There is some healing happening.....

      "Behind the Wall"

Collage of the children emerging from behind the wall.

Dream:  I am in a house with an over poweringly bad smell.  I look everywhere to find the source and then I notice a section of wall with a secret panel in it.  When I move it aside I see that there is a large room hidden there.  I step inside and there are row upon row of sleeping hammocks with children in them piled one on top of another.  I think that they must all be dead but it seems that some of them are still alive.  I feel horror and pain at the conditions that they are living in..how can this be?  I then discover that the smell is coming from a dead bear.

My work from this dream was to bring those captive children out of the darkness and into the light.  To stand in the doorway and feel the horror, the pain, the compassion, and the sadness.  As these children were parts of my soul that had been hidden away...for one reason, or another...and left to barely survive in the darkness.

"Healing on the cellular level"

"Dr. Wu ~ the Healer"

Dream:  I am at an appointment with a Chinese man named Dr. Wu.  He is middle aged but seems very ancient.  The treatment is unlike anything that I've done before.  Many of his family members are taking part including his wife and son.  I ask the wife who Dr. Wu's teacher was and she tells me very emphatically, that his teacher is inside oh him.  At one point, Dr. Wu asks me to remember something and I recall my dream of the children hidden behind the wall and I start to cry.  Then we go outdoors to take a walk in the snow and my feet are bare. We go up and down this winding road and it feels like I'm skiing on just my
feet...exhilarating.  When we come back to the house, I sit down next to him on a bench and lean close in an intimate way.  My body is then flooded with this erotic energy and I can feel and orgasm coming.  There is some great healing happening inside of me.

My body is demanding more and more rest these days and these new symptoms of dizziness and foggy headedness keep me constantly triggered in feelings of fear and uncertainty.  The Animus though, has come as Dr. Wu and he is here to do his work on me.  The restless energy of always moving, always doing - working - cleaning - whatever, that has plagued me all my life is at last settling down and I can bear to stand still.  Through the work of feeling the horror and the pain of acknowleding the children trapped behind the wall, I have allowed and welcomed new feelings to surface.  The fear is coming more and more into the open so that I can look it in the face and breath my way through it.  Standing still....breathing...leaning into Dr. Wu...that is my work right now.  Amazingly enough, in this new place, I can now face  getting  back to the Yoga mat.  In the past year I  have been so resistant to starting a practice again.  I could not bear the thought of laying still and opening to what might come...but now I am saying "Yes" to whatever feeling may arise and have the willingness to feel them.  It is still an ongoing struggle but I am standing still more and more and experiencing what is going on in the moment. 

Maine Retreat - Part I "Thank God for Water"; Part II - The Portland Retreat

FIRE

                                                                           

PLUS   ICE

EQUAL'S    WATER

        Today the sky is clear and the sun is out and everything has a clarity to it's edges...especially the pine trees with the sunlight on them.  The water is a new shade of blue today and I wish that I had been keeping a record of all the different shades of blue, grey, green, blue grey, blue green, almost black... with paint.
         I awoke this morning feeling the immensity of the fact that I have been on this earth for almost 60 years...and for most of those years I have lived in a state of discontent and despair.  As I finally begin to climb out of that prison, I can look back and start to feel the pain of regret for all of that lost time not fully lived.  Not that my life has been a failure in societal terms....as I have had a satisfying career and many loving family and friends.  But my soul needs and the health of the girl heart inside have always been pushed to the bottom of the list and as a result, I , as the adult have suffered terribly because of it.  Not just in the ever present feelings of loneliness....even in both my marriages and long term partnership...but also in relentless physical pain.  I have accomplished much, but it has always come at a price.
        I know now, thanks to the dreamwork, that there was a great wall of trauma in front of my soul girl and my resistance to getting behind that wall has been unbreakable.  Terrible bad things happened to me in another incarnation and I arrived in this present one with all of those memories intact.  I vowed in the strongest way possible that I would never be subject to that kind of horror and terror again and so I stopped feeling anything that would open the door to those memories.  That vow served me well in allowing me to survive and function in the world but that choice is now taking its toll on my physical and mental state.  The pathologic pull that wanted to keep me hostage until my soul was utterly destroyed had almost succeeded.  I could very easily have become another souless victim who found relief in drugs,antidepressants,alcohol,religion or suicide.  In some ways I did numb myself with an addiction...that of overwork...proudly calling this my passion.  I thank God, the archetypes, whoever that there was still the faintest ember of a flame inside that kept making itself felt and saying "yes" when all I really wanted to be saying was "No".  Granted my "No" was alot stronger and more powerful then the "yes", but slowly, slowly, step by step the "yes" became stronger and more potent.
       So...here I sit....gazing out onto Eggemoggin Reach....away from all the responsibilities of my life for 11 precious days.  Eleven days to listen to my souls needs and wants.  To feel what I/she wants to feel and to do what I/she wants to do.  To be aware of self in the true way...not the ego who needs to be praised and loved for what it can give and do ....but the soul self who can just be.  I am remembering my dream of the baby left out in the snow to freeze to death and how I have not really let in what it feels like to have kept that vital part of myself frozen in a block of ice for all these years.  Because I do not know her truly....I don't know what I have missed.  Because I have not let her be a part of me, I don't really know who she is.  It's why it has been so easy to forget her....push her aside, shove her needs to the end of the list.  How can I miss what I do not know?  But that is really the tragedy of my life...to have lived almost 60 years without  knowing who I really am.  Not caring to know who I really am.  I won't go into shame or blame about this because the lesson of this life for me was to face the wall of trauma and finally break through to the other side.  But I will not waste another day of not embracing my self self and clasping her firmly to my heart.  I will keep her no longer in the deep freeze...conviently out of the way...so that I don't have to feel the pain of her aliveness.  Becuase with her being alive and whole in me then I will have to feel pain and loss...grief and sorrow...but also joy  and contentment...awe and wonder.
              Thank God for water.

Snake Bite

The Portland Retreat....
After leaving my little paradise on Eggemoggin Reach, I drove down to Portland for a three day Archetypal Dreamwork Retreat.  It was a smaller gathering then the retreats held here in Vermont at North of Eden,
but that suited me just fine.  The two most important dreams that I brought to the retreat were as follows:

     Dream:  I am at the weaving school and two men have lifted up the dye shed and are cleaning out the space underneath it.  They have dug a deep hold and are filling it with clean sand.  They show me a pile of debris that they removed and it appears that someone was living under there.  All of a sudden I see this enormous snake come slithering out of the foundation.  It is covered in slime and I notice that at the head is an unborn fetus also covered in slime.  I yell for Norman to come have a look but the thing has moved quickly and mounted a horse and ridden away.  All that is left is the slime.
      Dream:  I am riding on a donkey in the last stage of labor.  My husband Joseph finds a place for us to stop in an old barn.  He is going to find a midwife but I tell him that there is no time...the baby is coming now!

