Stayin' Alive

This is the second, and the biggest, of the three events I've mentioned in earlier posts that have shaken my world recently by happening in rapid succession, bringing with them much anxiety and depression with no room to breathe or process one incident before the next one hits.  The first was my previous post "Schrodinger's Car."  

During that adventure, I was without my car for an entire week.  During that week, basically home bound, other than the rides begged from coworkers to and from work, and not able to get anywhere on my own, I noticed something peculiar with my leg.  There was a spot on my upper calf that was tender to the touch and felt like a bruise.  "Huh..." I thought, then went about my business.  It didn't hurt other than when I touched it, so I just wouldn't touch it.  Over the course of a few days, though, it turned pink, and this pink streak started to move up to, then just past my knee.  Again it didn't hurt other than being sensitive to the touch, and I thought it was an allergic reaction to something or a rash.  It seemed to follow the seam of my jeans so I started calculating how long it had been since I'd done laundry -- perhaps my jeans were extra dirty and my skin was reacting?  And it really did appear to be just skin deep.  

So I did laundry.  Still the pink remained, stretching slowly up my thigh.  I kept trying to ignore it, because I didn't have a car to drive to the doctor with, plus I'd had a blood clot last year and it had healed, so what are the chances of it being another one?  Well, as the days stretched on without a car, and the feelings of helplessness and vulnerability increased, it was harder to chase those thoughts away.  Finally I got my car back but, my doctor not being open on the weekends, I had a couple more days' wait til I could see her.   

By the time I got in to see her I'd convinced myself again that it was nothing.  In fact, expecting it to be a quick visit on my lunch break, I figured I'd wait to grab lunch on my way back to work.  Wrong answer.

My doctor, a Naturopath, took one look at my leg and her whole cheerful, optimistic demeanor disappeared.  "Guess where you're goin'?" She said as she pulled some paper work out of a folder and began filling it out. "Oh no," was my only reply.  I'd been through this eerily familiar scenario the year before so I knew exactly where she was sending me -- for an ultrasound to check for a blood clot. And there was no daddling.  Other than pausing to give me a long, reassuring hug, she sped me on my way.

Oh no...  Not again... Okay...  I've been here before...  I can do this...

So I wasn't surprised when the ultrasound revealed a clot, or being put into a wheel chair and carted down to the ER.  It was an experience of a detached deja-vu, and I was pretty much resolved to dealing with whatever the Universe had in store for me.  I'd survived the first time.  This time I may just need to dig a little deeper into the spiritual reasons this popped into my reality a second time. 

At the same time there seemed to be something different.  My wheel-chair chauffeur even mentioned this one was a little scarier than the first. I'm still not sure exactly why, and I didn't really want to know.  I just wanted to get in, and get the treatment so I could set those worries aside and not be concerned about dropping dead at any moment.

They wheeled me in to the ER, got me officially checked in, and then, contrary to the last time where they wheeled me into a room and instantly started taking care of me, they wheeled me back out to the lobby saying they'd call me in as soon as the doctor was available.  

Alright.  Now I was starting to freak out a bit.  After being told how serious this was, I was sitting in the lobby waiting.  It didn't help that it was closing in on evening and I hadn't had anything to eat or drink since breakfast. I really started to think in terms of 'what if I don't make it this time?'  My wait seemed an eternity of anxiety waves washing over me, spiking, then retreating.  Still, there was a bit of satisfaction that I didn't fall into full-on panic attack.  

I was momentarily relieved when they finally wheeled me back into a room.  But after hooking me up to the machines that go 'bing' and taking some blood, I found myself again alone and waiting.  This was a bit maddening because, from the last time I'd experienced this, I knew as soon as I got the first blood thinner I'd be safe -- that would prevent any part of the clot from breaking off and entering my heart, brain, or lungs -- but until then I was afraid I could go at any moment, so what were they waiting for?!

Through the experience I was able to call a couple people, including my mom since I honestly didn't know if I were getting out of this alive, and I texted a bunch of friends to send prayers and healing energy.  One of my friends reminded me of the card I had pulled just the day before at our Sacred Pipe Circle --

It is actually a page from a desk top calendar, but how fitting is that?  She more than anybody helped me stay in my body and remain present through the experience, keeping me mindful of the spiritual reasons and bigger picture that was going on (Thank you Tara!).

Finally I received my first treatment of blood thinner, which was a huge relief.  So I can go home now, right? Nope.  They were concerned about my heart rate and didn't want to let me go til it came down a bit.  The whole time I was thinking to myself, "If you just let me go home, it'll come down on its own!"  Because I hadn't had anything to drink all day they started me on some liquids to rehydrate me which can affect heart rate, and that did have a positive effect -- At least until they came in with an EKG machine to check my heart, and I got the feeling they were waiting to see if I were going to have a heart attack or something.  I'm sure my anxiety peaked again.  And despite any attempts to meditate or give myself reiki, it felt like a losing battle and I just couldn't calm down.  I was looking my mortality in the face and wasn't sure I'd make it. 

Though I didn't go into full-blown panic attack, the anxiety I was experiencing was bringing back some oh-too-familiar feelings and thoughts.  It wasn't death that I was afraid of.  I'd had enough experiences through meditation, shamanic journeys, and psychopomp (helping souls who had passed to get to the light), that I knew there was nothing to fear there.  No.  My biggest fear was failing all the people who loved me.  All the people currently expressing their love and support and healing thoughts... If I were to die anyway, it felt like a huge betrayal of them.  It felt like a huge expectation that I didn't know if I had the energy to fill.  And I would be a loser for not being able to take care of myself, and for letting my anxiety run away with me unfettered until my heart couldn't handle it anymore.  It would be my fault and I would let down all the people who look up to me, and they would see me for the fake I really am.  

Through all of that, I did find a point of surrender that I hadn't felt since my Vision Quest four years earlier.  The last night of my quest I spent in the sweat lodge, but believe me there was no sweating going on.  It was in the first half of May, and it still got really, really cold at night, and I was so cold I didn't know if I would make it til morning.  At some point I just totally surrendered, and said a prayer that, if it was my time to go -- Here I am.  Take me.  As you probably have already guessed, I didn't die then.  In fact, shortly after that the sun began to rise and things began to warm up.  And then I heard chanting, and when I looked around to see who was singing, I realized it was the stone people in the center of the lodge, left from the first sweat we'd done to begin my ceremony.  It was the voices of the Grandfathers, heralding the completion of my ordeal, and then whispering in my ear my new Spirit Name.

I think it finally dawned on me then that this whole experience in the ER was part of another Vision Quest for me.  So I closed my eyes and told Goddess that, if it were her will and it was time for me to leave this life, then I was ready for her to take me.  I just kind of surrendered and let go of eveything, not knowing what to expect, least of all what happened next.  

As I sat there, anxieties still raging around me and threatening to tear me apart while I buffered my willingness to surrender to whatever Divine plan awaited me, a portal of sorts opened before me, like a window just in front of my third eye.  And as I looked in amazement trying to figure out what was happening, these hands and arms reached through the portal, grasped me, and pulled me through -- not into death but into life.  Somehow I realized that these were the hands of all those I would help in the future, reaching back and pulling me into the reality where I do live and still make a difference in the world - in their worlds.  

