Hypno #13 Rebirth

I was on my beach. There was a storm quietly raging around me. The skies we’re a dark heavy gray. The wind was whipping the waves into a frenzy. Rain was falling in sheets around me. I seemed to be in a bubble that the storm could not touch. While this place felt familiar, it was also strange and alien. Usually when I come here it is sunny and warm. I also couldn’t perceive the bright lady at all. I knew she was with me but I couldn’t locate her no matter how hard I tried. When I invited a helper or guide a woman formed from the sand beside the driftwood where I was sitting. She wouldn’t speak to me, she was obviously waiting. I suddenly had the feeling that this is not where I was supposed to be. I stood and turned knowing I needed to find the doors in a forest I could not see that was behind me. I could see the sea grass framing the path entrance. Beyond those waiving clumps was only darkness but I knew what I needed to find there.

I attempted to move and found myself stuck. There was a heaviness rooting me in place. My legs and arms had become stone. I knew I needed to get through the driftwood log that I had been sitting on but I had no idea how when I had become an anchored statue filled with this heavy gray brown heaviness. I was suddenly trapped in this place I had always gone to feel safe.

The woman of sand started to flow over and under the log; she did this in a manner that some how felt like through. I looked at her more carefully. She was an earth creature pounded and pummeled by the water into an entirely new form. She was rocks and the discarded homes of living creatures that had been remade in an utterly new way. She flowed now. I understood that I had to flow too.

How can I flow when I am made of stone? The waves and rain couldn’t touch me. I wouldn’t be remade like she was. Yet, I couldn’t stay as I was either. The sand woman looked back and me and poured over and through the driftwood again. Back and forth she moved for the rest of my time on this beach. She never spoke, not even looked at me again.

I needed to figure out how to get over this log and find the path to the doors. The need filled me up even to the point of near panic. I turned inward to discover what had trapped me here. There was no obvious source but I did find a crying woman. She was lodged in my chest and throat, curled into a ball with her arms around her legs and her head upon her knees. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get her to acknowledge my presence. She was trapped in her own world of grief and loss. Figuring that out let me see that what was keeping me stuck here was the fear of loss. Fear rooted me here and made safety a trap. I knew all I had to do was find my way past this one barrier. The driftwood taunted me. The sand woman continued her pacing. I screamed with frustration.

The woman inside caught my attention once more as my scream rolled around her. I had to deal with her first. I couldn’t ask her to do anything, she couldn’t see or hear me. I couldn’t move for she was anchored firmly in my body. I couldn’t cut her out without also killing myself. The answer was to wrap her in light. I drew energy from the ground below me and slowly wrapped her in it’s gossamer cocoon. Once completed I couldn’t hear her sobbing though I knew it continued but I also was now protected from the onslaught of her grief. The sand woman paced on.

I needed to leave the crying woman here. I needed to get through this barrier to my path. There was a catch, a hiccup, in my thoughts. Was this obstacle even real? In a flash I understood it all. This obstacle was of my own making. I was rooted here out of the fear if loosing what little safety I knew. I understood that I had to step out of my body and leave it here with it’s crying woman wrapped in a cacoon of light. I had to leave all of it to be reborn and start the next evaloution of my life. I freed my right hand and found it passed through the log. I then began the long arduous task of pulling my self from this body. I don’t have words for how much effort it took to separate my self from this body. Eventually, I did succeed and passed through the driftwood to the sea grass that marked my path.

Stepping forward into a place that was and was not. It was an unthreatening darkness. It was the liminal space between. I discovered I was softly glowing. This pale white light was mesmerizing and softly powerful.

Reaching out I found myself carried to the giant wooden double doors. I knew that they existed in the back of my head between my crown chakra and my third eye. I knew they were elaborately carved with my oak tree. I paused before opening the doors to what I knew would be my new life and body. I knew that when I went through I would never again visit my beach this way. I would have to stop judging my present by who I used to be and embrace the future without being rooted in my trauma. I felt so unsteady.

I searched around me for something to help and picked up a wooden staff. It was almost a walking stick but much taller. This would allow me to steady myself going forward. I knew that holly, ivy, and ash would be needed as well but they wouldn’t reveal themselves yet. A deep breath and I pushed the doors open.

They were immensely heavy yet I did not register the effort I know it took to part them. Instead I found myself stepping into the light, into the bright lady, into myself. White light played through and around me while a soft aqua light beckoned me forward to a lake that lay just a bit father down the path.

I walked into an through the lake letting the waters close over me. A cleansing and a benediction. I luxuriated in the warmth of the waters caress as I continued to the other side, staff in hand. I stood and watched the water dripping from me when I saw a sneaky tendril from the beach trying to hold onto me. I severed it with a swipe of my staff and felt the white light that is in and around me brighten and grow warmer in response. I looked up to see the aqua light leading me forward into my new existence.

In a blink I knew I needed to light a white candle in honor of this rebirth. I know I need to check in with myself and do a tarot reading now that I have left the old behind. I also know that I will know what I need to do more like this, these quick flashes of knowledge, going forward. The holly, ivy, and ash, will revel themselves in time. Right now is a time of just learning how to be this new me and that seems like a great adventure.

Advertisements

Hypno #12 the wand

I found myself sitting on a sun drenched bank of a lazy stream. There are trees nearby but their shade is not interrupting the pure white golden sunlight. The water flowed by in a lazy meandering way. The ripples making the light dance with almost painful intensity. It was so easy to be peaceful and still here. I let myself fill up with the light and the strength.

Eventually I invited anyone who needed to join me to do so. I felt her restless energy long before I saw her. Her presence was one of constant moving. She was all action and hard edges. When she slid fully into my view I was surprised to see that this was the 16 year old version of me. She was so beautiful even in her impatience. Part of me wished I had been able to see myself more clearly back then.

