Jo-Anne Mac Millan
Shamanic Journeying
Shamanic Journeying is a joyful path to regaining the knowledge of how to bring our lives back into a place of harmony and balance. It helps us to wake up to our full creative potential. As we do this, our lives change in a way that brings good health and well-being to ourselves and others.
The above quote by Sandra Ingerman sums up Shamanic Journeying so well for me. For me Shamanic Journeying has opened up a doorway to my True Nature. Helping me to connect and maintain the connection with who I am at my core and helping me to express my true nature in my life – as this can be challenging in society, friendships and family systems.
Shamanic Journeying is a form of meditation if you like, where you move into a deeper level of consciousness, by using the beat of a drum for instance. This form of deep connection provides us with a way to have direct revelation about our own healing. It is a way to get us out of our heads, and to expand our awareness and consciousness.
The practice of Shamanic Journey can be used by anyone, in order to get the answers to personal questions, to learn healing methods, to help others in community and to work on global issues. And the more we do our own healing work, the more it ripples out to our families, communities, cities, countries etc. As Gandhi said, “We need to be the change we want to see in the world.”
I remember my first Shamanic Journey very clearly… apart from the vibration of the drum beat, which I could feel in every cell of my body, I had a “clear” journey even though it wasn’t visually clear… as I listened to the beat of the drum and sank deeper and deeper into another level of consciousness, I felt like I was dreaming, but still awake and then a landscape started to unfold in this deep level I found myself in. I “saw”, and when I say I “saw” I mean it was more as if I saw with my heart or more experienced with my whole being. It wasn’t like a “movie scene” that I looked at from the outside, it was more like I experienced it from the inside – as if I was truly in this new landscape, part of it – instead of looking at me being part of it… But anyway….
I found myself to be on a beautiful white sandy beach, with big waves – the type you could surf. And I felt myself smelling the fresh salty air, hearing the waves crash, moving in and out… and I felt as if I had my eyes closed, taking it all in. Then I realised there was somebody standing next to me… and I realised it was Jesus. He looked at me with a gentle and compassionate expression, and he said… “Walk with me..” So I turned to my left and we started walking side by side along the ocean on the moist sand. I looked at him and he kind of raised his eyebrows in a “yeah go ahead and ask kind of way” and I started – what I can only describe as… peppering him with questions! 🙂 Anybody who knows me personally knows how inquisitive I am! and always need to know! I asked him about journeying and what is going on, where does all of this “fit in”, I asked him about my life, hard questions about things I was dealing with at the time and and and…. I really let it rip, and we kept walking and he just listened. Taking in every word I was saying… you know that deep listening where you truly feel heard, seen and understood and get the feeling that everything is going to be okay. Everything was okay… and I kept asking the questions, until I felt emptied out…. no more questions. Just feeling and experiencing the wonderful landscape I found myself in. We kept walking, taking it all in… I felt like I had made a connection to a part of me, which was lost for quite some time.
Just before the end of the drumming, I could feel Jesus look at me, put his hand on my shoulder and affirm that all is going to be okay, all is in divine order. The timing is perfect. As I came back out of the journey I had a real deep sense of peace. I felt joy, but not in a laughy, bubbly, joky kind of way… Real deep joy and peace. I reached a part of me, which lay buried under the laughs, the tears, the worries etc. I felt like I was plugged back into the life essence of all….
Never in a million years can I truly describe what that experience was like for me… words seem to fail me or are just not descriptive enough to convey what I experienced in that journey. And I wouldn’t even attempt to try and describe or explain to you where it is that I went. Every person is unique, with their own cultural influences, beliefs, religions etc. and that makes each persons journeys unique to them.
Looking back at that journey today, I can see why it was important and how it fits in to my own upbringing and the systems I grew up in. I needed to meet Jesus to tell me that everything was going to be okay, because he has always been my “go-to-guy” when I am searching for answers. And this journey served as the bridge between where I was, my cultural beliefs and exploring much deeper levels of myself. Never did I think that I would meet him on my first Shamanic Journey, but a deeper part of me knew that I had to meet and make a connection with him.
For each person their experience of each of these levels or worlds are unique to them. You might find similarities in what people share about their experiences, but nobody would have exactly the same experience as you of your journey. And that is what is so wonderful about this work, is that there is no RIGHT or WRONG way to journey or experience your journeys. You are unique and your journeys are unique to you. Your higher self, God, Spirit etc. whatever your life view, knows what you are ready to connect with at the time and will lead you to a place of connection, joy and health.
There are many “landscapes” or “worlds” that you can journey to within Shamanic Cosmology which consists of the Lower World, Middle World or Upper World.
Shamanic Journeying is such a joyful way to connect to you, your healing and to have a deeper understanding of your True Nature. Just like anything else, the more you practice Shamanic Journeying the stronger your senses will become in your inner world, but also the deeper your experience of your True Nature will be.
