Category: Shamanism

Shaping Sanctuary

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On the Challenges of Shaping Sanctuary in Shamanic Practice

My relationship with my home hasn’t always been one of sanctuary. Some days, it still isn’t. I recognise the irony that as soon as I decide to offer some shamanic guidance on the subject, my mum’s ceiling starts leaking, and it turns out we need a new roof and have roofers banging on the roof for two weeks!

The term ‘sanctuary’ didn’t have much meaning for me when I was young. The first time I started thinking about it was when I watched the Disney film, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, where Esmerelda knocks on the doors of the cathedral crying, “Sanctuary, please give me sanctuary.” Thus, I came to associate sanctuary with churches and cathedrals. Places I felt banned from because I neither worshipped nor felt any connection with the Christian God. 

Still, home was a safe place. The only safe place. Safe from school. Safe from the bullies (although I always feared they would follow me home). There, I could hole myself up in my room with my Playmobile riding school, with a fantasy book, with a new story to write, with characters from it to draw. Unfortunately, it was a place where I shut myself away with chocolate too.

I’ve lived in this very same house, in Penwortham, Lancashire, since I was four years old. Only a few times, briefly, have I attempted to move away. The walls recall every single one of my temper tantrums, every argument with my parents, every time I stuffed my anger and despair down with food. They held me through those times. They stood there without judgement.

They held me through my difficult teen years when I blu-tacked onto them posters of Jon Bon Jovi, Guns N Roses, the Manic Street Preachers, David Bowie, Pink Floyd, Joy Division, Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails. As I hung them with feather boas and filled my room with glitter and balloons. As my taste in music and my life got darker, they bore witness to me smoking cigarettes and joints out of my window and my heavy drinking and self-harm.

Their holding of me largely went unacknowledged. I was far too caught up in my own world, my own pain, to be aware of anything or anyone else. 

This began to change when I discovered Paganism and Druidry. When I began to tentatively reach out for relationship with the other-than-human world. I’d long been able to perceive spirits, but, as someone with an overactive imagination, was unsure how to discern what was real and what was not. It turned out I needed to stop asking that question and trust my imaginal faculties (which have long been denigrated in the Western world). 

I made contact with the guardian of this patch of land who has been here long before the houses were built. I made a clay statuette of him and began making offerings of butter. However, these went icky and didn’t feel right. Although this is a traditional offering, I’m not sure that my dad’s Morrison’s Unsalted Butter had the same meaning as homemade butter made from one’s own cow milk in pre-industrial times. I’ve tried leaving processed milk at the bottom of the garden, but that was messy and smelt bad. So, I’ve settled for prayers and attention, and that seems to be enough. 

In spite of making contact with our guardian spirit and setting up an altar to my Gods and local spirits in my bedroom, my relationship with our house as a whole wasn’t good. Outside of my room, I didn’t feel it was truly ‘my home’. It didn’t cross my mind that relationship doesn’t equate to ownership.

Although I was religious and devoted to my Gods and spirits in many ways, totally offered myself in service to Them through my creativity and devotional practices, my relationship with my home and my parents was very poor. I spent much of my time shut away, drinking and writing, living my life through the Pagan and Polytheist blogosphere, ignoring the reality around me.

My parents didn’t take much care of the house either. My mum kept it clean and did a little painting, but largely, no decorating was done since we moved in. We live in a damp area near to a drained off mossland (Penwortham Moss). Damp was coming through the walls. There was mould in the bathroom. 

“You don’t speak very good house speak,” I was told by our guardian spirit. 

Soon afterwards, Covid struck. By this time I’d realised I was never going to make a living as a Brythonic polytheist author and was attempting to volunteer my way into conservation work. My work parties were called off. With nothing else to do, I turned my eyes to the house and garden. I took carloads of my parents’ accumulations to the Recycling Centre. I deep-cleaned. I began to tackle the damp and the mould but dared not touch the bathroom. 

This changed a year later, coinciding with the arrival of a birthday present – Dver’s Mycorrhizal Dionysus. The day it arrived, the mould began to spore. I donned a mask and a hazmat suit and managed to remove it from the walls and stripped off the painted wall paper, taking it right back to the plaster. (What kind of idiot puts up wall paper in a bathroom then paints over it?). This took me over three days and another three days to apply anti-mould paint. 

It wasn’t the last time the hazmat suit was required. We have a crumbling Artex ceiling in our dining room that I was forced to patch up and paint over. 

In all honesty, I didn’t work in relationship with the house very well. I was far too angry with my parents for the years of neglect and this coloured my work. 

Yet, when it came to decorating, I did ask what it wanted and listened to its replies. House speak is a bit different to communicating with a guardian spirit. The spirit of my house doesn’t appear in anthropomorphic form. Our communication takes place more through the felt sense, through groans and creaks, through visible signs. And, of course, events, like a leak or the gutter falling down. I got a feel for what colours it wanted then integrated this with my mum’s desires. (My dad refused to accept we needed to decorate at all). 

Over the past few years, I have re-decorated nearly the whole house. Two years ago, I did my room. As I got rid of the old chest of drawers and wardrobe, replacing them with my great grandmother’s chest of drawers (I’d downsized my clothing), I felt a sense of release from the past. Those wooden beings had borne witness to all my bad habits. They were thanked and taken to be recycled. As I cleaned and painted the walls, which were grubby with smoke from when I smoked and from my candles, I felt the darkness from past years lifting, their breathing anew. The new carpet was so thick and luxurious after the old one I rolled around it like a horse on a new bed (an impromptu ritual it seemed to appreciate). I remade my altar and reconsecrated ‘the sanctuary’. The atmosphere has been lighter since. 

I’ve done a lot of work in the garden too but that’s another story I won’t go into here. What is being asked of me now by my Gods and spirits is that I be aware and present as I go about the house. Treat it all as a sanctuary. That I embody sanctuary. That my embodiment of sanctuary is reflected in my everyday relationships with my house and with my parents.

This is the core of my current work. It’s very different to when I was doing deeper trance work and writing drunkenly and having lots of visionary experiences. One might say I have become very boring. On the outside, that is true for sure, but on the inside I have grown a lot in terms of recognising and challenging my bad habits and become a safer, more compassionate person.

The shaping of the Sanctuary of Vindos remains a work in progress. It is one that requires co-operation between myself, Vindos, the Spirit of the Sanctuary, my room, our house, and my parents. 

My meditation practices have helped me to regulate my nervous system better, but I’m still anxious, stressy and irritable. I have come to accept, as the Buddhists say, these seeds will likely always be strong within me. I am learning to water them less and to water calmness and gratitude more.

Life continues to have its ups and downs. Some days, I come close to living, breathing and embodying sanctuary. Sometimes, it feels as far away as the moon.

Whether a time will come when I feel worthy of offering ‘shaping sanctuary’ sessions I remain unsure. I would be interested to hear about the experiences of others of creating sacred space and ways of being amidst the complexities and the difficulties of the everyday world in their spiritual practice.

The Seven S’s of the Sanctuary of Vindos

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During my time as a nun, I lived by vows and a rule within the Monastery of Annwn. When I left, although I gave up my monastic name, I took Six S’s of Sister Patience with me. They, plus, one more, now form the core values of the Sanctuary of Vindos. I see the guidance of Vindos / Gwyn in this as He was the patron of the monastery. 

The Seven S’s are: sanctuary, simplicity, sustainability, stability, solitude, silence and service. Here, I provide an outline of what they mean to me and how they contribute to the ethos of the sanctuary.

Sanctuary

The term ‘sanctuary’ derives from the Late Latin sanctuarium, ‘a sacred place, shrine,’ from the Latin sanctus ‘holy’. Originally, it referred to a container for holy things, then to a consecrated place for holy things (ie. a shrine, temple, or church). Later, it was extended to refer to a place of refuge for fugitives or debtors, then for any humans, then for protected habitats and animals.

The sanctuary is consecrated to Vindos, His family and my local land spirits. I tend a shrine for Him in my bedroom and I do my best to relate to the house (which I share with my elderly parents) with reverence when doing the housework. The garden is sacred to Creiddylad, Vindos / Gwyn’s consort. I work with Her and the tree and plant spirits when sowing, growing and re-wilding.

Although I cannot offer refuge due to my living conditions, I strive to embody sanctuary when I am holding space during my client work and in my relationships with family and friends.

Simplicity

Living simply, I have cut down to essentials to reduce clutter and distractions to make more time and space for relationship with the Gods and spirits. This includes food, clothes, books, ornaments, ritual objects, social engagements, group memberships and social media use.

Sustainability

Where possible, I buy locally grown and produced food and eco-friendly toiletries and cleaning and laundry products. Most of my sacred objects are either bought from local and ethical suppliers or found in my local area. I walk or cycle to most places within distance unless I need to transport heavy loads. It’s very rare that I travel by car outside of South Ribble and Preston.

