Shamanic Journeying

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Release.the.bats
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Shamanic Journeying

Post by Release.the.bats »

There is a pagan pride day in Chicago IL this September. I am consulting a high priestess who is in charge about potentially presenting my own workshop on Shamanic journeying, specifically to find your totem or spiritual animal guide. She wants me to send her a series of handouts I would present considering my age and my lack of legitimate workshop experience, she wants to make sure my knowledge isn't superficial. Considering, i'd have a workshop at 18 surrounded by pagan clergy and revered solitary practitioners who are a lot older than me. Just to make sure that she could defend me if there was anyone who refused to take me seriously based on my age.

Now here is my first handout idea, i'd like to know what you all think and if you believe I need to add more or edit it to contain less information. My workshop would include basic knowledge of shamanism, the difference between spiritual guides(animal) and totem animals, the potential frustrations one could encounter during their first journey, a book list with brief summaries of each & my own ratings on their quality, a potential demonstration with someone from the audience or as many people as want one, handouts of totem animals/spirit guide meanings and tips on applying them to daily life, and a handout of 'how to experience your own journey'. This is my introduction handout. Please give me advice and or tell me what you think:


An Introductory Guide to Native American Shamanism

The Origins:
Shamanism is a spiritual or religious practice that dates back 25,000 years to Central Asia and Siberia. The word shaman is derived from the Siberian Tungus meaning a technique of ecstasy, the American interpretation of technique of ecstasy is taken from the Romans meaning out of place or out of body. A Shaman is a healer who works in the physical and spiritual planes of existence consulting higher powers, spirits, and other beings for aid. There are many different practices of shamanism depending on geographical location, and they vary in names, from Medicine man or witch to Mudang. The former being predominantly Native American and the latter being Korean. Along with the different practices are different perceptions of these shamans, in Korea a Mudang is predominantly a woman of lower class and in India a shaman is someone to fear because of their ability to call upon spirits and depict future events.
However, shamanism is depicted just as differently in Native American tribes as it is all over the world.

Native American:
Shamanism or the role of the shaman is interpreted differently based on the cultural tribe your dealing with. In Lakota and Navajo tribes it is common for the shaman to be seen as a two spirit person or exhibiting duality of gender. Someone who assumes the dress and role of the opposite sex during certain journeys or ceremonies. However, there are many consistencies within the expected duties of the shamans. Typically utilizing the Medicine wheel, healing the sick or injured, speaking too and consulting spirits and higher powers, journeying within, soul retrieval, spirit guides and divination to tell the future. In Native American tradition one becomes or assumes the role of a shaman or medicine witch either by lineage or through illness.

The shaman is chosen by the spirits and ignoring a shamanic calling can cause your illness to intensify or show up repeatedly in different times in your life. The illness is viewed as the spirits way of choosing a person, for that person to become ill and shed a part of themselves to discover the soul and healing oneself. In many modern Native American tribes the roles of shamans have depleted and are almost nonexistent. The ones who do exist tend to be very conservative in sharing their roles or beliefs with outsiders. As well, there are some tribal groups that find the word shaman to be offensive when speaking about their beliefs. This is because a shaman in simple terms is someone who practices transcending planes as an integral part of being or practicing as a shaman. There is a very small percentage of transcendence that is accounted for in Native American tribes, however, I am concentrating on Native American Shamanic Journeying.

Medicine Wheel:
The Medicine Wheel or Sacred hoop is physically a circle of stones with rocks on the outside of the stones and in the center, looking like a wagon wheel on it side. The usage of Medicine Wheels vary within each tribe, however, they are symbolic of the circle of life and are seen to enhance healing ceremonies. They are depicted as representations of interconnection among species to and within mother earth.

Journeying Within:
A shaman is a person who has successfully confronted their shadow self, the ego, and can therefore exist in and on both planes without being spiritually bound to one. Most journeys within are used for soul retrieval, healing, and finding your totem animal or spirit guide.

