#68 An Introduction to Animal Spirit Dance

This week we introduce our listeners to the next stage of spirit dance - The Animal spirit dance.

Support us on patreon a get access to the recordings from the gathering of the tribe - https://patreon.com/wovenenergy

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
Welcome back to the Woven Energy Podcaston Real Practical Shamanism with me, Joseph
Psychora and as always a Damon Smith. We are here to talk about shamanism
from the ground up. So inthis episode, what we thought would be
a fantastic idea, as we havebeen covering quite a few things in stage
four now, is to do anintroduction to animal spirit dance. So up

(00:27):
to this point we've definitely talked quitea bit about regular spirit dance. So
I think the first thing we wantto really talk about after we've thanked our
awesome patrons, Damon, is thedifference between regular spirit dance and animal spirit
dance and really what the benefits areand the journey that's involved. So should

(00:48):
we thank our patrons first? Yeah, let's do that. So you've raised
some big questions. At least Icould take the whole episode explain the universe.
But so so yeah, So youknow, we always thank all our
patrons. You guys are awesome.You support us tremendously. You even though

(01:10):
some of us, I think meand Joe both absolutely deluged with work at
the moment, you still cause usto do these things because it's lovely The
happier support. And it's to keepto keep prodding us, isn't it.
Yeah, the next episode, sonice ideas for episodes as well. Yeah,

(01:33):
recent patrons, obviously, we thankall of you. You're awesome.
Recent petrons. I want to thankyou, know why. There's Tim Thanks
Tim, appreciated mister Brett Gallaway whowe've known for a long time and has
become a part patron. That's great, Bratt, really appreciated. Mate.
Um, and Um we got Ben, thank you sir, that's great.

(01:57):
And kung Fu fan. I don'tknow who you are kung fu fan,
but you obviously a fan of kungfu and your patronage is greatly appreciated.
So so yeah. Also that's wonderful, Mane. And obviously the amazing mister
Graham Barlow, who is not justa content creator but also a patron on

(02:19):
the podcast. Thank you very much, Graham. Oh yes, and Emily
our long standing patron who has renewedhas support for us. I don't know
exactly has far back to go,but those are the relatively recent ones.
So that's great. And all ourpatrons thank you so much. And very
briefly, Um, you can signup as a patron at patreon dot com,
slash Woven Energy and where do wesee what's the situation with the last

(02:46):
gathering of the tribe? Dame ofthe videos? There are they available to
any new patron Okay, I've beenrather busy. There are some of them
and then they're two or three Ithink six that we recorded, but they're
coming. They're coming. You canexcellent rely on the fact that they will
get there. And those are fullin full presentations, full video. There's
depth into into all sorts of techniquesthat we discuss on the podcast, so

(03:09):
you'll be able to see that invideo form, goes very deep. So
it's yeah, that's quite long.It's quite long, yeah, like podcast
length videos. Yes, so soyeah, And there's a lot of content
in there. Deliberately so I wantedto put a lot of content in so
that people would have something practice aheadof the gathering of the tribe next year.

(03:30):
Although the gathering of the tribe nextyear will be focused on drum technique,
we will be doing some we willbe doing some spirit dance obviously as
well alongside that. Okay, well, fantastic, Thank you so much,
guys. Your patronage is welcome.So speaking of spirit dance, where do

(03:53):
you want to start them down?Because I asked the question, what is
the what is the main difference orwhat is the difference between regular spirit dance
and animal spirit dance. If youwant to start there, great, If
you have an idea, then gofor it. So I think it's just
what I wanted to do, wasjust to approach the idea we've kept saying

(04:15):
for a long time we're going toput off animal spirit dance until later.
And now that we're getting into thelevel for stuff, we've done a few
changes. I mean we've done,to be fair, we've done nowhere near
enough changes probably to approach the subjectof animal spread dance in a what you
might call a sensible kind of way. But I think what we have done

(04:36):
is given the idea of what thoselevels four changes are all about, we've
managed to convey that, and Ithink that we've probably conveyed enough of that
just to give the idea of whatanimal spirit dance is about. In terms
of as you progress with your spiritdance practice, you start to embody in

(05:00):
a fairly synergistic kind of way.Synjestics probably not the best holistic way.
All of those energy changes that arethat are key to making spirit dance a
useful shamanic tool. What we're ultimatelytrying to do is embody the changes that

(05:26):
go on within the universe in ahuman kind of form. The general idea
is that in embodying the changes thecommonly current energy patterns that go on within
the universe in our spirit dance,we tend to create an ever richer radar

(05:46):
for nature, so that at levelfive that radar can start to intersect with
the natural energy patterns that incur withinthe environment within the grove, with an
the environment in which the shaman ispracticing their technique spurt dance technique. Now,
what we tend to do when we'relearning spurt dancers, we tend to

(06:09):
treat these things in isolation. Aswe've been doing. We've taken one at
time, starting with some basic changes, and you know, we've been using
the Armabella words for those things,you know, things like squall and gayer
and jaggon meld and all those kindsof very very basic changes and sort of
focusing on them, if you cancall an activity that recommend switching your brain

(06:30):
off as a foundational practice, focusingbut practicing those things, and then we
start to look at context. That'sone change happening in the context of another
change, and that's all the levelsfor stuff that we've been we've started out
on anyway, we've done some ofthem, and so it comes to the
point where you've done enough of thatkind of practice that you either start to

(06:56):
realize or you already know it,but you start to you know, when
I say start to realize, Imean you start to realize in your mind,
your body, and your spirit allacting together as one thing, that
none of these things stand in isolationto each other. They're all have that
for Tatsuo Tatsu and Japanese that arehaw Yee and Chinese the kind of two
in one sort of interactivity where twochanges into play with each other and this

(07:19):
curse again and again in nature.And this is one of the things that
sort of led to ideas about yinand yang and that type of stuff in
Chinese Chinese cosmology was this the factthat changes seem to occur. So,
I mean a really example of that, good example of that is squalling guy.
There's two ways that energy can return. One is it can go away

