(The photo above is of my Shaman’s dog Jack, who is 14 years old and nearing the end of his time. He is a Bernese Mountain Dog and Jack still loves to lie out in the snow. I am going to photograph him later in the week.)

I went to see my shaman on Christmas Even to talk about my soul, and the encounter was very different than I expected. I received an extraordinary gift.  My shaman – her name is Carol Tunney – and I were talking about my childhood memories and she asked me if I had ever undergone any kind of surgery. I said no, I had never had surgery. She asked again, and I suddenly recalled that I was operated on to remove my tonsils when I was four years old in a hospital in Providence, R.I. How did the operation go?, she asked. Well, I said, except for the fact that my stitches broke in the middle of the night and I began choking on the blood. It seemed a long while before anyone heard me struggling and calling for help – I was alone in a room –  and I remember that dark and frightening time well, although I had not thought of it in many years and had never mentioned it to another soul, even Maria.

I was surprised that Carol asked that. I have never mentioned any kind of medical issue to her, and had nearly forgotten the tonsilectomy.

There were no cords to pull or buttons to summon nurses. I had to wait and I was struggling to breathe. Blood covered the sheets, I do remember that.

When the nurses discovered me choking, they rushed me into the operating room and that is the last thing I remember about that night, not even the next morning or anything that followed. I do remember the blood, there was a lot of it. I said I have always been uncomfortable having my neck touched or having any pressure on it ever since. I was surprised to be talking about it – I never thought of it – and she said it was a very big deal, it was a huge thing for me, and when she began her retrieval work on me – I was lying on a table, she was chanting, shaking  rattles, breathing and singing – she told me she had gone back to that night, that room, that boy and that a piece of my soul was stuck there, remained there and she explained to the boy that this was not the end of the story, and she brought him back to see me, to meet me, to see what had become of  him, and to return this piece of my soul to me.

I felt a strange sensation – a calming – and I felt a flutter in my heart. Carol said this piece had been returned to me and that I would be different, that I would feel calmer and stronger and that as a result, some of this fearfulness – it was not genetic, she said, it came from trauma – would be leaving me over the next few days. I felt shaken, surprised by this. I would not even have gone to see a soul retriever until recently. This empathic encounter, this recalled memory was very disturbing to me, even though I had forgotten or smothered it for so many years. Could it be true?, I wondered. Could she have gone into the past and retrieved a part of my soul, and given it back to me. If so, what an amazing Christmas gift, what a powerful thing.

I am grateful for this memory, it explains some things for me. It connects me to some of the night fears I have experienced, a sudden awaking, gasping in terror. What does this mean? How do I interpret and accept this?

Some people take shamanic journeying literally Carol said, others can accept it metaphorically. It doesn’t matter. Just take a few days to rest and absorb it. So I will. This is my Christmas story, a Christmas gift. In return, I shall photograph Jack later in the week. Red and I sat with him a bit, and he is tiring of this world. Christmas means so many different things.