Calling Our Spirits Home: Gateways to Full Consciousness
Chapter Five
Things Buried Deep and Tended Well
In the Bay of Bengal off the eastern coast of India, there are a series of islands, actually the peaks of submerged mountains. Some are uninhabited. Some are covered with lush forests whose shed materials make thick carpets upon the ground. The dense humidity of Nicobar Islands provides the environment for natural composting to mix with the sand. There is an express species of bird that lives on these islands and uses nature to its advantage. Rather than making the usual nest, the bird couple digs a hole in the peaty ground. The female lays her eggs and then the couple covers the eggs with plant matter. The hot sun beating down on the covered nest plays its part. Mother Nature has provided an incubation system that frees the parents to search for food or what other things birds do, while returning periodically to check on the state of their soon-to-be offspring.
On a television nature show, the camera caught an unexpected turn of events for a particular pair of these birds. The female laid her eggs in the hole the pair had dug. Afterward, they meticulously scratched leaves, bark and sand over the eggs. Satisfied with their work, they left for the time being. While the birds were busy in their process, unbeknownst to them, at a distance, hidden behind a tree was a large lizard eyeing them intently. Once the birds had gone, the lizard scuttled from its hiding place, went directly to the pit where she uncovered the eggs and promptly ate them whole! Then, dropping herself into the same dug-out she proceeded to lay her own eggs, haphazardly replaced the shielding, before going her way.
After a time the bird couple returned. Chirping over the nest, they seemed to be content in their care of it. They would scratch over a few more sticks here and uncover a bit more there. Instinctively, they tended the incubation of the eggs through their cycle. One day while they were there, there was a slight movement in the earth. More underground movement ensued until finally a hole was made. The bird parents eyed the hole expectantly. But instead of a little winged being with sparse feathers plastered to its body, a wet scaly little creature with beady eyes emerged! Startled, their expectancy turned bewildered as their heads then whirled toward each other seeming to say, ‘What is this ugly thing and what are we supposed to do with it?’
Signals from Our Depths
How many times have any of us been confounded by a sudden turn of events when all is flowing smoothly? When we least expect it something reaches up out of some algae-filled depths or grabs at us from the shadows and catches us off guard. We stop short, become confused and then…angry. ‘Everything was going so well. I was really getting somewhere,’ we complain. We may then blame ourselves, ‘I knew I couldn’t do it anyway. What’s the use?’ Or, those of us with a more paranoid nature may say something to this effect: ‘The world’s out to get me. Why even bother?’ What is it that really gets in our way? Is it really in our way? Could we actually learn to welcome these events as a signal?
Dimitri cannot seem to get anywhere⏤in his estimation. He thinks of himself as a ‘deal maker.’ He has an elegant manner and appearance, intellect and business savvy. To the casual observer he would be deemed ‘successful.’ At the same time, there also exists a certain desperation within him. Taking a closer look, one may become aware of a tightness in his voice tone, a tautness in his body like a big cat ready to spring and a kind of pulling energy that surrounds him. At the moment, he is resentful. I can almost feel his mind furiously stirring his gut. A few months before, life was producing for him. He had been riding high. He had been able to secure a few large contracts for his new employer. He had finally found the woman of his dreams. Now, she said she didn’t want to see him anymore. His firm had been dumped from one of the contracts he thought he had secured, and there was nothing more in sight. As I listened to him, he said things like: “I knew it was too good to be true.” “You’ve got to ‘beat up’ on the other guy.” “I’m always having to chase a deal.” “Why am I on a treadmill?” The more he talked, the more I began to hear the underlying beliefs that kept him in the circumstances where he was most familiar. ‘Life is a struggle.’ ‘You’ve got to grab what little you can while you can.’ ‘There isn’t enough to go around.’
If our lives are structured around a scarcity mentality, we will find lack to be true for us. If we are always chasing a deal, or a relationship, or a vision, it will forever be just out of reach, much like Zora Neale Hurston’s Watcher whose dreams sail eternally on the horizon. Imagine the Seeker who never locates the answer or the Pilgrim who never finds the Source. Bring to mind the one who is perpetually hovering at the doorway, but never going through to the other side. Even with the underlying belief of scarcity, Dimitri possesses something that other’s who give up do not⏤hope. Hope paired with his propensity toward action keeps him going.
There is also something else. Dimitri is a paradox. Within the crisply pressed, fast-talking businessman dwells a gentle being who longs for spiritual connection. His business associates would be blind to this aspect of him because he keeps it well hidden. After all, he could quite clearly imagine how they would go for his soft underbelly. However, it was that ‘longing’ part of him that drove him to seek out a young Native American man who would become his teacher in ancient rituals that were a part of Dimitri’s heritage. As he began to follow his Spirit path, that intuitive part of him drew him to rent out his beautifully renovated carriage house in the inner city and move to the water. Although he did not really know why, Dimitri had always been drawn to water. Thinking himself partially crazy, he bought a sailboat and moved aboard. Now, he burns sweetgrass and meditates on the waves and allows the wind to move through him. What his core part knew that he did not, even though he unconsciously felt it, was that the more that he had opened himself, the more he responded to the energies surrounding him and took them on as his own. In his working and living environment, he had been taking in the violence he felt around him that colluded with his belief system. Spirit said, “Give this man some relief!” So, the wind and the waves are his sanctuary. He is learning to bring them inside himself. As he learns to do so, his heart will send forth the energy that will attract to him what he dreams of in life.