(07:43):
and come back again, and theother one is it can go around in
some sort of a cycle. Thesqualling guy. Those are two returning patterns
of energy. And what you startto find out if these paired changes occur
throughout spirit dance in myriad different ways, on multiple changes, not just pairs,
but multiple changes, because in thosepairs there can be other changes that

(08:05):
are influential upon them. And whatyou find is spirit dances actually an incredibly
rich and varied activity, and thechanges that you're embodying with any spirit dances,
you progress become richer and richer andmore and more complex and other things.
Other changes have influences on the changes. They don't stand in isolation from

(08:26):
each other. And so shamans ofthe past, and I say the past,
we're talking about, you know,millions of years here, We're not
talking about hundreds of years. Theyhave tried to get a handle on this,
and one example of that is theBook of Changes, obviously, which
is a cerebral handle that was doneby people who are into writing stuff down,

(08:48):
which isn't really very shamanic thing todo. But in general, the
much more common way that people havetried to do that is to look outside
of ourselves to say that part ofthe issue that we have. Part of
the reason, especially as civilized humanbeing, is part of the reason that
we have a difficulty getting our handhandle on this spirit dance or any kind

(09:11):
of shamanic technique, is that wholemiasma thing. It's the whole thing that
comes from us that we've generated withinour fairly artificial societies since we invented agriculture
and wealth effectively, that isn't reallya very natural kind of way being for
us. We did that, youknow, five to ten thousand years ago,

(09:35):
which in genetic terms, in evolutionaryterms, isn't very long at all
compared to a couple of million years. We've been doing that other thing,
that much more shamanic thing, andso if we want to get back to
that other thing, we need tolook to a people who are still doing
it. And you know, that'swhy we did episodes early on on the
events and sam people and that typeof thing. People are still doing this

(09:58):
kind of thing, vans who wouldreally rare in this world too, esoteric
groups who've had this kind of experiencewithin the civilized context. That's what the
Heretics podcast is all about. It'swhat last stuff about was Crucianism and other
related things. Free messment and allthat kind stuff is all about over one

(10:18):
heretics. But there is another sourceof information or another source of learning.
You know, what does the shamando with Shaman puts themselves in a position
where nature is their teacher. Andgenerally we think about that in relatively simplistic
terms. You know, I immersemyself in a fast moving stream. Nature
teaches me with some leftl of complexitywithin a limited context in which the variables

(10:43):
are limited, water flowing over mybody at at high speed, with lots
of eddies and worlds and all thesekind of commonly recurring energy patentsy getting an
edge in nature. But there isa place we can also look for a
complex version of that, for aplace where lots and lots of different energy
changes all come together at the sametime. And that place is animals animal

(11:09):
spurts. And I think, aswe talked about earlier on the podcast,
animal spurts are not something mystical.They're not something mythological, although they can
become so. But what animal spurtsare really about is how you put yourself

(11:33):
in a position where nature is teachingyou. With a portfolio I don't like
the term portfolio. I don't knowwhy it can't in my mind with a
bag of stuff, a bag ofchanges all occurring at the same time,
with some sense there was some commonalitywith some flavor. Flavors are really good

(11:56):
word that underlies the way, theways in which those all those myriad changes
are all interacting. And this iswhat animal spirits are about. Animals embody
that within nature. So animals haveas an animating spirit which embeds them in
their particular ecological niche they have,they have a well, they have that

(12:22):
niche and then as human as humans, and when we want to try to
see that through the lens of thatanimal, that teaches us what the animal
experiences in their own ecological niche.That's a clumsy way of saying it,
but I think I think what sortof sort of I mean, the best

(12:45):
way to think about it is whenwe're learning these level four changes and we're
incorporating them in our spirit dance,we tend to be doing it in isolation
or two changes working together. We'vebeen doing them in pairs so far,
haven't we. So so here's away once you start get a handle on
that, and it doesn't have tobe every one of the changes, though
you couldn't possibly be there so manyof them, And it doesn't even have
to be all the ones in thebook of changes. You know, you

(13:09):
know, sixty something would be veryvery nice to have, you know,
a good handle on sixty something changeswhen you're sixty or seventy or one hundred
or whatever. I don't want tomake out that it's exactly sixty four.
That it would be a nice levelto have a handle before you ever started
animal spirit dance, but you'll probablydie of old age before you ever got
there if you really wanted to dothat. Once you've got a decent handle

(13:33):
on a lot of changes, likesome foundational ones like we've talked about,
and then some more more interesting ones, you start to build a portfolio of
changing your spirit dwance. You thenstart looking to what happens to these things
in different contexts when they're working togetherin different combinations. And that's that's what
the animal spirits are about. It'sabout the commonly coinerangy patterns within complex animals.

(14:00):
And the animals that Shammon's are pickedout aren't a million miles away from
us. In general. They tendto be close to us. They tend
to be our cousins. You couldhave a shaman who specialized in something like,
you know, praying mantis and spiritdance or something, but it's very,
very unusual to find that. Andit's not that it wouldn't be interesting

(14:22):
or informative or anything like that.But in a certain way, we're trying
to learn about ourselves through this shamanismthing, this shamanism activity, and therefore,
what's a good way to find outabout yourself is to start understanding your
cousins, the people who have helpedto get you here, the people who

(14:43):
have brought us into When I saypeople, you know what I mean by
people, because you know both ofpeople and ranging tangs of people. Chimpanzees
are people. The people who havebrought us into this place where we are,
these kinds of strange, very strangeanimals that we've become, and there
are animals that are closely related tous that are not quite as strange as

(15:07):
we are in terms of there theyhave less miasma than we do. Wild
animals and the kind of animals thatthey are. I think it's worth reviewing
because that. But my point isthere's no accident that Shamans tend to,
you know, choose things like bearsand tigers and eagles and stuff for their
spirit dance. These are all animalsthat are fairly closely related to us that

