Movement

I just wanted to add a new post saying that I have moved my writing to http://kundalinisurge.blogspot.com/. The other site offers the ability to add extras to the site which are not available here.  Hope this doesn’t cause any problems!

Missing friend

It has been over five years since the disappearance of my best friend. It is not something I have really talked of much. It is not something I have known how to deal with, nor have I found a way to come to terms or to understand it enough for it to not hurt when I think of it.

We were friends for only 3 years, but during this time, I think she was  one of few people I have felt very close to, that could understand me. She was one of those souls that you feel an immediate connection to, one of those rare people you meet in your lives that mark it indelibly even if it is only for a short time.

We met when I first came to the US, one of the first real friends that I met here and felt that our friendship was one of cosmic significance. We talked at a depth I have rarely found with anyone.  The times we shared were magical in many ways, I am not sure whether it was because I was travelling for the first time, or that I had finally met a kindred spirit after years of feeling detached and apart from my previous childhood friends.

Whatever the reason, it seemed we were twinned in many ways. During the span of time we had been friends, there were periods in which we were together as more than friends, but it seemed like the friendship was the real reason we had met. I was even hesitant at first in case the friendship were damaged and lost. But it seemed the honesty we had between us was enough to surmount any difficulties that may have arisen.

The end and the disappearance didn’t happen quickly. It happened slowly and so, I don’t think I really realised that it was so, until things had fully disappeared. She had decided that she no longer wished to be together and had brooked no argument and so I had trusted her judgment. We remained friends for several months afterward and we both had other relationships in this time. We still talked about things together, although I noticed a distance and a coldness creeping in with her.

When I questioned her about this, she denied any such thing and so the honesty I had so cherished between us started to diminish.

She decided to move south to go to school and she talked excitedly of how it would be and of the new life she would have.  I was happy for her and the life she was moving towards. I was saddened to hear of her moving away, but didn’t consider that it would be the end of our friendship.

Not until a few weeks before her move did I see a change in her. Suddenly she seemed to have developed an unreasoning anger towards me, a cold hostility that was difficult for me to be around. When I asked her what was happening, she blamed me for a great many things, many unreasonable and false. Although this I didn’t understand at first, I still respected our friendship and I spent many an hour sat in reflection trying to see if any of the darts she threw were true.  In the end a few friends of mine encouraged me to disregard her poisoned words and I tried to see the hurt that has caused her to react in such a way. I think I accepted too much abuse in this time. Emotional abuse is so much harder to measure than that which leaves a bruise. Even so, I found it difficult to bring myself to say anything harmful in my defense and it seemed that she felt that a weakness. I couldn’t bring myself to hurt her even to protect myself.

It seemed that I had already lost my friend. In the week before she left, she said she didn’t want anything further to do with me. When I asked her why, she simply replied she didn’t know and would give me no answer.

I hoped that maybe she just needed time and a new start. It was painful to watch her go, not knowing why she wanted nothing more to do with me. I was very hard on myself and constantly searched for a reason why I was not good enough to be her friend. I couldn’t see it then, but those around me later said that I had been devastated by her actions. It felt like a part of me had been lost.

A few months later I emailed her and she apologised for her cruelty and said that it was to do with her and it was not me. She still could give me no reason for her actions, other than to say that it was just what she had to do.

I figured she needed more time, even though I wanted my friend back. The next time I tried to get in touch, her email accounts had been closed. She told no-one her new contact details and slowly withdrew contact from everyone who had ever known her over that time.

Years passed and there was no word from her. Although a friend of hers ran into her on the street one day after she had moved to the same city. She said that she wanted no contact with her or anyone from that time, not even to go for a coffee to catch up. Now her friend is one of the sweetest people on the earth and I figured that if you are going to cut her off, then something serious was up.  I felt a lot more relieved after that as I didn’t realise how personally I had taken it.

The part that stings even to this day, is that I lost my best friend and I don’t know why.  Any hope for reconciliation seems foolish, certainly after 5 years. I can think of any number of reasons why she may have acted in such a manner, but I don’t think I will ever know. The lack of closure is the real killer.  I wonder after the way things ended if hope is foolish, that I should be glad of her loss. Yet I knew her and feel that anything so serious must have been a great pain for her. It gives me understanding of the great pain people go through when a loved one disappears. Somehow it is worse than their death, for at least then there is a closure of kinds. Each time I consider it, I wonder if there is something I am not doing that could bring a closure to things.  I wonder if she considers the pain she has and is causing by her severing of our connection.

