Original Essence

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had grateful clients say, you changed my life. I am a completely different person now, so much happier and fulfilled.

How did I do it? I did it by bringing light to their dark places, creating a safe nurturing environment and by seeing the truth of their soul, then holding their spirit with respect and beauty until they learned to do that for themselves. I freed them to stand in the best part of themselves, but never changed their essence, which is an important distinction. They are not really different people; they are simply more of who they already were.  What I do is turn up the volume on their light and bring them out of hiding.

You could not change the essence of a person if you threw cosmic fireballs at it all day long − just not going to happen. 

 As parents many of us believe that we can shape and mold our children, but we can not. We can create a supportive loving environment and teach values, but that is all. I think if we could really understand that, in our heart of hearts, that it would relieve a world of parental guilt and all the, ‘what did I do wrong’, conversations that go on inside and outside our heads. 

 For example, my husband Gib is an athlete. His greatest desire was to have an athletic son, but he didn’t get one. He got a gentle sensitive boy with the soul of an artist, who had no desire at all to go crashing around an athletic field. In the end, the son felt he didn’t measure up and that he disappointed his father, while the father wondered what he’d done wrong. 

We are all unique. We all come in with a strong powerful core and mission, but when we don’t listen to that inner voice that carries our wisdom, and we let others define our purpose for us, we become sick, depressed or unhappy. 

I have found astrological charts to be helpful, because they expose the birth blueprint of each individual. I remember finding out about a trait from my brother’s chart and being surprised.

Really, I said, he’s wired that way? I thought he was just doing that to piss me off.

The point is, that people are who they are, and we can’t do much about it, except love them as they go through their changes. That’s the challenge we all have, to strip away the layers of information and experience, until we come back to our original essence, then celebrate that essence and take it proudly and boldly into the world. We are not here to hide, but to be ourselves as fully and completely as possible, while supporting others as they do the same.

Ram Dass

 

I first saw Ram Dass in the late 70’s, when he came to Ohio State University to speak about his trip to India and the ways it transformed his consciousness and character. He spoke about his time as a Harvard Professor, his friendship with Timothy Leary and finding his Hindu teacher.

Everyone is a manisfestation of God, he said, and every moment is of infinite significance.

I had no idea who Ram Dass was and had no expectations. He walked to the center of the stage in flowing robes, closed his eyes and sat quietly for a very long time. It amazed me. How could anyone begin a presentation by sitting down and being quiet?

I was at Ohio State studying dance, theater and women’s literature. I had just finished touring with Hello Dolly and had been well-schooled. Being on stage was about dynamic presentation, articulation, entertainment and projection. How could this guy sit center stage, take a long drink of water and willfully exclude his audience? I was baffled.

He began to talk about consciousness and the freedom in allowing yourself simply to be without doing.

We are human beings, he said, not human doings.

Wow, what would that be like? I was a single mom and the pressures of it made me feel like jumping off the nearest bridge. I got up early each morning; put my son in the child seat on my bike and my daughter on the grown-up seat, while I pedaled standing up. I stopped first at the day care center and later the university. We came home the same way. I worked as a waitress from three until nine, gave all my tips to the babysitter and stayed up past midnight finishing assignments. The next day I did it all again. Easy for him to talk about being and not doing, I thought.

But there was something wonderfully appealing about his gentle spirit, colorful robes and the tranquil glow in his eyes that made me pay attention and want to read his books. A few years later I moved from Ohio to Oregon and decided to try a ten day meditation. I had never done a formal meditation in my life - starting with ten days was not enlightenment, it was pure hell. But I was curious to know who I was beneath my story, history and ingrained beliefs, so I began searching for another way, a way that made sense to me.

What I settled on was sending my kids to their father’s house, while I closed the door to the world and imposed a kind of solitary confinement. I sat and noticed and observed.

When I wanted to bust out of the room, I noticed the feelings, thoughts and sensations around the desire but remained still.

When I wanted to eat food I was not hungry for, I stopped and noticed the desire for comfort, my need to fill my emotional emptiness and soothe the frightened child within.

I spent nearly a month peeling back the layers of my identity, sitting, laughing, crying and writing, looking for and finding the me that was capable of being and not doing. I wanted the personality to ease its fearful grip and allow a glimpse of the divine. I wanted access to the wise woman at my center and was not disappointed.

