Midwest Shaman’s Conference, 2018, driving home. Pouring rain, Amber sleeping in the passenger seat, behind a truck trying to pass a truck, getting hit by both of their spray, having trouble seeing ten feet in front of me. It was a little scary, and we had left early, skipped the Sunday classes because we knew the rain would make the commute home longer. In that moment, although I was glad we had left early, part of me was still there. These are heart-friends…people I trust with my well-being because that is “how shaman do.” The function, the nature, the calling, the pull, the drive, the yearning…it’s all about healing, the different natures of it, cultures of it. It is the truest definition of “safe space” that I can think of, where your ugliness can be pulled out into the open like it was midwifed, and loved into being and wholeness, forgiven, cleansed, and given back to you like a new creature. Transformed through care and forgiveness. It’s a beautiful thing.

I was thinking, you see, of what one of the Elders had told me. He gave us all messages, personal ones, and I was thinking, “Should I share this? Is this even appropriate to share?”

At that moment, that VERY moment, the tiniest of spiders dropped down from my visor in front of my face and hung there.

“I know what that means. Yes, I will share. But this is not safe space, little one.” I caught her by her web and pulled her farther away from my face and she caught on my steering wheel, dangling in the space where I look at my odometer. This was not good. I slowed down and reduced some splash, but I couldn’t have her running around my car while I was driving in the rain…it could get us all killed, Amber, the Spider and Me. I caught her on my hand and put my hand out the window, letting the wind take her, wishing her safe travels…and if she landed in my back seat that was fine…just please don’t mess up my driving.

The message (or at least part of it, the part of it I’m supposed to share…I didn’t get permission for the rest so you just get this) is, “See yourself the way we see you and Rejoice, the way *we* rejoice when *we* see you.” After ritual I thanked him for his blessing and for his presence and his teachings, and he thanked me, said he was grateful for me, (for all of us, not just me, I’m sure) for our willingness to hear the lessons and learn them. I knew he meant it, and that was amazing to me. Grateful for me? Why? I did not contribute, I only absorbed and listened. I am a gnat next to a giant, who is part of a long line of giants and ancestors with a family of creatures I do not know and cannot name. But like I imagine all natural things in the Native world, even Gnat is a brother who has a place and a lesson to teach.

From that moment forward, I became very conscious of how people looked at me, what they said of their experiences of me. So glad that they met me, they said, I was delightful they said, I had such good energy they said….even the ones I didn’t spend any time with. How did they come by this opinion of me, I wondered, if they didn’t spend time with me? If we didn’t have conversations? If they really didn’t know my opinions, or if I was a jerk, or anything? Were they listening to my conversations with other people and deciding that way? How did they come to that conclusion?

I’m not sure that matters.

I think what matters is like, just like when I was figuring out that I wasn’t ugly, that there is a swell of a particular type of compliment. Everyone tells me I give good hugs…that’s pretty standard. The people who tell me do not know each other. They are not making group agreements to all tell me the same thing. There is not some mass conspiracy to make Mowgli believe she is a good hugger, that would be absolutely ridiculous. THEREFORE, it must be true. I must be a good hugger. That’s just logic.

There are some people who just wear their joy on their face. It has nothing to do with me, they just do…and if they light up when they see me, then logic dictates my presence makes them happy. I need to just accept that.

When I was younger, my parents tried to kill me…I’m not dead because the mechanics of making that happen in a way they wouldn’t get arrested created opportunities to survive it…but there is this undercurrent of belief in my life that, it doesn’t matter if people are nice or help provide for my needs….deep down inside, they really just want me to go away. I fight it all the time. It’s a voice I know that lies, it finds small pieces of accidental rejection and tries to blow them into massive truths that are hurtful. I do not bother people with this, I know that it is my Shadow that does this to me, and there is no hole anyone else can fill to make this go away, that it has to come from me. But it’s really not serving me, and I feel like any other junk that I’ve been working on has been resolved enough that I am now ready to let this piece go.

I’m listening now, and watching. I’m ready to believe you. So why is it this piece and no other of the message that I was given that it’s okay to share? Why tell you all this?

Well, duh. Isn’t it obvious? Because you can too. Because all those people who surround you with love on a regular basis, all those people who enjoy your company…they don’t have an ulterior motive either. No conspiracy. They just like you. For realz.

Look for that moment when they see you. Do they light up? If they do, just trust that. They are happy to see you.

And anything else is kind of immaterial, isn’t it? If they love you, then they do. And for now, as you are learning your awesomeness, as you begin to believe that you’re not so terrible, that is the place to start. No one fakes that startled surprise look because it’s almost impossible to fake. When your presence turns up unplanned, that look is Truth.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I can say that just about everyone on here, I am always always always glad to see, and hug and hold and love. Thank you for being patient with me as I learn this thing that you have all learned so easily….how to love ME, accept ME, hold ME. Thank you, collectively, for being happy to see me. I am grateful for this lesson you teach me.

I’m a little late to this particular party, but I’m getting ready. Blessings to you for holding the space until I get there. Sorry I’m late, but I know you don’t hold that against me. Your love is so much bigger than I knew, and I am so sorry I doubted you. I know you forgive me, but I am so sorry.

Gods, you are all so very big together, and I keep crying…but it is a joyful healing cry, and it will stop eventually, and then we can all laugh.

Thank you for holding the space until I can catch up. I am very grateful.

And I will hold the space for you, until you get here. Because you held it for me, and because I love you, and because you are wonderful and strange and unique and confused and loving and doubtful and hurt and looking for light.

I can’t wait for you to get here. Love you so much, and you’ll know that when you see me.

Just wait ‘til you see the look on my face.