I have tried all I know of to let this go and to move onwards, yet in the small hours it resurfaces sometimes. It always seems there is a tiny fragment still there and I am left wondering what yet I must do to be free of this.

Sacred Masculinity

It had been a while since I last posted, life had presented me with a great many obstacles to surmount and most of my energy was devoted towards making sure that I was able to pass through them without stress and worry, but mainly to even just get through them.  It seems like a great chapter of my life is now over and I have been left with the mental space to consider what life will offer me next. I have felt somewhat dazed after getting married, moving to the US and finally getting my permanent residence approved.  It is like I have succeeded at fulfilling several of my dreams all at once and it has left me in a new and unusual position.

Getting through this has opened up the doors for success in other areas of my life and my own recognition of the way I had previously made things difficult  through my own thinking.  It now seems that I can move forwards in a joyous and struggle free manner, that things no longer have to be won at great personal cost.

My healing business has reached a new peak with this realisation that I don’t need to work on issues and instead can concentrate on alleviating suffering.  This has been such a big change in thinking for me, that I don’t think I want to “work” on anything ever again! It only ever seems to push the problem around and around, rather than diminishing it.

Of course, this has opened up an entirely new can of worms for me to look at.  The process or act of “working”. During several acupuncture treatments and in the course of my own meditations I have discover that my right side is somewhat energetically congested.  This manifests as areas of tension in my hip, shoulder, jaw and congestion in my ear and sinuses..along with tightening of my tendons. All of which occurs on my right side. From my own studies and several very helpful books, I have understood that the right side pertains to the masculine.

I wouldn’t have looked upon my masculinity with any idea that there might be general blockages there. I would say that I am comfortable in my masculinity and there are no obvious imbalances, yet I understand that the energetic imbalances have their source.  Which has led me to dig a little deeper to uncover what the source of this imbalance may be.

Reading several books and articles on the subject I did tend to notice an interesting trend, one that seems to leave a yawning gap. Most articles suggested that Men have an Anima and that women have an Animus. Meaning for those not familiar with Jungian terminology that a Man has a female soul and Woman a male soul.  They suggested to bring balance as a man, I need to connect to the inner divine feminine and that will create a balance. You know, connect with your emotions and gentleness.  All well and good.

The only problem being that I already have a strong connection to the feminine divine. I have strong dreams in which I am often visited by gentle and wise female figures.  I don’t have problems expressing how I feel, nor do I shy away from the gentle and subtle aspects of my self. This was not something that occurred naturally, I had to bring myself to face my fears and accept those parts of myself without recrimination.

What I noticed was missing from the articles and what I have suspected for sometime is that there is little or no understanding of sacred masculinity. There is a pervasive assumption that somehow men do not need to purify or examine their own ideas of masculinity. That simply by being men, we are already “pure” in our masculinity and all we need do is accept our emotions and we will be whole. What about the male part of a man’s soul? Do men not have to consider what it is to be male, or what it is to embody sacred masculinity?

Sure, we have ideas about what it is to be male and what makes a man a man.  But this is so often limited to a base generalisation. Drinking, playing competitive sports and being aggressive are several examples that come to mind. But I don’t wish to go too far down this particular path as I am not looking to consider the base man, I am looking to understand what is the pure ideal of masculine energy.

How does aggressiveness become spiritualised? Is it simply transformed into supreme confidence and courage? For me there are many questions that are still yet to be answered and many of them are personal ones. I am yet to find a perfect example of spiritualised masculinity that is not somewhat steeped in the shadowy aspects of patriarchy and oppression.

In my personal life I have shied away from  pursuing a career and worldy gain and have taken a gentler road of inner exploration.  It seems though that that may well be a part of the imbalance. That my masculinity has not kept up with my inner growth and connection to the anima. I now wonder if we have any examples of sacred masculinity to look upon.  How do I connect to that sacred masculinity? Have we as a society and a culture forgotten that we need to have examples of sacred masculinity free of shadow before we can create that within ourselves?

