I’m listening to a video with Sarah Ingerman, one of the more prominently known shamans¹ that helped bring shamanism back to the American western culture. She said, in essence, that it’s not what you do that changes the world. It’s who you become that changes the world.

It’s a deep statement which cuts right to the heart of my own rocky beginnings in this mess. It’s been nearly a year since I was thrust into this, and for much of it, I felt I was being pushed into becoming something I didn’t like. “Embrace the darkness,” a voice once told me in the middle of an attack. I kicked back hard. The thought of becoming something dark and unforgivable was not an acceptable outcome. My spirit family defended me that night in ways I still talk about with awe, but the message was clear: there were forces trying to shape me.

I later came to understand that to truly embrace the light, you must also embrace the darkness, especially when you walk the twilight path as I do. But not all pushes are for your own good. When I really began to fight back, I was told, “You’re going to love what you become.” Just the other day, my response was, “So far, I truly hate where I’m being pushed.”

That’s when things came to a head. I looked at the last six months and realized I hadn’t grown. I’d been degraded. And that was not the way it should be.

There’s a dangerous idea in some circles that “the gods are abusive, so suck it up.” This is wrong. The gods can be harsh trainers, yes. But if your path is degrading you the harder you try, it’s not a healthy path. As someone wiser than me said, we wouldn’t condone it from a husband or wife. We shouldn’t condone it from spirits, either.

My point is that I’ve been going through a lot of events as things that mean me well and others that do not have tried to shape what I become. They have been trying to change the world, after a fashion, although to what end is a mystery.

I suppose I should be flattered they were strong, and that there were more than one. I’m not, but I suppose I should be.

Ingerman’s statement, as wise as it is, feels incomplete. It’s like the phrase “a jack of all trades is a master of none,” which people use as an insult, not knowing the full quote: “…but often times better than a master of one.” The context changes everything.

The ending may be a goal, but you never stop changing and growing. In becoming a thing that changes the world, you must change as you are shaped by your experience. Often that means changing things as you go. Or in my case, simply taking things as they come and growing with each experience.

She’s right, though. To be a change in the world, you must become. You must be the change. The thing is, to be the change you have to walk a path that shapes you into it. As you walk, you may find the change you’re trying to be is the wrong solution, that the changes you want to put out there may bring about results and consequences you’re not prepared to live with.

My approach is this: I wish to make a difference through my actions, and each time I dance for a spirit that’s what I reach my hands to them for. I’m not worried about what I’m going to become unless the steps to get there feel wrong. I’m worried about what I am right now while also striving to be stronger and better at it in the future. I want to grow.

As I grow, changes will happen around me and to me. The world will change me just as much as I change it, until the day comes that I stand a tree and a change in the world – because the world changed while I changed, reaching for the heavens.

It’s a simple approach. But it’s mine.

1. I realize there are a number of you who would not have me say that word, or would water it down to “shaministic”. “Shaman” is the word I grew up saying. And she served a large community, which by some definitions would make her a shaman. Please go police someone else’s language. TYVM. ↩︎