The world crisis caused by the coronavirus has been forcing me to focus on the challenge of talking about politics while also practising shamanism, because I have to keep remembering to “zoom out” before “zooming in” again.
I’ve been receiving visions recently which are no longer allowing me to address the problems of our reality as if we are dealing with monolithic, seemingly inert structures. Rather what I see, when “zoomed out”, is a sort of twisting dance between two sets of opposing teams, showing me that the seeming “permanence” we see in normal consciousness actually has moving parts. There is a continual tug-of-war between the parts that create what is seemingly inert through the tension-caused stasis.
I touched on this in my article recounting the Vedic story of the tug-of-war between the demons and devas (which you can read here). For rope, the tug-of-war teams use the Cosmic Serpent – a metaphor that is prolific in many ancient creation myths because it represents the genesis of life itself.
I’m seeing this principle at play much more clearly now throughout the macrocosm to the microcosm; through opposing teams battling it out on the world stage and even within our own governments, right down to the two-stranded dance of the chromosones within the twisted ribbons of DNA, which the coronavirus knows how to use to replicate itself within the body.
How does the coronavirus know how to replicate itself? Who programmed it? Well, we might think it was the Chinese and they may have. However, at the same time, and at a deeper level, there is a higher law that controls DNA which even the Chinese can do nothing about. But before we can understand that, we have to learn something about “language-twisting-twisting.”
Language-twisting-twisting
I was reminded about the poetic resonance between ‘twins’, ‘twisting’ and ‘twine’ from something I read many years ago in Jeremy Narby’s excellent book, The Cosmic Serpent.
Jeremy Narby is a molecular biologist who spent some time in the Amazonian rainforest, working with the indigenous shamans. And he was continually taught to address reality through what they call “the weave”.
Of course, we are familiar with the shamanic concept of the “weave” from the Wyrd of the Old Norse Eddas.
However, “language-twisting-twisting” is the term that the Yaminahau shamans use to refer to their metaphorical language – or tsai yoshtoyoshto.
One told Narby:
“…singing, I want to examine things. Twisted language brings me close … not too close. With normal words I would crash into things. With twisted ones I circle around them. I can see them more clearly.”
Jeremy Narby later on goes on to explain how the scientific community uses the language of computer programming as metaphors for describing how DNA works. However, I believe that these scientists are looking through a glass darkly by limiting themselves to computer programming terms – and are thus “crashing into them”.
“DNA is a text, or a program, or data, containing information, which is read or transcribed into messenger-RNAs,” Narby writes.
“The latter feed into ribosomes, which are molecular computers that translate the instructions according to the genetic code. They build the rest of the cell’s machinery, namely the proteins and enzymes, which are miniaturised robots that construct and maintain the cell.
“During the course of my readings, I constantly wondered how nature could be devoid of intention if it truly corresponded to the descriptions biologists made of it.
“One had only to consider the “dance of the chromosomes” to see DNA move in a deliberate way. During cell division, chromosomes double themselves and assemble by pairs. The two sets of chromosomes then line up in the middle of the cell and migrate towards their respective pole, each member of each pair always going in the direction opposite to its companion’s. How could this “amazing, stately pavane” occur without some form of intention.”
In other words, scientists who insist that any kind of cell division occurs merely through some kind of mechanical automation don’t realise that it begs the question: but who designed and built the machine?
Shamans work through trance with the Great Architect and Builder of the Cosmic Serpent, and thus the outcome of any tug-of-war – either in the body or on the world stage – will be down to greater forces than any of us. It’s a relief to realise that when you’re working to help heal the land!
The image at the top of this article is of Lord Vishnu sleeping on Shesh Naagraja (Snake) at Narayanthan Temple, Kathmandu, Nepal
Annie Dieu-Le-Veut 