Dear Future Self, Welcome To My Body

I have to tell you that I was quite surprised and very pleased that you decided to come and stay with me here and now. I thought I’d have to wait who knows how long to actually get to hang out with you. But here you are! In the flesh. In my flesh, to be exact.

It is very gracious of you to not turn your nose up at our living conditions. As you can see, I am a work in progress. But this is a very busy construction site and wonderful things are in the works.

Yesterday, as “fate” (I don’t know what else to call this underlying symmetry that permeates all things)–as fate would have it, I had a wonderful conversation with a woman in a waiting room at the hospital who confided in me her worries about her son. As it happened, I had had similar experiences with my son, so I was able to be of comfort and offer a little help. We were both brought to tears during the encounter; both of us felt touched by grace to have met and shared our stories.

Little did I know that a yogini friend was sending light and love to me at that very moment. I had asked for her blessings with a kundalini practice we were doing with Spiritual Voyage Global Sadhana. I have no doubt that her blessings played a part in the flow of conversation between the waiting room friend and I because I had stated that I wanted to learn the yoga to be of greater service in my home and community.

The next evidence of the efficacy of this spiritual work is that I had a dream that I am sure was connected on a deep level to work being done in the area of suicide prevention. I can’t explain it in this letter; this letter would turn into a novel.

Future Self, as you know, I want to be an instrument of God’s peace more than anything. And the fact that you are here early, even before I can share your wardrobe, fills me confidence that God is hearing my prayers. I see the work you do and I hope to learn more about it in dreamland. Now that we share the same body, watching our dreams will be like going to the movies! You can show me the future, and I can show the warm and fuzzy nostalgic films.

It is already different with you here. Just this morning, when I attempted the kundalini practice that I was having trouble with, I knew I had help from the spirit realm. I felt the assistance of teachers and friends guiding and encouraging me with each breath.

I was practicing the Thunderbolt of Shiva and had previously been unable to coordinate the breathing with the locks that are to be applied. I just couldn’t do it without becoming breathless and tense.

I also had not been able to sit in easy pose because my bones were too arthritic to fold that way.

But today was different. I saw a way to use my exercise ball as a prop for my crossed legs while I sat on the window seat. So there I was, in an easy easy pose, ready to try the practice again.

I had a vision of a beam of light from Livtar’s eye flash when it met with mine at the beginning of meditation as if to say, Ah! Glad you showed up! There were other’s there. Kelly was one, and gentle Snatam Kaur,

I was guided to breathe normally for a few moments while I silently chanted the mantra, letting myself fall into the rhythm of it.

Then I felt as if I was on a big swing in a beautiful tree. Like a little kid, I was being gently pushed to and fro, one teacher in front and one behind.

When ever I was ready, they instructed, i could apply navel lock at the next inhale and hold it while silently chanting the mantra. Then,I was told, I was to let go and breathe normally, to just keep up with the mantra while swinging in the tree swing.

“Then whenever ready,” they instructed, “apply root lock on an exhale and hold the breath out as long as it didn’t cause any panic or strain. And, as before, breathe normal breaths, chant silently and and enjoy being in the swing until ready to try another lock-breath.”

i went for 11 minutes with no strain.

i didn’t want to stop at 11 minutes, so i started the music again and this time only focused on the visualization aspects of the kriya, seeing light around my hands and thunderbolts moving through the top of my head through out my body, especially into my hands.

At the end of that session i used the time and space to send reiki to those who are in need of it, including myself, but especially those who are feeling like there is no option left to them except suicide.

It was a fruitful practice. It was a good day, and now you, future self, are here, in the flesh, as well! What a boon.

The sun has just gone down on our first day together. Let’s make tea and a gratitude gift. I am thinking of a wire tree necklace–or a few necklaces.

The dog is curled up, cozy beside me and the cat will wander in here soon.

Tell me, now that you have come to stay in my body, do I have a place in the future with you as well?

Can you tell me a story about what it’s like there? Can you start with the trees? What kind of trees are holding the wind chimes? (I know there will be wind chimes and gongs.)

Dear Future Self, May I Borrow Those Jeans?

I don’t want no fancy pants; I’m not looking for flash and dazzle.

Well, okay, maybe a teeny bit of dazzle.

I see you in a pair of good hiking boots. You are standing on a large rock outside your home. Of course, you have a staff that your uncle Raymond gave you, and it’s got all its crystals firmly attached.

But it’s the jeans you are wearing that I want to borrow. I just love those things!

They are the perfect shade of blue and those pockets are so easy to get to. You never have to fumble to find them.

Those jeans are not too tight and not baggy. I want to wear them because you bought them when your other jeans were too big. Remember how good it felt when you’d lost all that weight and were in such good shape that your old pants kept falling down? Hahaha! So you went out and bought new jeans.

You bought new hiking boots too. Your feet were healed completely. The podiatrist was flabergasted. He had done the x-rays himself, both the before and the after. The before x-rays looked like an earthquake had shifted the bones in your feet and the after shots showed normal, healthy bone structure. He could not explain it and would not have believed it if he hadn’t treated you himself.

When you used to talk to him about yoga and Reiki, he thought you were a little flaky. Okay, he thought you were quite flaky, but he liked you because you had such a positive attitude.

Now when he sees you he just shakes his head and looks deeply puzzled.

Your other doctors had the same reaction when you went back to see them after taking your health into your own hands.

