Author: annebmorgan

Clearing Interior Spaces

Whether you live in an apartment or house or a room, you can perform a ceremony to clear the space of any “old” or “no longer needed or wanted” energies. You can do this when you move into a new space, or if you already live in the space.

Prior to your Ceremony

What I would suggest you obtain prior to your ceremony:

1) Sage or sweetgrass (or both) and a container such as a ceramic bowl or seashell (like abalone) for the sage or sweetgrass, and if the space allows for smoke, matchsticks and a feather that appeals to you. Sage is a great purifier. I prefer the scent of white sage. Here is one example available through Amazon.

If you are sensitive to sage or sweetgrass, then try lavender. You can use a lavender room mist in place of sage.

2) Consider whether you would like to play drums or any musical instrument, or shake a rattle (you can use a bottle of pills such as aspirin as a substitute for a rattle), or play a lovely piece of music.

Among drumming music, I prefer multiple drums, such as this one.

3) You may also like to conclude your ceremony by placing large salt crystals in a bowl or dry surface by the entrance and on window ledges. Salt is a powerful purifier and cleansing agent. Here is an example.

Amazon offers a kit that you may prefer.

Before starting your ceremony, please ask all other inhabitants and guests (people and animals) to leave the space you are clearing for a short time while you perform your ceremony.

Before, during and after this heart-felt ceremony, you can play an instrument, shake a rattle, or if you prefer, play a recorded piece of lovely music. If you like to sing, consider singing.

Ceremony

Begin by rattling, drumming or playing an instrument or recorded music with special heartfelt meaning to you. You might want to sing as well.

In the heart of the space or what you consider as the center of the space, speaking out loud and with great sincerity, invite all old energies to leave the space and move on to places and realms that are in their highest and best interest, explaining that these energies are no longer needed in this space.

Take your sage or sweetgrass, and if no smoke is allowed, just blow on the sage with your breath, or, if you have a feather, wave the feather over the sage, spreading the scent into the air. Alternatively, use your lavender room mist instead. Face each wall of your space, stating your intention of purifying the space of all no longer needed energies. You may also choose to go each area of the space, or to each room, use your sage, sweetgrass or lavender room spray while stating and holding the same intention.

Now that the space is purified, state out loud that you invite into the space only the most positive and beneficial energies. Remember to state that you are doing this on behalf of all the people and animals living with you in this space.

State out loud that you promise to take care of the space. Whether you are renting or owning, it does not matter. You are committed to taking care of the space.

Then, holding the intention of cleansing all energies that enter the space, place a large salt crystal or smaller salt crystals in each direction of the house, such as on a window ledge (but away from water) and near the entrance.

Conclude with welcoming in the positive and beneficial energies, and express your gratitude for their presence. Then play music, whether drumming or rattling or another instrument, or recorded music, or sing.

After your ceremony

When this is done, leave the space and wait a bit. Then re-enter the space, inviting all the inhabitants back in, showing them the salt crystals and explaining to them what the salt crystals are for. They are cleansing all energies that enter the space, and act as protection against unwanted energies from entering your space.

Working with the spiritual dimension of the Middle World

If you have learned how to do a shamanic journey, with journeys to the Middle World to explore the spiritual dimension of our everyday world, here are some steps I would recommend for you to follow up on.  For those who would like to explore the spiritual dimensions of all that you see around you, but have not learned how to journey to the Middle World, all six steps listed below are available to you.

 

1)   Learn to observe the nature around you with focused attention to details in the shapes, the colors, and the changes.  What is new?  What is different?  What speaks to you?  This is a practice that leads to learning how to be fully present, in the now.

Learn to see, to witness, the extraordinary and the miraculous.  It IS there, we just often overlook it.  When we are fully present, the extraordinary becomes much easier to see, to witness.  Many spiritual teachers (such as Eckhart Tolle) write and speak about the importance of the now, the present.  This practice of observing the details in nature will help you manifest this teaching in your own life.

 

In more advanced shamanic journeying classes, participants keep a miracle log, recording miracles in their own lives. My own miracle log focuses on the miracles I see in nature, often just in my small garden, such as the one tomato plant that survived winter freezes. If you look at the location of this one ripe tomato on this tiny plant that grew in low-light conditions to produce this single fruit in late March, this is indeed an extraordinary event.  The green onions behind it are all transplants.