I invited her to sit but she was far too agitated. She did agree to wade into the river with me. The water slowly flowing around us seemed to lessen her need to move. I slowly inspected her with my energy and intuition. I could feel her need to DO. That she had to keep pushing forward. Her energy was shap and almost spikey. Like broken glass had paused while exploding and decided to protect her. Ever so gently I eased past the sharp endges to see what I could sense beneath. There was a lot there. So much pain and rage. Fear that was nearly consuming. I tried to get a sense of how her energy flowed and what I found confused me deeply. There was no flow. It was pieces of her that would switch on and off as needed. This disconnected energy nearly confunded me, it was so hard to resist making it move. How could I understand this strange indipendent collection? I finally accepted that I could not understand how it worked even as I accepted that it did. My awareness slowly slipped around and I noticed this hardness between her shoulder blades. This piece of armor I understood all too well.

I asked if anyone else wanted to join us and the bright lady was there, as she always is these days. It is interesting because the more I sense the bright lady in my daily life the less tangible she appears in this world. Tangible or not she was very much present, teen me was aware of her as well and seemed to brighten a bit in response. We decided to walk along the path through the woods. This path behaved oddly though. Rather than seeming to go to a place. Or even following the path of least resistance. It took me a bit to puzzle out what was happening. The path was avoiding the shadows. It was following the sunlight. This is when I realized that we were on her path.

We wandered along this strange path for a bit until we saw a gate off in the distance. We would have to leave the sunny path and walk into the shadows where no path was discernable. The girl stopped. She was clearly frightened. The bright lady glowed reassuringly. I stood and pondered the situation. She was obviously not going to leave this bright place. Even with us to help her. She needed something she could hold onto. Slipping my hand into my pocket I felt about until I found an object that felt right. Pulling my hand out I presented her with a clear quartz crystal. It twinkled in the sunlight but it didn’t seem to be enough. The bright lady nudged me and there just off the path was a perfect piece of oak branch. I took it and affixed the crystal. As I worked I gave it some of the sunlight I had stored up at the river. This should help. She held it up into the shadows and I watched awe creep across her face as she realized it would light her way.

We arrived at a wrought iron gate. We should have been able to see through the bars but it just wouldn’t take shape. Even the bright lady was unsettled by this. We should have been able to tell what we we’re heading towards. Our discomfort was nothing compared to hers though. She trembled and seemed rooted into the ground. I gently reminded her that we were here and we would not leave her until she was ready. Something stubborn and reckless flashed through her eyes before she shoved her way in.

In a lifetime of strange experiences I had never imagined something like this. Things were shrouded in this strange gray not light. If that wasn’t uncomfortable enough nothing here seemed finished. It was like trying to half form the memory of a shape that is some how associated with the sound of a not color. Sounds would almost form. This was not a place that anyone would ever want to be. It almost feels wrong to try to give this place words. Words are things that are formed and complete. Everything here rebelled at using anything complete to define it.

I let her know that she should take the lead. This was obviously her place and I was an observer here. She walked deep into the heart of this strange not place. There was an alcove with a ledge. She curled up in this spot and she was quite at home. The bright lady and I were very unsettled. This was not ok. This is not a good place for her to be. I knew that she needed to plant that wand. Right now, she was not ready to come out of this alcove. I stepped closer and tried to look at it. It just kept shifting under my gaze. I felt the bright lady’s amusement. I sighed and closed my eyes. Feeling my way around this place it started to make more sense. This alcove is the same energy as the hard place between her shoulders. This was her refuge in a sea of things she was both terrified of and totally unable to understand. The problem was that her place of protection didn’t allow for any growth. Nothing could live in this muddy soup.

Slowly she unwound and I was able to tell her she needed to clear a space near the alcove. As she knelt leaves, evergreen needles and other forest debris. She cleared a space. Now we could see the earth. One element was exposed. She dug into the earth with her hands. She dug until water began to seep up. The breeze played with we hair as she looked up. She couldn’t find the fire. I smiled, the bright lady laughed. “you are the fire”. She placed the wand in the hole she had made and she began to feed it. All of the hot firey feelings that she kept burried beneath the jaggedness. The frustration, the fear, the pain. As she did this the wand grew and changed. Suddenly we were with a fully mature oak in a clearing. There were paths that lead away. Those paths still ended with a vague fogginess but it was not as sinister as when we first arrived. Finally, with prompting, she fed the earth her shame. Now, there was light. The shell had melted, the alcove was erased. I blinked as I looked around. When I looked back at her I saw her wings had appeared. Black and glossy they were magnificent. She left her shame and found her empowerment. I watched with delight as she stretched and tested them. It was only when she inquired as to why my wings were not the same as hers that I noticed mine had changed again. They were a soft grey color instead of the black I was used to. I smiled and let her know they would change many times depending on what she needed.

We prepared to leave this place but the work was not quite done yet. She needed a way to come back here. A way to be reminded that she could carry her own light in the darkness. I looked up and there on the branch was the crystal I had given her before. She plucked it from the tree and we knew that this would be her key to this place, the place of letting go. We walked through the gate and she locked it with a smile. Eager to return to the river now.

The path had also changed. It seemed to sense her happy impatience and it brought us back to the lazy sun warmed river bend. We sat on a rock and let our feet and wings trail in the water. Here she could really see the 4 elements at work. I reminded her that there are 5 elements. She was sad that she could not see the fifth. The bright lady nudged me with amusement and I reached up and gently moved a branch so that she sat in shadow. In this place of filling up she could finally see, in that little patch of shadow that she was truly glowing. She could see spirit manifest in her own energy. I chuckled both amused and annoyed at how literal the bright lady was being right now. I still heard her messages though.

You can’t let go without filling up again. You can’t just be, or just do, it takes both to stay connected. You can’t hide or run from the things that scare you. You also don’t have to have them alone. It is also true that we need shadows sometimes in order to see the light we carry with us. It was so simple, true, and beautiful, that I wept with joy. I could see how her energy had changed. It wasn’t so sharp and jagged anymore. She still was not wholly connected but no longer was everything happening in isolation. There was so much energy bound up in her that it crackled pleasantly along her skin. She was magnificent.

Before I left this place it was decided that I could use the key, but it would remain hers for a while. We hugged. The kind of hug where your spirit both soars and relaxes. When you truly know everything will be okay in the end. We smiled and I took her hand. She became a part of me once more. And I was a part of her now too.