Looking back upon my own personal history I see examples of it in my previous relationships. That I have met two types of women, both who are somewhat incomplete. The divine feminine type, who embody all the good qualities of womanliness, kindness, generosity, subtlety..but who are yet lacking a certain fire.  Then there are those who have had the fire, but are distorted in their femininity..the tomboys, the adventurers and the seductresses. Who are I feel a reflection of my own shadowed masculinity. Both are incomplete, flawed. Only when I am able to bring light to my own shadows will I be able to see both combined.

Going off-road

Of late, there has been one major situation that I have been dealing with in my personal life and that is my application for a green card. It has been a long and difficult path filled with bureaucracy and red tape. I would say that it has taken me away from my spiritual purpose , but that is not strictly true. The last obstacle my wife and I encountered has brought me to somewhat of an epiphany. Without this seeming roadblock I doubt I would have come to the point I am at right now. It has returned to me a sense of life and purpose I feared was lost in the past.

Without going into great detail, it seemed that the last obstruction in our application seemed insurmountable. But we have been able to find a narrow legal avenue to pursue and to pin our hopes to. Of course, this is where the problem lies. During this last month, the stress and worry of this has caused my wife to lose her appetite for writing (at least during the current phase of the application).  I also suffered a great deal of stress and anxiety over whether or not the application will be approved or denied.

But in the midst of this chaos and worry I have found an element of peace. Many years ago such an obstruction would  not have phased me and I would have continued to follow on my path regardless (or at least that is how it seems to me in hindsight). Whether a bureaucratic system gave me sanction would have seemed irrelevant to my life path. Now, being apparantly older and wiser..it gives me pause. I have lost much and suffered greatlyin the intervening years and the thought of going off road once again fills me with trepidation.

Many years ago, in a different circumstance I did exactly that.  A situation forced me to fly against the bureaucratic rules and regulations, since the choice to not take that route was morally wrong.  Once I did what was right..both for me and in the situation I felt a great sense of relief and liberation. I took my own power into myself, rather than projecting that authority onto a faceless set of regulations.

Now it seems I am facing that same energy and seeing that I had lost that inner freedom I once possessed.  I realised that I could not live in a state of stress and worry, because my power was in another’s hands.  This has led me to a point of acceptance. That I will live with my own authority regardless of the decisions of that body.  Accepting that “death” gives me freedom, a freedom that I would not find otherwise.  Whether or not the decision is affirming or not, I am free from its harm. I am no longer attached to it.

Of course, I will still continue the process, to do so would be silly. But it ceases to have the same terrifying intensity. I can trust in the universe once again and feel within the flow.

The night after this epiphany I had a dream in which I was stressing at work and had to help my family make prepare for a party. As I went back outside to pick up the remaining bottles, I saw a large truck trying to back up and turn around. The road was covered in ice and on an incline. In the drivers cab was a bearded gentleman, about my age with long hair. I hopped up into the cab with him and he said the road through town was blocked. So, we drove off road, through the trees and ended up driving along a mountain stream.  He explained this was a short cut that was only open a few times a year. We weaved in and around the rocks in the stream and eventually were able to bypass the bloackage this way.

I saw this as a metaphor for being okay with having to go off-road and that it was a short cut around an obstruction and that I was back within the flow. Which was certainly how I felt about this situation.

Imagine my surprise when today a man stopped by the hostel who looked exactly like the figure in my dream. He had been hitchhiking, but could not get a ride through town and had decided to stop and get a bed instead. I decided to tell him about the dream and he said that a few nights back, he had also had a dream in which he was backing up a large van on a road. We talked for several hours and I felt like I had met him before.  There were a great deal on synchronicites in our situations and he had just come back from Alberquerque where he was learning the same lesson from his Tibetan meditation teacher and only when he has let go was he granted the lesson.  While we talked, he managed to find a ride back out west and I got a call from my wife that all the paperwork we needed had finally arrived!

This situation has also unearthed another deep seated fragment, but I will have to talk about that another day.