Once when I was meditating in the forest with my back against an aspen, a spontaneous vision came to me. The aspen was telling me its story. It told of branches stretching upward to the sky. It told of ants and spiders and all sorts of crawly things on its surface. There was a snuffling pig-like animal, a javelina, pushing its nose under the leaves and into the dirt around the base of the aspen. I could feel the warm sun, the tickling of minute legs moving over me and the dislodging of material around my feet. In the instant I realized that the aspen was me, I felt my legs going down beneath the surface and connecting to the underground rooted maze of my aspen sisters and brothers, my universal family. In that next moment, I could feel myself tall, strong and supported. Yes, there may come times when things may become unearthed and lay upon my surface or even attempt to consume me. Those are the times, the message was, when I am to be reminded of myself as the aspen. For Dimitri, it may be a remembrance of water and its fluid nature. After all, isn’t the ocean where all life began?
But what is it that keeps Dimitri split apart from his fluid nature? What keeps any of us from our true destiny? It is the box we have put around ourselves. It is the map of the world to which we have ascribed. It is the beliefs that we have role modeled as our own. It is the events that have thus naturally come to reinforce all these things and woven the interminable web that holds us for good or ill. Even if we have made a conscious choice that we want something different than we have been getting, set that outcome for ourselves and began to move toward it, we more often than not find ourselves sidelined by one thing or another. This is because we are being taught.
The Gift of Our Biology
The human brain is an evolutionary miracle. Over eons it has developed from the primitive limbic brain to the cortex and then the neocortex, taking us from purely response mechanisms to reasoned beings. In his book Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman says that the limbic brain is responsible for the “emotional hijackings” that we all experience in life. Specifically, he is talking about the amygdala, an almond-shaped bit of matter that rests on the brainstem. Herein lies the repository for emotional remembrances.[i] The webs in which we have entangled ourselves are built upon beliefs and values, the foundation for deep emotional learning and the response mechanism of the amygdala. Consider Dimitri. He is used to his life being less than mediocre⏤by his definition. Along comes an opportunity in the form of a new job. He works hard. He gets results. Blessed of all events, he finds a soulmate. His amygdala says, “Wait a minute! I know this can’t be true. This doesn’t match my life experience. This isn’t real.” The alarm goes off. The negative energy goes out to attract its match to return. Sure enough, Chicken Little is right after all. The sky falls. The status quo returns. His blessings evaporate.
The amygdala has a precious responsibility. It helps to keep us alive. When something out of the ordinary happens, it clangs the bell that activates the fight or flight adrenaline within us. This is all well and good, but the amygdala is a response mechanism that doesn’t think. It acts on instinct. The neocortex is the one that does the reasoning, and reasoning is often slower than emotional leapfrogging. For the amygdala, it doesn’t care if Dimitri has lost his job or won ten contracts. The emotions of fear and excitement are closely linked. The amygdala’s role is to get things back to the level of ‘normal’ activity again. The more deeply imprinted the instinct or belief system the more indelibly the amygdala will react.
We could choose now to blame the lowly amygdala for all of life’s woes, for the spinning of our wheels. But what story would it tell to believe instead that our individual limbic brains are actually in secret alliance with our higher consciousness and not acting in conflict with each other? His higher consciousness, true nature or core part is the source from which springs Dimitri’s hope and faith. So that, even though there is a thin little voice inside that moans, “I don’t deserve . . .” or “They won’t let me . . .” he still has a vision for something more than what he has had.
If the reader does not yet regard this alliance to be optimal, consider Jeffrey. He had been working for his wife’s father. While the salary his father-in-law gave him was quite comfortable, he felt undervalued in the family business and, indeed, he was not producing. Against his wife’s wishes, he decided to venture into business on his own.
Jeffrey knows about visioning, about getting the brain used to a new reality. He is a highly religious man and believes that God will provide. He just needs to ask. In his morning prayers, he meditates on abundance. He visualizes new business and energy flowing to him in the form of money that he can, in turn, release back into the world. For him, all is about clarity, belief and reciprocity. And he waits. What he expects does not come. Nothing comes. At first, he thinks his faith is being tested. He acknowledges this and continues to offer up his needs. Finally, he finds himself in turmoil and severe financial straits. Jeffrey knows enough to finally say to himself, “What is going on here? What is stopping me?”
Involution to Evolution
In Japan, when students are being trained in swordsmanship they are initially given a bamboo sword. Normally, the teacher first sets them to some menial chore such as sweeping or cleaning out the garden. While a student works, the teacher repeatedly jumps from hidden places and bashes the student. He is expected to defend himself with whatever he has available, such as a broom or cushion. After a while the novice student is perpetually on the lookout for these unwelcome attacks. He starts to see movement in the shadows when indeed there may be none. Continually on his mind: where is the next point of attack? Since the teacher is more astute that the student, the next jab will forever emerge from unforeseen directions. The progressive student will eventually realize this and surrender to the process. When this happens, the teacher knows that the student is ready for the next level⏤fencing. This is real defense.[ii]
In order to have evolution, we must first have involution. I am reminded of a time when I was on a wilderness retreat with Don Américo. I was fascinated by his translator. Ricardo did a beautiful job of translating by closing his eyes to shut out all distractions in order to truly hear what Don Américo was saying. From that place, he would speak.