Soul Retrieval:
This practice is administered by a professional or advanced shaman and should NOT be attempted by someone who does not fit the above requirements. Soul Retrieval is the practice of journeying into the underworld or spiritual darkness in order to find part of a persons soul that has been lost. This person has lost part of their soul due to a traumatic incident in which the person looses or drives out part of their soul in an attempt to deal with this trauma. Many symptoms of having lost part of your soul are very similar to symptoms of depression in Western Medicine. The shaman must find and retrieve the missing piece and administer it to the surface so the person can accept the shamanic healing of placing the missing piece together with the soul.

This person will then require counseling usually from the shaman, to help dealing with the emotions and memories this piece brings back. It is a very important experience for both the shaman and the person being healed, and requires a great deal of responsibility on the shamanic side as a guide for this person. This cannot be done properly without confronting your shadow self, if you have not confronted it and you attempt this, it is highly possible you will become overwhelmed and unsuccessful as well as experiencing extreme bouts of fear and other negative emotions.

Healing:
This can be done for soul retrieval as I explained above or simply to treat illness. The shaman will consult the spirits and or divination prior to healing a person. The shaman may ask the spirits to help him or her to heal them, or they may simply use the energy around them utilizing their body as a median between the sick and the healing energy, by absorbing the energy and releasing it into the ill. This is frequently done with the hands, the hands tend to have a higher frequency of energy than many other areas of the body and is the easiest area to release energy from, other than the feet.

Spirit Guides:
Spirit guides can be humanoid in shape or they can be animals. In most Native American mythology they are animals but can take a humanoid shape. Spirit guides are essence of creatures or beings that exist to help man kind. All people have had or do have spirit guides, most frequently animals, which is what this workshop is about. Spirit guides are the essence of an animal, for example: If you discover your animal guide to be a crow, then your guide isn't a specific crow but the essence of all crows. Spirit guides tend to show up when called upon by your totem animal or other spirits to help you during a specific journey in this lifetime. They will leave and be replaced with other animals once their job has been completed. However, from my experience they tend to leave part of themselves with you, to sort of keep you in line. Now, the difference between totem animals and spirit guides is that totem animals don't leave. Now, don't think that if you don't have a totem animal your spirit guide is of lesser value, this simply isn't true. Your spirit guide is just as important as a totem animal and deserves your respect and communication.

Totem Animals:
Totem Animals are believed to be the essence of an animal that is birthed with you in this life. It is part of your soul and therefore doesn't change, but remains eternal. Not all people experience totem animals, and for some it is very easy to become confused with the difference between an animal spirit guide and a totem animal. Totem animals in many Native American beliefs are hereditary based on your tribe, however, it has become evident in people who don't have Native American decent. But generally these people have strong ties to Native American beliefs. Generally your totem animal will come to you while journeying or through dreams. It is believed that your totem animal will be shown to you in four separate views in dreams, while journeying and on the physical plane. Totem animals also tend to have strong personalities and will tell you exactly what you should do or what they think about what you have been doing. It is common for totem animals to call upon spirit guides to help get your attention, if you simply refuse to listen to what they are trying to tell you."

Anyone? I want to make sure of it's quality in case if I do have a workshop and everything.
Release.the.bats
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Post by Release.the.bats »

P.s. I put this here since it's about healing and spiritual work.
As well, if you would like to learn more or read all of the handouts or articles as I create them. I will continue to update the thread with them each time I complete them, for your reviews and opinions.
So you can keep checking this thread for more daily, or hourly.
Depending on how much time I have.
Thanks!
Release.the.bats
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Post by Release.the.bats »

How to Experience a Shamanic Journey

A Shamanic Journey is a journey deep within the spiritual or subconscious self in an attempt to discover truth, understanding or wisdom. When deciding on whether to give yourself a shamanic journey you need to understand what your looking for or why your proceeding with your journey. Seeing as there are different types of journeys and each one entails a different level of experience and tools, this journey is specifically for discovering your totem or spiritual animal.

