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January 2008
Dreaming of my death, they put their dreams
into the air between us. Words they hoped would dissipate the fear
the dreams evoked. I too dreamt of my death, announcing to the
audience that “Yes, of course I died.” In the same dream, I
experienced my womb longing for new life. Well beyond the age of
child bearing this longing surprised me even in that space of dreams.
This is not a letter from the other side. I
exist, the flesh and blood of me bundled against the winter cold,
days away from marking another year of my life and yes, it is true, I
have died. It is true that I am filled with new life.
Last weekend I spent on retreat with an old
friend. We were asked to journal. After the dream announcing my
death, I wrote,” So if it were true and I was to die now, it
would be fine for I have touched upon the mystery and know in my
heart that no life is lived alone. I am happy, content with myself
loving at last this woman emerged whole, healed. I do not pretend
there is no more that I can do. There are children to watch grow old,
books to be written but I am ok leaving now so different than when I
cut the cords and said enough to being alone only to find that I am
not at all alone. This feeling is seeded deeply within, I am part of everything.”
Content, satisfied, happy, these strange new feelings pushed at the
musculature of my heart and mind as though the words were stretching
and expanding like a spirit child within my womb. As I wrote in the
journal, I realized that I had died fully and completely, died to an
old way of being. I realized that I am being born into the life of
conscious awareness. The paradigm of separation has shifted within me.
In October I spent 10 days in Columbia doing
ceremony with a group of Medicine men and women from around the
world. The intention of the ceremony was peace on the Earth. For 10
days strangers from Europe, North and South America sat with the
Elder Brothers, The Kogi who for the first time ever, did ceremony
with a group such as ours. The eldest, Mama Bernardo is a 93 year old
Shaman from the Sierra Nevada region of Columbia. As a culture, The
Kogi’s have lived relatively undisturbed by society since the
time before the Spanish conquest. They consider themselves the Elder
Brothers of humanity and all others, the younger brothers. In
the view of the Kogi, their responsibility as the Elder Brother is to
hold the heart of the world. They came to this gathering to ask for
the help of the younger brothers. They asked for help because
they have realized that they cannot do it alone any longer. The
Earth, her heart, is in trouble.
What I experienced during the time in
Columbia was profound and still evolving. There are many stories
woven in the fabric of my being. What I am speaking to here is my
experience of a consciousness shift from separation to unity.
At one point during a plant ceremony,
I lay outside on the ground high in the Andes watching the interplay
of light and color as the sun set. Closing my eyes, I was aware that
everything within me was illuminated. I was suffused with a powerful
sense of well-being, of love, of pure unsurpassed happiness.That
moment, lying on the cooling grass, I was completely content,
satisfied. I opened my eyes and there before me stood Mama Bernardo.
We did not speak with words, but with the deep love between two
hearts and minds, the love that dissolves all separation. In his
presence, I experienced the dissolution of self into the heart of
love. I experienced the fullness of being one with creation.
That awareness stayed with me until I got
home. As I opened the door, a wave of emotion hit me, I was entering
an empty house where no one waited for me. I felt utterly and
completely alone.
Within 48 hours I was sick, sick in a way
that I had never experienced. Terrible head, neck and chest pain grew
unabatedly and I took my uninsured self to the ER where I was left
alone on a cold table in terrible pain for hours. During that time, I
decided that I had had enough and I cut every single energetic cord I
could find on my body. I let go of everything and everyone. But, the
universe wasn’t ready to receive me and as my friend said,
“The ER is not the best place to commit energetic suicide.”
Eventually I was given a diagnosis, an EARACHE and sent home with a prescription.
As quickly as I got sick, I recovered
(without taking the antibiotics). My teacher, Triz came and
reconnected me. She was unsympathetic. “We need to talk about
this.” she said.
I have been ruthless this past year,
ruthless in my desire to heal, to create a life based on the
conscious awareness of the fullness of my being. I have taken every
opportunity to look deeply within, to examine all the hidden aspects,
those the habitual ways of being
that keep me from being all that I am. So I looked hard that
this dichotomy of experience, the movement toward unity and the
resistance of separation. It is as if my desire to experience the
fullness of being led to an exploration of duality at its most
fundamental level. The place within me that I hold separate had to be
touched before I could let it go. When I let go, I let go of
everything that bound me to an old way of being. It was the very
essence of separation from which I disengaged. When I
reconnected I connected from the place of oneness, the place of
unity, the place where the very concept of being alone makes the
stars twinkle with laughter.
To be continued...
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