I saw Ram Dass last night in a documentary called Fierce Grace. He looked vulnerable, frail and broken. He talked about his stroke and what a worthy teacher it was. He cried openly and laughed the same way. The ability to mask his emotions had dissolved; the flow of his language was restricted and withheld. My husband wondered if it hurt his credibility to weep without restraint, but I saw it as one more protective human wall that had collapsed, to further reveal the compassionate spirit within.

Life is a strange and unyielding teacher. Willing or unwilling, we are all her pupils.

Healing Ritual

I was collecting rocks at the beach. Wind blew hard against my face and I was glad to have the many layers of clothes I had worn. It was time for a healing ritual, an unloading of unwanted accumulation.

I sat on the sand like a kid, examining and fingering each rock. Some were perfect and round, others jagged with veins of white running through the center. They were every shape, variety and color. I unzipped the pocket of my fleece and pulled out a magic marker. Each rock would represent a burden I carried that I wanted to release.

On one rock I wrote the name of a friend whose connection had become strained and heavy. I wanted to keep the friend, but not the troubles surrounding us. On another, I wrote the word, stagnation, sighting my desire to travel and my feelings of being stuck. I wrote the names of foods I needed to stop eating, foods which pleased my taste buds but harmed my body. I went on this way choosing the right rock for the outgrown belief or trouble I carried.

When I finished, I piled them in two plastic grocery bags with the intention of walking as far as I possibly could to bring the reality of what I was doing emotionally into a real world understanding. I hefted the bags from the beach and began to walk. I had only gone a few yards when both bags broke open and spilled on to the sand. Determined to finish, I took off my jacket and bundled them inside. It was more difficult to carry as one bundle, but I managed.

I looked around. The beach was fairly empty, a tall man in an orange coat with a golden dog walked in front of me, and a handful of people who played by the parking lot entrance disappeared behind. The wind encouraged my efforts as it blew against my back, making it easier to walk. I thought about all I carried as I made my way down the shore. I thought about how heavy it was and how tired it made me feel. There was a moment which mirrored my life, when I actually felt proud. Wow, look at me, I thought. I am so strong and can carry so much. I wanted to celebrate my strength. Emotions rose and fell with each new step.  After awhile I slung my bundle on to my back and realized how familiar that felt. I looked so normal from the front. No one would guess I carried such weight out of sight.

When I could bear that no longer, I shifted the rocks from shoulder to shoulder and finally pulled them in front of me, where I acknowledged them for the troublesome weight they were. At one point, I noticed a sand dollar and wanted to pick it up, but had to ask myself if I could do it. I wondered if I could hold my burden and reach for what I wanted at the same time. I studied it. It was small and beautiful and would add no weight, but there was the juggling of the load to consider. Would it be easier to pass it by? How symbolic that moment was, as I remembered my recent desire to book a massage and how easily I had over-ruled it, sighting lack of funds or too much work. I carefully lowered myself near the prize, plucked it from its resting place and tucked it in the pocket of my shirt.

After walking three miles, I came to a path that led away from the shore and up to a cliff where I could perch on the point and rest. The path was sand covered, steep and shifting, a challenge on a good day. I struggled to hold my bundle as I grabbed tree roots for balance and leverage. I pulled myself to the top exhausted and panting,  dropped to the earth and gratefully took in miles of shore line, seagulls, fishing boats and the distant orange speck of a man and his prancing dog.

The mountain served as a welcome protection from the wind as I waited for my breathing to descend from chest to belly. The sun warmed my face. I pulled each stone from the bundle, thought about its shape and size, and the words I had written. I cried about some and settled into my willingness to release them.

I knew from my healing practice that it was not enough for my mind to decide things; my body had to decide also. This ritual was making my decision both integrated and real. I remembered a client I had seen a week earlier who felt he had lost his masculinity in an overbearing marriage. He had complied so much that his essence seemed to have disappeared all together. It had been helpful to talk about his feelings, but it wasn’t enough. What worked was a physical ritual that placed a knife in his hand, called his warrior self from memory and brought rage up and out of his belly in great howls of self-claiming. Ritual is the missing spiritual piece in our ability to heal. 