Ground work

Yoga

I am just back from a yoga class, still hot and breathing hard, but I felt I needed to get down the ideas that occurred to me during the class. My base chakra is the area that has given me the most difficulty of late and so the area in which the chakra sits (hips, legs and feet) is the most inflexible part of me during the classes.  Incrementally, bit by bit it is slowly opening up, as it does I have flashes of insight I try and pay attention to as they may prove to be useful later. These are different from the usual re-occurring thoughts such as “I can’t do this”,  “is it time for the resting pose?” or thoughts to do with how I may spend my day that innocuously try and sidle their way onto the stage of my mind.  I also have come to understand that the area in which a problem occurs has symbolic reference to the difficulty on a psychical level. It is just understanding what exactly this relates to that can be the bugbear.

There is an idea that says that the mind and the body are inextricably linked, that working on the mind affects the body and vice versa. Now, I have found that working on the mind affects the body, but I have had difficulty doing the opposite. At best I have found that exercising the body is likely to trigger insights about the mind component of the issue which is the real core of the problem.  But the insight I had today may change the dynamic of that for me..or not

During the balancing poses I have found that I am very shaky on my feet and topple to either side. Apart from this being kind of embarrassing for me, someone who could once boast about my Kung fu kicking dexterity. I have realised that the outer side of my legs are much stronger then the inner core of my legs, which is why I tend to rely on the outer part of my foot, rather than having total balance on a solid standing leg.

This symbolically speaking would seem to suggest that there is a problem with the inner part of my base chakra. That there is a lack of inner strength related to the areas of work, money and general survival. This notion suggests that I am maybe am not working hard enough, or have little strength in these areas.  This idea creates alot of discomfort within me for several reasons, but mainly the fear that I am lazy or don’t work hard enough.  Within my family there is a very strong work ethic and I am not sure whether it stems from individual members or simply the various backgrounds in which they have grown up in. My father grew up in poverty stricken southern Italy, looking after his father’s goats and has worked grueling hours continuously since in the food service industry. My mother grew up in Yorkshire, England..which may mean nothing to many, but its a  social environment which places a great deal of importance of hard work and industry. She works extremely hard in an unforgiving environment (Social health care). So as you can imagine, thinking I don’t work hard enough brings spectres of the past up. Not that I cannot dispel them. I have worked hard enough myself often in harsh workplace settings (factories, warehouses and dismal office jobs) sometimes working 70+ hours a week.

So as you can see, this has placed me in a strange and uncomfortable dilemma with regards to work. Working those types of jobs satisfies the ugly little demon who accuses me of laziness… but little else. If I don’t work those, my money dries up and I end up suffering. When this happens, out trots the the little imp waggling his little finger and accusing me of laziness.

The insight that occurred today was a little different to that. It says to me that I am not working hard enough…on MY work, on a physical level. That because of that weakness, I tend to rely on outer ideas of work..or other peoples ideas of what my work is.  I have considered this before, but I was missing a core level of understanding. MY work is this..healing, learning and providing assistance to other to help them through their crises and certainly no one who knew me could accuse me of laziness where this part of my work is concerned. I spend days reading, in deep thought and applying what I can where I can. I am always engaged in inner work of some sort.

What I see now, is that the base chakra is concerned not with higher learning, reading or even working from the heart (yes..these all help). But is really to do with physical work..on MY work. This means more Yoga, eating in alignment with my path and sitting down on a regular basis to do meditation. It is the actual physical process of doing my work.  It means a structure..it means going to work on MY work everyday. It is not measured by how many hours I put in at the proverbial mill…which is certainly not my work and so why should the universe reward me for doing someone elses work? Regardless of how hard i work there.

Strangely enough, this idea brings up resistance in me. “What if I don’t enjoy my work?”, What if it isn’t my work?”, ” What if I am meant to do something different?” ad nauseum. Maybe I am scared of the progress I can make if I really devote myself to my work daily… This is where the real laziness lives and the funny thing is,  it will make you work really hard in something you hate.

Change your mind

A few days ago, I was witness to an amazing synchronicity. I say it was a synchronicity simply because I was not fully able to verify the event myself, of which I will explain more.

The event happening while Z and I were in our room. Z was hard at work for her blog, writing on her laptop, while I was laying on the bed trying to relax an area of tension in my hip. Now, my right hip has had a great deal of tension in it for a number of years now and only recently have I been able to start to make headway on releasing it with a course of Yoga.

Energetically, the hips are concerned with mobility and given the proximity to the base chakra is related to issues of survival. Specifically, it seems that my hip becomes tense, or remains tense because of the difficulties I have experienced over the years in remaining grounded when it comes to money or security related issues.

