Making the Shamanic Journey: Basic Instructions

What follows is a paper I wrote to help a colleague during her first attempts to utilize the Core Shamanic trance-journey.

Part I
Radically Short Introduction to Shamanism

Now, I'm going to attempt to type something that can't be worded with any sense of justice or completion. The task you will attempt to undertake- that of the classical "Underworld Journey" or "Lower-worldly Consciousness Regression/Alteration"- is something that goes back to the roots of humanity, and it would take months to really explain and analyze in satisfactory detail.

If you have not read "The Way of the Shaman" by Michael Harner, please do; it is the work (still in print) that presented the “Underworld Journey” to the west in a rather academic fashion, while still keeping an eye to the practical use of this ancient and foundational pattern of spiritual experience. It is easy to get through Amazon.com.

The entire edifice of tribal shamanism- from any culture, worldwide, and from any time- rests on the shamans, either male or female, being able to alter their state of consciousness at will. To alter their state from an "OSC" (Ordinary State of Consciousness) to a "SSC" (Shamanic State of Consciousness" gives them a new way of experiencing reality.

Like Harner, I use the term “Shaman”, even though my use is a modern one. Each primal grouping of people on this planet had their own culturally specific term for their “consciousness alteration specialists”, but the Siberian word “Shaman”- which, ironically, may itself have roots in an ancient Indo-European language- has become a commonly used word to refer to the general and primordial act of altering consciousness at will for the purposes of accessing extraordinary powers or knowledge, and on behalf of a client in need of guidance or healing, or on behalf of a group of people. Some Shamans act on their own for personal reasons.

Shamans can alter their state of consciousness at will, and become able to experience the world in a new way. In this new way, this "non-ordinary state of consciousness", their experience of reality can be framed in extraordinary ways. This is the classic "trance" state in which extra-sensory reality can be reached; the "strong eye" or the inner eye can be opened.

These spiritual specialists- these psychonauts, as it were- are specialists in accessing reaches of the mind that most people don't get to consciously experience very often. As I said before, they access these reaches of experience so that they can "bring back" or access divinatory information, information regarding how to heal people of various mental and physical illness, and for other reasons of power-acquisition.

The "Underworld" is a description of the "world" or "way of experiencing" that shamans universally access for the purposes of healing power and divination, though other "worlds" exist within the cosmologies of primal peoples, and can be accessed in the same methods that you and I will discuss.

When we say "underworld", we are talking about both a spiritual/cosmological "location", but also a descriptor of something that can be framed as a "deeper" state of consciousness, perhaps cognate to the subconscious mind, but you must realize that this sort of comparison and this sort of terminology is definitely a western way of rationalizing or framing the "Underworld" experience. I'm not saying that this is "wrong" per se, but from the fresh perspectives of primal peoples, the Underworld is its own place, and not just some "state of mind"- though I can say with certainty from my own philosophical research that "worlds" and "states of mind" aren't so different after all.

Of course, we are not dealing with any religious notion of "hell" in the pejorative or evil sense, though elements of mainstream Christian culture have always thought so and preached as much when they encountered shamans among native peoples accessing this deeper world. In reality, the Underworld is the interior of the Land itself, the sacred depths from which all things grow, and the source of life- and the source of wisdom and healing. The "deeper world" or the "world inside the world" is the "layer" of reality that underlies our common perceptions, and when we "go inward" and experience it, we see things closer to their roots.

Seeing things in this way puts us closer to the "time" in the spiritual "past" (as it is normally perceived) in which animals and other creatures (like trees, rocks, rivers, winds, etc) were not simply "beasts out there" or "lumps of stone" or "senseless trees", but instead were "non-human persons", capable of communicating with mankind and with each other. Such a strange idea is captured in most "shamanic" mythologies worldwide, and even hints of it arise in the book of Genesis, wherein Eve and a well-known serpent had no trouble conversing with one another, in that ancient setting of primordial creation.

The Underworld journey is a "return" in the mind, a transformation of the mind, into a condition in which extraordinary experiences are possible, and vast amounts of personal insight can be acquired. Healing- of the mental kind, as well as the physical kind, is possible. I cannot explain, of course, how it comes about- but I can say that I have experienced enormously powerful effects on both fronts, for myself and for others.

The shaman of any primal grouping, worldwide, does not act alone- spiritual powers help them in their consciousness-alteration work. The concept of "helping spirits" is universal, captured in terms like "nagual" or "totem" or "familiar" or spirit-helper. The extraordinary journey and effort to acquire such helpers, and then the career spent interacting with them, is the career of the shaman in nearly all societies. These helpers are companions and helpers to the shaman; the shaman must (normally) do services for them, repay them in some way, for their help. A relationship has to be maintained with these spiritual powers, and in so doing, the shaman maintains the powers that are their living link to the altered states of consciousness that they need to access.

For the main purpose or function of these helping spirits is to help facilitate transition into extraordinary states of consciousness on the part of the shaman. These helpers appear normally as animals of various kinds, but can appear as humans or humanoid beings.

There are many theories, some tied to the mythologies of primal peoples, explaining who and what these helping spirits are; sometimes (oftentimes) they are tied to the ancestral chain of relationship that the shaman descends from; since primal people believe that human beings and animals are all from the same family, it only makes sense that many helping spirits or ancestral spirits can appear in animal shape. We are all related, and each human bloodline (shamanically speaking) is more or less related to various animals that are alive out in the world right now.

