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HEART OF THE SHAMAN
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A few months later I am leading a workshop in the Swiss Alps. 407-823-8840
After the evening program ends, I walk to my cabin and stop
outside for a few moments to admire the stars. The cabin is set Email leavesandroots@leavesandroots.com
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a sudden I notice a ripple cutting through the air like a sound Sun 12-5 www.leavesandroots.com
wave, except everything remains silent. And then I see the gi-
gantic anaconda slithering toward me from the forest. This time
I hold my ground, feeling my heart pounding in my chest. I real-
ize that the snake is coming for me, and I watch how it opens There was no longer any truth there for me. This meant
its jaws, and I observe the webbing on the roof of its mouth. leaving the faculty of a prestigious university and the com-
Then I hear a voice that says with absolute clarity, “You know fort of a monthly salary. I had worked hard to secure my job
that I am going to eat you. Your choice is to either go through and position, and woke up one morning to realize that the
me and come out the other side as serpent poop, or become me security I had longed for had become a golden cage. I was
as I digest you.” like an eagle whose wings had been clipped; I looked im-
pressive sitting on my perch, but could not fly far no matter
I realize that fighting is futile and nod to the great creature. I how hard I flapped my wings. It was time for the professor
feel myself being swallowed and all my bones being crushed as to die, to let go of the love, the money, and the identity
my light, freed from my body, seeps into every cell of the great that the position offered me.
snake and I become one with it. In that instant I had a perfect
understanding of what it meant to be a luminous warrior with I decided that it was time to stop hiding behind my de-
no enemies in this world or the next. The anaconda was not my grees, and to begin teaching adults who were dedicated to
enemy. It was a test, a friend who freed me from the fear of becoming modern shamans. By then, I had a young family to
losing my life. support and no income, title, or position, but I knew who I
was and where I was going. It’s not as if I had a destination
It took me a moment to come back to my body, standing at the in mind. It was a vague calling, and a sense of destiny, that
edge of the forest, gazing at the stars once again. I pinched made me walk away from a daydream. I had woken up from
myself. There was no anaconda, and I felt vast and expansive, the dream of security. I would still have to wake up from
bathed in the Primordial Light, part of a great emptiness that the dream of permanence and the dream of love that is un-
was cognizant and alive. A few weeks later, I returned to Cali- conditional. But I had my first taste of the sacred dream and
fornia to my job on the faculty of the university. After a day of of Ti, and I knew that nothing would be the same after that.
meetings and committees, of grading papers written by students
made to take my course in order to graduate, I recall asking This is an excerpt from chapter 2 of Alberto Villoldo's The Heart of the
myself, “Is this real?” And in those hallowed halls of learning, I Shaman. Reprinted with permission. https://thefourwinds.com/
could not find anything real.

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