Finding Your Power Song

Power songs are oral prayers spoken from the heart, expressing your true self and personal power. All shamans have at least one power song to call their helping spirits. It announces the shaman to the spirits and proclaims, "this is me … please help me." The song is usually sung near the beginning of any ritual and is often accompanied by drumming. Singing brings the heartbeat and body into resonance with the song similar to entrainment with the pulse of the drum. As the shaman's song invokes the intended spirits, the shaman comes into resonance with these spirit energies as well.

I recommend that you find your own power song to invoke your spirit helpers. The lyrics are usually just a line or two repeated over and over. The words of your song will have great power if they come from the heart. As ethnographer and author Gregory Maskarinec puts it, "In the shamanic world, words transform substance. Any medicinal properties of raw substance are trivial compared with the power of speech ...."1

To acquire a power song, begin your day with morning prayers to your helping spirits. Ask your guides to help you discover your personal power song. Do not eat breakfast and fast throughout the day. Plan to spend the day alone in an outdoor location that is preferably quiet and private. A wilderness or wild area away from the city is preferred.

Do not plan an itinerary -- be spontaneous. Just stroll quietly through the natural setting with the awareness that communication with natural elements is possible and be open to such communication. Nature is communicating with you all the time. Be aware of your surroundings. Look for synchronicities. They involve an internal psychological event that corresponds to an external observable event. Some aspect of a journey, vision, or dream may manifest in your ordinary reality. An animal, bird, or insect may bring you a message or guidance. When any animal shows up in an unusual way, or repetitively in a short period of time, it's critical to pay attention to the message. 

As you wander, discover what animal or bird you feel like. Take on its feelings, embody its spirit, and enjoy its identity throughout the day. As this is your first attempt to acquire a power song, you may only find the melody. If so, subsequent excursions will unveil the words for your melody.

When invoking your spirit helpers, repeat the song as long as you feel it is needed. I often start dancing and rattling while I sing my power song and bring my whole body into the act of calling the spirits. The more feeling or emotional energy you put into it, the stronger the invocation.

References
1. Gregory G. Maskarinec, Rulings Of The Night: An Ethnography Of Nepalese Shaman Oral Texts, (University of Wisconsin Press, 1995), p 187.

Clarifying Your True Calling

Streaming live on the Co-Creator Radio Network on Tuesday, December 23, at 11am Pacific/2pm Eastern on "Why Shamanism Now? A Practical Path to Authenticity," shaman and founder of the Last Mask Center for Shamanic Healing Christina Pratt tells listeners that "follow your bliss" is really not enough to go on when we need to clarify a vision of our true calling and engage that path of mastery day by day. For most, the vision of their "true calling" is wildly unfocused and impractical or it falls woefully short of the individual's true capabilities. However, consistent work with the Visionary in shamanic journeys encourages us to develop our visionary capacities: our perception, or seeing our external patterns; our insight, or internal viewing; and in engaging our imagination which encourages our intuition. Ultimately the Visionary's point is to get us to open our scope of seeing to all of our senses so that our sense of what "my vision" actually means expands to the point where we can actually clarify our true calling, according to Pratt. Prior episodes from "Why Shamanism Now" can be downloaded for free from iTunes.  

The Magic of Shapeshifting

One of the best ways to connect with power animals is through the art of shapeshifting. In the shaman's world, animals are kin, an ancient belief reflected in mythology and in animism -- the belief that non-human entities are spiritual beings. It is a mental world where the seen and the unseen; the material and the spiritual merge. As their helping spirits, the shamans "might use animals, anything that grows," says Osuitok Ipeelee, an esteemed Artic Inuit sculptor. "It was well known that the animals the shamans controlled had the ability to turn into humans. When a shaman was using his magic he had a real change of personality. When the animals entered into him he'd be chanting loudly; if a shaman was turning into a certain animal, he'd make that animal sound. Once he was filled inside, he'd begin to change; his face and his skin followed."¹

Shapeshifting is more than just transforming into an animal as is often depicted in shamanic accounts and tales. It is the ability to shift your energies to adapt to the demands and changes of daily life. We all learn which activities, behaviors, and attitudes support or hinder our survival and growth. It is a natural and instinctual ability that we all share. The minimal development of this talent is the ability to mimic. We often mimic for the purpose of learning something or to blend in with our social or physical environment. It implies changing one's pattern of appearance or behavior, rather than just using what you already have. Actors, for example, are known for their ability to take on the characteristics of another person or thing. 