Other times, they (helping spirits) are simply spirits that are attracted to humans who wish to deal with them in such a manner that some mutual benefit can occur. Sometimes, helping spirits can be the spirits of ancestors or family members, or deceased members of the tribe/clan/extended family group, some being who would have an understandable reason for wanting to help. Whatever the case, discovering, forging, and maintaining relationships with these beings is a crucial thing to the success of shamanic operations.

As you can see, the worldview that these shamanic operations arise from has within it an implied notion of an "afterlife" for all once-living beings. Of course, westerners categorize "life" as something that only happens between conception and physical death, but to many primal peoples, life is an ongoing and perpetual process, though it undergoes (in common with all powers) many changes and transformations, some of which manifest outwardly (like the growth of a child into adulthood) and some manifest inwardly (like the process of emotionally maturing or having spiritual experiences).

Death, in this model, is an outward expression of a deeper transformation of life into a new condition, and often enough, dead people and animals are believed to descend into the Underworld, where they join the spirits of other deceased people and beings. Our European ancestors believed many variations on the very same thing, as you no doubt already know- crossing the river below (such as the classical Styx or some sort of barrier) and entering the Underworld was a common pre-Christian model of transition after death. It was a common model all over the world, even in places in Native America.

Thus, the "Underworld journey" or the transition into a "deeper state" of consciousness can possibly facilitate contact with those who have gone before. Shamans worldwide are expected to be able to access the dead, to gain the wisdom and guidance of ancestors that lived long ago, and who (in common belief) are thought to have a lot of crucial wisdom for human beings who are currently alive.

No one alive truly knows what happens when we die, though it appears that consciousness continues, and whatever our "consciousness principle" might be, it continues to experience things in its own terms in whatever state it inhabits.

This entire issue is one of perception. No one really knows what "we" truly are, or what spirits truly are. Who knows why some things appear one way and others appear in others? I hate to venture too deep of a guess at the "purpose" of our perpetual spiritual existence, except to say that finding a way to live in lasting harmony with ourselves and the whole of which we are an inseparable part would appear to be life's true sacred purpose.

I can also say with some certainty that the collection of all individual powers that exist- whether human or otherwise- seem to form an organic whole that is divine in its own right, though it is a far cry from the standard notion of "God" found in most western religions. It is more of a "Mystery"- and thus it is called in most primal religions: Great Mystery, Sacred Mystery, or Great Power.

It is at once the ground from which all beings arise and which forever sustains them, and (somehow) the force that unfolds intelligibly through them and through all interactions, appearing to have some sort of will or intentionality. It is the cosmos of interactions that can be experienced in an extraordinary manner as more than just material and measurable process, but also as spirit. The universe as experienced by shamans is not a threatening or meaningless place, but a place of never ending life and goodness. Dangers certainly exist in this universe, but they too, have a sacred purpose.

All communications or interactions between you and me, or between me and my helping spirit, or between any and all beings is a sacred transaction of power. All events are "religious" in this sense; all events have a sacred aspect about them and learning to see them this way is the key to "living and perceiving in a sacred manner" that primal peoples all speak of and put so much value on.


Part II
Altering the Consciousness and Journeying into the Lower World
In the matters of which I am about to write, I can only speak for myself and from my perspective of what you are about to undertake: the Shamanic Journey. The shamanic journey is intensely personal and subjective, though categories like "subjective" and "objective" cease to apply outside of our western expectations and other epistemological limitations. My instructions here are based largely on the techniques taught by Michael Harner and his Foundation for Shamanic Studies, but they contain some of my own notes and modifications that I have discovered really help facilitate the transition from one state of consciousness to another.

Shamans worldwide have used sound as their chief “practical and technical” method of achieving altered states of consciousness. The sound of rhythmic drumming is a common means for altering the consciousness and allowing for access into hidden reaches of mind. I normally drum for myself or have an assistant do it; I also have several recorded tracks of various simple drum rhythms that I use from time to time. I will provide you with samples of them for your use, and I urge you to purchase your own at your first convenience.

When you deal with peoples who don't believe in an absolute division between "person" and "world", then accessing the deep places of the mind is the same, in a direct way, as accessing deep places in the world. This is why trance is more than just a personal experience; it is an experience of the whole world in a new manner.

The mind and this world cannot be separated; without the world, there would be no mind, and (when you think about it) vice versa. This idea of "mind" is very different from the western materialistic notion of it; this idea teaches that what we call "mind" is a more fundamental strand in the web of creation than we imagine. "Mind" in this sense also doesn't really refer to the individual personalities or memories of people, but to the capacity for experience that humans all share, and which, as the theory goes, is shared by all life and even all things that seem "inanimate" to our ordinary state of perception.

You desire to seek guidance and insight through extraordinary states of consciousness. This is great; this is the cornerstone of the entire human spiritual quest and spiritual experience. You have always had all you needed to gain this guidance; what I will tell you here (and what I have told you here) is only a quick "pointing at the moon"- you will very easily use these words to fall into a surprisingly familiar "way of being" that will give you more conscious access to aspects of yourself and this world that you will likely be quite amazed at.

