We Borrow the Earth: An Intimate Portrait of the Gypsy Folk Tradition and Culture

by Patrick Jasper Lee

  As he reached me, I threw my arms about him and we hugged for a brief moment. Then he put the daffodils in my hand, squeezed my hand with his affectionately, and turned and walked away. As he neared the edge of the wood, the wind blew up keen again, blowing more strongly this time so that it seemed to sting my face. That was when I woke up, still lying on the bench, with the wind and rain hitting my face.

  I had that dream, or vision, in October, and I carried those daffodils with me throughout that following winter, never letting them go, never failing to ask for help again and never leaving the greater Spirits of Air, Fire, Water and Earth out of my prayers. By the beginning of April, when the daffodils had bloomed, I was indeed making a full recovery and beginning to continue with my Chovihano’s work again. This time, though, I was fighting for a new cause, for the ancient world, which had the power to look after those of us who stuck close to it, and all that nature was.

  It is true that many of us do not ask for help when we need it most and instead feel obliged to show a brave face, or perhaps I should say a ‘proud’ face, as it is more a case of pride and even stubbornness that we refuse to ask for the Otherworld’s help, and has little to do with courage. There is always a way out of every dark corner, as my grandmother used to say, if our personal problems are genuine.

  I found my own way out that day. I was tested by Bavol and rewarded by Bavol. My ancestor stayed close and pulled me out of a very negative frame of mind and I eventually learned how to communicate with all the Otherworld spirits far more effectively.

  Bavol has often made an appearance in my life in order to bring me a message. He can ‘waft’ into your life to give you a valuable message or ‘blow a gale’ if you have trouble receiving a message. He is always a sign to me that ancestors are close. Pani will ‘seep’ or ‘flood’ into your life in much the same way. Many who begin an education with the Otherworld will invariably be tested by Bavol and Pani, in many ways. My advice is to befriend these two very strong spirits from the beginning. Talk to them honestly, telling them you’ll do anything to change, give them offerings, and they will always become your allies rather than your invisible enemies. When I look back I can see that I had to go through these difficult times with Bavol and Pani because they knew that the ancient Romani gypsy spirit, being untainted and undiluted, needed to feel that she was in safe hands if she was entrusted to me. I fell down, but I also got up again and dusted myself off, moving on from the past and not dragging it with me, and Bavol and Pani needed to know that I could do all these things.

  Perhaps if I were to sum up what it is to be educated by the Otherworld, I would describe it as learning to understand and talk openly with each small part of the jigsaw puzzle of life, in all its variations.

  The gypsy Chovihano is witty, astute, childlike and indeed passionate and romantic. It may be strange to some to associate romance with an indigenous shamanic or Otherworldly road, but that is also very much a part of the old Romani gypsy way. When saving the damsel from the castle in the forest, the prince must be a romantic to be able to rescue her!

  The Romani gypsy spirit has a tremendous capacity for deep reflective emotion, particularly the Lee clan, courtesy of Shon the Moon Spirit and Pani the Water Spirit.

  I was taught that we are all made from Air, Fire, Water and Earth; we are considered to be masculine in Air and Fire, in the top half of our bodies, and feminine in Water and Earth, in the lower half of our bodies. We are all obliged to bring out the characteristics of these elements, or spirits, and often express the negative aspects before we discover the positive aspects. Both Jack Lee and the ancestor have shown me seemingly infinite depths. Sitting with either of them can be like sitting beside a great well whose bottom you can sense but never see. I wanted to be ‘down’ there playing within those depths.

  I believe that the development of emotional depth is necessary, in fact far more necessary, to learn in any education regarding magical education and the Otherworld, for we cannot hope to help ourselves or anyone if we don’t understand this. I have seen far too many people across the world expecting to bond with the Otherworld when they are completely unable to bond with their own deeper emotions, which would provide them with access to the Otherworld. Their education, therefore, becomes incomplete, as they will never be able to reconnect with that vital ancient part of themselves.

  Probably the deeper emotions, the passion, romance, the active imagination and the awareness of the mechanics of the Chovihano’s craft sounds a complex mix, and of course, by today’s standards it is, but I believe that these things are naturally, and uniquely, present in varying degrees in most of us who are whole, and who are of Indo-European extraction. We are intrinsically bound together with this mix and by this mix, from an earlier time. Squashing the emotions doesn’t help anyone, but far too many people are inclined to do it, and far too many therefore are not eligible to develop anything of the earlier craft of the Chovihano.

  I also believe that the roots of this mix lie in the deeper past, with many of those earlier native tribal people in Europe. Some of us in the Western world are likely to carry their blood; we have been born of their bones and can still sing their songs should we keep a strong connection with their spirits. Ana, the beautiful Romani woodland queen is, for me, a remnant of this past. Ana was queen of the Keshali race of little folk who governed the European woodlands. She is taken down into the Lowerworld by its king, Lord Beng, during the winter months, and is released by him after a fight with the summer light, in spring. The qualities Ana brings to us: the emotions of passion, romance, tragedy, along with reflection and regret, are human qualities that we need to allow for if the darkness is to allow the light to take its place. Where once we might have encouraged these emotions representing this fight between darkness and light to flourish, we now cast them aside and in fact want to keep the sun bright in our lives all the time. This is aptly expressed in those who suffer from SAD - Seasonal Affective Disorder. Is it that such people suffer from not having the sun in their lives in the winter? Or is it that they have lost the ancient capacity to experience the darkness of winter?

