From The New Artist:
The Book of Job says:
Ask the dumbest beast--he knows that it is so; ask the birds--they will tell you; or let the earth teach you, or the fish of the sea. For the soul of every living thing is in the hand of God, and the breath of all mankind.
The Religious Feeling State is
what we all know--so it is not a transmission really but a reminding.
And thus not a form of mind control. You know, and I know--and you
know me and so I know you. That is the truth of it. In this way, I
talk with animals. This is not bizarreness, but natural. Animals come
to me. When they come, which I may initiate by singing a song, or
talking in words to them, or giving them food, I stop time for them.
That is, I go into a trance state where we fuse together into one
mind and look at the world together beyond time.
And that is the truth of
it.
I learned this truth from a dog that
I had who died about 10 years ago. Walter. A psychic German Pointer.
I had been going into trances for a while then, and stopping time.
One night, I was sitting on my living room floor practicing. Walter
was lying in front of me about an arms length away. When I would go
into a trance--I have my eyes open the entire time in this
condition--Walter would close his eyes. When I would come out of it,
Walter would open his eyes and look at me. I must add that I did not
move physically (even my eyes). Only my mind.
Walter and I were very close. So his
opening and closing his eyes was a special message. It showed me that
something was actually happening in the minds of the animals I had
been trancing with and that it was not just my imagination or
projection. It corroborated what I already knew. For example, I was
driving along Highway 9 north of Boulder Creek, CA, going south.
There was a pigeon at the edge of the road at my right tire. I did
not see it until the last moment and could not stop. As my front
wheel passed over the spot where it had been, I felt this opening up
inside me, like a remorse for anything that I have had a hand in
killing. As this feeling opened up, the pigeon rose up over my right
fender and flew back over the top of my car. At this instant, there
was a union between us that I cannot describe. My feeling fused with
the pigeon's rising. I continued on to Boulder Creek, stopping at the
traffic signal in the middle of this tiny town and continued to the
next town, Ben Lomond, turned off the highway and parked. A truck
pulled in behind me and stopped too. The driver got out and literally
ran up to me, saying, "Do you live around here?" I said "no." He
said, "Well, there was this pigeon that was flying behind your car
right above the back of the roof. When you got to Boulder Creek, it
flew high up in the air. Then, when you got through town, it came
down and started following you again, all the way to Ben Lomond.
...and there it is." He pointed. "I thought it was a pet pigeon."
This is just one example. Crows,
gorillas, flies, jack rabbits, snakes, mountain lions, neurotic house
cats, a white tiger cub at the zoo, possums, squirrels, spiders,
mustangs in the desert have all shared a time with me that was not of
the usual world. We could know this reality too, like the animals.
Instead, we invented talking. Talking keeps us out of touch with
Reality by creating a group-shared reality of non-knowing. Talking to
ourselves when we are alone does the same thing. Animals, except for
sounds--barks, chirps--know silence. And silence is what opens up
into Reality--which is touched, not thought.
This Reality is one defining
parameter of the shaman, the spirit mediator who calls the beasts to
him/her. For animals are healed by that experience, and those who can
stimulate it in them will attract them. It is the Reality in which
the "symbols" of earth really come alive. It is the Reality in which
their ancient wisdom is transmitted to others, to the group. For
whatever happens in the universe happens here too, in microcosm. The
earth is the process over and over and over. And the Father knows
that. Our Mother Earth is the pure process itself, and that is love.
But the Father is the knowing of that. "Hello, Father," you must
say.
The
New Artist