Must Be Santa

Yesterday at work as we were listening to Christmas music on the radio (My radio day :)), they announced that there would be a moment of silence to honor those affected by the recent shootings at a Connecticut school.  When that moment came, I stopped where I was, closed my eyes and tuned in to that area to see if there were any additional psycho pomp aid I could offer the children who had been killed.  Often in such traumatic deaths there can be a great sense of disorientation, and spirits sometimes need help in crossing over to the light.  I have been doing this kind of work for around 15 years, and still was surprised by what I experienced.

At first all I saw was brilliant light and there was a sense of deep peace.  Not being guided to do anything else I just bathed in those sensations, adding my own light to what was already there.  Then suddenly something appeared in the sky and soared to the ground.  It was Santa Claus in his sleigh, reindeer and all!  The jolly old elf ushered all the delighted children into his sled, laughing and joking and ho-ho-ho-ing the entire time, and when they had all squiggled in to the now very crowded sled, he snapped the reins with an extra jolly laugh, and soared back into the sky, disappearing into the light. 

I've been working with spirits for years, as I said, to help departed souls finish their journeys, so I know their shape-shifting abilities to become anything that will be helpful and meaningful in order to aid these dear ones.  This was just so completely and sublimely perfect. Who else but Santa would come, this close to Christmas, to take a group of grade school children home?

Overwhelmed, I opened my eyes and felt the emotions rising in me. "No," I thought, "I can hold it."  A moment later I realized, "No I can't!" and literally dashed to the bathroom where I allowed the tears to well up in uncontrolled sobs.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

A Matter of Context

A couple blog posts ago (Hitting the Shower) I was mentioning the many challenges I've been facing these past few months (including a blood clot, abscessed tooth, and various financial weirdness) and what lessons and messages I was gaining from these experiences.  Not long after the occurrences of that post, I went to the monthly channeling session I've mentioned in the past where a friend of mine channels Jeshua (aka Jesus).  I've been going to these sessions for close to 20 years now, and what I've learned from Jeshua has really become my default setting in all things spiritual.  Or, since all things are spiritual, I should maybe just say "all things."  Those teachings can be expressed in the simple phrase, "There is no separation."

And so I asked Jeshua about those challenges and for his help in giving them more of a context on what was really going on.  The following is a transcript of that very enlightening conversation...

*

Jeshua: Beloved brother, how are you in this evening?

Patrick: Still pretty good (Yes, you’re very good. What would you speak of?) It’s been a tricky few months. This month’s probably been the trickiest, but a lot of financial and physical health and different things coming up and a lot of facing your own mortality type thing (Ah, yes) And bang, it was like one thing right after the other. It was like I would get one challenge, and before that one would get resolved, I would get another challenge, and then before that one got resolved…Finally, this past few weeks I had some trouble with a tooth and I had some of the worst pain I think I’ve ever had in this lifetime. It’s just these different challenges, and I was hoping to get your perspective on things, get like a better context for what’s going on and why and where it’s leading.

Jeshua: You have decreed that in this lifetime you want to know completion with physical, with physical challenges such as providing for yourself, the monetary, the dwelling place, the occupation where your heart opened, and yet sometimes the golden coins don’t accompany the open heart. But you have wanted to know how that feels. You’ve also wanted to know all of the humanness so that you can be complete with it. You are approaching that place where, as you have spoken, one comes right on top of another before one is even resolved, and that is because you want to—if you will hear me well—come to the place of surrender. And you have. You have said, “I can’t handle it. I give up.” And truly you cannot handle it of the small self, the small ego, and even of the physical. But you can handle it as you abide in the heart, as you breathe, as you affirm to yourself, “This is all in divine order, whether it looks like it or not. I am coming through this as a completion, and I am going to come out the other side of it,” and you are. So there are times that you get a glimmer of light and you see this light on the horizon and you say, “Okay, I know this too shall pass, and I’ve always been taken care of,” and you have. All of this lifetime, even when it seems like you were tumbling down the hill into muck and mire, you have raised yourself back up again. So you can take good credit from that; in other words, you can take good feeling from that and trust that always the divine Self of you is going to take care of you. Yes, you have decreed that you will know the bumps and trials and tribulations of physicality and of this reality, but you are also coming to a place of being complete with it to the place of surrender, the place of trusting the heart. You are in a very good place, because as I have said to you other times, you are the teacher. Many come to you and they want to know. They have questions and they ask of you and you deal certain ways with them that they can understand. But truly what they understand is how you face all of the problems that the world can present to you. And you are storing up many experiences that you can share with them. The master has experienced everything so that he can be at peace with it and he can then offer this peace to other ones, because “I have been there.”