Stability

Staying in the same place and paying attention to the seasonal changes year by year provides a depth of relationship with home, garden and locality.

Solitude

For many people, shamanism is mostly communal. Yet, there have always been practitioners who have dwelled alone on the edges. Hermits, cave dwellers, mad men and women. Time in solitude (from other people) helps me to rest, relax, reconnect with my Gods and spirits and receive inspiration. 

Silence

For me, silence is not so much the absence of sound but the absence of noise. The noisome content of much of the virtual world and my own inner chatter. Silence makes possible deep listening. To hear the words of the Other beyond the chunnering of the everyday and to access deeper insights.

Service

For fourteen years, I have served Vindos and the Gods and spirits of Britain through my writing and shamanic practices. More recently, I have begun to serve other people as a guide and healer. Serving someone greater has given me a sense of meaning and purpose in life that was lacking before. It has brought challenge, pain, joy, achievement and transformation.

The sanctuary and its Seven S’s provide the sacred ground which allows me to thrive and to help others to grow and transform on their journeys.

Awareness as the Greatest Offering

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On Reclaiming Awareness in Contemporary Shamanism and Polytheism

‘There is no greater offering than awareness.’ These words came from my patron God, Vindos, from an old, old form of Him who predates this name.

In prehistoric times, when Vindos was worshipped across Britain and Gaul, people lived in deep awareness of the natural world and its energetic and spiritual dimensions. This has been lost over the centuries. Indigenous cultures retain it and meditative traditions provide the key to reclaiming it within contemporary shamanic and polytheistic traditions in the West.

In this article, I cover how our awareness has been lost and look to the guidance of the yogic tradition and its Lord, Shiva, and to Vindos Himself, for how awareness might be reclaimed as the greatest offering. 

How We Lost Our Awareness

It’s my personal gnosis that Vindos, a God associated with hunting, wolves and dogs, has long been venerated by the hunter-gatherer peoples who populated Britain and Gaul and perhaps further afield. 

These people were animists, who saw the whole world as inspirited, from the animals, trees, plants and fungi, to hills, mountains, rocks, the smallest of stones. It was all viewed as alive and aware. Their culture was also shamanic. Through shamanic trance, they were able communicate with each individual awareness not only on the physical level but on energetic and spiritual levels and to access the universal awareness of the entire cosmos.

They were also polytheistic and worshipped numerous Gods and spirits. These included the Deities of natural features such as mountains and rivers and those who presided over functions such as birth, death, war and healing. These Gods were multifaceted and many performed multiple roles. 

The awareness of these people was expansive. For their survival, they depended on being deeply aware of the physical, energetic and spirit realms. 

The need for such finely honed awareness likely began to decline with the development of agriculture and more sedentary societies, who relied on the strength of their warriors and their defensive fortifications in order to live. 

With the coming of Christianity, awareness of the inspiritedness of the natural world and of its energetic and spiritual dimensions declined as people were told that nature and the body were sinful and that God and the saints resided in a heavenly realm only accessible to the righteous upon death.

Our scientific worldview eliminated the existence of spirits entirely, presenting the natural world as dead matter governed by scientific laws.

The industrial and technological revolutions have separated us further. For the most part, we experience nature and human relationships on screens.

We are suffering from myopia both theoretically and literally. This is epitomised by the 996 work culture wherein some people in the tech industry work 9am until 9pm six days a week – 72 hours in total at a screen. We lose hours, even days, scrolling news feeds and binge watching Netflix. 

The worst of the matter is that we’re not even aware of our unawareness.

Awareness in Shaivism and Yoga

In prehistoric times, the cost of a lack of awareness was death. I believe that practices designed to cultivate awareness in meditative traditions such as yoga likely date back to older animistic and shamanic cultures. These provide clues to the life-or-death matter of awareness and how it might be reclaimed.

In Insight into Reality: The Tantric Teachings of the Vigyana Bhairava Tantra, Swami Nischalananda, speaks of how yoga and tantra originate from ‘Shaivism, the Path of Evoking Shiva, a system of mysticism rooted in indigenous shamanism’. My explication of Shaivism derives from his work.

In Shaivism, ultimate reality has two sides. One is Parama Shiva – ‘Supreme Consciousness’ or Universal Awareness. The other is Shakti – matter and energy. 

Ultimate Awareness is the ground of individual awareness – that which remains constant throughout our lives and gives us the ability to know our sensory perceptions, emotions, thoughts, memories and dreams. Individual awareness is not limited to humans – all other beings are aware too. As individual awarenesses we are Shiva and as embodied beings we are Shakti. 

Unfortunately, too often, we lose touch with our awareness. This is not solely a modern phenomenon (although modernity has made it worse). It has its basis in the nature of our mind and our predisposition to lose ourselves in our thoughts and emotions. This tends to happen when we are looking ahead to the future or back upon events of the past. Our abilities to plan and to learn from our mistakes are important survival mechanisms. However, when we lose ourselves in simulations of what might happen (which is rarely the case) or what has happened (which is often skewed) we are unaware of what is happening in the here-and-now and miss out on life itself. Awareness is only possible in the present moment. 

The meditative techniques found in yoga and other traditions train us to become aware of what is happening presently by offering methods of stilling our thoughts and learning to witness them rather than being lost in them.

In Shaivism, when we, as embodied beings, realise our individual awareness, we partake in the unison of Shakti (matter and energy) with Shiva (Ultimate Awareness). The marriage of these Deities takes place through and within us.

The practice of awareness might thus be seen as the greatest of offerings.

Likenesses Between Shiva and Shakti and Vindos and Kraideti

Yoga and Brythonic polytheism have shared roots as Indo-European traditions. Both my research and personal gnosis suggest that Shiva and Vindos and their consorts, Shakti and Kradeti, shared similar roles. 

There are notable likenesses between Shiva on the Pashupati Seal and Vindos on the Gundestrup Cauldron. The Pashupati Seal, from the Indus Valley, dates to 2200 BCE. It depicts Shiva horned and surrounded by animals. The Gundestrup Cauldron was found in the Rævemose bog in Denmark and is dated between 150 BCE and 100 CE. On one of the panels is a horned figure with animals surrounding Him. He has been identified as Cernunnos, ‘Horned’, which may be another title of Vindos. Later known as Gwyn ap Nudd, He appears as a ‘bull of battle’ in a medieval Welsh poem called ‘The Conversation of Gwyn ap Nudd and Gwyddno Garanhir’. Shiva and Vindos share associations with bulls, serpents and destruction. 

Shiva is well known for His third eye and Vindos appears to me with a jewel in His forehead which grants the capacity of Clear Sight. Near me, in Furness, a bronze head was found with a hole for a jewel in its forehead. It resembles a bronze head of Bhairava (a fierce form of Shiva) from Nepal.

The consort of Vindos, Kraideti (1), later known as Creiddylad, shares similar qualities to Shakti through her associations with sovereignty and fertility in a medieval Welsh text called Culhwch and Olwen wherein Gwyn and His rival, Gwythyr, do battle every May Day for her hand in marriage. 

It might, therefore, be suggested that Vindos can be seen as Ultimate Awareness and Kraideti as primal matter and energy within Brythonic polytheism. As embodied beings, we are Kraideti, and as awareness we are Vindos. Our awareness can be the greatest of offerings to these Deities.

The Practice of Awareness as an Offering

Since I began practicing yoga, the core of my path has been ‘being present for Vindos’. It’s only recently that I have come to associate this, on a deeper level, with awareness and with uniting with Him as the Ultimate Awareness.

This is something I incorporate into my yoga practice. When I am practicing yoga – asana ‘body postures’, pranayama ‘breathwork’ and meditation – I do so with the intention of cultivating awareness and entering deeper unison with Him.

Yoga, or any form of mindful movement, breathwork, and meditation can easily be built into a shamanic or polytheistic practice. Moving and intentional breathing help to calm and slow the mind and emotions in preparation for meditation. In meditation, both the mind and the body become still and we achieve deeper states of awareness. 

There are many types of meditation that we can choose from. These include body awareness, breath awareness, sensory awareness, witnessing thoughts and emotions, bringing awareness to our energy body (in yoga the pancha kosha ‘five sheaths’ and the chakras) and visualisations of Gods and Goddesses.

Drawing on karma yoga, ‘the yoga of action’, and Bhakti yoga, ‘the yoga of the heart’, we can make awareness an offering during our daily activities. When I am walking, gardening, or doing housework, I strive to be aware of what I am doing in the present moment, what’s happening in my body, and of the myriad individual awareness with whom I am interacting. Where appropriate, I attune myself not only to the physical but the energetic and spiritual dimensions. I practice this as an offering to Vindos and Kradeti and to all the beings with whom I have the privilege of sharing this earth with.

