Kathleen the Shaman

Kathleen lays on her back in the tub, her body submerged, only her face peaking above the water. She moves herself slowly back and forth, repeating the mantra “om … om.”
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She eventually sits up. “What were you doing?” I ask her. “I was practicing yoga,” she answers.
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Now, I have just covered Hinduism in my Intro Religions class, but I don’t repeat lectures at home. So I continue my inquiry: “Where did you learn about yoga?” Kathleen answers: “You know, we play that game on the Wii where you do yoga poses.” She is right. We sometimes play Wii Fit. But that game doesn’t include mantras.
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“Ok, but they don’t say ‘om’ in the game, do they?” “No,” Kathleen thinks for a minute, “but Tenderheart, on the Care Bears, does yoga on Wednesdays. He always says ‘om.'”
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Thus did I unravel the mystery of my six year old’s apparent spiritual precociousness. Good thing for her too. She is always telling me that she can’t remember what I said thirty seconds ago. If it turned out that she could remember whole past lives, she was going to have some explaining to do.