CIIS Public Programs Podcast

transcript

[Cheerful theme music begins] 

This is the CIIS Public Programs Podcast, featuring talks and conversations recorded live by the Public Programs department of California Institute of Integral Studies, a non-profit university located in San Francisco on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone Land. 

In this episode, CIIS faculty and psychologist Susana Bustos has a conversation with internationally renowned shamanic teacher Marcela Lobos about her life, her work, and her latest book: Awakening Your Inner Shaman: A Woman's Journey of Self-Discovery through the Medicine Wheel. 

This episode was recorded during a live online event on May 14th, 2021. A transcript is available at ciispod.com. To find out more about CIIS and public programs like this one, visit our website ciis.edu and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms. 

[Theme music concludes] 
 

Susana: Marcela, such a pleasure to be with you today. Thank you for, for being in Chile, as well. My home country and coming from, from that place of…land.  

Marcela: Thank you Susana, what an honor to be with you and that we share some of the same passion for the shamans of Peru and the Amazon. So, I am really thrilled to be with you and everyone listening.  

Susana: Thank you. Marcela, you have such an extensive trajectory and I thought that the place to start is for you to tell us a little bit about your trajectory as a medicine woman.  

Marcela: Wow. So…like the trajectory of many, many medicine people, it starts with realizing that we are so wounded in a way, it starts by realizing our own wounding and the need to want to come to a place of peace and, and just calm inside of ourselves. So that's how it was, at least for me, and I know that the way of the wounded healer is such an archetypal, and so a universal guide for, for so many that we find out we have a wound, and we want to bring some healing to it, and we go out in this quest. And we learn so, so much and we're able to help others, but then we, our wound keeps festering and oozing.  

So, we just keep on the search and more and more, we find that peace and, and that refuge in our own lives but nevertheless, we learn to also help others and, and that's how my journey started when I could not see my wounding. I left my country that- it was coming out of a dictatorship. I grew up in dictatorship from the 70s until 1990 and then all that healing that our country, Chile, needed to have.  

So, I left a little bit feeling rebellious to that whole atmosphere and then I run into my, my wounding when I was in my, I was traveling, I was in the US, I became a mother and I found myself in a very disempowering place. So, everything I run from, I found 10,000 miles from home. So, I know how it follows us and then when I was at the end of my rope kind of thing, I was really in what we know, as the dark night of the soul. I really, I finally cracked open to…sense and feel that there was a reality bigger than me and bigger than all of us and I became curious about that, and I found the shamanic path. So that's the start of it, yes.  

Susana: That’s beautiful. Thank you. I, you know, in what you're talking about in also in your book, your new book you talk about the shamanic, like, answer, answering a call as part of the shamanic awakening to become a healer in one's community. Or you say also, cultivating a purpose bigger than oneself to benefit others. Can you expand a little bit on that idea? How can we recognize that call in one’s life?  

Marcela: So that call comes like a whisper. Something that says, we start wondering, we ask the big questions of life. Why I'm here? Who am I really? And what is my purpose? And, and many times it's like that whisper. And because we are so busy working or so busy taking care of our chores, our duties. And we've been told that that's the right thing to do in our lives. So, we, we find ourselves many times in a routine. But then suddenly that routine starts feeling very superficial or really not bringing us any, any deeper fulfillment.  

So, we become curious, hopefully and start looking and when we don't dare to look and to go on a quest to ask those questions. The word quest comes from question. I mean, same root. So, when we don't ask those questions and we don't go on that quest, then we have all seen how the calling can come through a crisis through something very difficult that wake us up. So, the calling and the, in the shamanic world, we speak about the calling from spirit. But it's really the calling. And in, in the language of mythology, of Joseph Campbell, is the call to adventure. So, the call to, to realize why we are here. And what is, what is a deeper purpose for us in life. And, hopefully, we embark on that journey, and I speak in my book about that journey.  

Susana: In your book, it's very interesting the way that you also put together these two maps, the map of the medicine wheel of the Andes and also the map of Joseph Campbell's hero's journey in that way. And you know both of them come from different perspectives, paradigms. Right, one comes from just this held in an Indigenous mind understanding of the cyclic nature of life and the orientation, I want to ask you a little bit more about that and then, and then Joseph Campbell's comes from much more deep psychology path in that way, where, you know, the individual is at the center and I wonder how do you reconcile both paradigms in the book?  

