Believe Me Part 9

"Shamanism is a spiritual practice which for thousands of years has been central to tribal communities. The word 'shaman' actually comes from Siberia," she added, pedantically, "but the role of an elder who can bring his people into contact with the spirit world is common from the Amazon to China."

"Oh, that's good," I said. "So who's your shaman? That psychic you told me about who wrote h.e.l.lo from Heaven?"

"No, actually, in a way it would be the anthropologist Michael Harner. He studied in Peru, where shamans are able to guide people into trance states by using hallucinogens and a specific drumbeat. There's something about the brainwave frequency that the drumming tunes people into. It allows them to perceive a different reality. He's measured it in a lab. And it turns out that it's the same frequency in totally different parts of the world, like in the Amazon and in certain African tribes and the Inuit. Harner calls shamanism the basic precedent of all religions."

"So, if I drop acid and then listen to a drum solo I'll come face to face with G.o.d? I could have told you that."

"No," she said, raising her brow at me, "it has to be guided. Journeying isn't child's play."

24.

Larry lived in a split-level on Sunny Day Crescent, and when we arrived a bit early for our day-long workshop that summer, we found him outside mowing his lawn.

"Hi, Larry!" Kate sing-songed out the window of her Honda.

He paused, squinting in the sunlight, and then gave her a lopsided grin. Larry was one of those men with very slim legs and tiny b.u.ms squeezed into jeans, whose look I tend to a.s.sociate with Led Zeppelin concerts. Maybe it was also the mullet. He ambled toward us, wiping his hands on his shirt.

"Hey, man," Larry said, "good to see you, Kate."

We all shook hands and Larry politely refrained from completing his mowing, leaving the lawn shorn in zigzag strips, and led us through his garage, into a kitchen festooned with bongs. Nowadays, Larry noted, as he studiously measured out two spoonfuls of coffee, shamans such as himself were obliged to skip hallucinogens. But otherwise, the method remained the same. The shaman-who used to be all naked and painted, but Larry preferred to wear an oversized monk's robe-calls in the spirits through whistles, rattles and drumming, with partic.i.p.ants arranged in a sacred circle to reinforce the energy field. Then each person "journeys" in "non-ordinary reality" until the shaman calls them back.

Kate and I sipped coffee from big white mugs at Larry's kitchen table while he went upstairs to grab his monk's robe and the other workshop partic.i.p.ants trickled in. In strolled a couple of friends from Larry's day job at Sam the Record Man, followed by a spry woman of seventy or so who wore yoga attire, then a ponytailed fellow who looked about fifty and brought his own coffee cup, which dangled from his neck on a string. Finally, Larry's girlfriend, Tina, who was just about as thin as he was and wore similarly skintight jeans. After Larry reappeared, rubbing his hands together and saying "Hey, man" and "Thanks for coming," we all filed downstairs into the wood-paneled, s.h.a.g-rugged rec room and milled about uncertainly until we sorted ourselves out in a cross-legged circle.

Larry a.s.sumed command of the room. Gazing into the center of the circle as if drawing strength from his rug, he solemnly instructed us to journey into the spirit world and attempt to locate our Power Animal. If we wished, we could ask the Animal a question. Native Americans, he explained, used to ask the spirits very specific questions, such as how to locate the bison herd, or where did So-and-So go in the canoe. I looked over at Kate, wondering if she also found that intriguing, that our ancestors just sought information-not the Meaning of Life, which they understood perfectly, but answers to the irksome daily questions that we solve by flipping on the Weather Channel or ringing people up on the phone. Kate had her eyes closed, however. I guessed she was preparing for the trip.

Larry knee-swished in his monk's robe over to his drum, and gestured to his girlfriend to pick up her rattle so that they could play the special beat that would enable us to journey into the spirit world. I began to feel nervous. I figured I would ask whatever happened to my granny. She had died in her sleep after a fine long life, but then what? On the other hand, perhaps "then what?" was too broad a query for shamanic journeying? But I couldn't think of anything else I wanted to know. As I lay down and waited, I got to wondering if the Power Animals in Non-Ordinary Reality were better at finding canoes or at providing rudiments of meaning to our lives. Maybe they felt relieved that n.o.body was bugging them any more about where they put their skinning knives or whether it would rain.

