SPIRITUALITY

My Journey to Becoming a Stick Diviner

Freeing Shamanic Work from the Psychoanalytic Model

Becoming a Stick Diviner

In 2009, I had just finished the first draft of a novel based on the life of my great-grandmother from the Abruzzo region of Italy. My great-grandmother was a Strega which means she was an indigenous healer and wise woman in her village: a witch. I wrote the book about her to try to find her. And indeed I did. At this time I was led to a receive a stick divination. Stick divination is a technology from the Dagara people of Burkina Faso. It was brought here to the U.S. by Malidoma Somé. The man I was receiving this divination from, who would become my mentor, had worked with Malidoma for many years and was eventually initiated into this technology in Africa by Malidoma’s sister. In this divination I was “claimed” by this tradition and told I too could become a stick diviner.

Confused to have an African tradition present itself to me as I was just getting back in touch with my own Italian medicine lineage, I was hesitant. Not able to see the gift being offered for what it was and concerned about issues of appropriation and colonization, I acted in ways that I see now were very disrespectful. I laughed in the face of this possibility and ignored the invitation. But my great-grandmother would not allow me to get away with such behavior. And through some twists of fate I ended up back in front of the same diviner months later being asked why I had not come back and why I was not responding to their invitation.

In this second divination I was told I finally needed to step into the work I was meant to do, to finally be who I was, which to them meant become a diviner. I again rolled my eyes and reacted in disbelief. But there was one ritual prescribed in that divination that caught my attention. The diviner told me that a very large tree had entered the room to tell me I would receive two separate dreams about a tree and after that I could learn how to make tree medicine. I was intrigued. I had already been working with the trees through the guidance of my great-grandmother. Tree medicine sounded compelling but still, I left the divination saying to myself, “As if. As if I will receive such dreams. Give me a break.”

Oh boy, does the universe like to slap us into shape. Lessons in humility is one way it does that. I received those dreams and they were the most powerful experience of my life up until that moment. I was forty-seven years old, so that is saying a lot. I got the instructions for tree medicine and told the diviner who became my mentor I was all in.

I was initiated in 2011 and have been a practicing stick diviner ever since.

You May Be Asking, “What the Heck is Stick Divination?”

Stick divination is just what it says it is: sitting on a low stool and divining with a literal stick from a tree in one’s hand. Most preferably the person receiving the divination is sitting across from the diviner also holding the stick at the same time.

The stick diviner has a “kit” with pieces in it, some of which the stick chooses. They are the entities, energies or elements that wish to speak in the divination. The ritual space for the divination is created through invocation with rattles and bells. This opens the portal which gives the diviner access to the spiritual or “otherworldly” dimensions to gain insight into and guidance on the issues at hand.

Teachings about the Membranes

Once initiated into stick divination I began to receive many teachings and instruction through that very same medium. Stick divination and the field of power that comes with it is extremely potent medicine. I believe it is so powerful because it has been held for so long as an unbroken continuous lineage by the Dagara people and because much of the trauma experienced by other traditions in the Western World has not yet touched it. Therefore in the Dagara divination system the relationship with the elemental beings, or “little people,” kontomble and wedeme, is still very much intact. This is not to say that the Dagara lineage is free of all trauma and negativity that can come with any medicine lineage these days, not at all.

But, when I think of what I almost turned down due to my own arrogance and ignorance, it takes my breath away. My personal experience with stick divination and the medicine that it is a part of and comes with it, is that it is very interested in helping us in the West find our authentic selves once again as well as recover our lost or broken medicine lineages.

After four years of doing divinations, the teachings about the membranes began to come through. The membranes are the spiritual, bioenergetic boundaries that protect, preserve and nurture lifesystems at all levels and fractal layers of the cosmos. And these life preserving membranes are at risk. They need tending to and care, because the lifesystems they enclose are at risk as well.

I listened and took notes and wrote blog posts but it was not until I decided to try to put them together into a book for the general public that I began to see the importance of this teaching and to understand the template of this medicine even more. You see, it took me a long time to understand that the true work of a medicine person is attending to these membranes.

Why do I call it the medicine?

The word “medicine” is often used as a general term for work that is carried out in the shamanic or “non-ordinary” realms with shamanic or non-ordinary skills.

Where did it come from?

Paula Gunn Allen informs us that it is a corruption of the Algonquin term “midéwewin, the Medicine Way or the Medicine Dance…not not necessarily concerned with healing the sick. It might be concerned with interactions between the human sphere and manito aki; [the spirit realm]. It might have to do with finding lost objects, lost loved ones, or lost causes. It might be concerned with world-renewal ceremonies, or with keeping the community in harmony with cosmic currents as they swirl around the people, whether human, animal, or plant”(72).

Divination is not Psychology

As divination and other shamanic practices have made inroads into Western Culture, they have tended to follow or slide into the well known psychoanalytic model: the template of one client alone in a room discussing personal issues with a skilled practitioner.

When divination systems that have come to us from other cultures and indigenous traditions succumb to this model, especially in the U.S. that glorifies the individual, they can become thwarted and distorted.

Of course there is a personal component, the personal membrane, but that is not a stand alone. Nothing is a stand alone in this medicine work. The personal membrane can only be healthy when the village, family, Earth and cosmic membranes are healthy. And vice versa. The medicine understands completely the interwoven, interconnected embeddedness of lifesystems.

That is not to discount the power and importance of work with a trained psychologist or therapist but divination is not that. Divination and the medicine work that comes with it is community work. The medicine is to promote and nurture life with a capital L. It is not meant to be only focused and zeroed in on the problems of one human being and remain there even after healing has occurred for that individual.

Being locked in this template, the work can turn back in on itself and become, insular, obsessive and even superstitious, dogmatic and destructive. We cannot let this happen to these traditions that can offer so much if utilized properly. It is time to free divination and other shamanic work from the psychoanalytic model.

The Pattern of Wholeness that is Alive within the Medicine

When one works with this medicine long enough, they begin to see the pattern of wholeness that exists within it, and also how distorted it becomes when not used in its fullness and wholeness as community medicine. In the West that community includes a community of diviners and spirit workers of all traditions and beliefs working together for this greater good. That naturally leaves the power decentralized and helps offset imbalances that want to form and have absolutely nothing to do with the medicine work.

The work with the membranes is the work of understanding how lifesystems work and participating with them to help strengthen and nurture their own unique organic processes and also help prevent and protect against toxic energies that can compromise their integrity. The membranes of the individual: the personal membranes are indeed often the first step and that is why divination often gets stuck there. There is so much of this individual work to do but to try to understand and expand this work out to the other membranes as well is the next vital step.

Thus the work of tending to the village membranes is as important as the personal membranes, the family membranes, the Earth membranes and the cosmic membranes. They all coexist and co-engage. Understanding this nested membrane reality also helps us understand that the more medicine people, the better. All of us participating in our local places and then connecting together creates networks of care that enhance the whole.

Though it sounds like a lot of work, if we begin to attend to all the extensions of membranes that embrace and protect lifesystems, our work would actually decrease. Remaining held within this persistent, one on one model, is akin to putting out a bunch of spot fires in the midst of raging and more comprehensive wildfire. One gets put out and another pops up and on and on. Concurrently dealing with the larger fire will reduce the amount of smaller ones popping up.

The care for the membranes can help humans feel held and supported in a way that is transformative while also attending to the ecological disasters that are upon us. That is why I call this work revolutionary.

Works Cited

Gunn Allen, Paula, Pocahontas: Medicine Woman, Spy, Entrepreneur, Diplomat. New York: Harper One, 2003.