That's when I flashed on the following scene, perhaps my favorite in the entire Ruruoni Kenshin series, about a former samurai assassin who took a pledge never to kill again, carrying a samurai sword that has its blade on the non-business side...  

...because instantly I was aware that it did matter if I lived or died -- That if I still had things to accomplish in this life I wasn't going anywhere.  That rather than being ready to die, I had also to be ready to live.  I had to live, for my sake and the sake of everyone who I'd help.  I had to stay alive.

A dear friend arrived to keep me company in the ER, and I credit her presence for calming me enough that they would release me, and am so grateful to her and her house mates for allowing me to spend that night at their place.  Though I was coming down, my anxieties were still all over the place, and I felt better not having to spend the night alone.  I took the following day off of work to walk in the woods and to ground.  I had some dried apples someone had given me a couple months ago, and I took them to a special Hawthorne tree I know, and emptied the bag at the roots.  An offering of gratitude to all in the spirit realm, the realm of the Fae, and the physical realm, who had aided in my standing there once more upon the earth.  "Thank you Goddess."

                             ***                                           

As a bit of an epilogue, at one point in the ER I was talking to Nathaniel, my reindeer spirit guide, and he told me, "One day you will be grateful for this."  Seeing as I was not having the time of my life, I assumed he meant some day, way down the line.  I didn't need to wait quite that long.

Thanksgiving arrived shortly after this all went down, and a friend gathered with her family, as people are wont to do on such occasions.  Her Brother was there and was complaining about his leg bothering him for no reason.  My recent ER experience still fresh in her mind, my friend told him that he'd better get it checked out because it could be a clot.  A couple days later he had it checked out and it turns out he did in fact have a blood clot.  So my experience, as rough as it was, actually helped save someone else's life.  How can I not be grateful for that?

Schrodinger's Car

I mentioned a couple posts ago that there were three events that happened recently, right on the heals of each other, that really threw me, and have spawned a great deal of anxiety and depression for me.  Now that I am finally coming out the other side of all that, I feel I can recount them. This was the first --

Two days into what developed into an intense Mercury Retrograde, I was pulling out of the driveway of my apartment complex, headed to work, when a sudden clunk-clunk-clunking accompanied by a marked decrease in acceleration alerted me to the fact that something was wonky. I actually surprised myself at how calm I was as I pulled to the side of the road, called AAA, and waited for the tow truck.  I was aware of old patterns attempting to surface -- Old fears trying to get my attention with all their 'What ifs.'  What if I can't afford to get her fixed?  What if I'll need to find a new car?  What if this means I really don't have what it takes to get along in this world?

Louder than those voices, though, was the one reminding me that I'd been through this kind of thing before and I always come through, I'd always manifested the money, and there was purpose behind this.  And there was the fact that just the night before I'd remarked to a friend how I'd wished I didn't have to go work that Friday. D'oh! Prayer answered!

I had also just recently attended a workshop on Faery Doctoring, working more intimately with the Fae for healing, and I wondered if I'd somehow offended them, or not fulfilled my agreement with them, their resulting displeasure taking shape in my car failure.  Almost instantly to my mind came the realization that, no, this was an initiation.

Once I had it towed to a garage and they had a chance to look at Suzaku (my car is named after an Anime character who is a Chinese god of love who appears in the form of a phoenix), it sounded like it would be a relatively easy and inexpensive fix, and if they could find a used part to replace the part that had broken, I was only looking at around $400 rather than the $1000+ for a brand new part.  Sure, I could take another day off of work if that's how it played out and I got her back that quickly, and relatively at a price I could work with.

Well, the extra day turned into a full week as used part after used part turned out to be in worse shape than the one that had broken on Suzaku, and the garage was telling me I'd probably need to get a brand new part. From my original optimism and faith, my spirits began to spiral into a nose dive.  Obviously I am not good at manifesting if I've had to do without my car for an entire week, having to beg for rides to and from work, and on top of the $1000 something that I'd have to fork out to pay for the fix were the couple days of pay I missed out on while the garage was not fixing my car. I was pretty much in the dumps feeling powerless and like a victim.

When it seemed I had no other choice than to buy a brand new part, I called a guy, who I consider my real mechanic, though I don't go to him very often because his shop is about an hour away, and I asked if he had any connections where he could get me either a used part or a less expensive new part.  "You don't even need that part," was his answer. "Without it, all that happens is your four-wheel drive becomes a two-wheel drive."

Holy crap! I excitedly called the garage and told them what I'd heard, and my spirits sank again as they gave some seemingly plausible explanation on why that wouldn't work.  I called my guy back and told him what they'd said and see if he could help me find the necessary part.  At this point my mechanic got pissed.  After telling me they were jerking me around and just trying to get more money out of me, he asked if I wanted him to call them for me. "You'd do that?" I asked, not doing a very good job of hiding my surprise.  And he did.

My mechanic called the garage, saying he was my cousin who works at a salvage yard up north, and that he had a part for me but had no way to get it to me.  He then played dumb while asking specific questions about the broken part, and finding out that it had actually already been removed.  He then got them to agree to let me come pick up my car and drive it, as is, up to his salvage yard.  When he called me back and told me, I thanked him profusely, but when I called the garage myself, they told me it still wasn't drive-able because it needed that part.  What?!

 Now I was pissed.  I called AAA and found out they do have a policy of one additional free tow to another shop if you're not satisfied with the first you were towed to.  I had them pick up Suzaku at the garage and take her to my mechanic, in whom I had complete trust in his integrity.  Still, the uncertainty of the  past week had weighed on me and I had a hard time keeping my faith up as my mind was flooded with "what ifs."  What if there were something my mechanic wasn't aware of that would still require me to get a brand new part.  What if I still have to come up with all that money. What if what if what if...

Then I stopped.  I suddenly recognized the similarity between my situation and the theoretical thought experiment of Schrodinger's Cat.  The physicist Schrodinger proposed that if you shut a cat into a box with a vial of poisonous gas that had a 50/50 chance of opening, until you actually opened the box, the cat existed in both states of alive and dead.  It was the opening of the box, and the perception of the observer, that fixed the cat into one state or the other.  At that moment Suzaku existed in this twilight zone of being both already fixed and needing a ton more money to fix her.  I was the co-creator of this reality, and so I focused on the former state, that she was already fixed, inexpensively, because that was the reality that felt the lightest and most joyful to me.  I further realized that the state of heavy darkness I'd found myself in while Suzku was at the first garage was not because of my worry of the expenses and everything, but was because what they were telling me wasn't true. It wasn't until I decided to explore my other options and find another way that my spirits rose.  The Truth is always lighter than fallacy and deceit, and in the future I will try to recognize this feeling and remember it as meaning that whatever the situation seems to be, it's not true.

Once I walked in the new lighter feeling for a little while (and don't think other doubts and thoughts didn't surface during that time) I called to check in on Suzaku's status.  She was all ready to be picked up, and the total bill (including the oil change he performed after checking the fluid levels for me) was $134!

That was pretty miraculous. My cat, er... I mean car, was still alive.

Gratuities Appreciated

I love holidays, and using them as an excuse to celebrate what is at the heart of each one.  So every year for Thanksgiving I create a gratitude list of 101 things I am grateful for.  I've tried to keep overlap to a minimum so that I'm finding new things each year to be grateful for, but how can I not mention things like Muppets and Rainbows?...

