meaning and purpose Archives

While preparing a series of talks on Shamanism, I gathered a few reflections that gradually shaped themselves into something beautiful. I share them humbly and with no claim of ownership, trusting they may resonate with you:

Sink your roots with reverence into the Earth. To wound nature is to wound yourself (Haudenosaunee)

Attend to Grandfather Fire; he teaches those who wish to learn (Wixárika Huichol)

Let the great sea set you in motion; be carried trembling with joy (Netsilik Inuit)

***

Learn patiently from the plants; wisdom grows through discipline (Payé)

Hear the medicine speak; it reveals what is hidden (Mazatec)

Everything has its own song; listen until rocks and colors sing (Lakota)

***

Seek solitude; deep wisdom grows far from the noise of men (Caribou Inuit)

Find your inner light; let it guide you through the dark (Iglulik Inuit)

Understand your own madness; then the spirit world will not carry you away (Chontal)

***

Release your personal history; let go of the past that blocks your growth (Mochica)

Enter the places of fright and terror; truth often waits there (Mazatec)

Take responsibility for your health; neglect prevents healing (Aztec)

***

Look into the body like clear water; seek the truth beneath the sickness (Jívaro)

Know that heart heals heart; the strongest medicine is the desire to serve (Lakota)

Attend to the silence; songs are born there like bubbles rising to the air (Little Diomede)

***

Recognize that healing restores the balance of the community (Dagara)

Stay close in danger; do not separate on the paths of the wind (Wixárika Huichol)

Understand that I am you and you are me; everything in life is connected (Maya)

***

Thank the ancestors and the medicine; gratitude keeps the world in balance (Wixárika Huichol)

Know your place in the sacred hoop; every being is your relative (Oglala Lakota)

***

Guard your words; harmful words are shadows that lead you astray (Lakota)

Make your life a worthy offering; ask nothing in return for healing (Lakota)

Realize that each of us already carries the Great Medicine (Aztec)

***

Move in balance and harmony along the sacred Red Road (Lakota)

Walk in wonder; the world is alive and listening (Wixárika Huichol)

***

Trust what is greater than you; the sacred is never exhausted (Caribou Inuit)

Stand humbly like a child before the endless mystery (Wixárika Huichol)

Collected by Sergio Rodriguez-Castillo from traditional indigenous teachings worldwide

These teachings are shared with respect. Because many of the original voices are anonymous, I’ve listed only the cultural traditions from which these lines were collected, rather than attributing them to specific individuals. This post is offered as an invitation to reflection, not as a substitute for cultural context, lived relationship, or community-held knowledge.

Things don’t look good. It’s getting harder to be an optimist. It doesn’t matter if you are liberal, conservative, man, woman, old, young, even wealthy or poor — there is a sense that we’re moving through dark times. Worse, it seems to be hitting us from every direction: health, safety, economy, relationships, ecology…

Of course, not everyone agrees. Pinker (Our Better Angels and Enlightenment Now), Rosling (Factfulness), and Norberg (Progress) argue that — contrary to what our brains (and the media) want us to believe — we are living in the safest, healthiest, most educated, and most prosperous times in human history. Then again, plenty argue the opposite. Graeber & Wengrow (The Dawn of Everything), Hickel (The Divide), and Mann & Wainwright (Climate Leviathan) claim that inequality, ecological collapse, autocratization, war, and mental health crises put humanity at risk.

I am not a global trends analyst but a psychotherapist. In my sessions, I don’t deal with the reality of the world, but with my clients’ perceptions of it. This makes my work both easier and harder. Easier, since we don’t need to figure out what is “real” (although at times reality-testing is useful). Harder, since facts don’t matter as much as how clients feel about them. (Nietzsche wrote, “There are no facts, only interpretations.”) In any case, I keep hearing concerns about the state of the world. It’s been a while since a client said, “I have a good feeling about where things are going,” quite the opposite, anxiety and depression have surged worldwide—up about 25–30% since 2020—with U.S. rates of depression rising over 60% in the past decade, reaching historic highs.¹

How can we face this reality? Faced with distress, our brain seems to have a limited number of preprogrammed responses: fight, flight, freeze, or appease. Depending on circumstances, we select the most viable. We can despair, give up, curl into a little ball and wait for impact, pray for divine intervention, etc. With my clients, we’ve explored many of these alternatives. None of them (with the exception, perhaps, of some forms of prayer) feels truly satisfying.

Fortunately, there are other options. Some existentialists, who also faced extreme circumstances (WWII, Nazi occupation, concentration camps), urge us to accept the absurdity of existence (not an easy thing to do) and remember that even in the worst situations (e.g., Frankl in Auschwitz), we still have the possibility — even the responsibility — to choose how to respond. We have agency. Our actions matter. We get to choose; we must choose. Regardless of the outcome, it is we who define the meaning of our lives. Some take it even further. Leaders such as Gandhi, MLK, or Thích Nhất Hạnh urge us not only to avoid running from suffering but also to face violence without succumbing to it, to transform hatred through love, and to act decisively with compassion.

There is yet another possible (and perhaps puzzling) approach. As a transpersonal psychotherapist and psychedelic facilitator, I am familiar with the teachings of sacred plants and mystics throughout the ages. Paralleling Buddhism and Hinduism, plant medicine consistently reminds us that life is illusory, a cosmic game or līlā. Many times, I’ve witnessed clients cracking up (what I like to call the Cosmic Laughter) when they realize how silly and pointless our toils are — echoing Julian of Norwich saying, “All shall be well” amid Europe’s plague, or Ramakrishna’s supposed answer to why suffering exists: “to thicken the plot.”

How are you facing our current situation? How is the barrage of negative news affecting you? What resources do you have to move forward? Please remember: if you are struggling, if you feel despair (perhaps the healthiest reaction to our profoundly sick society), reach out. You are not alone. We are not made for suffering in isolation. There is help.

Since my clients are not mystics (yet), and many would not even consider themselves activists, my job is not to philosophize or tell them what to do. I am there (and here) to explore alternatives, to empower them (and you) to make their own decisions. How to face suffering, and what to do about it, is a deeply personal choice. Yet, perhaps influenced by those same mystics and plant-teachers, I — most of the time — remain optimistic. Mostly because every day I witness in my practice the strength, beauty, and dignity of our shared human struggles.

Perhaps, until each of us finds our own answers, the best we can do — as Vonnegut suggests — is to remember that “we are all here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is.”

Sources: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2025/20250416.htm?utm_source=chatgpt.com
https://www.who.int/news/item/02-03-2022-covid-19-pandemic-triggers-25-increase-in-prevalence-of-anxiety-and-depression-worldwide?utm_source=chatgpt.com ↩︎

Stay Up To Date .