American Shamanism

AMERICAN SHAMANISM

shamanic deer

THE SHAMAN'S SPIRIT GUIDE

Spirit guides are spiritual entities who can access the material world and provide wisdom, knowledge, and understanding to its inhabitants. Some people believe that spirit guides are in close communication with those who have psychic abilities. Others are sure that everybody on earth has a guide. Psychics can communicate with them only because they can see them, while other people cannot see them and, therefore, cannot communicate with them the way psychics do.

Your guide is a special being. Some people believe that they are souls that have reincarnated on earth many times before breaking free from the cycle of birth and death. Owing to their experiences on earth, they can offer the living immense wisdom and knowledge.

Getting In Touch With Your Guide

You will know for sure that your spirit guide exists if you can communicate with him/her. Communication between them and living people takes place in several ways. Some people claim that their guides appear to them in physical forms. You can get in touch with your guide in the following ways.

* If you learn astral projection, you can easily meet your spirit guide. Astral projection enables you to consciously leave your physical body and travel over the astral realms. Once in the astral realms, you can easily arrange a meeting with your guide and listen to his/her valuable words of wisdom.

* Sometimes, meditation and visualization can help you get in touch with your guide.

Even if you never meet your spirit guide and never converse with him/her, it doesn't mean that you don't have one. Everybody has guides. Some people just feel that there is a guiding presence in their lives. This is their spirit guide at work.

How To Ask For Guidance

Once you learn how to communicate with your guide, you can get in touch with him/her at will or whenever you need answers to some burning life questions.

You can also use dreams to get in touch with your guide. Simply go to sleep secure in the knowledge that you will dream a solution to your problems or an answer to your questions. You will wake up knowing the answer to your question or the solution to your problems.

Sometimes, you will feel some inner urge to take an important step or make a decision even if you haven't given it much thought or analyzed the issue in your mind. You might call this 'acting on an impulse." However, it is your spirit guide guiding you.

Animal Guides

Spirit guides need not necessarily be human. They could even be animals. The Native Americans have been staunch believers in the guiding nature of animals. Shamanism teaches the importance of animals in human life. For the Native Americans, animals are rich sources of wisdom.

The crow, for example, is believed to have access to the land of the dead. The natives believe that the crow actually helps souls pass over to the other side after death. Crows are absolutely unafraid of the unknown and have immense knowledge and wisdom about death and life.

However, most people who have met their spirit guides claim that they have a human form.

Many people crave direct spirit guide contact and this can actually be achieved through the power of your mind. There are realms and planes far beyond the comprehension of our recognized five senses and the human brain is the perfect vessel with which to access them - with the right tools and techniques of course.

Seeking enlightenment and creating a potential spirit guide contact is best achieved as a result of highly disciplined meditation. The silence, breathing, reflection, noise and distraction free state of mind is critical in opening the pathways to spirit guide contact. Following below are some techniques you can use to help you connect to your guide.

1) Pay more attention! You could already be having spirit guide contact and not even noticing! Intuition, hunches or so-called coincidences often go unnoticed or unacknowledged. Think more deeply when this happens and try to increase your knowledge of symbolism and what things mean.

2) At the same time, don't just expect that your guide will talk, converse or indicate in the same method or way as you might do. Some interpretation might be needed. Additionally, you may require different methods for spirit guide contact. What worked one time may not work the next time. Messages from your guides are not always immediate which is why you should always be on the lookout for signs.

3) A great skill to learn is automatic writing. When mastered, your guide can control your writing hand which allows them to convey written messages and symbols. When engaging this skill, try to use a dedicated folder, book or diary.

4) Just as you drift off to sleep, think of the questions you want to ask or the problems you need help with and then invite your spiritual mentor into your dreams - the perfect place for spirit guide contact, messages and advice. Keep a diary or notepad by your bed to jot down thoughts straight away. Don't wait!

5) Be open to what you are shown. Your idea of what you need may not be what is best for you right now.

6) Don't ignore repeated messages and metaphors. Many people write these off as coincidences but repeated images on TV, on billboards, within song lyrics, unexpected phone calls or visitors, even something as simple as a license plate should not be ignored and you should search for the true and deeper meaning.

7) Vision Quests are an extremely old tradition especially within Native American, African and European cultures. By way of hallucinogenic enhancement (only in some cultures) but more so by extreme physical action such as sweat lodges and running in extreme heat, the mind is put in a state which induces spirit guide contact. Don't try this without knowing exactly what you are doing and it is my recommendation to stay away from the hallucinogenic side and just use the physical exertion methods. Your safety is always the main priority.

How to contact your spirit guides

Spirit guides sometimes are people who have lived here on earth with us and have had a real life experience. These guides live in the spirit world, and have devoted themselves to helping people learn how to get in touch with them. They are helpful in all aspects of life, health, careers relationships and spirituality.

Spirit guides are good friends that help in all aspects of your life journey. However, you have to allow yourself time to be well acquainted with your guide through meditation and with time you will learn how to listen to them and understand their voice. Connecting with your guide will help you get more knowledgeable and inspired and the guide will help you with insights that you could never know through common knowledge.

Steps to calling on your spirit guides

Begin by going to a quiet place where other people will not distract you. Close your eyes and breathe in and out. Begin relaxing to release all the tension in the body and maintain focus on your breathing and relaxing. After a few minutes of breathing deeply, start visualizing a protective bubble of bright light surrounding you to protect you. This will help you attract positive energy and help you repel the negative energies that may be around you while you are meditating.

