The enemy within

A battle wages within you every day. It happens as soon as you open your eyes. Some of us are aware of it, some are not. It is a battle between light and shadow, a war between living the creative life you dream about or being hypnotized by the distractions that have been with you since birth, distractions you encounter in the daily grid of your life.

We all have a voice within that knows what our gifts are, and dreams of becoming the expression of those gifts. It is what we are here to do; it is why we walk the earth.

The shadow side of our lives is an expression of darkness and strives to convince us that we are incapable, too old, too young, too fat, too thin, too anything that will steal the light of our creative selves and imprison us for one more day. We must become aware of the power of darkness as it urges us to resistance, and finally to illness, alcohol, prescription drugs, over-eating, sex or anything that will take the pain of an unfulfilled life away, putting us numbly back to sleep.

You can wake yourself up from this dream. Understanding your enemy is the first important step. Are you ruled by fear? Good! That means your dreams are important and the work is big. The more afraid you are, the greater your potential. Celebrate your fear for all it represents but don’t let it bury you. The radiance from your soul is real. It is the reason you walk on this planet. It is your duty to fight for your dreams.

Do you want to play the violin, start a company, exercise, diet, paint a picture, write a book?  Then go to war. Overthrow the tyranny of inertia and distraction before it disfigures your life. Make a time to do what you love  and let nothing deter you. Stand in the process and stay with it until the magic shows up - and it will - then love yourself enough to keep coming back day after day, and year after year. 

You can change your destiny in a moment by recognizing the power of darkness, and the seriousness of its influence. How do you recognize it? It can not be seen or heard, but can be felt. You are in its grasp when you feel negative, hate your life, or generally function in low grade misery.  Be ruthless, escape from its prison and keep going. Take charge of your life and your dreams. Insist!

What is your small still voice saying to you? This is your wisdom self. Listen, then sit down and do your work, not tomorrow, begin today.

Change

I feel change in the air, moving like dappled light through darkness, arriving at an unknown destination.

Summer is here at last, the sun we’ve waited for, strawberries, cherries and a scorched nose.

I reach forward into the future eager and impatient.

I pull back wanting security, structure and the voice of old friends.

The air is charged and alive with excitement.

It is stagnant and filled with too much me. I get lost in the space.

There are promises whispered, felt, unseen and unheard.

They are there opening in the mystery.

The sky turns from purple to black.

I rest, and in the morning, do it all again.

I am an egg, cracked, and waiting.

Any day now, the shell will fall away and I will reach out, walking completely and utterly into the dream.

Bloodline Ceremony

I’ve been taken down to the bone. I spent the day with a Lakota Medicine woman who spent hours walking in other realms to rid me of darkness and the karma stored in my family bloodline. Hers is powerful medicine, which has left me open, raw and renewed.

I have always been the one to heal others, while longing to find someone who could do the same for me. Many people claim to have spirit medicine, but few are authentic and free of ego. This gift has been a long time coming. 

Part of me still journeys in that other realm, while the physical side sits in silence in my quiet retreat of a house. Stepping into the world again was especially hard, like having a split-screen open on the computer. Lucky for me, a friend was there to drive me home or I may have ended up in Idaho. 

Loved ones ask about the experience but there are no words. The details and mechanics defy description, because they are sacred and not of this time and place. I can only say that the work went deep and until I integrate I am left feeling like a visitor in my own life, and a little uncomfortable in my skin. 

June has been a month of pulling back. My worldly self is resting and what little writing I do comes in drips instead of the stream I am accustomed to. I welcome the day when words move through me like a river. I see them waiting and hold out my arms, knowing they will land again when the time is right.

Days at the ocean preceded my ceremony. I spent hours outside, slept in the sun, walked barefoot in the sand and was nurtured by the loving presence of a friend. I found bones, the exact size and shape I was seeking, and feathers, lots of feathers. My essence feels more bird than human, so these things comfort me. 

I am always surprised when people choose not to work on themselves, and to live in their fears and patterns of limitation. That is a choice I could never imagine making, because releasing darkness and making room for more light is such an exquisite thing. It is painful, as any birth is painful, but the other side is worth every second, because everything around you reorganizes to create a flow of ease and love that makes life so much more inviting and welcome. Today I sit with my labor pains and raw open feelings, but soon I’ll soar again with even greater freedom than before. I am humbled in gratitude.

Memory

Kay is in her 80’s. She calls about once a month to tell me she needs a healing session, specifically to deal with the clutter in her life, but I have learned to wait to call her back and not mention her request for a session. Kay’s clutter defines her and is a needed reminder that she exists and has a history. Instead I call and suggest we meet for lunch. I could offer her a session and send her home with a CD, but she would not remember having it. 

