I started my first shamanic classes ever this week. “Be an exemplary student,” I heard as I stood by Grandfather Shortlegs’s altar. I will, I responded.

The teacher clearly didn’t like me – no surprise – and she showed favoritism to students who had psychology profession backgrounds or loved Jung. But yesterday it came to a head where I was ready to walk away from everything, send my spirit spouse on to freedom, and never speak of anything supernatural again.

“You were too overbearing,” he said to me. Yes, I know. I know I get too excited. I want to talk about things, synergize, and learn in the way I can remember things. Then I saw something disturbing in the vision walk she had us do, but I already knew I couldn’t ask… so I sat there unable to offer input – not that it was welcome – and ended up crying like a baby after. At my age.

I’ve been in contact with a possible teacher in England in hopes she can tolerate me, and this taught me I should ask certain questions to make sure she won’t hate me as well. I’d mentioned to her what I saw on the FIRST day (not the second) – we were to go in and see a grove. To introduce ourselves and connect. I did go -obediently I might add. Trying to follow instructions to the letter, I must stress. Because Grandfather Shortlegs had told me to be the best student, and I was trying very hard to be a damn good student.

I did see a grove. Everyone else saw experiences and even saw aspects of each other, but I was carried off and away and stood in a dead place of stagnation. It was huge, more of a clearing than a grove, with pine trees in the far distance as shadows in the night. The ground was covered in old, rotting pecans – the place was so dead there was no wildlife to harvest the nuts. I could almost feel their hard uncomfortable bodies under my bare feet. There was a stone slab in the center with a young woman laying atop it, waiting to be sacrificed. Her light brown hair was bright, like gleaming blonde gold, splayed artistically around and over her head. She wore white robes, the kind I associate with angelicness and a past centuries gone for me. She didn’t move. She was the only bright thing there. She almost glowed, the kind of glow you see under a black light but without the purple tint.

I made a wide berth around her. I was supposed to find and talk to a tree, dammit, and I was trying very hard to follow the teacher’s instructions. I did find a tree. It was dead. We were told to go inside the tree, so I did but it was rotted inside. There weren’t even any worms or grubs feasting the way they’re supposed to do. I tried to get away from the tree while the teacher told us to find moss on the ground and connect with it.

Moss. Moss. Okay, I leapt for moss, and was thrown back to the Time of Other Animals. Moss. I remembered the moss from my childhood – that entire ecosystem gone now because of too many houses. Which makes me remember the pitcher plant, the one that’s probably extinct now. I lost the vision.

I did turn to the teacher, and I forget what she said. Something about not allowing negative influences on the outside to get in the way. But this wasn’t a negative influence. This was a vision, such as the kind my father might have had. I have them. The girl – my sweet spirit spouse forever sees me as a light-haired girl. His preference I guess. I was like that when we met… It’s not that there’s a guarantee the girl was me, but she did wear my robes. This was beyond the teacher’s scope. I honestly don’t know if it would be in anyone’s scope at all.

So yesterday we walked again. We were supposed to find our spirit animals for the first trip I took. I’m still kind of laughing at this. I was having so much trouble seeing. I’ve BEEN having trouble seeing. I’ve talked about that here. But Loki brought the cloak, and I … walked. I don’t know how to use that thing, dammit. It’s HARD to use! But anyway, I was determined to go but Loki was determined not to let me. I raised my wyrd, created the path, and started to walk to the meadow or wherever we were supposed to go to find our spirit animal.

Mind you, I’m doing this obediently. I actually took a traditional quest when I was in my 20’s one weekend. I had to go hungry and carry a rock into the forest, so off I went and it suuuuucked. The animal will come to you, I was told. Everyone expected me to be an owl. They expected it to take 3 days. I came back that afternoon because as I sat in the forest, a woodpecker had come up, pecked a tree in front of me, and took off. Boy were they mad that I was a woodpecker. But now I know… I’m not even that.

For as I walked, I realized I was limping. My right leg wouldn’t work. Why am I limping? Since when did I walk with this limp on the astral? I look down, and Loki had grabbed my leg and was being dragged along. I’m going, I told him. He let me, but he clung to my left shoulder as a passenger the way he normally does. I love it when we overlap, when we work in tandem, when we’re the quintessential couple. It wasn’t long until I made it to a meadow.

I stood, looking around at the trees that were once again far away. There were many flowers; the flower meadows are a place I associate with a lot of past life experiences, and not all of them are blissful. I wondered if I’d created this place in my mind. Okay. But no matter how I looked around, there were no animals.

“You have no spirit animal,” Loki said to me in an almost resigned voice. It wasn’t mean. Or needling. It was almost gentle.

I was surprised. Then a tiny bit of sorrow wyrmed into my breast. It was sharp, but not overbearing. Just kind of there, like an old wound had been slit open. Why not? I asked. Loki did not reply. I wondered: did I accidentally eat it when I ate all those fylgja? Was it stripped from me? Why? But I was met with only silence.