Easy to leave

I said something to a partner the other day, “I make it easy for people to leave me.” It keeps coming back and flashing into my awareness at random moments. There is something here I know I need to tease out. I guess I am hoping that writing will bring it out.

In some ways that statement is true. I do make it easy to leave. I don’t want people to stay with me because they feel they must. I have felt that too many times. I don’t want people to stay for fear of hurting me. I don’t want anyone to stay for any reason other than they chose to. I want my loves to choose me every time they see me. I refuse to be an obligation or burden.

I guess that is a lot to ask from someone. It takes faith to make that choice again and again. You have to believe we can be better on the other side of the storm. You have to have faith that we can fall in love again and again. It also takes trust to make that choice. You have to trust that the other person knows that what you say and do is real. They have to know that you really are with them. Even when things seem dark and you are lost. You have to trust their ability to find a way through. Maybe it takes some optimisim too. You have to believe that both of you are in it together and won’t give up or stop working on it.

I am finally starting to see that loving someone like this is a lot. It takes a lot of work and energy to make a choice. To do it on an ongoing basis? Well, even a drop of water can cut through stone over enough time. Maybe I am more optimistic than I would like to think because I believe that this kind of love is possible. Maybe I am a romantic at heart. I don’t really know, but I know I just can’t give up this belief.

I do make it easy for people to leave. It goes against the core of my being to be holding someone against their will. It has not been an easy journey to get here. I have made far too many mistakes along the way. It is also why I have developed this ideal. I have seen the ways that love can be twisted when someone needs to leave and can’t. I have seen the ways it turns toxic. I won’t participate in that anymore.

Experience tells me that this means that I will get hurt more often. I just can’t accept the alternative. What I can accept is that I can also be hard to love at times. I have a long list of issues. My mental and physical issues mean that I am rarely anything approaching stable. There is a lot to manage. I work hard to keep my impact as low as I can. To be candid, that hasn’t been the most successful of endeavors. I have not yet found the key to keeping all areas of my life stable at the same time. I refuse to give up though. I just know that it can be hard for people to have to constantly try to keep balance with my shifts.

I have to have hope that I will figure it out one day. But for now, yeah, I guess I do make it easy to leave. At the same time, I never have to doubt the people who are in my life. Every time the brain squids try to make me believe I have reason to doubt I can use that knowledge to combat the darkness. So, yeah, I guess I do make it easy to leave.

Quiet

It is so quiet late at night. I wish I could sleep but that has been so hard. When it is quiet at night and the rest of the world seems to be sleeping I am trapped in my own head. I can’t escape the thoughts and feelings that bombard me. I can’t escape feeling like I deserve all the pain.

During the day I have things I have to accomplish. It helps when I can stay busy or distracted. At night I can’t hide from all the fear and pain. I can’t hide from the fact that I managed to lose the person who had come to symbolize hope for me. She kept me going when I wanted to give up. She reminded me of all the good things. She kept me fighting through the pain when another relationship nearly crushed me. And I wore her out too.

I want to be ok. I want to feel like I can do this. I just don’t. Right now, I keep waiting for everyone else to tell me I am too much for them too. I am afraid to talk to the few people who have reached out because I am aftaid if I do I will lose them too. I am already losing so much. The sunshine is gone from my world and it is my own fault.

At the same time I am screaming inside for something or someone to prove me wrong. To show me that I can be a mess and still be loved. That I don’t have to try so hard all the time. The problem is, I have been begging for that my entire life. After 40 years you would think I would learn. My own mom couldn’t love me that way. How could anyone else?

I am not sure that anyone (perhaps except my therapist) gets it that I don’t want to be alone. I loved having a partner to come home to, to take care of. I loved having someone to wake up with. I miss it every single day. I talk about the perks of not having a partner I live with because I am aftaid that if I don’t focus on those things I will just crumble. I have chosen to not live with people not because I don’t want to but because I feel like I have to protect people from me. I am certain that the last people I lived with won’t argue that point at all.

Another reason the night is so difficult for me is because I can’t hide from the fact that I need to be held. I need to fall apart and not have to sheild them from it. I need to not have to be the strong one. I need to not have to be the wise one. It would be so nice to have someone else give that to me. But I can’t have that. If I really let my guard down, I will just burn them up in my pain too. I want to hold the people I love so close, but instead I am running as far away from them as I can. I can’t lose anymore right now. Even the illusion of love is better than the reality of more loss.

This isn’t to say that I am not loved. I am. It is just a conditional thing. As long as I don’t really let go of self control. As long as I am only taken in small doses. As long as I don’t ask for too much. As long as I don’t need to much. I didn’t realize that I needed too much. I thought I was only asking for what I was freely giving to others. Apparently, that is too much. If it wasn’t, maybe I wouldn’t be crying in the dark again. Maybe I wouldn’t be breaking even the quiet with my pain.

Pride and floodgates

Pride has always been a tricky thing for me. For most of my life I was told that Pride was not for me. I looked too straight and too femme to belong. Ever since the last presidential election I have been far more visably and vocally queer. It became important to be seen as a Bi femme queer. It finally feels like I am seen and even accepted. This is the first time I have celebrated Pride and felt like I belong.

The hard part about that is that I didn’t attend the big parade. I avoided the areas where Pride was being actively celebrated. I did go to an Indigo Girls concert at the zoo with my girlfriend. We were surrounded by so many other queer people and it was beautiful. So, why was I sobbing on the way home?

There is almost no space to be disabled and queer in the main celebrations. I have been actively harassed, or ignored, every time I have tried. I was able to enjoy the concert because I was able to hide my disabilities. So, while I was finally seen as a queer femme, I was rendered invisible in other ways. It made me feel like I will never be fully seen and validated by society.

This left me thinking about the Partnership that ended this week. I have been so heartbroken and I have felt like it was somehow not ok for me to talk about it or be upset. I have felt like I have been sleepwalking through life with this hole inside where love used to live. Today I had to wake up and actually participate in life. It made me realize how much of my life feels like it is missing now. I miss her in a profound and terrifying way. Right now it doesn’t feel like I will ever be whole again.