Kay has always been eccentric, in extreme and wonderful ways. She blurts out her truth in a blunt warrior-like fashion, concealing a delicate, almost fragile spirit within. She calls late at night to tell me about a praying mantis that landed on her front door. The wonder and description of him occupies most of the phone call.

Kay was part of a woman’s training I offered that went on for six years. She was clear then and lucid. Crazy Kay, as we called her is a hot-wired red head who gets mad at her 93 year old boyfriend for sitting out more than one dance, legally changed her last name to match the neighborhood she moved to, washes her hair and her underwear in the same bathwater, and was the only person willing to march with me during the Belmont Street fair in nothing but a bathrobe and feather boa.

Her dementia is hard to be next to and often difficult to distinguish from her unique view of the world.

Last time we were together, the conversation went like this:

What would you like to do now, Kay?

Let’s have lunch!

But we just got up from lunch.

I know, but there are several nice lunch spots. Let’s just keep having lunch.

We went into a boutique.

 Kay met the owner. Your business is going to get really bad in five more years, she tells her.

The woman laughs, you mean worse than it is right now, with the recession?

Yes, I read it in a magazine. By 2014 there will only be two planets we can inhabit.

And where would those be, I ask.

Where? Well, how should I know? They didn’t tell me! 

We get back on the road, the air conditioner in her Volvo is broken and it’s really hot outside. She is convinced it should work, so she keeps blasting warm air into a car that is already sweltering. I turn it off and explain that it no longer works. A few minutes later she forgets, reaches for the AC and we do it all over again.

My car is in the garage so she is driving me around. She does some slick maneuvering to cross a jammed traffic lane so we can go in the opposite direction of our destination.

Oh, aging does not look pretty. Maybe that’s why I feel compelled to write these memories out, because one day my mental screen will go blank, there will be nothing left to retrieve, and I’ll be the one who insists on holding up traffic so I can satisfy my urgent need to go in the wrong direction.

Flight Pattern

He walked in my door in that way people do when their life is falling apart. He married the wrong woman so they battled and tore at each other, until they turned into people they didn’t want to be. He is a fine man, she is a fine woman, but they are not fine together. 

The pretending is over now, the pain is too great. Their foundation can no longer support their lives. They are at the place of no return, because they know too much truth and can’t put the broken pieces together again. He came today with eyes full of sorrow and courage, with words full of failure and fear. 

But this breaking open, this new place is the healthiest he has been. Of course it doesn’t feel that way to him. He no longer sleeps. His mind races towards an unknown future; he can’t eat and is drinking too much wine. 

He is stepping into the void now, that crack in the universe that teaches us so much.

This is the shamanic initiation, the ultimate letting go, the final test of faith in the face of darkness. But I know this man; I know the fabric of his character and the integrity of his soul. He has to let go. He has to let himself fall so he can find his wings. 

He approaches the cliff now, knowing that it means death, the death of an old self, an outmoded consciousness and a way of life. He walks toward this change because he must. The wise man in him is saving his life, while the personality grabs and claws and rails against his fate. 

Any day now he will jump – and he will fly - and he will find himself, as he floats slowly and helplessly toward the new ground that will heal and free him to start again. I will have the pleasure of being his witness.

Jock

I’ve taken up racquetball. I started last week because my body was screaming at me for becoming a sloth.

Being a writer is not conducive to physical activity. I got computer hip last year, which made me feel really old and walk the same way, so I decided to stand.  I put my computer on top of an ice chest for elevation. I put a board on top of that for stability, then stuck my monitor on a stack of phone books, and covered it with a cloth napkin so it didn’t look so tacky, but the table was still wobbly, so I turned my plastic recipe holder on its side, added a paperback copy of Escaping into the open by Elizabeth Berg, and wedged it in front of the ice chest. Now it’s perfect. I can stand when I write and practice the leg and butt exercises I remember from Jane Fonda’s 1987 workout video.

I have been a swimmer for 57 years. It has been my home place and salvation. I love slipping out of this hard-edged reality and into Neptune’s watery expanse. I love being in a world without corners and the way I feel after a long distance swim.

Two years ago, as I was driving to the pool, I pulled the car onto the shoulder of the road. I sat there fingering the steering wheel, then suddenly announced to myself that I was finished. It’s over, I said, I’m done. I can’t do this anymore, 57 years is enough. I turned the car around and headed home. I got up the next morning ready to swim, thinking perhaps I’d had a bad day, but nope. The resolve was still there. I wasn’t going swimming anymore. I’d had enough. I’ve been in a state of decay ever since. I’ve been swimming a few times, but the joy is gone and so is my muscle tone.

