I can still smell the sweetly spicy scent of the florida water that floated through the air in a fine mist and coated my bare skin. The prickles of chilly dampness that landed on my face, stomach and back were like tiny kisses from the divine herself, and the whole scene felt as if it were happening in slow motion, a surreal blur of excitement and nerves as I silently wondered if I had indeed been "cleaned" and what tale my body would tell in the coming days.
A little over a year ago I traveled halfway around the globe to sit really still for 10 days. My older sister was leading a meditation retreat in Bali, and I had one of those deep, guttural knowings that my ass needed to be on that cushion sitting in that circle listening to what the Divine wanted me to know.
I have cocooned myself in my bedroom today.
Strewn around me is the evidence of a life lived somewhere between the concrete and the illusory. Piles of crystals of all textures and sheen litter my white down comforter. Decks upon decks of precariously-stacked oracle cards quietly hum with witchy words and haunting illustrations. Books by poets and mystics lay open and marked, giving away the roads into my soul.
I am hiding.
I'm sitting on the balcony of our coastal condo and I'm staring out at the sparkling blue waters of the sea. Pelicans are chattering noisily to one another as they take turns nose-diving into the water. Small boats laze by, and the lap of the water is lulling me into a quiet, open-eyed meditation.
All is well.
At least it should be.
But I am not completely present. I keep glancing down at the rolls of belly beneath my thin blue tank top, and my mind jumps back and forth between the beer I'd like to have and the exercising I think I probably should be doing. It's a constant assault, and today it's been particularly exhausting.
I am a science experiment for the Divine. And it's showing up in the form of an alien presence in my meditations.
Today I went into meditation so clogged, so heavy. My stomach was upset from eating late, my body was tired from a weekend of too much sun and my muscles ached from two solid days in the car and a new bed.
But as I moved from the base of my spine up my body focusing the energy of expansiveness in each center of power in my body, I felt the clogs move. I observed my own resistance and with a trail of shaking and moaning that trembled throughout my cells, I experienced the clear sensation of a rag being dragged through the center channel of my being, scraping away the energetic goo that had formed inside my body.
We are making another move this week. I am sitting in the living room of our latest little furnished rental surrounded by a tower of grey plastic totes housing the things we shuffle around the country with us in the name of coziness and freedom and ease.
The quilt my mom made for me from my college t-shirts. My juicer and fancy blender. Her toys. His bike.
It's interesting to think what really matters to you. Like really, really matters. Because when you distill down your worldly possessions to just a few totes worth, you start to see how our lives and our stuff tell a story about who we are.
Is it the story you want?
Last night I held a channeled spirit session for 5 of my family members. We all gathered in a circle amidst candle light and crystals and fresh flowers, and crazy things happened. Shit tons of energy moved. Ancient spirit guides spoke to us through my voice. Healing was offered, and answers were given. And I really want to write all about it, but I just can't.
Because my mind is consumed with my real life. My normal life. My just-like-everyone-else life.
Parenting. This. Kid. Negotiating screen time with outdoor time. Balancing veggies with gummies. Trying to teach her to be a kind, civilized human being while trying not to lose my own shit half the time.
I am feeling all the feelings this morning.
It's been this big storm swirling in my heart and gut for a few days, and I woke up this morning with it heavy and clunky inside my body. And just like that I felt more human than spirit, more matter than energy. And I'm openly and wildly resisting it. (Which usually doesn't help.)
I'm always a little miffed when my energy cycles back to the common. I have been entrenched in this healing work for many devoted years now, and I find myself believing that I should be immune to the "normal" spectrum of emotions. Why can't it just be rainbows and sunshine all the time?
Contrast. This is why.
The beings are back.
There was a time at the end of last year when they were there every morning. When I would close my eyes and breathe through my body, and just like that they would appear. Usually there were three of them, and they worked swiftly and thoroughly.
It was a strange feeling to know I was being tinkered with, to literally feel cords of energy being stretched outside my body, scrubbed at incredible speeds and then returned. To know that I was being watched and adjusted, tuned and programmed.
On Memorial Day of 2015, my husband and I loaded ourselves and our almost-three-year-old daughter up in our SUV pulling a tiny U-Haul trailer filled with what was left of our worldly possessions and drove 1,000 miles across the Southwest USA to our new temporary home in Durango, Colorado. After nine months of planning, researching and selling our things, we officially began a life of full-time slow-travel and willingly flung ourselves into the Great Unknown.
In the past 6 months or so I've shed about twenty pounds of physical weight and another ton of energetic weight. I feel stronger and healthier than I ever have in my life, and I'm looking at my body and the ways in which I support it through a completely new lens.
In technical terms, you could say that I've lost the weight the good old-fashioned way, through diet and exercise. And while I've adopted better habits in those areas, the truth is that it's all about the energy. My body is finally catching up on the outside to what my heart and mind feel like on the inside.
And the whole process has felt effortless.
