Eoten

Animist poet

Wild poetry, untamed stories and animist teachings from Eóten

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ceremony

Journeying

Journeying, also known as shamanic journeying, is the Western name for the practice of spirit flight that is found in many animist traditions.

Journeying uses trance practices to change the practitioner’s mental state so that they can leave their bodies and travel in the spirit worlds. It can use rhythm, stillness, movement or hallucinogenics to create the trance, and is done within a ceremonial container, usually with the aid of animal, ancestor and plant spirit helpers.

Journeying is helpful when:

  • We need a powerful experience to help us shift a deeply rooted unhelpful pattern.
  • We need to initiate or deepen a relationship with a specific spirit.
  • We need to uncover deep knowledge, intuition or understanding in ourselves.
  • We need to re-connect with our spiritual path and helpers.
  • We need to reclaim something we have lost, such as power, creativity, health or energy.
  • We need to heal a powerful wound.
  • We need to ask for help from a deity, teacher or land spirit.
  • We need inspiration and nourishment for creative practices.

Journeying requires a strong relationship with our helping spirits, a highly developed sense of imagination and intuition, self discipline and strong intent. It is an advanced practice that complements the foundation work of ceremony, altars, divination, craft work and working with spirits.

Initiation

Initiation is an ancient practice that marks a transition point in a practitioner’s life with ceremony and symbolism.

Initiations can also be called rites of passage; many ancient forms still survive throughout the world. Some of these initiations are well known in Western culture, such as wedding rites, baby showers and funerals. Others, such as those when we enter a new animist practice or begin a new relationship with a spirit helper, are much more personal.

Initiation practices are helpful when:

  • We make the leap from childhood to adulthood.
  • We enter a new relationship.
  • We leave an old relationship.
  • We embark on a new spiritual path.
  • We begin the dying process.

Every time we move from one life stage to the next, initiation can help us to honour and let go of the old and become open to the new.

Initiations usually include a form of ceremony; this can be formal or informal, public or private, planned or spontaneous. We often create on-the-spot ceremonies for these moments of transition, as part of our inherent animist natures, for example when we create shrines of flowers in the places where people die.

Initiations are both about the persona who is transitioning in their life, and about the witnesses of that transition, if there are any. In an animist tradition, when we begin a new phase of practice we often experience an initiation with only our spirit helpers as witnesses, but in public rites of passage the whole community may be the witness.

To begin working with initiations for yourself, consider how you might honour your new animist practice. Explore methods to create a ceremony for this new relationship, or allow yourself to be guided in creating a spontaneous initiation ritual.

For more about ceremony in animist practice, join the free 12 week Foundation in Animism course here:

 


Ceremony

 

Ceremony is when we act out our intent within sacred space.

Ceremony allows us to communicate our feelings and intent directly – to ourselves, the spirits we work with, our community and the universe. We use ceremony to honour, remember, heal, thank, and include our relationships in our lives.

Times when ceremony is a good tool to use include:

  • To dedicate new objects to our animism practice.
  • To communicate our thanks to the spirits we work with.
  • To remember or re-establish a relationship.
  • To initiate a new relationship on a good footing.
  • To celebrate or release a situation, person or feeling.

To create a ceremony, we need three essential elements: sacred space, intent and an action that represents our intent. There is an infinite number of ways that these elements can be woven together, from throwing stones into the sea to a wedding ceremony.

For more about using ceremony in your own animism practice, join the free 12 week Foundation in Animism course here: