Am I am the Laziest Shaman?

Caveat: I never underwent formal shamanic training from anyone that wasn’t a god. So I could just be crazy. And I do not claim to be a practicing, formal shaman in any way. I just consider myself more like a shaman than a witch, visionary, or mystic, because that is the cultural framework that I have for this. I dearly hope I will not offend any practicing shamans, and apologize in advance if I have. 

Photograph by Morganna

I grew up seeing stuff, hearing things, and feeling things that are generally unseen, unheard, and unfelt by others.

I was also raised in a Native culture that is part of my heritage and genetics.

Because of this, while I dabbled in witchcraft, much of my spiritual system is based on animism. I do belong to a god, which was not by choice.

When a god appears to you and says “Hey you are MINE, and I am going to be here for you, and talk to you and guide you” you just sort of accept this and move along with your life. It isn’t like you can say “Nah man, I’m good, you don’t need to do that.” That is a quick ticket to having an annoyed god causing chaos in your life. And I mean, the way I was taught, I was SUPPOSED to have a spirit guide and a totem animal. This was normal, if a bit...intense sometimes. 

Most of the things that have happened to me I viewed as more or less....normal?

It was always talked about at powwows that you would be connected to the Earth, that the spirits were everywhere, that everything was alive and we were all connected to each other, and that you could see them if you looked. So when things happened, it was just...well, duh, of COURSE that is happening. It happens to EVERYONE or so I thought.

I was also part of a family that was just….odd. My great grandfather dowsed for the other farmers, my great grandmother talked to the land, my other great grandmother had prophetic dreams, my dad could occasionally read thoughts and when he was angry things would fly off shelves. My mother saw things all the time, we ALL saw the ghosts in the haunted house my dad grew up in, my grandfather believed in UFOs, my other grandfather saw them in the Navy, my great aunt saw the same things my mother did,.

We are a strange clan.

My grandfather who lives on a farm out in the hills STILL has strange things happen, which makes sense- he’s an elder. Of COURSE he has things happen.

I don’t think I am any stranger than anyone else in the family. My flavor of strange just took an interesting form, probably because of the god.

Even my two best friends saw things.

I also think WV, maybe because it’s less settled than other places, and the mountains are so old, is a very active place, cradling old beliefs and superstitions, and home to large numbers of people who have either seen something, or don’t consider it too odd that someone else has. 

Photograph by Morganna.

I first ended up in what I assume is the Spirit World at the age of 12,.

While hiding in a wardrobe from a shitty situation, I fell into a deep hole, popped out of it, and found myself on a wide plain with a forest in the distance, an unseen light source, and my god staring at me saying “ What took you so long. See that thread coming out of you? Don’t lose it, that’s what you follow to get back. Let’s talk.”

And we did. We walked about on the plain and He explained that if I wanted to come back here, all I had to do was become silent in myself, separate myself from my body and find the door/hole/entrance. If I didn’t find the door I could just….wander around out of my body. When I wanted to go back all I had to do was turn around, grab the thread, and follow it out and it would lead back to my body and the normal world. He also said “I wouldn’t wander too far from yourself for a while, and you shouldn’t go alone. Call for me and I’ll meet you-there are other, meaner, dangerous things in here.”

He also warned me about losing track of the thread-if I lost it I would lose myself. Then he said it was time to go back to myself, turned me around, and pushed. I fell back into rushing darkness, and slammed back into myself. 

I remember waking up, feeling light headed, dazed, and dizzy.

When I crawled out of the wardrobe the air was a haze of shining sparkles, and there were currents in it. I went outside, and the trees were like flames of green and gold energy, and the earth was humming. Animals seemed to have a shine that pulsed with their life force. It was something that I had seen before when I was younger and had put myself into what I thought of as suspended animation, but never this vibrant or immediate.

I wandered around for a bit, blinking and staring at this familiar/unfamiliar world, and then headed back in and laid down in my room with my eyes shut and went quiet until my eyes calmed down.

Later in my life I learned about what is termed the Sight and the Third Eye and it all clicked. That was what I was doing when I went into that state-I was managing to open up that channel and unlocking that ability to See more actively. Which, before I got good at it, was bloody distracting sometimes. It would randomly open up when I was a kid.

(I also firmly believe that children naturally See more clearly, possibly as a defense mechanism, maybe because they haven’t had imagination beaten out of them yet.) 

Not long after that, all of a sudden, in class of all places, I was fooling around with my friends on a free day. It was one of the days where my Sight was stuck open and everything was a haze of sparkles and energy-the trees outside were glimmering with green and gold light, the kids in class had silver sparks in them, and the wind was a shining flow of lights.

Suddenly, there was a darting shape made of light leaping around and around the classroom-I started jumping and twirling in my seat, following the things movements. It finally stopped right in front of me as a whirl of color and light, then it solidified. I don’t know WHY it chose the shape it did, or the Name it did, but quite abruptly there was a tiny silver, green, and blue raptor/dragon standing on my desk with a cocked head looking at me with gleaming orange eyes. 

I blinked, and it was still there.

I then got a strong feeling that it was a she, and she was there for me. She seemed intrigued that I could see her, and I remember saying out loud “Hello, yes I see you, what are you doing here?” (It was so odd, thankfully the class was full of very loud 6th graders, so no one really noticed me talking to an invisible thing-but I am not sure if they WOULD have noticed anything odd anyway—she and I were sort of in a muffled bubble.)

