Rewilding Yourself: Discovering Your Soul’s Deep Roots Through Shamanic Practices: The 'Therapeutic Shamanism' series., #2

Acknowledgements

My thanks to all my wonderful students for your faith in me and for giving me your trust, time, attention and money. Your doing so has allowed me to develop my ideas and has allowed me to be able to write these books.

My huge thanks also to those of you who gave my first book, ‘The Shamanic Journey’, such an immensely positive and warm reception. It has been very welcome, for if the reception to the first book had been lukewarm, then writing this second book would have been hard indeed! Instead, your encouragement and support have carried me along and made writing this new book a pleasure. I hope you enjoy it and find it of use.

Especially big thanks also to Joanne Lacey, Maia Weaver, Sarah Garton, and Tracy Owens for their feedback, suggestions and editing.

My thanks again too to Michael Kusz, for the marvellous original ‘Three Ravens’ artwork on the cover. He also makes great sculptures - www.graculus.co.uk

My thanks to Eanna Roberts for professional proofreading. Highly recommended - www.penmanshipediting.com

Foremost thanks to my partner, Cat for making these books possible, for being a sounding-board whilst I form ideas, for being patient, encouraging, supportive and for having faith in me and my writing. And to Pan, for being such a beautiful and steady presence at my side in the hours, days, weeks and months spent in thinking and writing, and for being my companion, familiar, daemon, muse and my sacred bridge to the more-than-human world.

Introduction

Thank you for reading this book.

This book is the second volume in the ‘Therapeutic Shamanism’ series. The series is a comprehensive, in-depth and practical guide to modern shamanic practice. The first book in the series, ‘The Shamanic Journey: A Practical Guide to Therapeutic Shamanism’ included:

A clear description about what Therapeutic Shamanism is.

An introduction to the different ‘worlds’ that the shaman moves in - the shamanic lower, middle and upper worlds (more on these later in this book).

A clear and easy-to-follow guide to doing your first shamanic ‘journey’ – how to go into a trance-state and travel beyond ordinary reality and enter the shamanic realms.

Step-by-step instructions for finding your ‘Power Animal’ – your most important shamanic Guide and teacher.

Clarification as to what a Power Animal actually is, and why working with them is of vital importance.

Guidance on how to work with your Power Animal and build a deep and sacred bond with them.

Clear instructions on how to do a basic shamanic healing for other people.

Practical know-how for interpreting the meaning and symbolism contained within shamanic journeys.

An exploration of some of the challenges we face in practicing shamanism in the modern era, and how we can make shamanism relevant to modern-day life.

Discussion about the importance of working in a way that is grounded, ethical and compassionate.

And much more too, of course!

This book builds on what was covered in the first book. As such, it does assume at least some basic ability and experience in doing shamanic journeys. Also, that you have met your Power Animal, and at least begun the process of building a relationship with them. If you have not read the first book, but learnt to journey elsewhere, then that is fine. But being able to journey and having a Power Animal already is a pre-requisite in terms of being able to do the exercises in this book.

Writing ‘The Shamanic Journey’ had its own learning curve, as it was the first book I had ever written (although I had been planning and writing it in my mind for many years). When it came to putting it on the ‘page’ though, it was relatively straightforward. Essentially the book was the expanded content of the introductory-day workshop that I have run more than a hundred times.

Shamans generally experience the shamanic realms as being divided into three main areas – the lower-world, middle-world and upper-world. The lower-world is the realm of Mother Earth and of nature. The middle-world is both this physical reality, and the spirits that live in it. The upper-world is the realm of Father Sun and of Spirit. This second book in the series, the one you are reading now, is a detailed exploration of the shamanic lower-world. Having strong and deep roots in lower-world practice is an essential foundation for having a grounded and balanced shamanic practice (for reasons that should become clear as you read on). 

Originally, when planning the book, I had envisioned writing a description of the shamanic lower-world, its inhabitants and the things that happen there, and thought doing that would be fairly straightforward. But the more I gathered all the lower-world healings and practices that I know into one place, the more I truly appreciated just how big the lower-world is, the vast amount of teaching that is available there, and the huge amount of healing there is to be had.

