We did not take up weapons, for that is not our way, but in the strength of our minds we stood against them offering healing where there was pain and returning kindness for anger.
— Waitaha Elder speaking of the invasion by the Maori long ago.

When I was a young boy, I used to attend services at a Jewish Nursing Home. The moments I enjoyed most were the times after kiddush (a sacred meal), when the men would gather to discuss some spiritual point. They would argue and argue, sometimes to the point of getting red in the face and looking like they would explode into a fight. I remember asking the rabbi, "Who is right?" His response was not what I expected: "They are all right. Each of them has a piece of the truth." And so I learned that we all have our own journey to make and many are trails that lead to wisdom.

I offer this story to contrast how most of us in the West experience conflict. As Deborah Tannen reminds us, "politics is a domain that necessarily entails conflict and opposition."1 Most of us have experienced how politicized our conflicts have become. There is a tendency to treat problems as an either/or duality. Someone is right and someone is wrong. Someone is the winner and someone is the loser. This polarity separates rather than unites us as people. In this context, I know few people who like conflict, including myself.

A few years ago I began researching how shamans worked with tribal conflict. During this research, I discovered that shamans have been utilized to help heal the conflicts of fifteen years of civil war in Mozambique and in post-Apartheid South Africa, where they serve a community role in helping maintain the health and welfare of the village.2 However, much to my surprise, the topic of what tribal peoples may have to teach us about living together in a more connected and harmonious manner remains largely unexplored.

In a shamanic world view where everything is connected, all conflict is ultimately community conflict. Malidoma Somé expresses this sentiment when he writes

Indigenous societies concede the existence of conflict but view it as something of importance and of interest to the community. The conflict is some sort of message directed to the entire community but expressed through the individuals embroiled in the conflict. Interpersonal conflict is therefore not really interpersonal to the indigenous; all conflict is community conflict. The message for the community that lies behind the friction two people are experiencing must be assimilated and resolved successfully to serve the greater good of the community.3

My research taught me that the diversity of approaches different shamanic traditions used for resolving conflicts was vast. Learning this, I became curious about how they might be adapted to Western culture. Through a number of journeys, I gained insights, which I. began to apply. This article shares some of these understandings and offers case examples of healing brought to specific conflict situations.

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