What is a Shaman’s death, and who’s likely to have one? The death itself is a suspension between worlds. States of consciousness. The individual today, who is likely to have a "Shamanic Death" is chasing extinction itself. Through that process the person is readying him/herself to stand on a bridge between space and time.

Native American Tradition, from my limited knowledge of it, describes a ritual of preparation. The beginning of the ritual involved the initiator burning away the world into which they were born. Removing any trace of familiar surroundings and belongings. The ritual continued in complete isolation to the tribe. The isolation took place in caves, and even in a grave excavated by the apprentice him/herself. It was left to the initiator to know precisely when the time was right to escape the isolation and take his or her new role in the tribe. The ritual could take years to complete.

The ancestors of the Shamans had learned the hard way of their chosen path. It demanded an innate understanding of death and how to control it. Many went beyond the controls of fatality, prematurely extinguishing their human life. The Shamans were born with a mark. The mark was well hidden until they had been recognized by the elders. The ideas that surrounded the practice kept most people from it. A Shaman’s death was a real death to those involved.

In today’s world, the solitude begins for the Shaman in streets and homes of modern society. The initiator has a strong sense of being in an unfamiliar time and place. Nothing seems as it should be. It’s hard for the apprentice to function and find a place in the foreign surroundings of his/her environment. Many times they act out in fits of madness. The strain of trying to assimilate is overpowering. They abandon the idea of becoming their true selves all together. Many turn to easier solutions, such as drugs or any means to release the suffering. For some, they find their way through the use of narcotics and controlled substance. They long for the isolation, the preparation needed to stand once again between realities.

A modern day example of a Shaman’s death would be the one which came to me first hand. Most of my life was preoccupied by my unwillingness to conform. I wanted no part of conformity. It was wrong for me to accept social conditioning. The times that I broke under the pressure, I found myself healing the wounds and starting the fight all over again. My childhood was filled with abuse. As I see it now, this mistreatment was necessary for me to recognize what was laying no the road in front of me. It’s easy to blame others for the perceived destructive path which I was taking. Every choice was my own, and I needed to endure the responsibility for it. Our world does not allow us the freedom of alien thought. We are forced to embrace the material reality presented to us, or so we think. A year ago, I met someone who insisted that I go to India with him. Because I had been chasing death most of my life, the decision was easy. I did not know at the time that, that is what I was doing. Only after the event took place, did I comprehend the idea. The last day of our trip, I was confronted by a powerful negative being. That presence forced me into accepting the fact that I had to the experience the Shamanic Death. There was no alternative.

A portion of our spirit is contained within our body. My spirit was conditioning my physicalness to accept the challenge of taking up my preordained position in this world. The only place for me to escape the negativity was to go to the water. My mind was spinning with sensations. My spirit was in control. My body was overwhelmed with the stimuli of the universe. All the years of abuse and dealing with the Shamanic isolation had come to their conclusion. The ritual was to take on the meaning of dying. Throwing off all that I knew of the world in which I was born. I found myself at the edge of the Adriatic Sea. My mind was spinning, reeling from sensation. What do I do now? I asked myself. I stripped off my clothes, removed the contacts from my eyes and began to swim, swimming as hard and as fast as I could. I swallowed as much sea water as my body would tolerate. When I could no longer see the shore, my body sank. I did nothing to stop it. I could see the stars turn dark the deeper my body gravitated to the bottom. I was alone, in the darkness of the planet. My fate was in the earth’s hands. All the components were there, conditioned perception, total isolation and the absence of physical means. I could see my body continuing down the column of water, yet my consciousness was suspended above it. I stood at the place where time and space no longer exist. I was outside of the universe once again in the wholeness of my spirit, my core. I immersed my awareness in my creation. I remembered all of what I am. I tossed aside the body and physical universe to reveal my essence to my human mind. The body joined my consciousness once again, and I returned to the surface. My lungs were not starved for air as I swam back to shore. I had been reborn in the total insolation of my tribe, humanity; the purpose of a Shaman’s death. The condition was to remain between worlds, all worlds, neither more in one than the other. Standing on the edge of the spiral of death, watching the flow of life-force through the "Circle of Life."

After experiencing, "the death," your entire life becomes more in focus, for your complete examination. Our spirit dictates the depth of the experience. It gives to our humanness what it desires the body to carry on into the physical reality, our will, or spirit than leads us through life and creates a more fitting nature to our true likeness. Life here in the modern world is the preparation. Modern society is far removed, and distances us from our center. Engaging the world itself is all the isolation that is required. One feels like a warrior, trying desperately at times to keep the enemy at bay. It gives the shaman apprentice all the direction required to remember his/her way to the place, the space between worlds, if you can survive and keep focused on the journey.

You can learn more about the journey in a book entitled: Elements of Creation. The experience even goes beyond the shaman’s death. It takes you into aspects of creation that have been lost to our current comprehension.