Marcela: Yes, yes. So, when I said that I found a shamanic path, it was really this compass of the medicine wheel that gave me- brought me back to my deeper self, deeper essence. If you want, I can go through it quickly now, we'll get there but then I realized when I found it, the hero's journey and read Joseph Campbell's book about the monomyth, I realized that I had been in all those stages and I said, wow, this is not only about mythological figures and heroes of the past and it's not only for Hollywood and not only for, for a thread line for books. But it's really something that we can all experience and so it was great to actually have gone through the experience and then find the map. I had known another map. Like I said, the medicine wheel, but not these ones. So the medicine wheel was my first map and the hero's journey came later. 

Susana: I see. So that brings me also to the other, to the other question, you know, which is like the Western mind in that way. And the, the beautiful way in which you, you know, you're trained as a journalist, right, at the university, you have you’re defined Mexi-Chilean Mestiza, you're also a student of Buddhism, a practitioner of yoga, you also are part of, you know, this, beautiful society that- the Four Winds Society with your husband Alberto Villoldo, and it is as if you're, like, putting together different threads and weaving them in that way in…a map that's larger. So, I wonder when we are there, and I think of us Westerners, even Mestizos. We have so many different influences in that way. What is it that you can tell us about this weaving together of different threads and paradigms?  

Marcela: Mhm. Well, I feel like, or what I seen is that the medicine people of very traditional settings, like, I worked a lot with the medicine women, the medicine people of Southern Chile are mostly women, maybe 90 some percent, interesting. So, I saw and also working with the shamans in Peru. And then, in other places. I saw how attached to the land they are. It's like, it's not like they own land. It's almost like the land owns them. 

And they are, they are so rooted in the landscape. They’re so informed by the place around them, like their mountains and rivers. It's like, that's the, the landscape is their breath, too. They breathe with the landscape. So, I found it very difficult, like I travel with some of them. I even took them to the US, and it was really like a tremendous adventure for them, and not only like for someone that has never gotten on a plane but my medicine women mentor in southern Chile for her, it was like she lost her bearings and she will get dizzy and sick. So, I try not to take her out of her home ever again. But for us Westerners, I feel like we have migrated so much throughout the last hundred years. Hundreds and thousands of years. And if we have moved around, it's in our genes somehow.  

Personally, I have a good percentage of Native American, but I'm also very European and even some African. So, I think it’s inside of us to want to explore our roots somehow and it is not surprising to me. Perhaps, we are so curious because the medicine people I have worked with in South America, there's- their cosmology is their world and they- it’s so rich for them and it, it holds them so strongly. It's such a powerful foundation, and they have all their answers there.  

So when, when we have been throughout the centuries cut, like had the experience as Westerners of our roots being cut, like if you, if you know about herbs and you remember how to dialogue with the Earth and speak to the mountains and stones, you, you could be even be killed and hang or burn at the stake. So somehow, we- and also our spirituality that is institutionalized taught us how to look to the skies only and only to certain places in the sky. So, in a way, I feel like, at least for me and many other people I have known in the path is this like, really powerful feeling, longing to recover our roots. But like I said, our roots are not only in one place, so we may feel the need to go and journey and travel.  

And personally, also, I feel like I do have my roots genetically in my blood, but also, whenever I have had the opportunity to really open my third eye, my spiritual eyes and see my past lives, so many of my past lives were in India. So, I have a very strong pull to the traditions of the Himalayas as well. So yeah, it's not a mystery, I guess, that we are curious and want to remember.  

Susana: So, the shamanic path then for a Westerner might be very different than for people who are Indigenous to their land, in the way that I'm hearing what you're saying and would you, would you speak about this differences a little bit more? 

Marcela: I think it's very important to recognize that we are all Indigenous Aboriginals of the Earth. I mean, there’s not one person that I know that has been born in a rocket. Maybe someone was born on a, on a plane. But so, I think that as Westerners also, we got to remember that we belong and that we can see it on the embrace of Mother Earth. And that we belong in the garden, and we have not been cast out, that's just such a myth that we have to heal, and we must remember that we are nourished every single day for breakfast, lunch, in between and that we have refuge and shelter.  

