The weight of my design
This weekend, I went to the spiritual workgroup that catya runs periodically. Of particular note, we took a shamanic journey during this time, which was a first for me - as least so far as going into this kind of thing intentionally.
The arrangement was that we would lie up on the floor, blindfolded, and we would be guided through the experience. There was a drum playing, to guide us as well, and to tell us when it was time to return from our journey. After we'd been briefed on what to expect, in terms of how we would know it was time to come back and such, we got started.
At first, I was concerned that this wasn't going to work for me. Mind you, I have out of body experiences with some frequency, but they are of my own doing, and I'm familiar with my own methods. This approach - visualizing walking away from our selves, from the room, and down out of the house, into the evening - was more physically conscious then the method that I normally use. I generally just fly right on out of my body. That said, I'm not trying, typically, to go anywhere but places within our understanding; I am usually taking such journeys to reach out to friends, to add in healing, or to investigate what is going on with them. In this case, we were going down, down below this existence. I had no notion of this, and didn't know what to expect. Given this, I tried to follow along as best I could.
At first, the voice of our guide itself was distracting; also, the pace seemed too quick for me, like we were rushing. However, surprisingly, I fell into line pretty quickly. Soon, I was only semi-conscious of the voice leading the way, and my mind was filled with the experience of the journey.
The way to the place below our existance was found just below the sundown. The horizon was still bright with sunset, but in the black landscape below that, there was a dark intersection, a cave-like place all the way on the horizon. I didn't walk to it once I saw it there. It was more like I leaned toward it, and was soon within it. Immediately thereafter, my experience became extremely mixed in my feedback. Sometimes my perceptions were of me, crawling, squeezing into the rooty and tight tunnel to the place below; other times my perceptions were from away from my crawling form, and in that I could see the nature of the tunnel into which I was crawling. It was made of rooty-netting, and coiled down, hanging below the world in an open void. I could see many such tubes hanging down, and they occasionally twitched and convulsed, squeezing along their lengths, like something swallowing. I was aware that I was being pushed down as much as I was crawling down. It felt very my biological.
As I went down, I was aware of other material along with me in the tube; it first it seemed like earth, but as I came near the end of the tube, it was flowing more like lava. I and this material dropped from below the tubes, and there were great mounds there, which I soon came to realize were more like hills or mountains. My vision of the scene drew back enough to show the whole of these hills, as well as a sense of a dark forest around them, and the twilight horizon beyond. The flowing material was, it turned out, was formless, boneless flesh. The mounds that it formed were touched here and there with greens, and yellows, and distantly with reds and oranges - as if moss or flowers were growing on these giant flesh piles. I made my way down the sides of one of these mounds, and soon came across a pair of beings.
For a moment, I thought that one or the other of these beings was who I was there to meet with, but soon, I remembered them, after a fashion. Before laying my eyes upon them, I had no recall of them, but on seeing them, it was like as if some ancient memory surfaced, something long forgotten, and lacking supporting details. I knew them, but I didn't know how or why. The first impression of them was that they were great crows or ravens. However, they were also humanoids. Around their neck, and about their head, they were wearing armor and crowns; it was golden and silver, bright and beautiful. At the edges of this armor was feathers of different colors, not the black feathers of these beings, but green feathers, yellow feathers. Some of these were connected to the armor. Others had been attached into the actual feathers of these beings. They were armed, I knew, but I don't recall actually seeing weapons. They walked with me, on the edge of a dark forest, where a turquoise fog held about the bottom of the trees. From that fog emerged another being, a crow-person as the others had been, but I knew this one to be the one I sought on this journey. Its decorative feathers were purples and reds.
Before starting the journey, I'd been reflecting on what I wanted to ask of the being I met on this journey, but my thoughts had been jumbled. Ultimately, it had mostly settled on asking about the role that I seemed to have in the life of so many - the sense that I had that I was a transitional guide, someone that people sought out when they were going through a change. Often, once the time of change was done, they would move on with their lives, and be done with me. This was an experience that I'd had over and over again in my life, so many times that I felt sick of it. Why did I move into such situations? Why was I sought out in this way? I didn't like the pain that came with the end of these times, of being left behind by those who had grown past needing me. Why wasn't I learning to avoid such things, after so many years. However, as I faced the crow-being, all these thoughts seemed like pointless whining; just looking upon it, and feeling the sense of how familiar it was, somehow drove all these thoughts from me. My pain seemed like the fussing of a child who had hit his finger while playing with blocks, and was crying at his mother, holding up his hand for a healing kiss. All this washed away, and what I was left with was "What am I? Why am I?"
