Being a Shaman.

I am shaman.

For many years now I have told people that I walk a shamanic path, that I practice shamanism, or simply that I’m pagan without any other qualifiers. Among the many reasons for doing so is the fact that the words “shaman” and “shamanism” are sometimes hotly debated terms. Some people seem to want to claim them as belonging only to a group of people who are specifically trained by an existing shaman in a specific culture. Others say basically that anyone can practice shamanism if they simply want to. Still others are adamant that their beliefs are not shamanic at all. I never wanted to be part of that debate, and I never really wanted to write this particular article.

Another reason is that, for many years, I felt as if I was only learning, not ready to do more than practice some of what I’d discovered on myself. Yes, there are things I’ve been able to do for a long time. Talk to the spirits that are everywhere. Sense people’s emotional states. Feel the natural energy of the world around me. Send energy into things with purpose; to heal, to aid, to protect. But I didn’t feel like I understood enough to do more than little helpful things. I didn’t feel ready.

And there is the widely held belief that a “real” shaman doesn’t claim the title. Partly, that’s because it’s not very humble to call yourself a shaman, a person who should be looked up to. Partly, it’s because in many cultures that’s a title bestowed by the shaman who taught you and/or the people you serve. Mostly, I think, it’s because a “real” shaman understands that it’s not exactly a wonderful thing to actually be. If you don't claim it, it might not be real.

And the last is simply that the spirits who guided me along my winding journey made it clear that it was not right for me to do so. That has changed.

I’ll get back to the spirits. First let me address the other reasons.

“Shaman” is a term being used currently to refer to people who use altered states of consciousness to communicate with spirits. Maybe they do other things, too, but that's what's basic. “Shamanism” is being used to refer to a wide variety of practices that have in common the belief that spirits are everywhere (or almost everywhere) and certain people can interact with them. If you’d like to trace down where it came from and which groups of people are applying it to themselves feel free to type it into a search engine. Give yourself time for the research. There’s a lot of it, and that’s not counting the word itself. For the sake of simplicity I’ll explain what I mean by shamanism.

• Spirits (or energy beings, or the divine, or the Force, or the interaction of quarks, or woo woo or the million gods) are in everything, every bit of matter and energy everywhere.
• All things are connected because the spirits (by whatever name) are all connected, the energy is all one.
• All people can perceive these spirits (or whatever you want to call them) to some extent, but often choose to ignore them. Mostly, I think, because it's confusing to do so. But the world of the spirits overlaps ours in the same way that the dimension of time interacts with the three physical dimensions that we refer to as space. (Look up string theory or m theory.)
• Tapping into that all one spiritual collective gives you information you wouldn't necessarily have access to when looking only at our perceived physical world (which may exist only because we spirits agree that it does). Everyone's interface for doing so is different mostly because of the language (words, or cultural overlay, or belief system, or ingrained thought pattern) we choose to use to try to describe the experience.
• Everything changes, even matter, even energy. The connected world stays connected but it is in constant motion, going from one state to another. We can navigate those moving currents or we can attempt to fight them, but we can’t change the fact that everything changes.

That’s all there is to it. That doesn’t mean I don’t have quite a few beliefs about what life’s all about and what an ethical person should do with all that spiritual energy, if anything. If they can even feel it at all. That’s all part of my own cultural overlay - the way I choose to perceive the great connected everything. Those are subjects for many other writings and some long conversations, because, believe it or not, they are changing too.

Let’s move on to readiness. I want to address this because I still don’t feel ready. There’s still a lot for me to learn. I haven’t perfected techniques, I get confused at some of the messages spirits give me, and that emotion reading thing doesn’t work all the time. Some days, I don’t feel very energetic. And I still get sick, which some people say is a sign that I’m just not doing the energy work right. But none of that matters, because everything is changing. All the time. I don’t have to know all the answers, I just need to know how to work with the spirits, the energy, and the way things change. That’s it.

As for what other people think about shamans who actually claim the title, well, they’re right. It’s not humble, it’s not a great thing to be, and it should be bestowed. Wait, what? Look. If you call yourself a shaman but no one thinks you’re a shaman, then it really doesn’t matter what you call yourself because no one will treat you like a shaman. The title has to come from somewhere. For me, it comes from the spirits, from the connected oneness of everything. I am the Creator’s shaman, exactly the person the Creator wants me to be. And what does that mean?

It means that I get to really sense the spirit world and the emotions of people around me, in great detail and sometimes with a hell of a lot of noise. It’s beyond confusing, most of the time. And worse, since most people are busy ignoring the parts of it they can sense, when I talk about it it sounds like I’m talking about imaginary things. There aren’t words for it all, and the close approximations sound, well, woo woo. I get to sound crazy for attempting to communicate it all, when I try to. Lucky me. So I either don’t talk about it (what I’ve done most of my life) or I accept that most people are going to choose to keep me (the crazy person) at arm’s length or further. Very lonely. Does that maybe explain why those chosen by the spirits as shaman don’t want to claim the title?

