Have you been having weird dreams since this all began, dreams that seem somehow more mythic, more weighted, more charged with meaning, than usual? Me too.
Here's today's.
Every year my grandfather would drive up north to a particular lake in Canada.
When he got there, he would lay down on the shore of the lake, and his soul would leave his body through his mouth. For three days and nights it would fly, while his body lay unmoving on the lakeshore.
Where it flew off to he would never say, but this much I can say: when he awoke, there would always be three fish lined up on the ground beside him.
It occurred to me today that several actors who appeared in Joss Whedon's TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer went on to do their own things in remarkable ways.
Just came across this June 2013 piece I’d never shared. Now seems the time to share it, though I don't know why.
Amidst distractions—fears making my thoughts scurry in multiple directions, people attacking in hopes of distracting themselves with turmoil, forms promising to be essence, delusions masquerading as passions—I light a single candle. Simple altar. The Friend adds a stone.
I wrote the essay below back in 2013 in an effort to explain my work as a chaplain and tie that work into my "earthy" spiritual roots. I have recently started training in shamanic practices and find what I wrote below even more true now than when I wrote it a couple of years ago. I hope to be able to continue to explore the similarities of shamanism and professional chaplaincy.
I'm not going to pretend to be an expert in Shamanism. In my spiritual journey I've only touched upon shamanism; however, what I do know about shamanism gets me thinking about the similarity between shamanism and chaplaincy. What I know about shamans is that they are typically considered a type of "wounded healer." A shaman must have been sick to understand sickness. A chaplain is like this too. A chaplain deals with the spiritual and emotional pain of others.
The following is adapted from my new book A Sacred Marketplace: Sell without Selling Out or Burning Out. Mysticism + Marketing = Sales.
The marketplace is sacred. It is where community gathers.
I love the world of spirit. I am happy in it. I am also incredibly happy in the marketplace. It is where I get to share from my heart and soul. It is where I get to connect with other humans.
The marketplace is sacred. I am almost in tears as I write this because I am so deeply moved when I work with my students: When we are working together, we are in the real. We are discussing our actual lives, true feelings, soulful dreams, honest needs, terrible doubts, night-sweating terrors, dizzying triumphs, and more.
Erin Lale
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