I try really hard not to market at you, dear Reader, through these posts, so if this feels remotely markety, please accept my most sincere apology.
Truth is, I am having revelation after revelation, and success after success, exploring deeper into Shamanic Healing, and I just want to rave about it.
As may have been mentioned previously in this blog, humans have been shamanic for many tens of thousands of years, and we are wired for shamanic journeying and healing, and for deep connectivity to the myriad non-ordinary realities (NORspaces) that exist … well, through within to … ElseWhere. Kind of like the smoke twisting and curling on itself in the photo above. Very much like that, in fact. We go within to go through to experience an alternate reality (AR) and then we wind our way back, better, smarter, more whole.
We travel to NORspaces to seek information, solutions, and soul fragments. We form bridges with our trusted healing partners in order to bring that healing energy back into Ordinary Reality (ORspace) for the benefit of the client or the clan. Sometimes even ourselves. I have been feeling way off the past few days and made a journey just this morning into NORspace to work with one of my trusted healers to sort it out, and lo and behold, I feel so much better. So much better that I am able to sit down at the laptop and do a spot of writing. Making lunch? Uh, well, we’ll see. How hungry are we, actually? I mean … ugh. But, at least I can think and put my thoughts into coherent sentences and write them down. That’s a huge improvement.
So what, actually, is Shamanic healing?
I’m so glad you asked! How long have you got? I described it briefly in the paragraphs above, but I will try to elaborate and clarify. Core Shamanism is an anthropological name for basically three elements that are consistently found throughout multiple contemporary shamanic cultures (and there are quite a few, even if some of them have been somewhat Christianized), and that are supported by archaeological evidence, cave paintings, and ancient writings/pictographs from around the world. The three elements are:
- Use of an audio driver to enter a deep brainwave state in order to access NORspaces (4 beats per second drumming most usually);
- Travel and exploration of NORspaces, also known as OtherWorlds, UpperWorlds, and LowerWorlds, to seek healing, information, solutions to problems, soul fragments, forecasts of weather patterns or other events to help the clan/tribe make decisions about migration, etc.;
- Deep integrative work by a Shaman/healer with OtherWorld allies and healers, totem or spirit animals, ancestors, and other specific OtherWorldly beings, to heal, to guide, to forecast, to teach, to make sense of the world the clan or tribe moves through, etc.
A shaman is someone who mediates the information from NORspace for the good of the group, but is not inherently a leader or authority figure, They can consult, inform, educate, and sometimes help to make critical decisions, but mostly it seems they have a job to do and they do it, end of story. And as good as humans are at fucking each other up, it’s a pretty full-time gig. It is a calling, and you really have to want to get your hands dirty and be okay with being labeled eccentric (to be diplomatic) and spend a lot of time alone, deep in journey. I became interested in shamanism way back in the late ’80s, but it was on-again/off-again, back and forth until just a few years ago, really. This past year of physical challenges for me has been a real catalyst for my development. Shamans are the original Wounded Healers. You have to be broken down and rebuilt in order to really get it. You have to burn up before you can rise from the ashes. Intuitively, I knew it was gonna be a bumpy ride and that I would need to have space to embark on this journey. This Year of Dysfunction has certainly provided that space. Uh, thanks? I guess?
Shamanic healing can be simple or complex, it can be huge or it can be the tiniest shift. It can be physical, attitudinal, emotional, ancestral, spiritual, ephemeral, or ineffable. It probably is weird. It might be the weirdest thing that ever happened to you. I’ve done some soul retrievals that have been spooky AF. Hair-raising, but the outcomes are spectacular. Going into the NORspaces, seeking the light of a single soul fragment among the billions of potential worlds and figuring out what they need in order to be able to reunite with their humans is one of the most powerful and beautiful things I have ever done. It can take hours or days or weeks. Sometimes a fragment needs extensive soul healing before a return to ORspace can even be contemplated. Sometimes they’re ready to go home now please.
There was a man I knew of but never met that needed a lot of healing. He was becoming quite elderly, and was having some real health crises, and periodically I would be drawn into a sort of fantasy-fugue state where I’d be doing the work of explaining what he didn’t understand about his early trauma, without knowing anything actual about his childhood … and literally having years-long relationships with him at numerous ages and times in NORspace, doing this healing work, all inside my head in non-ordinary time as well as NORspace. We created a new world to be the sandbox for all this work, and I had no idea that that was what was happening. I thought I was losing my mind. I felt anxieties over things that weren’t even possible, hurt and pain and loss and frustration over a figment of my imagination – but the OtherWorld we created was real in NORspace. When he ultimately died, it was literally months of these interruptions, sometimes consuming days of my time. Finally, I asked one of my OtherWorld allies what the holy schmatz was going on, and they explained that this man and I had been lovers many many times in many many lives, but had been kept apart in this life in order to do other work – but the connection was so strong that he drew me in because when he was in crisis, I could feel it. And let me tell ya, that has been the weirdest work yet. But now that I understand, I don’t regret a second of it. I wasn’t losing my mind, I was helping one of my dearest soulmates in any space and time to some much needed healing.
There’s something about that 4bps brainwave that changes your thinking in really strange and unique ways. You make different connections, you see situations in their energetic essence more clearly, you are able to detach a little from the sting of things and see problems as combinations of elements that can be shifted around, and tried in several different ways until a solution is found that works. Then that energy, or information, comes back with the shaman into ORspace and gets implemented in the “real world” and stuff starts to happen – hopefully most of it good.
Yeah, it sounds a little weird to our Western sensibilities. And it is.
But it is ancient medicine that we neglect at our peril. How much pain do we have to endure, little say inflict, as a species before we realize we’re doin’ something wrong? Every time I take my drum in my hands now I feel a thrill and a thankfulness and a joy that I have finally found my way to NORspace to do the work that I have no doubt was the very reason for my incarnation at this time.