Add these things to what has been happening with my son and it feels like everything is shattering around me. Having to let my son make his mistakes, and enforce the consequences, has been breaking my spirit. It reinforces the feelings that maybe I don’t deserve to have the love I want in my life. Like maybe being in pain and invisible is what I have earned.

The utter despair that I felt seems to have consumed me. All this because I allowed myself to wake up and be truly happy for a couple of hours. If I feel the good things I also have to feel the hard things. The sharp edges, where I want to be seen and where I know I never really will be, scraped together across my tattered soul. And all the people I would normally reach to for comfort? They are as missing from me right now as I was missing from Pride. There is no room for me, for all of me, in this world.

I know I will survive what I am going through. I have survived it before. I have endured pain and heartache for a very long time. I am just so tired. I am weary of continuing to hope and love only to have it rejected. I am tired of having to edit myself to be seen and loved. I am tired of hoping for a love that makes me feel real and valid. Like I am not something to be parcled out in small chunks to be loved. I am tired of hoping for something that may be the biggest lie of my life.

Even knowing that what I want may never be possible for me doesn’t stop me from wishing that I could actually get the hugs I need, when I need them. It doesn’t stop me from longing for my former Partner. It doesn’t make it any less lonely. It also doesn’t take away from the fact that for a few glorious hours I was able to be happy. There were a few perfect moments today. I guess even the broken can be beautiful sometimes.

Hypno #11 The first wound

We started by sending scouts through my body to find out what needed to be fixed. We found the dark heavy shadow near my root chakra again. Also my throat was clogged. The darkness in my belly seemed the most pressing issue so we dug in and found that it was a poisonus belief that I was some how incomplete. That I had to have someone to survive.

We took me back to a time when that did not exist. Way back through layers of darkness and pain. I ended up going back to the very first time I was me. We sat with the feeling. I was whole, connected, strong, and certain. There was a field full of wildflowers and tall grasses. The sun shown down softly. I could hear laughter nearby. I was there with my daughter. She was laughing and hiding from me in the grasses. It was a perfect moment. I soaked in this feeling of wholeness and strength.

We stepped forward through time until the end of that life. I was alone in the cold and dark. I was filled with unbarable pain and sorrow. My despair was tangible as I gave up and layed down to die. I fully believed that I had failed because I was alone, cast out from my village. I had come to believe the lies and poison.

We stepped back to see how I got there. I had been so strong. I had truly embodied my highest self. How did I become this broken husk? When I was strong and free a man had wanted me. I did not want him for I could feel the darkness in his spirit. He had some influence in my village though and used it to slowly make people believe that I was some how evil and must be controlled. Eventually, they took my daughter from me and taught her to meek and desolate. They tortured me and used the safety of my daughter to control me. Years later when I still had not broken, something changed. My daughter took her own life. It was in that moment that they broke me.

Shattered and hollow the man no longer desired me. I was cast out of my village and sent into exile. It wasn’t long before I layed down to die. I had given up and I had begun to believe that had I just accepted that I needed him from the beginning none of this would have happened. It was my stubborn belief in my self and my strength that caused them to take such harsh measures against me.

We stopped this moment, stepped back in time to just before I accepted the darkness into myself. We called down a ring of archangels to protect me and I stepped into a pause in the flow of time. I talked with myself in this moment. All of the compassion I contained was given to myself even as I told her what her choice would bring. I told her of the pain in my life that has come from this darkness. I told her of generations lost to this false belief. We strolled through generations of myself always looking for something I believed I had lost. We held each other and cried. We also healed.

We called forth the spirit of my daughter and she ran into my arms. She was that pure untouched child of my memory. I marvled at this. I could not understand why she appeared this way. She touched my face.

“Mamma, I am this way because this is the truth of my spirit. They never broke me. They never made me less than. I chose to end my life because it was hurting us both and I knew I would be happy in whatever came next.”

Something inside me clicked into place. There was awe at the pure beauty of my daughter’s spirit. There was deep greif and compassion for what I had endured. There was a burning, sacred anger at what they almost did to my spirit. What this time had done to countless versions of myself. We sobbed with rage and pain. My daughter kissed my cheek. She dried my tears. I looked again into the face of love.

“It is ok mamma. I am happy. I am love and loved. One day, our lives will be whole and complete to the point that we shine like our own suns. You did not fail me. You don’t have to take care of me. You already made me strong and we will both remember that one day.”

I kissed her forehead one last time. She stepped back and Michael stepped forward. My daughter, my former self, my highest self (the bright lady) and I all nodded our consent. He took his mighty sword that hurt to look upon and as delicately as a petal on the air he cut the ties that bound us. He cut the ties to the darkness from this first life. Michael unteathered me from all the things (from this time) that would harm us and pull us down. He nooded, satisfied, kissed my forhead in blessing and held his hand out for my daughter. I let her go, crying tears of a deep joy.

My highest self felt the ripples through time. She took my hand and let me experience them with her. She let me see how this moment of healing would ripple through time and obliterate so much pain. I could feel the darkness deep in my belly be shattered and utterly destroyed. The effect of this would continue to ripple through my life.

It was time for my former self to let go. I once again became enbodied in her and we began our final task. I stopped and picked up every small piece of my spirit that I had lost in these last cruel years. I cast my eye through time and space to gather them all into me. When I was complete once more I sat down on the hard earth. I smiled and let the strength and joy fill me. I let compassion for myself fill every particle of my essence and I stepped gently out of that life. The joy in that moment was something I had never imagined possible.

************************************

I don’t normally allow myself to editorialize in these posts but I need to this time. After the session was over I could see how the darkness had magnified from life to life. I could see that it had become so malignant in the generations of abuse my family has dealt with that it took physical form in my body as I was developing. Nearly all of my health issues stem from that region of my body. By the time I got home, I was a bit more skeptical. What I am not skeptical about is that it feels different in my body. It feels, lighter, cleaner, and more sure.