The drum began to beat: loud, insistent and almost dizzying-the sonic equivalent of a disco strobe. Larry said we had to imagine diving into a tree stump or a pond or something that would lead to "the lower world." After a stretch of time banging my head into solid earth, I finally succeeded in worming down through a cave, and then suddenly found myself in a meadow. The first power animal-or figment of my imagination-to come along was a wolf. He was snarling and yellow-eyed, crouched at the edge of the meadow. I began to chase after him, and he loped into dense undergrowth. Hacking and swatting my way through the bushes in frenzied pursuit, I ran across a chipmunk, which gave me pause. Oh, h.e.l.lo, Thing I Have Imagined in Larry's Bas.e.m.e.nt. Should I ask you about life after death?

I said to the chipmunk, "Where is my granny?" and it led me a merry chase, up and down trees, skittering along branches, faster and faster until my pulse raced. Then the chipmunk revealed a triptych of images: boiling, swirling clouds with Granny's distorted face in them; a cottage in a poplar grove that evoked a Russian fairy tale; her gravesite in the sweet green light of summer. Which meant what?

Larry called us back by slowing his drum beat. Sitting up, we stretched our legs, rolled our necks, reclaimed notebooks, gla.s.ses, a ballcap.

"So, okay," Larry said. "This would be the time where shamans returned from their journey, and grabbed their charcoal stick or a cup of ochre or whatever they had available, and painted what they'd seen on a sacred rock site. Right? That's the spirit of this, but my house is a rental so I can't really have people marking up the walls down here. I hope that's understandable. So we're just going to go around the circle and see what you all have to report."

Kate reported riding on the back of a great stag, swifter than the wind, which leapt high above a village full of blind men. Marcia, the elderly woman in yoga pants, declared that her power animal was a panther, with eyes like gleaming emeralds, who led her through the jungle to the sea, where a sailing ship awaited her. Larry's friend Bob explained that he'd met-and then run away from-a tarantula. "Oh, man, it was so intense," he said, close to tears. "I'm terrified of spiders, man." The middle-aged man with the ponytail described a magnificent killer whale who a.s.sured him that he would find love again, but only if he moved to Vancouver. Larry's other friend Chris conceded that he hadn't been able to get into the lower world at all. He had spent the entire half-hour trying to squeeze through a drain pipe.

"What about you, Fran?" asked Larry, as all eyes turned to me.

"I met a wolf," I began, wishing I could embark upon a wonderful tale, which I couldn't. "But then, actually, it went away and I wound up talking to a chipmunk. So ... that was fine."

"Okay," said Larry, "so, let's take a break, and when we come back we'll be working with our rocks."

Later, Kate and I argued over plates of pad thai at the Rivoli, on Queen Street. "I accept that there's another reality," I said, "but you can't seriously believe that you can travel to it via Larry's bas.e.m.e.nt, can you?"

"Why not?" she countered.

"Well, look, these shamans must have cultivated their rituals over years. They probably had apprentices. You can't just go to Mississauga, lie down on a s.h.a.g rug and meet a power animal. And who are these power animals, anyway? Are they the same thing as angels, or is this a polytheistic religion, or what?"

"As I said," Kate reiterated patiently, "this is the precursor religion, the practice from which all others arose."

"But it's imaginary, Kate, come on!"

"Has it ever occurred to you," she retorted, waving a chopstick, "that G.o.d speaks to us through our imagination?"

