Am I Going Nuts?

Or just having a midlife crisis?
I am about to commit to two things that terrify me AND excite me. Part of me knows this is why my father never wanted me to move to California-the land of Sodom and Gomorrah, the bold and the beautiful, the wacky and the visionary. The problem is it is always hard to tell which is which.
My first plunge: I am taking a weekend course called The Way of the Shaman. I am deeply curious. When I was a journalist I would have said it was journalistic curiousity that led me to this thing, and would have provided the excuse to participate, while offering cynicism and critique from the inside. Now it is just me. And I have to face that I want to do this wacky thing. It is not just a story. I am genuinely curious. Three years ago Jonathan and I went on a Shamanic journey with a friend. His old friend, an Oscar-winning short film maker and all around amazing guy took us on our journey. It was a small, private affair in our beach house in Stinson. Jeff Brown brought over his drums, some sage, and himself. It was just me, Jonathan and Natalie. She had done it before. He was doing it for her, because she was sick.
The whole things seemed absurd, but delightful. So we lay down on couches and the floor, Jeff lit the sage, started drumming, and talked us down into the underworld. We went down. I was so deeply skeptical. And then something happened. I found my power animal, a fox. It was the most beautiful fox I had ever seen. I was surprised and slightly disappointed. I think of myself as a water creature, and I really hoped for a dolphin, or maybe some bird. I never think of foxes at all. But here was this fox, he was leading me over stone walls and through forests by moonlight. He was incredibly gorgeous. His coat was a brilliant orange with flashes of white. The white almost glowed under the stars. I followed him through the woods, going faster and faster. I could barely keep up. We went on a long journey. Finally he came to a clearing. And then he lay down, and just buried himself in the leaves. He was completely camouflaged, because the fallen leaves were brilliant orange like his coat. And he just lay there, with his head peeking out, and his eyes closed. He did not move again, but he looked like he was in a place of great peace.
I was so surprised. It was not what I expected, in terms of animal or outcome. I didn't feel a clear message. But this beautiful image was in my head, and I have carried it ever since. AFTER we did our journey, came back up into our world again, we talked about where we had been. (Jonathan's power animal was a river otter, but I cannot tell his story. That is his to tell.) Then Jeff gave us some books to look through about the various animals. It was funny--the books only included about 50 animals. And yet all three of us had been visited by animals in the book. Even stranger, the image of the fox resting in leaves turns out to be a classic dream. It means you have reached a time to be still. To lie down. To rest. No time frame was given, of course. Was it just for the week? For a decade? Who knows.
But the experience did two things: it made me feel like there are universal dreams that we can tap into, and that dreams can have power, and can guide us, if we let them in. In my case my dream has often calmed me when I get agitated about what I am doing in my life, because I think of that fox lying in the leaves.
Well, three years later I have signed up for a Way of the Shaman workshop. Perhaps it will be a scam. Perhaps it will change my life. But if I want to know, I have to jump in. That is what life is all about.