I found myself having to make a lot of decisions as to how much detail to go into; about what to include and what to leave out. More than that though, by its very nature, the lower-world is meandering, organic, non-linear, and multi-layered. By contrast, books are organised and linear things, with beginnings, middles and endings, finite and structured. As such, organising the information about the lower-world into a book that is accessible and useful proved to be challenging at times. But there was an even bigger reason that the book took as long to write as it did. The deeper I got into the writing, the more it dawned on me that to describe the lower-world properly, to convey what it truly is, meant going into some big issues. Things like why we have become so disconnected from the lower-world, and what the huge consequences are for the other species that we share this planet with. Issues about domestication and re-wilding. About what it means to be human; what we are meant to be and what we have instead become. Issues about the myth of human supremacy. Issues about how we have lost connection, not just with Mother Earth, but with our own selves too, with our souls even. Issues about power and boundaries, about connection, loneliness and belonging; about tribes and about families; about adulthood and our lack of elders; about waking up to the consciousness of plants and stones; about ethics and about how to live on this Earth.

Eventually, after over a year of writing the book and it still being nowhere near finished, it dawned on me that trying to fit all the information into one book just was not going to work, and that what I had been working on was in fact two books. So, I split what I had written into two volumes, each focused on different aspects of lower-world work, and then everything began to fall into place. This book that you are reading now, ‘Rewilding Yourself’, is the first of these two books. At the time of my writing this, it is the most detailed book on the shamanic lower-world to date. In fact, as far as I know, it is the first ever book dedicated specifically to lower-world journeying. I am delighted to see it in print because, as I said earlier, practicing shamanism in a way that is strongly rooted in the lower-world is essential, but something that can often be sadly lacking in modern shamanic practice these days.

The book covers essential lower-world foundations such as: how to recognise what the lower-world is and when you are actually in it (rather than in the middle-world or upper-world); how to deepen your connection with it through finding lower-world human Guides; how to heal our broken human connection with Mother Earth. The book also covers an essential and expansive range of lower-world practices and healing methods, with step-by-step exercises so that you can learn and develop your practice based upon your own, personal experiences. The book is both a guidebook and map. If you try out and practice the exercises in it, this will greatly deepen your shamanic work. Doing this can take your shamanic practice to entirely new levels, both in terms of ability and in terms of understanding and knowledge.

The second book (and third book in the Therapeutic Shamanism series) is ‘Finding Your Deep Soul: Cultivating the Practice of Shamanism Soul Work’. This book focuses on what it means to be Human, and what the lower-world teaches us about living here in the middle-world as a human being. It covers our relationship with the other Peoples (Animal, Plant and Stone), and how to work with them. It covers issues about Power Loss and how to heal it; loss of personal power, boundaries and our responsibilities; about what it is to be an Adult and how to take our proper place in the world (for the world cannot be whole until we do so). Most of all though, it covers something deeply precious and life-changing, namely how to find your lost, true, authentic Soul, the essence and blueprint of what you were meant to be, and how to begin growing into that person.

It is not necessary to have read the first volume in this series, ‘The Shamanic Journey’, before reading this second volume. However, this book does assume some prior understanding of shamanism, particularly Core Shamanism (or other approaches based on Core Shamanism), and some basic ability and experience in doing shamanic journeys, including having already met your own Power Animal. All this is covered in the first book, and this second book in the series builds on that knowledge and experience.

I place a huge emphasis on the importance of developing a shamanic practice that is deeply rooted and anchored in the lower-world, before exploring the other shamanic realms in any great detail. The analogy I often use with my students is to describe how a seed grows. Generally, the first thing a seed does is to put down roots to reach down to Mother Earth. Once it has done that, it then draws Mother Earth up into itself. Only once it has established that connection does it then reach upwards towards Father Sun. Having done that it, it starts to draw Father Sun into itself. And only then, once it has established and secured those two connections, does it start to expand and branch out into the middle-world. A plant with shallow roots that is too tall or top-heavy, or which branches-out too quickly, will be a sickly plant, one that is at risk of toppling over. Roots come first, and the rest of the plant must grow in proportion to the roots. In this way, Plant teaches us how to grow a healthy, grounded shamanic practice. It all starts with reaching down to the lower-world and establishing deep and strong roots there.

