The drumming can be quite relaxing, and you might find yourself drifting into sleep if you start the journey when you are too tired to concentrate. If you do fall asleep while you are journeying, there is no danger involved—in fact, you will only wake up feeling refreshed!
Returning from Your Journey
You do not want to be “shocked” out of your journey. However, the fact is that our surroundings are often noisy, and we have to learn how to work with that. I have trained myself not to be distracted by the sounds that occur around me when I journey. In fact, I choose to go deeper into my journey whenever I hear a noise so that I do not experience the noise as an obstacle. If I do become shocked out of a journey and feel disoriented, I focus my attention on the drumming and return to where I was in the journey.
Returning from a journey has to do with pure will, intention, and choice. You can always take another journey at another time if you did not finish getting all the information you needed or if you want to visit another realm in non-ordinary reality.
During the drumming, I will not be speaking to you at any point. However, there will be a change in the drumbeat that will be your signal that it is time to return. If you want to return before the return signal, simply say “thank you” and “goodbye” to whomever you are in dialogue with and retrace your steps back. See or experience yourself returning via the same route, jumping off point, or entryway that you initially used to enter non-ordinary reality. Come back into the room where you are lying down or sitting and take off your headphones or turn off the drumming CD. You do not have to wait for the signal to return; however, many people like having the return beat played out for them.
The signal to return begins with four sets of seven short beats. Again, say “thank you” and “goodbye” to whomever you are talking to. Even if you are not with a helping spirit, say “thank you” and “goodbye.” The reason for this is that “goodbye” signals to your psyche that something has ended. Saying “goodbye” will help you feel more grounded when you return from your journey. Remember that a shaman journeys into non-ordinary reality and back into ordinary reality with concentration and discipline.
After the change in drumbeat of four sets of seven short beats, you will hear a rapid drumbeat for about a minute. During this rapid drumbeat, retrace your steps back to your starting place and into the room where you are lying or sitting. You will then hear a second series of seven short beats, indicating that your journey is over. Take off your eye cover if you were using one, open your eyes, and turn off the CD.
After quietly reflecting on your journey, you might wish to take notes about your experience. The most important advice I can give to you is to be patient with the process and be compassionate toward yourself. I have never met a person who could not journey. However, I have met many people who tried journeying many times before they felt that something was happening. I suggest that you keep up the practice—relax, keep breathing into your heart, open all of your senses beyond just your visual awareness, set an intention, and in time, you will be journeying.
Unfortunately, we live in a culture based on immediate gratification. However, shamanic journeying is a lifelong spiritual practice that has no destination—there is no place where you should be after only a few journeys, or even after a lifetime of journeying. Once I had the opportunity to meet an Ulcchi shaman from Siberia when he came to the United States to work with a group of students. He was in his nineties when I met him, and he had begun journeying at the age of seventeen. He still called himself “a baby” in the work. This is a perfect example of a genuine shaman’s attitude toward the work of shamanic journeying that we have begun.
One final warning: Please do not listen to the drumming on the enclosed CD while you are driving!
Chapter 5: Common Questions about Shamanic Journeying
Will I experience my journeys with all of my senses?
You will find as you begin your journeys that one or two of your senses will be stronger in non-ordinary reality. Some people are more clairvoyant, meaning that they see scenes, pictures, and symbols in their journeys. Others are more clairaudient, meaning that they hear messages from their helping spirits in the form of words or voices. Others are more clairsentient—they feel the information in their bodies. And many people are some combination of the above. In my case, I am mostly clairaudient, and I largely rely on the telepathic messages that I receive from my helping spirits. I also see, feel, smell, and taste in my journeys, although these sensations are less pronounced.
In shamanic literature, you will often find the term “shamanic seeing.” Shamans see with their hearts and not through their eyes. Likewise, the spirits make contact with us through our hearts, not our minds. However, due to the sheer volume of movies, TV, and computers in our culture, we have become very visually focused. As a result, one of my greatest challenges when I teach journeying is to get people to stop expecting to see their journeys as if they were watching something on TV or at the movies. Imagine never hearing voices, music, or the sounds of nature. Imagine never smelling fragrances, tasting your food, or having the ability to touch and feel others. Life becomes very rich when all of our senses are engaged, and the same is true in our shamanic journeys. Unfortunately, people in my workshops sometimes do not think they are journeying unless they are having a visual experience. So I work hard to encourage them to awaken all of their senses when they are in non-ordinary reality.
