Pondering my passivity

Only very fleeting fragments of dreams remained, so I asked my body about my Shadow, if there is something there I am ready to know or do for my own good – what came was this:

I am torn about taking this time of retreat for myself. I fear that perhaps in some 'shady' way I am just using it to avoid going out there into the world, because I do not want to face or fight the good fight against the harshness of reality that I’ve seen. So I’ve reframed the situation in order to convince myself and others that I am withdrawing for a ‘noble’ reason, when in fact I am giving in to my fears and passive nature. These are in my conscious mind, but I want to know what’s in the Shadow behind all this.

The word passivity lingers and won’t go away, like a old, festering wound... reflexively I blame my passivity for holding me back from going out into the world with more initiative and zeal, though my immediate reaction to just thinking about being active out there is one of fatigue and exhaustion, being depleted of energy with nothing left at the end of the day. But that is only a belief, one that says ‘work is exhausting’, because our experience with our jobs has led to that, and everyone around us seems to express the same sentiment.

Yet it is only a partial truth, and it is the part that isn’t true that offers us the truth, a way out of ‘the grind’. Not ALL work is exhausting and a one-way flow of energy out of ourselves with little hope of replenishment. When we do work we love, we seem to be able to find more reserve, go longer, and the ‘load’ doesn’t seem as heavy. Why is this so, considering that we are not expending any less energy when doing work we don’t want to do. Sometimes we even feel more energized by the work! I am fortunate enough to have experienced this phenomenon, because I would never have believed it coming from someone else.

While it is true that love is what makes the difference, I think though, if we leave it at that today’s enquiring minds will be left wanting for a deeper understanding and meaning of this (I know mine would :). It is that if you love the work (or anything else in the universe) you are open to more flow energetically – think of an open hand vs. a closed one, which one will catch more – AND therefore you are offering less resistance to the flow of energy that’s always around us, so you are also conserving more energy than if you are always fighting this person or that procedure, beating yourself up or doing things against your own grain. All this fighting, beating, struggling and hating and holding back your real feelings takes a huge toll, probably more than the energy you actually put into the work alone. You are using the force of resistance to push back this ongoing tide day in and day out, no wonder you’re wiped out flat. No wonder I am exhausted just at the mention of work.

I see this has now turned into a lecture by my body to myself, or perhaps it is more of a teaching story, and like all good stories there is a happy ending! For this story it is that there is a very simply solution to the problem: do the work that you love, and don’t give up looking until you find it. Simple though this truth is, it is still a journey, meaning it is seldom an instantly achievable goal. Sadly we often give up on the journey too soon, and in our result-oriented way of life there is little support or encouragement around us to help us keep faith, take heart, and carry on. Thankfully, the universe does provide for those who determine to stay on this road less travelled.

So the moral of this story to me is: pursue the work I love, and check frequently for points of resistance within myself, and, one last thing: passivity is only a trait like having a tool or a weapon, it can be used for help or hindrance, growth or harm – user’s choice.

True-Blue Urban Girl Turned Green!

Something different is happening with me the last few days – just this week... I feel as though I could spend all day outdoors, walking around the parks and green spaces, lie on a blanket and read and write and dream and cruise the skies in my eyes and in my mind, and what I have come to love the most: sit by the water’s edge and just let it go! Let it out! Let it in! and let it be... Somehow the water has become my living altar, and it is there that I make my wishes, offer my prayers and send up gratitude. It is also there I ask the difficult questions that parts of me hate to ask, and with trepidation often, commit to follow the guidance that came with the answers. I think I cannot conceive now of living everyday without touching and being touched so deeply by elemental nature in some way, and that’s a 180˚ of change for me, as anyone who knows me can attest.

Down at the lake this evening I asked if the lake had anything to tell me. It did, but for some reason (I forgot to ask) it had to come through my body. Anyway, what came was that I could write spiritual editorials for local or web publications – maybe I could even call myself a spiritual journalist one day... hmmm

The other message was very succint, and literal: Let the form and the light find you. I will put this on my altar.

And a little poem came to me:

Make a stone altar wherever you go;
on the sidewalk, in the flowerbed,
at the bus stop, after dinner.
Just a heap of pebbles, a few chips of bricks,
Broken bits of concrete, or even shards of glass,
All bodies of the Earth.
And let them be a witness to your wishes,
A memorial to your struggle,
The landmark of your gratitude,
A momento for your journeying soul.
~~~

Now that I’ve got it typed out it seems to tell me that I’m still just navigating near the surface of things, not really diving in – that these are nice sentiments but ultimately not evoking much in the writer nor any potential reader – except the first line...

Catching dandelion puffs

No dream recall this morning... what is the name of that gap between sleeping and waking, when the stuff in your mind is still light and fluffy, like dandelion puffs drifting across your interior landscape? Hypnogogic, apparently. And hypnopompic is the state between waking and sleep. (http://www.pureinsight.org/node/1172) I think I’ll just call it the twilight state, a time when magic slips in and happens.

So while lolligagging in this borderland this morning, I managed to catch a few dandelion puffs on their way by. One was about the 3 Muses from yesterday’s dream, that they are Voice, Healing, Writing. These 3 have become my nearly constant companions recently. The one I wasn’t aware of was Voice. She was the one that took the cake from the windowsill. Writing was the one who put flowers in the ceiling beam. There’s something I need to know about Voice. It is her voice I need to listen for in order to free my own. I intend now to always let her speak through me. One more thing: she is the spokesperson for all the other Muses, for she is the carrier of Truth, and there needs to be truth in any art form. She delivers the seal of authenticity.

“The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof, shit detector. This is the writer's radar and all great writers have had it.” ~ Ernest Hemingway

The other ‘puff’ of insight was that I draw the lines of my boundary with the pen (sometimes sword) of my anger. It seems that I have to be pushed forward by anger before I can say, “Look, this is where the line is. Do not cross the line.” Of course, by the same I say that – verbally or otherwise – I am already angry at the other person, and at myself. I keep wanting to fall back onto my idealistic but childish belief that if I don’t cross anyone else’s boundary, no one will cross mine, or, if I don’t harm anyone else, no one will harm me. Even though I would be amongst the billions who will laugh at that, my real tendency is still not to act unless provoked.

Is that just a Pisces thing? My body says no. It’s because I want to cling to that state of infantile bliss where everyday is sunshine and lollipops, and puppydogs never die. I don’t want to grow up, I don’t want the responsibility, the fight to survive, the pain of individuation, the searing blast of reality. It isn’t ‘wrong’ to want this, but without temperance I would slither and slide down the slippery slope of escapism into oblivion.

What should I temper it with then? Purpose. I need to find, form, and hold fast to my Purpose, put it on my altar and line it up in my sight everyday. I think, I need to do this physically – put it on a piece of paper and place it on my altar. Make my offerings and keep it alive, meaningful.

So what, is my Purpose then? Help me, Body...

My Purpose in the greater scheme of things, within the limits of my knowing, is TO LIGHT THE WAY OF OTHERS.

Okay, I think I knew this one, my job as She Who Carries the White Light, the name given to me 2 years ago by a Mohawk Elder who I love and respect. Serendipitously, this name echoes the name my parents gave me, literally translated from Chinese as First Light, or One Light. So that means that no matter what I choose and end up doing in this life, write or heal or dance or catch dandelion puffs, I will always be doing it in service of LIGHTING THE WAY OF OTHERS.

Not to forget that I need to dig deeper into my boundary-less issue, I was reminded again this afternoon when Michael came home and crashed on the sofa beside me, taking up more space than was comfortable for me (and my laptop, my books, my required amount of personal space). But I said and did nothing even though I was annoyed (he was sawing logs), and did not even twig to the wiring of this pattern being tripped, until hours had gone by... I could easily have asked him to go to bed, or moved myself, at least mention it, but for SOME reason I chose to suffer in silence... I’m beginning to smell victimhood, something I’ve never applied to myself... this is such a subtle but insidious pattern that I don’t even notice it ‘acting up’ 99 out of 100 times... oh well, one day at a time I guess.
___________

Praise, Self-esteen, and Performance – these are the subjects raised in the first chapter ‘The Inverse Power of Praise’ from the book “Nurture Shock: New thinking about children” by Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman. Just a few pages into it and I’m already hearing booming echoes of my childhood, for some strange reason accompanied by images from the Little Red Riding Hood...

Once upon a time there was a girl named Little Red Riding Hood, who wore her red riding hood to school everyday. She loved her red riding hood because her mom made it for her as a reward for winning the Best Student of the Class Award last year. Her teachers nod and smile when they see the little flash of red in the first row (she’s usually the shortest student in class), pride and praise irrepressibly rise up to their lips and secretly they wished more of their students were like her. Outside of school is more of the same, more gifts and awards, pats on the head, pinching of the cheeks, barely disguised (parental) jealousy, in church, from neighbours, relatives and family friends. Through it all Little Red Riding Hood ducked her head with a shy little smile, the accolades heaped on her young head did not appear to have gotten to her head at all... or did they?? (quick fade, as her red riding hood begins to change into a troubled shade of blue...)

Just as a side note (then again, my days seem to be spent stringing garland after garland of these side notes, hopefully there’s a work of some mastery at the end), I am still amazed at how there just seems to be one thing after another being pulled out of my psychic and somatic closet, and no bottom in sight. I know I’m going through a Chiron Makeover, but I never knew he can be so thorough, meticulous and persistent – no transgression too small to escape his scrutiny. Maybe he’s related to Virgo...

Self-Revelation: Healing & Salvation

Yesterday afternoon we went down to the lake for a chill-out and a lie-down. Michael layed down in the sun to get a prep tan, I layed down in the shade as I’ve gotten enough sun(burn) for the season. As I lay there looking up at the swarm of dragonflies circling around up at the tree line, I thought that if I hadn’t been lying down and looking up, I probably wouldn’t have seen them, dozens of them, just a few feet above where we normally ‘look’. I told Michael later that I’ve never seen so many dragonflies in one place before, and he said, where? Looking about him at eye level.

While I was cruising the sky on my back a thought that has been niggling at me returns, that of my relationship to my healing work, both in my own healing and for others. Even though I know without doubt (so far) that making art is my vocation and healing its theme, lately a detail emerges to tell me that the way of its manifestation is not as I had always expected. I had assumed, along with many others, that once I find healing for myself, I have an obligation to help others heal. So I get the training I needed, put in the practice and gather the experience, do my own innerwork to clear the path, and open my arms wide to anyone who asks for healing. Yet something in all of this never settled comfortably into its groove, something keeps tripping my own lie detector.

It is only a few weeks ago that I finally heeded the ‘alarm’ and dared to check the reading. It said, I do not want to be a healer to other people. I want to help/heal the rest of Creation, and I will continue to heal myself so that I can do this work. But I am not interested in administering healing to other human beings directly, as a practitioner or channel or shaman or doctor. This, though a bit of a shock to my ego, feels right to me.

A few more days or weeks went by before I could follow this ‘self-revelation’, this powerful and clear ‘I DO NOT WANT’ feeling. But one day it was there, the I DO WANT counterpart. I want to teach people how to heal themselves, how to find and draw on their own resources, within and out, how to assess and diagnose symptoms, how to speak and have dialogues with their bodies, how to check for truth and lies, and how to keep the Big Picture always in sight so you always have a reference point, never lost for long, and never lose hope even in times when that’s all you’ve got. I WANT TO DO THIS and I have no doubt that I can do this.

So I take comfort in the adage: “Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime.”

______________

UNHOLY INTERFERENCE

If I’m being honest
I would say this outloud,
that I don’t want to be a healer for what ails other people,
not because there are already countless number of healers
who have taken on this vocation,
not because I am trying to be different,
though those are the kind of reasons my mind would automatically come up with,
but because the truth is
I do not feel the human species ought to be ‘saved’.

Our greatest impact on this planet has been to kill and destroy
To soil our own nest as well as every other species’
And as most of us who are privileged enough to know
This planet cannot support the number of us that are already born
And continues to be born
The birth rate still outpaces the death rate.