She said in my mind, “I’m here to be with you, and be your friend, since you can see me.” I asked if she had a name, and she said no, and I said, “But you HAVE to have a name, everything has a name!” She said she hadn’t gotten one yet, and I said, ok, let’s think up a name. 

Then the bubble popped and I turned to one of my friends, , who could also see things (she saw ghosts) and said, “There’s a little spirit thing here, and I need to think of a name for her.”

My friend could ALSO sort of see her-but not the shape of her, just a greenish-silver light whirl in the corner of her eye. My friend asked me what it looked like (We were all sort of used to this sort of thing-me and her and another friend were all experiencers, and well, we were kids so we accepted things more easily).

I said, well, she looks like a very tiny wingless dragon crossed with a velociraptor. So we started trying out names-Drake, Wyvern, Starwind, etc. Each name elicited a shake of its head. Finally I said “Velocity? Since you’re fast, and also look like a dinosaur.”

That, apparently, was the correct Name. And Velocity stayed. She was always whirling about, sitting on my shoulder, or flitting around, playing with other little light things, and chasing fallen leaves. My other experiencer friends could also see her more or less, and she stayed for YEARS. She acted as a Spirit guide or a daimon, and I think she WAS my daimon. I just sort of...accepted that I had her, and didn’t fuss about it too much. 

Not long after I got Velocity, and after I wandered into the Spirit World, I started experimenting with it at night after the house went to bed.

I would put on music-Native music, Celtic music, even rock music and classical music on my headphones,  and I would enter a trance state, and leave myself and fly around. I would either drop deep into myself to see my own light inside-expanding and contracting it, making it glow brightly and then sink it into a deep ball, filling myself with my breath and glow to my fingertips and the tips of my hair, and then back into my center. It was soothing, in a time when I needed soothing.

If I wanted to leave, I would call on my god, and me and Him and Velocity would go flying outside. I could go out the window and into the woods, or over the city, and over time, I could go further. We would race through the air, the ground a blur under us, until I could visit my loved ones in other states and see how they were doing. Sometimes we would go to the plain, and the woods there, and see everything shining. I could hear and feel the heartbeat of the earth, and see how everything was connected by this flow of life. Velocity was also bigger-looking at those times-instead of being the size of a crow, she was about my size. 

When I look back at that time, I realize that I was accidentally doing shamanic things-I wasn’t eating much, I was meditating, I was communing with spirits and the earth, and I had a spirit guide, I was entering altered states of consciousness, and I was learning how to control my medicine. I also have a broken physical body, and a history of trauma that I think played into this.  I still do some of them to this day-but not all the time like I did as a child. Then I was playing and learning, now I know and I don’t play with these things. 

Photograph by Barbara Fisher.

I had also learned skills that I have to this day.

I can Name things. I can feel things-I can walk into a place and feel the energies there, and douse. I can find things that need finding, just small pieces of medicine that want to go somewhere-little spirits in stones, or bones, or feathers, or plants that may or may not belong with me, but know I will run across the person they DO belong with and I can pass them on. I can still open up my Sight all the way and see things. I can still astrally project, still pop into the Spirit World if I need to, still call upon my god and have him show up.

I can ward the fuck out of a place. This is a skill I was taught very early on in my life-once word gets around that you can see them, things start showing up A LOT and not all of them are friendly. I still get prophetic dreams (though usually, they are annoyingly not useful-it’s not like I can warn people something is going to happen in Nevada or whatever).

I still sit down and talk to spirits, and I still see things unbidden. I have an affinity for storms, I can feel the land and know I belong to it and with it. I have an affinity for animals-wild and domesticated and we sort of understand each other. I am on the Psychic Friends Network. (Meaning, I can feel my loved ones and know instinctively when one is ailing or is thinking about me, or just wants to talk, so I call them up.)

I look after my people who are my new tribe. I give thanks and respect to my god, to the spirits, and the land. I still dance to the drum (but by myself-I miss powwows). I still get signs and portents and greetings. 

But I don’t do things as lightly as I once did.

Now that I am an adult, I realize what I was doing as a child, and I am slightly horrified and very very glad that I was being watched out for by Velocity and my god. I was taking risks without knowing it—I was essentially dancing on the edge of a volcano, believing it was just a swimming hole.

I learned caution by the age of 15, and learned fear earlier. Now I’m a lazy shaman- I don’t poke at things, I don’t do ritual, I don’t travel or push or call. I simply live quietly, and pray, and nod respect at the things I see, and speak softly to my God (who yes, is still very much around-there is no getting rid of a God once he is interested in you and your life), lest things hear me and decide it’s time to pay a call. 

When I do things, I do them by serious request only-and not for my own seeking.

I have learned the most important thing about medicine and magic-that most of the time, you don’t use it.

You just walk a good path, try to live a good life, and listen, and watch, and give respect.

You care for your people-friends, family, everyone you love, your animals, your plants. Even the wild creatures around that show up you should feed and speak with respectfully -they are, after all, just another tribe-they are our neighbors more than anything. 

What I have learned over the years is that most things in life can be solved with the mundane application of empathy, advice, community strength and aid, and clear headed planning than with calls to the Otherworld. 

And if that makes me lazy, then so be it.

I think it just makes me sensible.