The dentist uses the most disgustingly perfect word to describe what happens in your mouth if you don’t brush your teeth at night. He says the food ‘putrefies.’ What a great word. It has the word puke in it, and terrify. It’s a beautifully wonderfully awful word that feels like spitting, and floods the mind with images of repulsive decay.  My husband hates that word, so I use it alot. I tell him my whole body is putrefying because I can’t figure out a new exercise.

Last week I had a break-through. I grabbed racquets from the closet I’d bought decades ago, got my husband and granddaughter and decided to try racquetball. (Playing with a nine year old is a great way to begin, by the way. She is my partner in crime. Someday I’ll tell you about the time we got into trouble for playing soccer in the halls of the ashram, but not today.)

Anyway, I found a new sport. The room reminds me of a padded cell and slamming the ball is a great way to work out frustration. Now I go alone whenever I can get away. I close the door to that little white room and bang the ball around until I’m purple in the face.  But… in case I may be painting a picture of myself as a jock, I will add that my version of racquetball has no rules, and looks an awful lot like an old lady playing badminton with herself.

Revolution

When I noticed the light what I saw was promise, candles lined up dancing and flickering. Nest again, they advised. Remove yourself from the go-too-fast, be-too-busy place and center.

We perch in this place, in this hovering above the world place to gain perspective and a way of knowing ourselves and one another. Life feels raw without it. My days have a razors edge where gentleness should be. Why is that? Too much work and not enough community, too much staying up late and pushing to create a way out of a box I have built to live in.

I need change, a big one. My life needs a new foundation, new wiring.

There is a revolution happening in my heart and it throws me off balance, as any overthrow of the existing regime must.

I don’t always know how to be with this kind of change. I breathe and center, and do what is inside me to be done one day at a time. Today it is my place to come home to the candlelight and my community of sisters, who discover themselves by moving pens across paper. It’s been two months since we’ve gathered, and I have missed it.

Linda Hefferman

 It was such a relief when Linda came forward to help me. The woman is a gift from the Gods. Her willingness lifted me up and put me back in the game.

Dearest Linda, took all my creative projects off the shelf and gave them life. She is my most personal assistant, and the managing editor of Yorkshire Press. She is handling business details I have no capacity to understand, making phone calls to people I would not pursue and filling in the fine print of bank forms and publishing contracts. She is, in short, the left brain I don’t have. She is willing, eager, intelligent, artistic, affordable, responsive, well-traveled and mine. Obama would steal her if he knew.

Last year I had several of my projects ready to go, but no way to launch them. My marketing person, Anthony, decided to focus elsewhere, Gib got caught up in a pallet company, and I was the only one left to birth my dreams, but there were parts of it, I literally could not do.

I had a dream one night that I was riding a horse in the desert with Anthony and Gib. We were all riding happily along when the horse collapsed from thirst. The men got up and walked away, leaving me alone to figure it out. I was really angry when I woke up because the dream was such a clear statement of where we were. Seemed like a good idea at the time, Karen, but now we’re out of here!

Then came Linda – months later – a referral from a friend. She rode into my life on a strong steady horse, pulled me to my feet, and has carried me ever since.

I don’t forget something like that, because without her I would still be on that broken down steed in the desert, watching the well-intended men in my life high-tailing it for greener pastures.  

Linda is birthing my dreams. She and her friends are midwife to my souls expression. I overflow with gratitude.

Sensible Shoes

The tall black stiletto heels, the sculpted leg leading to a short skirt, folds of silk draped in her blouse and hair falling in cascades of brown – she reminded me of myself at 18, although I’m sure she was closer to 25. I’d been living in Paris and fashion was everything, youth, beauty and fashion.

Paris transformed me at that age. The garter belts with streams of scarlet ribbons against black lace, fastened to hold seamed stockings in place. The lacy push-up bras allowing me to have curves I only dreamed about in my slow development. Men who followed me down the street entranced by my beauty; a beauty the boys back home never seemed to notice. Europe ushered me into an exotic womanhood; a womanhood far removed from my rural roots and the full bodied cotton underwear my mother provided, the multicolored ones with each day of the week embroidered on the side.

In Paris I learned to put on thick brown eyeliner that came to rest like little wings at the corner of each eye and to paint my lips alluring colors of bold sensuality. I was excited to move fully into the womanhood I had waited for as a child.  Paris was my launching pad. 

I stood near her, both of us rummaging the Goodwill for hidden treasures. I held my gaze a little too long, and she caught my eye as interest, connection, and smiles traveled through the aisles between us.

My shoes are sensible now. I never venture far from the ground or my arthritic toes would complain. My inner ballerina has left for the remainder of my life. But there she stood with all of life ahead of her, perched on those feminine control towers waiting to soar into the next great adventure, while I’ve become the older grey-haired woman wearing sensible shoes.

