INTUITON 'VS' JOURNEYING

In a Shamanic Facebook group someone said to me: "I caution against discounting the power of journeying by equating it with intuitive knowing. The former uses our intuition but that's not where the information comes from."

I don't agree. The info I get from that 'knowing' place is of just as good quality as that which people get from journeying, and it feels like it comes from a 'bigger' place. I don't need to formally journey to do it, it is just there if I listen.

I think it is important to have a broad view of what constitutes Spirit or else we end up disempowering ourselves, and that is a bit tragic. And I think journeying, which is a great method, can sometimes make some slightly tyrannical claims for itself, that narrow down the field of Spirit. There are all sorts of ways of being in relationship to Spirit which, in the last analysis, is no different to who we essentially are.

ON NOT BEING VALIDATED BY YOUR WORK

If we do some kind of teaching/healing work, I think it is natural to feel validated by that when it goes well - and similarly to feel dispirited when it doesn't go well, or when it seems not to be happening at all! I think these responses need rooting out, and that is a big ask. Because the real validation is our sense of connection to Spirit, and if work comes our way, so be it, and if it doesn't, so be it. Spirit decides.

If we need this validation from our work (and thinking of ourselves as 'professional' only encourages this worldly mindset) then it becomes a shield from our shadow side - a need to be loved, perhaps, or to 'achieve' or whatever it is that is lacking or messy. The Protestant work ethic, which goes so deep in our culture - hard workers go to heaven - plays its part here.

And of course we all have a shadow side. The work as a teacher or healer is to keep that separate. The shadow is coyote, it will sneak in through this very natural response of feeling validated when the work goes well - and discouraged or even distressed when it doesn't.

For myself, I do shamanic/counselling/astrological 'work'. And nearly always if I have advertised it, nothing happens. This has gone on for years and years. And it has led me through a roller-coaster of self-doubt. I see all these other people with their healing practices or the courses they run, and they do a lot of good work. And Spirit has never let me do that. And the penny is slowly, ever so slowly, dropping. It is taking me to a deep place where I just trust in what is or is not happening, where I feel happy with who I am regardless of what I am doing. What I do know is that if I follow my nose and put up posts on FB as I feel inspired to do so, and interact with whoever comes my way, good stuff happens. And maybe this attitude contains a particular gift I have to offer.

I have my reservations about teaching/healing work as a day job, because I think it needs a lot of space around it in order for it not to become too much of a means of self-validation - I say 'too much' because it is bound to creep in, and we need to forgive ourselves that. And then what we do has that much more depth, both in what we say and in the kind of presence behind it, which is transformative in ways we shall never know, even in this virtual world

FINDING MY OWN WAY TO THE SPIRITS

I've been of the opinion that in my journeying work, I am good at shifting energy but not so good at receiving information. And the reason I thought that is because all these years later I am still conditioned by my first experiences, which were the methods of 'core' shamanism. I don't want to knock them, because they helped me profoundly. But really we need to vigorously drive that word 'core' from the description, because it is nonsense and so misleading. It creates a very narrow perception of what Shamanism is, within the incredibly rich and multi-faceted landscape of what it actually is: this very broad approach to becoming a balanced human being.

Anyway, even my 'energy' work does not happen from 'formal' journeying. I embody the spirits, I move around with intensity and purpose, and there is added power: the involvement of the body allows the Spirits to incarnate more fully than they would otherwise have done. This seems to be fully traditional, and I view our lying down version as a compromise to keep it 'safe' for cerebral westerners. The work I do is fierce and uncompromising, it really deals with what needs to be dealt with.

But as I say, all these years later and when it came to info, I was still trapped in the methods of core shamanism, which of course work very well for some but not for me. So I'd do a journey and wait for a spirit helper to turn up and give me some info about the matter in hand, and it just never happened. Maybe I'd get the odd image that I'd work with to get some meaning from. Meanwhile I also trained myself as an astrologer, and I've become pretty good at it. And of course I'd regularly be saying stuff that hit the nail on the head for people....

And I realised what I was doing with journeying was that before the journey even started, I would immediately have a sense of what I wanted to say to the person, it takes no time at all, though it takes a few minutes to unfold once I start talking. And I was putting that to one side and waiting for a spirit guide to turn up and tell me something. OK, you can laugh at me now for my daftness . But there you go, it shows how much a method, put in a narrow way, can conceal us from Spirit, rather than guide us towards it.

So now I know I can get info for people, and usually I use the planets as an intermediary, but really the sense of what to say is just there and always has been, and it is usually pretty immediate.

The Lower World

The Lower World is what gives us our power, our cojones, our ability to take this shamanic thing and make it our own rather than someone else's version. In astrology, we have Pluto, who is Lord of the Underworld, and one of his main meanings is 'power'. So same thing.

PLUTO

So when you see a teacher trotting out the teachings of 'core shamanism', that is all well and good, it helps people, but if you watch you'll probably see that they haven't yet fully found their own way. And that is not a criticism, because it is a deep thing that I am talking about, that usually takes many years and is ultimately a gift from Spirit.

But I think where I will venture a comment is over the denial of the Lower World. And this is usually unconscious. And it often expresses itself in an over-emphasis on the Light, on heavenly visions of who we could be and a proselytising spirit, the need to bring others with them. But you can't just deny that authentic power, because it will then come out in its shadow form. And that usually means either having someone else on a pedestal, as the embodiment of all that is good; or putting oneself there as a messenger of the Light, as an advanced being, who will bounce back any feedback while maintaining a facade of openness to it. In both cases, the position is well-defended.

Two Spirit Shamanism

This documentary about the Two Spirits in the Navajo tradition is very interesting. (It'll cost you £2.49 to rent) It is interwoven with a tragic modern story about Fred/Frederica. The Two Spirits have both male and female within them, and they traditionally functioned as healers and teachers and guides.

They were seen as gifted. In our society, people often seem to feel they have to be one or the other, and maybe the surgical transition that many people go through can be due to this limited perspective. Jan Morris, one of the first trans women, said as much in an interview 40 years later: the point is to be both, not one or the other. I'm sure there is a place for a 'Two Spirit Shamanism' in what we do. 

I think, though, that the term Two Spirit can be misleading, because the experience from the 'inside' is of One Spirit! As the documentary makes clear, these people embody both male and female to a fullness such that it is AS IF they have two spirits within them.

There are a couple more videos worth watching here and here.