One Million, ten thousand, one hundred and one years ago I was prematurely born into the Tribe and not expected to survive. My Mother took me to the Shaman who journeyed and returned to pronounce that I would suffer but live I would and become the next Medicine man.As a child I endured long periods of ill health, was slow to develop but hung on to life with a strength and determination that came from who knows where. I ran and played with the others and slowly became stronger than I should be for my size, never letting my shortcomings hold me back, there was something different about me.
Animals would respond to me in a way that never occurred to the others, approaching rather than retreating. I instinctively knew if someone else was in pain, I saw glimpses of their futures and could tell them when I had a good or bad feeling about upcoming events. They began to trust my judgement.
Animals would respond to me in a way that never occurred to the others, approaching rather than retreating. I instinctively knew if someone else was in pain, I saw glimpses of their futures and could tell them when I had a good or bad feeling about upcoming events. They began to trust my judgement.
One night while everyone else slept, a presence entered our hut and I awoke to see the dark shadow approach and then envelop me. Enclosing my body whilst I fought, it began to choke me and when I felt I couldn't hold out any more, I let go and instantly the darkness was gone. I'd learnt my first lesson and survived my first test.
In the morning I spoke of my experience and although extremely disturbed and concerned about this, my Mother knew what the Shaman had predicted and placed me in her care. I moved into the Shaman's hut on the outskirts of the village and slowly began to hone those traits that I had displayed.
Soon I was able to journey from the earth, the middle realm, to the underworld below and to the stars above by traversing the depths of the roots of the World Tree or climbing high into it's branches whilst physically sitting beneath the Magic and Sacred Yew, the teaching Tree and a metaphor for the cosmos.
Years later when our Shaman was taken from us by old age and I had grown into her replacement, I began to treat my brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers. I spent the autumn foraging for the sacred roots and fungi in preparation for the Tribes Winter Solstice Celebrations.
My mind engaged in seeking out my predecessor in the spirit world and my successor in the living plane. I journeyed alone to the Sacred Yew, I sat with my spine against it's own, the living bark, one branch protruding comfortably over and above one shoulder keeping me firmly in its embrace as I lit a small fire. With my eyes closed the flickering light danced across my eyelids in colours of pure Gold.
The canopy seemed to envelop me as had the shadow, the branches that fell towards the earth in a wide circle became like feathery skirts, drifting back and forth, protecting and sheltering me as I searched for the answers to all of the questions posed by my Tribe. The feeling is one of progression, that work is being done and that the Journey will eventually lead to a destination.
Leaving the sanctuary of the tree for a moment, I returned but the shadow that can only persist in the absence of the blindingly beautiful glare of enlightenment crept back inside with me through the ethereal boundary forming outskirts of the yews canopy. Engulfing me in its perversion it threatened to overwhelm my nature and again, just as it was poised to extinguish that light the spark that remained rebelled in the briefest instant.
In that moment I learned the last and most important lesson. From now on nothing can exist that we don't create... I asked the sacrament, the Mushroom, what will happen at the end of all things? I was shown a future version of myself. One who would come in due time and who would release the angst and regrets of all previous incarnations, who could unite and forgive, heal and destroy the darkness. I saw the sacred masculine and feminine essences entwine for eternity.
I was one half and my love the other. Only we two in the entirety of existence. Everything and everyone else were figments of our vast and wild imaginations. We had decided to play along with the cosmic giggle right up until it expires. To ensnare ourselves in this human existence and abide by the rules of the game. To restrict ourselves to this mortal coil until it can fully unravel. Until time itself ends as Matter ascends into pure energy and light.
Thinking of you...
Light &
Love
Jon
x
---
All forms of shamanism, whether traditional or contemporary, describe the ‘journey’, 'soul flight' or ‘spirit travel’. The shamanist scholar, Mircea Eliade, described this as, "the pre-eminently shamanic technique [of] the passage from one cosmic region to another - from earth to sky or from earth to the underworld. The shaman knows the mystery of the breakthrough in plane."
This ‘breakthrough in plane” which has been described, in physiological terms, as shifting from the left brain to the right brain via the corpus collosum, refers to the moment the shaman’s consciousness shifts from the here and now and enters worlds visible only to him. These worlds, which vary with each culture and tradition around the world, may be described as 'alternate reality', 'the realm of the spirits' or 'non-ordinary reality'.
Although often considered ‘primitive’, part of a pre-modern heritage modern people seem to prefer to forget, or seen as the ‘religion’ of less developed peoples and cultures, shamanism is both sophisticated and paradoxical. The ‘worlds’ of shamanic journeys, are utterly real – they exist and can be felt, smelt and experienced in every way as clearly as this ‘ordinary’ reality. At the same time they are qualitative spaces, states of mind that reflect and support the reason for the shaman’s journey. This geography of worlds, Piers Vitebsky suggests, ‘can be seen as a topography of mental states’.
