Susan,
Thank you for your patience in receiving this response. I have a new computer, and it has been challenging to remember all of my pass codes. It was tricky just getting on the Forums again!
You ask a significant question.
When I was taught to journey people, I was expected to understand how to do it by feeling it as I was being taken through the experience. The journeys I experienced were similar to guided meditations, though I found journeying took me deeper into my psyche, or further out of my body, and sometimes into visionary state. What I understood then and do my best to put into practice now is much the same as when we are holding space for ceremony—the facilitator of the journey is becoming and then holding the space for others to travel into the inner dimensions.
This sounds so simple, yet when done well, it is a finely honed skill deserving respect. Holding space is a spiritual art that is difficult to put into words. It is more than an intention. When holding sacred space, you become the space you are holding. You become the sacred vessel, and in the safety of the container you are being, people are invited to delve into inner dimensions of greater self-awareness.
The more you, as a facilitator, live and breathe without negative judgements of yourself and others—the more your thoughts and actions are based in compassion and clear mind—the more your actions, thoughts and heart are in alignment—the greater space you are able to hold.
Try thinking of it this way. If you were sitting with a teacher who had done a great deal of personal inner work, and was becoming a clearer being, yet held strong negative judgements about their parents, your ability to safely gain insight about a clearer relationship with your own parents might be difficult to fully experience in their presence. You certainly might gain some mental insight about the challenges of holding on to judgements, but the feeling of clarity and freedom from those judgements might be more likely to occur someplace else—perhaps in the presence of someone who had already freed themselves from those bonds.
Now imagine, you are sitting with someone more progressed in the journey of enlightenment, who no longer holds negative judgements about their parents and understands a more universal, clearer picture of the kharmic cycles children and their parents can choose. Here you might actually experience feelings of freedom from the bonds of your negative judgements, simply because this teacher has transcended those bonds and lives in a state of freer awareness. With this teacher you feel safer to step into a greater state of your own conscious awareness.
One of the great challenges for someone who is called to journey others, is to become and maintain oneself as a sacred vessel, a sacred space of greater universal consciousness, worthy of helping others travel closer to their own spiritual awareness and freedom.
It is up to the facilitator to decide if they will invoke the assistance of ancestors or spirit guides. This is often done, as it provides for an additional level of safety for the one who is journeying. Whether I am calling in spirits into the sacred space or suggesting a journeyer connect with their child self, an ancestor, a power animal, or ride on the sounds of the drum or my voice, I tend to utter a silent intention that each person will travel/journey to experience what they most need in this moment and be within my reach to call them back. Humbleness and trust in the Creator are at the basis of any journey I do, because for all that I know, there is far, far more that I do not know.
The facilitator is responsible for making sure everyone's spirit grounds safely into the awareness of their physical bodies at the end of the journey, particularly for those whose journey may take them out-of-body. If you are able to hold vast space, this is a serious responsibility. Journeying facilitators use various means to help individuals once again feel and respond to their bodies. Journeyers sometimes prefer the feeling of the journey and don't want to settle back into daily realities. This is often true if the person is experiencing significant emotional or physical challenges. However, just like those who describe near death experiences, it has seemed to me the strongest motivation for most people to settle back into their bodies and lives occurs in the unfinished tasks they would like to complete, often involving people they love dearly.
Healing occurs deeply because in a journey we can more easily by-pass our rationales and quite frankly, our excuses. We create a space in which our subconscious can access deeper truths for us to witness, understand, forgive and accept about ourselves, thus allowing us to experience greater personal freedom. Our spiritual freedom may be the single greatest reason any of us choose to experience a journey.
Thanks for asking the question, Susan.
Hugs,
Reverend Misa