I wasn't convinced. But Kate stuck with shamanism for a while before growing attracted to Buddhism, and then eventually becoming a Quaker. She was still mixing and matching in some ways though, because here we were, ten years later, lying on mats at Yogas.p.a.ce, a honey-hued room perfumed by scented candles. As we stretched and awaited our instructor, I told her about Don Yancy's NDE, and my cousin shook her heavy auburn tresses and grinned in almost sensual delight, exposing her overlong, rabbity teeth.

"Oh my G.o.d," she crowed, "that is extraordinarily cool."

Kate is one of those women who defies the two-dimensional standards of beauty-in magazines and on celluloid-by possessing an allure that is all about movement. Her too-small chin and shapeless nose, her buck teeth and freckles are hidden, gone, irrelevant in the amazing flow of hair, the sly smile, the voluptuous and graceful figure. She was flat out dangerous, I felt, in the Downward Dog pose.

The instructor glided in, hands lightly on her hips, and surveyed the lot of us, some in two-hundred-dollar outfits, others ungainly in T-shirts and sweatpants. She lit candles and turned on a tape of tinkling Tibetan bells. Then, calling us to attention, she reminded us that our feet were rooted in the earth, our spines stretched upward like branches, our abdomens centered, the trunk of life itself. We were a forest of dimly aware religious supplicants in the great spiritual tradition of yogic practice.

"But here's my question," I whispered to Kate, reaching my hands toward my toes. "You know those celebrities who find religion and become Scientologists and Kabbalists and stuff? You would think that faith would lead them to give away some of their fortune to starving people in the Sudan, or work for the churches like Don Yancy, or at least stop worrying about their weight. But it doesn't seem to make any difference. And the other thing is, if they've lost their fear of death, why not blow a head valve on Krispy Kremes and champagne, since they know for certain that the material world doesn't matter?"

Kate simply gazed at me with the unperturbable beneficence of the spiritually aware.

"That's not what it's about," she explained, hunched over in child's pose. "When you realize that you're joined with the universe, you don't have to self-medicate."

"Well, I have to disagree with you about that," I countered, smoothing the curled edge of my mat down. "Didn't shamans argue that drugs are the portal to G.o.d? I remember when I did magic mushrooms that summer at Lake Temagami and skipped all our hamburger patties across the lake-do you remember that? I felt very at one with the universe." I crossed my legs and bounced my knees. "Objects no longer had exclusive meaning. Food did not have to be food. The rain wasn't cold. I thought that was quite a spiritual evening. I've always thought that."

Kate shrugged and lunged into warrior pose. "Be still. Then you shall know me as your G.o.d."

"What's that from?" I inquired, hanging myself upside down from the waist.

"It's a psalm," answered Kate, flexing her toes.

"Hmm."

We lay down on our mats and closed our eyes, as instructed, although in this case we weren't meant to go off in search of enlightened chipmunks, thank G.o.d. The teacher padded back and forth through her field of fallen bodies, waving a stick of burning sage and chanting quietly, "Shanti ... shanti ... shanti ..." This was, inevitably, the time in the few yoga cla.s.ses I had taken when my mind began to race around. What to make for dinner did I ever pay that gas bill don't forget to fix Lester's jacket zipper why does Calvin have to play hockey on Friday nights I need to return that library book I forgot to call Marina what's wrong with modern poetry maybe I should do a Web search on new treatments for Bernice's cancer if only I knew what kind of cancer she had now that would help I wonder if the Indians in India do as much yoga as we do?

Ommmm, ommmm. Shanti, shanti, shanti.

"Listen, Frannie," Kate said as we rose to leave, "if you're serious about pursuing this subject, you should see my friend Helen."

"Should I?" I rolled up my blue mat and then dropped it, sproing; it unrolled; I rolled it up again. "Why?"

"She's a hypnotherapist. She works with people on relaxation and stress, and I think she can probably get you to that place I'm talking about, where you'll see what I mean about being still."

"She's not going to ask me to make things up," I said, to be sure.

"She'll just lead you like a horse to stillness, and she won't let you think."

25.

Got home to find a message from Dana.

