54 SECRETS OF SHAMANISMfollow the advice given, but you do need to be willing to hear
the message for the journey to work.
Close your eyes and breathe deeply three or four times,
once again allowing yourself to relax fully. Picture or re-
member with all of your senses the entrance to a cave or an
opening in the earth that you have visited or seen. Clear your
mind of everything but this image—you can also picture a
pool of water or a hole in a tree trunk that you once saw. If
you don't recall one, try to imagine as many details about an
opening in the earth as you can, from its shape and color to
the sounds and smells that surround it.
Approach the entrance or opening slowly and step inside.
Imagine the cave walls or the texture of the earth. Re-
member to use as many of your senses as you can. Here you
will be met by a presence that will act as your spirit guide: an
animal, person, voice, light, ball of energy, or other form. If
you are too uncomfortable with whatever appears, ask it to
come in another form.
State your question to the guide and prepare to journey.
It may tell you to ride on its back or accompany it in some
fashion. Typically you will proceed at a rapid pace down a
tunnel. This may be quite brief or take longer than you ex-
pected. Usually you will be surprised at the spontaneity of
the ride and the destination. Sometimes you go up, some-
times down, sometimes you travel on one level. Rather than
questioning this, simply notice it. Shamans of old had ways
of naming these different pathways that led them to their
different worlds. This concept will be described in greater
detail in a later chapter. For now, just explore and learn
through your experience.
There are many possibilities at this point. You may go to a
landscape or a room and meet someone who tells you what
you want to know. You might enter a library where a page in
a book is open for you to read. You may be led to a place
where a symbolic activity or drama takes place for you to
understand.
Accept whatever happens with grace and when you are
asked to leave, do so at once. Your guide will usually return
with you but, if not, it is important to return via the same
route that you took to arrive. If you do not, you might find
that you are not able to remember what happened as well.
You may even have a hard time becoming fully awake upon
your return. Your return journey need not be lengthy. How-
ever, it is usually highly accelerated.
When you have returned to the entrance, thank your