crumpets & consciousness

Frankly, I was skeptical. But I had been through such a long journey of loss, all kinds of different therapies, I was ready to try anything.

I was invited to a retreat by a brilliant business coach that I had been working with, naturally I signed up to the weekend thinking it would be some light touch self improvement workshops. Little did I know she was a Shamanic practitioner and this was a test-it weekend for running shamanic retreats.

We spent the whole weekend slowing down and dropping in with ritual, mindfulness, group therapy, qi gong all in nature so by Sunday we were all open, supportive and receptive to each other’s energies. 

I was curious to find a spirit animal, if there was one for me. 

So Sunday morning, we all got ready for the ceremony. We made our nests in the lounge and lay down with blankets and eyemasks on. A drumming track started and our leader was drumming in the room. My ears tuned in to the beat as she led us on the journey.

Finding a natural hole in the earth, in my mind I found a large oak tree with a human sized rabbit hole underneath. Not too dissimilar from Alice in Wonderland.

Going down, down, down, down, down, down, down into the centre of the earth, I climbed down the hole gradually, holding roots and creeping past layers of mud and pebbles..

As she continued with her cues to help us with our journeying my imagination started to come to life. I reached the bottom of the whole, and a tunnel opened up behind me, and at the end of it a fine membrane, I reached through it and peeled my body through. Looking around I was in a beautiful meadow full of wildflowers.

But no animals to be seen. I walked to the forest to see if anything was there, I reached the edge of the forest, there was a fallen tree covered in moss in my path. I searched with my mind for some kind of forest creature. Only a distant bird but I couldn’t reach it to ask it a question. 

I walked back the way I came, suddenly a snake was by my side. As we had been told to, I introduced myself and asked if it was my spirit animal. It hissed nooo but seemed to want me to follow it. The snake led me to a lake.

I started to walk around the lake when a turtle popped up in the water. Again I introduced myself and asked if it was my spirit animal. It simply waved its fin at me and beckoned me into the water. 

I stepped into the water until my body and head were submerged. As my head went under, the visions became really intense. Suddenly I was swimming in the deep, with shoals of silver fish all around. For someone that is not a strong swimmer, this feeling of ducking and diving and feeling really strong under water was new and liberating. Yet still I needed answers.

I dived further down into the deep until I found a cave.. I knew I had to get into it, but in my lucid state, I needed to direct the dream but not control it. I urged myself to go into the cave and my imagination wrestled with the pushing of my mind. 

Finally I managed to burst into the cave, and as I did it opened up into an underwater pool. I shot up out of the water and at the edge of the pool was a white horse whinnying and neighing at me. At the very same moment in the room our facilitator starts neighing and whinnying and making horse noises. Weird. 

I tried to get closer to the horse thinking that this was my spirit animal, and as I did she was laughing.

Moments later the shaman came up to me and shook her rattle around my head. She blew into my head and chest, and as she blew into my chest I felt it expand like it was part of a huge body. My skin felt like silk and my body was humming with energy. Kind of like imagine if you are a dog and you have the zoomies and the only thing you can do is tear around to let it out. Energy that is too big to be held in the body. It was a wonderful feeling. Bear in mind this is a completely sober journey. Just drumming. 

I wanted to stay in that place forever. But it was time to come back. I retraced my steps, back out of the cave, through the shoals of fish, past the turtle, through the meadow, past the snake, back into the membrane and up the tunnel through the bedrock and roots, back out of the rabbit hole, and onto the earth. 

When we came back, our shaman said that if she knew what spirit animal we were she would tell us. I didn’t say a word, I thought I’d see what she said first. I knew I was some kind of a fish, but I didn’t know what. 

She came to me first, and I waited with baited breath as she said… 

You’re a Dolphin. 

At that moment I just burst into tears with emotion. She told me she saw me in a cave and I was dancing on top of the water. She also told me that her spirit animal is a white horse, and that I had shapeshifted into a dolphin. We had a shared vision. Pretty cool hey!

I’d never experienced anything mystical like that in my life, a shared vision, a spirit animal journey, shapeshifting. But something about that experience just made me feel much more at peace with the loss I had experienced. Like, maybe there was more to this life than meets the eye. Maybe there are other worlds and dimensions, and journeying provides keys to these places. 

Some major curiosity was opening up. I was always obsessed with magic as a kid, but when I started to face the harsh realities of life, all of that fell away. The thought that perhaps there is “magic” but of a different kind, right here on this earth piqued my interest, I started to feel excited about living again.

The message from the Dolphin is “don’t forget to have fun”. It was a spiritual reminder to remember my fun and light hearted spirit, engage with enjoyment, live in the light and don’t worry so much about the earthly stresses. And I’ve taken that with me ever since.