Articles by José Stevens

Shamans throughout the ages in all parts of the planet have known a great deal more about the nature of animals and plants than modern day plant biologists and those who study animal species. Although scientists may know a great deal about the flora and fauna of the Earth, they know nothing about why they are here on the planet and what they can do for us on a larger scale than anyone might imagine. This is the expertise of shamans who in addition understand their local behaviors and their purely physical medicinal values. Because scientists are severely restricted as to what they are allowed to study and what they are allowed to consider as valid information, they are extremely handicapped when it comes to actually knowing anything about plants, animals, and the cosmos. This is both quite amusing and tragic in its consequences for how we treat the flora and fauna on the planet. Let us take a little journey around the terrain of power plants and power animals to understand just a little of what shamans have learned and in this way you may begin to understand how plants and animals support humanity in so many different ways.

The human race has arrived at a critical transition into the fourth evolutionary stage in a seven-stage process leading to mastery. This transition is equivalent to puberty, a time when children grow up to enter the beginning stages of adulthood. We can call this the mature stage or adolescent stage, leaving behind the young soul or child stage and looking ahead to the old soul stage of adulthood. During this new stage we must learn to open our hearts, master relationships, and learn to live cooperatively with one another and the planet itself. This is a very tall order but it is a natural process and we are equipped for the job. It will take some time to sort out what we need to leave behind and what we must adopt in order to succeed, approximately sixty years. Puberty is messy and chaotic but it does not last forever thank God. In fact it is relatively quick.

This fourth stage will be focused on the fourth chakra, the fourth of seven primary chakras or gates that when opened, lead to mastery of living. The fourth or heart chakra is quite interesting because of its location above the lower three and below the upper three, exactly in the mid position. As in electrical current the lower three are negative, the upper three are positive and the heart occupies the neutral position.

Most people don’t think of their hearts as neutral because they equate it with strong emotion. People guard their hearts from the pain of suffering and betrayal and open their hearts around babies and love interests. We think of the heart as being warm or cold, open or closed, strong or weak, heavy or light, and so on, however, in essence the heart is the neutral place, the place where we are not attached, the place where we do not care what happens because we are neutral. Think of those fortunate people who say before they die, “I know it is all perfect. I know everything is going to be fine. I accept everything. I love you all without any conditions, without any judgment, I have no regrets.” This is neutrality at its best. This is where we are happiest. This is the doorway to mastery and enlightenment. It is the way of the heart.

When was the last time you read a headline, watched the news, or heard the latest going on in the political arena and felt yanked into anger, discouragement, outrage, or despair? How often, when you have been to a social gathering, did you feel annoyance with someone whom you got stuck sitting next to or were forced to listen to? For most of us these events happen almost daily and yet we take them for granted. They are all examples of swinging on the pendulum away from neutral to the side of upset and resistance. Sometimes we are yanked the other way into a sense of elation when we feel we score some points in a discussion or make a good showing or think we are going to make a lot of money on some scheme. In a shamanic sense these little events do not stack up to lasting happiness. They are a result of imprinting, social programming, or family injunctions that are deeply embedded in the subconscious. Usually they are related in some way to whether we feel loved or not.

The good news is that there are many shamanic methods to reduce and eliminate the retaining walls in the mind that keep us from growing, expanding, and meeting our full potential as human beings. Shamans the world over, speak to the importance and power of erasing personal history and detaching from the drama to become neutral once and for all. Only when we are not caught up in identifying ourselves with this event or that, only when we are not resisting what is, do we find our true power and become able to access the Inner Shaman. Let us go into some of the major processes that allow us to not only to clear the clutter and find the power within, but to revolutionize the world with a new dream.

The pope resigns, a different pope arises, a meteor falls from the sky as an asteroid whizzes past, the United States goes off the fiscal cliff and loses the ability to govern effectively, icons fall fast, and many other crazy events have taken place in an extremely short period of time. Everybody laughed when the world didn’t end after the winter solstice but now it is maybe not so funny. Something is happening at an accelerated pace and no one knows what is next. Welcome to the new paradigm, the shift in frequency upward, the enforced transformation that parallels the enforced sequestration. Like it or not world change is here and powerfully accelerating. This is only the dim beginning of an earthshaking series of changes that are inexorably barreling toward us. And it’s all good whether you think so or not. As the frequency rises, your own frequency can rise too helping you to come into harmony and resonance with the changes. However, if as the frequency rises, you don’t raise your own frequency, then you go out of harmony, go out of resonance with change and you will feel seriously out of sorts. Things will not go well for you because you are functioning similar to a car with the tires way out of balance, the steering askew, and the engine badly in need of a tune up. That does not feel good. On the other hand you may feel inexplicably great if you are raising your frequency to meet the times. How does one do that? Well here are a several corny ways that work. It is very easy.

