I, You, and We
by Jeffrey Pierce

We create the world we live in.

You are more powerful and beautiful than you imagine.

I am a traditionally trained shaman.

We; you; I; three words that we hear all the time and rarely pause to consider. Our logical mind tells us that they are personal pronouns, shortcuts that we use to indicate groups and individuals without having to name them. But what if our logical mind was only part of the larger picture? What if logic comprised only one of three levels that we interact with all the time - levels of existence that we can see, experience, and verify as being real?

What if we looked at those three words - we, you, and I - from a slightly different perspective?

I or me: a unique expression of life that stands apart in individual power and beauty.

You: an equal but different facet of sacred life that is also the mirror and teacher of I or me.

We: the power and vision we create when we unite together and the expression of that unity as the world we manifest.

Our world is a mess. You don't need me to cite statistics to realize that. If people are being murdered (body or spirit), if human beings are starving while others bask in abundance, if we are destroying more than we are creating, we're headed in the wrong direction. The problems are all around us. Likewise, the solutions are also all around us. The greatest challenge we face isn't a lack of resources, but the very real need for someone to show us the how to make those changes with the tools, wisdom, knowledge, and insight that are already in our possession.

In the early 1990s, I was given the singular honor of being trained as a traditional shaman by an amazing Native American woman named Nukah. Traditional shamanism differs in several ways from the popular shamanism, much of it based on psychology and mythology, that is taught in workshops and seminars today. The path that I was taught embraces aspects of the spiritual that are deeper than you've probably ever imagined while balancing those spiritual insights with an equal amount of common sense. A traditional shaman wears countless hats – counselor; guide; healer; seer; historian; - and for the trainee to fully embrace the power in each role, they must earn the wisdom for themselves. Each shaman is unique. There were no classes with Nukah and there is no curriculum for the path she set me upon. Nukah would offer me theory and a direction to explore before sending me out in the wilderness to glean my own insight and earn my own way of applying that knowledge. Once I had found my own unique success with the material - and repeated such a success three times to prove its validity - I would bring it back to her and we'd discuss its implications. It's a path I've never relinquished, searching ever-deeper for increasing knowledge, perspective, and insight. And because I'm Caucasian, not Native American as my honored teacher, this traditional shaman was left without a tribe to serve.

Instead, I found myself standing alone in the midst of our very screwed up world.

At first, I thought people were simply unkind, but we truly are teachers and mirrors for each other. Some of the problems we face are lessons we've been taught; some are blocks that we have placed in another's path. I learned from the urban jungle, in much the same way that I learned from the mountains, forests, and beaches of my native Pacific Northwest, that we are seekers without direction who have been taught to go through life with our eyes closed. We reach and grab and clutch and push, not because we mean harm or because we have twisted hearts, but because it's all we know. We aren't callous and cold by nature - each wall was put in place to protect ourselves from pain and heartbreak; each defense is powered by a lie we have been taught to believe.

But it doesn't have to be that way.

You are beautiful - you've simply been taught otherwise. You're powerful, but you've been convinced that you hold no power. Alone, you could singlehandedly change the world if you knew where to begin and the correct threads to unravel or tightly knot. Together, the joining of "you" and "I," through concepts I will explain in the pages ahead, we are more than the simple sum of 1 + 1. United, the very definition of "we," we can completely uplift the world and create a reality that we are proud to leave to our children and grandchildren. You are a seeker. You and I, together, are visionaries. We, united, are the generation that turned the world around.

The path that is described ahead requires no religious affiliation and is equally valid whether you have devoted your life to a religious path, are an advocate of science, or a steadfast atheist. It doesn't require you to change what you believe, to give up a habit, or to alter a single thing in any area or aspect of your life. All that is required is that you open your eyes and consider what you see when you look at yourself, when you look at those who share your life, and when you look at the world around you. If every person in every country adopted the concepts held in this book we would still be Christian and Neo-Pagan, Muslim and Jew, atheist and believer. All that would change is that we would stop lashing out at each other, we'd stop acting mindlessly, and we would understand the implications of our actions, our choices, and how they change ourselves, our friends and family, and our communities - from our neighborhood to every aspect of life on this planet we call home.

This book is called, How to Save the World. I consciously began the search for the answers held in these pages on March 21, 1997. That quest, which carried me around the spiritual globe and through doorways I never would have considered walking through on my own, resulted in the insight that you now find before you. This is one traditional shaman's blueprint for how to save our species and the planet we live on. It is the tangible power and potential that is created when "you" and "I" connect - even if that connection is first discovered between reader and author or seeker and shaman. But more than all of that, this is the story of you. How to Save the World is the story of the road that brought you to where you now stand, the answers to your unasked questions, and the missing guide to your life and our species as a whole. The secret? You are powerful and beautiful and unbelievably amazing - and you have no idea what you're capable of once you truly embrace the unique individual that is found at your very core.

Alone, you can change your life.

Together, we can work miracles.

United, we can save the world.

Thoughts? Comments? You can contact us at connect@oldways.com or interact with Jeffrey, Briana, and the Old Ways community on our Facebook page.