Every Human Being Has Two Minds. Most of Us Live in Only One.
All of us, every human being, possesses both a logic mind and a spirit mind. The logic mind is what we use to navigate our day-to-day life in ordinary waking reality. When we think, do math, drive a car, read a book, or dial a phone number, we are acting within the province of the logic mind. The spirit mind is the realm of intuitive understanding, a place where our experiences can be described but not explained by logic. How, for example, can we logically explain the way we move across space and time in a dream?
Where Shamanic Healing Happens
Shamanic awareness and shamanic healing depend on the shaman being able to consistently and effectively access the spirit mind, and then return to normal waking consciousness. This is a vital part of the practice. To be effective, one must be able to journey into the dreamtime and then return at will. It is in the realm of the spirit mind that shamanic healing occurs, where the spiritual wounds of the past live on in the present, and where the agreements we made at the time those wounds were inflicted can be changed into ones that allow us to release the trapped spiritual poison, bring back our life force energy, and heal.
Why I Use the Drum
While there are many ways to access the spirit mind, I find a simple drum beat to be the most effective and the least taxing on my physical body. The drum lets me enter and return from shamanic realms with ease, without the physical toll of hallucinogens, or extended fasting, or sleep deprivation, and with the added benefit that I can move from a very deep state of shamanic awareness to picking my daughter up from school in ordinary reality, literally at the drop of a hat.
This is how we learn to walk in both worlds while being bound to none, free travelers between the logic mind and the spirit mind. We humans have been given the gift of both. It is a shame to abandon half of our capacity by planting ourselves firmly in one camp or the other, yet that is exactly the norm for most people. It is part of the illusion of duality that has led to so much conflict.
Not Either/Or, but Both
One reason I believe we hold this misconception is that while we are all capable of accessing both the logic mind and the spirit mind, we cannot access them both at the same time. This is an important point, because it leads to a great deal of misunderstanding. We mistakenly believe we have to choose one or the other, simply because we can't do both simultaneously. But consider a cell phone: even though I can't send a text while I'm on a voice call, I can switch back and forth between them at will. It would be ridiculous to shun text messaging because it doesn't work during a call. In the same way, we can embrace both the logic mind and the spirit mind, each for its own purpose.
Modern society is too focused on black or white. We are either in the world of logic or the world of intuition. Very rarely do we find people who are grounded in both worlds and able to move freely between them. Yet that is exactly what is needed for us to heal ourselves and reach our full potential.
Learning to access the spirit mind at will, safely and effectively, is the foundation of shamanic practice, and it is the first thing we learn together in Level 1 - The Fundamentals of Shamanism.