Don’t Stay in the Between

This was a favorite saying of my teacher, and for the longest time I didn’t know what he meant. “Don’t stay in the Between,” he’d say, and I could hear the capital B. I knew I was indecisive, but my modis operandi at the time was similar to the Three Frogs parable. That is: Three frogs are sitting on a log and one decides to jump off. How many frogs are left on the log? Three. Because making a decision is not the same thing as acting upon it. My teacher would look at me and say, “Don’t stay in the Between. You can go there for a little while on your way to somewhere else, but don’t stay in the Between.”

When using spiritual power, wavering can have some really negative consequences, the least of which is you don’t get what you were aiming for. Worse is creating the opposite of your intentions in the first place. And if you want to lock horns with real power, you better be able to make a stand, and a firm stand, no matter what. Your opponent is always looking for a waver or a wobble because that’s a weak point. And the weak point can spell your doom.

I remember a time when I was driving in Wyoming with my then fiancé. It was twilight, and we were on the backroads of a national forrest. As we came over a rise, there in front of us was a herd of deer. The herd scattered to either side of the road, except for one fawn who couldn’t decide which side to cross to. It kept turning in circles, and I could see the panic in its movements: “Do I go left? Do I go right? Wait, left? Or right? Or…” And as a result, it remained in the middle of the road, in danger from my oncoming vehicle.

We stopped, of course, and the herd was able to rejoin as a unit and proceed. The lesson was as clear as day: Don’t Stay in the Between. Of course it’s difficult to know which side is better, but that doesn’t matter nearly as much as following through to one side and forsaking the other, come what may. Indecision can be paralyzing! As my father likes to say: “Panic in one direction!”

When conducting spiritual rites, it is important to do so with conviction. We Remember Our Intentions. We choose our actions and do not waver in our decisions. When we call quarters, when we draw the circle, when we give our prayers up to the divine, we do so in incomplete knowledge. We act in faith. If our faith is weak, our actions are weak. When we act in the conviction of our faith, we can safely cross through the Between to the safety on the other side.

When we learn precision, it can be fun to skate on that razor’s edge, perfectly balanced Between. When I asked my teacher why it was wrong to stay in the Between, he replied, “You can get stuck there.”

It reminded me of the Yule Rit when I couldn’t remember which way to breathe, and in that moment, I realized I could hold the ceremony here in this moment. I had all the power in that moment, and I could have derailed the rit. But there was a tug from the back of my mind that said, “Just choose and go! Don’t stop! Keep it going!” So I chose and lept forward.

I thought about the fawn, trapped in the middle, and wondered what it would be like to be run over by a ritual… I shuddered, and was happy I had followed my teachers advice before I knew it.

Don’t Stay in The Between.

Remember Your Intentions

There are many parts of my questioning and lessons that I just don’t remember. Like a dream, I would gain the wisdom and understanding only to have the details become fuzzy, and the words forgotten. He made sure it was that way. There was even a time I tried to bring a tape recorder, and when I listened to the recording afterwards, the effect was the same. It sounded like he would jump from half-finished sentence to the next, but while I listened it made perfect sense. But trying to write it verbatim? Impossible. He was saying things unsaid, yet they were heard. And if you tried to write the unspoken bits, it would all flutter away like butterflies….

It was maddening. So I gave up.

The Basics of Ritual — Light a Candle

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lighting, ritual, stillness, tools

I had gathered the materials Shaman had asked me to gather: three candles, one red, one white, one blue, and a box of wooden matches. He had prepared a private meeting space in which we could practice. He directed me to arrange a place on the floor where I would sit and perform the ritual. I arranged my materials in front of me: candles to one side, matches to another, a plate on which to stand the candles, and a small bread dish for burnt matches. I waited for the lesson to begin.

We sat there for some time in silence. Sometimes he would do this, just randomly. He would stop, do nothing, and wait for me to notice something. It reminded me of the stories of the martial arts masters who would take on a pupil. Unlike our school system, which involved a lot of talking, this form of learning involved a lot of noticing. It was a very difficult mode for me to slip into. I was used to the chatter of a classroom, not the silence of the real world. Changing gears was mind-bending.

“You have already completed the first four steps of the ritual,” he began. “Can you tell me what those steps were?”

“Um….” I looked at him blankly, my mind racing through possibilities of what he might mean. “Well, I just set everything up…” I began.

“Yes… That’s number four,” he hinted, “what else?”

I thought back, but my mind was blanking. Usually I was good at being put on the spot like this. I never minded in class when the teacher caught me off guard because I could usually talk my way out of it. I knew the teachers means me no harm. My banshee of a mother, on the other hand, she would catch me off guard and demand in tones of fire and brimstone for me to justify the smallest of activities. “Why are you sitting there?!” she would yell, as if that was the worst crime in the world, and I had to guess why. Usually it was because she hadn’t done something and was feeling bad about it and projecting it all on me, but lord knows if I was honest, I’d get back-handed across the room. Over the years I became an expert at scrambling for a plausible answer that could soothe her rage. Teachers were easy. They were not about to hit you and they actually delighted when you got the right answer. Instead of feeling disarmed like my mother, they would express joy as if I’d given them a gift. It made classroom participation easy.

Basics of Learning – Asking Questions

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between, loa, proof, rules, Seattle, St. Louis, training, voodoo, year and a day

Our line of Shamans was a line of misfits. My teacher was the first teacher to have multiple students. His teacher was the first one taught outside of the family line. But the fundamentals of the teaching remained the same. “As a Shaman,” he once said, “we get to play ‘fast and furious’ with the rules.” That thought stuck with me, and I thought I had some idea of what he meant. I was an apprentice now, so I was determined to learn everything I could.

“When does my training start?” I asked, expecting a schedule of lectures, workshops, and hands-on training. I was surprised by his answer.

“Now. Ask Questions,” he replied, grinning like the Cheshire cat. I could hear the capitalization of the word ‘Questions.’ So I delved a little further.

“When does my training stop?” I asked, half-guessing the answer.

“When you run out of Questions,” he answered as I expected, but when he did, and I could sense that to be a half-truth.

“So it takes about three years to run out of Questions?” I asked slyly, hinting at his earlier remarks that training lasted three years. I could feel him bristle under the Question, and made mental note: he does not like to be cornered.

“Just about!” He laughed nervously, so decided I to drop that line of questioning. “Just ask questions? Okay, what are the Rules?”

“Where?”

“The Rules of Shamanism… You know, what are the Rules I’m supposed to follow?”

“Where?” He repeated, and I finally caught what he was saying.

“Everywhere…. The BIG fundamental rules. The Universal ones.”

“There are Universal Rules?” he asked as though he was surprised, and his flippancy was starting to get to me, however, I figured it was a test. Everything was going to be a test for the next three years. I swallowed my pride and soothed my irritation.