I've long wrestled with the concept of 'life purpose.' Foremost, it seemed limiting--just one? And it smacked of New Age woo. The true wrestling part, though, was that I felt a deep calling, always, like since I became aware that I was aware, between 5-6 years old. I didn't know what the calling was, and for most of my youth I was satisfied to just recognize
that it was.
I came to shamanism for my own healing and deepening of spiritual connection. Typical to modern shamanists, I was on the receiving end, and thankfully so. However, about six months into that relief, my spirit guides began telling me to get off my ass and do something with it.
So, I did, for about eleven years. The first couple of years I worked with others as a shaman, then the spirit of that work presented itself to me as Soul Intent Arts, and I followed where it led, working in community.
I never really had internal confirmation of that as my life purpose, or anything else, despite that focusing on servitude to community carried its own sort of passion. I was very close to leaving my full-time job to pursue shamanizing further. I published my first book,
Gift of the Dreamtime. All the things I'd intellectualized as life purpose had come into being.
Then I had twins, and everything changed. I can blog about how the advent of becoming a parent deepened my spirituality in ways I'd never imagine, or how children are born animists and mine have taught me much about what I thought I already knew. I could go for days on those revelations, but the wisdom of that experience is, when my kids were about a year old, I no longer felt the calling that had been with me since childhood.
No one ever talks about the completion of a life purpose. The assumption in the name itself suggests it takes a lifetime to complete, which by default means the true realization of fulfillment can only happen at the end of life. I felt screwed, frankly. I settled into a raw openness of not having a life purpose, which incited low level panic all the time. Yes, I was elated to be a mom. My struggle was the math of coming through an abusive childhood to finally decide late in the reproductive game to have children, minus one calling. I decided that my life purpose was not to have one. I blessed what felt completed and greeted the openness of not knowing, the freedom of choosing my purpose, every day, every minute.
I sat with this for two years. It seems like a long time to stew, but when you've got two toddlers running in different directions, and sweet potatoes smeared all over your powder room light switch, it goes by pretty quickly.
Late last year I began to realize I didn't really care about life purpose anymore. What was more detrimental was I coudn't feel connected to my passions. Several books and one successful, though mutable shamanic practice later, I just wasn't feeling any of it. And for me, the bottom line is, if I don't feel something, the wolves come out of the walls.
I called in the highest aspects of myself and gave them full control of my consciousness. I asked them to write down what I'm most passionate about. The first thing that came was 'family.' That seems like a perfect sentimental no-brainer, though I can tell you with blushing certainty, I was surprised. Not because I don't love my family or because I'm not fully engaged with their total wellbeing and joy, but because that kind of emotionally cohesive concept and devotion to family just wasn't part of my childhood experience. To behold that my family lights me from within healed me and blessed me, immediately.
I asked for the next thing, and the word written was 'friends.' Again, I was surprised, not because I don't value loved ones, but because I'm not much of a joiner, and anyone who knows me well knows that fact--see above 'family.'
The next response was 'writing.' Yes. 8,000 huzzahs to the power of infinity, yes. I get up in the morning to write. I wake up because I have something to say, and that has been true since childhood. I couldn't learn the alphabet fast enough. Now there aren't enough hours in the day to write all the words that crowd my head for expression.
I waited patiently then, for the next passion to come. And nothing did. The buzzing presence of All I Could Be in that moment quieted until there was only regular old me in my skin. I can't say how disappointed I was, and to a large degree, ashamed.
I've been on a shamanic path since I was seventeen. I've devoted years to building my practice. How was shamanism not my passion? How could it not be my heartsong? Yet, the longer I sat with the revelation of what sings in me, I knew with absolute clarity that shamanism isn't what gets me up in the morning: it's what enables me to stay up the rest of the day. It's what sustains me when the passion turns into a sink full of dirty dishes, or the fourth night in a row that I haven't slept.
It's true that shamanism isn't my passion; it's my gift. It's the gift I bring, and the gift I receive, ongoing. It's not my job; it's what I am. It's not what I do, it's how I live.
I can't say that figuring those bits out fixed everything, though it was a start. The one thing with clarity that I can say is, a life purpose isn't the thing I do to fulfill some mystical calling. It's the things I do to give my life purpose, to make the time I have here meaningful.
Excellent dissertation, Joanna. I think it was Swami Kriyananda who helped me to understand Animism with his statement, "God didn'
