Making connections

I was asked to bring some of my wands to a psychic fair at one of the local shops and spent the day talking about magick and the Tree teachers with a wide variety of people from many walks of life. As the day wound down a father and son came over to talk to me about connections and the energy in objects. The father was in his early forties and didn`t initially introduce himself. His son Emmit (printed in black marker on the front of his middle school athletic shirt) had a small stone in his hand which he had bought from one of the other vendors. Emmit had taken in more than his share of the energy that was swirling through the shop and was close to being overloaded.He was bouncing around and distracted by the stone. He tossed it from hand to hand and rolled it between his palms as his father and I talked about magick and shamanism. His father told me "Emmit can feel the energy in certain things and I have been looking for a way to understand what he does".
I explained that some people,myself included, believe all things have an energy and spirit contained in them and we are all connected to the rest of the Universe thru the subtle energy threads that make up the Web of the Universe. He told me he had recently been working with a shaman and that experience had opened his mind to his son`s abilities as well as ways to support his son`s gift. Emmit had wandered off to look at some of the other things in the shop,I sensed he was a bit uncomfortable by his father discussing his capabilities with a stranger.
I told the father about my own connections with the trees and stones and gave him a brief history of my injury and how I lost some abilities yet gained others. He told me many of the things I was talking about were the same things that the shaman he worked with had shared with him. Then he came out and asked "Are you also a shaman?". I told him, "I am a witch first, a shamanic witch, but at the heart of things I`m a witch". He looked shocked for a second but then asked me to explain what being a witch first meant to me. We talked a bit about what it means to be a witch and a shaman and the practice of magick or witchcraft until Emmit came back and stood closer to the wands I had for sale. He had put the stone in his pocket and was picking up and handling one wand after another. His father was about to caution him when I told him it was fine and I encouraged people to handle the wands. "Your father tells me you can feel things thru stones Emmit,do you feel anything from the Trees?" I asked him. Emmit replied "They`re not at all like the stones,the stones feel different". I asked him if he`d like to try an experiment. When he said he`d like to experiment I asked him to show me the stone he had in his pocket. He had asked his dad to buy him a piece of tumbled Hematite and I thought he may have been trying to ground some of his excess energy thru that stone. I handed him a piece of Smokey Quartz from one of the displays which made him smile and then asked for it back and handed him a piece of black Tourmaline and his focus began to return. I asked him to describe some of the favorite stones he had at home as he held the Tourmaline. He talked about their color, weight and texture and how they made him feel. In a few minutes he was calm and happy instead of buzzing and overloaded. I asked for the tourmaline back, then handed him an Oak wand and asked him to think about it the way he had just thought about the stones to seek that same type of connection and he said now he could feel the tree. It was different than his stones he said but he felt it thru his hands "in a different direction" and he could feel something like sun and the water (that wand came from a old Oak that used to grow near the tidal cove we live on). Emmit was now calm and happy and thanked me for talking with him, he said the experiment had given him something to think about and explore further. I told his father the names of the stones I had handed Emmit and how I had used his connections to his own stones at home to help ground him. I told him Emmit can feel the stones most strongly but he has the ability to feel the energy in the things that surround him including the people in the shop and suggested a few ways he might help guide Emmit and help him better understand his gifts when interacting in environments like this psychic fair. I wrote down the titles of a few books and websites that may be of use for him and his son.
Emmit excused himself and told his father he was going to wait for him in the car.
As Emmit walked toward the door, his father said, "Emmit has been a real game changer for his mother and I. He`s made us refocus what is important to us and how we look at the world". I told him Emmit was very lucky to have parents like him who support his gifts and go out of their way to understand his connection to the Universe. I told the father "People who feel these gifts can either shove them aside or deny them and then keep disconnecting from things till they get to the point the only thing they aren`t disconnected from is themselves. When these gifts are supported people like your son have the potential to use their gifts to make things better for us all and to make the world a better place for us all to live. Thank you for seeing that and supporting it and thank your wife for me too".
Before he turned to leave he extended his hand and said,"My name is Steve and I`m really glad we got to talk. I met my first witch today and it was nothing like I thought the experience would be". I told him "Glad to meet you Steve, My name is Bob ( I was wearing a name tag). I`m also really glad we got to talk." Steve asked me for one of my fliers on the Tree Magick class I`ll be presenting in February before he left to rejoin his son.