So, we have never been really cast out, but we have forgotten that we live in abundance and, and also that we must share the abundance with each other and, and so I think that's at the root of how we experience spirituality. When we feel that we have a home that, that we are at home, then we can relax, our nervous system can relax, and then we can open up to, to see beyond because the shaman sees beyond. The shaman sees through what is seems to be, sees beyond the, the physical literal reality. Even beyond emotions. Even just is able to even see energy and different shamans, of course, have different levels of accomplishment and wisdom.  

But so, a westerner has to recover in my, in my, from my experience, her roots and for us, it might be- for some of us it might be one place. Like, go back home. Go back to like, I remember this lady, African-American, she finally found refuge and home when she went back to Africa and did the pilgrimage. So, it doesn't mean that we have to go live somewhere else, but at least going pilgrimage to where we feel we might find some rooting, some grounding, some reconnecting to the Earth, to our mother.  

Susana: So, I understand that there is direct connection with the roots, and we might have different imprints, different roots in different parts of the world in that way. And some of them call louder than others, right? So, in that explorer- is within that exploration that there is something there that impulses us to do the wheel. The medicine wheel that you're talking about or that roots the medicine wheel in some way or another, and I would really love it if you could, like, explain more and share with us how this medicine wheel works to situate oneself.  

Marcela: Mhm. Yes, so the medicine wheels are ancient compasses, platforms to, to know where we're standing. And where is our North, or where is the sun rising? When is the equinox, what happens in the equinoxes and the solstices and so forth, and so, they help us track time, but also spatially, like, so in the wheel has the spokes from the center to divide time and space in like compass that can help us remember where we are at, and in this shamanic, and spiritual medicine wheel for, helping us, not just stand physically, but emotionally. Psychically. Spiritual.  

In the South, we find in South America, we find these four great archetypes, which are the serpent being the guardian keeper of the- one of the quadrants of the South direction, then we have the jaguar, guarding, keeping and being a guide in the West direction. And then in the North, we have the hummingbird and in the East, the condor and well, long story short, there's a prophecy about- maybe many heard of this prophecy of the condor and the eagle flying together.  

So nowadays people speak about condor or eagle in the East. And what happens is that each quadrant is filled with insights and with the way of perceiving the world, so it also, it connects with different aspects of our brain so we could truly perceive the world different. So, the serpent in a way, it help us connect to our reptilian, most ancient brain. And it can help us realize when something is too hot, or too cold for us, or too rough or too, to help us sense texture. And everything is just, seems to be. So it resets our instinct to go into a place that is safe for our bodies for our life on Earth, right now. So, it really is an amazing guard and keeper of the integrity of our life here.  

And then the jaguar is connected to the limbic brain. So, it resets our instinct on what is safe for us and where is, where there's danger, danger that we must avoid and help us see through beyond what it seems to be on so forth. And then hummingbird in the North, it really help us see where the nectar of life is. So where are the flowers. where are the colors? We are not here, just tracking danger, but we are here also to find beauty and to create beauty. So, this is more like the neocortex of the brain.  

And finally eagle or condor help us connect with that aspect of the brain that transcends the little me and help us see that place in which life is just a web of connectedness and we are all breathing the same breath. And so, it's more like a perspective of seeing with great vision that even, that the Earth is part of the solar system and the galaxy. So, it gives us great perspective and it help us transcend anything that might look like an obstacle. And just remind us that it's just an opportunity to fly higher. So, along those lines in the medicine wheel and then a whole another- I can tell you more about what happens in each quadrant when we go through it.  

Susana: Sure. I find it very interesting to place also the shamanic pat in that, going through the circle of those four in activating these qualities that you're mentioning. When we talked before to you and I, you were talking referring to the different types of shamans in their different stages of development, which I also find very interesting. Under the light of the medicine wheel. I wonder if you could speak about that as well, just a little bit.  

Marcela: Great, yeah, so along the same lines with serpent because who is a shaman? So first of all, the word ‘shaman’, we must remember, it comes from the Tungusic language in the region of Siberia, and it came to the West because of the work of some anthropologists that took it to Russia and then from there to the eastern side of Europe and then travel the world since the 1700s.  

