#journey-work

[cumuluslife]

[acquainted-with-the-nights]

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars

Walt Whitman

[nminusone-blog]

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.

Walt Whitman

[freakinthefog-blog]

First meeting after almost two weeks of complete silence on my part. He was laughing, riding a gray horse, and I followed Him down a spiral-like path into a dense yet not dark forest. I lost sight of Him for a while. A moment later I saw a red-haired, feminine figure, peeping out of a bush. I called all the Ladies related to Loki, but the figure did not answer to any of the names, and its aspect changed every time I called. When I found myself in front of a small ginger girl making faces, I suddenly understood. "Loki?" I called. The little girl came out of the undergrowth, laughing. Then I remember hearing the tale of a long-dead Spanish girl of fourteen, who told me that I was "the remains of what she is". I also remember avoiding a sword blow, and a man with a cross tattoed on his chest, from collarbones to pelvis and from shoulder to shoulder. There was might around him, and he was armed. Oh, and the vision had started with somebody hanged as a sacrifice indoors, ans someone saying: "It's an old song. It's a song for the Capricorn." And then I was in the forest again, at night, witnessing a man of about fifty pushing ahead of him a small boy with wooden horns on his head. The man did not see me, but the boy did. After that I reached the river by the forest, went on board of a longship and rowed with an unknown man against the stream. I landed at some point, went into the forest, and that's where I met Loki, laughing on His grey horse. Later I saw a man, alone in a room, sitting by a window, reading a book. The man's head was shorn, and every visible part of his body was covered with tattoos. He had a short black beard, and sharp blue eyes. On the pages of the book were pictures of high vaults, arches and kingly halls. Anyone got an idea about who could be this last encounter? ?_?

[i-am-hammered-blog]

WTF 1: About Trance-State (part 1)

Yes, WTF totally stands for "What the fuck", because this is the usual way for newbie journey-workers (including my humble self) to start their questions.

What you will read you might, or might not, have already read in books. The thing is, I'm not exposing what I've read here, but what I've been taught directly, and what I've experienced by myself.

What is a trance-state:

A trance state, or altered-consciousness state, sometimes simply known as altered state, is a state in which your awareness of the physical world is diminished, and your consciousness is open to other levels of existence. Doesn't sound very clear?

Well, let's say that you perceive many more things that you are aware of perceiving, but your sensorial perceptions sort of overwhelm your brain. In a trance state, your five physical senses no longer interfere with your perception, and you can perceive consciously what you used to perceive remotely, or even withour noticing it at all.

The astral world & astral projection:

Ever had a "good" or "bad" feeling when entering an unknown place, or meeting an unknown person? Well, this is an example of the unconscious perceptions I'm talking about. Everything has its own inherent energy, and you can feel this energy, but your brain is too busy dealing with your senses.

In a trance state, you are open to these energies, you can feel them, see them, and even, at a certain level of experience and up to some extent, manipulate them, like, for example, the Native American shamans in spirit-healing.

In order to interact with your surroundings at that level - often known as "astral world", you might want to project your own energy outside your body in order to deepen and ease the contact. This is called "astral projection", and requires a good knowledge and a rather extended experience of trance state. I'll develop this in a 

later post.

Journeying Elsewhere:

The astral world is not the only place you can journey to: you can virtually go everywhere. However, again it takes a certain level of practice to control it completely. For example, I rarely use astral projections, and most of my trips elsewhere end up in a blurry "where-the-fuck-am-I" thing.

As a Heathen, I tend to travel the Nine Worlds, mostly Nifflheim - I hunt the stags in misty woods down there. But the conceptions vary, and you may call those places parallel universes, or dimensions, or whatever - all the versions are right, the fact is that there are other places to go than those we know, and other parts of ourself than those we are aware of, and that in an altered state, we can control those parts of ourselves, and go to all of those places.

My theory, which is shared by some journey-workers I've spoken to, is that existence is like a multi-faceted jewel, each face mirroring the others from a different angle, and we have a reflection on each one of these faces - and altered state allows us to shift from face to face, and move our consciousness from reflection to reflection. You can picture the whole thing that way if it makes it any clearer.

Trance states also allow you to connect your astral self, that unconscious part of yourself you can control when in altered state, to other people's consciousness, and see their memories, for example. This is not to be done unless you master it perfectly, and have a clear purpose and GOOD INTENTIONS!

That's it for part 1 of this first WTF. 

In part 2, I will give some general information about the do's and don't and other how-to I've heard of, and my opinion about them.

[freakinthefog-blog]

Journey-work blog

If anyone is interested in it, I've just created my journey-work blog. www.i-am-hammered.tumblr.com Because yes, I must be Mjöllnir'd.