As Master Healer, much of what I do in the afternoon is administrative, my mornings are usually devoted to making grand rounds and assisting with difficult cases. Though, today I stood afar and wore my healer's mask, I didn't want to give any bug I might have to any of the patients. My Journey-Level I, II and III healers all do a fantastic job and I am confident in their abilities.

I spent time observing my daughter Aya, a Journey Level II healer, as she worked with a young expecting rabbit mother. Aya doesn't speak much, she has an exceptionality whereby the words in her head do not exit her mouth, yet the very few words she manages to say are so profound and meaningful. She had that worried mother calmed down in a few moments and I later found out that the new mother delivered all her young in a matter of a just few moments without so much as a whimper. Such is the power of Aya's touch, love and kindness as she does her work. I am extremely proud of her.

I met my new apprentice trainees, a fine group of eager youngsters. Oh, how I remember being an upstart apprentice trainee, so full of spit and vinegar. I was (am?) such an overachiever at that age and I got in such trouble (really really big big trouble!!!). I had the "watch me" attitude whenever an instructor told me that I would never be good enough to do this thing or that thing. That attitude bled (flooded?) into other aspects of my instruction and I applied it to "apprentices are not allowed to ..." or "you don't have the clearance to do this...." or you cannot go there..." Consequently, I ended up stealing my Master's (Harriet the Wise) personal journals so that I could read how she passed her Journey-Level I exams at the end of her apprenticeship. (I may have already told this story, but I'm reminiscing...so, it's perfectly legal....)

They don't whip errant apprentices anymore, but I was cashiered out of the Healer's Hall in a dramatic fashion. I had my healer's cap torn in half ( they didn't slap my face with the remains of it, thank the Maker) and my Healer's Apron torn in half and thrown at my feet. I had my over skirt torn from off my shoulders (I still had my petticoats and under dress on underneath) and torn in half, essential the habit of a healer stripped from my body. I had to march down a gauntlet of all the healers and staff and then I was escorted by Watchers to the gardens.

As a failed apprentice, I had lost my status in the community as a citizen and as a 'free creature.' I was at that time considered part of the peasantry, one with no rights and indentured to Healer's Hall as a servant until I had paid off my training debt. Such is the laws of our culture. And while the peasantry are no longer rounded up and exiled or abused in our culture, they are not welcomed into homes, businesses and community activities. They live simple, hard-working lives and such was my fate.

Oh, look at the time, Weldon's agreed to meet me down at the big Healer's Hall kitchen for dinner! They're serving roast fowl with mashed turnips, gravy and sourdough dinner rolls. Poppy Wheezle sent over a few bottles of his glühwein and I want to be sure to get a few mugs of that to celebrate the beginning of the new apprentice class!

Let's see, in my overeagerness to prove myself, I swiped my Master's personal journals so that I could discover her secret to passing the exams and I subsequently got banished from Healer's Hall, failed my exams, and was reduced in status to that of an indentured servant working off my substantial schooling debt working in the fields...So, how did I get out of it all?

I got over my darn self. I knew right away that I had disappointed everybody in my community who had put their faith in me, my Master, my friends, my parents. Mind you, they were forbidden by the customs and traditions of our culture from 'rescuing' me, I was an outcast.

I accepted my fate. My mother had taught me a long time before that I should do everything as if I were doing it for the Maker himself and to not complain about the drudgery of living. She made games out of all our chores like taking out the garbage, washing the dishes, folding underpants, and dusting. She would say things like, "Drudgery is the comfort of our lives for it gives us a sense of who we are and gives us a foundation for building our character. If all of our life were filled with exciting things like ballroom dances and music and cake, then whatever on the earth would we look forward to? Ballroom dances and cake and music everyday would become the drudgery, and we just might want to take a break from it all and find some underpants to fold to break up the monotony. So, here Little One, live life to the fullest, fold this here pile of underpants and go crazy."

I found joy in doing my part by hoeing weeds, planting radishes and beets and carrots, harvesting fruit and irrigating the crops that fed every staff member, patient and worker up at Healer's Hall, the very creatures that I love and cared for the most. In the hot broiling California sun, I often worked stripped to the waist, head down, toiling over the obnoxious weeds that plagued the gardens, but I did so with a smile. I would sit under a fruit tree with the others during our noontime siestas. As the sun went down ( sun up to sun down makes for long summer days.) we all would bath in the creek, wash out our clothes, eat a hot meal and sleep deeply contented knowing that we had done a good day's work.

At the end of the harvest, in November, we were given the opportunity to leave for the coming Winter, our debts had all been paid. Like most of the others, I chose to stay on through the Winter, I had nowhere else to go, my parents would not be allowed to take me home, they were aged and living up at Healer's Hall by that time. Instead of being allowed to stay in the gardens, I was sent back up to the Hall with orders to report to the Master Healer to seek other working arrangements. I was told that there was no room for me in the garden dormitory during the snowy winter and that they had no further use for me in the fields. I prayed against hope that I could perhaps be assigned to the cleaning crew and stay close to Healer's Hall, but I was out of real options. I felt like an orphan child.

Instead, Harriet the Wise met with me personally, she hugged me and gave me a choice: go back out to the fields, or sit that afternoon for my exams and take whatever consequences came with either failure or success. Naturally, I chose to retake my exams, after a bath of course.

I failed my Journey-Level exam with pride and joy. I knew that there was very little chance of passing, nobody in Harriet's term as Master had ever passed the Journey-Level I exam first try. I had been too proud of myself to accept that likelihood and was the reason I had stolen her journals in the first place, to attempt to cheat that inevitability. But I had seen the error of my pride in the gardens. I had to learn to be less self-reliant, and to rely on others and their abilities and wisdom.

I remained an apprentice that next Spring, but Harriet made me liaison to the new class of apprentice-trainees. I passed the Journey-Level I exams by the end of the Spring term and Harriet hired me to be her personal assistant in Labor and Delivery. And the rest is ...well...you can read all about it if I ever get my book published.

Do I still say "Watch Me?" Not so much anymore. Oh sure, I have a lot of self-confidence about the skills the Maker has given me in being a Master Healer and I'm not afraid to take some risk or act on gut-level instinct when it comes to some problems. But I know that there are a lot of talented creatures out there and self-pride can often lead to terrible downfalls. I think that delegation and cooperation have a much more important roll in making all the really heavy decisions.

In my new class this Spring, there is one little apprentice-trainee who caught my eye. She's smart, quick-witted, very talented, and a natural-born leader. She has a "Watch-me" attitude and she is cute as a button. I'm wondering if she can use a garden hoe too..... Sometimes, we have to become small in order to become great.