This was much the same as the discovery work that Jeffrey had set for himself. Jeffrey was ready to fence. By holding the intent, going inside and surrendering to the process, profound awareness swam up from murky places to break through to the light of day. The complex tapestry that Jeffrey came to see was his role modeling of his minister father to whom the parish provided, but it was never enough. His childhood family stayed poor.
This was complicated by the fact that Jeffrey somehow acquired a belief that he was not “good enough” to raise himself or his present-day family from that state. The all-knowing Church taught that God would provide and so Jeffrey waited for Providence. Good things come to those who wait. From his family-of-origin he also learned that the Lord provided, yet did not provide.
When he had the realization of what was holding him, in the next instant it dawned on him that God also expected him to have the faith to take steps toward his dreams. It was as though the veil lifted from his face and he could now see. He had an abundance mentality, but had made little effort toward action that would lead him there. So, no fruit could be blessed to ripen.
Since this discovery, Jeffrey’s life has shifted dramatically. Not only does he have the vision, he is working toward the vision and it is bearing fruit. Jeffrey’s strong values around a plentiful world worked well for him while inactivity due to outdated beliefs acted against him. It took the signals from his amygdala to break down his progress in order for him to evolve into behaviors that would reinforce new beliefs he hoped to instill within himself.
The Role of Stories and Metaphors
What are the hidden meanings behind events that confound us? What are the stories we are telling with our lives? What myths are we professing? When we are young children we are full of wonder and curiosity. We are very open. Our brain does not yet have much reasoning power. We often take things literally, things that are said and unsaid. The things coming from people we trust are taken as truth, particularly from those who are close to us like our parents or whoever else may have raised us. At that age we have to trust our parents because we depend on them for our very survival. Our early schoolteachers are much like surrogate parents. We know that our guardians have handed over the reins to others for some hours a day. Therefore, the teachers must be trustworthy, too. More often than not, at this stage of the life game we take in what we see and what we are told by these people as our own truths and we begin to fashion our lives accordingly.
Stories and metaphor have a powerful effect on us. The imagery produced from language is very attractive to the brain, so that the message being sent often deposits itself in our deeper layers. This is so for all ages. Listening attentively to a story builds the pictures in our minds or feelings in our bodies that take us into a trance state. In this state, our unconscious mind is more open to receiving. The medical hypnotherapist Milton Erickson knew this well. When people left his office they would often find themselves healed when all he frequently did was skillfully tell a tale to their secret Selves. To debunk a popular myth, when people are under hypnosis if they are asked to do something that is against their beliefs or values, they will not do it and become aroused from the trance. However, young children are still building their beliefs and values and most often do not have the ‘reject button.’ They probably have not yet discovered if the message in a story is true or not from their experience. If presented to them by someone who matters to them, the meaning most often would be seen as fact or something to role model.
One of my favorite memories from childhood was when my parents read to me. These frequent events were the likely building blocks that cause me even today to retreat to a quiet place and read as a way of nurturing myself. Indeed, each time I made a geographic move and unpacked boxes of books, I felt like I was greeting old friends. As a child, I felt very special when my parents took time to read to me because I got their undivided attention. This was so even when my father would try to fool me by skipping pages. I would protest loudly because I knew most of the stories by heart. There was one particular space of time when my mother was reading to me that sticks in my mind vividly. I was probably six or seven years old and we had recently moved across country. Being a shy child, I was feeling pretty vulnerable. My mother sat on the couch and I had stretched out full length and put my head in her lap. She proceeded to read me a story, probably the first full novel she had read to me. The scene repeated itself again and again over time and that feeling of love and security became firmly anchored within. The book she read aloud was Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. I know that she read Tom Sawyer to me at some time, but there must have been something in Huck Finn that resonated in me perhaps because he may have struck chords in her. It became a cherished book for years.
Reader, you probably have a favorite book from childhood that comes to mind even as you read the recounting of mine here. The thing that has come to be amazing to me was how much I unconsciously replayed that book through the years. Several years ago, a friend of mine had been to a workshop where the subject matter was regarding the effect that stories we heard have had in our lives. Her favorite childhood story had been The Princess and the Pea. The fairy tale is about a girl who had to keep piling up mattresses on her bed because of a hard little knot she felt when she laid down. She finally discovered the knot to be a small pea beneath all the layers. My friend uncovered that she was the princess with the pea. She had rarely known a smooth day in her life, always expecting to experience small irritants. These annoyances ranged from a number of non-debilitating allergies to friction in most of her relationships.
As she talked and realized how completely she had bought into the fairy tale, dear old Huck came into my mind. I began to notice how many characteristics that Huck and I had in common. I had always felt ‘different’ from other people, living on the edge and never in the crowd. Even though I had a caring family, I had felt like an orphan somehow. I even used to entertain myself with fantasies that I was adopted. This was just a child’s fanciful imagination and not the case at all. However, being an ‘orphan’ myself, I always took up for the underdog. I also inherited Huck’s sense of adventure and risk-taking⏤the need to see what is just over the next rise. His compulsion to be footloose and fancy-free was within me, too. While I prided myself in many of those characteristics, I also realized the Huck inside me kept me from some much deeper experiences of life. These were things like allowing myself to be close to other people and maybe even to be with one person in deep relationship. I realized that Huck needed to learn to trust, as did I.
