Drumming Journey.
It took me nearly a day to paint this image. Once I had finished painting it I decided to go for a drum journey and visit the tunnel in the picture to see where it would take me. The image was painted from a photograph I took of one of the entrances in the Valley of the Caves, or Grottes de Saulges in Thorigné-en-Charnie, in France.
Visit the Valley of the Caves and Prehistoric Museum Website.
There is a prehistoric network of caves that is well documented in the Museum. Previously in the week I had recorded a drum journey outside in preparation for the new moon so that I could listen to this on headphones to do some journeying to explore the caves.
Journal Entry
6th Aug 2020
I saw a tunnel like the one I have just painted. Followed it in to the sound of the drumming. All of a sudden I was walking through caves of people who were drumming and chanting. There were lots of little fires and people huddles around them in the networks of caves. It was night time. There was a shamans hut that I felt drawn towards. I went in and she was hanging herbs to dry, and other things that I couldn’t quite make out. There was a cauldron bubbling. She had been expecting me! She ushered me to a space with furs and things to sit down on. Then she gave me something to drink. It was some kind of elixir she had prepared from roots and vines.
I drank it and lay down on the furs. It was like a veil was lifted and I could hear many voices that were all talking in different languages. As the ‘medicine’ began to work, the foreign languages began to make sense and I could understand them all. Lots of information ready for me to translate and speak in my world on my return.
The image I saw of the shaman looked like a carved image from the book which I had brought home from the museum. Showing only her eyes, the shape of her head and braided hair with a crosshatched style on the top of her head. Perhaps she was carved to represent some kind of medicine woman?
When I came around from the drumming journey I went in to speak to my mum and she said she had heard me drumming outside. Interesting thing is that I was listening on headphones to the drumming journey and not playing it out loudly on any kind of speakers. Except perhaps the frequency that I was broadcasting on, which my mum had picked up on from inside the house.
If you would like to try the drumming journey for yourself I would be very interested to hear what kind of an experience you have with it.
If you would like to come and join the Initiate’s Way group on facebook to participate in group pathworkings you would be more than welcome.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/initiatesway/
Jade’s new book The Initiate’s Way is available to pre-order from Mandrake of Oxford. Order your copy today.
