Jade Wah’oo Grigori is a practising shaman living in Sedona.  Jade is a gregarious and self effacing man in his late fifties and  has been a practising shaman for over thirty years. He came to his calling the way so many of us come to our own life’s path: by accident and with the  beneficial trickery of another and much wiser person.

We shared a pot of Puer tea last week on his porch as the blue birds chattered in his pine trees. Jade is is of Mongolian descent and lived with the Ute Indians in his early years.. His choice to drink Puer tea was in line with his Asian ancestry. Puer tea was carried by horseback from Yunnan to Mongolia for thousands of years.  I had replaced the horse in bringing Puer  from Yunnan to Sedona.

When Jade was 24 years old he offered tohelp an old man with some chores around his remote cabin.  Initially Jade did not know  the old man was a shaman, a “Caretaker of the Ways”.  The man, in his  90’s, had no descendants to train for the life of a shaman. As Jade grew to know the man, this gave him comfort, because as he was being taught the ways of the shaman, but knew he never would have the responsibility of a true shaman: he was not born into the man’s family.

After months of time spent doing chores and learning of the rituals, beliefs and practical applications of a nature-based and spiritual way of living the man asked Jade to sit on the ground outside of the cabin. Using eagle feathers and tobacco smoke the shaman performed a short ritual on Jade.  Eyes twinkling, with a cackle  that sounded eerily like a coyote the shaman declared that Jade was now his grandson.  Jade had been spiritually adopted by the shaman!

Jade’s human and less than spiritual response was to run. He ran far and fast through the trees, canyons and valleys.  He ran for seven miles back to his camp.  He could not out run what had just happened to him.  A spiritual adoption, he knew from living with the Utes was a stronger bond than even blood lines.  He would have to go back.  Besides, he had left his horse tied up outside of  the shaman’s cabin.

The training continued for eight years until the death of shaman. Jade is now and has been the “Caretaker of the Ways”.

Jade speaks and writes on spiritual matters. He performs sweat lodges and trains others in the ways of the “lodge”.  Jade has assisted thousands of people throughout the decades find a clearer understanding on their life’s purpose and where they are in the journey.  I was not visiting Jade for any of those reasons.  I needed some advice on a memorial service on the top of Mount Whitney for two fallen climbers.

Jade described a very simple ceremony that is used around the world and is not indigenous to any one people or belief system.  A small fire is built. One by one the mourners approach the fire and sprinkle a hand full of cedar chips or ceremonial tobacco onto the fire.  As the fire crackles with the added fuel the mourner speaks out loud their final words to the departed. They then turn and walk away, never looking back.  A caretaker stays with the fire adding no fuel, letting it burn into ashes.

Jade asked that I develop a  tea serving appropriate for the occasion.  That is now my assignment from Jade.

Drink your tea with reverence. To learn more about Jade go to www.shamanic.net 

Andy

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