158 SECRETS OF SHAMANISMfor you to go to the car dealer and test drive that new car
than to go to the office and work overtime. Sit in it; feel how
it feels to drive it; close your eyes and smell how it smells;
etc. Once you have recruited your senses into achieving your
goal, then the rest will follow. If it means working overtime a
few days, you will then gladly be willing to do it. For as
shamans would say, it is the heart that motivates above all
else.
Problem Solving
Suppose you set a goal for yourself that is truly what you
wish for, but in order to attain it you recognize that you must
first either change your habits or beliefs, or change a situa-
tion that limits your ability to reach that goal. This usually
requires problem-solving skills, our next focus in this
chapter.
He Who Runs Like the Wind was not born with his
name; he was initiated into it. All his growing-up years he
could remember wanting to be like the great hunters who
ran with the herds for days on end. He was born the
stronger of two, his brother dying with the first moon, his
mother with the second. The spirits had exacted their
price from him too; the boy was born with a twisted foot
from being confined in utero in such a small space with
his twin brother. When the tribe had moved on, he would
have been left to fate on his mother's grave if She Who
Knows the Sun had not taken him as her own.
She Who Knows the Sun was a medicine woman,
wise in the ways of nature and the spirit world. Sometime
in his seventh year, the boy revealed to her his dream of
running free and swift like the wind. The wise one looked
at his crooked foot, then at his shining hopeful eyes and
said, "You must know the Wind. It is the most powerful of
all: It can tame water, wear away rock, and move earth. It
can give you the freedom you are searching for if you
know it."
Upon hearing her advice, the boy set out every morn-
ing for seven moons to a place she had designated.
There he spoke with the Wind, slowly, awkwardly at first,
then laughingly and lovingly. He journeyed within to seek
help from his totem, the fierce and swift Hawk, and to-
gether with the Wind, Hawk taught his feet to fly. Limping
at first and then with dancelike strides, the boy ran across
the plain again and again, the muscles in his feet growing