(15:33):
you know, take bears and eagles, take a common selection wolves and admittedly
you get a lot of snake andthat type of stuff, but swallows,
you know, these sort of things, dogs, these type of animals.
So in Mongols there would be Nukhoibach Chunnel. We've got a Nukhoy,

(15:56):
not to be confused with Mukhoi,more black guys, techa and others like
that. These are all the typicalanimals that Shama's typical kind of animals that
Shamas are picked in that area ofthe world, even the Siberia related area
of the world Alti Mountains Mongolia toShamans sometimes pick all the primates. Then

(16:22):
I can't really for sure for sure, but you've got to remember that if
we're talking about that area of theworld, that are no primates to speak
of. Once you're getting down intoChina and places, there are, but
they do. I mean, monkeyis a big one, isn't it.
You know, So certainly in China. I guess it's no secret that myself
and Joe practice a particular very shamisticmartial art called shinghi, and it has

(16:45):
twelve and inverted commerce animals. Where'vegot more than twelve because different I've studied
multiple lines of it, and Joehas biproxy multiple lines of shinghi, and
it's one of those lines has twelve. But actually they don't all agree exactly
on what the twelve. Most ofthe mostly the same, but there's some
variations, so we actually end upwith more than twelve. So those sort

(17:06):
of animals, I mean, wejust take the shiny animals, we can
run through them. A lot ofthese. You find it also spirit animals
that Mongolian shamans will will also practice. That they're not a different They're not
a different set of animals. There'sa great commonality there. So sure,
for instance, is snake, andso that would be machoi in a mongol

(17:34):
Chinese shaman's shamanistic marsh lasts of thepast, picking the same kind of animal
as Mongolian shamans would do. Thetigers, another one, the bach in
a Mongolian again another animal in bothwe've got geep, which is like the
chicken again um so towards taker andum. We've the horse math, which

(18:00):
is mar in Mongol. So whatyou can see is we go through them.
Sooner or later, I'm going tocome to one that that Mongolian shaman's
probably don't practice that much. We'vegot yan, which is swallow, which
is um to say in Mongol.And now I'm up to one. The
crocodile, the tour um is onethat you I mean, there is a

(18:22):
Mongol word for it, but youprobably won't find many Mongol shaman's practicing it.
And that's just because of lack offamiliarity. You know, in China
they've got the crocodiles down near AntiAnti, so they're familiar with those animals,
they've studied those animals, and ofcourse not a lot of crocodiles in
Mongolia. Um. And so wehave the gossoc Yao yao shing in shinghy

(18:47):
um, which is also in um, Mongolia's old leg zag in Mongolian and
um and then monkey right Paul inChinese monkey, because there's lots of monkeys
in China. And so basically theidea of an in Africa purpose but have

(19:11):
you have you purposefully, mister,their eagle, they're an eagle. It's
not purposeful because because there's some debateabout whether the bear eagle is two separate
animals or whether it's one. Yeah, but that's not in shaman, that's
just in, that's distinguishing eye.Yeah. So so obviously a baron an

(19:33):
eagle are two separate animals, andyou get both in in um so ba
gay is bare in And we allknow that a b is eagle because we
used that term burick chicuts so manytimes on this podcast, and so so
apparent and eagle are separate animals andthey will be very very commonly chosen animals

(19:57):
by Shamans the world over. Frankly, and for good reason. Bears have
a very exploratory, inquisitive character andsort of human beings. So it's really
good to look at an animal that'sso similar to us in many ways but
somehow different as well, when we'retrying to understand the patterns that the energy

(20:18):
patterns that it uses in its lifeas it fills its niche, as you
said, as it fills its nichewithin nature. And this is where this
idea from ship comes from. Now, there is an eagle in China called
the bar eagle. This is alsoa fact. It's not just in China's
in Japan as well, where it'scalled the Kumatack has the bad hawks,
so they call it a bar eagle. In China they call it a bat

(20:40):
hawk. And what it is,this particular eagle, It hurts a lot
like other eagles, but it doestend to take its prey on the ground,
and for this reason it exhibits it'squite stocky, and it exhibits a
lot of bear like movements when it'skilling on the ground. It's maneuvering,
and it also takes prey famously.It takes prayer that a lot bigger than

(21:00):
it is. So it needs thatkind of softness, an inquisitiveness you get
in the bear in bad character.And so it's a it's an eagle that
behaves a bit like a bear sometimes. So so from a shamanistic point of
view, there's no problem with this. There are bears, there are eagles,

(21:21):
and there are bear eagles. Knowthere's no problem. But you know
what the martial arts are like,don't you. You know? You know
what the martial arts like. Andits Latin name is the Latin name of
the barr el Bezaitis nippoleensis, andum its western name is the mountain hawk
eagle. In China it's humming thebar eagle, and in Japan it's kum

(21:45):
attack as I said, the bearhawks. So both Chinese and Japanese are
picked up on this bar like characterin their naming of that eagle stroke hawk,
and it's a very interesting one.It's a one that obviously a shiny
practitioners we know quite a bit about. And it's also one that I've spent
quite a bit of time independently ofthe stuff that I've learned from the Shinhi

(22:06):
tradition studying. Obviously, because it'svery foundational in Shinghi, should mention this
baron eagle in Shinghi are considered likethe most foundational animals because within the twelve
the Chinghey schools pick eagle tends tobe the most yang animal, in bear
tends to be the most Yan animalout of the portfolio of animals that Shinghi's
picked out. But the point Iwas really trying to make was that the

(22:30):
kind of animals that you find anda lot of martial arts that have a
shamanistics on a background like shinghy comefrom folk religion. They tend to pick
the self same animals, but ingeneral there are a few exceptions, right,
crocodile and stuff like that, butturtle and this sort of thing.
But generally, with a few exceptions, they're picking the self same kind of

(22:52):
animals that you know, Mongolian Sambiaand Shammon's are picking out for their practice.
And the reason is they come downin the same kind of ones as
he. They want to study alot. They don't just want to study
one that's not fun. They wantto study a whole bunch of different animals.
And b they're all really closely relatedto us genetically speaking, compared to