1. That the right people always show up at the right time  2. Archery -- The muffled rattle of arrows on your back and the single, fluid motion to retrieve one from the quiver. The smooth, graceful curves of a bow and how they affect the balance of how it rides in your hand.  The tautness of the string and the subtle click as it snaps into the nock of an arrow, while the shaft softly clacks against the bow and slides into place.  The draw of the string back until your thumb brushes your jaw, as you look down the length of the arrow but don't so much see the target as feel it. The slightly strained pause of resististing the tension of the bow and string for but a moment longer as you inhale... Then release as all exertion is emptied into this spinning, feathered bolt, singing down the range until it comes to rest with a solid "Thkk!"  3. My family who grows dearer every day  4. That all the things I believed as a child have turned out to be true  5. 'Whose Line Is It Anyway' belly laughs  6. that first, glorious sip of chai in the morning  7. Smokey, sacred-pipe prayers that tingle in my mouth and linger in my beard and hair  8. Ever present Hope  9. Snow Leopards  10. 'Snow White' moments  11. Garden Burgers with swiss and mushrooms at... 12. ...the Roanoke Inn  13. The honor of being allowed to take part in the healing journey of others  14. The ever thinning veil between the worlds (and still being on this side of it)  15. Physical human touch  16. Kitty head-bonks  17. Naps  18. Skinny dipping  19. Deloreans  20. Faery ancestry  21. The wild greenwood  22. Tears  23. Grasshopper pie  24. That there's always another chance  25. Emmie and Mr Timmons -- my furry children  26. Silence  27. SJ Tucker  28. Peppermint patties  29. Mystery  30. The Great Mother  31. Deep soul connections  32. Rainbows  33. Gregorian chant  34. Elvis  35. Synchronicities  36. Humor  37. Stories, tales, sagas, legends, myths  38. Hawaiian pizza  39. George Herriman  40. Society for Creative Anachronism  41. Walt Whitman  42. Forty Two  43. Used book stores  44. The ecstatic throes of creativity  45. Oneness  46. The Holiday Season  47. Muppets  48. Water falls  49. Coyote howls  50. Disney  51. Intuition  52. Buck skin jackets with fringe  53. Deeply spiritual, mystical artists that remind me of things that can not be put into words  54. The ever-rising consciousness of Humanity  55. Nocturnal walks in lightly falling snow  56. Breakfast  57. Unbridled whimsy  58. The perfection of everything, even (especially) when I can't see it  59. Drums and rattles  60. Dalai Lama  61. Walks, and meditations, in sacred forests  62. Words -- Their origin, history, evolution, meaning, and relationship with other words  63. Blank books pregnant with possibilities  64. Glee  65. Kindness from strangers, and kindness to strangers  66. Kisses  67. Intimacy  68. That there are people drawn to do the things that I'm not drawn to do  69. Sacred space and ritual work  70. My path and vocation  71. Tao Te Ching  72. Movies on the big screen  73. Horchattas  74. That Love is all there is  75. Live music and live theater  76. Martha Stewart  77. Swash buckling  78. Gene Kelly  79. Wild rice  80. Imagination  81. Inspiration  82. Laughter  83. Dance  84. Moments of such utter beauty, perfection, and delight, when the clouds of fog and chaos clear, that there are no words for it and the only proper response is a smile  85. Ellen Degeneres  86. Comics  87. Art  88. Heliotrope  89. Transformative workshops  90. My goof-ball troope of spirit helpers  91. Happy endings  92. Wombats  93. Raptors  94. Blissful massages  95. The ability and joy of reading  96. Hugs that you melt into  97. Entire days of movie marathons while working on art projects  98. Serendipity  99. My patchwork Pantheon  100. Bruce Campbell  101. Enjoying things now that I couldn't even imagine as a child

...And I'm grateful to you for reading!  Thank you!

Yes Virginia

The past couple months have been pretty crazy for me -- intense, head-spinning, world toppling, death-defyingly crazy.  There were three events right on top of each other, which I will talk about separately, that really shook me up and left me feeling on the verge of the anxiety and panic attacks that I hadn't experienced for years.  When the heaviness of depression teamed up with the hyper-vigilance of anxiety and I found myself living in an uneasy fog, I knew I had to get some answers.  All I knew was that something had to change, but what it was, or what my next step needed to be, I didn't know.

So I turned to a good friend with whom I regularly exchange readings to shed some light on what was going on and what I needed to do.  Despite the combination of Tarot cards and my friend's mad astrology skills, clarity was in short supply, and though I left with more hope than I arrived with, the unknown task before me seemed daunting at its best and insurmountable at its worst.  I had doubts as to whether I would even survive this.

Still, the challenge was less undefined than before and we were able to determine that it sprouted from some deep soul trauma (all the cards coming up being Major Arcana) that resulted from some crisis of faith.  It had something to do with physical reality and being present in my body -- Balancing both the physical and spiritual realms.  I'm really good at avoiding being in my body, but as the oracles where telling us, I didn't totally trust the spirit side either.  A crisis of faith -- a crisis of reality.  It so resonated with my feelings of being caught in both worlds but not totally belonging to either one.  The phrase that came up over and over again was 'Hearth and Home.'  I don't know where my home is and thus do not feel safe anywhere -- hence the hyper-vigilance and the resulting exhausted depression.

I read a story somewhere about a guy who got on a bus and he was carrying this obviously very heavy backpack.  He took a place standing in the aisle as the bus continued on its route, the pack still slung over his shoulder.  Finally, a few stops later, a woman looks up at him and says, "You know, the bus is strong enough to carry both you and your backpack." And the man realized he didn't have to keep carrying the pack but could put it on the floor.

That's kind of the way I've been feeling -- like it's not been safe for me to put my full weight down anywhere.  I don't dare until I have someplace that's home.

Okay.  Baby step, baby step.  My body is my home here, and I'd already begun to be more consciously present and grounded.  I can do that. Step One, done.  Step Two -- Stay optimistic. In just the past week or so I'd rediscovered what a difference it makes to have my third eye open.  When I get caught in the hamster wheel of thoughts and its resulting tunnel vision, just opening my third eye chakra totally expands the context and perspective of whatever I'm going through.  It's like a "Second star to the right and straight on til morning" type feeling.

So I had those things going for me, and just had to bide my time -- "get comfortable with being uncomfortable," as my reading had told me -- until the answers came of their own accord.  Fortunately I didn't have to wait long.

I was going about my own business this morning at work, mulling over everything from the reading the night before, and thinking about the whole crisis-of-faith thing.  "Maybe I was martyred in a past life? Maybe I had put my undying faith and loyalty into someone or something only to find out they or it was false?" Suddenly, without warning, a memory flashed through my mind.  "Oh my gods! SANTA!!!"

I don't remember exactly how old I was but it was my pre-teens when I found out Santa wasn't real.  It may sound silly but this rocked me to my very foundations. I had had an unwavering, unquestioning, 100% pure belief in Santa's existence, and that reality -- the one where magick was real in the world -- was pulled out from under me.  In a split second I no longer lived in a world I recognized.  I didn't know what I could trust.  Not only did the magickal world get taken away, but it made the physical world less real, and less reliable.  I was lost.  I no longer had a home.

