Rattling the Bones

In the field of self-discovery, we often talk about how challenging it is to work through our psychological programs. There’s a great French book entitled “J’ai Mal à mes Ancêtres” by Patrice Van Eersen and Catherine Maillard. This book explores a fairly new concept called “psychogenealogy.” Basically, psychologists who study in this field believe we are affected by the “psychology of our ancestors”; hence their issues, their unresolved, their fears, their insecurities etc… Not unlike shamanic beliefs and the idea of “ancestral stories or past lives” psychogenealogy expresses that we are programmed through DNA. Obviously we are programmed by the people who are most directly connected to us; but this new psychological perspective seems to imply that DNA isn’t only about physiological inheritance. Recently I was speaking with a few parents who had children between the age of two and 12 years old. One of the fathers mentioned how his children (two daughters between the age of 5 and...

My parents often said that “they were on their own once they hit puberty.” I suppose this was the norm in the 1940’s and 1950’s. My grand-father was actually in an orphanage for most of his childhood even though he still had a living parent and several siblings. If we look at humanity as a whole, the topic of parenting isn’t a skill that was ever mastered. Children equated to a growing human population. The idea was to have soldiers for the King; carpenters and bakers for the community; or workers on the farm. Women were always seen as baby makers and even after the Church got into indoctrinating families, women were respected only if they were married and mothers. Young people didn’t choose to be parents. They simply met the expectation. While most knew how to take care of babies because they practically reared their brothers and sisters, they didn’t have any knowledge of adolescence because adulthood was a burden to those as young as twelve years old. I guess we could say that...

I received an e-mail from DLL before Christmas and she was asking me to consider writing a blog entry on “how to bring up children in Shamanism.” Her message spoke about her challenges as a mom. DLL suggested that I consider sharing on this topic and I thought it was a great idea. When I approached my children who are now adults with the question: “What do you think is the difference between a Shamanic family and a Western family?” -- they both looked at me as if it was a trick question. After I reassured them that I was serious about exploring the topic with them and even write a blog entry on the subject, they were both very forthcoming with their perspectives. My daughter explained that what she noticed the most was how Western parents often approach child rearing as if they have to program their children to believe in what they believe; see things the way they see things; and make appropriate choices which means choices with permission . My son agreed with his...