Guilt is the price for doing something that violates your integrity or value system. Even people who are incapable of feeling compassion suffer from some sense of guilt, often at a subconscious level. You can readily see this as their lives go quickly downhill after they have committed a murder or have done something very destructive. They often arrange to get caught for the crime despite their lack of conscience. The reason for this is that a person always knows they have committed an infraction at the deepest levels and their guilt arranges for various forms of punishment. Sometimes, no amount of punishment alleviates their guilt and they pay and pay and pay.

Two thousand years ago, a great shamanic teacher taught the masses about the power of forgiveness, but few at the time understood what he was saying. This was his way of talking about detachment, about getting to neutral, about clearing all the debt and baggage that kept us stuck in tired out patterns. Through example, he reminded people that they were forgiven of their “sins”, the times when they had missed the mark in their aims and endeavors. In so many words, he was saying, “get out of guilt, get out of endlessly punishing yourselves, get out of your self-destructive patterns”. By the same token. “forgive your enemies and forgive the debts that are owed you”. He knew that too much debt restricts growth and that debt must be forgiven to reset the game of life. He was a trained shaman and knew what was important on the shamanic path.

By now all of you must be well aware of the ending of the Mayan long count Calendar on the Solstice, December 21, 2012 and all the hoopla that surrounds it. Shamanically speaking, according to the Mayans it is not the end of the world, just the end of an era, a shift from the fourth sun to the fifth sun, a chance to dream a brand new dream, to dream the dream we have all been dreaming of. So ignore the hype, the end of the world parties, the bandwagon that so many commercial interests are riding for some extra cash, and become quiet and go inward. What do you want for the future of the planet? What do you want for your own personal interests and well being in these coming times? The Mayans say we have a window, a doorway to walk through, an opportunity to shift the paradigm that runs our experience of this world. If we dream together a future world of loving kindness and compassion, this is what we will have. It will take a little time however. Few things happen in the blink of an eye. It is not as if we will wake up in the morning and a new world will already be in place. What will be in place will be a new frequency, a new potential, a new choice, and that is what we can build on to create something fresh, something beautiful, and something worth living for. Let us take a quick review of what the Mayan elders say has lead us to this juncture in order to understand better what this opportunity involves.

(Hint: For best results read all the way through even if you are not interested in plant diets.)

Two days ago I returned from two weeks with some Shipibos, an upper Amazon tribe in Peru who supervise plant diets. I was there to do another of many plant diets, seven days in a row of drinking the juice from one of a number of special plants Amazonian tribes take to make them strong, help them heal others, and offer them protection. These plants must be taken in a certain order, starting with tobacco, moving on to the rennequia, then bouasca, albaca, camalonga, and chiric- sanango. Others follow. On this trip, there was a small group of us each dieting with different plants but spending each day in a hammock receiving the teachings and assistance of the plants.

Some are sometimes surprised when they do not receive direct intellectual instructions or downloads from the plants but that is not the way they work. The truth is, the benefits come over a period of weeks and months and while taking them one might feel a variety of emotions, physical sensations, sleepiness, or exceptional clarity of mind. It is not unusual for some to sleep a good part of the day and then again at night so for some it may be very restful while for others it is stimulating and may be accompanied by intense reading, meditating, or listening to music.

During the 1990’s I was invited to perform as the staff Psychologist at Sol Y Sombra, a beautiful twenty acre estate in Santa Fe, once owned by Georgia O’Keefe. It had been bought by Charles and Beth Miller of Texas and turned into a showcase for sustainable living. Sol y Sombra became a salon for many famous people who would come to Santa Fe to visit the Miller’s. During my time there, politicians, statesmen, actors, entertainers, movie stars, directors, and producers all found their way there, some on a regular basis. To my surprise, Beth Miller would insist that these folks attend my weekly class, usually on some aspect of the Michael Teachings, personality styles, or some related metaphysical topic. At first, I was very self conscious, but after a number of years it became normal to have such luminaries as John Denver, the former President of Mexico, The late Ann Richards, the former Governor of Texas, Journalist Bill Moyers, and many others in my classes. Some came only once but others were regulars and participated in an animated way. Sometimes, they would book private sessions with me to find out more on a personal level. The late John Denver, singer and songwriter, was a regular and we would often talk privately after a class.