The Hollow Bone: The Gifts of Shamanic Journeying: Remembering the Sacred Conversation

~Gwendolyn C. Natusch, B.S.Ed., M.ED., MSW

The hollow bone is not empty because there is nothing there. It is empty because it has been cleared of what no longer serves, allowing Spirit, Great Mystery, Wakan Tanka, God, the Divine, or whatever sacred name speaks to your heart, to move through it.

Shamanic journeying is one of the ways we begin that sacred clearing.

Many people imagine that a shamanic journey is an escape from reality. In truth, it is quite the opposite. It is a return to a reality that our ancestors knew well, a world where the earth is alive, the rivers have songs, the trees are ancient teachers, the animals carry medicine, and the soul itself longs to be in relationship with all creation.

Journeying is not about leaving the world. It is about remembering how to belong to it.

For thousands of years, indigenous peoples around the world entered sacred states of consciousness through the steady beat of the drum, the rattle, prayer, dance, and ceremony. They journeyed to seek guidance for their communities, healing for the sick, wisdom for difficult decisions, and understanding of the great mysteries of life and death.

The drumbeat itself is a remarkable thing. It is a bridge.

With each beat, the busy mind begins to soften. The constant chatter of ordinary life quiets, and another way of knowing awakens. We step beyond analysis and into direct experience.

In the shamanic traditions, we often speak of the Three Worlds. The Lower World, where we may encounter power animals and compassionate helping spirits. The Middle World, where we deepen our relationship with the living energies of this earth. The Upper World, where teachers, luminous beings, and wise ancestors may offer guidance.

These are not places to conquer or control. They are sacred landscapes entered with humility.

One of the first things many journeyers discover is that they are not alone.

There are helping spirits and power animals who have walked beside them all along.

There are ancestors whose love has never ended.

There are power animals who lend courage when our own strength feels small.

There is a vast intelligence within the natural world waiting patiently for us to remember how to listen. This is one of the great healings of the journey.

In modern life, many people feel separated from themselves, from one another, and from the earth. Shamanic journeying gently begins to weave those threads back together. We remember that we are part of a great web of life and that every act of kindness, gratitude, prayer, and healing sends ripples through that web.

Journeying also brings us into relationship with the hidden parts of ourselves.

Sometimes we meet the joyful child who has been forgotten.

Sometimes we encounter an old wound asking to be tended.

Sometimes we are shown a truth we have been avoiding.

Sometimes we are simply invited to sit beside a quiet stream with a deer, an owl, or an old tree and learn what stillness has to teach.

The spirits are rarely in a hurry.

They understand that healing unfolds in seasons.

Over the years, I have learned that the purpose of shamanic journeying is not to collect extraordinary experiences or to become special. The path is one of humility. The more we walk it, the more we discover that the sacred lives in ordinary moments.

In the morning sunlight on the water.

In the cry of a hawk overhead.

In the ancient wisdom of our own breath.

In the courage to sit quietly with our grief.

In the simple act of placing our hand upon the trunk of a tree and saying, “Teach me.”

A call to shamanism is a call into deeper relationship.

It is not necessarily a call to become a shamanic practitioner.

Most people who journey will never feel called to serve in that role, and that is as it should be. The world needs people who simply know how to walk gently upon the earth, who carry reverence into their homes and families, and who remember that the sacred can be found in the smallest of moments.

Journeying is not about becoming someone else.

It is about becoming more fully yourself.

The old teachings tell us that we come into this world carrying a unique song. Life, with all its joys and sorrows, sometimes causes us to forget the melody.

The helping spirits do not give us a new song.

They help us remember the one that has always been ours.

And perhaps that is the deepest gift of all.

Not that we travel to another world.

But that, for a little while, the veil grows thin, and we discover that this world, too, has always been sacred.