How is it that we can hold on one side of the scale
the fact of our rampant overpopulation
Not to mention our encroachment on the lives of other species –
Usually annihilation or extinction,
While on the other side of the scale
Without thought, without discernment, without connecting
to the wisdom of the big picture,
we run out onto the streets
with our hearts on our sleeves
our shadow selves shoved deeply into the recesses of our souls
and declare our good intention to
‘End world hunger!’
‘Fight breast cancer!’
and ‘Zero Tolerance’ to this and that?

All of us (humans) look upon an infestation of rodents
Or insects or weeds as a nuisance
That ought to be eradicated
By any means available,
How is it that we never look at the (over)infestation
Of humanbeings in the same light?
Are we singled out for salvation?
Is a human life worth more than a flower, a bug, a rodent’s?
ARE WE SUPERIOR BEINGS, TO ALL ELSE, IN THIS WORLD??

I guess the answer must be yes,
As I have seen nor heard evidence otherwise.
I see though, the only way for this planet to survive
As in, to continue to support Life
Is if the majority of the human population dies out
(how that’s possible given how attached we are
to our fear of death, I don’t know,
we should all be out there with signs that say,
‘End Death!’, ‘Annihilate End to Life!’, ‘We Will Never Die!’)
and the earth is given a respite to fallow
to catch its breath
and heal the big, gaping wounds on its body,
to cleanse, detox, renew, and regenerate, and
GIVE ALL THE OTHER SPECIES A CHANCE!
For a change.

We, human beings –
Domain Eukarya
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Subclass: Theria
Infraclass: Eutheria
Order: Primates
Suborder: Anthropoidea
Superfamily: Hominoidea
Family: Hominidae
Genus: Homo
Species: sapiens –
Cannot save the planet
Cannot save Creation
Cannot save anyone
Except ourselves, just as
Each one of us
Cannot save anyone else
Except our own self.

Go home, go inside,
Lock the door,
Heal our Self
And save the world.

WRITING EXERCISES FROM “Writing from the Body”

Saturday, July 3, 2010 –

I wrote this following an exercise in John Lee’s book Writing from the Body (pp 27), using the opening sentence from The Invisible Man by Ralph Elliston: ‘I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me’ – with a full breath between each word – then begin writing... ~

I feel tears prickle my eyes. I want to cry. I want to cry for all the unborn desires there ever were in the world. all the screaming agonies of unfulfilled dreams. When I cried and cried and cried, explicably, that day after aborting our drive to the drumming class, overcome with nausea and shock, I had no choice but cry it all out in my friend Sue’s arms, so much pent-up sadness and sorrow and despair and desperation of an unknown source... the women I saw, all huddled together in a huge heap inside a dark cave, abandoned and forgotten, they have lived a non-existence for so long that no one remembers when they were first banished. These are the lives of women that went noticed, their wants and needs pushed underground, their voices stilled, their limbs amputated. I didn’t know that day, what had come over me and taken over control so completely, no did Sue. But I knew I was weeping for all of those forgotten souls, giving vent to such an amount of grief such as I have never experienced personally, for it was not mine alone. Now it is 3 years later, and suddenly, because of this breathing exercise, I understand finally what happened.

The fire has been stolen from these women’s lives, and knowing this I feel I must do my best to rekindle the flame in the spirits of all women, indeed all people who have lost their fire, who have lived unlived lives, starting with myself.
_________________

This piece was written from the exercise on pp29, again using the breath and guided imagery:

I see the edge of the shore after the tide has gone out, the wet sand of the beach undisturbed in the fading light of the sunset. I notice suddenly that actually the beach is not empty, there are bits and pieces of debris washed up on the sand, casting long shadows into the ocean. I know immediately that if I picked up all the pieces I will be able to put back together the whole picture of my life, that these are the lost and missing pieces of my memory.

I feel a bit reluctant to do this for some reason, probably afraid of what I might see. I stand paralyzed, watching the tide continues to come in and go out, bringing more and more pieces each time. Are there really so many pieces? Am I supposed to reclaim them all? What if I don’t get all of them? The sun is setting and light is fading fast. I feel panic rising up like the tide. I cast around for help but there’s no one in sight. Then a voice came, and said, one piece at a time, just pick up one piece at a time. That’s all you have to do.
___________________

Another breath-writing exercise:

I feel clean inside, hollowed out. Now there is space, there is air, circulating, blowing out any particle of ash that’s left. I think of a feather, white and delicate, wafting gently on the air current, backlit by the sun so it has a golden glow. Everything is silent and the stillness is tangible. What is this place? Where am I? it is the land of Golden Silence. What am I doing here? Waiting, I am waiting for my life to begin. It is close, I can feel tiny disturbances in the air of its arrival. But this is a place with no time, then, how do you wait in a place where there is no time? You just breathe, and see the beauty that unfolds with each breath. Enjoy the stay, enjoy the journey.

Diving deep into my body, I encountered a big air bubble. It floated up and swallowed me. It is quite spacious (I am quite small) and rubbery-bouncy inside. I think of an echoless chamber. My mind wants something to do but there isn’t anything. Suddenly I see saffron yellow, one of my favourite colours. I suppose I like it because it is spicy and rich, and I am craving the spicy and rich in my life. But hopefully it isn’t like the Indian food we had last week that gave us the most heavy loggy feeling for a long time. Then I see my face crumpled and messed up with tears and weeping. Why am I crying? I am crying from being so full of the frustration I feel because I cannot express myself fully, my words do not express the intensity of my feelings, I can’t find the words, the phrases, the imagery to convey the wholeness of my meaning. I pound on the inside of the bubble. I pound on the sofa I’m sitting on. I want to throw a tantrum like a small child.

Then I feel like I want to move my body, all the different parts, shaking loose this uprightness, brushing it off away from me, even the soles of my feet. I spin around, brush off in all four direction, and give thanks to each in turn. For giving me this life that I have, for giving me breath.


I am to go on a journey to meet my Inner Artist. The door inside my body is in my abdoment, tilted towards my spine like a skylight. It has 2 panes like a french door, with glass in it. I opened it and stepped in. It is dark but I can see I am standing on the top of a flight of stairs. I started to walk down the steps but soon it is too dark to see. I had to scoot down on my bum to feel my way. Just as I began to wonder I saw a faint red glow to the left. Now I can see where the edge of the steps are at least. I continue down slowly, marveling at how much deeper I’m going. The light becomes stronger though everything is still reddish and hazy. Finally I hit bottom, a surprisingly small area. I realized this is the pelvic floor of my body. I ask if my Inner Artist is here, but I knew there is no one here except a furnace with a fire burning in it. This is the creative centre of the female body, where her fire is. This is my Inner Artist, of course. And thankfully, it is burning.

I ask my fire if there’s anything she wants me to know. Yes, to remember always to breathe, for the breathe feeds the fire and keeps it lit. She wants me to promise to remember. REMEMBER ALWAYS TO BREATHE.
_________________

July 5, 2010 – reading ‘Writing from the Body’ has led me back to my old fear that I am a No-body, the core fear of head types in the Enneagram...

SHADOW SPEAKS

I am FULL of fear.
There’s a big bulging bag of fear inside my belly, writhing,
all of them tussling and jostling each other to get out of the bag.
To get to me. To get my attention.
Now and then, one escapes,
Rears its ugly head, and says, Boo!
I gasp, I run, but lately,
Maybe because I’m getting too old to run fast,
Maybe because I recognize my own voice,
I turn back and look at the fear, meet it in the eye.

Today, the one that got out is NOBODY.
She’s an old timer, been there most of my life,
Even got out a few times, but I’ve always eluded her.
Last time I made some half-hearted attempts to
pacify her, lull her into believing me
Before I stuffed her back in again.

But here she is again,
Not much fight left in her,
Doesn’t say anything,
Just looks at me with dull, dry, beseeching eyes.
She’s Nobody with nothing to say
And I don’t know what the hell to do.

Then she got up and came over to me
Raises her skinny arms out to me –
I had no idea she is so emaciated –
And holds me in her brittle embrace.

Does my Shadow pity me? I’m a little surprised
Should it not be ther other way around?
I’m the one in charge, in control...
How can you be in control when you don’t have a body, Nobody says.
There’s only a bag of fear where you body should be.
Look how wasted we are.

But what do I do with my fear, my fear that I AM A NOBODY
Embrace me, she says, accept me as a part of yourself,
Treat me as you would want to be treated,
As you would treat a scared or wounded child.
Open your heart and take me in
And tell me everything will be alright
For in your heart you know it’s true,
And in your heart you do not judge me, disdain me,
Tire of me and reject me
There is more than enough space
