Remembering: Goodbye with Love (a break from my regular blog)

(1/13/2019): The memories came flooding back to me today…holding my father’s hand, still warm with a gentle pulse, as I lay my head down at his side on the hospital bed inside the living room. He was finally sleeping after the on-and-off pain he endured due to the melanoma that spread blisters up his legs and the immense pain in his legs due to some ailment doctors could never pinpoint.

My father and I had been through so much in those last years of his life—trying to stitch together the pain of earlier years into peace and love. And here he was, in early February, this month two years ago, fighting for his life that was preparing to go. He knew. I knew it. Or at least his spirit knew it was time, for months earlier, when he lay in the hospital room, the day the doctors diagnosed him with melanoma, he came to me in my dream, and let me know it was time to go.

Today, I relived those last days, last minutes, as if yesterday. He lay in the bed, me listening to every breath, knowing each could be the last. I listened with my heart, the way we listen when we come from that unconditional love that knows how to be present and treasure this present that is still with us for a brief time.

That night, after laying my head next to my father in that eternal stillness, I went to bed. In the quiet of the night, and throughout my sleep, I could feel my father next to me. Actually, I felt as if I had become him, lying there, between the bars of the hospital bed, fragile, clinging to life. There was no separation. And the next morning, when I woke up, I ran to my father’s bed, making sure he was still there.

My father lasted a few more days, long enough to live his 79^th birthday on February 20 and to see my cousin, Rogelio, who visited him from Argentina and whom he had awaited for eagerly before departing this world. But that memory remains with me so strong today—of laying my head next to his, and feeling his journey so deeply as if it were mine. And then finally being there with him until the very last breath. 

I didn’t cry that day he left. I couldn’t. A part of me had left as well, so I didn’t feel him gone the way we do when we finally let go and step back into our ordinary lives. There was nothing ordinary about being with someone so dear to me until the very end. There was a tenderness and an appreciation of life that was so profound that I didn’t want to ever let that go.

Yesterday my boyfriend, his sister, and I made a dinner to honor their mother who left this world this past May. We placed two bouquets of white flowers on the table with a place for her to eat as well. She was a beautiful woman, one I felt so honored to have known during the months before her passing. As I felt those last days with my father, laying there next to him toward the very end, I recalled how my boyfriend’s sister lay next to her mother to keep her company in the end.

When we feel the ones we love so close that we can hear their every breath, knowing it could be the last, how do we ever forget that? How do we ever grieve the preciousness of another who has now left for another world?

Today, I feel the grief that lives inside all that love and loss. And I pray for those who have lost someone so dear, as my boyfriend and his sister did more recently, to be able to take that great love and live again as one more angel flies in the sky above us. May we all cry that grief of beauty that has left us, and, in return, bring a bit more heart into this world.

My Novel, Child of Duende: A Journey of the Spirit, is a story of returning home to the earth inside and all around us. It’s now available in Spanish as Niña Duende: Un Viaje del Espiritu, that’s available on Amazon at Amazon Page or at www.michelleadam.net. It can be ordered at a local bookstore or directly from me (for those outside of the U.S.) as well. Also, watch a brief video on “duende”, “the spirit of the earth”: YouTube Video

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Memories Carved in Writing: Argentina (a break from my regular blog)

1/18/2019: The gourd sits on my table. A gold-carved design caresses its top. Equally ornate metal straws sit inside. The gourd was once my father’s, used for drinking Yerba Mate, a tea Argentinians drink as a national past-time and obsession.

My father’s bombilla remains with me although he left almost two years ago. It reminds me of him and his beloved Argentina I just came back from after three weeks traveling the country with my love. We flew into Buenos Aires—a city of rich culture, as ornate as my father’s bombilla, but not a place my father raised his family. After celebrating the holidays with friends, we visited my father’s apartment—a place he resided in for many years after working elsewhere in the world…a place where he’d found his “heaven on earth” before leaving this earth.

A couple now live there, up the old circular stairwell and marble floors, behind the wooden door—of another era, of the “Belle Epoque” style, as my boyfriend pointed out—that leads to what was once his apartment. My father’s love for his apartment was so grand that it seemed the walls sung back to him, and even cried upon his departure. They had swallowed all the joy once shared there—the feasts with friends and family and a place to come together as I had with my father toward the end of his life. They marked an era in my father’s life—beyond the hard work, and years as an immigrant away from the place he loved—where he could truly feel alive, as if for the first time.

As we visited Buenos Aires, a city whose beauty is comparable to Paris, we felt its struggle, its eternal battle with poverty, corruption, and runaway inflation. How could a place so rich in culture, art, and literature, with an ornate elegance carved into its walls as it was in my father’s apartment, struggle to live? Why do so many people like my father, or my boyfriend, have to leave this country to live well?