For me, the greatest challenge is being aware in situations when I’d rather not be present – such as when the roofers are banging on our roof, I’m getting to the last rep in the gym, or I’m having an argument with my dad. It’s particularly difficult when I’m struggling with anxiety about surviving in a world where my gifts as a shamanic practitioner and author are tough to make a living from. It’s times like these that the practice is designed for.  

When I am aware, when I am the witness rather than caught up in my thoughts, fears and desires, I can see more clearly. I am no longer controlled by my emotions. I can recognise my habitual behaviours, begin to understand them, to release them, to make positive changes. 

When I am united with Vindos, His Clear Light (2) grants me Clear Sight and I am able to make choices and judgements from a greater perspective.

I recognise that not all who practice shamanism or polytheism will relate to these conceptions of Shiva and Vindos as Ultimate Awareness and Shakti and Kraideti as primal matter and energy. However, it might be possible to find Gods and Goddesses who do. If not, awareness can be an offering to the beings one is aware of, to Mother Earth, to whatever one holds sacred. 

The practice of awareness frees us from subjection to our thoughts and emotions and to the thieves of awareness who are rampant in our world. In each moment of each day, we have the capacity to make the greatest offering.

Let me be aware in every moment
for You Great Vindos.

Let my life
be an offering to You.

(1) I reconstructed this name from the medieval Welsh name Creiddylad. Craidd, in Welsh, means ‘core’ or ‘heart’ as does kerd or *ḱr̥d in Proto-Indo-European. The ending is simply fashioned to sound feminine and poetic.
(2) Vindos means ‘White, Blessed, Holy’. Vindonnus means ‘Clear Light’. He cured eye ailments and, as Gwyn, He removed the Evil Eye. 

Meditation as a Foundation for Shamanism

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On Meditation as a Ground for Ecstatic Experiences

In a shamanic journey we travel in spirit from Thisworld to the Otherworld. These experiences are ecstatic, from the Greek ekstasis, (from ek ‘out’ and stasis ‘stand’). They take us out of ourselves. Thus, they can be ungrounding. 

It is therefore important that we start fully grounded and in our bodies before we begin a shamanic journey and that we return to a grounded presence at the end. 

Unfortunately, in our fast-paced techy modern world, few of us are really in our bodies. We’re absorbed in what we see on screens, racing about, planning this, doing that. When we’re not working we’re looking to the future, anticipating, worrying, or ruminating on the past, what we could have done better.

Having a daily meditation practice can help. In this article, I will outline the meditation practices that I use myself on a day-to-day basis and in preparation for a shamanic journey and with clients in shamanic sessions.

Body Awareness

In a body awareness meditation, we shift our attention from the everyday thoughts and worries that are our usual mainstay to our bodies. 

It is easiest to bring our attention to the most dominant physical sensations first – the contact of the feet with the floor, the seat beneath us, our backs against the chair, the touch of clothing on skin and the air upon our faces. 

We might then feel into our whole body and the sensations we are experiencing or shift our attention through the different areas, for example beginning with the feet and working upwards through the lower legs, upper legs, groin, torso, hands, lower arms, upper arms, shoulders, neck and head.  This can be combined with breathing into and relaxing these body parts.

It’s really common to experience tension and discomfort we were formerly unaware of. We often forget about our bodies. We turn to work and even to shamanism to escape our pain and the stress and the trauma we are carrying.*

Body awareness meditation makes us aware of and can help us accept these feelings by witnessing them without judgement whilst in a safe space. 

It helps us to get to know and befriend our bodies as living, intelligent organisms, rather than as cogs in the techno-modern machine. 

Beginning a shamanic journey in our bodies and in good relationship with them makes for a smoother start and for an easier return. It also helps with the integration of spiritual insights and healing into physical reality.

Breath Awareness

Breath awareness meditation can also help us to shift our attention from our everyday thoughts and to build our ability to focus on one thing. The breath is used as the primary focal point in meditation traditions around the world because it is always with us, from life until death, here and now.

In this kind of meditation, we simply sit and observe the breath as it moves in and out without attempting to change or force anything. We might choose a certain point of focus such as the nostrils or the belly or shift our focus around. 

As thoughts arise, we do our best to acknowledge them and let go. This is rarely easy. Most often, before we know it, we’re lost in thinking and some time has passed before we realise. Yet, the more we practice, the quicker we get at catching ourselves. It’s best to remain positive about these moments of recognition rather than beating ourselves up. The more we practice, the better we get at catching ourselves and the longer we can focus on the breath.

Focusing on the breath is good preparation for the shift from the outer to the inner senses when we begin a shamanic journey by visualising our departure point. 

Sensory Awareness

I suggest that clients include this type of meditation in their personal practice if they have difficulties engaging the inner or ‘clair’ senses on a shamanic journey. 

Paying attention to the outer senses in meditation and when engaging in everyday activities can help strengthen the ‘clair’ senses – clairvoyance (clear seeing), clairaudience (clear hearing), clairolfaction (clear smelling), clairgustance (clear tasting), clairsentience (clear feeling) and claircognizance (clear knowing). 

In a sensory awareness meditation we can focus on the whole gamut of experience (open awareness) or upon what we can see, hear, smell, taste or feel. We can attend to each field of sensing as a whole or hone in individual sights, sounds, smells, tastes or feelings and examine them in minuscule detail. Knowing them better we can practice replicating them with our inner senses.

We can consciously keep hold of a memory of a particular place or being and use these memories when we visualise our departure point and spirit guides. Such practices make it easier for the spirit realm to speak to us through the ‘clairs’.

Learning Meditation

These meditation practices ensure we begin and end a shamanic journey present and grounded in the body, improve our ability to focus, and to engage our ‘clair’ senses and receive information from spirit whilst journeying.

All can be learnt alone relatively safely, but instruction and guidance can help. I started learning these kinds of meditation through the Breathe and Flow Expand meditation programme on their yoga channel then went on to do the excellent Introduction to Meditation course at the Mandala Yoga Ashram. Plum Village have some free guided meditations on their Youtube channel and provide introductions to mindfulness in the Buddhist tradition.

My shamanic guidance sessions on building a shamanic practice cover basic meditation (although I should note I am not a qualified meditation teacher).

*It’s important to note that body awareness may not be suitable for some people such as those with a lot of pain, heavy trauma, or who are neurodivergent and cannot stay still or are troubled by bodily sensations.

Crossing the Threshold

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Guidance on crossing the threshold in shamanic practice

One of the fundamental practices within shamanism is crossing the threshold between Thisworld and the Otherworld. Doing so is a transformative practice. It evokes curiosity and fear. In this article, I will provide guidance on crossing the threshold through a shamanic drum journey and address some common concerns.

What is a Threshold?

The term ‘threshold’ originates from the Middle English, thresh-wolde, ‘plank, stone, or piece of wood under a door or doorway, especially in a dwelling.’ This derives from the Old English, þrescold, þærscwold, þerxold, ‘door-sill, point of entering.’ It was used to describe the borders between countries (1).

A threshold is something that separates this from that. It’s often an entryway or a boundary. Largely, it separates places: rooms, indoors and outdoors, properties, towns, counties, countries, nations, worlds. Most significantly, in shamanism, there is a threshold between Thisworld and the Otherworld.

The threshold between the worlds is often described as a ‘veil’. You may have heard it said that there are times and places when and where ‘the veil is thin’. Liminal times and places (the term ‘liminal’ derives from the Latin limen ‘threshold’). 

In British mythology and folklore, at dawn, at dusk, at midnight, at certain hills, trees and lakes, you might see the fairies or be taken to their realm. But not all of us want to be taken across the threshold involuntarily.

Practices for Crossing the Threshold

There a number of practices by which we can voluntarily cross the threshold, seeing and travelling beyond the veil. These include: drumming, dancing, fasting, meditation and using hallucinogenic drugs and plant medicines. 

The safest and most effective method is journeying to a drumbeat of around 4 – 7 beats per second. This takes our brain down from the Beta state (everyday busy mind) through the Alpha state (meditative) to the Theta state (a dreamlike trance) which is just above Delta (sleep). In a shamanic drum journey, you travel in spirit from a location in Thisworld to the Otherworld by riding the drum beat like you ride a horse and following an intention. 

With this method, unlike with drugs and plant medicines, you are completely in control. When the drum beat ends, you come back from the journey. 

The Threshold and Transformation

Crossing the threshold is a transformative experience. When we go to another country we cannot help but come back changed. The same applies to crossing from Thisworld to the Otherworld. Even more so, because not only are the customs and people different, but space and time work differently. Things are not what they seem. Everyday logic breaks down. 

The Otherworld is a land of paradox and contradiction that can only be spoken of in poetry and metaphor. In British folklore, it is said that those who sleep at liminal places and cross between the worlds and return ‘Dead, mad or a poet.’ 

Experiences of the Otherworld and its spirits change the way we perceive Thisworld and, by changing our perception, change us too. The rules of our society and our family values might be put into question along with the way we are treating the earth and other human and non-human beings. Yet, with a richer, deeper understanding we are equipped to handle these changes.

