Shaman's World

The world of the shaman is one where everything is alive. Animals, plants, even rocks and crystals are believed to have spirit and can communicate with the shaman. The shaman speaks to the spirit of the mountains, and to the sea, to Mother Earth and Father Sky. There is nothing in the world of matter that is inert to the shaman. Everything has spirit and everything is alive, everything is part of that one Great Spirit that created this world and all therein. But a shaman is not restricted to the world of matter, not even to the spirit part of the material universe, but the shaman also has access to another unseen world, the world of spirit, the Otherworld, which remains forever invisible to ordinary mortals. To a shaman this invisible world is just as real as the world of matter is to the uninitiated worldly man, in fact the Otherworld is more real to the shaman! It has been said that a shaman stands with one leg in this world and with the other in the world of spirit. A shaman has access to both worlds and goes from one to the other with total ease.
A shaman is a walker between worlds!

To access the Otherworld the shaman needs to enter into a trance state which can be achieved with the help of a drum, a rattle, or various other methods. The shaman journeys in the Otherworld with her spirit body. To affect healing the shaman changes things in the Otherworld or gets information from various spirit beings residing in the Otherworld. To a rational mind person, caught in the illusion that this world of matter is real -- and the only reality -- this may sound like utter nonsense. But to a shaman the Otherworld is the underlying reality of this world and everything that happens in the Otherworld has an effect on physical reality and thus makes perfect sense.
A shaman is beyond the illusion of physical reality!

So let's explore the Otherworld together! Like our planet Earth, the Otherworld, has various regions, some more pleasant, others not so, some that are perfectly safe and others dangerous. And there are various denizens of those regions as well, friendly and unfriendly ones, helpful and hostile ones. The most commonly known regions are the Underworld, Middle World and Upper World. On most workshops this is all you ever hear about the Otherworld. But restricting ourselves to those three regions is a bit like naming northern Europe for the planet Earth! There's much more to the Otherworld than those -- admittedly very important -- three regions. The essays below are to give you an overview of some of the regions of the Otherworld and what you may encounter there. The information presented also contains guidelines and precautions for safe journeying in those regions.

I hope you will enjoy this excursion in the realm of spirit!

Underworld Safe Place Middle World Upper World