The Shaman Thread

Many years ago I had a conversation with my father while picking up pizza at his favorite place about, of course, space faring and colonization and how my particular skills seemed to him, at the time, non essential. My response was simply how did he know that this was not an essential step of evolution before we could leave the planet? Frontiers, as exciting and new as they are, are also very dangerous because it IS new. ESP's seem like a very handy thing to have well developed to help you get a heads up about those dangers while out there.

This conversation was resurrected in the face of my feeling not so well and deciding that taking it easy with Netflix was a good idea. I settled on an oldie but goodie: Earth 2. If you have never watched this show and you are a SciFi fan, this is something that may interest you. I will try not to spoil the show for you. The premise of the show is that enclosure has become intolerable on the stations; there is a great need and desire to go planet side and live there.

There are particulars I really found interesting. Especially, the connection that forms between a couple of the characters with the planet and it's indigenous inhabitants. It becomes very clear that there is at the very least one shaman with them. This character is an accidental shaman, but he is a shaman none the less. One who has much to learn about the art and craft of what shamanism is.

The questions that rolled around in my mind while watching this show were: how do we preserve the shaman skills while on stations traveling the black oceans of the universe? How will those skills be needed and utilized before we decide to dive back into one of the deep wells of space? Will those skills be sharp enough to reconnect with a large living body and its inhabitants? Will we be wise enough to remember that planets cannot be tamed?

I have ideas that may answer a few of those questions. The obvious one being how do we preserve the shaman skills??? We teach them to those who wish to learn and show a proclivity either openly or secretly just like we have done here in this deep well of space. Station life will require that there be a green house of sorts. The techniques will be different for growing food, but there still needs to be someone who can hear the plant life and tend to it in a good way. This would be a good practice field for a shaman stuck on a station. There will also be a great need for alternative medicines since manufacturing meds may not be the best way to handle things on a station and certainly we cannot rely on planet side delivery of said things. We must learn to be independent. The face of healing will have to change and shamanistic skills will certainly be handy there. There is even now and here a great proclivity for some to connect with technology in near mystical manners. I believe we have started to call them technomages. Considering the fact that we will be depending on a large piece of technology while we float through space toward our next well, a couple of good technomages hanging about would certainly make me breathe easier. I would certainly like our flyboys/girls to have an uncanny sense of what is coming at them while they jockey around between stations and where ever else they need to go outside. Open space tends to be a bit unpredictable. Loads of things zipping about at mach 5 and other surprises I am sure.

Will those skills be sharp enough to reconnect with a planet???? I hope so. Another question remains. Will those skills be allowed to continue or will we face another persecution and devouring of a belief system based upon fear and the need to control the mass population? Will we grow up as a species and begin to recognize that we are all different colored threads in a very large tapestry creating the larger picture of who we are meant to be? If we don't, I'm not sure we will make it and if by some stroke of genius luck that we do, with an even larger stroke of such luck, maybe an accidental shaman will surface. Personally, I would like to skip the whole freak out what the heck kind of crazy have I gone? phase, but that's just me. It would be, in my opinion, prudent to preserve and nurture the Shaman Thread that runs through humanity.

In which I reveal how big a geek girl I am. . .

Not too long ago a short ElfQuest trailer was made. I love ElfQuest. I have many of the comic books, I have the graphic novels, gatherums and poster. . . blah blah blah *fan speak* blah. It was one of those things that really spoke to me emotionally as I was trying to get my adolescent self to adulthood maturity. This trailer led to me breaking out with the graphic novels a pouring through them again.

One of the things that really hit home was as I was going through some of the last parts of the story line, emotions from recent events in real life echoed through the emotional back drop of the books. As Osama Bin Laden was removed from this plane Cutter was beating the tar out of Rayek for stealing his family and giving him a sense of being something he never wanted to be, Human. I understand this emotion that flooded Cutter. This rage at being turned into your enemy, having that which brings you peace and serenity being stolen from you, having your heart ripped out and kept from you. I could see everyone in Cutter's eyes. I could hear our rage in his words.

What Rayek did was truly monstrous. Rayek kidnapped Cutter's family and left him to bleed from the soul while doing what he thought to be for the greater good of his people. Arrogance is dangerous. It leads you to losing touch with your soul and it's true purpose and only while having the tar beaten out of him did Rayek really understand the immensity of harm he caused.

In this case, the only way to bring healing about between the two characters was a good old fashioned knock down, drag out, teeth spitting fight. There were rules of course. 1) no using magic, all else is fair 2) no dying to save face. 3) the first to call loses and someone must call. Needless to say, this whole duke it out affair was dirty, ugly and cathartic not just for those locked in battle, but for the whole community. The whole ugly brew came out like a champaign cork flying from it's bottle and when the fur stopped flying there was an understanding.

I wonder, what is it that we have learned about ourselves through this whole drama that we have been living? What is it that we have learned about others? Have we learned anything at all? At the end of the beat down and release, are we better for it? Is there an understanding? Has any healing taken place?

I know that the death of Bin Laden is something that we have been howling for. It has, indeed, been a huge cathartic event for Americans and many around the world as well. I understand why people are dancing. I just never felt like taking part of that dance. It made me uncomfortable. I felt even more uncomfortable that I wasn't taking part in this small victory. It wasn't until I hit the end of this part of Cutter's story that I was ok with not dancing on the grave of a sworn enemy, nor was it until this moment did I really embrace the idea that maybe. . . just maybe I am a much bigger geek girl than I suspected.

This is what Bin Laden and his followers have stolen from many people around the world. Many hearts were stolen and those left behind bled until they were dry. There will always be a hole where this once was. In many ways, we are all Cutter. Hopefully, in time, we will all heal from what has been done.