So then the word started to be used to just kind of like speak about the, the medicine people of the different traditions. But we must remember that you go to any native society, traditional society. And they don't- some of them don't even know the word shaman. So, if you go and you say, okay, who is the shaman of this, of this community? Like who is, what is the shaman? We don't know, is that- so, so we kind of like, put in a basket. All these people that could, that had a sensitivity to perceive the spiritual world and bring messages from the spirit world that could help the community and some of these people do go into trance to, to do that. Some with the help of plants or just by drumming or dancing or some of them just have an ancestor that just start speaking through them or, or many ancestors. So, in different ways they kind of go into trance, are able to bring messages.  

But the- this person usually is in service to the community and what is- what we call a shaman. So, if we put everybody in a basket, what does it look like? It looks different depending on the state of development of that, of that person, of that shaman. A medicine person. So, we- when we teach in our school, I run a shamanic school. And I like to say that when a Westerner come to this shamanic school, don't pretend, don't aspire to become like a traditional shaman. But aspire to be you with these extra gifts that we can acquire, these extra technologies that can help us perceive more in the invisible.  

So, when you become a shamanic practitioner, you or even in traditional societies, might be more called or interested in helping the community heal the physical body. So, like, healing wound, wounds at the physical level, repairing bones, helping a baby being born. So, I might become a master of herbs and I might be also very good at helping animals that are sick. So, we say that the portal is the physical body and what can be touched, everything that is more solid. So we say, these are the shamans of the earth element, then we can speak about the west, and jaguar, and the shamans of the water element, and, and these shamans are kind of like water, like a river, very fluid in travelling through time and also tracking emotions.  

So, it is- the shaman that really is always looking behind in the dark. Like, what other people cannot see or don't dare to see what they're afraid to see. So, they're always looking at the fear at the emotional level and always trying to find that root cause at that emotional level. And they're very fluid in the way they, they perceive. So, it's very much like the shaman of the Amazon Forest, of the jungle.  

And then the shaman of the north, and the fire element is the storyteller. The one that is the wisdom keeper, her passion, her place in life has, has brought her to, to try to remember the stories that enlighten others that can also bring healing by awakening people. Awakening people's minds about awakening people's heart. So, it's not only about what is wrong, but like telling the stories that are like parables, stories that teach and fables that can awaken people's curiosity and minds, the wisdom keepers, the fire, the light.  

And then the shaman of the east is the shaman of the air element and this medicine person has come to a place in her life that her call is to seed and contemplate reality. And so, if we think of the Eastern medicine people from the Eastern traditions, we see a lot of these yogis that are like contemplating, meditating, sitting. But we in South America, in the Andes, we speak about the spirituality or shamanism has to be practical. So, you have to be able to grow corn with it. And so that's a metaphor: to grow corn with it. To, to feed others, to bring it to the table to create a feast for others. So, the shaman that contemplates eventually is also dreaming the world into being. Is contemplating not only what is but is contemplating also what is possible for the community or for the world and not what is most probable because sometimes what's most probable is more illness, more war, more disagreements, et cetera, more hunger and so forth.  

So, the shaman, to be a shaman, a medicine person, you have to bring the medicine, that elixir home. So, contemplating what can be done, how can the world be different, dreaming it into being. Yeah, so that's an idea. 

Susana: Beautiful. I was thinking, there's a little loudness because of my syst- heating system right now. Hope it's not disturbing too much. I am also curious about what, what would you talk about the Munay-ki path, you know? It's- it looks like, it looks like that's also part of a movement within the Four Winds Society that compliments or carries in some way, this description of the different types of shaman. Can you talk about that? 

Marcela: Yes, absolutely. So, the Munay-ki has its origins in the transmissions that a mentor would give to a mentee in the Andes. And my husband, Alberto Villoldo, he's a medical anthropologist who went in the 70s and to- I mean came to South America and spent decades being with- first studying, like an anthropologist, studying the ways of healing of the traditional peoples but then he fell in love with everything he was discovering and by spending so much time with them, he learned, he became a shamanic practitioner.  

And then he started taking his students from the US and Europe, people to learn from these paqos, the name of the shamans in the Andes and also in the jungles. And then the paqos had a way of teaching that it is a transmission, in the East, in the Himalayas, they speak about empowerment. So, it is like a transmission or empowerment and initiation, and they would give their wisdom. Not just by lecturing, by talking because they didn't speak Spanish even or even less English. But by putting their head, their forehead to their forehead and transmitting telepathically, their wisdom of medicine and, that's what a transmission looks like in the Andes.  