Finished on the cliff and ready to head back, I prepared to leave. I picked up my bundle and was surprised to feel my body recoil in resentment. But my ritual was not complete, so I picked up the rocks, made my way down the mountain and walked to the ocean’s edge.

Waves lapped at my feet as I pulled each stone from hiding.  As I threw them into the water, I spoke again of releasing the energy they carried, but this time I invited new energies to take their place. Where there was conflict, I invited harmony, where there was stagnation, I invited invigoration, and so it went stone after stone until my hands were empty. 

I finished with a great feeling of liberation and peace, but the wind was no longer at my back. I tied my empty jacket over my head to shield my ears and walked the three miles back to my new beginning.

Nancy’s Story

Nancy had lots of psychiatric labels when she came to see me; bi-polar and borderline personality to name a few. She was thirty years old, severely overweight and had an attachment disorder that compelled her to phone her father several times every hour. Nancy came for healing at her father’s request.

When she sat down the generator outside the window burst into life, roaring with deafening noise. The button on the tape player refused to stay in the record position, the microwave engaged, the dog began barking and a neighbor knocked on the door. It is not unusual for children with psychic abilities to cause such disruption, but this was a different energy. When I closed my eyes to read for her, I saw the spirit of a large unbalanced man who was sharing her body.

Nancy had been so labeled, treated, medicated and repressed by the medical system that she’d lost all sense of health. We excavated her healthy-self and brought it full blown into consciousness, so she had a frame of reference to begin our work. I spoke about the spirit possession, and asked if she was aware of it.

I have always felt there was an uncontrollably violent part of me, she said, that is living my life. I do things that frighten other people. When it’s happening, it feels like I get pushed aside, as if someone else is doing it. Then I wake up, look around and wonder what happened.

Nancy went away with a new understanding and spiritual perspective which gave her strength and encouragement, but I knew I could not make progress until the spirit was removed.

I have always seen spirits. For some reason, I vibrate with a higher energy frequency, an openness and sensitivity that allows sight into realms that don’t exist for most people. I have been called to remove disruptive spirits from houses and from clients like Nancy in the past. I do it by quieting, closing my eyes, and allowing them to come into vision. I witness their story, all of which plays like a movie inside my head. I am not always successful in this work, but when there is success, the spirit moves on and the experience changes the person’s life for the better. The spirit I saw in Nancy felt large, male and violent. I did not feel that I was strong enough or capable enough to move him out, so I began to research someone who might do it for me. 

I heard about a medical intuitive from a friend, and asked Nancy if she would be interested in going.  After Nancy’s visit, the healer informed me that there was no problem at all. If there were, I would have seen it, she said. Her casual approach and ungrounded confidence led me to believe that she had no skill in that area at all. 

I asked for help from a man who was a healer from the Lakota tradition, but he was full of ego and wanted Nancy to show up for weeks of training before starting the work. That would never happen. I passed on him as well. 

I was walking in downtown Portland with my friend, Cora, when we happened upon Nancy. After she and I exchanged pleasantries, Cora looked troubled. Who was that woman, she asked? She has such a dark energy in her. It feels male and angry, like it’s been with her a long time.  Cora’s words were helpful to me, because it’s easy to doubt myself when I am the only person who sees what I see. I have learned to trust, but there is still the loneliness of a work that is not easy for others to comprehend or share. 

I continued to search for the right person for a full year. I asked a local clairvoyant who is excellent with predictions, but found her uncomfortable with thoughts of possession. I asked a Catholic friend if she knew a priest who was capable, but got no reply. In my frustration, I encouraged myself to do the work, but a wiser part knew that I was out of my depth. This spirit would take a strong masterful personality, not a gentle feminine one.

 My daughter and granddaughter live in an ashram, and mentioned that the Abbot, Swami Chetanananda was returning from a year in Tibet. The term Swami, means teacher and bringer of light in Tibetan Buddhism. I had not met him before, but encouraged Nancy’s father to seek an audience with him and explain the situation. He and Nancy went together and I came later. The Swami is a large bodied man, over six feet tall, who has devoted his life to spiritual practice, and achieved mastery. We talked about spirits and spirituality. He confirmed my vision and agreed to meet with Nancy for three puja’s, or healing rituals, where he would release the spirit. I was extremely grateful, since it is rare for the Swami to attend the healing of an individual.