Concerns about Crossing

During my experience of practicing shamanism, alone and in groups, and in my client work, concerns often come up. Here, I will address the most common.

What if nothing happens?

I have never witnessed someone go on a shamanic journey where nothing happens. A common mistake is to expect a filmic journey. These can occur, but it’s far more common to have a dreamlike sense of travelling through a landscape with flashes of imagery, sounds, smells, tastes, sensings and knowings. Some people report simply feeling an emotion, others bodily sensations. Some fall asleep. These are all significant. Something happens.

What if I get stuck?

Getting stuck is really common. Everybody gets stuck. It’s a fundamental part of shamanic journeying. Stuckness is a challenge from the Otherworld and encourages us to call upon our guides and our ingenuity to unstick ourselves. For example, many people report getting stuck in darkness, particularly on their way to the Lower World. In such instances we can feel our way through, ask our guides to bring a light, or ask Darkness for safe passage.

What if I lose control?

Shamanic journeying to a drumbeat following an intention for 20 – 50 minutes is very safe. Keep your intention in mind and follow the advice of your guides and it is very unlikely you will lose control. Loss of control is only likely to happen if you’re drumming for a lot longer or if you’re combining drumming with fasting, dancing, or intoxicants.

What if I don’t come back?

On a shamanic drum journey, there is a call back beat designed to bring you back. If you start grounded in your body, follow the drumbeat and intention and return with the call back, you will be fine. In fourteen years, I’ve never seen someone not come back from this kind of journey.

What if I’m making it up?

This question stems from the flawed conception of imagination in Western culture wherein it is identified with fabrication and fantasy. In shamanic cultures, it is the channel through which we access the spiritual realms. In a shamanic journey, we begin by actively imagining our journey to begin communication with the Otherworld. Then, begins a dialogue. The Otherworld speaks to us, shows us things, takes us places beyond our wildest knowings and our deepest dreams we cannot have made up.

What if I go mad? 

Generally, on a shamanic drum journey, our guides give us no more than we can handle. It’s only when we misuse drugs or plant medicines or approach the Otherworld disrespectfully we get ‘bad trips’. Yet, sometime along the way, it’s likely you will have a ‘big experience’ whether beautiful and ecstatic or horrible and terrifying (or both!). For these times, it is useful to have a shamanic practitioner and / or a psychotherapist and like-minded friends to turn to. Traversing periods of ‘madness’ and questioning is part of the territory.

The Next Step

If you are curious about crossing the threshold but unsure about how to take the next step, I would suggest seeking one-to-one guidance from a shamanic practitioner or taking a workshop or course with a reputable facilitator. I offer shamanic guidance sessions. I would also recommend The Way of the Buzzard Mystery School to anybody interested in online learning.

Stepping over the threshold can be scary, but it’s worth facing your fears for the wealth of knowledge and inspiration that lies beyond the veil, glistening far brighter than all the stolen gold that has been torn from Thisworld.

For more articles like this please follow this blog or join my mailing list: thesanctuaryofvindos@gmail.com

(1) https://www.etymonline.com/word/threshold
(2) https://www.etymonline.com/word/liminal

Free Intro to Shamanism Taster Sessions

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Are you curious about shamanism and wanting to learn more? 

Why not book a free one-to-one 40 minute taster session? 

Sessions begin with an introduction to shamanism covering:

*The history of shamanism
*The three world shamanic cosmology (Lower World, Middle World, Upper World)
*The shamanic journey drumbeat
*Departure points and intention setting

This will be followed by a shamanic drum journey to the Lower World to meet an animal spirit guide. After this, there will be time to feedback and ask questions.

Sessions take place online on Zoom in a safe, supportive and inclusive setting.

Email: thesanctuaryofvindos@gmail.com

Shamanic Practitioner Training Complete

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I’m very happy to announce that my shamanic practitioner training is complete. Fourteen years ago, when I first started attending shamanic workshops, I never dreamed that I might be standing in the shoes of the magical person who played the drum and carried out healings, but here I am. 

My training began in May 2024 with an organisation called the Sacred Trust. In the first residential I undertook an initiatory shamanic burial ritual in which we dug our own graves in the Devon hillside and spent a night in them. It sounds formidable but, for me at least, it was enjoyable, as I like digging and relished the thought of a night in the earth with my Gods and spirits, particularly as my patron God, Vindos / Gwyn ap Nudd had asked me to marry Him in death. I had far worse struggles with the change of routine and diet. 

In the second residential, we covered Harner shamanic counselling (1). During this process, a shamanic practitioner guides a newcomer client through six shamanic journeys to solve a life issue with help from the spirits. The client wears headphones to listen to a recorded drumbeat and speaks their journeys out loud into a microphone. The practitioner and client then listen to the recording and the practitioner guides the client in their interpretation.

We (a group of 22) took it in turns to play the roles of practitioner and client and were assessed as we went along. Whilst I recognised the ingenuity and value of this method, as an autistic person who struggles with wearing headphones and virtual drumbeats and with being in loud crowded spaces (imagine all those other people speaking out their journeys loud!) I found it incredibly claustrophobic and this was reflected in my shamanic journeys. I returned home questioning whether a recorded drumbeat on headphones rather than a live drum, combined with the pressure of speaking a journey out loud, were the best way to introduce a newcomer to shamanism.

Before I had the chance to deliver the Harner shamanic counselling to volunteer clients, I decided to leave the Sacred Trust for ethical reasons (2). My mentor and supervisor, shamanic practitioner and embodied relational therapist, Jayne Johnson, supported me through the process. Afterwards, she offered to take me on as a shamanic apprentice. Working one-to-one suited me far better as it allowed my learning to be more flexible and spirit-led.

With Jayne, I decided, instead of delivering the Harner shamanic counselling, for my first client offering, to provide a six week introduction to shamanism inspired by the model but with a live drum and no need to speak into a mic. In the first session, I outlined the history and theory of shamanism. In the following sessions, clients undertook journeys to the Lower World to meet animal spirit guides, to the Upper World to meet a spirit teacher, to the Middle World to meet their local land spirits, then finally, underwent a basic shamanic healing at the hands of their helping spirits. I guided eight complete newcomers through the process. Discovering shamanism and meeting their spirit guides was a great gift to them and it was a pleasure and honour for me to hold the space, provide guidance and witness their progress.

Around this time and afterwards, I experimented with running shamanic journey circles, first at a local Spiritualist Church, then at a couple of local venues. Although I succeeded in running the circles, due to my autism, I found it difficult managing the needs and energies of a group (particularly co-ordinating the drumming, which really hurt my head!). After numbers fell and events were called off due to extreme weather, I realised the spirits were telling me running groups was not meant to be part of my vocation.

Stepping up into shamanic healing, which I truly felt was my soul’s calling, one of my first offerings was power animal retrieval. I learnt this at an introductory workshop with the Sacred Trust. Journeying for or with a client into the Otherworld to retrieve their power animal was a beautiful and exuberant process in which I almost felt like a celebrant as I helped reveal and seal sacred partnerships that will hopefully last for life. 

I was then called to offer soul retrieval. This was a big initiation for me. I was aware of how sensitive the process of bringing back lost soul parts who have fled or been driven away due to trauma can be. I also felt it was a part of my soul’s purpose, being a devotee of Gwyn, the Gatherer of Souls. And there were times it was intense and scary and times I was unsure whether I ‘got it right’, but, largely the journeys and soul parts made sense to the client. Again, it was a great honour to play a role in helping the lost parts to return, to blow them into the client, to witness their becoming more whole.

An important related technique I mastered was soul exchange. This involves holding space for a client and another person to exchange soul parts they have picked up from one another in a relationship and cutting unhealthy cords. I experienced this to be a simple yet profound process.

Next, I moved onto extraction. This involves removing intrusions into a client’s energy field which cause sicknesses. Previous work with my own energy system led me to seeing this was just one form of shamanic energy healing (which also involves shifting and transforming blocked and congealed energies). Thus, I offered it under that title. As I’m usually a little awkward around other people, I wasn’t sure how working closely on their energy field would feel, but once I was in shamanic trance I was fine. I found shamanic energy healing really intuitive – my hands and body knew what to do and my spirit helpers were always beside me with their help and advice. My hounds, who I’d seen more as hunters, proved to be great healers. This fit with Nodens / Nudd (Gwyn’s father) being associated with healing hounds. Having more experience, I tied in other techniques, such as power and soul retrieval with shamanic energy healings where needed. My clients reported improvements with illnesses and ailments and having more energy.

All was going well until a great interruption. Following a week of meditation, I realised being a nun, Sister Patience, and running the Monastery of Annwn were no longer my calling. I was catapulted back into being Lorna Smithers, with all her shit, which Sister Patience thought she had transcended. 

