The Sword and The Stone

The older we get, we tend to feel as though by now surely we "should" have resolved all those stubborn childhood issues. We've struggled with them at length, placed them aside only to have them rear up again and again.

For as long as I can remember throughout my adult life, I have had high blood pressure (even when I was young and thin) and a stiffness in my neck and upper shoulders that defied even repeated treatments by a gifted acupuncturist.

I ended up in the ER twice in one week when, after 3 months of concerted lifestyle and diet changes and nice, stable lowered blood pressure it started skyrocketing again. I have little stress in my life, a whole lot of peace, and really, the normal things that bother people with hypertension have little effect on me anyway. It doesn't elevate with stress, caffeine, etc. So the second time I was worried, and so were the hospital staff. But after 6 hours of intense tests -- 2 sets of blood work, 2 EKGs, a chest x-ray and a CT scan, they pronounced that I seemed in perfect health.

A friend whose wisdom I trust mentioned that Louise Hay had said that hypertension could be caused by unresolved childhood trauma. I wanted to roll my eyes. What was I still holding on to? I couldn't even imagine. I mentioned in an earlier blog that after reading Eckhart Tolle, I had been able to let go of a huge issue that had haunted me for 40 years.

So I decided to see a hypnotherapist. I met Mark Ruhl and his wife Jo'Ann when she did a couple of radio shows for me last year. I was very impressed with them, and decided at that time that if I ever felt that I needed a hypnotherapist that I would make an appointment with Mark.

I was a bit apprehensive. I really didn't feel like dealing with a bunch of dredged up memories, and how important could they be by now anyway? It also flashed through my mind about the "false memories" people say have been created in therapy. I nearly canceled the appointment. But something in my core told me to go anyway.

The greatest relief was Mark's methodology. I don't know, of course, what he does with anyone else, and I didn't tell him of my apprehensions. But he chose, instead of plumbing my memory for possibly forgotten traumatic memories, to simply help me find and remove what he referred to as "attachments."

Once in the uber-relaxed, hypnotic state, which to my pleasant realization was more like a deep meditative state than a "going under" like we've come to expect thanks to Hollywood, he simply asked me to scan my body for any "resistance" and to describe it to him. Where was it? What color was it? What shape was it? Did it come from within me or from without?

The first resistance I felt was, of course, in my neck and upper back. When he asked me what color it was, I told him like a sickly, phlegmatic yellow. But that soon morphed into a bright hot, golden glowing metal and took the shape of a sword which seemed to be stuck into the nape of my neck with only the hilt sticking out, and the sword running down where my spine should be.

While I was visualising the sword, in an instant, Artio, my Bear Goddess of Berne, my patroness, guide and teacher appeared in a flash by my side, simply reached up and pulled it straight up and out of my body. It happened so quickly, I caught my breath and began to cry. She looked at me, not remonstratingly so much as teasing and asked, "Do you know how long I've pursued you to try to take this thing out? But you never let me get close enough."

It was amazing. The weight was gone, the stiffness was gone, that thing that had so long been a source of headaches and tension and irritability was gone.

"You may have once needed it," Mark told me, "but it has served its purpose and is no longer necessary." Then he asked me to take as long as I like and fill the void with something of my own choosing. I saw it being replaced with a smooth, round, translucent green tourmaline rod. Interesting that now that I look it up in my Crystal Bible, it tells of green tourmaline or verdelite as "an excellent healer and help for visualization. It opens the heart chakra, promotes compassion, tenderness, patience, and a sense of belonging. This nurturing stone brings balance and a joie de vivre." In reading the remainder of the description, which is too lengthy to record here, I am stunned at the characteristics which it enhances and heals -- all things which correspond directly to things I've so long struggled with. I think I had some guidance from somewhere, within or without, to promote that particular substance for replacement.

The second "resistance" was a bit less dramatic, it was a flat, round rock, dull grey, in the small of my back. I sensed it had been placed there. Because this came from outside instead of inside as the sword had, he said I had to decide whether I was ready to let go of it, and to tell it to leave. I said yes, quickly, but the truth appeared to be different. I witnessed hands grappling for the stone -- ones to pull it out, and others pulling it back, holding it there, unwilling to release it. The struggle took a few minutes, but the removing hands won. When he told me to take my time and fill the void, I filled the whole lower lumbar region and into my hips with a healthy green tree trunk holding branches and leaves which I then watched as it grew down into my legs and feet, and upward, spreading across my back.

The session's work complete, and feeling an incredible lightness of being, I left. That was Saturday morning. Sunday night, I had the most lovely dream. You see, part of my going to see Mark was also my consternation at the fact that despite all the calm and peace in my life, I was having anxious, fearful, and often times violently threatening dreams. I would awake from my dreams exhausted.