And of course, it's not like all the sudden we're going to give a lecture about everything they just told us telepathically but it's more like they connect us to their lineage. And, and it's like they're planting a seed in us. So eventually, we can start feeling and sensing more like they do. And remembering. So, this was so instrumental for Alberto, and then he schooled the Four Winds Society. And, of course, it was absolutely instrumental in my development, as a medicine person, as a modern medicine person because I received these transmissions and the way I describe it to my students is it was like the walls of my little life started falling.  

So, I could see my neighbor not with the physical eyes but with my heart. So, I could really feel the pulse of a tree and of the herbs and the grass and they have different levels of initiations. And the more that I received these initiations and all these other people too; the more that my horizons are open. So, in a way, it helps you grow up and transcend the self-centered me and so selfish, and really start feeling in your blood. And in your cells, not intellectually, that we are the web of life and that we are in that garden and not just to pull fruit from the trees but to be stewards and keepers.  

So, the Munay-ki are the body of these transmissions that Alberto first was able to bring from his decades of living with the, the medicine people there. And what is really important to acknowledge is that he was fortunate to come about these people that somehow hid from the conquest for 500 years until recently. So somehow, they need not have these like resentment or fear or hurtful feelings against the, the Mestizos, or the white, the outsiders. So, he found some mentors that truly saw the opportunity for healing and said to Alberto, “Look, take this Karpay, these transmissions to your people to your world, you have not our permission only, but our blessing,” so that has been beautiful.  

And I think nowadays just to finish up, Susana, with this whole issue of cultural misappropriation. It is so important that we honor as a modern shaman or shamanic practitioner that we really honor our origins of the teachings and then that, that we share them with that honoring and with their blessing and permission, yes. 

Susana: We were talking also about reciprocity and generosity. How generous some of these traditions are in sharing in the way that you just described they shared it with Alberto. What, how do you conceive of reciprocity? It's kind of like, the way that you described it is, as if they were passing it on, right, passing it on without expectation of something back. What is your take on that?  

Marcela: I- my take, okay, so reciprocity is truly that both parts, everybody feels like we are all in this win-win place, so it's not reciprocity when I feel like I got wonderful gifts and the other people feel somehow empty, somehow taken advantage of.  

So, what's really interesting in this case is that since we were speaking about dreaming the world into being and since we are in a shamanic conversation, so who dreamt whom? Did Alberto found them? Found these people, amazing people and got this wisdom to share in the West or did they dream Alberto? And it's a little bit both ways because at one point, they had a really important ceremony because these initiations had existed for hundreds of years. And in the beginning, of course, the origin of these initiations are spirit, some luminous beings offering the initiation to that first mentor. And it's like a, like a prophet these days, you know, you might be really hit with like an abandoned wisdom that helps you see what's coming and, but it was spirit, it was something beyond that gave you that wisdom.  

So, the lore says that these initiations had been given by spirit to people all along. But at some point, the initiations are able to be passed down from mentor to mentee. And then there's a lineage of receiving the initiation and then the next generation receives initiation and so forth. So, some of these initiations existed. But there are some initiations that are new and at one point Alberto's mentor said it's time for us to, to go bring this initiation that, in Quechua they speak about Karpay initiation, that is new and it's going to help us go through these times of great upheaval, of great transformation for the world and they were speaking about these times. That, that is not like one day, one month, one year. But these times of great transformation could be a few decades like when the Spaniards first or the Europeans first, came to the Americas. It didn't happen in, in one year or two years like a pandemic, it happened through decades and life was never the same again.  

So, the prophecy speak about these times. Now, that is not just the pandemic one year, but the few years back and few years forward, for decades, in which life is never going to be the same again. And they said, “we're going to go and we're going to bring these new initiation that is going to help us anchor ourselves in the place after they are- the great transformation so we know what we need to do during the transformation.” So, this is very shamanic already, journeying through time, creating a portal, traveling through that portal through time to star- like my husband says, like a hand from the future reaching to get us and pull us through. So we can go through it with more grace, and integrity and generosity and Alberto was there with many Europeans.  