For me and all your other fears
Here in your heart.

How is it that this has never occurred to me
To simply open my heart
And love my fears?
It never got past my head
The ever-vigilant watchdog, judge and critic
But he is a part of me too.

Nobody, I will hold you close to my heart
I will feed you and care for you
Smile and sing to you
Love you,
Into your body
And love you
Until you are the Somebody that we are.

**Even as I write this I feel too weak still, not being fully in my body yet... so I ask Source to give me the strength I need to sustain this, for I do not feel strong enough to do this alone.
_______________________

AWARENESS EXERCISE:

As I breathed deeply, I looked inside my body to see where it’s calling me... my mind’s eye is pulled to the lower triangle of my pelvis. It becomes a bird’s eye view of the area – I am looking down at it, seeing a hole at the other end of my body, which looks like an empty tube. I understand then that I am to breathe and circulate that breath down towards the opening, and exhale out of it. THIS IS HOW I OUGHT TO BREATHE.
_______________________

July 6, 2010 – 30 min.

WILD WRITING:

I am angry at myself, for this stubborn refusal to let go of things that I KNOW to be no good for me. Why do I continue to feed the ‘enemy’, give it shelter, and the best of my attention and energy? Is it the contrariness in me, is it the wantonness of the Type 7, is it the rebellious streak of the Dragon? Or is it, as some would believe, evil from an external source that we ought to protect ourselves against? It’s none of these things, isn’t it, my body and I know. It is the fear that lives in the centre of my being, though it occupies a space no bigger than a cherry, it is super dense like a blackhole, anti-matter, anti-everything, and lives on sucking everything good from my life. And I am angry because, well, because I’m afraid of it, afraid that it will completely take over, like it nearly did many years ago.

But to give credit where credit is due, it has gotten smaller since then, since I recharted the course of my life and turned my nose Self-bound. Come to think of it, it didn’t used to be a little black ball in my solar plexus, it used to be everywhere in my body, in my mind and soul, densely black with tendrils, reaching out like cancer cells. Probably was cancer.

I see now that it was the Critic’s voice that spat out the anger, way up on the soapbox again. Time I ask him to go. Time for him to retire from his decades of service, ever vigilant, ever relentless, like a well-trained watchdog with no OFF switch, he never sleeps, not even when I sleep. Well I did hire him for those exact qualifications. And he deserves my gratitude and respect for a job well done, as well as my blessings for his return journey back to Source.

So I thank you, my very loyal and consciencious Critic, for looking out for all my errors and failures and missteps, so I didn’t disappoint all those people by taking risks and falling flat on my face. You didn’t want me to get hurt or look stupid or waste my time, I know. But now I’ve grown, past the need for your existence in my life, so I set you free, so that I am free of you, to be MYSELF. Goodbye.
______________________

Synesthesia (mixing of the senses):

“whisper” – It is a silvery grey, nothing more than a breath of air but with a razor-sharp edge to it. And if you’re not careful it’ll cut you, though the blade is so thin and the cut so light, you might not even realize you’ve been cut for several moments. But the cut, surprising many of its victims, is deep, the blade turning as it buries itself into flesh, like a lover turned to revenge. It is nearly always the surprise that kills, not the cut itself. The shock of realization that seizes the heart and delivers its fatal squeeze. Death by heart failure, it’ll say on the death certificate. And the only trace of the real killer, the whisper, is the fading trail of silvery grey, on the heel of the grieving lover.
__________________

Movement writing:

There’s something in my nature that is like the octopus. Lots of waving of the arms, but always graceful and composed, unless it is alarmed. Then it’s 0 to 60 in a split second, jet propeller full thrust, not to mention the smoke screen bomb to better the chance of a getaway. It retreats fast and far. But until that moment of the loss of innocence, the octopus is content to dance on its watery stage, playing with changing its colours to match a whim, a mood, a rock, a passing school of fish, lunch. Other times it just rides the currents all day, and day dreams, picking up images of an ancient past down there on the sea floor, when tribes of beings not unlike the octopus built a civilization that’s now buried deep in the ocean, and deeper still in the unconscious of its descendants. And it is octopus who faithfully collects these visions and images to feed my dreams, for octopus is my Muse, my Muse with Eight Arms, all innocence and vulnerability, chameleon and dirvish, who brings me treasures from the depths everyday.

An octopus has three hearts. Cool.
________________

My 4 Voices:

As a small child:
I want to know WHY. Why do grownups lie? Why can’t I lie? Why do I have to do things I don’t want to do? And not the things I want to do? Why do animals die? Why do we kill them? What is love? Why, why, why? Why are there no answers to my questions? Why can I not ask them? Why can I not say wahat I want, when I want? I want to know! I want to cry. Right here, right now! And I don’t want to be good!

As a teenager:
Where do I belong, in this sea of bodies? Strong smells, copious flesh, hair and saliva and hormones, lots of hormones. We are swimming in hormones, sometimes near drowning. I love, and I hate, there’s nothing in between. In between is grey, bland, boring, death. I am a receptacle needing to connect to a current, to be whacked right out of my mind and feet by a tidal surge of intense power. An intensity that matches my own. Two stormheads meeting head on, love is anguish, love is pain beyond endurance, love is the soup we marinate in.i want to love, I love to hate, I hate to love, I loathe love and hate, I loathe myself.how could I belong? Only ever on the edge.

As an adult now:
By most standards I am over the hill, and optimistically going down the hill aided by gravity for a change, the first half of my life being a rather steep incline. Although I can tell you now there is no plateau at the top of the hill, like I always imagined, no place to stop and take a breather, elevate your lower extremeties, take a much needed sip of cool spring water. Plunge on, there’s no time to waste if you want to be assured of that safety when you retire, 20 years from now. That is, unless you catch a glimmpse of something else, something that winks back at you, that IS you, the you that should’ve been, if you hadn’t gone the high road as you were told to do, the you that could still be. It’s a detour, an unteatened path, an unknown, and a gamble. It goes against everything I’ve been taught, but I’ve no choice, I have to follow, for it was me I saw, the me I want to be, and I must go to her.

As the person I am becoming:
There is a change in me, everyday, something changes in me, everyday. An egg becomes a caterpillar, becomes a chrysalis, and finally a butterfly. But it doesn’t end there because the butterfly flies, dies, leaves behind eggs, and is born again. I didn’t realize until quite recently, that we are butterflies over and over and over again, in one lifetime, we die and live and die and live, and each time a little more of our Self is found and redeemed. This, I’ve come to know, is grace.
_______________________

July 7, 2010

WRITING ABOUT PERSONAL SYMBOLS:

One of my recurring personal symbols is a building with many rooms. Most often I see them in my dreams. A house with multi-levels and many rooms, a store with many rooms or departments, a market with many stalls, a bathroom with many stalls, a school with many classrooms, room with many beds, street with many stores, a building, an institution, a skyscraper...

The most obvious connection is best explained by the Enneagram, for I am a type 7 according to the Enneagram; characterized as a person who loves and lives for variety, options, and always has to have an alternative, a way out, a choice in the matter, freedom. I can’t remember how much blood, sweat and tears I’ve shed over the fight for personal freedom in my life, most of it out of fear (core fear for type 7 is the fear of being trapped), but that’s only clear in hindsight. The multi-room building is one of the symbols that this ‘trait’ takes form for me. So this comes from my core, it is my essence, my nature, my gift, and my undoing.

Having a variety of options, like being able to wander from room to room, stall to stall, subject to subject, etc., is like having all the candy I want instantly, it is the utmost in personal gratification. It is also my escape hatch, fire exit, the back door, so I know I will never be trapped, stuck, left in suspense, in pain, in misery, hopelessness and powerlessness, the living dead. My greatest fear is not that I might die, but that I might not die but live on in pain.

I think now that most likely each of those rooms, stalls, storeys, etc. held a demon of mine, something I needed to get away from before it catches me, something I’ve consciously avoided or denied and squirmed my way out of having to admit to. I used to dream about going from room to room, floor to floor, in a big building, looking for something or someone I’ve lost, and having great difficulty finding them. These dreams are usually frought with anxiety and panic. I know now what I’ve lost was a part of my Self. Sometimes I would just be lost in the building, couldn’t find a way out. Lost myself in my warren of options, I was desperately seeking Self. Thankfully, I take it as a sign that I’ve grown, I haven’t had these ‘lost’ dreams lately.