Without deep roots, shamanic practice is shallow, ungrounded and top-heavy. When I look around the wider shamanic community, I do see examples of good shamanic practice and some skilled practitioners. However, I also see examples of practices these days that are top-heavy; practices that place too much emphasis on the upper-world at the expense of the lower-world, and which are overly ‘light’ and ‘fluffy’ as a result. Much New-Age shamanism typifies this. Going back to the analogy of how a seed grows, these are sickly plants; shamanic practices with shallow roots and no deep connection to the true lower-world.

However, the issue of not being connected to the true lower-world is not only confined to New-Age shamanism, but can be characteristic of some contemporary practitioners who see themselves as working in a more ‘traditional’ way too. I see many examples of shamanism that is much too ‘middle-worldy’ for my taste. Practices that are not truly Spirit-led, but which instead are led by the practitioner’s own middle-world ego, personal issues, beliefs and agendas. Or shamanism in which the practitioner is being guided by the kind of middle-world spirits that, personally, I simply would not choose as my Guides. Not all spirits are wise-teachers by any means. This should become clear as the book progresses. Learning how to recognise and work with truly wise and helpful Spirit-teachers is very much what this book is about.

Ideas, experience and reference

This is a book about knowledge and ideas. Some big ideas. Ideas that, if you take on board, will radically change how you perceive and think about the world. And that is as it should be, for shamanism is far more than just a set of techniques, but a way of perceiving the world. For the shaman has always been someone who sees things differently. Someone who sees the things that other people either cannot see, or choose not to see. In fact, the very word ‘shaman’ translates to something like ‘one who knows’ or ‘one who can see in the dark (i.e. see the things that are hidden to others)’. Now, obviously, this means being able to perceive and interact with the world of spirit. That in itself is huge of course. But even more than that, it also means being able to see past what is sometimes described in shamanism as ‘consensus reality’; the constructed reality of a society’s stories, myths, conventions, traditions, and social mores. As such, a shaman is someone who is somewhat outside of normal society, and precisely because of this, can be of service by being able to see society clearly and more objectively. This means that the shaman, when needed, is someone who can see why things have gone wrong in a community, and what needs to be done to put things right.

In this sense, the role of the shaman is to be the knowledge and wisdom keeper in society. They are sometimes described as someone who has ‘woken up’; woken out of the dream of consensus reality, the sleep that most people are in. Someone who can see, and is prepared to face, the truth of things as they really are. This has always been the case, for tens of thousands of years. In only the last few thousand years though, in the period that we call ‘civilisation’, in most parts of the world we turned our back on shamanism, and on that knowledge, perspective and guidance. In doing so we fell into an even deeper sleep, an ever more complex, convoluted and dream-like consensus reality. Without the shamans to guide us, we lost our way.

So, this book is about waking up and seeing, not just the world of spirits, but also human society as it really is. For fundamental to shamanism is to be of service to society. As such it is a book about knowledge and some big ideas. However, without experience, ideas are just ideas, nothing more than a head-trip. To bring them to life means embodying them and experiencing the reality of them. That is what will really change you and help to wake you up.

In the shamanic community I occasionally hear people say that you cannot learn shamanism from a book. And that is true. Usually what people mean when they say this is that you need a teacher, a flesh-and-blood human teacher. However, the truth is that you cannot learn shamanism from a human teacher either. The only way you can learn shamanism is by actually doing it. So, this is both a book of shamanic knowledge and a workbook of exercises so that you can learn from your own, personal experiences. It is a step-by-step guide and apprenticeship.

It is also a reference book. As such, whilst it is something you can read from cover to cover (and hopefully will!), it is also a book that you can come back to again and again. For there are enough journeys and other practices in it to help you deepen and develop your shamanic practice for many years to come.

How this book is laid out

Earlier on I said that much shamanic practice these days can be shallow rooted and ungrounded. The reasons for this are something that I will explore in Chapter Two, as understanding this is of vital importance if we are to develop a deep and authentic shamanic practice that is relevant to the times in which we now live. It has to do with understanding what has happened to us over the last few thousand years of so-called ‘civilisation’ — in reality, our domestication and what I refer to as ‘the Fall’ — and the profound effect that this has had upon us both psychologically and spiritually. These days we mostly have a pretty messed-up relationship with the lower-world, and a profoundly wounded relationship with Mother Earth herself. So, in Chapter Two, we look at what the lower-world actually is, underneath the layers of the cultural distortions of modern ‘civilisation’.