And, and they say, “Alberto,” they said, “wow, what an honor.” This was maybe in 1989 or 1990. “So what an honor that we are here with you doing this,” and he said, “well, we needed someone to represent the white ones, the foreigners, so thank you for being here.” So, in a way, what they were saying is like they needed Alberto and the group as much as Alberto and the group needed them in a way and that's kind of like the reciprocity and there’s so much to speak about this, Susana, like how we feel perhaps shy and timid to approach the medicine people in their traditional societies and even afraid that we might be rejected. But I think if we show up with the sincere heart and with pure intentions and I feel like some of the traditional peoples also are craving like a link to, to integrate to the Western civilization somehow in, a more friendly manner and not be in reservations, and be separated, because who wants to live like that? 

Susana: And we know too that shamanism has survived for so many thousands of years as a practice, right? Because of this influence of others, you know. And migrations and taken from one, one tribe and then with by outsiders, etc., has morphed. But keeping its integrity at the core. Not like I, when you talk about, when you're talking about the dreaming, the other who would hold the tradition and continue it and you know, maybe the four directions, right? When you're talking about the four winds, I'm thinking also of the four directions. There is also a big responsibility, so it's not just taken but maybe part of their reciprocity that you're talking about has to do with taking on that in a very serious way, a very deep way the continuation of that lineage. 

Marcela: Yes, yes. Yes, because also what we see that these, in these settings that are very localized. The, like for example, and I keep speaking about these Andean people because they are the ones that I learned most from and are most influenced by and like, they, their children want to integrate. They don't want to keep living up at 15,000 feet, cold, sick, many times and they want- they’re curious and they want to- they all have cell phones these days. I was told by one of my closest shamans there, a beautiful medicine man, how they used to be hit by lightning often and that was one of the ways in which they were called to start their shamanic path, being hit by lightning if they survived. But he says now that they're walking with cell phones, with shoes, with shoes with nails. They most often die when they get hit by lightning, so they are, they see, they see that- very unsustainable to keep living so far away and not, not integrating and, and receiving the benefits of Western civilization.  

So as much as they want to share their medicine, in this case, they also want to receive the medicine of the westerner and I can say in this, in this line that I have been asked, is so interesting. I have been asked by them, some of them to- for me to give them my Karpay, my transmission, because they want my download of how to be in the Western world, how to be in this modern world or postmodern world. So, I have given- and Alberto's mentor also said, “Alberto, give me your Karpay. I want your download.”  

So, we need each other these days, and I feel like many, many of these spiritual traditions that are not religions, but spiritual traditions, realize that we need to come together to make it through this, this crisis that we are experiencing. 

 
Susana: That’s beautiful. That brings me to how the medicine wheel itself, also with the different colors also symbolize the unity of the different races, right? [Marcela: Mhm.] The black, and the red, and the yellow, and the white; that way and how it works together. It's not in total unity, if it's not the four of them. 

Marcela: That’s right. And it used to be the prophecy of the eagle and the condor coming- flying together. And that is already it- everybody recognize that, that is already fulfilled, but I heard from a shaman in- a shaman from Tibet. Actually, he said, “there's- it’s so interesting that there's a prophecy not, not many know about not really that, we know in our tradition, that there's a stone that got cut in half and one is in the West and one is in the East and one day, this stone is going to come together again.” So yes, the four directions, the four quadrants coming together. 

Susana: Yes, so there is a- in Tibet, I know that we also have the Andes as a possibility where that half of the stone is, is that so, Marcela? 

Marcela: Interestingly enough, we work with stones. The altar of the, of the Andean Shaman is an altar of stones. So for me, it's fascinating because not just the women, but the men too,  they are really masters at weaving their cosmology and they weave and with, of course, they have all these animals living in the mountains, llamas or [ya-mas], alpacas and vicuñas and they collect wool and then they paint their wool with onions and tomatoes and other things and then they weave their cosmology. And they use these sacred cloths to put their medicine.  

So, since they walk all day long up and down the mountains, they sometimes have a, an insider realization and epiphany, and they find a stone and they anchor that epiphany there and that stone now has that medicine. So, they put it in there waiting. Or they learn with their mentor and the mentor might give them a stone and say, “okay? Now remember this forever. [whistle]” and gives them. So, they collect, collect stones or they find a stone that has a lot of power because it was hit by lightning and they are amazing, actually, amazing looking stones. Or, or like, like one with a lot of crystals. So, the energy is different and even meteorites. They find a lot of meteorites.  

