Healing One Another (I Think)

I got back from Florida Pagan Gathering earlier this month, but it seems like forever ago.

The theme of my experience this time was healing. Oh, sure, I got to work on other people--with better results than I expected--but I needed to let them help me, too. When one little point breaks off a wisdom tooth, it makes your whole mouth hurt. So when my camping mate inserted three tiny needles into my hand, it made all the difference. So did the nice people who drove out to town and got some specialized goop to shield my poor tooth.

Another highlight of that week was my first time in an Inipi (sweat) lodge. For anyone who may be wondering, the clothing-optional aspect here was anything but sexual. Believe me, when you are scraping for a place to sit inside a little dome with 20-odd other people, breathing steam, every pore crying out from the heat, it's hardly time for an orgy.

So, what is it time for? Prayer, that's what. You pray for someone different on every round. On the last round, you focus on an animal spirit and its message to you.

I had to ask Spider why she had spun a web across the front of my tent.

A peace sign? Really?

Well, Spider is my friend. So I tend to give her the benefit of the doubt, even when her web made me think of an old Far Side comic where two of her kind built their home across the bottom of a playground slide: 'If we pull this off, we'll eat like kings.'