The second thing I learned at the Shaman event had something to do with seeing, and being seen. There is something complex here that has to do with all of us being in the rush of our every day lives, and something to do with being unclear at communicating, and something to do with a dysfunctional view of love that we’ve been given our whole lives. It’s consciousness and mindfulness on a larger scale, or maybe a smaller one.

When the Elder said, “We see you. We see you doing the work, and we know you are alone,” there was something so powerful in that.  There is an unspoken piece for us as Women (predominantly white women, in my experience.  I can’t speak for other cultures and whether or not it is the same there, but I suspect it mostly is…at least, everywhere that has been colonized, which is most places)…we know the Men are never there. We know when we go to these retreats there are rarely men who follow, it is almost always women and we don’t speak about that. It’s a secret we all know, it makes us all sad, but it is the world we live in. We live in a place where we have to defend our bodies because the Men are not reliable to protect and defend. We wish it were not that way. We know if they came things would change. But how can you get them to come when they relegate Spirit to a place where only women go? If we can’t get them to see our pain, who are actively suffering, how can we make them see their own potential joy? They cannot see the Actual…how can we inspire them with the Potential? We just do not speak of it and continue to do the work. It needs to get done, and if they will not help us, we will do it alone. We know it means they will fall behind. The thought saddens us. We do not stop.

He voiced something we all had seen and none of us were talking about. That the men were conspicuously absent. We had a larger number of men than usual at this gathering, around 5 or 6, not counting presenters. Bless them all, every one of them. They were kind and open and respectful and there to learn and grow. They were unsure and determined. It made them beautiful. We need so many more like them.

There was something about being seen in that moment. Seen as we were, alone, doing the work, and the hope that someday, someone will come to relieve us. That the warriors will come to help us. I can’t explain it, like such a burden was sliding off my shoulders, I was so grateful. I did not know how much I was carrying. I did not know how important it all was. There’s a reason that message spread so far, so fast. Because it speaks to us.

It seemed like everything the elder said made me cry. I felt so helpless, so hopeless in the face of everything. They told us stories of their travels through different states as they went to Standing Rock, or to Flint, how they were chased and isolated in a state where the laws have changed to make it legal to hang Indians (his word). How their lawyer had to travel with them. They were laughing and joking about how they got away, but i was so horrified at the events taking place so recently, at the fact that it was so commonplace for them, that this was their day to day lives as they did the work that was meant for ALL of us…Water really is Life, and water companies were prepping for this long before Flint became news…I remember reading articles in my news feed about it, claiming that drinking water isn’t a human right, it’s a commodity. The less it becomes available, the sooner we’re all paying through the nose to survive.

Anyway, I tried to talk to the elder about my tears. I felt selfish….there are members of various communities that feel that some people use tears as a way to avoid having to fix things, kind of a, “look, I sympathize, and I’m overwhelmed by your pain, I’m a good person, you can see that because you’ve moved me to tears, but I’m not going to change anything today….it’s all too much.” That’s not who I am. I wanted some direction, I felt like that poem where the girl is looking at the map saying, “show me where it hurts,” and the answer is, “everywhere.” Where do you start? How do you begin? There’s this moment in Wonder Woman where she’s pulled in all these different directions because there is pain everywhere she looks. I thought he could tell me where to start.

He took my hands and looked into my eyes and said, “Don’t heal the pain of others to avoid having to deal with your own. Heal the self and the way becomes clear.” I was crying, i mean really snot-crying, and i wanted to pull my hands back to wipe my nose. He didn’t let my hands go. He kept talking.

There’s this thing about talking to elders, an etiquette. You don’t interrupt them…sometimes they take a long time to say something, and if you interrupt them they may not continue, you may lose the opportunity to hear something truly important, so you have to kind of ride it out and try to follow, even when it’s complex and involved. So there I was, with my very poor memory, struggling to remember everything, knowing I wouldn’t, wanting to wipe my face, wanting to grab my notebook to write down what he was saying, and realizing I was just going to have to surrender in this moment.

I realized then i don’t think I’ve ever let anyone see me like that. Snot on your face is very naked, and this moment was about pain, so let it be about pain.

“I will do the work,” I said. ” If you point me somewhere, tell me what to do, I will say the prayers, I will do the work, but there is so much! Where do I start?” And the answer I got was to start inside. Not the answer I was hoping for. But an answer. And I will do the work.

In that moment, I was really SEEN. I had never allowed that level of exposure. There was something healing in that moment, of having my hands held and just being seen and heard. There was something important going on I wasn’t understanding yet.

