Journeywork

[lorna]

I'm thinking about covering journeywork as an article topic. As far as I know there isn't anything written explicitly about journeywork in Brythonic tradition although, Heron, I know you've been documenting both literary represenations of and your own experiences of the Brythonic Otherworld for a long while, and there is lots of material on 'Celtic Shamanism'. I just wanted to throw some ideas around.

As far as I know there is no set definition of journeywork within paganism as it's a developing term that has been developed in preference to 'shamanic' journeying as most people don't like using the 's word' when not talking about the Sami culture or people who actually serve the role of shaman to their community.

My general understanding is that journeywork means something like 'to journey in spirit to the Otherworld with intention to seek the guidance of spirit persons'. Journeywork differs from meditation because the spirit leaves the body to visit the Otherworld. It's necessary to enter a trance state to journey, but not all trance states lead to journeying.

The most common way to get into a trance state for the purpose of journeying within modern pagan traditions seems to be drumming, which usually does the trick for me. However my experience of making and keeping a drum (my house is too damp and I have to keep it in a friend's drier house) has shown me that drums made with animal hide wouldn't have dealt well with Britain's damp weather in houses without central heating. A quick web search turns up that there is no evidence of drums in prehistoric Britain except for some possible stone drums www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-other-artifacts/study-sheds-new-light-mysterious-stone-age-drums-004163 that wouldn't have had the beautiful song that takes you away like you get on a hide drum. So... the ancient Britons wouldn't have drummed like us. I've found evidence of terracotta rattles from Cyprus in the British Museum but none from here. I guess it's possible other kinds of music were used? Another possibility is that they used entheogens such as liberty caps and fly agaric? Running water may also have been conducive to journeying and one of the reasons ceremonies were held at springs and rivers? I guess, like us, if they received a call to journey from their gods or spirits to journey they just had to go - that's happened to me.

Of course there is no certainty that the Britons held ceremonies where a religious person, perhaps a Druid(or awenydd if they existed then) or perhaps the community together journeyed to the Otherworld for guidance. However I've always felt that storytelling and poetry had a ceremonial function that took people on a journey deep into myth and on some occasions into the Otherworld so that means it's possible the Bards had to go there first to find the stories. Of course there is the reference to the Scottish bards lying in darkness with the stone on their bellies so that may be one technique but that's from the 1700s. In Brythonic literature most people just seem to stumble into the Otherworld (Annwn/Faerie).

So that's a few conjectures about 'journeywork' amongst the ancient Britons. I'd be interested to hear whether you practice journeywork. If so...

!) How do journey?
2) Do you work with particular deities, guides, or spirits?
3) Do you use a particular framework?

[mrpasserby]

May 20, 2017 12:57:23 GMT -1 lorna said:

I'm thinking about covering journeywork as an article topic. As far as I know there isn't anything written explicitly about journeywork in Brythonic tradition although, Heron, I know you've been documenting both literary represenations of and your own experiences of the Brythonic Otherworld for a long while, and there is lots of material on 'Celtic Shamanism'. I just wanted to throw some ideas around.

As far as I know there is no set definition of journeywork within paganism as it's a developing term that has been developed in preference to 'shamanic' journeying as most people don't like using the 's word' when not talking about the Sami culture or people who actually serve the role of shaman to their community.

My general understanding is that journeywork means something like 'to journey in spirit to the Otherworld with intention to seek the guidance of spirit persons'. Journeywork differs from meditation because the spirit leaves the body to visit the Otherworld. It's necessary to enter a trance state to journey, but not all trance states lead to journeying.

The most common way to get into a trance state for the purpose of journeying within modern pagan traditions seems to be drumming, which usually does the trick for me. However my experience of making and keeping a drum (my house is too damp and I have to keep it in a friend's drier house) has shown me that drums made with animal hide wouldn't have dealt well with Britain's damp weather in houses without central heating. A quick web search turns up that there is no evidence of drums in prehistoric Britain except for some possible stone drums www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-other-artifacts/study-sheds-new-light-mysterious-stone-age-drums-004163 that wouldn't have had the beautiful song that takes you away like you get on a hide drum. So... the ancient Britons wouldn't have drummed like us. I've found evidence of terracotta rattles from Cyprus in the British Museum but none from here. I guess it's possible other kinds of music were used? Another possibility is that they used entheogens such as liberty caps and fly agaric? Running water may also have been conducive to journeying and one of the reasons ceremonies were held at springs and rivers? I guess, like us, if they received a call to journey from their gods or spirits to journey they just had to go - that's happened to me.