What you will need:
A friend/companion
A drum or a CD with drumming that you are very familiar with
An hour of uninterrupted time
A place that you can imagine that will be your rock to the physical plane

To begin:
-First you'll want to lay down, on your back, on a flattened surface, preferably a floor or a surface that is as close as you can be to the earth. You can do this outside, but it can be trickier to maintain an hour lapse of uninterrupted time. You’ll need your partner to grab a drum, the beat they will play you need to agree on beforehand, if you use a CD, make sure they don't start it till you give them a signal your ready to begin. Once you are situated you'll want to close your eyes and relax your body. Your partner should start the music or begin the beat when you tell him or her to do so, generally after you begin to feel relaxed.

-After your body is relaxed you'll want to take a few deep breaths, don't strain yourself, but make sure each inhale and exhale is coming from your lower abdominal region. After you've done this two or three times, your breathing can regain normalcy. You'll want to imagine yourself falling into yourself, or following a road that leads within you. At the beginning of this road you should see a specific place of meaning to you, something in the physical plane that grounds you here. Something that when seen makes you feel truly here, this can be a specific tree, a house, woods etc. Just something to let you know when your returning to the physical plane.

-This road should begin to turn into roots leading you deeper within yourself. This should correspond to the steady beat of the drum. Along these roots you will encounter different things, some people encounter animals others encounter bugs and some encounter strange objects. If you encounter an animal you can ask it mentally whether it is your spirit guide, generally you will receive a feeling of either yes or no. Generally when you first encounter your spirit guide or totem animal will be at the climax of the beat. When it first begins to increase in rhythm. If you encounter bugs, be careful, generally you don't disturb them, you can ask them whether they correspond to you, but only if you receive positive vibrations from them. Objects are open to personal interpretation. If you encounter your spirit guide you can them proceed to ask them questions, yes or a no questions are best at first. Don't try to order them around or take the lead, you follow them not the other way around.

-If you encounter an animal and receive a powerful almost frightening feeling from it, and it pops up at least four times in your journey in four separate view points (i.e. demonstrates aspects of it's personality as a fighter, nurturing, cunning etc. or it can show you a view from under it, above it, the side, the back, far away etc. All of these count as different views). This animal is your totem animal, now don't assume that seeing an animal doing one or two things differently, that it's your totem animal. It must be four or more. You treat your totem animal the same way you'd treat a spirit guide, you follow it and listen to the answers it gives you.

-There should be a point in the drumming where it begins to become slow again, this is your signal that it's time to leave. Say your good byes to your animal and you can request that it visits you more often. You must then begin backtracking your way till you reach your physical plane marker (the tree, house, rock, etc.) and then you advance into your mind.

-Once you have returned take a few deep breaths from your abdomen, generally two or three, and then your breathing can once again regain normalcy. You may open your eyes and you can share your experience with your partner and or write it down.

If your experience was unsuccessful in finding your animal guide or totem, don't worry, you will find it. You can try this journey again if you'd like or as often as you wish. After you have found your totem or guide, you can use this as a way to communicate with them.
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Post by [ShadowPhoenix] »

Well, I don't know much about Shamanism but I can review the info for you....
Release.the.bats
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Post by Release.the.bats »

Feel free.
=]
Leo*Moon
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Post by Leo*Moon »

In the Origins section, " ...fear because of their ability to call upon spirits and depict future events." I would just change depict to predict.

I would also recommend throwing in a short sweet definition somewhere of the "shadow self." Its mentioned a few times without the reader ever being told quite what it is.