That all might sound a bit melodramatic, but think of it from the mind of a prepubescent, day-dreamer of a boy.  And silly or not, the full impact of this realization sent this fully grown man reeling to the bathroom and had him sitting on the floor sobbing his eyes out.  Tears of grieving a world torn away from me... My innocence ripped away from me.  This was huge!

So I sat there on the floor, my breath still catching in small gasps, when something shifted.  I felt as though some invisible barrier or wall had softly given way and allowed me to sink deeper into place than I ever remember, like tumblers in a combination lock aligning. There was a calmness and a rightness, and I felt like I'd just had a Soul Retrieval -- like some errant part of my soul had finally found it's way home.

I had closed my teary eyes, and suddenly the darkness behind my eyelids turned the color red.  Then I heard the laughter -- "HO-HO-HO!" And there before me stood Father Christmas himself, like he'd just stepped out of a children's book.  

I may have shed a few more tears at this point, from the joy and just the pure relief bubbling up from my heart.  And I'm pretty sure I was grinning as I sighed, "You are real."

He threw his head back and shook with a belly laugh. "Hohohohoho! Of course I am!" Then he paused, and with a sly twinkle in one eye, and a wink with the other, he leaned closer to me. "Are you?"

Embracing Bear

It is so very interesting how things come around again and again and again.  Almost exactly four years ago, around Mabon (Autumn Equinox), I began my first blog.  It was private and just for a select few to share, and was a tool for me to process the changes taking place in my life at the point.  Four months earlier than that I'd gone on a Vision Quest that was a huge turning point for me, and nothing has been the same since. 

Now again I find myself at Mabon in the midst of the biggest changes of my life; Changes that make the transitions I went through four years ago look like a cake walk.  Again I'm feeling drawn to "go up on the hill" in order to process and integrate the changes cascading through my life, to consult with my guides and ancestors and commune with the spirits of Nature, and to cry for a vision of my next steps toward  my  greatest possible future.  In fact, this coming weekend I plan on scouting out a suitable spot for another Vision Quest.  And again I feel a tug to look back on where I'd been and how far I've come, hence the reading of my original blog that I didn't realize had been started at this same time of year.  As I read the words I wrote back then, I could have written them today, only now they have a depth and richness that I missed the first time around.    

The timeliness of all this is amazing, as I share a journey I did on that Mabon that is as applicable to this Mabon we just celebrated:

I journeyed to the Lower World to meet my animal guide, Nathaniel, who is a reindeer. Nathaniel took me to a beach where the sun was perpetually setting. We sat on the smooth rounded rocks looking at the water as people walked and jogged unhurriedly by, the atmosphere very relaxed, punctuated by occasional laughter and snippets of cordial conversation. He told me it was time to breathe, to relax, and to let go. As everything around me glowed with the reflection of the orangey-red sun, he said to see the beauty of things in a new light. "Get comfortable with transistion. It's what keeps the extremes from crashing into each other. Balance -- That's your sign right? Libra?"

I complained that I couldn't enjoy it because I still felt tension from the past.

"Of course you still have tension from the past. You are in transition, carrying both past and future with you. But you are removed from the bustle of the past as we are removed from the city you can see on the horizon there."

With that we sat silently on the beach til it was time for me to return. I thanked him, kissed his big fuzzy nose, and came back to my body.

There are huge things a-foot in my life right now, and as the wheel turns to the dark half of the year I'm finding myself looking forward to the quiet, to the contemplation, to the stillness.  And I long for that dark womb-space of the Cosmic Mother.  I long to tumble and float through that night of infinite possibilities where, like the title of my initial blog, I'll be
Embracing Bear; Dreaming With Dark Mother.

Image Copyright Susan Seddon Boulet

Flame On!

Recently, feeling it's really time to finally manifest some of things my heart is desiring, I've been exploring the dating scene, having created profiles on a couple different internet dating sites.  It's been a mixed bag of experiences, and suffice it to say I haven't met "her" yet (that I know of), but that is a possible subject for a future post. I won't go into details, but it is my most recent lessons from my most recent excursion into this world that I wanted to write about here.

I found myself in an uncomfortable position where my heart was telling me something totally different from what this particular woman's heart was apparently telling her.  As much as I would have loved to fall into the same fairy tale visions she was having, I had to listen to my heart which told me something wasn't right and I did not belong in this match.

So after a couple failed attempts to back away gracefully, I had to finally break away completely.  Still, even in parting, and even with the full volume and clarity of my heart telling me I'd done the right thing, there was this tiny, little voice asking, "But what if she was right?  What if we really are meant to be together? What if I just made the biggest mistake of my life?"  What the heck?!

This had been the over-riding undercurrent (if there can be such a thing... ;) ) of the entire 2 weeks I'd known her.  That she knew we were meant to be together but it was my free will choice to do so or not, the understanding being that if I chose other than her it would be a mistake and my life would never be as great as it otherwise could be. In other words, it was my free will to chose, only there was a right choice and a wrong choice.  Even as I write that out, every particle of my being screams out in protest to that way of thinking, yet there I was thinking it.

Thankfully this incongruency finally got my attention and I was able to pull myself out of asking, "Why am I feeling/thinking like this?" enough to realize that I wasn't.  This was still her stuff! Holy crap! Final little tendrils that had found an opening in my own self-doubts to hook into, and mask themselves as my own thoughts.     

I had already been doing some cord cutting (see my post Cut a-CORD-ingly  for a more in-depth  explanation of that practice),  releasing whatever energetic ties she had with me in order to withdraw my personal power from her and the situation, and to move forward -- whole and in one piece.  This 'aha' moment, however, made me realize that there could still be tiny cords that were able to sneak under the radar and still be siphoning off small amounts of my energy and power, affecting how I thought and felt.

What came to me next was nothing short of revolutionary.  I stopped where I was, closed my eyes, and in my head (as to not totally freak out my coworkers) I screamed, "Flame on!" In an instant I visualized my entire body and being engulfed in flames.  It was the fires of my own inner light bursting forth, Phoenix-like from the ashes, and burning off everything that wasn't innately mine.  All cords and ties that didn't originate with me were seered off, leaving me totally and completely in my own power.

The thing is that these fires were pure Love.  There was no judgement, or anger, or blame.  There was no room for those things. Just pure, ecstatic Love.  Radiant.  Self-sustaining. In fact there was no room for anyone else because this was a full, unfiltered expression of me at my essence.

This all occurred on a Friday, and for the entire weekend after performing this radical new cord-cutting method, I was totally in my own power with nary a nudge from the other party.  "How cool is that? It really worked!" I thought, until that Monday when I received a couple emails averaging around 6 pages each.  Okay. I know sometimes these things need to be repeated until they take.  I had already, very clearly and precisely, ended things with her so I didn't want to engage in more conversation.  There was nothing to converse about seeing as there was nothing between us, and doing so would only create more energetic cords tying us together.

Besides cutting energetic cords, I cut practical ones as well, blocking her from my phone, email, and Facebook, but was beginning to get a little concerned.  I started feeling  protective of myself and even a little frightened, running 'what if' scenarios in my head about what to do if she showed up on my doorstep. I tried repeating my "Phoenix Flame" method from Friday, but the flames didn't seem as strong, nor did I as lingering doubts continued to hover and drain my sense of power.