What you must do first is discover an entrance into the Lower World. It may sound strange, but again, when you realize how connected we "humans" and "this world" are, you can begin to see how a hole in the earth, or a cave, or a well, or a dark passage under a tree-root system can simultaneously act as a "door" that gives access to deeper places of consciousness. Traditionally, these sorts of phenomenon (caves, holes in the ground, etc) were seen as entrances to the Underworld, and were held in high sacred regard in many ancient cultures worldwide.

So you'll need to find a place that fits the description I just gave: I personally have a tree in the forest near my house that has a very deep "natural entrance" under its roots, going down to darkness. A body of water will work too- so long as it is not man-made. All bodies of water are seen to give entrance to the world below.

It works best if you can physically visit the place, in this world, and stare at it, committing every detail of the place to memory. However, if you only have a picture, you can use that image too, as long as you know where in relation to your current location that place is, and can create inside yourself a "feel" for where it is. If you know of a nice natural lake or river, or a natural cave or fissure, or any impressive entrance into the ground (tree root holes are my favorite) then please go to it, make a trip of it, and memorize how that entrance looks.

If all you have are pictures, then memorize every detail from the picture, and get an idea of where that place is in comparison to where you are. You have to make it as "real a place" as you can in your head.

When you are ready for your first journey, and when you have your "entrance" well memorized, you will take yourself to a room where you will not be disturbed for 15-30 minutes, by anything at all. No phones, no knocks, nothing. Any disturbance during these operations can be quite devastating on many levels.

Lie down comfortably and put on your MP3 player headphones, with the track ready to go- I suggest you "practice" a few times with the 15 minute track, before moving up to the 30 minute track, which is a pretty long journey. The "virtual time" that you experience on these journeys can be remarkably different from the “actual time” that your track is limited to- just like in a dream, what is 30 minutes in so-called "actuality" can seem like hours in the deep state, or it can seem like only a minute or two. There is no predicting it.

Lie comfortably and cover your eyes with a dark cloth. Always cover your eyes, no matter when you work. Also, do not ever undertake one of these journeys if you are tired- for you will fall right to sleep. I find that I get the best results when I work a few hours after I've woken up, right in the middle of the day! But I have had amazing results at night, too, so long as I wasn't too tired when I "went down".

Once you are relaxed, comfortable, eyes covered, and your track starts, you will hear the drums. The first thing to do is focus on the drumbeat and let it just "wash over you and through you" and relax into it. The sound is deep, repetitive, and simple. Just "go with it"- let it rumble along through your head and being. Let it relax you; it seems odd that a beat as rapid as that one can relax you, but you will discover that it has a strange effect. Think of it like a stream- literally a stream of power- and let your mind and body sort of melt into the stream of power that you are experiencing as drumbeats. When you feel like you are sort of "moving" with it, then you go to the next step.

Visualize your "entrance". See your hole in the earth, body of water, root-tunnel under a tree, cave, or whatever you picked. Let yourself really "see" it with your inner eye. "See" it as though you were walking up to it- and if needs be, you can "shrink" yourself to be small enough to walk right into it (as in the case of most tree-root holes). Really let yourself "see" as much detail as you can, but focus most on the darkness of the entrance, and always, always, always KNOW that the darkness beyond- the darkness that hides so much- hides a deep shaft that leads straight down into the earth, and into a world below.

You have to see the darkness of the entrance as concealing a shaft that falls straight "down", a tunnel that may go a ways "in" before slanting downward and slicing deep down into the earth, to the strange and mysterious world below.

Then, go in. Walk a ways in, visualizing the dark tunnel however you think it would look, and then, when you feel the "tunnel" starting to slant downward, (they often slant steeply) plunge into it. Go down. Maybe you'll be falling down, maybe flying, maybe running, whatever it takes- the most important things for this stage are as follows:

1. Some people find it hard to visualize the descent; it is FAR MORE IMPORTANT TO FEEL the sensation of "sinking" or "going down" of "falling way down" than it is to SEE it. You have to really feel that you are sinking deep, deep down, going far below the earth. You have to feel like your body is "up above you" somewhere, and "you" are going down into a deep, dark place. A sense of “separation” from the “ordinary world far above” and “where you are at this moment, deep below” needs to arise in you.

2. Do not try too hard, in any part of this. Do not ever in your journeys try too hard. Too much effort to "visualize" and "move" will block the state of consciousness that you are trying to summon. Of course, you do have to try somewhat- there is a perfect "middle ground" you have to reach to make this work, which is somewhere between trying too hard and not trying enough. You will know this "sweet spot" of the mind when you hit it.


Some people have trouble with visualizations- you do not have to "see" everything clearly. You simply have to know what you are "doing" in your inner experience, and "feel" the falling, sinking, or descending feeling as you make the descent.

At some point, you'll find yourself in the transitional stage- going down, down, down in your tunnel, feeling the descent, and hearing the nonstop thunder of the rhythmic drums. At this point, simply let it all go on- keep going down, down, down. If your motion seems to be interrupted, then let the drum "carry" you- let the beats "force you forward and down" with every "thump thump thump"- the drum is truly the "horse" of the shaman.

Now, we reach the part where I can say little more. But I will try.

If your chosen entrance is indeed an Underworld portal- and not all are- then you will, at some indeterminate “time” after you start going "down", arrive at a tunnel exit. Your tunnel will literally end and you'll find yourself in another "world". It looks different to everyone. It may be some forest, or plains, desert or sea-shore, or city streets. It can be day or night. You never can tell. It may be easy to see, or very unclear and distorted.