The being looked at me, and I could feel it asking if I was certain that I wanted to see, that it would be difficult. Nervously, I said I did. It turned its black eye at me, and therein, I could see my reflection. In it, I was a crow-being as the one before me, yet I was blazing bright in red and yellow light; I was armored in light and fire, and was so beautiful that it actually hurt, physically, to look upon myself. There was something wonderful and terrible about seeing myself. I could see how great I was, how much power I had, and I could see the nature of my design. I could feel how I fit, how I was made to give into the world, to heal and guide, to pour my life out to bring light and growth and change. I could also see how tiny I was at the same time - that the amount of me that extended into the world above was like the tip of my smallest finger, and that any effort and pain I had ever endured in my body or my heart was nothing but a pin-prick compared to what I was capable of handling. All my contributions to the world, all aid I had ever rendered, all healing I had ever done, all care that I had given - it was a tiny fraction of what I could do, of what I should be doing. My purpose in the world above was to give, to aid those who needed my hand when they were in times of pain or change, to carry them on through and then, when they were safe, to give my aid to yet others who sought or needed me. I could see that there was so much more I could give, so much more of my true self that I could be, and that I held myself back from that great possibility; I was my own limit on the good I could do, and I had set that limit so, so low.
This revelation hurt; seeing how much I could be, and how little of that I was being tore at me; back in my flesh, I could feel myself struggling and suffering with this. I was crying and gritting my teeth. Some part of me wanted to reject this vision, some part of me felt angry that I was expected to carry this burden in the world. However, as it sat in me, I saw also that this was of my choosing; some long time ago, I had selected to be this part of the design; I had not been forced into this role. This role was my choice, my dream, the thing I most wanted to do. As I settled into this, I could feel myself fully - fear and doubt and pain melted away, and I was whole and great. I could feel my blazing glory.
The crow-being who was my guide asked if I was settled with my choice, and I was. It acknowledged the difficulty of the cause, but how very worthy a cause it was. I agreed, but at the same time, I felt sad. I knew that soon I would be gone from here, back to my body, and that this feeling and vision would fall away, dream-like. That was the nature of the design as well. It asked if I wanted to fly with it and my fellows, to which I excitedly agreed. I remembered flying before this time somehow, so I certainly knew how; it was easy and wonderful, and we rose up and up, passing up about the edges of existence. We flew about it, rising higher and higher. We were all so beautiful and great. Looking up, I could see that there was something more, higher up still, but when I thought on that, I was told "It is not the time for that; that is for later."
At that moment, the drum beat changed, and it was time to return. I spiralled down with my companions, my friends and fellows, those who truly knew and saw all of me. They nodded me on, knowing that we would see each other again, and I headed back. I clawed my way up into the web-tubes, and was surprisingly strong and quick, despite moving against the flow. When I emerged in the world above, finding my way back to my body was as easy as anything. However, when I got to my body, I found myself troubled. My flesh was so small, and I was so much, it didn't seem possible that I could return. I turned and shifted, and I could feel myself folding and shrinking. It was quite uncomfortable, and it was like being in a heavy suit that was far too tight everywhere. The pain of the body washed over me, as did a feeling of terrible loss. In returning to my body, much of my understanding and clarity drifted away like smoke. Even now, as I capture this, I feel like I've done a poor job of it. There was so much more, but I was only able to hold on to so much.
After the experience, it took me some time to settle down. At first, I felt a mix of happiness and petty rejection of the vision. Some part of me was very pleased, and some childish angry part of me wanted to have a tantrum. catya had been attending to me while I was having my journey for part of the time, and she checked on me afterward. Her even presence was helpful as always; though I was agitated, her energy didn't agitate me further, and her support assisted me in pulling myself together. Over the next hour, I settled in myself completely.
It was a great experience; I'm quite glad that I did it. Now that I've had this kind of journey, I'm quite curious about deeper exploring into this practice. I'm also settled with the difficult nature of what was revealed. I think, in large part, because I already knew these things, but wasn't willing to accept them. Certainly, it is, in some ways, easier to hide from this knowledge. However, I've touched and held the truth. It has helped bring a degree of peace to me. Certainly, like most hard lessons, I'm sure I will need to learn this again.