Then this morning, on my way to work I realized why I was feeling that way. The initial 'Phoenix Flame' had been solely centered on myself, regaining my power and center. She didn't even enter into that equation.  But here I was focusing on her -- getting away from her, staying safe from her.  It wasn't working now because I was giving her the power to control and affect me. She was the center of my focus and you can't cut ties with something you're focused on! Not that there aren't practical, real world concerns, but I had to refocus on my life, my path, and again take her out of the equation.  As I had learned years ago, from an episode of Brother Cadfael, there is a huge world of difference between running from something and running toward something. I had to stop running from her and running toward myself.

So I reset my bearings toward my personal North Star (Second to the right and straight on til morning), following my guidance to the path of my fullest expression, where it doesn't matter what she, or anyone else does.  This is about me -- Taking the lessons I've learned from this experience and moving forward to embrace my wholeness and power, by which this holographic world and all around me heal.

By ferocious feathered Phoenix flame

Over the world I roar my name

And all I am I boldly claim

Forever me, never the same

Reborn by fires too wild to tame

FLAME ON!

Just Part of the Job

I was talking to a friend just the other night and mentioned how I've lost count of the times people have approached me and, very hesitantly, asked if they could share some experience because they didn't know who else might understand such a weird happening, plus they were just a tad worried they were going crazy.  I usually meet this with a little laugh, assuring them that I can probably out-weird them any day of the week.

That seems to be at least one of my stations in this life, kind of mid-wifing people into the weirdness of this dynamic, quantum Universe,  because I can get really out-there-weird (which you already know if you've read much of my blog) but at the same time I tend to be pretty well-grounded, at least in comparison to the aery-faerieness that usually goes hand in hand with such experiences.  I think it's that balance that helps them realize that 'weird' is 'normal.'  These sorts of things happen all the time.  We just don't pay attention.  I've even been thinking about figuring out a way to start a support group for people who are just beginning to wake up to their spiritual reality, and all the woo-woo strangeness that accompanies that, so there's a safe, supportive place for people to come with such stories, where they and their experiences can be validated, and fears of insanity can be dismissed.

Why do I bring this up, you may wonder? Because, have I got a weird one for you!  

This particular happening happened last week sometime. I was driving either to or from work and I was listening to my Glee (yes, I'm a "Gleek") CD.  One tracked ended, the next one began, and I sat there in a slightly shocked state of surprise. "I don't remember that song being on this album," I thought to myself. "Huh..." 

I didn't think much more about it, just figuring I must have forgotten -- despite the fact that I'd been listening to that CD almost everyday for a while at that point.  Time goes by and this all settles to the back of my mind, until yesterday when I was trying to remember what song it was that had caught me by surprise.  I started clicking through the tracks one by one, listening to the first few notes of each until I recognize the tune then moving on. Huh... Nothing jogged my memory. Okay. Once more around the block. Nope, nothing.  What the heck?  It would help if I could remember what song it was, but that too seems unavailable. 

That's when I remembered the 'Jimmy Smits' thing.  A number of years ago, not long after meeting another friend of mine, we were talking about some out-there stuff, and my friend asked me if I remembered when Jimmy Smits died. "Yes!" I cried excitedly, "And then shortly after he was suddenly still alive and starring in a new TV show!"  "Yes!" cried my friend, at least as excitedly as my previous outburst.  Neither of us had ever found anyone else who remembered that, but the two of us did. It was like this strange overlap where we'd jumped from one parallel reality to another.

I'd remembered another instance from a long time ago, when I was reading the Seth books, and was first introduced to the idea of parallel realities and parallel lives. Seth talked extensively about such things and how they happen all the time but we just aren't aware enough to notice.  There was an anecdote where a pair of Jane Roberts' (The medium who Seth spoke through) students experienced a switch from one reality to another, literally witnessing the windows on their barn change to a completely different style than they'd always been, and yet remembering the prior style. This sparked a memory of seeing a movie (a classic along the lines of "Singing in the Rain" though I no longer remember which movie) that starred a totally different man than the normal version you could get at the video store.  I mean I had solid memories of this alternate leading man, and could clearly hear his voice, with its unique inflections, reciting the well known lines of this movie, even though in this reality, he has never played that role.   

With all this in mind, I text my Jimmy Smits friend asking if she'd ever heard a song on a CD that she didn't realize was on that album, and then when she went back later, it actually wasn't.  "Yes!" was her reply.  "Good," I answered, "Then we're going crazy together. ;)"

In the words of Captain Janeway from Star Trek Voyager, "...Weird is just part of the job!"

Two Dog Night

Recently I had a dream that has stuck with me, and it continues to unfold in my diurnal life--

I was watching a friend's house while she was away.  Of course the dream house was nothing like her 'real' house, which was evident as I walked through the gate of the white picket fence to head up the front walk to her door. Before I could reach the house, though, a boxer with its tongue hanging out came bursting out the screen door and excitedly bouncing up the path to me.  "Uh-oh! You're not suppose to be out here!" I said, greeting her with a scratch behind the ears.  "C'mon!" I said with a tilt of my head as I started back for the door, and she happily, and bouncily, followed.  Once inside I greeted the other canine denizen of the household, a very low-key basset hound, who greeted me back with a doggy smile and a wagging tail. 

After spending time on the floor scritching, scratching, and playing with these two extremes of dog-hood, I went on a walk-through of the house to make sure everything was alright.  It wasn't.  When I got to the basement, I found it totally flooded, the water apparently running down from my friend's mother's room upstairs (My friend's mom does not live with her in ordinary reality).

--There was a little more to the dream after that, but this is where my clearer memories ended. So what does it all mean?  The following is how I interpreted it...

To start with, Dog medicine is about Loyalty, representing family and relationships, as in those of my personal pack -- those I consider family whether blood-related or not.  The temperament of these two canines suggested a couple of my closest friends, one who is very bouncy and very in touch with her inner puppy, whose excitement and playfulness will not allow her to be contained in any box you may try to put her in, and the other who is quieter and more shy -- the basset actually representing the person whose house this was in the dream.

The water in the basement, aside from its obvious connotations of the emotional realms, instantly reminded me of the Tower card in the Tarot, where the water is rushing against the tower, eroding its foundation and threatening to tear it down.  However, in a reading I had by a friend in which the Tower appeared, she pointed out to me that the water that was shaking up and changing the tower was also the same water that would carry the tower down-stream to its new location -- to where it belonged. 

In the dream I take this to mean that our relationships are changing and shifting.  Indeed, there had been events that had happened prior to the dream in both friendships where I felt disappointed or let down, but which allowed me to claim back some of my own power that I'd been giving away to them.  Things had definitely shifted in a way which lessened what could be classified as areas of co-dependency, making me feel more independent and able to perceive both relationships from a different, more self-empowered perspective -- and still feel the strength of our connections.

It took a while for another significance of the dream to light on my consciousness.  As I was recounting the dream to another friend, some time after I'd had it, it suddenly occurred to me... white picket fence -- Oh my gods, it was the 'American Dream' -- True Love, happily ever after, and all that!  I also realized it was someone else's ideal -- had it been my own, it would have been a farm house or cabin surrounded by woods (with a Delorean parked out front). 

