Global Lust by Chrissy Iley
The other day I met North Star, a medicine man, a shaman, a Vietnam vet, Navy Seal and PoW. He’s 68 with shiny black hair in traditional braid, although he’s quite rock and roll. Sometimes he likes to give a blessing to bands before they go on stage. He’s blessed Stevie Wonder and has met every one of The Beatles. And last year when he was sick Sir Paul McCartney came to visit him in a faraway hospital.
He could have gone to a big pow wow on the day we met but he jokes, ‘Sometimes you can just have too much Indian.’ Instead he chose to give a blessing to the new Hollywood home of über stylist David Thomas. As we sat on the deck inside North Star burned frankincense and plaited savannah grass. He took out his sacred objects, his 400-year-old eagle feather, his 300-year-old eagle claw and another eagle bone.
Shamanism has run in his family for hundreds of years. His daughter will take over from him and become medicine woman. His blessings are very powerful. The friend who introduced us all was blessed after a car accident by him and instead of taking the predicted ten months to recover and be able to walk again she did it in two. The friend says, ‘I feel it was a hugely contributing factor as to why I got well so quickly. I felt it.’
He frequently refers to people who have died as ‘decided to continue their journey.’ He blesses them, washes them and helps them to cross over. He is often called to hospitals to ‘ease the journey.’
We each received a blessing from him. Our arms outstretched while Native American music played, rattles were rattled and feathers were swooped. I felt a burning sensation inside me and then a light-headedness as if a block had been moved. Everyone experienced similar sensations. North Star looked worried for me. Said: ‘I can feel you’re going through it.’ I certainly felt something shift inside of me and that he’s a powerful healer.
He’s one of the most senior members of the medicine man community. The feathers have been passed down from medicine man to medicine man for generations and the smell of burning frankincense is heady, intoxicating.
I was told that the people around me saw a dark cloud lift from inside of me and float away. Afterwards I felt like I could attract positive energy and strength.
North Star is proficient at putting himself in a trance and once he is prepared and in a trance-like state he can hang from hooks placed between his chest under his arms for a day and not feel pain. They go through a ritual that takes about a day to prepare for the suspension. The hooks go behind the muscles in the breast and he’s done it 38 times. He learnt how to transcend pain when he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. He survived it by cutting out pieces of black and white paper and imagining a piano. That’s where he started to play. Now he ranks as the 80th best concert pianist in the world according to a competition that was held in the US.
There is no doubt he is a very powerful medicine man. Next up I want to bless my home and he also does his shamanistic healing on pets and my cats do love a feather.