~~~

Dream Blog Launched!

I've created a new blog to record my dreams and my dreamwork process, which has become a big part of my healing and growth as well as a meaningful daily practice:

http://lastnightidreamed-whitelightone.blogspot.com/

~~~~

Journey from my bath tub

I'm still obsessing about this weight gain around my middle, something about it continues to elude me. So last night while soaking in my bath I asked my body again for elucidation. The answer was that it has to do with my relationship with food, that I fear the pain of deprivation because I am not connected to my body – I do not feel ‘substantial’ – I have no substance, therefore I eat whenever I am ungrounded because food anchors us physically. However, this is only a band-aid solution. What I really need is spiritual anchoring, my spirit needs to be anchored to the earth. My body suggested that I lie on the ground more often, which is not an appealing idea to me. Then it suggested that I take a (shamanic) journey to the Lower World, right there and then in the bath tub...

Immediately I saw an opening to a cave, the landscape is all reddish-orangy-gold-yellow. I would like to paint that scene. I went up to the opening and asked for a spirit animal. A little spotted owl appears. Small enough to hold in my hand, it perches on my fingers and said ‘whooo’. I stepped closer and looked into the opening and see that there’s no steps or path leading from it. It’s just a plummet straight down into the dark below. I was a bit intimidated but trusted that the little owl will help me. She said ‘whooo!’, grips my fingers tight, and off we went – jump!

We fell and fell and the back of my mind is wondering if anything is at the bottom to catch me... then a faint glow started to appear below and grew stronger as we fell closer and closer. Our fall began to slow, somehow, as if there are brakes in the air, and there were wisps of mist floating up and around. The reddish-orangy glow is much stronger now as we somehow ‘landed’ very gently on my feet, as if the mist cushioned me, the little owl still attached to my fingers.

Immediately I saw a big tall ‘thing’ in front of me, glowing a fiery red-orange. This is the source of the glow. The front of it is a smooth plane, not polished marble smooth, but flat. It is fire solidified, ‘frozen’ fire. Little owl tells me that it is still incredibly hot, so be careful not to touch it. I asked little owl to help me understand what I’m supposed to learn here. It flew around to the back of the thing and I followed. The piece curved back at the top and I could see a spot of green, like tarnished copper, on it. It is a spot that’s beginning to ‘thaw’ and will continue to get bigger and bigger until the whole block melts and becomes liquid fire, then it will shoot out of its underground storage and pour into the outside world.

This is about CHANGE, transformation so huge the likes we have not seen nor imagined. Everything and every being in our world will be changed in visible and invisible ways. I will find myself unrecognizable from the way I am now. This is in the future but not that distant – 3 years.

As usual my mind questions whether I am desperately crazy or just creative but misguided... I wonder if there is such a thing as 'frozen' fire, kinda like dry ice...

Cinders and Nemo

Why is it that we are so triggered by injustices such as the over-consumption and growth (including obesity) of the West, while millions maybe billions starve to death everyday? I think about the little cat Cinders at the fire, having to hunt and find most of his food, and weighs about 1/3 of our beloved but fat cat Nemo, and no one questions why one is on the verge of starvation at any time, while the other has never missed a meal in his posh little life. No one I know of is advocating that we should take food from one to feed the other. We are content to believe that Cinders is happier having to hunt for his food, maybe go further and say that that’s the price he pays for his freedom to roam as an animal should. Is human life worth more than animal life? There is every indication in our world to support that this is so. But our hearts and more the point, our primal instinct for survival (we are animal after all) are badly shaken when confronted with images of emaciated children near death. It opens a floodgate to emotional responses such as pathos and compassion and indignation, but let’s not deny nor forget vulnerability and fears, of pain and suffering, of poverty and deprivation, of our own mortality.

So if there is anything to save, I feel it is time to save the rest of the world, the flora and fauna, the environment, which is their natural habitat. Restoring some balance in the face of all the destruction human beings have wreaked upon all the other species and creation will bring us to the place where we can best ‘save’ our own species, save our children from hunger and violence, save ourselves from diseases of body, mind and spirit. Then we stand a chance of ‘giving peace a chance’ and ‘end racism’ and ‘equality for all’.

I must admit that even as I write my impassioned declaration (another one of my soapbox specials) on behalf of the rest of the world victimized by humans, I sense in the back of my mind something else... that what we called ‘injustice’ is just another belief, whether it is me pointing finger at my own species, or anti-violence humans pointing fingers at violent humans, all these ‘injustices’ happen for a reason, a reason too big for us to see in our little moment in Time, too big for our ego-minds to wrap around and ‘justify’. That it all serves a divine purpose. So folks (that includes me), go home and do your own work on yourselves. Fix what’s wrong inside each of our selves, and the outside will take care of itself.

Still, I pray that God/dess takes good care of both Cinders and Nemo.

Streetcars, Chiron, & The Little Mermaid

DREAM that I’m waiting for a streetcar with a bunch of people. One came but I couldn’t get on before it was full. Another one came and I managed to get on. It was bigger, a triple-car accordion, but even then I had to keep going to the last car before I found a seat I wanted. The seats were red.

I feel this dream came in answer to my constant if not always conscious question, when am I going to get on track? Am I finally getting on, late in the day as it is?? I have had countless dreams about buses and cars, but streetcars is a first...

Streetcars run on a prescribed track, with preset destinations, unlike a bus that can go off track if needed, or a car that can go wherever you want to. A streetcar is a people mover, we are moved en masse as a collective. So perhaps this dream is more about my sense of belonging in the collective. Funny I just read the following in an article on Chiron in Pisces (as in my chart) this morning:

“The nature of the wound will relate to betrayal of trust, possibly by the mother.”

“...when they do assert themselves as individuals, they encounter the pain of separation or even abuse. After a while, the Chiron in Pisces person gets tired of having their trust betrayed and starts fighting back. In the process, they acknowledge that they are an individual, that they want to remain an individual, and that they are willing to endure the pain of separation from others if they can be free to be themselves. Without this struggle, they would de-evolve back into group consciousness. The reward for their efforts is the ability to evolve into individuality without losing their connection to the whole. In fact, they discover that they have never left the whole, and they are connected to all beings regardless of their feelings of separation.”

So it is for my desire to remain free to be myself that I pay the price of not belonging to the group.

Like the little mermaid who gave up her longevity in exchange for her masculine self and eternal soul – wholeness – but at the price of constant pain and suffering, as well as the loss of her voice, for she is now a woman living under patriarchy. In spite of her pain she dances to express herself and finds out that the prince – her masculine self – is also searching and longing for her – the feminine. But he is deceived by fate and marries another. The little mermaid is left to ponder her losses and the futility of all the sacrifices she made in her quest for wholeness. Maybe because she looked outside herself for him, when he was inside herself all long... And though she was tempted by her sisters (mermaids symbolize both seduction and transformation) to kill the prince/masculine in exchange for her old life, instead she opted for a third choice: rebirth, by overcoming her fear of death, and throwing herself back into the sea of life where we all came from, and must one day return. But instead of the dissolution of the self (individual ego) into the collective that she might have feared, she became pure spirit – what the East might call enlightenment. She had gained her Self.

Most likely she didn’t ‘know’ that when she decided to follow her heart and take the big plunge, she was actually heading for the big prize. Like all heroes and heroines on their quests, they make their decisions from the pureness of their hearts and spirit - the innocence of The Fool in tarot. Little mermaid simply didn’t have the heart to kill her prince even though he is lost to her, nor make him pay for her suffering (scapegoat).