Of course there is no certainty that the Britons held ceremonies where a religious person, perhaps a Druid(or awenydd if they existed then) or perhaps the community together journeyed to the Otherworld for guidance. However I've always felt that storytelling and poetry had a ceremonial function that took people on a journey deep into myth and on some occasions into the Otherworld so that means it's possible the Bards had to go there first to find the stories. Of course there is the reference to the Scottish bards lying in darkness with the stone on their bellies so that may be one technique but that's from the 1700s. In Brythonic literature most people just seem to stumble into the Otherworld (Annwn/Faerie).

So that's a few conjectures about 'journeywork' amongst the ancient Britons. I'd be interested to hear whether you practice journeywork. If so...

!) How do journey?
2) Do you work with particular deities, guides, or spirits?
3) Do you use a particular framework?

It is fortuitous that I am about to post to a Scottish Shaman who claims to have 15yrs training

in Shamanism. I will ask him a few questions about 'journeywork' and I will ask him if he would like to join "Caer Feddwyd".

No promises on the outcome of this endeavor.  A plug for Rune Soup we are just going into the study of the history and practical use of grimoires. If you know anybody who would like to join. 

[Heron]

May 20, 2017 12:57:23 GMT -1 lorna said:

I'm thinking about covering journeywork as an article topic. As far as I know there isn't anything written explicitly about journeywork in Brythonic tradition although, Heron, I know you've been documenting both literary represenations of and your own experiences of the Brythonic Otherworld for a long while, and there is lots of material on 'Celtic Shamanism'. I just wanted to throw some ideas around.

{ ....}

So that's a few conjectures about 'journeywork' amongst the ancient Britons. I'd be interested to hear whether you practice journeywork. If so...

!) How do journey?
2) Do you work with particular deities, guides, or spirits?
3) Do you use a particular framework?

Journeywork seems like a good neutral term for the experience you are seeking to define Lorna. “Celtic shamanism’ is a term that some have used, though as you note its cultural application is not appropriate. It has also become devalued by being used in a generic and aspirational way rather than with the specific focus on journeying. It may be that ‘awenydd’ is in danger of going the same way so we should try to keep that focus as precise as we can to safeguard it. I have used ‘awenflight’ as a tag in some of my blog posts to identify awenydd journeywork.

I don’t personally find drumming to be an amenable way to journey, though your mention of running water identifies a trigger that has often been effective for me. I have added a solar-powered water feature to my garden altar area and dedicated it to Mererid as Guardian of the Shrine and cup-bearer for Rosmerta. So I can sit by this and listen to water running down from the cup to a wooden container below as in some representations of Rosmerta. I concur with you in differentiating between meditation and journeying, though one can slip over into the other. Sometimes I find a meditative focus on a particular text , usually some time time after reading it, can lead to a semi-trance state in which automatic writing leads to discoveries which would never have occurred had I been writing with an intentional focus. Here, it often seems that a state of ‘becoming’ rather than a process of ‘journeying’ is taking place.

 I tend to think that  it is not  useful to speak of techniques of journeying , as it is often the suspension of intentional activity that leads to this ‘becoming’ rather than a specific method or intention. So putting yourself in a receptive frame of mind in an appropriate situation or place and letting go of thisworld is sometimes as much of a technique as is needed. I think this is probably different for different people, which is why I think it can’t just be taught or acquired in a generic course of study, though it may be facilitated through a sensitive associate.

One element of Otherworld journeying that I find worth exploring is the Other Self, or the contact with a Thisworld manifestation of an Otherworld Other. ….

@ Paul - I don’t know if this correlates with your ‘shadow-self’ working . I don’t think it fits with the discussion on that site you gave a link to. Jungian psychology uses the term ‘Shadow Self’ for a particular aspect of individual psychological space, with some Jungians prepared to extend that beyond the individual psyche. My thinking about it, if it is the same thing, is in terms of what has been called the ‘doppleganger’, or simply the Other Self. That is, not a partial representation of the whole self but a complete other manifestation of it.