The great thing about understanding our stories is that, since they are autobiographical, we can rewrite them at any time. There are many parts of Huck that I chose to keep just as they always were, but there are parts of him that I edited and metamorphosed in order to have deeper experience in my life.
The Nature of Religious Realities
If fairy tales and other stories are filtered into our existence at a young age, just imagine the influence of religious teachings through the Bible, Sunday school, Koran or whatever means are prevalent in our various cultures. As an example, while the Bible is a teaching tool that guides us to assimilation into society by creating some necessary boundaries, many of the teachings when taken literally rather than metaphorically, or when taken out of context, are a detriment. I have experienced, through my own experience, the insidious nature of biblical stories to infiltrate our minds. While not raised with a religious focus or having rarely attended any church activity even at an early age, a seed still slipped in and took root because of the insidious nature of religious dogma with all parts of our lives. There is no division. This rooting developed over the years, unbeknownst to me, and showed its face time and again in these later years. I found that I had bought into the Crucifixion story, but not without a lot of digging on my own to fully understand the nature of a fear I held and its origins.
In The Unvarnished Gospels translated from the original Greek by Andy Gaus, Jesus’ actions and words are related in The Good Word According to Mark.
And going on from there, they were traveling through Galilee, but he didn’t want anyone to know, because he was teaching his students and telling them that the son of humanity would be betrayed into the hands of the world, and they would kill him, and he would rise again three days after being killed. But they didn’t get what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.[iii]
The disciples probably did get the message though, and were afraid to acknowledge it. They also saw the prophecy borne out in reality, the story goes. Those of us who unsuspectingly ascribe to a prevalent belief⏤if I show my power I will be killed⏤bought it, too. The Church consistently reinforced the thread throughout history when those who did show their power or truth were martyred for one reason or another, but later declared saints.
Joan of Arc is a good example. This phenomenon is certainly an interesting catch-22. The Inquisition was a frightful reminder of the consequences for showing power by being a nonconformist or using similar healing modalities as Jesus did. Since most of those unfortunate victims of the patriarchal horror were women, females have learned to hide very well over the centuries. Often, they do not even realize that they do it. Women by no means have a corner on the market. Although, their hidden natures may be more evident in a lack of visibility or feeling that they must manipulate others to get what they need. Men who have been exposed to the dangers of owning their Being in various ways are just as susceptible to disowning their birthrights. Even though we are in a very different place than our ancestors were, genetic memory remains encrusted on our souls.
On my own journey, I found that, as I stripped away more and more in the way of my environment, behaviors and beliefs that were not serving me, I increasingly had situations happen, both personally and professionally. I was crucified. At least, crucifixion was my experience⏤mournful bloody nailings that smote me at the most tender yet strongest level and would cause me to perpetually question my very existence. You could say that I would descend into what Carolyn Myss calls spiritual madness. That state is not a comforting place to be, but also signals a transition from what was to what can be. It was the signal and the ‘can be’ on which I began to focus my attention.
By virtue of the fact that any of us embark on the Spirit Path, we invite the demon in to tea. The more we adhere to the Path, the more we will realize that it is in our best interest not to dis-invite the demon. Rather it is for us to graciously open the door to our guest and draw up next to the fire, hot as it may be. From this vantage point, we can face him and look unstintingly into his yellow glinting eyes to see what is reflected there by the fire. We will find that we see ourselves.
I became aware of a pattern. Believing in my work yet afraid to perform it, I would, with some consistency, agree to take on clients who were not ready to move forward. Even though they may say “yes,” I knew in my heart there lurked a “no” in theirs. Consequently, my work with them would come to a crossroads where they could choose to go on or to retreat. They would choose to retreat. Contracts were broken. I was thrown into questioning my purpose once again, my foundation seemed to be obliterated. To my credit, I also contracted with clients who not only moved on, but fairly flew in the process. Looking back, I can clearly see that these clients would serve as a small form of resurrection from my crucifixions. This unconscious pattern kept me safe. I did not have to fully expose myself and, after all , wasn’t I just misguidedly playing out the age-old story of one of the greatest teachers?
I had not realized how deeply in my psyche the complex penetrated until one day I was relating my observations to a friend. In an off-hand way he said to me, “The crucifixion was the biggest myth, you know.” My heart seemed to stop at his words. Not that I considered what he said to be sacrilegious at all, but because it hit me somewhere deep inside. I am eternally grateful to my friend for those words. Since that time, I have been relinquishing that particular story in order to take on more options around what success and possibility mean in my life. Along with the quote from Jesus about the sower whose seeds landed in various places, hospitable and inhospitable, I like the one that says:
And he said to them, “Whatever house you go into, stay there till you leave that place. And whatever place doesn’t receive you or listen to you, when you go away from there, shake the dust from underneath your shoes . . .”[iv]
This way we can believe in our convictions and talents, but also know what we have to offer is not for everyone. Nor can it be. We are all exactly where we choose to be, and we are not all in the same place. In 1967 Alan Watts gave a talk he entitled Echo Zen in which he discussed the nature of Self. What is voluntary and involuntary within us? We can control our breath, but when we are not thinking about it our breath continues. This is true for how we can affect our own blood pressure and any number of aspects of ourselves.