A shapeshifter is one who manipulates their aura to access a higher or inner power in order to grow and learn. The human aura is the energy field that surrounds the human body in all directions. All shapeshifting occurs on an energy level. If everything is broadcasting its own energy pattern and if you could match and rebroadcast the same pattern, then you would take on the appearance and qualities of the thing you were matching. The only constraining factor is the degree of belief, connection, and energy. To experience this for yourself, try the following simple exercise: 

1. Create sacred space as you would for other spiritual work, dim the lights, and sit comfortably erect in a chair or on the floor.
2. Close your eyes and take a couple of deep breaths.
3. Call upon an animal that you have an affinity with. Visualize and invite this animal spirit to come into your body and consciousness.
4. Meditate with it. Be open to the feelings and sensations of being that animal. It is not uncommon to be and see the animal at the same time.
5. Simply observe whatever happens for a few minutes, and then thank the spirit animal and release it.  

Shapeshifting to any degree will help you develop a kinship with your animal relatives. Learning to shift your consciousness, to align with and adapt your energies to power animals, opens your heart and mind to the wisdom and strength of the animal world. You must empty yourself so that spirit can embody you. "Become like a hollow bone," a Lakota elder once advised me in the sweat lodge.

1. Dorothy H. Eber, "Recording the Spirit World," Natural History Magazine, Sept, 2002, p. 54.

Understanding Shamanic Journeys

The classic shamanic journey is one of the most remarkable visionary methods used by humankind to access inner wisdom and guidance by the teachers within. Shamanic journeying is not an exceptional skill reserved for certain people, but knowing what to do with intuition, how to respond to it, and how to integrate it into day-to-day life is an exceptional skill that can -- and should -- be learned. It is important to release any expectations you may have about what a journey should be like. Too often people reject what they are legitimately experiencing because it doesn't fit their expectations of what should be happening. The key is to trust that what is happening is exactly what is meant to occur at that moment in time.

The most empowering gift shamanic journeying offers each of us is direct revelation, which manifests as visions, inner voices, or experiences with our own spirit helpers. Once you attain a state of ecstatic communion, how do you know you are listening to your spirit guides and not just making it up? For me, direct revelation comes from the heart and begins with my willingness to trust the guidance of my inner voice.

To better understand your journeys, I recommend recording your experiences in a journal as soon as you have returned to ordinary reality. Journeys, like dreams, tend to fade quickly from conscious awareness. Keeping a journal provides a record of your spiritual growth and allows you to reflect upon and better interpret journeys. In some cases, your journey experiences will be clear and easy to understand. At other times, your journey may be dreamlike and full of symbolism. Interpret such journeys as you would any dream. Look for possible associations related to each symbol or image. Don't overanalyze the journey, for its meaning will become clear at the appropriate time.

Not every journey you undertake will necessarily be coherent, vivid or powerful. Still, no matter how esoteric or random the experience may seem, it augments your shamanic skill and knowledge. Seemingly insignificant events in a journey or vision may manifest in a powerful way in your ordinary state of awareness. Be on the lookout for synchronicities, for they confirm that your shamanic work is producing effects beyond the bounds of probability or coincidence.

The more you practice shamanic journeying, the better you will get at it. Nothing may happen on your first journeys. You may not be able to turn off the mind chatter or go anywhere. When this happens, simply try again at a different time. Eventually you will be able to take a rapid inner journey anywhere or anytime the need arises. Try a shamanic journey: http://youtu.be/_bU0g8TiDUw 

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.

Basically, shamanic journeying is a way of communicating with your inner or spirit self and retrieving information. Your inner self is in constant communication with all aspects of your environment, seen and unseen. You need only journey within to find answers to your questions. You should have a question or objective in mind from the start. Shamanic journeying may be undertaken for purposes of divination, for personal healing, to meet one's power animal or spirit guide, or for any number of other reasons. After the journey, you must then interpret the meaning of your trance experience.

Drumming is a simple and effective way to induce ecstatic trance states. When a drum is played at an even tempo of three to four beats per second for at least fifteen minutes, most novices report that they can journey successfully even on their first attempt. Transported by the driving beat of the drum; the shamanic traveler journeys to the inner planes of consciousness.