  Without darkness we cannot have light; we can never know or enjoy the beauty of a small spring bud if we cannot cultivate our own capacity for natural darkness and mourn the loss of light.

  Ana is said to be wailing in the mountains, her sighs constitute the moan of the Spirit of the Wind, and there she will remain until 999 years have passed, or until we return to our ancient understanding of the full power of emotion brought about by our relationship with summer and winter - which is what we experience in a European yearly cycle.

  Preserving the ancient native tribal spirit of Europe is perhaps what the indigenous Romani gypsies have been about. They are without doubt a remarkable feature of the human race, having come through so many trials, persecution and misunderstanding. I with my indigenous roots still live to tell a tale of tribes who have stood the test of time where so many other tribes have fallen down.

  Traditions, at the end of the day, can only run skin deep and can only become, collectively, a vehicle for the spirits who drive them. Perhaps it is more important that an ancient ‘character’ has been preserved in the Romani gypsy Chovihano that I am. In people like me, there may just be an opportunity to catch a glimpse of the deeper European past as it might once have been. Certainly in Jack Lee I saw this; I saw a man who at times had nothing short of what we might term a ‘primitive’ mind.

  But what of the Chovihano? Where is he going? What is his future? Where am I going? What is my future?

  I believe that we are past the stage when Chovihanos and indigenous shamans can work as they used to work. Their role is now sadly extinct. Neo-shamanism has become a ‘religion’ in its own right and is of its own making. I discovered when working with students in the ancient way that many didn’t want to learn what the old ways were, but were more interested in mirroring me, to the point where many would declare that they were actually already practising
as Chovihanos, and were in fact just like me - even having grandmothers who were just like mine - except they didn’t exhibit anything I would be able to learn from, which is clearly what would happen should an individual be working in the old way. This was an extremely saddening fact to discover: that a lack of belonging, a lack of a role, and a preoccupation with something important caused many people to become blinded to what they were actually doing. Shamans, not just myself, but many all over the world have had to hang up their Otherworldly tools, or else make money at demonstrating their craft, as I myself have done in the past. It is without doubt one of the world’s most tragic losses that ancient tribal ways of thinking have disappeared. We now face a world devoid of primitive education, knowledge and wisdom, and nature is at the mercy of however human beings, in their thirst for power and domination, choose to shape her.

  I believe that our life paths are now more insecure than they have ever been. Unless we can turn to nature in our hour of need in an ancient way, releasing the egos we so carefully love to nurse, we risk losing our connection with anything that can ultimately liberate us.

  I know this will sound like ‘doom and gloom’, but we have to understand that it’s all in our hands to shape as we will.

  As a Chovihano I would like to offer the reader of this book a gift: a daffodil, like the flower that was given to me from my ancestor when I was at my lowest in my younger life. Should you be honest and true with yourself, should you have humility and principle, should you be willing to sacrifice anything you really need to, should you only want to serve nature rather than your ego, should you have a passion to promote the ancient life, even though you may not fully know what it is, and should you be able to admit that you know nothing and are nothing, then this small flower may reach you and pull you to a new level of understanding. This is a knowing that the human race, however you believe it was created, is but a tiny fragment of what we term life; it is at the bottom of the pile of those animals and birds who have a right to all that nature has to offer. We may consider ourselves to be intelligent beings, but we have yet to prove that we are as intelligent as the bird who sings in the tree outside your window, or the spider who crawls across the ground, or the blade of grass that shivers in the breeze on your lawn.

  Are we as intelligent as the single daffodil I give you?

  It is for you to ask yourself that question. It is for you to find out.

  Chapter Nine

  MEETINGS WITH ANCESTORS

  Reviving the Romani Gypsy Ancestral World

  Ancestors have always been extremely important for the Romani gypsy. There are ancestors in the trees, ancestors in the stars, ancestors in birds and in stones, and even ancestors in the fairy-tale figures who journey with you and who reside in the Otherworld; and there are also, of course human ancestors. As important to the Romani gypsy as food and air, a true ancestor has the power to transcend all worlds.

  Earth and sky, Puv and Ravnos, are the oldest ancestors of all. These are considered to be our grandparents and to have lived long before humans existed. Kam and Shon, as mother and father of the Romani gypsy race, are also very old, and human ancestors - some of them thousands of years old - all dwell in the ancestral realms.