Patrick: And I’ve already been experiencing that…I have a friend who recently lost her mom, and then on the heels of that she had an abscessed tooth, and she’s like “I don’t think I can handle this, I can’t handle any more,” and I’m like “No, you’re going to be fine. You’re going to come through this, because I just came through it myself.” (Exactly)

Jeshua: Every experience that you draw to yourself is in order for you to use in helping others. There is no experience that doesn’t come with its gift, and even if it feels like it is manure, it truly has a gift in it. And often very soon you will find yourself using it to help others. So when it comes, whatever challenge comes, invite it in, welcome it. Say, “Okay, I didn’t know I was inviting this, but come on in.”

Patrick: I have been able in the middle of some of it to say to myself, “You know, one day I’m going to be really grateful for this.”

Jeshua: Exactly, which doesn’t make any sense to human ego, the separated ego, but it is the truth of your being. So you’re doing very well with it.

Patrick: That’s good to hear. It’s just nice to have the validation. I had a feeling that that’s kind of where…and I’ve been…I mean, even with the shamanism, it’s like the better you get at doing your “job”, you’re just getting better at getting out of the way and trusting and letting go and surrendering (Exactly) so my whole life is kind of pointed in that direction (Yes)

Jeshua: So on the morrow and the day after, go and buy for yourself the gold stars and put a few of them up where you can see them (Okay) and know that they are your gift to yourself (I will) And then when you meet somebody else who is going through the same problems, give them a couple of gold stars (That’s a great idea) It might even be fun.

Patrick: Yeah. Well, when I do soul retrievals and stuff, I have pearls for every soul part I help someone bring back. I give them a pearl to represent that, so it’s kind of the same kind of thing (Good; it is. You are doing well) Thank you so much.

Jeshua: Thank you, because truly—and I say this to all of you—you are my voice. You are my hands. You are my eyes. You are my hugs that I can give to another one. I work through you, all of you. Whenever you feel in the heart, in love with another one, in resonance with another one and you open your mouth and you say encouraging words to them and you allow them to know the truth of their being in whatever way you can do this, truly I speak through you. There is nothing mystical, magical, wonderful, strange about what is termed channeling, because you all do it all the time. When you are in resonance with your own heart being, the love, then you speak from the Christ of yourself. And then you allow me—because there is no separation—to speak to other ones, and I thank you for that (It’s an honor) It is my honor. Thank you.

Ask And It Will Be Opened

I LOVE the Yuletide season!  The season of light and miracles.  I have a recent little miracle of my own to report...

For awhile now I have been sharing an office space with a dear friend as a place to do my shamanic work. Last month I had scheduled a 2 hour Introduction to Shamanic Journey class there one Sunday afternoon.  I arrived early to set up the room for my class.  I slipped off my shoes and, rather than tuck them into my pocket as is my habit, I tossed my keys into one of the shoes.  I sipped on a cup of tea to help me calm down and center as I bustled around setting up the altar, smudging, and drumming in the directions to prepare the space for the class.  Once done with that, the tea did what tea does, and I left to visit the bathroom.

When I came back to the office I discovered the door knob would not turn. "Crap!" I realized I'd forgotten to unlock the door from the inside so that the door had closed and locked behind me, leaving me in my stocking feet in the hallway. This was exactly the reason for my previously mentioned habit of putting the keys in my pocket! 

I was really stuck.  I had no shoes, so I couldn't walk anywhere in the misty rain, and my car keys were inside with the office keys, so I couldn't drive anywhere.  The only thing I had was my phone, which was dangerously low on power (and guess where the charger was).  I called my office mate and got her answering machine, so I left an embarrassed message of what had happened and asking for any advice on what I should do.

I walked through the building at least three times to find myself to be the only one there.  Of course I was.  It was Sunday afternoon.  Looking around I found the phone number of the building manager posted somewhere, so as a last ditch effort I tried calling him, hoping maybe he lived near by and could open it up for me.  The first time I got his answering machine, but after another walk through the building I tried again and reached the manager's wife.  That was when I found out they lived on Vashon Island which was at least one ferry ride away across Puget Sound from Seattle.

I left my info with her anyway because she wasn't sure where he was, possibly in Seattle, but when he did finally call me back, he too was on Vashon.  Okay.  Not gonna come all the way over to rescue me. 

What he did do, though, was give me the phone number of the local locksmith that he uses, who should have a master key to the building, telling me to let them know he had told me to call.  Feeling increasingly embarrassed I called the locksmith to find out, via their answering machine, that if I were to have them come out, it would be an after-hours, emergency charge.  I hung up.  Who was going to pay for that?  I wasn't sure I could afford it, and I didn't want to stick my office mate with the bill, or get her into hot water with the building manager over it. 

What was I going to do?!  I seriously could not go anywhere or do anything.  My phone was almost dead.  Still I kept repeating to myself that, if what I really believe about everything always working out and happening for a reason, then there really was a completely harmonious solution. 