At this point, you must realize that you are still under the influence of the drum beats. You still have some power to "co-create" this vision, so as you walk through the inner landscape, or float, or fly, or just move through it in some strange, indeterminate way, you may doubt yourself and think "I'm making this up". That's fine. Keep going, and keep seeing things, and as you go, just accept what you see. Don't try to avoid "making things up", and don't try to "make things up". Just go and accept what you see, wherever you might think it came from.

A point will come when you will run across something- or some place- or someone- that you will realize you most certainly didn’t "make up". This is when the trance deepens closer to a pure vision. It may seem to "get out of your control". That's fine; you want this to happen; you want the vision to become a strange sort of lucid dream, generating images and experiences itself- for those images and experiences are the upwelling of the deeper reality, of the mystery. You must keep your wits about you. Don't let yourself forget what you are doing; don't surrender to sleep or unconsciousness, and yet, don't try too hard to stay "awake", or get too energetic, because you'll wake yourself up. The "middle way" of effort is very, very important.

At this point, your body should be lying still and relaxed, and even though you might still have a sense for the room you are in, and still maybe feel the headphones in your ears, you can also be "experiencing" this otherworld landscape in trance. This is normal. Sometimes you'll lose touch with your body totally, like a great numbness has overtaken you. Other times, maybe not so much. There are many levels to these trances, and until you get really used to this weird "between state", you'll have lots of variety to the experience.

I can't say much more except that it is possible in your experiences that you will meet some animal (it can be any sort of animal) who will never act threatening to you. You may meet it after you emerge from the tunnel into the Lower world. It will help you greatly to make this contact and talk to this being or beings, to get their help and guidance. Ask them questions. Follow them through the interior/Lower-worldly landscape. The answers you get can come in words from these animals, or in things you see or are shown in the deeper landscape. You may see people; there is no telling, really. The best way to acquire true “helping spirits” is to need their help, and journey specifically with the intention of meeting those helping spirits that have a destined relationship with you.

There are two levels of vision- you may find yourself lucidly interacting as I describe above, or you may slip into a deeper, half-conscious state, in which you experience all manner of dream-like images, with less notion of "where you are" and much less notion of "control" for the experience. Either way, try your best to remember what you saw in the Lower World, when you return.

The recorded drum-tracks have a natural end-time and a "call back" drum. Your drum-beat (which you will discover does change you and sustain you in these innerworldly visions) will suddenly end- changing your mind-state suddenly, and then "call you back" with some swift strikes, before starting up again, though this time far more rapidly. The rapid "ending cadence" is meant to drive you "back up" the tunnel, and back into ordinary consciousness. Visualize yourself "running or flying" back up the tunnel and back to yourself. If you can, run or fly back to the tunnel entrance before shooting up it. Then the track will be over.

Remember that we live in a world of communication- even communication between the surface places and the deep places of ourselves, and between the world that is seen and the world that is unseen. The shamanic journey is an ancient thing, and part of the oldest religious tradition imaginable.

People like you have taken it, or found others to do it on their behalf, since the dawn of history, for the same purposes you want it for now- guidance for the direction and purpose of your life, and possibly insight into ways you can heal yourself of any of the things that may be tormenting you. The sacred powers in the unseen world seem to be willing to help us if we are willing to suspend what we think we know about things, and venture into strange states.

They seem to be willing to help, out of a sense of kinship, perhaps, or out of a sense of feeling pity for us confused beings trying to make sense of things. Maybe we'll help others one day, just as we are helped. Who can say? But don't ever think that your time and effort on these journeys is wasted. It may take several attempts, but you will discover that your skill at achieving this altered state grows with time. Success at this is worth any effort you put into it.

Good Journeys!

Jill Bolte Taylor's Vision

"The Great Power is mysterious; it is not for you to know, it is not for me to know, and it is not within our power to know it, but we are parts of it, in common with all things. There are some things you can know about the Great Power because there are things that you can know about the world you live in. What you can know about your world reveals something, however small, about the Great Power, because this world is a part of it.

Most of all, by knowing yourself and your own place in this world, you can know something very special about the Great Power. But no matter how much you gain in wisdom, the Great Power will be vaster still, larger than the wide earth and the night sky. It is enough that you are a part of it; this connection is sacred and unbreakable."

-Owl's Vision

* * *

I got a link to a story today about a neuroanatomist who realized one morning that she was having a stroke. She took this as a golden opportunity to study what happens as the brain is slowly shut down and damaged by this experience, and her story (she has recovered now) is nothing short of amazing, at least to me.

The reason why I find it amazing is because the things she says coincide nicely with many of the theories and beliefs that I hold as my positions about this sacred experience we call "life"- especially some of my ideas on death. Before I write a little about the shamanic and mystical aspects of her experience, here is a link to the story. Please read it in it's entirety; it is a very eye-opening account that will make any thinking person question their beliefs on reality and what it means to be human:

Jill Taylor's account of her stroke

I think that this account reveals the truth known by indigenous peoples all around the world, but which is so startling to many modern people: we have a twin existence. We are not merely bodies, cut off from the world; we are also part of a great power that overflows our boundaries of flesh, of thinking, and of experiencing. Where do these "boundaries" that we live our lives surrounded by come from in the first place?

