Shamanic Journeying

Before you begin... Photo: By ImageAfter.com

Arrange for a place and period when you won't be disturbed.

Choose a sonic driver to shift your brain waves into shamanic-journey mode (somewhere in the alpha-theta range). This can be monotonous drumming, rattling, droning, singing or chanting voices, or other music or repetitive sounds you like but that won't draw your conscious attention away from your shamanic journey purpose, say to lyrics or old memories.

Have handy a way to record your experience (notebook and pen or digital device), pillows and blankets (as needed), and a scarf or other way to cover your eyes (optional).

Relax, breath in and out while deciding upon a shamanic journey intention (what you want from spirit and spirits).

Then re-create and open up sacred space-time around you, physically, emotionally, and mentally. Incense or a diffused aroma-blend can help you clear your self and a sacred circle area. A cloth and/or flat stone in the middle can serve as a portable altar where you can arrange items that re-mind you of spirit-power (as you understand this).

Start the recorded sonic driver and (circling around or standing) drum, rattle, dance, sing, chant or otherwise call in and fill up with spirit-power for a while.

While you are calling in spirit and spirits and filling with universal life power, imagine, as vividly as possible (but not necessarily by visualizing), a place in nature, somewhere you have been or an imaginary place (or a blend of natural and imaginary), where you are always refreshed and cosmically inter-connected. Inwardly fill this shamanic journey departure space with as much detail as possible - but don't struggle to do so.

Relax more and more deeply, even while you rattle, drum, sing, and dance.

Recall and focus - or decide upon if you haven't already - your shamanic journey intention, the help or answer or shift for the better you desire and seek for yourself or others. Shamans always journey on purpose.

When you are ready to shamanic journey lie down, get comfortable, and close and cover your eyes. An eye-covering scarf (mask or fringe or hat) helps block distractions and symbolizes mystery, but you can cover your eyes with the back of your hand, and it is not necessary to cover your eyes at all to shamanic journey.

I usually lie on my back to shamanic journey but I also go face down or even sitting (usually leaning against pillows or a tree).

Allow the sonic driver to carry you along or dive into the non-ordinary between sound pulses or vibes. Continuous sound also helps keep you slightly awake and fully aware while you merge into the light trance which is also called the shamanic state of consciousness.

Lower Realms Shamanic Journeying - I Usually Go Here First

Imagine a cave or tunnel or portal or symbolic shape in the nature-place departure space you have been exploring (or relaxing in and enjoying) and head downward, maybe spiraling downwards towards the lower shamanic realms that are often associated with of health, luck, vitality, and many kinds of practical assistance (and can correspond to the body's lower energy-centers).

Distractions are OK. Simply recall your shamanic journey intention and continue on your way as often as it takes. I must be willing and ready but healing and transforming are done by spirit and spirits, regardless of the intensity of my experience.

Go through a dark or dim (not necessarily black) passageway or get through another sort of barrier or portal (like a gate or curtain - or vibrate through a drum-head, or some other way) to be assured that you have left the non-ordinary middle-realms of duality, the spiritual sides of our everyday world, where there can be much contradiction, confusion, unfinished business, and (mostly self-)deception.

If a challengers or obstacles appear, go around if possible, or state your purpose and keep going as soon as you can. Usually you will be able to keep going.

Creative imagining can help as you navigate non-ordinary reality. If your imagining isn't of spirit and spirits, it just won't work, so go ahead, seize solutions to challenges. Play!

When you arrive in the first level of the shamanic lower realms, seek a helper, who usually appears as an animal, often a mammal if this is your first journey. Your shamanic experience may be hazy or foggy or fade in and out and you may need to explore this first lower-world level persistently, recalling yourself from distractions and self-doubt over and over.

After I have met up with a shamanic spirit helper in the lower realms, my journey may continue through upper and middle realms. I often go with my lower world helper(s) to the shamanic upper realms next to seek more help around my shamanic journey intention from angels or spirit helpers in human form, such long-ago ancestors.

All the non-ordinary realms of spirit are interconnected and all kinds of helpers, guides, and teachers can appear in any of them. Spirits of rocks and plants can be the helpers who appear alongside animals or otherkinds. Frequently renew your eager, expectant childlike wondering and the spirit of universal fun for the best results with the shamanic journey process. (Practice helps a lot, too.)

I only shamanic journey the middle-realms after collecting powerful, trusted assistance from the lower and/or upper worlds, where unity and benevolence prevail. When I experience challenging or scary or even seemingly devastating events in the lower and upper realms of the shamanic universe, I know or remind myself that ALL experiences there are always healing and beneficially transforming.

Whatever happens, pay attention, because it is all the answer or the help you seek.

If you suppose you are making your shamanic journey up, don't worry. Pretending is a helpful shamanic journeying technique for me. Pretend is another kind of real to shamans. Childlike enthusiasm will take you far in non-ordinary reality!

When your sonic driver stops playing or sounds a call-back signal, thank all beings present in your shamanic journey, then ZAP back to ordinary reality.

Record your experience as soon as possible so you won't forget when it starts to fade like a night dream. What you forget or don't remember still helps you, if you say this is so.

If nothing or nothing much seemed to happen on your shamanic journey, do not assume nothing or nothing much happened spiritually. Dreams or daydreams or everyday experiences may bring more details later, even days later. Even if you suppose you didn't shamanic journey at all, if you intended spirit-help for yourself or others, then you received it, if you say this is so.

Another shamanic technique is relaxing, breathing, and staying where you are on purpose, and allowing help to come to you from spirit and spirits though the drumming or other sound you choose.

Next (to be continued...) I will tell about upper world shamanic journeying.