Yesterday Morning's Thought

[qos]

A significant portion of my spiritual practice involves shamanism, which means that on a fairly regular basis I have meaningful conversations with beings who most people don't believe exist.


This has been true for quite some time, of course, but it was a particularly intense awareness yesterday. People would ask about my weekend and I wanted to reply, "I have a white cobra coming out of the top of my head."

But even I, who try to be 'out' about my spirituality as often as possible, am not quite willing to say that to most of the people at work. Especially not in the context of what is supposed to be innocuous water cooler chat.

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[a-belletrist.livejournal.com]

It must have been a day for that ...

Yesterday we had an incident with a spider in a co-worker's office. She screamed, someone else smashed the poor thing, and I came in and demanded, "Why didn't you just ask it to leave?!" Then I bit my lip.

The sea of faces that looked at me in astonishment was a little overwhelming. Then someone (the dreaded co-worker, in fact) said, with complete respect, "Oh, yeah, Kath's a shaman." And that was that. :: blink blink ::

I didn't have the heart to correct them (I don't see myself as a shaman) ... and I'll take what acceptance I can from my co-workers. I was surprised that it was the dreaded co-worker who had no issues with the woo-woo thing. They all promised to call me the next time a critter gets in (spiders, mice, the occasional bird).

This is why uncrowned_king's post yesterday made me smile so much.

Then, right after that, in another part of the office, another dreaded co-worker (I only have the two) saw a charm that I tend to wear more often than not, and asked what it was. It's a charm of a running wolf that I've had for ten years now ... the wolf is one of my protectors, and it's nice to have the symbol for her to remind me of what she is, that she's always around, and what I am.

"A wolf," I replied.

"Why a wolf?" she asked.

"Um." :: sigh :: "It's one of my totem animals ... a guide of sorts."

"Oh, that's cool." And that was it for her.

I think I'll have to stop calling both of them "dreaded". I think I will also have to rethink my ideas of how the larger world sees me. It seems as if they've caught on to who and what I am long before I was willing to say anything about it. Even though I try to just 'be' who I am all the time, it's one thing to 'be' and another thing to wear it on your sleeve.

[oakmouse]

*g* I had one of those moments with a coworker. Not just any coworker,the boss' daughter. :-p I came back from Pantheacon with a necklace of bronze oak leaves and acorns, and I wore it in to work. B looked at it and said, "Wow, that's pretty. Does it mean something?" I was still so immersed in P-con energy that I unthinkingly responded, "Yes, it's a votive necklace for Pan. He's one of my patron deities."

She just stared at me for about thirty seconds, then said, "Oh. Well, that's nice. It's really pretty." Then she started talking about something work-related. I was scared to death for days that the episode might prove problematic but it never did. B is cool enough (even though clueless about paganism) that she decided it was probably all OK. Which is good since we shared an office!

(It's probably as well I never told her that the wallpaper on my desktop was a photo of my priest back when he was alive, though. That would have been way over the top. *g*)

[qos.livejournal.com]

Those are great stories. Not only is it neat to read about your difficult co-workers being so cool about this area of your life, I am reminded about my own struggles to resist labeling Miss V and reinforcing the negative energy I had with her.

Reading your spider story also reminds me that I need to set out a Girl Scout cookie and some vodka for my house spirit. uncrowned_king was a bit surprised that he'd allowed a spiritually aware spider to remain in the house. My response was that either the spider was friendly and very good at eating bugs, or he [the house spirit] was feeling miffed about the state of the house and the lack of attention he was getting and was on strike until the situation improved. . .