bardo

This is dedicated to my rebels. You know who you are. xox

“You can just stop with the damn smoke blowing thing!”
Me ~ to my Shaman.

I once had a shaman. I highly recommend it. 

Mine appeared out of nowhere, like a questionable smell, and actually moved in with me back in the winter of 1993.
With his bald head, Australian accent, and wild, Rasputian eyes, I call him my “pocket shaman” since he was barely shoulder height — and for just shy of a year he literally went everywhere with me. 

If I want to sleep at night I don’t think about that time of my life. The memories remain dark, murky, and mysterious. Definitely NOT a place that’s safe to go without a weapon…or a guide…or as fate would have it—a shaman. 

My friend Mel posted this “Promise of a Shaman” on her Facebook page the other day. I wish I knew who wrote it because I can tell they’ve lived it. Their words bringing every detail of our little dance alllll back to me…

The rituals. 
My fear.
His refusal to meet me in my fear.
My rage at that.
His indifference to my rage.
The energy work that I initially scoffed at and then later counted on to save me.

I’m not being hyperbolic when I say that he saved me, my pocket shaman. He saved my sanity—and in turn, he saved my life.

“Be careful what you wish for,” they say. Up until that point I’d never listened to “them” anyway—and I wasn’t about to start.

I was a thirty-five-year-old seeker who’d been seeking since she was seventeen, and was beyond ready to end her seeking and find her enlightenment already! 
I wished to know all the secrets of the universe. To have them revealed to me so that I alone could understand them.

“Be careful what you wish for,” my pocket shaman admonished as he sat in front of me with eyes the size of salad plates, seriously questioning the direct, solo route I’d chosen to take. It was not working out well for me. Yet I persisted. He was in favor of a more circuitous path; one that came with rest stops, snacks, and water—in other words—a lot of help along the way.

“Fuck that shit!” I ‘m done waiting! I want it now! I’m in a hurry! I argued.

Then I lost my mind.

Sacred texts suggest that when undertaking the path to enlightenment, it would be wise to apprentice for like a thousand years while following the sage advice of a master, guide, or guru.  They say that for a reason, the most obvious one being that the edges of the path are littered with the bones of those who’ve tried to “go it alone”.  And if you don’t die, you are doomed to wander the streets of LA or some other place you no longer recognize, barefoot and afraid, babbling incoherently about “going fast, going solo.” 

Trust me. I was almost there. Luckily for me, a shaman showed up. 

I say thank you to whoever sent him my way. He was exactly what I never knew I needed. 

I also say thank you for the experience we went through together. It was most definitely a battle, and he will forever be my primary overseer and James Bond-level-super-duper-gizmo-in-the-toolbox-fighter-of-the-dark-arts-foxhole-buddy.

And even though it took me twenty years to get here I’d also like to say a heartfelt thank you to the universe for scaring the living bejesus out of me, beating me up every which way imaginable—and some you cannot; and for scrambling my brain, rewiring my nervous system, and then spitting me out on the other side with a cadre of “lovely parting gifts”—that took me two decades to discover. 

And I say thank you to myself, for being brave enough back then to even make the journey. 

So, what is the moral of this story you ask?

That in some instances, good things come in small packages and everybody loves a shaman?

That, in the case of chasing spiritual enlightenment, you’d better put a team together because you are quite LITERALLY playing with fire?

That “they” are right when “they” say, be careful what you wish for because you just may get it—and then have no fucking idea what the hell to do with “it”? —OR—that we don’t say “thank you” nearly enough to that part of ourselves that offers acts of audacious mercy, like conjuring shamans out of thin air at times when we barely have the wherewithal to remember our own names—and that the access code for said mercy should be on page one of the Being Human Handbook?

Hmmmmmm….That’s a hard one. I’ll let you guys decide.

Carry on,
xox

The Promise of a Shaman

If you come to me as a victim I will not support you.

