» Shamanic Journey or Soul Flight

When a person journeys the soul leaves the body, and may travel to a spiritual aspect of places on the earth, or may go within the earth, or above it. In certain societies there are destinations that are peculiar to the culture. There are also destinations, that appear to be the same for many different cultures despite the separation of these cultures by nature and geographic location. The map of these common destinations is referred to as a cosmology. Terms such as upper, lower and middle world are used to divide the cosmology.

The journey occurs by shifting awareness or consciousness in order to allow part of your soul to leave the body. The drum or rattle is frequently used. The slow repetitive rhythm shifts the individuals "rhythm" so that he or she can journey. Just the way a soothing song can help an somone achieve a calmer state. The rhythm of the drum puts you in the right state to journey. The drum beat used is very close to the frequency that is measured from the earth, and has proved effective for the majority of people.

Journeying like meditation is a tool for spiritual growth. It is also a tool that can be used for healing, obtaining information, and working through psychological issues.

When someone goes on a journey they are able to communicate on a spiritual level. So they can go and visit guardian spirits, they can go and visit spirits of the land. A journeyer can use a journey to examine the health of their body or another's body. They can also discover things about the world.

[ Source: Shaman Links ]

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» Intent and Will

Intent is an energy. It is a very simple energy in one sense, but its expression through personality and perception can be quite complicated. If we borrow a chorus from the Newtonian Physics Songbook, we know that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; it can only be changed in form. Spiritually this opens up a really big can of worms. If intent is an energy, and that energy is essentially forming human beings and is expressed as such, then it must remain as intent until something with greater energy acts upon it - acting from outside to overcome the stasis of inertia, thereby creating movement, either in another direction or along the same line of travel created by the original expression of the intent. Ergo, any intent, as energy formed and expressed as a commonality, must remain in existence through both time and space until acted upon by a greater force, which will either change the nature of the intent into something else, fortify the original intent or simply move it in another or the same direction.

Will is a crucial element of personal energy, for the simple reason that when we exercise intent, we naturally apply will to the effort. One cannot form and execute intents without will, but one can apply will without intent. If intent is the gun then will is the trigger. Will, as a separate part of our personal energy, is crucial in the process of linking the larger rational mind with the more primitive and unknown energies of the hidden sides of our nature. If intent is the sword of reason, then will is the forge of the soul.

Intent and will are like this in relationship; if you intend to drive a nail, the hammer and your muscles are the vehicles of the intent, but how hard you hit the nail is a function of will. The decision to hit the nail is the intent, but the actual animation of the intent to strike it is the will. Without the will, nothing moves. It's a hard distinction to make, they seem the same, but they are not. As you work with intent, you will discover that there is a subtle but very powerful difference. Let's take an issue of self-improvement for instance. Say you had temper and anger issues that certain situations were sure to trigger. The intention to become more detached and handle these situations by not reacting the same way would be the intent. Applying it daily and reinforcing it would help make the intent strong, but when the situation arises that would normally trigger the anger issues, it is will which is applied to trigger the intent, allowing it to work as energy in the situation. In other words, 'I intend not to let this make me angry,' then the circumstances occur and in that moment you apply will to not become angry, thereby triggering the intent. The process of learning to control that is also one of learning to apply will to your own energy, which if you are lucky revolves around an intent.

Will and intent are two separate things. Each of us already operates on many levels of intent naturally. You breathe and your heart beats without you thinking about it; the intent to do so is natural. Will is like the fuse; intent is the bomb. You have to gather up your materials and make your bomb before the fuse is worth anything. Will is applied to intent not the other way around. You can have the will to be successful, but if you don't create the intent on what and how to get there the will won't help. Wanting has nothing to do with it, it's what you intend to do that starts everything. But look at the different types of intent. There is natural intent, personal intent, conscious/unconscious intent and the issue of competing intents.

Intent is a conscious form of will; it has shape, form, and substance. Will acts as a volitional trigger for the intent you have formed. In other words, you can think an intent, but it is will that shoves it out there. It's like when you recap an event that is tied to a pattern that runs outward in your life, but you don't move through the pattern but keep working on the same event, the other energy comes to you like sand falling through a hole in the bottom of a bucket. This brings back to you depression, anger, etc., those feelings have weight, they exist and you can be swamped with them sometimes. It's like the thought you haven't completed, or pushed out with will, you can become inundated by the old energy in patterns you weren't expecting. You're using unspoken intent to do the recapping, but when will is applied to the intent to take back your energy it can bring back energy also trapped in those other patterns - like the thoughts that stayed in the room, you will feel them. Big patterns can be tough. You may see the energy you want back and grab it, but it turns out to be the stopper in the bottom of a bottle of related energy. It can be hard if you have a lot stored up there, but it will pass. You can think of will as an act - a real force in your energy.