But there’s more. It means those spirits who can communicate with me can ask me to do things for them in this material plane. Thank everything that I get free choice about that, right? I can make bargains with those spirits so my life here is better. I’ll be healthy, wealthy and wise. Well? I’m waiting. And I’ll keep right on waiting because I am shaman, and the spirits chose me, not the other way around. My free choice was to either agree not to fight what the spirits want me to do or go crazy for real. Crazy as in self destructively psychotic.

So what do I need to do to stay sane? Mother Earth wants her servant to assist others in dealing with disease and injury and hardship, and I learn by catching pretty much everything and getting hurt. A lot. And I’m not talking just about physical illness and injury. I have a nice big tool box for dealing with such things now. Father Sky wants his energy worker to not talk about what he wants in this format. I’ve said somewhere before that he’s a harsh taskmaster, and I’ll leave it at that. Creator requires that I continue to learn, continue to grow, continue to listen to the spirits, continue to be the bridge I was transformed into. And maybe teach what I’ve learned to others who need to know. I have vows to keep, but I’m not required to share them. I am required to call myself shaman, claim the title, nevermind how other people choose to take that.

Before this devolves into a pity party I need to say that the greatest ecstasy I’ve ever felt was from moving energy at the command of the spirits. The greatest joys I’ve known have been from listening to the spirits as they help me help someone get through a hard time. My greatest comfort comes from understanding that everything changes, a knowledge that I have because I searched where spirits pointed me.

And my life has love, light, and a sincere appreciation for this world and the people and spirits in it. It comes from awareness of all the beautiful variations of all the beings (even me) who are connected to everything. The patterns are awe inspiring, exhilarating, glorious. I would wish you could see them all, but the price is pretty steep. And that’s okay because this world around us is beautiful, too. Enjoy that. Enjoy this life we’re living, this place we’re living on, and these people who surround us. I’ll be here to talk to the spirits for you, to journey to the spirit world seeking what was lost, to assist if you need it or want it, to teach you if you'd like to learn.

I am dwolf34. I am Reverend Wolfie. I am Di. I am Mother Earth’s servant, Father Sky’s energy worker, and the Creator’s shaman.

Authenticity

From Wikipedia: “Authenticity is a technical term used in psychology as well as existentialist philosophy and aesthetics. In existentialism, authenticity is the degree to which one is true to one's own personality, spirit, or character, despite external pressures; the conscious self is seen as coming to terms with being in a material world and with encountering external forces, pressures and influences which are very different from, and other than, itself.”

I think I'm spoiled.

I've been surrounding myself with authentic people - people who practice being themselves rather than worrying about trying to please others - for several years now without realizing that was what I've been doing. I’ve become used to folks who tell things like they are, make ribald comments, laugh at the antics of animals, get silly themselves, and have fun with life. It’s really helped me become a very positive person, despite some of the exceptionally awful things the world has thrown at me.

I strive to live authentically, myself. Sometimes that means I laugh at things that aren’t necessarily funny to other people. My sense of humor is odd and wry and kinky, but it’s mine. Sometimes it means I talk about talking to spirits and journeying in the spirit realm and being pagan to people in public places. Where I live, that means some people back away slowly - but that’s my reality, and I am honestly a little sad for the folks who don’t realize they’ve spoken to spirits themselves. If me saying something that makes people back away gives even one of them the chance to think “you know, I might have heard a spirit or two myself”, then I’ve done good. That’s just me. Sometimes it means that I bring my friends something I know they’d like for no particular reason, with no ulterior motive. That’s also me. Mostly though, for me, being authentic means just not worrying about what other people think.

And that’s why I’m surrounded by authentic people. I don’t worry about what they think, they don’t worry about what I think, and we’re just ourselves around each other. We’re not perfect. We piss each other off sometimes and argue sometimes and get frustrated with each other now and again. We’re mostly tolerant of other opinions but do have our own. We fail to hear each other sometimes and manage to hurt each other off and on, although I don’t think any of us means to be hurtful. And oddly enough, we’re still friends, still hang around each other, and still share opinions and ribald stories and laughter and joy. And we share each other’s pain.

So when a friend’s cow calves and we all ooh and ahh in our own ways and demand pictures so we can ooh and ahh some more, that’s just us being authentic. When someone announces even a tiny personal triumph and we all cheer, that’s just us. And when one of us admits she needs help and we all pitch in whatever we can, that’s us being authentic, too.

Human beings are not perfect, and each journey through this world isn’t perfect. We make mistakes and we learn from them. We even learn from other people’s mistakes, if we let ourselves see them. Reality is gritty and sleek and full of tasty variety to try out.

