MSC 2023

Midwest Shamans Conference (MidwestShamansConference.com for more information) is always a moving experience for me. A group of healers, usually somewhere around 30 or 40 people, usually with around 7 to 10 elders, get together in a group and exchange information.

I want to be clear about that. Yes, the Elders teach classes, yes, students come to learn, but it’s not the typical expectation of “oh the elder has come down from the mountain to teach us and then return to his lonely home at the top of the mountain.” It is definitely not that. It is humans in a group who want the world and their community to be healthy and whole, who get together and teach each other how to do that via the spirit world if things are going on spiritually. The words “student” and “teacher” can sometimes be a little fuzzy at the conference because there is an awareness that a novice can see something important that has been missed, or that they can ask a question that casts a new light on a situation that hasn’t been considered before. More importantly, there is an awareness that the Elder will not always be around, and if this information is going to continue to travel in this world, the student will have to be the one to carry that information…so students are not “lesser” in any way.

I guess what I’m saying is the most important thing at the conference is not who is there. The most important thing is the message and information. There is a participation in carrying the message, of passing the baton….like an old-time house fire…parts of our world, literally AND figuratively, are burning, and there is a chain of buckets to get the water to the house. The most important thing is the water, not the people in the line. There is a service to be done. These are the people who show up.

(I feel like, as a side note, that metaphor is particularly apt. The Elders pass the buckets slowly and full, the students are in a rush to receive the information, so they splash and lose bits. The Elders teach to move slowly. The students are sometimes impatient and spill more than they carry. The Elders will say over and over to move slowly. The students will rush because its a fire. Sometime the buckets at the end of the line are empty because of the rushing. But the Elders will keep filling and passing them all the same.)

For me there is usually a theme (or two) that happen around the event. I’m a dichotomy of a person. I’m super science based, but I believe in magic. (“It’s not that science doesn’t have all the answers. It’s that we don’t have all the science,” and we will NEVER have all the science, because science is always asking questions and testing and learning and growing. I LOVE that we will never have all the science….but it’s still all science.) I am an organizer and I am logic-based, but some of this work is chaotic and instinct/emotion based. I am a teacher, but I am always, always, a student. I am here, alive now, but I am always, always, focused on the future and where I am headed. I make my choices aware that, as I make each choice, those choices define who I am as a person, so I try to choose carefully how I move forward in the world.

I have witchy notebooks that go back for decades. They track (in an organized fashion, of course) what I have done, what I have learned. Each class and date is blocked off from the notes for that class so that as I go back to research something (“I remember this thing I learned from Raven Kaldera….where is that information?”) I can rapidly just look for boxes and skip pages of text because I take many, many notes. Eventually those notes are transcribed digitally into my online notes (also organized by teacher, into one doc with dates and class names) so that I can hit CTRL+F and search for “cleansing” or “aura” or “stone” or “feather” or whatever it is that I’m looking for and find it quickly, wherever I am. I do this because my magic is practical and in usage, and my notes must function to be able to help me in my work. If I cannot find the things I need the notes are pointless.

This year, my witchy notebook had only one page left. I brought it just in case, but I decided not to use it, and would instead purchase a spiral notebook to take notes during the conference and transcribe them later, since that was part of my process anyway. (I find transcribing them not only helps me fill in the gaps of anything I forgot to write down, but it also cements the information into my brain so I don’t have to go back and use the notes as much as I would have to if I didn’t transcribe them.)

The conference is in Ohio, and for me that’s a minimum of a 6.5 hour drive, assuming I go non-stop with no bathroom breaks. People get together on Thursday, but it starts on Friday. So on Thursday, I wake up around 2am so I can be sure to be out the door by around 4am. This particular trip I was connecting with friends in NJ so we could commute together and leave from NJ by 6am. I do all that just fine and we start driving. We stop for food (we had a newcomer in our car caravan, so it gave us a chance to introduce and get to know each other) for gas, for bathroom breaks, and we arrive and check into our BnB by 4:30 pm, and then everyone (because I’ve told everyone about this) realizes I didn’t purchase a new notebook. We all forgot it (because we take care of each other) not just me. But hey, conference doesn’t officially start until the next day, so we can pick it up before breakfast.

