Visioning with our Future Self: Free Shamanic Cacao Ceremony with Gongs
Today's journey takes us somewhere a little different — not up into the spirit realm, not down into the lower world, but along our own timeline, in this reality, to meet ourselves further down the road. If you're drinking cacao today, we'll pause together for that in a moment; if not, that's entirely fine too. Everything we're working with here — the gongs, the guided process — is enough on its own to expand consciousness and tune us into the wisdom we're searching for.
Why a Timeline Journey
I want to share something with you first. About eight years ago, I went on a three-day retreat — a tiny holiday, really, nothing dramatic — and on that retreat I met Mama Cacao properly for the first time. That little trip completely transformed my life and my consciousness. I share that because it's a perfect example of how small decisions can send us down entirely different pathways. Go on holiday to one place, and you might meet people you align with deeply. Go to another, and that path never opens at all. Every choice branches into a different future.
Today's journey works with that same principle, deliberately. We set an intention to connect with our best possible reality — the highest potential we can reach — and we ask spirit to help us navigate the maze of life to get there.
Choosing How Far to Travel
You get to choose how far along your timeline you'd like to go. Five years, ten, twenty, fifty — whatever feels right depends a lot on where you are in your own life. I'm in my early fifties, so I sometimes journey all the way to my hundred-and-first self, asking her how I got to be so healthy, so wealthy, still living my best life. Other times I might go seventeen or eighteen years ahead, to retirement age, and ask what I need to have in place by then.
If you're at an earlier stage — starting university, beginning a new job, working towards a shorter-term goal — five years might be exactly right. There's no correct distance. You're co-creating this vision as much as receiving it: as much as your imagination and your spirit are guiding you, you are also actively projecting that future into being, telling spirit clearly, this is where I want to go, please help me find the way.
How the Journey Works
We begin, as always, by cleansing our energy field — hands at the heart, gathering love and light, washing it out through the aura and down into the earth — and then calling in the seven sacred directions to hold sacred space around us.
This journey happens in the middle realm — the reality we're already standing in, the path we walk every day, feet on the earth, surrounded by plants and trees and buildings and other beings. From here, we travel forward along your own timeline, all the way to the distance you've chosen, to meet your future self directly. Ask them what you need to ask. Look back together along the path you took to get there, and notice what obstacles show up, what you're able to release, and what wants to be embraced instead.
Nothing here is fixed. At any given moment, there are infinite parallel lives available to us, infinite choices still open. If what you find on this particular timeline doesn't feel quite right, you're free to change it — and free to repeat this journey another day to explore a different possibility entirely.
Coming Back: Integration and Reflection
Once the journey closes, spend some time journaling — connecting properly with what you just experienced. What can you let go of, so you can reach that future? What can you bring in instead? As we release, we make room for something new. What can you do differently, starting now, to become that future version of yourself?
How to Prepare
Optional: a cup of ceremonial cacao — pause and drink together partway through, or skip it entirely, the journey works fully either way
Find somewhere comfortable to sit or lie down
Good headphones or speakers make a real difference
Keep a journal nearby for afterwards
Come with a rough sense of how far into your future you'd like to travel, though this can shift once you're in the journey
Continue Your Journey with Plant Spirit Medicine
If this ceremony resonated with you, here are some ways to go deeper:
