Seriously?

I have had follow up consultation with the shamanic healer. In a nutshell this is the information that has come from the elders:


I have chosen in this life time to understand humans better as I have elected many times in the past to not incarnate but to "be in service" to those who have, and I have lost connection with why humans do what they do.


I am supposed to get back to my initial curiosity of understanding humanity.


Seriously?


I have spend this lifetime with humanity experiencing one lesson over and over and over again - that I am a disposable person and there is no place for someone like me. I have learned that nothing I do changes that. I have learned that peace comes only when I stop struggling against that truth.


I have worked hard to find my peace living my life as best I can to take care of myself (without injuring others), and no longer seek connections with people if I can avoid that, as it inevitably injures me.


Now the elders are telling me I have to go back to people, when I have worked hard to learn to love myself without connection to them, and develop an empathy for those who have none for me.


I know that my guide has said I like to do things the hard way, but.... seriously?

I had a consult with a shamanic healer, who was able to lay out before me exactly what has occured for me in the past year.

I feel like I have been abandoned on a barren planet.

soul retrieval

I have had some time recently to reflect on my experiences last summer when my "soul" left. I am never sure when to use or what is the difference between the terms "spirit" or "soul" or if the two are interchangable. I would say my spirit left me - shamanic healing traditions call the practice of returning those parts to the body "soul retrieval."

In any case, my spirit, all the pieces that could leave, did leave. While I have read some about soul retrieval, I have never found writings that describe in first person one's experience when their soul pieces were gone. I have only read the stories from the healer's perspective (perhaps they are the ones that write books).

Its important to me that I do not forget that time. What lesson I was to take from it all, I don't know. Maybe someday I will know.

If I had seen a therapist steeped deep in the training of our sciences of today, they would have come up with some generally accpeted scientifically measured explanation for what I was experiencing (and probably give me a pill to take). They would have found some palitable label for me and patted themselves on the back for their brilliance - and with great certainty I can say that none of them would have had a clue.

When I say my spirt left, that is not a rhetorical statement, not a symbolic statement. I meant literally I was existing as more than one, a small part of me living here, enough to keep the body alive, and most of me living somewhere else, not of this realm. This understanding is as real to me as the chair I am sitting on as I write this.

What did it feel like to live without my spirit, living with only small fragments of myself? I was a vast emptiness inside, vast darkness. I was devoid of wanting and of feeling. It was the lack of ability to feel that was the greatest measure of the empty void. I remember times when I was faced with something that should have evoked a great emotional response. I remember I was still able to respond with the initial intake of breath, which would normally preceed a flood of an emotional response - but the response would never come. I remember thinking or feeling like I was standing at the rim of a great chasm, looking down into darkness, and knowing I should feel something but there was just nothing there to feel. The heart was completely dead.

I remember that time almost better than than the experiences of when my spirit returned. I was awakened one night to someone calling my name in a gentle but stern voice - making sure I was paying attention. That day and the days to follow that week I was so flooded with emotion that I would frequently find myself grabbing at my chest as it was all too much to take. It waa as if I had been living in black and white and suddenly the world was in technicolor - that drastic of a change in less than 36 hours. At the time I thought that if things didn't calm down some my chest was going to explode from all the emotions. It was too much feeling.

Soul loss. Soul return. An extrodinary experience for sure, and not one I have any interest in repeating.

The reasons for the soul loss haven't really changed. That worries me sometimes as I do not want to find myself having that experience ever again.

I have decided to seek out a professional shamanic healer to help me work on completing severing ties, in this world and in the life times to come, from the person who caused me so much pain that I had to leave to get away from it.

I have found myself thinking often these past weeks of the character played by Morgan Freeman in the Shawshank Redemption. After living in prison for most of his life, he did not know how to adjust to a free life outside of prison.

While almost no one I know can comprehend this, it has been harder than I would have thought to adjust to the "free" life of being in a home of my own. I am unable to NOT grab the remote and turn the TV down if a scene grows loud. I am unable to comprehend that I have mutiple places I can exist, more than one room I can be in - choices. I go into the back yard and feel as it I don't belong there, that I am trespassing.

While the new home is a wonderful thing, I am starting to learn how damaged I am. When I am painfully honest with myself, the freedom of this life overwhelms me and I have a tightness and hardness that I wear still to protect myself from a life so big its beyond my comprehension.

Learning to love what you have

Never having thought I would buy a house, here I sit now in a three bedroom home, with a finished basement and fireplace and beautiful sunroom in the back of the house and a lawn that is a blank slate for gardening. We were told to be ready for buyer's remorse, a negative reaction once the deal was done.

Hasn't happened.

Oh, I do catch myself from time to time starting a thought such as I wish we had a garage, or I wish our driveway was wider etc. I can tell you though that these thoughts do not stay with me long. They are sternly chased away almost as soon as they are formed and if anything, I feel shame having had them.

One of the many things I learned through the brutal experience with my ex-friend is that its important to simply love what I have right now. (One could say that I should have applied that to my apartment living, but some basic needs of safety and security were not met there.)

My ex-friend threw our entire bond under the bus because I could not support her continual lust for new and better, her continual need to have more than those around her, and her continual attempts at justifications for such entitlement mentality. Her absolutely fine home with an in ground pool and two car garage on a nice plot of land wasn't good enough, and she had many stomping fits in front of me while proclaiming (to me who had nothing) as to why she deserved more than that. She did not deserve more than that.

I do not "deserve" more than I have right now. I am humbly grateful for the abundance this home has to offer, not just in material things, but in the manner of living I can now enjoy that I was completely cut off from in the apartment.

