The Shaman’s Code

In 1991 I met a Native American shaman operating as a peace worker, leading community awareness workshops in the Scott Peck model around the world. He came to facilitate one that I organised in Devon, and we Saw each other in Truth. We have been brothers, and he my teacher since then.

His teachers were Lakota and Hopi. His “Way of the Pahana” is built on a simple set of principles that his Lakota master gave him at the outset. When he passed them to me, I found a sphere with many ways in. Start where you like, it becomes a complete pattern in itself. Taking these as my guide for most situations I find myself in has made it much easier for me to navigate teaching, healing, self-balancing and all group work.

I chose the image above as it comes from ancient times, being carved 4-5,000 years ago into a rock in New Grange at the point where the sun lands on rising at a winter solstice. It is a sign of how our inner balance is embraced by the cosmic balance and asks for renewal of all that unfolds and then infolds again in our lives.

The code is simply this:

**Always Answer the Call

**Show up in body, soul and spirit.

**Pay full attention, This is about what has Heart, and Meaning.

**Ask the questions that have to be asked – All of them.

**Tell the Truth – (Speak what has to be spoken. If it does not need to be said, keep silent.)

**Remember:

  – *this is not about what you know or do not know.

  – *This is not about what you might learn or might not learn.

  – *This is about what has Heart, and Meaning.

**Never believe you are ‘doing it.’

**Have no attachment to outcome.

**Seek no return (payment of any kind.)