Apparently my prayers for Bernice were going unanswered, or conversely, maybe they were answered.

"Calvin," the message ran, "it's Dana. Your mum's not doing too well. Hasn't been eatin' much, not even on Toonie Tuesdays. Shirley's got back from Florida, but she ain't speakin' to Bernice since Bernice accused her of stealin' aa'll her jooolery."

I played this message back twice, unable to believe that Dana would just yack it into the void. Was this not the sort of news one said in person? When Calvin walked in, drumming his fingers on his thighs and feeling particularly pleased with his recording session, I handed him a beer and relayed the message. And then there he was on the phone at the kitchen table, slumped over, resting his forehead in the palm of his hand. An iconic image to me now. My lover on the phone to his relatives in Cape Breton. Sighing, rubbing the s.p.a.ce between his eyebrows and talking real low.

"I know she's being paranoid, Shirley," I heard him say, "but she can't help it, she keeps forgetting stuff."

Shirley didn't accept this as a sensible observation requiring a simple acknowledgment. For the next several minutes Calvin was silent, nodding and sighing as she detailed her complaints. I went upstairs to put a Land Before Time video on for Lester, then came back down and pulled out a chair, and flipped through the New Yorker. There was a profile of Ralph Reed, an evangelical Republican whom Sherman had been enthusing about to me recently. The article quoted Reed's cohort at the Christian Coalition back in 1992: feminism, Pat Robertson had declared, "encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." Did Sherman read the same English that I read?

Still getting an earful from Shirley, Calvin plucked at the foil label on his beer bottle and rolled the bits into useless little b.a.l.l.s. The kitchen was too bright with the overhead light on, glinting off of our boxy white fridge and our egg-yellow walls. I'd tried to fix up the ambient lighting, make it suitable for conversations with aunts about dying mothers or what have you, but the trouble was simple. The kitchen had no acquaintance with daylight, thanks to Toronto's paranoid fire codes, in which you couldn't punch a window into a wall if that wall stood within yelling distance of your neighbor's wall, lest fire leap through one window, skip across the walkway, and blaze into another window, killing us all. Far better to hunker down inside our safe enclosures than see daylight.

"This is not a cry for help, Shirley, okay? It's not hypochondria, it's not a mistaken diagnosis. I know you've known Mum all your life, and I know she has acted like she was sick when she wasn't. But this is different, it's not a good time to turn your back on her."

I stood up and came behind Calvin, caressing his seal-fur head and ma.s.saging his neck. He was, all at once, leaning back into my hands and yet forward, into his resigned discussion with Shirley. He wasn't going to win this, I could tell.

He would have to go out there again.

That isn't such a big deal, is it, for a son to go to his mother? But not all mothers are entirely nice, or wholly present, and not all sons are the only child.

26.

It was Valentine's Day when Calvin flew back to Cape Breton, this time indefinitely, with phone numbers for home-care nurses clutched in one hand and his dobro in the other. Ah, romance in midlife. Will that be a candlelit dinner? Or a tense reminder to the one you love that he should check his mother's sneakers for her meds? Lester and I spent the evening with my parents, who presented their grandson with a heart-shaped cake and a brand-new ichthyosaur from Top Banana Toys. What better way to say I love you to this child?

"Can we pack, to go to Heaven?" Lester asked me, perhaps thinking of his father tossing T-shirts in a gym bag, as we walked back home in a light, drifting snowfall. "Can I bring Orp?" His latest favorite, a saber-toothed tiger with an inexplicable name. "Oh, I don't know about that, hon," I said. You can't take it with you.

Tried that line on a five-year-old?

"What does G.o.d look like?" Lester asked. "Does he look like a cloud of dust?"

"No, I don't think so, sweetie."

"Well," he persisted, "what do the angels say he looks like?" Come on, work with me here, his tone suggested. Help me out, you're the mom.

"I think he's a bright light," I ventured, after a long pause. "I think he's the incarnation of love, maybe more of a feeling than a shape."