In frustration I stood up from the floor where I'd been sitting, leaning against the door.  I turned around, grabbed the door knob, and saying out loud, "Just please open!" I jiggled the knob and pushed...

...and the door opened.  It was still locked, but it was open. 

I stood there dumb-founded.  It wasn't like I hadn't already tried that.  I picked my jaw up off the floor and floated slowly, like I was dreaming, into the room.  I unlocked the door from the inside and, just as a precaution, retrieved my keys out of my shoe and slid them into my pocket. 

I retreated to the comfy reclining chair in the corner of the office, still shaking my head over the whole affair, and fell asleep under the weight of stress-induced exhaustion.  It had been between an hour and an hour and a half that I'd spent in the hallway, and I was relieved and grateful that no one actually showed up to take the class.

Interestingly, the only person who had actually signed up for the class had emailed me earlier in the day to say she couldn't make it because she couldn't leave her apartment.  She had lost her keys...

Hitting the Shower

So I don't know if this is a universal thing or if it's just me, but the bathroom tends to be one of the most sacred spaces I know of, particularly the shower.  I think I do more praying and contemplation in the shower than any place else.  And recently I needed both.

I'd been experiencing a tooth-ache off and on for a few weeks and was told I needed another root canal.  At the same time I was told my dental insurance had maxed out til the beginning of the year so, with the aid of antibiotics and vicadin I hoped to make it that long.  ...not so much.  I swear the pain I experienced in the course of those weeks was the most excruciating I'd ever experienced.  At times I was only getting a couple hours of sleep a night, spending most of that awake time pacing back and forth in my apartment in tears not sure what to do or how much more I could endure.

The pain meds didn't even touch the pain, and one of the only ways I discovered to lessen the pain, or maybe just distract my nervous system to other places besides my tooth, was to take a hot shower.  I did a lot of praying during those weeks -- sometimes three or four times a night!  One such night as I stood in the shower, my forehead against the wall in defeat, my pain-wracked mouth throbbing, I had a vision. 

Just to back-track briefly, about 8 months ago during a Soul Retrieval that I received, I was reunited with a certain Spirit Guide who, I was told, was like a family member.  It turned out this mysterious 'relative' was none other than Merlin.  The Merlin.  "Oh great!  It's the 'Robin Hood thing' all over again!" I thought (...Oh!  I haven't mentioned or explained the 'Robin Hood thing' before?  Okay, but you'll just have to wait for another post. ONE tangent at a time...). I've also never been big on wizards, thinking them a bit Hollywood and cliched -- particularly in this age of Harry Potter.  In fact, back when I was getting my Reiki II attunement I got a glimpse of an old white-haired robed man who looked back at me over his shoulder, smiled and winked at me before disappearing.  I assumed it to be a guide of mine, and now realize it was most likely Merlin doing some reconnaissance, but my reaction was, "A wizard. Pff! Why'd it have to be a wizard?"

Anyway, returning to my shower scene, I saw Merlin in this glowing light and he was dancing wildly, celebrating something.  Then, rather loudly, he struck this large, Chinese gong and shouted, "You made it!"  "Made what?" I asked.  Apparently I'd crossed a threshold somewhere along the line dealing with the discovery of the blood clot in my leg, financial challenges, and now my tooth, all piggy backing on each other one right after the other before the previous one has even been resolved. 

The realization that came to me, centering mostly around the blood clot situation, was that this was an initiation.  Normally in Native cultures, to become a shaman a person had to face an illness or sickness that took them to the brink of death from where they had to decide to either die or to heal and come back in order to heal others -- this is why shaman are often referred to as "The Wounded Healers."  Well, according to Merlin, this has all been that initiatory crisis for me, facing a situation that well could have taken my life, and yet coming through it with the determination to live. Not that there weren't times I was afraid I was going to die, or, with the tooth pain, almost wished I could.  I just kept finding things I had to live for, things I wanted to do, things I had to look forward to.

And not that it's been a totally smooth ride from that point either.  The pain did go away shortly thereafter, but then it did come back again.  But even though I don't have the money for a complete root canal I did get the tooth taken care of temporarily to take away the pain until next month when I have insurance.  And I've had one or two scares with the clot in my leg, one of which recently had me back for another ultrasound, only to find out that the blood thinners have been doing their job and that the clot had shrunk to about half its original size. And things are still tight, but this was the first in a few months that I wasn't scraping together rent money. Phew!

Like most things in Nature there is no clear beginning or ending, one fading into the other like the colors of the rainbow, so the initiation continues. As long as the clot is there I have a pretty constant feeling of something hanging over my head, but I do feel a corner has been turned and am for the most part confident that a full recovery is imminent.  And the strength and compassion I have gained from all of these experiences is incredible.  So, in no way saying I'd want to do it again, I can sincerely say I am grateful for the past few months.  And I am grateful to be on this side of them!