Urban Oracle

My day began with a knot in my stomach and a dull sadness that has been impossible to move lately.  Maybe, I thought, if I just stretch or think harder to improve it, it will finally go away.  It didn’t…the roots were deep, which I well knew and another change to my social life left me feeling assaulted by an angry co-op mob.  When would I answer to them…they cried for justice and wailed about papers to my demise.  Any hope I had of tapping that last morsel of courage quickly dissipated and the knot grew tighter and deeper, more dangerous.

I had an energy session scheduled with my medicine man and scholar, whom I trusted to have a clean space and eager ears to hear my story.  I secretly still struggled with reminding myself to be diplomatic and rational about tender feelings towards him…he had began to feel like a God-father to me, or something similar.  As I took tiny steps to understand we all need people we trust and feel safe with, I still felt a little guilt for the separation between my birth father and I.  Real or imagined, it was just another decoy or string in that knot, one I was hopelessly ready detangle.

I woke up feeling on the edge of my seat, the sun outside being in stark contrast to my feeling mobbed and paralyzed by change.  I love you sun, but I can’t move around so good with this thing in my tummy.  I don’t feel like playing.  Instead, feeling somewhat soothed that just after lunch was my energy session, I submitted for some jobs, researching and snooping new professional leads while still being uncertain if this was the right way to use freedom.  I certainly didn’t feel free.

As time neared I stuffed my face with sweet potatoes I steamed and sipped some Chai Tea.  Finally it was time.  I never know what to expect, or how Spirit will work…with energy sessions, I just trust.  It is in a language all it’s own, a mix of coincidences, sensations and images in my minds eye.  We spoke, Jeffrey and I.  He listened, being mindful of the time we were allotted.  Each time, to hear myself say things I have buried so deeply, it takes courage…I choke and stammer out my dumb, painful truths.  I feel a feeling of excitement, like it’s my one chance to own my story and say it out loud.  I am afraid but I need it too bad to stop or slow down.

We open sacred space and I settle into my skin.  Now I know it’s safe, we’ve called our helpers.  I feel like family is visiting and I know magic is present.  I begin my part, breath work, designed to keep me in my body and active in moving out what doesn’t belong with me any longer.  If things are buried, and you are breathing with commitment and deeply enough, they will shift.  I suspected we’d breath a little, then move on, share and be done.  That’s not the way it happened today.  As I breathed the knot in my stomach loosened and I began gasping for air.  First in short breaths as if the water had risen too high.  Then, longer labored attempts at breathing through anxiety which left a high pitch, asthmatic hiss.  Please help is the interpretation, this is big.  I had shared my fear of using my voice would lead to being physically retaliated against…and, because I had just shared with him about things private to my soul…I was panicking.  I believed any minute, retaliation would begin.

The heaving and labored breathing finally began as sobs…I told myself it was ok to have the ugly crying face I am usually so allergic to.  There, I had cried a bit…I was sure, then, it was time for some new blissful feeling to consume me and gloat about the sweet, deep work we had both done.  Still, though, I was in labor and when I realized that, I began to breathe and blow like I was actually having a baby.  I am going to do my part to move through this…I couldn’t stay feeling like I had been, it was stagnant death or worse, the threat of it.  Images came to my minds eye reflecting myself as a child taking so many blows from people frazzled and unsupported, angry and unanswered.  Still I breathed.  My hands began to curl from the anxiety.  A little more, I thought, then I will cool my jets before I completely can’t move my hands.

Then the emotional break…images of all of the chaos, the co-op mob threatening, the condo that was upside down, changing industry, and so much pressure and frenzy and as well images of the girl taking the frustration and aggression.  I couldn’t take it.  I sobbed and finally said it out loud.  I can’t take it anymore, it’s too much, it’s too much.  I didn’t deserve it.  I had to say it out loud…to give it ownership and invite it to stay with me as my personal new mantra.  I had held on to that idea, thinking I deserved the blows, harsh words and disrespect…that way I protected people who should have known to stop taking their anger out on me because I loved them so much and felt sad for their pain.  I didn’t understand you could feel like that and still be loving towards them.

I heaved.  My eyes felt tight from the first rounds of dried tears and now my chest moved more freely, as that acceptance arrived in waves escorting away the knot, the chaos, the dust.  Gratitude flooded in as I cried so hard it began to be similar to laughter.  Freedom.  Wow, I just felt that…the polar opposite of holding the knot, being bound by it.  I could feel my heart being retrieved and saw it shone like a jewel.  Wow, that’s me?  I was excited.  Finally, without much noticing it, I cooled down my breathing and let my fingers begin to uncurl.

We still checked in and talked but there was also an energy language we shared, in deep respect of the unknown and our sacred helpers.  We ended the session speaking about Pampamasayok Rights and the protection given by our elements, Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Light and what they each represent.  I always love hearing black is the color of Earth, deep, rich and fertile and Jeffrey’s voice was reminiscent of story time when I was in pre-school.  Our time finally wound down. I felt sure each moment was used wisely.

As I drove across town on Fountain Avenue I felt ecstasy and joy where my knot used to be, and my heart felt happy.  Our time together today was a treasure, I later wrote Jeffrey, thank you for being my midwife today and allowing me to be me.