I think this is the lesson I need to live, and learn. And even though I've felt separate from 'the group' most of my life, I know deep in myself that I AM part of the whole, that I’ve never left. I accept that it is the price I have to pay for my individuation, my sense of personal freedom, but I remain hopeful that one day this split in me will be healed, that I can have that sense of belonging and not fear losing myself.

For it is only my ego that fears. Another piece of ego to give up... time to go down to the lake...

New beginnings: A brief flashback

While browsing on the computer my eyes happened to lit upon this paragraph from an article about the new moon last Sunday:

"This particular eclipse is in a series that we have experienced before in 1991-1992, so if we look back to those years, we may get a hint of what needs to be given a shakeup in our lives. It may bring to a successful conclusion a situation which has been bothering some of us for a while. Don't worry if initially things seem worse, since you'll then turn a corner into better times ahead."

1991-1992. I had just graduated from OCAD (back then OCA) in 1991, armed with my diploma (a strangely long rectangle folded in three), the latest issue of Marketing Magazine (with a listing of all the agencies in town), and the blissful ignorance of the novice. I had only one decision to make: to start from A on the list, or from Z, to begin my cold calls. I started from A and stopped at K when I got my first job in advertising...

According to this astrological interpretation, the same thing is happening now as it did back then. That would mean a downturn in economy (1991 was the start of a recession in our fair country), but on a personal level it means the beginning of a new career, getting one foot (or toe) in the door and working from the ground up. Forging new relationships and networks, make like a sponge and absorbe everything around, humbling myself before gods and mortals so doorways would open for me, and unleashing my creative animals into the public domain!!!

I dreamed big then, and I dare to dream big now. Except this time, I will keep the dream alive, with blessings from above and below.

Art and healing... Art is healing

I guess the closest I can describe what I feel since yesterday is that something in me has turned a corner, in some way, some how. It is such an interior feeling that I cannot say why or where it came from. My mind surmises that it may have to do with the new moon/eclipse, the changes I’ve been making in my life, what’s emerging in my consciousness... and all of that may be true, at least relevant, but none of it touches that feeling directly.

‘Meeting’ Agnes Martin (see her painting above: Faraway Love, 1999) has taken me to a new place, yet it’s a familiar place because it’s somewhere I’ve longed to be for so long. A place at once tranquil and blissful, quiet and undoubtedly alive. To the best of my recollection, I haven’t been there since early childhood.

From what I’ve read and heard, there is a big cosmic shakedown going on in our universe. I think that explains why everyday the bag with the stuff of my life in it has been turned upside down and given a good shake until all sorts of odds and ends have fallen out, some familiar, some long forgotten, and some a total surprise. My task and my choice daily, is to sift through this stuff and decipher what they’re trying to tell me, and what they want me to do. This is one way to describe the work I’ve been doing for the last month or so. I can honestly say that this is not the kind of ‘work’ I ever thought I would do with so much time and energy devoted to it, as if it’s a livelihood, something I must do to survive.

This is the summary of feelings and reflections I have about what’s been going on in my life, what I’m up to – the kind of questions you might be asked if you run into an old acquaintance on the street, or a check-in email, and have to pull an answer out of yourself quickly that isn’t more than 2 minutes long but still stay true to yourself. “I just never imagined doing it full time.”, I might add this at the end if it were someone I think who might understand the awe of which I am captive.

Watching Art 21: Art of the 21st Century, the segment on the sculptor Richard Serra who makes enormous pieces of steel installations around the world. At one point he talked his memory of the time when he was 4 and his father took him to see ships being launched, probably the first time he was that close to something so mucher larger in size and power. He was the younger of 2 boys so he always drew pictures of whatever his father and older brother was doing, just so he could stay connected to them in everyday moments.

Sally Mann photographed the everyday, her children, her surroundings, family vacations, rawhide dog bone... ‘just for fun’, she said, except her fun, as far as I can see, is in capturing the ambiguity, as in a ‘twist’, in her image making, that’s the point of tension that is her signature. The documentary was unusual also because a lot of it was made up of interviews of her 3 children who were subjects for many of her photographs. Almost all of her own childhood photos were nude because she grew up in the south and her parents didn’t bother about clothing babies or keeping them properly indoors, so she ran wild and free on the land, with 12 boxers.

Pépon Osorio makes room-sized installations that looked like the inside of the man’s head, heart and viscera.

Kara Walker: her art is her therapy it seems, her terror, her neuroses, her compensations on paper.

Kiki Smith: the artist who was most certainly a witch in a past life – a self-confessed witch who grew up in an ‘Addams Family’ with death prominently displayed around the house: a headstone with the family name in the front of the house, clothing and objects (like dentures) from her father’s dead parents, death masks of her grandmother, her father and sister.

Korean-American artist Do-Ho Suh made his art out of his homesickness, and the duality of the individual vs. the collective, the most glaring disparity in existential philosophy between East and West.

Although these interpretations of these artists’ work are mine own, I think most would not fault my conclusion that we definitely make art out of the depths of our unconscious, because it is the need of the unconscious that we express it, or die.

Funny how I'm suddenly bowled over and can't get enough of art, personal and collective, when I barely stayed awake during art history classes in art college. Some karmic debts are paid in the same lifetime...

Under the new moon/solar eclipse

I am still fretting over this ever-increasing weight gain around my middle. I know it has to do with eating too late in the day (like, in bed!) but I keep having this feeling that there’s more to it than that...

It is my fear of going into the night, the hours when the unconscious reigns over the conscious, and we are shown what demons still lurk beneath the cover of darkness. When it starts to get late at night, if I don’t have a good excuse like having to get to sleep cuz I have to work the next day, then that’s the time when I suddenly feel hungry, or want to stay up and read even when I’m sleepy...

Actually, none of this seems authentic to me... I’ve dug into this many times and all I know for sure is that, where the fat is, is where I feel most vulnerable, underneath. If someone were to ask me where I feel the most vulnerable, without thinking that’s where I would point. My solar plexus, the seat of the ego and self-esteem, which is developed in the teenaged years. Probably why there’s been a lot of teenaged characters in my dreams lately.

I see in one reference on foods that nourish this chakra: pastas, breads, cereal, rices, flax seed, sunflower seeds, milk, cheeses, yogurt, ginger, mints (peppermint, spearmint, etc.), melissa, chamomile, turmeric, cumin, fennel. Nothing I’m interested in or drawn to. Hmmm...

A slight achiness is developing in the right side of my brain, and I’m feeling tetchy and unsettled inside my skin. Perhaps I should stop writing for today.

Finally couldn’t stand it anymore, I went down to the beach. Didn’t bring my journal. Just sat on a rock and took in the lake in a lavender sunset. As I lost myself in the rhythm of the lapping waves, it came to me that this headache, tetchiness and all is because earlier today, or was it yesterday, I asked for help to surrender my ego. And these are symptoms of resistance from my ego, knowing that it’s about to lose supremacy. My body began to relax as soon as I realized this, and the pain in my brain shifted and diffused. There is still some tension now in the middle of my forehead, but it’s no longer a dense contracted panicky sensation.

