A Mother's Love

Is there anything more pure or powerful than a mother's love? I was meditating today and thoughts of mothers and their love drifted into my mind. Not sure if it is because my mom's health is going downhill, because I told a story about my mom yesterday (one of the ones below), or for some other reason, but I felt a need to post something about mothers. Never having been a mother (or father either for that matter), I have never experienced the love they have for their children from their perspective but I have definitely been on the receiving end. I know that my mom loves me in a million little ways every day of her life, but here are two somewhat dramatic, somewhat entertaining (and scary at the time, let me tell you) examples of her love and just two of the many reasons why I owe my life to my mom:

When I was very young...I would guess around two...my family went to the beach. I don't remember what beach, just that it was a beach (I was 2 for pete's sake, give me a break). I was fascinated by the way the ocean would lap at the shore. I would follow it out and then back in, laughing all the way. Then something very unexpected happened...I was at a point where I was closer to the surf when a larger wave then usual broke right in front of me. I was thrown off my feet and tossed around in the water like a cork. I started to be pulled out into the ocean and to take on water, coughing and crying all at the same time. Then suddenly, miraculously, two hands reached down from the heavens and lifted me back up into the life giving air. My mom had been keeping an eye on me, had seen me go down, and had sprinted into the ocean to rescue me. If not for her, I have no doubt I would not have made it.

A few years later, my mom and I were at Sears. No idea what we were there for, but, whatever it was, it was upstairs. We got on the escalator and started to ride up to the second floor. Let me pause here for a moment to say that, as a child, I was afraid of stairs. I know that I fell down the stairs at our house at least once, but whether this instilled the fear or the fear caused me to fall, I don't know. I just know that I was afraid of stairs. Now, back to our story...as we neared the end of our ride on the escalator, I noticed the jaws of death at the very top (also known as an escalator comb plate). I was scared and fascinated at the way it "ate" the stairs as they got close. I knew that I would have to jump over this terrifying thing and that timing was critical. Unfortunately, knowing and doing are two different things. I waited too long, my foot hit the comb plate and knocked me off balance causing me to fall backwards. Next thing I know, I am being eaten by this demon staircase. First the machinery ripped and ate my pants and then began to work on my flesh. Blood began to flow and I started to scream. I'm not sure what my mom did, whether she hit a stop button or just pulled me free by brute force, but I know that she saved me once again.

So, I'm sending out love and a big hug to my mom and all mothers everywhere and declaring today Appreciate-a-Mom Day. No greeting card or gift necessary, just let your mom or any mom know that they are appreciated and loved. They make the world a better place for us, so let's show them that they mean the world to us.

What Do You See?

My So-Called Life

So how does one go about changing their life? How do you go from one end of the spectrum to the other...and survive the process? A year ago, I was a Software Engineer (alright, so I was unemployed but I still considered myself a Software Engineer). Now...well, now I'm not quite sure what I am.

I have spent most of my life learning rules and trying to follow them, trying to do things "right", submitting to those I looked at as authorities. When I was a teenager, I admired the Vulcan, Mr Spock, and even tried to emulate him, suppressing emotion and being ruled by logic. Since I have always been an emotional person, it seems strange, but my life became all about rules, analysis, and logic. Maybe that's why computer programming spoke to me and I excelled at it. For a long time, I enjoyed programming and found it fulfilling. For years I thought I was doing my life's calling. I had a successful career and a high paying job. I was respected at work, admired even, for my abilities. But in recent years, it all seemed to turn sour. Whether it was a change in myself or a change in the work, I don't know. I just know that I no longer felt happy or fulfilled. I found my work dull, boring, draining...soul-sucking even. This is why getting laid off at the end of 2007 was one of the best things that has ever happened to me.

Since then, I have been exploring, trying to find myself and my place in the world. I have traveled a bit (some would say a lot) which I think has broadened me and made me more open to different people, different cultures, and different ideas. I have read about, dabbled in, and trained in various spiritual practices: meditation, intuition, shamanism, energy healing. Somewhere along the way the seed of an idea was planted...that I could be an intuitive healer and open a healing center. A safe, welcoming place where people could come for healing and learning about spirit. A place that would provide guidance for people like me to transition from their old life to a new soul centered spiritual life. I have been taking steps to further this goal...I'm going to massage therapy school, I'm taking courses to strengthen my intuition, I'm enrolled in an upcoming energy healing seminar, and starting to look at what it takes to open and run a business. Even though I have this vision and I have been taking steps and moving in a direction to bring it to fruition, I am full of doubts...and I am scared.

I long to be open and free and creative, full of energy and fire, helping people, with a passion for something that makes a difference.