"Will I be able to see myself?"

I'd had a few gla.s.ses of merlot. I was glad to turn the key in the lock of our home, as if that could end the discussion.

"Oh, don't worry about it, sweetie," I urged, banging my wine-addled head into the door as it swung open. "You have many, many years to grow up before you have to worry about all this."

After he fell asleep, I watched my son in the dim light thrown by his Ikea moon lamp, his helmet hair all mussed and his lashes softly curled against the hollows beneath his eyes. I leaned on the edge of his bunk bed with my hand on his chest and experienced that sharp intake of breath that always meant regret. Les sensed more than he understood, of course, about his father's distress, about that hospital in New Waterford, and his grandmother unable to rise from her bed.

"Turn your eyes to the meadow in its greenness," I wished for him in the silence, "and to the spark of the firefly. Find delight in the scent of autumn and in love, and don't ask me yet about why."

27.

On the Friday after Valentine's Day, the Moral Volcano sponsored a c.o.c.ktail party at the Toronto Press Club, a stodgy old gentlemen's venue of yore, near Hy's Steakhouse downtown. The plan, according to Hilary, who popped her head into our office to invite us, was for everyone to imbibe sufficient quant.i.ties of liquor, after which four witty gentlemen would engage in an entertaining debate. "Be it resolved," Hilary said, her eyes sparkling in antic.i.p.ation, "money can't buy you love."

"Oh, that sounds like fun," I said. Avery and Goran barely looked up from their desks. But I was curious. We used to have debates like that in university. Everyone would show up half-corked on cheap beer, and then heckle and applaud as the cla.s.s clowns a.s.sumed the challenge of arguing a cliche.

Hilary and Sherman were particularly excited about their event because a famous conservative from England named Boris Something had come to Toronto to promote his new book, I Eat Liberals for Lunch, and had agreed to take part in the debate for a lark-a bit of decompression after a whirlwind day of interviews and lectures.

After much threatening and cajoling, I persuaded Avery to come with me. "Don't you want to hear Boris Something?" I argued. "He's famous in England."

"No," said Avery, "I don't, really. But if Calvin's away and you don't want to go unaccompanied ..." He looked at me dubiously.

"It's a scene," I said. "It could be interesting."

Avery shrugged. "I'll do it, for you."

"Remind me what scene you were expecting," he said, when we arrived at the appointed time a few nights later after dropping Lester off at my mom's. Several of the attendees were huddled on the snowy front steps of the club smoking cigarettes and trading quips about tax law as they pulled their black overcoats tight against the wind. They waved us through their midst in good cheer; everyone seemed up for a party. The club inside was packed with chattering pundits and businessfolk.

"Okay, maybe I was imagining a different scene," I allowed, recalling the art opening and fancy soirees I sometimes attended in New York. I had forgotten that people interested mainly in politics, on the left or on the right, tended to shout "Hear, hear" instead of shaking their booty to Sean Paul.

"Frannie!" called out Sherman, sailing over to hold me lightly by the shoulders, his face beaming. "I'm so glad you could come!"

"My pleasure," I said, pleased to be welcomed, and hoping that he would say h.e.l.lo to Avery.

"We have a very special guest tonight," confided Sherman, leaning into me and ignoring Avery. "Boris Johnson! From London's Spectator! He's going to be one of the debaters."

Just then, an imposing man in a gold tie, clasping a BlackBerry, came up and grabbed Sherman's wrist, and after a flurry of excuse me's and gracious nods we were left to our own devices.

To a.s.sign myself a purpose as Avery got rid of our coats, I headed for the bar, wending my way through a sea of bright-eyed and dark-suited men, with the occasional splash of color signifying a female. By the time I'd reached the linen-covered table with the booze, I'd done a rough calculation and come up with a ratio of three females to ten males a square yard. "Why aren't there more women here?" I asked Avery, when he caught up with me.

"Maybe there aren't enough female neo-cons to fill a room," he speculated.