The Role of the Ego

Shamanism and the path of light are both about service to others. A shaman works to assist others with their personal problems and healing. It is a path of love. Shamans raise the issue to make it visible in the spiritual world where spiritual helpers do all the work. As needed, key animals, angels, or assorted spiritual beings will appear to do the healing task.

Reiki is about becoming a clear channel for healing energy (rei-ki) to pass through to another. The reiki energy stimulates the body’s own natural healing ability. The reiki practitioner does not do healing, just provides the way for the person in need to gain access to the energy. The practitioner is simply a conduit for the energy.

Spiritual work is not about fame or glory. It is actually devoid of both. Successes do not result in boosts for the ego, especially because it is about the service to others, not the healer.

I don’t talk much about my healing work. I get strange looks. I don’t feel love when I do. Guys on the dock have asked, “What other weird stuff are you into?” and I am afraid to ask about what they might be asking or referring.  A boss teases me about doing voodoo.

 I work near a dock where men lift and move heavy things all day. Occasionally, one gets hurt but can’t afford to stay home. It is hard to watch a big strong guy dragging himself along in utter agony. I have been driven to offer to do reiki just to end their suffering. This results in an awkward explanation of what reiki is on my part and, “Huh? Don’t think so!” on their part.

Despite this, one guy let me try doing reiki.  He’d been tensing up so much that one shoulder looked higher than the other as he walked. I did reiki as he sat and he said he could not feel anything. Despite this, he relaxed. Suddenly, he sank into the chair as if comfortable. After fifteen minutes, he said he felt better.He started to get up to go.  Really, twenty to twentyfive minutes of reiki is not long enough to do much good, but he had been in pain. Said he, “Man I feel great. That muscle relaxer that I took an hour and a half ago must finally be kicking in.” 

Welcome and Hello

Money has the power to make change happen and to do wonderful things. It can buy wonderful things. Money can mean personal freedom. It does not add meaning or value to our lives. Only quality relationships can do that. It is hard to figure this out in America. (True freedom is a well-funded retirement and the chance to retire whenever we want. Start saving.).

I have searched for meaning for a while, never finding any quality answers. Working on college campuses, I have asked college students to define it. One 19 year old female told me that it was a struggle against mediocrity. I think that she was very wise. This blog represents my search for meaning and where it has led so far. I don’t have any answers but the journey is getting interesting.

Without meaning, we seek thrills and highs that are natural, artificial, risky or short lived. Riding a roller coaster is thrill seeking that we pay to enjoy. Engaging in an affair is a destructive form of thrill seeking that we should pay for dearly. Shopping beyond my spending limit has always been a form of a high for me for which I will be paying for a long time. Eating chocolate, junk food or sweets gives a sugar high. I like indulging in each one. (I’d be a chocoholic if I could afford Munson’s chocolate fulltime. I can’t.) Many of these behaviors are short-term distractions, which keep us from finding true meaning or planning for the future. I have shopped until I could not find the sweater I wanted in my clothing pile, and I did not get any happier. (Seeking highs and other forms of stimulation probably fuels the interest in the sensational in the news, the Internet and television.)

In my quest for meaning, distraction and mental stimulation, I have taken all kinds of interesting classes. I have taken painting, pottery, aerobics, sign language (can’t do it), Vietnamese (scared a small child when I tried to speak it), Italian, Italian cooking, German (in Germany, someone told me not to bother), jewelry making, psychic development (worst student in class), reiki, Irish history, any history and anything else that caught my fancy. I really want to take a class to make pastry and massage.

I took a yearlong course on light body or energy healing only to find out that I was actually studying shamanism. Being a lifelong graduate student, I was stunned and not necessarily pleased. I asked why the word, “shamanism” was not in the brochure as I had read it (once a geek, always a geek). I was told that it was implied.

Shamanism is not a word I fully understood then. It is not a term I would ever use to describe myself. I have not told family about it yet. I am in the psychic, shaman closet with co-workers, academic friends, most friends and acquaintances. Doing reiki is a little out there for many people, so talking about shamanism seems foolish. This is a spiritual test for me. 

Smart people do not believe in psychics, fairies or anything that can’t be touched, verified or quantified. Crazy people do. In a statistics class, I once asked if two tarot card readers turned over 8 of 10 of the same cards, wouldn’t that be an inter-rater reliability of .80 or 80%? I was told that good graduate students do not believe in psychics or card players.

How could I have backed into a course on shamanism? Why did this happen? How does Shamanism really work? I have more questions than answers. In truth, the weekend workshops featured the Medicine Wheel of the Q’ero of Peru and they were fascinating. My teacher led us on meditations where we met spiritual figures, our ancestors and ourselves in the future. These meditations were way more fascinating than anything I have ever read, seen on TV or in movies. They were also more useful; my Italian grandfather told me to get rid of all the stuff (“all that shit”) I have in storage that I am paying to store.

Since then, when I meet people and they tell me about a health problem, I see pictures. I assume I see what the problem looks like in the spiritual realm. What do the pictures mean? What am I supposed to do with the information? Should I offer to help? Can I help?

Would you risk looking crazy to help another?

How do problems in the spiritual realm manifest in the physical realm? I am only a student of shamanism, can I really make a difference?

In 2003, I saw a deer that my dog did not notice. The deer turned to look at me from what looked like ten feet away. He was my call to a spiritual path. This is my journey. 

PS. I believe in fairies. They keep my garden and houseplants alive.