Good Dad, Bad Dad...
Shaman Dad
by
Dick Prosapio
© 2002
One of the things a traditional shaman
must do is to "die to one world to enable entry into another". This is
accomplished in various ways; hallucinogenic drugs, dance, chanting,
drumming, breathing in a prescribed way, self induced trance, fasting,
etc. The purpose for this kind of journey is to gain a new perspective
on a given situation and/or to facilitate the healing of some wound,
usually emotional/spiritual.
The broadest definition of a shaman I
have seen is this; "One who can help others see the world
differently." Researcher Joan Halifax came up with that in recognition
that there are shaman in every culture, even in mechanized,
media-fried America. Very few of these belong to a recognized tribe.
This is the kind of work I do with intuitive readings, dance, sweat
lodges, vision quests, my writing, workshops, counseling, ceremony.
Some time ago we had a huge upheaval in
our family. Actually my old family as I must define it now. We,
Elizabeth, our two kids and I, were visiting my middle daughter
in San Antonio and the four of us were sitting in the living room with
my daughters husband. He and Elizabeth were discussing our newest
granddaughter and talking about how fearful she had become at age two.
Elizabeth related that all her kids did the same thing around that
age. I said; "Yeah, before that their brains are just kind of stupid
about life."
KABOOM! (This was the sound of my
daughters husband going ballistic.) "Don't you dare call my daughter
stupid!" "I'm not saying she's stupid." I said, "I'm just saying it's
like Selena (our youngest) here. Last year her brain was math stupid,
this year it's all going to hook up. Right Selena?" "Right!" she said
with assurance. "Don't EVER use that word with a child!" he continued,
"And don't EVER use that word in this house!" and with that, he
pounded out of the room.
To put it mildly, we were stunned. We
looked at each other and decided it would be best to give him some
space and time to cool off so we left the house and came back about
three hours later to maybe get things cleared up, to apologize for
using a word that obviously had a very big charge on it, etc.
We returned to find the God of Chaos
reigning! Daughter was fleeing with granddaughter, son-in-law was
stalking in and out of the house with "ATTITUDE!" writ large. While we
had been gone what I had said had been changed to; "Your daughter is
just stupid!" coupled with other embellishments. No amount of
explaining on our part was allowed.
So, we packed our bags and left. Not
much choice. What fueled the explosion? First of all, my son-in-law
had a terrible childhood, emotionally abused in spades by his father
and others. That's for starters. He has done no emotional healing work
of any consequence on any of that. Add to the mix the several bottles
of beer he had put away since breakfast prior to kaboom, plus those
consumed the night before (it was his birthday) and top that with the
stress, denied by everyone in the family, of living with a two year
old who had undergone open heart surgery about ten months previously
to correct a bad valve.
Why I didn't see the mine field was a
product of my own "stupidity". My blindness was further enhanced by
the fact that I trusted the guy.
The outcome of all of this is that I,
and we, have been and are now persona non grata in San Antonio and in
Chicago where my oldest daughter lives. I am, once again, cast in the
role of "bad-dad". On the surface of this story is the word "stupid",
selected randomly out of my own humor bank and used without
pre-censoring thought. With friends, I don't usually pre screen
everything I say with the idea in mind that it might be dangerous to
use a wrong word.
But underneath this episode was another
story, much more complex, subtle and destructive. And I didn't know
that story. What it was all about is something I can only speculate
about.
Three days passed, and feeling
constantly upset and swinging from anger
to sadness, I called my oldest daughter and from her heard some of the
same language and descriptions of me that my son-in-law had used in
his
subsequent attack, one which took place when I made an attempt to set
things right just before we gave up and left for home. All these
years, decades of time, I had thought everything was just fine between
she and I. So much for fantasy.
As I awakened to the reality of how I
was really perceived by my old family what I discovered was this; all
of these years I have continued to hold on to my guilt about the way I
destroyed my first marriage and injured my kids. This "holding on" was
more subtle than mea culpa feelings and statements of deep regret.
Because of my deep sense of having failed and betrayed them I was
allowing my kids, in particular my oldest daughter, to continue to
hook me into "games", the outcome of which always put me in a very
one-down position. Bad dad then, bad dad
now, bad dad forever!
Never mind all the years of work on
myself and the changes I had made to become a decent man, a good
husband and a conscious father. The "Bad dad" I deeply believed myself
to be, wouldn't die. Wouldn't die because I wouldn't let it. After
all, and this is what dwelled somewhere beneath my awareness, I didn't
deserve to be seen as anything else! With Elizabeth's help I finally
realized that there was literally nothing I could do to influence this
thinking in my old family. Anything I did, and everything I do, had
been and is seen by them through the wounds of that earlier
life...because none of the participants in this dance have ever been
willing to be done with it.
Well, I'm done with it now so that I,
at least, can move on. I have to die to my old family.
I realized it fully one day soon after
the "kaboom" episode when my oldest daughter didn't respond to an
email in which I had told her I was not going to play the usual game:
the, obviously-I'm-wrong-because-you-believe-I-am. I felt in that
moment that a deathing was happening inside of me. At the same time I
knew I was moving more fully into a deeper emotional place with my new
family. I hadn't even realized that I was holding back from them.
Holding back hoping to somehow to suture up the old wounds with my
original kids that we could be a family again. Problem is; I can't do
that. Not alone and not in reality.
So; I am in another world now, and I
see clearly for the first time. Now maybe everyone can take on the
responsibility of their own healing. I know that this will be a long
process for me, punctuated by my anger over feelings of betrayal, and
deep sadness over the loss of my fantasy about how I thought things
were. How I wished them to be. I am, more than ever, fully in my life
as it is today...and I can be who I wanted to be all along; good
dad.
So..I had just finished writing this
piece and I get this card from my oldest daughter, "I don't know
anyone else whose dad is a shaman, or has a tipi in the yard or a kiva
for that matter. Their dads don't seem to have found the fountain of
youth either, nor are they busy raising three young girl/women. Nope,
you've never been a 'traditional dad'...but that's why I'm so
special."
Through my teary eyes I tell you,
miracles DO happen.
Dick Prosapio ©2001
CoyoteCall@spinn.net
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