My experience is that the sense that is strongest for many people in ordinary reality is the weakest in non-ordinary reality. For example, I find that many artists do not visualize their journeys—instead, they get most of their information through feeling or hearing. Although this may be different from what they expected, the gift is that the sense that is less developed in ordinary reality suddenly has an opportunity to become enlivened and strengthened through journeying.
Part of the challenge when you begin to journey is to discover which senses are your strongest in non-ordinary reality and to trust your experience of your journeys—even if they contradict your expectations. Once you have been journeying for a while, you will find that you will see, hear, feel, taste, and smell in your journeys just like you do in your ordinary life. In addition, your intuitive abilities in ordinary reality become heightened because your senses are so engaged (and therefore, become more honed) in the course of journeying. In other words, you will develop your own unique language in journeying that may not be how you experience ordinary reality, although the benefits of it will spill over into your regular life.
There are also different styles of journeying. Some people experience themselves as meeting with or walking with their helping spirits on a journey. Some people experience themselves as being outside of the journey and watching themselves within it, as if it were a movie. And some people experience themselves merged with their power animal or teacher, moving through the journey in a merged state, rather than being separate. This is a powerful way of being on a journey, as we have joined with the power of the universe when we merge with our power animal, guardian spirit, or teacher. This is also a very healing experience. Most of us find that we flip back and forth between different styles of interaction, depending on the nature of the journey and our level of experience.
It is also important to remember that everything that happens in a journey is part of the answer to your question. You want to be aware of your surroundings—whether you see, hear, feel, smell, or taste them. Many people only focus on the answers that their power animals and teachers give them, but the weather in your journey can also be part of an answer to your question. Even where the sun is in the sky and whether it is night or day can be a part of the answer to your question.
How do our helping spirits communicate with us?
There are different ways in which the spirits communicate information to us in our shamanic journeys. One way is through telepathic messages. You might see or feel yourself with your power animal, guardian spirit, or teacher, and yo
u might hear a message, although you do not see their lips moving. Or the spirits might show you symbols as a response to your question. Or they might take you somewhere to witness a scene that somehow answers your question. But the most common way in which the helping spirits communicate with us is through metaphor, which is a teaching method common to all spiritual traditions.
An example of this is in the Aramaic language—the language of Jesus—which was highly metaphorical and poetic. When the Bible was translated from Aramaic into Greek and then into English, the metaphors were translated literally, often changing the meaning of the words. One example is that there is no word in the Aramaic language for either “good” or “evil.” The most comparable words in Aramaic were “ripe” and “unripe,” referring to how everything is part of an ongoing, organic process. But when the Bible was translated into Greek and then English, the words chosen to represent “ripe” and “unripe” were “good” and “evil.” This mistranslation alone shaped the evolution of Judeo-Christian culture such that human nature became perceived as something separate from the natural cycles of readiness and unreadiness.
When an answer is given literally, there is only one road to walk down. But when the spirits communicate using metaphor, there are many possible levels of teaching and meaning. I feel that the spirits are trying to inspire us to expand our perceptions of ourselves and our situations by offering guidance in this way. In addition, metaphors and poetry weave together many layers, which teaches us how everything is interconnected.
Years ago I had a powerful experience in a journey that taught me the importance of metaphoric language. I had journeyed to my power animal and asked him what I needed in my life. He told me I should garden more. I thought his answer was a bit strange, because I was traveling a lot at the time and I also lived on land that was not very fertile. But I spent a few months that summer in between my travels gardening when I could.
At the end of the summer, I suddenly realized that I had been mistaken to interpret his answer literally. It finally dawned on me that he meant for me to relate to the image of a garden as a metaphor, and to look at how I was nurturing the garden of my life and body. He was also asking me to consider how I was teaching and working with clients. Was I planting seeds of love, hope, and inspiration in my lectures and classes? Or was I planting seeds of fear? He was asking me to view all of my words as seeds, and to consider what kinds of plants were growing out of my words.
The next time I journeyed to him, he said that he was wondering how long it would take for me to understand the true meaning of his guidance. On the other hand, he observed that my real-life gardening was good for me—so it was not a complete waste of time! However, he explained that in the original journey, he was trying to offer a broader picture of my life than the postage-stampsized garden outside of my house. He was trying to show me that many people are filled with fear and despair, which underscores the importance of telling stories that inspire love and hopefulness. Traditionally, shamans were the psychologists of their communities—they knew the stories that would heal their clients. My power animal was asking me to make sure that I was telling healing stories to everyone I met in my classes, my practice, and my life—which was a valuable lesson.