Over the years I have tried to relax this tension and to find something of a solution to this issue. It seems that financial ill fortune has constantly dogged me and has remained a looming spectre. Regardless, I decided that what was necessary was a good dose of Reiki energy directly into the area and to focus on releasing this ball of tension.

So as I lay on the bed focusing on the tension in my hip, I came to a realisation. This is one of those understandings that reinforces something you already know, but allows you to grasp it in a much deeper fashion. So much so in some ways that it could be called an experiential insight.

What I understood was that the flow of energy in the body is not a primary cause, but a secondary cause. Now what that means is that the energy flows through the body as water may flow down a stream bed. The chakras are merely eddies in the current of the water and when one can perceive such a disturbance it can be followed to its natural outcome. Which may be a stagnant pool of energy, a turbulent rapids or other such disturbance of the flow. The course of the water can be modified for a time, rapids ameliorated or stagnant pools cleared. But all such things will eventually return to the flow dictated by the structure of the stream bed (as it were).

It would seem that the primary cause  is invisible, at least that is what I perceived in my meditation. That the rocks of the stream bed are not readily perceivable, that only the stream of energy can be “seen”. Much in the same way that the wind can only be seen by its action upon the trees or upon the face of the waters.

I was also able to understand that this prime cause was “mind”. Now again, what I mean by this is thoughts and beliefs, chiefly our own. The flow of energy is obstructed, by our own thoughts and beliefs, as clearly as a rock face will turn the direction of a stream. So, that in order to create any change, we must first have a change of mind.

In this statement lies a key and a very powerful one. That any real change is created only with a change of mind. Change your mind and you will literally change your life. Without this change of mind, the flow of energy will continue on its course. You may modify it for a time, but it will always return to its “natural” course without a fundamental change of mind.

I also came to the understanding that the problem in my hip, was to do with my own belief that I lack resources and so it has been. The universe has been happy to comply with this deeply held thought. So I changed my mind.

As I did this, several things occurred. First of all, I felt an easing in my hip as though the tension has relented. The second was a little more jarring as I was disturbed from my reverie by the sound of a chair being dragged or jolted across the floor. To the right of the bed was my seat, distant from me by a few feet. The sound has come from the empty chair.

I asked Z what had happened and she replied that the chair has jerked or jumped spasmodically of its own volition, as if it was shivering.  She was sat a clear three feet away and was curled up in front of her laptop writing. I got up and being the sort not to jump to supernatural conclusions, I examined the area around the chair for any possible way it could have moved in such a manner and made such a noise. The only possible alternative was that it had been resting on my shoes and had fallen off them, as they were sat to one side of one of the legs. I tried to recreate the event, but the plastic chair looked ridiculous balanced on my shoes as the heels were facing towards the leg and it caused the shoes to be pointed upwards at a severe angle. I would have also heard the sound of the falling shoe onto the hardwood floor.

Free of possible mundane sources, I felt fine to continue and examine the synchronistic correlation between my seat and the fact that I had been focusing on my “seat” (my hips and rear), during the meditation. It seemed to me a more perfect symbol could not have been chosen to represent the area I was working on that that of a seat..mine in particular. Speaking to a friend of mine today, he remarked that it reminded him of a Jungian mindset in which there is no barrier between subject and object.

As I contemplate this strange occurrence, it leads me on to consider how it might be possible to affect external objects simply by focusing one’s will upon correspondences within ones own psyche. If in indeed this was a product of my own unconscious manifestation, then it offers some intriguing possibilities…

Weight lifting from above.

In the last post I was struggling with the idea of being more effective in my healing practice. I feel I have somewhat of an answer to the question I posed myself and I wish to write it down before it disappears into the ether once more. If I can write it down, then it concretizes it somewhat and I can keep a grasp on the often ephemeral concept.

The understanding came to me as I lay in a reverie listening to music and thinking on how to free a person from a heavy burden,  which they feel helpless in moving.

Using the analogy of them being trapped in a snow drift and unable to move effectively enough I have been able to look at the situation from a slightly different perspective.