Both dreams carried the feelings that there is something new that wants to be born in me.  In the snake dream I get to feel the awe of this marvelous thing but also I get to notice how I immediately  step aside from the experience and have "Norman" validate it for me.  What is that all about?  Good question and one that I need to keep in front of me as I do this re-birthing.  In the second dream I was able to feel the fear of not knowing how to do this thing of giving birth...really feel it....and then have Joseph right there beside me giving me all the support that I need.  When we worked this in the String Therapy, "Joseph" was behind me letting me lean into him as I struggled with the labor.  The visceral connection of this leaning was something that finally made it into my consciousness.  I have felt so alone in my fear ...especially lately...that having this solid
flesh and bone experience was an incredible gift.
Two incredible gifts to take back home with me to Vermont.

Volcano Erupting

This is the dream I had last night...and it fits in so nicely with the new energy that I have been feeling when I take brush and paint to paper.
 Dream: I am at the beach and just a little ways away on the horizon I see two twin volcanoes begin to erupt. It is spectacular to witness! I wonder if the ash and lava will reach me where I stand but I am not afraid. Instead I revel in the power that is being unleashed.
(These paintings were actually made during the past two weeks and reflect the work from my previous dreams.)

 

Heart on Fire

Volcano Exploding

Bleeding Heart

Reverse of Bleeding Heart

Star Gazing Under water

Being the Aboriginal Boy....

"My Rainbow Serpent"

 Dream: I am at a house near the water and there are three boats that I start to move to the dock so that I can go kayaking. Ellen Cooke comes by with her two children and a very small boy who is part Aboriginal. He has thick dark curly hair and comes over to sit in my lap. Peter is there as well and squats down next to the children. I ask the children if they want to go out in the boat with us. 

 The work from this dream is to forget about managing the children into a recreational activity and to just be with/be the aboriginal boy. Find out what part of me he represents. When I felt into this question I realize that he has a calm contentment with who he is..."I am who I am". There is an inner knowing of his place in the world...especially the world of the spirit. He is a "gulapa" ~ magic man....like Nullah - the half caste
Aboriginal boy - in the movie "Australia." He moves easily between both worlds....has a kinship with all things and a wisdom that is ancient. He is innocent...full of feelings...and he loves to sing.  The drawing of "My Rainbow Serpent" is my rendition of the Aboriginal legend - The Rainbow Serpent. The meaning of the legend to me is all about transformation on a large scale. I feel that this is starting to happen in my life right now and I am in awe of the power of what this boy holds inside of me.

It's all about the Man.....

 

 

 

A Contented Life

 This past March when I had a Rooting Shen treatment in Maine the "theme" or message from the treatment was that    "it was not about the man!"  In this case, the man was a man in my outer life who I had put in front of my own soul needs and was essentially hiding behind because I was afraid of feeling the pain of loss. The dream that I took to the treatment was about being the Queen -  not standing behind or below the King, but by his side as an equal....and to do this I had to face into my fear of pain.
The work that I did over the next few months was all about coming into the kingdom of my soul self and finding the feelings that I had buried over the course of my life. Much of this work was concerned with facing into trauma pain and taking the steps to turn from the horror to the love.
Now the dreams are reflecting this shift  and I am meeting "the Man" and finding a union with him that surpasses all other experiences that I have had with men in both the inner and outer realms.

Dream:
I am with a group of people  -  some men, some women. There is a man who is a celebrity or prince and all the women want to be with him.  There is also a group of men who want to keep these women away from him.  All kinds of dramas ensue, with the women who try to be with him, and the men who try to keep them away.  I also want to be with him but I stand outside all of this drama and just wait.  I know that he has eyes for me too.  Finally we are in a car - hidden under some blankets while another man drives us away from the drama scene.  We reach for each other under the blankets and I am eager to have him inside of me.  When he does enter me I have an orgasm that feels like an explosion of volcanic energy!  Oblivious to the driver of the car I hold onto my man and keep inside me for what feels like hours.  I wonder and hope that I might get pregnant.  Then the dream  runs forward to the future and shows me married to this man and the mother of three or four children.  I am going off to get my hair cut and he is in the bath.  I ask him to look after the children, who are all running around wildly, and he smiles. I smile in return.  I feel vastly contented with my life.

As I feel into this Divine union with Him I am finding more and more parts of my soul that have been inaccessible to me.  The horror and terror that I witnessed which caused my soul self to flee and lay hidden, are now the portals through which I can pass through to find the myriad of feelings that were denied to me.
I am turning away from the suffering and misery and towards the passion, excitement, the contentedness, and the joy.  I want to feel everything...all the good feelings, and what I judged in the past to be bad.  I want to embrace them all and let them all flow through me.  In my last session with Isabelle she mentioned that there are over 50 feelings that we can experience.  All of them are probably variations on the big three....Fear, Pain and Love...but to me they are wonderous in their variety.  I started to make a list of the feelings that have shown up in my dreams over the years and that I have more or less repressed in preference to staying in the nihilism.  Wonder, awe, bliss, agony, ecstasy, expectation, disappointment, frustration, impatience, rapture, humility, gratitude, generosity, loneliness, compassion, tenderness, boisterous, adored, full, energized, jubilant, cranky, jealousy, envy, angry, scared, horriffed, terrified, scorned, unwanted, shunned,  frozen, numb, radiant, beloved....the list goes on and on.  Oh, what a gift it is to reclaim these parts of myself.  I feel an aliveness in my body and spirit that is new and overwhelmingly beautiful....and it is all because of Him.

Oh my God...it's you!!!