Surprisingly I felt no regret or sorrow. My life has been rich and full, my sexuality more deeply profound than the girl in me could have imagined. I didn’t know then, that it was not the trappings that made a woman. It wasn’t the glitter, the allure, or the package, although I loved it all!  It was self-assurance and lots of permission to be fully and completely who I am, whatever that might look like. Untangling my essence from the cultural web and the opinions of others has been a life journey, but in the end, the only one worth taking.

Boeing Aircraft

Every year Boeing Aircraft invites psychics to come and read for their employees. The aircraft company is a quick drive south from Seattle on Interstate 5. Acres of new planes can be seen along the freeway, lined up on Boeing field waiting for delivery. Inside the main building, we post our photographs with a brief description of what we offer in the lobby.  Employees pick the person they’d like to see, put their name on a waiting list, then enter with questions that fall into categories which include love, money, health, family and business.

The reading room itself is large and warehouse-like with tables placed in rows. Some thirty psychics with various skills offered service. It was a marathon client week-end that paid well and provided a catered lunch. I brought a table covering, business cards, some favorite stones and plucked a single red rose from the twelve near my bed.

One of my first clients was a young woman who had recently lost her father. She came to inquire about including his spirit in their Christmas holiday. She was looking for a ritual, although she did not know how to put her request into words. I remember this reading especially, because it was an instance when I got sidetracked and momentarily betrayed myself. To answer her question, I closed my eyes and waited for images. The scene that appeared showed the family pulling an empty chair, his easy chair, into an intimate circle near the tree. Then I saw the young woman placing a fisherman’s cap on the seat. But as I began to deliver the information my mental sentries jumped forward. I always see them like little soldiers with rifles on their shoulders, red uniforms and tall black boots. It is their job to discredit the information that comes from the realm of spirit, because they work for the mind. They are employed by all that is rational and concrete.

Hey, they say, What’s this doing here? This has no worth. We didn’t approve this? They stepped forward at the very moment I was delivering my message, grabbed the information about his cap and pulled it away. This is too specific, they said. Do you want to look like a fool? What if they don’t have his hat? Be safe! Be careful! Be general! Replace that word. Use the word garment instead. Then you can’t get into trouble. Why get into trouble?

The censors had me in their grasp and had reworked my delivery so quickly I barely knew what had happened. I would recommend, I told her, making a circle near the Christmas tree, include his favorite chair and place a garment on it. Use something that belonged to him and felt special.

She looked at me, clearly pleased. Great! she said. We’ll do that. I can put his hat on the chair. We still have his fishing cap.

I am better than most at keeping the sentries at bay, but every once in a while, when I least expect it, they take me down. 

The other reading I remember from the 40 short readings I must have done that week-end was for a young woman about to be married. She was having nightmares and irrational fears. She wanted to marry in her husband’s faith, but something inside her would sabotage the meeting each time they were supposed to enter the sanctuary. When I asked spirit for information, I found a vivid past life. I saw her seated outside a temple in a country with a dry climate. People were wearing flowing silk robes as they entered a tall building. It was her job to wash their feet before they entered. The building was a holy place. She knelt by the entrance doing her job as they prepared to enter sacred space.

I think you had a job washing people’s feet outside a temple in a hot place like Egypt, I told her. It’s something you did every day. It humbled you and irritated you at the same time.

Oh, she interrupted, I hate peoples feet. I am so funny that way. I can’t stand to look at them and even feel that way about my husband’s feet. They repel me.  I tell him when we are in bed to keep his feet on his own side of the bed.

In that lifetime you were not allowed to enter the temple, I continued. You have a soul memory of that, even though it has been unconscious, it is still powerfully in place. That belief is keeping you out of your husband’s church. Talk with yourself and make a clear distinction between now and then. It is time for you to enter the sacred space of your marriage. You get to enter the temple now. You get to be happy and walk at his side.

She was visibly relieved but still curious. What’s a soul memory?

A soul memory is an unconscious knowing that we carry from one lifetime to the next, that can affect us profoundly. We may not be able to bring it forward on our own, but once it comes into awareness, there is always a deep and settling recognition of the truth it holds. Uncovering and embracing that knowledge brings freedom. 

At the end of the week-end, I gathered my belongings, and noticed that the rose on my table had turned color. I held it to the light in disbelief. Must be the lighting in here, I told myself, carefully packing it away. But when I got home and returned the rose to the vase, which held it’s original family, I was struck by what had happened. The rose had turned from vibrant red to a deep shade of purple. The only explanation was that the spiritual energy of 30 psychics had absorbed in the water and again in the rose, turning it the color of the crown chakra, which was the energy center we were all using.