176 SECRETS OF SHAMANISM
with different temperaments and jobs to do. Some are more
aggressive and act as guards and warriors, protecting the
queen and the hive. Others are service-oriented, geared to-
ward caring for the larvae. Still others are dedicated to pro-
ducing the wax and building the hive structures to house the
honey and the larvae.
With so much diversity in all worlds, it is natural to find
this same level of diversity among human beings. And as
with all other kinds of beings, there are classes or subtypes of
human beings that are specialists in function and type, each
contributing to the survival of the whole. Knowing how to
communicate with people of different specialties is a key to
successful negotiations with them. Knowing your own spe-
cialty and learning how to use it is equally important. Al-
though you have your own specialty, you have elements of all
people's specialties and styles within you. Your challenge is
to contribute your distinct talents while developing those
parts of yourself that are weaker and less familiar to you. In
this way, you move toward the balance that shamans are
continually seeking.
Let us now look at one of the ways that people specialize.
The types that we are going to describe here do not exclu-
sively belong to the world of shamanism, but they are al-
luded to and referred to among a great many mystic
traditions. Let's take the Navajo approach to illustrate the
different styles.
Think of the human body as a large country with the na-
tional boundaries being the skin outlining the body. Think of
the major organs of the body as cities and the glands and
smaller organs as the townships and villages. The major ar-
teries and veins are the freeways and roads linking the cities
and towns, and the nerves are the communication lines be-
tween them. These cities, roads and communication links are
configured similarly in each human being, but their relative
size and strength are what makes up the differences in peo-
ple. In some people the brain is the capital city, in others the
heart is the capital, and in still others the gut is the center of
commerce and government. Roughly speaking, these are
then three major classes of people: head people, heart peo-
ple, and gut people. From a shamanic point of view, knowing
exactly how each operates can be a key to power and knowl-
edge.
These different orientations determine how a person re-
sponds initially to any situation. A head person reacts to any
stimulus with thoughts, a heart person with emotions, and a
gut person with actions. Here is a more complete description