But I am scared.

I have started down this path and at times it feels so right that it resonates in my soul and gives me a warm, glowing feeling.

But I am scared.

I have received more confirmation than I ever thought possible - from friends, mentors, my own spirit, and the universe itself - that the changes I am making and the path I am on are leading me to a higher consciousness and the fulfillment of my soul's purpose.

But I am scared.

Why am I so scared? What am I scared of?

I'm scared that I'll discover it's all been a big mistake, that I have just been fooling myself. I'm scared that I will end up with no money, no job, no home, and no place to go. I'm scared that I will find myself all alone in a purgatory between worlds, too far changed to go back to my old life and unable to complete the journey to the new one. I'm scared that I will fail, that I wont be good enough or strong enough...that I just wont be enough. Maybe subconsciously, I'm scared of other things too...scared of succeeding, scared that I will be enough, scared of my own power, scared of letting go.

I don't know how my life will turn out, even in the short term I am unclear. I seem to make progress toward this new life I have envisioned for myself and then fall back in fear and doubt. I seem to be confused about exactly who I am...I don't seem to fit my old identity anymore, and it feels as if my new identity is still forming. It makes for some very confusing, hard times. So far, I have been able to persevere and continue pushing myself further on this journey. There are times though, when I think I will just give up and try to go back to my old life as a programmer. I hope I don't, that just feels wrong now. At times I feel excited, certain, and purpose driven, but mostly I feel unclear and unsure. Unsure of who I am, unsure of what I am doing, and unsure of where I am going.

There is one thing that I am sure of though...I don't want to be scared anymore.

The Ballad of Sir Galahad

There once was a knight, gallant, brave and true

gentle and loving, through and through
Perhaps a bit off-center and misguided too
He'd sacrifice himself in a moment just for you

Once sworn to a lady he would never repent
He'd defend and succor her till all energy was spent
He'd give of his own, never counting the cost
Never giving up, even when all hope was lost

But time wears down the hardiest of souls
His sword grew notched, his armour full of holes
One day came a blow he hadn't expected
Pierced through the heart he had left unprotected

In a flash of knowing, he realized his mistake
This ache in his heart was more than he could take
He took off his armour and threw down his sword
Just a broken down man, a knight no more

Darkness

Darkness descends and extinguishes the light

Nothing can be sensed, nothing can be felt

No way forward, no way back

Nowhere to go, nowhere to turn

Nothing remains

Only Darkness

The Power of the Finger

As long as I can remember, I have had this problem. A need to do things the "right" way, a fear of screwing up, of not being capable of what I was attempting. This problem was affecting my life in many ways, but never so strongly as when other people were involved. I'm sure part of this was the fear of looking stupid in front of others, and I think everyone has this fear to some degree. For me, it went much beyond that.

Last year I went to a week long Shamanic healing class where, on the last few days, the students were asked to perform some healings on each other. I felt completely inadequate to do this. Even though we were all there to learn, I was incredibly concerned about the quality of healing that my "client" would receive. Each morning I would have a sense of dread and panic over the upcoming healing I would have to perform, and each evening I had a great feeling of relief that I had survived the day. On several mornings, I came very close to just getting in the car and driving away...escaping from the overwhelming feelings. I didn't leave, I stayed to the end and I actually think the class was worthwhile...on the last day, I even had one of my clients tell me that he thought I had a real talent for this healing work. Deep inside of me though, I knew that my problem still lurked.

This past December, I started attending massage therapy school. I go to school four days a week for seven months. Each of those days, I spend half the day in lecture and half the day in bodywork. This means that I am giving (and receiving, which is definitely a perk) a full body massage to another student four days of each week. When I first started, all was well. We were told exactly what to do to practice the various strokes and stances involved. After two weeks though, I started to have a problem. Each day, we were supposed to pair up with someone and give a full body massage...no instructions...no rules to follow...just give a massage. Soon, my feelings of fear and panic were in full bloom. I doubted myself, terrified that I would do something wrong. Every day was torture for me...I actually started feeling nauseous each day as the time for me to give a massage came closer. I was told by the teacher and by the other students that I had good hands, gave a smooth massage, and was a calming presence. Didn't matter...each day of school was still torture for me. Let me say, for the record, this is no way to live...something had to be done.

