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MSC 2024

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Thoughts on MSC 2024

I am always transformed in some way by MSC.

You’ve probably seen my annual posts about Midwest Shamans Conference. In public, (meaning on my wall here) I only really talk about it once a year, and usually that is after I have come back. That is on purpose…there is so much energy at this conference and it really evolves you in your healing practice at a much faster rate than normal. That means that, if you’re not prepared for that energy you can be overwhelmed or really jarred. I will only bring one new person with me at a time because a part of my energy is spent in helping that person process. There is just A LOT to process, your own abilities, new knowledge, the way you move in the world, new points of view, additional skillsets, deeper thought…sometimes that stuff is so jarring people shut down, and if I am bringing someone I love (and if I’m bringing them, I love them, because I’m not camping or rooming with people I do not intimately love and trust) I try to make sure they aren’t freaking out or anything. There’s usually at least one meltdown per newcomer, so there’s a little triage happening in my corner of the world, and I need to be able to do MY learning, too. Lots of classes, workshops, elders to get advice from, elders to just catch up with because I miss them, elders to tell how much their words have meant to me and how they changed my life this past year. I can’t fit more than one new person into that every year and still get my own work done. So usually the new person is one of my students that I feel is ready.

There were a lot of newcomers this year. I mean…A LOT of newcomers…we were actually about 50/50 on veterans vs. newcomers. That is huge. There’s usually about a 75/25 ratio, or even less. They weren’t MY newcomers, so I wasn’t responsible in the same way, but you know, you want to make people welcome, make sure they are okay. There’s also kind of a maintenance thing happening there…let me see you here, before this all starts so that when I see you later I have a gauge for if you are your normal self or need some help. I don’t know if everyone else does that, I know that I do.

I also check for huggers, cuz y’know me, and that’s a good energy gauge, too. How do they feel? Are they open? Are they TOO open? Do they love themselves? Love the world? Are they fearful? Intimidated? Sometimes people just need a friendly face to feel anchored and safe at a gathering. There were no really fearful people that I saw this year. There were some closed off folks, which is fine, but no one came completely closed, and all of them in their various stages of growth and work were pretty loving people, so that was neat. It meant a really good vibe for the conference, and kind of a camaraderie as the classes came through that was just SWEET, I mean, yes, in the emotional sense, but what I mean is in the honey and sugar sense…there was this sweetness in the vibe that felt like a nice dessert.

It was my first time really teaching this year. I taught once before as a fill-in for a cancellation, but it was last minute and only one person came that wasn’t from the group that came with me so I didn’t feel like it was a real test of my skills at all. My teaching slot was the first morning slot on Sunday.

At a gaming con, that is the WORST slot. Most people are exhausted, are packing up their rooms, and many of them skip the first Sunday slot, so I was wondering how many people would turn up. I mean, it was fine either way, my ego is not tied into how many people attend…I have a job to disseminate information, and I will do that job regardless of who turns up. I figured if people were meant to be there, they would be there. I also did NOT canvas for my class or even mention (except to Erin because I thought she could use it, and also because she gave me an amazing gift of this anti-itch crème that she had made herself that REALLY REALLY WORKS. Its amazing! Thank you Erin!) to anyone that I was going to have a class. I figured, they had a program booklet. They would find me if they were supposed to. (And also, if a person turns up at a gaming con for that slot, they REALLY WANT TO BE THERE, so there’s always that comfort as well.)

My class was in the Barn, a place where people converge to hang out with food, or shop, or whatever. I walked in and there were so many people I figured they didn’t know class was about to start. “Are all you guys here for my class?” “Yes.” Holy crap. I had about twenty people, maybe even more.

Okay. Welcome to my TED talk.

I had made myself some outline notes so I wouldn’t skip anything. I digressed a lot, but all of my digressions had points. If you’ve ever seen me do public speaking (Hi LARPers!) you know that I pretty much talk just like I normally talk to one person, I just try to make sure I make eye contact with some folks as I do it. I had the benefit of a small area to pace back and forth, which gave me the ability to get out some energy as I was speaking, and also look to see if I was reaching people, and answer questions as they came along.