Some of my friends know the real me. They know I have two distinct web presences - one authentic me, which is here, on this page, and all over a lot of other places. And one limited “me” reserved for folks that I care about but don’t think are ready to accept all of me, where my odd and kinky sense of humor doesn’t get expressed and I only rarely talk about what the spirits have told me. I sometimes wish I didn’t feel the need for that limited presence, that mask that only shows part of me. It’s a wish that everyone were more tolerant, more compassionate, more caring, and brave enough to be themselves, authentically, every day.

I’ll continue to spread love, understanding and tolerance everywhere I can, through what I write and what I do and what I say.

Peace to you all, wherever you are on your own journey.

Off the Deep End and Into Atlantis

So alright, I’m going to talk about Atlantis now. Yes, I can see you all backing off, making hex signs and funny faces because isn’t “Atlantis” a thought experiment by Plato? A totally mythical place where only fictional stories can happen? Isn’t it like Mu, a land to long for, maybe wish you could be like that? Didn’t someone turn that into a cartoon full of doomed characters? Why the heck does Rev. Wolfie want to talk about Atlantis, anyway? Has she cracked up and is about to join all the crazies searching the ocean floor for the remainders of an ancient civilization that probably never actually existed? Has she bought into her own stories of Drake Crow and the magical island resort?

Well, no, I’m still rooted firmly in the here and now, thank you very much. I’m not about to take diving lessons so I can join the people examining the Bimini Road. And Crow’s stories are supposed to be entertainment first and we won’t talk about why I wrote them or what I learned along the way. That’s my story behind the story and I’d rather you just enjoy the fiction.

But I’m still going to talk about Atlantis.

Before I do, let me take you way back to the beginnings of my spiritual journey, to the time when I was just beginning to learn what it was the spirits wanted me to know. I was young then, didn’t ache so much, and was still searching for the “religion” that would work for me. I was about 14 when the Lutheran Church I grew up in and was confirmed in started it’s campaign against things. Specifically, against the backmasked satanic messages that “evil” hard rock bands were putting in their music. You know, I might not have backed away if the preacher had simply warned us away from those bands - had preached the way of making good choices and avoiding the Devil’s work. But my church had proposed a “record smashing” where all the albums could be brought and destroyed. They even provided a list of “evil” records so we young folk could go through our collections and weed out what was wrong.

I was appalled. In my young mind I saw the Nazi’s burning books, the medieval destructions of “seditious art” and the South’s banning of certain books from school libraries. It was absolutely nothing less than censorship of the worst kind, and it stopped me cold. It was wrong. It was forcing one person’s opinion on someone else, requiring everyone to conform without thinking for themselves.

I left the church of my childhood, but I took along the teachings of a great man. A man who spoke of loving other people, of taking care of the sick and injured and doing what you can to make the world a better place. I took along the moral tales out of the Bible, too, of being kind to strangers and not allowing those in power to take advantage of you, like the money changers in the temple had taken advantage of those who came to worship. And I went looking for a religion that didn’t preach hatred, separation, stereotypes, fear or destruction.

Even back then I knew in my heart those things were not what this life was about.

I started at the library, searching through books on religion. I looked at a lot of things from Buddhist teachings to Wiccan to Tao to the Norse Pantheon to Jewish teachings and Native American Spiritualism. In them, I began to find some similar paths, some echoes of what my heart already knew was true. And through some of the new age books I found the kernels of truth that I needed. I found the way to connect to my own spirit guides, to quest for visions and journey for answers. That didn’t take more than five or six years. Piece of cake!

In the meantime, I finished high school and started college. I began studying a creative writing curriculum, since by then I was already writing fiction stories and plotting game scenarios for my AD&D and Champions playing friends. Yes, I’m that kind of geek, and I have the dice to prove it.

I was thrilled to discover all kinds of classes, recommended by my advisor, that would help improve my writing skills. I filled my first few semesters with writing, reading and a couple of other interesting and degree necessary courses like history, psychology and sociology. (As a side note, the reason I have no degree from all my years of study is: Math. I might have to talk about that sometime.) I thrived in that study rich environment and in the fiction and nonfiction books I read even while taking classes that required some pretty heavy reading.

It was in an elective on creative thinking that I learned my first meditation technique, a very simple way of clearing the mind and emotions of clutter in order to bring a fresh perspective to a problem, a plotline, an article. It’s a technique I still use and teach today. It was that meditation technique that helped me along on my very first vision quest ever.