As I wrote this something else came to me. Something that I am reeling from even as I write this. My daughter in that life was my mother in this one. I find myself letting her go with joy, love, and deep compassion. Our spirits no longer bound together with pain can find themselves complete and autonomous.

This session is going to cause big ripples for some time. Right now, that feels like a wonderful thing. I know that this will cause changes in my everyday life but I am not afraid of the sadness that comes with change.

Hypno session hashtag number 9

Note! This story is being written initially using voice dictation and will be edited after it is published.

We started off by a stream the sunlight on my face sitting on a log we invited whoever needed to come with me today.. Younger teenage version of myself but with her maiden aspect appeared to me she was me but not me in the she didn’t develop the hardness in the fear in the pain they were part of her but they were not her. We check to see if the bright lady needed to come with me but as always she’s just a part of me I knew she was there but this time I could really see her I could just sense her presents it felt like she was the final part of the three aspects of Maiden mother Crone represented. It’s also interesting how I knew that I was still in the mother role that right on the edge of the wise crone I’m so close to that transition it’s exhilarating and terrifying.

We walked through the cool cleansing stream and came out on the other bank after and saw the tree that contains the elevator into my subconscious. Today it just looks like a tree but I knew what it was there for an indie with the door slid open as we approached. Slowly we descended will teeth into my subconscious and to a place right behind my navel. As the elevator door opened it revealed an antechamber in which there were four doors the door all the way the farthest on my right was the door to my body interesting thing about the body room is that it’s mostly about the present but there’s some interesting links to the past and to the intuition Center. The next door the door to my mind for my intellect resides where I can process my thoughts and I can have glimpses to the other rooms. Then there was the door to my emotions this is the door that was calling me strongest and it also seemed odd from this vantage point but I stopped for a moment before approaching it and looked at the final door. The last door was the door into my memory this is where all of my memories are accessible good bad from this life from not and it’s an important door but not a door that we needed to enter today. I went ahead and approached the door to emotion which was calling me.

The store was interesting because it changed constantly almost sometimes it was a thick heavy Ironbound medieval door sometimes it was a light than glass door other times it appeared to be made of water at one point I saw for a moment my oak tree inscribed I grasp the handle I opened it up and we stepped in. This is the room of emotion this room was interesting there was a big comfy soft chair in the middle of the room the kind that you can curl up into or lounge Andre fall over. There was switches and knobs and dials and levers and buttons on almost every available surface. I knew I could access all of them from that chair I also knew that some of them would be harder to get to than others. I tried to bring towards me the controls that would be the easiest the things that I had the best access to I discovered that there is an intensity knob then the panel that materialized before me in the chair. I also saw that there was a pause button the interesting thing about that button is that it would immediately unpause itself after 12 hours. Also interesting is that sometimes it would inflict the emergency shutdown switch if that happens.

Immediately opposite the chair where you can see it clearly was a heads up display that showed a picture or movie or seen or symbol of what I was feeling and there were in Decatur panels on it one of them connected to the body in and showed where I would feel that body and feel that emotion in my body another one showed a little clip of any memories it could be attached to there was an indicator dial for intensity. The most interesting part of this display contains the default settings for each emotion you can see how intense they are by default you can see the duration that set for default. I tried to find loadable intensity scale and I was unable to do so. I was going to have to go into each and every emotion and try to alter them individually. I wasn’t the first emotion that I went into was the pain. I noticed that I could not change the default intensity on this emotion and it was set really high. Maiden continue to sit there filing her finger nails bouncing her leg impatiently waiting for me to figure out what was next. I cast about for something to do. My mind was finally able to grasp the idea what if I created a buffer between Instinct and pain this little moment before the Fear Part can kick in while I have a chance to get ahold of the pain before it takes over. I carefully put in the buffer I put in as much delay as I could. I was unable to test it apparently you can only test the changes in the wild.

I flip the display and I was looking at anxiety next. Anxiety is a weird emotion in that I need it but I don’t need it and like pain I couldn’t change all of the default settings. I was able to go back into the Instinct room and put in a temporary patch that allowed a space between anxiety and fear so that anxiety wouldn’t always trigger my PTSD. I don’t know about this patch I’m very uncertain I suspect it’ll need more patching but that’s okay this will do for now. From there I went to a just loneliness would loneliness it was interesting because I had to turn up my body settings. Now in this aspect body settings means to differentiate between what’s happening now and what’s happened before so turning down turning up body mint turning down memory.

I was so frustrated at this point I really wanted to be able to turn down the intensity scale and Global level. I wanted to make it so that I wouldn’t have those big rushes of feelings all the time. It looks like I don’t get to control it that way. But the things that I could do can still help and can help me sort it faster Maybe.

I stepped back out to the antechamber and I found there was something wrong things were out of balance they were too heavy on one side and not on and heavy enough on the other. My first instinct was to turn down the memory section in order to rebalance but no what I needed to do is turn up the body. I walk through the door and looked into this room. Wow it’s complicated and messy there are wires and wires and nests. There’s dust in Corners. You can tell that I’ve neglected this room for a very long time. There are also signs though that I’m starting to come in and clean and take care of things. There’s just a long way to go. I went through the control panels and I looked and I thought and I scratched my head and finally I’m like I got to do something. My first attempt was to put in a button that would tell me light that would tell me what it was for memory or body. And the arrow was nice and it was a good pass-fail and told me which one was bigger. But I just had a feeling this wasn’t going to be enough information enough Nuance for me to actually use the information correctly. So I thought and the Maiden smirked and I thought some more finally it came to me that I could make it a dial so it always indicates both body and memory. But it tells me which percentage of what is each so now I can have a gauge to understand how much of what I was feeling was Bobby. I put in a window from the body room to the emotion room so that my body can more easily see my emotions.

