This isn't just me feeling sorry for myself. This is a very real void in our culture. An indigenous or agrarian society always had a place for people like me. I should be the village Witch, healing people with herbal teas and passing out candy to local kids. Or I could be the tribal shaman, doing vision quests in the desert, interpreting dreams and tripping on peyote. Either way, there would be a place for someone like me. I'd be given space to commune with spirits. I'd be allowed time away from people, something all practitioners need. My skills and abilities would be valued and utilized for the good of the group.
But I'm not in a tribal setting. I'm in 21st century America and people like me aren't supposed to exist. If you do have any real measure of psychic ability, you'd better have thick skin, because people are going to call you a fake, a flake, or a con artist. (Miss Cleo didn't help matters.)If you commune with spirits, you're more likely to wind up in an institution than in a place of honor. Heaven help you if you know what's become of a missing person. Cops don't like psychics - you're either a pain in the ass or the prime suspect. "Remote viewing" is making inroads in medicine, but it hasn't quite dawned on Law Enforcement that there are untapped psychic resources in every community.
The naturally intuitive do best in relative isolation. We aren't built for city life. The electro-magnetic fields and the static of human thoughts and feelings can make it impossible to think. There's a reason magick is associated with darkness - when people are asleep, we get a clearer connection. Real intuition takes a lot of quiet, too. We tend to live in our heads, which is not a good quality to have in a world of speeding cars and purse snatchers.
Witches are born, not made. We're different. We're sensitive. I don't just mean that we are easily hurt, which most of us are, but I mean that everything affects us in a much more intense way than it does an average person. If an averages person's sensitivity ranges from 1-10, for example, you could say that a Witch lives on 11. Everything is magnified for us. Sounds are louder to the point of having a physical effect. Muzak and certain kinds of Jazz can cause me almost unbearable physical discomfort. I can touch your body and feel where it hurts - imagine feeling the tension of an office full of stressed, angry civil servants. We tend to have extreme chemical sensitivities that can be debilitating in modern environment filled with unnatural substances. We are easily overwhelmed by our senses. The same thing that allows us to walk between the worlds makes it hard to fit into the modern world. There's a reason I live on a mountain in KY, and it isn't by choice. (My dear Doreen recently pointed out that I'm a cliche - a healer living in the wilderness.Ha ha!)
I'm not complaining about my abilities. I'm just pointing out that they can make it difficult to earn a living or have a life in an environment that doesn't allow for such things. You become a healer because of your gifts - the ability to easily perceive various levels of existence, many forms of spirit, to attain extraordinary levels of ecstacy and clarity. Those gifts are given to be used for the good of the group. Traditionally, the group benefits from the shaman's gifts, so the shaman is sustained by the tribe. It's not easy to reach an effective trance state when you are worried about paying the rent or putting food on the table. That's where the tradition of bringing gifts to the shaman originates. Offerings of food, animals, of tobacco and other herbs, or work that may need to be done in the shaman's home were always given by those in need in exchange for the healing and advice of the shaman.
America 2002 is in the habit of looking for something for nothing. Healers aren't typically good with money. We just don't grok it on one level, and we don't like it on another. We almost always prefer trade, but you can't use trade to pay the phone company.I do free readings for those I care about. But 31 years of experience is certainly worth something. My energy is worth something. The years I've spent learning and studying and practicing are worth something. I hate taking money. I don't like asking for it. And I certainly don't like it when I know someone is trying to get over on me.(Here's a hint, people: Don't lie to a psychic. We always know it and believe me, it's bad luck. That's not a threat, it's a fact.)
I've resigned myself to the fact that sometimes I have to state a fee and be firm. I've learned to take someone with me for parties or conferences because I don't know when to stop. I've been know to drain myself severely at large events because it doesn't occur to me that I'm spending a long time reading for a particular person who is probably not paying much if anything for my effort. Witches understand that time is an illusion, which allows us to see the past and the future. A reading is an event outside of time, so we don't know if it's a minute or an hour.You might have guessed that my grasp of time is tenuous at best. If you tell me to meet you at 10, bring something to read while you wait. I'm great at expanding time, but I haven't quite learned to shrink it yet.
I think I have a lot to offer. My friends, family and students certainly think so. People like me should be working in Medicine, Counseling and Psychiatry, and yes, even Law Enforcement. That isn't likely to happen in my life time. I'd be happy if they'd just take the laws against "fortune telling" off the books. I'm not asking for much. As it stands right now, there's no place for me here.