If you really get with your Self and you really find out that you really are all of your Self, a very strange thing happens. You will find that your body knows that you are one with the Universe. In other words, the involuntary circulation of your blood is one continuous process with the stars shining. If you find out that it is you who circulates your blood, you will find out at the same moment that it is you who is shining the sun because your physical organism is one with everything else that is going on.[v]
Just the same, we try to play the game that we are separate from or not responsible for the events that are happening in our lives. If we are shining the sun, how are the events or people around us a mirror for parts of us? In my own particular case, just as a client is afraid to take a risk or move forward in their thinking, what part of me is afraid to do the same? What little death would I have to experience to be resurrected in a different form? If we look squarely into our reflection and seek out the true nature of the events in our lives, we can come into our own true natures with all aspects of our own suchness.
A flip side to the Crucifixion conviction is the certitude that if I unleash my power I will destroy others, which is also widely prevalent. History shows us many examples there, too. When we look at these past abominations, we may somehow see that potential within ourselves. We attempt to exorcise these horrific parts of ourselves and deny them. Even Mother Teresa related that she looked inside and saw a Hitler in her heart. That glimpse was a great motivation for the work she did. Look at Nature. Just as she supports us with her body so that we may have a foundation to walk and feed upon; does she not also bring us earthquakes, fire and flooding? Just as Virginia Satir, the pioneering family therapist, said to a religious woman who was disowning parts of herself, “Are you presuming that God would make a mistake?” The duality always exists and it is perfect.
For some of us, we may find that not only have we been harboring a Crucifixion complex, but we also fear our Kali-like[1] natures. Incorporation of these two somewhat polar beliefs certainly leads to puzzling stagnation. In my journey, I was to also find this skulking fear, previously unknown and darkly hidden. What I am about to relate here is totally bizarre in my experience. I might have thought that I had gone crazy at the time except for the fact that I had witnesses to these events.
Shortly after I had moved cross-country from Ohio to begin ‘my new life,’ we began to experience a phenomenon in our home. At the time, we did not realize that it was a phenomenon. A smell appeared⏤like something had died. We searched the attic and the crawlspace beneath the house and turned up nothing. The smell was confined to the place where we spent most of our time working. It would come and go. I attempted to track the occurrences thinking it might be a fungus of sorts. It would come when the sun was shining or when it was raining. It could be gone for weeks and reappear suddenly. There was no rhyme or reason for its existence that I could determine. What I did know was this. Whereas the smell had initially been more subtle, it began increasing in strength until we could get strong whiffs of it at the opposite end of the house. It was obnoxious. Yet, it never ventured beyond the room where we worked.
An inkling that it may be related to something otherworldly came to me after I began to go into the room to work when the air was sweet smelling, and within a few moments the odor would appear. I could leave the room and come back a while later to find the smell gone. We even started referring to it as ‘our friend,’ but I was beginning to lose patience with this unpleasantness. I remember even saying out loud, “I don’t care if you’re here. Just don’t stink so much!” But, he did not relent. My partner and I had come to sense this discarnate was a male energy. The reek had progressed to a cross between the musk of a rutting animal and long-dead fish. I had come to the end of my rope. Not knowing what else to do, we sought the assistance of a priest who performed house blessings, and sometimes exorcisms. After coming over for a preliminary visit to get a sense of the property and hear the story, the priest looked straight at me and said, “He’s really attracted to you, isn’t he?” That was when we realized that ‘our friend’ almost always only appeared when I was on the premises.
Knowing that our priest friend could not come back for some weeks to perform his ritual, I thought if this entity was attracted to me, then I would take steps to help its release. Alone late one night, I performed a ceremony of intent and then entered what seemed to have become more his space than ours. There I began to do distance healing using Reiki. An odd thing happened that I had never experienced before. As I carried out each Reiki hand position on my surrogate[2], after a while I would feel an energetic release in each of those places within my own body. Then I knew it was time to move on to the next hand position until completion. Finishing up with a form of energetic cleaning that I had learned from Don Américo, I felt a sense of relief. The air seemed charged and clear.
My relief was short-lived. A couple of days later I was focused on my work when I thought I caught a whiff of something. I initially put it down to paranoia, but then I caught it again. Finally, I stood up and started to walk the few feet to leave the room⏤and I stepped right into the smell, ranker than it had ever been. I stepped away and the smell was nearly gone; stepped forward, and I was in it once again. My discarnate had begun to take on form! I exited quickly. When I went back later, he was gone again.
I often traveled with my work. Sometimes I would be gone a week or more. Soon after his ‘gelling,’ I was out of town for some time. After my return, I went into my office and sat down at the desk. No sooner had I sat down than I could literally feel his malodorous being clamoring all over my body, much like a dog who had missed his mistress. Luckily for my sanity, the priest came within a few days to perform his release and blessing ritual. For a few months, the house seemed cleansed and free of inhabitants other than those living on this physical plane.
Then, I went to Aspen for a couple of weeks to visit my partner who was working there, and to do some writing. Right before I returned home I had a session with Todd Welden, a highly gifted herbalist and cranial sacral practitioner. With his assistance I was able to release an energy block at the base of my skull that I had been experiencing as a tremendous pressure pushing to a bursting point during meditation. For the next few days, it was replaced by a feeling that something solid had been plucked out and fresh air was circulating in this newly exposed space. I had the sensation of being wide open.