I put a stronger connection to Instinct in the body room as well. This way I could more easily discern what’s current and present and happening in my own body. The instincts processor runs everything in the background but it doesn’t have complete control and it doesn’t always have access to all the information it needs right now. This felt like a good step in correcting that. The other thing I did while I was in there was I inspected the wiring near where I put in the in the body memory gauge. There’s a wire here that I just wanted to cut so badly and the closer I got to wanting to cut it the more anxious the maiden seemed. So I stopped and I asked what can I cut this?. She Shrugged uncertain. Okay so I don’t know if I can safely cut this wire well what wire is it? I will followed it through all the twists in the Ben and I noticed that it was going from body to memory. Oh dear I can’t cut this wire. What am I going to do? Okay I can put a resistor on this wire. So carefully for just a moment I cut the wire and I patched in a resistor. Okay this should slow down the stream of information from my memory to my body maybe it will help short circuit that PTSD reaction from the other room.

I stepped back into the antechamber only to find that my work was not yet complete. I paused for a moment and step to the intellect door. I could see that the pathway here was quite worn and this was obviously the path I am most familiar with taking I looked around the room to try to figure out what it needed. I could see glimpses of all the other rooms. I turned up the transparency of the window to the body room so that I can more easily view what was happening there and more easily understand it. I also increase the connection to the Instinct processor. At some point in time during all of this I had also ratted a warning system to The Chimes in my throat so that I would know when things were right and I could come to the intellect room or the emotion room to help me figure out where the problem was. There’s no way to test these systems but I knew I had done all the work I could right now. Once more I stepped out into the empty chamber and I looked the maiden and I asked if there was anything left.

She reached out and hugged me. The warmth I felt was inspiring. And she said what, I think it’s time that I joined you. I was confused a little anxious but I took a deep breath and I nodded. I felt the right ladies approval radiate through me. The maiden kiss my cheek hug me once more and stuck inside of me. At this point I could so clearly see that I was supposed to contain all three aspects Maiden mother and crone. I am my own source of divinity. In this space and time that didn’t sound strange or odd it felt good and right and Powerful. As I relay the story though I must admit there is a part of me that is really uncomfortable. As the meeting settled herself inside me I noticed that I felt so full and more complete than I ever remember. She shifted and adjusted and it was a little awkward. And I looked at why it was awkward I discovered there’s a slight imbalance in inside me. I’m supposed to have a full containment of Maiden mother crone but my life puts me right on the cusp between mother and Chrome. The closer I get the more I will take on the bright lady the Chrome the higher self. And the mother aspect will become another aspect like the maiden separate but a part of me my memories my experience but not my current reality. As the adjustments finally settled down the elevator doors opened. We slowly at send it and I knew we had to go to the stream once more before we became conscious.. I stepped inside I slowly came up I could feel the different aspects creating their own lease with in my body and my intellect my emotion and my mind my memories all parts of me they were integrating as we Rose. We stepped out of the elevator and once again had to wait to the cleansing stream. It felt so cool and yet not cold. I paused just to enjoy the water flowing around me. Stooped and scooped up water and drink it and let the purity filmy Wash Me remove any remnants didn’t need to be there. And then slowly I came back home.

Spirals

When we talk about most things we describe them as a linear process. The stages of grief is a good example. We talk about them like they are separate and distinct parts and you go through them one after the other and when you get through all the parts it will be over. Reality is a lot less tidy. We do the same thing with most learning. We talk about learning things and it is discussed as a linear process with an end. You have obtained the knowledge, the end. Except for the memorization of facts I find this is almost never true. I learn something. Then I have to learn it again from a new perspective.

Grief and learning are more like spirals than a linear process. We keep circling back around to the same lessons in life. Each time we do we learn from a different point. This process can be exhausting and frustrating. “Why do I have to keep coming back to this point that sucks?” “Why do I keep going through this?” All those thoughts and feelings are real. And yet, life doesn’t care. We will have things happen again and again because life just happens. We will try to see things differently. We will take new steps. It doesn’t mean it will protect us from having to experience it again.

That also doesn’t mean it won’t hurt like hell each and every time. Every time grief at comes back it hurts. It will always hurt. We just get better at coping with it. We learn to carry the weight of those feelings. That doesn’t mean we want to go back there. It is inevitable however. My therapist reminded me today that it is like being triggered. We don’t want to be triggered. We wish we could never be triggered again and yet we know the reality is it will happen. So, we had better decide on a plan.

I am at a point in the spiral where I am looking at the same sucky situation again. It hurts so badly that part of me wants to walk away from all relationships so I just don’t have to go through this again. I also know that life is better with love in it. That doesn’t mean it hurts less when you are told (yet again) that they need more space from you so they can have space for what they really want (which isn’t me or how I need to proceed with relationships in order to stay healthy).

Right now, it feels like no one will ever pick me first. No one will ever want from me what I can give. No one will ever love me the way I love them. Those things may be true. They may also be false. Either way, I have to decide what I want to do about it this time. It is also making me reevaluate what I have been doing about it. Don’t I deserve the love I try to give others? Can I find that love if I don’t make space for it? Do I want to give up the mostly good things I have now hoping for something that may never materialize?

While those are questions I need to answer, I can’t answer them today. Today is for grief. Today is for lamenting always being last choice. Today is for letting myself feel the things so I can decide what hurts less. Tomorrow, I can start looking at my choices and seeing how they align with my values. Tomorrow, I can decide what does and does not work for me. But for today, for today I cry and wish that I had the love I want to give.

Hypno #9 alone

We started on my beach.  I could feel the sand under my feet, the ocean stretching out in front of me. The cliffs to my right and the jetty to my left curve around to make me feel protected and sheltered in this place.  We called for those who needed to be with me and of course the bright lady was there. She has not left me since the last session. The interesting thing is that I can no longer see her. I can feel her and hear her voice. I know that she is part of me always now. The surprise was in a little girl. She was me, and not me at the same time. She was maybe 3 or 4 years old.  She was so sad and lonely. It was a physical pain in my chest. I could feel her vast and consuming need. A black hole in the middle of our heart. I wanted to run from her, and hold her. I wanted to pour all my love into her until she was never lonely again. The bright lady warned me that she would consume all the love I could give her and still need more. We have work to do.