The problem lies in getting entangled in the problem oneself. If one sympathizes too closely with the issue, then one finds themselves trapped under a similar snowdrift of energy heaviness. Only by disengaging from the person and their point of view can one avoid being trapped under the same weight and burden. For the person involved in their issue, it can have great reality and being closely involved with such a person can infect one with the same feeling of hopelessness. Which is part of the difficulty in the first place.

Difficult as it may seem, stepping out and away from the person and their issues can give you the leverage on the problem and the ability to help which is impossible from their situation. It is much simpler on a person with whom you have no investiture, but try doing that with a person who is a good friend, lover or close family member. To step away seems like the worst betrayal, but in the end may be the only way in which to actually help.

Going back to the analogy of being trapped in a snow drift. I have encountered several situations in which I have felt personally involved, maybe even a sense of responsibility in the persons well-being.  In these situations I have literally felt that I am pinned under a heavy weight of energy, smothered almost..unable to open my feelings in a way that is very natural to me.  This feeling is so powerful and proximal (meaning that the feeling can switch on and off literally by going in and out of the persons presence) that it often causes me to forget that I am not the source of the feeling.

In the end it seems that the best way for me to help alleviate this suffering to is step apart from it and not enter into the state of victim-hood that seems to be a part of the energy. Hopefully, this will allow me to lift this weight from above, piece by piece, rather than all at once from below.

This doesn’t just apply to individuals who are suffering with heavy energies, but also with difficult perspective on life. Rather than sympathizing, I need to step away from it, to disentangle from their own perspective, for only then can I actually be effective. This may run the risk of appearing distant or disconnected…but I guess this exactly what this is. I can empathize from a distance, but not getting tied up with sympathy.

Now on to how to disentangle. This can be a task in and of itself, especially if you are in some type of relationship as there is a myriad of ways in which you can be drawn back into the problem once more. I wish there were a simple way of doing this, but the best path for me seems to be finding a sense of freedom within oneself, of autonomy. That I am not attached to the person, in that they are free of and in themselves. This of course, does not mean I cease to care for the person, on the contrary…it is for their benefit that this is done.  Once clear of this entanglement, them one is free to work on the issue at hand.

Often it seems they draw other people into their issues, in order to show them how helpless they feel. Of course, then the other person is in the same boat and equally powerless to effect a change. Stepping out and away, gives you back your power. Once again I am shown the power for detachment from attachment. Now it is just for me to put that into play.

A question of depth

Today was the first day that I volunteered with giving Reiki at the medial centre here in town and it raised a few questions for me. To give a bit of background, I recently heard that one of my original Reiki teachers was volunteering at the cancer ward in town. They offer the treatments free for the patients in the hope that it can relieve some of the pain that they have to deal with and also to educate the staff working there on this modality of healing. I felt this was a good cause and so have volunteered.

I went there this morning expecting simply to be introduced to the other practitioners and ended up working on two separate individuals. I hardly had time to get get my bearings before I was into the first treatment. It would be bad form to talk of the healings, without prior permission, but I can consider some of the questions that were raised internally for myself through the process.

The main question is one of efficacy, mainly of my own. Working with individuals who happen to come my way with minor complaints is one thing, but having to work on individuals who are dealing with life changing illnesses  is on an entirely different level.  It brings the question of efficacy directly into focus for me.

In much of the work that I do I am able to perceive much and many of the problems that a person is dealing with. This intuitive sensing seems, at least in my experiences to be very accurate. I can pretty much pick up the difficulties in an energy field and notice trends in energy which I can begin to outline to the individual in question. Often, bringing such things to peoples attention is enough to cause a shift in the awareness of the individual, which in turn evokes the bodies natural healing processes. Effectively pointing out that a person may still be metaphorically limping, even thought the leg has already healed.

Now of course, such a bringing to awareness in this instance may be a moot point. The person may already be aware of the problem, but it is in dealing with it that their troubles lie.  It is a problem I am sure many of us are familiar with…you know the problem, but you can’t seem to change it. Sometimes all it requires is a change of perspective, but I am beginning to understand that this often isn’t enough.

So I am left with how to actually really effect a healing that has a tangible effect on such a profound illness. Because if this is not being done, then I feel my actions are somewhat in vain. One could argue that helping a person de-stress is alone a worthy job, but that would leave me feeling no better than one of those squidgy stress balls.

