Ever go swimming in the ocean and get caught by the current called a “riptide”? The past week’s energies have been so strong, so tumultuous, that I know many — myself included — have felt pulled out to sea in a swirling tug of imminent destruction. Then, just as mysteriously, the waves can swallow and spit us out on a deserted island paradise, under the sand, or on an unrecognizably tranformed coastline. I’ve felt this more than once in the past week, especially Friday and Saturday, although the waves and slate gray seas have been building for awhile.
In my own life, today marks the 16th anniversary of my brain injury — and the time leading up to that felt similarly intense and Fated. Something powerful loomed — something with the strength to reroute an entire lifetime of focus and determination. I could swim as carefully as I liked, but simply existing in the water at that moment meant certain, radical change. I have since met many other brain injury survivors who acquired their TBI in 1998. I’ve also coached many clients for whom 1998 marked a massive shift in life’s direction, usually through trauma that eventually revealed itself as an indelible scar and blessing. 1987 was another of those years — in my own life, but also in the life of Gaia with the Harmonic Convergence in August. I felt the building tsunami in 2001, with premonitions many months prior to 9/11, as well as a night of dreams and an epiphany exactly at the moment of the first explosion.
2012 was advertised as another huge shift, and, indeed, the awakening tides grew much stronger then. But this period, right now, feels more on par with 1987, 1998 and 2001. Something’s brewing. And it’s big. Several months ago, I had what felt like a prophetic dream, which mentioned the date 6/14/14 over and over again. I don’t normally dream about dates, but in this dream, not only was it 6/14/14, but the characters kept pointing to calendars and remarking on 6/14/14 as a birthday. At the end of the dream, someone handed me a lotus blossom, with the mud still dripping from their hand. I got the impression that the “lotus” was the world, blossoming from a period of “mud.” When I opened my eyes (in waking life), a large, pink rectangle of light hovered over the jewelry tree that houses my necklaces, including all the crystals. I could find no external source for this light. It just hovered there over the crystals and tree for a moment, locking in the dream.
I’m not usually one for floating dates out there. So many come and go, with much fanfare and little shift. Perhaps 6/14/14 will be such a date, which is why I haven’t mentioned it until now, except to two astrologer friends of mine. I had them both check, and they found potential intensity there, but the date would not normally have jumped out at them as significant, if I hadn’t asked. I only mention this now, because the dream’s impression of a period of extreme turmoil leading into the birth of this lotus blossom renewal from the mud feels like it’s happening right now.
While in Chicago last week, my family and I spent some time at the Art Institute of Chicago, where I photographed this Nataraja statue for my friend Ingrid, who has one of her own from India:
The Nataraja shows the god, Shiva, in his role as the cosmic dancer who simultaneously destroys the old, worn out universe and dances the new one into being. I’ve been feeling — perhaps even channeling — Shiva energy this week, as I weed whacked thousands upon thousands of dandelion heads that had gone to seed while I was in Chicago. I began by trying to collect the errant puff balls, but after a 20 gallon garbage can full of bagged puffs, I had made only a small dent. My desire to destroy what looks like squalor in my would be oasis surrounded by factories, a brown field, a caved in garage roof and houses and sidewalks in various states of disrepair, somehow seemed very Shiva and very appropriate.
Here I was, battling thousands upon thousands of high rise dandelion stalks, each filled with thousands upon thousands of seeds, flying around whether I whacked or carefully packaged them in a bag that ripped and released them all over the yard anyway. An exercise in futility, and yet, letting the white puffball stalks just wave in the wind to corrupt my intentionally planted flowers, fruit trees and edible ornamentals seemed impossible. How could I not act while I still had some agency?
As silly as it sounds, the yard broke me this week. Really, it was the contrast of the yard with the beautiful images from the Lurie Garden in Chicago and the Art Institute, my beloved Lake Michigan, the amazing food and urban culture, along with nostalgia for some of my own artwork (and innocence) from 1998, which my brother still has displayed in their Evanston condo. A flood of memories, emotions, contrasts, healed relationships, realizations and all of Life just culminated in coming home to the contrast of joy at seeing David again during a lovely meal at our favorite Korean restaurant, and returning to frost having killed my pumpkin and cucumber plants while squirrels chopped off lily and tulip heads but ignored the thousands upon thousands of unwelcome dandelion seed heads spreading far outside the agreed upon “wild area” of our (back) yard. Our next door neighbors’ yard was far worse, blending right into ours.
