Guest guest Posted April 11, 2001 Report Share Posted April 11, 2001 This is the rest of the other post ;-) One of the things that I find superior about teaching a person to journey for themselves at some point is that, like dreamwork, there will be symbols and messages that are fairly unintelligible to the shaman that may be more clear to the person. It also helps them to discern the difference between wish fulfillment and alternate reality, and learn skills in trust v. naivete. Like travelling in a strange place, it always profits the traveller to have a trusted guide with them for reference, though, so early journeys usually focus on meeting and developing relationship with animal medicine and other helpers. Probably one of the most common errors new journeyers make is that they assume that the journey is a dream or a visualization, part of their imagination or fantasy. That may be a " safe " way to perceive it, but it doesn't begin to touch on the truth of the reality of the facets of reality that are concurrently present besides the one we have all agreed is the common, acceptable reality. I think I mentioned schizophrenia and other delusional disorders when I talked about the Brow Chakra, how they are partially a grounding/filtering problem. If a person has a difficult time staying in " regular " reality, journeywork may not be a good option for them in our society... in an indiginous society they would be viewed as an oracle or a shaman, but in modern society, they'd probably be institutionalized and medicated. Grounding and connection to the body is crucial work for a shaman (or the person who chooses not to call themselves a shaman, but does journeywork). Otherwise the person may lose interest in the physical, and develop that scruffy, dishevelled and half bent persona we associate with a bag lady ;-) Like expressive therapies, though, I've found that journeywork can be a deep and satisfying method of personal healing, similar to Jungian analysis. It can be very helpful to create ceremonies to support integration and closure; there again, the gap between what we have lost as humans by rejecting our primal spiritual connections for standardized religion looms large. Groups that have incorporated religion into their mindset (such as voudou) or continued to practice their mysteries in secret (such as indiginous peoples and some European pagans) have fared a little better in that regard, but have still lost a great deal of their birthright as young people strive to be modern. As we lose that spiritual connection, we lose our respect for the earth and its inhabitants. Gradually, we lose respect for ourselves and each other as well. See the pattern emerging? Disconnectedness. In addition to the enormous number of endangered plants, animals and habitats, did you know that there are over 100 languages and dialects that exist in the world right now that may be gone in 20 years, and innumerable ones that have already disappeared? And in every one of those languages, there are words that are uninterpretable to other languages, and those concepts are living only in the minds of our elders around the world. There is no telling what else may be lost with the languages, what has already been lost. If people need a rationale for personal anthropology, there's a good one. We don't all have medicine men or women in our family tree, but there are many elders out there who love to talk and haven't anyone to talk to, and have valuable knowledge to share with us. That could be your social project for the week... find an elderly person to tell you stories and teach you something, even a simple thing, like gardening secrets, fishing or making bread. Take your kids or grandkids with you. Blessings, Crow " Look for Rainbows in the Darkness " -- -- Caroline " Crow " Abreu Hypnotherapy * Healing Touch * Reiki * Chios AIM: CaroCrow ... : NRGbalance URL: http://www.geocities.com/nrgbalance Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 13, 2001 Report Share Posted April 13, 2001 Dear Crow, I just want to thank you so much for sharing this information about journeying and power animals!!! I am enlightened Much appreciated. Love and Light, (\o/) /_\ ~Angel Wendy Chapman www.metagifted.org Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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