(23:14):
like ameibas or you know, Idon't know what else you would say,
protozoans and that type of thing,or even even like so octopi would be
interesting, would octopuses? They wouldbe very interesting. They're complex animals.
They use very rich things that I'veseen them doing their stuff, and they
use all kinds of weird and wonderfulanti patterns, and they're very sophisticated in

(23:37):
their use of that. But they'renot really close to us, like mostly
animals that Shalmon's had to pick outas the point. But obviously there's necessity.
You can't if you don't pick realanimals and go and look at real
animals, studying them the traditional waysin a state atualicity. This is one
of the reasons why we pick upWe pick up this ability to practice chillas

(24:00):
an amsca that lightwere observation of selfcan be projected onto other creatures like bears,
for instance, and that lightwhere observationof self ability is really important because
what happens otherwise, what happens otherwiseis what's happened in some martial arts,
for instance, is that we projectour human idea of what, for instance,

(24:21):
a tiger is like, and thenwe end up standing in a really
low horse stance with the hands inclaws going gur or something like growling.
You know, that's because that's whatwe as humans think tigers are like.
But as you know from Shinghi practicein some martial arts, they've actually gone
and looked at actual tigers and seeingwhat they actually do, and then you
know, then you have a referencepoint that's outside of human beings. And

(24:45):
the great thing I always liked aboutshinghi as a martial art. There's always
a reference point outside of what peoplesay, because you know, all martial
arts always arguing with each other.But there is a reference point, which
is the real animals. We stillthey're all still with us, every single
one one of the shiny animals,or some of them are heavily endangered,
it's still with us. With thepossible exception of the Chinese tiger, which

(25:07):
may or may not exist in theworld, but other tigers do. Yeah,
I mean, for instance, Siberiantiger. And maybe because it's shiny,
I don't know. But a lotof these animals that we're discussing a
predatory, is that a character traitthat would make it more akin to the
human being, Sure, they wouldmake it more interesting. Gatherers they're hunter

(25:30):
gatherers, right, a lot ofthem. I mean some of them are
pure predators like the tiger, butalso monkeys and bears. They're hunter gatherers
just like we are. We arein a natural state. Again, there's
no there's no coincidence in the factthat these animals being picked out there.
And if you want to think theworld over, what are the you know,
every country you go to, whatare the most commonly seen animals as

(25:55):
spurt animals that are used in animalsabout dancing, other spirit animal related techniques.
Shamanism, what are they well,very very you know, if you
had to take all the shamanistic people'sNorth, South America, all over the
world, Siberia, Africa, allthis kind of stuff, you're going to
find some kind of bird of preyprey in there, and you're probably going
to find bears the rank very wellin there as well. Obviously in Africa,

(26:18):
you're going to get a lot moresort of monkeys, and you're going
to get things like the famous cameldance and this sort of stuff. You
know, other animals that are nittedoff to Africa. But you're going to
get big cats, and you're goingto get birds of prey. But you're
also going to get what people II'll just tend to describe as omnivores because

(26:40):
that's effectively what's what's we have tocall them omnivores when they're animals, but
when we call the human beings,we call them hunt the gatherers. No,
that that's an omnivore. That's whatit is. You know, where
you whatever's going And again you know, bears are a great example of that.
Monkeys can be a great example ofthat as well, in various different
ways, depending on which monkeys.I'm using the term monkey a broad sense
here. And this is another thingthat you learned through studying this stuff when

(27:04):
you start off on it. SoideI want to learn the snake spirit dance,
and especially with snakes, like well, which snake are we talking about?
There are commonalities between different snakes interms of how they live their lives,
but there are also broad, broaddifferences as well, really really unusual

(27:26):
variations. And also eagles, forinstance. You know, everybody thinks what
the mighty eagle, the mighty goldeneagle. You know, we used to
have open Scotland. I used togo radio tracking these things. You know,
the mighty Golden eagle, the biggesteagle in you know, for four
hundreds of miles around the King ofthe Skies. Is people imagine it flying

(27:47):
along looking for a goose or something. You know, It's well, what
you might actually find it doing isthat at the edge of a pond trying
to fish the frogs out with itsclaws, you know, not actually doing
any flying at all. Their behavioractual lives can be much more varied than
human beings. Assuming this is whyChilis is so important in this stuff.
The great thing about being modern humanbeings is we have all these wonderful wildlife

(28:11):
photographers who've been out with their videocameras and their cameras capturing all this stuff
for us, and we're not havinga risk life and limb like Shalmon's of
the past studying tigers. You know, of the best stuff is the is
the BBC David Attenborough stuff, youknow, Planet Earth and yeah, what
is it? Dynasties if you ifyou if you've seen Dynasties, it's just
incredible. Yeah, we talked aboutthem. Yeah, we talked a bit

(28:37):
about the BBC on heretics and we'dprobably come back to them. I did
work there at one point in time, and it's you know that there's a
there's an argument that they've plan forhis youth too much as a justification for
the BBC. His stuff is trulygreat. If if you haven't seen it,
which you probably have wherever you are, it's definitely worth looking up.
But there's just loads of this stuffon YouTube and places like that. Now,

(28:59):
you know, just animals in actionanimals doing stuff, and obviously the
focus tends to be on them huntingand what they can do and what I
think we'll do as time goes forwards, we'll do individual episodes on individual animals
and just try and get with anoverview in this one as we as we
progress forwards, we'll talk about particularanimals are the characteristics. But what I
was coming to was if you takesnakes in general, that there was even

(29:22):
overarching categories of snakes that snakes themfall into, and they're very different from
each other. And in Shiny they'rereferred to as the Yan snake and the
Yang snake. But basically it's it'slike kind of vipers and constrictors, isn't
it. There's the snakes that areusing their venom and their bite as just
a former defense and ort to subdueprey that they're then going to subsequently consume.