I knew we were going to go out into the ocean. I started looking about and realized that we were going to have to walk out onto the very end of the jetty to reach our boat. I piked the little girl up and held her close to me. She would not be moved or shifted otherwise. I paused and looked out over the huge rocks that pointed out into the ocean. I watched the waves crash against them. This was a danger I knew from my childhood. Never go out onto the jetty because you could easily be killed. People had been killed here by doing just what I knew I had to do now. How was I going to do this with my arms full of this aching child? I had no idea and dismay welled up and filled me. The bright lady whispered in my ear and reminded me I am in a place where I cannot truly be hurt. I just had to accept the challenge and move forward with the fear.  I took a step. That step led to another, and another. Some where easy and small, some were precarious. The waves kept threatening to knock us all into the ocean. I felt so small and burdened. I had no idea how I thought I could be equal to this task. I set that aside and just took another step. Eventually, there were no more steps to take and I stood at the end of the jetty looking at a small wooden boat in the water below me.

Fear gripped me again. The little girl clung so tightly to my neck that I could barely draw breath. I could not swallow, but that didn’t matter as my mouth was dry with fear.  I was going to have to step out into this little bobbing boat. I was going to have to do it while holding this child who needed me so desperately. I was going to have to do it with each wave threatening to capsize it.  If I stepped off the rocks at the wrong moment the ocean could move my only safe place out from under me with no effort at all. I knew I had to do this though. I had lost all my other options along the way. I knew the water and waves would destroy me if I turned back now. I would be overcome and truly be stuck. I couldn’t even take a deep breath to steady my pounding heart. So, I just stepped out. I expected to feel a bit of a fall as the boat was several feet below me but to my surprise (and relief!) I was solidly in the boat with no issue at all. The decision to take the step was all that was required for safety.

The little girl, now sitting next to me and I marveled when the boat began to move. We traveled over the breakers and out into the ocean proper. We traveled until there was no sign of land. No way for me to gauge if we were in fact traveling or drifting. I had no landmarks to guide my way and no one to comfort me. In this place where my companions are me, and are not me, I was truly alone. I felt like I belonged here. I felt like this was always to be my fate.  I knew I was always supposed to be adrift and alone. The little girl agreed. The hole in my heart ached as it tried to suck all the warmth out of the sun, all the movement from the breeze, all the hope from my heart. The more I looked at this aloneness the more it consumed. It was like my attention was feeding it. It kept getting stronger and my despair grew to match it.  I heard a whisper, barely at the edge of my ability to understand, “What does she need to heal?” I wanted to scream and rage and cry at this voice. “How am I supposed to know what she needs?  She has been here my entire life. Can’t you see that I was too small when I realized that I would always be alone? How am I supposed to heal the truth?”

I could hold this small broken part of me. I could comfort her forever and still she would want more. If people could sense her presence inside me that could explain why they always tell me that they can’t give me what I need. Could they feel this dark yawning hunger for connection in my heart?  Could they feel the vastness of it that could never been filled? Was this why people I love always push me away? I wanted to weep. I wanted to fill the ocean with my tears. I wanted to be anywhere but on this little boat int he middle of nowhere with the personification of my knowledge that I will always end up on my own when it matters. Wild and desperate I cast about for something that could close the black hole in my chest. Nothing, nothing would ever be enough. The bright lady nudged me to look for something that could counter it. Something big enough and strong enough to at least be able to stand up to the vast aching need for connection. There, it was, huge and hungry but not nearly as horrifying. My curiosity was the one hunger that was big enough to stand up to alone. I let curiosity take over. I let it fill me and wonder at how we were going to get out of this. I let it look around at the little girl. I let it see the sun shining and the cool water.  It wondered why we had chosen this place. There had to be a reason.

As I let curiosity take hold I noticed the little girl just could not seem to cling so tightly to me. She was there, I could feel the weight of her, but I had become almost slippery. I was too busy looking for what could be to see into the darkness she represented. Truly, my hunger to learn and discover was a match for the need in this small child. I took her hand and I looked around. Curiosity whispered. “Why the ocean?” My heart responded with wonder, why would be be in a place that is a seeming desert without life? The ocean without life?  How absurd! It was then that I was consumed with the urge to just step into the ocean. Her hand in mine we did. We stepped into the water and found it safe, comfortable and unexpected. We also were able to see that there was life everywhere. We drifted peacefully to the sand below us. I noticed in this little bubble of the ocean there was light. I could see every detail clearly.  I let curiosity lead me.

We ended up looking at this little stretch of coral. At first it seemed cold and lifeless. I remembered wondering as a small child how they ever figured out that coral was alive. It looked like pretty rocks in funny shapes. The adult part of me spoke up and reminded us both that coral is in fact millions upon millions of tiny creatures. They grow these beautiful formations just like other animals grow shells. They also feed the life around them. They protect and house creatures as well.  A coral reef was, in fact, an amazing representation of how we can miss the truth of something if we aren’t looking at it correctly. It also showed how very connected it is to everything around it. As I realized these things and pondered all the other things I knew about coral and the life that is intertwined with it the creatures of my mind took shape. I could see the fish that lived in its nooks and crannies. The hermit crabs that simply looked like debris at first.  This coral that looked like a lonely rock in the middle of nothing was actually the hub of so much life.  I let curiosity take hold once more, why would I bring us here?

I noticed something had changed. The little girl was getting curious as well. The two gaping maws of the black holes pitting against each other had cancelled out the terrible and terrifying loneliness inside.  By looking at it again it started to ache in my chest once more. I realized that believing in the absoluteness of this feeling gave it more strength. That I could always find ways to make myself be alone. I could find ways to cut myself off from people even in the middle of a crowd. We feed our own demons sometimes.  Curiosity was still there, though.  It wanted to know if there was a way to defeat this feeling. It wanted to know what it would take for that little girl to believe in possibility again. Possibility…….

