. I am also influenced by it, to be frank, because of the Mexican roots of my own Cherokee ancestry, and the way it has drawn me to examine my own ancient Mexican roots through travel, receiving healing from a curandera, pilgrimage to the Guadalupe shrine in San Felipe, and visiting the shops of hierbios and other healers, and meditating in Mexican graveyards.
Mexican curanderos and curanderas have many specialties, considered “dons” (gifts) and generally apprentice to a master curandero/a for developing and honing that gift into mastery. Amongst the specialties, the one most relevant to our purposes here is consejero/a….which is a kind of indigenous psychoanalysis or heart to heart talks (a kind of counseling process in sacred ceremonial context), called “platicas” in the indigenous Nauhatl language. Because of the way it uses a sacred ceremonial context and works with the heart of client and healer, it has special relevance to those called to adapt their shamanic gifts and calling to the modern professional therapeutic or coaching contexts. For more information on Curanderismo page on this website.
Annotated Bibliography
Elena Avila. Woman Who Glows in the Dark: A Curandera Reveals Traditional Aztec Secrets of Physical and Spiritual Health [with Joy Parker]. Tarcher. 2000. Elena Avila’s book is a must read if your are interested in curanderismo in modern American context. Elena is a psychiatric nurse and curandera who lives and practices in New Mexico, USA and demonstrates the relevancy and beauty of her work as a curandera in modern cultural context. It offers a rich model of sacred ceremony, platicas del Corazon (heart to heart talks) and rich snippets of Aztec roots of her trade.
Sheri A Rosenthal, DPM The Complete Idiots Guide to Toltec Wisdom. Penguin Group / Alpha. 2005. This book is amazingly useful and accessible for anyone doing the Toltec work, and it can guide you through the phases of Mastery with out a teacher, although in places a good teacher or mentor is highly recommended.
Don Miguel Ruiz. The Four Agreements. CA: Amber Allen Publishing 2000.
The modern Toltec master, himself a medical doctor, don Miguel presents Toltec wisdom in a small book, highly useful and accessible in form. It has sold millions of copies and is available in over 30 languages. The book is useful for apprentices and also is recommended by many psychotherapists, social workers, and chaplains. It is highly useful and supportive of the work in the Mastery of Transformation phase of apprenticeship.
C. Michael Smith. Jung and Shamanism in Dialogue: Retrieving Soul/ Retrieving the Sacred. Trafford, 2nd printing 2007. I mention my book here for those who want a model of a way to bridge shamanic and modern depth psychological models of healing. The book is scholarly rather than practical in nature.
C. Michael Smith. Psychotherapy and the Sacred. (Chicago: CSSR Press, 1995). This is a systematic and scholarly treatment of the ways sacred ceremony and religious resources are used in shamanic healing and in psychotherapy across cultures. Its purpose was to create a solid bridge between ancient shamanic healing systems and modern psychotherapeutic systems.
C. Michael Smith. The Archetypal Heart. This book is in process and should be out by the end of 2008. It brings the healing wisdom of the indigenous Americas into s modern psychological and self-help theory and set of practices. You can find much of its substance in the Heart Psychology articles on my teaching website www.jungandshamanism.com
Don Alverto Taxo. Friendship with the Elements: Opening Channels of Communication. Compiled and edited by Helen Slomovitz. Ann Arbor: Michigan 2005. This little book is a beautiful and simple introduction to the wisdom of don Alverto and the Iachak heart path. The text was the results of notes and writings captured by several apprentices including the editor, Martha Travers, Carole Brille and myself. For additional writings and talks by don Alverto Taxo in Spanish or English, see my teaching website www.jungandshamanism.com
Eckhart Tolle. A New Earth. A Penguine Plume Book. 2005. Eckhart Tolle’s newest book is a bestseller and while its wisdom is stripped of any religious tradition or cultural-bound system, its principles are highly resonant with the ultimate aim and wisdom of Toltec and Iachak paths. The practices differ, but accepting what is, and the value of presence and absorption in the now are highly congruent with these shamanic heart-based traditions. Tolle is a masterful teacher whose deep truths can work with any cultural or religious tradition, which is why it is mentioned here. It is highly recommended reading.
C. Michael Smith
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