As we journeyed through Argentina, its complex history traveled with us… from the streets of Buenos Aires, which seemed to have more bookstores than any other city in the world—including Boutique del Libro, where I presented my novel, Niña Duende: Un Viaje del Espíritu, for the first time in Spanish—to the mountains and lakes of the south where I fell in love with its duendes, its nature spirits, that they sold as dolls and puppets in stores (I brought back with me these duendes in exchange for copies of my novel I left with them. It’s not every day that I meet others whose creative work, like mine, honors these duendes!).

We also traveled further north, to Córdoba, where my love grew up, to a sacred land that offered a safe place to remember Argentina’s past, to years of military rule, of painful struggles for an entire country that has learned to make the most of what has been.

I was reminded, as I plan my next journey to Spain, to my childhood home, where I will share my novel, that the land knows all…that the land that resides within us, always knows what has been, the history of our childhood, of a nation’s struggles, and waits for us to return to her, to remember, to feel the pain and beauty that lies behind it.

I am home now, in New Mexico, here with this ornate gourd sitting on my table. It is a piece of history that carries a spirit, as did the walls of my father’s apartment. It holds a part of my father and the country he so loved that he couldn’t return to until the last chapter of his life.

Aren’t we all like my father’s gourd, carrying a piece of history, a piece of this earth that has lived the good and bad? In late May, I will soon be like my father’s gourd, carrying a piece of history, a piece of love for the land that raised me—for Spain—that I will return to with my novel, Niña Duende: Un Viaje del Espíritu, which is about duendes, nature spirits, and the spirit of a place that never leaves us…never leaves us, even if we’ve tried, many times, to leave her.  

My Novel, Child of Duende: A Journey of the Spirit, is a story of returning home to the earth inside and all around us. It’s now available in Spanish as Niña Duende: Un Viaje del Espiritu. Click here for its Spanish Version on Amazon , its original English version on this Amazon Page or at www.michelleadam.net. It can be ordered at a local bookstore or directly from me (for those outside of the U.S.) as well. Also, watch a brief video on “duende”, “the spirit of the earth”: YouTube Video

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

86. THE LIE

BLOG 86—(present reflections tied to February 2001 journal entries about my healing journey)—At some point in our lives—if we are fortunate enough—we wake up to discover the lie we have been living. What lie?: the lie of being unworthy; the lie that we have nothing to give; the lie that we are an emaciated child, empty, and desperate for the world outside of us to define us or give reason for our lives.

Many seasons ago, in the winter of 2001, I began writing about this lie I had been living. I saw how much I needed to live from the outside-in because I had bought the lie that, without external approval, I was unworthy with nothing to give. It’s a strange feeling to wake up one day and realize this, since I was a confident person with fairly solid self esteem. Yet, I realized that I had been raised to seek approval, to live according to values that belonged to my father, mother, and society, and to determine my worth by other people’s experiences of me. And, in doing so, my energy, my gift to the world, belonged to others before it ever belonged to me. My incapacity to see my own beauty left me open to be fed off of by others, and yet remain empty myself.

“The truth can ultimately never be denied because it will kill us in order to be heard,” I wrote back then as I began shifting that old paradigm. “A lie does not experience eternity; it does not experience abundance; it does not experience life. It relies on death. It feeds off of death. Life’s truth, though, is that we are of spirit and light and love.”

As I reflected further on these lies that had defined me, I also realized how extremely scared I had been to be free, to allow a wild essence within me to express herself. I had gotten injured years before—and became crippled from it—because there was a wild essence, a scream within, that needed to find its way into the world. Yet, this part of me that needed to be heard—my true self—was scared to be without constraints, without very firm and restrictive limits, because I had no connection and roots established in my center. If I allowed for chaos, and the ground below me and life all around me, to show her face, there would be no “I” to hold onto. I had lived for so long relying on the external world to define me and hand me my worthiness, that losing all of it left me frightened of losing my mind and way.

What happens when we wake up from a lie, and discover there’s no compass, there’s no center to return to that holds the truth? What happens when we truly don’t know ourselves and have relied far too long on the external world to be our compass? What happens when we have forgotten that we are made of light and eternal love, and that our soul is resilient?  

What happened for me is that I was left with only one option—to be still and listen to my soul’s voice. What happened was that I spent much of my time writing my novel, and allowing my truth to types its words onto the page so I could come home to myself.

