Shamanism 101- The Fool's Journey: Deepening Your Relationship to Your Cards

In this Shamanic Journey, you can deepen your relationship with the Tarot with a journey centering on the Fool card, the first of the Major Arcana. Experience your deck as a living thing. Once you've done this journey, you'll be able to relate to the cards on a deeper level. No matter what your level of proficiency with the cards is- from absolute novice to a seasoned veteran of Tarot reading- this journey will give you new insights into the cards.

The photo is my record of my own journey with the card.

This is the first of a series of journeys that I'll be doing of the Major Arcana.

Rules for a shamanic journey:
1. You can't do a shamanic journey wrong, how ever you experience it is valid.
2. This is a safe journey, I set the sacred space to make it so. If you meet, say, a bear, he's there to guide and guard you.
3. In a journey, time and Space are fluid, like in a dream.
4. Also, like in a dream, you have everything you need. You'll discover you have a magic shoulder bag that appears when you need something. If, for example, you meet a bear, there's a honeycomb in your bag for him.
5. You don't have to remain perfectly still, if you need to shift to be comfortable, do so. Lay down if you'd like.
6. It's your journey, if I tell you to go up the mountain, but you want to go in the cave, go in the cave. There's no place you can go where I can't come and bring you back. (Also, there's always a lit torch at the mouth of the cave).
7. Finally, just relax and let the drum take you away.

More about Shamanism 101:
This is a series of regular classes designed to help incorporate Shamanic practices into your daily life.
Though the classes are interconnected, each one also stands alone so that, while regular attendance is encouraged, it isn’t necessary. Every class will also have a chance to experience a shamanic practice- meditations, journeys, healing work, ceremonies and more.
Subjects include Allies in Both Worlds, Council Fire, Web of Protections, Past Life Spelunking, Meet a Spirit Animal, Meet Your Dragon, Taking the Quantum Leap and more.

I'll have several classes a month, staggered through out days and times so that every time zone has a chance to experience the class.
If you don't see a class on a day or time that works for you, please let me know what a good day and time is for you. I'll schedule a class then if I can.

You can follow me through LIL, or go to my website- atlantashaman.com- and go to my ""where I'll Be"" page.

Always be the Fool, quit acting the fool.

You become aware walking to the cliff, all new and shiny, not Velveteen Rabbited into reality. That will come. “I’ve been here before” you think, followed immediately by “I always think that.”
You have always existed. You have not existed before this point. Your journey is retracing your steps as you remember who you are. You were the world once, and you will be again. At the moment, you’re about to walk off a cliff.

There are infinite fools and infinite cliffs. In most, you fall to the ground. With some, the ground is very far away. You lose consciousness, then come to about to walk over the cliff. (Someone calculated that Bill Murray relived Groundhog Day 12,000 times. You consider him an amateur.)
In some, the dog warns you in time,
in some, the dog is Coyote and he trips you.
In some, you don’t start falling until you realize there’s no ground underneath you, because you watched cartoons when you didn’t exist before and because you’ve forgotten you are magic. That memory will return soon.

In some you are distracted by watching butterflies,
in some, by lightning bugs,
in some, by lightening bugs. ( They eat gravity waves.)
in one, you are watching an endless series of fools falling off an endless series of cliffs.
Then, in one, the journey continues.

As you fall, the stick you carry becomes Yggdrasill (the Norse World Tree), it cradles you in its branches. You are caught in a branch, hanging upside down by your foot. It stretches out forever in all directions. There are two main branches. The moon and the sun are both overhead. All of these things are to help you remember who you are and were and will be.

Many wise ones come to teach you. One has an elephant’s head, one has wounds in his hands and feet, one is woman who seems to have three faces, one is a snake with feathers, one a blacksmith, there are many more. When they deem you ready, they give you a chalice, a blade, a wooden staff, and a magic disc. You will learn how to work with these later.
They send you on your way. You walk downtrunk for a few days, then realize there is a much faster way to the ground. You jump off the world tree, towards the ground without fear. By this time, you have learned to fall gracefully. You land softly. Your journey continues.