Now there has been a spectrum of emotions between my friend and I, that we've been having to sort out pretty much since the day we met, and I can't deny a certain spark existing on both our parts. But there are also reasons, spark or not, that going in specific directions would not be in anyone's best interest.  And that's what I think the picket fence symbolizes -- Sometimes as much as we may think we know what we want things to look like, just like that American Dream, it doesn't really exist and is just an illusion (and by which saying, I in no way mean to sound cynical. I'm not saying, for instance, that True Love doesn't exist -- if you know me, you know I'm one of the biggest romantics alive -- just that outdated facade of it.).  In other words, it is further validation of the shifting perspective of our connection and friendship, and that any steps in that direction would not be based in reality; would be empty without substance -- It was the importance of seeing the relationship, whatever that is, for what it is rather than projecting dreams and desires upon it.

It also reminded me of something I'd heard toward the beginning of the year in the weekly Sacred Pipe Circle I attend.  The leader of the circle was talking about manifesting what we want in our life.  She said that  when something appears, to try it on like a piece of clothing to see if it fits.  I piped up (Hee-hee! Pun intended.), asking, "If it doesn't totally fit, can we have it tailored?"  She looked back at me, intensely in the eye, and replied, "No! No tailoring! If it doesn't fit correctly, it's not yours and there's a better fitting garment coming along."

That really struck me as I thought of how many times I've settled for things that were close to what I'd wanted to manifest but needed some tweeking to really make it fit.  The thing is that they never really did -- especially in the area of romance.  And I've learned that when things come along that are close to but not completely my desired outcome, it is usually a stepping stone toward that desire.  The missing components are there to tell me that this is not the end result, while the parts that do fit let me know that I'm heading in the right direction -- kind of in the way a chef may keep sampling the meal being prepared, and adding ingredients needed as the dish nears the peak of yumminess.  It is the chance to really raise the bar and fine tune my vision, as well as to assure me that these things really do exist and I do deserve them.  I can taste them.

So I embrace both relationships for what they are, honoring and honored by the presence of these two dear souls in my life.  And I shift my vision toward dreams of farm houses, Deloreans, and that one precious soul I have yet to meet...

A Horse of a Different Color

Recently a friend told me about a friend of hers who had just bought a filly who was only a day or two old. She asked me to 'check in' with the foal to see how she was doing because no one was sure if she was actually going to live very long.  So on my afternoon break I tuned in to this baby horse to see what her story was, and the story she told me was totally unexpected.

The very first thing I felt from her was that she hadn't made up her mind whether she was staying or not. This totally synced with what my friend, and her friend, were picking up from the filly. Phew!  As long, and as much as I do this kind of work, I always appreciate the little validating feedback I receive just to corroborate that I'm on the right track. Of course this was not all there was to the story...

As I continued to connect with her, this foal deepened her background by sending me pictures of her former life -- another incarnation as a horse, only a horse from millions of years ago.  She at one time had been an Eohippus ("Dawn Horse") or similar horse ancestor, which was very much smaller in stature -- Eohippus, or Hyracotherium as it's been reclassified, stood only 10-20 inches at the shoulder.

She 'told' me that this life had been originally intended as a brief nostalgic trip.  She really just wanted to smell the air again and feel the earth beneath her, and not from much higher than her former form, before leaving again.  Still she was indecisive because she was intrigued, and a little intimidated, by the power and size of her descendants she was now among, and she was considering sticking around to experience what that would be like.

Holy crap! Not what I expected!

What I didn't know until after this exchange was that this filly was the daughter of a pair of draft horses and was big, 200 pounds, when she was born. Apparently, because of her size she was unable to unfold her legs or get much movement in the womb, so when she was born, her front legs were still bent up and she'd been unable to straighten them.  When I heard this a chill ran up my spine.  What better way to keep your view close to the ground than to be born under circumstances that kept your legs bent up?

On a side note, another trait of this particular foal is that she is a "Medicine Hat Horse."  A Medicine Hat horse is primarily white with a colored patch covering its ears and the top of its head, and through Native American lore these horses are said to be very special with magickal abilities.  If she does decide to stay, I am eager to see what kind of magick might follow her around.

Last night I found out that one of her legs had straightened out, so my friend's friend had braced the other one, enabling the young equine to take her first steps.  I could almost hear her saying to herself, "Okay. Let's see what this baby can do!"

So we'll see what she decides, to stay or to go.  Personally I hope she sticks around, at least long enough for me to meet her in the flesh.  But even if she doesn't, I am so grateful for this encounter and the insights it's afforded me.  Thank you little one, and my best wishes for you for greener pastures on whatever plane you decide to roam.

True Colors

Thus far this year has been ...well ...interesting -- both personally and globally.  I quipped to a friend just the other day that I think "interesting" has become the new "normal."  With all the crazy things going on in the world, I have found myself questioning how I found myself in such a bizarro reality ( "Bizarro" in the Superman sense of the word -- or Seinfeld sense if you prefer -- of being "weirdly inverted or opposite of expectations").  It has been disorienting, discouraging, and disheartening as I ask myself, "Did I take a wrong turn somewhere? What the heck is going on?!"

Then an interesting thought occurred to me -- What if the world really did end in 2012 as it was predicted to, and we just didn't notice?  This brings up one of my favorite quotes from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy~

"There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened."  ~Douglas Adams

 I'm not saying that the Earth blew up and we're all walking around not realizing we are actually dead -- though wouldn't that be interesting?  I'm thinking again of the Shamanic death-and-rebirth cycle so familiar to pretty much anyone on a spiritual path.  The old world literally died, and now we are in the birth pains of a new world.  It's interesting to think of these things happening on a global level, to everybody, rather than just individually as I am used to. 

A number of years ago I heard a woman speaking about the coming Age of Aquarius, which we have just entered, and the one thing she said that has stuck with me since then is, "Birth is messy! Birth is bloody! Birth is painful!" Yep, that about covers it.

Remember also that this is the year of the Snake -- All this stuff that doesn't feel good, the stuff that feels like really old, really backward ways of thinking and being, is coming to the surface as part of a cleansing, flushing out, sloughing off the old skin that doesn't fit us anymore.  It seems dark, and possibly apocalyptic, but it is temporary.

What this line of thinking has brought up for me was a revelation I had after 911.  I had similar feelings of being in a world, and in a country, that seemed so foreign to me -- that I didn't belong in --with all the soaring attitudes of vengeance, revenge, chest-beating us v.s. them patriotism, and a weird sense of  'justice' that had nothing to do with dealing with the original issues. I was driving to work one morning when I asked myself out loud, "What am I doing in a world I don't fit in?"  Almost instantly it struck me. That's exactly why I am here -- because I don't fit in! That is my gift to the world and why I'm here -- to bring a different view to the world. To introduce new ideas and perspectives.  It's kind of like the way I think of all the things you get picked on for in school as a kid, later become your strengths and the things that set you apart -- the gifts you have for the world.