Different shamanic cultures perceive the world, seen and unseen, in roughly three different ways. Some traditions of the Arctic, sub-Arctic and North American regions consider the sky as a tent and relate to the tent pole as the Sky Pillar, the link between Earth and the celestial realms. This was translated to a flag pole during a Santeria ceremony I witnessed in south east Cuba. Animals were sacrificed at the base of the pole and at the nights end the master of ceremonies climbed the pole to hang a flag in a gesture of climbing towards heaven. This symbolic link between Earth and Heaven is also familiar in the architecture of pyramids, temples and ziggurats which can represent the Cosmic Mountain, another connecting image between Earth and Sky.
The World Tree
The third and most extensive cosmological symbol and the one that contemporary shamanism, uses is that of the World Tree.
A tree, any tree, is a simple yet effective symbol of the three-layered cosmos that shamans, past and present, and from many different regions of the world, experience on their journeys. The Tree pervaded Mayan culture and in Norse mythology the god Odin hung on Yggdrasil, the World Tree. From the basic three layers many others may extend and in some shamanic cultures these many-tiered worlds are clearly identified and taught to new apprentices. In contemporary shamanism, which focuses on an individualist approach, each journeyer’s Lower, Middle and Upper World will be unique and personal; despite this, archetypal images and themes are common.
Lower World
The roots of the tree lie deep in the darkness of earth; the roots support and nurture the tree physically; the roots are the naked mirror image of the branches reaching into the sky - as above, so below. What lies under the earth, beyond the unseeing darkness is the Lower World, the place of power, of healing, of animals and our own animal ancestry. The Lower World is the place where we touch our origins and genetic heritage and it is from here that we draw the energetic power of the ancestors, which is to say all that has gone before.
In contemporary shamanism, as in many traditions, the Lower World is accessed by the shaman sending her 'free soul', her travelling self, to a familiar, real life place, such as a hollow tree, a pool, a cave, a rabbit hole. Entering the ‘access point’ the journeyer looks for a tunnel that leads deeper down into the ground, a tunnel that will eventually open to reveal the shaman's unique Lower World landscape. This landscape varies from person to person and can alter according to the lessons or information being sought in the journey. The Lower World is most frequently a place of forests and mountains, of rivers and seas, of small woodland clearings and vast chasms.
Middle World
The Middle World, the trunk of the tree, that which can be touched, embraced and climbed, is the alternate reality closest, and in some traditions, identical to, our present, everyday reality. It is the axis mundi, the link between above and below.
In the Middle World, a contemporary shaman’s journey may take her on trains, in cars and on aeroplanes to meet a teacher and ask for help and advice on the worldly issues that affect us all: finances, career and matters of home and hearth. The Middle World is the place we are most easily tuned to in waking state, the place of the senses. In a Middle World journey however, the shaman will go beyond the ordinary sensations of everyday life and perceive the natural world untrammelled by the physical body. A journey to the Middle World can deepen understanding of ordinary reality and reveal its wonder and beauty; things often taken for granted.
My own Middle World, the place where I go to learn about the relationship between world and spirit, is located on the ordinary-reality border between Egypt and Libya. It’s a dune in the Western Desert, where sand teaches me about permanence and impermanence, about the ways in which things that seem solid and firm, can flow and vanish to reform in a different shape.
Upper World
Just as the shamanic Lower World has no resemblance to the Hell of Christian cosmology, the Upper World is not necessarily filled with bright light and singing choirs. However, a shaman, like everyone else, is subject to their context and for many people the Upper World is indeed a place of brightness and grand architecture. For others it is a place of cloud and birds powerful enough to carry the shaman on their backs. Reaching the Upper World can be achieved by the shaman climbing a tree, or other plant, like Jack and his Beanstalk; by rising up in the smoke of a fire, climbing a mountain and jumping upwards, walking along a rainbow or, as in the Bible story of Jacob, climbing a ladder.
In contemporary shamanism, the Upper World is taught as a place of higher consciousness where we can meet teachers of profound wisdom who will guide us in the exploration of our own divine self and help us uncover our own mystery.
If the Lower World is the place to ask for power and healing, the Upper World is the place for existential Q & A: ‘Why am I here?’ or ‘Show me my true path in life’. In my experience however, the spirits are both subtle and wily; if I ask to be shown my path I am shown a path, literally! Sometimes if I ask questions that have no immediate bearing on my life or work I am asked, "Do you really need/want to know the answer to this?" and the truth of course is that often I do not.