Here is Robert Kirk in The Secret Commonwealth (1691): “ … a Doubleman, or the shape of some man in two places; that is, a superterranean and a subterranean inhabitant, perfectly resembling one another in all points ….. so as the Roman invention of bad daemons and good angels particularly assigned, is called an ignorant mistake, sprung only from this Original. They call this Reflex-man a Co-walker, in every way like the Man …”

In mythological writing these themes can become buried in extended narratives such the Mabinogi story in which Pwyll goes into the Otherworld to change places with Arawn, a king in that world. Pwyll does battle with Hafgan, also king in that world, on Arawn’s behalf. When Pwyll kills Hafgan does he also kill Arawn’s other self, and so do battle with his own other self? Here things become tangled, but the story is told in and of itself and makes its own sense.

Or consider this comment from John Carey’s Ireland and the Grail : “Again and again, characters vacillate between being friends and foes of the Otherworld, or between the rôles of mortal guest and of supernatural host.” Does this sense of two rôles also imply two selves in one, interacting between the worlds as if enemies, attacking and perhaps even killing each other as part of some inevitable conflict between the worlds. If so, what does their ‘death’ or defeat mean? Perhaps we should read beyond surface meaning, as with the ‘Death’ or the 'Hanged Man’ cards in a tarot pack: it means what it communicates to us if we let it speak through the representational image. 

[lorna]

@ Mr Passerby - a Scottish angle would certainly be interesting. Does your Scottish friend have a website?

@ Heron - yes, journeywork is a neutral term, not only is it neutral but uninspirational. I much prefer Awenflight And also your phrase Anrhegion ar Awen - Gifts of the Awen' for an awenydd's visions. Maybe we should be developing a vocabulary in this direction?

I'd agree that slipping into the Otherworld can't be taught. There's no way of guaranteeing meditation, trance, or journey, will have results although perhaps they familiarise folks with the state of mind in which 'something happens'. Most of my most powerful experiences have been unexpected and unintentional. Some have come about as the result of following certain threads of Awen, or following certain quests or promises through. Sometimes work and devotion to some task lead to experiences. Sometimes they're just unbidden.

As I mentioned a while back in response to your Edward Thomas post I've had experiences with a co-walker too and in some of my journeys 'I' have found 'myself' watching her/me which, as far as I can tell from listening to other folk's journeys where they are usually immersed as themselves, is a bit oddd!

You get that vacillation between friend/foe with Gwyn and Gwythyr too. They are presented as friends/allies when they go with Arthur to kill Orddu (although that might just be the narrator's way of showing Arthur has power over them) but otherwise are deadly rivals slaying one another in seasonal battles at Calan Mai and Calan Gaeaf. I've seen it suggested that they are twins, but not two selves in one, something to ponder...

[mrpasserby]

@ Mr Passerby - a Scottish angle would certainly be interesting. Does your Scottish friend have a website?

lorna you continue to impress with your determination.

All of my comments are based on the imagined reflections of real circumstances. If anyone is offended by my any of my comments just post me and I will delete the comment.

lorna : Getting information from the person “who Claimed to have experience with Scottish Shamanism/spirit questing” ‘did not work out’.
I will fill in with the best version of information that I can.
(for public viewing)

lorna : So that's a few conjectures about 'journeywork' amongst the ancient Britons. I'd be interested to hear whether you practice journeywork. If so...



!) How do journey?

2) Do you work with particular deities, guides, or spirits?

3) Do you use a particular framework?


1) How do I journey?
In my experience,’*’: I simply #quest for jobs in the world of spirits. When I get one that I think that I can handle I run to the job.
Another way: *I show interest in a given area (like wanting to work with/help spirits in Lancashire as needed) and then I keep gathering information preparing spells/doing my part until I have a dream or vision and then I watch to view synchronicities to verify that my journeywork took place.

2) Do you work with particular deities, guides, or spirits?
*when I was young I had my own spirit guides, now  I have taken off the training wheels.
*for the most part I just work with the spirits that destiny places in my path, occasionally calling on a relative.

3) Do you use a particular framework?
*a good startup on the physical side would be to state my #request out loud while I am in my outer circle, and/or write it into my inner circle, and then getting comfortable spending a lot of time in my outer circle. I have an easy chair in outer circle, 'I’m not kidding’.

[mrpasserby]

May 27, 2017 14:34:18 GMT -1 Heron said:

May 20, 2017 12:57:23 GMT -1 lorna said:

I'm thinking about covering journeywork as an article topic. As far as I know there isn't anything written explicitly about journeywork in Brythonic tradition although, Heron, I know you've been documenting both literary represenations of and your own experiences of the Brythonic Otherworld for a long while, and there is lots of material on 'Celtic Shamanism'. I just wanted to throw some ideas around.

