Mongolia travel report 1

A ritual with a Buryat shaman.

Heaven decides

“If it's meant to be, I'll be there; otherwise, I won't,” had been the chief shaman's reply when we had tried to schedule an appointment with him in advance.

When we finally reached the center, after four days of traveling along bumpy roads from Ulaanbaatar through the endless steppe of Eastern Mongolia - passing many sacred sites such as the birthplace of Genghis Khan - the chief shaman was not there. A student greeted us politely and patiently showed us around the few, but beautifully decorated, buildings. Here, shamanism is still practiced strictly in the Buddhist tradition, just as it was hundreds of years ago, and even today, during the initiation ceremony, one must climb a ladder with rungs made of swords barefoot to prove the depth of the trance.

When I mentioned that I hadn't come for the guided tour but because I was seeking healing, the shaman told me to come back next year. Later, however, she did contact the head shaman, who den decided after a brief reading via WhatsApp that a ritual was indeed necessary and that she should perform it in his absence. The student smiled mysteriously and admitted that she had recognized the shaman in me right away. She also said that she had received signs: that morning, a small flock of birds had appeared - a species she rarely saw in this region - and among them had been a particularly exotic bird. So, she had taken a nap to recharge before the exotic bird stepped out of the car in the form of a Swiss woman.

The four-hour ritual was scheduled to take place the following morning, but I was asked to please attend the customary preliminary prayers in the evening and early in the morning.

As long as the candle burns

After we had set up our tents and had dinner, I found myself in front of the shaman’s yurt just in time for the evening prayer and was furst thoroughly purified with incense. Afterward, the shaman showed me her selection of candle holders and asked me to choose a size. Having no idea how long the candle would burn, I decided on a medium-sized one. She rolled a wick out of light fabric, filled the holder with heated butter oil, placed the candle on the altar with a lighter next to it, and instructed me to stay until the candle had burned down. She pointed to a small stool, but since the shamans here kneel when they pray, I chose the floor instead. She smiled, gave me a thin piece of felt to place under my knees, and said, “I’ll show you how we pray. Then you pray how it feels right to you. After all, we all share the same heaven!”

With my gaze fixed on the altar, I could just make out the face of a clock out of the corner of my eye. By comparing the oil level to the time, I soon realized that the candle would burn for about six hours. But I had little time to worry about my knees, for shortly after lighting the candle, the room filled with light, and before my mind’s eye appeared all thirteen ancestral clan leaders of the Buryats, who welcomed me warmly. With the permission of my spirit guides, they worked on me eenergetically, and later some of my own ancestors appeared; one after another, they entered my body, cleansing it and speaking to me as they did so. During this process, words came out of my mouth - partly in German and partly in Mongolian - even though I don’t speak the latter at all. Every time I fell into a trance, I heard the shaman praying louder behind me. Surely, as a foreign with little knowledge of her tradition, she had initially wanted to observe me, but soon she was fully committed with her heart and soul to holding the space for my healing.

When the candle went out around three in the morning, I felt sad because the experience had been so wonderful. However, I didn't manage to get up without help.

Teamwork in love and light

The break was brief, because I had to be at morning prayer at four. Before we began, however, the shaman wanted to know what I had seen and experienced during the night prayer. When I told her that the sixth ancestral clan leader from the left in her hand-painted picture had worked on me the longest and most intensely, she laughed and explained that he was associated with the cattle. When her family had brought their cattle to the buildings the night before, the animals hadn’t gone straight to their pen as usual, but had instead come to this building and rubbed their horns against it vigorously. I had heard that during the prayer, but hadn’t thought anything of it.

After a piece of bread to regain my strength, the candle for the morning prayer was prepared. This time, the shaman chose the size, so the prayer lasted only three hours. I experienced this prayer as much calmer and more peaceful than the previous, probably because I was already quite tired physically.

After that, we took an hour-long break. I was allowed to have breakfast, and during that time the shaman prepared the offerings, to which I contributed the vodka, cookies, grains, and some Swiss chocolate I had brought along for that purpose.

When I returned for the actual ritual, the shaman had already stuck the individual elements of the offerings together with butter, built neat little towers out of them, and placed them on the altar; she had put on her shaman’s cloak made of animal skins and fabric strips, and prepared the large drum.

Sitting closly beside me, she recited her mantras, Taranis (incantations), and Yörööle (blessings) 108 times each with complete devotion first with the drum, then with the bell, and then again with the drum. This had an extremely intense effect on me, and although I didn’t understand the words, I could physically feel their cleansing effect working in my body, causing me to cough violently several times. This pushed me to my limits: the intense energy, my now strongly aching knees, and the repeated bending forward and coming back up with my upper body over the course of these many hours had become torture for someone the completely untrained me. The only thing that kept me from giving up was the shaman, who prayed with complete devotion pouring out her heart for me and whom I didn’t want to disappoint for this immense gift. Time seemed to crawl by, and I was relieved when we were finally done. It took me several minutes before I could move my legs again, and when I subsequently carried the offerings outside, I was still shaking so badly that I really had to pull myself together to keep from falling over.

The central part involved flinging the milk from a small bowl up into the sky. A gust of wind carried it away when I did it, and so the shaman was able to announce with relief that the offering had been accepted. I was very happy about that, because having to repeat the ritual would have been too much for me. But I had already seen proof that the spirits were satisfied in the fact that they had all come to bestow upon me so many wonderful visions and insights.

Unexpected initiation

The shaman wanted to make sure that the ritual’s energy could also be anchored in my home, so she took another hour to first call upon my home mountain and then my home spring.

Afterward, she told me in detail about her insights and said that this ritual and our collaboration had deeply moved her. She said it had been the most intense ritual in a long time, and she had never expected a Swiss to come all the way here and not only endure the many hours but also pray with such intensity that her spirits would reveal so much to her. She confirmed that the ritual, which was meant for purification and strengthening, had turned into an initiation, and that I had received permission to not only to continue working with the thirteen ancestral clan leaders for myself, but also to call upon them when working with clients. A tremendous honor for me as an outsider, and an incredibly powerful gift!

«We all share the same heaven.»

As a physical gift, the shaman gave me a consecrated candleholder so that I could light butter candles for my ancestors at home. This deeply moved not only me but also my Mongolian travel companions, because such candleholders are normally passed down only within the immediate family here.

Afterward, the shaman invited us to stay for lunch. However, she could only serve us bread and jam, and apologized for not having had time to cook. Of course not, since during the many hours I had spent struggling with my knees and savoring my visions, this woman had been sitting behind or beside me, holding the space through her singing and prayers, and transcending all barriers of origin, language, tradition, and religion to make this high-vibrational energy of light, love, and healing possible.