The work from my session two and a half weeks ago was to be obedient.  Not only to my dreams, but to the advice of Christa, my therapist, as well.  For in her candid but firm manner, she told me that if I didn't do what the dreams were trying to show me, she would resign!  And so...because I trust her implicitly and because I do want to keep moving forward in my work, I did what was asked of me.
Which was basically to let go of something...someone...who I have been using as a foil to feeling my pain.
So I obeyed ...I did what was being asked of me to do...but because I felt a "tiny" piece of resistance in the doing...the pathology got a hand hold and morphed my pain into nihilism.  My particular flavor of nihilism still allows me to function in the world ....just barely....so that I can get up and go to work and be somewhat productive in day.  Inside though there is an ache in my heart that results from the shut down and by the end of the day my head aches as well and I usually go home and go to directly to bed.  The symptoms of my lyme disease are also very much exaggerated by these attacks of nihilism and in this stage of my Rife treatments I end up  nearly incapacitated.  There are days when I can't go to work...when I must stay in bed all day...sleeping or just looking out the window.  Gazing out upon the most beautiful summer weather that we have had in years and cringing at how narrow and forlorn my life has become.  I am so tired that it hurts just to move and I feel like I am in a prison where the voices in my head are urging me closer and closer to taking my own life.  They tell me that I will never be well again...in fact, I am getting sicker from these treatments, not better...so why not end it all and be done with it.
When I came to this place of wanting my life to be over, something shifted inside and I could at least find the energy to pray.  I prayed for help....to God, to the Animus, to my Dad...to anyone out there who was listening.
I still couldn't get to the pain....wasn't that the whole point of being obedient???...but I could open my dream journal and re-read the dream that my homework came from.  The homework that I had not even remotely taken a step towards in these past two weeks.  Why??? Because there is something about having to let go and feel loss that triggers my trauma of losing my beloved and I instinctively will not go there. It is easier
 to stay shut down in the nihilism then to feel the pain.  Also my connection is still very tenuous and by the time that I can take the step of turning to Him, the pathology has rushed in ahead of me and turned me back to Hell.  But this time I was able to get there first....or at least I turned to the dream and made an attempt to feel my homework.

The Dream:
I am being pursued by a man who I think is going to rape and kill me.  I go into this house to evade him and hide in the bedroom ....placing a knife under the pillow just in case. He comes in through the door and something in my body recognizes him and I feel this instant physical attraction.  He leads me to the bed and I can hardly wait to embrace him.  But then I have to pee and go off to find the bathroom.  He follows me in and sits and chats to me while I'm on the toilet.  It feels like I have known him for years.  We then go back to the bed and lie down naked together.
Homework:  Feel the physical attraction to Him and stay with Him on the bed.

At first I don't want to feel the physical part...the attraction, the intimacy in the bathroom, the laying together naked.   I am scared shitless of all this and there is a big NO there. Something inside that says ..."Nope...I had all this, it was taken away from me in the most brutal manner and I will not risk ever having these feelings again.  But I go back to my dream of watching my beloved's execution where I also felt the most profound feelings of love and support, and then I realize....Oh my God...it's you!  It is my beloved that was pursuing me and comes to the bedroom.  It is he that my body recognizes immediately with an energy that can't be denied.  "It's Him, it's Him!! As I melt into this knowing , I can feel his arms around me.  I feel held in the most supported manner imaginable.  I can open my heart, I can banish the despair and I can feel the sweet, softness of pain that allows the tears to come.

I feel released from a bondage that seems to be more toxic and deadly each time that I encounter it.  I wonder why I choose this kind of suffering and misery over these feelings of love and connection?  Why it is so hard to break free and find my way back? I decide not to judge myself harshly over this...it is part of my journey and I can only feel blessed in this moment that I am back among the living.

Stuck in the moment of Horror

Sunday ~ May 27, 2012

Since my last session where I worked the dream of witnessing my beloved's execution I have been stuck in the numbed out place of darkness.  I was able to feel the terrible pain of loss while in Christa's presence but then on my own I could not find my way back there.  On Sunday I was having a skype conversation with my friend Rose and I related to her my feelings of being stuck in the nihilism.  She then said..."it takes enormous love and courage to witness your beloved's execution, so be easy on yourself."  Those few words ...the love and courage...found a crack in the wall and I could finally feel the "ouch" that let the tears start to flow. I realized today that I carry this pain with me always and more often then not I am completely closed off to it.  It is right under the surface of every breath that I take and it has taken so much energy to keep it buried.  Perhaps this never ending physical pain is this unfelt heart pain that I have not been able to access until now.  Even those few moments of feeling a shred of that pain today becomes so quickly inaccessible.  How to keep that door open...that is my work right now.  To go back to that terrible moment...it is dark...there is fear...there is a crowd of angry, aggressive energy.  I am filled with terror.  There are torches lighting the scaffold...a smoky, resinous smell.  I feel the anxiety of impending doom.  The man that I love...who is all the world to me...my spiritual brother...my one true love...is calmly awaiting his fate.  Our gazes lock...there is a strength in him that is passed to me.  A message that says..."Be strong, my love...this is not the end...we will be reunited...our love will endure.  Do this deed for me.  I will feel your love with your hands holding back my head.  That will be my grace...to know that you are near.  Do not be afraid.  I know that you and I are one and we can never be parted, even in death".

But the darkness did envelop me...and quilt and shame became my persona.  My soul was damaged by this act.  I lost my faith.  I could not grieve or feel the pain of loss. I became numb and broken. I lost my way in the wilderness of despair.  Searching, always searching for my beloved and my faith.  Lifetime after lifetime.

And now the way is being shown to me.  I am at the end of a very long journey and my dreams keep pointing the way through the darkness and I follow their lead.  Take each new step as it comes and keep my faith even though I know not where it will take me next.

Monday ~ May 28, 2012

It is Memorial Day and I have a session with Isabelle at the end of the day.  When I drive through Montpelier to her office the roads are quiet...hardly any traffic...everyone off to some celebratory picnic enjoying the beautiful spring day.  I am feeling heavy and tired and long for the safety of her massage table where with her help I hope to re-connect to the dream and the loss.  She takes me back to the moment of holding my beloved's head back....throat exposed....ready for the knife.  I don't want to go any further ....don't want to see or feel what comes next.  Part of me wants to stay in the dark, denying that moment, pretending that it never really happened....that is was all a mistake.  I turn on my side, curled up in a fetal position with a blanket over my head.  I know that I have to do this so I take a breath and go back inside. There is a knife cut across his throat....a cry of anguish...and then blood.  Blood all over me as I hold his lifeless body.  Someone comes and takes the body away and I run and hide.  I can't bear the feelings...I won't feel this, I won't, I won't...and then my mind goes blank.
Isabelle is holding onto my feet to keep me grounded as she continues to guide me through the darkness to find some anchor to hold onto.  I find something there in the dark that takes me my surprise....anger.  Not just anger...but ANGER!!  She makes me stand up and work out this anger by thrashing a soft baseball bat-like thing onto the table as I yell and scream out loud.  It is hard work and part of me is resisting it.  I don't "do" anger and I am uncomfortable acting it out in this way.  But it is now out in the open and I am ready to welcome this feeling as another step along the way to finding the pain.  I drive home feeling spent and soon after I get home a migraine starts and I am in physical pain for the rest of the night.