The lessons of late have not been lost on me, and I will continue to examine my desires and remind myself how lucky I am just to be here in this home..... my ex-friend be damned.

Forever

Today we turned in our keys for the old apartment. Good bye and good riddance.

Today I am also declaring that the guide that has been too much around be gone for good. It is a good day for endings.

Last time I told this spirit to leave me alone, my own guide disappeared. This was a stunning and shocking and inexplicable thing. The two of them should not be linked in any way. I have since been trying to come to terms with understanding if I want my guide around, I have to tolerate the presence of the guide of my ex-friend.

This has made no sense to me, and has caused me great turmoil and pain and confusion. I have tried to accept that maybe there is something greater going on that I am supposed to understand or learn from. My patience with that path has long worn out.

Screw my ex friend and screw her guide. None of this has been fair to me. I want no involvement anymore with either of you.

An elder once said to me that a warrior does not pick up his sword unless he has to. Today is the day I have to. I am declaring with the "sword" of my firm intention that all beings not welcome here in my life must be gone. If that means my own guide, who I have never once asked to leave, also goes, then so be it. I will have to learn to live with no guide, and that is prefereble than having a guide for a friend who was no friend at all haunt me.

I stand with the "sword" of my intention before me, declaring all those who do not serve me be gone from my life. While life never gives me second chances, I have given you all second third fourth and fifth chances, and it has all be for nothing. Be gone, forever gone!

I am angry tonight, but the anger is good as it solidifies the resolve that I declare to the universe I deserve better.

Year in review

I started to write a reflection on my last year but I realized I had no way to conclude anything. I have had a tremendous amount of experiences but not enough time has passed, or I have not yet gathered enough wisdom to understand the what or the why of it all.

I found again my best friend (save Judi) and lost her in a very painful way.
I was on a path to really feeling better, but to only have the foundations that was build on crumble.
I experienced the fracturing and abandonment of a soul.
I was a walking souless being for four months.
The part of me that remained was able to journey to the place where the rest of me sought refuge, and to visit with myself.
I have learned that "I" as a concept of singularity is not correct.
I also was a soul that spent four months with the elders.
The part of me that spent four months with the elders remembers next to nothing of that time, or at least is not sharing any of it with me - EXCEPT the interuptation of my ex friend's vision - but of course I cannot deliver that message, so why did they bother to give it to me, I do not know. It is not a message for me.
I experienced the reintegration of lost soul fragments and the rush of emotions that followed which almost ran me right over.
I felt really for the first time the presence of my spirit guide (who I have learned is me from another time). (That's three "I"s if you are counting, and actually I had encountered a fourth.) Feeling him with me was a great comfort and joy.
I lost the feeling of the presence of my spirit guide the very day, the very hour I asked my ex friend's guide to leave me.
I experienced going from the great joy of connecting to one's guide, the the ripped open aching emptiness when he suddenly left.
I have gone through the change of a job, and the move from an old "hard to live in" apartment to my own home.
I am enjoying true peace in my evenings for the first time in..... decades.
The joy of having a home of our own have reopened for me the ache of the lost friend.

All the pain of the last year, at this time, has seemed pointless.

Settling in

I thought I would sit in the quiet hours of this evening and gather my thoughts about the move, but now that the lights are down and the house is still, and I sit with my thoughts, I am not sure what I am thinking or feeling - other than I feel like I am living someone else's life.

Nothing is my day is familiar (that's not all bad), and each activity I engage in takes more time and more steps than it should, as there is no routine. I have to pause and think about where things are and what I want to accomplish, etc. Nothing is done yet on rote.

I have no idea what to do with this much living space. I have never in my life had this much space to just "be" in (my childhood home was larger but was also shared with more people). Except that I do not have funiture yet, there are three different rooms that are dedicated to simply "be" in. I walk from space to space, not sure what to do with myself.

More importantly, I am unsure how to "live" in this much space. It is an alien feeling.

Lawn work is a puzzlment to me. Today I bought a lawn mower. Tomorrow I will need to learn how to turn it on. The lawn has had no care since last fall, and thus there is a tremendous amount to do. We raked a small section and quickly filled to lawn bags. We will fill 10-15 more before its completed.

I am exhausted most of the time and wish I could just take a few weeks off to finish settling in.

moving on

We have been packing and purging our life for the last two weeks, in preparation for moving out of this apartment. I had not realized until this week that I have lived longer in this apartment than anywhere else in my life. That's sad, considering how difficult it has been to live here.

I had been considering making a list of every struggle of living here that I will be glad to be rid of, and then burning the list in a fire before I go, releasing it all, however I have found I have beem mentally and emotionally avoiding looking head on at that list. I am not sure why. Maybe I am afraid to open completely to all the emotions that I am currently suppressing, allowing me to run on auto pilot through all the tasks ahead. There are a lot of emotions and thoughts I am running from at the moment.