Okay, picture this. Young woman with a beaten up twentieth hand car full of the detritus of commuter college living drives out to a park on the outskirts of town and walks far down a path to a cliff where she knows she won’t be bothered. Nevermind that she’s alone. Nevermind that she has absolutely nothing with her, not even a bottle of water. Nevermind that she’s about to try something she isn’t totally sure she’s ready to do, yet. Nevermind that cell phones weren’t even invented yet. She goes deep into the park’s wooded area, sits on a cliff overlooking some tall trees, closes her eyes and proceeds to block out everything in the outside world.

Don’t do that, okay?

That journey was the first time I walked in the spirit world. It was the first time I met a spirit guide - the white wolf who still guides me in the lower world (not that I knew to call it that, then). It was the first time I walked in my spirit wolf form. That journey wasn’t about anything but meeting my guide, seeing a little of the spirit realm and seeing myself there. And yet it taught me a lot.

Starting with; if you’re going to journey in the woods, take along at least a bottle of water. And maybe a snack. Because when I came back into this world over an hour later, my body was tired and trembling. I made it back to my car because I was young and used to taking long walks in hilly parks.

Seriously, don’t do that.

From that moment on, though, I knew I didn’t have to go to such extremes. I could talk to my guides anytime, anywhere. And over the next few years I learned more from following their advice than I did from anything else. There were books, but they were ones my guides led me to. There were rocks, too. That was when I really started talking to the spirits of things, and rocks were the easiest for me. Thank you spirits for guiding me to try the easy stuff first. Rocks are simple, easily focused and befriended spirits. Smartphones are a bit more complex and flighty.

During this time my outer life progressed, too. Different jobs from theatre costumer and set grunt to short order cook and chef’s understudy to retail work and even a volunteer stint teaching inner city kids remedial reading skills kept me plenty busy. Not to mention family obligations and gaming friends who actually got together weekly. And the Society for Creative Anachronism, where research actually was necessary for participation.

And there was that man. That college student who just caught and kept my eye, who made me laugh and shared comic books with me. The one I dated even when he moved away to attend another college in another town. The one whose Jewish family taught me another view of spirituality. The man I married.

Okay, he was not the first guy I’d dated. Not the first one I had sex with, even. I was certain marriage was the right thing to do, even though on our wedding day I had laryngitis and ended up whispering my vows. It’s funny, looking back, to see how spirit is working in your life. Because obviously, life with my first husband didn’t work out. Still, I learned a lot from him and from the experience. I saw Florida because his family gathered there one summer. I experienced the big ouch of having to let go of someone I really cared for because we had grown apart instead of together. Because he wanted to bring me back into the conformity our society treasured and his family valued. He sought comfort where I sought growth.

I stayed unmarried for a while but I had friends and experiences in plenty during that time. And I even met the second man I married, the man who sparked my interest in herbal medicine and taught me more about how bodies work from the chiropractic perspective. The one who moved to the mountains with me and adventured there in hiking and vegetarian cooking and eco conscious living. The one who handled the despair of losing our business by losing his drive and a lot of his interest in life while I handled it by finding new positive things to involve myself in. He too crawled back into conformity while I took the lessons and moved on.

There were rocky parts of my life, and there were good parts. I like to remember the lessons and the teachers I met. There were many spirits - birds, mountains, trees, rocks, caves, ruins where people once lived. There was a Great Lake and a bunch of rivers and some bitter cold and baking dry heat. There were sacred places, too, where energy flowed so strongly that even those who didn’t feel the more subtle places were moved. Petrified forests, mineral springs, black sand beaches, cliffs, groves of trees. There were also many people. A young man who taught me to relax into my sexuality. A woman who taught me to use salt or white light to cleanse places. A young gentleman who taught me to live in a big city unharmed and still free to move. A woman who taught me to talk the language of horse. A horse who taught me to pay attention. A Ute woman who taught me to put an imperfection in each beaded piece to remind us of the imperfection of life. A pagan couple who taught me that love can get plenty done. A nurse who taught me to listen to my body to catch the next ear infection early. A ghost spirit who taught me that even spirits get taken by surprise sometimes. A man who taught me music and food can both be as simple or as complex as we want them to be. A cat who taught me that unconditional love doesn’t make life perfect. A woman who taught me that constant drama and tension are not a good way to live, no matter how good things are otherwise. An oak tree who taught me the meaning of patience. So many teachers, this doesn’t begin to touch the surface of them all.

I learned new skills, too. How to journey while walking. How to be truly still, right down to my emotions and thoughts. How to carve wood badly. How to keep an old car running when it probably shouldn’t still work. How to read runes. How to leave a job gracefully, and how to do it poorly. How to stitch beads into patterns. How to pinch pennies until they cry. How to let go of what is hurting me. How to wire wrap. How to reach deep into Mother Earth for healing energy. How to tap into the natural energy of our planet and weave it with intent into solid objects. What aromatherapy is all about. How to find what I’m looking for, and how to let things that need to come to or through me find me.