Tuesday ~ May 29, 2012

I have a busy morning of an appointment with Dr. Pam and my Rife treatment and then my session with Christa.  As soon as I am in the car driving to town I feel the anger surfacing.  I am so angry that this had to happen to me...that God took away my beloved and left me alone to face the rest of my life with this pain.
As I say the words out loud, the tears come and I am awash in pain.  All through the adjustment with Pam, the tears are falling and she helps me to stay with my homework and gives me some advice about how to support my liver where this anger has been stored forever.  In my Rife treatment I feel something dying...not just the lyme spirochetes but the part of myself that has resisted all of these feelings of pain, loss, anger, love.
At the Pink House with Christa the pain and anger continue to unfold...the one blending in with the other...cries of rage mixed with tears and sobs.  Thank God, at last, the dam has broken.  In some strange way I feel cleansed and unraveled.  Exhausted but renewed. 

We work through some dreams that are showing me a major source of my stuckness in my outer life and then the new homework dream.  In that dream I am with a man called Scott, who is the first mate of the schooner, the J & E Riggin.  He has just gotten a letter from Jon and Annie, the captains of the Riggin and they are inviting him to the birth of their next child.  They feel that he is part of their family and want him to be there at the birth.  So...this is me...the new child of the archetypal family that is getting ready to be born.  The soul that has been waiting underneath the thick layer of trauma and is now ready to emerge into the love of the divine family.  I am just starting to take this all in .....there will of course be more...but for now I am just awed by the miracle of it and can add nothing further.
love,
kate

Dreams of Horror, Dreams of Grace

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                                                                The Reckoning



The title of this blog post came to me in a dream about a year ago and was to be the title of a book that I was to write about my inner journey in archetypal dreamwork.  The writing of this blog has been  an attempt to start sharing my inner work and express it in  format that would eventually become the book that I had dreamt about.
All through this past winter and in the past 17 years of doing this work I have had dreams that showed bit by bit my original trauma and the separation of my soul from my divine self.  Along the way there were scary,disturbing dreams that offered an opportunity to feel pain or fear and then not long after there would be a dream of grace that affirmed the archetypal support and encourage me to go deeper.  The pace of this unfolding was determined by how diligently I did my homework and how ready I was to unravel the will of the ego that wanted to keep me still separate.  It has been a slow process because for the longest time I was not willing to go into that well of pain.  I planted my feet firmly at the edge of the chasm and said "No, No and more No"!
The circumstances of my life this past year....my being alone after seven years of a partnership and my declining health...have helped to push me past this "No" into the "Yes" and as a result, the dreams of horror increased in frequency as well as the dreams of grace.  After my last session where I had a dream about my father coming to help stand by me as I descended in the dark of unknowing, something broke open in my heart and I was given the following dream.

Dream:
It is night and there is some kind of gathering going on.  I go to find out what is happening and I see that a scaffold has been erected and a man who I know as a spiritual brother and my beloved is about to be killed.
I make my way to the front of the crowd and when  he sees me and our eyes lock. There is such a physical attraction and heart connection that it takes my breath away.  I'm not sure that I can watch what is going to come next as they pull back his head by his hair and bare his throat for the knife or axe.  Then one of the executioners spies me and says that I, his sister, should do the next part.
Then all goes dark and I am stumbling on my hands and knees trying frantically to get away from something or someone.  I am terrified ...not knowing where I am, where I am going...fearing that I might fall over a cliff or down into a deep hole. I then crash into something that I think is a pig stye and there is all this racket and squealing of baby pigs.  Something keeps attaching to my breast and I keep pulling it off.  Then a man comes with a light and I see that the creature is just a small puppy.  I take the puppy and go with the man to a small building where I just want to find a place to crawl into bed and sleep.  I wonder for a moment where my parents are and if they will be worried that I don't come home but I just want to stay where I am and disappear into the oblivion of sleep.  The man with the light then comes to tell me that my father is here and there is another gathering down the hill with a big fire and some dancing.  I follow the man, bringing with me the puppy and hurry to meet up with my father....also hoping that my brother/beloved might not really be dead but there too to join me in the dancing.

I had this dream just a day after my session and it haunted me so profoundly  that I called Christa for an emergency session because I knew that I couldn't wait for the next two weeks to be able to work it.  The meaning was perfectly clear to me but I was in such a state of numbness that I was not able to feel any feelings around this incredible loss....only the sense of being thrust into the deepest darkness and denial.  It is this denial that I have carried with me always....this denial of a loss so unbearably painful that the only way that I have found to endure it was to keep believing that maybe it wasn't true.  But here in this dream were my dear father and my puppy/girl heart and with Christa's gentle help I finally accepted the truth and let my heart feel the pain of losing my beloved and maybe even participating in his demise.   And so... I let myself feel at last,  loss with a capital "L".  The pain was agonizing in its intensity and left me feeling weak and drained but curiously I felt a freedom that allowed the love to surface and expand into love with a capital "L"!
I am now in a state of calm and contentment ....most of the time anyway...and when I do find myself slipping into the darkness I find the puppy and take the hand of my father to make my way back through the pain to the love.  I find that I am wanting to remember more and more this blissful union that I once felt with the beloved.  To step beyond the horror and experience the joining of heart and soul in the arms of the divine.  I have crossed the threshold and He is there waiting.


The Horror.....

The Grace.....

;

Sparks Flying....

                                                                 Sparks Flying

Two new dreams from my last session with Christa.....

I am in NJ at my parents house and Laura and Noah and the crew are there doing Rooting Shen treatments.  There is a knock at the door and it is Ioan Gruffyd (the Welsh actor) and I think that he is here for a treatment...but no, he just wants to see me.  The Rooting Sheners decide that they want to go over to the beach and I give them directions about how to get there.  Ioan and I then go into the bedroom and lay down face to face on the bed and he is very tender and intimate with me. Later I go up into the attic with him and notice that the chimney and foundations of the house are crumbling and I realize that the house is going to collapse.


In the next dream I am in NJ wading through the ocean in Beasley's Point Bay.  A woman in the toll booth on the bridge above me hails me about paying a toll to cross the water.  I then make my way to shore and try to pay but I don't have my check book and then I get lost and on and on it goes.

The second dream is showing a trauma trigger...a simple gesture from a person in authority can make me feel like I've done something wrong...oh, my god...what did I do....don't punish me.  Maybe the woman was just waving hello but I am still living with one foot in trauma land and the smallest thing can send me back to the feelings of panic and terror.
But then there is the Animus  -  showing up as Ioan Gruffyd, a sweet gentle man who is coming to my old childhood home  - the site of some sexual trauma from this lifetime - to show me that this house is ready to collapse and I can be free of those wounds as long as I stay with Him.
My homework is to stay locked with Him in that gaze in all aspects of my life ....and to notice the places where I still can be triggered into the old trauma.
This new collage shows what the trauma world feels like on the left and what it feels like to fall into the gaze of his love and support.

and a new poem....

