00:00.00
Alan
Welcome back to segment 3 on rock art podcast episode 84 quite the journey. It's been exciting so far and we're going to continue the story and then provide you with the update as to where we are in the journey. So Anne. It's it's up to you to sort of get us at the end of this segment to give us sort of an update as to what you've learned and how you can apply your enthusiasm and knowledge into a particular program or a particular. Ah, dissertation topic and geography and subject and where you are in that journey. But but let's go back. Ah, a little ways further and pick up the story where you had left off in the last segment if you could.

00:48.61
Ann
I would be happy to. Um, there's another subject matter. That's closely related but different and that is shamanism that.

01:54.28
Alan
Um, go ahead exactly.

01:18.69
Ann
Has fascinated me since I have understood what it actually is and I understood it because of Africa and particularly because of the zulus. Um and I've had some remarkable experiences with with a particular zulu shaman. But. When I've met them I I just there is just something about them that there's a spiritual power there and I'm Christian and I'm quite religious in my own religion and I don't believe that another belief. Or another religion or another set of just differences from my own negates anything. It doesn't challenge me. It doesn't you know rock my faith or my confidence in my own beliefs or in my own. Belief in god it actually helps it. It's the beauty of the and it's not and or but it can be this or that it's and and these shamans there's there's real power with these people and there's miracles that have happened and ah you know I've I've experienced this so I've been. Fascinated with shamans and again it it started in South Africa and this time not with the sand but with the zulu. But as as I learned a little bit more about rock art and then I I you know again, bring it back to the west and. My home of Utah Dr Smith None of the and I I keep going back to him but None of the things that he found interesting about me was that I was from Utah and that he was interested in a lot in Utah and also we had magnificent. Magnificent discussions about the continuity of art forms. Rock art forms here and there and what does that mean and how to you know How do you figure that out and so just this really great conversation with him that led into other people. But. You know, led into me knowing a little bit more here and there um, but as I experienced shamans and started to understand what these people do and sometimes how they do it I just thought wow okay, what is this. Then you come back to America and I you know come back to the west in the southwest and you might not call them shamans they might be medicine men they might be something else but in in definition they're you know a spiritual leader of sorts that helps usher.

07:02.23
Ann
Experiences or knowledge or however it is defined between a spirit world that we can't always see and a world here and in my own religion. We call them bishops We call them. priests we call them they're shamans in my opinion and. I I see no difference in it. So I think okay, if we but really believe in god that god doesn't change. He gives everybody knowledge of him in the ah the way and the ability that they are able to use that spiritual power and knowledge and so. As I I've come to think ah along those lines and apply this to what I did in my undergrad which was history and comparative religion and specifically I was interested on in and I spent I've spent a lot of time as well in the Middle East um I lived in Jordan for a while. And and you know the nabyteans were actually one of the reasons why I loved our rock art as well. Because first time I went to Petra and I'm walking through the seek and there was navitean rock art right? at my eye level and you couldn't see it like ever all the tourists kept walking by and I I saw it. And I sat and I touched it and I'm so you know I know I shouldn't and I'm so sorry so archaeologists don't punch me but I remember thinking the naviteans who we don't understand exactly who they are did this. They wrote this they drew this what is this? It's a record of something and.

10:40.66
Alan
Yeah.

10:17.59
Ann
You You continue on through that Sikh and if your eye is trained to it. You see the most remarkable things in this stone. So The the religious element of this is super interesting and yeah, Islam history and I I.. That's what I studied in my undergrad and to bring that up to now I I do have a lot of like experience studying religions and comparative religion but like christianity.