My Journey into Shamanism

When I was around eight or nine years old, I went with my mother to a small metaphysical bookstore called Spiral Circle. There were a lot of altar pieces and shiny things (I remember drooling over many chunks of quartz), but the one thing that drew my eye was a book: Power Animals: How to Connect with Your Animal Spirit Guide by Dr. Steven D. Farmer.

My mom bought it for me and I went home, excited at this exotic idea - a mystical animal that existed in my mind. It was a magical imaginary friend! Or, at least, that was what my nine-year-old brain was saying.

Well, it had a CD included, so that night, I loosely tied my dark green sash around my head, hit play, and laid on my bed. Within just a few minutes of his monotonous voice, I was journeying.

At first, despite my all my enthusiasm, I began to feel skeptical. Being raised both atheist and believing in Santa Claus can do that to you. But then I felt as if I was falling, sinking into something, and then I was in a forest full of dappled light, where animals ran around me so fast that I could barely identify them.

Among them came a large shadow, more than once. I only saw the others once each: the silhouette of a rabbit, the faint outline of a fox. But that shadow appeared several times.

Finally, as I watched, it slowed. The other animals fled. The shadow became Panther.

We spoke. It's been so long now that I'm not quite sure what we talked about, but I do remember asking her if she was my guardian, to which she said yes. I came out of the trance a bit weirded out, and very much sober.

After that, I lost interest in magic and shamanism and most spiritual things. Recently, I realized just how significant that experimentation was.

My belief in magic and spirits and whatnot has waxed and waned throughout my life. Recently, my life was awfully, horribly, completely spiritually dead . I had nothing to live for, and had strange dreams of traveling and a primal fear that I was being trapped. This had no logical explanation, and I forced it down. I learned to carve things from wood (another strange urge) and began devoting huge chunks of time to my choir, enjoying the feeling of escape that singing granted me.

Then I rediscovered my studies of witchcraft, and began to enrich my life a little. A week or so ago, however, even that began to fail, and I spiralled into a depression that I hadn't encountered for over a year. I retreated to books and the Internet and wrote guides to something I was steadily losing faith in. Raising energy, for instance.

Suddenly, while reading articles from the scientific and pagan communities and trying to reconcile my beliefs with each other, I had an epiphany. And then another, connected to the last, and another.

Each one led me back to shamanism.

I never was struck down by illness or lightning. However, I have always been drawn to nature, to creating things with my hands, to singing and drumming. To me, there has always been a sort of deep and spiritual energy commanded by singing, especially within a group.

Most importantly (and immediately), though, was that urgent, desperate need to travel. I would sit and stare out the window, contemplating walking into the wilderness and never returning. Even now I do it occasionally. I've always been a wanderer, but it had never been that bad before.

So, what did I do? I began studying shamanism. Later in the week, I attempted my first journey. This is how it went.

Nervous but excited and too impatient to wait for good advice, I merrily skipped right ahead to shamanic journey. I had no idea whether Panther was still a guide of mine or not. Rather than asking for counsel on that, I downloaded a few drumming MP3s and made myself a special tea, tried to calm my nerves, then dove right in.

It was doomed from the beginning. I was too edgy and strung-out, and it took me fifteen minutes just to get into the correct frame of mind. Even then, I had to force myself to visualize. (Impatience at its finest.)

My entrance to the Lower World manifested as one of the tiny caves of Rock City. This came as a surprise to me, as the place had just been a little crevice in the rock with a few benches and a staircase leading down to it (the shade was very nice during those hot Tennessee summers). In my journey, however, its main wall had disappeared, and a gaping tunnel led into the darkness.

With a torch in my hand, I set off.

Somewhere before I sat down to attempt this, I read that you can test whether you're making up the vision or not by trying to change details. As I walked, noting that the tunnel was modeled after my experiences in Ruby Falls, I also noticed that the floor was nothing like the one there. I tried correcting it, but it stayed resolute, and after a while there was a small stream. I began to follow it through the darkness.

Then the fear came. It had been creeping up on me this entire time, disguised as "natural" anxiety, but now as I was going deeper into the caverns, I got short of breath and light-headed.

Quickly, I retreated from the caverns again, and took off my headphones and blindfold, sitting up in the darkness of my room. I was disappointed and angry at myself and still having a little trouble breathing, anxiety burning the pit of my stomach.

Afterwards, I thought on what I had done. For one thing, later, I realized that I should have called Panther to guide me through. Another issue was my lack of intent. Though I stated some vague purpose, it wasn't nearly the concrete intention that I prescribe so often with my own spell-casting.

I have gone over my mistakes and read more on shamanism, as well as prepared myself through some meditation and grounding of energy. Tonight, I am making my second attempt at journeying.

Hopefully, it'll go better! If you have any advice, I'd love to hear it in the comments. Have a blessed day!