We are laying face to face.
I look into your eyes, you look into mine.
That is all there is .....our gazes locked together,
the current of love passing from one to the other.
Electricity, pulsing,
Sparks fly.....like a comet exploding in the dark night.
The flow emits a golden glow....
and all my being rides on that river of light.
Wave after wave,
Breath after breath.
There is no yesterday, no tomorrow,
only this moment of being consumed by the fire in your eyes,
mirroring the fire in mine.

Uncovering another layer.....self hate.

The Way Out

                                      

                                            
                                                   Detail of the Naked Girl

In my last session with Christa, besides working the dream of the dog, green and vessel, I had two other dreams of the Animus and the girl...and another one which hinted at a place where the pathology was still hiding out.  In this dream I am swimming naked in a pond and one of my students come to join me.  I want her to join me naked in the pond as I am curious to see what her body looks like under all the layers of clothes.  Instead she wears a black bathing suit and I am disappointed.

So the question is...what part of me still hides out wearing the black bathing suit? Where do I still feel shame and where do I keep my soul self  hidden.  Christa advised me to be on the lookout for this in my life...as it keeps me from being the dancing girl, the rose heart and the vessel...with Him.

How this was triggered recently...I sent Christa an email sharing my new blog post with the collage of the dog, green door and the vessel  and a poem that I wrote about the feelings that came up when making the collage.
She responded with affirmation about the beauty of the collage but said nothing about the  poem.  In roughly two seconds after reading her email I first felt the twinge of  disappointment about the poem and then I went straight into nihilism about the validity of my writing.   I believed that the poem was truly heartfelt in my yearning for the Animus but then the voices came in and said that it was all crap, bullshit.  Maybe it was?  I really don't know. The doubt and self judgement are there almost instantly.  I couldn't even take in that she liked my collages.  This self hate/self judgement feels like I have fallen down a deep, dark well and there is no way out.  I vow never to write again and want to hide away in my shame. The walls close in, everything becomes flat and I just want to numb myself in sleep.
 There is something here for me in the vulnerability that comes up when I risk showing my feelings and when they are not validated.   I can't bear the rejection and I go back into the desert.  That place of icy numbness with thick walls of stone that keep me from the pain of not being valued.  Another layer of old pain that I have been afraid to face.
After a day and night of being back in that prison, I set to work on finding my connection again and the way out.  I worked on another collage about what it feels like to be numb and frozen and then how it feels to be on the sailboat with the man and dancing with the girls.  I sat in that place of extreme vulnerability and nakedness and felt how scary and shaky it is for me to show this side of me to the world.  I have worked hard  my whole life to be the best weaver, the best teacher, the best daughter, the most devoted friend.....all to avoid the pain of what it feels like to be small, helpless, needy and weak.  My judgement and self hate has been far greater then anyone else could ever bestow upon me, and I have kept that adroitly hidden so that no one would ever know how fragile and scared I really am.  I now want to show this side of me to the world....like the girl in the circle of fire ... in her nakedness with nothing to hide.

ps....after another night's reflection on this issue of self hate, I can also see that not wanting to face the truth about myself encourages these pathologic voices to keep me hiding from the pain. In the case with Peter...I have had the hardest time letting go of him ....not only for the love that I still feel for him...but primarily because I can not face the pain of knowing that he now loves someone else and not me.  I have been able to feel the pain  losing  my companion of 7 years and come to some acceptance about the new life that he has found.   But having to face the reality of myself not being the chosen one ....I couldn't go there.  This self hate  doesn't want me to feel the pain of not being loved and I have not been willing to go under that layer to feel the real pain that is about  my separation from God. As I let this new pain unfold in my heart I begin to find some sweet compassion for the naked girl.

The Dog, The Door and the Vessel.....

The Dog, the Door and the Vessel

My New Dream:
I am with a dog and we have been traveling to get somewhere through the dark...sometimes on some very scary roads. We arrive at this place with a green door and once inside we are welcomed. I am asked to speak about my journey, and as I begin, my heart fills and I start to cry. I say that I am now a vessel that the spirit of God can work through.

My work now is to keep turning to the Animus ....to do our work together on the inside and in the world.

A new poem....

In my longing....
my aching longing,
for a partner on this earth,
I turn to you.

But the wall that separates us is thick and vast.
Slowly, patiently
with chisel in hand, I start to chip away this wall
Stone by stone.

In moments of desperation I tear at those rocks with my bare hands...
fingers bleeding,
knuckles scraped,
hands raw.
My free flowing tears melting away the crusty old mortar.

Then at last the doorway is revealed.
A green door beckons.
I can feel your hand on mine as I turn the latch.

Beyond the doorway there are shadows and the way is not completely clear....
but a shining vessel appear in the darkness.
I am drawn to come closer,
and inside floating on the water is a rose.

I bend down to smell its sweet, fragrant scent
and then I bury my face in its silken petals that gently caress my cheek.

I breathe,
I feel,
I am falling, falling,
merging, melting,

and then the rose and I are one.

(Detail of the rose.)

....and then there's the music.....

One of my favorite parts of the Rooting Shen treatments is how the music aligns so perfectly with what is happening at the acupuncture point and more importantly with what is happening with me on the inner level at that moment.
For a month before the treatment I worked hard to collect over 200 songs and it was a pretty eclectic selection that I ended up with. A few days before leaving I had watched the movie Mamma Mia! and been so invigorated and enlivened by the music that I tried to add the whole soundtrack to my collection before I left but was thwarted by my lack of techno savvy.   Once I got to Whitefield though, Meg was able to help me and we were able to down load the whole soundtrack just minutes before the treatment began.

So then the moment arrives when I lay down on the table... push the shuffle button and the treatment begins.  The theme of the music....and there really was a theme this time....was (just to cite a few...)

         uplifting ~  Hallelujiah by Handel & Leonard Cohen, Here Comes the Rain Again
         joyful ~ What a Wonderful World, For unto us a Child is Born, Belle
         body rocking ~ Michael Jackson, Elton John, BeeGees
         legs gyrating to the rhythm ~Dancing Queen (2x), Voulez Vous, Mamma Mia!
         arms conducting to the beat ~ Lay all your Love on me, Take a Chance on Me
         heart wrenching  ~  Blood of Eden, Little Sparrow, Top of the World
         heart filling ~ Cirque de Soleil: Aftermath, Flight, Battlefield, Threat, Storm; Angel of the Morning
               

Since I've been home I've continued to push the shuffle button and see what comes up for when I'm sitting having my morning oatmeal, getting ready for work or making dinner.  The Dancing Queen and Voulez Vous (from Mamma Mia!)  come up most regularly and I find myself dancing wildly around the living room, feeling my body start to heal more and more through the movement of dance.  In my session with Isabelle this last Wednesday I brought the Ipod and we used my treatment music to help in the guided meditation of what it means to be the Queen from the higher conscious.  Once again the songs seemed to coincide so perfectly with what I was feeling on the inside.  There were songs that resonated with "partnership, leadership, impeccable character, generosity of spirit and most exciting to me.....as the  5 Mamma Mia! songs came up again.....the dancing girl heart.  That seems to be the strongest message for me lately...to be the Dancing Girl/Queen with the heart bursting with life and joy.