But the evening has quieted down, and tonight is likely my last night to make my "good riddance list"... so, while I am sure I won't capture everything, here goes - all the crap I won't miss about living here:

inability to park my car safely
inability to find a parking spot now that half of them are paid reserved parking spots
carrying heavy groceries up the hill (in the rain) from the car because there was no reasonable parking available any closer
planning to leave work early when a storm is approaching to try to park the car safely
having the neighbors tv played so loud it vibrates my floor
being awakend in the middle of the night by rude people
hearing people run up and down the stairs and have cell phone conversations right outside my door
feeling like i am living in a dorm
having to call the police (repeatedly) on unruley neighbors
pausing to listen to how close the fire truck sirens are coming, and running outside once they are in the complex to see if we are in danger
pausing when there was a loud noise to wonder if it was a gunshot (doesn't happen a lot but has happened)
losing electrical power for days at a time - multiple times a year
having a "routine" of what to do when the power goes out
knowing enough to plan for the power outages ahead of time
shoveling out my car and a parking spot only to have someone else park in the spot when I come home from work and then have to shovel a new spot at the end of each work day
US Mail delivery as late as 6:00 pm (sometimes later)
looking at parts of the ceiling dry wall peeling
having the AC fan blow gale force winds that freeze me, and then start sweating when it cycles off
trying to understand if my inability to sleep was due to the gale force AC winds cycle or menopause
listening to the tv so softly (to not be a bad neighbor) that without closed captioning to read i would have no idea what was being said
not able to hear the tv right in front of me because I am hearing my neighbors instead
water raining from the ceiling
getting our windows changed out (having NO WINDOWS for hours in this process) on the coldest day of the year (26F)
waking up xmas morning to no electricity AND no water
maintenance coming in so many times its a huge nuisance (but never coming to fix what really needs to be fixed)
having only one toilet
having a "water saving" toilet which only means we have to flush 3-4 times to get it to work once
having a gas leak in the building
management that thinks their only customer is the property owners and no one treating us like we are customers
shit carpet that is so old we needed to lay down area rugs on top of it to survive
having a washing machine that hooks up to the kitchen sink - meaning you cannot do laundry and fix dinner, or do laundry and hear the television at the same time - and having to watch each time the washer drains to make sure it doesn't overflow the sink
sleeping in the living room and cracking some body part on the edge of the counter underwhich I sleep
trees falling on cars (including mine)
lack of feeling secure
lack of a feeling of privacy
struggling with the locking chain lock we installed to keep maintenance out when we are not home
closet doors that don't work
drug activity in the complex
police activity in the complex
no light in the refrigerator
a chimney cleaned every five years (instead of every 1-2 years as it should be)
property staff going through my garbage bags that I have put in the dumpster
water leaks in the building
inability to control the noise in my environment when I want to sit and meditate with a fire or have a fire ceremony
experiencing two serious fires in neighboring buildings (one building burned to the ground, and then the burnt out shell left standing with a fence around it for the good part of a year - having to walk by that every day until it was rebuilt)
dealing with village idiots that run the property office
bathroom sink that has two water flow levels - barely a trickle and blasting so hard it sprays water all over you
dog shit on the side walk
being too embarrased by the general lack of quality of this complex to ever let anyone come visit (i have had a total of one visitor other than family members in the past year - and most people that have known me for many years have never been in my apt.)
inability to drive to the highway by the most direct route in the morning because the city of Rockville decided we are 'cut through traffic' leaving our own neighborhood
not using our balconey in part because the boards look too rotted

I am sure I will think of more obvious things to add to this list in the morning.....

It has been completely unavoidable that what has weighted on my heart and mind these past weeks was the old ex-friend and the friendship that dissolved when she refused to stop complaining of her home and all her riches to me - complaining her single family home, two car garage and in-ground swimming pool were not good enough for her and going on and on (to me, the one who had none of these things and who has struggled to provide my family the basics to survive) about how she deserved more and better. I can't help but remembering her ranting about one of her employees "having a granite countertop when after all SHE didn't have granite countertops yet."

She made me feel small and insignificant and unimportant, and instead of being embarrassed when I could finally take it no more and told her so, she simply dug in her heels and stomped her feet and recited again that she deserved so much more.

Part of me has come to understand that, fundmentally, she still has the emotional responses of a child, not an adult. I know I should feel sorry for her. I should. On my better days part of me does. But I have the huge wound that I have come to understand is now a permanent part of who I am, that I have to come to better terms with.

She wasn't just any friend. If she were, forgetting the injury and moving on would have been far easier. The truth is, no one has ever hurt me as much as she has - not my ex of 13 years that dumped me after having an affair, not my father who threw his lesbian daughter out of his home (and I did not return until his funeral).... no one. Like it or not the tearing of the bond meant that parts of me were irreparably torn. In another life time than this one I may finally understand why.

What hurt the most was the betrayal of commitment to the relationship. I have to remind myself that never once, not one time at all, did she make any move whatsoever to repair. This, again, is the reaction of a child, not of a mature spirit that wants to grow and do better. As much as I was wounded, I would have worked in reparing the relationship - but that was impossible to do alone.

So, here I sit, on the eve of moving into a home of my own for the first time in my life - an opportunity that only came about due to some unusual circumstances, and while I should feel excited, I am mostly numb. This event brings all the bad memories to the surface again and the huge waves of grief I still have over the loss.


(my apologies for all the spelling errors - spell check doesn't work on my ipad for blogger)

all or nothing

Judi and I were talking today about the "all or nothing" experience I had (am having) with respect to the guide of my ex-friend. The day, the very hour, I asked this spirit to leave me was the day my own guide left as well.

Nothing I had done in the months since has changed this. "All-that-is" to quiet now. I do not hear or feel any of it. If my guide is around, he is keeping such a low profile that I cannot hear or feel him, and what is the point of that?

It was right for me to tell the guide of the person who injuried me so badly that my spirit fractured to leave me.

I do not understand why I am being punished for that request.

I am not the person that I used to be. The events that transpired over the past year transformed me into the person I am now, for better or worse, mostly worse.

I feel much less safe than I used to feel - both physical and emotionally. I experienced the fracturing and abandonment of the soul, something I would not wish on anyone. I no longer put trust in anyone but Judi.

