by tamara
In April 2006, a longtime regular of alt.religion.shamanism known as tamara wrote one of her most personal and theologically lucid posts. She had found the newsgroup in 1999, during a period of spiritual transition, and it had been her primary community of practice ever since. This post reads as both an autobiographical confession and a teaching: the move from a sin-and-salvation framework to one grounded in natural balance.
What tamara articulates here — that evil is not a force opposed to good but an imbalance of either force, that the destructive and creative together constitute the wholeness of the living world — is a foundational shamanic insight. She grounds it in her own experience: a hurricane, a butterfly the morning after, a haunted house, the lessons of the three worlds (upper, middle, lower). Her register is that of a peer speaking to peers, unguarded and direct.
The newsgroup to which she addresses this post had, by 2006, survived years of troll flooding, community attrition, and the gradual replacement of its early practitioners with newer, less grounded participants. tamara's post is in part an elegy for what was lost, and in part an attempt to pass that understanding forward.
I think I've figured out why I feel at odds with many of the newer posters to this newsgroup. Right here, at ARS, I learned via many of the old posters here about "balance". Up until finding ARS in 1999, I had never considered the concept of embracing not only my higher self but my lower self as well. I grew up in a religion that taught me that the world was made up of good and evil, and my goal in life was to strive to be good, to not be sinful.
Anything negative MUST be of evil. If I had a bad thought about someone, this was a sin. If did not always love my brother, this was a sin. If I lusted after the flesh, this was a sin. If I was not a good little girl, this was a sin. Bacteria and disease was evil forces. Hurricanes were evil destructive force sent to teach lessons. Fire and brimstone was a fear placed within me due to my sins.....etc...etc..etc..
Until, ARS...and the posters that spoke freely without concern of being politically correct, and in doing so, they taught me much here back in the day.
I began to see that things like Infection are a destructive force which keeps balance. It is not "evil" it just IS part of the destructive side of balance. I began to really understand that things like cancer and spiders and viruses and things which we consider "negative" are really part of the "balance" that literally support life on this planet. Because BALANCE must be maintained here on earth. If everything was creative force, there would be many imbalances and life could not thrive. Earth and the physical realm is a recycling life force. Death and Birth go hand in hand. Nature is not always "light"....it is fierce and merciless at times.
I recall the day after the Rita Hurricane which mainly was only strong violent winds at my direct area, but the winds were strong enough to take down big tree limbs and rip my chimney pipe from my roof and toss it all over the place......Yet, magically the next morning a delicate butterfly frolicked in my backyard amidst the fallen branches...For me, This was a beautiful example of the death and life recycle of life...The creative and destructive.....The violent and the tender....The Balance.
Within my own self, I see the same. I have a higher self which strives and wants to do good. To heal, comfort and love. But, I also have a lower self which walks barefoot in the grass and feels my "human" connection to Earth mother. I now embrace my lusts as a "natural" aspect of my humanity rather than a evil sin. I now accept that if some horrible disease takes out a young man, it is not due to the sins of the young man nor due to the sins of his parents. Its just nature, and nature is not always fair, but nature does not mean anything personal.
I don't know the answers to where we are all from. Perhaps we belong to some heavenly place and we were sent here to learn. If we are indeed "higher beings" (as some think) who have been sent here to learn, then I would think the greatest lesson we could learn, is to be in harmony with our Spirit and Physical. After all, there MUST be a reason we are IN Physical bodies. There MUST be a reason we are a part of the cycle of life of THIS EARTH...
I don't believe anymore in only looking to higher self and in doing so labeling everything on my "home" as sinful. I was born into a human body, and I have no idea where my spirit is from, but I DO KNOW where my body is from. And I've learned to embrace "both"...my body and spirit....
To live in harmony with my higher self and my earthly self......
Does this give me a free right to be a wild animal? No, I'm not saying that. I have a higher self inside that strives to make the right decisions based on the key rule Jesus shared, "do unto others as you would have them do unto you"....(there are many teachers in the history of this world that have taught ways to achieve higher self, Jesus was just one of them imho)...
I also though have a lower self, my "natural" self as a human. This side of me, is not always nice, she is lustful, and she is selfish in the aspect of survival. Selfish meaning, If it came down to where the rubber meets the road, I'd kill in order to protect my children, ..etc....much like a mother lion would.
I don't believe in the "Devil" anymore. I believe there is a Spirit of this Earth, our Father and Mother as earth's children right here in the garden with us. I believe this Enity has been harshly labeled the "devil" due to religious concepts battering this Enity into an "evil" concept. Literally separating us from our "home"...Earth.
I think personally, if our "higher self" has any sense of wisdom then the first thing as a higher self we could do would be to embrace our home, and not always look forward to some other place of refuge after we (as a species) have destroyed the physical home we were sent to learn and grow at...
If.... as humans we collectively destroy this home (mother) haphazardly in our blind effort to only seek higher self and while doing so we consider anything from this realm to be evil.....Then, what have we really learned here?
I don't know why I am rambling about this, on this Sunday morning. Other than I feel as though something is missing here at ARS these days. Something vital that was once here, and its called balance. Living in "Harmony" with the tree of life...upper, middle and lower...all in balance and harmony the planes... As Zygos mentioned "flowing" naturally between the the upper and lower planes, which made a lot of sense to me.
I personally believe that "evil" is the imbalance of either....light or dark...
Our home turns around our star/sun, we have balance of night and day.....rain and sunshine....laughter and tears....even the good book and the wise man soleman said, "there is a season for everything here on THIS EARTH".....
I personally feel the most important lesson here on this earth, is learning to embrace and love and RESPECT home, and be thankful for home instead of considering home we are blessed and given to be so evil....
I think many of our ancestors as well as many native cultures understood/understand this......Striving for Great Spirit, yet also learning lessons from Crow (the thief)......etc...balance
Living in harmony with higher, middle and lower self....finding the "natural" beauty in balance of spirit, mind, and Body.
Colophon
Posted to alt.religion.shamanism on April 9, 2006, by tamara, a longtime Texas-based practitioner and one of the most consistent voices in the newsgroup from 1999 through the mid-2000s. She credits alt.religion.shamanism itself — its early community of practitioners — as the source of the balance teaching that transformed her understanding. The post was a response to perceived changes in the community's character, and stands as one of the most articulate statements of the shamanic understanding of balance to emerge from the group.
Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. Original Message-ID: [email protected].
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