Finding and Singing Your Power Song

A faithful representative protocol following Harner’s teaching: Finding the song

1. Get receptive. Take a quiet walk in nature, or do a short journey/rattling session, holding the gentle intention: let a song come to me.
2. Let it arrive, don’t compose it. Watch for a simple tune and a few words to surface on their own — often short, repetitive lines (a phrase repeated, sometimes nearly wordless). Harner pointed to traditional models such as a Tlingit grizzly-bear song; yours may be just as plain. Don’t edit it into something clever; keep what comes.
3. Fix it by singing it. Sing it a few times to learn it. A power song is yours to keep and reuse — and it can deepen or change over time. Using the song
4. Sing it aloud to begin work. Before a journey, healing intention, or dance, sing the power song — repeatedly, with feeling — to gather yourself and raise power.
5. Pace it with breath and (optionally) a rattle. Let the singing settle into a steady rhythm; a rattle or soft drum can accompany it. The repetition and rhythm do the work.
6. Let it carry intensity. Sing it strongly enough to feel a shift — a focusing and a lift of energy — rather than mumbling. Repeat as long as needed to enter the right state.
7. Carry it forward. Use the same song each time so it becomes a reliable cue for the working state; you can also sing it in daily life when you want to draw on that power. (Sourcing note: the power song — personal, short, repetitive, received rather than composed, sung to raise power and enter the SSC — is Harner’s documented teaching in The Way of the Shaman, with the Tlingit bear song cited as an example. Descriptions are faithful paraphrase, not quotation of any full song.)

The power song appears in The Way of the Shaman (1980), within the Journey to Restore Power material, and is taught through Harner’s Foundation for Shamanic Studies (which also issued recordings supporting journey/singing work). → suggested node.

Harner drew the practice from worldwide shamanic song traditions (he cited Northwest Coast examples) and generalised it into Core Shamanism. Compare the journeywork of Sandra Ingerman and Hank Wesselman.

Mantra / japa — repetitive recitation of a fixed sound to focus and shift state; the nearest structural cousin.

• Affirmations / incantations — repeated, emotionally charged self-statements; same self-suggestion mechanism in words.
• Icaros (Amazonian) — personal healing songs received from the spirits/plants and sung to direct the work — a close traditional parallel.
• Kirtan / devotional chant — communal repetitive singing to raise and unify feeling.
• Toning / vocal toning — sustained self-produced sound to alter inner state.
• Power animal dance (Harner) — the song often accompanies dancing the animal.

Composing instead of receiving. Trying to write a clever song misses the point; stay receptive and keep the plain thing that comes.

• Over-complicating it. Power songs are deliberately short and repetitive — a few words, a simple tune. Complexity defeats the looping effect.
• Singing too quietly / half-heartedly. Sing with enough commitment to feel the shift; timidity gives no power.
• Changing songs constantly. Reusing one song builds it into a reliable cue; switching every time prevents conditioning (it’s fine to let one song evolve naturally).
• Skipping grounding. If singing tips you into trance, re-orient to your body afterward.
• Literalising the source. Treat the song as your own focusing/energising tool, not a literal spirit-gift, to avoid magical thinking.