 

2) If you are mulling over a problem or an issue and want to find a solution or resolution, take a moment to look at the natural world. Even in a very urban environment, there are trees, or bushes or window boxes.  Or indoors, there are houseplants, rocks, crystals, or cut flowers.  After thinking of the problem or issue, notice the nature around you.  All of a sudden you will see the extraordinary, the “small” miracle, and this will help you answer the question that is on your mind / in your heart.

This can also be considered as looking for “omens.”  For example, in shamanic divination, you may learn how to look carefully at a rock after thinking of a question, and see the answer in the rock’s shape and lines.

3)   In the Middle World, take a moment to honor all the Spirits of Nature, or all the Hidden Folk.  Whether in a garden, or on a park bench, take a moment to sit quietly.  If you have learned how to do a shamanic journey, then journey with the intention to introduce yourself to a Spirit of Nature.  Or, just close your eyes, and in your mind’s eye, after asking permission of the Spirits of Nature, introduce yourself to the Spirit of the Tree in front of you, or the flower, or the bush, or the grasses.

Beautiful Painted Arrow (Jospeh Rael) describes learning to see the plant spirits with “deer eyes” by opening his eyes very wide (see pages 74-74 of his book House of Shattering Light: Life as an American Indian Mystic for a complete description).

 

 

4)   Thank the Nature Spirits or the Hidden Folk for helping promote the bounty you receive in your life, whether edible to the stomach, or edible to the eyes.

 

 

5) Practice expressing gratitude to the Spirit of Water, without which we could not live, the Spirit of Air, the atmosphere we need in order to breathe, the Spirit of Fire that warms our bodies and our spirits and provides us with light, and the Spirit of Earth that holds and helps grow our food, our housing, our medicines.

6)   Experience your sense of Oneness with Nature.  With all the diversity in nature, the colors, the shapes, the textures, the functions, you are part of Nature, you are, we are, One.  Feel that Oneness, experience it in every cell of your body.

 

 

For those who would like to deepen their experiences and use shamanic techniques in gaining knowledge, wisdom, spiritual awareness and understanding, and to help in healing ourselves and our Earth, there is much to explore.

 

For those interested in learning how to do a shamanic journey, I recommend the books and recordings found here.

 

For further information, I recommend Sandra Ingerman and The Foundation for Shamanic Studies.

 

Working with Your Upper World Teacher

If you have learned how to do a shamanic journey, with journeys to the Upper World to meet with your Master / Teacher / Guide, here are some steps that I would recommend you follow up on.

1)   Find images, photographs, artwork or objects, and sound recordings that remind you of your Upper World experiences.  These reminders can be very abstract such as a shimmering of color, or very concrete such as a shell or a crystal or rock.  You can also create an artwork that reminds you of what you saw and felt.  These reminders can be photographs that reflect a quality of light, a sensation or mood, or recordings of sounds that remind you of experiences in the Upper World.  The reminders can also be specific scents.

Scents serve as powerful reminders for me.  A certain shampoo reminds me of staying at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge in Orlando, Florida, for example.  When I use it, the scent can instantly transport me to that environment where animals from the African savannah roam freely as I watch from lookouts.  Some scents that remind me of Upper World journeys are whiffs of perfectly ripe mangos and delicate roses in full bloom.  When I smell these scents, I can feel my energy shift, and I am reminded of experiences that I have had in the Upper World.

 

2)   Find images, photographs, artwork, objects and sounds that remind you of your Master / Teacher / Guide (if you have several, then a reminder for each of them).  Even when your Teacher is an indescribable Being of Light, you can draw or think of words that evoke that presence, or find an object that reminds you of that extraordinary energy.

 

3)    Keep that energy with you, of your Upper World Experiences and that of your Master/ Teacher/ Guide (if you have several then of each of them) – in your car, or, if the representations are small enough, you can keep them in your wallet or your back pocket.  Feel that energy in the present moment.  Also, if there is an experience in your life that reminds you of that energy, allow yourself to pursue that experience.