I am hard, outside and in. I almost never "hear" all that is anymore.

co-dreaming

We discovered that we shared the same dream again last night. Cool when that happens and we remember enough the next morning to make the connection.

less than four weeks and counting

It has been my experience in life that when I try to stand up or hope for myself, or to try to take my position in the world, what some would call "one's rightful spot" - that is the moment when the universe comes and clobbers me on the head the hardest.

I don't know why it is so, only that it has been my experience.

I have found myself seeking refuge in the small and invisible and out of the way places. My survival skills constitute being as small and quiet and unnoticable as possible, in hopes that the universe will pass over me and clobber someone else instead.

So this past month I have done something entirely different. Instead of living and expecting small, I have put in motion (at lightening speed I might add) a big event. It should come to fruition in a matter of weeks.

I should be very excited. Instead I feel pretty flat. This too is a survival skill, I assume. Don't hope for much if you don't have the reserve to live through the disappointment if it falls through.

Maybe that's why I am not feeling too much. Or its that this very thing that I have set into motion is directly related to the issue on which the (twin-spirit) friend became an ex-friend, resulting in my spirit being ripped apart and evacuated (a life changing event).

At least the ex-friend won't be around to enjoy it. She doesn't deserve that.

Ruled by Fear

I am coming to the inescapable conclusion that most of my direction in life, most of my choices and times when I have failed to act, have been driven not by wisdom or courage or compassion or generosity - but rather have been the direct result of fear.

Fear is a very tangible feeling that I carry with me constantly, a tightness in my chest, a hard coating around my heart. I am not talking about a metaphorical suite of armor protecting my heart - I mean a very literal feeling of hardness in my chest like one feels at the initial moment they are confronted with a situation that will, in the following moments, generate a strong emotion like anger or pain - that initial intake of a sharp breath just before the next emotion is about to become realized. It is in that breath where I constantly live.

When I am truly in touch with myself, I feel this hardness in my chest. My heart chakra has almost no life.

What am I afraid of?

Most of all, I am afraid that despite my best efforts, I will lose my tenuious ability to provide the basics to survive - to keep a roof over us, food, clothing, shelter, medical care etc. Never in my life have I known enough abundance to feel secure in this. Instead I have always just managed to hang on. I fear, among other things, that someday my luck will run out.

I also fear that I will never grow deeply enough into the world of the mystery that is the connection to all-that-is. I have tried so hard, first with my mind, and then later, realizing my mind is a hinderance, not a help, with my heart, to grow into the person I should be. But despite all my best efforts, I feel I haven't made much progress. I fear I will never become more than the person I am right at this moment - and I know that is not good enough.

I fear that the space in this world where I live, where I am allowed to live, will grow continually smaller, until there is no place at all for me.

It is not a comfortable thing, to know this about myself. There is a small bit of comfort though, in understanding that I am able to at least understand this.

Looking back

This past year has left me with far more questions than answers.

One of the most bewildering experiences was learning first hand of the duplicity or multiplicity of my existance - learning I can be living simultaneously in two (or more) places at one time. I had already had some idea of the duality of existance - being both of human form in a human body with all its biology and limitations, but also knowing I am at the same time more than that. I had learned that I and my spirit guide, although distinct, are yet One. This year I experienced a serious fracturing of my spirit, with much of my spirit leaving my human form and living for almost four months in the land of journeying, in the company of my guide and other elders. I know she was there as I was able to go there and visit with both she-who-was-me and with my guide, who is also me.

Honestly folks, what in my middle class, protestant upbringing, ever, EVER prepared me for wrestling with such a paradigm shift? What human teachers can I find that can help me to understand what I am to be learning of all this? Thus far, save one, all my teachers have been of non-human form.

Another experience that leaves me at a loss is the fracturing of a friendship with a soul I had learned was my twin in another life. I have no answers as to why after finding each other twice in this life time, we are left only with broken pieces, silence and nothing more. What was the purpose of all that pain?

My career is in shambles at the moment. If it can be fixed, I know not.

I look back over the past year and am ashamed to realize how fully I allowed myself to be pulled off course, forgetting what was truly important, and instead putting my focus on unimportant things, the net effect was that of being dragged by the currents and repeatedly dashed against the rocks.

I should have done better in so many of my endeavors.

So much of what transpired this past year I could have never predicted. It gives me pause then to wonder what the next year holds. What painful lessons are just around the corner? What new revelations will unfold that will forever change my understanding of reality? What opportunities for growth will I fail at and what ones will I finally understand and rise to meet as the person I am supposed to be?

My wish for myself for this coming year is that I will have wisdom to recognize my learning experience as I encounter them, fearlessness to meet the challenges that arise, compassion for those that challenge me, and an open heart to guide me.

Why are you here?

"Why are you here?"

This was the question put to me tonight by someone..... I can't exactly say who, that had joined me for my fire ceremony this evening.   A male voice is all I can say.

"Why are you here?"  This is the question I am supposed to answer.

"Why are you here?"

My first reaction was to want to ask for clarification....what do you mean by "here"?  Here in front of the fire?  Here in this point on my life?  What?

I quickly realized that part of my work to answer the question was to provide that clarification myself.

"Why am I here, sitting in front of a fire, quietly drumming?"  That's the immediate answer and the easier one.  I am here tonight to try to connect with elders, to ask questions, to listen, to open more the gateway between this world and where the elders reside, to work at growing into a better person, a richer spirit with access to wisdom and companionship of the elders, to learn to be more than I currently am.

"Why am I here, as a greater question of, why am I here at this point in my life?"  This is by far the more difficult question to which finding the honest answers could be hard work indeed. I am where I am, in part, (a large part really) because of my failures - failures at having the courage to take chances, failures of not believing in myself, failures of not letting go of fears.  I am also here because of some successes, even if they took a long time in coming - success at learning how to go from "sleeping heart" to "waking heart," to learning how to listen to messages in the wind, trees, rocks, earth and animals, to understand that holding to ego is like holding to a solid wall that will block any meaningful path forward.

