Shamans believe we have a luminous energy body that surrounds and infuses the physical body. What happens in the luminous body affects what happens in the soul, mind, emotions, and physical body. So, after opening sacred space, the next step in preparation is to clear your energy field by cleansing your luminous body. Sit quietly and focus on your breathing to centre yourself. When you exhale, imagine that you are releasing unwanted, heavy energies. When you inhale, imagine that you are drawing in the cleansing energy of creation. Now visualize your energetic luminous body. You may notice dark or heavy energy somewhere within it – you might see it or sense it in some way. This energy affects your well-being. Clear it away by focusing your intention on it and holding the intent to dissolve it. It will begin to break up and move away from you. As you visualize the energetic field that surrounds your physical body, you might also sense electromagnetic energy. You might see electrical lines intersecting in a grid surrounding you. However you imagine or visualize them, allow yourself to imagine playing with them. When I have seen broken lines, I have imagined connecting them. You might visualize straightening and calming lines of energy that wiggle and curve if it feels right to do so. Allow your intuition to guide you. Another way to clear your energy field is to imagine dark or troubling energy draining from your luminous body through a tube at the level of your navel that drains into Earth, where the energy is used by nature and transformed. Don’t be concerned that the energy you are releasing is too dark or negative. Think of it as fuel for a fire – the fire does not care whether the words on the paper feeding it are part of an angry rant or a mathematical treatise. It is all burned impartially. Alternatively, you might visualize holding a ball of energy between your hands, which you fill with your heavy, unwanted energy. Periodically fling the filled ball onto the ground where Earth and the cosmos can reabsorb and transform it, and start filling a new ball. Repeat until you feel you have let go of all that you need to release. After you have cleared your field, envision fresh energy from Source filling the places from which you release stagnant, unwanted energy. Observe how it feels to bring this light into your energy field. You can also use the following guided visualization to cleanse your luminous energy field. You may wish to work with it before embarking on a shamanic journey, or you might simply do it as a cleansing exercise. It was inspired by an experience I had when I was on a small plane flying to a lake in northern Wisconsin. It was a very hot day, and the plane was overloaded. During the flight, the propeller on the right side of the plane stopped, and the plane started to lose altitude. While I was pondering the possibility of an emergency landing, I spontaneously had the dissolution vision that follows. Afterward, I became aware of my surroundings again, and I felt purified. The plane was dropping lower and lower, and the pilot was just able to make it over the trees and land safely at an alternative airport. Since that flight, I have revisited this vision many times. You can use the dissolution visualization below for healing, to cleanse your energy body, and to release stagnant or heavy energies that no longer serve you. This visualization may open you up to new energies and to transpersonal realms. If you like, record yourself reading this visualization exercise aloud and listen to the recording as you do the exercise rather than rely on your memory. To begin, open sacred space, cleanse your energy field, and focus on your breathing in order to enter non-ordinary reality.
Guided Visualization: Dissolution
Inhale and exhale naturally as you focus on your breath, letting any thoughts that enter your mind fade away unexplored. Open yourself to the dissolution experience, and envision that you are in a cave. You take all of your clothes off and lie down. Moisture dripping from the ceiling has an acidic, corrosive quality that painlessly dissolves all of your flesh, your organs and body systems, and eventually, your skeleton. Your essence and awareness are contained within globules of moisture that roll to the front of the cave. When the sun comes out, the globules evaporate and rise into the clouds. Your essence and awareness are now high above the ground in the form of water vapour. You feel the wind cleansing you as you move across the sky. You are further purified and cleansed by the sunlight. The water vapour condenses, and your globules of moisture begin to fall from the sky as rain. You become a part of the ocean, which further cleanses and purifies your essence. Then, an ocean wave splashes onto land. You sink into the sand, where you are further nurtured and cleansed by Earth. Then, another rain washes the sand into the ocean, where you are cleansed again, and then lifted into the air as the water containing you evaporates. You go back into the wind, which, along with the sun, cleanses you. The wind carries you back to the entrance to the cave. There, a flash of lightning reintegrates your physical body. You feel yourself being re-formed. First, your skeleton, and then your organs, and body systems – nervous, endocrine, vascular, and so on – and the rest of your body: all that is necessary to make a human. When you have returned your body to wholeness, the visualization is complete. Close sacred space when you are finished. It’s also a good idea to think about your experience and write about it in a journal, and come back to it again later to glean any further insights. From Change Your Story, Change Your Life, © 2014 by Carl Greer, published by Findhorn Press.
