Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way?

No, it’s not that time of the year. There are no Christmas trees lighting up people’s living rooms, no shiny presents under the tree, no caroling from door to door and no man in a fluffy, white beard and a red-and-white Santa suit at the mall.

When Pa Lor, 24, a student in the teaching credential program at Sacramento State, uses the words “jingle bells,” she imagined a spiritual world through the belief of Shamanism in her Hmong culture.

Lor said a shaman is equivalent to a doctor, psychiatrist or detective in the spiritual world, but that shaman functions can vary even within the Hmong culture.

Shamans hold two bells in their hands, hence the term “jingle,” said Lor.

Lor was sick for five years beginning in 1997. She described her symptoms as daily aches, pains and said the left side of her body hurt constantly. Doctors and chiropractors couldn’t diagnose her with anything specific.

Her mom turned to a shaman for spiritual healing in the fifth year because Lor’s sickness had gotten worse.

“I told my mom I thought I was dying,” she said.

While the shaman prepared to perform the ritual, Lor closed her eyes and sat on the shaman’s bench. She said her whole body started feeling light. Lor started to jump up and down on the bench, as shamans do when entering the spiritual world.

“Right off the bat, everyone knew I was a shaman,” she said.

Her inexplicable sickness disappeared after her initiation into being a shaman by the burning of silver and paper money. She has performed the rituals, “ua neej,” for six years now.

Lor took the first two years off of school after learning she was a shaman to learn about her gift.

“I would sleep and dream. I would only wake up to eat,” she said.

In her dreams, Lor said she learned how to be a shaman by the “spirit helpers” taking her to different places and telling her what to do.

Lor went back to San Joaquin Delta College after two years, a community college in Stockton.

She said she “jingled” every day, helping one person Monday through Thursday and three to four people on the weekends.

A typical family that came to her for help would want her to communicate with the spirit world to figure out why a loved one began acting a certain way or why there was an inexplicable illness.

In some cases, she had to take several different paths to find a certain spirit that was angry with the person. The sessions ran from two hours to seven hours, Lor said.

Lor said those who to returned to her for other sessions, the success rate was 100 percent. If people don’treturn to finish their sessions, Lor can get sick, she said.

“My job is to separate the spirit world and the human, physical world. My job is to put that balanceback,” Lor said.

Lor, who grew up as a Christian, said she wants others to recognize that Shamanism is not witchcraft.

One of her greatest goals is to write a book educating others about her experiences as a shaman. She also wants doctors to understand that sometimes an illness is spiritual and there isn’t always medicine out there to make a person better.

She said it was hard being a shaman and a student at the same time.

Pang Moua, a biology major at Sac State and Lor’s niece, said she feels Lor is multitalented.

“She’s juggling school, being a teaching assistant, internships and being a shaman. There is more responsibility on her,” Moua said.

Ka Va, a professor of math methodology in the credential program, said Lor can be low-profile and shy in class.

“But in the office hours, she asks a lot of questions and doesn’t back down,” Va said.

Lor wants to get her master’s and doctorate degrees, as well as continue to conduct Shamanism.

When she has downtime, Lor loves to watch movies, watch theater, and do activities outdoors. But she said that Shamanism will always be a part of her life.

“I will never stop helping people or doing shaman work. It is a part of me,” Lor said.

Gia Vang can be reached at [email protected]