I struggle with finding a path forward, professionally, personally, spiritually - fully feeling that I have not "arrived" at any of those desired destinations.

"Why am I here?"  This is a good question for me to examine further for each and every aspect of my life, for, in understanding the answers, I might do better moving forward - and after all, that is why I am "here" in front of the fire tonight: to become a better me.

Its been only a few months since my soul fragment returned, but the time of living without her in me is already a distant distant memory. (I wonder if the memories of the empty time have faded fast because most of me was not here to experience it?) It is good, I guess, to not be able to recall easily how it felt to be only a hollow echo of myself.

She-who-is-me stayed away as long as possible, and came back just as things in my day life were starting to change, and she needed to be back to manage through it all, to keep me/us on tract.

I still feel great sadness sometimes, but it is not the grief of a bottomless pit. I feel much more solid, even through the new (job related) turmoils that are now arising.

I miss the idea of my old friend, although I think that person never existed. I miss believing that connections in my life were expanding. I am back now to the place of knowing I am the outsider that needs to simply be comfortable with that and not struggle against it.

I miss my guide, who for reasons I cannot begin to understand, will not show up unless my exfriend's guide is also allowed to be present.

It is far far to confusing for me to manage through, and I have decided to consult with the one true shaman I know - in order to get some clarification and to see if I can reestablish a connection with my guide - who is another part of myself.

Holes

I am sitting next to the fireplace watching the the tea candles, one by one go out, and can't help but think that this is how my life had been these past few years. One by one, the parts of me that fed my flame have disappeared from my life.

There was the zoo (National Zoo - Washington DC), where I had volunteered for 17 years, (moving to this area in part to become a zoo volunteer). My connection to that taken from me by an uncontrollably angry keeper and an institution that turned its back instead of doing the right thing (seems this is what institutions do). Seventeen years of commitment and support, seventeen years of my life's work, suddenly meant nothing at all.

There was the storm that took my new car from me.... not completely because it was rebuilt, but it will never be the new car I once had, the first and only new car I had ever purchased for myself. No amount of care I took for the car could protect it from others negligence.

There was the friend that turned ex-friend, not at all the person she advertised herself to be..... who took with her perhaps my last chance at being willing to trust other people as much as I wish I could. Her betrayal was so brutal to my spirit that it left me for four long months - an experience I never want to know again, an experience that has left me beaten and quiet.

In the aftermath of dealing with a lost soul part and its return, my ex-friend's guide appeared and stayed constantly with me for a number of weeks. While I tried to be open to what that experience was suppose to teach, it was finally too much for me and I sternly sent her guide away.

To my astonishment, and grief, my own guide left when I sent the other away. I have not felt him since that day. As I was just learning to feel him and know he was with me, the loss left yet another hole in me. I am stunned he abandoned me.

I think I am nothing left but holes. Even if they are silent and far less painful than the lost of a soul, holes are holes. Too many holes and there is nothing left but quiet emptiness.

Early Warning Signs

Had I paid attention early on, the warning signs were all there. Had I listened to voices that were trying to get my attention, I would have never ventured so far down the road of the friendship that ended up devastating me. The warnings were all there, I just didn’t want to acknowledge them.

To not make the same mistakes again, I first need to understand my mistakes. This is a painful process of reexamination, and a process I have no choice but to take, if I have any hope of moving forward in a life not completely closed down. If I cannot understand what I did wrong and how to avoid it again, my only other choice is to keep the world at arm’s length (and honestly, that’s where I am right now).

There were signs. There were times when red flags went up. Each time instead of paying attention, I excused them away. I wanted my friend to be more than these moments. So I excused them away the same way heterosexual women continually excuse away the bad behavior of men.

One of the first flags was her telling the story of a man that worked in her shop (a salon that caters to “high society” people – not the likes of someone like me). She was complaining of his bad behavior and how he had not been the same since his home burned. I know nothing of him or the details of the house fire. What I know is only what she told me. She complained that he should be “over it” now because (her words) with the insurance money he was able to purchase a better home. He even had granite table tops and (here is the red flag), “[she] didn’t even have granite tabletops yet!” I can still hear her voice escalate as she declared this. She didn’t even have granite tabletops yet. There are so many red flags in her statement: one’s happiness is determined by the value of their home, she pays attention to what others have and aspires to meet or beat these benchmarks, and that she expected that of course, I would jump in agree with what she was saying – no embarrassment saying this in front of me.

I believe I remember that moment so clearly, even today, because it was a moment the universe wanted me to pay attention to. Much later, when I called her on it, she denied ever saying this (yet another red flag).

The very first day we got together again after so many years, there were red flags I ignored. After having shared so much of my nature-centric spirituality with her, she proceeded that day to pretend a tree was talking to her. This didn’t feel right, but again I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. That she said the tree was “full of itself” (ego) only points to her acting for show, instead of having a genuine experience. “Full of itself” is a human reaction. All-that-Is has no need for ego.

We spent part of that first day at a mountain lake, visiting my uncle’s home. Multiple times she would say something about “lake people” (people who live in homes by a lake), telling me how lake people behave, lake people do this or that. She recently married a man who had a family cottage by an upstate NY lake and they spent summer weekends there. Therefore she was in the “in” crowd of lake people, and being “in the know” she now could instruct me in how lake people behave.