My first Master / Teacher / Guide emanates an energy that reminds me of walking slowly through the white foam created by waves on the beach on a summer day.  Translating that sensation into words, I would say that his energy is warm and exquisitely gentle, yet permeating, just as the salt water permeates the top layer of roughened skin on my feet and softens it.  When I have the opportunity to walk on the beach in summer, I walk in zig-zags from one foam clump to another, putting my feet slowly into that foam, and feeling that sensation. In doing so, I reconnect with his extraordinary energy.  I then mentally express my gratitude for his teaching me to experience this delicious energy.  This practice serves to remind me that I can manifest that warm and exquisitely gentle energy in our face-paced world-it only takes a moment’s awareness on my part.

 

4)   Practice Journeying to the Upper World to meet with your Master / Teacher / Guide.  Ask questions, and then hear/ observe/ feel the answers.  Experience the energies and teachings, and bring these with you into your everyday reality.  And then observe how your experience of everyday issues shift, when you remember the teachings.

 

For those who have not learned how to journey to the Upper World, you can still follow the first three steps listed above with those Teachers that you are drawn to.

For those interested in learning how to do a shamanic journey, I recommend the books and recordings found here.

For further information about shamanism, I recommend Sandra Ingerman and The Foundation for Shamanic Studies.

Working with Your Power Animal

If you have learned how to do a shamanic journey, with journeys to the Lower World, here are some steps I would recommend you follow up on.  Some shamanic traditions refer to a Totem Animal rather than a Power Animal.

1) Find images or references to your Power Animal(s) that resonate with you. It could be a sculpture, a toy, a photograph, a drawing or painting. You will know it is the right image or sculpture if you get that sudden sense of familiarity when you see the representation of your Power Animal, like when you see an old friend after many years of absence.

2) Honor your Power Animal, by thanking him/her/it for being in your life, for the teachings, insights, and guidance given to you. Offer a promise that you will learn to receive, to be more observant, to pay attention to the messages given to you.

3) Create a ceremony in which you honor your Power Animal(s). In Native American cultures, cornmeal or tobacco is often sprinkled on the Earth at the end of a ceremony as a gesture of gratitude, of giving back. These were substances of great value to them. Repeat your ceremony frequently. A good time for ceremony is early morning with the light of the new day.

When I do ceremonies like this one, I give my heart energy, spreading Love and Joy to ALL that is, rather than sprinkling cornmeal or tobacco. Heart energy is what is most precious to me. For someone else, it could be Second Chakra Creative energy, or some other energy.

4) While lying in bed at night, ask your Power Animal to be with you during dreamtime, expressing gratitude for its presence in your life.

5) At night before going to sleep, ask your Power Animal for dreams that will help you, and that you will remember in the morning.

6) Learn to feel what your body feels like when you fill yourself with your power. Breathe in your Power Animal. Watch how your movement changes, your thoughts change, how your awareness shifts. In doing this you recognize what it feels like to be filled with your power, and what it feels like when you are not paying attention to your power.

7) Think of a difficult situation, such as speaking with a relative who is going through major challenges. You would like to have a helpful conversation with that person. First, imagine the conversation between you. Then take a moment, close your eyes, and seeing your Power Animal in front of you, ask your Power Animal to fill your body, and breathe its essence into every cell of your being. Now, imagine your conversation with your relative… Notice the difference.

8) Learn to pay attention to messages from your Power Animal. The very first step in that process is learning to pay attention, to be fully present, to see, to hear, to perceive.
Notice when these representations of your Power Animal appear to you. What were you thinking when your Power Animal (say a Blue Heron) just flew across in front of you as you were driving? What were you saying? And if you were driving and not paying attention to the road, the traffic, and the speed limit, slow down!

Oh Shinnáh described a very potent experience of a Power Animal appearing just in front of her car as she was driving at high speed. Happily, she slammed on the breaks and avoided the huge collision right around the bend of the road that she could not see.

9) Practice doing Lower World Journeys. If your Power Animal is not there when you arrive in the Lower World, call your Power Animal to you. The more you practice journeying to the Lower World, the easier and faster it will be to get there, and return. Always remember to take a deep breath into your belly when you end your journey. You want to be fully present!

And above all, have fun with your Power Animal! Feel his/her/its presence in your life and enjoy!

For those who have not learned how to journey to the Lower World, you can still follow the first eight steps listed above with an animal that you are drawn to, especially one from your childhood.

For those interested in learning how to do a shamanic journey, I recommend the books and recordings found here.

For further information, I recommend Sandra Ingerman and The Foundation for Shamanic Studies.