Following a Shamanic Path

I am a science chick. Born to be a science chick. It's in my astrological chart that I am a science chick.

So what is a science chick doing walking the shaman's path? Beats me. I was quietly working and grooving to the quiet rhythm of my research there in my ivory tower of academia, when my innate curiosity lead me haring off down that overgrown and little used trail. That's what happens when you ask yourself "I wonder where that goes?"

I have always been interested in other cultures. I chafed against the wonderbread environment of my childhood and young adulthood. I made up for that hell of sameness by loving the gloss off the pages of National Geographic and raptly immersing myself in the worlds of Jacques Cousteau, Dian Fossey, the Leakeys and Marlin Perkins as they traveled worlds of such vibrancy, places that bore no resemblance to my overly bleached middle class white America. Like George Bailey, I couldn't wait to shake the dirt of Wonderbread town off my shoes and discover the world. And like George, those dreams were put aside for very practical reasons. I settled for college at an integrated University where my friends were a United Nations of colors, religious beliefs and cultures. Few if any of my boyfriends were white, or middle class, or Christian much less Catholic. My beloved tower at least has that going for it, that it is populated by many different kinds of people which makes it seem an oasis. All that to say I dig different.

My senior year I took Archeology on a whim and loved it. This is not the Archeology of Indiana Jones, but the quiet often dusty pursuit of cultures long gone from the Earth. I did a few weeks on a dig to Angel Mounds and really dug it. Pun intended. That interest expanded into Anthropology - in particular the study of indigenous cultures. But again I settled and put those interests aside to spend my days playing with bacteria and DNA.

My interest in feminism, indigenous cultures and spirituality began to converge and those interests were what made me ask about where that path might take me. I kept telling myself I would only go a little ways and that if it didnt lead anywhere I could still back track and pick up where I turned off. But eight years later, I am so far away from that place that I couldn't find it even if I wanted to - which I don't.

I would never have chosen this path for myself if I had known where it went, but having been chosen I will hold my head up and see where it leads.