The rest of my spirit wolf pack joined me - the big black male who protects me and the two tan wolves, male and female, who do everything from offering comfort to joining adventures and explorations. I journeyed a lot, learned to work with many different tools, and listened to lots of different music. I crafted some stories, wrote in my journals, and read lots and lots of books.

And then I came home to the Midwest, where my adventures got shorter and my focus became very small. These were my still years, when all the things I’d learned started to digest in my mind. When the internet and its flood of information gave me the opportunity to look up anything I needed. When I learned even more about illness and the slow decay of body and mind that happens to us with age. When I found a simple job and kept it far longer than I should have. When I spent my time outwardly portraying conformity while I inwardly discovered truths about myself I’d never thought were more than parts of fictitious characters.

And I wrote, and wrote some more.

Then, one day, not all that long ago when I’m looking back over forty five years of life, I began to feel the urge to move again. Not physically move, but to start thinking seriously about my spirituality, to start journeying again, and to visit places where the energy of the world could fill me up again. I started talking to the spirits again. And I started following their advice again. I reached out to find a community that would accept me and at least most of my quirks. And I found people. Teachers, friends, new family and a few people who just needed what the spirits had taught me over the years.

My old path ended when I realized what that old recurring dream of mine meant, what the symbols were for and what the long lesson of my life so far had taught me. The old path ended, and I stepped onto my new path with confidence and joy.

The spirits pushed hard then to get me to learn and do some new things. To become ordained. To learn to lead rituals, not just participate in them. To push my own limits and try things I’d never thought I could do. It was preparation, all that learning about drums and moon cycles and pagan holidays and how the turn of the seasons echos the turn of our lives and how to apply what I’d learned in that dream I’d had over and over for so long. To play in a drum circle, to make a rattle, to safely tie someone motionless with hemp rope, to call the elemental spirits to witness, to journey to the upper world as easily as I have always journeyed to the lower world and in the middle world. To forgive and release a spirit who was doing no one any good. To bring what I’d always thought of as separate parts of my identity together as one much less confused whole. To get together and talk to my old friend, now a Kumu in her own right. To meet her teacher, and through her another teacher, a voice of the ancestors.

To hear Mu mentioned, and consider it along with Atlantis as serious possible realities that simply don’t share the same resonance as our own familiar physical world.

All along my path, I’d research a faith, a religion, a set of beliefs. And as I considered the parts that seemed to echo my own inner knowledge, I’d realize it wasn’t all of what I was looking for. When I asked the spirits, all they kept telling me was “what you seek is older than that.” Older than aboriginal beliefs? Older than written histories? Older than paintings in caves where the meaning is lost?

Yes.

Older, perhaps, than this fragile physical world.

So old that the spirits wearing bodies of flesh, wood and stone here only remember tiny bits of it. We call it Mu, Lemuria, Atlantis, Faerie, other things. We think it is lost, destroyed or receded so far it’s hard to get to. It lives in some tales, always warped a bit by whatever culture talks about it and whatever social agenda they have for doing so. But those are echos of another place, another time, another state of being for the spirits who walk around within us.

In talking about Atlantis, I know that I am only talking about one of these distant place/times. One that I can visit, though, now that I’ve chosen to open my mind and take the journey. One where I can meet some of my own ancestors and old friends. I honestly can’t say that I’m using the name the inhabitants use for it. The language there is filtered through my own perceptions, because it’s so much less a language of words than it is a language of concepts and thoughts. Some things are simple, like baked fish and potatoes. Some is harder to convey, though, like the use for the central pyramid’s top plaza, and it will take many words to try to get my meaning onto a page so that someone else can comprehend.

Is this why there’s always seemed to be so much left out of the books I’ve found? The fact that some of it seems so simple and some of it nearly defies description? Parts of it sound silly, even though some of those parts hold the most important concepts. Have they not been written because those who knew them realized that without enough core understanding, they would sound ridiculous?

As ridiculous as visiting Atlantis and talking to dragons and dolphins?

There are places here on this world where people understand that simplicity is good enough and that love and laughter heal. They are oasis in a world so separated from the spiritual that we forget that we are spiritual. There is a place in the islands where they know that love and light are what really matters, and everything else is just a vacation of experiences. There is a place deep in mountains where they know that the purpose of life here is simple - eat when you’re hungry and sleep when you’re tired. There is a place deep in the jungle where they know that the river has tasty fish, the trees have tasty fruit, and wide leaves make plenty of roof to keep off the rain. There are places where they still know that the Earth provides what they need and living is enough for any of us to do. It’s quite possible they are closer to the truth than the rest of us who are caught up in this world of want and fear.

