I just read Sally Morgan's My Place. I can see why the cover blares "The Australian Roots." But Morgan's not Alex Haley--he traced his ancestors using family stories. Morgan didn't even know she was Aboriginal. Her parents hid that fact, and that whole side of her family, for years. It's a big part of the book's impact.

But I'm also struck by something most readers probably gloss over: at moments of crisis Sally and her family have, and openly share, psychic dreams and premonitions. They're routine, no big deal. Grownups wanting the family to pass as white may hush it up a bit, but they're not silly enough to deny a useful sense.

This has such a personal impact on me because my own parents treat ESP as proof of idiocy. You can't tell your dreams and most especially can't discuss premonitions--they'll treat you as ill and lock you up (no idle threat in my family!) Yet all my relatives, including my parents, have telepathic and predictive flashes--very useful ones, if voiced and acted on.

But my sisters and I couldn't act, couldn't voice--until we left home.

I found myself almost envying Morgan a childhood free to sense what she senses and feel what she feels, despite the outrageously open racism of midcentury Australia. This isn't "native envy"--that white immigrant envy of local people's magic or sensitivity or supposedly deeper link to the earth. That delusion fills shamanic workshops here in California where I was born and raised. Why would anyone assume shamanic capacity is race-based? It was just as evident in my family as Morgan's despite our pale skin.

Oh, wait. Freckles! That explains it! We're Celts! And so on... you can cook up racial explanations for ANYthing! But ESP is pan-cultural. The idea that privileged wannabes are "stealing" others' culture by studying shamanic practices or learning dreamwork is itself a racist premise: the premise that anyone owns our native abilities. What wannabes can do is debase and trivialize a tradition; and that's more commonly the fault of those who teach pricy workshops in techniques they've merely studied and haven't lived. I do condemn them. Plenty of them to be mad at! But their students are just settling for chop suey McShamanism because they can't get better.

Anyway, I envied Sally Morgan her family's acceptance. Not of everything--they're split by race, class, secrets and shame. But her folks basically felt proud of her and didn't tell her she was crazy for sensing what she sensed, feeling what she felt.

In contrast, my folks put down my open talk of psychic dreams and premonitions that they have too. Their denial and shaming about a basic part of our lives creates a gulf between us like that of fundamendalists who condemn their kid's sexual orientation. Mine won't totally disown me--as long as I stay in the closet.

But I can't. It's a lie.

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