In Chapter Three, I take you through the process of meeting your main human lower-world Guide and lifelong teacher. We look in detail about working with Human Guides in the lower-world and the questions people often have about them. Questions like ‘Who are they really?’, ‘Where do they come from?’, ‘Are they real?’ and ‘What is the difference between my ancestors and the Ancestors?’. In answering these questions, we explore what Human is and what the place of Human is in the web of life; what our great gifts are as humans and what are our handicaps. We explore how to strengthen and deepen our relationship with our Human Guides and look at finding specialist Guides.

In Chapter Four, we begin exploring the kinds of things that happen in lower-world journeys and start to make sense of them as key lower-world shamanic practices. Doing this should answer most of the common questions that people have about them. In this chapter, we begin this process by looking at what are known as the ‘transformation practices’. These practices are key both as healing practices and in helping us to deepen our ability to journey. They include weird and wonderful things such as burials, burnings, dismemberments, dissolvings, cocoonings, poisonings and shapeshiftings. This chapter contains numerous exercises, and is one that you can come back to and use as a basis for your shamanic practice for many years to come.

In Chapter Five, we look at some examples of actual journeys, to get a better idea of what we are aiming for. We look at what journeys ideally should sound and feel like, and what to look out for, and examine examples of both good and not-so-good practice. We also look at the fundamentals of what is happening when we journey. This should help strengthen and deepen your journeying and make your journeys more authentic.

In Chapter Six, we return to looking at the key lower-world practices. In this chapter we explore shamanic extraction work. Extraction is the removal of intrusions, ‘foreign bodies’, that get lodged in the us. It is a practice that is fundamental to shamanic healing, and so understanding it is of great importance in learning shamanism. We look in detail at the different kinds of intrusions that are encountered when journeying, and the issues involved in removing each of them. We finish the chapter by looking at the protocols for doing extraction work in the lower-world.

In Chapter Seven, we look at intrusions that are powerful enough to take someone over and influence their thoughts and behaviour against their will, literally ‘possessing’ them. We explore how possession is a common occurrence these days, and how (and why) it is symptomatic of our industrial and agricultural way of life. Exploring this will include a brief look at what (probably) happens when we die, and the importance of knowing about the ‘unquiet dead’. We finish the chapter by looking at the lower-world depossession protocols.

In Chapter Eight, we look at the remaining lower-world practices. We begin the chapter by looking at the hugely important practice of disentanglement: The practice of healthily freeing ourselves from relationships with people, objects, situations and places that are no longer healthy or serving us, or which we have outgrown. We then look at hunting and gathering journeys, to help us reconnect with being Human. We finish with what are known as expansion journeys, and the being-not-doing journeys. Again, this is a chapter that contains numerous exercises, and is one that you can refer to for many years to come.

Chapter Seven is followed by sections containing information about the next books in this series, a bibliography, definitions of terminology, and resources for exploring further, including information on finding a Therapeutic Shamanism practitioner, and accessing training courses and workshops.

But first . . .

Before any of those chapters and other sections comes Chapter One, of course! In that chapter, I need to recap some of the basic principles and terminology that I am going to be using and referring to throughout the rest of the book. Much of this is not just terminology and concepts that are generic to shamanism as a whole, but ideas that are crucial to understanding the Therapeutic Shamanism approach. If you have already read the first volume in this series of books, then hopefully this will be a useful refresher and recap. On the courses that I teach, since students do not always attend all of the same weekends as each other, in response to a question from one of the students or when introducing an exercise, at times I inevitably need to go over something I have already covered on one of the other courses. For my regular students, this means that they may have heard me say a particular thing more than once (and maybe even many, many times!). However, thankfully, my students also inform me how useful they find this. They tell me that each time they hear me going over something again, it sinks in a bit deeper, or makes more sense, or they see another aspect of it they had not seen before.