But I will have the courage to walk with you through the pain that you are suffering.

I will put you in the fire, I will undress you, and I will sit you on the earth.
I will bathe you with herbs, I will purge you, and you will vomit the rage and the darkness inside you.
I’ll bang your body with good herbs, and I’ll put you to lay in the grass, face up to the sky.
Then I will blow your crown to clean the old memories that make you repeat the same behavior.

I will blow your forehead to scare away the thoughts that cloud your vision.
I will blow your throat to release the knot that won’t let you talk.
I will blow your heart to scare fear so that it goes far away, where it cannot find you.
I will blow your solar plexus to extinguish the fire of the hell you carry inside, and you will know peace.
I will blow with fire your belly to burn the attachments and the love that was not.
I will blow away the lovers that left you, the children that never came.
I will blow your heart to make you warm, to rekindle your desire to feel, create and start again.
I will blow with force your vagina or your penis, to clean the sexual door to your soul.
I will blow away the garbage that you collected trying to love what did not want to be loved.
I will use the broom, and the sponge, and the rag, and safely clean all the bitterness inside you.
I will blow your hands to destroy the ties that prevent you from creating.
I will blow your feet to dust and erase the footprints memories, so you can never return to that bad place.
I will turn your body, so your face will kiss the earth.
I’ll blow your spine from the root to the neck to increase your strength and help you walk upright.

And I will let you rest.

After this you will cry, and after crying you will sleep, 

And you will dream beautiful and meaningful dreams, 

and when you wake up I’ll be waiting for you.

I will smile at you, and you will smile back

I will offer you food that you will eat with pleasure, tasting life, and I will thank you.

Because what I’m offering today, was offered to me before when darkness lived within me.

And after I was healed, I felt the darkness leaving, and I cried.

Then we will walk together, and I will show you my garden, and my plants, and I will take you to the fire again.

And will talk together in a single voice with the blessing of the earth.

And we will shout to the forest the desires of your heart.

And the fire will listen and whisper the echo, and we will create hope together.

And the mountains will listen and whisper the echo, and we will create hope together.

And the rivers will listen and whisper the echo, and we will create hope together.

And the wind will listen and whisper the echo, and we will create hope together.

And then we will bow before the fire, and we will call upon all the visible and invisible guardians.

And you will say thank you to all of them.

And you will say thank you to yourself.

And you will say thank you to yourself. 

And you will say thank you to yourself.

~Author unknown

“Someday you are going to realize there is a tremendous difference in knowing the path, and walking the path”
Morpheus to Neo ~The Matrix

I hate to do this, but if you want to be caught up, you’re going to have to go back and read Parts I-III.
I’ll wait.

Ok, so now you have some of the back story.

This installment starts in late November 1993 and I’m going for my second session of “energy work” with that little Tasmanian devil, T.
I’ve wised up enough to realize this work has absolutely nothing to do with alleviating tension and sore muscles.
It is a “soul massage”. It is releasing very old and “stuck” cellular memory, in order to give my soul a cleaner slate. I didn’t have a full grasp of why that was a good idea, but like most things that were happening to me at that time, I was just “goin’ with the flow”.

T incorporated acupuncture needles this time. TONS of them. I had them all over my body. My face was covered, down my spine and the bottoms of my feet, which freaked me out. What if there was an Earthquake and I had to make a run for it?
When he was working on my spine, I started to feel very anxious, like an anxiety attack—so I told him to stop. With one wave of his hand, I felt better.

Shit, Where was this guy when I was getting my divorce?

After my previous session, which was my first, I became quite ill.
This time, I lost my mind.
Well, just a little at first, but I’m someone who REALLY likes feeling normal, and as I left normal far behind me in the rearview mirror, I shut down.
But first I got weird and kinda desperate.
I had read that putting pennies (copper) in your shoes could help ground a person, so imagine if you will, me at work with pennies taped inside my Jimmy Choo’s and Manolo Blahnik’s.  It didn’t help. I was out of clever options. Could a tin-foil hat be far behind?