I ended up writing like mad to get to the root of it and found out what I had been trying to escape was an eating disorder which began with childhood bullying. I was carrying a great deal of shame from binge eating and drinking, which had led to restrictive dieting and excessive exercising to control my weight. I’d thought, with my monastic routine, I was ‘better’. But, although my exercise and food habits were healthier, I still had issues with restriction and body image. I identified this as my ‘core wound’ and am still working with it today. I see this as essential inner work that has come out of the apprenticeship.

Throughout my training, I have explored ancestor work, building my family tree and journeying to family ancestors with my mum and offering healing where fit.

My training in psychopomping built upon my existing experience of witnessing Gwyn guiding the souls of the dead and being guided to help in rare situations. As my apprenticeship has progressed my psychopomp work has increased and I have helped stuck souls in a variety of situations to pass. I am now offering psychopomping for free as a service to Gwyn and the dead. 

Towards the end of the apprenticeship I also trained in depossession. I learnt enough to be able to handle situations where this difficult technique is needed, but will not be offering it as a service until I have more experience.

My shamanic training has been challenging, healing, and transformative. Following the tumult with the Sacred Trust it felt safe and right and like a homecoming to be training with Jayne – for which I’m deeply grateful to her and my spirits. Working one-to-one with Jayne meant I could work at my own pace and cover the techniques in the order I was inspired to. It meant I could take time off client work to work through my personal crisis. I also had far more in depth tuition than I would have got from the Sacred Trust. Jayne is incredibly knowledgeable not only about shamanism and psychotherapy. With her, I have learnt a lot about counselling skills and how the psychological material of clients might appear in their journeys. We have also done a good deal of work with my soul parts and their needs and conflicts.

Thus, I’m also very happy to say, that following my shamanic apprenticeship, I will be continuing with more advanced training with Jayne. I’m hoping to explore the intersection of shamanism and psychotherapy and working with soul parts more deeply and to progress further with ancestral healing and psychopomping.

Another avenue that I am considering is putting my experience of an eating disorder and my special interests in nutrition and exercise to use by investigating ways of combining them with shamanic work to provide a holistic approach to healing for others who have issues with food and body image.

This is the beautiful personalised certificate that Jayne awarded to me. 

I’d like to give a huge thank you to all my volunteer clients and to those who have paid student rates for offering your time, energy and money so we can come together to do this much needed and sacred work.

I’d like to thank Jayne for being a superb teacher and for supporting me through all the ups and downs that have come my way (there have been a lot!). Also, Jason and Nicola Smalley at the Way of the Buzzard with whom I have been learning and practicing shamanism for many years and whose journey circles and coaching calls have been an invaluable source of support.

Finally, I’d like to say my biggest thank you to Vindos / Gwyn and my helping spirits. I couldn’t have done this without you. A shamanic practitioner is nothing without their Gods and spirits. 

Vindos, my patron,
my inspiration, my beloved and my truth,
tonight I dedicate my services as a shamanic practitioner
 to Your sanctuary and to You.

(1) https://www.shamanism.org/workshops/harner-shamanic-counseling/
(2) See Nicholas Breeze-Wood’s article ‘Stung By the Tale – The Exposure and Death of British Bee Shamanism’ in Sacred Hoop, 126, 2024.

Exploring Depossession

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Introduction

Depossession is an advanced shamanic technique for removing a possessing spirit from the body of a client. It is often mistakenly confused with exorcism, which involves forcibly driving a spirit from a person’s body, causing great torment to both parties. In Core Shamanism, the practice is known as compassionate depossession and involves engaging with the spirit more kindly and negotiating their departure from a client’s body. (1)

In order to understand depossession, we firstly need to grasp the differences between voluntary and involuntary possession. In shamanic traditions, voluntary possession is a customary practice and is viewed as healthy. It is common for practitioners across traditional cultures and in Core Shamanism to call in and be possessed by animal spirits, ancestors, and deities.

During voluntary possession, a spirit is invited into our body and can partake in the sensory experiences we enjoy such as eating, drinking and dancing and can use our voice to deliver messages. In the Brythonic tradition, spirit-workers known as awenyddion ‘people inspired’ were said to be possessed by spirits who provided inspiration for their prophecies. (2)

A similar concept is merging. Herein, we become one with a spirit and act together as a pair for the purposes of providing guidance and healing. Another related concept is shapeshifting. This involves shifting into the form of a  spirit being so that we resemble them and take on their qualities but without merging with them or being possessed by them.

Involuntary possession is a form of possession that occurs without our consent. It can be temporary, for example, at a ceremony that involves voluntary possession by one or more spirit workers, somebody in the audience might have no intention of being possessed, but if they do not set appropriate boundaries or if their energy field is gappy, a spirit or deity might take advantage and come into their body, then leave, or need to be persuaded to leave by a practitioner with more experience.

Involuntary possession can be more long-lasting and can happen without a person knowing it. These are the cases most often encountered by shamanic practitioners who offer depossession. This kind of possession usually happens to people who have considerable gaps in their energy field due to soul loss. This can occur at or around times of crisis or trauma or in their aftermath. 

The possessing spirits are most often souls of the deceased who are lost and confused and may not know they are dead. They are drawn to the comfort and safety of another person’s body, take up residence there, then begin to influence them through their needs, desires, and memories. 

For example, when possessed, a person might experience the desire for food and drink that they have never liked before, the urge to take up a new hobby, or more dangerously, experience strange obsessions or compulsions or be driven to engage in addictive behaviours. They might also find that they are troubled by memories and dreams that are not their own.

Such possessions are not very common. They’re most likely to happen if a person has been unlucky enough to be at the place of a death, such as an accident, a natural disaster, or in hospital where someone near them has died. It’s also possible to be possessed by a wandering spirit if one’s energy field is gappy.

Other spirits that might possess people are land spirits, such as those whose habitats have been damaged, who may be lost or angry. Also, entities from other realms, but it’s unlikely to be possessed by such beings unless you have been engaging with them in a ritual context.

The Depossession Process

Before entering the depossession process, it is firstly important to be aware that what might, at first, present as possession might be something else. It could be an intrusion, an introject, or a thought form that requires extraction. It could also be a rejected or shadow part of the client’s soul or a symptom arising from inner conflict or trauma. It is essential to determine that a possession is indeed a possession before attempting to remove it. If a soul part belonging to the client is removed, its gifts and energy might be lost, or it might simply return and show up in an even more troublesome way.

The practitioner should also screen for schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder and any past history of psychosis, hallucinations, or mental breakdowns that might be causing the symptoms or might be reactivated. Things get really tricky here as such persons are those who are likely to be more vulnerable to a spirit entering. In such cases, it would take the know-how of somebody who is both an experienced shamanic practitioner and psychotherapist to discern the difference. It’s worth noting that in Western culture, broadly, a possession would be perceived as a mental illness, whereas in shamanic cultures many mental illnesses might be seen as possessions.

It might be obvious to the practitioner whether a possession is present during the consultation process. If not, the practitioner might undertake a shamanic journey and consult with their guides beforehand. If it still remains unclear, it is possible to discern the nature of the problem during the process, but there is a higher risk of trauma to both the client and the spirit.

During a depossession, the practitioner firstly helps the client to feel safe and comfortable. They might lead a grounding meditation. They then honour the spirits of place, call in the spirit helpers and put in place protection. To help the client get into a shamanic state they might drum, rattle or sing. 

When ready, the client is asked to identify a symptom in their body which they feel is related to the possession. This could be something like a tightness in the chest, a heaviness in a limb, or a tingle in a foot. Once it has been identified, the client is asked to ‘step aside’ and speak from the standpoint of the symptom. If the symptom presents as a lost soul, the practitioner can then begin to ask them questions – what is their name? How old are they? What is their background? How long have they been there? It is important to be aware that they are likely to be traumatised and confused and might not have their faculties or memories intact. They might not realise that they are dead or are possessing another person. It’s thus important to be patient and to help them to reach these realisations gradually and gently.

Once the identity of the lost soul and their possessing nature is established, the next step is to encourage them to move on. This can be done by describing a more pleasant place in the spirit world in accordance with their religious beliefs, or those of their family, if they have them, or by providing a more general description of the Otherworld if they do not. It is often helpful to call upon their ancestors and / or their spirit guides so they have somebody familiar to travel to the spirit realms with. 

Before they leave, the practitioner should check whether they need healing, and, if so, carry out any healing needed with the help of their guides. 

The lost soul can then be moved on. They might be happy to go with their ancestors or spirit guides. If not, the practitioner may need to psychopomp them, with the help of their spirit helpers.

With a possessing land spirit, they and their land might need healing for them to return. If their land is too damaged, they might need psychopomping. If the spirit is from another realm, they should be encouraged to go back there. If the spirit is difficult, a practitioner from the tradition from which the spirit originated might need to be called in to remove them.

