In my experience, a shamanic journey begins with intention. I travel within an altered state and attempt to directly experience the Mysteries. I may seek aid from the invisible realms, receive learning first hand, and return with knowing.
Shamanic intention is rooted in knowing that everything that is, is alive. Everything alive has meaning. All things bring a message and are a sign.
Creating an intention for a shamanic journey flows from understanding that all natural phenomena exist in both the physical and spiritual dimensions. All of nature has both visible and invisible form.
All of nature can be talked with.
I use a journey drum to gain access to the spiritual dimension. I understand that access to spirit is through the physical. The spiritual realm is this world with the veils removed. I experience the lifting of the veils as an altered state of trance: a sparkle of light beyond my eye's comprehending; an awareness of meaning beyond conscious thought; an awareness of form as a glimmering.
I am gifted with direct experience of the Mysteries while on a shamanic journey because I know that what I receive as knowledge, awareness and experience cannot be explained. When I explain what I experience, to myself or others, I am speaking from doubt instead of inner certainty. And nature has no tolerance for doubt.
Whether I ask directly or not, I receive aid from the invisible realms in the form of balance. I feel my alignment to the elements as these move within and about me, I sense a mother's love in the penpoint gunnels that guard their eggs in a cast off oyster shell, I see the friendship of trees that put on their heaviest branches away from their close-by companions so as to not take away the light. Seeing my nature in balance with nature is the root of my well-being.
All the images in this description of a shamanic journey are from the Journey Oracle cards. The creation of these oracle cards has been my greatest training from nature.The story of their completion traces the tracks and trails of many years of going on shamanic journeys.