It hit me in a way that made my spirit reverberate into the heavens and deep into the earth. I felt like the entire cosmos and my very DNA had been altered by the sudden knowledge that possibility was the key.  It is possible that we will end up alone. It was also possible that we had more love and life around us than we realized at first.  I understood the lesson of the coral and I knew that the water would wash away my old beliefs. The little girl looked up at me and I looked back at her. I shed my imposed view of self and stretched my wings. I enveloped all of me, I embraced my bigness and my true self shown forth. I looked into the little girl’s eyes once more and realized that she could see me for the first time. I was big enough, strong enough, wise enough, and curious enough to protect her from her own fear. It was fear that bound us together and fear that would hold us until we could not breathe. What could we do to counter this fear? It was real. It was trying to protect us from being disappointed and hurt again.  It was not an evil thing, but it had grown strong and like a vine that kills the tree it grows upon it had begun to strangle my love as well. I could not run from it and I could not ignore it. Instead I began to look for a way to contain it. Curiosity told me it was possible and possibility meant that there was a universe where I did not need it.  It became possible to let go of this old old wound and see what I could discover on the other side. The hole in my chest eased a little.

The little girl let go of my hand. She wandered over to the coral and she looked at the fish there. They were her friends. She laughed and played and watched them with a curiosity that was growing faster than thought. I knew I had to leave her there. She did not belong with me anymore. She was too heavy to fly with me and I need to fly. I need to fly into the wide open spaces and see what I can find. I need to live where my wings can spread and my heart can soar. I need to be able to see far and wide to find all the things that are possible for me. She could only cling and weigh me down. Yet, she was a part of me. She was a part of me that I had known for my entire life. She represented a belief that had helped me navigate my world for as long as I had been trying. I was sad to leave her. What if I needed her again?  What if she needed me? She is a part of me, and I a part of her. I heard her laughter bubble around me. I smiled and I knew that I could always come to the reef to find her. I also knew that if she needed me she would send one of her special little silver fishies. We would part, but we would never be truly without each other. The urge to fly became so strong. I kissed her forhead. I told her she was loved. I left her there to discover that we are always connected, even when we can’t see it. I left her there to discover that she had enough love inside to slowly fill the darkness with light. I cried with both loss and with joy. I spread my wings and I flew through the water into the sky.

I watched as the water drifted from my legs, my arms and my wings. I felt the warmth of the sun. I let each drop of water carry away this feeling that love would always lose me. I looked about and let curiosity take over once again.  I realized that the little girl had her wish fulfilled, but sideways, like life usually does.  We never get what we ask for exactly like we expect. We often get it in a way that takes us time to recognize. It sneaks up on us and before we know it we are surrounded by what we needed most. Possibility filled my crown and fed the rest of me. It flowed downwards and it eased the ache in my heart. It acknowledged that alone can happen and is real. It also saw that it is entirely possible that I won’t always be alone either. Before I knew where I was, or even that I had chosen to be traveling at all, I saw land below me. This is the land where my loves currently live. They each have their own special place and dwelling. Some of those houses were cold and broken. They were not what was important right now. Right now what mattered was the loves that were alive and warm. I could see them. I could see the forms that the world sees and I could see the forms that their true selves take. In this place their very spirit has a shape. I could see the love lighting the world around them. I found myself standing on land and holding each love in turn. I could see that some where brighter than others. Some where steady and some where flickering with change. It was all possible. It was all ok. In this world I could see them for what they are and accept them as they are. No more aching need trying to make me cling to them and strangle their light. I embraced them and wrapped my wings around them. I honored each beings truth as they honored mine. There was a small bit of sadness. They were not meant to fly with me. They live here, in this place on the ground. While that could change, I realized I need to accept now, and stop trying to force possibility into the present. I wept and I loved. I held and I let go. I let each thing be itself and I looked once more to the sky. I appreciated the beauty they bring to this land. I admire the homes they built for themselves. This was not my land though, it is theirs and I am just a visitor. A very lucky visitor for few ever get to see this place and these people. My tears of sadness became tears from overwhelming beauty.

I took to the skies once more. I looked out into the unknown horizon and I realized… every possible thing is out there if I stay curious enough to look for it. I just have to keep searching and maybe it is possible I will find someone to fly with me one day. Even if I don’t that is ok too for I am big, strong, capable and complete all unto myself. I could love them more and visit more lightly because I don’t need them. I chose them and they choose me. Now, to fly once more and see what else might be possible.

Hawaii and sunrise

This trip has been so amazing. I can’t begin to do it justice. I am just going to talk about one small part of this trip. Due to calendar complications the best time to take the trip happened to overlap with the anniversary of my mom’s sudden death 5 years ago.

This is, unsurprisingly, a difficult day for me. So, I made a plan. I wanted to turn this day into a positive force in my life. I thought starting a new tradition for the day while in Hawaii was an opportunity to do something good and powerful for myself. I decided that this will be the day I do a letting go ceremony.

It was simple. Meditation and I wrote down my wishes. I took them to the rocks at the edge of the ocean. I read my wishes to the wind and burned the paper they were written on. I used the salt water of the ocean to cleanse and purify. I started in motion the wish to let go of all the things that get in the way of my truest authentic self.

There are a lot of details I am leaving out but I can’t leave out what happened the next day (this morning as I write this). I got up early to go to Punalu’u (a black sand beach) and watch the sunrise over the ocean for the first time in my life. This beach has some of the most powerful waves I have ever witnessed outside a storm. It has a sand beach but it also has the incredible volcanic flows (now rock) that lead out to the water.

I stood there on the rocks at what felt like the edge of the world and I watched the sunrise. The sound of the waves crashing against the rocks filled my ears. The air was soft, warm and clean.

I breathed in and it felt like I was breathing for the first time. The connection with this place and myself was so strong all I could do was cry. Tears rolled down and the sun climbed higher washing the sky with pink and lilac. I breathed again. I felt the soft salt air fill me up and make me light. I breathed out and felt so much leave me. I wish I could tell you what left but I haven’t figured that out yet.

I know that the wish I made the day before was set in motion this sunrise. As the waves sprayed me and danced around my feet I was purified. I was renewed as the Pheonix is renewed in the ashes of it’s former self. I have no idea where the journey is going to take me. I just have to trust that I will know what to do as I get there . I have to believe I can survive anything and find a way to be better on the other side.