Those Dam Beavers

I realized recently that I hadn't posted to my blog for quite a while, that the last post was about my Emergency Room experience with a blood clot, and that I should probably post something else if for no other reason than to let people know that I have not shuffled off this mortal coil, met an untimely end, and am not an ex-human (though there are times I do pine for the fjords).  In fact I am doing very well, getting healthier all the time, and am quite excited about my life.  And, as Nathaniel told me in the ER, I have found a new reason to be grateful for that experience, but I will get to that some other time.

I have experienced quite a shift in attitude since that occurrence and find myself approaching things totally differently.  Using healing around this event (recounted in my last post Stayin' Alive) as an example, my mind-set is such that healing is the inevitable and foregone conclusion, and all I need to do is open to be guided to it. Instead of asking the Universe, "Will I get there?" the question is, "What do I need to do to get there?"

The image I get in my mind of this is from the video game The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time.  At some point in the game, the hero acquires a 'hookshot' which is a spring-loaded chain with a hook on the end so you can shoot it, it hooks into where you aimed it, then it draws you across.  You set your intention then the Universe pulls you straight to it.

(Okay. So, yes, I do know this picture is actually from "Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker.") 

So with all this in mind, I did a journey to find out why I'd gotten the clot, what its gift was, and how I go about healing it.


I went to Nathaniel to ask about the clot but couldn't find him. Then Meryl, my Pelican animal guide, showed up.  She flew me somewhere until below us was a red river. There were other rivers of red laid out nearby, like a bird's eye view of the landscape from the movie Tron and the network of circuits. At one point Meryl started circling down til she landed in the river.

In front of us and blocking the river was a beaver dam, and there were 2 or 3 beavers who appeared crazy, like tweaking out on too much caffeine... "Gotta build!! Gotta build!!" After talking to the 'lead' beaver, once he calmed down, he said I was working too hard.  But all the energy I should be expending to build my world outside was going inside and blocking me rather than expanding me.

I asked what I had to do to unblock it, and he said, "Look! It's already clear." At that point I started coughing in Ordinary Reality, and when I went back and looked, the river of blood was clear. To keep it clear, tai chi and meditation would help, and I'm to sit and picture my blood as rivers of light every day -- feeding and nurturing every part and cell of my body. "Be comfortable in your body.  Be your body."

 I am still on blood thinners until I get the okay from the medical doctors, who are doing tests to see if they can find a reason this happened twice within a couple years, but I know within my heart that this clot is gone, and that whatever caused this situation will be healed, is healed.

And I thank all my physical and non-physical companions for their prayers and energy that aided me in getting to this point on my path.  My appreciation is boundless. 

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!