Follow Up Questions
the vulnerable response is always (albeit reluctant) my best response
I had a zoom meeting last week with someone I’m building a new working relationship. A couple hours after our meeting last week, I got this email:
Title: follow up ?
“I’ve thinking about this all day since our chat and decided to circle back and get your take on these questions…
I noticed that you used the word Shamanic or referred to Shaman a few times in our conversation today. Are you at the core a shaman healer? How do you feel about that term/label?
I obviously had a wonderful take away from our chat today since I shared more with you in an hour than I do with most people over years. These questions keep showing up for me today, and I thought you would appreciate me sharing…so here I am.”
I want to share my response as a glimpse into my perspective of my work:
So, it turns out I have a gift where people feel comfortable sharing with me stories they maybe don't tell others so quickly. I'm not sure why. It's happened my whole life. In fact, it happens so frequently I just thought this was how everyone was. I thought it was kind of strange standard practice to overshare when you needed, to a perfect stranger. I didn't realize it until I would tell someone else about what would happen in my daily life and then others were like "yeah that doesn't happen to me... ever". So... it was kind of like a fish in water. Have you heard that story before? Where an old fish and a young fish swim passed each other in the river and the old fish says to the young fish "water's great this morning!" and the young fish looks confused and says "what's water?".
When I'm out and about, perfect strangers will start telling me their entire situation. It feels like the absolute most tender gift and I hold the stories I'm told in a sacred space of love and devotion to our human condition and experience. I believe on some level I'm able to help people process whatever they need in that moment. I hold space and allow. I feel honored and privileged to hold such a position within humanity.
Prior to now, this was a low-key affliction for me because I didn't take good enough care of myself - so many times I would get overwhelmed and reactive - I could get triggered by other's stories. Or I would get impatient or agitated when all of the sudden I'm cornered at an estate sale listening to a grieving man about moving his mother to assisted living two days ago, and his dad died 5.5 years ago so it was time for her to be around other people because "she's a talker". And his brother ODed 2 years ago so this is all up to him now. And his mom has "mean dementia" and he's not going to lie, she has made him cry several times which was really tough. But like the doctor says, it's not her, it's the disease…
This story happened to me last Saturday because it happens nearly everywhere I go.
The best part about that particular story in my opinion is that when I first got to the sale, this man and his wife were sitting on the porch. I was the only one there somehow at noon on a Saturday!? I spoke to them briefly and mentioned what a gorgeous morning it was and also that I was surprised I was the only one there. They agreed and I went about the sale.
Later after perusing and the stories, I was like okay - this is a good time to break. So I thanked him for the time and was starting to say bye. He looked at me and said, "you know, it's like you said, it is a nice day today." and I was like "yes, it's beautiful”. And he says, "it's like the guy on TV, 'it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood”, I said "Mr. Rogers!" And he was like "yeah. Mr. Rogers". As this conversation was happening at the end of their driveway, a car pulled up to pick up some furniture and a large lamp they purchased the day before, the people in the car, not the car alone, duh. And the guy getting out of his car overheard us. With a wide grin he rolled his hand down his beard which was so long it was covering his shirt, and moved the beard to the side as if he was opening a curtain to a great event. He says "Hey! My shirt is Mr. Rogers! That's what my shirt says - ‘It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood’”. We all shared this strange moment of connection. The synchronicity! I got in my car and knew. You just know, you know?
Over the years and as I've been able to begin understanding my perspective of the world and myself within it - I've been able to be there for people in a different sort of way. I don't get as triggered or impatient any more. Which is awesome because it's a real gift that I'm so grateful for now that I understand it. And I see when it's happening now, so I dig it and I am present. I am really there with people while they share. I know in my heart I am offering medicine in those moments through my attention and care. And in turn I know I receive medicine from them.
As for the word Shaman... I have what I would call a tumultuous relationship. It's so nuanced being born this way, with this body, in the area I was born, the traditions I was born in this life.
I woke up this morning and got your email. I read the words and I burst into tears. Full huge hard tears. I-couldn't-even-get-my-words-out crying. And it wasn't because I was sad, or scared, or angry. It was because you were holding a mirror up to me and saying, "hi, excuse me, is this you here, in the reflection?" And it was a combination of being seen and also a somatic knowing that ran through my existence. I cried and talked to Lew and told him all my feelings about that word and what it holds. Almost instinctively I reached for a story we watched recently to relate my experience.
We have been watching a show called the dark side of comedy on Hulu. It's a series on all these super talented comedians that really struggled during their lives - mostly with drugs and alcohol - but also just in general with who they are/were and what they meant to the world because of it. We watched Richard Pryor's story last night. And your question's answer relates to this somehow because I feel a deep camaraderie with Richard Pryor. He was a brilliant man who could see the world almost too clearly for his own good. He tried to stuff himself and his perspectives of the world into a tight box that was palatable for white (mainstream/accepted) crowds. And at some point he couldn't betray himself any more. So he went full bore into and unto himself. He didn't have answers, he had perspective. And when a person is willing to offer their true authentic understanding into the world, it's transformative for everyone on all the levels. In many ways I consider the storytellers of our times the most influential shamans. Richard Pryor was an incredible shaman to the world. He gave us so much medicine. And the best shamans give you your doses of medicine without anyone (sometimes them included) even really realizing it.
Typically when I use the term shaman in discussion, I use it in reference to what most people consider traditional shamanic practices, such as journeying and dreaming, animistic rituals/ceremony (plants, stones, water, fire, elementals, etc.), storytelling, and practiced reverence for Earth and her rhythms, as well as the ancestors. These are my most comfortable modes of operating in the world and also as a practitioner. Which at the end of the day are Earth based knowledge and wisdom being allowed to live through a person's daily existence.
In 2016 when I started herb class I randomly ended up with the book Awakening to the Spirit World by Sandra Ingerman and Hank Wassleman. It's a cornerstone piece of knowledge for me and a big part of what led me down this path. I don't know if I'm a "shaman" per se, though tangibly I do practice shamanic/hoodoo/native american/druidic arts.
What I do know, at my core sits a being that is enamored and enthralled with the relationship between the seen and unseen world(s)/realm(s) and the miracles and synchronicities of being actively engaged with a world that is as alive as you and me in every regard. I love working there and being there and I love supporting other people on their own personal journeys to their imaginal world(s). So they can find the answers they are seeking too. The more people I can support or facilitate experiences where they are able to access this space within them, the more connected and cohesive we can become as a species. The more connected and cohesive we become within our individual experience.
I have worked closely with my ancestors. I have been educated and initiated by them within the realms I speak. The truth is that I have never trusted another person to "teach" me this knowledge more than I've trust myself and my relationship to and engagement of the ancestors and the Natural world around me. I guess being raised Catholic made me a little skeptical of anyone who tells me they have the answers.
At my initiation I was given the name SpiritWalker. I walk hand in hand with other's spirits. Even when they might not know. That's who I am. I can't help it. I can't stop it. I can't contain it. I can't control it. Trying to suppress this has been like trying to tell an apple tree not to produce apples.
These are not things I advertise. I walk with my gifts on a path of humility because I do not understand how it works which is incredibly humbling to me. I just know it does work when I am able to allow what is. I don't use that label for myself. As I am extremely careful about projecting or assuming any sort of authority to or over anyone other than myself. I know what I know for me and I never want to "take" anyone else's authority like what was done to me being raised in the Catholic Church.
If I say what I know to be true for me, and that resonates with someone else, let's journey together.
We all have equal access to our internal worlds.
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