There is an aspect to wisdom that is unknowable, an aspect that cannot be defined. That is because the unknowable is the child of power, and power takes on a different face every time you encounter it.
In the same way, there is an aspect to love that is unknowable. That is because power and love are mates. They live together in deep appreciation and support of each other. Like power, love takes on a different face every time you experience it. It is perhaps the master shape shifter, the most powerful force in human existence, but can you explain to me what love is? What is it to fall in love? You can talk about it all day long, but you cannot pin it down. It is different for everyone, different every time, as filled with surprise as it is with promise and hope.
Perhaps that is one of the reasons we have so much trouble with love in our world today, because it is of the unknowable and modern humans are terrified of the unknown. We have enthroned the mind as king of the universe, and the mind is terrified of that which it cannot control. What we forget in our mad attempt to control every aspect of our lives is that it is within the unknown that all of possibility resides! It is when you open yourself to the unknowable, to what is unfamiliar to you, that the energy of what you need flows into you.
A shaman is one who knows how to choreograph the energies of the universe toward a higher purpose in life. In the shaman’s way of understanding the universe, power is, in part, the understanding of the spiritual energy that flows through all things. So when I as a shaman woman talk about love, I am talking about the spiritual energy that flows through all living things. True power is love, just as true love is the most empowering force of all.
To me, love is like a ladder. At the bottom rung of the ladder is sex. That is what attracts you, what compels you into a relationship. Without the power of sexual attraction, it would be difficult to step into the unknown realms of possibility.
The middle rung is the creativity that is awakened through the energies of love-making, whether it is the physical act of sex or the nurturing to its fullest potential something you care about deeply. Remember that power and love are mates. How many times have you had great enthusiasm to start something, only to discover that it really isn’t for you? Before long, you find yourself bogged down in life, drained of your vitality. You want only one thing, and that is for it to be over. Power without love leaves you without any sustaining energy to keep the feeling of power alive. It is important to remember this when you are making decisions about where to put your energies in life. Is the potential for love truly there? Is the attraction strong enough to propel you through the trying times to reach your creative potential?
The highest rung is always your fire, your connection with the Divine, with the Great Spirit. This is what gives birth to compassion, which is one of the highest expressions of love. Compassion is a natural aspect of spirit that is spontaneous and unassuming. It is being attuned to other people in the world. When the creativity of sexual energy brings you into spiritual contact with your Divine force, the Great Spirit, then love arises and transforms your passion into compassion. You no longer move into the world from a place of polarity, seeing things as either black or white and therefore in need of being controlled by you. You simply witness. You watch, without judgment. This is the point at which you realize that perhaps you might view things very differently if you were in someone else’s position, and not your own. Instead of judging, you seek to understand. Now you are actually in a position to do something positive with all of the energy you have created.
It’s interesting that we spend a great deal of time and money taking care of our physical bodies with food, nourishment, exercise, paying doctors to put us back together because we’ve stopped taking care of our bodies, but we rarely think about feeding the soul. We never think about the fact that the soul cannot survive without love. When you look at healing serious physical illness, you almost always find the need to excavate the deeper aspects of the soul. As you do that, you realize that we suffer from a great loss of love in our world. In seeking ultimate control, we’ve stopped climbing the ladder from the power of attraction to the hard work of nurturing our creativity into love and compassion, for ourselves as well as for others in the world. Remember that you can’t give away what you don’t have. Compassion for yourself is essential; just don’t let it stop there.
When I was studying with Ani, a Nepalese hill woman of the Himalayas who is a shaman healer, my teachers prepared for me a beautifully mystical ceremony for the purposes of meeting and marrying my Spirit Husband. It was explained to me that as a shaman woman who wished to take my place in the world of power, I must first marry my spirit husband, my spirit mate, that only through this marriage could I become whole. And when you travel in the world of power, you need to be whole! Your spirit husband, or spirit wife if you are a man, balances you and gives you strength.
In the shamanic world view, every person has both a male and a female aspect to their being. Both are integral, inextricable parts of the essence of who you are. In the western world particularly, but throughout the world of today, we have forgotten that we carry both masculine and feminine energies and that without one, the other is weakened and incomplete, often to the point of being crippled and unable to function. In our world, you are either a “man” doing “man” things, whatever they may be, or you are a “woman” who does only “woman” things, whatever they are (!). This is a great tragedy for us individually as well as for the entire planet. We are desperately out of balance; we function as only half of ourselves, and it has led us to great dysfunction in all of our affairs.
The feminine side of our nature is introspective; it is receptive, capable of going within to dream and receive the great wisdom of our consciousness. The masculine side teaches us how to organize our consciousness, especially out in the everyday world; it is the masculine side that teaches us how to express our dreams outwardly and bring an exchange of energy back from the world. We need both aspects to survive, thrive, grow and flourish.
Your spirit mate is not of the flesh; he or she is not the person many refer to as their ‘soul mate.’ Your spirit mate comes from the unknown, from the place at the top of the ladder where power and love mate and you become your highest self. When you do the hard work meet and marry your spirit mate, you become complete and balanced within yourself. You become more than the sum of all your parts. Then you have the ability to truly love. You have nurtured both the female and male sides within yourself to the point of perfection. Both of these sides understand each other and there is no longer the need for conflict, within you or in your relationships in the world. As Zoila Gutierrez, a beautiful and powerful chamin curandera of Mayan descent, explained to me: “You cannot own, possess or control another human being, or any sentient being, for that matter, and force them to love you or come to you. That is not love; that is neediness of the most tragic sort, even as we live in a world that seems to want to wrap itself around its need for security. The surest thing you can ever have in life is your relationship with the God or Goddess of your understanding through your commitment to your highest self.”
The marriage of self to self, marrying all aspects of yourself into one magnificent whole, is a commitment to the Divine majesty in life. Then love and power can mate and give birth to your highest self. This is when you discover true and unconditional love, the greatest power in the universe that makes this world such a joyous and magnificent place to be. Now you are ready for wisdom to come into your hut.
Like love and power, wisdom is not of this world, but you can only find it by living fully in this world as a whole and complete being. You are linked to the universe; you are part of everything, and you live in all the lodges of the universe. Wisdom is found in the balance between universal knowledge and the sanctuary of knowledge that is learned through our harmony and struggle on Mother Earth. It is a teaching of Spirit that you find through the most sacred marriage of all, the marriage of self to self. You are the child of love and power. You are love and power.
Lynn Andrews is the New York Times and internationally best-selling author of the Medicine Woman series. She is a shaman healer and teacher, recognized worldwide as an authority on shamanism and a leader in the field of spiritual healing. She has written and taught extensively about the marriage to Spirit Mate, especially in Windhorse Woman. Learn more at www.lynnandrews.com