{ ....}

So that's a few conjectures about 'journeywork' amongst the ancient Britons. I'd be interested to hear whether you practice journeywork. If so...

!) How do journey?
2) Do you work with particular deities, guides, or spirits?
3) Do you use a particular framework?

Journeywork seems like a good neutral term for the experience you are seeking to define Lorna. “Celtic shamanism’ is a term that some have used, though as you note its cultural application is not appropriate. It has also become devalued by being used in a generic and aspirational way rather than with the specific focus on journeying. It may be that ‘awenydd’ is in danger of going the same way so we should try to keep that focus as precise as we can to safeguard it. I have used ‘awenflight’ as a tag in some of my blog posts to identify awenydd journeywork.

I don’t personally find drumming to be an amenable way to journey, though your mention of running water identifies a trigger that has often been effective for me. I have added a solar-powered water feature to my garden altar area and dedicated it to Mererid as Guardian of the Shrine and cup-bearer for Rosmerta. So I can sit by this and listen to water running down from the cup to a wooden container below as in some representations of Rosmerta. I concur with you in differentiating between meditation and journeying, though one can slip over into the other. Sometimes I find a meditative focus on a particular text , usually some time time after reading it, can lead to a semi-trance state in which automatic writing leads to discoveries which would never have occurred had I been writing with an intentional focus. Here, it often seems that a state of ‘becoming’ rather than a process of ‘journeying’ is taking place.

 I tend to think that  it is not  useful to speak of techniques of journeying , as it is often the suspension of intentional activity that leads to this ‘becoming’ rather than a specific method or intention. So putting yourself in a receptive frame of mind in an appropriate situation or place and letting go of thisworld is sometimes as much of a technique as is needed. I think this is probably different for different people, which is why I think it can’t just be taught or acquired in a generic course of study, though it may be facilitated through a sensitive associate.

One element of Otherworld journeying that I find worth exploring is the Other Self, or the contact with a Thisworld manifestation of an Otherworld Other. ….

@ Paul - I don’t know if this correlates with your ‘shadow-self’ working . I don’t think it fits with the discussion on that site you gave a link to. Jungian psychology uses the term ‘Shadow Self’ for a particular aspect of individual psychological space, with some Jungians prepared to extend that beyond the individual psyche. My thinking about it, if it is the same thing, is in terms of what has been called the ‘doppleganger’, or simply the Other Self. That is, not a partial representation of the whole self but a complete other manifestation of it.

Here is Robert Kirk in The Secret Commonwealth (1691): “ … a Doubleman, or the shape of some man in two places; that is, a superterranean and a subterranean inhabitant, perfectly resembling one another in all points ….. so as the Roman invention of bad daemons and good angels particularly assigned, is called an ignorant mistake, sprung only from this Original. They call this Reflex-man a Co-walker, in every way like the Man …”

In mythological writing these themes can become buried in extended narratives such the Mabinogi story in which Pwyll goes into the Otherworld to change places with Arawn, a king in that world. Pwyll does battle with Hafgan, also king in that world, on Arawn’s behalf. When Pwyll kills Hafgan does he also kill Arawn’s other self, and so do battle with his own other self? Here things become tangled, but the story is told in and of itself and makes its own sense.

Or consider this comment from John Carey’s Ireland and the Grail : “Again and again, characters vacillate between being friends and foes of the Otherworld, or between the rôles of mortal guest and of supernatural host.” Does this sense of two rôles also imply two selves in one, interacting between the worlds as if enemies, attacking and perhaps even killing each other as part of some inevitable conflict between the worlds. If so, what does their ‘death’ or defeat mean? Perhaps we should read beyond surface meaning, as with the ‘Death’ or the 'Hanged Man’ cards in a tarot pack: it means what it communicates to us if we let it speak through the representational image. 

Heron: As exciting to read as your comments always are, your comments are deeper then the shadow man visualization was meant to be. Imagine that I first wrote to give a little sens of adventure to the web site, where I post, to people that are for the most part inexperienced in the use of spirit magic.  They are really working hard at learning Grimwades. But from what I can tell they haven't gotten the part about the inner journey, were they become more.
When I posted the shadowman visualization, on this site under sill/silly it was just supposed to be for its entertainment value. 

"My thinking about it, if it is the same thing, is in terms of what has been called the ‘doppleganger’, or simply the Other Self. That is, not a partial representation of the whole self but a complete other manifestation of it."

In my experience this comment this is exactly right, I call them iterations of self.

I hope you are having a great day.