Becoming the teacher
By Lian Brook-Tyler
"The more you know, the more you realise you don't know." - Aristotle
These words are the story of my life… I am the possessor of a perpetual beginner’s mind and therefore a forever student.
I’m in the final six months of three years of hard, devotional and initiatory shamanic training - not counting the years before in which I was fortunate enough to be taught by the the spirits of my land, especially the Rose, Oak and Buzzard, or the years before that immersed in many kinds of spiritual and alchemical traditions… Many people tell me that I know a lot, and yet, I realise that still I know so little.
Of all the archetypes I embody, “Student” is the one that has been with me since childhood and fits most easily. I anticipate a lifetime of learning ahead of me, and I realise that I still won’t know a fraction of what there is to be known. Which is fine by me, I don’t learn for the knowledge, I do it because for me, learning is like wandering down a country lane in the sunshine.
I understand that most people aren’t like me, most people want to know the least needed to do what they need to do. I respect that, I’ve envied it at times, and little by little, I realise that means that I need to also become the Teacher - someone that others can learn from - but it’s one of the archetypes I have resisted most.
Whilst the archetypes of the Feminine, the Priestess, the Shaman and the All Mother have provided (and continue to provide) much Material for Liberation, it’s still the Teacher that sits least well with me.
This is despite, or maybe because of, coming from a lineage of school teachers… my father, my uncle and my grandmother. Teaching is my heritage, it’s in my blood and bones, but not the kind we know today, it’s an ancient kind of teaching that I’m still in the work of remembering.
Decades ago, my father recommended the brilliant book “Ishmael” by Daniel Quinn, we were both struck by the term “Maieutic”, which comes from maieutikos, the Greek word for "of midwifery.", it is a way of teaching and learning that felt natural to us both.
Socrates' mother was a midwife, and as told in one of Plato's Dialogues, Socrates describes his method of bringing forth new ideas by reasoning and dialogue as ‘maieutikos’… he helped others birth new ideas inspired by the way a midwife helps mothers to birth their babies.
This is how I teach too - my children and our students. I teach in the same way I love to learn… through mirrors, experience, questions, conversation, and invitations to dance with the mystery.
And I’m learning what the wise midwife knows: that she isn’t the most important person in the room and her tools and techniques are rarely the deciding factor of a successful birth.
She knows it’s all about what serves the mother and her opening.
This student is learning from the doulas and medicine men and women, old and new - how to create the set and setting of prayer, offerings, ritual, ceremony, relationships based in love and trust, and the honouring of life and death that is most conducive to opening, whilst recognising that opening is always a sovereign choice of the person who is birthing.
I am devoted to serving my students in their opening… opening to become their deepest, truest selves.
And I’m equally devoted to my own opening.
The one thing I do know after all this time, is that no amount of knowledge can come close to becoming the hollow bone for Spirit to teach me and teach through me.
Spirit is the real Teacher and I am forever the student wandering down a country lane in the sunshine.
P.S. If you’re feeling called to birth the deepest, truest you, I’ve linked some resources below, including a link to book a call to see if it’s aligned for you to join us for Waking The Wild Medicine, the next crucible I will be “teaching” in.
Photo: Me wandering down my lane in the sunshine