They are three ways of getting to know the other Peoples and their healing gifts. Grokking is understanding a being from the inside out, often by shapeshiftingShapeshifting. Becoming another being within a journey, fully enough to know it from the inside: one of the two routes to grokking, a transformation practice, and a direct experience of interconnection. Read the full answer into it in a journey; shamanic dieting is the traditional way of grokking a plant or other substance by taking a tiny amount and noticing its effects; and research means finding out about a being before or after meeting it in a journey. Each supports the others.
What does “grok” mean? #
To understand something from the inside out. The word comes from Robert Heinlein’s 1961 novel Stranger in a Strange Land, and it has several senses: “to understand profoundly, with intuition and empathy”, “to communicate empathically with something”, to understand something “so thoroughly that you merge with it and it merges with you”, and that “the observer becomes a part of the observed”.1 It happens between people who know each other very well, as between therapist and client over years, and with animals we live with.
In shamanic work, grokking is one of the main ways the gifts of the Animal, Plant and Stone People are learnt, alongside research and journeying. There are several routes to it: shamanic dieting; becoming the thing in a journey by shapeshifting; and holding a piece of it, hollowing out, “and then tune into the thing you are holding and closely noticing what happens to you physically, mentally and emotionally.”2
How does shapeshifting help us grok? #
It lets us experience a being from the inside. New students tend to stay human whilst shapeshifting, experiencing what it is like to be Tree, “but even better is to experience not what it is like to be Tree, but to be Tree.” The result “is not an intellectual understanding, but a deep felt-senseFelt sense. Eugene Gendlin’s term for the whole bodily ‘feel’ of an issue: deeper than emotion, deeper than words, reached through Focusing. Read the full answer, a knowing from the inside out. Doing that brings with it a sense of connection and bonding with the thing that we have shapeshifted into. It also helps us to both understand and receive that thing’s healing gift.”3
Can grokking be done in a group? #
Yes, and powerfully. On the Three Ravens courses, students learning about a plant or stone sit or lie close together, each holding a piece of it, whilst one person acts as scribe. They hollow out and tune in, and voice whatever they notice. “What is interesting in doing this is that very often it turns out that several people are experiencing the same thing at the same time”.4 People are often surprised by how deep an altered state they drop into, and how much the experience moves them.
What is shamanic dieting? #
A traditional method of grokking something by ingesting a tiny amount of it. Different cultures did it differently, but the principle was simple: the shaman would prepare, sometimes with fasting or ritual, and then “they would take a tiny piece of whatever it is they were wishing to learn about and ingest it.” Over the following hours, days or even weeks, they would notice what happened to them physically, emotionally and mentally. “In doing a shamanic dieting, a shaman is ‘groking’ the thing they wish to learn about.”5
Safety comes first. Grokking is “much more powerfully done in an actual shamanic journey”, and it can also be done physically, “assuming of course that you are one-hundred percent sure that it is not poisonous!”6 Only do this if you are completely sure it is safe: some gemstones are toxic, some plants are poisonous or skin irritants, and tasting animals risks infection.7
What have homeopathic provings got to do with dieting? #
Provings are dieting rediscovered. In a proving, a group of people take a remedy, usually without knowing what it is, and record anything unusual they experience; only the symptoms several people report make the final picture. “In many ways, homeopathic provings are a modern reinvention or interpretation of the ancient practice of dieting.”8 Because provings are written down and pooled, patterns emerge across whole families of plants, minerals and animals, and blind provings of related substances show common themes. “The modern proving process developed by homeopaths is a form of groking.”9
For people living where shamanic lineages have been broken, this makes provings “a rich treasure trove of knowledge” for rebuilding the medicine bundle. Homeopathy is energy medicine: “Whilst there may be no physical trace of a substance left in a homeopathic medicine, what is there is the substance’s healing gift.”10 See What is the medicine bundle?
Why does research matter? #
Because journeys speak in symbols, and research helps us understand them. After a journey, an unfamiliar Animal, Plant or Stone can be researched, “In this way, you can build up your Medicine BundleMedicine Bundle. Not a pouch of objects but the accumulated knowledge of the healing gifts, teachings and natures of the Peoples, and the living relationships that carry it. Built by grokking, journey by journey. Read the full answer.” It also builds confidence: “nothing quite shuts up the rational and sceptical left hemisphere of our brains like looking up something that appeared in a journey, something that you did not know anything about beforehand, and finding that its healing medicine is exactly what was needed.”11 In a shamanic culture, an apprentice would also learn from human teachers in words, so today “when something appears in a journey, your GuidesGuides. The Lower-World and Upper-World beings a practitioner works with and learns from, of whom the Power Animal is the first and foremost. True Guides are ethical to their core; the shaman’s power comes from the depth of these bonds, not from the shaman. More about this are essentially saying, ‘You need to Google this.’”12
Should research come before or after a journey? #
Either. Researching afterwards is reassuring for beginners. Researching beforehand gives the mind something to tune in with, and students often ask how they will know the journey is not just their preconceptions: “To which, the answer is, ‘You won’t.’”13 Journeys are co-created with Spirit, not objective records: “Journeys are never objectively true. They are mythosMythos. Metaphorical, symbolic, felt truth: the truth of art, poetry and shamanic journeys. Shamanic reality is mythologically true, not literally true, which is why journeys are interpreted, never taken at face value. More about this, not logosLogos. Literal, factual, analytical truth: the truth of facts you can check. One of the two modes of truth, alongside mythos. More about this.” And “we usually need something to help us to initially tune in. Some prior knowledge, however little.”
Knowledge, in fact, helps. Knowing that birds have hollow bones and no teeth helps someone become Bird in a journey. “Basically, knowledge helps us grok.” The idea that journeying without prior knowledge is purer “is a modern conceit. It is not found in hunter-gatherer cultures.”14
Are the sea, rivers, wind and stars Stone People? #
Yes. The Stone PeopleStone People. All physical matter: mountains, sea, rivers, clouds, sun and stars: the oldest and widest of the Peoples. As some animist cultures put it, ‘we are just the Stone People, dancing for a while’. Read the full answer are all physical matter, not just rocks: “The Stone People are not just rocks, stones and crystals. They are physical matter.” They include “water, the air, sand, soil, and so on.”15 The sea is one of them, “in visible and constant motion, as are rivers and waterfalls”,16 and so are “things like Quartz Crystals and Mountains, Stars and the Sea.”17 Grokking them means matching their very different pace, from the restlessness of the sea and the speed of wind to the stillness of rock. See What are Stone People and what gifts do they bring?
