Thursday 4th September 2003
Graham Constantine. Into the Wyrd.
Demonstating our flexibilty we held the meeting downstairs instead of upstairs to allow the Steward and his staff to set out our room for a forthcoming wedding. This meant we were closer to the bar but also closer to the members area and any noise they might make, but the floor was carpeted - more on that later!
Graham had originally been going to lead us into ‘States of Joy & Bliss’ but a previous experience had suggested he needed to be working with very open minded people for this to work well. Maybe I should have briefed him better about the group!! :-)
So we started with some warm up exercises and a discussion on ‘British Shamanism’ and the alphabet (Runes) and symbols of ancient British Shamans. Graham was leading us up to a specific shamanic excercise for the second half of the evening, when we were going to find our ‘Power Animal’ or animals. Some of us knew nothing about this subject whilst others had clearly explored this before and there was some discussion before the break on views of humanity and life growth processes.
The second part of the evening was “experiential” in nature and the quality of experience was therefore different for each of us. In essence we lay on the floor (wot no cushions? No rugs? No eyepatches? Thank goodness for the carpet!) and closed our eyes, whilst listening to drum beats and finding a way underground to search for our power animal. Does this make sense? I think you needed to be there to fully understand.
I have had some mixed feedback on this part of the evening and can only reiterate that it was “experiential” and given the usual time constraints left Graham little time to fully prepare us for the experience. Those who had done this before had a distinct advantage and also were able to do other things with their power animal/s. Some others discoverd a power animal, some even discovered several!! You had better check out with Graham what to do with them next (email at the end). Others got uncomfortable, found the drumming annoying, or were waiting for further instructions, which never came!! Some were bewildered, one fell asleep, two went to the bar! As I said a mixed response.
As the organiser I am often concerned (unnessessarily of course) for the welfare and enjoyment of the group so I was surprised to find myself drifting downwards through a hole in the ground, where, after some time, I did find a power animal. This turned out to be a sheep! I had hoped for something a bit more manly than that, but having asked it three times, as instructed, if it was my power animal and having three times been told it was, I guess there is some significance to be explored with my sheep. I am now interested in finding out more about the Wyrd and British Shamanism, and I bought a drumming CD.
If you were there think carefully about the one thing you got from the evening.
Thank you Graham for leading us into new areas.

Graham has sent me a reading list if you would like to discover more.
1. Adventures of Anybody. Richard Bandler Meta Publications (My favourite NLP book) 2. Prometheus Rising. Robert Anton Wilson New Falcon (Great intro to the 8-Circuit Model packed full of exercises)
3. The Way of the Shaman. Michael Harner Harper Collins (Brilliant introduction to shamanism from the head of the Foundation of Shamanic studies).
4 . The way of wyrd. Brian Bates Arrow (Out of print, superb novel on shamanic traditions of Albion)
5. The wisdom of wyrd. Brian Bates Rider (Workbook companion to the way of wyrd, lots of exercises)
Lots more for anyone who wants to go deeper call or email me.
Taster session for my next practitioner training (starting October 2003) is on friday 26th September 7PM at Pine Trees, Bridle Lane, Slindon Common , Arundel, West Sussex, BN18 0NA. Check out the web site for more information.
Tel: 01243 814318
email: graham@creatingpossibilities.com
web site: www.creatingpossibilities.com

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