Shortly after I arrived home two days later, I entered the office, sat down and focused on going through the mail that had piled up. I was alone in the house, or so I thought. Almost immediately, I felt something bumping up against my back and then, at the base of my skull. The only thing I can say is that I had a sense of something trying to enter me. I scooted well forward in my chair, threw my arms backward and yelled, “No!” Whatever it was dispersed. I assumed that ‘our friend’ had returned and I was hopping mad at his nerve and uninvited attempt to enter me.
After racking my brain for additional alternatives for dealing with this strange problem, I finally remembered Suzanne Wagner, a well known intuitive in Salt Lake City. I telephoned her with my odd story and began briefly relating the history of my encounters. When I had barely described the smell as a cross between rutting animals and dead fish she said, “That makes sense. What I am seeing is a large sailing ship, probably from a few centuries ago. People didn’t pay much attention to hygiene back then and on a ship it probably would smell fishy. This is a slave ship and you had some level of power that you misused. You are coming into your power more and more now. This entity is here reminding you not to do what you did before.”
Bizarre? Yes, but some part of me became calm and I remembered another recent event that I thought unusual at the time. I had been a participant at a retreat. There was another participant with whom I had yet to have interaction, but I could feel her gazing at me periodically. Finally, she came over and out of the blue said, “Do you know the origins of the song Amazing Grace?” She went on to relate how the writer of the hymn, John Newton, had been the commander of a slave ship. He eventually saw the horror of what he had done and underwent a transformation. Amazing Grace was a tribute to his conversion and faith. “I thought you would want to know that,” she said. I probably looked at her blankly, but did thank her for what I thought at the time was just an interesting piece of information. It was only later when I put my conversation with Suzanne and the unexpected discussion of Amazing Grace together that I fully realized the extent that I had unknowingly self-endorsed the belief if I own my power I will hurt others.
Am I a reincarnation of a slave ship captain or one of his mates? I don’t know. Or, as someone suggested to me, did I manifest that smell originating from my fearful belief that I was capable of dark deeds like a young girl might manifest a poltergeist? I don’t know. What I do know is this: Since my conversation with Suzanne, I have yet to experience ‘our friend’ again. It has been a few years now.
Hidden Debt
Returning to Jesus’ death, there may be another way that we are unconsciously affected⏤through the Atonement. Essentially, the Church teaches that Jesus was sacrificed so that we could be saved. It would be interesting to look at the origins of emotional debt⏤what we think we owe or are owed. This issue could harken back to Jeffrey’s story earlier in this chapter. If, on the one hand, we buy into the Atonement we may also believe we are owed things in life. On the other hand, if we still think we are sinners even with the Atonement, we can never owe others enough. Bezalel, a pen name for the author of The Meaning of Biblical Sacrifice, could not believe that God was other than pure and loving and had a hard time aligning herself to the traditional Church because of that view. She set out to find her own answers. Her research turned into a book. She concluded that, “Sacrifice is consecration and purification. Jesus sacrificed himself so that we could know him. He was offering himself to us.”[vi] This is a translation of unconditional love to which no debt is owed.
Nick LeForce, a hypnotherapist in Sacramento who has done much work around emotional debt, sees this issue from an additional perspective. Jesus chose to sacrifice himself so that he could be cleansed in order that we could truly know him. Since he was a metaphor for the world, we were cleansed in the process. These two perspectives release the entire matter of emotional debt originating from biblical sources.[vii]
Perhaps Jesus was not only a preeminent teacher, but also an intelligent politician. Without the Crucifixion or the Atonement, we may never have heard of him. At any rate, he certainly knew the power of metaphor to secretly affect people. He related so in the Gospel of Mark.
And when they were by themselves, those around him, along with the twelve, asked him about the metaphors. And he said to them,“To you the mystery of the kingdom of God is given, but to those people outside it is all done in metaphors, so that when they look, they look, but do not see; and when they hear, they hear but do not understand; lest they should come back; and it should be forgiven them.”[viii]
So, the key is to be mindful of those things we ingest. Stories can indeed be used for positive purpose, as was Jesus’ intent. Certainly, that was Alan Watts’ objective when he gave a book of Zen stories to a sick friend. When his friend returned the book he reported, “I didn’t understand a word of it, but it cheered me up tremendously.”[ix] However, if we find that we are acting in unhealthy ways we cannot fathom, a review of favorite childhood stories or religious doctrine could hold a key to understanding.
Relating to Relationship
It is also interesting to look at the relationships in our lives, particularly the intimate ones, and what base they are built upon. I noticed that I had been powerfully drawn to movies about star-crossed lovers such as Gone With the Wind, Romeo and Juliet, Camelot and Legends of the Fall. In all of these dramatic, emotional stories, the characters were intensely attracted to each other, but their circumstances or individual quirks kept them apart. I would sit in the darkened theater crying for their loss, as it reminded me of my own⏤and perhaps how I had fashioned my own partnerings. When connection is such a basic need, how is it that it is one of the most challenging paths to walk, and some of us cannot even entreat ourselves to really travel it? Perhaps it is because we know that parts of our ego selves may be threatened or asked to die to something greater.
