Jo-Anne Mac Millan

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.