It was nice in those moments to be able to practice what I preach…to have a question where I had to stop and ask my guides how much I should say, or what pieces of information I was missing. There was one point in the beginning where I said my prayers for all of the guides and all the things, and then someone came in late, so I kind of added them in, and I think when the next latecomer came in I was like, “I’d like to just include all latecomers in this prayer because I can’t stop every time this happens,” and my guides said that was fine. Astraea popped in later in the class and it was nice to have her as backup for further information. Darryl and Jessica were there too, and I should have leaned on them a bit more often. I feel now like they would have had additional commentary or story that would have fleshed some things out more. It takes a village as they say.

I made some new friends, which is always nice and exchanged some numbers with people. People kept saying, “You are so funny!” and I was like, “Why do people always say that?” I’m never really TRYING to be funny, it just kind of happens, and I get so focused on the message that I don’t really notice that people think I’m funny until they tell me. I never feel laughed AT or anything…I just genuinely don’t know what was funny and it’s kind of like I missed a joke that I myself told, lol. (Which ironically, I feel is really funny.) People said it’s my delivery. I feel like maybe it happens because I love myself and I admit my mistakes or my confusion without embarrassment and maybe we all just identify with that, and that makes it funny. There’s this kind of universal experience in the shamanic world where our head kind of spins around for a moment going, “WTF was THAT?” and we have to digest it. It’s funny because it’s true.

The important piece, though, is that people were taking notes, writing things down, taking that home with them. To see that something I said (and I don’t get caught up in what those things are so I don’t really know, I just keep talking so I don’t lose the flow or derail my train of thought) so resonates with people that they all suddenly start writing…that is what is supposed to happen. At the end I asked my guides if I had missed anything and they said no. Then they said I did a good job and they were very proud of me and I felt this wave of love from them and I almost burst into tears at the end. It was this very palpable love burst. I have the best ancestors and guides, they are so good to me.

Afterwards several people came to speak to me about it (hence the, “you are so FUNNY,” comment from earlier because I heard that more than once) but some of the connections were deep and I’ve already been on the phone with a couple of them (and more calls coming today). It’s nice to see people rooting into The Work. It’s sad to have to tell them that there are no shortcuts, that it is rewarding work, but there are no shortcuts, not if you want the results you are looking for.

Some people said, “I didn’t know you were an Elder,” and I was like, “So that’s kind of a funky word. To my knowledge we don’t have a croning or elderhood ceremony. I’m not sure if the people I call Elders would call me that yet. I’m kind of at this in-between stage because I’ll be 60 next year. But there’s a book that’s good to read about it. The word means different things to different people, but I’m not caught up in the title, so you can call me that if you like, or not. I just don’t want to claim a title that might not belong to me or pretend to have a status I do not have,” and I told them about Joy’s and Lillith’s book and about some important bits in it. (Amazon Link here: https://www.amazon.com/Heart-Elder-Elders-Their-Influence/dp/1912241048 ).

Most importantly I told them that when you come to MSC it feels joyful. You have finally found a place where you can talk about all the things that are happening to you and not be told you’re crazy, and that is energetic and fantastic, and you just want to get it all out, to share it all because you have no place else to put it. “And I get that, I really do because we all go through it. But what you really came here to do is LEARN. And you cannot learn and speak at the same time. If you interrupt an elder when they are speaking, they may stop, and then whatever piece of knowledge they were about to give you it is GONE. Poof. In the wind. We don’t know how long we will have our elders, and when they pass, all the knowledge that they have will also pass. If you don’t want to lose that opportunity, you need to listen to them more than you speak, no matter how joyful those words are, no matter how happy you are to finally be heard…if they are speaking, don’t interrupt, just listen.”

It’s super tough to do. I mean, I’m sure I probably do it all the time. But certainly a lot less than I used to. One of the things I have really loved about learning from Joy is the respect for the pause in things. Taking time to chew on words before you speak them. That the silence before speaking is respect, respect for you, for your time, for your question, because the question requires thought, it deserves thought, and that pause is so that you can mean what you say when you speak. It’s a beautiful thing.

I guess my transformational piece this year is the confirmation that my ego is not really caught up in this work. I suspected that because I was working towards it, but to see for myself and FEEL that I’m not caught up in whether or not I’m an elder, or even whether or not I am teaching, whether or not people come to my class, that I’m just looking to deliver whatever message Spirit feels I need to be giving at that time, that’s lovely. To see it well received and valued is even lovelier. I feel like I am where I am meant to be at this time, and that, also, is lovely.

Life is good, and I am content.

Thank you Joy, for allowing me to teach at your event. The event itself is a blessing. To be allowed to contribute even more so.

MSC 2023

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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.