I grew up learning to swim at this mountain lake, learning to canoe there, spent many many days on the dock letting fish nibble my toes, of learning how to use a snorkle and flippers, and visiting my “aunt and uncle” who were not my aunt and uncle at all but were such close friends of the family that I was about 12 years old before I understood the titles of “aunt” and “uncle” were honorary. Never once did I feel the need to define “lake people” as a special class or make sure I added myself to that category. I don’t pay attention to social class.

She had told me that she essentially bullied her husband into marrying her. He agreed to under ultimatum. Either marry her or she was moving out. He acquiesced. She bragged about it to me. Red Flag. My partner and I are together out of mutual respect, not any coercion or ultimatum.

She told me that while still with her ex, one night he got violet in the home. I can’t remember if he hit her or only if he damaged property. She told me she made him sign a confession for all he did in that incident. She also told me she once struck him hard right across the face with her fist and knocked him to the ground. She didn’t tell me she signed any confession later. Double standard. Red Flag.

I lost count of the times she told me how her weight was once up to 180 lbs and how horrible that was and expected me to chime in with a “poor poor you” note (and I guess I was expected to give some complimentary commentary on her body image now). I did not. I stood quietly each time…. all 182 lbs of me. I should have spoken up for myself. I did not. Shame on me. She had no sense that saying this to me was inappropriate. Red Flag. Shame on her.

It was clear anytime we drove through neighborhoods she was keenly aware of all the homes she felt were better than hers. She had ambitions to ultimately get to this or that neighborhood. This was far more a driving force in her than I understood until the end. It was an obsession. That she would rant that she could not live in the house she was in because her husband had lived there with his ex, this was so disingenuous. It was just an excuse to feed her “need bigger, need better” illness that drives her in most thing. Her two story home, with a garage and pool in the back yard in a fine neighborhood was not good enough for her, even though it was better than anything she had ever had before. She expected me to join in the “poor you” mantra she had worked up for herself. I refused. I lost track of the number of times she would say, “every women I have talked to agrees that I cannot be expected to live in a home where my husband’s ex once lived.” I had to say, you either are denying my womanhood, or you no longer can make that statement - because I disagree.

So many people have so little. I do not have a home. And yet she, not being born in high society, felt perfectly fine complaining in front of me that all her new found riches were not good enough. She told me exactly how much money her husband makes. Red Flag. No one else in my life discusses salary. Its rude to do so. But for her, she has her eyes focused on that money. I am sure that if her husband didn’t have such a good paying job, she would not have moved in with him.

The toxicity of being around her was eating me but I didn’t realize it for a long time. She is the only friend I ever had that managed to make me feel poor and ugly. That’s how out of balance I became.

Finally it all became too much and I called her on all of it. I am not at all proud of how angry I became. I am sure she felt completely blindsided. She has built a world where she is the center and no one tells her she is wrong, and I came along and told her she was wrong. The incessant discussion of needing a better home, of social climbing, of her weight, of trying to carve out a more “perfect” body, of needing to always be the center of attention….. it was all too much.

Judi has said to me that it was not inherently bad of me to want to believe in the good in a person. And I do believe there is a good person inside of my (ex)friend. However she isn’t doing anything to nurture that good person. She has instead taken on the values of, what I can only assume, are the women that visit her high-end salon. She has a need to be the big fish in the small pond.

I had made too many excuses for the bad behaviors. This is what I need to understand in myself – why did I do this and how can I avoid doing this again? Why did I not listen to my wiser self?

Why did I do this? My need, or maybe my hope, to be less on the outside of life, and to instead be more connected, to believe that maybe I have enough value that someone (in addition to my partner) actually sees value in me, actually likes me for me, that I am not so much an outcast but rather just another person worthy of consideration – this need I think blinded me to too much. I wanted to hope the friendship was real. I wanted to believe in it very much.

That she never once lifted on finger to fix any issues that came up in our friendship is the tell-tale sign that the friendship was never real. “Her way or no way” is not the basis of a friendship. I don’t know what it was. I don’t know what she thought she was going to get from me. I don’t know at all what her motives were. I had nothing to offer that would advance her in any way that she valued. I only had friendship to offer. I was not good enough.

I think for now, my best plan is to simply come to some sense of peace with being the outsider, the unloved one in a society I see as shallow anyway. I need to find peace with being alone and being with myself, and understand that looking for acceptance in someone else’s eyes just diminishes me.

I am extremely sad.  That's just the way it is.

Its not the same as this past summer, with much of my soul gone.  That vacancy resulted is this massive hole in my chest, a completely "empty tin-can" existence from which I could barely function, barely breath, barely hold a thought.

I am not in that place anymore.  The can has been refilled, the soul has come home.

However the hurts that sent it away still remain.  Nothing on the ground has changed.

I am not bowled over by the pain.  I can get up, move, function, even laugh.

But, I am still extremely sad.

The destruction of that friendship really did me in.  Understanding I was less important than a lust for material things, that I was so easily disposable in the want for "more more more" ..... understanding that I didn't make enough money to be considered a friend.... this was a devastating blow, devastating, as I had invested so much of myself in that relationship.  A large part of me still cannot believe what happened or that I had believed in someone so shallow.  I guess the pull in wanting to believe I was valued was too much for me to pass up, and I overlooked to obvious warning signes.   There is no way to work toward resolution now except within myself.

I had always tried to explain to Judi, but could not find the right words to express, how very trapped I feel in my life.  I used to say "there is just no room in the world for me, or "someone like me"."  I came to a better explanation of that feeling recently - taking the high level view.  Each time I have really tried to stand up for myself, move toward something that I want for me, to have hope and hold to that hope, etc, life comes and hits me hard, a sledgehammer assault.

