Wisdom of the whale

How’s this for bonkers? I was stood in a draughty church hall on a Saturday morning, eyes closed and shaking a rattle, while a former opera singer with a window shatteringly powerful voice, asked me to imagine stepping through the door and going on a journey. It would be a theme of earth, fire, air, or water, and whatever happened, I should just go with it. It was my first experience of shamanic journeying and to be honest, I wondered if it might be on the wrong side of woo for me.

But, as is the case with these things, once I am in it, there’s little point in allowing the mind to criticise the process, I just had to let go.

My feet went cold and then I felt a cool prickling sensation run up my body. Water was rising around me (in my imagination, not literally).

Then, a huge whale took me to the bottom of the ocean where it was dark and still. This is nice, I thought. Where are we going next? But the whale didn’t stir. We stayed there in the icy depths. How long was this going to go on for? I fancy flying. Can’t I go off with an eagle or an owl?

The whale didn’t say anything and soon it was time to come out of the experience. I wondered what it all meant and didn’t think about it again until yesterday when I spoke to Andy from Plantally.com for the Falling Together podcast.

Andy has a unique gift. He is able to connect with the energies of nature and harness them for healing, wisdom, and heart-opening. Every species of plant and animal has a message for us. He can do this work remotely and I experienced it firsthand a few years ago. I was lying on my floor in Surrey while Andy worked with plant energies in Portugal. What happened made no sense. He was hundreds of miles away, yet I got up feeling like a totally different person. I was full to the brim with love.

During our recording yesterday, he asked me what I made of the whale’s wisdom. Perhaps it is telling me to go inwards, to rest in stillness and plumb the depths of self? I also thought it might be telling me to play big and see that there is nothing to gain by keeping myself small. Interestingly, Andy pointed out that the whale’s heartbeat would slow as it went deeper into the ocean and I recalled how calming the episode had been.

I can’t explain any of this with rational science, all I know is, stuff seems to happen when I’m not doing very much!

A few hours after my whale experience, the facilitator told me that she was working with ‘grandmother whale’ on that day. This didn’t surprise me as I have a habit of psychically picking these things up. The day before I was due to do a session with Andy, I kept thinking about foxgloves, not realising that this was the plant we’d be working with – one of my favourites!

You can listen to the podcast for free plus there is some bonus material on my Patreon page. Andy runs through an exercise you can do to deepen your connection with nature and he also shares a link to some drumming, which can help the process along.

Don’t be put off by how crazy this all sounds. Have a go and see for yourself. What’s the worse that could happen? You might spend half an hour communing with nature and leave feeling that nothing has occurred. Or, it could be the start of some magical journeying. Andy explains in his podcast that these things take practice. You don’t go to the gym and get a six-pack in an hour, likewise, you might have to try this a few times to get results. I plan to give it a go at the allotment this weekend and will report back. I wonder if I can tell the snails to stop eating my spinach…