Hands on Heart.....

                                                                 Hands on Heart

                                                    Detail of Rose Heart

Here is a bit more of my Rooting Shen treatment as things settle in and begin to take shape.  Instead of acupuncture needles, this time Taylore and Noah just held their hands over the main points - Noah on the heart point and Taylore on the stomach meridian.  For four hours their hands stayed in these places and at various times my hands covered theirs and I was able to add to the energy being focused there.  The simple beauty of a laying on of hands....hands covering hands....hands holding hands....brought a peace and healing to my heart and soul that I could never have imagined.  As a gazed on this collage last night before going to sleep I wrote this poem to try and express some of the miracle that is happening to me.


                                                       
                                  I see the light of a hundred candles burning brightly
                                          and feel the warmth of their glow.
                                  I feel your hands wrapped around my heart...
                             my tender wounded heart that has felt so barren and empty.
                                       With the warmth of your gentle hands
                               I feel the heart soften and the  wounds begin to heal.
                                         Like the petals of a rose, there is a gradual unfolding
                                                     as the center begins to unfurl.
                                                       Letting in light, joy and love.
                            I have walked a long, lonely road trying to find my way back to you.
                                        I have traveled through dark and scary places...
                                            filled with horror and relentless misery.
                              But the light of a hundred candles and the blossoming of the rose
                                                  are guiding me slowly back to you.

Rooting Shen ....24 March 2012

Light of Heaven ....post Rooting Shen

                                                


A  week ago at this moment...6:40....I entered the treatment shed in Whitefield, Maine to begin my fifth Rooting Shen treatment.  My dear friend, Lark, had driven me over to the coast of Maine on Friday and we stayed in a B& B run by two women in Waldoboro for the night and the next day. Then  Lark drove me to Whitefield on Saturday afternoon for my treatment and left me there for the night.

 I still don't have many words for what transpired but it was  transforming on a very deep level.  I had brought my dream of being imprisoned for a lie and wanting to be a queen and the theme of the treatment was about finding this queen self in it's true manifestation.  It was not about being the queen with the man...it was about being the queen with the Divine....and what that really means to me. The music took me to places that had been hidden to me all these many years and at one point I was down on my knees feeling humility and sadness for all the times that I have turned away from my divine self.  I had brought my collage of "being the queen" to the treatment as a source of inspiration and in this new place of being broken I asked for the collage to be thrown on the fire that was burning outside the shed.  I felt the shallowness of living from this place of needing "the man" to dictate  the way for me and it was a relief to have that old way of relating be burned to ashes in the fire. Rising from the ashes I was greeted to my new self by  Handel's Halleluiah Chorus and my whole being was filled with  clarity and joy.  There will be more to share as I continue to sit and embrace this newfound sense of my queen-ness  and I look forward to what continues to unfold.

Breaking out of prison to become the queen......

Being the Queen

                 

This is my work now ....to leave the prison of my pathologic attachments...and to become the Queen with the Animus, the King.  And  to also be the girl who can fly skiing down the hill feeling absolutely free and full of energy and joy.  Both dreams showing me the promise of what life could be if I can face the pain of loss and to look at the stark reality of what the inside of my prison is really like.  Any sane person would have no trouble with this choice.  Who would choose to stay locked in a dark, empty cell with no light, no air, no love...or....to have a loving partner who is totally devoted to me and who treats me the like the Queen that I am? But the former state is the choice that I have been making....by staying tied to someone who is nothing but a mirage of my own mind.

In a moment of clarity and willingness to face my fear of pain, I finally cut the tie to this attachment and started on the road to embracing this new state of being.  I immediately felt a sense of freedom and excitment and my next dreams showed the Animus coming to me with all his love and attention as an affirmation of this decision.  But the days are long, and it is still hard, hard work to stay with this knowing that I did the right thing.  The pathology keeps wanting me to turn back...it plagues my mind with memories of the past...of what could have been, what could be.  I feel the pain of loss a hundred times a day.  I grieve for a lost friend.  I am not free of this torment and heartache....yet.  The other night I watched the movie....Young Victoria...and it was such a beautiful story of true love and of a man who could stand outside the limelight and support his beloved to be all that she could be.  It was so inspiring and so helpful in steering me back to the right path.  It showed me that this is what I want...this is what I need.....on the inside and the outside.  I need the Animus to be my inner anchor and I need a partner who can help me be who all that I can be....the Queen of England and the girl with a heart full of love and joy.  Step by step I am now on the road to this.

And so tomorrow I leave for Maine and my Rooting Shen treatment....Sweeping the Starry Skies of Heaven.
A way out of my entrappment that I hope will sweep away all of these old patterns and all of this physical and mental misery.  Wish me luck .....
love,
Kate

The blessing of being disabled....

A week ago last Saturday, I awoke to shooting knife like pain in my right arm...starting at the shoulder and going down into my right bicep and down the forearm.  What the heck!  I tried to think of what I did the day before to set this off?  Whatever the reason, there I was with this new pain and absolutely no use of my right arm.  I struggled to dress myself...had to eat with my left hand ...and try to do all my usual chores with just one hand.  I felt vulnerable and helpless and resigned myself to laying low for the rest of the weekend.  It hurt to even lay down and sleep was almost impossible.  I hoped that with time it would just go away and that this was just another weird side effect of this dreadful Lyme disease.
On Monday I had an appointment with my naturopath and she was also perplexed about the severity of the pain and the incredible swelling in the right shoulder.  She gave me some anti-inflammatory remedies and told me to continue with ice and rest.  I managed to drive myself there and back using my left hand to shift gears but I knew that I was going to need help in my life if this continued.  At this point I was still trying to "go it alone" but by the next day I had to start asking for some help from my workers and students. I had another appointment for acupuncture with Taylore on Tuesday and on the drive into town I cried and cried from this feeling of being so totally helpless.  Taylore had to undress me for the treatment and it was like being tended by a kind mother to a small child.  Something so out of my realm of experience.  Her assessment of my situation was "trauma" of a physical kind but I knew that somehow this was all related to the bigger trauma that I had been working on all winter.  Some pain that was stuck in my body and now in the process of letting go.  Taylore suggested a session with a bodyworker...one of my dreamwork colleagues...and miraculously she had an opening that afternoon.  I cried once again on the drive into town and I began to realize that this was all part of something much larger then just some pain in my shoulder.  When Cathy saw me in the waiting room with my arm gripped tight to my chest she also sensed some kind of holding related to my inner work.  Holding tight to my baby in that fiery church perhaps???   Her medical opinion was that a tendon had twisted around the shoulder blade and that once the inflammation was reduced, she could work it back into place.  In the meantime I needed to stay with these feelings of helpless vulnerability and savor this time to delve deeper into my heart pain.
It was actually the best medicine for me at this point.  Not being able to draw, or write, or create collages, or house clean or work gave me the time to focus on collecting music for my upcoming Rooting Shen treatment.  I could lay back and listen....find the songs that moved my heart and take some refuge in the music.  Taylore had lent me her Ipod with 934 Rooting Shen songs and at first I was overwhelmed by the sheer number.  How would I ever get through them all plus find new songs of my own??  And in only two weeks!
Slowly, patiently...with the Ipod on shuffle...I am making my way through them.  Finding ones that resonate and skipping over ones that don't.  My arm has healed a little bit to the point where I can now feed myself with my right hand and type on a computer keyboard but I still can't manage much else.  I am asking for help...crying alot...and finding my way through this healing by taking tiny steps.
And being filled by music.

