YOU ARE
HERE

Contents

Preface                                                                    vi

Title Page                                                                  i

Dedication                                                                              iii

Author's Bio                                                            iv

Thanks                                                                     v

Prologue                                                                  ix

San Damiano Cross                                                xii

  01  Awakening                                                         01

 02  Groundwork                                                      20

 03  Enter the Bear                                                   31

 04  Dream Worlds                                                   59

 05  Shamans of Old                                                  63

 06  The Apprentice                                                   81

 07  Discoveries                                                          91

 08  The Arrival of Spring                                        103

 09  Šipa·puli·ma Found                                            115

 10  Sacred Offerings                                                133

 11  The Messenger                                                   149

 12  Zuńi Bound                                                         165

 13  Encounters                                                         195

 14  The Pilgrimage                                                   211

 15  Powerful Medicine                                              227

 16  After the Fact                                                     245

Shamans' Genealogy                                                252

"Dancing With Sunsets"

SHAMANS
of
SAN DAMIANO 

J. Lamah Walker
Cedar Crest, New Mexico
2001

SHAMANS OF SAN DAMIANO
            by J. Lamah Walker

Copyright © 2001 by:
                 Joseph L. Walker, Jr., Ph.D.

All rights reserved under International
& Pan American Copyright Conventions
No part of this book may be reproduced
in any form—except for brief quotations
(not to exceed 1000 words) in a review or
professional work—without permission
in writing from the author.

Library of Congress
Catalogue Card Number:  2001-130969

Printed in the United States of American
on acid free paper

Cover image by Lawrence W. Lee
 

To:

The ailing

And the lonely

who are too often in

a hopeless search

for healing

and love

            J. Lamah Walker, a graduate of the University of Miami (B.A. in Psychology & Religion) and Georgia State University (B.A. in Sociology/Criminology), received his M.Ed. from West Texas State in Community Counseling and his Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma in the Administration of Higher Education.  While at the University of Oklahoma, he was the recipient of The Robert E. Ohm Dissertation Assistance Memorial Award for outstanding scholarship as an advanced graduate student in the field of higher education and general administration.  He last served as a clinical psychotherapist at the Student Health Center at the University of New Mexico.  Outside those protective confines of that academic ivory tower, Lamah has been a general contractor and real estate broker in New Mexico for some thirty years and was ordained as a minister of the Gospel at the age of nineteen in his parent’s inter-denominational Christian church, New Age Church of Truth.  This dynamic and resourceful Renaissance man more than anything else dramatically represents the old Stoic aphorism that: "Life makes philosophers of us all."  Besides all the other accomplishments of this unusual man, he is also a storyteller with this one very inspiring tale to share that is only enhanced by his having been un-expectantly initiated as a Medicine Man by a Native American who was a member of the Bear Clan.  

Thanks to...

 John for his enduring love

 Diann for her loving friendship

 Barbara for always being my sister

 Lawrence w. lee for his artistry

 Marsena, My spiritual mother

 Joanne, for her shoulder

 David for wanting me to live

Dennis for his friendship

Bob, my brother

 Loving, Caring Friends

 NONA, don, Jan,

Doris, Rita, RONA

PREFACE

                We all subsist in this often-crazy world of ours that is all too recklessly full of innumerable illusions that we have come to accept and too easily believe that they are all actually established and well-founded realities.  This present bit of intriguing and inspiring oral history has been in the careful formulation for some sixteen years before it was ever committed to the written page.  This otherwise extended and previously unexplained passage of time was due in large part to the indispensable manifestation of many of the story’s more contemporary events that serendipitously needed to have ultimately and inevitably manifested themselves as well as the self-imposed necessity for the author to have conclusively resolved his ethical/moral struggle dealing with the possible appearance of serious incongruence between that of relating a story with such authoritative certainty on the one hand and at the same time having no real source that may actually substantiate or authentic the historical elements of this tale.  One might easily suspect that there has been entirely too much literary license employed in certain portions of this story; I can only assure you that those particular incidences that are often reported so dramatically and may even appear to have no true-life historical basis, may in fact, be far more compelling in their essence than many of those more convincing but often totally unsubstantiated illusions that all of us are repeatedly subjected to on such a demanding and consistent basis.  What is reality?  And, are we all not guilty of simply choosing the path of least resistance just so that we won’t “rock the boat’ or possibly disappoint some loved one?
            This rather poignant tale is in essence a story that is all about the power and significance of love that may have well had portions of its earliest development deceptively cloaked in what our Western culture might refer to as some form of carnal lust and passion.  It all begins in the very closing years of the Eighteenth Century and had its final and most poignant installment of inspirational and spiritual muse dramatically manifested during the mid-Nineteenth century.  The source and inspiration for this most loving tale is, for the lack of any other rational explanation, this earthbound disembodied soul of unprecedented spiritual substance.  This loving soul remained in spirit close to the geographic origins of this prophetic story until the very end of the Twentieth Century, where several conspiring and sometimes even tragic circumstances brought together two initiated and spiritually gifted Medicine Men whose actual lives in this living Garden of Eden were necessarily separated by the passage of more than a hundred or so years.  Only that most poignant expression of love has that immutable power of transcending any and all obstacles of life if aptly yielded to in that true character of giving and charity.  Its rightful consignment in each of our individual lives has perhaps too often and so sadly been covertly subjugated to those conspired and grand illusions that have otherwise been deviously created only to enslave our free-born spirits and that naturally imbued appetite for the lust of a bountiful life that should be so naturally full of personal contentment.  These gifted Medicine Men of San Damiano dedicated most of their modest lives to the healing of others’ spirits through that immutable power of love, a love that was and should always remain necessarily unconditional and always boundless.

