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www.shamansociety.org 33 From the Noble Strains to Viral Strains It may be that the idea of conferring the Three Noble Strains in Celtic myth sounds a bit absurd and far-fetched in our modern-day world. Can we really confer the experience of sorrow joy and blessed peace There is much competi- tion in our world today. There are one hundred hours of new video clips uploaded to You Tube every minute each clip conferring a 2-6 minute altered state on the viewer. There are countless sound files available for purchase on itunes each conferring a 3-6 minute altered state of consciousness. The media seems to wait with bated breath to announce that one of them has gone viral and the trumpets are sounded I remember when something viral was a bad thing and greeted with murmurs of sympathy. These conferred states can be vivid sticky and cling to us for some time afterwards. In our time of ever-present media the air is awash with countless messages tacked onto the sides and riding the top of every web page we visit arriving in our inbox blaring from speakers spasming across the HD screens in the living rooms of the world. There does not seem to be a great deal of nobil- ity in those conferred states. What does it mean to live in sha- manic ways I think poet William Butler Yeats may have said it best when he coined the phrase the deep hearts core. Whatever our mailing address where we live is the deep hearts core. I sometimes think that with the amount of recorded media we have access to we have lost the sense of the vital power of song and story. All of us and especially we who work in the shamanic realm need to reclaim the power of song and story. Song and story particularly when aligned with relations with the spirits bring deep change to the lived human experience and perspective. Although both song and story are highly entertaining they offer far more than entertainment. There is a nourishment that comes from them. We forget in our hurried media- saturated culture the power of being personally sung to. To be sung to live with deep purpose with heartfelt emo- tion is such an extreme rarity that many adults never experience this. Many adults never hear another story told aloud once childhood has ended. As environmental author Barry Lopez reminds us we forget that stories care for us that there are times in every human beings life when a person needs a story more than they need bread to stay alive. When Song or Story pass through the air when they are breathed into us they resound and settle into the bones and memories of our beautiful bodies. They strengthen us. The Weaving of Song Story Blessing One of the things that has always struck me about the Celtic cultures is the legacy of the Blessing. A Blessing is woven on the winds with both language and intention. A soulful Blessing is one of the most generous things that we can actually give to another human being. The most powerful Blessings I have ever encountered are woven with and through the living world around us as enduring as the earth as gentle as the rain. A Blessing allows us to glimpse the whole of ourselves with new eyes. A Blessing is not just the pretty language of greeting cards. A Blessing is a rare and deeply precious thing. It is powerful enough to change the trajectory of a lifetime when it comes from the right place and is delivered in the right way. Within the hands and heart on the tongue of the shaman song and story become such living Blessings weaving us together making us strong. We never fully know the journey another person is on who will walk through the door what they are calling out for their hearts and souls. But the odds are that in our shamanic work in some way they are passing through a mo- ment of dreaming of destiny of unfold- ing their own myth. They come to each of us because sha- manism is not just about the training we have undertaken nor just about the ways in which we live with relate to serve with the spirit allies we work with. They come to us because we know the ways to sing Blessing back into the daily. They come to us because we truly listen. They come to us because we know the songs and stories that will catch the ear and coax the heart past the grayness of daily life. They come to us because we know intimately the deep hearts core and the secret pathways there. They come to us because they are looking for what poet Rainer Maria Rilke meant when he said in his Book of Hours I believe in what I have felt but not yet spoken I want to free the dream that waits within me So that what I have longed for may spring forth . I will sing Life as no one has before me ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jeff Stocktons studies and training in shamanism began in 1996 on the strings of the Celtic harp. In addition to his work in the shamanic realm Jeff weaves song and story on the strings of the harp in performance and recorded works. His web site is www. jeffstockton.ca. He can be reached at contactjeffstockton.ca