(29:45):
That's like the venom based approach.And then there were the famous constrictors,
the anacondas and stuff, where theyget ahold and then they use clever
positioning to effectively suffocate the prey thatthey're they're going to consume. To both
hunting strategies but two quite different huntingstrategies, and they're used in different combinations

(30:06):
by different snakes. And so againwhen we go into that, we'll have
a snake episode for sure, snakeepisode or two, very very varied.
And I think for that reason,and also because snakes are so widely incorporated
in human mythology and human traditions,there are creatures that have been of great

(30:29):
interest to human beings for a verylong period of time. Then that's why
they're relatively distant from us in ancestry. But we still study them. Shamon's
really interested in snakes for whatever reason, we still study them. So,
given that we are animals, ourselvesas human beings and some might say in

(30:53):
a certain context very interesting animals,is there merit in studying ourselves through the
lens of an animal spirit dance?Or is it the case that all of
our practice up to this point hasbeen that, you know, shedding the
maasma and trying to understand who weare as animals, And it's the case

(31:14):
that the animals are a way toview the world through multiple different lenses.
It's both, Yeah, it's both. So, so, first of all,
they are aware because if you tryand come up with portfolios of technique,
portfolios of changes within your spirit dance. It's hard work, especially rich
in compact, because there's so muchpotential variety in there. Once you start

(31:37):
really getting at the level four changes, there's so much variety in there,
it becomes overwhelming. You start toget swamped. So what shams have done
instead is they've looked with animals itwhat kind of portfolio, what kind of
bag of energy changes has this particularanimal been using in this particular contact.

(31:57):
Let's have a go at that first. Let's put that into human terms and
a spurt dance and try and behonest about it. And as long as
you are honest about it, aslong as you try and embody the energy
changes, so we're not talking aboutcopying the animal's movements, so much is
embodying the changes that the animal isincorporating in the way that it is incorporating
the minute with lifestyle. As longas you do that in an honest kind

(32:20):
of way. With CHILLISTI and AMSCA, employing those two techniques, you will
come to the other approach to this, or the other idea behind this,
which is through understanding our cousins wouldcome to understand ourselves. And this is
the idea of the dragon in Inthe Shinghey tradition, the dragon was the
symbol of the purported founder of shingyIf you if you want to learn about

(32:43):
that stuff, we have an ongoingseries that's already very very long on it's
long anyway, I don't know howmany episodes on the Heretics podcast, so
head over and listen to that.But you face is an important figure in
the development of shinghy H and thedragon in in many ways symbolizes the best

(33:05):
aspects of human character, not allaspects of human character, and this is
true in Chinese mythology as well,the best and most noble aspects of the
human character. And that's why youknow in they picked the dragon as the
symbol of the ruling the emperor effectively, and the give that bend on your
rank in society. There your dragonwould have a different number of clause obviously,

(33:27):
the more clause the higher ranking alsoand would have a five claude dragon.
I guess the crown prince would havea four claude dragon of that type
of thing. The association between dragonsand human beings is long standing and obviously
the Yellow River is often seen asa dragon, like it calls around like
that, and it says like ayellow dragon, and that's the birth of

(33:47):
Chinese civilization. But the idea thatit only represents the noble aspects of human
beings like Uf was a very nobleperson if you read about his life or
listen listen about his life on theOn the Takes podcast, And so it
really represents in that tradition. Ithink from a Shamassic point of view,
it represents the natural component of humanbeings that what we are as collaborative,

(34:15):
creative, nurturing creatures, the typeof creatures that we are. It represents
just those aspects. And in away you can think of the other animals
coming to an understand of the otheranimals through for instance, animals spit down.
There are other animals spreit techniques.In shamanism, it helps us to

(34:36):
see ourselves from the outside in fromlooking at how would you know, for
instance, how does a tiger seeus, how does a snake see us?
And how can we look at ourselvesin that kind of a way.
Certainly, the kind of miasmatic stuffthat we all deal with on a data
dair basis a lot of us,certainly myself included. That kind of stuff

(34:58):
is of no concern whatsoever to thosecreatures. No interest in the many of
the kind of meetings that I attendin my business pens, there no interest
whatsoever. And what's going on inthose meetings? And I've just got age
of life. You go to YouTubeanimal spirits and you want to see the

(35:19):
human it'll just be sat in theoffice. But what are they interested in?
And I don't mean interested just intheir mind? I mean what the
interest in their mind, spirit,and body, all unified as one.
What are they interested in? Andif we can take an interest in what
they're interested in rather than what we'reinterested in. Now there is a deep,
deep and really powerful learning tool.And as you said so many times,

(35:40):
being a shaman is about putting yourselfin a place where nature can teach
you. Well, this is natureteaching you on steroids. If you're like,
this is nature teaching you with amassive amplifier. Not in the simplistic
ways that we've dealt with on thepodcast to date. You know, find
all the ways across the stream andall that kind of stuff. But here's

(36:00):
what nature can do when it reallywants to. You know. That's that's
the we're talking about the pinnacle ofthe tree here, the tree of nature
that proceeds from sort of simple originsinto complex, ever more bewilderingly complex patterns
of energy change. Here's the pinnacleof the tree. These are the top
things that on this planet, onthis Earth, have gone up there.

