Will I be like my mother? Will my body hunch and my mind blur? Will I lose my focus and my hearing, my train of thought and my body? Will I shrink into barely functioning, yelling to be heard or giving up because I have spoken too softly? At least she can’t hear the growing traffic noise on the street by her house or see the cracks in the tile or how worn the Oriental rugs have become. She doesn’t notice the chips on the fine china bird-patterned plates we grew up with. She doesn’t see the dust on the floo
r. She doesn’t even smell the mothballs that permeate this room where I sleep. My nostalgia in this decayed elegance scares me, and I grow sad remembering the past. I feel myself shrinking and slowing as I see these elegant people withering and dying like the flowers on the table. My mother was fifty-seven when she moved here, still healthy and vibrant. I am only fifty-one. Time becomes shorter and I fear the loss of my capacities, and of the meaning in my life, for her life does not seem deep to me. And yet, I love the sameness of the beach routine, for the beach is never really the same and yet the sea is always there, both the same and different, the colors sparkling brilliant, the whitecaps describing the pattern of today’s tides.
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About the Author
Biography
Born in 1944, Marianna Mejia is a writer, Flamenco dancer and teacher, Psychotherapist and Shamanic practitioner. She is married with a grown child and a granddaughter, step-children and great grandchidren. Although writing books is her passion, she also enjoys dance and music, nature, gardening, shamanic work, and people.
She enjoyed an alternative lifestyle in the 60’s and continues to live life on her own terms in her 70’s.
A Shamanic Journey – from Becoming the Oldest Generation – Excerpt from Part II
On Mom’s dresser live a black metal whale and a green jade fish. I carried them up the narrow staircase lined with famous paintings and small pieces of antiquities. 
Emerging into the large open room with its plush Oriental rug covering the marble floor, I placed pieces of old Roman glass, translucent blue, in the whale’s open mouth. I arranged an altar in the center, with the candle and sage, the whale, the fish and the enameled box where the panther spirit who is helping Mom resides temporarily. Found feathers from here grace this altar too. I have lightly saged the room and have placed pillows for everyone in a circle on the Oriental rug. My elk skin drum, rattle and beaded leather medicine bag wait, ready for this ritual to celebrate Mom’s birthday.
When we gathered together, I lit the candle and called to all the directions, entreating the spirits to help us. As our intention, we asked for help and guidance for Virginia. If people wanted, I said, they could also journey for me, but I stressed that my concern was for Virginia. With that intention as our guide, while everyone lay down on their backs and covered their eyes, I picked up my drum and began to play the trance inducing monotonous beat for the journey. Finally I played the callback rhythm, bringing the journeyers back into their bodies. One by one they opened their eyes and sat up.
Excerpt from Part II: Shamanic walk on the beach
In the afternoon I took a little time off and walked Sami to the beach. The sun was shining on the water in a column that looked like a bridge to the sky. Was this what my Shamanic friend saw in her journey? In the morning the sun shines differently on the water, more sparkly and diffused and not as blinding. I asked the spirits for help again, just in case. Although, I do feel they have been helping immensely already.
