Tag Archives: Spirit

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.

Healing and Echoes and Strings (oh my)

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So this place where I am now….I’ve been thinking a lot about emotion. I’m gonna get witchy here for a few moments. If you don’t believe in that stuff, that’s fine, the belief isn’t important for the concept. I’m going to connect some seemingly unconnected dots.

Let’s start in the real world. If you are in a room full of string instruments, and you play a note, say an A, then every instrument in that room that has a string tuned to an A will start vibrating. Or rather, their A string will start vibrating. All of them. Even if that string is tuned to a different octave of A, they’ll all vibrate. Science shows us this, and it has to do with sound wavelengths.

I’ve always found this an interesting metaphor, because when we go out and show our weirdness, other people with the same weirdness vibrate too. Shit, have you FELT the energy around any kind of convention that addresses your particular weirdness? Steampunk, Anime, Gaming, Comics, Movies, Disney, …fuck even let’s say Antique Cars, or Yard Sales. There’s this kind of energy that happens when you love those things and you talk to someone else who loves those things. (Especially when you talk about WHY you love those things. That turns up the volume somehow, I’m not sure why.)

= = =

In the Non-Ordinary Worlds there’s a lot of things that can affect the power of someone’s magic. How much you believe in yourself, love yourself for example, can absolutely effect things…but your emotional state at the time of the work absolutely affects things in an extreme way. If you are angry, or frightened or worried or scared, or in need, those feelings have this kind of vibrational level that amp things up somehow.

I heard two of my Elders speaking a couple of years ago (I will quote you if I am allowed to, you know who you are, but without your permission I will not) and one said something that stuck in my head and sent me on a meditation journey that lasted several years. She was talking about a candle, a small candle like a tea light, and she said, “It’s as big as the Heart of the Sun.”

I felt like that was truly important…and originally when I thought about it I kind of felt like it meant that every flame, no matter where it is or how small, has the desire to become as big as it can, that they all have the potential for growth and the desire to consume, and later I came to realize it’s not that at all.

I mean, that’s true…but it’s not that at all.

What it really is is that every fire in the world, in ALL the worlds, started somewhere as a spark, and every spark kind of has the memory of what it is to be that huge. Not all of them WANT to be that big, but they all REMEMBER it, it’s kind of in their DNA, and they can, if they want to or need to, expand in the Non-Ordinary realms, to be bonfire huge, or planet huge. And it’s not difficult to do, or even a stretch, because it’s part of the essence of what they are. Fire burns. That’s what it does. When you look at the SPIRIT of fire, it doesn’t matter how small the fire is…the spirit of it, the energy of it, is this twisty, dancing burning thing of light and heat. It is always that thing. It is never not that thing.

I started thinking about other elements then. Does every drop of water remember the ocean? Does every grain of sand remember the planet? Does every breath or whisper remember the Hurricane?

Yes, yes, yes.

“Okay. Great,” I said to myself. But what does it mean? It feels very important…And it has something to do with those strings echoing in a room…how does it connect?

= = =

People say, “Think globally, act locally.” There’s validity to that. Healing the planet (and the planet, not just the greenhouse gases and climate change, but the animals on it, including us, we need healing) is such a huge job that individuals can’t do it. But if all of us heal our little circle of people, eventually that ripples out to the planet. Eventually things get fixed. There are too many humans that are shitty to other humans, and that means everyone from racists and transphobes to bullies that make our children want to hurt themselves. How can we fix that? Is that even possible?

…It would be faster if I could make it echo. How do I do that?

= = = =

It made me start asking myself, what is the smallest unit of a human being? I don’t mean zygotes or DNA, I mean the common thinking feeling denominator of being human? I spent months and months on this question trying to figure it out, knowing that it was important and not really being sure WHY it was important, but it was.

And then finally, one day, it hit me. Our common denominators are all emotions…fear, weakness, joy, love, laughter, pain…all of us feel those things. That is important…but why? Why is that important? It was driving me in this weird way, knowing that there was something important there but not understanding what it was.

= = = = =

In the Otherworlds, emotion is practically currency….I mean, you can’t buy things with it, there aren’t things to buy in the same way, but everything you do, every person or thing you talk to, all the discussions are steered by your emotional state. If you are a kind and loving person, you have kind and loving interactions. If you have done your shadow work, the interactions are stable. If you have not…well…chaos can ensue. It doesn’t always, but its not unusual.

= = = =

There’s this roleplaying game called Wraith where your in-game powers are driven by Pathos, the more emotional something is, the more you can power it and drive it. Rage filled ghosts can do extreme things like possess people or become poltergeists.

= = = =

Emotion vs. Passion. Emotion is the thing you feel. Passion the amplitude at which you feel. You can love someone (emotion) or you can LOVE someone so much that you will jump in front of a bullet (passion).

Passion is the depths and heights of the sine wave of whatever you feel. It’s not what you feel. It’s how much bandwidth the signal requires. What you feel is how long the wave is from left to right. Your passion is how tall the wave is from top to bottom.

What you feel is the note. Passion is the volume.

= = = =

Heal the world. Heal yourself. Emotions are the common denominator. Two strings vibrating. The heart of the candle, the heart of the sun, the drop of water, the breadth of the ocean, magic answers need, be your weirdness, there is too much hate here, echoing strings, the weakness of infants, emotions have power.

BAM.

= = = =

Every human knows what it is like to be weak. To be helpless. To have to depend on other people for light, for love. Every human somewhere remembers in the same way the candle does what it is to be whole. Independent, Loving, Complete. Everyone craves it (possibly the candle craves it too, to be one with its source….that will require more thought) craves wholeness.

I have been struggling my whole life for this. Originally because I thought I was having children and I didn’t want to do to them what was done to me. It was important that I heal so that I didn’t do more damage. I damaged people who loved me because I was so broken I couldn’t believe that they loved me, even when they did. I told them they didn’t and they just didn’t know…they THOUGHT they loved me, but they didn’t.

(Gods help me, I gaslighted people and not even on purpose. I was just so lost, I assumed that anyone who loved me was also lost. I am so sorry. So very sorry. And I still love.)

But my healing…it has a resonance. And there are so many people like me, who have gone through the same things, who are also trying to heal.

These fears, these pains, they are the common denominator for all of us. By putting them out there, you resonate too, because you feel those things, you know them.

= = = =

Which means as I heal, if you can imagine those things, you can resonate and change too.

I am going to say that again because it’s really important.

As I heal, if you can imagine those things, you can resonate and change too.

= = = =

It’s just the string echoing. It’s not something you have to DO, it’s something you have to LET HAPPEN. Don’t over think it.

Just Be.

= = = = =

Keep reading these posts, these notes. They’re also on my website going back for several years because I moved them over when FB lost the Notes feature. The writings go back as far as 2009, but you would probably do best starting here and moving forward. This is where the note starts sounding, and where the healing starts. http://brujahquemando.com/wordpress/?m=201412

Just read them, and feel them, and just be. Sit with the thoughts, don’t rush to the next one. Let them perk in your brain and just THINK them and FEEL them. Especially FEEL them.

All this healing may be easier than you think. I mean, that’s the hope.

But what have you got to lose?