Y? Because We Love You

A cheesy abuse of Mickey just to get my Y-blog in.  I don't even feel badly about it given how much money Disney has filched from my pocketses over the last 30 years.

I taught a class for OLLI (Osher Life Long Learning Institutes) at my friend Patricia's invite yesterday about Shamanism.  No I am NOT a shaman.  Not even a little s shaman much less the big S Shaman - although I do know folks who rock those chucks.  I am just me.  And this me is interested in all sorts of stuff including all sorts of stuff that led me to shamanism in a thousand little ways.

Yesterday I wrote a piece about my love of old stuff, archeological stuff.  I will also now fess to a love of Anthropology, Philosophy, Women's Studies, World Religion, Spirituality of all sorts.  So no real surprise that I KNOW about shamanism since it springboards off most of those studies.  What came as a surprise, at least to me, was that I GET shamanism in a way that I didn't get other spiritual beliefs.  As if my body/spirit/mind/soul/whatever had already encountered it and knew it.

I had resisted any involvement in OLLI despite Patricia's persistent efforts because:

1)  I was working during the time the class meets
2)  I don't feel drawn to teach.  At least not in a formalized way like this.
3)  I don't respond well to 'nudging'.  And there was more than a little of that going on.
4)  I loathe public speaking of any kind.  Even to small groups like this one.

I prepared nothing, instead did the class on the fly.  (I know some of you are shaking your heads and wanting to know where Mary went right?)  The wet weather made drumming out of the question, so I grabbed a little tiny bowl of beauty aka a singing bowl and a few other things.  I wasn't even sure what I was going to do with any of those things.  I just grabbed and stuffed and stuffed and ran out the door.

The conversation turned easily to one of communicating with the ancestors.  When I opened my bag, I realized I had almost everything I would need to create a small ancestors shrine including stones for everyone that they could take with them to facilitate linking into their ancestors after they left.  Even though I didn't know how many people would be there, there were exactly the right number of stones in the bag for all.  This part was an amazing success.  The people who were in the class were genuinely interested in most of it and especially in the hands on part.

Each person was encouraged to invite his ancestors in and be receptive to the message they brought.  My message was not surprising - to Patricia anyway - and I'm afraid I have now given her ample flicking fodder.  My peeps simply asked how I felt about having done the class and my honest response was that I had really enjoyed it.  I mean REALLY enjoyed it.

?????

Did I just say I ENJOYED teaching a class?  I did!  How odd.  The peeps have been poking me all day and asking why I think that is so.  I have been mulling on it.  I think that something has radically shifted in me for the better.  That little girl who practiced being invisible at every turn, who was terrified of being seen, finally stepped out of her closet and discovered the world is not a hostile place anymore.  She discovered that she can talk about her passion without feeling a freak.  Quite the contrary.  Turns out she might have something to say after all.  I was starting to think she had become mute after all those years.  

When Patricia introduced me to her students, I expected her to peg me as another of her students the way she did in the past.  Therefore, when she introduced me as her daughter/friend instead, I had to take a couple quick breaths because her admission caught me off guard and my eyes tried to embarrass me by leaking.  I have long known how I felt about her.  She is in some ways the mother I needed and in every way my dear friend.  But I had never heard her acknowledge that in quite that way - to claim me as her daughter.  I am used to her nudging and her flicking ways, but this was surely a different Patricia than the last time I stopped long enough to really look.  Seems we have both rubbed off on each other for the better.  That small statement was the cherry on the sundae that was my Thursday.