In My Mind

So I decided to do a little reading about shamanic journeys as per Sam's suggestion. She is not the first person to suggest a shamanic path to me. It also seems that my experiences of dealing with energy in the workplace are a shamanic thing in some ways too.

I found some shamanic drumming on line here. It is only just over eight minutes long which isn't long - I think they want you buy their CD. It wasn't long enough to have much happen but it is amazing how much my mind did manage to cram in.

Things like this tear me between the scientist and the witch. Is it all in my mind, made up by me, the scientist asks. The witch says, who cares, your mind has a lot of great things to say to you.... Who cares if it is coming from your mind or somewhere else.

So here goes. i was listening to the drumming and I could feel it making me move slightly. Somehow just idle listening isn't enough. You have to feel it an be it. I know this sounds odd but this was something i realised when I did the TAW exercise on drawing to music. Listening is an active thing, not a passive thing.

And then I thought, I want to fly, so I was up in the clouds, doing swan dives and running. I reminded myself of sonic the hedgehog completing levels. Then I thought no, this isn't flying and I was gliding on the winds above mountains with huge wide brown wings. High, high above. Then I tipped to one side to bank and the world tipped and I was no longer there, I was a blue parrot eating a nut in a tree.

I know the blue parrot. I did some visualisaion work years ago on my basic and higher selves. My basic self is a mole called Scrutius who likes to find things and wears some pink winged glasses a la Dame Edna Everidge. My higher self was Anyol, the blue haired, blue parrot spirit.

I called to the parrot and she transformed into the blue haired woman, naked. We hugged and then I fell from the tree. I landed in a river as a rock. Not moving. I remembered that rocks only move in rocky rivers when a storm comes along and then they get swept somewhere completely different. Change hits them completely.

So I asked if a storm was coming and looked up and I could see the sky was turning that bronzey colour, not just a little part of the sky near the horizon but all of it.

Then I was a bear and I was with another black bear and we hugged. Then I clearly heard 'this is not your home either'. The drumming on the computer reached that pitch that calls you out and I was back here.

Maybe I need a drum...

Thoughts on a postcard...

I did find the drum helped. I have done a fair bit of visualisation over the years but quite often it feels a little stilted and forced. This felt far more fluid, flip oh I am somewhere else. I came out feeling better and grounded....

OK so these are my thoughts on it.... The computer game feel of the beginning, I think reflects how my life has been in the past. Study this, progress to this, level up. you can fly, but fly like this.

I expressed unhappiness at this and moved out of it. I am not sure what the bird was, except that it was huge, brown and lived in the mountains. Maybe a golden eagle, who knows. but the whole world was laid out beneath me. These sorts of birds represent seeing things clearly, from above, even things that are hidden, courage, power and blance.

The forest was full of tall trees, forest giants and I remained in this forest for the remainder of the journey. The blue parrot didn't fit and i felt as if i was saying good bye to Anyol.

I think the thing with the rock in the river is fairly clear. It was a warning, an advance notification, that change, when it finally comes will be sudden and complete for me. It wasn't meant to be scary because the rock is still a rock once the river has flooded and moved it.

The bear hugged me in friendship and welcome. Apparently the bear is the animal of shamans and mystics, transformation, healing and introspection. I had been watching a programme last night about black bears in Canada's forests....

The comment about this not being my home, I think, goes back to homes of the heart. Charles de Lint talks of these in some of his books. They are that little corner of the other world which is ours and ours alone and reflects us as we are. The eagle above the mountains, the blu parrot in the tree with the nut, the rock in the river and the bear in the forest, none of these are me, they are not my home. But it is slightly bizarre....

the joy of having time at home ill is that you have time to seize interesting things and do them there and then.... Oh and the animal stuff was from this website.

Would still love your thoughts and insights....