Where spirits live, life is both simple and complex, all at once. Those worlds are rich with reminders of knowledge and lessons learned in other places. They are lived at a different pace, with different reasons for being, different priorities and different motivations. This world of ours is as novel to them as their world is to us. That’s why they chose to put on solid coverings and visit here - the same reason we chose to step out of this frequency and visit there. We learn. The insights open our thoughts to realities we hadn’t imagined before.

So when I’m talking about Atlantis, I want you to know that it’s perfectly real. We just can’t see it from where we stand. I’ll visit that realm and come back to here and now to offer insights to some of you. Don’t worry if you don’t understand, if it sparks nothing for you or sounds ridiculous. Believe me, parts of it sounded pretty silly to me not all that long ago. Consider what you do understand, and enjoy the rest of the ride. And don't forget to think for yourself.

Di, the Reverend Wolfie,
Walker in Two Worlds

Two Wolves

This is an old, old story - older than some of the hills. I’m sure you’ve heard it before somewhere, maybe in another form with different characters or told with different words. I’ve heard many versions, myself. It’s as true today as it was yesterday, and as it will be tomorrow. Because it’s true, and because some people I know need to hear it, I’ll tell it again. I hope you like it enough to share it where it needs to be heard, as well.

***

Once there was a young boy who sought out his grandfather. Tears were running down his face as he plopped himself down in the dirt at the older man’s feet. The grandfather set aside his work and asked the boy what was wrong.

“Oh Grandfather,” wailed the boy, “I hurt so much! I feel like there is an angry wolf inside me trying to tear me to pieces!”

The older man nodded. He’d seen this before.. “That’s because there is,” he told his grandson. And when the boy looked startled, he gathered him into his arms. “Actually, there are two wolves inside each of us.”

The boy wiped tears from his eyes. “Two wolves? How can we live with two wolves inside us? Won’t they just rip us to shreds?”

The grandfather shook his head. “Those two wolves always battle each other first, grandson. Only when they’re done do they turn to us. One wolf is the wolf you feel now - the wolf of anger, hatred, sorrow, despair and worry. It will happily eat you up from the inside. But there is another wolf, too - the wolf of love, happiness, compassion, peace and gratitude. It would rather lick you than eat you.” He licked his grandson’s cheek to show him just what he meant.

The boy giggled, just as the older man knew he would. “I want that wolf to win! How can I help the good wolf win, Grandfather?”

The grandfather put the boy on his feet again and looked him in the eye. “The strongest wolf will always win. You choose which wolf grows best within you by what you feed them most, with your words, your actions, and your thoughts.” With that, the grandfather picked up his work again and sent the boy off to think about his wolves.

***

Hating is easy. Blaming someone else for our sorrow and pain is easy, too. But what we feel in the end comes down to exactly which of those wolves inside us we choose to feed.

I offer up this tale with gratitude that I have learned it, compassion for those who need to hear it, and love for all who listen. Thank you! And thank you too, for spreading this tale around more!

dwolf34, 11/20/2013

"It's Easier Being a Tomboy...."

There’s a conversation I had with a tall, lanky woman in a sex positive coffee shop over a copy of “The Joy of Sex” that’s been hanging around in my mind for a very long time. I’m not sure if she was trying to shock me with her admission that she was trans or just owning up to the fact that she was very awkwardly female in her heels and skirt. But when she opined that the female form was beautiful and she always wished she’d had breasts, I told her I’d gladly give her mine if I could because I’ve never wanted them. The conversation led on to how much easier it was for me to be a tomboy than it was for her to be a sissy, which I conceded at the time. But there she was, in a skirt and heels and claiming her pronoun, and there I was in jeans and hiking boots, still the tomboy after all these years.

In our culture where we don’t have a comfortable box for the kid who really isn’t cis-male or cis-female, it is hard being different, and it really doesn’t matter what that different identity is. The bulk of the population sees themselves as male or female, and everyone else has to be one or the other, either like them or not, easily identifiable by outward markers of gender. I, by not embracing the gender that my body very obviously wears by decking it in the socially acceptable fashion of dresses and facial makeup, am obviously confused, and perhaps in need of professional help.

I actually spent a long time talking honestly to a therapist. And did that professional “cure” me and turn me into a sugar and spice and everything nice girly girl to match my outward and inward primary sexual characteristics? No. She very helpfully encouraged me to be who I am, and to develop strategies for dealing with the rest of the human beings that I share the planet with. She brought up the valid point that no matter what, I can’t change everyone else or what they do, I can only change myself and my reactions to them.

My choice of reaction is to let the world see me as the gender my mother goddess curves suggest to them. I circle the “F” on forms and my driver’s license reports that I am female. What my body genetically is is pretty undeniable, after all. What my gender is inside my own head is less specific, more fluid, never comfortable with either extreme. But I don’t let that worry me. The outside world can see me as a woman who dresses ambiguously and that’s fine with me.