Today, I think about those dear to me who have lost loved ones, whose compass has left this earth, and how they are trying to find their way through the chaos of that which happens when life around us and within us falls apart. The lies, the limitations, the barriers we have created to protect us from ourselves—to give us a reason for living distant from our wild, free selves—disappears.  And yet, if there’s anything I’ve learned, it is that this place of chaos opens the door for our true eternal self to arise, stronger than ever, but this time from within.

My Novel, Child of Duende: A Journey of the Spirit, is my story that rose from my journey of healing to a place of truth within. It’s available on Amazon at Amazon Page  or at www.michelleadam.net. It can be ordered at a local bookstore as well. Also, watch a brief video on “duende”, “the spirit of the earth”: YouTube Video

85. Love’s Responsibility

BLOG 85—(present reflections tied to February 2001 journal entries about my healing journey)—Have you ever traveled deep into your pain, only to discover it wasn’t yours?…only to discover it was love, an immense love you carried for another so fully that you were carrying their pain inside you?

Back in New England, in the winter of 2001, I embarked on a shamanic journey—a lucid dreaming into my body in search of answers—so I could clear layers of pain I had held in my body since injuring myself years earlier. My friend, Carl Hyatt, helped and guided me with this process that revealed such important teachings that ironically resurfaced again here in New Mexico. Isn’t it always like that—life as the spiral of a tree trunk that returns to the same place we’ve been, but further along in time and maturity?

In my Shamanic Journey in the winter of 2001, I chose to travel back to Spain, to the fields that raised me outside of Madrid. I was about eight back then, the same age as the girl, Duende, of my novel, Child of Duende. My intention was to connect with God and spirit as I had done as a child then.

In my journey, the little girl I had been, Michi, skipped up the road toward the field where I awaited her. She was happy, with her hair pulled back like a Native American girl. She was glad to see me. “All right, show me God!” she demanded in the same way she had asked of the fields and skies of Spain back then.

In response to her request, one hundred or more spirits popped out of all the reeds and light-colored grass of the field. The spirits were holding hands, dancing in circles, and creating ceremony in the space. Yet, Michi folded her arms in resistance, resilience, as if not convinced. She could see the spirits, but then said, “So, what’s the big deal? What’s next?”

As I got closer to her, wondering what was wrong, she took my hands and danced a kind of “Ring around the Rosie” game. She wanted to dance with me and her father (my father!). She didn’t want to be alone. She felt powerless and alone without him. She felt that being in the field had no value, that her need to connect with God had no connection with her family and father…that this part of her was not honored, seen, or validated.

In the journey, Michi wanted validation from her father. She felt this part of her that didn’t belong, that was misplaced, belonging to another family. She felt like something was wrong with her in wanting to be in this field this way, in wanting to connect with God, like there was no room for it in her life. She wanted her father to witness this ritual because her father was connected to these rituals, but denied it in her and intentionally cut her off from this part of herself. He was jealous, angry, and afraid that she wouldn’t need him and be with him if she were allowed to be connected to this ritual of the land. More than anything, he was determined to not let her connect to God, to her tribe, to the land, to her power, to her heart.

As Carl and I continued on this Shamanic Journey, something amazing happened, though. I cried a lot, felt the weight that this little girl I had once been carried. Little Michi was determined to have her father by her side, to share her heart with him, but most of all, to carry his pain for him. Her love was so strong that she was willing to die for him. She was attached to her father, to healing his pain and unhappiness because she wanted to be reminded of her capacity to love in the only relationship that seemed to matter. She felt her reason for living was to heal him, to be there for him…that she belonged to him and not herself.

Little Michi was also carrying an immense responsibility that weighed her down and scared her. She felt overwhelm from the weight of so much responsibility a soul like her felt she needed to carry. She didn’t understand why she had to do so much work. She carried a lot of dark energy that her father had not wanted to give up in order to believe in life again.

As this journey continued, I called in help from spirit. I asked Jesus to help the little girl that was me, and so he arrived and held her in his lap. He told her that she was afraid of being responsible for everything, and that “responsibility is not a heavy thing. It’s light. It’s clean (unlike the weight she was carrying). It was of the heart.”

As Jesus held little Michi, I asked White Buffalo Calf woman, a sacred Lakota woman, to clear the weight from this pain and responsibility I had carried in my heart. She sucked out the responsibility, which was nasty and black like tar, from my chest. She was like eagle and raven sucking out death. And ironically, as she did so, I felt scared, wondering who I was…what was left of me, where my spirit was when the layers of confused self, of attachment and pain I’d so gotten used to, left me.

“Don’t always feel you need to be engaged all the time,” White Buffalo Calf Woman said. “It’s okay to be empty. You need to be empty now in order to receive God. God is here.” She went on to explain that my feeling of responsibility for healing my father stopped me from receiving God, receiving Spirit. That love was receiving the grace of God in whatever form it showed up and not being afraid.”