That was a great little article on Shamanism! And you're only 18? That's freakin awesome! Shhhhh, I'm 20, power to ya! PM me if you ever want some input from another young involuntary shaman. They're not kidding when they say "chosen by the spirits."
The fool thinks himself to be wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool. ~Shakespeare
Release.the.bats
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Post by Release.the.bats »

Thanks!
Will do.
And i'm actually 17 now, but when the pride day comes in September i'll be 18.
I'm still in the process of preparing all the handouts and the lesson plan to send to the woman, for the pagan pride day.
Hopefully I get in.
:D
When were you chosen?
Leo*Moon
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Post by Leo*Moon »

Its hard to say exactly when. I've had weird things going on my whole life and I got into paganism 7 or 8 years ago. I don't think it was until February or March of last year that I finally acknowledged that I was on the path of shamanism. Still I don't like to use the word because I feel like it has such a heavy meaning and can stir up a lot of controversy. Especially being a 20 year old white girl. Your handout hits the nail on the head as far as my personal experience goes and its very reinforcing.

Good luck getting in!
The fool thinks himself to be wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool. ~Shakespeare
Release.the.bats
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Post by Release.the.bats »

Thanks!
I'm going to update this topic with more handouts, so check back and tell me what you think.
I realized my path lied within shamanism close to a year ago, but i've been receiving a calling since I was 12. I just didn't know what it was.
I guess it's not really a coincidence that after I got severely sick, and doctors told me I was completely healthy, despite that I had been vomiting for almost 24hours and slept for 18hours without waking, that I saw my first ghost.
Leo*Moon
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Post by Leo*Moon »

I suffer from uterine hemorrhaging and the doctors don't know why. I've tested negative for thyroid problems and ovarian cysts. That was back in high school. In late 2007 I ran out of medication (they put me on birth control to regulate me) and I refused to go back to the doctor for refills. Last January I had begun the long slow process of bleeding to death from the uterus. By April I was almost bed ridden with iron deficiency anemia. I lasted until late June when the doctor agreed to write me a new prescription without an examination. I'm still on the quest for natural remedies to my illness, since my health insurance and prescription run out in August. I think I'll be much more prepared this time.

I know this is way off topic but yay for having things in common. It was in the middle of that disease that I had heightened senses and I could see and hear things I couldn't before.

I will definitely stay tuned for the next round of handouts haha!
The fool thinks himself to be wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool. ~Shakespeare
Release.the.bats
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Post by Release.the.bats »

That's amazing!
Not in a good or bad way, but it's crazy to hear other peoples stories of shamanic callings.
I read a story from someone who suffered from stuttering, it was interesting.
I actually posted a topic here called 'Does insanity really exist?', where I mentioned that back when shamanism was practiced in a wider sense, that people who suffered what we now call mental illness were seen as touched by Gods or spirits.
theSeeker
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Post by theSeeker »

Release.the.bats wrote:How to Experience a Shamanic Journey
I believe my soul was opened to the Shamanic ways a few years ago (even though I have been dealing with it for the last twenty years of my life - with out knowledge of why) - but now I am here and I want to say "Thank You" for this post, I hope to use the steps you have placed before me to reconnect with that which I felt I lost as a child.

... blessing
Leo*Moon
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Post by Leo*Moon »

theSeeker wrote:
Release.the.bats wrote:How to Experience a Shamanic Journey
I believe my soul was opened to the Shamanic ways a few years ago (even though I have been dealing with it for the last twenty years of my life - with out knowledge of why) - but now I am here and I want to say "Thank You" for this post, I hope to use the steps you have placed before me to reconnect with that which I felt I lost as a child.

... blessing
There are a couple of books that have helped me a lot that you might want to check out. I keep coming back to them :)

Soul Retrieval: Mending the Fragmented Self by Sandra Ingerman
If you're a woman- The Woman in the Shaman's Body: Reclaiming the Feminine in Religion and Medicine by Barbara Tedlock
The fool thinks himself to be wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool. ~Shakespeare
theSeeker
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Post by theSeeker »

Thank You for the INFO.
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