The practitioner should then check for any other underlying possessions. Once the process is complete, they should heal and close the energy field. Because removing a possession leaves a gap in the person’s energy field, a further session involving soul retrieval or power retrieval should be considered. In the meantime, the gap should be filled with energy in an appropriate form (light, mist, colours) so the client is not vulnerable to a further spirit possession before the followup work is done. 

The client should be given some time and space to process what has happened, perhaps with some gentle drumming, rattling or singing. They might want to talk things through with the practitioner afterwards. They should be advised to take good care of themselves, to drink plenty of water and eat nourishing foods and informed of measures to prevent a future possession.

Personal Experience

As part of my shamanic training, I went through the depossession process in the role of client with my mentor. I didn’t feel that I was possessed, but I had experienced a voice in my head that told me I was ‘worthless’ and I was not sure of its nature or identity or whether it was coming from within or from without.

When I looked within to find a symptom, I noticed the rapidity of my heartbeat and was drawn to place a finger on my pulse at my carotid artery. At this point, I was working on a novel, which was possessing me, and was losing sleep and finding it difficult to focus on anything else. It came to my mind that ‘the finger on the pulse’ was trying to hold back a ‘green energy’ that I identified as the inspiration for the novel, which was running out of control. 

My mentor and I asserted that these two symptoms were not a spirit possession but represented an imbalance between the inspired and restrictive parts of myself. In this situation, the green energy had got out of control and was depriving me of my ability to be present in my body and to sleep. We worked out that when the finger shuts down my inspiration, I feel low and this is when the voice that tells me I am ‘worthless’ comes in. Thus, what might have been a possession was a symptom resulting from inner conflict.

Role Play 

We also engaged in a role play. I acted as practitioner and my mentor took the role of a client who was presenting with a possession. She had been in a car crash in which several people had died and was struggling with tightness in her chest. Doctors had asserted it had no physical cause. She described a suffocating feeling, as if something was there, and experiencing unusual cravings for salty crisps and for fizzy drinks. It was my intuition that one of the spirits who had died in the accident had moved into her body, so I decided to go ahead with the depossession process.

When I asked the client to speak from the symptom it quickly became clear that there was a spirit present, that it was a lost soul, and that it was scared and confused and had no idea who it was or where it was. It didn’t want to look around and say what it could see because it was too scary. When I asked it questions, it didn’t want to recall its identity or who its relatives were due to fear. It admitted to its desire for salty crisps and fizzy drinks. 

The dialogue went round in circles for a while until I asked whether it had any favourite animals and it said it liked buzzards and I managed to engage Buzzard as its spirit animal. Buzzard then flew, like a drone, over the scene of the car crash and relayed the memory to the soul. She recalled that she was a mother and that her husband and children had died in the accident. That was the memory she had been trying to block out. She then remembered having fled and taken up residence in the client’s body. She wanted to know if she was still a mum and I told her that she was but it would be best for her and her husband and children if she moved on to a safer and more comfortable place in the spirit world. Buzzard then took her. 

After she left, the client said she felt a sadness in the gap the spirit had left. The client’s power animal, giraffe, removed the sadness. I then healed and sealed the client’s energy field and suggested she return for a power or soul retrieval. 

The process, although a role play, was more difficult and intense than I had predicted. There is little literature on depossession and in the one book I had read, Shamanic Depossession: A Compassionate Healing Practice, by Peter Salome, in the example given there were no difficulties in finding out the name, age and background of the soul (3). Of course, I should have expected that the soul might be too traumatised and confused to speak and remember coherently, but I didn’t take this into consideration beforehand. I felt that it was more by luck than judgement that I managed to engage with the lost soul through her power animal and convince her to leave.

This highlighted the risky nature of depossession. If I hadn’t succeeded in finding out the soul’s identity with the help of her power animal and persuaded her to leave, I could have been faced with a situation in which the spirit was agitated and the client was aware it was there, leaving both in crisis.

This made it clear that depossessions where there is clearly a possessing present should only be carried out by an experienced practitioner who has good psychotherapeutic knowledge and knows how to deal with trauma and crisis. 

Case Study

I did one case study with a volunteer client (4) who was curious about going through the process and did not believe that she was possessed. 

When asked to find a symptom she found a numbness in her feet and hands that she asserted belonged to her then dark tunnels in her body that belonged to her too. We asked her guides to run along the tunnels and check for entities and, when they didn’t find any, sent my guides to check too. 

Once it was asserted that there wasn’t a possession present, the client’s guides made it clear they wanted to go out of the tunnels on a shamanic journey. We travelled through the client’s head through a window to a stone circle where the client was gifted a golden light and golden raindrops fell on her. My hounds licked up some of the raindrops. When we returned to the Middle World, my hounds licked the raindrops into the client’s feet and they spread through her body and the dark and empty tunnels were filled with gold. 

Together, we interpreted this to be a healing for power loss signalled by the empty tunnels that might have made the client susceptible to a possession. Also, a remedy for the numbness in her feet and hands. She was advised to continue to call in the golden energy in her evening meditations.

Conclusion 

My introductory experiences with depossession have equipped me with the knowledge and protocols to identify a possession if it comes up in my practice (most likely during extraction if the symptom turns out to be an entity rather than an intrusion) and, if it is within my capacity, to remove it, and if not to know when to refer a client to a more experienced practitioner.

Due to the risky nature of depossession and my lack of experience, I will not be offering it as service to clients for the foreseeable future. I feel, for the purposes, of my shamanic apprenticeship, my training in depossession is complete. Whether I will be led to take this area of shamanic practice any further as I progress in my client work is in the hands of the spirits.

Footnotes

(1) It’s worthy of note here that in some traditional shamanic cultures, shamans do battle with and drive malevolent spirits from a person’s body.
(2) ‘Giraldus Cambrensis and the Awenyddion’, Awen ac Awenydd, https://awenydd.weebly.com/giraldus-cambrensis-and-the-awenyddion.html
(3) “Hello. My name is Peter.” I said. “Would you mind telling me your name?” “Sandro.” “Good to meet you, Sandro. How old you are, Sandro?” “I’m twenty-seven.” “Sandro, can you tell me the last thing you remember doing?” “Me? I was a soldier.” “Where were you a soldier?”  “Lots of places.” “Can you name one place for me?” “It was at Gallipoli.” “What were you doing there?” “I was just standing there in a trench, smoking a cigarette during a break, between mortar bombings.” “And after that…?” “I don’t know.” “So you’re not there, at Gallipoli, anymore…?” “I guess not…”Salome, P. Shamanic Depossession: A Compassionate Healing Practice, (Peter Salome, 2014), p68 – 69
(4) I share this account with her permission.

Psychopomping – From Witnessing to Doing the Work

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Introduction

The term ‘psychopomp’ derives from the Greek psyche ‘soul’ and pompos ‘guide’. A psychopomp is a ‘guide of souls’. In shamanic traditions, a variety of deities and spirits, along with human practitioners, act as psychopomps. 

Psychopomping is a core shamanic practice and involves helping the dead, typically those stuck in the Middle World or between the worlds, to cross to a suitable place in the spirit world in accordance with their beliefs.

The dead can become stuck for a number of reasons. One of the main causes is sudden or traumatic death. When a person dies traumatically, such as in an accident or a natural disaster, in war, or by murder or suicide, the shock can deprive them of their faculties and their ability to pass cognisantly. This can also be the case with those who are heavily medicated at the time of death. Sometimes, these souls do not realise they are dead. They can remain stuck at the place and time of their death until they recover their faculties or a psychopomp from the spirit or the human world helps them to pass over. Sometimes, they wander in confusion through the Middle World, or end up between the worlds (a place where lost souls are commonly found, referred to in core shamanism as the interworld, in the Christian tradition as Purgatory and in Buddhism as Bardo).

Souls can also become ‘bound’ in the Middle World for personal reasons. They might not want to leave a loved one or a loved one might not be able to release their hold on them. Those with unpaid debts, a desire for vengeance, or unassuaged guilt may refuse to leave until their affairs have been put into place. Those with addictions may find it difficult to leave the objects of their addiction.

It’s important to remember that not all souls who die traumatically need psychopomping. Some pass naturally or with the help of their spirit guides. Also, just because a soul is in the Middle World or between the worlds, doesn’t necessarily mean they need help. Like us, the souls of the dead can move at will between the worlds. It is common for family ancestors to visit and to look out for their descendants and to guide them home at death. Some ancestors choose to stay around as guides and protectors.

Vindos / Gwyn ap Nudd – An Ancient British Psychopomp

My patron God, Vindos / Gwyn ap Nudd, ‘White son of Mist’, is an ancient British deity who rules Annwn ‘Very Deep, the Otherworld, and its people, the spirits of Annwn or fairies. It’s my personal belief that He also rules the dead. He is depicted gathering the souls of the dead back to His realm. As Pen Annwn, ‘the Head of the Otherworld’, He is the keeper of the Cauldron of Rebirth.