This journey of so long ago included far more than what I’ve shared. But what’s especially remarkable is that in these past two weeks—during the time in which I had an amazing turnout and strong soulful response to my Storytelling and Flamenco work in Taos, NM (and I felt the gifts of my life’s work echoing back to me—I’ve had pain emerge from my right shoulder (my area of greatest strength). As I’ve been healing my shoulder with my healer Liz Blasingame—opening up my entire body and heart in new ways—I’ve had this immense grief and tiredness of a lifetime (or many lifetimes) come up.

As I’ve done this, Liz has helped me let go of the pain I’ve been carrying in my body that is not mine—to return it to its origin so I can open my heart and truly be free of pain, free to love. Through this process, I’ve felt my shoulder open, my heart open, and I’ve come to terms with how much I’ve really carried that is not mine. Like so many people who are empathic, I’ve come to understand that I’ve absorbed so much pain of the world, rather than feeling it and letting it go…that I’ve taken on the responsibility of the world like a bad habit that has crippled me and made it hard to connect with God, with this bright spirit within me.

During these past days of hot summer in New Mexico, I’ve found myself becoming more still than ever before. I’ve been feeling my soul’s home inside my body, letting my breath and light move through me, while letting go of the weight of the world that is not mine. I’m beginning to trust in a new way…trust myself, trust God, and trust this empty, still place inside me that is home, that is life moving through me with ease.

My Novel, Child of Duende: A Journey of the Spirit, is my story that rose from my journey of healing and from the lips of the earth and my ancestors. It’s available on Amazon at Amazon Page  or at www.michelleadam.net. It can be ordered at a local bookstore as well. Also, watch a brief video on “duende”, “the spirit of the earth”: YouTube Video

84. The Way of the Warrior

BLOG 84—(present reflections tied to January 2001 journal entries about my healing journey)—The fire burned full and dark that night on the beach when my friend and I watched a car go up in flames under winter’s full moon. Unknowingly, we watched a man take his life, and weeks later, under the full moon, I gathered with shamans to help his lost soul cross to the other side.

Sometimes, in all the challenges we face, we find life unbearable, and like this man, think of ending it all. Yet, once gone, our soul somehow knows there was and is another way…another way beyond the pain and limitations of our earthly experience. We realize that  we can choose the way of the warrior—the way that I had the privilege of seeing with my boyfriend’s mother, before she, herself, made that journey in peace beyond this physical world several weeks ago.

Back in the winter of 2001, when I had witnessed the sad departure of this man on the beach, I wrote about being a warrior. And now, in retrospect, I see the gift in what I wrote then (and maybe found somewhere written, and copied)—the same gift my boyfriend’s mother carried before leaving this physical realm.

“The Way of the Warrior is to know the darkness within ourselves, in others, and in the world, yet to choose to have full heart, to be irrational in the face of it all, and in being irrational, to wear lightness and joy like an outfit, like a mask, that not only covers our face, but is worn by us so every molecular level of ourselves is infused with this outfit. With this choice, we wear our destiny before it wears us.

“It is not why we are confused when a great man falls or acts otherwise, because we have come to believe that this mask is them, when truly the mask they have shape shifted into by choice, can also, by choice, be shape shifted out of. It is their occupation on earth to be of light, of full heart, while they carry within them, more than anyone else, the truth of their deepest darkness. Their act is a conscious one and requires constant vigilance and discipline. Every time these people carry themselves in this full-hearted manner, it is an exception to the rule and that is why people are drawn to them…we must ask ourselves to be exceptional in this manner and not depend on the hard work of others to give us hope in our own exceptionalism.”

As I read now what I wrote then, I feel honored to have known my boyfriend’s mother for a brief time before she left. She had plenty of hardships in her life–ones that would easily embitter anyone–but she chose to live with kind, giving heart, and to bless those around her with wisdom and love despite it all. She left behind the exceptional legacy of a warrior for her children and others to learn from and follow.

During these times when it’s easy to surrender to cynicism, and choose anger over love, depression and self-pity over the unreasonable hope of the warrior, it is more important than ever to reach into our souls and be warriors of love…to learn from people like my boyfriend’s mother to never give up…to fight for life, for what matters!

This weekend, in Taos, New Mexico, on Saturday, June 23, at 5:30p.m. at SOMOS, I’ll be sharing that spirit of aliveness and celebration of life to Storytelling with my novel, Child of Duende, with Flamenco guitarist and singer Ronaldo Baca and Flamenco dancer Catalina Rio-Fernandez. Come join us and share the news!

