Third Eye's The Charm

I had just experienced one of the most wonderful weekends I remember. Yet all good things must end.  Perhaps it was having to say good-bye to my guest, or nerves about my upcoming teaching debut, or just the encroaching darkness of this time of year, but what ever it was, something left me with a constant sinking, churning feeling in my stomach -- a familiar sensation from my days of panic attacks and depression -- when the weekend was over.

"Crap! Aren't I done with this stuff yet? Do I really have to go here again?" But that's where I went for the last few days -- at least far enough to dip my feet into that familiar, uncomfortable feeling of being cloaked in this buzzing, erratic, jagged energy that squeezes my shoulders, disturbs my stomach, and clouds my head. Blech!

I kept trying to remind myself that this is how I feel before making a great leap forward.  It's like my energy retreats inside of me, coiling for a spring, yet this withdrawal of energy leaves me feeling vulnerable and only partially present.  Double Blech!!

So finally I did what I should have done all along -- asking for guidance.  I talked to Goddess, to Artemis,  to Nathaniel, to any and all guides hanging around -- "Please show me what I need to do to heal this." 

Shortly after that, I had a sudden memory surface from the most recent shamanic workshop I'd attended.  We had done a journey asking for information on what we can do to on a daily basis to remember our Divinity, and one of the answers that came to me was, "Every morning when you wake up, open all three eyes!"

On the heals of that memory came an older memory of another journey.  In a shamanic class a couple years ago, around this same time of year, we journeyed to our guides to ask, "What gift do I have to help me get through the dark times without so much difficulty?"  This is what I wrote:

So I went to Nathaniel, asked him my question, and he promptly flew into the air, zipping around in loop-dee-loops. "What are you doing?" "I'm helping you fly above everything to get perspective." "That's fine and all, but I'm not finding that very helpful at the moment. What else have you got?"

At that point he straightened out and stopped in the air. I'm not sure that I was on his back before, but I was now. He said "Look there." My eyes followed his nose to find it was pointing toward a very bright star. "That is your North Star. It will always help you keep your bearings."

Sometimes these otherworld experiences seem a little too convenient. My favorite book is Finding Your Own North Star by Martha Beck. On one hand I was thrilled to have found mine. On the other, was I just making it up because of the book? Still, I've found that usually these things turn out to be convenient, or obvious, because of the fact that they're true. I went with it.

As I looked at my North Star I realized what I was really looking at was my third eye. Nathaniel confirmed this saying when I get into confusion and turmoil, to open my third eye, as well as my crown chakra. "Where are your emotions?" he asked. Instantly my attention went to my chest and heart where the churned up past still swirled around my shoulders. "If you don't keep your upper chakras open, your head will become immersed in your emotions. By opening your third eye you maintain a distance, staying above them, and are able to see more clearly. You will still feel them, but being able to see will help clear them more easily."

Again the third eye! So I focused my attention on my forehead, maybe even closing my physical eyes to do so, and instantly felt this swirling, flowering energy there -- kind of like the opening of the worm hole on Star Trek Deep Space Nine.  The effect was almost immediate.  All the buzzing, static, interference that I'd been encased in for days suddenly evaporated.  My stomach still felt off center and not totally right, but the weight and pressure of the building steam, like a pot of water put on to boil, just vanished as if my third eye, my sixth chakra, was a release valve allowing that pressure to escape and dissipate. Holy crap!  How easy was that?!

That was yesterday.  Last night I had one of the most peaceful night's sleep I remember.  And today I not only felt 100% better, I also had a number of various intuitive hits and visions, allowing me to sink beneath the surface of reality and taste of the twinkling magick behind all things.  It just took me opening my eyes -- all three of them -- to see it.

Eat. Drink. Sleep. Pee.

For the past few days I have been sick. Well, maybe a little longer than that, but not until Friday did I feel the need to spend the day in bed. Then Saturday. Then Sunday, today. Albeit I'm starting to feel better now, but just in fits and starts. Enough to run to the grocery store for juice and soup before feeling run down and needing a nap again.

Anyway, this comes directly on the heels of a conscious decision I made to again "return to the cave." To pull into myself a bit, retreat from the world, to nurture and nourish myself. And apparently, from what I heard about the recent New Moon in Cancer, this is perfect timing, for that's exactly what that moon signifies.

The past months have found me becoming highly distracted and mesmerized by the dramas of the world and the dramas of others, and without belittling or judging what anyone else is going through, my personal boundaries and goals were beginning to blur. I realized I had lost sight of my personal north star as well as my inner compass, and so was just sailing in circles at the mercy of wind and wave, my senses lulled to sleep by the siren's song of the world.

But then there came a couple of instances where, though totally emotional, I literally felt as though I'd been kicked in the gut by a couple people. And though it took me a bit of time to recover from those instances, I am so grateful for them because they were the wake up call I needed to rouse my dazed senses and to reset my bearings.

It seems to be at the point where I was resetting that I began to get sick, starting in my throat, the 5th chakra, which is about expressing oneself. Coincidence? I think not. And as I continue to find my way, and set my course of true expression, I am releasing the foreign matters that I had taken aboard and mistakenly identified as my own -- Clearing myself of excess weight and baggage that I may become airborne and set my sights on the second star to the right.

Does that make the sickness any easier? I don't know about easier. I still feel like crap. But it does place it all in a different context, giving it a purpose and a pearl of wisdom which, by itself may not add up to much, but when placed with the treasure trove of other such pearls of experience I have gained, it becomes harder to deny a higher purpose in all of this.

But that's not actually what I had intended to write about in this entry. It has been a long time, since childhood possibly, that I have been this sick for this long. Especially anymore, I may require a day of sleep to feel good enough to re-emerge into the world, but three? So this time has thrown me for a bit of a loop, and made me wonder if I'm taking care of myself enough to heal. I mean, it is 4:30 in the afternoon and I have yet to eat anything. I haven't been drinking a lot of liquids either, except on my occasional trips to the bathroom. That's not, according to the way I was raised, how one gets well.

So this afternoon, those doubts swirling in my head, along with a general cultural guilt for laying in bed for so long, I checked in with my Upperworld Guide, Fred, to ask if I was alright or if I should be doing more to take care of myself through this.

"Are you thirsty?" he asked. "No." "Then don't worry about drinking. Are you hungry?" "No." "Then don't worry about eating. Are you tired?" "Yes." "Then sleep."

That was so simple, so Taoist. Like another Taoist saying I remember hearing: "When hungry, eat. When thirsty, drink. When tired, sleep. When Nature calls, answer."

Thank you Fred. See you after my nap... zzzzzzzzzzzzzz...