Akashic Mentor – The Medicine Elder

"All Knowledge is Worth Having" – Jacqueline Carey

All punditry, spin, and economics aside, everything we learn has a purpose.  The purpose may not be explicit, it might not be merchandisable, it might have no other use than to help us enjoy pub quizzes or crossword puzzles, but it has at least this one purpose. Since ancient times there has been a perceived distinction between liberal education, education for the betterment of the human being and therefore the community, and practical education which can be put to an immediately constructive use.  We see this throughout history as the elite classes defined by caste, royal lineage, family fortune, or various privileges, seek "higher education" in the liberal arts while the lower classes, faced with the practicality of survival, inherit menial jobs, endure servitude, and at best or with luck are able to apprentice at a trade lifting them to an ever-fluctuating middle class.

Thus, the allure of the "new worlds" where such distinctions seemingly did not exist and anyone could create themselves in any image.  With infinite possibility comes the ability to live a life of choice based on the individual's merits.  Such still sustains the American dream as well as that of most first world nations, however, as we now know from hundreds of years of experience, changing geography and changing governments doesn't change human nature.  It just gives it new fields in which to exist and create.  So, elitism still exists, poverty is still the norm for a great number of people, and the opposition of learning how to be vs. how to do something is still alive and well.  Their new names are University Education and Technical/Trade School.  Most recently, as we move from societies where citizenship and justice are the foundation of membership to communities of purchasers, living to be a better person becomes of less and less value. The ability to create, to invent, to problem solve through computer software and hardware engineering, designing new ways of interacting via game theory and social media, and inventing via the hard sciences have heavily weighted the value of a technical education over learning how to be your best and highest self.  To quote from pop culture "Major in philosophy, because there's no way to make a career out of that," Jessica in The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. 

But all of this begs the question: is how we've characterized these ways of learning true?  Is knowing about the authentic self, getting the classical liberal arts education which teaches what it means to be human, completely divorced from all practical application?  Is all technical, practical trade craft devoid of any understanding of the human condition?  They can be and we can, with little effort, maintain this separation.  But what if we don't?  What if all knowledge, seemingly trivial or explosively revelatory, is meant to stimulate us to act?  What if the very act of knowing creates a responsibility to act on what we have learned?  What if, in learning, we become and in becoming we change unalterably and can no longer maintain the semblance of who we were in our everyday lives?

Such are the questions posed by The Medicine Elder, an Akashic Mentor who lives beyond the Akashic city.  He can be found between the Totem village and the Green Man's forest.  His area appears like an impenetrable wall of tall thick evergreen trees.  Stepping between the trees, winding your way through them by a path of your own making, you will find the trees are not a forest but a circular boundary around a sacred clearing.  Nothing grows in the clearing and the ground is hard packed earth.  There is a fire pit in the center, but it is empty and cold.  To the right are small domed structures made of sticks which are similarly empty.  This place feels old and well-worn with the footsteps of the people who have been there before.  The sounds of their feet, the susurring of their clothes, the words they have spoken feel like they are just within reach and yet there are no sounds but the breeze in the trees.  There is an expectant air to the place as if someone is waiting or something is about to begin. This is the Arena of Choice. 

Standing in the center of this space is the Medicine Elder who is ancient and young, kind and stern, with eyes which demand your full attention. He is a medicine elder from any of hundreds of indigenous cultures.  His skin is dark, his eyes are black and yet bright.  He has a name, but he does not speak it because when working with him there should be no distractions.  When he focuses on you a silence comes over the clearing as you stand waiting for what happens next.  And he has one question to ask you, one question which brings everything you have learned into laser like focus.  "Who are you?"  He doesn't mean your name, your lineage, or the stories you have created out of your life, but who you truly are.  He is asking you to incorporate all you have learned about yourself through your spiritual journey into who you have been up until this time and create the you that is now.

The challenge is he does not mean an academic liberal arts definition of who you are based on new philosophical principles or new theories of life.  He means practically, physically, who are you?  For the truth of any spirituality, religion, philosophy, mission statement, or even New Year's resolution is not in the words use to express the ideals, but in the actions which make them manifest in the physical world.  So, in asking the question he is challenging you to choose whether or not you will allow what you have learned to become an inseparable part of who you are in this life and to lead you to live an authentic life or whether it will remain in the realm of ideals, known and collected and stored, but never used.

He is asking if you are ready to continue this journey on its next phase, which is to start the applied practical side of what you have learned and to truly become it through enacting it and inhabiting it.  Like the journey of the Fool through the major arcana of the Tarot, the first half of the journey is internal, learning archetypes, skills, connection, and new perspectives.  The Fool learns who he truly is and then the Wheel of Fate spins and he spends the second half of the journey applying what he has learned in the world, fully integrating who he is through action, creating and experiencing and gaining wisdom until he reaches the rapturous conclusion that with all he has learned and become, he has reached the next loop of his spiraling journey and turns inward with the unencumbered joy and naiveté of the Fool.  In this moment you have accomplished a form of your internal journey, the liberal education which leads to a transformed version of you.  Now how will you apply it?  How will you unfold?

There is no right or wrong answer as there is no right or wrong way to live your life. All choices have benefit and all help us to grow and become.  "Not now, but later" is just a valid as "Yes!"  Sometimes choosing not to act is just as much an act of valor as charging into something.  Again, the question is "Who are you?" which can only ever be answered by you for you.  And the answering itself is a transformative act, a liminal moment which defines the beginning and ending of times within a life.

In indigenous cultures such moments are incorporated into and celebrated in the community. Native American tribes celebrate the moving of a girl into womanhood with a Young Maiden ceremony and a change of name. Girls enter sacred space as children and, supported and witnessed by community, they exit as women.  In Africa many tribes hold young man ceremonies where the boys are taken away from the village to a space where they must survive the elements of nature and go through ceremony, sometimes including circumcision, returning to the community as men.  In the Lakotah tradition an adult may choose to participate in a Vision Quest asking for Spirit to provide them a vision of who they truly are and should become.  And in almost all indigenous cultures there is a tradition of individuals receiving a calling, through vision, illness or revelation, which brings them into direct contact with their essential nature and how they are asked to express this in the world for the good of themselves and their communities. Most medicine people refer to this as "the sickness"; a mysterious illness which arrives without warning during which, unbeknownst to the family and the community, the person is asked "Who are you?" and must decide whether to ask, 'Take this cup from me,' or 'Yes, I'm ready to do this.'

The Medicine Elder who stands before you asks you this question. "Who are you?" "Who do you choose to be now you know what you are?"  The answer you express is as unique as your soul and opens doors to possibility in ways both easily discernible and far reaching. 

Regardless of what your answer is, in working with this mentor, once you have answered, which may take moments or may last for what seems to be days, things are put into motion.  Beings may appear and move to lay a fire in the fire pit. There may be singing or ritual dancing.  Your totem clan may enter the arena to celebrate you. You may be invited to sit with your teachers to continue discussions of how you will implement your new identity. You may be honored with a new name. You might receive visions which unfold more of your purpose and path.  You may be invited to an elder's council or to a ceremony in your honor.

Allow the events to unfold and flow through and around you.  This is who you are, and you deserve everything that occurs there and more. If you have questions, feel free to ask them of anyone and everyone and see how much further you are connecting into this community and life itself.