  Today, we do not honour ancestors. We take flowers to the graveside and keep photographs of those we have loved in our time, but those generations who are farther back in the past and who have never been personally known to us are very rarely thought about. We sometimes act as though we had no ancestors at all. It is perhaps understandable that our mixed roots here in the West are a source of confusion to us, but our roots also run deep. If it were not for those who came before us, we would simply not exist today! Our ancestors were real people, whoever we consider them to be, and even though we don’t know who they might be, they are still our long lost mothers and fathers.

  Reviving the ancestral world has become one of my greatest challenges, because I see the loneliness that exists in people through not having ancestors in their lives. It was such a normal part of gypsy life to honour ancestors, as it was normal for all of us in earlier times. I do not believe we are fully healed until we properly reunite with our ancestors after death.

  According to Romani lore, knowing or remembering the names of ancestors who are in our past, what they did and where they lived whilst on Earth, is not really necessary. Labelling ancestors may focus too much attention on the departed soul and it is important that the soul is given every opportunity to move on to live a new life in a free way.

  But just by thinking about our ancestors we are reconnecting with the souls of our people, and we are, in the more spiritual life, linking up with all the human families we ever had, stretching back behind us. We are also, unconsciously, putting ourselves in touch with Puv, the Spirit of the Earth, who is considered to be a member of the greater ancestral gypsy family: the Romanies believed that Puv was grandmother to all human beings everywhere. It is perhaps not so difficult to imagine this as we are all built of a similar substance when we are taken apart and analysed scientifically.

  My ancestor, Puro, or ‘Ancient One’, usually takes a human form, but occasionally he takes others, like trees and birds and appearing to me in dreams as well as in my daily life. This is all quite normal. A human ancestor will borrow the spirits of other life-forms - or shapeshift into them - in order to send messages to those in the physical realm.

  As an example of this ‘shapeshifting’ technique, I was once going through a bad patch in my life when everything negative was seemingly being directed at me. One night I had a dream in which a large black bird, a little like a crow, came into my house, flew into each room and then flew out again through the bathroom window. Having learned the symbolic meaning of black birds and just how much human ancestors can enter dreams, I was able to put the two things together to provide myself with an interpretation. A black bird or a crow has many meanings in gypsy lore, particularly concerning trials and tests, and of course negativity possibly because a crow is black. But at this particular time in my life, Puro was instructing me in something important that I was having to learn and I was not always giving him my undivided attention. I knew that he had sent the crow, or had shapeshifted into it within the dream, in order to collect up all my negativity - much of which was at the time self-imposed - and carry it all away. After this dream, I could think more clearly and, feeling a good deal better, was able to resume my instruction with Puro in his human form again. So we could say that the spirit of the crow provided Puro with a more efficient means of ridding me of my dark mood, perhaps in a way he could never do in his human form.

  So how do we know when an ancestor may be shapeshifting into other life-forms to help us?

  First, there is no doubt that your ancestors will help you on a much more detailed level if you allow them to be the wise people that they are. If you regularly honour them by giving them offerings, you can usually procure their help. You can take offerings out to the woodlands or onto the hills or to a stream, to special natural places which may mean a lot to you, for they are likely to reach your earlier ancestors there, those who prized these places and lived within them much more than we do today. You can also give offerings to ancestors at specific times, such as Hallowe’en, as the veil between this world and the Otherworld traditionally thins at this time. It is a good idea to offer something you enjoy. Food and alcohol are traditional within the Romani culture. It’s important to offer things that can be eaten by animals and birds, so that nothing remains intact in any beauty spot. Resist giving objects. When you set down the offering, see whether a bird or an animal comes to take them. You may then see your ancestors shapeshifting into these specially selected creatures and accepting your gifts!

  When we spend more time thinking about ancestors we start to ask many questions, i.e. how do we find our ancestors if we don’t know who we’re actually looking for? We have to ask ourselves what we are basing our investigations on when looking for them in this more Otherworldly way
. It isn’t, after all, like looking up our family members’ names in parish records or on ancestry websites and getting all the facts! It seems that in order to find our real ancestors in the Otherworld, we are obliged to - imagine them?

  This seems to make no sense at all. Yet reality and fantasy cross paths again! We soon find ourselves standing on a bridge with the world of the imagination on one side and the world of fact on the other, and both are tugging hard. It is a very shaky bridge, but it is one the Romani gypsies have been able to stand on quite easily for many hundreds of years. Needless to add, we may need to be here on this bridge more often if we are to begin to understand the imagination and the human mind.

  Something, however, we would do well to remember is that we only find such questions difficult to answer in these times because we are living in these times. This may be some consolation!

  As already mentioned, before the dawning of the scientific age, in the last few centuries, and when it was not so important to think quite so geographically, the imagination was not considered to be such a confusing issue, but it has now been suppressed for so very long, we have completely forgotten its capabilities; our relationship with our imagination has changed because our relationship with ourselves has changed. We therefore really have no option but to study the imagination - with a view to understanding the Otherworld - with our present understanding of science. The ancient Romani way can provide us with a few clever guidelines for tackling this seemingly strange idea.