 

 

 

 

 

 

83. Reflections on Wind Horse

BLOG 83—(present reflections tied to December 2000 journal entries about my healing journey)—Tonight the wind danced to chimes on the vine-covered tree outside my house, and a horse released wild cries as its front legs kicked defiantly into the air. I walked outside to record the sounds of what I later called “wind horse.”

Tonight, after a month of absence, I also returned to the stories of my healing journal of 18 years ago. In my writing, the past becomes present, and it teaches me what I felt inside the wind, inside love, in living what almost two decades ago I experienced from pain, stillness, and returning to self, to that place of “God” that Deepak Chopra described as “eternal consciousness” that is inside us and everywhere. Tonight, I’ve decided to share a few simple quotes, moments of wisdom, which came to be back then about acceptance, love, and peace.

May your journey through spring, and her season of change carried by the wind, be one of peace, love, and acceptance as I share a few words here:

 “It is my loving that heals, and my direct connection through my heart to God—to the God within everything—that heals. No one needs to become big for me to be healed; I don’t need to be small to heal; I just need to be alive, to be fearless in my heart of my capacity to love and connect with all around me.”

“The sacred union between two beings is the deepest and truest expression of God.”

“Transformation is the acceptance of our place, our home, our great gift of life. It is the acceptance of all the parts that make this life balanced and whole.”

“We are the dance and the dancers. We are the source and the destination.”

“Peace is that place in the heart where all the pieces of ourselves are held together with love… that place in the mind where all the pieces are held together with clarity… that place in the belly where are the pieces are held together in fullness. It is a place of understanding.”

My Novel, Child of Duende: A Journey of the Spirit, is my story that rose from my journey of healing and from the lips of the earth and my ancestors. It’s available on Amazon at Amazon Page  or at www.michelleadam.net. It can be ordered at a local bookstore as well. Also, watch a brief video on “duende”, “the spirit of the earth”: YouTube Video

82. The Feminine Sprouts from Darkness

BLOG 82—(present reflections tied to December 2000 journal entries about my healing and novel writing journey)—What are the chances of opening to a page in my journal of 18 years ago, and coming across a passage about Trump?

Well, it seems the chances are good.

In December of 2000, I had copied the following information from a book about Mary Magdalene and the Sacred Feminine: “The Tarot card Trump No. 15 is usually called the Devil, but the obscure picture on this card is obviously a rendering of the male power principle unrestrained, gone berserk, enslaving the human community.”

What a statement to read several decades after the fact and find it so true of our times and our current president! As students, once quiet, speak out against violence—against this patriarchal system that relies on unrestrained greed to grow like a cancer that will kill us all—and many more step up in the name of our sacred waters, earth, and rights, old systems fight to survive and hold on. President Trump, as the Tarot Card No. 15 reveals, is showing us the ugly and dangerous face of the male power principle unrestrained, and now it is up to us to stand for a new dawn.

Years ago, I wrote this in my journal as I healed from pain that was not only in my hip, but in my soul, longing to shed thousands of years of disconnect with the earth and the feminine. I grew up learning to beat up that which was soft, tender, dark, receiving, surrendering…that which was feminine. And I came to see that the pain in my body was the ache caused from all the pushing and dishonoring of life and of this feminine part of myself.

My journey into the feminine at this time, 18 years ago, began with a dream in which Hitler’s people were trying to find me, and I remained hiding under a bed. Hitler represented that masculine principle unrestrained, and in my dream he mirrored my upbringing in a German household, of clear belief systems dominated by right and wrong, weak and strong, black and white. I woke up aware that I was stuck inside this duality that was blind to the possibility of  surrender being strength, and toughness and tightness, weakness.

“Truth cannot be split into two’s, into sides, if you are coming from your heart,” I wrote back then. “We don’t need to hold onto our words, our patterns, our reasoning to be where we are each moment. There is only one heart that belongs to us all. Each moment is its own if from the heart.”

As I began to let go of the masculine energies of my upbringing that no longer served me (or at least not on their own), I began to embrace the feminine, to accept myself in my own power and beauty.

I wrote: “We have focused so much on eliminating the shadow and moving into the light—on fixing our shadows to become so-called enlightened. But there is no fixing. The feminine is the shadow, the darkness. It is the dark place that is needed for the seeds to grow, for the areas of our lives that are polluted, to be digested and transformed into rich soil. The dark is willing to feel, to receive everything, because it knows how to shape shift the elements into seeds of love, which, in union with the masculine, the sun energy, can grow new life. Without the darkness, though, there is no feminine, or the feminine energy becomes polluted because it is not allowed to clean itself. It becomes weak, sick, and dying.”