Came back and watched a documentary on the painter Agnes Martin who called herself an abstract expressionist, because she painted her feelings. Or I should say, her feelings are painted into her work, though the inspiration for each piece was never hers, according to her account. She would just sit in solitude, empty her mind, and wait for the inspiration for her next painting to come. One time, she said, she had to wait 5 months. The film was made to imitate or follow the pace of her life and her work, the stillness, the humility, the non-striving. She feels that any kind of ‘going after’ or ‘doing’ is a form of aggression, and certainly there isn’t any hint of aggression in her paintings. I think she painted inner peace, which she called happiness, the form of it that was revealed to her, unto an external canvas. And though she lived and worked in New York City as well as Taos, New Mexico, she said it made no difference at all where she painted – because she carried the necessary stillness with her wherever she was.

I feel deeply struck by this film, her life, the profound simplicity and humility that was like a blade of grass or a rock, it’s more than acceptance, it just knows that it is, no more, no less. At the lake earlier I was wondering whether the seagull floating on the lake was happy, or was it content, how did it feel about its life... I guess I got my answer, in human form, not any different than the seagull after all.

Starting from the end

Thinking about my re-entry into my blog, how to bridge the 2 years that I haven’t been on it, the 2 years that marks the biggest transition in my life since 2000. And it’s only beginning, though this time I must admit, it took me by surprise. I had somehow convinced myself that one big overhaul in a lifetime is the limit, that where I got to after my healing with homeopathy, separation, divorce, new relationships, heartbreaks, learning homeopathy and other alternative healing modalities, finding my soulmate, changing my career (to homeopathy), deepening into healing, change career again (to healthfood), deeper into healing still, and yet another change of career (to writing), all this and moving 5 times in 10 years, I’d say there’s been quite a toss-up of a storm in my little teacup...

It’s a good thing I didn’t know any of this was to come, the anticipatory anxiety alone would’ve kill me. Blessed is the Fool.

So here I am, looking at a blank page again, quite a familiar sight throughout my life. If I take a step back and survey the scene, I would have to say, who are you? And what are you doing here? What if I’m a stranger who just walked into this blog, who would I see, what would I want to know, to really know who lives here?

These questions overwhelm me, but I feel pressed for a decision. I will start from the end. I will start from today, and back...

Today is the new moon in Cancer and a solar eclipse, a very potent time. New moons are for beginnings, setting intentions that you want to manifest, and eclipses accelerate and intensify whatever’s been set into motion. An astrology reading I had recently (from Jan at astrogrrl.com) recommended that I use a blog as a vehicle for my writing, and launch my first posts around the new moon/solar eclipse. This gives me a stage and an audience (just me right now), and a voice I can project out there. She suggested that I write to my audience, and this gave me pause, feeling as I do that I am writing for myself alone. The day may come that I will tell a story to someone else, but for now that someone is me, though I may address the various parts of me in turn as I continue with my healing. For this blog is about healing, and now it is also about writing, as the two have become entwined and synergistic in my life.

I write, to document healing, I write, also to heal.

I write, hoping one day it will inspire and bring others to healing, that it will give comfort and encouragement when the work becomes too hard to bear, that it will spark hope for healing and spill a little light on the path, just as many others have done for me on my own path.

I write, knowing writing is a part of my new vocation, though I cannot see what form it is to take. I find it difficult oftentimes to surrender myself completely to my writing. So I will make that one of my intentions for this new moon.

Still resonating... 2 years later

It’s sure been a while... ironically it seems even more surreal to know that it’s been just over 2 years, when it feels more like 5 or 10... much has come and gone, more has changed than not, at least in my little corner of the world... a bit like finding an old keepsake in a box under the bed, the moment you recognized it, the little gasp (or silent) of surprise (didn’t know I still have this!), and the floodgate of memory crashes open...

These entries were from my journal 2 years ago...


Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Tension
follows flow –
that breathless moment
between
inhale and exhale.

I just learned today that a Haiku is made of 17 syllables – this one came to me while I was reading Descent into the Goddess by Sylvia Brinton Perera: “...it’s a balance with tension, not a dead balance.” – and much to my surprise, it is 17 syllables! Though not in the traditional 3-line configuration of the Japanese haiku.

It occurs to me now that the opposite of flow need not be stagnation – that that is too absolute and fixed... often it is just tension – a moment of tension. And that moment, as if a pause, is pregnant with possibilities. This is where and when choices can be made. Am I going to take another breath, or am I not? Am I going to take another step, or not? In this moment, consciousness is allowed to step in and assert its will towards a certain outcome.

Realizing this does much to lessen my fear of becoming stagnant when things are at a seeming standstill... that fear of being trapped or pinned down... a fear shared with both my father and grandfather, in waking life and in dreams...

The greatest pain
and relief,
in that naked moment
of hitting
bottom.

As it is unnecessary for me to fear stagnation, it is also unnecessary for me to fear chaos. For it is out of chaos that order is born.`

Reading Descent into the Goddess... so this is why I used to fantasize about being the heroine who saves her beloved, and dreams of saving my father when I was a teenager... part of me – the feminine self – is still waiting for that knight in shining armour (or the black samurai) – my masculine side – to come and rescue her from her helpless passivity... I wonder what’s keeping him??!

I’ve always tried to ‘rescue’ the men in my life... let’s be honest, I still am... when the person needing rescue is me – my inner male... my inner female (the healer woman in white robe) came (in that last Guided Self Healing session with Sue) and rescued, restored and healed him (his lost head) with white light... is he in recovery and will come out when he’s ready?? In the meantime, I must give him love, nurture and make him feel welcomed...

If one fears
being an empty hollow
why ask
to be a vessel?


It occurs to me that my addiction is to general fulfillment – into which I have to constantly feed with books, food, love, sex, learning, power, sleep, things new and novel... anything and everything that makes me feel happy... the addiction of a Generalist... oh that big black void in the middle of me, where my true self ought to be... it is time to reach into myself and bring the disparate parts together – the feminine yin and yang... so when is the wedding??! ‘How to Love, Nurture and Bring Up Your Ego’ – as you would a child – is there a book on that?? If there is, I need to read it...

I see now something that has always mystified me... the frequent presence of my sister in my dreams. She is the ‘light’ sister, the good, proper, feminine and maternal – while I’m the blacksheep sister, the dark, mischievous, erratic rebel and ‘fuck-up’. Yet she is usually in the background of the dreams, and just her presence comforts and reassures me... like a safety net of strength... home. It is time to bring the dark sister home to the other sister, so they can draw on each other’s strength and love.

The dark sister also appeared in my dream of being pushed up the ramp by the masses. She was just as surprised as I was, her expression mirrorred mine. So we are both still caught up by the greater collective and propelled by external forces beyond our control – towards the height of manmade achievements – the modern day Tower of Babel which ends in thin air, not connected to anything, and the only way to go from there is down... This is the truer meaning of that dream, and answers that niggling discomfort I felt with my previous ‘interpretation’. And even though my dark sister was beside me, we were not touching so remained separate. Also she was only lightly brown, not deeply dark, so I’ve probably not dug down deep enough yet for her...

The Descent to the Goddess also reflected the ‘fault’ within me – the split – however it was not only a vertical one of right and left, masculine and feminine, but also a horizontal one – from top to bottom – separating head and body. Perhaps soon I can begin the Ascent to return to the world??


Saturday, August 16, 2008

In another lifetime perhaps, I would like to be a diva.

A diva is a woman true to herself, always
she stands firm and solidly connected wherever she walks,
she lives in the ordinary with ordinary people
but she experiences life on an extraordinary level.
