A Few Drinks With A Student

There is joy in sitting with someone I will be teaching or helping. I had the opportunity last Friday to sit with a new student and just talk. It’s inherently fun, but beyond that, there is a joy in doing what I do.

I listen. I listen for patterns in what the student says and for the spirit prompting me. It’s a little like being a go-between in a conversation. Somewhere between the jokes, between the back and forth of two people talking, the spirits stir. Things get dropped into the conversation, sometimes on purpose (because I tell the student what I hear) and sometimes by coincidence, the people around us saying just the right thing at the right time.

I never quite know how the conversation will go—but have no doubt, a night out with a vodou priest does not tend to be boring. Weird stuff happens.

What I do know is that I am eager to give the student what they need to hear. I love watching their face change when they hear it, whatever it is, or in feeling the tone and energy of the conversation change. The change itself is part of the enjoyment. I love watching people shed, over time, the things which have held them in decaying relationships, or a lifestyle that does not suit them, or have been a part of low self-esteem, or have been painful to them.

Healing is very much a part of my work, and very much a part of the life’s work given priests who are intended to have godchildren.

I cannot be in the least sorry that it involves sitting in a bar, drinking. I could meet the student and the spirit anywhere, but this environment is not a hardship.