I realized, as I wrote and grew into myself, that so much of my life had been dominated by white, masculine patriarchal energies out of balance with the feminine. I carried this within me as an inner battle of pain. “If we are always trying to fly, to move forward at all costs, then the feminine does not have the chance to renew itself, to create new seasons for us to walk in,” I wrote. “We are losing the seasons of ourselves. We are burning up by the sun. We keep wanting to fix, enlighten, rather than have a relationship and be in partnership.”

Not only had I and so many of us dishonored the more subtle feminine energies from which all life is created, our culture, for far too long, has looked down upon all that is not “white,” all that is dark, including different races and the earth herself. “For centuries we have been describing evil as dark and white belonging to angels. All that is above is good, is safe, and all that is below is to be feared, including the earth,” I wrote.

Back in the winter of 2000, as I began to change my perspective about the feminine and myself, a new kind of happiness entered my life. I wrote, “When I went for a walk in the woods, I felt this happiness, this relief and joy because I no longer had to fear the darkness—the place of dreams, of the unknown, of that unmanifest; where experiences happen, and we sense, receive, love, and hold; where we transform into magic; where life is made; where we create; where the earth’s energies live and grow new life.”

Today, as our tireless patriarchal system holds on with full might to what it’s got, I invite you to welcome the dark, feminine energies that can transform this old into new. I invite all of us to stop pushing, stop reaching toward the stars—even if for just a moment—and go inside, into the invisible world of feminine magic to discover that which sits in the shadows aching to emerge.

My Novel, Child of Duende: A Journey of the Spirit, is about returning to this renewing feminine energy and our mother, the earth. It’s available on Amazon at Amazon Page  or at www.michelleadam.net. It can be ordered at a local bookstore as well. Also, watch a brief video on “duende,” “the spirit of the earth”: YouTube Video

 

81. Blessed Water

BLOG 81—(present reflections tied to November 2000 journal entries about my healing and novel writing journey)—The water came on Valentine’s night, in small droplets as it does here in New Mexico’s desert after long periods of drought. But then, bit by bit, these drops became real rain, unabashed, filling the air with long-awaited moisture that seeped down into the thirsty earth.

That night I stepped outside of my boyfriend’s house to smell the first signs of rain. Actually, we all did, including my boyfriend’s sister who commented on how the earth smelled like sweet fragrance as it absorbed the blessed water. We all smiled, as I imagined so many of us here in New Mexico did to finally have rain after months of unusually warm, dry winter days. Here, when the water comes, it’s like a pregnant woman with her water breaking, and new life announcing itself!

The next day, the gray rain clouds remained with us in this city of Albuquerque, and further north, in Taos, it finally snowed and snowed. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed our gray days, since on the East Coast, where I spent half my childhood, rain was common, and I wanted nothing to do with gray. I didn’t appreciate the water as I do now out here in the desert. I always considered myself a person of fire—I loved the warm days filled with sun and longed for the drier climate I grew up with in Spain.

It took me a long time to really appreciate the water and its essence. It seems I only began to understand its full importance during the fall of 2000, as I continued healing from my hip pain.  I had always willed my way through life, determined to make things happen in a masculine way of living, dominated by fire and force. But, as I worked on healing myself from years of pain and not walking, I felt the need to explore this element, and its place in my life.

One afternoon in 2000, I decided to go on a shamanic journey with a friend of mine (a shamanic journey is a process of lucid dreaming, where you go on an inner journey with your imagination and full senses, with intention to find clarity on an issue). I did so to intentionally to connect with the spirit of water, realizing how little I had done so in the past.

In this journey, I traveled to the center of the earth, to the spirit of water residing in a cave. Through this process it seemed I was connecting with my own womb, with the baby that was a part of me, residing within me inside gentle, loving water. As I did so, I experienced a part of myself I had neglected, a fluid, feminine energy that is a universal  part of all of life and the cosmos that flows with no boundary, no limit, no borders.

“When I see a tree, I am a tree. This part of me is in everything I see. It is my universal self mirrored and present in everything,” I wrote in my journal during that autumn of 2000. As I continued on this journey, focusing on the energy of water in my womb, it became a fountain of water, spinning outward, increasingly so as I gave it my attention, so much that my friend and I began to bathe in this water essence that was pure love.

“This entire force of water was magnetic because it flowed outward and was pulled by gravity downward to the roots of the center of the earth,” I wrote in my journal. “Water is everywhere at the same time. It’s like the rays of light that move far, deeply, inside the crevices of life, and is full of surrendered passion.”

As I came out of my journey, and sat with the powerful force of water that I had connected to, I realized how much I had tried to live from a strong fire in my belly, absent of this loving energy of water. I had learned to live like men do, like this extremely masculine culture we live in does. But that day, I saw how it was time to live more from the womb of womanhood—how this soothing, healing, and loving energy is what knows how to connect strongly to all of life, reflecting back ourselves in all we see.