We had a sweat lodge. I had been asking questions about language and he said that the younger Natives still referred to it as a Sweat, but that sweat is something that happens within the lodge, it is not what the lodge is about. It is about purification, and that even the “pi” suffix refers to having people inside it, that a tipi is really just a Ti until there are people inside, then it becomes a Tipi, just like an Inipi is really just an Ini, until there are people inside, then it becomes an Inipi. There wasn’t enough room for everyone, so he split us into men and women. The women went first.

It wasn’t my first lodge, and what goes on inside the Lodge is intensely personal….some people have visions or hear voices, some people just sweat, some people learn things about themselves, or hear the voices of their ancestors. The most important thing for me happened after the lodge.

We went in the late afternoon, and we came out around sunset. The men had been expecting to go in with us, so they just sat outside and waited. When we came out, they were there, not waiting for us, but waiting their turn. It was kind of nice to see them sitting there, waiting patiently and peacefully, even if we didn’t interact, really. Most of the women went on to do their processing, and i realized when the men came out it would be dark. They would be alone. I think Amber was the one to voice it, “that’s so sad that they’ll be alone. Can we wait for them?”

A lodge simulates the womb. It is hot and wet and round, and bodies are cramped against each other. The door is small and low to the ground, like an igloo, and to get in and out you have to crawl. In another Lodge i was told that in some tribes there would be a “midwife” at the door who would wipe your face down like they do for babies, and who would welcome you into the world. I hated the idea of them being reborn to emptiness and silence. I knew i would have to wait for them, no matter how long it took. We asked if we could sit vigil for them, and Tree (assistant to the Elder, there were two) seemed pleased. She said we should hug them and hold them when they came out, welcome them into the world.

We waited. I was bit by a bazillion mosquitoes, and I waited. We watched the fire that held the stones, and made sure to leave a channel for the spirits to come into the lodge. It got dark. We waited.

One of the men came out early. This happens sometimes….sometimes it’s because the heat is too intense, sometimes because claustrophobia kicks in, and sometimes because someone sees something, has a vision that is so intense they have to leave. I wanted to tell him he was okay, he wasn’t alone, that we were there, but he isolated himself on the other side of the lodge. He looked a little shaken by something. It seemed he wanted to go through it alone, so I let him be.

Eventually they came out, and on each of their faces i saw the same thing play out, over and over. One at a time they would crawl out, realize it was dark, look sad because they were alone, look up to see they weren’t, smile, happy to not be forgotten, arms open to be hugged, awkwardness at the realization of how sweaty they were, stiffness as i took them in my arms apologizing for their wetness. I held them and said, “All babies are wet when they’re born, and we hold them and love them just the same,” and their bodies relaxing into that moment, accepting it. The last to be hugged was the one who came out early. I remember thinking he was a premature birth, I hope I said it. He seemed to feel he didn’t deserve to be hugged, but babies are born premature all the time. (I’m two months preemie myself, they had to incubate me.) I hope I voiced that.

But here again was this moment of being seen that was so relieving to them. Being seen is more than something that just happens. It is something we crave, it brings meaning to things that are otherwise meaningless. The creation of art needs an observer. A dancer can dance for their own joy, but that same performance can multiply the joy with observers. A painting without an audience might as well be a rug.

And our pain, our weakness, our frailties…without an audience they are Shame or Doubt. But WITH an audience, they are Compassion, Sympathy, Humanity. There is a connection that happens when we are seen in our entirety, a circuit closes and some sort of electrical thing happens that is emotionally moving, and is literally

Emotion

moving

from one place to another,

transforming from Pain to Hope.

We can do that for each other if we will just be still. If we will hold each others hands and look into each others eyes and say, “I see you. I see what you’re going through, and I see that it hurts you, and I am so sorry that you are having this experience.”

We can have this for ourselves if we will allow ourselves to be seen.

Going back to Spirit(s) for a moment, they really just want to be seen. Your ancestors, the tree in your yard, the animals and plants you’re eating, they want to be seen. Forgetting the politics of meat eating vs. vegetarians vs. vegans…..forgetting all that…an animal died or a plant died so you could eat, and that’s part of the life cycle, animals always eat other things. But think of how rude it is to never say thank you, to never even recognize that something was once alive before it was on your plate. There were fields of thriving plants that were cut down for harvest. Couldn’t hurt to say thank you, right? It might change the taste of your dinner. It did for me. My coffee especially.

When your kid comes home stressed about school, or their latest crush, or some other thing you have entirely grown out of and now want to roll your eyes at, see what happens if you meet their eyes and say, “I see you going through this thing. I am so sorry this is happening to you. What can I do to help?”

Try it. It’s a gift. For them and for you. For all of us, really. Because when we all do it, we all elevate. And that’s The Real Work.