“What is Shamanic Journeying? Shamanism represents a universal conceptual framework found among indigenous tribal humans. It includes the belief that the natural world has two aspects: ordinary everyday awareness, formed by our habitual behaviors, patterns of belief, social norms, and cultural conditioning, and a second non-ordinary awareness accessed through altered states, or ecstatic trance, induced by shamanic practices such as repetitive drumming. The act of entering an ecstatic trance state is called the soul flight or shamanic journey, and it allows the journeyer to view life and life’s problems from a detached, spiritual perspective, not easily achieved in a state of ordinary consciousness.” MORE 

A soul journey today: So much happening in the world and in my life, I decided to take time for “ecstatic trance.”  This may sound strange to many, but it is a healing practice that has worked well for me for some time.

About twenty-years ago the daughter of my Native American friends committed suicide, hanging herself in the coat closet by their front door.  As part of the healing process for her mom and dad, a local shaman performed a “soul retrieval.”  Some would call this ceremony pseudoscience. I’d prefer to call it proto-science out of respect for my friends and their tradition, though that term more properly refers to science as it was evolving in the 17th and 18th century.

At any rate, though I knew nothing about shamanic drumming and soul retrieval, I went to the ceremony out of love and without any expectation. The shaman was a gentleman of both Mexican and Native American shamanic family traditions.  His mother combined a Catholic belief system with traditional Mexican shamanism. Think of some of the curandeira like Ultima in Rudolfo Anaya’s coming of age novel, Bless Me, Ultima. His father was a shaman of the Objiwe peoples.

The ceremony was beautiful and I unexpectedly went into trance with the drumming.  I discovered that this is rather easy and like prayer and meditation, it brings with it release, healing, vision, and other unexpected gifts. This poem shares a bit of what the experience is like. If you’ve had experience with soul journeying, I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

Riding the shaman’s drum
seeing through the heart
magenta sunlight against
an untamed chartreuse sky
grabbing the river as it runs
wrapping the sea in clouds

Elements of peace, like fledglings
nesting in the tree of life, nature
buzzing with heart’s thrum
heart’s thrum and the drum, drumming
Spirit quickens under a blithe sun ~

Journey on the hypnotic beat
below the outer-crust, tunnels
and tumbling, disarticulating bone
body bursting into shards …
….drawn back
……..reassembled!
….           soul retrieved
filled with light, fed on knotty sedges,
the breeze, flowers chanting praises
and the dawning visions: progenitors
ghost-dancing on metamorphic rock
Earthkeepers dreaming the world

©2019, Jamie Dedes

This is the video I used should you wish to try it yourself.

Jamie Dedes. I’m a freelance writer, poet, content editor, and blogger. I also manage The BeZine and its associated activities and The Poet by Day jamiededes.com, an info hub for writers meant to encourage good but lesser-known poets, women and minority poets, outsider artists, and artists just finding their voices in maturity. The Poet by Day is dedicated to supporting freedom of artistic expression and human rights and encourages activist poetry.  Email thepoetbyday@gmail.com for permissions, commissions, or assignments.

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Recent and Upcoming in Digital Publications Poets Advocate for Peace, Justice, and Sustainability, G Jamie Dedes, Versifier of Truth, Woma Words Literary Press, November 19, How 100,000 Poets Are Fostering Peace, Justice, and Sustainability, YOPP! * The Damask Garden, In a Woman’s Voice, August 11, 2019 / This short story is dedicated to all refugees. That would be one in every 113 people. * Five poems, Spirit of Nature, Opa Anthology of Poetry, 2019 * From the Small Beginning, Entropy Magazine (Enclave, #Final Poems), July 2019 * Over His Morning Coffee, Front Porch Review, July 2019 * Three poems, Our Poetry Archive, September 2019

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.”  Lucille Clifton

4 Comments

        1. Oh, I do love to burn sage and used to all the time. Am on 02 24/7 now and can’t light sage with the oxygen concentrators in the apartment. 😦 I do love to keep it around though and pick it up to enjoy the scent.

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          Reply

Thank you!