Moon: last quarter, pisces (mutable water), VoC
Earth: hot and muggy all day with thick clouds this morning giving way to sun this afternoon, with evening comes more clouds again and rustling wind hinting at a thunderstorm
So I finally had a chance to try out some of the shamanic journey work from the book Jeff got me for my birthday, Caitlin Matthews' Singing the Soul Back Home: Shamanic wisdom for every day.
For the ritual, I did draw a circle (with incense) to ward and protect the space, and then invited in the blessings of the four directions. Next, I did the DOTR Three Realms working to connect to below, above and center (my way: sea, sky and land/tree, respectively). Once grounded and centered, I took off my glasses and tied on the blindfold to help with trance work.
For this first attempt, I followed Caitlin Matthews' advice about first trying to connect with your instrument and then finding a "spirit animal." I have a small, square clay rattle — forget where I got it — that seems modeled after some Native American look, with spirals carved into one side. So to begin, I spent some time exploring the rattle and trying to use it in different ways to get a consistent sound. It was more difficult than I'd anticipated and I found that it was very hard to keep a consistent beat with it — it seemed like the beads (or whatever is inside the rattle) would get kind of stuck in a corner if I shook the rattle too consistently in just one direction, so that the rattle would become muted and almost silent…. but thinking too much about it and trying to intentionally vary the movement of my hand often resulted in an uneven rhythm or just plain confused coordination.
I did eventually find a way of holding the rattle where I could get a consistent beat without having to consciously think about it, so at that point then I tried to do some journey work. Caitlin Matthews recommends beginning every journey in the Middle World from a real location — not necessarily the location you're actually in, but some location that actually exists in the physical world somewhere and that you've been to. So instead of going to my "inner grove" as I would normally do, I tried to go to this one outcropping on Mount Desert Island in Acadia, where the cliffs jut out into the ocean and the low pine forests always seem shrouded in fog. It's a very quiet, mist-strewn and magical place and I've felt more than once that I could very well slip between the worlds there. It's also where I saw those wild otters running through the underbrush that one year. So I reached out to try to get there…
But not all that successfully. I felt like I couldn't concentrate very well and kept slipping in and out of focus. I think there are several reasons for this: (a) Not being used to trying to rattle and meditate at the same time. (b) The rattle itself not giving the most resonant rhythm to journey with. (c) Trying to go to a location that I don't have much practice going to. (d) My slight physical discomfort because of the stuffy, overly warm room, the heaviness of the blindfold which made me even warmer, and a mild headache probably from lack of food and/or water. Not the best conditions for trying to do journey work, but it was the only time I really had.
Once or twice, I seemed to catch glimpses of animals — but for a long time, none really came close enough for me to connect or communicate with them in any way. A seagull here or there out over the ocean, that type of thing. I tried to keep my purpose in mind during the work, repeating my intention to journey in order to meet my spirit animal... but for a while, it was touch and go and I was getting frustrated. Once or twice, I seemed to see some kind of creature in front of me on the trail among the trees and undergrowth, but couldn't get a clear impression.
Eventually, I decided to stop rattling and try journeying in silence. I laid down on my back (to relieve the cramped circulation in my left leg from the way I'd been sitting) and untied the blindfold, just draping it gently over my eyes instead. I continued to try to stay focused on the journey work, but I may have started to drift off to sleep or allow my mind to wander. At one point, though, I realized that in my mind that sure enough I was following along behind an animal, short and stocky and low to the ground. I'm not sure if this was in dream or trance or what, but when I realized it, I tried to clarify the impression and asked of the creature if it was my spirit animal whom I'd come to meet. It turned to look at me briefly, and for a second I couldn't tell quite what I was looking at, but then the impression resolved into a grayish, shaggy badger (with the deep black face and the white stripe down its forehead to its nose).