During a time when I was in India, our group was sitting around the table after dinner when one half of a married couple told the story of how he and his wife had met. He urged others to tell their stories. As others began to talk, the man seated to my left said something in soft tones. Jack was a tall white-haired, raw-boned man of few words who kept to himself. I had fantasies of him living in the wilds of the Northwest where he was from, in a cabin and supporting himself off the land. It was far from the truth, but he certainly fit the part in my mind.
Knowing that he shared little, when he spoke I sensed he really needed to be heard and turned to listen. “I know the woman of my dreams,” he spoke only loud enough for me to hear. He told me his story; how he had met her fifteen years ago while on a vacation, and all he knew was her name. She would not tell him where she was from or much else. With just that much to go on, he felt a deep longing. He had been looking for her ever since, writing letters to people he thought might know her, searching telephone books when he went to new cities and via locator services on the internet. My heart felt a pang as I felt how sad and desperate his obsession and actions were. There must have been a very real reason she did not want him to find her, but he did not see it.
I asked him what attracted him to her. His eyes got dreamy as he related her attributes. I queried him as to how it would be for him to find those very same qualities in someone else. He brightened for a moment and then replied that he was trying. I told him that from my perspective ‘trying’ was not ‘doing.’ In this case, ‘doing’ was really about making a choice to take what he had placed external to himself and realize those qualities within his own heart.
The heart’s wisdom naturally emanates a certain kind of energy that allows those who match that energy to be attracted by it. That way what had always been placed sometime in the future can become the now. By the time we parted for the evening, he looked hopeful. The next day we had some more discussion around relationships and what they mean. He finally allowed that he could see how he had been fooling himself and had really been fleeing from love all those years. His deep-seated fears had held him back from something he wanted most in life.
Our group experience was soon over, but a few folks continued to travel together to parts of southern India. I heard a story later from a couple traveling with Jack. They had all gone to an ashram for several days. When the last day came and it was the agreed upon time to move on, Jack told the couple to go ahead without him. He wanted to stay there for a while. It seems that Jack had become quite the center of attention for several members of the opposite sex. I have images of Jack standing, his red Indian shawl wrapped around him, white hair blowing in the warm breeze, the white-washed walls of the ashram as a backdrop and women clustered around him admiring his strength. And my heart sings for him.
Systemic Wholeness
Just as the beliefs we hold will be the lens through which we view life and impact our actions and relationships, beliefs can also affect our bodily health. Body/mind/spirit is a system. When one part of the system is affected in some way, it only naturally follows that other parts of the system will be touched.
Beliefs can be seen as neural pathways that are paved through selected observation of the world, or through selected events that have been experienced. Once the groove has begun to form, it begins to deepen, again through selected observations that give the particular pathway validity. The belief finally becomes the path of least resistance that the individual follows relentlessly.[x]
While we may not cause our illnesses, our states of mind or stress levels will affect our immune system. If our defenses are down, through a limiting belief system or tension, we may be an engaging host for some opportunist. If the origins of a dis-ease or condition baffle medical science, or even when it does not, we can look for possible avenues toward healing within our own minds. Often, illness is a signal we need to heed. In discovering origins, we may well create true awakening to consciousness. Just as dis-ease can begin in the split-second mutation of a cell, so spontaneous healing can happen in the very same way.
Rae had experienced temperomandibular joint pain, or TMJ, for as long in her life as she could remember, particularly during stressful times. When she came to a session with me, she rated the pain at 90 percent severity, 100 percent being unbearable. She had previously consulted with medical physicians and dentists, but had experienced little relief over the years. Since the disorder had been with her for a long time, I asked her what was in her awareness at about the time when she first noticed the pain. She replied, “I don’t remember when it began exactly. I just know that it was there. I don’t have many early memories, but I remember a lot of tension in the family. I have violent images from childhood.”
What is the physical cause of TMJ but tension brought on by stress, grinding of the teeth or misalignment of the jaw joints and muscles? Rae went on to say that even as a child she had always felt like the “responsible one” in the family who had to mediate differences and try to keep the peace. Certainly as a child she did not have the education or experience to be a successful mediator. At this point, I remember the spontaneous image of standing at the shore of a placid lake into which some unseen person had thrown a stone. I could see the rippling effect of the stone, and even though I could not see exactly where it had sunk, I had a pretty clear sense of its location.
Rae’s discomfort originated from who she thought she was and her beliefs about that identity. Most beliefs can be boiled down to three areas: what we believe to be possible; how much we believe in our own capabilities; and whether we believe that we deserve something.[xi] Couple stressful situations with Rae’s identity of the “responsible one.” Throw in her beliefs about impossibility toward making a difference and her limited capabilities. The picture of a person in agony comes into my mind⏤one who has fallen into a chasm where, not only is she helpless, but rescue seems hopeless.
In the healing process we used, she discovered an abundance of areas where she was, not only capable but excelled. She was also reminded that she had many people supporting her throughout her life and no longer felt burdened as the “responsible one.” By the end of our session, Rae reported feeling no pain. While she initially had a spiking of pain up to a comparative fifteen percent severity the first two months afterwards, in the more than four years since that time she has had few incidents.[xii]
Chronic pain such as that experienced by Rae or other physical signals that something is misaligned can cause great distraction. Depending on its severity, it often becomes difficult to focus on anything other than what is going on in the body, much less a Spirit path. It is our job to develop ourselves into inhospitable hosts and be on the path called Wholeness.
