1995 I Want to Heal – Original by JanCarol

Mindfulness is a tool that can be used in shamanism.

One of my Drum Circle ladies asked, so – you just like drift off into trance all the time?

Oh  no!  It’s more mindful than that.  Yes, we go into trance to get new information – but information is also there in the everyday world for us to see.

Today, a praying mantis jumped onto hubby’s hand.  She was beautiful!  All shiny, bright green, and graceful, slender, deadly.  She promised to eat lots of insects, so we gently put her back into her hunting grounds, on a leaf.

Yesterday, white cockatoos flew over my house, squawking and making a fuss.  By paying attention – being mindful in my day-to-day life, I am also tending my spiritual life.

As you know, in mindfulness meditations, you watch the train cars go by:  they are only thoughts, only thinking, only thoughts.  The cars go by, but you do not jump onto them.

In trance, we choose a train and follow it to specific places (lower, middle, upper world) to bring back information to waking consciousness.

Then, in waking consciousness – mindfulness comes to play.  If you saw a cricket in the lower world, do you hear crickets?  Even if it is just tinnitus?  Are there times when the crickets sound louder or quieter?  There are ways that symbols and animals interact with our everyday feelings.

Paying attention is the first step.