[ Source: Shaman's Cave ]

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» Soul Loss

Soul loss would be comparable to the psychological concept of disassociation. Symptoms or indicators of soul loss can include:

Feelings of depression

A feeling of being incomplete

Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, or PTSD like symptoms

Inability to move past an issue despite efforts to do so

Feeling like you've done everything you can do but are still stuck

Feeling disconnected from life, like you don't really feel anything, or you feel you can't connect to things

Memories or incident in your past when you can say, I feel that I lost something that I never got back

A sense that someone took a part of you, your heart, your soul, or that you were not the same once they left you or died

You keep wanting to return to a person, or a location that seems unhealthy or unlikely, even though there is no apparent reason for you to do so

Lost memories, like a part of your history is "missing"

The feeling that soul retrieval may help you

[ Source: Shaman Links ]

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» Shamanic Healing

Shamanic healing addresses the spiritual aspect of illness. That is to say the part of the illness that is in your spirit, soul, or energy body. Shamans believe that illness/injury appears in this spirit before it shows up in the physical body or that if the body is injured that the injury will also exist on the level of the spirit. Shamans believe that healing on the spiritual level can prevent conditions from appearing in the body and also that healing the spirit helps or allows the body to heal once a condition has appeared.

[ Source: Shaman Links ]

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» What Shamans Do

Shamans work with the spirit or the soul. They heal illness at the soul level. They gain knowledge and insight from working with the spirits of nature such as rocks and trees, the land, and they gain knowledge from working with spirits of animals and humans such as their ancestors. For the shaman everything is alive and carries information, you can call this spirit, energy, or consciousness.

In order to communicate with the spirit or consciousness of these things, the shaman will shift his or her own state of awareness. Shamans can do this through various means, such as meditation, repetitive sounds such as that of the drum or rattle, or through the help of plants. The shaman will then "see" through a new set of eyes, they will see what is going on with you on a spiritual level. The shaman's practice is also characterized by the soul flight. The shift of consciousness that the shaman makes, which allows the free part of his or her soul to leave the body. The shaman can then go retrieve information for your healing and growth. They can retrieve healing power, or things that you have lost along the way in living your life. During the soul flight the shaman is both in the room, and going on this "journey" so that he or she has an awareness of both at the same time.

The shaman sees illness as a lack of power because it was lost somewhere in your life. In order to heal you the shaman returns your power to you. She or he may perform a power animal retrieval. A power animal is a protector, similar to a guardian angel, which protects you from harm and helps you with your spiritual growth by lending its power to you. The negative emotions you may feel, or the negative emotions that another can send at you are seen by the shaman to be stuck or stored in various parts of the body. This can be seen with the example such as how stress causes ulcers or back pains. The shaman will re-empower you by removing the energy that does not belong within your body. This is called a shamanic extraction, other healing modalities in addition to shamanism practice this in various forms. This energy is not bad, it is just misplaced. Because it does not belong in your body, it is seen as causing illness that then shows itself in a physical way through pain or sickness.

Other activities which shamans have traditionally performed, in addition to healing people, also involved healing the land. By using their ability to communicate with the consciousness of land, bodies of water and other such natural features of their landscape, shamans for centuries have been involved with earth healing. Whether it be determining why crops would not grow in a certain location, or reasons for draught; working with growing things, the weather, and the land has been a traditional activity for the shaman. They would also communicate with nature to find plants to heal illness. Many South American shamans are responsible for discovering the healing property of certain plants, which later formed the basis for specific medicines we use in the western health system today.

In most cultures, even in current times, it has been the case that a shaman will be particularly gifted working with one or another some shamanic activity. A shaman may be more called to do soul retrieval, extraction, to work with death and dying, or to work with the land to name a few. Some will specialize in one particular activity, some will be gifted in several areas.

(Source: Shaman Links)

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» Shamanism

The word shaman originated from a word in Siberia and eventually came to be applied to all medicine men and women of indigenous cultures who's practice includes the flight of the soul. Anthropologist studying indigenous cultures throughout the world, began to find that for different cultures, there were similarities in the way the medicine men and women worked with healing and connecting to the spiritual aspect of people and the world. While there were differences specific to culture, removing the the cultural reference revealed a core system of practice. The core practices are called core-Shamanism - a phrase coined by Michael Harner.

Shamanism is the practice of these core techniques, either for healing or to gain spiritual knowledge. Shamanism is sometime studied with the cultural reference, sometimes without, but the essential nature of the shamanic practice does not change, nor has it changed since ancient times. It has adapted to fit the times or the culture, but its essential core has been the same.

Shamanism is not a religion, not unless you want to make it into one. It has been and is being practiced by peoples of many religions, from Christianity, to Judaism, to Hinduism. You will find shamanic practitioners of every faith.

It is a direct experience of spiritual knowledge. Because of the direct nature of the work, it tends to facilitate growth in every religious faith. People will share shamanic experiences in groups, but the insight you gain from shamanic practice are unique to you.

As a healing practice shamanism has been very powerful for both the people of today and those reaching back into the beginnings of recorded history.

The reason that it is so powerful is because each healing is tailored to the needs of the individual being healed. Western medicine seeks to find one cure that works for many, if the number it helps is too small it isn't offered at all. The shaman provides unique treatment, which holistically addresses what a person needs at this time.

(Source: Shaman Links)

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