Who Is Holding Your Reins?
We need to remind ourselves who we are. I once asked someone how many times he needed to hear of his own wisdom before he would be convinced of it. He said, “Every day.” There is the story of the king who told his minister to go out at dawn and bring to him the first person he found. The king promised to give that person a kingdom. The first person the minister came across was a beggar. Good as his word, the king gave him a kingdom. The ‘former’ beggar was bathed, richly fed, beautifully outfitted and put on a throne. And the beggar looked around and said, “Where is my begging bowl? It’s time for me to beg.”[xiii] If any of you have a long ‘convincer strategy’, then every day look deeply into a mirror. Gaze even beyond your eyes to see the true soul reflected there who knows no worldly attachments or fears.
There is also the story about Akbar, the Indian boy who at fourteen years old became emperor and who, as his wisdom grew, became well loved. Akbar was offered an elephant ride. Once he had mounted the elephant Akbar asked, “Where are the reins?” The elephant tender quickly came forward and proudly said, “Lord, I hold the reins for you.” Akbar replied with, “I do not ride that whose reins are not held by me.” Nor should we.
Those things that we carry deep within us that hold us back are like apparitions that do not know how to pass over. We have to show them the way through awareness, intent and courage. In Peru, the Indians tell of warrior trees. Their powerful energy attracts the jaguar and she will sleep at the foot of these trees. Even the Indians do not know the full purpose of these trees, but know that they are warriors of the Spirit. They are all somehow connected and when one dies, they all go⏤at once. Any self-limiting beliefs that form our realities are our warrior trees, some so entangled with each other that it is impossible to find their core root. But in a particular belief family when the right branch is tapped, the whole family vacates our Being at once. There is no longer adequate grounding and a whole new family of fruitful presuppositions can replace them.
We cannot delude ourselves and think that this process is ever over. We cannot think that if we can just get over that hill then everything will be perfect. We may be able to rest for a while after the hike, but the next peak is always before us. Even the valleys in-between become richer and more profound in our experiences because the peaks have risen from increasingly deeper places. Recently, I opened an old day planner that I no longer use and found I had written these lines from the poet Rainer Maria Rilke in the front to remind myself of this very theme.
Be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart, and try to love the questions themselves.[xiv]
And then there is Gertrude Stein who expounded, “There has never been an answer. There never will be an answer. That’s the answer.”
[i] Daniel Goleman. Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. New York: Bantam Books, 1994. 15–17.
[ii] Alan Watts. Zen Clues. San Anselmo, CA: Electronic University, 1973 and 1996. Audiotape 1, Part 1.
[iii] Translated from the original Greek by Andy Gaus. The Unvarnished Gospels. Putney, VT: Threshold Books, 1988. 91.
[iv] Ibid. 82.
[v] Watts. Ibid. Audiotape 2.
[vi] Bezalel. Telephone interview, November 1998.
[vii] Nick LeForce. Telephone interview, November 1998.
[viii] Gaus, 78.
[ix] Watts, Audiotape 1.
[x] Carla Woody. “The Effect of NLP on Physical Pain and Trauma, Part Two”, Anchor Point: The Practical Journal of NLP, January 1996. 28.
[xi] Robert Dilts. NLP Health Certification Training. Salt Lake City: Anchor Point Associates, 1995.
[xii] Woody, 30–35.
[xiii] Jaxon-Bear, 27.
[xiv] Translation by M.D. Herter Norton. Rainer Maria Rilke: Letters to a Young Poet. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1934. 35
All events described in this book are true. Some of the names have been changed to protect the privacy of the people involved.
Bio
Carla Woody is a spiritual mentor, writer and visual artist. She is the founder of Kenosis, an organization based in Prescott, Arizona, supporting human potential since 1999 through life enhancement coaching, retreats and spiritual travel programs working with Indigenous leaders and healers in the US, Mexico, Central and South America. In 2007 she founded Kenosis Spirit Keepers, a volunteer-run 501(c)3 nonprofit organization to help preserve Indigenous traditions threatened with decimation.
Table of Contents
Part I. THE NATURE OF THE JOURNEY
Chapter Two: Awakening to Consciousness
Part II. INVOLUTION
Chapter Three: Cultivating Mindfulness
Chapter Four: The Masks We Wear
Chapter Five: Things Buried Deep and Tended Well
Chapter Six: Bootcamp for the Soul
Part III. EVOLUTION
Chapter Seven: The Seasons of Our Times
Chapter Eight: Staying in the Field
Chapter Nine: The Un-Namable Sacred
Chapter Ten: The Pilgrimage Home
Permissions: The author has given great effort to locate copyright holders of any material other than her own that have been quoted in this book, and regrets if any have been inadvertently overlooked.
Calling Our Spirits Home: Gateways to Full Consciousness
Copyright 1999 by Carla Woody. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the publisher. Inquiries may be directed to: Kenosis Press, P.O. Box 10441, Prescott, AZ 86304, info@kenosis.net.
Also by Carla Woody:
Standing Stark: The Willingness to Engage. Read in Illumination Book Chapters.
Portals to the Vision Serpent. Coming soon to Illumination Book Chapters.