The arrangement was that we would lie up on the floor, blindfolded, and we would be guided through the experience. There was a drum playing, to guide us as well, and to tell us when it was time to return from our journey. After we'd been briefed on what to expect, in terms of how we would know it was time to come back and such, we got started.
At first, I was concerned that this wasn't going to work for me. Mind you, I have out of body experiences with some frequency, but they are of my own doing, and I'm familiar with my own methods. This approach - visualizing walking away from our selves, from the room, and down out of the house, into the evening - was more physically conscious then the method that I normally use. I generally just fly right on out of my body. That said, I'm not trying, typically, to go anywhere but places within our understanding; I am usually taking such journeys to reach out to friends, to add in healing, or to investigate what is going on with them. In this case, we were going down, down below this existence. I had no notion of this, and didn't know what to expect. Given this, I tried to follow along as best I could.
At first, the voice of our guide itself was distracting; also, the pace seemed too quick for me, like we were rushing. However, surprisingly, I fell into line pretty quickly. Soon, I was only semi-conscious of the voice leading the way, and my mind was filled with the experience of the journey.
The way to the place below our existance was found just below the sundown. The horizon was still bright with sunset, but in the black landscape below that, there was a dark intersection, a cave-like place all the way on the horizon. I didn't walk to it once I saw it there. It was more like I leaned toward it, and was soon within it. Immediately thereafter, my experience became extremely mixed in my feedback. Sometimes my perceptions were of me, crawling, squeezing into the rooty and tight tunnel to the place below; other times my perceptions were from away from my crawling form, and in that I could see the nature of the tunnel into which I was crawling. It was made of rooty-netting, and coiled down, hanging below the world in an open void. I could see many such tubes hanging down, and they occasionally twitched and convulsed, squeezing along their lengths, like something swallowing. I was aware that I was being pushed down as much as I was crawling down. It felt very my biological.
As I went down, I was aware of other material along with me in the tube; it first it seemed like earth, but as I came near the end of the tube, it was flowing more like lava. I and this material dropped from below the tubes, and there were great mounds there, which I soon came to realize were more like hills or mountains. My vision of the scene drew back enough to show the whole of these hills, as well as a sense of a dark forest around them, and the twilight horizon beyond. The flowing material was, it turned out, was formless, boneless flesh. The mounds that it formed were touched here and there with greens, and yellows, and distantly with reds and oranges - as if moss or flowers were growing on these giant flesh piles. I made my way down the sides of one of these mounds, and soon came across a pair of beings.
For a moment, I thought that one or the other of these beings was who I was there to meet with, but soon, I remembered them, after a fashion. Before laying my eyes upon them, I had no recall of them, but on seeing them, it was like as if some ancient memory surfaced, something long forgotten, and lacking supporting details. I knew them, but I didn't know how or why. The first impression of them was that they were great crows or ravens. However, they were also humanoids. Around their neck, and about their head, they were wearing armor and crowns; it was golden and silver, bright and beautiful. At the edges of this armor was feathers of different colors, not the black feathers of these beings, but green feathers, yellow feathers. Some of these were connected to the armor. Others had been attached into the actual feathers of these beings. They were armed, I knew, but I don't recall actually seeing weapons. They walked with me, on the edge of a dark forest, where a turquoise fog held about the bottom of the trees. From that fog emerged another being, a crow-person as the others had been, but I knew this one to be the one I sought on this journey. Its decorative feathers were purples and reds.
Before starting the journey, I'd been reflecting on what I wanted to ask of the being I met on this journey, but my thoughts had been jumbled. Ultimately, it had mostly settled on asking about the role that I seemed to have in the life of so many - the sense that I had that I was a transitional guide, someone that people sought out when they were going through a change. Often, once the time of change was done, they would move on with their lives, and be done with me. This was an experience that I'd had over and over again in my life, so many times that I felt sick of it. Why did I move into such situations? Why was I sought out in this way? I didn't like the pain that came with the end of these times, of being left behind by those who had grown past needing me. Why wasn't I learning to avoid such things, after so many years. However, as I faced the crow-being, all these thoughts seemed like pointless whining; just looking upon it, and feeling the sense of how familiar it was, somehow drove all these thoughts from me. My pain seemed like the fussing of a child who had hit his finger while playing with blocks, and was crying at his mother, holding up his hand for a healing kiss. All this washed away, and what I was left with was "What am I? Why am I?"