Contents

Preface                                                                    vi

Prologue                                                                  ix

  01  Awakening                                                         01

 02  Groundwork                                                      20

 03  Enter the Bear                                                   31

 04  Dream Worlds                                                   59

 05  Shamans of Old                                                  63

 06  The Apprentice                                                   81

 07  Discoveries                                                          91

 08  The Arrival of Spring                                        103

 09  Šipa·puli·ma Found                                         115

 10  Sacred Offerings                                                133

 11  The Messenger                                                   149

 12  Zuńi Bound                                                         165

 13  Encounters                                                         195

 14  The Pilgrimage                                                   211

 15  Powerful Medicine                                              227

 16  After the Fact                                                      245

  Shamans' Genealogy                         252

"Dancing With Sunsets"

PROLOGUE

This beautiful and intriguing Land of Enchantment has for many many years drawn to its intuitively perceived mystical province, peoples in search of a unique and often unconventional spiritual milieu.  It is a distinctive land that is so naturally diverse in both its indigenous and immigrant human inhabitants, as well as possessing every ecological biome level with the singular exception of artic tundra; what a wonderful and miraculous diversity!  The spiritual fabric of this compelling story is equally diverse and most dramatically illustrates that at the very core of every human being is a common quintessence that recognizes nothing of the multiplicity of labeled-differences that are too persistently and often unjustly placed upon on every human, whether they be in regards to one’s race, color, ethnicity, national origin, religion, personal appearance, gender, sexual orientation, disability or age in their origin.
            The varied social, political, cultural, spiritual and most certainly the personal elements of this compelling story could have only been appropriately narrated by one who own life’s experiences closely paralleled these too often contrasting constituents of the human circumstance.  There is no substitute for fully understanding our neighbor’s uniquely exceptional condition except our actually standing in their sandals; for many of us, that’s simply a virtual impossibility.  One of Buddha’s reflective instructions to the judge was most simply and yet profoundly stated as, “do not pass judgment until you have stood in the defendant’s sandals.”  Is this not of the very same essential quintessence contained in one of Jesus’ more divine pronouncements on the Mount that one should not judge others less they should run the awful risk of being so judged themselves?  “JUDGE NOT, that ye be not judged.  For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.”  We will and should all ultimately reap what we so willingly sow in this often meager and struggling life of ours, and the only assurance of any real joy comes solely from our exerted ability to knowingly cast aside our learned and often unjustified prejudices, and in their place, establish an attitude towards others that is based solely on love.
            If I were to have fully accepted some of the moral condemnations of my own culture’s basic Judeo-Christian religious despots, I would have already condemned myself to the same hellish conclusion that is so tragically attended by one-third of all teenage suicides in American; homosexuality.  Many of these same tyrannical authoritarians also deny the equality of women and relegate their gender to some lesser station that is necessarily below that of a man; where would the human race be without this gentle member?  There are certain portions of this story that manifested themselves in such a dramatic fashion that I was initially hesitant in relating them, most simply because they might unnecessarily offend the very reader that may actually benefit the most from contemplating the ultimate message of this tale.  In that light and to those who are too easily offended by those sometimes perceived misgivings of their own neighbors, may I suggests that you reserve any final judgment of this bit of intentionally spiritual literature until you have completely read the entire story to its most inspirational conclusion.
            Come walk with me in my own sandals, visualizing and experiencing this southwest Land of Enchantment through my eyes, and even more importantly, walk with me in the buckskin moccasins of these initiated Shamans as they innocently and sometimes tragically discover the spiritual mysteries of the human spirit.  This story could have only taken place in this marvelous land of human and spiritual enchantment and in that unusual period of Southwestern history where two totally diverse cultures collided head-on and still miraculously managed to ultimately converge through the shared experiences of two Nineteenth Century Shamans and an exceptionally loving Jesuit priest for the singular and compassionate purpose of uncovering and preserving the Truth; the only ultimate and legitimate source for our spiritual and personal salvation.  Those boisterous and often righteous claims of religious salvation that is even partially devoid of any demonstration of unconditional love is simply the harsh evidence of a creed that is totally unworthy of any human and/or serious consideration.
            The better part of this story takes place at a time in the history of this southwest territory when English just wasn’t the prevailing language.  In fact, most of the story is centered on that specific period of history that is referred to as the Mexican Period following Mexico’s independence from Spain and just when that infamous Santa Fe Trail was first established as a “trade route” for the purpose of commerce with a foreign country, Mexico.  Were I to have written this story in the Zuni language, not that it ever had a written form, and the European Spanish of that period, none of us would aptly understand the essence of what was taking place at any given point.  Please bear with me in that I have of necessity imposed my own vocabulary and sometimes that of my computer’s thesaurus to best relate the intimate feelings and the essence of what these unusually passionate and intelligent characters so freely shared with one another.
            And lastly, is this a true story?  You bet your life it is!

SAN DAMIANO CROSS