Warrior Dance Weekend... in Retrospect

Came back from a weekend of the Warrior Dance at the Fire yesterday afternoon. We are both still in recovery... the edema in my feet is much reduced...

I had worked myself into a sore neck and back before we went, and had to go get a massage to loosen some of it. Incredible how I can work myself to that same state of tension even just sitting on the couch, reading, typing on my laptop, feeling obligated to write down everything that’s coming out of me... I’ve replaced pressure to work from an external source to an internal one... the Slavemaster lives inside of me, alas...

Even though I was there only as a supporter and helper, and had no expectations of gain for myself, much of the energy from the ceremony and gathering came into me in surprising ways...
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Saturday, August 28, 2010

During the ceremony I happened to check my centres and found that my heart and head were open, but my belly was not. As I opened it I felt energy move in my body, as if I’ve been closing myself from the world outside, my gates are fortified by the fat and muscle that are built up on my abdomen. Will this need to isolate myself end when the split in me heals??

It occurred to me that I always feel empty when I am at the Fire, there’s little thought in my head, almost no anxiety in my body, and I feel neutral, as if emotionless. Not hyper nor sluggish, just evenly coasting. Even someone like B. whom I find I am emotionally allergic to, has begun to break through my defenses, or shall we say, my resistance to her has softened a little, allowing me to see her humanness, even though she is as emotionally manipulative as ever.

But the question to myself is, why does it bother me so much? Could I have been the victim of such misuse of feminine wile (that men are also capable of) in a past life (because I am not aware of such trauma in this one)? My body says yes. How to heal it, my body?

I saw in my mind’s eye a young milkmaid or scullery maid with her head covered in a kerchief. She is putting away pails in a room. She is plain looking with eyes wide apart and freckles on her cheeks. Her beloved young man was stolen by another girl who played the damsel in distress on his kind, heroic nature. But the truth is, the girl was needy, and he needed to be needed. I realized then that I was the milkmaid, and I was not the needy type. Even though I loved him, it was a projection of myself I was in love with, my own kind and generous nature that was banished to my shadow because I was taught to keep my sympathy to myself. A noble nature will only make you a fool who others will take easy advantage of.

I know now that they were better suited to each other. His unconscious neediness attracted her conscious one, and vice versa, because they were mirror images of the same thing. Just as light is always attached to shadow, that is how attraction works. I also know that this does not make them soulmates if that’s the only common ground they have. The attraction brought them to each other so that they have a chance to work through their own issues and grow together. In this way, each may complete hirself (my new word for his/herself) and find the oneness that they sought for in the first place. What we all seek.

Is knowing this story and bringing it to resolution enough to heal my wound? No, that was insight, now I need to do personal work on it... I need to mourn the loss of my attachment to him, thank him for what he has given me – the light of his goodness, and most of all, the revelation of my own shadow material, so that I can rejoice in finding that part of myself, my giving, generous spirit and my empathetic heart, and allow it expression for the good of all.

I can now find it in myself to forgive B. because I can empathize with her need for a defence mechanism, which indeed we all have. It doesn’t mean I want to be in the same room with her, if I had choice, because there are more issues general to heart types that I have... It is true that they try to impress and get their way with their “heartness”, just as I do with my “headness” (knowledge, analysis, synthesis, arrogance, superiority), and in my superior arrogance, I see them as “unawakened” and perpetuating their neuroses, when that’s exactly what I’m doing myself in those moments.

There really is no one out there but myself.
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During our second sweat lodge I realized suddenly that the one I truly want is God/dess, Creator, Source. What I saw in all the men that I’ve ever loved are tiny pieces of Source, but it is the whole I long for. And then I realized how blessed I am, to have been living alongside four beautiful young men for the last couple of days, being moved by their energy, grace and passion, seeing each of them starting to unfold as a rare and unique flower, so different from each other. I found them endlessly fascinating and felt content just to sit back and drink in their loveliness. I felt my heart open with much love for them even though I hardly know them. This came with perfect timing, just when I’ve been working intensively on healing the split in myself, my years of rage and resentment under patriarchal rule, with men as the objects of my hatred and blame... I only wish I had begun to work on myself way back then, as these young people have.

Sometime during the day I noticed that my feet have begun to swell, after I started to scratch the bug bites I got the night before. By dinnertime they were difficult to move with and some blisters were appearing. There was no pain or other concomitant symptoms. I wondered if it had a deeper cause, such as emotional stagnation, but couldn’t really pinpoint anything. Perhaps the full moon in Pisces a couple of days ago affected me in a stronger way, as astrogrrl said it would.
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Sunday, August 29, 2010

My feet are the same, no worse than yesterday, but a big nasty looking blister has appeared on the right one.

The fasting dancers are looking better than they did last night, less wilted and droopy, especially after being told they had another morning to endure before the whole thing concludes. At the end of the closing ceremony this morning they shared their experience and thoughts from the weekend, and my heart was overfilled with their feelings and my own, I cried from the first to the last one. Thankfully I didn’t have to speak, I don’t think I could have.

Perhaps the swelling in my feet is the grounding of this emotional overwhelm for me, but also an emotional allergic reaction I have to heart types, and all the love I felt in the presence of EVERYONE at the lodge, and all the unshed tears dammed up inside me breaking through, and the Pisces moon calling me to surrender, and my prayer to my warrior to help me surrender more of myself, and the day we had without water at the farmhouse, and all the talk about water in dreams and in crisis... Perhaps it is all of these things coming together this weekend, that the empty vessel of my being has been filled to overflowing, stirred up, and washed out, that I crashed finally with exhaustion and nausea in my solar plexus (where Diane said our spirit lives) after we came home.
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More or less back into ‘normal’ life now, 7:35pm, I thought I would work on my dreams from the weekend. But then I noticed that I want to check on my emails too, and there seems to be more I want to be doing all in this moment... This is by no means something new, just more intense now and then. I am still being driven by that same belief which came up in a dream 2 weeks ago, still haven’t worked on it...

So, my body, why do I whip myself into this industrious frenzy? Because industriousness is a time-honoured virtue of the highest order, in and of itself, however, if not tempered with a balanced amount of its opposite – rest – then virtue becomes vice, or at least an imbalance, an illness. Like everything under the sun, too much good kills.

Is it discernment of moderation that’s needed then? Yes, but more than that. It is also satiety, knowing when to stop for good. What is it that I’m not satiated with where industry is concerned? It is the ‘good’ feeling I get when I’m ‘producing’, the good feeling that comes from knowing that I will be rewarded with renumeration or praise or approval or pleasure or love, candy for my ego. Hmmm, guess who has the biggest sweet tooth??! And why I have cravings!!? It is true, when I am satiated with love, I hardly think about eating. So if A=B then it follows that not feeling filled with love = endless craving for comfort food on the physical level, or, chase after the dangling carrot of reward that’s always just out of reach, because that big hole inside can only be filled with self love, divinely connected.

There’s no cure for this except piece by healing piece as I work through layers of myself, that as the way becomes clearer, love flows in freely and I am filled.