Practices That Support Medicine Journeying

There are many meditative and somatic practices that can support the art of Medicine Journeying. These practices are here to support you in tuning into your embodied experiences. Practicing familiarity with sensations, emotions, and visuals can be a key skill during a Journey so as to shed light on what terrain you are navigating and processing. During Integration these awareness practices also help us remember experiences and feelings we have forgotten from a sense of Universal connection to past dynamics that may have surfaced during our Medicine Journey.

RESOURCING

This practice is perfect for creating a safe space in your body or imagination where you can turn for experiences of good feelings. You can engage this by sitting or laying with yourself, closing your eyes, and asking yourself where part of your body feels nice or soothing or at least better than other parts of your body. The location could be the rise and fall of breath at your belly, the softness of your laying hands, or the loose feeling of your clothing on your calves. From there simply breath into in this area and embrace your experience which may invoke relief or pleasure. You can return to this practice of inviting nourishment at any time you are able and need.

If it is hard to find a spot of some pleasantness in your body you can engage imagination. As you sit, stand or lay imagine that you are in your favorite place. Where are you? For example, are you at the ocean? Can you hear the waves, feel a gentle breeze, hear birds, and experience the sand on your hands or feet? Soak in the visual and notice how you emotionally and sensorily feel.

SENSING AND FEELING

As you are comfortably sitting or laying down tune into the various feelings present for you and just notice. Are you warm, happy, on edge, hearing a sound, smelling something, talking a lot in your mind, seeing light at your third eye, experiencing a vibration, bodily observing the air between your fingertips, finding this practice funny or annoying, so on and so forth. Whatever is real for you in the present moment is the practice.

REGULATION AND GROUNDING

I love doing this outside when possible. It is great for soothing your nervous system when you simply need some self care and time away from fast paced doing. Find an outdoor location where you can take in all of the elements safely and in a relatively peaceful fashion. Where and how do you experience air, fire, water, earth, and yourself?

Notice the sounds of a river, or the ripples on a pond, and enjoy drinking water.

Hear the crunching of your footsteps on the earth or walk barefoot and feel the earth.

Observe the vast sky of air, take deep breaths into your belly and up through your chest as you invite the freshness, or listen to bird calls and leaves play with the wind and air.

Feel the warmth and fire you invite when you move your body or rub your hands together, if the sun is present feel the warmth on you, or engage an actual camp fire if the area allows for that.

Thank these elements for their gifts and for coexisting with you. Feel them appreciating your presence and attunement to them.