What was it that convinced you that you were not getting well by their treatments? Their medicines, which only treated individual symptoms, actually caused more complicated problems because they ignored the real cause of the dis-ease.

But you started listening carefully to the wisdom of body; you finally recognized body as ally and not enemy. You cared for her. You made sure she had good rest, good sleep, good work and good fun. You learned to fine tune her senses and seeing, hearing and all the rest became a highly developed art. The whole world sprang to life and every multidimensional moment was magnificent in its own right.

You learned that body is an excellent transmitter of beautiful, helpful energy. You became a source of healing for your family and friends.

Even your relationships, especially the difficult ones, got better. Old conflicts were resolved and ancestral wounds were healed.

Another thing I like about those jeans is that you don’t have to change clothes to sit down to meditate. You can just plop into position anytime you like. Man, I like that kind of freedom of movement!

So let’s do some of that freaky shaman stuff you learned how to do where you bend time like a rainbow ; you know, where you make a great bridge from hither to yon. Let’s meet in body and start the molecular process of positive change.

What’s that? It’s already happening?

Cool.

I’ll be thinking about the color shirt I want to wear with those jeans.

Bubble Universe

It seemed so solid

Till I gained the perspective

That I’m living on the Outer Edge of a bubble,

Looking in.

Ah! Look! There you are. And there is Auntie Em.

Tender heartache, too, for my ex-husband, Tim.

There go the living and the dead,

all the enemies and all the friends

some who are still fighting and others who

smile and say, “You win.”

Pop.

Adi Shakti

“The body occasionally goes through what is called a healing crisis. This often occurs just when an individual is working to consciously reshape his/her health.” –Ted Andrews, The Healer’s Manual

I can’t deny that all is exactly as it should be.

I have been doing a lot of Reiki for people near and far over the past two months. That means I have been doing a lot of Reiki for myself as well.

I started meditating (doing Reiki) with crystals on a cedar staff as a way to focus my attention on the chakras of the person I am treating. It seems to amp up the effect. Some of the people I treated said that when I place the staff near them, they feel a palpable increase in the Reiki.

Then it happened. I had a healing crisis.

I didn’t recognize it at first. I just thought my world was crashing.

But tonight I see evidence of grace.

I had painted an entire page of nothing but red when the crisis first hit. I wasn’t thinking about what it meant, I was just feeling it.

Red.

I thought I was just intensely angry and hurt.

But today I started cutting the painting into pieces to make a mandala which I intended to use as a shield against all the bad vibes flying around, and I also wanted to make a little red house for my vision board; I wanted to remind the Universe that I needed to move out of where I live now, the sooner the better.

Well, the house idea didn’t work so the red pieces of painting were just lying on my desk in a heap. The mandala wasn’t working out very well either.

I’d been chanting Adi Shakti all day after downloading it from Bandcamp. I’d just received a random email notifying me of a new recording by one of my favorite singers, Brenda McMorrow.

Now, if you backtrack to a poem I wrote earlier today you will see that the healing crisis I was having had to do with my mother.

So chanting to the divine feminine was a good prescription for what ailed me.

Here is the part where it all started to come together.

I picked up a piece of the red painting and was going to paint one of the Reiki symbols on it. I stopped, though, and looked again at the fragment. There was an image there. It was completely random. {Yes I am using the R word again because it matters.} There was an image of a woman’s face appearing in the different tones of red.

So I outlined it with whatever drawing thing I could find in a hurry.

Intrigued, I kept looking at the image I’d traced.

I was still chanting Adi Shakti, but I needed to look up the meaning again because I had forgotten what some of the words meant.

The more I read, the more certain I was that this whole mother crisis and the red painting and the fluke occurrence of getting one of my favorite chants in my email were not so random after all.

I wanted healing. Deep healing. And there I was, having to work through the core issues of my dis-ease: my own birth, my very existence as it has played out in the messy and emotional maelstrom of my relationship with my mother.

There were angels and midwives all around to help me through; I relied on texting friends, phone calls and all sorts of art projects to keep me from losing my heart. I even made an ocean drum and played it till my hands tingled. And I have to mention the exquisite music of Lisa Gerrard, who gave voice to the evolving parts of my being that I could not release on my own.

And then, there she was. The face of the divine feminine, a silver outline on a stormy red background. It was a calling card from God that said, “I got your back. All is well. All is as it should be. Well done.”.”

I feel like the crisis is over now. Meditating on the divine mother helped me work through some of the most painful issues I have with my own mother.

Love won.

“Adi Shakti, Adi Shakti, Adi Shakti, Namo Namo

(I bow to the creative power of the Kundalini, the Divine Mother Power)” –3ho.org

(I bow to the Primal Power)

Sarb Shakti, Sarb Shakti, Sarb Shakti, Namo Namo

(I bow to the all encompassing Power and Energy)

Pritham Bhagvati, Pritham Bhagvati, Pritham Bhagvati, Namo Namo

(I bow to that which God creates)

Kundalini Mata Shakti, Mata Shakti, Namo Namo

Devotion

Love covers a multitude of sins. 1 Peter 4:8

I drink deeply of the peace that follows the desperate storm.

This moment won’t come again.

I stay with it for at least the length of a song

and try to not look away.

Broken

Glass,

Shattered

Bits of oil

slick rainbow

On the floor

Where I wept

For the dropped

Vase,

The face that held

Expressions

Like flowers

Falling.