It is a curious part of our destiny that we should come up from the deep, from the wholeness of things, from that infinity that is our origin, and learn to know ourselves in very limited terms. I believe that it was part of the intentionality of the Great Power that we should exist in this way; but when I speak of "intentionality" on the part of the Great Mystery that is life, bear in mind that I don't mean to compare it to the intentions of humans or animals to find food or mates or anything like that. I'm saying that life's deepest mysteries are just that- mysteries- and I don't believe that we can understand all the powers and conditions that lead up to our emergence as human beings.

But we can see some things about what "being human" entails. It entails the perceptions we have that we are separate, individual, and "cut off". The life-way of animism and mysticism takes us beyond that, to a conscious experience of our origins: of our great participation with the Power that underlies everything. As we will see in Jill's vision, her "leap" into the greater "self" or the greater perspective she felt did not obliterate her, except in one very important way- her sense of "self" was not extinguished but greatly and enormously expanded- so much so that she felt distant and apart from all the petty things she had once considered so important. She had peace. The expansion moved her far beyond the tiny boundaries of ego that she had once thought were so absolute. This is the very core of both the "death" experience, and the genuine shamanic awakening, or the experience of "enlightenment" as it is recorded in many places.

For me, death is a sacred time in which we may rediscover our most authentic being, and our origins. I do not believe that everyone will do so at their death-journey, but I do believe that a chance exists for most. I look to the wisdom of the past for my ideas regarding who will go on to "union" with the Great Power or the Great Mystery of the Wholeness, and who will have to remain in the conditioned, limited state. I do believe that at death, two important things happen- we lose our sense of "distinction" with the world around us (an experience that Jill recounts with much simplicity and beauty) and we lose our sense of "self-governance" or the ego-centered feeling that we are "in control".

If you consider what it would be like to lose these two things- boundaries and self-willed control- you can have, for a moment, a tiny taste of what the "greater self" may be like; to consciously experience the great power that is the world and all things in it, to taste participation in the greater bulk of life. There is no human "control" at this level because the Great Power's motions are massive and universal, and at this point, the "dead" person senses them and experiences them in a more direct, whole way. Life ceases being a personal narrative, and becomes a "world participation narrative", to use a term that I invented a while back.

I think it is important to point out that the "greater self" should not be taken as a self of identity in the same way we consider our "selves" now to be an identity; in no place, either this life or the next, do I necessarily believe in "identity" in some hard, eternal, or unchanging sense. "Identity" for humans is largely a social convention, something we find in the mirror of other people's expectations and reactions to us, and in the things we decide about our bodies and experiences and internalize as the "facts" of our personal narrative.

Jill's experience allowed her to see outside of her personal narrative- and in that freedom, she found a great sense of peace. We don't have to be "someone" in terms of a "hard identity" to exist, to experience things, to feel things, and to operate in this world, either the world we all experience as the "ordinary" world, or the unseen, non-ordinary world. In fact, I have an idea that freedom from "hard identities" greatly expands a person's ability to act and exist in a more free way, a more compassionate way, and makes a person more able to adapt successfully to situations. It also affords them many opportunities for wisdom that people who are obsessed with "hard identities" may miss.

Neither the Great Power nor its parts need "identities" to be what they are; reality goes on, unfolding, sacred and powerful, without the need for such conventions. We humans may have a great need for conventions, as complicated as our world is, and as complex as our interactions through language are, but it is a mystical perspective that all who experience Power must come to internalize that freedom and wisdom, as well as much power, flows from making the leap beyond "hard identity", and after that, "identity" at all.

To consciously stop the ordinary cognition of "me and other" and to enter into the great wholeness is one of the keynotes of shamanic experience that we have encountered worldwide, and it is an integral part of some Dharmic religious expressions in Hinduism and Buddhism. Of course, I do not mean to suggest that there is some "cosmic soup" that we all vanish into on some level. Such an idea would be incoherent; the fact of perception on any level is unchangeable, for the power of us is a power of awareness, of primordial perception.

The point is that many human ideas about things as odd as the "collective mind" or the "over mind" and the "many" and the "one" are all simply matters of perception. They are not eternal, unwavering objective things. Wisdom is found in the journey through perception and the realization of what it really is and what it means, and how it defines our narratives.

I'd like to quote Jill from her account here, and make a few points. The "normalization story" that Jill had internalized all her life- her personal narrative, and all its assumptions about herself and reality, began to fade early on in her experience. In a very powerful yet creepy part of her account, she recounts seeing her own hands and body become "weird looking". How amazing is that? What could be more normal looking to us than our own bodies, which we have experienced every day of our lives?

Jill says:

On the morning of the stroke, I woke up to a pounding pain behind my left eye. And it was the kind of pain, caustic pain, that you get when you bite into ice cream. And it just gripped me and then it released me. Then it just gripped me and then released me. And it was very unusual for me to experience any kind of pain, so I thought OK, I'll just start my normal routine. So I got up and I jumped onto my cardio glider, which is a full-body exercise machine. And I'm jamming away on this thing, and I'm realizing that my hands looked like primitive claws grasping onto the bar. I thought "that's very peculiar" and I looked down at my body and I thought, "whoa, I'm a weird-looking thing." And it was as though my consciousness had shifted away from my normal perception of reality, where I'm the person on the machine having the experience, to some esoteric space where I'm witnessing myself having this experience.