It’s my intuition that prehistoric burial monuments with stonework made from chalk and limestone, with deeply defined white-marked boundaries, were associated with Vindos and were marked this way to guide Him to the dead.

In a medieval Welsh poem called ‘The Conversation of Gwyn ap Nudd and Gwyddno Garanhir’, Gwyn is depicted as a psychopomp, as a ‘Bull of Battle’. He appears to guide Gwyddno, a dead warrior-king, to Annwn. At the end of their dialogue, He recites the names of a number of famous warriors whose souls he has gathered from the battlefield.

In later folklore, Gwyn appears with the Cwn Annwn, ‘Hounds of the Otherworld’, as a leader of the Wild Hunt – a chase for human souls. In one instance, He is depicted with a black face and horns on His head hunting down a ‘sinner’. The hunt rides yearly, on Nos Galan Gaeaf, and through the winter, gathering up any souls of the dead who have not passed over.

He and His people, the spirits of Annwn, or ‘fairies’, are often seen to guide and even to ‘take’ the souls of those who die suddenly or traumatically.

Witnessing with Gwyn

Since I met Gwyn, I have been working with the dead in a number of ways. I have long been journeying to learn the stories of forgotten ancestors in my local area and to share them in poetry and prose. This has included witnessing their deaths, for example, a cotton worker who died of pneumonia. 

I have journeyed with Gwyn, physically and in spirit, to witness scenes where He has served as a psychopomp. One example is a visit to the site of the tragic Battle of Arfderydd, where Gwyn gathered the soul of Gwenddolau and Myrddin Wyllt became mad due to battle trauma. I spent time in meditation there, journeyed into the scene, and wrote about it.

Gwyn has shown me how He has been there for the souls of the battle dead from ancient times and still supports soldiers who die in war whatever their beliefs. 

He’s also revealed to me how He’s there for people who are considering suicide and supports them, whatever decision they make. I met Gwyn when I was experiencing suicidal ideation. A number of others who have become devoted to Him have told me they met Him during dark times.

It’s my personal belief that Vindos, whose name means ‘White’ or ‘Clear Light’, is the white light that is seen at the end of the tunnel in reports of Near Death Experiences and that’s how He appears to those who don’t know His name.

Psychopomp Work

Most of my experiences of psychopomping have happened spontaneously. My first experience was many years ago, in my locality, where I came across a Roman soldier who had left a battalion, who according local legend still march along the old Roman road. He was fed up and wanted to go home. With my guides, I took Him through the Middle World back to Italy, to one of the rivers near Naples that is associated with the Roman land of the dead. A Roman guide appeared and took him across the river and he vanished.

A few years ago, during a meditation, I came across three Victorian boys wandering through the forests of the Otherworld. They told me they were afraid they wouldn’t be allowed into Heaven and had wandered into the forest and were lost. I asked them if they would like to go on to another life and they agreed. So I led them to Gwyn’s cauldron to be reborn. 

During my shamanic counselling training with the Sacred Trust, I had a difficult experience, which led to an unexpected psychopomping journey. I was acting as client, with a drumbeat on headphones, speaking my journey out loud, in a hall packed with people, like sardines, doing the same. I’m autistic and hate wearing headphones, virtual drumbeats, and crowded spaces. It was incredibly claustrophobic. Failing to get to the Lower World, I got stuck in a mine, where I found a dead canary. I was told to put it into my heart. I was then led to a holding place between the worlds where there were hundreds of dead canaries. I released them all. My heart cracked open and molten gold poured from my heart with the canaries down the tunnels. It flowed from the mine through all the mines in industrial Britain. This was accompanied by a sense of release and healing. I kept the canary in my heart for a few weeks and finally returned it to a magical place on the other side of the Canary Islands where canaries sung like stars on trees.

Shortly after leaving the Sacred Trust training due to ethical issues, I asked for a healing for something that happened during the initiation rite. Afterwards, I found myself transported to a cellar under a pub in York. There was a man who I intuited was also autistic and had his hands over his ears. He was dressed in clothing that looked like medieval sack cloth. He explained he couldn’t stand the unfamiliar noise of the city up above. I offered to take him to a place where there was no more noise. He agreed. Following the guidance of my spirits, I took him to a pool in the Otherworld, where he was mesmerised by watching the beautiful dragonflies. This calmed him. I left him there for a few days. Only then was he ready to recall his painful memories of how he died. He had got drunk (a way of shutting out the world) whilst working in the cellar and had an accident with the barrels. I was then guided to take him to Gwyn’s cauldron to be reborn.

Several months ago, during my morning meditation, Gwyn guided me to help an ex-soldier who had initially passed to the Otherworld but had been lured back by a bottle of beer left outside the Royal British Legion club in my locality. He told me that he and his wife, who had also passed, had visited the Niagara Falls in the Middle World before going to the spirit world and that he needed to tell his grandma about it. I asked my guides to find his grandma, who was in the Lower World, in a little house looking over a cliff. He told her his story, then his wife appeared, and they stepped over the cliff into the mist. 

When it came to covering psychopomping towards the end of my shamanic apprenticeship, I told Gwyn I was open to further opportunities. One arose in the context of some ancestral healing. The ancestral journey involved releasing a part of the soul of my great grandfather, Harry Shell Allen, which was trapped at the site of his death in the London County Asylum so the energy could be returned to him in his present incarnation in Spain.

On our visit to the asylum, I noticed a young woman who was mopping and seemed stuck with two grey looking spectral figures beside her. Afterwards, I consulted Gwyn, who suggested I could try to help her. I received the name Jane Locksley. When I looked up the Locksley family in London, I saw that they were from Nottinghamshire, but there were records of them passing through to do business and that there was a Locksley Street. I received the gnosis that the two figures were Jane’s parents and they left her at the asylum, due to a mental health condition, on their way to get a ship. They felt unable to leave the Middle World because of their guilt at abandoning Jane.

When I journeyed to help Jane, I discovered that she was deaf, but could communicate telepathically. She heard people’s thoughts in her head. That was why people thought she was mad. She enjoyed mopping as it helped shut the thoughts out. The swish and slop of the mop and the water calmed her. She also enjoyed spending time in the garden. When the voices got very loud she got distressed and had to be medicated. The last thing she recalled was being heavily medicated and confusion before being drawn back to mopping. 

She was aware that the garden was gone and it was scary outside. I explained to her gently that she was dead and told her that were far better gardens in the spirit world. She asked me if I meant the Garden of Eden, which was somewhere her parents told her she would never go if she didn’t behave. I said I could help her get there if she wished. She was unsure. I suggested she might want to say farewell to her parents, to which she agreed. My guides brought them and I also called to Saint Michael as a psychopomp, who was familiar and could take them all to Heaven. In the end, Jane said she didn’t want to go with her parents to Heaven. 

I took Jane, with my guides, from the asylum across the Middle World to find an entrance to the Otherworld and she said she wanted to go to Nottinghamshire. She pointed out Sherwood Forest and told me she had always loved the legends of Robin Hood, Robin of Locksley, who was associated with her family. She particularly loved Maid Marian. Marian and her maids appeared in the forest and she danced with them into the Otherworld.

Reflections on Psychopomping

When I started reading about psychopomping, I came across a number of stories about people who had been called to it as a vocation from a young age. They had long seen the dead. They had long been called to help them (1). I heard stories of people so bothered by the dead they needed to create waiting rooms. I realised this wasn’t me. I only started seeing the dead in my late teens. I wasn’t called to help them any more than living humans I saw about.

I read about others who are called to war zones and scenes of accidents and natural disasters to help the dead pass, or to check places where people die in confusion, like hospitals and mental hospitals, and realised this wasn’t me either.

This confused me, because I am devoted to a God of the dead who is a psychopomp. When I asked Gwyn about whether I should be more open to the dead or should seek out more opportunities to help them, He told me that I should maintain my boundaries and wait until told for psychopomp work.

My experience of psychopomping to date has been limited but varied. I have worked with persons from across time periods of a variety of different backgrounds and ages. A common theme has been working with people who, like me, find noise overwhelming and have experienced addiction to alcohol. I wonder if this is because we carry similar energetic vibrations. I noticed that the souls who I was guided to help did not hold strong Christian beliefs and were amenable to a shamanic conception of the Otherworld.

A learning that occurred that I hadn’t heard about before was that if a soul is stuck at a site of trauma, it might not be the whole soul, but a part of the soul. Of course, I’d come across this when doing soul retrieval. It highlighted the complexity of this work and the need for discernment and listening to my guides, as the processes of releasing a stuck soul part and crossing a soul, in its wholeness, to the Otherworld are a little different.

Another point to note is that I had heard from many sources of psychopomps taking souls ‘to the light’. This felt familiar in that there are places in the Upper World that are incredibly bright and beautiful and are associated with intense emotions and ecstatic states. In the writings of Iolo Morganwg the Upper World is known as Gwynfyd. For me it’s the state of being in the arms of Gwyn. So I can see why people would want to go there. However, I came across a cautionary tale in a book by a death midwife (2), wherein she suggested a dying man go to the light and he recoiled because it was incredibly painful for him because he associated the light with migraines. This shows that we should always check in about where a soul wants to go.