Today, I think about how much we could benefit from this spirit of water, this universal cosmic feminine energy, in our culture of borders, power-hungry leaders that separate us in an effort to dominate, and all the school shootings that kill more and more children and adults. Like here in the desert where the sun dominates the land with is heat, we should call forth more often—in prayer to the feminine—the spirit of water, and her rain and her life-affirming ways to bring healing and remind us of the abundance, love, and ever-flowing connectedness we all carry within us.

My Novel, Child of Duende: A Journey of the Spirit, is about connecting with the wisdom of the earth and universe. It’s available on Amazon at Amazon Page  or at www.michelleadam.net. It can be ordered at a local bookstore as well. Also, watch a brief video on “duende”, “the spirit of the earth”: YouTube Video

 

 

80. Wisdom Body

BLOG 80—(present reflections tied to November 2000 journal entries about my healing and novel writing journey)—The mist cleared beyond our retreat center at the top of Mount Washington, New Hampshire, as we prepared to embark on the teachings of the medicine wheel of the North. We would learn the way of wisdom, of the ancestors, of the apus, the mountains that teach us that which we can’t see inside the forest of the lowlands of our lives.

Weeks before arriving at this center, I had woven with my medicine body an energetic sign of peace in this place (I wrote about this in an earlier blog). My soul’s intention had been to create a safe and holding space for medicine teachings that my teachers had earlier manipulated for bad. I was now committed to learning in this mountain place several hours north from my new home in Rye near the ocean.

It was nighttime when we embarked on my favorite lesson of this shamanic weekend. We were asked to sit with our stones outside in the darkness, surrounded by trees, and to be still. We were invited to discover how we were connected to the universe, and to be open to information that wished to present itself to us.

As I sat still in front of the trunk of a tree, I waited. The air was light as was my mind. There were few distractions. Just quiet. And then it came to me. I felt in every part of my body how information, clarity, and connection came to me through every pore of my body, through every part of me. I got, in a humbling, clear manner, that my body was connected to a world wide web—that it was actually a part of a world wide web—and that all I needed to do was listen from my whole being to receive information and wisdom. Just little me, and yet, completely connected to the entire universe.

That night with the tree, I was alone. My mind was clear, no interruptions. And inside that listening space, I was far from alone. I could tap into all that was. “I was listening through the fibers of my body, with the luminous threads that connect me to the universe,” I wrote shortly after my experience. “My wisdom comes to me through my body, and all this pain I’ve been living in my hips has been the pain of not acknowledging my wisdom body.”

After that weekend in the mountains, I recognized that for so long, throughout my childhood, that wisdom that had come to me easily, had had no room to be valued and acknowledged. I had learned to dismiss what had been natural for me inside a family that honored thoughts above all else.

“My body is able to tune into the vibrations of the universe, of multiple lifetimes and worlds occurring at the same time,” I wrote back then. “I have all this wisdom and knowledge within me that has been screaming to come out. But I have tried to channel this wisdom through my mind as my family required, rather through my heart and my body, which is my way.”

I realized back then, 20 years ago, that when I tried to speak from my more analytical mind of my wisdom and knowing, I would close up my heart. I assumed I would not be heard, so I protected myself. But when I came from my heart and body, from the source of my natural channeling, then I didn’t need to be concerned about being heard. I was coming from muni, compassion, from a place of knowing the truth.

What if these lessons of years ago could apply to us today, inside this modern world of the Internet and the Worldwide Web? Instead of relying on the incredible technology we’ve created outside of ourselves, we could access this universal source of wisdom and information that comes from being with our innate inner technology.

What if, in these times of great tension and longing for a new way, we could be still enough to access this technology that we carry inside…this magic that we are that is connected to the magic of the universe? What if…? What if the lessons of years ago, that came from the mountains, from our ancestors, and from far beyond little me, could possibly offer humanity the wisdom that belongs to all of us and our planet?

 

(Just today, I read a quote from a book of wisdom that felt so appropriate to the truth of this writing and my life. So, I end with these words: “I have always fought not to project but to be myself. To retain my own scale, which is a dot, but a vibrating dot, a pulsating dot, that is what I’d like to be. I would like to remain that pulsating dot which can reach out to the whole world, to the universe.” Chandralekha, 1928-2006 )

My Novel, Child of Duende: A Journey of the Spirit, is about awakening these luminous threads that connect us the wisdom of the earth and universe. It’s available on Amazon at Amazon Page  or at www.michelleadam.net. It can be ordered at a local bookstore as well. Also, watch a brief video on “duende”, “the spirit of the earth”: YouTube Video

79. The Power of Presence

BLOG 79—(present reflections tied to November 2000 journal entries about my healing and novel writing journey)—Despite the growing cold of winter’s approach, I walked daily in the woods along the ocean at Odiorne Point, New Hampshire. I had moved closer to the ocean after my summer of healing on an inland farm, yet continued practicing walking meditations. My walks were inspired by lessons I had learned during my shamanic classes, especially when it came to working with my medicine body and its power.

