The most successful way for accessing the otherworld are long, repetitive walks with places like the chestnut tree enfolded into them. (see previous post) It takes a while to develop a shamanic walk. You must walk the same path with only some slight variation at least four times a week for a couple months before it becomes a timespace where you can begin to listen.
In walking the same path everyday for an extended time, the environment, the way, the rhythm, become second nature so that there is nothing unexpected to worry about, no unknowns to wonder about, allowing you to relax and be deeply present and therefore receptive to what is there, without and within.
Walking in your local environment every day allows you to become part of the ecosystem in a more integrated way. It allows you to develop an authentic relationship with the place in which you live. It becomes a meditation. You become observer of yourself, the thoughts that come and go, observer of the place. In this state of the observer, images take on extra meaning and potency. It becomes a ritual. You are by yourself but never alone.
The shamanic walk can work everywhere, not only in rural settings. I have engaged in shamanic walks for over twenty years, while living in a very rural setting in Vermont, a more populated town in California, and even on a busy street. It is the repetitive walking in the same place, the rhythm, even the same time everyday, and the intention that matters.
In walking the same path everyday, you begin to see and get to know the animals that live there. When there is suddenly a different animal showing up it may be a significant message. Walking the same place everyday allows you to become familiar with the shamanic realm—the simultaneous dimensions—of that same path. As it unveils itself to you, the beings and energies from these other dimensions begin to make themselves known. They in turn become accustomed to the human presence walking there everyday. The walk becomes interactive, participatory.
A conversation begins.
~Theresa C. Dintino