A few years ago a new place started appearing to me in journeys, a place where all the Worlds meet and where all my teachers appear simultaneously. From this place I can visit any of my own three Worlds, or I may travel to somewhere new and unexpected. My Upper World, once green and busy with humans and animals is now a thin, biscuit crust that snaps and breaks at every step revealing other Worlds far below. I don’t know why this is happening, I have just accepted it. Perhaps one day I’ll ask!
The shaman's cosmology is a complex one that describes both the alternative universes that physicists are just starting to explore and the internal topography that reflects the society in which the shaman works. While this may seem paradoxical or inexplicable, in purely shamanic terms, where all is spirit and all is one there is no separation between this or that, between here and there, between you and me and the concept of inner and outer states loses meaning.
© Zoë Brân PhD
In the morning I spoke of my experience and although extremely disturbed and concerned about this, my Mother knew what the Shaman had predicted and placed me in her care. I moved into the Shaman's hut on the outskirts of the village and slowly began to hone those traits that I had displayed.
Soon I was able to journey from the earth, the middle realm, to the underworld below and to the stars above by traversing the depths of the roots of the World Tree or climbing high into it's branches whilst physically sitting beneath the Magic and Sacred Yew, the teaching Tree and a metaphor for the cosmos.
Years later when our Shaman was taken from us by old age and I had grown into her replacement, I began to treat my brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers. I spent the autumn foraging for the sacred roots and fungi in preparation for the Tribes Winter Solstice Celebrations.
My mind engaged in seeking out my predecessor in the spirit world and my successor in the living plane. I journeyed alone to the Sacred Yew, I sat with my spine against it's own, the living bark, one branch protruding comfortably over and above one shoulder keeping me firmly in its embrace as I lit a small fire. With my eyes closed the flickering light danced across my eyelids in colours of pure Gold.
The canopy seemed to envelop me as had the shadow, the branches that fell towards the earth in a wide circle became like feathery skirts, drifting back and forth, protecting and sheltering me as I searched for the answers to all of the questions posed by my Tribe. The feeling is one of progression, that work is being done and that the Journey will eventually lead to a destination.
Leaving the sanctuary of the tree for a moment, I returned but the shadow that can only persist in the absence of the blindingly beautiful glare of enlightenment crept back inside with me through the ethereal boundary forming outskirts of the yews canopy. Engulfing me in its perversion it threatened to overwhelm my nature and again, just as it was poised to extinguish that light the spark that remained rebelled in the briefest instant.
In that moment I learned the last and most important lesson. From now on nothing can exist that we don't create... I asked the sacrament, the Mushroom, what will happen at the end of all things? I was shown a future version of myself. One who would come in due time and who would release the angst and regrets of all previous incarnations, who could unite and forgive, heal and destroy the darkness. I saw the sacred masculine and feminine essences entwine for eternity.
I was one half and my love the other. Only we two in the entirety of existence. Everything and everyone else were figments of our vast and wild imaginations. We had decided to play along with the cosmic giggle right up until it expires. To ensnare ourselves in this human existence and abide by the rules of the game. To restrict ourselves to this mortal coil until it can fully unravel. Until time itself ends as Matter ascends into pure energy and light.
Thinking of you...
Light &
Love
Jon
x
---
The Shamanic Journey: Where Shamans Go
This ‘breakthrough in plane” which has been described, in physiological terms, as shifting from the left brain to the right brain via the corpus collosum, refers to the moment the shaman’s consciousness shifts from the here and now and enters worlds visible only to him. These worlds, which vary with each culture and tradition around the world, may be described as 'alternate reality', 'the realm of the spirits' or 'non-ordinary reality'.
Although often considered ‘primitive’, part of a pre-modern heritage modern people seem to prefer to forget, or seen as the ‘religion’ of less developed peoples and cultures, shamanism is both sophisticated and paradoxical. The ‘worlds’ of shamanic journeys, are utterly real – they exist and can be felt, smelt and experienced in every way as clearly as this ‘ordinary’ reality. At the same time they are qualitative spaces, states of mind that reflect and support the reason for the shaman’s journey. This geography of worlds, Piers Vitebsky suggests, ‘can be seen as a topography of mental states’.
Different shamanic cultures perceive the world, seen and unseen, in roughly three different ways. Some traditions of the Arctic, sub-Arctic and North American regions consider the sky as a tent and relate to the tent pole as the Sky Pillar, the link between Earth and the celestial realms. This was translated to a flag pole during a Santeria ceremony I witnessed in south east Cuba. Animals were sacrificed at the base of the pole and at the nights end the master of ceremonies climbed the pole to hang a flag in a gesture of climbing towards heaven. This symbolic link between Earth and Heaven is also familiar in the architecture of pyramids, temples and ziggurats which can represent the Cosmic Mountain, another connecting image between Earth and Sky.