It is times like this, as tempting as it is to curl up, shrink back, and withdraw, that we need do the opposite. It is especially important at times like this that we find and share our voice.  The world needs you.  Seriously it does!  You are not here by accident with your unique set of talents.  And I'm not talking about marching on Washington, but simply living your life.  Change your own little world.  Bring beauty to your own little bubble of reality, and the entire world benefits.  You touch and influence everyone around you, who in turn touches and influences everyone around them, and so on and so on.  All these bubbles intersect and touch others, and if you ever doubt this, simply look at how small a world it has become with the intersecting circles of people on Facebook.  We really are powerful when we focus that power on where we are and what we're doing.

What originally started me on this whole thought stream was the song that shares the title of this post.  I heard it the other night when I was feeling discouraged (which is why the first couple lines really grabbed my attention) and every lyric resonated with me like it never has before -- And I've been finding renewed strength and encouragement through it.  The world needs you, now more than ever, to show your True Colors~~ 

You with the sad eyes

Don't be discouraged

Oh, I realize

It's hard to take courage

In a world full of people

You can lose sight of it all

And the darkness inside you

Can make you feel so small

But I see your true colors

Shining through

I see your true colors

And that's why I love you

So don't be afraid to let them show

Your true colors

True colors

Are beautiful like a rainbow

Show me a smile then,

Don't be unhappy

Can't remember when

I last saw you laughing

If this world makes you crazy

And you've taken all you can bear

You call me up

Because you know I'll be there

And I'll see your true colors

Shining through

I see your true colors

And that's why I love you

So don't be afraid to let them show

Your true colors

Your true colors

Are beautiful like a rainbow

© Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

Where I Am

Traditionally Winters tend to be a little rough for me.  In some ways this year has followed suit, although I have to admit it has not been as dark and trying as past seasons.  In other ways it has been even more trying.  I've had some core, core stuff coming up for me to deal with, which has had me questioning everything -- what I do, what I believe, who I am.  It sometimes feels like I've lost my way, or am actually going backwards.  At the base of all these questions and resurfacing fears is the feeling of not being where I'm 'suppose to be'.  That I'm falling short somehow and not as far along as I should be. 

And to bring these things smack up into my face, a couple days ago my morning began with a phone conversation  with a friend who voiced her anger at me for exactly that -- Not living up to my potential, not being further on my path, and not doing my spiritual work.  On some level I realized these were her own judgements from her own expectations of who I should be, and had nothing to do with what was really going on with me.  Yet there was still a part of me -- a very young part of me -- that kind of woke up and asked, "What if she's right?"

From a very early age I felt like a stranger in this world, so right away I began, for self-preservation, to try to figure out how this seemingly non-sensical world worked, which mostly consisted of figuring out what was expected of me and how to live up to that.  This developed into the perpetual feeling of not being where I'm suppose to be, physically and otherwise, with undefined expectations hanging over my head that were impossible to live up to.  This is what was/is, I believe, at the heart of my challenges with panic/anxiety and depression.

There is much more to say on the subject, but I'm dangerously close to going off on another tangent or three and losing my intended focus for this particular post.  In short, the questioning and seemingly spinning my wheels this Winter was punctuated by this conversation which threw me into a familiar darkness of purposelessness and powerlessness.

I don't know how many times I started crying that day but I had to keep finding reasons to walk off by myself at work.  I felt totally worn down and exhausted -- unloved and unlovable.  At the same time there was a thread of peace underlying all the other feelings that gave me strength.  Despite the tears and sadness and confusion was the knowingness that this was ok.  That it was happening for a reason.  That it was coming up because it was in the process of flushing out of me.

Finally I decided on my lunch break to journey, hopefully to get some answers and clarity--

Feeling a bit ungrounded I decided it was a good idea to begin from my anchor point in this physical reality rather than just popping in on my guides like I tend to do. So I started at the tree, in the middle of the old Faerieworlds site, which is the shamanic portal for me to the otherworlds. 

I hesitated, listening to my heart as to which way to go, Upperworld or Lowerworld, then a moment later was climbing my tree toward the Upperworld home of my spirit teacher Fred.  The branches stretched skyward, disappearing into a ceiling of clouds, and as I rose through the clouds, I emerged through the floor of Fred's living room.  Instantly, in the journey and where I reclined in my car seat, I began to bawl at the love I felt radiating from this place and this man.  Have I mentioned before that Fred's last name is Rogers?

Fred greeted me and gave me a long hug, allowing my tears to fall on his sweater, then he sat me down.  He told me that I was exactly where I was 'suppose to be', even if that were among feelings of being lost and confused.  He brought up Cormorant, who had entered my life at the beginning of last year as a power animal, saying she was still working with me, using her medicine and diving deeper into the dark and unknown than I have ever been in this lifetime.  That is why on the surface there hasn't seemed to be much change or movement -- why I feel I'm not making much progress -- because the changes and shifts are too deep to be totally recognized yet in my day to day life.  This made a lot of sense as to the reason I've felt the way I have, because enormous amounts of my energy have been working fathoms beneath the surface, leaving the part of me still on the surface feeling the loss of that energy.  That in itself allowed me to relax considerably.  That's why I've felt so out of it, so exhausted, so vulnerable, and so battle worn.

I thanked Fred then said I think I needed a dismemberment -- a process where your guides take you apart and then put you back together stronger than before (I'm really trying to resist the temptation to say, "We can rebuild him! We have the technology!").  Instantly Fred, began karate kicking me, and with every swipe of his foot through me, I burst out in sprays of glitter and faery dust until there was nothing left of me, save for my consciousness just floating there. 

The next thing I knew I was watching this tiny little spider repelling down from the ceiling.  She stopped about 6 inches above my head and began spinning me into a cocoon of it's silvery threads.

At this point the exhaustion that had been dogging me took hold and I fell asleep.  The afternoon passed, then after work, as I was driving to Seattle, I recalled where the journey had 'stopped.'  A little alarmed that I couldn't remember getting out of the cocoon, I mentally connected with Fred to find out what had happened.  "You never did get out. You're still there. It's time for you to rest."

Phew!  There's nothing like getting permission from your guides to rest -- which is ultimately you giving yourself permission.  I have been driven since childhood to assess what was expected of me (which in reality was what I made up from what I believed others expected, since no one ever told me what those parameters were) and then to strive, and to strive, and to strive even harder for some nebulous potential. This process has hardly let up into the present, so no wonder I'm exhausted!

Again, my growing realization is validated -- that fulfillment, enlightenment, wholeness (whatever you want to label it) is gained by surrendering and dropping into what we already are, rather than the general consensus that these things are only gained through effort and strain.  As Jeshua has been saying for the twenty-some years that I've been going to him, there are no accidents so we are always in the right place at the right time. Wherever I am is where I'm 'suppose to' be. "You are where you are, and that is perfect."

So I set my intention to allow myself to rest, to allow myself to grow at my own pace, following my own time line no matter what the calendar or others might say, and to drop back into the wholeness and well-being that are my natural state.  And I follow the advice that Artemis continues to tell me:

"Don't give up. Just surrender."

Shades of Grey

A couple nights ago, after an energetically wild weekend at Faeriecon -- The winter, indoor version of Faerieworlds-- I went to my friend Mona Rowbottom at Creekside Healing for a reiki session to try to calm and center myself.  She's been learning about Essential Oils and intuitively chose two to use in a diffuser during our session, Sweet Marjoram and Neroli, joking that she didn't know why those two in particular but would look them up afterwards.