When I was a kid, a young self aware lesbian in a small conservative town, the way I survived was to stay off everyone's radar, become invisible, the person no one remembered to think about.  It did help me avoid trouble (for example I managed to never get beaten up).  But as an adult, my life experiences have only reinforced that way of living.  Whenever I have tried to step outside of living in a small place, tried to improve my life, tried to believe or hope or do - these are the times I have been hit hardest by life - struck to the ground hard.  If I stand up, I am on the radar of the universe and I get knocked back down.

Why don't I dream of anything for myself anymore?  When I step back and see it in this context, it is really no surprise at all.  To dream and hope is to raise myself onto the radar of whatever this negative force is that keeps hunting me.

In a way, I have been right all along.  There is no place in this (human) world for me.

Its no wonder I prefer time in nature.

Being Woman

I am female.

I am a woman.

I an NOT an anomaly.

I am NOT an outlier.

I have spent most of my life living on the fringes of many things, including allowing myself to be fully female in my rightful way.

I succumbed to the messages from our sick society that tells women there are very narrow definitions of pretty, of feminine, and thus of value.

I could never meet, and more importantly never had any desire to meet these brainwashed vapid definitions of female.

Wear your hair a certain way.  Walk a certain way.  Talk a certain way. Limit your body size because smaller is always better.  Spend money you do not have on hair, nails, jewelery, clothing, makeup, accessories etc. to ensure you meet the minimum standards. (I spent my money instead on books, art, adventures, experiences, binoculars, cameras etc.)

I had to reach my mid-forties before I could very clearly see how drastically twisted the narrow definition of acceptable has become, and to understand how fully pathetic it really is.  I only recently started to understand that I let others take from me my own definition of value, my own defintion of what it rightfully means to be a woman.

I have hands.  They are meant for work, for creation, for helping.  They are not meant wear fake nails that disable their ability to function.

I have legs.  They are meant for taking me places, for kicking someone's ass when necessary (even my own), for connecting me solidy to mother earth.  They were never meant to be objects for other's visual indulgences.

I have eyes.  They are meant to allow me to see the world.  They have no need for fake lashes, for paint, nor are they meant to always look to the ground and be humble. 

I have a heart.  Its meant to connect me to all-that-is, to dear ones, to the whisper in the wind.  It was never meant to lust after shallow and vapid pursuits - shopping, social climbing, materialism.

I have a body that houses all the organs I need to survive.  It was not meant to be starved, to be cut into simply for reshaping it to a mold, to be judged by its dimensions.

I have a mind.  It was not meant to be filled with the images of soul-empty models found in countless meaningless women's magazines.  It was meant to spend hours at the library (pre-internet), to sit and listen to masters teach, to explore the world, challenge the experts, dream of new ways of living.

I have anger sometimes that a small fraction of shallow women hijacked for the rest of us the definitions of woman, and that they took it in such meaningless and demeaning directions, and that there has been very little opposition to this.  Who is it that told women they are not perfect JUST THE WAY THEY ARE?  Why have we allowed young girls to be taught that it is their responsibility for the rest of their lives to look in appearance any way other than simply the natural way that they are.  Why do we hate a natural woman so very much?

Being woman means being fully myself, connected to the earth, looking to the sky, knowing my true worth in every step I take.  I make no apologies for my looks, my refusal to wear makeup or shoes impossible to walk in.  Beauty is in a way a person exists, in the way they move through space, in the way they consider others, in the way their eyes laugh, in living without leaving carnage in their wake.  Beauty is not a physical definition, it only shines out from one's spirit and soul.

When young girls are taught that the only thing that matters is their mind, their spirit, their heart and their soul and in knowing their self worth, only then will our society begin to heal.

in the night

There was a time not so very long ago where climbing into bed at night was my very favorite time of the day. I felt blanketed by more than just the bed covers. I felt I was covered by the comforts of all that was good in my life - a safe gentle place to be.

Now, having passed through great loss and working on coming out the other side, night time has become the most difficult time for me, and I dread each night those long hours when sleep escapes me and the losses and failures are what keeps me company. The hurts and pains that I have come to manage through in the day still visit me at night. Certainly it all is not as bad as it once was - that's what healing does. But I cannot say I am "healed," I can only say I am better than before.

I wonder, through the long hours of the night, if I will even find again the peace in my heart that for a time I thought I had. I suspect that instead the hole will always remain, that it is a permanent part of me, and that healing really means to just move forward anyway.

Still, I miss the times I felt more whole and more at peace.

More on Reintegration

Its been more than three weeks since a voice woke me up in the night, calling my name - a voice I have come to understand was myself, announcing my return.  It is too soon to tell the whole story of what it has meant to have my soul split and leave for four months, sit with the elders, and then return.  The full measure of that story and its consequences may take years or a life time to understand.

I have only initial impressions at this point.

While I have read a good amount about soul retrieval, both from the shaman's perspective and from the people who gained back the parts of themselves that went hidden away, I have never read a story of someone who had their spirit walk out, and be fully aware through the whole process that their soul was missing, fully aware of where he/she had gone, been able to travel to this place (in an attempt) to engage them (and to come back empty handed).

Just as I have never heard, before my own experience, anyone telling about the knowing that their spirit guide is actually themselves, just another chapter of themselves.

It took a day or two after my initial announcement before I began to suspect who it was that spoke to me in the night and what she was announcing. I did not begin to feel differently immediately.  The change grew gradually, like a sun rise before the sun comes over the horizon.  The change is subtle but persistent and undeniable.

Then the full measure of her return was realized - the sun came over that horizon and it was almost too much to bear.  I described it as having had all the "lights out" for my heart for many months (my heart chakra has been long dead) and suddenly having "full power."  I was whirling through a whole collection of emotions, each seeming more intense than the last.  I was feeling everything.  It was almost too much to bear.  At times I was literally grabbing at my chest because the intensity was just too much.