This question is one that seems not only to affect this area of my healing, but all aspects. I don’t wish to be someone who can only point out a deficiency, but one who can actually make it better at the same time.  Simply relying on the healing system of the patient to recognize the problem is often too slow and fraught with difficulty.

This is not the first time I have come across this particularly thorny issue. But I am determined to find a way to be able to grasp the core problem and release it.  Don’t get me wrong, it is not like I feel entirely ineffectual. Most healing work does not compare to this level of difficulty.

The difficulty lies in being able to actually affect the energy involved. Sometimes it seems so deeply rooted, that the usual methods are not adequate, like coming upon an avalanche with only a small shovel to help dig someone out. It may simply be a matter of patience..or it might be that I need a bigger shovel. It is also a case of being able to mentally grasp the problem, because without that, one can just become paralyzed by the magnitude of an issue.

My old methods of healing may simply not be effective if the person is unable to render aid to themselves. In the past it has often been a case of getting the person to re-route their own energy to take care of the problem.  Now, I may have to rethink such a strategy in light of having to deal with patients who may simply be in no position to effectively render aid to themselves.  Shouting at a person under a ton of snow to dig up is more than useless, even if they could hear you.

I guess my job is to be similar to a firefighter. That if I can, I will put out the fire, but if not then I can at least try and find the person in all that mess and make sure they feel safe as their house burns. I need to stop telling the people in the house to fill buckets and find a water main myself and start putting out what fires I can…because I am the one who is meant to be the professional!

The problem with faith

This week has been a difficult one for me, one of those weeks that test your faith. When it seems that as much faith as you put in, it doesn’t seem to change the inertia of your own situation. All the little factors that should be working for me, seem to be against me.

My current situation is one of financial difficulty and one that I have been struggling with for years. It feels like the situation is out of my hands and beyond my control. It is the difficulty of how to feel when your faith isn’t rewarded, but it feels as though it is ignored. The truth is, there is not enough money to pay the rent…barely enough to eat and only by eating extremely frugally, there is no sponsor in sight and I can’t afford to pay my martial arts classes. There seems to be no solution close to hand. The situation is not a new one for me. One thing it does give me is the ability to understand how hard it is to be in the midst of something very powerful and feel unable to affect your situation. That there is nothing but to accept and submit to the forces that seem to rule your life. It is easy to understand how people can buckle under such weight.

Often when this happens to us, as it is to me. I feel like abandoning all hope and making some dramatic statement like I give up, in the hopes that someone will take pity upon us and deliver us from the evil we face. The victim-hood that is here, is one that it feels like we should embrace. That everything is done to us and we have no choice. It certainly feels that way and sure enough (my) reality definitely seems to be in agreement. My anger seems fruitless and the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel seems like a carrot on a stick, as though I am a deep sea angler fish constantly chasing my own light.

My wife drew a card twice in a row for her daily tarot reading and I also feel like I am being affected by its energy. The 9 of swords..the card of victim-hood and nightmares. It is one of the harder cards to draw from the deck as it means confronting ones demons. It feels like I have been confronting this demon for years and he remains ever elusive, as though he is indeed part of the landscape, something so familiar that I cannot notice him, so accustomed to him in my thoughts and ideas am I.

I can see the parallels in my life to the shamanic journey I encountered yesterday. The descent into darkness, the cthonic depths and the crawling through a restrictive passage as though I am being birthed once again. The huge pressures, which threaten to crush me and the ancient reptilian companions on my journey (often frequent visitors to my financial nightmares).

It seems like when one is in a situation like this, there is no choice but to continue on. The promised light, always seems distant and the pressing reality of circumstance makes the idea of release and liberation feel like a childish illusion.  I guess the thing with faith is, that it is putting ones trust in something beyond us and our comprehension is a difficult task. We are always unwilling to relinquish our ideas of when the right time is, of becoming frustrated when events progress at a different speed than the one we have decided upon.

In the end, there really is no intelligent choice but to keep the faith and continue on…

Shamanic journey

This is a continuation from my previous entry. After having a morning of financial worry, I decided to spend an equal time in meditation to compensate for the mismanaged energy. It led in an unexpected direction and I have still to unlock the symbolism of it all, but I wished to note it down before it disappears into the unconscious once more.

