Illuminist Lodge

An image inspired by Lorie Eve Dechar’s book Five Spirits: Alchemical Accupuncture for Psychological and Spiritual Healing Lantern Books 2006. In the first chapter “The Empty Center” Dechar writes, “The ancient Chinese character for wu is a picture of a dancing shaman in fancy sleeves or tassels. The character gives us insight into the words meaning.

The shaman played a central role in the life of the ancient Chinese. Shaman’s had mysterious powers and were able to effect changes beyond the capacities of ordinary human beings. Shamans cured diseases, ended droughts, managed floods, controlled evil spirits and invoked the gods. In their role as tribal leader, healer and priest, shamans mediated between the everyday world and the spirits beyond. The shaman was the go between, the free and easy wanderer who roamed the Cloud Realms between heaven and earth. Through ritual chanting, incense burning, drumming and incantations, shamans opened passageways between the human and divine realms. Through their ritual practices, shamans penetrated the Great Mystery, entered the ineffable and gained access to Tao.

Dancing was an important part of shamanic practice. It was the Hidden Way, the secret path that led them from one world to the next. The ritual dances of the shamans were based on complex binations of step and long periods of rapid spinning. The dances altered consciousness and induced states of ecstatic trance in which the shamans sprouted wings, rode through the empty vastness of space and traveled to the bright stars of the Milky Way and to the dark labyrinths beneath the earth. During these journeys they contacted spirits of above and below who guided their healing work and gave them supernatural powers. Through dancing, the shaman entered wu, the empty vortex, the whirlwind of Tao.

The meaning of the wu character is found in the center of the shaman’s spinning, a vortex that is the pathway between above and below. It is wu, the empty center, that makes the dance useful. Ge Hong described this vortex as “so wide it encompasses the eight cardinal points….it surges up like a whirlwind and streaks away like a comet…” Like a funnel, the emptiness gathers the light of the divine, which it sends as sparks of spirit into the world.

The spinning emptiness at the center of the dance creates a magnetic field, a receptive yin hollow that draws the yang initiating spirits down into the realm of matter. The spinning is the circulation that continually infuses divine radiance into the world. According to Taoist philosophy, the spirits are drawn irresistibly to wu-to the whirling emptiness at the heart of matter. And once the spirits arrive at the center, matter changes from dead weight into something that has purpose, something that evolves, something that has Tao.”

During the time period I was working imaginally/theurgically with this image as a Symbolon, I would imagine rushing streams of water coming out of the tassels on each sleeve, as well as the sound of golden and silver bells ringing. The tassels provided an opening for something to come forth, something we needed, were desperate for here in the central highlands of the desert, water. The round vibrating sound of sharp bells provided a wave to carry the frequency of the living element of water to ride into this world.