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34 A Journal of Contemporary Shamanism VOLUME 8 ISSUE 1 SPRINGSUMMER 2015 R E V I E W Numa is an epic poem about a wild feline numena nature spiritlearning to shape-shift. As Numa grows up she learns to take the form of other animals and of plants and even ele- ments. Accompanying the poem are Moores charming photo collages of such things as animal tracks feathers and appropri- ately stone eggs in birds nests. Ever since I was a little girl I have been intrigued by shape-shifting. I read childrens books about shamans and was fascinated by the prospect of being able to physically shape- shift especially into a bird so that I could fly. Much as I tried however all my efforts were in vain I was never able to fly. Eventually I became interested in other things and forgot about shape-shifting. Then many years later when I began my own shamanic practice I read Teton Sioux medicine man Fools Crows autobiography where he said matter-of-factly that he had shape-shifted into a dog during the 1973 Wounded Knee standoff in order to slip past the U.S. military that was encir- cling the American Indian Movement AIM camp. I believed him and my curiosity was reignited. But Fools Crow did not explain how he did it. I also read another compelling account in Lesley Thomass book The Flight of the Geese Sandra Ingerman recommended it to me about the experience of a young indigenous woman in northern Alaska learning to shape-shift which has continued to haunt me. Today I find that the poetic Numa dovetails nicely with Thomass far-more-graphic narrative. During a workshop once with Amazonian shaman Ipupiara I asked him privately about shape-shifting and he explained that you needed to begin by shape-shifting just one molecule into the animal you wanted to become then two and so on and slowly build up to your entire body. He referred me to one of his students who related that he had done just that over a period of time and suddenly he had found that he was a complete wolf somewhere in the wild of the north. However he found that he was a wolf facing a hunter taking aim at him with a rifle and terrified he hurried to shape-shift back into his ordinary human body. Ipupiaras student felt that he had just escaped being killed and was wary of trying this again. When I started reading Numa I expected a narrative of what I imagined shape-shifting to be but what I found at first seemed like rough disjointed sequences. Very quickly however I became enchanted by the realism of Numas otherworldly experiences and it was perhaps the not-fully-successful at- temptsrough and disjointedthat led me to suspect that Moore must herself have been in that space of becoming an- other. In a later exchange with Moore she explained to me that in the section Shifts Numa is still immature and cant fully realize the metamorphosis into the powerful spirit of Bear. And so the numen comes out sketchy more critter than beast tucked inside rib bones damp warm knocked-about passenger within black- furred lumberer 1 Later in the poem when Numa is teaching her cub ... she curls up egg-like her cub copies. Two shells grow crack open. Full-fledged owl flies to a low branch. Hatchling tiny cat paws clings to a flimsy stalk. 2 Moore I slowly realized had actually managed to capture the essence of what it must be like to learn to shape-shift on a physical level. When I arrived at the end of the poem indeed to my surprise I was feeling like I had begun to shape-shift myself. On a visceral level my ordinary reality had been pulled this way and that and was definitely out of shape. Where at first I had sought a realistic narrative of Numas shape-shifting experiences I found rather that I was in the grip of the very energies and inner workings of journeying that we shamanic practitioners encounter and of the shape-shifting process itself rough and disjointed. As I read I found that the very juxtaposition of words that I thought must have self-selected depicted the powerful inner movement of journeying. They were words that had manifested as a reflection of a primordial inner moving of energy where shapes have a liquid aspect no longer bound to our consensus reality. In fact I had quite literally been pulled into that space as I was to find later. Numa An Epic Poem with Photo Collage by Katrinka Moore Review by Nita M. Renfrew