So, they're fascinating how these altars are built with stones and that's their most sacred and precious thing. So, they sit in the ground and their altars are in the ground with them and so humble, almost earthy and then you go to Tibet, or the East and the altars are like on a pedestal. And there are these tattoos and everything is golden. And you have to kind of like look up and everything's so different.  

So, I really, I really well, of course the roots in Tibet from as far as I know, by staying with this shaman there, of course, they were sitting on the ground and drumming and also just wearing the dirt all over them and very humble, almost earthy also. But nowadays, many of them have their shrines way up and everything golden, but in the end, they’re still so humble, made of- the altar is stones. So cool, I love it. 

Susana: Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Marcela. I think we have still like five more minutes before we leave and you know you have carried us through so many different- you have opened up so many doors today in the way that you've expressed yourself and shared and, and it comes from that place of deep experience in you in that way.  

I think that one of the questions I still hold for you is, you know, you have addressed this before, but we, when we talk about shaman and you defined the word and stuff, you know, you particularly referred to one. That's the healer in the community. So that's kind of like one role, you know, that the shaman performs, you know, there are others as well, the priest, et cetera. You know the psychopomp, we talk about that also beforehand. So, when you see particularly a Westerner, Mestizo, going through this shamanic path, that you're inviting us to, that you're inviting us to what comes as, as the guiding? What is the, what is the function? The guiding role. Is it- I know that this is- I know you're understanding what I'm trying to say. 

Marcela: I'll try, Susana, see if I can answer this question. I feel like our- and here, you know, my curiosity took me to read and study a bit of, bit of depth psychology and Jung and I feel like it, it has that same yearning for individuation. So, in a way, if I have to translate it to shamanic language, remembering that I am a being like, a tree that it had- as a being in this life, I have roots, really deep roots on this Earth and on the elements, I am not here without water, without earth, without air, without fire, without light. I am not here.  

And at the same time, in the- along the same lines, that tree has these branches. And I, I am connected and I'm influenced by the planets, and their moons and the cosmos. And, and I am vast like the universe, and I love that phrase. I am so vast, I contradict myself and we have to give ourselves permission for that. So, and, and Jung also, my understanding is that he spoke a lot about this tension of knowing how to walk as someone with these very selfish survival impulses.  

Like I have to save food for me and my kids and my dog first and foremost. So, I have these very survival impulses instincts, and at the same time we have such a capacity to transcend that and look at for the well-being of everyone.  

So, I feel that ultimately as a human being, we all want to feel more complete, whole, and connected because that is health. So more than just healing specific emotional or physical wounding. We know also that coming to wholeness, it can, just like the Eastern tradition, speak about the moment you get enlightened. There's no more what, what, what wounding. So, what wounding? Because we realize that there is no wounding. It's just we forgot. And so, it's about remembering and in between, we can have all these technologies to help people and they are so helpful for when we forget so shamanic technologies are amazing and Western psychology is amazing, also with, you know, tools and technologies to help. But at the end, we are all humans: shamans, Buddhist, Catholics. I mean, whatever tradition, religion, we are human beings, and we share so much. 
 

Susana: Muchas gracias, Marcela for being- thank you so much for being with us today and for sharing yourself, sharing your wisdom, sharing your experience. I will pass it- [Marcela: Thank you Susana!] Que bien! 

Marcela: Thank you so much everyone, wonderful to be with everyone to some. I hope it helps. Yes, blessings everyone.  

Susana: Thank you. 

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Thank you for listening to the CIIS Public Programs Podcast. Our talks and conversations are presented live in San Francisco, California. We recognize that our university’s building in San Francisco occupies traditional, unceded Ramaytush Ohlone lands. If you are interested in learning more about native lands, languages, and territories, the website native-land.ca is a helpful resource for you to learn about and acknowledge the Indigenous land where you live. 
 
Podcast production is supervised by Kirstin Van Cleef at CIIS Public Programs. Audio production is supervised by Lyle Barrere at Desired Effect. The CIIS Public Programs team includes Kyle DeMedio, Alex Elliott, Emlyn Guiney, Jason McArthur, and Patty Pforte. If you liked what you heard, please subscribe wherever you find podcasts, visit our website ciis.edu, and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms. 
 
CIIS Public Programs commits to use our in-person and online platforms to uplift the stories and teachings of Black, Indigenous, and other people of color; those in the LGBTQIA+ community; and all those whose lives emerge from the intersections of multiple identities.  

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