The shaman

The shaman knows what it is to suffer

In his or her early life there may be a deep wounding

This wounding becomes the point of entry

Into both the healing and the cure

Into both compassion and wisdom

Rumi speaks of it thus

“You suppose you are the trouble

But you are the cure

You suppose that you are the lock on the door

But you are the key that opens it”

The shaman allows himself to feel and fully enter

The wound

He has the courage to sit with the part of him that hurts and aches

He mines that part of him or herself for value and meaning

He finds the wound a place of

Revealing, information and regeneration

I thought of the shaman too reading of Maya Angelou’s journey today

Her story told and read by another young black woman

Helped that woman, too, to own her story

After being raped at 8 years of age and seeing the man killed for the crime

Maya did not speak for some time

But when she did her words had power

As they came out of the direct experience of

What it was to suffer

And to embrace the suffering

Not as a form of masochism but of learning

The shaman may be feared

He may be cast out

He may have to travel on alone

He may have to visit very dark and painful places

In solitude with no other hand to hold

But when he returns he comes

Bringing a healing medicine for others

In this way the archetype of both the Shaman

And of the Wounded Healer

Are very very similar.