The World Tree
The third and most extensive cosmological symbol and the one that contemporary shamanism, uses is that of the World Tree.
A tree, any tree, is a simple yet effective symbol of the three-layered cosmos that shamans, past and present, and from many different regions of the world, experience on their journeys. The Tree pervaded Mayan culture and in Norse mythology the god Odin hung on Yggdrasil, the World Tree. From the basic three layers many others may extend and in some shamanic cultures these many-tiered worlds are clearly identified and taught to new apprentices. In contemporary shamanism, which focuses on an individualist approach, each journeyer’s Lower, Middle and Upper World will be unique and personal; despite this, archetypal images and themes are common.
Lower World
The roots of the tree lie deep in the darkness of earth; the roots support and nurture the tree physically; the roots are the naked mirror image of the branches reaching into the sky - as above, so below. What lies under the earth, beyond the unseeing darkness is the Lower World, the place of power, of healing, of animals and our own animal ancestry. The Lower World is the place where we touch our origins and genetic heritage and it is from here that we draw the energetic power of the ancestors, which is to say all that has gone before.
In contemporary shamanism, as in many traditions, the Lower World is accessed by the shaman sending her 'free soul', her travelling self, to a familiar, real life place, such as a hollow tree, a pool, a cave, a rabbit hole. Entering the ‘access point’ the journeyer looks for a tunnel that leads deeper down into the ground, a tunnel that will eventually open to reveal the shaman's unique Lower World landscape. This landscape varies from person to person and can alter according to the lessons or information being sought in the journey. The Lower World is most frequently a place of forests and mountains, of rivers and seas, of small woodland clearings and vast chasms.
Middle World
The Middle World, the trunk of the tree, that which can be touched, embraced and climbed, is the alternate reality closest, and in some traditions, identical to, our present, everyday reality. It is the axis mundi, the link between above and below.
In the Middle World, a contemporary shaman’s journey may take her on trains, in cars and on aeroplanes to meet a teacher and ask for help and advice on the worldly issues that affect us all: finances, career and matters of home and hearth. The Middle World is the place we are most easily tuned to in waking state, the place of the senses. In a Middle World journey however, the shaman will go beyond the ordinary sensations of everyday life and perceive the natural world untrammelled by the physical body. A journey to the Middle World can deepen understanding of ordinary reality and reveal its wonder and beauty; things often taken for granted.
My own Middle World, the place where I go to learn about the relationship between world and spirit, is located on the ordinary-reality border between Egypt and Libya. It’s a dune in the Western Desert, where sand teaches me about permanence and impermanence, about the ways in which things that seem solid and firm, can flow and vanish to reform in a different shape.
Upper World
Just as the shamanic Lower World has no resemblance to the Hell of Christian cosmology, the Upper World is not necessarily filled with bright light and singing choirs. However, a shaman, like everyone else, is subject to their context and for many people the Upper World is indeed a place of brightness and grand architecture. For others it is a place of cloud and birds powerful enough to carry the shaman on their backs. Reaching the Upper World can be achieved by the shaman climbing a tree, or other plant, like Jack and his Beanstalk; by rising up in the smoke of a fire, climbing a mountain and jumping upwards, walking along a rainbow or, as in the Bible story of Jacob, climbing a ladder.
In contemporary shamanism, the Upper World is taught as a place of higher consciousness where we can meet teachers of profound wisdom who will guide us in the exploration of our own divine self and help us uncover our own mystery.
If the Lower World is the place to ask for power and healing, the Upper World is the place for existential Q & A: ‘Why am I here?’ or ‘Show me my true path in life’. In my experience however, the spirits are both subtle and wily; if I ask to be shown my path I am shown a path, literally! Sometimes if I ask questions that have no immediate bearing on my life or work I am asked, "Do you really need/want to know the answer to this?" and the truth of course is that often I do not.
A few years ago a new place started appearing to me in journeys, a place where all the Worlds meet and where all my teachers appear simultaneously. From this place I can visit any of my own three Worlds, or I may travel to somewhere new and unexpected. My Upper World, once green and busy with humans and animals is now a thin, biscuit crust that snaps and breaks at every step revealing other Worlds far below. I don’t know why this is happening, I have just accepted it. Perhaps one day I’ll ask!
The shaman's cosmology is a complex one that describes both the alternative universes that physicists are just starting to explore and the internal topography that reflects the society in which the shaman works. While this may seem paradoxical or inexplicable, in purely shamanic terms, where all is spirit and all is one there is no separation between this or that, between here and there, between you and me and the concept of inner and outer states loses meaning.
© Zoë Brân PhD
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