Compass & Quill

It’s 6:45 a.m., and I’ve been awake for almost an hour. I recently decided to cut down on my caffeine consumption and attempt to get my circadian rhythm back on track. I’ve been waking up at six and puttering in the garden for twenty minutes or so to tell my body that it’s morning, then savoring a single cup of coffee. After that, no more caffeinated beverages.

Given that I typically drink three or four cups of coffee and a Diet Coke or two every day, this cutback is a monumental undertaking, and it shows. So far I’ve found that my brain shuts off at noon and I spend the rest of the day in a fog. I’m not tired, per se, but I can’t seem to string my thoughts together properly from midday on.

Despite (or maybe because of) the fog, I’ve been having some interesting thoughts and making strides toward something. I don’t really know what that something is, but guess we’ll see! I wanted to take a moment this morning to enjoy this single cup of coffee and jot down a few things for future me.

So a few months ago, I was emailing with a friend, and he remarked in passing that I was a shaman. He was speaking metaphorically, since I’m not a shaman (and could never be, for many reasons including cultural appropriation). However, the comment got lodged in my brain, and I mulled it over for a long time before beginning to Google things like, “what is shaman,” “history shaman,” “shaman practice,” “shaman medium,” etc. For the first time, it occurred to me that there was a different, much older, route to connecting with spirit. But what was it, really?

I can’t answer that question with any authority yet. However, as I wrote last month, I attended a three-day intro course to learn more about shamanic healing. I’ve also been reading books and listening to podcasts, and have scheduled two sessions with a shamanic healer to start working on myself while learning more about modern approaches to the world’s oldest ongoing spiritual practice.

This is going to sound like a break in process to you, but to me it’s all part of the same thing:

Last week, I went to Saks Fifth Ave. to drop off my boss’s Tumi suitcase for repairs. As I stood there in the luggage section, I found myself thinking, “I wish I had these things!” Instantly, the smarter part of my brain kicked in with, “But you don’t even like anything you see!” I looked again and realized that this latter thought was correct. Not a single beautiful (to me) item in view. The price tags said that these things had great worth, but in reality they came from the same sweatshops as any lower-priced item in Marshall’s or TJ Maxx. The inflated price points and presentation added perceived value for shoppers with money to burn, but it was still soulless garbage. And we’ve been programmed to believe that owning overpriced bullshit adds meaning to our lives, but you and I know that’s obviously not true.

Over the weekend, I watched a documentary on minimalism, and not only did it provide more context for my earlier mental moment at Saks, it sparked a feeling of recognition. I remembered what it felt like to pare down my backpack on the Camino de Santiago, realizing that most of the stuff inside was useless fluff that I didn’t actually need to survive. I also thought of St. Francis of Assisi’s insistence that members of the Franciscan Order own nothing at all in order to be closer to God. These memories meant something–I just didn’t know what yet.

I started looking around the house at all of my belongings. I’m not immune to the capitalist programming that if we just spend more money and own more shit, we’ll be happier. But my favorite place to do this is the thrift store. Most of my clothes are secondhand. My shelves are full of used books and castoff trinkets. I started to ask myself when the last time was that I used X thing, opened Y book, wore Z piece of clothing. Then I grabbed some boxes and bags and started relieving myself of this dead weight.

Last month, I also finally made the decision to sell off all of my metalworking tools and supplies. I don’t use them, and just the thought of them taking up half of my office felt like an energy drain somehow. I realized that holding on to all of these things that I might do keeps me distracted from the things that I must do. For me, that’s learning classical voice. If I’m going to progress, I need to be more intentional and singleminded. So the office must be cleared to make way for breath and sound.

Which brings me back to shamanic practice. (See, I told you!)

It’s clear to me now that this last year and a half of learning to breathe deeply and sing properly has been gradually creating a space for me to thrive spiritually. Vibration is all around us, both spiritually and scientifically speaking. Sound is vibration. Light is vibration. The way we perceive color, texture, and density is vibration. Is it any wonder that music touches us so deeply?

There was a time when I was convinced that each of us fits into the fabric of reality based on the music we, the instrument, make as we move through the world. I thought that perhaps if things weren’t going well for us in life, it was due to being out of tune, so to speak. This looked like a pull in the fabric of reality, like when you snag a woven object and that single thread being out of place warps the things around it. I thought that if I could just adjust my internal vibration a little, I’d be making the right sound and would thus naturally slide into the place meant for me. I have no clue where that concept came from. No one taught it to me. I didn’t read it anywhere. It was just a gut feeling. Now I don’t think that I was too far off. Vibration connects us. We are all part of the same thing.

I don’t see where I’m supposed to be yet in my life, and to be honest, that’s beyond frustrating. I still feel sad about missing out on the creature comforts I used to mindlessly indulge in–mani/pedis, massages, haircuts that aren’t from SuperCuts, a cute pair of shoes now and then. But I know those things are surface trappings (with all of the emphasis on trapping). Right now, all I know for sure is that to get to the core of me and start making some real progress, I need to peel off the extraneous layers. Right now that means shaking off the meaningless junk that’s filling my house and occupying valuable real estate in my brain, continuing to focus my attention on music and my garden, and beginning to work with a shamanic healer in order to get in tune.

I’m late for work, and this coffee has done nothing. Time to pound water and gtfo. Love you all. Take some deep breaths. It’s going to be OK.