Jill's account of her loss of boundaries between what she once considered "herself" and "her body" and the rest of the world is very intense- she begins to sense things in terms of an undivided field of energy. The fact that her entry into subtle states of awareness marks a crossing "away" into what she terms an "esoteric space" from which she can witness "herself having experience" is telling, as well; the condition of mind that she maintains through this, complete with her own awareness, is not dependent on the brain. The idea that our entire range of cognition and awareness is dependent on the brain is simply not true; only certain portions of the spectrum of cognition or "body-centered awareness" is dependent on the brain's healthy functioning. The "esoteric space" she encounters is the entry-ramp into her greater "body", which is not dependent on a few organs all operating correctly.

Her perceptions were returning to wholeness, as we see here, but to a person caught unawares by such a thing, the experience can be disconcerting. She says:

And I lost my balance and I'm propped up against the wall. And I look down at my arm and I realize that I can no longer define the boundaries of my body. I can't define where I begin and where I end. Because the atoms and the molecules of my arm blended with the atoms and molecules of the wall. And all I could detect was this energy. Energy. And I'm asking myself, "What is wrong with me, what is going on?" And in that moment, my brain chatter, my left hemisphere brain chatter went totally silent. Just like someone took a remote control and pushed the mute button and -- total silence.

And at first I was shocked to find myself inside of a silent mind. But then I was immediately captivated by the magnificence of energy around me. And because I could no longer identify the boundaries of my body, I felt enormous and expansive. I felt at one with all the energy that was, and it was beautiful there.


It is important to note here the power of silence to awaken extra-normal perceptions; as anyone who has dealt with trance-work knows, it is either a great silence, or a singular focus on a single, simple stimulus that has the affect of silencing the chatter of the mind, and allows for extraordinary feats of perception. The Eskimo shaman Aua, whose shamanic enlightenment experience occurred in deep silence, tells us the belief among the Eskimo or the Inuit people that experiencing silence is a path to gaining power.

Jill, who is having a spontaneous and trauma-caused shamanic experience or a non-ordinary cognitive episode, is also in danger, owing to the nature of her injury. On some level, she knows she needs help, and so she finds herself making efforts to get it, but in the interim, she is experiencing a freedom from the issues and stressors of her ordinary life. She writes:

Then all of a sudden my left hemisphere comes back online and it says to me, "Hey! we got a problem, we got a problem, we gotta get some help." So it's like, OK, OK, I got a problem, but then I immediately drifted right back out into the consciousness, and I affectionately referred to this space as La La Land. But it was beautiful there. Imagine what it would be like to be totally disconnected from your brain chatter that connects you to the external world. So here I am in this space and any stress related to my, to my job, it was gone. And I felt lighter in my body. And imagine all of the relationships in the external world and the many stressors related to any of those, they were gone. I felt a sense of peacefulness. And imagine what it would feel like to lose 37 years of emotional baggage! I felt euphoria. Euphoria was beautiful -- and then my left hemisphere comes online and it says "Hey! you've got to pay attention, we've got to get help," and I'm thinking, "I got to get help, I gotta focus."


The full power of her experience, along with the wisdom it affords us, comes out after help has reached her and she actually faces the possibility of her own death. She writes:

A little while later, I am riding in an ambulance from one hospital across Boston to Mass General Hospital. And I curl up into a little fetal ball. And just like a balloon with the last bit of air just, just right out of the balloon I felt my energy lift and I felt my spirit surrender. And in that moment I knew that I was no longer the choreographer of my life. And either the doctors rescue my body and give me a second chance at life or this was perhaps my moment of transition.


That she experienced the loss of ego-centered control is clear when she says the profound statement "I felt my spirit surrender... and in that moment I knew that I was no longer the choreographer of my life". I would submit that even when we are fully involved in our ordinary lives, and living under the sense of "control", we are not ultimately the choreographers of our lives; we may not ordinarily sense the great motions of Power that stand behind causality and event, but we are not the authors of those things, and those things have everything to do with how we think and react. Better than tying up ourselves in ego-reinforcing notions of "control" is the wisdom of letting the world be as the world will be and letting yourself be a part of it all; life is too big for our ordinary sense of self- the self we live most of our lives in- to think it can take it all upon its shoulders.

At any rate, Jill knows- apart from it all- that this may be her end, and she has peace with the fact. It is interesting that she had this peace after a "spiritual surrender"- such a surrender is what Carlos Castaneda meant when he wrote:

"The end result which shamans... sought for their disciples was a realization which, by its simplicity, is so difficult to attain: that we are indeed beings that are going to die. Therefore, the real struggle of man is not strife with his fellow men, but with infinity, and this is not even a struggle; it is, in essence, an acquiescence. We must voluntarily acquiesce to infinity. In the description of sorcerers, our lives originate in infinity, and they end up wherever they originated: infinity."


The center of Jill's experience came later, when she faced death and came out still alive. She says:

When I awoke later that afternoon I was shocked to discover that I was still alive. When I felt my spirit surrender, I said goodbye to my life, and my mind is now suspended between two very opposite planes of reality. Stimulation coming in through my sensory systems felt like pure pain. Light burned my brain like wildfire and sounds were so loud and chaotic that I could not pick a voice out from the background noise and I just wanted to escape. Because I could not identify the position of my body in space, I felt enormous and expensive, like a genie just liberated from her bottle. And my spirit soared free like a great whale gliding through the sea of silent euphoria. Harmonic. I remember thinking there's no way I would ever be able to squeeze the enormousness of myself back inside this tiny little body.


