I was to be attracted (or lured, compelled) down a path of creativity and expression, a path of art. In many ways I felt that the role I began to explore as an artist had connections to that of a shaman. Some of the aspects of shamanism, as I understand them, are:
The shaman serves a vital role in the community or social group, but lives on its periphery. He or she is a link between a tribe of people and the surrounding, occult forces that the social group dwells within. These forces are part of an All, an encompassing primal unity that provides a net of power or flow of knowledge and support for the people, but go mostly misunderstood or unperceived because of their hidden/occult nature. There is great risk and inevitable hardship when a person or people stray too far from these forces, because being in ignorance or at odds with these forces means being ignorant or going against the major guiding forces in life: this is a self-defeating and destructive way. The role of the shaman is to provide a link between the tribe and these forces, to access some of the power in these forces for the people, and to keep the people in a harmonious relationship with these greater, immersive forces so that they may be connected to a source of health and well-being. Their function is not necessarily one of the pragmatic and empirical tasks which satisfy the daily needs of the tribe, but a way to provide ecological stability and meaning, and to keep the people connected to the larger sphere of life and the forces pervading the environment.
To understand the tribe as an element under or within the umbrella of the world and its guiding forces, and the role of the shaman as the handle/pole connecting the umbrella to the tribe, is to understand the importance and significance of this function. It may be easy for a society that situates human production and intelligence as the pinnacle of nature, and science and rationality as its supreme methods, to dismiss these ideas or talk of them as superstitions of primitive peoples. But for a people who feel they exist within nature and that forces in nature are more powerful than themselves, great value will be placed on one who has a special or intercessory relationship with these forces.
It should also be noted that in order to achieve these aims of providing a link to a greater natural source of power the shaman must undergo a dissolution of his or her own separate and autonomous ego, and a commingling with other outside spirits and unseen forces.