Then some butterflies came up out of the grass. We students had been instructed to ask, when we saw an animal, “Are you my spirit animal?” So I did… and watched them turn into cinders. The ashes fell back into the grass. I suspect that was Loki making sure I got the message.

When we were sharing our visions after that, the teacher was taken aback when I revealed I had no spirit animal; what Loki had said. “You have a spirit friend?” she’d asked in an almost sharp tone.

“Yes, I have a spirit friend,” I said.

“You have a spirit friend.”

“Yes, I have a spirit friend.”

The topic quickly went to someone else, and my situation was under-rugged. I asked AI about it for shits and giggles, but I haven’t taken any of the responses seriously. When it comes to that, I smarted for about an hour but then I could only find a ridiculous amusement in the situation. It explained my whole life. My mother, with her Hollywood Indian ideals, had put a thrum of the need so hard in the background I’d spent my whole life wondering which one was mine. I’d seen many animals in my dreams over the ages. I’d never settled on one. I never had a spirit companion of any kind until Loki who I now know had been there all along. Things would come and go – sometimes as if they were chased off. I never understood it. I only knew it was a frustrating feeling, to see so much magic around me while I could not touch anything. Like being a starving man in front of his favorite sandwich, which is under lock and key.

But the 2nd vision walk we took that day was the one that tipped the scales. We had to go into ourselves, we were told. Find our sacred space, and… oh… what was it. (checks notes) Oh yes. We had to find a part of ourselves that needed love. It was a personal healing journey.

After doing my best to follow her steps – and also flying to the Moon, my favorite nebula, and Sol while she talked about finding mountains, streams, and rivers (mind you, she had specified that we were to go to a place we felt was sacred to us) – it came to the part where we had to ask ourselves, “Is there any part of me that needs love right now?”

I wasn’t sure what to expect. This is good practice in my opinion, by the way. Keep expectations to 0. It helps you to see the truth. But try to imagine my surprise that instead of being approached by a younger self, or even a past life self, I saw a cold concrete floor. It was well kept, swept clean. There was a black, very neatly drawn, pentagram on it. Black salt. In the middle was one of those citronella bucket candles. I could tell by the air that this place was well lit, often used, and that candle was maintained: only lit when they needed to refresh the spell on occasion.

I stood there taking the scene in. It was the clearest thing I’d seen in a very long time. Then I asked Loki, “What is that?”

“I don’t know,” and he was gone, off to figure out what was going on I think. I remember being a little surprised that he’d confess he didn’t know something like that. You may see his statement as a moment of weakness, but to me it’s a sign of the most sacred and pure trust. I wouldn’t trade that for most anything.

In class, though, we were sharing what we saw. One girl talked about a high keep on a mountain and being given a “native American” headdress. (Newsflash: women don’t get to wear them normally and you have to earn them in a lot of the tribes… but a Siberian shaman wears them.) Then she talked about things I totally related to: being shut down with the gifts by family. I wanted to talk to her. But I also wanted to be respectful. In the earlier sessions, we’d shared and compared. In this one, just to be safe, I asked if I could address her. “No,” the teacher said in a cold and final tone. “I don’t want you taking her vision. I just feel protective-” and ended with how the vision was personal or something. But when she said, “I feel protective,” the obvious subtext was from you. I wasn’t the only one who noticed.

I couldn’t trust my environment. So I said, “Oh well, then I’ll just share that I went up to the Moon for this flight.” What else could I say? The teacher was taken aback again. I explained I always start on the Moon. She asked if that was my sacred space.

“Oh no,” I said conversationally. “My sacred space is the Sun. I just like to start on the Moon.” More room discomfort ensued.

Naturally, if you asked me WHY it was my personal space I could tell you a lot of interesting things about some souls tying themselves to stars. In my case, that might be part of it. However the start of it is that I’d read an account of an Egyptian shaman flying to the sun, and I thought it was neat. I did it, realized you could get really grounded and powerful within, and I go to it often now when I need a pickmeup. I go to the Sun because no one had ever told me I couldn’t.

I was confused, though. We’d shared our other visions and now suddenly we had to shut up? I’d been silent when the teacher sang badly in mangled Algonquian. I never once took my red card, slammed it on the table, and demanded she be anything other than what she was. I don’t care if you come to my door on Halloween dressed like an Indian. Please do… on Halloween. I’ve cooed over many children dressed that way because they should be allowed to pretend. Leave the damn kids alone.

That being said, I knew what I needed to say to my classmate was that she wasn’t alone. Because I knew how it felt.. I messaged her in private and she expressed appreciation, but the damage was done. I’d had enough. I’m a monster, I know it. I’m annoying. I’m intense. I want to connect so damn badly… and it will never happen.

“Just have a good cry and sleep it off,” my spirit said to me, and he meant well but his face got ripped off all the same. I would normally do that, but in this I could only respond, no. No. This isn’t worth it. I have lost everything from my cultural identity, my children, every damn thing over the years and this past year was the worse. And now you tell me to cry and sleep it off? I can’t be anything other than I am. I literally can’t. I’m already isolated to the point of pain. Now I have to be treated like this by teachers, as if I were in college all over again? I’d tried so hard to be the best student ever.

