Spiritual Wisdom and Guidance

I seem to have been guided to start doing my own shamanic journeys again today, after a long pause of almost 3 years. I felt guided to stop journeying while i was pregnant with my son and infact until now i haven't wanted to sensing that it wasn't the right time, even though my son is now almost 2 years old. I have been meditating on a regular basis to keep in touch spiritually but today suddenly the time was right to journey again to ask a question and to connect to my spirit helper and teacher on this level again. Each journey in my experience has been filled with magical wisdom, guidance and powerful healing. It is such a pleasure going on these journeys and sitting with what you have seen and felt along the way and allowing yourself time to digest it and understand its many levels.

I use Sandra Ingermans beginners guide to shamanic journeying  because there is a shamanic journey drumming session at the end of the Cd and because occasionally i love revisiting her guidance, wisdom and very gentle intoduction to it all. Have a look at some websites about her here and here.

I was lucky enough to work with a wonderful shamanic healer in London called Kathy Fried when i lived there during my Art Therapy training. I synchronistically ended up living just one road away from her for the two years that we lived in London and the sessions that we did together were so life affirming and healing. She is the most grounded, down to earth yet wholly magical and amazing shamanic healer that you could ever hope to meet. It was a great pleasure to work with her and with the spirits in those sessions with her. I have recently been re reading those journeys and the magic, wisdom and knowledge from those journeys is very special, i would love everyone to have an experience of journeying to meet their spirit helpers and teachers, it is eye opening on many levels and can help you make profound changes in your lives. I have talked in a previous post about shamanism but essentially for me it is working with spirits to help you to heal, move forward in your life, recover lost parts of yourself  and to ask for guidance among other things. To go on a journey is to go to an alternate reality/into the 'dreamtime' to search for anwers/ for help from the spirits.

To get you started it can be helpful to find and make contact with a tree in the world that you are drawn to/feel connected to in some way and imagine this as your starting point in your journeys, it is your spirit tree. As the drumming starts (in order to help you get into the right space and tune out any mental chatter and give you a frame for the journey, as the drum beat changes towards the end of the journey for the call back) you ask aloud the question you have come to ask three times and then you see yourself travelling to your tree by any means that you like. You then just allow things to happen, you go with it ( this can be the hard part, but the more journeys you do the easier it gets) and you can ask anyone who comes into this journey a question or for help or equally you can move away from anyone that you don't want to talk to. It is definately not your imagination at work as the guidance that comes through and what happens on the journeys always answers your questions even if it is in a suprising way and usually goes much deeper than you could ever imagine. It can be helpful to start by working with a shamanic healer in order to help you frame your question, to help you to learn how to journey and also to help you unravel the journey afterwards as it has many levels.

Happy Journeying!