For me, this is the climax of her realizations- what a powerful image, of her truth-body being an enormous and connected power, which could never "squeeze" back into the tiny limitations of the ordinary body. She felt liberated, soaring and free- the true original condition of life, and the condition to which we will be resolved, at some point.

Jill ends with speculations about "who we are". She says:


So who are we? We are the life force power of the universe, with manual dexterity and two cognitive minds. And we have the power to choose, moment by moment, who and how we want to be in the world. Right here right now, I can step into the consciousness of my right hemisphere where we are -- I am -- the life force power of the universe, and the life force power of the 50 trillion beautiful molecular geniuses that make up my form. At one with all that is. Or I can choose to step into the consciousness of my left hemisphere. where I become a single individual, a solid, separate from the flow, separate from you. I am Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, intellectual, neuroanatomist. These are the "we" inside of me.


She says "life force power" of the universe; I simply call this the "Great Power", and I believe that the awareness of this sacred totality-force has informed much human religious and spiritual activity worldwide, leading us even to notions as Fate, Wyrd, the Great Mystery, and the like. In no manner do I consider this reality of power to be a "god" in the Judeo-Christian sense of the word, though many try to make these two concepts fit together by reason of how much they treasure the notion of "God" that they were usually raised with.

I feel that something is lost when people try to insert their particular cultural name for some "supreme being" into the sacred narratives of other people. The real danger of these attempts to homogenize all human spiritual thinking is that we insert our assumptions about things into the beliefs of others, and make it quite possible that we will miss the essence of their message- far better to forget what we think we know and really listen to others, before we decide that we've already got a handle on it.

For me, such experiences as Jill's carry us beyond classical monotheism and into a sacred, interactional, and immediate reality of power that we are all participants in, and which can be called "Great" because it excludes nothing, no force, no person, no phenomenon, no spirit, nothing. This Great Power is no universal demiurge, no cosmic judge or lawmaker standing ready to punish the wicked; this is a more profound reality that collectively and mysteriously stands within everything, and whose workings, when realized, lead to the undying harmony and peace that all people seek, but few find. This is "animistic salvation" if such a phrase may be used- this is the peace and knowledge that delivers us from meaninglessness, fear of death, and from evil. The Great Power belongs to no one and everyone at the same time.

Jill realized the truth about things because of her "wise wound"- a wound inflicted on her, I think, by the powers of the unseen world, so that she could see, and talk to others about it. Some may say that she simply suffered a catastrophic injury, and that her visions and insights were just electricity and chemistry being rattled. And to those types, I say it is very sad that they cannot separate the subtle from the obvious, nor meaning from circumstance. I further imagine that they are the types of people who can't see animals and faces in the clouds, or who can't enjoy a peaceful walk in the forest, but I may be wrong.

Jill had an experience of secret modes of cognition that only the dead or mystics ever really get a chance to experience. I think it is very amazing how well she handled it. I hope that everyone can learn from it.

From Surviving to Living: The Animistic Life-Way

Chief Seattle is said to have spoken these words in a speech to the United States Government:

"Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? The wild horses tamed? What will happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills is blotted by the talking wires? Where will the thicket be? Gone! Where will the eagle be? Gone! And what is it to say goodbye to the swift pony and the hunt? The end of living and the beginning of survival."

I was always struck by the last line in this paragraph. Whether or not the old chief made these speeches (and there is a controversy there) means little to me; the words have powerful meaning. It comes home to me clearly that most people today- myself included, for the longest time- have a way of falling victim to a "slow burn" life which isn't really worthy of the term "life". We associate eating, sleeping, and making money directly with "living", and we associate the mere fact of respiration, heartbeat, and blood pressure with "living" in the same way, but "life", for people who have seen more clearly, is more than survival; it's more than the accumulation of wealth or the prolonged operation of organs and brains.

"Life" in the truest and best sense of the word is firstly about knowledge. Knowing the truth about one's place in the world, knowing the truth of one's firm and unbreakable connectedness to all things, and celebrating this fact makes simple survival into true living. It is not enough to have some shallow ideas about some "biological" reality you share with other animals or with some nebulous term like "nature"; that is not what I mean by "knowledge of one's place".

Neither we human beings nor any other creature can be reduced to a few scientific-sounding "rules" or diagrams. It isn't what we "are" that joins us to other things, but what we do, how we participate in life. What joins us all are sacred processes- processes by which we seek out our own kind, share love, come into the world, grow, learn, take chances, feel passions, search the world, become wise, and die. Everything in its own way joins us in this way of life's unfolding. It's a high mystery and a most sacred thing. Even those parts of our experience that we have long ago written off as "inanimate"- such as rocks or mountains or rivers- join us in the great vision of interaction, and they are no less related to us and no less necessary to this world as any thing we call "animate" or "living".

When we encounter so-called "inanimate" things in the context of non-ordinary reality, such as in sacred moments of trance or vision, we see that they can be experienced as non-human persons in their own right, and if you believe like me, the non-ordinary context is far more important, when it comes to human understanding and behavior, than what we have come to call the "ordinary".