My first shift of attention in my walk was from having to be good—or having to do the right thing—to coming from a place of power that was just so. This meant shifting my attention, my heart’s eyes, so to speak (if you can imagine this), to different chakra centers (energy centers) of my body. So rather than walk the way we normally do—thinking all the time and leading with our head—I led with my third chakra (between my heart and my bellybutton). I let my full attention come from this place (as if my eyes and heart were taking in the world from here) as I trekked through hard, sometimes icy paths alongside low-lying trees and the ocean.

As I walked from my third chakra, I embodied the spirit of Jaguar, a power animal that has been associated with this energy center in Peruvian shamanism. As Jaguar, with my total attention in my mid section, I immediately began to feel my perspective of this small forest widen around me. I was no longer constrained by seeing the world from a narrow place of above and below. Instead, my energy and senses expanded to encompass the trees. I felt extremely powerful and alive, and realized how I could be in my power and present, while compassionate and dangerous at the same time.

Throughout my walks, I discovered my spirit body, an element of ourselves that we often lose connection with in the modern world. My spirit body was home, embodied in a manner new to me. As I strolled in this manner, I stepped out onto rocks that jutted out over the ocean and sat down, rocking myself in a state of love. I brought in the image of a small house from across the water, and pulled it into my belly. As I did so, I felt a surge of love, of coming home to my power. Then, when I put my hands on my root chakra, I experienced further love in an almost erotic manner. This continued as I touched my knees, my feet. I was experiencing the act of giving my aliveness to myself. It was truly remarkable!

As I sat near the water’s edge, parents walked by, warning their children not to go too far out on the rocks where I was. One unusual girl, though, was eager to walk out onto the rocks where I sat, and her father, less concerned about the danger, urged her not to interrupt me. Upon hearing him, the girl, who had already approached me, stopped in her tracks. “Forgive me for not acknowledging your presence,” she said to me in the most remarkable manner. Surprised by the demeanor of this girl of no more than ten, I told her that I was fine, and to come by. She came forward, free as a bird, with her father following her.

I remained on the rocks watching as this father and daughter team soon returned back to shore. The girl’s father lent her a hand as she jumped off the rocks onto the earth. She seemed independent enough to move without his help, but she gracefully accepted his hand with a “Thank you, father.”

The whole scene felt like a special omen. The daughter had been like an angel visiting me, confirming my power, acknowledging my presence and how I could remain in a place of compassion and gratitude no matter how powerful or independent I was. It was as if the little girl had been me in that moment.

Like a spiral that comes back around, the lessons of that experience at the ocean of twenty years ago seems timely today as well. Most recently, my sisters came to visit me in New Mexico so the three of us could share time together after my father’s passing. While our visit was rich and full, I was left feeling emotionally stuck and disconnected from myself after they left (I had returned to the role I had played as a child in my family). As the youngest who drummed to a different beat than they did, I felt invisible, as if my unique gifts didn’t matter.

In reading my account at the ocean of years ago, and the story of the little girl who acknowledged me in my power, I understood the medicine of years ago. I had learned then what it meant to truly be in my spirit body, to expand into myself fully, fearless, powerful. In that instance, I had discovered what it felt like to be home, to be love, to be alive in a true way. The little girl and her father had acknowledged me because I had embodied myself fully. I was no longer invisible.

In listening to the lessons that spiraled their way back into my life recently, I saw that I needed to once again, step back into the medicine body that I am, this light that is me. I had fallen into a role that wasn’t me, and I had become invisible, even to the little girl—to myself—who would have been ignored this time given the space I was in.

But now, when I was able to acknowledge me, and remember, once again, who I was—spirit embodied, home, and powerful—those emotions that made me feel small and invisible had no room to be. I returned to that place that I had been on my walks—that space of no longer having to do the right thing and merely coming from a place of power and love that is just so.

My Novel, Child of Duende: A Journey of the Spirit, is about discovering duende, the spirit of the earth that we are that resides inside us. It’s available on Amazon at Amazon Page  or at www.michelleadam.net. It can be ordered at a local bookstore as well. Also, watch a brief video on “duende”, “the spirit of the earth”: YouTube Video