It’s fine because only rarely do I feel called to make someone else uncomfortable, and trying to explain my gender identity tends to do that. If someone is curious, I’ll try to explain so that they can understand, just like I do when someone asks about my not so easily defined religion. Or what I write. Or my identity as a BDSM switch. Or that what I’m sexually attracted to has nothing to do with the body before me but has everything to do with the soul and the personality within. I fully realize that to most people, I sound confused, even though I’m not. I’m very secure with my own self, which is very comfortable being mostly in between all the dichotomies into which the bulk of people divide themselves.

What I’m saying is that if my outer body matched my inner gender, it would have neither broad hips nor broad shoulders. It would have both small breasts and a modest penis. It’s facial features would confuse the eye, soft curves and hard lines blended androgynously. It would likely even have three “sex chromosomes”, XXY, just to add to the ambiguity. It would be hard for me to look “normal”. It would be impossible to classify as “M or F” on those forms. It would have made growing up even harder for me than it was.

Look. I grew up a tomboy. I complained every time my parents made me wear a dress to something until they stopped making me. I played with Barbies who weren’t fashion models but loved to camp out. I played with Hot Wheels and didn’t care which was the fastest, but loved the ones that stuck to the track no matter how convoluted I twisted it. My favorite books were the ones about horses and dogs and more fantastical things, not the ones about princesses or sports heroes. I’ve confused people most of my life, in other words. I reacted by choosing friends who didn’t care, who took me as I was - which was exactly what I did for them. I sat with the rest of the outcasts at lunch, and generally ignored everyone else. I took more than my fair share of abuse, but at home, I always knew I was loved, and that helped me understand that I was okay. And yes, I did therapy, because at one point in my life I stopped being sure that I liked who I was.

Being different isn’t easy. I feel for my trans-gendered friends who have to decide whether or not to disclose their histories. I feel for my kinky friends who have to hide that part of themselves to keep their jobs. I feel for my homosexual friends who don’t hold hands in public because other people judge. I feel for my pagan friends who don’t discuss religion because theirs isn’t mainstream. I feel for my poly friends who get tired of explaining their relationships. But I also feel for my cis-gendered, vanilla, heterosexual, Christian monogamous friends who have never had their own identity challenged, who haven’t gone through an agony of self-acceptance and come out the other side with the extra strength that being yourself despite what everyone else thinks gave me and my outcast friends. I feel for the ones who’ve never considered suicide to avoid the pain of being different and had to reject that because it was the easy way out. I feel for the ones who’ve had an easy life, and who might now, because they know me, have to actually think about why they judge others, or look down on them, try to change them, or even ignore that any other way of being is valid and liveable.

I preach tolerance and kindness and love because these are the things I value and these are the things that help bring people together despite differences and differing choices. I’m more than happy to help people think through their own beliefs, to try to help them understand what they’ve never had to before. To help people relate more harmoniously with each other. To show them that my beliefs and lifestyle do not invalidate or endanger their own. To share the strength I gained through my own journey.

Our individual differences only make our whole world stronger and more beautiful.

I wish you love and happiness, but I hope that your own path hasn’t been so easy that you blindly judge. I hope that you can see the beauty around you, both in the bountiful variety that nature provides us and in the glorious variety of people you interact with. Be kind to each other, please. And even more importantly, be kind to yourselves.

Happy Equinox, all.

How I Met My Drum.

Not so long ago I attended a pagan women's retreat with about a hundred and fifty awesome people from many different walks of life and many different core beliefs. It was the first large pagan gathering I'd ever attended, and I can talk for hours about the people I met there and the things I learned. I'm sure more of them will make it into things that I talk about here in the future, but for now I'd like to talk about just four of them. One was a woman who needed to hear what I said, one needed to know someone saw her, one had something to teach me and one will be my companion for years.

The story doesn't begin with them, of course, or I'd be done telling it already. It begins with a sleepless night - one of the kinds where you've done everything right and you're exhausted and you really should drop off and sleep soundly all night. I woke up after a couple of hours and nothing, not even my tried and true meditation session let me get back to sleep. So with a cabin full of deeply dozing friends, I decided to take the meditation further, to journey into the spirit realms and ask those who help me what I should do.

Hint for those who are just beginning to journey: never give your guides and teachers such a wide open question when what you really want is assistance with the down to earth business of falling asleep. They are apt to answer the bigger question and ignore your other needs. I was still awake at dawn, long after the journey was over.

The journey itself seemed to take a very long time. I went up, then wandered around in the dim, soft, grey cloud forms of the upper world for what seemed like hours before one of my guides came to me. I wasn't led far before being shown a vision. The clouds in front of me solidified into the head of a dragon the deep grey of pewter, every detail sharp and fierce. That image morphed into a wolf's head, then a bear's, then a raccoon's. Then the image faded back into shapeless clouds and I was left alone. I had the distinct impression that these four images were things I should look for and, more importantly, pay attention to. The journey was over. I went back to my bunk and tossed and turned until dawn.