Songs that sing me back to my Heart.....

I have been working daily at listening to any and all music to fill up my suggested requirement for my Starry Skies Rooting Shen treatment ...and it turns out that it is 13 CD's worth, not just 13 songs!  Which is actually a relief because I am finding that it would have been extremely difficult to pick just 13.   Another added bonus to this "homework" is that I have been enlisting the help of friends in this endeavor and there is a whole new bond of connecting as I accept their music gifts.  Hearing their particular songs will remind me of all the love and support that I have in this world and that my healing will really be a group effort.

In my last body work session with Isabelle, the music piece was especially poignant and heart opening.  In this treatment we were also working with the dream of my being trapped in the burning church and the moment of giving up my child who most certainly died a horrible death.  When I shared with her my terrible guilt and shame over this, she was moved to focus on the child herself...the angel child, she called her.  Stopped as I was by my "false guilt", I was unable to see and feel around that to the place where the child had actually ascended to God in heaven and was beyond all earthly pain and misery.  She was just fine....it was me who was left to suffer.  At that point Isabelle guided me into a reuniting with this angel child and the other three angel babies who had been destined to be my children in this lifetime who I choose to abort.  Here was another place that I had shut down from all those years ago, locked the door and thrown away the key.  A deep, dark secret that very few people in my life knew about and that I had never even remotely felt the pain of.  As Isabelle spoke of these children and their destiny, she encouraged me to speak to them of my locked away grief and pain.  But the wall was already down and firmly in place.  I felt nothing...all was.blankness.....complete numbness.  With my mind I could register relief that all these angel children were loved and taken care of...but I could feel nothing of my pain or regret.  Then Isabelle put on a CD by Shaina Noll called "Song for the Inner Child.  At that moment I didn't know the artist or the name of the CD but almost immediately the music pierced through my wall of nihilism and I could feel the first twinges of regret.  I could say...I am so, so sorry.  And then the tears and sobs came and Isabelle held me and I could finally break through to the pain.  The CD played for the rest of the treatment and each song brought a new feeling to the surface while Isabelle worked with releasing the tension from my body.  It was an incredibly powerful gift.

And then yesterday I heard from Taylore that there is an opening for me to come to the actual training session of Starry Skies with the whole group in Maine on the 24th of March.  Three weeks from now....not two months away.  I fear the fear of ...oh, my God....it's too soon...it's too big...it's so far away.  But I said "Yes'...
I will do it!  I'm not going to worry about how I am going to drive there ....or where I'm going to stay...or any of those logistical details.  I have said yes and the big hand that is making all of this happen will work on that part too.  Now all I need to do is to keep opening up to music!

Jumping in the Water.....

                                                           Jumping in the Water


A few days ago I had this dream....

I am married to the Duke of York (Colin Firth in the King's Speech) and he has just been made King George VI and therefore I am now his Queen.  I am so excited about this and can't wait to really step into this new relationship with him.  Then someone informs on me about telling a lie and I am sent to prison.  I am completely distraught and not sure if I will be there for a month or a year.  Christa then comes to visit me and I tell her the story of lying to the man who came to repossess Peter's van and how badly I feel about doing that.  My loyalty to Peter over-rode my conscience and I did what I did for fear of his being upset with me.  Outside of the cell, Marc in on the phone doing a session berating the person on the line for not turning to the Animus in all things.  I feel that he is really speaking to me.

When I woke from this dream I reflected back on the situation that this dream was addressing...my lying about Peter's van.  For the record....I have kept Peter's van hidden in my barn here at Lone Rock while he is in France.  He had stopped making payments on it before he left and wasn't sure what to do with it.  We did discuss the possibility that the Bank might come and try to repossess it but we/I would cross that bridge when or if the time came.  I also expected that Peter would be back in mid March to rid me of this responsibility.  A few weeks ago though, when I cam home from work there was a man waiting in my driveway with a big truck and trailer looking for Peter Fischer and a Ford van.  I must have lied convincingly because he finally left empty handed and a bit befuddled.  As I watched him go, my heart was pounding in my chest, I was drenched in sweat and my legs trembling so hard that I could hardly walk.  I know now that I was deep in my trauma in that moment   And the moments before when I put aside my conscience and tried to do the "right thing" for Peter so that I would not have to feel his rejection of me if I let the man take his van away.  That was a moment where I could have felt my fear of rejection and jumped in the water.

It is stupid really, because I know that Peter wouldn't even think of finding fault with me for doing this but because I'm still stuck in this prison of fear of rejection I can't see or feel the truth.  As I sat with this dream, the morning after, I felt the fear of that old wound and the tears came in waves of sorrow for a long time.  I have been so, so scared of that old hurt.  The feeling of rejection has been engrained in every cell and it rules almost everything that I do.  But now....

I am sick to death of being in this prison!!
I want to be the queen with my beloved King George VI.
I want to let my tears wash away this old hurt and pain.

