Power Animals Archives - Shaman's Way

Finding Your Power Animal – A Lower World Journey

This lower world journey is part of our how to do shamanic journeys series and is recommended as your second journey. If you haven’t read the first post in the series, we recommend your start here.

The Lower World Journey

First just listen to the sound of the drums or rattle and allow your body to relax. Set your intention by saying out loud or in silently to yourself that you are journeying to find your power animal. It is important to set an intention just like you would for any other spirit work. Begin by envisioning a place in nature that you are familiar with, your anchor spot. Use your imagination to help you start this process. When you can see the spot you have chosen start to look for an entrance into the Lower World.

An entrance into the lower world could be a fox hole, a hallowed out tree trunk, a ladder, a water fall… it could really be anything. The feature you are looking for is a way to get down into the Lower World. I would suggest staying away from unnatural features, such as an elevator. Once you have located an entrance into the Lower World prepare to move into it. I would like to point out that not all entrances into the Lower World are easy or comfortable. When we think of it in logical terms fitting into a fox hole for the average person could be a bit tight. It can be the same in the Spirit World, but have no doubt that you will be able to fit. What ever gift the spirit world gives you is more than likely the right way to enter into the Spirit World. Do not be discouraged if you find it difficult to enter, it can be a test by spirit to find out how much you really want to try this. [Read more…]

How to do Shamanic Journeys

Welcome to your first shamanic journey!

Journey work is one of the most fundamental tools in the shaman’s toolkit. While the method of doing journey work is quite straight forward, it can be, for some, a challenge to do. One of the biggest things I can recommend is practice. If you are having trouble getting into the journey, practice and it’ll come. And if you slide right in like a fish in water, practice as it’ll only allow you to discover more!

What you will need to get started:

A comfortable place to lay down.
A cover for your eyes.
A time where you will not be disturbed.
A drum beat to journey to (if you don’t have a drummer, download these free drumming tracks).

I would recommend that if you have animals you may want to lock them out of the space where you will practice your journey work. The reason for this is they may disturb you and bring you out of the state. It can be quite disorientating to be quickly pulled out of an altered state. [Read more…]

Shamanic Healing

Shamanic healing is a spiritual, and medical, practice, based upon the belief all healing includes a spiritual dimension. Shamans enter altered states of consciousness to communicate with other realms of reality. Your journey is to help the patient, a family, or community, to rediscover their connection to nature and spirit. Anthropologists refer to traditional healing as ethnomedical practices In days past, and in some places present, the shaman is still responsible for the health of the individual, as well as the community. There is a physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual balance to be maintained, or, reestablished. Shamans can be the ritual leader, bone setter, as well as the mediator between the community and the spirit world. To better understand how shamanic practice can heal, it is important to understand four basic concepts of shamanism. Healing can be accomplished by working with the unseen inner spiritual reality to create changes, which in turn, create changes, in the consensus reality. [Read more…]

The Shamanic Language

Language can really complicate simple matters. A few years ago I had a wonderful opportunity to spend time with three long time students of Jungian ideology, and analysis. We went to meet a Jungian analyst specializing in Alchemy.

Sounds interesting, and it was… what was even more interesting to me was the fact that we spent a good deal of the two hours we had together trying to come up with a common language to understand each others experiences and thoughts. No simple task, but a very interesting one.

Language: When I first started to study shamanism there were few books published regarding the practices of shamans. I looked high and low for how-to books but they did not exist. The books that I did find are considerably different than the books I read today. The basic language of shamanism speaks of the three worlds, Upper, Lower and Middle. The Lower World is where you meet your Power Animal. [Read more…]