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."

2012 -- Year of the Cormorant

So much has happened in my life in 2011, accelerating particularly during the latter half of the year, and I'm feeling poised on a launch pad of sorts waiting for things to really take off. And something keeps telling me, "THIS is the year!" 

New Year's Eve, and I found myself extremely restless.  I had to get out of my apartment and found myself at the nearby park, looking over the still waters of Clark Lake at Grandmother Moon, and speaking to Her of all the things I had to be grateful for over the past year...

• I have published some of my comics through an online publisher
• I was able to strengthen my path by taking courses from a couple of shamanic teachers whom I've admired for a very long time
• In one aforementioned course I learned Soul Retrieval, which, besides making me feel like an "official" Shamanic Practitioner, allowed me to witness and experience amazing results in people's lives
• Another course allowed me to expand my horizons by arranging my own flight and accommodations, which were not only not to Minnesota to visit family, but were to a state and city I'd never been to before
• In the aforementioned course I met someone who could very well be the love of my life
• After the aforementioned course I was accepted into Sandra Ingerman's Two Year Teachers Training program
• I taught my first Shamanic class

...just to mention a few.

A couple weeks prior, realizing all the growth I'd been through and the significance of the possibilities of all the things to come that perched somewhere on my horizon, I recognized the timing was right for a rite of passage for cleansing and releasing the past in order to move uninhibitedly into the coming year.  Enter a sweat lodge ceremony at a magickal place I knew of on Bainbridge Island in Puget Sound. It had been a while since I'd been in a sweat lodge, but I found myself excited, and a bit nervous, at the prospect of such a perfect ritual with such perfect timing.  Even as we were taking our turns touching our heads to the ground at the door of the lodge with a prayer, "Aho Matakwiasin, All My Relations," and crawling into our places in this womb of the earth, I was nervous and excited. 

It is an amazing thing to sit in the semi-dark with like-minded folks in the trust and innocence of nakedness as the glowing stones are passed through the small door into the pit at the center of the lodge, the kiss of sweet grass and lavender upon the stones tingeing the air with invigorating and soothing scents, before the door is closed, leaving us in total darkness aside from the stone people's soft, orange glow.  Then the water sings on the heated surfaces with a woosh of billowing steam a mere moment before the wave of heat hits my body, and I breathe the hot dampness through my mouth all the way into my lungs, realizing that sweat is pouring out of my every pore.  My hands dig into the coolness of the earth to balance the heat, and I roar, and cry, and sing, the river of sweat carrying from me all that needs to be released to make room for the blessings and promises of the new year.

After two of the four rounds I check with my guides and, feeling my time inside the lodge is complete, I leave, again pausing at the door to touch my forehead to the earth and whisper a prayer to All My Relations. Then, after the exhiliration and freedom of literally running naked through the woods, I put on a robe and take a place next to fire where the lodge stones are being heated, feeling cleaned out and content.

Once the the lodge is finished and everyone is in various states of getting dressed and gathering their things, I head up to the main house where we will share a pot luck meal, and stepping out of the meadow into the trees, am struck by the pure enchantment of the woodland path being lit by the half-full moon.  That took my breath away even more than the lodge itself did.

Once home, one of the first things I reach for is a book on Animal Spirit Guides.  On my way across the Sound that morning, standing on the bow of the ferry, a movement caught my eye, and I watched a cormorant sail in a graceful arc right in front of the boat, just inches above the water.  First animal guide of the year! I wonder if it will set the tone of 2012 for me. The full significance of this didn't strike me, though, until I opened the book to find out what Cormorant medicine was. 

Aside from the lesson I'm already aware of, and taking care of, of taking breaks for myself between work and projects (cormorants are famous for standing in the sun after fishing in order for their outstretched wings to dry), the main power this bird brings is the ability to reach and attain seemingly impossible dreams...

...THIS is the year!