Rooting Shen Treatment #5

This past Thursday I had my fifth Rooting Shen treatment and I brought with me my dream of being trapped in the burning church, giving up my child and the debilitating nihilism that has plagued me all winter.  Also the ever present pain in my body, migraines, loss of appetite, difficulty breathing, profound loneliness and hanging on to life by the merest thread.  Laura's response to this was... "Oh, Damn".  She counseled the other practionners, as they came forward to take my pulses, to approach with extreme gentleness, to take off their shoes (metaphorically) and to treat this fragile soul on the table with great care.  A soul very much in turmoil and very much in need.  The needles went in and they - Laura, Taylore, Deb, Noah and Meg - all tried to get a read on where I was and where I needed to go.  The main theme of "entrappment" seemed to be the focus and as I talked about the darkness and terror that haunts my days and nights Laura wondered if I had ever encountered in my life a strong "teacher" figure that may have gotten the upper hand on my psyche.  Nothing rang a bell but there is something inside of me that keeps all this work that I do on the inner level and the outer from taking hold.  I've called it pathology, Lyme spirochetes, Epstein Barr virus and nihilism.  And I have battled with all the tools available to me to try and get out from under it....but to no avail.
Laura then proposed that this coming April I come back for another long treatment called the "12 Points Shining Bright as the Starry Skies". It is a treatment that she, Taylore, Deb, Noah, Meg and the rest of their support team will be working on this March and hopefully can bring some light into what has kept my soul entrapped.  She gave me homework to do during these next two months....to fill my life with flowers and to find 13 songs that resonate with me to bring to the treatment.  I need to get myself a CD player or Ipod and listen to as much music as possible.  Now for me, this will be a shift because I don't listen to music, I don't own a CD player, I don't have scads of CD's to choose from and I only have ancient Ipod that belonged to Peter.  I am pretty inept when it comes to this new technology of itunes, etc but Taylore and Deb are willing to help me with music from their collections and I will go out and try to find some on my own.  I grasped hold of this new directive wholeheartedly as anything that I can do to find a secure lifeline to lifting myself out of the darkness is a welcome diversion.
So...I am counting down the days...57 more to go...and as very little gives me hope these days, I count each day that I make it one step closer to some kind of release. Yesterday I borrowed a CD player and I rummaged through the collection of music at work and found my old copy of Gounod's Faust.  This morning while I was eating breakfast I put on the disc for the final two acts and almost immediately the music found a weak spot in my heart and I started to sob.  These sobs come from deep down inside my chest and are different then anything I have experienced in the past.  Since the breaking open from my dream with Peter jumping in the water I am not just crying but am actually sobbing.  It's more then just tears running from my eyes....it is a heart wrenching, full body experience.  I closed my eyes and just let that glorious music and the passion of the singers reach down into my soul and fill it with something new.

So...I have found song # 1.....the duet between Faust and Marguerite as she ascends to heaven.

Coming back to life.....

On Monday at work I was triggered back into the trauma by something very tiny and it seems that since I have agreed to "go all the way" this winter, my nerves are so raw and exposed that the slightest event can send me plummeting.  Which is a good thing actually but in the moment it still feels like torture.  In this instance the trigger was about me feeling inadequate and not good enough and was quickly accompanied by not being able to breath and a pain in my chest.   And then this overwhelming feeling of heaviness that made it such an effort to be present and engaged.  My familiar nihilistic friend    I got through the rest of the work day and when I got home the physical symptoms still continued so I just went to bed.  Through the body tremors and ragged breaths I went down in again and found a place of pain that was where I took on enormous guilt and shame for having made a made decision...doing a bad thing.  Maybe I was even shunned or cast out by my community....who knows...but in any event I was hard enough on myself that what others thought didn't even matter.  I felt this poor stricken soul who made a grievous mistake and who has never been atoned or forgiven....mostly by herself.  This was the message from my last Rooting Shen treatment which had so eluded me.....atonement and forgiveness.  So simple but not so simple.  I have carried this guilt as my penance through all of this lifetime and who knows how many others.  I go out of my way to make sure people like me and do not shun me because the pain would be unbearable.  The pain was unbearable.
I finally found a homework connection that allowed me to fall asleep but I prayed for help and forgiveness fervently before drifting off.  And then I was given this dream....

I am walking with Peter in a wood and when we come to this body of water he strips off his clothes and jumps in for a swim.  I long to go in the water as well but it is deep and dark and cold and I am afraid.  I await at the edge with a towel for him when he comes out.

When I woke in the morning with this dream in my head I decided to go out for a walk to reflect on its message.  As I crossed over the snowy field I realized that Peter was coming as the Animus to show me how to do this next step....feel the fear and go into the water. No pondering, no dithering, no hesitation.  Just do it.  That it was Peter coming to help me just broke my heart open and the long awaited sobs came at last.  The Archetypes knew the one soft spot, the one hidden chink in my armor where they could shoot the arrow that would blow the chains apart.  My love for Peter.  And it was in this place of unguarded vulnerability that I could feel the spark of love that would raise me from the dead. As I circled the Moon field I cried and cried and at home in the shower and in private moments at work.  I thanked God for the beauty of such a simple dream that was finally thawing the ice around my frozen heart.   The energy of life returned as the nihilism retreated in the face of my true feelings.  What an incredible relief  that was! I had a session with Christa that afternoon and I was able to open even further and start to understand more of where I have been and now where I am going.  The triggers will still come, and no doubt the moments of darkness and despair....but now I have a powerful, wonderful homework of following Peter into the water.  Feeling my fear and jumping into the mysterious water where I will unite with my soul again in the glorious underworld of feelings.

Flashback into Hell

                                                                 The Chosen One

All this past week I counted the days and hours until the weekend so that I could stop having to show up at work and hide my broken heart.  Yesterday...Saturday....I was in bed a lot of the day with a headache but when I did get up I felt my aloneness so keenly that I went down to work anyway and hung out with Taylore and Penny while they worked on their projects.   Back at home for the evening I tried to find my homework feeling of being radiantly beautiful or the secondary piece of being the chosen bride of the Animus.  I started work on another collage and then lost myself in a movie for a few hours.  When I did shut off all the distractions, I could feel this heart gripping pain just under the surface and I could almost open up to the tears.  Something still holds them back....there is some "No" in there that let's me feel  this dull, persistent ache but never the release of it.  I wish, I pray that I could just break down and cry.
Feeling tired and worn down I went to bed early and lay in bed trying to find an escape in sleep.  I was suddenly aware that I was in pitch darkness and all alone.  I was not asleep...nor was I dreaming but it felt like some kind of waking vision.  The feeling of aloneness was profound and I could sense that I was on a raised piece of land .....not exactly a hill.....but I could see all around me on all sides. It was night and chilly and my skirt and shawl were being whipped about by the wind.  In the distance I saw the remains of a burning building and I knew that I had survived whatever had happened there.  I was alive but my heart was dead.....and I was all alone.
When the images disappeared, I was left with that feeling of being all alone with a heart that can't feel anymore
and a loss that has been projected out into the world for lifetimes.  I knew then for a certainty that there is not a thing or a person on this earthly plain that can ever fill that hole in me and that my only salvation must come from within.  I have not given up on someday finding a partner to share the rest of this life's journey but until   my heart is healed of this pain I am no good for anyone.