As usual it was an incredible session, not that I remember much of it as we both think I was out of my body for most of it.  I did comment afterwards to her though, that I had seen some things that were a little stranger than usual.  Right at the beginning, not long after closing my eyes, I saw this band of light stretching out parallel to and above me, and dancing along and inside this band were beautiful, little balls of light.  Somehow I knew that they were angels.  "How cool is that?" I thought as I let out a sigh through a smile.

Then I saw a shape leaning toward me, and as it came into focus, I realized it was an alien, similar to the common image of the 'Greys' from the Roswell crash.  'He' was slightly different from any images I'd seen, though, in that his eyes were HUGE, taking up most of his face, nearly from chin to crown.  Also, where most greys are described as not having much of a nose, if any, he had a very squarish nose that stuck out from between the bottom of his eyes.

'My' alien looked similar to this, though a little less cartoonish perhaps...

 

He looked at me, and blinked (I believe sideways) with eyelids like those translucent ones birds and reptiles have, in a manner that kind of said, "What are you doing here?" I didn't feel alarmed or in danger at all, and picked up nothing but mild surprise and curiosity on his part.

He faded away, as did my consciousness as the session continued, and when I woke up... I mean opened my eyes... afterwards the angels and the alien were the only things I remembered.

Mona and I just kind of shook our heads over these experiences, not knowing what to make of them, then moving on she went to look up the oils she had used in Aromatherapy for the Soul, by Valerie Ann Worwood, in order to see why she might have been drawn to them specifically. 

Sweet Marjoram was perfect as it "calms the senses and allows peacefulness to come into a frantic world. It stills the mind long enough to allow the quiet voice within to communicate with the soul."  That was exactly what I needed! 

Then Mona began reading the entry about Neroli.  "Neroli touches the realms of angels, and anyone who uses it is brushed with the light of angel's wings." ...um ...uh-huh ...sounds familiar...  She continued, "It may be that it resonates with the energy from another light-time in the universe, perhaps taking its light from another sun in the vast cosmos." My eyes widened. "...HOLY CRAP!  Light from another sun?! There's the alien!" I said, thinking to myself that I really ought to stop being surprised by these kind of synchronicities.

We talked about other things as I drank my post reiki glass of water, then, when I was putting on my jacket to go, something else occurred to me.  "I wonder if..." I started, then smiled at Mona.  "Did I ever tell you about my possible half-alien sibling?" "No, but you'd better now," she replied, her eyes twinkling with curiosity.

"I'm not absolutely sure about the exact timing of events but I do know my mom saw a UFO once, and I mean it was close enough that the inside of her car was lit up orange.  I'm not sure that you get that close to a UFO without being abducted.  I also know that at one point she had a miscarriage.  That is a common pattern of alien abductions -- impregnating a woman then taking the fetus before it is born.  So it is possible that I have a sibling out there somewhere, and maybe that was him."

I kind of smiled, not having thought about that for a number of years.  I'm not as much into UFOs as I used to be, but the thought still amused me of the possibility of having an honest-to-goodness, real life space brother.

Holy Crap Holy Man

I mentioned in my last post that I'd gone to the Gaia's Temple Imbolc ritual recently where we did a meditation to discover what it was we wished to dedicate ourselves to in the coming year.  Well, a couple of Sundays ago was the monthly service for Gaia's Temple and during the teaching portion, Rev. Judith Laxer led us in the same meditation from the ritual.  At first I was a little hesitant to really put the effort into it.  I mean I'd already done it and had made my own dedications in the past couple weeks.  Still I was cognizant of the fact that just because it's the same meditation doesn't mean I would get the same results.  So, with renewed curiosity for what I would find this time, I allowed my consciousness to be led through the beautiful imagery of Brigit's temple, and when it came to the point where we see ourselves doing something that is a manifestation of our dedication, I was surprised.

What I saw was myself, kneeling on the Earth, in some sort of ritual (I felt there were others present though I didn't see anyone) holding up an abalone shell, overflowing with smoke from sage and cedar and other yummy scented things, as I prayed/invoked/blessed this circle and its purpose.  The words "Holy Man" materialized in my mind. 

In a way this was connected to my earlier dedications to walk my path, to really focus on my own work and to walk my talk so to begin embodying what it is I believe rather than just giving it lip service. This was slightly different.  Rather than being a dedication to something in the spirit of creating what it is you want to harvest in the future on the opposite side of the Wheel of the Year, this was more of a dropping back into the present and accepting what was already here.

 
It's amazing how two little words can spark such a change in consciousness and perspective of who we are.  I have had a hard time describing what I do to people who ask, and have to admit to occasionally, though it's frowned upon to self-identify this way in shamanic circles, as a shaman.  The more politically correct term is 'shamanic practitioner' because only the community who you help and heal can say you're a shaman.  I still wrestle with this sometimes.  I understand how the claim to be a shaman, when coming from a place of ego, can be to personally claim these powers as one's own, in which case the self-proclaimed shaman is usually abandoned by his spirit guides because they are the real source of power and healing energy.  But when you really understand that to be a shaman is to be 'the hollow bone' through which the spirits work their powerful healing, you aren't really claiming any of these powers as your own.  And when I'm going through the occasional identity crisis, and I think to myself, "I am a Shaman," I do feel it resonate and empower me.  Still, I usually do refer to myself as a 'shamanic practitioner.'

To explain to those who have never heard of shamanism, or who don't know what it is, I compare myself to a Medicine Man.  I don't claim to be one, though I do talk about using my personal medicine or the medicine of various animals, etc.  It is just that more people are familiar with the archetype or image of a medicine man, so it's just a matter of jumping metaphors to what people understand and going from there into details.

But the words 'Holy Man' really struck a cord.  I had never thought of those words to describe me, but I had to admit that they definitely fit.  I counsel people on spiritual matters, whether just using my own intuition, shamanic journeys, or with the assistance of the Medicine Cards that I read.  I do heal, whether through Reiki, again becoming the hollow bone and allowing Universal Energy to flow through me, or performing Soul Retrievals in a shamanic ceremony to return those errant parts of a person's vital energy that have become separated because of some trauma.  And I am an ordained minister in SHES (Spiritual Healers and Earth Stewards) who can legally perform rites of passage (Weddings, etc).  I have mentioned before that the priest who baptized me as a baby into the Catholic Church was convinced I was going to be a priest, and all that I just described above, though not with in the confines of the Church, sounds rather priest-like.  "Holy man" pretty much covers it.

Above all, in those couple of words, and in the vision of myself, the component that seemed the most accentuated was that of being a leader.  This circle I saw myself kneeling in -- I was leading it.  I had organized it, and people had come to share this circle with me.  Then I start to realize how many people already find their way to me for guidance and answers, and how it's all the part of that same process of stepping into my power and accepting my own authority.

And this all fits with my earlier dedications to my path because, at the heart of it is the desire to live a heart-centered life and to act based on what I'm drawn or inspired to do, from the inside,  rather than relying on outside influences as to what I'm "suppose" to do.  Becoming my own authority and trusting myself and my connection with my Creator to guide me, and thereby lead and teach others by inspiration and example to recognize the authority of their own hearts.

...Holy crap, I am a Holy Man...