In this dream, I perceived a threat of incarceration if I didn't escape the place I was being held. I remember, however, that there was no fear in it, simply an understanding of what I needed to do, and a sense of urgency about it. I went downstairs and found a swimming pool. It is interesting to note that this particular swimming pool that I found is one that often crops up in various scenarios in my dreams. Nothing attractive about it -- more like a chamber filled with chlorinated water than a place to have fun. But I dove in and went directly to a corner at the bottom of the pool where there was a door. I opened the door and found myself on a narrow strip of beach -- white sand with beach grass poking up through it. And beyond, the wide sea. I ran resolutely across the beach and dove into the water and swam. And swam, and swam, and swam -- every stroke making me feel safer and more confident. The basic scenario was repeated several times before I woke, always a bit different, but always ending up with me swimming for miles with a purpose and a destination. Finally as the dream receded, and I surfaced, I heard my own voice in my head saying, "I am free. This is freedom."

All day today I have felt an incredible lightness. But not in the usual euphoric, overenthusiastic way my overcompensating ego often works. Two different people mentioned today that I seemed to be in a really good mood. But it felt natural and whole.

It seems to me that it takes a village -- not only to raise a child -- but to live a life. I think of how this all came about -- one friend suggests a possible cause for my malady -- another has the skills to draw it out. People like me, who are self aware, tend to think we shouldn't have to have "help," that it's something we should be able to fix within ourselves. Well, true -- no one can fix it but us -- but sometimes the skills and compassion of others, of wise women and healers, are the gifts we need to allow ourselves.

Perception, Ego, and the Now

It's been nearly 8 weeks since I posted. Life has definitely been in the fast lane for those weeks -- mostly in the cerebral realms!

Yes, we've moved -- we're trying out Show Low for the summer. Even considering staying for the year. I can't imagine, though, what mountain winter is like after 16 years in California and Arizona.

And, of course, I've spent those 16 years reluctantly giving away all my mountain clothes. ><

But on the subject of "my life since EquiSync," I can barely keep up with what's going on. www.eocinstitute.org

No lie. It has drastically decreased my usual irritability, and it significantly lowers my blood pressure.

But the beauty of it goes far beyond that. I am experiencing a serious increase in creativity, motivation, peace, and best yet, the Law of Attraction at work.

I have been using the Law of Attraction for several years now, and it works well for me, but the meditation has really ramped it up.

And now, for the first time, I understand a concept in a way I have never understood it before: why meditation works; no, I mean why it REALLY works.

And I found that information in a very unexpected place.

I knew it worked, but I hadn't gotten it to work for me. Then I read and heard enough that I knew I would "grow" no further until I was able to meditate.

Believe me, I'm not attributing everything to the EquiSync. EquiSync was what worked to get me into the silence. I will be glad when my brain is trained and I no longer have to rely on the recordings, when I can get into the space by myself.

I have long heard the importance of meditation to assist one to "live in the now." But I really only had a vague idea of what that meant. Until I experienced it. But the experience was inarticulable for me (is that a word?) until I read something.

The last time I was in the library, I was led to pick up a Carlos Castaneda book. Now, I've had the opportunity to read Castaneda for years, but was never interested. I had A Yaqui Way of Knowledge on my own bookshelf for years and never even opened it. You see, I was stupidly swayed by the opinions of academics who went out of their way to try to discredit his work. All I can say is, they completely miss the point.

Anyway, I picked up Tales of Power because I have been extremely interested in storytelling as magic for the last couple of years. (Yeah, so interested that I have several books about it on my bookshelf -- that I've never read.) But I had found my own magical power(s) through storytelling, and I do mean to read what others have to say about it.

ANYway, I was absolutely blown away by the concepts in Tales of Power. It is so pithy in a psychological, philosophical, and practical way that I can only read a few pages, then I have to stop to digest and visualize what I have read. I have found it amazing, to say the least. More proof to me that the ancients took as given the things that our society is just now beginning to understand/explain through quantum concepts.

But most of all, I loved the concept Castaneda put forth about man's inner monologue -- I'm sure many philosophers have said the same thing, but most philosophy books are intellectually inaccessible to me. Most of what I know about philosophy, I've either intuited myself or had it distilled for me by someone else. (An interesting insight into that particular phenomenon is had by watching the movie "Leaves of Grass."

According to Castaneda, our monologue that is so difficult to quash, is our moment by moment processing and perception of the world. The problem is that it's always in the PAST! Maybe only by a millisecond or so, but still in the past. We are just iterating what we just perceived. Combining what Ekhart Tolle says with what Castaneda says, it must be the ego that does the narrating because it's the toughest bugger to kill that I have ever encountered. It fights!

Having that realization also led me to understand that when someone is talking about the Warrior, he or she is talking about one engaged in the battle to quell the Ego.

So, the upshot of all this is that it is imperative to stop that internal monologue long enough to experience the NOW. Before Castaneda, I understood that everyone said it was important, but not having experienced it, I didn't truly understand it. The NOW is the only way to be a Shaman, to walk between the worlds. To truly understand other dimensions and spirits. I have worked with spirits since before I was an adult. But I see now that it was always past perception rather than a knowing in the NOW. Only in the NOW can I progress.