At this point, you are now ready to meet your guide. Be aware of the area between your eye brows; this area is often called the third eye. It is the mental space where you see your spiritual guide or receive visual images from them. The next task will be to invite the spirit guides to get closer so that the two of you can convene. As you are focusing on your third eye areas, you will see the face of your spirit guide or have the sensation of a short or tall person standing right next to you.

If you do not see or feel the spirit guides around you then appeal to them to get closer so that the two of you can communicate. At this point, you might hear the guide speaking to you or just feel the presence of a stranger in the room. On making this initial contact, get to know your guide better by asking them who they are.

While talking to the guide, be relaxed and wait for the guide to speak or make their thoughts made known to you. You can begin a conversation in your mind with the guide and let it flow as they communicate. Probe your spirit guides on things that you should be aware of and listen to their response. After you have finished socializing with the guide, thank them for making an appearance and speaking with you. This is just the beginning and there will be many more opportunities to talk to your spirit guides.

Calling on Your Spirit Guide

Calling on your spirit guide is one of the things that we have to learn if we are to be guided in this world. You can actually have more than one spirit guide since there are three planes in the spirit world. There is the underworld, the upper world and the middle world where we are at right now. It is of a different plane than we are in but we all have the ability to get there. What we do to get to the guide is to get into a relaxed state that is almost like sleep. You can do this either sitting on a chair or lying down. When we start we need to totally relax our physical bodies. Start with the feet and work our way up to the head. This way we can get to slow our thinking and just be still. When we do this we should be in a darkened room without any disturbances like a telephone.

You have to want to contact your guide and you need to be in a calm and relaxed state as you do this. It does take time so you need to be patient and give it time. All of us have spirit guides even if we don't believe that we do.

Once we are in that state we can look for a way to get to the plane that we want to go to. For the underworld we can look for a way to get into the ground. It might be a lake or a hole in a tree. You will be greeted by a spirit but it might not be your guide. You have to ask and if it is not him he will take you to him. This is the start of you communication with your guide. It will take practice to get to your spirit guide. You might not find him for the first few times. Remember that you are just starting and you have to work at it in the beginning. What we can do is to take longer trips as we learn more. This is calling on your spirit guide. Once we get to the spirit guide we can go to him all the time. As far as which world that you want to start with is your choice.

Spirit guides come in all shapes and sizes. Usually in the underworld it is a dark place and your guide could be human, animal, or both. When going to the upper world there is a brightness that exist there. Your guide might be an angel, Jesus, or other spirits that are there. The middle world is another plane of the existence of where we are now. With this information you can look for your spirit guide and become one with the universe. Calling on your spirit guide is not only the thing that can give you guidance but if done on a daily basis it can help you decide on what action to take for certain things.

Discovering Your Spirit Guide

The native American Indians always felt a special oneness with the world around them and also with the creatures who occupied that world. This feeling was not just confined to the surrounding world but also with the world felt inside.

The animals inhabiting this inner world were seen to be their spirit guides. These spirit guides offered great comfort and advice when it was needed most.

We all have a spirit guide, and with the step by step meditation I am about to show you, it wont be too long before you are in contact with yours. Your spirit guide can be in the form of any animal, it could be a reptile, a bird, a cat or a dog. Choosing which animal is going to be best suited as your spirit guide will depend a whole lot on your personality, this is because your animal guide will focus on what is inside of you.

During your meditation you will hear a number of different animals, however the one which you hear talking clearly to you, and displays a knowledge of who you truly are will be your guide. We must bear in mind that we have evolved past the animal stage, and your animal guide is just that, a guide into your inner and outer self. The guide is not the master of you.

You have to believe that your animal guide is waiting for you to initiate contact, this process of meditation will bring you not only closer to your guide but also to nature.

Let us begin:

To enable you to come into contact with your animal spirit guide, use the following meditation. Do not be disheartened if you do not make contact on your first attempt, it often does take a few attempts for full contact to be made.

Your surroundings. Your spirit guide will be able to contact you anywhere, however, they will find you more accessible if you are in an open area i.e. The countryside or parkland. An area such as this will also make you feel more comfortable and at one with nature.

Be comfortable. Do not wear clothing which is restricting and uncomfortable. You must be prepared to be in a sitting position for quite a long time, so finding a comfortable spot to sit is important. You are going to have to be without distraction, so avoid playing music or wearing strong perfumes.
Your Senses. Look around you and take in everything you see. Listen closely to the birds, the breeze blowing the tree's etc. Concentrate on the smells which are around you and allow your skin to feel all of the vibrations your world and its surroundings is making. Consider how all of the things you are sensing have been playing out in that place for centuries.

Open your mind. Now close your eyes, You will still experience all of those senses, however, your mind will now enable you to visualise all of these senses without any outside interference.

Make contact. If this is your first attempt at meditation, you will find that you get distracted and your mind will wander. A number of different animals will appear to you, do not accept that the first one you see is going to be your guide. You must converse with each individual one and try to sense what message it is trying to convey.

Communicate. You will find that your actual guide will have a great deal of important things to say to you. Your guide will not just try to flatter you or condemn you. He or she will not want to take over your life, they already have their own life to live. Your guide will enable you to take control of your life and show you how to make changes.

Learning. If, at your first attempt, you feel that you have not made contact with your spirit guide, do not be discouraged. Consider this as a learning experience, think about the surroundings you have chosen, perhaps you could try a different time of day. Try again another day in different surroundings. Keep trying, and you will find success.

Making a bond When you have found your true spirit guide, you will begin to see them on a regular basis. They may show up in your dreams, or perhaps when you are out and about. You spirit guide will now be with you forever, guiding you through life.