(36:23):
I mean, some of them havegone beyond humans. Burigy cantarity. The
reason why we're so interested in eagles. One of the reasons why is they
can do things that we can't.I being sure, they can fly,
right, but what about the theperceptive ability they're ability to grip that terpistry,
that weave of nature and and tospot things that what never in a

(36:45):
million years would we spot if wewere at that altitude in the plane.
You know, they they fly high, these things that they've seen. I
mean, for instance, the bareeagle, they've seen them flying at more
than ten thousand feet, you know, which is pretty high. The we're
in a plane flying at that height, we're in spotting a mama on the

(37:06):
ground. You know, not happening. It's just not happening. For dentals,
you know, it's just not happening, And there's two reasons why it's
not happening. Their eye is abit better than ours, fair enough,
but also their ability to grip nature, their ability to hang in and participate

(37:27):
within then weave and nature is alsofar beyond ours, even further beyond ours
than their eyes are beyond ours.Actually, in purely zoological terms or physiological
terms, are eyes are actually prettygood compared to a lot of animals.
But we're certainly not the not thebest. But eagles have a chance of

(37:47):
claiming that title. So so thatperceptive ability that birds cantality that we learn
from eagles and others other animals isa great example of why we need to
study eagles as human beings, becauseif not, we end up standing in
a horse stance, making claude handsand growling, you know, and thinking

(38:12):
that's nature. And also, ifyou want to know about all this stuff,
how how how much human beings andarmy askma have kicked back against nature
over the millennia, then again,Heretics podcast is a great way to find
out about all the weird and wonderfulthings in which that happened in Christianity and
Confucianism and all these kind of placesthat. That's what that podcast. Also,
if you want to lead into that, we did do three episodes as

(38:37):
a series here on this podcast,which is a great introduction to it,
which is absolutely interesting, and thenyou can head over to Heretics after that.
I'll just head over to Heretics anyway. But anyway, we've got three
episodes. I think it's fifteen sixteenseventeen or around that area. So if
you go back through our through ourepisodes, you'll find them. Yeah,

(39:00):
Demon, do you think that itwould be wise to give one quote unquote
simple example of a change that you'retalking about in the context of an animal
I think in here is to giveour listeners a clue as to what that
truly means, or what that meansin the context of the stage four that

(39:22):
we've been looking at, or anythingto further the kind of understanding of what
we're talking about here. Sure,so let's let's take a very simple chance.
So let's take a squall and guyfor instantance. We've mentioned them already.
The squall is about energy compressing andexpanding, going away and coming back
again. It's just like the waveson the shore. Right, they're roll

(39:44):
back down the beach and then thecrash up on the shore. Yeah,
and Guiro is like the planets goingaround. The sun is like the sun
going around the Milky Way. Energycycling around. Now, bears when they
are hunter gathering, let's go ratherthan foraging, let's go it hunter gathering,
because that's what they're doing. They'reout. Look, they're in this

(40:06):
kind of a mode. They aredoing a kind of spurt dance. And
I think a lot of people getcaught out by bears because they make the
mistake of thinking, how do bearsbehave? How do I keep myself safe
around bears? If bears do this, then I should do that and all
that kind of stuff. But that'sthat's not how bears behave. Bears are
like we used to be. Theyare very inquisitive animals. They want,

(40:29):
but they're inquisitive as part of theirlifestyle. They are searching and exploring.
So for instance, they will usea circumvention to they will take energy around
things. I mean, for instance, in terms of getting behind the bark
of a tree. They've got theseclaws, they can slide them in.
They want to get behind the barkbecause they're exploring what's in there. Maybe

(40:52):
there's some yummy ants for them toeat. But they'll also use compression and
expansion. They'll use a fair oldamount of power when they're hunting. If
they're taking down an elk, forinstance, they're using an awful lot of
power in that. But also they'reusing torrent. They won't just to grab
onto an elk and hang on forgrim death. They will literally knock the

(41:12):
thing over because they'll have a muchbetter control of it on the ground.
So they're using the torrent change they'rein order to do that, and they
are also whenever you use in torrent, there's always a certain amount of kindle
going on there. As the animalresists, there will be following its energy
in order to avoid damage. Andthis is why bears such a useful animal

(41:34):
in the martial arts. Its abilityto avoid damage when a lot of forces
involved is a very at a veryvery high level. And if you watch
their their interplay when they're either youknow, facing off with each other or
they're taking down an animal, abig animal when they're hunting, they're exceptionally
good at that. And that abilityto use the kindle to introduce energy just

(41:59):
judiciously where it's needed in conjunction withthe torrent and the circumvention. So,
for instance, when something with alot of power kicks back at them,
think of a water buffalo a tiger. You know, buffalo is infinitely more
powerful than the tiger. The tigeris able to circumvent that, to move

(42:19):
its energy around either through compression andexpansion through the swollen guy in interplay in
order to preserve itself. And that'swhy you can tigers can, actually,
believe it or not, take downfull grown water buffalos. They probably don't
choose that as their first choice ontheir menu because it's the danger level involved,
but they are able to do it, which is just spectacular. So

(42:39):
there's four changes that a couple ofanimals are using. But it's whenever I
say these things, it's it's anoverly simplastic explanation of what's going on.
And this is why I think weneed to do at least one whole episode
on any individual animal, because thereis actually so much stuff to say since

(43:00):
tigers don't do that all the time. One of the things that tigers that's
really important about tigers is they useshad a lot in terms of the sense
they take action that cuts off theirenergy patterns from the surrounding environment. They
are ambush predators. They're taking awhole range of different actions, many of

(43:22):
them subtle. For instance, haveyou ever heard a tiger walking to a
forest? It's so silent, sosilent, and the way that its feet
are going down out of the groundis very special, and it's actually very
complex. And there's a whole hostof different stuff including squalling, gaya and
meld and jag going on in that. Sorry, I'm just using these things

(43:45):
for brevity. All be here allweek, but you need to look up
elsewhere on the podcast what they goback to the Almabella episodes or somewhere else
if you want to know what theseterms mean. But all of those things
have been used in combination. Sothis is what I mean by the richness
of it. Just studying how atiger moves through the forest in a silent
way, that's a lifetime of studyif you really were interested in that.

(44:07):
And then can you take that intoyour spread dance? Can you step in
the same way that the tigers?Can your foot fall on the ground of
your grove in the same way usingthe same energy patterns that the foot of
a tiger touches down in the forestfloor when it's hunting, and I mean
when it's hunting, and it's veryvery special and very very complex, but

(44:29):
very very effective. And that's becauseambush predator. Now, this is what
I mean by you can't just sayour big cats, right, No,
where cheetah behaves like that, notin a million years, right, It
just doesn't. So it does ina certain sense before it starts its run.
And you could say that a tigeralso starts its run in a certain

(44:52):
way. But generally when tigers attack, they are virtually on top of the
prey. They have use that beltthat you get right on top of it,
where obviously a cheater doesn't need thatgiven how fast it can run,
but they will want to get closeand then they'll will be applying similar kind
of energy patterns in there and they'rehunting. It's not all about growling and

(45:14):
having claws. This is my point, and this is why when we're getting
Animal Spirit Dance, I want todo the animals justice have at least a
whole episode per animal. Probably youknow, for something like the bear or
the eagle, were probably a threeepisodes each or something like that. I
want to do them justice. Butthere's an example of energy pattern changes.
The meld is very very important inthat silent walking that the tigers do.

