The story goes that a shaman, asked what the point of shamanism is, answered “to prepare for death”. Shamanic practice trains us to loosen our grip on our everyday, middle-world selfMiddle-world self. The everyday self (ego, persona, head-and-heart), made of our stories and experiences. A genuine and needed part of the Inner Tribe: of service, not in command. Read the full answer, so that when death comes we can let it go. And since at death our awareness tends to go with whichever part of us it has habitually lived in, the way we spend our lives shapes how we die, which is also why facing death helps us live more fully now.
Why do shamans say shamanism is preparation for death? #
Because so much of shamanic practice is rehearsal for letting go. Paul Francis remembers reading that a shaman was once asked what the point of practising shamanism is, and that his answer was “to prepare for death”.1 Death is “the greatest shape-shift and transformation that awaits us all, our own physical death at the end of our middle-worldMiddle-world. Ordinary physical reality together with its energetic layers: the realm of individuality, separation and mixed intentions, and the only realm where harm is possible. “If there is a hell, then it is the middle-world.” Read the full answer life”, and shamanic practice prepares us for it.1
Being prepared helps in two ways. It helps us “make the most of that great shapeshift when it comes”, and facing death squarely now changes how we live: “fully facing and accepting the reality of our death and being as ready as we can for it helps us to make the most of our precious time here and not waste it.”1
Is preparing for death the whole point of shamanism? #
No, it is one good reason amongst several. There are many other good reasons for practising shamanism, including healing, being of service to the community (both the human and more-than-human) and feeling fully alive. But preparing for death is certainly a good one, too.2
How do shamanic practices prepare us for death? #
By teaching us, again and again, to let go of the familiar self. The transformation practicesTransformation practices. The family of journey-practices in which the self is deliberately taken apart, reduced to something formless, and reformed: burials, burnings, dismemberments, sky burials, dissolvings, cocoonings, poisonings, shapeshifting. A mini death-and-rebirth: cleansing, loosening of identity, and preparation for the greatest transformation of all. Read the full answer, such as burials, burnings, dismembermentsDismemberment. A transformation practice in which the Power Animal takes you apart (classically: eats, digests and regurgitates you), reformed and healed. A practice of trust, cleansing and death-and-rebirth. More about this and dissolvings, all involve being taken completely apart and reduced to something formless, and then being reformed. “In a sense, they are a mini ‘death’ and rebirth.”3 In a burial, the earth takes us back, “earth to earth, ashes to ashes”, and parts of us usually resist, “desperate to cling on to ‘life’ and the familiar.”4 Doing these practices over and over is how that clinging loosens. See What are transformation practices and shapeshifting?
Journeying itself trains the same thing. To journey we hollow out, so that it is our awareness that travels and not our middle-world self, and “The more we can let go of our attachment to our human identity, the deeper and more powerful our shamanic practice can become.”3 See What is hollowing out?
How does how we live shape how we die? #
Through where we habitually put our awareness. At death the main parts of us go their separate ways, and “Which part we go with at death will depend on which part we put our Aware SelfAware Self. The Witness: not a part of the self but a capacity for awareness, cultivated by hollowing-out, that can watch the flow of thoughts without being caught in them. More about this into. And a lot of that will depend on the habits that we have cultivated whilst alive.”5 Our awareness, which in itself is “literally just awareness”, can be placed in many things. “For most people, most of the time their Aware Self is in the stories, thoughts and beliefs of their middle-world self-identity”, so much so that they come to believe that middle-world self is who they really are.5
Mahatma Gandhi is said to have died chanting the name of God after he was shot, where most people would die shocked and horrified. He could die that way because “he had spent much of his life loosening his attachment to his middle-world form so that when the time came to let it go, he was prepared and ready.”6 Practices such as meditation, psychotherapy and shamanic hollowing outHollowing-out. The core, lifelong discipline of setting aside the middle-world self, its stories, agendas and preconceptions, so the Guides can work through us. The image: the shaman as hollow bone. Read the full answer help us step back from our middle-world stories, and so let us choose more consciously where our awareness lives.5 See How does Therapeutic Shamanism understand death and what happens when we die?
Why does it matter whether we know our Soul? #
Because at death our awareness goes with the part of us it has lived in, and many people have never come to know their Soul at all. Our Lower-World Soul and Upper-WorldUpper-World. The realm of Father Sky and of Spirit: spacious, rarefied and clear, layered in tiers, offering not escape but perspective. Not better than the Lower-World: we ascend rooted, and bring the gifts back down. Read the full answer Spirit are outside space and time, but “The sad truth these days is that most people live and die never knowing their authentic Soul, never knowing who they really are and were meant to be.”7 Finding our Soul, and growing into it whilst we are alive, is part of preparing for death as well as the heart of living authentically. See What are Soul, Spirit, the middle-world self and the body?
What does it mean to live with death at our shoulder? #
To live remembering that death is never far away, and to live fully because of it. “Shamans often talk about living fully with the awareness that death is always at our shoulders, waiting for us.” Facing death is what lets us make the most of our time and not waste it. It does not mean taking death on as a companion or guide; it is the awareness of death that teaches us. See How does Therapeutic Shamanism understand death and what happens when we die?
What does it mean to die to the past? #
To free ourselves from unhealthy attachments to the past whilst we are alive. “Shamans say that, ‘The past has to die’ or that we have to ‘die to the past’.”8 Disentanglement and the other recapitulationRecapitulation. The practice of gathering ourselves back from earlier events, ‘dying to the past’, so that unresolved history no longer runs us. More about this practices do this, so that we can choose what we are entangled with and hold our attachments lightly, free to shapeshift and travel the realms. See What is recapitulation? and Why do healthy endings matter?
