My Journey into Shamanics

by Jon Stevens of SHARED VISIONS

Shamanism or the word I first heard 'Shamanics' was a term phrased by man that became a friend and mentor Kenneth Meadows. I met Kenneth though his son John all because of a dream catcher, the dream catcher in question was hanging simply in a bedroom window that I was cleaning, a job I took on after returning from the USA were I had spent almost a year travelling though the states meeting the native peoples learning they're crafts and cultures.

I had spent hour after hour sitting on the dust outside a hogan or in a tiny living room of a mobile home learning to make the very thing that would take me on many journeys over the next few years some good some not so.

I travelled to America to meet these people that I was led to believe were savages in those B movie classics and numerous story books of my youth, but it wasn't until I was given an old book by a school caretaker in London did I realise these people had something, something I was looking for myself. I had to find these people, who were they, how did they mange to avoid the destruction that was unleashed on them by so many, the Spanish, the French, the English and then the so called Americans. They must have had something.

So I gave up my job as an engineer and with just under a $1000 I flew off to find them and hopefully find myself. After travelling from Sacramento through the Mojave desert I hitched a ride on the back of a small ford pickup travelling east on Highway 40 through Arizona near Winslow, sitting in the back of the truck it was hard to know where I was until I happened to see a bent over road sign pointing the way to The Crater Diablo the biggest meteor crater to be seen on Earth said to have been made 25,000 years ago. I banged on the roof of the truck and ask to be dropped off, I made my way back to crater it was near noon and the temperature was over a 100.

I spent an hour or so looking at the crater and with an iced coke made my way back down the road to the highway but I had the feeling I was being followed, I had seen the van parked at the top in the car park and now it was slowly coming down the road behind me stopping every time I stopped and moving every time I moved made making me think of one of those Steven King movies or maybe the sun was getting at me. I finally came to the highway and began to hitch. The van pulled up to me and the driver called if needed a ride.

The driver and his partner who was at the time was past out in the back of the van were Navajo Indians. I had finally found my Indians or should I say they had found me. I was invited back to their home after helping them drive the 300 miles to the White Sands Mescalero Indian Reservation in New Mexico to spend the next 8 months with my new friends Howard and Oscar.

I was invited to a wedding and Howard asked if I would like to meet two of the elders. We talked for some time about England and why I was in the U. S. One of the elders gave me a piece of turquoise and then said to me something odd he said ‘ you are now beginning to travel’ I didn't realise the meaning of he's words until I found Shamanics.

I came down from the ladder and knocked on the door to be paid for windows I had cleaned and asked where they had bought the dream catcher and that I had made them. John asked if I had any to sell and if I would like to come to one of his father's workshops were Kenneth Meadows talked about native Indian spirituality, listening to Kenneth I began to realise why I was given that book, why I hitched thousands of miles, and the journeys I had now begin to travel.

Contact John at Shared Visions or telephone 07944 644 203

Also by John A simple start to shamanics

www.sharedvisions2000.co.uk