It is not uncommon in healing for things to get worse before they get better, which is what Nancy reported after the first session. She exploded in anger and was crippled by migraine headaches. During the second puja, the spirit was released and the third brought her back to normal.

Nancy is a different person now. She no longer lives in cloaked avoidance of light, but seeks it. She can function, react normally, is no longer violent, and no longer calls her father for constant assurance.  She is in school, doing well and working two jobs. When the spirit entered, at about age twelve, her own development was arrested. She and I work periodically to enhance her sense of self, and to make sense of many troubled and forgotten years. There is more work for her to do, but that is in the future. For now, she is happy to have joined the world and I am happy for her.

The Clothesline

Most people don’t care much for a clothesline. They are too busy running, scheduling and arriving, but something in me loves a clothesline. I love it the way I love my mother. I love it the way I love the first sunny day after a dark winter and I love it the way I love the feel of rich garden soil falling between my fingers.

A clothesline brings me home to myself more fully than my birth certificate, the key to my front door or the address printed on my letters.

What is it about a clothesline that opens this felt place?

Is it the knowing that women have stood before this same simple line doing the same task for as long as there have been clothes to wash? Is it the timeless connection with generations of women who have stood in the open air with the scent of hard work on their hands?

I don’t know what it is. I only know that it feels real to me, the same way that floating down a river feels real. The majesty of the trees, the massive power of rocks and the steady flow of water endure, while civilizations rise and fall, crumbling beneath their own ambitions.

It is so important to have things that are real to hang on to in ones life. That stability allows us to remember the essence of our soul and the fabric from which we’ve come.

I’ve been told there is an African tribe that gives each child a song to sing. A song that is only theirs, so when they find themselves dissipating in the larger world they can retreat, sing their song and come home to the truth of who they are. It is the medicine that returns them to the spirit within that remains constant.

I guess the clothesline is part of my soul song – And how lovely that a man with kind eyes and gentle hands help me sing it into place. Because of him the clothesline is stronger than it has ever been and farther away from the sloping ground that spills into the dense woods below.

The rope is strung between two cedar trees which are middle aged, but by no means old. They are strong, proud and happy to be of service. Before they stood idle, having nothing better to do than shelter a discarded hose and watch over a pile of rotting branches.

The wind spirits are dancing with the fabric of my rayon dresses as I write. They are doing a little two step with my lace edged slips. It makes me smile to watch them. It makes my heart sing. The sun is there too, witnessing and adding its warmth to this sensual outdoor dance. What a lovely thing to watch!

How amazing and magical it is that some part of my essence is involved in this alchemy, while another part, the physical part is too worn out from the demands of a full life, to venture far from my pillow.

 

A love letter to myself

 

She’s right. It is risky to write a love letter to oneself. I could write about the love that did not blossom. That one is fresh in my hands, a little bloody and raw. But no. I am tired of the wringing, wailing and weeping that goes with all of that. I’ll pass the need to mourn to the Greek women who wear black as their personal fabric.

How about someone you miss? I always think of my earthy Aunt Eythel standing in deep noisy mud herding cows in her bright red coat, a giant safety pin holding it closed. Her memory is welcome, her unique eccentricities fill easy volumes in my mind. 

Success? Yes, I could write about success. So many clients come to mind who walked into my office full of pain and apprehension. So many stories shared, light recovered and new directions found.

Those are topics easily available and ready. Oh, but a love letter to myself?

The listener in me would have to give up her hiding place.

The coat would need to be unbuttoned, the heart exposed and revealed. 

What if…what if…what if you dared walk the road of speaking, revealing, allowing, and exposing?  You, who believe you were mis-wired with your nerve endings on the outside instead of fortified beneath muscle and bone. 

I can say that I love the woman I am becoming. My young girl is hidden still beneath white hair and arthritic fingers. It’s not too late to become. Not ever.

I feel myself opening like the seed that sprouts life against the face of the sun, only this time, I am not pushing up between the crack in the sidewalk, where every step made by another is perilous. No, this time I am in just the right place. Protective borders enclose expansion, the soil is rich, warm and waiting. My years are the fertilizer that pull roots below and anchor a climb that is tall, hungry and full. 

Why not love yourself into being? There is nothing to hold you back.

written on Valentine’s day 2008