My first reaction was to scoff and think that this couldn't be my spirit animal, because I felt no connection with that animal at all and it seemed so... dull and mundane. Part of me noticed some similarity between the badger and the white dog, Moira, who has shown up in some of my meditations before, and I wondered if this was Moira just in a different guise. I tried to ask the badger its name and find out if it was Moira, but it shrugged and trundled off along the path. I think at this point I began to fall asleep again, because though I continued to follow it, I started to hear very clearly two voices arguing — they were male, youngish, with thick stereotypically Mexican/Hispanic accents — and though I couldn't see anyone (it was as if the voices were behind me or as if my eyes were closed, though I could still see Badger ahead of me), they continued to argue loudly about whether or not Badger was my spirit animal. One of them said (speaking to me, not to the other) something like, "Oh, so, it won't speak to me, so now it won't speak to you!" as though in explanation for why the badger didn't seem interested in speaking and had turned its back on me and trundled away.
Then suddenly, I realized I'd lost track or lost sight of where Badger had gone, but I was standing in front of a huge, thick-trunked tree. Though I hadn't seen anything, I had the vague impression that Badger has actually become the tree, and the tree seemed to have an gnarled old face in its trunk, made from the bumps and knots of the bark. I looked down and it was as though the ground beneath were clear or transparent somehow, or that at least I could see through it, because I could see the roots of the tree reaching down into the earth and rock and spreading out in all directions, just as I could see the branches of the tree spreading out above. It was almost like looking at a painting or drawing (or photoshopped photograph) of a tree with a "reflection" in the ground, except the reflection wasn't a mirror image reversed of the leafy branches, but definitely and distinctly twining, dirty roots. Not sure what to do, I sat down under the tree, my back against the trunk and found myself doing the DOTR Three Realm working the way I had done when visiting the Angel Oak last month.
The loud, obnoxious invisible voices continued to argue back and forth, until at some point I kind of interrupted them and asked them to shut it. Then I tried reaching out to Badger again to see if it would come back, and there it was, coming out from behind the tree trunk. I asked politely if I could come closer, and it sat back, upright on its back haunches, and allowed me to approach. I saw its amazingly powerful claws, and its small eyes peering at me. I started to think about all the various references to badgers I'd seen recently - the story Emma Restall Orr tells in her book about a badger coming across her in meditation in the woods, the "honey badger don't give a shit" youtube video Ryan showed everyone at the last work conference, some vague impression that maybe the badger was related to the groundhog and was therefore connected somehow to Brigid... When Badger seemed to lose patience with my wandering, chattering mind and clicked it claws at me, then leaned back down onto all fours and trundled off again. I realized I couldn't keep focus for much longer in any case, so at that point I ended the journey work.
I sat back up and wasn't sure what to do for a moment. I was so skeptical of Badger being my spirit animal, fairly convinced that it was just some weird thing in my subconscious picking up pop culture references or something... but I knew that the next step, according to Caitlin Matthews, was to "Dance the Animal" to welcome it and give it a chance to live in the world through you. So in the small space I had in the study where I was set up for ritual, I sort of sat on my haunches and began to try to dance in a way that mimicked the movement of Badger. Since most of my journey had been spent watching it shuffle away, I started by kind of rocking my hips back and forth, as though "trundling in place" — then I allowed this movement to kind of carry all the way up my spine until my whole torso was shifting and twisting back and forth. I got the urge to move my arms as well, and so began to rock them backwards and forwards, swinging them as though walking — it took a bit to get the hang of it and coordinate the swinging with the rocking of my hips. I did this for quite a while (it seemed like a while, anyway), breathing kind of heavily, almost snuffling. By the end of it, I felt... great. The dancing, even in place, was amazingly helpful in seeming to ground me in my body and integrate the Badger energy, so that by the end I no longer was skeptical or scoffing at the idea that Badger might be my spirit animal after all.
To end the ritual, I blessed my small blue pitched of water, and gave a few flicks of water to the fire in thanks to the spirit of Badger, then took a sip of the water to honor the Badger spirit within me as well. I then did some poking around online to see if I could find out anything about the meaning or associations of badgers in mythology... but that'll have to wait until another time.
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