Our place is within the great web of life itself, with all its boundless activity, and our connectedness to things is obvious to those who have to do things like find water, grow food or hunt it, build fires to protect from the cold, rely on others for companionship or well-being, raise a child, learn from teachers, create art or crafts, encounter the wisdom and stories of the past, or suffer from the misdeeds of other people. There are many more examples of connectedness, but these few will suffice for now.

It isn't enough to intellectually know about our place in this great realm of powers we call "nature", nor to comprehend how inter-connected we all are only with our thoughts; if one does not actually feel the awe of it, feel the beauty and joy of it, then one has not experienced it in its fullness. When one does so, one celebrates the wonder of it all, the joy, the fear, and the mystery of it- and that raises us from the simple and well-worn "mundane" experience of our daily grind into real life.

In real life there is a sacred context there for any experience we may have- it is more than just a hunger pain or a drive for food; it is more than a tear or a laugh; it is part of the great mystery of things, sacred and inexhaustible. For people who understand the sacredness of experiences, their every breath is an awesome thing, an expression of the sacred. For those who do not understand, their every breath is a clock ticking down to the time when they breathe no more.


"Life" in the deeper sense of the word is also about wisdom- and what is wisdom? I've heard many fine definitions for the word, but "wisdom" for me flows from the special sort of knowledge I discussed above- when we know our place in things and our interconnections, then wisdom is born, and wisdom is nothing more (or less) than the internal guidance and voice that leads us to live well. Wisdom leads us to live as we should live- and living as we should, we find that the web of life- both the web of our own lives, and to an extent, the greater web that touches us, flourishes and becomes healthy.

What is wisdom's great guidance? How do the wise treat the world, themselves, and others? I have heard many fine answers to this question as well, but the best I have ever heard is this: "With respect". The wise live according to the idea of respect for the web of life and all its sacred powers, including oneself and other human beings. All are equal and sacred in the round of life; there is no first or last, no weak or strong. Wisdom leads us to wholeness and equality, but it only does so if we give ourselves to the idea of "respect" and give ourselves to it fully.

This is what it means to "live in a sacred manner". Whatever one must do, one does it respectfully and with full awareness. One lets their actions be guided by necessity and moderation, but always with respect in the forefront of their mind. One treats life- all life- with respect. Some wonder at how warriors in the old days (or now) can kill others, people or animals, if they believe in such a way; but death is not the evil that immortality-obsessed western societies often take it for; death is, in fact, unavoidable, and how we live- REALLY live- is far more important than our eventual deaths. That being said, when one must kill for one's survival or the survival of family and friends, one must never be cruel. That is respect, even in such a situation.

This same idea leads us to what "evil" really is- for humans, as well as for sentient non-human persons (such as spirits), evil is a lack of respect which is born in a selfish turning away from the truth of our inter-connectedness and the sacredness of things. Evil is not the self-existing opposite of some force called "good"; it is just a lack of respect; it is a poverty of goodness.


People's doubts about death have a way of fading swiftly if they can open their hearts to nature's simple teachings on the subject. We are an inseparable part of a system of sacred ecology, and no amount of ignoring this fact will ever change it. There is fear and pain in ignoring this fact, and joy and peace in accepting it. Accepting this means accepting our deaths every bit as much as we accept our lives, but as the old stories tell us, death is hardly the beast we've long considered it: the dead live on in other ways. The dead must live, for while the web of life includes events and occasions that we describe as "death", it always remains a web of life. What is good for us is to live well, and not think that we can control the outpouring of life's many processes and interactions, nor life's ends.

John Muir said:

"Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life."

When a person touches such wisdom and when they let it lodge in their heart, they stop surviving from day to day and they begin living the way they should live. A joy of belonging settles on them, alongside a joy of fearlessness, and these joys transform survival into life. The powers of knowledge and wisdom awaken us from our dazed, drugged, or zombie-like stumbling of day to day survival, and they shake us awake into real participatory living, real sacred living.

This is why I have taken the slogan "The End of Survival and the Beginning of Living" as my personal motto; for too long I was sleepwalking through life, and just surviving. When I opened my heart to the sacredness of things and the connectedness of things, I felt the true life that was asleep in me awaken. With my own vocation of shamanic healing, I hope to impart this same idea to as many people as I can, because I believe that these very ideas are the heart of any successful healing, on any level.

I find that the process of "opening oneself" is not as simple as it sounds, and yet, it isn't really hard- it so happens that many of the "calcifying powers" that trap us in the modern day have a way of covering our bodies and minds with a weight, a dense darkness that can make us feel like our efforts to "open" are useless.

I have discovered that the only way to combat this dense feeling, this spiritual anesthesia, is to try to open yourself anyway, and believe in the goodness of things. Strive on, despite the initial lack of feeling or excitement, and you will see the light through the darkness; the greatness of life and the Great Mystery is far older and far more powerful than the comparatively recent negative changes in human society and the recent losses of wisdom that have created the cobwebbed nightmare of global materialism and greed that affects all of us so profoundly.

In that nightmarish world, people only survive. I want to live. I want you to live. Our real inheritance from this sacred world, along with the possibility of our greatest peace, is being wasted every moment that we forget about life and let ourselves be satisfied with survival.