Shamanic Drumming CD
Into the Otherworld
An introduction to Shamanic Drumming and Journeying
I have been wanting to do a Shamanic Drumming CD for some time and this year I put it on my list of goals I want to achieve in this year. So I contacted my friend and colleague Noirin Rooney and asked if she would like to team up to do an Introduction to Shamanic Drumming and Journeying with me. Noirin often invite me to co-facilitate in her workshops and that is how we started drumming together in the first place. 🙂
After a workshop that we facilitated at the Spirit of Folk Festival in 2013, many of the workshop participants came up to us and asked if we have a cd available of our drumming…. Well in that moment a seed was planted… and I am happy to say it has grown and ready for the picking.
The whole process of the recording felt guided somehow, even though we met many “tricksters” on the way, there was the feeling… for me anyway… of something pulling or nudging me forward… So despite of possible setbacks all worked out as it was meant to be. On the day of the recording, the energy was light and vibrant. The producer was fully on board with what we wanted to achieve and also got a “crash course” in what Shamanic Drumming and Journeying was about. He made the process really enjoyable and added his own skill and creativity to the final product.
The CD itself is an introduction to Shamanic Drumming and Journeying and contains tracks which explains briefly what journeying is, and also what queues to listen for during the drumming tracks. On the CD you will find a guided journey and also a wonderful track by Noirin, where she opens sacred space by calling in the four directions. There are two tracks of double drumming that you can choose from – a 15min and a 30min.
My wish is that you find this cd to be a support in your own healing journey and practice.
You can buy your copy online (see the link below) or directly from me or Noirin. We will also have the cd on sale at any of the groups and workshops that we facilitate.
Abracadabra! and other Spells
I am fascinated by the energy of words and how what we say can have a profound effect on our emotions, how we carry ourselves and what we believe to be true.
Why not try this simple exercise right now… Find a quiet few minutes and list out words that you find you are using a lot about yourself or about your situation. It might be something like…. “I am always broke… I never have enough money” or “I am so stupid… I always make the worst decisions” etc. you get the picture… So, when you have your list, I want to invite you to say those words out loud… How do they make you feel? How does your body respond to these words? Do you feel your energy contract or expand? Note your breathing. Just take a few minutes to notice…
Now I want to invite you to create a phrase that more or less affirms the opposite of something that you usually say… If we use the two examples above, something like “I always have enough money” or “I always make the best decisions in any given moment” Once again, say these out loud… Do you feel different when you make these statements? How does your body respond to these words? Do you feel your energy contract of expand? Notice your breathing.
Cool huh?! You can try this with specific words also LOVE / HATE Â Â COURAGE / FEAR Â Â HAPPY / SAD
In many spiritual traditions there is the belief that words create a physical manifestation in the world. For instance, in the Bible in the book of John, it states “In the beginning was the word….” and so you get similar writings in may spiritual and ancient texts.
The phrase “Abracadabra” has its origins in the ancient language, Aramaic “Abraq ad habra” which literally means “I will create as I speak“. So when we create as we speak…. How many of us actually want what we say to ourselves, about ourselves to others, about others, about our communities, governments etc. on a daily basis to be true for us? hmmm…. Don Miguel Ruiz writes in his book “The Four Agreements” how every human being is a magician, as we cast spells with our words and opinions everyday. I wonder if that is where the word “spelling” comes from… How we spell characters (to form words) Â literally creates spells that we cast on ourselves or others….
Now, I’m not writing this to create fear about how we speak or use our words… It is more of an invitation to become mindful of what we say and that we choose to say or affirm things that we want to be true for us.
I came across a blogpost recently of a guy (Mauricio Estrella) that writes about how changing his password on his computer at work changed his life. He used a mundane task of inputting his password at his desktop computer everyday into an exercise of forgiveness, (forgiving his wife after the divorce) and then went on to input other life-changing passwords – as he was required to change his password every 30 days. Amazing! You can read his post here.
Lastly I do want to mention dr. Masaru Emoto’s work with the water crystals and how he has developed a way to measure the energy and the effect of our words and intention on the world around us. In his original experiment he took two cylinders of water, one he marked “LOVE” and the other “HATE”. To the love cylinder he repeated the word “love”, expressed love and sang to the water etc. Â to the hate cylinder he repeated the word “hate”, expressed hate and cursed it, talked to it in a hateful way etc. he then chose to freeze the water in order to see and measure if his experiment had any effect on the water’s molecular composition… Well it did indeed and the water crystals in the frozen water in each looked completely different! The “love cylinder” water had beautifully formed crystals and the water from the “hate cylinder” had misformed blobs as crystals. You can read more about dr. Emoto’s work here.
The thought I want to leave with you though… Our bodies contain about 80% water… I wonder how does the words we affirm over our lives affect us… Do we create beauty by what we say or do we create misery? Do we use our words to create curses or blessings? I want to invite you to change one word or phrase you negatively affirm over your life into a positive statement or a statement that you want to be true for you… even if you don’t believe it, yet… Maybe take a page out of Mauricio’s book and change a computer password into something positive and affirming, which then becomes a regular affirmation of what we wish to create.
I often use the analogy with my clients that our subconscious mind is a like a flower bed waiting for the seeds (words and beliefs) that we plant and then water by repetition. So, maybe some de-weeding is in order and some more planting of seeds that flower and bring beauty, joy and colour to our lives.
May you walk in Beauty,
Jo-Anne