(45:37):
But also you've got the whole thingof with they know, I mean intuitively
in the statualicity. They know whento move and when not to move,
all this kind of stuff. Andthere's there's a because their animals are really
good at avoiding them, really reallygood, and they're on a hair trigger
those things, you know, deerand stuff like that, and the first

(46:00):
pagers live, they're on a hairtrigger all the time, and their reactions
are phenomenal. Same with you know, crocodiles coming down when the animals come
down to the edge of the waterto feed and the crocodiles go for them.
The whole episode on crocodiles we cando. They're on a hair trigger.
They're really really good, And thisis how evolution works. But it's

(46:20):
what energy patterns are they applying,and all of those things, and you
find their complex and many and varied, and just picking You could spend your
whole life as a shaman doing pickingone animal and going deep, deep,
deep into spirit dance, for instance, with just an animal, and you
would never run out of new thingsto try, and you would never run
out of richness and variety. Butobviously it's very interesting to study in more

(46:42):
than one and you know nothing.You have to go to the crazy extent
of shinghe is twelve, but itis a really really interesting thing. And
then taken on that animal spirit onyourself and ultimately seeing the world in a
chest of state of chilicity through theeyes of that animal is in itself a

(47:04):
kind of level six technique. Ifyou can get to that place where you're
no longer a human being and youare you are that animal in that place,
and I don't mean imagining it,I mean literally seeing the world in
the same way that animals see isthe world, then you can call that
a spirit journey. You can callthat level six technique the allow that that
is what that is. If you'redoing it in a genuine way and in

(47:30):
an honest way, without imagine anyimagination being involved, you have achieved a
spirit journey of a sort. You'vejourneyed out of a human being and then
too a different creature. That's whatyou've actually achieved there, the spirit journey.
It's not the famous kind of spiritjourney, but I account that kind
of technique at an equivalent level sixlevel as the more famous kind of spurt

(47:54):
dance. If you're like, sorry, out of spurt dance coming into the
allow that the spurd any well,I was actually going to be my last
question of the day, maybe aJoseph question. But what's the ultimate purpose
here? Why are we wanting toexplore the animals in the first place?

(48:16):
Why do we want to give ourselvesthese extra lenses to view the world through?
A good question. I think there'stwo different answers to that. I
mean, one is one of thethings we find out about our nature of
the dragon, if you're like,one of the things we find out about
nature as we go on in life, as shamons progressive, Shamon says,
that's part of our nature. Humanbeings are naturally quite inquisitive, like bears,

(48:39):
inquisitive creatures, and we're the kindof creatures that are interested in doing
stuff like that, at least ofus are. But also we are also
very adaptive and we are able toapply these kind of things into our everyday
lives. I mean, for instance, just bruisticality that has been invalid given

(49:02):
that I've done such a huge amountof driving in my life, just colossal
mode, certainly over a million miles. Anyway, given that I've done that
amount of driving in my life,the thing that's probably kept me safe,
not saying that it's infallible, thatbirdchie catarity that has come to me from
an eagle, ultimately has has stoodme in very very good step in the

(49:24):
very odd human realm of driving forinstance. Less one example. And you
know, there's a reason why allthese martial arts masters of the past wanted
to study these animals. There's areason why, and it's a no brainer
if you think about it in simplisticterms. Who's better at fighting me or
a tiger? You know, it'slike, well, I don't really fancy

(49:47):
doing the experiment to find out,but I'm pretty confident that my assumed outcome
would be the actual outcome. Thethey are just better at us. That's
other things that US eagles are betterat, that whole perception thing. Tagers
are better at basically taking out largeanimals like us. They're very very good

(50:08):
at that, and you know,we we have this in our nature.
So that that's one answer to whyyou might want to study it makes life
interesting. But another reason why youmight want to study it is if you're
a specialist in spirit dance technique likeme. But I guess it's also true
a drum technique and other homelic andother types of shamanic technique is variety is

(50:34):
the key to understanding the universe.And that's what shamans want to do.
We want to understand the universe andan energetic sense. Shamans are energy specialists.
We want to understand energy changes ultimately, and there's only so far we
can go under our own power.We need nature's help for this. But
otherwise we're just too prone to imagination, which is part of that other thing

(50:59):
that I was talking about. We'retoo prone to imagination, so we need
nature's help. And if we reallywant to take this far, nature has
handed this deep, deep understanding ofcomplexity, how complex, just how complex
nature can get. Handed it tous on a plate in terms of our

(51:20):
cousins, the eagles, the tigers, the bears, the hawks, the
swallows, the fighting cocks, thecrocodiles, whatever you want to go.
The camels handed it to us ona plate, and we'd be really stupid,
really really stupid not to take advantageof that. And as long as
we can maintain the whole chelicity thing, the AMSCA thing, and be honest
about it, and are we reallyembodying? Are we really embodying things that

(51:45):
have come from eagles and bears andhawks and tigers and that kind of stuff.
Are we really doing it? We'renot just imagining it. We're not.
And part of the problem is ourwhole culture, isn't it. You
know, we read about how dangerouswolves are, a little red riding hood,
right, so you've read a littlered riding hood or stories of that
elk Peter and the wolf and allthese kind of traditional tales. You're probably

(52:06):
because of that when you were achild. You're probably in a much worse
place to study wolves in a shamanisticsense than somebody who hasn't read those things
and hasn't been conditioned as a child, you know, a much much worse
place. This is the point thatI wanted to make really on this episode,
is that if you're approaching animals spurtdance or its approaching spirit animals in