I’m not going to go into the story because this is already long. I never got a new notebook, and this actually made me a little frantic. My memory is poor. I knew I was missing details. When something was particularly important I was taking notes on my phone. I haven’t looked at them yet, but I worry about how much is actually going to be coherent with spellcheck and typos.

I understood that this was meant to be a lesson, that I was meant to be IN THE MOMENT and not worry about the future. I also understand that my guides and ancestors have the information, and THEY will remind me in the middle of a working if I need a particular thing. Shit, they tell me things I never heard and teach me new things, what’s the difference between them teaching me a new thing in a healing and them reminding me of something I already know? They’re fine with it. I am not. And the lesson hits me now, right now, as I am typing this because this morning I told my ancestors I was going to be typing this and I would be listening for messages.

I had thought this was about me being in the moment. About learning to listen differently, maybe. They tell me NO, that’s not it at all.

*NOTE ADDED AFTER THE FACT: the below paragraph is me getting messages from my guides as I am typing. This is what it looks like in my head as I get messages. I’d love to hear from anyone else who gets messages if this is what it looks like to you, and if you don’t want to publicly talk about that, please send me a DM. Validation is always helpful.)*

They tell me that I live my life fearing that people want me to go away. That even if they love me and love my presence I am always looking for the signs that they do not want me there and I try to get out of the way before that happens. And they are sorry (fuck, even my mom is sorry? I can’t friggin deal with that, it’s great she wants forgiveness, but I am not ready to deal with that right now. She will have to wait until I know that’s a real message. I’ll be needing a medium to verify that because I don’t trust her, even in death) they are sorry this has happened to me but (fuck….the forgiveness isn’t for her, it’s for ME, to heal this damage so I can move forward in my healing work. Well THAT’s not something I was expecting) but I’m not just doing this to the living. I’m doing this to my ancestors and guides. (I’m WHAT? Fuck.) I’m so frantic about taking notes because I don’t want to be too much of a problem to them. I don’t want to lean so heavily on them that I become a chore and they wish I would go away. “The information is HERE,” they say, “WE are your book of shadows,” and of course they are. “You do not need those notes like you think you do.”

Yes. Yes, that is true. They have more knowledge than my BoS ever did or will. It’s like a punch to my heart that I extended that damage to the elders, guides, spirits, friends, and the community that means me the most well and the most healing. But I can’t deny that it’s true. No lies detected, as they say.

All the new folks at the conference thought I was one of the Elders. I’m at this kind of cusp maybe where experience and knowledge and age coincide to vibrate with that energy. I’m 58 now. I feel like that’s probably the right age to start looking the part as well, so I can see where that view happens. (WTF is happening to my chin and neck right now? Seriously, it was like a sudden shift in skin vitality or something.) It’s not the kind of title you can just grab. None of our respected positions are…anyone can call themselves a high priestess….but if no one comes to ritual but you, you are an HPS of one. Any title, any respect, can only be earned and conferred by community. I like things that way…it provides shielding from abusive elders which can be a problem in other communities. I have spent the last couple of years just accepting the place that has been given to me by my friends and community, and trying to understand what it means, what my obligations are (if any, yes there are some, but mostly obligations to myself) and accepting that being in a position of power or a position of respect does not mean that I am transformed in any way…I’m still me…I’m still a loving and kind person even if I am viewed as one particular thing or another by my community. It is a robe they place upon me kind of like vestments, it is not me or who I am. My core remains eternally me.

In order to better serve my community, I need to cast off this piece of myself…this “sooner or later everyone wants you to go away” piece….oh…correction….it has already been done. My ancestors had already addressed this piece and there was some minor housework that had to be done. Thank you Jase Peck for teaching that class on cords this weekend. There was some minor cleanup around that, but when I feel inside myself for the space where that feeling resided, it’s not there anymore.

I wonder how that will affect how I move in my world? This will be interesting. I’m still taking notes, though. I LIKE taking notes. Besides, how do I fill the bucket to pass to the next person if I don’t take notes? What happens when I’m gone? Someone will have to take my bucket.

It doesn’t matter who takes my place in line. What matters is the water. The house is on fire. We need to pass the buckets down the line.