I intended to contemplate the events in my life and ask for guidance in how to move through them. After centering myself, by letting my thoughts and emotions calm down I found myself following imagery as it unfolded before me.

I was imagining soothing water clearing away the feelings of anxiety, when it seemed I was carried away along with the water. It carried me straight down, almost like a log flume, through a long tubular tunnel into the earth. The tunnel was ribbed and seemed naturally carved by the passage of water. I plunged along with the current over a long waterfall and down into a deep body of water, in which I immediately sank. Usually I might feel anxious under such circumstances, but I didn’t notice any such feelings. As I swam , it felt like there was a great weight around my legs, which actually turned out to be a large salamander holding onto the backs of my legs. As I became aware of it, it detached itself and we continued to swim onto the sea bed. He had a dark pigmentation and felt a little surprised to see one underwater, before I recalled that Salamanders are actually amphibious and their natural environment is by water. His size, did not alarm me either as he seemed at least 3 foot long. He also had a solidity to him, which for some reason was a little  distressing to me…as if he was very dense or heavy.

Once we were at the bottom of the sea, it seemed there were possibly ruins there, but it was difficult to tell as they could just have been unusually shaped rocks. The salamander swam into a small alcove and it seemed he  removed a stopper or pulled a plug as a large series of bubbles emanated from the opening. It felt as if the sea would drain, but it appeared not to and the salamander squeezed into a tight opening where the stopper had previously been. I followed him in. Inside was a very tight crawl space, through which I followed him, so tight, that at one point the salamander gouged himself on the rocks above. The tunnel was very sinuous and twisted back and forth as it led upwards. It felt liked we crawled quite some distance.

Then I was shown another scene. It was of a very lush and verdant valley, in which a river flowed at the bottom, the valley was very cramped and almost claustrophobic. Upon the river was a Nordic long-ship and the name Knarr seemed appropriate, it had a fearsome headpiece, although I could not make it out from the distance I was viewing the scene from.  Above the ship was a huge rounded protuberance in the cliff side, it was spherical in shape, almost as if the earth were giving birth. The scale of the spherical mass was massive and it dwarfed even the long ship directly below.  I watched as the earth gave way and I emerged from the side of the valley, then suddenly the huge protuberance split open and a great dragon stepped forth. It seemed to need to dry its wings, much in the same way as a butterfly does when emerging from its cocoon.

Then my view had switched and I was below the dragon, upon the deck of the knarr. At once the dragon spread its wings and plunged down directly onto the ship, smashing the prow away from the rest of the galley. I was cast into in churning water as the ship sunk. It seemed that I wasn’t at all alarmed by the unfolding scene, as one would imagine one would be in such a situation.

The dragon then arose from the waters and turned to fly, at which point I grabbed at the very tip of its tail and managed to haul myself up its body. The imagery ended with my riding upon the dragon as it flew at a strange canted angle and the sky had a backdrop of clouds.

At this point, the imagery ceased and I felt myself back in a deep state of meditation , where I am aware of my body, but as a detached phenomenon and my consciousness had a rounded quality to it.  From here I felt a sense of peace and was able to look at all the issues in a way that allowed me to explore them without fear. I stayed in this for a while longer as I determined what I need to do next. It is difficult to describe this, but there is a tactility to this form of comprehension which is lacking in mere intellectual rumination. As though I am flowing into the problem and expanding through it, so that I am aware of the problem as though it were a three dimensional puzzle piece that were being filled by a plasma like substance. Such detachment, means I am able to comprehend all the possible aspects the idea I am struggling with.

Once done with this, I was able to come back to full consciousness. The journey is full of symbolism, mostly I suspect to do with rebirth, certainly of earthy qualities. The long-ship I think symbolises the way in which I have viewed my spiritual journey, as a boat often appears in my dreams to symbolise such a voyage.  This new form of earthy consciousness is now destroying that and offering a different form of travel. One which seems a great deal more far reaching.  The salamander has been a very meaningful symbol for me as it symbolises rebirth and fire, but this is the first time I have witnessed one entering into my shamanic journeys.

On an earthly plane, I am making movements towards integrating that part into my spirituality. I have started to regularly attend a Hapkido class (martial arts) and have volunteered at the local medical centre to help treat patients who suffer from cancer using Reiki. I am hoping this rebirth goes smoothly.