One of the corner stones of shamanic practice is the shamanic journey. Anyone can journey, as long as they can visualise. Can you close your eyes yet still ‘see’ a loved one or a special place when you imagine it?
Then you can journey. The journey is how you access knowledge, healing and power directly from wise, all-knowing, compassionate spirits.
In my shamanic training, the answer to many of our questions from our teacher Simon Buxton was, ‘Journey on it’. There was a poster reminding us to do this on the back of the toilet door and it is the punchline to the joke, ‘How many shamans does it take to change a lightbulb?’
At first, it’s easy to think that you are making journeys up, but the method proves itself in time. You start to experience incredible synchronicities between your journeys and real life. So, just go with it and see what happens.
Journeying is a practice and the more you do it the easier it gets. Sometimes a person needs some shamanic healing before they can journey but this is the exception rather than the rule. There are many books and YouTube videos on how to journey and it is safe to try it by yourself at home if you follow the method. It’s not always like going to see a movie when you journey. Sometimes you get a feeling or a knowing or simply see colours but all of the information counts and you always get the perfect journey for you in that moment.
The first step is to set an intention. ‘My intention is to journey to the lower world, meet an animal and explore’ is the first journey many of us attempt. Setting an intention stimulates the will. The human will is a very powerful tool and when journeying we need to be relaxed enough to let a journey happen but engage the will enough to get somewhere. The journey is powered by breath, will and imagination and is best done in darkness or with an eye covering.
Once in an altered state, one imagines their consciousness travelling to their chosen axis mundi. Axis mundi literally means the straight line at the centre of the shaman’s world about which it rotates. It connects the worlds on the shaman’s map. We have upper world, lower world and middle world. We live in middle world and use the axis mundi to access upper or lower worlds. It can be a tree, a mountain, a waterfall, the smoke from a fire, a cave, a well…the list goes on. In CS Lewis’s classic, it is the wardrobe through which the children access another world. In Alice in Wonderland, it is the rabbit hole. The axis mundi you use to journey should be a place in ordinary reality which you know and have a connection with.
So, you imagine your consciousness travelling to your axis mundi and go down it (or up it for upper world journeys). People are sometimes worried about going to lower world because they associate ‘going down’ with hell, however hell does not exist in shamanic terms and seems to have been a construct of organised religion.
Once in lower or upper world, one carries out one’s intention until the drum beat changes to the call back rhythm, then one retraces her/his steps to the axis mundi and returns to the room and body. Another worry people have is that they won’t come back from a journey. However, one is obliged to return because the soul is tied to the physical body for this lifetime, even if the experience of the spirit realms is so beautiful you want to stay.
In lower world the spirits often show themselves as animals and in upper world as more humanoid in appearance, such as angels or goddesses. There are no rules though. Indeed, the rules of physics don’t exist in journeys and you may find yourself breathing under water, talking to animals, walking through solid obstacles or flying. It can be great fun and quite wondrous.
The spirits communicate in metaphor and the metaphors are designed for you and your life. No-one else can interpret your journeys because no-one else has lived your life. For example, a harp signifies Ireland to me but might represent a pint of lager to you. Metaphor is richer in meaning than literal communication, rather like playing a chord on a piano instead of a single note.
One of the things that surprised me most about journeying was the sense of humour of the spirits. They love to joke and tease.
Once you have met your animals and spirit guides or teachers, you journey regularly and build up relationships with them, then you can ask them for help and healing as often as you want. There is no budget or limitation on your requests. Remember to keep a journal of your journeys and prepare to be blown away by the layers of meaning and content when you refer back to your notes in the coming months or years.
The other place one connects with spirits is in our dreams. Having a journal by your bed and recording dreams as soon as you wake, before moving, turning on a light or looking at a device helps with recall and again practice is key.
Journeying and dreaming are fascinating and interesting but the true changes occur when we start acting on the information received, in ordinary reality. Taking this leap, like the fool in the tarot deck, takes daring, trust and, some would say, naivety. It may feel awkward at first to follow a course of action you saw in a dream or which was advised by an animal spirit guide in a journey. The results are awesome, but the only way to test this out is to try journeying for yourself.
Article by Dr. Mary Hernon
The Shaman Doctor
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