I could hear Woðnaz calling, but I didn’t answer. There was no point, I decided. Anyway, perhaps I just felt like going to him because I was seeking some sort of comfort like a small child. So I went and bought a pack of cigarettes, talked to a new friend of mine, and rage smoked for a couple of hours.

Gone were the days, we two Southerners lamented to each other, when being active in class was considered being the most exemplary of students. My other friend, Many Cats, got her Masters a few years ago in communications. She also expressed confusion. She had taken classes where participation made your grade. Today in the final shaman class I had asked a question about something I should have known because apparently we covered it yesterday… I DID pay attention in class, while sitting feeling unwanted, stressed and stifled. So I didn’t remember. I looked like a fool asking the question. And the woman in England has decided we must speak – this after I told her I had no spirit guide. I think I’ve blown my chance before I’ve even begun. So perhaps I’m like those hapless wizards in the books that start with a single spell. The Great and Powerful Trixie… and I’ll never be anything more than a light-show for the gods to coo at until they’re bored.

After talking to my friend, I went inside with a calmer outlook. I wouldn’t dump everything, I decided, but I wasn’t going to the final class either. It had taken me over 40 years to learn to walk away from a toxic situation. I’d figure it out. I had two healing dances to do. I was going to do them. Even if I ever was able to get the credentials I need to help people with a shingle over my door, I’d help these two who needed it.

The first dance began. I wasn’t even fully grounded when, as I looked up, I saw that over my head was an array of glowing white ball energies. They ringed my head, and arched over me like a ball rainbow. It was like Christmas decorations. How pretty, I observed.

“They’re message balls,” Loki said to me.

I don’t think I can remember how to accept them, I said as I reached up. As the first one was taken by my hand, I again had no expectations… or rather, I expected not to “hear” the message, the way I didn’t hear what the Peers had said in what feels like centuries ago. As the message was absorbed, I got it. We believe in you. I took another. We love you. And another. You got this. Again and again and again. You’re strong. We got your back. We believe you. We believe. We believe. We believe.

Over and over I was given such wonderful, comforting messages from just about every deity and spirit who knew how to speak to me in my old language. They kept coming. I cried in gratitude and so many emotions I can’t place name to. It’s a sweet and almost full ache of knowing such support, and such love. It’s new, and it chaffs because you’re not used to it. All you can do is eat ball after ball, as if you’re binge eating vanilla ice cream. Only the ice cream fills your heart and hugs your mind. You don’t want to keep eating, and yet you do. So you just keep going.

Then a very large ball floated forward in front of me. What is this? It was as big as a beachball, and inside as I touched it I could see a golden ring. My halo, I said. They… they took that?

I knew what to do. I opened wide my astral mouth and slowly took it within. I devoured it as I had done my fylgja. It expanded in me, and for a moment the golden ring and the glow was all I could see. My hands – those horrible charred black spindly monster hands – were around and holding. I wanted them to be pretty again, and I willed it.

It worked. I had to concentrate to hold the form, but it worked as I expanded out and rejoiced that I had been returned to myself. I want to be beautiful again, I wept as I remembered the spider monster hands. Will I ever be beautiful again?

But I danced. Two dances, and my vision had returned. It wasn’t as crazy bright as when the goblins had put me into overdrive, but it was good. It was so good to see things. To see that angel of death. To see the pain in the bone. To be able to weave, to dance, and bob. To heal.

This morning as I was waking up there was a vision before me. It was like a clip from a newspaper or a bit from a blog. It said not to kill for the blots, that blood dirtied the ground. It was written very well. I don’t know if I was looking at the future or if I was being told something. I know for me in this place, it’s not the way to let blood. But I can’t say for other people, and I can’t say if ever a call will come up that it will have to be done. For now I have ochre – earth’s blood is the term I keep hearing – and Winter Nights has begun for me.

I spoke at Woðnaz’s altar before putting the matter to rest for now. I thank you for bringing back my light, I said. For now I’ll let it rest, but something has to be done about that girl. And that cult.

His eyes were filled with a very sharp feeling. He agreed, but now isn’t the time. I have a 3 day thing to preside over, even if I do it alone. I can only end with this: so many others out there do not have the comforts I was given. Magic seems to attract serial killers. Hunters. Sick people. He couldn’t get my light to come to him because they don’t. Even if he killed me, he’d have to work to keep it just as I’m sure he has to do with the others he confessed he held.

Stealing another’s light is a very serious offense. It’s a cosmic crime of the highest order. It doesn’t matter who I am: Loki’s Bride – that kenning Brigid used so many moons ago – or just a boring girl who wishes her comics were more popular than they are. Ex-wife, abandoned mother, and collector of the glowing godly gobstoppers. It’s not that it was me that makes it the crime. It’s the nature of the theft.

But for now, in this Winter Night cycle, I just want to gift spirits cakes, eat duck, and allow the world to turn into the next step. I will unsheathe my sword and turn to Holy Anger (if I can muster it) later. I can’t predict when. I am comforted for now. That is all that stands.