My experience has been that our helping spirits are always trying to get us to expand and grow. They are always trying to inspire us to make positive changes and to live full and meaningful lives. They are always trying to wake us up from being disconnected from nature and the invisible worlds, since so many of us are stuck in the limiting beliefs of ordinary reality. One technique that they use is metaphor, which makes us stretch in the process of interpretation. Metaphors make us break out of the tiny boxes we put ourselves into with literal interpretations and ask us to see the bigger picture of our lives. I would still be out in my garden toiling away if I had not reflected more deeply on my guidance.
How should I language the questions that I ask my helping spirits?
My experience has been that there are two key factors to a successful journey: generating a strong intention and asking the right questions. The best kinds of questions to ask begin with the words who, what, where, or how.
When you first begin to journey, it is best to ask one question per journey. Be sure that your question does not have an “and” or an “or” in it, which would make it two questions in one. You see, if your helping spirits give you symbolic answers, you will not know what question they are answering. You might think your helping spirit has finished answering the first part and gone on to the second, when it might actually be giving you more information in response to your first question. Until you become accustomed to your shared language with your helping spirits, it is best to ask one question per journey. You can always journey again at another time to ask another question.
As you gain more experience, you might find that you can ask more than one question per journey. At this point, I am very comfortable with the form of communication that my helping spirits use, which enables me to carry on long conversations with them. However, it will take time and practice for you to reach that level.
When you are asking for help about an important decision, it is best to ask questions that will result in the most information possible. A simple yes or no answer will not help you think through a difficult decision. Likewise a “should I” or “should I not” question is not ideal. For instance, it is very common for people to ask their helping spirits whether they should marry someone. If you present that question in “should I” form, your power animal might answer, “Yes,” giving the impression that the marriage will be a happy one. Later, if you have a painful marriage that does not succeed, you will wonder why you were guided to enter into it. However, your helping spirits may have viewed the marriage as an opportunity to learn important—albeit painful—lessons. It is important to understand that while our helping spirits will protect us from harm, they will not protect us from the hard lessons that we sometimes need to learn in this lifetime. On the other hand, if you had asked, “What will I learn or experience if I marry this person?” your power animal might have replied, “You will learn about betrayal.” That response would have provided you with a much clearer understanding of what would unfold in your marriage—and whether or not you wanted to choose that path.
During one of my more memorable journeys, I encountered my teacher Isis who asked, “Do you know what your problem is?” I was very surprised by such an abrupt question and replied, “No. What is my problem?” She replied, “You just do not see life as an adventure.”
So I told her that I had some pretty serious concerns that might be getting in the way of me feeling adventurous about life. I shared a list of concerns with her, including the fear that I might end up as a homeless person in New York City. Growing up in New York, this has always been an underlying worry of mine that my friends love to tease me about.
She looked at me and then turned away. Then she looked back at me and stared straight into my eyes and said, “What an amazing adventure that would be!”
If you think about it, it would be an adventure, but maybe not one that I would voluntarily choose. However, her view was typical of the view of spirits in non-ordinary reality—they see human life as a beautiful adventure filled with opportunities to learn and grow that can be found in even the most unexpected circumstances.
“Why” questions are sometimes fine, although they may not always be answered directly. For example, if you ask a question such as “Why did my loved one have to die in that accident?” you may not receive a clear answer. Some things belong to the mystery of life and either cannot be answered or may not be appropriate for you to understand. This certainly does not mean you cannot ask “why” questions. It is simply important to understand that there are sometimes limitations to the answers you will receive to those questions.
It is also very difficult to get accurate answers for “when” questions. Remember that you are traveling outside of time; time takes on a differe
nt and often mysterious meaning in non-ordinary reality. This is why prophecies are often inaccurate or unclear around timing, which can also be true of the answers you get to questions about when something will happen.
How do I interpret my journeys?
Although some messages are obvious and direct, journeys are often filled with symbols that can be difficult to decipher. Since shamanism is a system of direct revelation, no one can interpret your journeys except for you.
If you are stuck on the meaning of a symbol or metaphor, here are some suggestions. Try asking more questions about what occurred during the journey to see if any new information arises. For example, “How did the presence of the sun pertain to my question?” or “How did the landscape that I perceived relate to my question?” Work with each of the clear elements that were present in your journey to uncover how they provide additional information in response to your question. Another useful technique is to write in your journal or talk aloud in a stream of consciousness until your psyche reveals the answer. Often, the process of reflecting on the information given to you brings about clarity. I also recommend that when you feel stuck, journey to your helping spirits to give you the information you need in another form that might be easier for you to understand.
Shamanic Journeying Page 4
