For animists, gratitude is part of how we live with the other Peoples: our animist ancestors lived with humility, respect and gratitude, and gave thanks to the animals and plants they took. Therapeutic Shamanism uses gratitude practice to overcome the disconnection of the FallThe Fall. The catastrophe at the root of the whole diagnosis: the shift from animist, egalitarian hunter-gatherer life to owning, agricultural Taker culture. In domesticating other species we domesticated ourselves, cutting ourselves off from Mother Earth (Power-loss) and from parts of our own nature (soul-loss). When dated precisely, the Fall begins with the first city-state cultures, around 4000 BCE (Domestication begins earlier, with the Neolithic). A sickness, not our true nature. ‘Fallen culture’ is used interchangeably with Taker culture; the Great Rupture is a looser alternate name. Read the full answer and as an antidote to despair, and it does not stop at feeling grateful: it includes giving something back to the PeoplesThe Peoples. The Animal People, Plant People, Standing People (the Trees) and Stone People: our elder kin, of whom the Human People are the youngest and least wise. A family, not a hierarchy. Read the full answer who help us.
What is gratitude practice? #
In everyday terms, gratitude practice means deliberately noticing and appreciating what we are thankful for, often with something simple like a journal. There are many different gratitude exercises, many of them online. A few are used in Therapeutic Shamanism, some basic and some with a more distinctly shamanic flavour, because they help with some of the wounds of our fall away from shamanism.1
One structured method comes from Japan. Naikan, meaning ‘looking inside’, was developed in the 1940s by Ishin Yoshimoto, a Pure Land Buddhist, and is taught in North America by Gregg Krech. It rests on three questions, asked about a person, a period of life, a day or even an object: what have I received from them, what have I given to them, and what troubles and difficulties have I caused them? Krech’s own examples reach well beyond people, from silently thanking the soil, the farmer and the truck driver before a bite of food to thanking the tomato that lost its life so that he could eat.2 Its groundingGrounding. Returning fully into the body and physical reality; the bedrock of safe practice, and how every journey ends. More about this is Buddhist teaching on karma and interconnectedness; in animism, the thanks is part of kinship with the other Peoples. A Naikan retreat traditionally begins with what one has received from one’s mother; Therapeutic Shamanism, for its part, teaches that where there are issues from the way we were parented, stopping making excuses for our parents is “not being judgemental. Nor is it being unkind, ungrateful, or disloyal.”3
Why is gratitude so central to animism? #
Gratitude belongs to the animist understanding of the Peoples. Hunter-gatherers say the oldest and wisest of the Peoples are the Stone People, then the Plant People, then the Animal People, and then us Human People. “This is not about hierarchy, but about family.” We are the youngest, the children, with a lot to learn. Knowing this, our animist ancestors lived with humility, respect and gratitude, “one of the many things we need to remember and learn from them.”4
A story in the same chapter shows what that looked like. A great hunter always asked the spirits for their permission and blessing before hunting, and hunted with great respect and gratitude. “He always took time to do a ceremony and give thanks to the spirit of the animal he had killed.” When gathering plants, he would always give thanks and gratitude to them, and never take more than he needed.5
Hunter-gatherers lived the same way: although they hunted and gathered, this was done with respect for the other species they shared the land with, “and with gratitude”.6
What changed with the Fall? #
In the modern world, by contrast, “We treat animals, plants and the earth itself with little thought or gratitude – just things to be used and consumed.”7
Gratitude practice works against that. We can express gratitude towards “other people, animals, plants, the weather, mountains, your car, medicines, your home, your sofa, water, a ball-point pen – anything at all”. Doing this “is a powerful way of overcoming the sense of disconnection and isolation that characterises the Fall, and helps us to feel connected to the web of life and bounty around us.” The gratitude can also be towards ourselves, and practising self-gratitude can be a powerful way of cultivating self-compassion and reining in an out-of-control inner critic.8
See What does it mean to live as if it is all sacred?
Why does Therapeutic Shamanism use gratitude practice for despair? #
Practising shamanism makes us more aware of what is around us, and that includes becoming more aware of the state of the 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 and what humans have done to it. This “can sometimes feel overwhelming and even lead to feelings of despair”, and there would be no point to the practice if it just led to despair: it would do us no good, and we would be of no help to the people and Peoples around us. “Gratitude practices are a remarkably quick and effective antidote to despair.”9
Waking up to the true nature of the middle-world can be a harrowing experience, and the more we regain our empathy and our sense of interconnectedness, the more we also open ourselves to feeling the pain in the world. That is why gratitude practice is “another essential part of Therapeutic Shamanism”.10
How does gratitude sit with seeing things as they are? #
“True shamanism is not spiritual bypassing, or emotional numbing, or avoiding being in the world. It means being in and of the world. It means seeing things as they are, and feeling things as they are.” It draws on Chögyam Trungpa’s path of the spiritual warrior, which means being in the world and not avoiding it.11
Alongside gratitude, both books point to Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects as another strong antidote to despair, one that transforms it into empowerment. See What is spiritual bypassing, and how can psychotherapy help prevent it? and What is Joanna Macy’s work, and how does it connect with shamanism?12
How is gratitude shown to the Guides? #
By giving, not receiving. Rewilding Yourself includes a practice of showing gratitude and appreciation to Power AnimalPower Animal. The Oversoul of a wild species, met as a single Lower-World being and bonded with in a deep, committed, usually lifelong soul-bond of unconditional love. The practitioner’s first and foremost Guide: Panther, not “my panther”. Read the full answer: “This is not about you. This is about you expressing gratitude and appreciation to them, with no strings, conditions or expectations attached. This is about you giving.”13
See How do I build and deepen my relationship with Power Animal?
How is gratitude shown in the middle-world? #
Gratitude also means doing something for the Peoples in the middle-world. “We simply cannot ask an OversoulOversoul. A branch of Mother Earth representing the whole of a species: the single being all the individuals arise from. Lower-World work is always with the Oversoul, never an individual; environments are composite Oversouls, wheels within wheels. More about this like Panther or Wolf to teach us and heal us, and then ignore the plight of physical panthers and wolves in the middle-world.” If we ask for help from the Animal, Plant and Stone People in the Lower-WorldLower-World. The realm of Mother Earth: pure, unspoilt, wild nature, with no technology and no agriculture. Home of the Peoples and of our own Soul, and completely safe: feeling threatened in a journey is a reliable sign of not having reached it. Read the full answer, then in turn we need to help them in the middle-world too. One way, the practice “Giving Something Back”, is to support a charity that helps our Power Animal’s species, “with love, and with deep gratitude”.14
After meeting an Animal in a journey, one suggestion is to do something for that animal in the middle-world “as a way of showing gratitude towards them”. We have to act in the world to help the things we love, “and show them gratitude and support. Doing that is at the very heart of what it is to practise shamanism.”15
See What is right relationship and reciprocity?
What about the food we eat? #
In a journey in which we live as hunter-gatherers, the gathering includes a “deep, heartfelt thank you to the living things that you gather”, and knowing “that one day your own body will be food for others too, all part of the great cycle of interconnectedness and interdependence.”16