Psychopomping as an Offering

My experience to date of pyschopomping has been one of a slow education under the guidance of Gwyn. As I have progressed with psychopomping, I have steadily grown in confidence in my abilities to communicate with the dead in a clear and compassionate manner and assist them in crossing to the spirit world. I was unsure about whether I would be called further to do psychopomp work in spite of receiving good feedback on my progress so far from my mentor.

Then, to my surprise, earlier this week, Gwyn requested that I begin offering psychopomping as a free service for Him and any souls who might be in need of help. If you have any concerns about the passage of friends or family or persons in your locality, please get in touch. I can’t promise to be able to help everybody, but I will take on cases that I feel are within my ability as guided by Gwyn and my spirits.

(1) See for example, Soul Rescuers, by Natalia and Terry O’Sullivan.
(2) The Art of Death Midwifery by Joellyn St Pierre.

Ancestor Work – Remembrance and Healing

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Introduction – Gwyn and Remembrance

I have been working with the ancestors since I discovered Paganism in 2010 and, more deeply, since meeting my patron God, Vindos / Gwyn ap Nudd, in 2012 and dedicating myself to Him as His awenydd ‘person inspired’.

Gwyn is a Brythonic God of the dead who gathers the souls of the deceased to His realm, Annwn (‘Very Deep’, the Otherworld). Ancestry is significant in the Brythonic tradition. This is shown in the medieval Welsh poem, ‘The Conversation of Gwyn ap Nudd and Gwyddno Garanhir’, wherein one of the first questions that Gwyddno asks Gwyn is about His descent. The genealogies of the Men of the North trace the lineages of sixth century rulers, such as Gwyddno himself, through seven generations, to common ancestors. The role of the bard was to keep alive the name of his lord and his predecessors, to tell their stories, exult their victories, and deride their enemies. Their legacies were tightly intertwined with the land where they lived, as shown by the names Urien Rheged and Maelgwn Gwynedd.

Whilst this tradition focuses on male wealthy male warlords, it would have been likely that that, during this period, ordinary people also had their share of ancestral stories that were passed down from generation to generation. Their tales, too would have been inextricably bound up with their local landscape.

Ancestors of the Land

When my service to Gwyn began, I was called to honour the ancestors of my locality – my hometown of Penwortham and the nearby city of Preston. Through a combination of research and shamanic journeying with Gwyn, I recovered the lost memories of the ‘Dwellers in the Water Country’ from the prehistoric period through medieval times and industrialisation to now. 

Learning about the prominent landowners and lords of the manor, such as the Fleetwood and Rawstorne families and cotton lords such as John Watson and John Horrocks, was unavoidable. However, I was inspired to focus more on those who had been oppressed and those who dissented, such as the orphans who worked in Penwortham Mill and the Preston Cotton Martyrs.

Penwortham Mill (now demolished) where John Watson’s orphans worked.

For me, giving voice to their memories was a magical act that honoured their lives and resistance, making them heard, making them visible. It struck me that Nudd or Lludd, Gwyn’s father, was associated with the Luddites in the form of King Lud and was a rallying figure for their rebellion.

Ancestors of Spirit – Orddu

Orddu

I was also called to work with and honour spiritual ancestors. An example of this is how I won the favour of my spirit teacher, Orddu, ‘Very Black’, a ‘witch’, who lived in a cave in Pennant Gofid, ‘the Valley of Grief’, in an unnamed location in northern Britain. Orddu’s story is recorded in Culhwch and Olwen. Herein, Arthur kills her by cutting her in twain with his knife, then drains her blood and uses it to grease the beard of the giant, Ysbaddaden Bencawr. 

This gristly story appalled me. After reading it, I couldn’t stop hearing Orddu’s screams. I journeyed to the cave in Pennant Gofid and found her remains. I was made aware that she had become one of the spirits of Annwn, the restless dead, whose fury Gwyn holds back to prevent the destruction of the world. 

This led me to doing further journeywork to recover and tell the story of Orddu and her lineage, from her mother, Orwen, ‘Very White’, back to their foremother, Eira, ‘Snow’ who I was shown was the first of their lineage to inhabit the cave in Pennant Gofid after the Ice Age. Their stories formed a central thread in my books, The Broken Cauldron and Gatherer of Souls. They recorded journeys in which I laid Orddu’s bones to rest, recovered the last drop of her blood and returned it to Pennant Gofid. Through these acts of bardic and shamanic magic, I placated her spirit, and she left the spirits of Annwn and returned to her home to become a spirit teacher.

Ancestors of Blood

I have honoured my blood ancestors for a while, but it’s only recently that I’ve started working with them on a deeper level for healing purposes. I started out with putting their photographs in an ancestral space on my mantelpiece. When I went to Samhain rituals with a local Druid grove it was notable that my grandfather on my mum’s side, Henry Collison, always wanted to go. When I took his photo everybody admired him and said he was a handsome man. He liked that a lot – he was always a lady’s man. I sensed my grandmothers were less willing. When I considered taking my grandad on my dad’s side, his photo fell down the back of the fire, showing he did not want to go to a Druid rite.

Henry Collison – Grandad on mum’s side

I’ve long sensed that my grandad, Henry, remains quite close to me. He died of a heart attack whilst my mum was pregnant with me and I intuit our souls met. When I attended a local spiritualist church for the first time, in 2024, and one of the members got a Henry, being autistic and having better relationships with household objects than other humans, my mind went straight to our new extra-large Henry hoover with super suction. By the time I’d recalled that my grandad was called Henry, I’d lost the chance to receive a message and dared not speak up and admit my late realisation because of the hoover. The next morning, when I woke up, my hair dryer had been turned round the wrong way and the nozzle had been taken off. I sensed Henry laughing. I admitted to what had happened the next week. 

At this time, I had decided to start working with my family ancestors in earnest through the Way of the Buzzard ‘Ancestral Echoes’ course and with my shamanic mentor, Jayne Johnson, as part of my apprenticeship. 

The reason I had delayed working with them for so long was because I have a difficult relationship with my dad and feared it would place limitations on my how well I would be able to relate to my ancestors on his side. There have been a few blocks, but I’ve discovered most have been open to contact. 

I began with the basic step of finding an ancestor ally to guide this work. I then started doing some ancestral research but, unfortunately found that the Ancestry site which most researchers used was too confusing for my autistic brain. Luckily, my mum, who I introduced to shamanism a few years ago and is techy, fell in love with this area and got hooked on researching our ancestors. She’s managed to get back seven generations along most of our bloodlines and followed some back to as early as the fourteenth century. 

We’ve since been journeying to our ancestors, starting with my grandmothers and grandfathers, then moving on to my great grandparents and beyond, to check whether they’ve passed safely and any of them need healing and, with the help of our guides, carrying out any work that has been needed. This has, so far included basic healings, soul retrieval, and psychopomping.

I have also learnt that our ancestors not only live on in the otherworlds and in other lives in which they have been reincarnated, but within us. That means their healing can take place within us. For example, I feel that overcoming binge eating and not being overweight for too long and becoming diabetic (as happened to my grandmother on my mum’s side and my mum) has helped heal this tendency within our lineage. Likewise, my giving up of alcohol has helped heal this addictive trait on both sides. My grandmother on my dad’s side was an alcoholic and my great grandfather on my mum’s side died an alcoholic in a mental hospital when he was in his 30s. I believe some of my fears about becoming an alcoholic and going mad came from him. 

Client Work

Although I am not officially offering ancestral healing, as I’m only just starting out myself, I have done ancestral work with clients as and when it’s come up. I have provided clients with guidance on how to research ancestors of land, blood, and spirit, held space for clients to journey to ancestors, and journeyed with and for clients to gather ancestral information. I have also helped a client to meet and build a relationship with an ancestor ally.

Conclusion – Ancestral Healing as a Lifelong Process

My work with ancestral healing to date has shown that it isn’t a quick fix, but a lifelong process. The work is long as the ancestral lines, leading back generation by generation, doubling (by the formula 2n) each time. 

I feel I have a reasonable knowledge of working with and honouring land ancestors and a strong relationship with one lineage of spiritual ancestors, Orddu and her kindred, who as ‘witches of Annwn’ are fellow followers of Gwyn. 

My work with my family ancestors remains ongoing. I am slowly getting to know them better. As an autistic person, unlike my mum, I’m never going to have a cup of tea and make small talk with them as it isn’t in my nature, but I feel they appreciate that I have made the effort to reach out and learn their stories.

I am confident that I can provide basic guidance to clients on ancestral work when it comes up, but for more in-depth ancestral healing, I would suggest finding a shamanic practitioner who specialises in this subject.