The being looked at me, and I could feel it asking if I was certain that I wanted to see, that it would be difficult. Nervously, I said I did. It turned its black eye at me, and therein, I could see my reflection. In it, I was a crow-being as the one before me, yet I was blazing bright in red and yellow light; I was armored in light and fire, and was so beautiful that it actually hurt, physically, to look upon myself. There was something wonderful and terrible about seeing myself. I could see how great I was, how much power I had, and I could see the nature of my design. I could feel how I fit, how I was made to give into the world, to heal and guide, to pour my life out to bring light and growth and change. I could also see how tiny I was at the same time - that the amount of me that extended into the world above was like the tip of my smallest finger, and that any effort and pain I had ever endured in my body or my heart was nothing but a pin-prick compared to what I was capable of handling. All my contributions to the world, all aid I had ever rendered, all healing I had ever done, all care that I had given - it was a tiny fraction of what I could do, of what I should be doing. My purpose in the world above was to give, to aid those who needed my hand when they were in times of pain or change, to carry them on through and then, when they were safe, to give my aid to yet others who sought or needed me. I could see that there was so much more I could give, so much more of my true self that I could be, and that I held myself back from that great possibility; I was my own limit on the good I could do, and I had set that limit so, so low.
This revelation hurt; seeing how much I could be, and how little of that I was being tore at me; back in my flesh, I could feel myself struggling and suffering with this. I was crying and gritting my teeth. Some part of me wanted to reject this vision, some part of me felt angry that I was expected to carry this burden in the world. However, as it sat in me, I saw also that this was of my choosing; some long time ago, I had selected to be this part of the design; I had not been forced into this role. This role was my choice, my dream, the thing I most wanted to do. As I settled into this, I could feel myself fully - fear and doubt and pain melted away, and I was whole and great. I could feel my blazing glory.
The crow-being who was my guide asked if I was settled with my choice, and I was. It acknowledged the difficulty of the cause, but how very worthy a cause it was. I agreed, but at the same time, I felt sad. I knew that soon I would be gone from here, back to my body, and that this feeling and vision would fall away, dream-like. That was the nature of the design as well. It asked if I wanted to fly with it and my fellows, to which I excitedly agreed. I remembered flying before this time somehow, so I certainly knew how; it was easy and wonderful, and we rose up and up, passing up about the edges of existence. We flew about it, rising higher and higher. We were all so beautiful and great. Looking up, I could see that there was something more, higher up still, but when I thought on that, I was told "It is not the time for that; that is for later."
At that moment, the drum beat changed, and it was time to return. I spiralled down with my companions, my friends and fellows, those who truly knew and saw all of me. They nodded me on, knowing that we would see each other again, and I headed back. I clawed my way up into the web-tubes, and was surprisingly strong and quick, despite moving against the flow. When I emerged in the world above, finding my way back to my body was as easy as anything. However, when I got to my body, I found myself troubled. My flesh was so small, and I was so much, it didn't seem possible that I could return. I turned and shifted, and I could feel myself folding and shrinking. It was quite uncomfortable, and it was like being in a heavy suit that was far too tight everywhere. The pain of the body washed over me, as did a feeling of terrible loss. In returning to my body, much of my understanding and clarity drifted away like smoke. Even now, as I capture this, I feel like I've done a poor job of it. There was so much more, but I was only able to hold on to so much.
After the experience, it took me some time to settle down. At first, I felt a mix of happiness and petty rejection of the vision. Some part of me was very pleased, and some childish angry part of me wanted to have a tantrum. catya had been attending to me while I was having my journey for part of the time, and she checked on me afterward. Her even presence was helpful as always; though I was agitated, her energy didn't agitate me further, and her support assisted me in pulling myself together. Over the next hour, I settled in myself completely.
It was a great experience; I'm quite glad that I did it. Now that I've had this kind of journey, I'm quite curious about deeper exploring into this practice. I'm also settled with the difficult nature of what was revealed. I think, in large part, because I already knew these things, but wasn't willing to accept them. Certainly, it is, in some ways, easier to hide from this knowledge. However, I've touched and held the truth. It has helped bring a degree of peace to me. Certainly, like most hard lessons, I'm sure I will need to learn this again.