To heal, you must be willing to disrupt your equilibrium. To go deep into the unseen, unknown places, to allow the energy there to be stirred and released.
As part of my process of becoming a mentor in the spiritual tradition I follow, I am required to undergo six therapeutic sessions–typically these are psychological, sessions of “talk therapy.” Talk therapy has long since stopped being a mode that works for me, that gets into the depths of my shadow places, the parts that are in need of exploration and exposition. Years of yoga and various body-centered energetic healing modalities have unearthed and revealed into the light of recognition long festering patterns of behavior. So to meet my six session requirements, I requested and was given permission to work with a pair of Shamanic healers who teach in our lineage.
The question I’m pursuing is not important. Although it has a story or elements of story: a who, what, where and when, and likely has a why, I’m not really pursuing those. I’m no longer interested in the story per se. It’s more like a flavor, a residue. It’s like the splinters that remain after a large sliver is removed from the flesh.
I’ve worked with these two healers previously around this particular issue, and in both cases, they brought about huge shifts for me. Each time, we met in person in small groups that were working together for a longer period, once for a week and then for a weekend. The sessions I’m doing now are happening via Skype. They begin with prayer, with calling in the elements, the unseen guides that surround us at all times. There’s a short conversation about the issue being pursued, and then there’s a long period of energetic work in which I am more or less passive, sitting, eyes closed, breathing the circular breath used in rebirthing, and feeling into what is happening in my body.
A lot happened in my body. Painful contraction around my solar plexus. Heat. Cramping. More heat. Deep vibration. My teacher held me between two crystals, one at my crown and one beneath my feet, and my body was filled with expansion. I had to loosen my shoulders from their joints and let my arms hang out at an angle. I saw the Christ and Magdalen. I saw my father and waves of light that was more than light, a sort of deeply embodied incandescence. I was the hills and the snow and the ether that holds everything.
She told me that I would continue to integrate the healing. It might show up in my dreams. Might interrupt my sleep. Might make me vulnerable, raw, irritable. To ground myself, drink plenty of water, take hot baths. Walk consciously in the outdoors, breathing the cold air, feeling the earth beneath my feet. To ask for forgiveness. To know that I was healing.
In the last thirty six hours, I’ve manifested most of the side effects she noted. I feel a deep discomfort in my body, in my Being. And yet, as she pointed out, this is how I know that healing is happening.
We are always a process. Never a product. There is no end point, no completion, no perfection. As long as we inhabit these human bodies, we will continue to unfold. When we awaken into embodied consciousness, it is a second birth, a continual maturation that along with our being alive brings a deepening into what we are. All that has come before us going back to the primordial ooze is within us to be integrated. We are not separate from all that is or has ever been. The further I go, the deeper I go. It’s a folding as much as an unfolding. I fold more deeply into my parts as they unfold within me. I’m merging with every thread and fiber of my Being.
This is an essential process for anyone who sets out to guide others on their journey. It’s a shamanic process, this journeying. We must be familiar with the terrain and be willing to face its fearful aspects as well as its shining peaks. We must be willing to upset our own equilibrium, to lean into our own discomfort, to take everything we have been given and honor its gifts. Being is a powerful master. Are you willing to learn what it has to teach? In life, the poison is often also the antidote. Learning is homeopathic. A small dose will go a long way.
subhaga crystal bacon 