Learning to Journey

I am learning to journey.

I sit (meditate) as usual, focusing on my breathing until "my breath is breathing me." When this happens, I feel a slight separation from myself and that my monkey brain is working the bellows of my breathing.

I have tried to maintain simplicity in this meditation process-- needing only a place to sit. But early on I was urged to find an antler that I have and to hold it as I journey. So I now tend to sit, holding my single spike-horn antler in my hands.

I read that you should not journey without a question or destination. So when I began, I first set up my sacred space. As I was picturing it, there within was my Leuki character! She has been my guardian and guide throughout.

In my early journeys, I primarily hung around my sacred space. I consecrated it with the four elements. I was urged to learn recapitulation, which I've been practicing since. The recapitulation has helped me to sever energetic ties to a wide range of events in my life. I've primarily concentrated on relatively minor things, yet the sessions tend to fan out to include other events, often including online activity.

Once I tried to sit right down, breath a few breaths, and go right to my sacred space. But I need to better enter a meditative state first. I couldn't maintain any images or destinations that day until I finally stopped and slowed down. So I have to "feel my breath breathing me" before I can head off to my sacred space.

I came to this path because I feel myself to be a deathwalker. Twenty-five years ago my father died. He'd been in critical care; my mom and I were in a hotel, visiting him daily for two weeks. I'd been working in our hotel room on a thorny problem as my mom fetched us some supper. My problem suddenly solved itself and at the same time, a curtain of blackness came over me. I fell onto my bed into an instant deep sleep. I was awakened by the phone ringing-- the hospital calling to say he'd died. Though I remember nothing, I've always felt that I accompanied my father to the edge of this realm.

I recently began a serendipitous investigation of deathwalkers and also began regular daily meditation. And began my journeys.

Leuki is always at my side, taking me places and showing me things. One of my first lessons was on fear: Have no fear. She introduced me to a being that wanted to eat my heart. I offered him my heart, which he ate. I offered it again and he ate it again.

My leasson was that we can give without losing anything. We can take without gaining bad energies. We are beings of light and warmth who will not lose our light or warmth even when we give our hearts. We can give our hearts without losing them.

We must be unattached.

Give without energies attached. Take without energies attached.

Do not fear. We are strong beings. It is our fear that makes us weak.

I had some doubts that my journeys were anything more than the imaginative ramblings of my monkey brain, so one day I sat and simply focused on my breathing. I did not try to go to my sacred space, yet I ended up there anyway and off onto another lesson with Leuki.

Leuki showed me that the river through her grasslands can be a scrying tool for me. She urged me to learn how to scry.

I'm just beginning my learning. This Short Course in Scrying nicely covers areas such as creating your magickal space and has an interesting "Magical Mystery Tour" of that space as an introduction to scrying. It also discusses using a magick mirror for scrying.

This simple Scrying Procedures page has a wonderful Do What Works for You tone and includes the following excellent piece of advice:

Various disciplines mandate a consecration ritual before using the scrying medium. On a purely psychological standpoint this makes sense. The subconscious mind must be convinced what you want it to accomplish. This may be accomplished through ritual or meditation. Polishing the crystal or mirror while thinking about what you want to accomplish will be enough.

With Leuki I have met two or three beings who have used me as a bridge to the light. They are cold and I give them warmth as I focus on the light to lead them to it. I am a bridge with no attachments, meaning I form no attachments with those who use me as a bridge.

In real life, I participated in a polar plunge that I used as an initiation of sorts for my journeying. It was more of a polar wade for me-- I didn't get my chest or head wet. But the cold in my legs was something I was urged to remember. I've felt it while wading in Leuki's river when we picked up a being. I've also felt that it was correct for me to keep my upper body warm: I am a being of light and warmth. I am a human bridge, with cold legs and warm upper and a middle zone of mixture. One of the beings we encountered "spoke" of warm red and cold blue within me and mixing into purple in the middle.

At the start of one of my early journeys, not long after learning to drop fear, I was asked if I could stand to see my death. I replied yes, though I had difficulty keeping fear back. I saw only darkness with a dark fog rolling across. I felt only a cold breeze. I feel that it was a test of sorts to be sure I was willing to keep walking this path.

It's a recurring theme, when I return from my journeys, that I'm walking a path, walking a path.

Leuki means "of the light" and she is definitely a being of light. I wanted to explore her woods, but she led me instead to her grasslands and we sat back to back. Her grasslands have the most wonderful smell! She took me to the light. We were surrounded by the light and it was beautiful and felt WONDERFUL! I say hello to every being Leuki introduces me to (even the black void within myself). Here in the light I heard a chorus of delightful Hello's to me.

I couldn't hold the vision for long but I look forward to going back.