At breakfast, in a big communal dining room, a couple of friends and I shared a table with folks we hadn't met before. We talked with them - just the easy chatting of slightly sleepy people having breakfast. But something I said grabbed the attention of one of the women and we spoke a little more about the subject. It wasn't until she turned to say something to her friend that I noticed her earring. It was one of those cuffs that grips the outer edge of the ear, and hers was a tiny dragon. The face peering at me from the top of her ear was exactly the face from my vision.

Later that day, I visited the vendor area and picked out a couple of mementos for myself. When I asked the woman at the table if she could take a credit card she said yes, if she could get a cell signal. When she turned on her phone to check, I saw the wolf face from my dream on her wallpaper. Neither of us was busy, so I stayed and chatted with her for a bit.

Much later, as I walked to the site of the main ritual with my brand new drum (the little drum I'd bought on Amazon and wasn't totally comfortable with), I met some other folks with drums. The one who seemed to be leading them asked while we labored up the hill if I wanted to join them as they drummed for the ceremony. I admitted I'd never done so - not only was it my first ritual of any size, but it was also my first drum. She and the other drummers with her welcomed me anyway. Guess what was on the front of her shirt that I didn't see until we reached the top of the hill and had a chance to face each other? The bear from my vision, of course.

The planners had scheduled a drum circle later that evening, and I got to learn more about drums and drumming from the woman in the bear shirt. She demonstrated the healing power of a drum, which was something I hadn't realized was possible. Playing with other drummers was what hooked me, though, with the vibrations from the other drum voices humming through my own drum's frame. It was later that I loaned my little drum to a young woman who wanted to join in and left them with other drummers.

The death of my cheap little drum with the sad spirit came at her hands, but I claim my part of its end. I knew my hand-made drumstick was harder than most, and I didn't warn her. Nor did I stick around to show her what little I'd learned. It was she who hit hard and near the edge, but it was also she who was truly sorry that the thin goatskin drumhead had torn all the way to the center of the drum. After she had apologized profusely, offered to pay for the drum, and nearly teared up over the incident, I gave her the damaged drum to take care of. There was a flash of insight involved in that decision, and I knew it was the right thing to do. It will be interesting if I ever find out why.

The day after the event I couldn't get drums off my mind. I knew from intuition, playing with other drummers at the circle, and my short time with the little drum that I wanted a frame drum, preferably a Native American design. I searched online for a store that might have more than one and then called to make sure I'd be allowed to touch and hear the drums before making a decision. I found one. I spent a moment before I left to ask the runes for guidance and drew sowelu, the rune of the sun and of wholeness. I didn't understand, but I still went.

The store had several drums to chose from. Most were round. One was very much like the bear woman's drum. I touched each drum, and tapped most of them with a soft beater to hear their voices. I liked several, but the one that spoke most clearly to me was an octagonal cowhide drum with a large scar on the drum face. Its voice had different tones at different areas, deep resonance and ringing undertones. And the scar on its face looked like a triangular animal ear, a flaw that I thought gave her character. An ear that looks exactly like the ear of the raccoon from my vision. I fell in love with her, bought her, and took her home.

I did look up real life raccoon pictures to verify that her scar looks most like the ear of a raccoon and not some other animal. A rough patch in the hide marks her eye. Faint lines in the hide sketch in a mask and define the top of the raccoon's face. And when she's held up to the light, the structure of her back throws the image of the sun's rays onto her face, just in case you're still wondering about the significance of the rune I drew. I've given her some feathers, some shiny beads, two silver hawk bells and a raccoon tail. We're still getting to know each other, but I know one thing for sure. This is my drum, and I am her shaman. Many things led to us meeting. Each step was necessary. And the vision from my journey is complete. The raccoon is the spirit in my drum - another guide, another teacher, another helper, another friend. I've seen her face when I've played her, looking out at me just like the raccoon in my vision.

And now you, too, know her story. And maybe you also caught another lesson I learned. The four images from my vision didn't manifest in the same way. When my spirit guides told me to pay attention to those four faces, I didn't know what to expect. Not knowing, I saw each encounter as a surprise and took delight in it, even as I paid attention to the bearer of the image. I didn't have to actively seek them out - I even wondered if I'd missed the raccoon somewhere. And all four images brought me to people, even if one of them is a drum person with a raccoon face. I might have missed the significance of each encounter without the vision, though.

My guides might be pretty strict about answering the exact question I ask, but their answers always are always good. Even when I don't understand them at the time. If I keep my mind open, I'll learn what the answers mean. Usually. Eventually.

I hope you do too.