In February this year, I did a day course, an introduction into Shamanic Dreaming, at the request of a very intuitive healer and practicing Shamanic Dreamer. She told me to ‘fill your boots.’ I did that and more. Imagination was the key element to making this experience enriching, and as an imaginist, you would have believed that I would have immediately expelled. No, not at all. Retrieving power animals gave me a false sense of belief. It was effortless to retrieve my partner’s power animal (at the beginning of the class we partner up and retrieve power animals for the day). A white owl swooped past me as I went down a tunnel from my sacred place (I won’t tell you where that is, I’ll keep that to myself) in the absence of light I could see its feathered ailerons as they brushed past me during my descent into the lower world (in Shamanism there are three worlds, a lower world, the middle world, which is our world and the upper world). When I arrived in the lower world I landed in a jungle, a world uncharacteristic for an Arctic Owl. In this magical domain, the creature flew straight towards me and landed on my arm. Revelatory and powerful, I brought the power animal back and placed it in my partner. Discovering that my partner had an affiliation to birds, especially owls, which he told me after I had placed the power animal in his body gave me a strong feeling of I had begun to fill my boots.
My dreaming experiences for the rest of the day were diverse. Partnered up with someone else after, she and I began what turned out for both of us an informative and powerful connection. Her insight into a reoccurring dream of alien invasions, systematic mayhem, and the feeling of being chased by these inter-dimensional invaders in each dream sequence was invaluable. I struggled through with the ability to hear the drumming that guides the mind into Theta brain waves and then visualising the tunnel to which I would enter the lower world. With each drumming, I would feel my heart chakra expand, open, and love to pour in and out of the whirling energetic vortex over my chest. I left the class with great insights, a lovely connection, and an impetus to continue working with the practice.
My attempts to instigate the shamanic dreaming experience reached greater success when I was able to listen to the rhythmical drumming through headphones. My descents into the lower world became enlivening as I ventured out of my body soaring at breakneck speed from Wellington to my destination from where my voyage would begin. Accessing the lower world became inventive, adroit, as my imagination was given the free reign it needs truly be set free. Power animals came to me instantaneously, and with every descent, I felt more comfortable with the landscapes, the geography, the wonders of this realm where wisdom and ingenuity were gifted to me.
Rising to the upper world as I ascended from the lower world, up the tunnel, matched the innovative ways I journeyed down. I was brought into inter-galactic vehicles, met with inter-dimensionals, sojourned out into the furthermost reaches of the solar system, the galaxy, and made pilgrimages into the upper world where I was healed across the lines of time in temples, fountains and inside structures where beings whose intelligence was far superior to mine would implant my spirit body with knowledge and data that I have brought back to my middle earth body to assimilate with.
Often, I would venture with a question, and each time it was answered poetically from beings that took the forms of some of the people I interact with, others who were characters from movies I had seen. With every interaction, I became more aware that this shamanic state of consciousness was as real as my middle earth experience, and that my discoveries, the power animals that came to me, all wanted to help me, guide me, protect me. I’m going to do a Soul Retrieval course in May this year. Till then, I will continue to alter my consciousness, gain insight and wisdom and give thanks to the beings who in their servitude allow me to heal on every level.
