E Pluribus Unum

E Pluribus Unum. I got to thinking about this great motto on the fourth of July.  “Out of many, one.”  When this great nation was born it took a lot of individuals with different interests, beliefs, lifestyles and attitudes to set those aside and come together in a common cause.   People left their families, farms and businesses to fight for a greater vision of what could be if they could break free from the yolk of a monarch that viewed them mostly as a source of revenue.

That independence however, required interdependence upon one another.  To recognize and work with people’s strengths while shoring up and forgiving shortcomings.  When we do this we can create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.  In fact to realize that we are all part of a whole.  Just as our body is made up of various organs with different functions, all of which are necessary to our health, so we are to one another.  Our kidneys do not argue with the liver about which is more import, not the lungs with the heart.

Coming into “right relationship” with others, our surroundings, and our own selves, is a concept called “Ayni” in the Q’ero shaman tradition.   It is a bringing back into balance those things that got out of place through trauma, injury, accident or as Ebenezer Scrooge might attribute a “a fragment of underdone potato”.   It matters not whether the imbalance came from something “real” or “perceived”.  To our subconscious, it’s all real.

And that underlying personal reality affects how we interact in the world.   Disharmony starts at the internal level and is then reflected outward.  Do we believe we are worthy of love, abundance and joy, or is there an unconscious script running that says we cannot have these things because (fill in the blank).  A personal E Pluribus Unum: aligning our internal world with our actions allows us to come into harmony with the external world.

Shamanic healing seeks to track back to the original wound so that it can be healed and healthier beliefs restored so that the person seeking healing can go about their life in a more fully present way “in right relationship” to themselves and by extension others.  It’s about creating wholeness, within and without.

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