Journeying to the Lost Self, Part 1
Sojourner by Love Hannington
The difference between Shamanic Journeying with Plant Medicines, and sloppy Friday night drug taking usually involves Shamanic Drumming, a controlled environment, ritualistic intention and a Shamanic guide of some kind. As an Initiate of Caribbean Obeah, an Afro-Caribbean form of Animist Shamanic ‘Witchcraft’, I feel connected enough to my Ancestors to lead a ceremony for myself. It's something I do as a part of my animistic practice and I thoroughly honour the spirit of the medicine when doing so.
Ruminating through the caverns of my mind and meeting the creatures who guide me on my very own Alice in Wonderland adventure, It's revealing. Humbling. Kaleidoscopic. Incredibly raw, in fact. I end up learning light years’ worth of information about myself in what feels like a split second. My most grandiose wants, my gnarliest fears all lay themselves out very plainly for me to lay my head on.
My gnarliest fears are probably where the procrastination of my journey started. I knew it was time to embark on another journey. When everything in life begins to feel all-engulfing, I feel as though I am Jonah, and a whale is swallowing me whole. My partner affectionately tells me I sink into an L-hole, which I guess to him is like a K-hole, but more specific to me sinking into myself and retreating from the world in its entirety.
As a work-from-home artist, who is often isolated, along with the passing of my beloved familiar, my mood had worsened. Over winter and a very grey London Spring, combined with the physical isolation from all other life (except my houseplants and partner, of course), I've found myself in an L-hole. Putting off the mind-journey I know I need to take in order to process the death and the grey.
It was time to quit procrastinating, and begin a shamanic journey.
This takes a little preparation. Successful journeying is a combination of set and setting. Set being mind-set, and setting referring to the calmness and beauty of the physical environment.
Mind set is a tricky one. Going into a journey with a sense of tranquillity ensures that nothing horrifying will happen. It is often feeling the most sombre emotions that produce the most exploratory and illuminating revelations (Monstrous yet satisfying. You definitely have to turn and face the monster in your visions). Meditation is the most valuable tool to use on the run up to these journeys, to ensure that the mind has been searched for any errant and slimy thoughts. Most of the time my ego takes hold and leads me to believe I am an expert identifier of slimy thoughts, other times, I am knocked back by the harsh realities the Plant Medicine has to show me and end up engulfed in the viscous mess that is my inner saboteur.
Setting is easier. I've laid out my space with art, plants, incense, and crystals. Everything that surrounds us in these four walls is designed to stimulate the senses. All it needs is a little polish – I clean the Dutch Airbnb from top to bottom, smearing essential oils on 'the in between' (door frames). Who knows what the last guest was carrying in their auric field? I shine all the mirrors and remove any potentially scary artworks from the walls. The instrumental sounds of Ram Dass fill the air. I smoke-cleanse with a mixture of frankincense, sandalwood and Jasmine to welcome benevolent energy into the space.
And BREATHE.
This little ritual creates the perfect setting for a journey. One worthy of a pat on the back. There's nothing like a cleansed space.
I set my intention, drink my ‘tea’ and sit in a suitably energetically sound spot, I take a few deep breaths and I close my eyes. For a moment, there's a complete darkness, an absence of even the slight flicker of light on the other side of the eyelids. I feel my entire body fizz in a scared anticipation as my mind takes over. It begins.
"Show me what I need to see. Heal. Health. Vital. Vitality. Show me what I need to see. Heal. Health. Vital. Vitality". I go on repeating this to myself in hushed tones.
Colours and patterns undulate to the steady sound of the pan-flute. I feel like a hamster inside of a kaleidoscopic hamster ball. Occasionally I plunge back into darkness and I hear a voice. Female. Comforting. Ancient.
Today is not the first time I've come into contact with her. She's come to me before under many names, but remains the same. Infinite darkness, energy and wisdom. There's a frankness about her that is beautifully brutal yet tactful, despite the fact that she often speaks in riddle form.
"Show me what I need to see”, I request.
She nods and flings me through the blackness of The Void into a warm womb-like space. I curl into a foetal position for comfort as tears begin to stream down my face.
The tears don't scare me; water is healing (heal) so I expect them. With my eyes closed and the heavy smell of frankincense in the air I feel my prenatal environment.
"Why am I here?" I ask tentatively.
The voice reappears: "You didn't want to leave".
"I didn't", I agreed. "There was safety and comfort here. And I knew what was to come."
"The suffering" she interjects. "Suffering" I confirm.
It was as though I was being shown my existence from conception. My reluctance to come into this world and reluctance to hang on.
"When you were born, you tried to remove your own umbilical cord. Cut your own airway. You were reluctant". She explained.
I relived coming into the world via caesarean scar – being lifted into bright lights and torn away from safety. As I laid on the floor, curled tightly into a ball, tears continued to stream down my face. "Heal", I cried, under my breath.
I felt what I felt on that first day: This is cold, this is strange, I didn't ask for this. Filled with a sense of dread, I retreated by closing my eyes.
My Mother tells me I had my eyes closed for three days straight after I was born. Everyone waited eagerly to see if I inherited my Father's bright green eyes, or my Mother's deep brown eyes (I ended up with neither. They're more of a void-black).
I was taken back to my newborn state, eyes over me and sounds of voices querying my eye colour and the voice reappeared: "You knew as soon as you opened your eyes…". I jumped in: "... It would all begin".
Lying in my bassinet staring at the ceiling, I began to ponder my existence from the perspective of a newborn. Regression of movement set in. Frustrated at the lack of adult level hand-eye coordination I was familiar with, I flapped frantically in despair. As I was picked up by my Mother, the warm feeling returned and I was transported back to the womb. This loop repeated itself (for what seemed like an infinite amount of time) until I received the message loud and clear.
The first trauma, the very first loss was the separation. The expulsion into the cold and stale air. The piercingly callous lights. Everyone experiences this, but we bury those painful memories so deep in our unconscious we no longer need to pay them any mind. We don't consider this in the mundanity of the day-to-day, but this is recognised psychoanalytic theory.
We stuff down this first memory, and pile and hoard all of the other emotions on top. We pile this away, perhaps to forget the pain of childbirth (would we continue on as a species if we didn't?). But it's only a matter of time before this trauma resurfaces – It doesn't stay at the bottom of the pile forever. It finds its way out in other ways. In anxieties, in neuroses. Is this what was meant by 'original sin'? Was this the first thing I needed to heal from? The first loss?
I opened my eyes to mandala shapes on the ceiling. As I looked around, these mandalas covered the room like a digital mesh.
"Show me what I need to see," I whisper.
What happened next plunged me further into the rabbit hole, carrying me deeper through the doors of perception.
Part II coming soon…
Love Hannington
Love Hannington is a London-based Obeah woman, Celtic Shamanic Practitioner-in-training and co-host of The Afro Animist Podcast. She is also an Artist, who creates artwork around the topic of Esotericism, the Sacred Feminine and Animism. Her channelled artwork and Spirituality talks have been experienced at The Magickal Women’s Conference and The Royal Maritime Museum.