The shamanic path is as old as the world herself
For as long as humans have interfaced with the planet, a select few have walked a shamanic path. For these people, the shamanic realms have loomed large.
What you see – the reality you see around you, and that we all agree on – isn’t all there is to this game of life.
Many earth-dwellers, indigenous cultures, and rooted beings have known this forever. It’s only the folks in the Western world – the so-called “civilised” ones who fell asleep to this fact and in many cases, stay in our collective slumber, believing instead, that materiality is all.
But let’s not blame ourselves… in truth, the ancient wisdom of the Earth was ripped from us by invading forces. Religion forced our mythologies, or magic, and our ritual ways of being underground until they were buried too deeply for us to remember.
And now, so many years later, the excavations are finally underway. But for most of us, the roots of our own ancestral wisdom have been severed and any teachings lost. So, gathering scraps – whispered spells, internal knowings, urges, hopes and prayers are all that we have. This is why so many people turn to the East, to other sacred teachings, Gods and Goddesses, practices, and words that have their roots on different isles.
Difficult though it is, the work of re-imagining shamanism is ours. It’s laid out in front of us, becoming ever more vital in these times of global transformation. The threads are hardly visible, but if we gently tug on what we do find, and go with open hearts, we’ll find our way.
Are you being called to the shamanic path?
1. Your intuition tells you it’s a “Yes”
Does this kind of “work” intrigue you, on a deep level? More than just a passing interest, or activation of the mind?
Shamanic work lives somewhere else – the body is the gateway, but the realms of its existence are on another plane entirely.
These places call to us.
They tug on our bodies, our emotions, our souls – and we respond as though it were an invitation home.
The words may not be the same.
Shaman…
Witch…
Animist…
Yet the offer that they promise, of worlds opening up to reveal something entirely different from this one, consensual reality that we all inhabit, is something you hear.
Read more: What IS Shamanism?
2. You’re guided by synchronicities
When you’re thinking of someone, and they call.
When you’re pondering a question, a line from a song on the radio speaks to you.
When you’re having a dangerous thought (i.e. something to knock you way beyond that comfort zone) your phone blinks 11:11.
None of these things are coincidental… do coincidences even exist?
In a holographic world, occurrences like this are most definitely consciousness made manifest. Tapping into this – noticing, listening, and starting to *trust* in the synchronicities that guide you, is a sign that the shamanic path is opening up…
3. Nature is your church
Her textures
Her sounds
Her medicine
Knowing that Mother Nature holds all the wisdom that’s needed to thrive.
4. You’re a dreamer
The dreamscapes and the shamanic realms aren’t separate.
If you’re someone who dreams vividly, you’re intrigued and enlivened by your dreams, and – most especially – if you find wisdom and truth in them – then this path is calling to you.
The symbols, stories, archetypes, messengers, myths, patterns, and revelations that you find in dreams are all part of the shamanic vocabulary. The arcs of meaning they contain are all part of the greater dream – the collective dream – that shamanic work is concerned with.
You already speak the language.
5 You connect through symbolism
As with dreaming….
If you connect to the world in ways that reach far beyond logic and rational thinking, the shamanic path is wide open to you…
From the shamanic perspective, the consciousness of the planet (and beyond…) is communicating with us at all times. This dialogue is what enables us to stay on course and to stay in service to our purpose, both personal and collective.
Yet the language of Earth consciousness MUST cross all boundaries of space and time, plus barriers of verbal “language” and cultural understanding.
Enter: Symbolism
Symbolism is the deeper meaning inherent in all things. It bypasses the mind, and cognitive “understanding”. Which means it is felt – in the body, via intuition and instinct, and through taping into our memories.
This doesn’t mean that you should automatically ‘know’ the symbolism of every animal, or fairy tale, or astrological zodiac sign! But when you stumble across its symbolism, the ‘knowing’ within you is felt. The universal truth is undeniable.
6. You have animal messengers
Throughout the human story, and across countless cultures, shamans and animals have maintained close bonds.
That this bond is strong for you – and you are visited by our animal kin, receive messages from them, or feel intuitively connected to one or more animals – may indicate a tugging on your shamanic soul and leading you onto a shamanic path…
7. You live in a non-linear, cyclic way
Modern life pushes us in one direction. Forward.
The drive to advance, produce and achieve begins from the word go – the capitalist machine that we we’re all born into leads us to believe that without joining the race and swimming assertively WITH the current, you have very little value on the world.
Yet it’s not really true, is it?
Those on the shamanic path tend to see through this fabrication.
We – humans – are the only species who live like this. And look around the planet – where has it really taken us?
Nature lives cyclically.
She moves rhythmically, in ebbing and flowing patterns of growth and retreat. She manifests through the seasons, with an implicit trust that just as night always follows day, death is also a portal for re-birth.
This innate intelligence forms the container for shamanism and had held the practices for millennia. So if you also tap into this understanding that our reality is non-linear, you are connecting to something very ancient.
8. The shadow doesn’t scare you
Most shamanic practitioners become familiar with the shadowlands.
They understand that feelings like shame, anger, hatred, jealousy, and even neediness (plus many more so-called ‘negative’ emotions) are doorways to transformations. So whilst its’ only natural *not to* enjoy these emotions, it can be highly beneficial to re-frame your perspective of them, with curiosity and openness.
If this feels like a natural process, then the shamanic path maybe calling…
ALSO READ: What is Shadow Work?
9. Ritual is your foundation (or you want it to be)
Are you drawn to ritual, to ceremony, and the rites of passage that we, in the West, have all but lost?
These kinds of anchor points – ritual acts of connection between the spirit and material planes help us to ground our experiences. They facilitate the drawing down of spiritual energy. They connect us to our communities. They connect us to the divine. They connect us to OUR divinity. Rituals also serve a thousand other purposes, that only lose their magic when written about and not performed.
Rituals are the method of shamans.
Crucibles for connection and change.
Many humans yearn for them, maybe without even knowing this is part of the loss that’s felt… do you?
10. You sense a HUGE disconnect in the world
The well-trodden path just doesn’t suit you.
The shoes don’t fit.
Perhaps you feel disconnected from the life you’ve been sold (the one you “should” want, and the life that you dream of (and not in an ego-driven way, more in a Middle Earth, elves and herbal medicine kinda way) feels just a little too far away to call in…?
Many shamanic souls feel this sense of disconnect, like there’s a bridge that needs to be built between the world we all live in now, and the world that’s over there, just on the other side of what’s possible.
Well here’s the thing: YOU are the bridge.
That disconnect you feel, you feel it because you came here to be the re-connection.
And you’re here? You made it here to the end of this piece… Then you are being called to step forward, feel out in front of you for that silver thread, and trust that it will show you the way forward.
No one else can do this work.
Intrigued by the shamanic perspective? Book a shamanic guidance session with me, Kat, and see for yourself if these are realms you want to dive into… I can’t want to hear from you!
