Shamanism Works In Strange Ways

How my lucky number connected me to people around the world

Elevator jazz assaulted my ear as the phone pressed against it. An occasional disembodied syrupy voice interrupted, "Your expected wait time is two minutes." I was borrowing my neighbor's landline since the cell service in this valley is non-existent.

A man with a thick Indian accent piped through from somewhere far away, "Hello and thanks for calling Frontier; how can I help you?"

After spending three months living in a Tipi on my friend's land, I was more than excited to move into a little straw-bale cottage a few miles down the road. The walls were two feet thick, plastered the color of clay with a silver tin roof. Towering Doug Fir trees surrounded the magical abode, with white flower blossoms peeking out on the branches of the old apple tree in the front yard.

When I told the far-away man I needed to install a phone in the cottage, he was happy to oblige. He put me on hold for a minute to check the status of lines in the area, then rescued me again from a repeating rendition of some jazzed-up pop song by Kenny G, "I have filled the order report here and will send a technician to install your line. Is there a specific phone number you would like to have?"

I didn't care; I just wanted to communicate with the outside world, "No, it doesn't matter. Just give me one I can remember."

The far-away man assigned me a number ending in 13. My lucky number! 

The fourth morning of sleeping on a bed instead of the floor of a Tipi, the phone rings. It was 5:30 am. I jump up, thinking something is wrong somewhere for someone to call a musician at this hour.

"Hello?" Breathless and sleepy, I wait for a relative's voice but instead hear a sexy Brazilian accent from a man I don't know, "Is this Shaman's Drum? I'd like to speak with the manager."

My eyes blink at the wall, wondering if I'm lucid dreaming, "No, I'm sorry, you have the wrong number."

He hangs up, apologizing, and I trod back to bed. Just as I burrow under the covers, the thing rings again. It’s sexy man, "Is this Shaman's Drum?" 

"No, this is a private residence. I don't know what you are talking about. Maybe try looking it up online. Where are you calling from?"

"Rio de Janeiro!"

The first of many calls I would answer weekly for years from people asking for Shaman's Drum.

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I live in a fertile valley in Southern Oregon surrounded by mountains carpeted with Doug Fir, Ponderosa Pine, Madrone, and Oaks. Freshwater creeks spill down ravines, crisscross the valley, and pour into the Applegate River. In the '70s and 80s, people moved here to live off the land, off the grid, and off the radar. They were activists, hippies, youngsters from places like Santa Cruz, California, and Nederland, Colorado. They came here to homestead, guerrilla grow, and buck the status quo lifestyle of their parents. 

Many of the "old-timers" in the valley at the time were churchgoers, mostly conservative, and felt put-upon by the wild newcomers who erected Tipi's on their land, protested logging operations, and smoked a lot of weed. Some of those families still lived on homesteads, or sections (160-acre claims), settled after the Rogue River Wars took the land and removed the survivors of the Tututni tribes to the Siletz Indian Reservation.

It's where a magazine called Shaman's Drum started in 1985, with a business phone number ending in 13. It was a periodical exploring traditional, non-traditional, and contemporary forms of shamanism and methodology until it folded and stopped printing in 2010 - the year before I called the far-away man to install my landline phone. 

✬ ✬ ✬

At 9:25 pm two Decembers ago, I sat curled up in a chair next to a table lamp casting warm light onto the book in my hand. The thought of going to bed early scurried across my mind—the phone rings.

"Hello?"

"Oh my god, I'm so happy you answered. I know it's late, I'm sorry. It's an emergency." 

I didn't recognize the distraught voice of a woman, quivering and on the edge of panic. 

"Who is this?" My brain quickly tried to recognize this person.

"I need a Shaman. It's an emergency. A demon with red eyes keeps visiting my room, and I can hear it walking in the leaves behind me during the day when I'm outside. When I turn around, no one is there, but I feel it. It's there. I swear. My boyfriend saw it once too. It has a bad smell. Please, can you help me? I just need a Shaman."

The pitch of her voice raised, and the quiver accelerated to a shaking. A hot knot twisted in my belly. I wanted to be rude and hang up, but a feeling came over me to keep her talking.

"Uh… I'm sorry, but this phone number belongs to a residence. Shaman's Drum Magazine is no longer in business, and…."

She interrupts me, her voice shifts to a high pitch cry, "Pleeeease, don't hang up, please. I need help. I'm so scared. It's real. I know I sound crazy, but I'm not. This demon wants to hurt me. Please don't hang up. I don't know where to go for help. I can't live like this. I can't do this anymore."

She started crying and describing very intimate details of what she was perceiving or experiencing with the red-eyed devil. I listened and let her talk without interrupting. The hot twist in my belly tightened, and I wondered if this woman was on meth or some other horrible drug that sent her plummeting into paranoia. Or, was this actually happening to her, and a stinky demon haunted her days and nights? Who am I to judge sitting on this end of a phone the far-away man gave me?

I was afraid to hang up. The woman was so troubled I felt there was a real risk of her hurting herself, so I started asking her questions.

"I'm here. I'm not hanging up. What's your name?"

"Cindy. Thank you. Thank you so much. Oh my god, it's so scary." Her voice was still a high-pitched screech.

"What state do you live in, if you don't mind me asking?" I kept my voice low and calm.

"Oregon. I live in Oregon. Do you know a Shaman or someone who deals with demons?"

I changed the subject, "Oregon! I live in Oregon too. What part of the state are you in?"

Her voice seemed to downshift as she focused on the question, "I live in Selma. Have you heard of it? It's a really small town not far from Cave Junction."

My stomach jumped and jerked in fright. Oh my god, that's not very far from the valley where I live. I clearly wanted to keep a firm distance from this woman.

"Yes, I've heard of it." I changed the subject again, "Is someone there with you?" 

She seemed to be calming down a little, "No, but my boyfriend is up the road, and he said he'd be back in an hour."

I chit-chatted with her for a while and told her I had a friend who worked with someone once that had a similar problem, "Would it be okay if I give your number to my friend?"

"Yes, yes, please! If your friend can help me, please."

I hung up and called my friend, who is a therapist and also explores shamanism. It was after 10:00 pm, but he was gracious and took the woman's number. He called her that night and talked her down off the cliff of her episode. The Code of Ethics prevented my friend from telling me what happened on that phone call. And that's fine with me.

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As the years roll on, calls are fewer and fewer. Oddly, I sometimes miss those random strangers looking for Shaman's Drum. Except for the red-eyed demon caller. One of those in a lifetime is enough.

My lucky number from the far-away man connected me with random people from all over the globe - Florida, Brazil, Maine, Canada, Germany, and Mexico, to name a few. Most calls were short and sweet—the connections lasting only a few polite sentences.

For the first time in a long time, a call came in last weekend. 

"Uh, hey, is this Shaman's Drum?" The voice was stilted and gravely.

I started the usual response, "No, it isn't..." when my nephew blurted out laughing and talking in his normal voice again. A voice I hadn't heard in a long while.

"Got you, Aunt Michelle. Got you good.”

Shamanism works in strange ways. ☆

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(Photo by Quino Al on Unsplash)

*Names have been changed.