Talking Stick Teaching
As human beings, we are gifted with the capacity to communicate reasonably well. When we choose to do it, most of us can express ourselves quite clearly about what is not working well for us, what we need, and how we feel. However, it is much more challenging for us to truly listen to someone else. Yet it is this listening that is the other vital half of communication. We often misconstrue what another person is saying because we are hearing their words through the filter of our preconceived ideas, thoughts, feelings, perceptions and attitudes. This inability or lack of desire on our part to hear what someone is actually communicating is the cause of a great number of misunderstandings and a great deal of frustration and strife in interpersonal relationships.
Developing effective listening skills is a discipline: both emotional and mental. In order to become a good listener, we must be able to hear with a clear and calm mind. We must temporarily suspend our defences, viewpoints and opinions and stay emotionally neutral. We must also refrain from projecting anything onto what is being said and from making assumptions. Instead of assuming, ask the person to clarify what you think you heard them say. Essentially, that is the “heart” of heart-to-heart communication.
When we can communicate in this way, we actually hear what the other person is saying and allow it into our reality. It makes no difference whether or not we agree with what the person is saying because we can hear that it is her view. When we respond from this place, we are on the “same page,” so to speak, and can speak to the issue with honesty and without emotionality.
With his fifteenth step, the Knowledgeable Fool creates a Talking Stick as a sacred tool that opens his heart so he can hear the heart-truth of another.
Metamorphosis Movement
Join the Fool in initiating a metamorphosis in your relationships - learn the discipline of active listening and honest communication.
(Source: Shamanic Ceremonies for a Changing World
Zero - The Pathway of the Knowledgeable Fool and without emotionality.)
In this ceremony, you will be creating a Talking Stick as a sacred tool for helping you and the people you are in relationship with (intimates, family, work, friends, etc.) to refine your communication skills. You will be placing representations of the beauty and balance of the natural world on your Talking Stick. You will bless it and dedicate it as a sacred tool for fostering powerful and honest communication.
Afterward, whenever you hold it in your hands, you can also hold in your awareness the preciousness of human heart-to-heart connection. When your Talking Stick is complete and you are using it in your daily life, you will find that working with it to communicate with others increases your emotional and mental discipline. Successes with the Stick encourage people to open their hearts and speak their truth. Even very difficult communications can be successfully navigated with the use of a Talking Stick, as this sacred tool is dedicated to that purpose.
Using the Talking Stick empowers people to transform their relationships through effective communication. Use your artistic creativity to create a beautiful Talking Stick!