I went to see my mentor...that's right, I have a mentor and I still get jazzed when I say it...who is an incredible man. He is a practicing clinical social worker, energy worker, and an amazing human being. Usually when I go to see him, we talk about things like intuition, chakras, energy, and the power of not knowing. This time however, after I explained my problem, he said that what I wanted was therapy. He thought (more likely, tuned in to guidance) for a moment, and then said that he thought EMDR was what would help. For more information on EMDR you can go here, but for my purposes I will just explain that you sit and follow the therapist's fingers with your eyes as they move back and forth in front of your face, all the while thinking of the issue that you are trying to resolve. Before we started, I was asked to close my eyes and imagine giving a massage. As I did, my stomach knotted up and my hands felt shaky, cold, and clammy. As the treatment progressed, I was asked to go back to when I first had these feelings. Out of nowhere, a memory popped up. A memory that I didn't even realize I had until EMDR pulled it out of my head...

My father was always big into ham radio and electronics. He was a fan of a company called Heathkit that made kits that allowed you to build electronic equipment. The majority of the work involved in these kits was soldering the various electronic components onto a circuit board. When I was a young child, my dad ordered one of these kits for me. I believe the idea was that we could build it together, that way we would have some fun time together and I could learn about electronics. This part of the memory is unclear, but I think that, because my dad didn't have a lot of free time, I must have begun assembling this kit on my own. What I do remember very clearly is that I soldered the wrong resistor into the wrong place on the circuit board (hmm...question of the day...is that the same as putting the wrong thing in the right place? or the right thing in the wrong place?). I don't remember my dad's reaction when he found out other than that he was upset. Knowing my dad, I assume there was a lot of very loud yelling, both in general and at me specifically. In any case, his reaction isn't important, what is important is my perception of his reaction. Apparently, what I took from this was that I had done something WRONG and when you do things the WRONG way, people you love get very angry with you (and perhaps love you less?).

I was amazed that this memory had been dredged up and even more amazed that such a small thing when I was a child could have such dire consequences for my life. After explaining this memory to my mentor, the treatment continued but with a difference. At first, the treatment seemed to intensify my feelings of anxiety, but now I was starting to feel calm and almost peaceful. I will spare you the rest of the gory details of the treatment other than the final outcome. After all the finger waving was over, I was again asked to close my eyes and imagine giving a massage. As I did so, a happy feeling came over me and the statement "I'm good at this!" came blurting out of my mouth (it actually kind of embarassed me, but there you have it).

I don't know if I am, in fact, good at giving a massage. I don't know if I do anything wrong when I am giving a massage. What I do know is that, ever since the EMDR session, I don't have any of the fear, nervousness, or anxiety that used to plague me. I go into the bodywork room happy to have the opportunity to learn and practice something that I enjoy.

Who's the Fool Now?

This morning before going to school, I decided to meditate for a bit. As I always do when I meditate, I put on some nice music, lit some incense and candles, and opened a sacred space. After a couple minutes, I had settled in and quieted my mind and was just drifting. It was pretty much my usual relaxing, refreshing, centering, spiritual time...and then something unexpected happened.

I don't really know what was real and what wasn't, I just know that for a moment it seemed that I had stepped out of time. Everything was still...my breathing stopped...even the music that was playing stopped. I suddenly had the feeling of standing on the edge of a precipice and wanting nothing more than to step off that cliff. This was not a death wish or even a scary thought, it just seemed like a grand adventure leading to something wondrous. Whatever this was, it quickly passed. I became conscious of my breathing and the music started playing again.

I was left with a sense of wonder and the memory of that cliff. It brought to mind the tarot card of The Fool, so I looked up the meaning of that card and here is what I found:

The Fool card is the first card of the Tarot deck, and as such it represents the beginning of something. It is almost impossible to predict exactly what will happen, since it is invariably something new, and not based upon what has gone before. The Fool defies rationality or logic. This creates an excitable sensation, a frisson or shock to the system.

The Fool can represent the desire for rebirth, or making a new start to life, but with the proviso that the future path is not mapped out. The Fool is Nothing and Everything. It is the Empty set that contains all within it. The Fool is associated with fertility and the primal energy of Spring with the connotations of birth, rebirth, and transformation (Jesus died on the cross and rose again).

As a strategy, the Fool is all about avoiding the common path that everyone treads. It is finding new viewpoints, new ideas, shocking concepts, beliefs, or views. For hints as to where the Fool might be going, look to the cards around it, but remember that we may also be seeing nascent energies emanating from these cards. If you desire something different, a fresh start, the Fool is the card for you.

The Fool represents crazy wisdom that shocks the listener into new states of consciousness. You can never retread a tyre when the Fool is around. The Fool is an indescribable state of consciousness that works on impulse. It can never allow an external influence - everything is from within.

I would be interested to know if anyone out there in blog land sees me in this description of The Fool, if you have another meaning for The Fool that seems appropriate, if you see some sort of message here that I need to pay attention to, or if you have a completely different interpretation of my experience. Let me know what you think.