Working For A Better Life (valkyrieofodin) wrote in northern_trad, @ 2008-05-21 08:48:00 |
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Current mood: | contemplative |
Entry tags: | chanting, trancework, traveling to other worlds |
Trance, Chanting, Travel To Other Realms
So, finn_troll and I were talking a while ago about traveling to other realms without someone else there to do the rattling/drumming for you and act as a 'guide' as it were. And she was asking me what I preferred as a method... Essentially what I recommend and all that. I started off by telling her that yes, they do make CDs and Tapes for the purpose... And this is true enough. It is also true that I am not really thrilled by them. I consider these to be what I call a 'passive form' of journey tool. That means that you put it in the slot, start it up and kind of go along for the ride. For certain types of journeying that is most likely preferred but not always, and usually most people are looking for something that allows them more control. I know that I usually am. But, I am something of a control freak in almost all portions of my life. So this leaves rattling or drumming myself into trance. Which is better and why? For me rattling has always been a more active process and has gotten me where I was going trance-wise quicker and more efficiently. The reason for this is that I almost forget that I am holding the rattle and yet still continue with the motion, in fact tend to become more frenzied in the depths of my trance to a large extent, until suddenly, I become completely still. It's a whole body, mind, spiritual experience. I rattle, chant, rock back and forth all the while my eyes are closed and I can feel myself reaching out and expanding becoming more than I was before. It's rather hard to put into concise language on a keyboard. It's almost as though the staccato beat of the rattle mirrors the motion of my body. And, I often am pointing the rattle forward, almost like a wand directing my will or consciousness. It's very holistic in the approach. Drumming can do the same thing for other folks. The drum stick having the same function and then the drum itself grounding out the energy so that you don't go far into the aethers if you have trouble returning. With the boom boom boom acting as a kind of guide that takes you within. And when someone else is drumming I can follow the sounds of the drum with great ease, almost like jumping inside the ripples in a lake, I really enjoy it. I can even get into the groove of the drum beat when I am drumming to a greater or lesser extent, but never to great success I have had with rattling.
I have been told, years and years ago by a woman who I was in a shamanic work-group with, that drums are earth related and rattles are fire related. And that the drum is the heartbeat of the earth. I understood the sense of the drum being the heartbeat of the earth from the time I spent married to my ex-husband as he was Native American and that was one of the philosophies of the people. I used to dance at the Pow Wows to the drum beat and it was wonderful to give my consciousness up to the drum then, and I think that is why I find it so easy to journey with the drum when someone else is doing the drumming, because even back then, I was always on the edge of the journey when I danced among the people. But I never touched the drums in all that time. It was not until years later that I would learn to drum for shamanic purposes... And my mind was already taught to respond a certain way. Mental habits become spiritual cues in a sense. And this is something that we need to be aware of for ourselves. Not to allow ourselves to become entrenched within a certain way of seeing or responding to the spiritual world if possible. But to remain flexible. At least this is what I have found. I know that I probably sound a bit strange in how I am approaching this entry, but the more that I think as I write the more things keep wanting to assert themselves. And so I am allowing them to be included in this entry. It's true flow of information.
Back to the actual journey for me though. Journeying to other realms is not something that I practice frequently. Not that I don't enjoy it, but that I feel I need a good reason to do so. A really, really good one. It can be very addictive to simply not want to be here and journeying can be a good way out. So I try to make sure that I've done everything I needed to do, or could do,or should have done, before I consider journey work. When I go through the process after I have chanted, and rocked and rattled, I will achieve a state of physical and internal stillness. I can't say that this is the best way for everyone, I don't think that most people are shakers/rockers. But, if you are, don't fear it. It appears to me as if it takes me into a much deeper state much more quickly, or at least I stay there for a considerable period of time. What I get out of it is very profound. Most often I am actually acting as the 'guide' for someone else's journey. I don't mind that. It means that I am a facilitator and I have made possible something that needed to happen. I think the world needs this a lot. I hope that this entry has been of some help to those who are looking at journey work as a part of their practice whether peripherally or in the main.