March 25th
-24 degrees Celsius
Yakutsk, The Republic of Sakha
“You have to let that inner wolf out” , Alexander Artemyev told me, whilst his two handheld metal indicators both shot of the wrong way; “You have so much locked up inside you, so many blocks. You are a very stressed human being.”
Since I have returned back to Yakutsk, I had received emails and phone calls telling me that shamans still existed and that one could be found in Yakutsk. Shaman is a word which originates from the Tungus family of languages, like Eveny and Evenk. During the Expedition from Oymyakon to Arkah, I asked several Eveny´s, young and old, if shamans still existed. They all said that they had heard about it, but never met one and that they were all killed during the Soviet Era. After all together 1½ years of traveling in Siberia, I have never met or come across a shaman either. So, I was kind of apprehensive when people told me to meet Kulan, or Alexander Artemyev. He even had a personal Facebook page and as far as I knew from the world of shamans, if you are one, you don´t go about telling others that you are (which he didn’t on his Facebook page, but do shamans connect with social global media?) Why not I thought, we live in a constantly changing world. So, I contacted Kulan and it would be a shocker of a meeting for me.
“I can see you have an enormous amount of positive energy inside you, but it is all blocked and can´t get out” , he continued, checked Yura briefly and said he was much more relaxed, but had some stress symptoms on the right side of his body, and my wife seemed free of stress, he than looked at me seriously and said; “That is why I came today. To help you. Not to do any show for you. The spirits told me you needed help.”
He sat down next to me, clinched his fists, told me to do the same, and put my feet firmly on the ground and he told me to close my eyes.
“Don’t look at me. Just concentrate. Your problem is that you are rationally trying to understand what I am trying to do. That is the problem with you. You over think and try to understand. To be able to feel better, you just have to let go. This is something that isn´t rational, it is just there, but to find yourself, you have to let go and just try to concentrate to see what appears in front of your mind. And don´t worry about the others in the room. Just let the wolf come out. You are extremely, extremely tired.”
I was in shock. Now, yes, all he had said so far was spot on. For years I have had an enormous amount of stress due to…life. My brain worked day and night. The reason, I want to be able to support my family. So in 1½ year have done 3 big Expeditions and coming back from this last one, I have been extremely tired. If I had any doubts of is capacity, I believed it now. And since one of the pillars of exploration and life itself, is to dare try things even if they scare you. So, I let go.
“See yourself inside a yurta (tepee)” , Kulan said whilst I heard he took out a drum and started to beat it slowly and suggestively. He then took out a brush made of horse hair, made a small fire, beat me with something sharp and the pain was enormous. He pressed the back of my head so hard that I wanted to scream, but I still wasn’t relaxed enough. I was to worried what my two daughters would think, but according to Pam, my wife, that looked at it all in silence. Which is very unlike my daughters. I smelt the fire, the smoke, a mouth harp start playing and than again the drum. And the bodily pain.
“I was standing inside the teepee” , I told Kulan after the first session; “Probably the doorway. I saw a small wolf sitting at the opposite end of the tepee. It seemed far away. He wasn’t aggressive. More apprehensive, observing, waiting to see what to do. And the more I heard the drum, I saw the little wolf moving towards me, suddenly, I was inside the wolf. I saw him from inside, His tongue, his teeth like I was stuck in his throat. Then I saw myself sitting there, dressed in the same clothes I have on now, but it wasn’t me, it was the wolf. He was mostly white, all his paws were white, maybe he had a blue eye, his fur was brilliant and fluffy. It was a beautiful wolf. He looked strong and content, but totally void of any aggression or anger. He was sitting down. Suddenly he stands up on all four and walks back towards the opposite side of the tepee and lays down. I wanted to scream to him that he should stand up. But he didn’t. It felt like I was on the verge of dying. I am that tired.”
“You are not dying. You are very close to finding your own spirit, who you really are and become one” , Kulan said and I saw he was kind of surprised in a good way, so he said with force; “You are really, really tired, so let us try again, a second time.”
I felt more tired than ever. The Shaman told Pam to go to me, hug me and comfort me. My wife is an extraordinary woman and on her mother´s side, originating from the thaidam tribe, they have shamans. I felt an enormous grief, so did Pam. In the meantime Kulan was beating the drum. Afterwards I was told he had put on skins as clothes, the drum was big and beautiful.
“Let us see”, he said after awhile and I just felt tired and sad when he once again was checking me; “You see, we have moved the level of your body up where it should be, but there is some kind of cold stuck in there, and we need to get it out.”
I felt this chilly cold inside me and this was a very painful time, both physically and mentally. I hurt! I heard myself gruffing, I had an urge to howl, but rationalism made me avoid it and I was moving together with the drum beats, sitting down. Suddenly it was over.
Kulan gave me a very powerful hug, we hugged and he looked profoundly at me. Than we went in to the kitchen all of us and had lunch. At least I thought it was lunch, because it was almost 5 in the afternoon. It had taken 4 hours to sort out my worries.
