Whirlwind Weekend ~ Part the Third: Full Circle

The morning after the cuddle party, I woke up on the couch, which had felt a bit more welcoming than my bed the night before. Tears were still coming, intermittently, but they actually felt good, washing away long overdue issues that had clung on long enough. I was still sad but with a sense of purpose. It was interesting to sit with the feelings, neither fighting them nor feeding them -- just allowing them.





I got my stuff together, and after stopping by my best friend's place for a short chat, headed up to Snohomish where another friend's Native American teacher was having a circle that afternoon. I was still in a weird place emotionally, but found myself, probably for the first time ever, realizing the importance of staying with my feelings and not worrying about trying to change them, or bottle them up,for the sake of others. That was a freeing revelation! And, as it turns out, once I was around other friends, my spirits naturally rebounded without artificially counteracting the previous feelings.





We began the circle, and the teacher began teaching us the Native ways, in between drumming and singing. I was fine through the whole thing, drumming and singing along, but then we started the talking circle. Most groups pass a talking stick to signify that the holder of the stick is the only one allowed to talk at that time. This teacher uses a talking bowl -- a beautiful ceramic (I think!) bowl filled with small stones from the ocean. As each person held the bowl and talked, they would sift their fingers through the sand-like content, and, in this way, the teacher told us, the Stone People were already healing whatever it was we were talking about.





Eventually the bowl made it around to me, and I echoed what a lot of people had already said, about feeling an acceleration of synchronicities and visions and stuff, telling the story of how I'd gotten my reindeer drum bag to illustrate my point. Then I started talking about the previous night, and the things I'd been experiencing in the last couple months -- The stuff being brought up by the Tuesday night talks I'd been going to; How I'd been examining things I never had before, and how healing yet uncomfortable it was. I talked about my feelings about touch and feeling like I was 12 again. And as I talked, and talked, and talked, the tears just flowed, unencumbered, down my cheeks. At one point I looked up at the teacher, sitting on the floor near-by, and saw such a tenderness in her eyes. Up to this point, although I held a deep respect and honor for her and everything she did and knew, I had always felt a wall of some sort between us, like I wasn't totally accepted. Now I felt this flow of compassion from her and it was such a relief, that it probably fueled a few more tears.





Later, when I told my friend about this, she told me that the teacher had probably been waiting to see who I really was -- to see if my mind and words matched what was in my heart. I smiled to think of the name I had been given at my vision quest: "Speaks His Heart". Apparently this had been demonstration enough for her, and I felt an acceptance I hadn't before. That in itself was well worth everything else I'd been through that weekend.





The teacher asked if I had heard any songs in my various shamanic journeys, and I answered no. My friend is a lodge singer and had told me how songs, sometimes just sounds and other times words in a Native tongue, would just come into her head. Being a songwriter myself I was in awe of this, and hadn't experienced anything like that before.





The circle continued, and as the teacher continued to speak, I started seeing words in my head. Not normal, sensical words, but I saw them spelled out and everything. "Hoom! A-hoom!" "That's weird," I thought. It continued, "Hoom! A-hoom!" And as I saw the words in my head I became aware of little heads popping part way out of the water. Just far enough that they could investigate who was there, and there was a 'hoom-a-hoom' sound as they breathed through their whiskers at the very surface of the water. "Walruses?" I thought. "No... Seals? No, not them either." Then I saw them lighten, almost smile, with a sense of "you're no threat!" And as they bobbed further out of the water, smoothly onto their backs, I heard them laughing, "Hee! Hee-hee! Heeya-hee!" before rolling in one fluid motion and diving beneath the water's surface again. Otters!


Slowly it dawned on me what had just happened. My heart began pounding as I realized I had just heard a song! I went back and forth in my brain, "I need to say something! No, I can't say anything! I've got to! No! Yes!" ...the whole time trying to pay attention to the lesson. Finally there was a slight pause in the teaching and I thought, "Fine!"


"Um... I think I just heard a song?" "Alright! Let's hear it!" Gulp! I pick up my drum, explaining that it was an otter song, then I close my eyes, and try to hear the song again, navigating it to my vocal chords.


"Hoom A-hoom! Hoom A-hoom! Hee! Hee-hee! Heeya-hee!" I sang the simple melody through a few times, accompanying myself on my drum, then, self-consciously not knowing how long to carry it on, abruptly stopped and opened my eyes. I found the others to just be opening their eyes as well. "Aw! I was just seeing them floating on their backs!" my friend says. "Really?" I ask. "Uh-huh!" "Cool!" I smiled.


The circle wound down, and we dispersed to enjoy a potluck dinner before further dispersing as everyone else left for home. Where as previously I had about a 50/50 chance of getting a hug from the teacher, she hugged me twice before she left. Nice.


I hung around my friend's house, and we talked until the 2nd shift, the Jyorei crew, arrived to give and receive energy healing. By this time I was pretty much a limp noodle. I had no more to give and no more resistance. It was like the calm, cleansing feeling after a storm has blown itself through. By the time everyone else left, it was really late and I ended up spending the night in my friend's guest room, being in no real condition to drive the hour or so home.


I was still processing everything the entire next day, my brain pretty much in neutral the whole time, and when finally I got home to my own bed I was feeling much improved. Still unsettled and confused on some level, but also with a strange sense of peace.

Hoom-a-hoom!