Luckily that intensity has subsided some now.  It had too.

Now I feel . . . . full.  Hard to describe.  I had tried to explain before, before she-who-is-me returned that I was nothing more than an empty container.  The hollowness inside was vast.  The space inside was dark and empty.  Although I tried hard to explain to some close to me that most of what was "me" no longer resided inside me, I truly don't think anyone actually understood in a literal way, what I meant.  I truly was not here, except enough to keep the body and the responsibilities running on auto pilot.

Now, she-who-is-me has returned.  I wish I could say that four months with the elders resulted in four months of knowledge that I brought back and have instant access too.  I believe pieces of that will come in time and that all at once would be too much to take in without causing shock to the whole system.  I would like to believe anyway, that more wisdom and knowledge will come in time.

There are some small nuggets that are just "there" in my mind now that were not before, some pieces of wisdom or knowledge that weren't with me before the break.  That encourages me.

Now the harder part:  living here for four months with the best of what was me gone means I now have four months of damage I have done to those around me that I need to own responsibility for and make right.  This is not a small hole to climb out of.  This is the biggest "threat" to what still feels like a delicate healing process, this large task.  Nothing to do but face what has to be done and face those who I have wounded while being a wounded empty being and own my responsibilities.

I can still feel the pull of negative thought patterns that had pulled me down a road my soul found unbearable and ultimately left to avoid.  It scares me when I recognize them.  I also hear a voice inside me telling me to recognize them and to do things differently this time.  Stand up straighter, stronger, face my own demons and tell them to "be gone."  Easier said than done some days but so far, in these few delicate weeks, I am winning most battles. 

Another (more hopeful) indication that a new chapter has opened:  a few nights ago I laid in bed pondering on the meaning of the encounter I had with some visitors who showed up in a recent journey.  I had decided to try a "spirit activity" (too much to explain here).  I concentrated on the visualization and suddenly I had an extraordinary (for me) physical response.  As I lay there, my muscles began to gently twitch... not just one or two muscles that may have been too tired from the day, but it was happening randomly all over my body.   My initial reaction was that I needed to stop what I was doing, but a calmer voice took over and assured me all was well and convinced me not to flee but to just stay with the moment.  It felt magical.  When it felt right to be done, I ended my visualization and all my muscles stopped their dance.  I had never experienced anything like that.  I was delighted and hopeful a new chapter has indeed started.

I or I"s", Me or Me"s"

One of the many ways my world view has been changed recently is on the how I think of myself, or more accurately now, how I think of myselves.  The idea that I am one singular entity that exists only in this place and this time and in this body no longer holds.

When I say "I" or "me" I am not quite sure what that means anymore.

• I am me, the person in this body, sitting at this computer typing away.
• I am "she-who-was-me" now become "she-who-is-me" who left this body and spent almost four months in the company of elders and then returned.
• I am the male shaman guide who comes and sits with me during our fire ceremonies, and even while I was drumming last night.  I felt him sitting on my left, fell the fullness and warmth of a being beside me, a being who is .... me.

Yesterday when refering to having she-who-was-me return, I said, "when WE came back...." then paused, having no idea at all why I said "we."  I still don't.  I am sure I am supposed to pay attention to that.

I was asked recently, if she-who-was-me was gone, how does she know about everything that happened here with me while she was gone.  A fair question.  I am not sure I have a solid answer, except to say that I believe everything is connected in ways possibly too fantastic for me to imagine.

If I can be both here, and somewhere else in another reality and as a separate spirit all at the same time.... If I know I can be this much, how much more am "I" that I am not yet even aware?

Why Shamanism?

I have had more than a passing interest in things "shamanistic" in the last decade or so.  I have taken numerous weekend workshops and a few extended courses, read a number of books and made acquaintance with few gifted individuals.

I am not a shaman. I don't ever envision ever calling myself by that title.  I think we westerners have in a way bastardized the term, made up a uniquely western way of thinking of shamanism, and then pretend in our typically arrogant western way that we are connecting to ancient ways.

I have been a trouble maker in most every class I have taken.  I question anything that doesn't resonate with me.  I refuse to accept anything simply because someone else said it was so.  Still, even filtered through our flawed western eyes and understandings, I find nuggets of truths that resonate as universal.  It is these nuggets of truth that I continue to pursue.

But why?

I make little to no distinction between the animal communication activities and the shamanic activities.  Animals, you see, live daily in the truths that the shamanic practices bring us closer to knowing.  I find it very interesting that most animal communication workshops are attended only by women.  Shaman classes have a significant number of men (although still dominated by women).  What's the difference?

I have been uncomfortable with a few people I have encounter at shaman workshops.  I think some people look at shamanistic practices as a way to gain "power" - power over people, power over situations.  For true practitioners, it is power to deliver healing to those who ask.

I am not looking for power at all.  Knowledge and wisdom yes.  Power, no.

So why am I still interested in shamanism?

I have a sense, through the connection with animals and plants and rocks and wind and the earth, that there is a tremendous grace in which all things exist.  There is a connectedness throughout all-that-is that is beyond our human ability to know.

I have also am quite aware that I do not walk in this grace (most humans don't), that my actions, my thoughts, actually destroy and run counter to the harmony in which all things live.  I would like to learn to walk more gently on my path so that not only do I not leave carnage in my wake but I may actually one day find a way to be a contributor to this greater grace, instead of a bystandard.

Maybe the "power" I am looking for is simply the power and wisdom to improve myself.