Sunshine and storm, pleasure and pain, she accepts all with aplomb
though not without feeling.

She falls down just like everyone else, sometimes,
she nurses herself and gets back up when she feels ready
she has an ocean’s capacity to take in and let go
she lives in constant awe of the Spirit that created this world
and most of all, she never forgets to celebrate life – all of it –
joy, sorrow, change, loss, all the senses, all layers.

She sings from her heart,
dances from her belly,
and heals with the light of her being.
She inspires, mentors and mends
with the full expression of her art.

She moves the unmovable,
cherishes the unlovable,
and touches the untouchable,
with all that is luminous –
beauty, grace, abundance and love –
the pillar of strength that sustains her is her one belief,
that it’s all about love.


I want to find the diva in me... it occurred to me while in the bath that the diva is an aspect of the goddess – who is creativity embodied and expressed – and that I do love men and the masculine – but I want the freedom to move, to come, to leave, to love according to my own rhythms and callings...


Woke with palpitations
a song
clamouring to be born
from my centre.


Sunday, August 17, 2008

Guided Self Healing Circle with Sue, Catherine and Diane at our place... my intention was to work on my fear and hesitation of stepping out into the world and take on the work I am to do; and our collective intention was about our belief and block to feeling that we are capable of doing that.

My ‘story’ turned out to be in utero and empathed from my mother, not my father as I had always related this subject to. It was the trauma she suffered from being given away by her own family, and beaten by her foster family for her desire to go on to higher education, education was considered a waste on women back then. I experienced it as fear while in utero, and reacted to it with fear of suffocation, and the need to escape at all cost – becoming angry, aggressive and violent in the end. I think that was why I had such a huge aggressive reaction and terror from the rattling of the Peruvian shaman that time, when everyone else in the room were in a state of fetal bliss. It was an in utero trauma for me.

Anyway, in the process of clearing this I came to see that indeed I had chosen her as my mother, because of what she is: strong, capable, protective, grounded and indomitable in spirit. But I had come to rely on her strength instead of my own; taken it for granted that she will protect me so I never needed to draw on my own resources... hence where I am today...

So I need to learn from her now, knowing that her spirit and genes live in me too, that I have it in myself to be all of those things which I so admire in other strong women. And I now forgive her for what happened that traumatized me, just as she has to forgive what happened in her life. I also forgive myself for passing judgment on myself, but I now take responsibility for the choice I made before entering this life, and all of its consequences. As closure I asked my mother to bless me, as I give honour and respect and love to her, and to allow me to now go out into the world and live my life fully.


Thursday, August 21, 2008

DREAM: that I’ve been looking at a screen that is mostly white for too long, and I just couldn’t see anymore... like snow blindness – there was someone with me but I don’t know who... a friend of some kind, standing just behind to the right... then Gary came and we kissed each other on the cheeks – I said, “I know it’s you even though I cannot see you” – it was very gentle and loving, not sexual – he said, “I’ve decided I’ll come and see you” – I knew he meant for a healing session... later I found a bag with a big wad of money on top, bound by a rubberband – there was a piece of paper with writing on it that’s wrapped around the bills – it has ‘Abby S.’ on it, the rest of the writing I don’t recall – I knew my dad had sent me this, as he knew this is where I was going to be.


Saturday, August 23, 2008

Just read in “Supercharging Quantum-Touch” that raising vibration acts as stimulation to the person’s own energy to heal itself – just like homeopathy and I suppose any other way of healing... I’m glad that I am finally making this connection, as obvious as it seems to me now that I’ve realized it... this is how hands-on healing and raising vibration heals, or promote healing


Wednesday, August 27, 2008

DREAM: that I am in a check-out line in a grocery store like IGA on the Danforth – the line goes all the way to the back of the store and I’m near the end – I am really thirsty and have drunk a bottle of ligh-flavoured, lightly golden coloured drink but I’m still thirsty – I see more of them in a basket to one side so I grabbed another one to buy – but I couldn’t see how much they are – there were Gatorade above on a shelf for 99¢ so I figure it’s probably the same – I see a family of red-heads ahead in the line – mom, 2 daughters and the son is the youngest – their hair go from orange (mom) in gradation to yellow (boy) – suddenly I’m at the check-out and mom is the cashier – she asks me if I have my sun card – I knew she meant the employee discount card we have at Loblaw – she swipes it but the card was upside down - I mention this to her and took the card from her to correct it – she said, but it’s $1.99 – I didn’t care becz I was thirsty and wanted the drink.


Friday, Aug. 29, 2008

Yesterday was an amazing day – I got to be a part of and a witness to a little miracle...

Little Ana came down with bladder infection and even though I may have prescribed accurately it was too late – by the afternoon her mom called me and said that Ana was in great pain and I could hear her crying beside her – I suggested they go to the doctor’s or hospital and get some relief for her in the meantime, and we’ll treat it properly after – I felt very bad personally about this and really felt for her suffering – debating whether I should go to them and do something – I decided to send her energy healing and it felt quite strong, perhaps becz I was so emotionally charged – I walked around while doing it and it got even stronger - I did this for about 10 min. – then her mom called in a few hours and sounded much happier – they had just finished at the hospital after going to 2 walk-in clinics unsuccessfully – but by the time Ana was checked she had no fever, no pain and not even her original symptoms with urination – her urine showed no infection – so they were released – and now she’s asking for food and laughing and back to her usual self! She said thank you to me in such a happy voice my heart just blew open... children are pure love...

The interesting thing was that I had tried to send her healing again just before her mom called after leaving the hospital – and I could not get the same intensity of energy as the first time – I questioned my connection, my grounding, etc. – and tried also with my double terminated quartz to connect, but still could not get it as strong as before – when her mom called I was still trying, holding the crystal in my hand – as I talked to her I felt this light popping sensation in my ear that’s not touching the phone, but the same side (left) as the hand holding the crystal – I put the crystal down and it stopped...

I feel so blessed and grateful that such wondrous things have been in my life – and I feel even deeper how powerful love is – that which truly connects one being to another - as I was making the comment to Ana’s mom that we should add energy healing everytime we are treating something – I had the thought that I could do this for all my patients – and this is how I could carry the white light and return my love and gratitude to the world – I see now perhaps ‘carrying’ means ‘connecting’ or ‘conducting’ – as an electrical wire carries electricity from one point to another – it took over 4 months for me to get to this insight since I first received my sacred name from Diane: ‘She who carries the white light’, and much fervent hopes and prayers, but I think I’m now beginning to see the light, myself... ☺

Helped Michael work on his ‘big’ dream with Robert Johnson’s Inner Work steps – and even though we only got through step 1 and some of step 2, I could feel how much information and insight we had received just from that – I felt very connected, clear and confident about things that came through to me, and I was able to voice them – and even better was that Michael was able to hear and receive them – it had begun to pull a lot of things together for him, especially in this intensive phase of his healing journey and also the night before he went up to the Fire for some personal time and work there.


Sunday, Aug. 31, 2008

DREAM: an adolescent boy was riding a white horse – both were quite young and gave the sense of being ‘white’ – I said to someone beside me, “They are very much alike, aren’t they?” – I recall the pink skin showing through in places on the horse, as young animals sometime have – tender-looking.

Now that I think about it, the boy looked like a young page, with a pageboy haircut and freckles– but it was a strong feeling that the two were so connected they were as one – that they belonged together.