Lynn V. Andrews - Jaguar Woman

Table of Contents

BOOKS BY LYNN V. ANDREWS

Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint: Jaguar Woman and The Final Mother by Jack Crimmins. Copyright 1985 by Jack Crimmins. Reprinted by permission of the author. I Always Return to This Place from The Collected Works of Kenneth Patchen by Kenneth Patchen. Copyright 1945 by Kenneth Patchen. For Shirley and Wallace from Jaguar Skies by Michael McClure. Copyright 1975 by Michael McClure. The Presence and Come into Animal Presence from Poems: 1960-1967 by Denise Levertov. Copyright 1961 by Denise Levertov Goodman. Route from Collected Poems by George Oppen. Copyright 1968 by George Oppen. Patchen, McClure, Levertov, Oppen reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation. The Jewel from Collected Poems by James Wright. Copyright 1962 by James Wright. Reprinted by permission of Wesleyan University Press. Theology from Ring of Bone by Lew Welch. Copyright 1973 by The Estate of Lew Welch. Reprinted by permission of Grey Fox Press. Oh No from For Love: Poems 1950-1960 by Robert Creeley. Copyright 1962 by Robert Creeley. Reprinted by permission of Charles Scribners Sons. Circling from Living in the Open by Marge Piercy. Copyright 1976 by Marge Piercy. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Suppose from Desire Being Full of Distances by Elizabeth Herron. Copyright 1983 by Elizabeth Herron (Calliopea Press, 1983). Reprinted by permission of the author. Excerpts from The Tree in the Dark by Sheila Ross. Copyright 1985 by Sheila Ross. Reprinted by permission of the author. Excerpt from The Benevolent Song of Earthbound Beings by Philip Daughtry. Copyright 1985 by Philip Daughtry. Reprinted by permission of the author. Grandmother from Coyotes Daylight Trip by Paula Gunn Allen. Copyright 1978 by Paula Gunn Allen. Reprinted by permission of the author.

... if a woman does a useless thing, none reproves her; if she does a harmful thing, few seek to restrain her; but if she seeks to imitate the goddess and to encourage others, all those in authority accuse her of corruption. So it is more dangerous to teach truth than to enter a powder magazine with a lighted torch.

Tsiang Samdup The Book of Sayings

Jaguar Woman speaking
like fire.

With an eye of smoke
and a daggered hand: she.

Like stars
black sky obsidian
loops of light
moon light star light
all night long

She is the marrow of the underbrush.
She is the waterfall no one has seen.
She is the resting place of the sun.

Extend the universe in every direction
and bring her home.

Jack Crimmins
Jaguar Woman

This is a true story. Some of the names and places in this book have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved.

Since 1973 I have been traveling to Manitoba, Canada, to see a certain Native American medicine woman named Agnes Whistling Elk. At first I came to her as an art dealer from Los Angeles in search of a sacred marriage basket. Slowly our relationship changed, and I became this womans apprentice. She has taught me a system of beliefs that had previously been foreign to me.

Agnes stresses the dignity and value of womanhood. She has said that it had been told to her in prophecy that I was to become a warrioress of the rainbow of black, white, red, and yellow peoples, and that one day I would become a bridge between the two distinct worlds of the primal mind and the white consciousness.

During the course of my apprenticeship, I have been forced to restructure my beliefs as to who I am and what the world is. In an alien environment I was pitted against an adept male sorcerer named Red Dog. In this dangerous struggle I triumphed, much to my surprise. I have undergone several initiations since then, culminating with an initiation into a highly secretive shamanistic society of women known as the Sisterhood of the Shields.

Agnes asked me to write about these experiences, to let the eagle fly, and to teach people in an effort to heal our sacred Mother Earth. Medicine Woman was my first attempt to do this, and Spirit Woman (previously published as Flight of the Seventh Moon) was the second in a series of books about the extraordinary adventures and shamanistic teachings I have encountered. These books stress the ancient powers of woman. This ancient knowledge has been memorized and beaded into history by powerful Native women throughout time in order to protect and preserve it for the generations that follow on this beautiful earth.

Jaguar Woman explores a range of movement, much as the butterfly covers this continent in its wanderings from Canada to Mexico. This book explores not only a physical change of locale, but also the process of psychic, mental, and emotional movement from one state of mind to another, and movement from one attribute of perception to another.

One of the great tools of the Native American tradition is the medicine wheel. This seemingly existential paradigm is a rich, complex, and subtle symbol of mystical and philosophical depth. Trained apprentices are taught to use the medicine wheel as a map to their innermost being. The four directions on the wheel represent categories of qualities both inner and outer: the south represents trust and innocence; the west is the home of the sacred dream, death, and rebirth; the north symbolizes wisdom and strength; and the east is illumination.

The key to using the medicine wheel is movement, the way a person moves from one direction to another in the process of learning. For example, a woman living in trust and innocence in the south of the medicine wheel may progress through a series of life experiences and reach a state of wisdom and strength in the north. At this point of wisdom she has grown from a life of materialism represented in the south to a position of spirit represented in the north. The key to evolving further is, again, movement. Because she has gone from the south looking north for the spirit, she must now move from the north looking south to manifest substance. After manifesting substance, she must then travel back north to manifest spirit, and so on.

This book describes my lessons of transit, and my meeting with the Sisterhood of the Shields in pursuit of knowledge and the adventure of the spirit. I again traveled north to meet my teachers, Agnes Whistling Elk and Ruby Plenty Chiefs, in northern Manitoba, Canada. My experiences took me to the center of the sacred spiral in order to reclaim my original female naturethe real woman within.

There are no excuses for anything, Agnes once told me. You change things or you dont. Excuses rob you of power and induce apathy.

I sometimes see women who have been cheated out of their spiritual heritage just as they have been cheated out of their minds and bodies. I, for one, struggle against that theft.