(52:28):
shamanism, the need for chellisity andAMSCA is through the roof in the subject
area. Because of all that mythologythat our religions have built into you know,
I mean, wasn't it wasn't Adamand Eve who got kicked, who
caused the trouble in the garden?Was it in our religions, in our
meals where it was the poor snake? Right? Yeah, well, all

(52:52):
that stuff, all that stuff,you know, And the reason snakes haven't
got any legs is because they werecursed by grotty, you know, to
not have any legs, you know, not that, not that for what
they do. They're much better adaptedto what they do. You try,
do you take crushing a cappy barrowwith your body, See how well you
get on? You know. It'sum, It's just that whole measthma thing

(53:16):
is just nonsensical in this area.But it is problematic because at a more
subtle level I've given some silly,simplistic examples there, but a more subtle
level, influencers as constantly and asshamons, we have to be on the
guard against that imagination thing all thetime, especially if we're going to take
advantage of animal spirits. So whatI think we should go do going forwards

(53:38):
on this podcast is we've got toget back to some more level floor changes.
That's what we're going to do.We will do lots more, but
every now and again I suggest wedo an episode on an animal spirit or
two, just interspersed in among them. I don't know what. Yeah,
yeah, I'll be fascinating and atleast try to to um. And it's

(54:02):
also worth pointing out that broach.I've talked about it from a martial art
point of view in Shinghy, butit's in no way a martial art thing.
This is it. It's a wellit is, but it isn't um.
It's so it's an everything thing.I mean, one of the ways
to thinks about it very shamestic martialarts like Shinghy for instance, that have

(54:22):
that that are that way inclined tobegin with, at least were at one
point in the past. I mean, there's a whole thing. Just just
listen to Heretics podcast, but there'sa whole thing with dumbing down of these
things through time and various political movements. I've seen that as advantageous, like
the Gorman Dang and the CCP andvarious other people. But I'm talking about
a seal the word originally there's noway and a martial art that has a

(54:43):
major focus on twelve animals. Thepeople who created that martial art had no
interest in animals. It's just like, you know, that's that just can't
be true, you know. Andalso when you look into how the animals
have done in the old school shinghy, I mean, for instance, the
way that the bear sorry, thethat the tiger pounds is done, although
they've done down that to a twohanded push or some strange variety of anyway

(55:07):
in modern times, but the waythey've done, and then you look at
animal videos, you can see alot of commonality. These people really looked
at real animals in a shamanistic way, and obviously real shamans are out there
in nature anyway, all the times, the guys Mongolian, the guys in
Siberia, the events that we've talkedabout, these guys, and also shaman's
in the shamanistic traditions in Japan,Miki's tradition, for instance, which has

(55:29):
interestingly, she had a lot ofsea creatures in her tradition that were spit
animals and which we'll talk about aswell, you know, turtles and this
sort of stuff. So those peoplereally looked at real animals and really took
the essence of real animals and incorporatedit into their shamanism. And it just
so happens that this particular martial artas a bunch of animals. Other martial

(55:51):
arts two as well. And Ifeel that a lot of martial arts started
off in a very shamanistic place andthen gradually, you know, the whole
twentieth century did them an awful lotof damn which in that sense, but
the essence is still there, andthe tai chi is no different. You
know that the crane and the snakething and tai chi mannis kung fu is
an example of people who went offand studied are very very different, distant,

(56:14):
very very distant different relative um,you know, in terms of insect
kingdom there you're talking about. ButI feel all these things started off in
a very shamestic place. And whattie of course, you know, tie
boxing with its whole thing around,the whole cockfighting and all that kind of
stuff. In Thailand, um,you know, one of the most shamestic
martial arts on the planet. Soso yeah, I think a lot of

(56:37):
martial arts start off in that place. But then politics and history and modernization
spots and all kinds of things tendto dumb them down over time. It's
inevitable as as sort of others backinfluencers and other non meismatic influencers come to
play on them. And I think, you know that's happenisching and various others.

(57:00):
So yeah, and I was amonkey. You mentioned monkey there um
primates and goodness mate, how manyepisodes will we have to do on those
guys? Those are our closest relatives, right, this is the point to
be made, and that the monkeyis incredibly rich. I spent a lot
of time on primates monkeys in general, um, both for finishing e contacts

(57:21):
and and shamanism context. There isa lot there. There was multiple lifetimes
of study as a shaman just inthat place, without going any to any
other animal. So so yeah,and this is what's wonderful about all this
stuff, you know, shamanism balloons. As you go further with it,
it gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and you realize it's the biggest subject

(57:42):
there is. And one of thethings that really opened my eyes to that
going you know, years ago,back to the nineteen eighties. One of
the things that really opened my eyesto that was the was the animals.
That was just I realized that notnot not fully realized, but realized the
magnets of this thing that was tryingto break into. You know, you

(58:04):
could be off put by that,but you can see in two ways,
can't You can see it as ait's very, very difficult in the context
that we are living today, thesort of civilized contacts to break into that
kind of thing. But on theother hand, isn't it a wonderful challenge?
Wonderful None of those other animals,you know, you don't get tigers
going out and studying bears, youknow, it just doesn't that, you

(58:24):
know, But this is our weirdnessas a species. This is what we're
like. And in a way bydoing this, we're also embodying the nature.
We're bringing to light our real ourtrue nature as human animals. You
know, that's a that's what's wonderfulabout it. Yeah, I in our
inquisitive nature. Yeah, beautiful?Should we call it? Do that?

(58:47):
Okay? Yeah, let's call itday. There's that's been fantastic island loads
on that one. So thanks demonAnd yeah, if you want to support
us over on Patreon, you cango to Patreon home Slash Woven Energy get
lots of goodies over there. Thanksfor listening, and you know, as
always, you can check out theprevious episodes and we'll see you in the

(59:09):
next one. That's great. Thanksa lot, guys,