by Sandy Dollar
Sandy Dollar was a regular practitioner on alt.religion.shamanism through the mid-2000s, posting detailed accounts of her Lower World journey series and her working relationship with a tiger guardian spirit. She identified with Cherokee heritage and worked in the tradition of core shamanism after Michael Harner.
This post from March 2006 — written after a Japanese news report about a plant engineered to communicate — turns into a meditation on the full range of spirit helpers she works with: plants, rocks, trees, minerals, and non-physical forms. At its center is a distinctive technique she describes from experience: journeying into physical objects. Her account of entering a piece of iron ore (and having to come back out for lack of air, then successfully re-entering by telling herself that "nothing is really solid") is specific enough to serve as practical instruction.
She also offers a hypothesis about the origin of spirit helpers — that they are entities with whom we have shared previous incarnations in the mineral, plant, animal, and human kingdoms, who have remained with us as companions across lifetimes, waiting to be recognized.
Only a few days ago on a news program, it was announced that the Japanese had created a plant that could talk and also change color when needing water. This started me thinking about plant spirit helpers, guardian spirits, and other spirits in shaman journeying.
We have the lower and upper worlds which deal exclusively with non-realities; while the middle world (our physical reality) has both non-reality and reality. My guardian spirit is a tiger. I also have plant spirit helpers, along with rock, tree and other non-physical forms. One of the biggest surprises for me was the Tiger as a guardian spirit. I have memories of a previous incarnation when I was a tiger. Was wondering if the other kingdoms (mineral, plant, animal and human) where we have spent incarnations (we all have been here on earth millions of years) in those previous lives are now what becomes our guardians and helpers in this lifetime. That they have always been with us, wanting to help us, but we were never aware of them until journeying.
Plants want to help in healing humans. They give us the information and how to do it, what works and what doesn't. They have so many times tried to make me aware of them, but I lacked the consciousness or know-how to contact them.
You can journey into objects such as rocks, minerals, even objects. I have journeyed into iron ore, quartz crystal, and even a maple leaf from a tree. The main thing is to tell yourself that there is plenty of air to breathe, as nothing is really solid. The first time I journeyed into a piece of iron ore, I found that I was unable to breathe, so I had to come out right away. Then after I told myself that there was plenty of air, the next time I went in, there was no problem.
When you start to journey, it is like being on a spiritual path of learning of other realities while living in a physical world. If you think of our world as one layer of an onion, there are unlimited dimensions you can explore. Another thing I learned early on is that there is no such thing as school of Shamanism getting out, but a lifetime of learning.
Years ago I had gotten into divining — water, answers to problems, finding power. One of the men I worked with, who had been in this field many years, told about one day a voice that started talking to him from a tea cup upon a wall display. He took the cup down, only to discover an amethyst crystal he had put there. This crystal became his teacher. With that said, just remember: when you are ready, a teacher in some form, from any of the kingdoms, including the spirit world, will contact you. Some Native Americans used their dead ancestors in healing rituals.
Hope this has inspired you all to try working with spirits.
Colophon
Written by Sandy Dollar to the newsgroup alt.religion.shamanism on 28 March 2006. Original Message-ID: <[email protected]>.
Sandy Dollar posted from the southeastern United States and identified with Cherokee heritage. She worked with the three-worlds cosmology of core shamanism as described by Michael Harner, and maintained a long series of Lower World journeys documented in the group through 2005–2006. This post represents her return to the group after concluding her journey series in February 2006.
Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.
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