This is, after all, not ordinary stuff that we are looking at here. It is not just factual information that only needs to be said and heard once. It takes time for it to sink in, and the truth and reality of it reveals itself bit-by-bit and layer-by-layer. Acquiring this knowledge and, more to the point, really understanding it, is a process and not a one-off event. So, even if you have already read the first book, then hopefully you will find the recap in Chapter One of use. Plus, I have included new information in this chapter which is not in the first book. However, if you are one of my regular students and have heard me go over all this stuff many times before, then by all means skip Chapter One if you wish. But, if you have not read the first book then reading Chapter One will be essential in terms of really making sense of the rest of this book.

Help with terminology

When reading the book, if at any point you come across a word or phrase whose meaning you are not sure of, then there is a ‘Glossary of Shamanic Terms’ at the end of this book that you may find helpful.

Important! Mental (and physical) health

A shaman is someone who can leave this physical, ordinary reality at will and go into trance state, temporarily travelling in the shamanic realms (the ‘shamanic journey’), and then come back to this ordinary reality at will. The ability to come back at will is essential. The ability to return at will is one of the differences between shamanism and psychosis, for being stuck in the shamanic realms and unable to return would indeed be a form of psychosis. Doing shamanic journeys for yourself can often be of great help and benefit if you suffer with things like depression, anxiety, addictions, procrastination, low self-esteem etc., as long as you still have a reasonably good grip on this ordinary reality too. But, if you are prone to schizophrenic episodes, paranoid fantasies, moderate to severe dissociation, unstable and unmanaged manic-depression, or anything else that makes it hard to keep a grip on ordinary, everyday reality, then journeying for yourself could make matters worse. Shamanism may still be of great help, in the sense of an experienced shamanic practitioner journeying for you, ideally a shamanic practitioner with some understanding and awareness of mental health issues, and the difference between mental health issues and shamanic issues. Given the times in which we now live, being firmly rooted and anchored in this ordinary reality is an essential prerequisite for being able to journey safely for oneself. You need to be able to move between the worlds at will, and not become lost in the shamanic realms. If you are not well-rooted and grounded in ordinary day-to-day reality, then that is what you need to be working on, before doing any shamanic journeying for yourself.

Please do take this seriously. It is important for your own mental health.

Also, the exercises in these books are not intended to replace seeking out appropriate help and treatment with physical conditions. Shamanism can indeed sometimes be of great help with physical ailments and can almost always safely be used alongside medical treatments. But shamans are generally pragmatists and fully understand the need for medical treatments too. Some things need shamanic medicine, some things need allopathic medicine, and some things need acupuncture, chiropractic, Bowen and other things.

How to approach the exercises

Throughout the book, I will be suggesting lots of exercises. The reason for this is twofold. First, I want the information in this book to be something that you can put into practice. I want the book to equip you not only with knowledge but with the tools and practices to explore your own shamanic path and develop your own shamanic practice — a practice that is authentic to you. Second, I have no wish whatsoever for anyone who reads this book to take anything that I say at face value. Shamanism requires no belief, no blindly accepting what anyone else tells you, including me. It is about direct and personal experience. To know whether what I am saying is true or not, whether it works or not, then you simply have to find out for yourself.

There are a lot of exercises in Chapters Four and Seven of the book, realistically far too many to do each one before reading further. This is because these chapters are a comprehensive reference of the many main lower-world techniques and practices. They are intended to be chapters that you can come back to and refer to. Doing all the exercises and journeys detailed in them will realistically take most people years. As such, with these chapters I really do suggest that mostly you read through them and then come back to them to start working through the exercises, rather than trying to do each exercise before reading further.

With the earlier chapters though, you may want to take your time to work through them, stopping to do each exercise before reading further. Alternatively, you may want to read through the whole book first and then come back to it and work through the exercises. Or a bit of both. Obviously, that is entirely up to you. Whatever way you choose to do it to get the most out of the book, I do strongly suggest that you do the exercises. If you want to move beyond domestication and begin the process of re-wilding your soul, if you wish to find your Deeper Soul and begin the process of becoming what you were meant to be, then you will need to explore the lower-world for yourself, and not just read about it.

In teaching shamanism, I often see in people the idea that when journeying they should be rushing about doing healing things — soul retrievals, extractions or depossessions, psychopomping, ancestral work, clearing spaces, or doing some other kinds of healing. One of the things my