Work…yeah, that was interesting. Thank God I ran the place, so I was there alone 90% of the time. I literally would be “out” of my body all day, every day. To the point that I would forget how to answer a telephone. Not what to say… I didn’t know how it worked! It would ring, and I’d stare at it, like someone from the dark ages seeing modern technology for the first time. Same thing with the fax. I also had trouble reading English.

While I was “out” I was freezing cold, but each day for I’d say a half-hour total, I’d pop back “in” for a visit. I could feel it start at the base of my spine with a warmth that would radiate to the top of my head. Once it got there, Me, the 20th century Janet, would be back!
That’s when I made sure I would listen and return the phone messages, and read whatever needed my attention. Oddly enough I have no memory of a single customer interaction. I know that can’t be true, this madness lasted for over three months, but apparently, I was able to fake sanity convincingly.

I was so afraid of getting fired or driving a car when I was “out” but my team, yes, I had a little team around me now, with T acting as the leader, and he assured me that the state I was in (Samadhi) was so sacred, that no harm would befall me.
Sacred Shmakred. But it never did.

When I wasn’t an emotionless zombie, I was suffering epic, massive anxiety. Fear was my constant companion.
I know, hot mess…enlightenment isn’t elegant. (More on that later)

I had one foot in this world, and another foot…somewhere else. Somewhere far, far, away, where I was assured I was needed.
My opinion was, hey, I have this perfectly good body right here, right now, I want to be present! So I fought the process. Tooth and nail. No flow going for me! I struggled every second of every day, and THAT was causing all my suffering.

You don’t fight Samadhi, you embrace it, or so I was told.

Nights were hard. I lived alone, for which I was partially grateful. On one hand, I didn’t have to make excuses for my behavior, but I felt extremely isolated.

God, nights are sinister.
I’d never really noticed that before. They are excruciatingly looooong and so damn black, so damn all the time in the winter!

T did his energy work on me, sometimes several times a day if I was particularly uncomfortable.
With him came that same bone dry bedside manner.
I remember, one day, laying on the bed, saying all I could see was black, and screaming that I couldn’t breathe.
Me:(gasping dramatically) I’m gonna die!
T: (calmly, almost bored, while thumbing through a People magazine) You are in Bardo, every cell in your body can breathe, not just your lungs, ask your whole body to breathe for you. How about if you quit fighting it? Surrender.
Me: I’m dying!
T: Then die.

Looking back I realize his calm nonchalance saved me. I can’t imagine how scared I would have been if he had been freaking out also. I’m convinced that that’s the best way to be in these situations. Calm and reassuring, not at all emotionally invested.

If I had smelled ANY fear on his part, I would have lost it…more than I already had.

The team was concerned that if I didn’t lighten up and “throw up my hands like I’m on a roller coaster” that the energy would fry my circuits. Everyone agreed, fighting it was not serving me.

“This is your new normal,” they’d insist.  “There’s no going back, you can’t un-know something, once you know it”

Shut up! And what does that even mean??

I swear, some of the people that look homeless and crazy on the streets, I’m convinced have never learned to ride the roller coaster. I feel for them, I really do.
I bet they have pennies in their shoes.

My friend at work, Sally, was the only person I confided in. She didn’t judge, even though it looked to her like her friend had flipped her lid.
When I felt particularly bad, I’d walk by her booth and we’d make eye contact.
Then we’d both throw our arms in the air and go “weeeee” and I’d feel a little more human and understood. She rode the coaster with me.

I’m making it sound like it was all hell.
It was mostly hell, but Samadhi brings with it some interesting party favors.
I think that happens to keep you engaged because every fiber of my being was checked out.
I did have some mystical, magical, miracles happen during that time.
Those will be next.

(To be continued)
XoxJanet