It wasn’t really about the yard, but weed whacking it brought some small satisfaction and relief. Not because it will do anything to prevent the spread of those dandelions — thickly planted clover and rapidly spreading “All Heal” will do that better than any weed whacker can. The yellow flowers even turn to seed heads after I chop them off, so it truly was an exercise in futility … and yet … somehow, it just felt like the energy of the times: Shiva, Lord of Destruction, Eliminator of Illusion, dancing through the entropy, welcoming in the new universe.
Why am I sharing all of this? Because I know of others experiencing similar, though perhaps less symbolic, simultaneous deaths and rebirths as various unwanted realizations hit and lodge home. As I mentioned to a friend this morning in a longer apology for my seemingly out of character behavior of weed whacking with abandon and threatening to evict “my” faeries for neglecting our agreements:
I know that weed whacking is not a long term, in alignment solution. It’s just where I was for the past week dealing with a tumult of emotions, disappointments, and reality shots upside the head. The crash is really coming. Goshen will not be immune. I am living, probably for the longest time I have lived anywhere, in an area with virtually no physical beauty support — quite the opposite, in fact, with all the factories, flat topography, and general dilapidation. And this is PRE-crash. There is not a large pagan community with whom to practice ritual and group magic that might shift things. In fact, most of the population is terrified of magic, and most of the really good people in town are welcoming the beast with open arms.
I am certain I will find ways to deal with this — the awareness has just gradually been creeping into consciousness and finally has become undeniable. It’s done. We will each need to take care of ourselves and our own lives. I will witness many of the things that give me nightmares, even if these things do not happen to me. Even though we are not in a large city here, we are starting from such an extreme place of poverty already that we could very well experience some of the worst things of a city during a crash. …
I just need to recalibrate myself with this new reality so that I can embrace it and make the best of it. I have, apparently, been living in complete and utter denial. I turned [other situations] into extreme blessings once I managed to accept that they had happened and really weren’t going away except in their own sweet time whenever the process was complete. Dodging bullets requires very different skills, mindset, tools and emotional balance than gracefully moving through what you foresaw but did not wish to see, and what you tried to avoid with all your might but couldn’t.
And so, for anyone else who has spent the past little while grappling with a massive shift or recognizing certain potentials crystallize into dreaded form, I leave you with this bit from Abraham-Hicks, who correctly explain the value of climbing up the Emotional Guidance Scale. We won’t always live in joy, although we certainly can return there through conscious cultivation and awareness. Trying to leap from despair and hopelessness to joy/appreciation/empowered/freedom/love usually results in frustration and rage. No, those aren’t joy, but they’re higher up the scale than hopelessness and despair. Abraham advises reaching for the “next best feeling” and to keep reaching and reaching until we do return to our natural state of flow … optimism, positive expectation/belief, enthusiasm/eagerness/happiness, passion, joy/appreciation/empowered/freedom/love.
If you haven’t experienced a riptide this week, then you might want to tuck away this post for when you do. We all have those moments, though some of us feel and sense more intensely than others. Visionaries seem particularly hard hit by disappointments when Shiva dances on the ashes of what might have been. By allowing ourselves to move through the feelings, though, instead of stuffing them, we can more quickly and thoroughly experience the true blessings of each experience. Each destruction brings with it thousands upon thousands of creative possibilities. “Ask and It Is Given” … not always in exactly the way we imagined … but if we seek it and love it, then we will surely know it whenever and however “it” arrives.
The Emotional Guidance Scale
1. Joy/Appreciation/Empowered/Freedom/Love
2. Passion
3. Enthusiasm/Eagerness/Happiness
4. Positive Expectation/Belief
5. Optimism
6. Hopefulness
7. Contentment
8. Boredom
9. Pessimism
10. Frustration/Irritation/Impatience
11. Overwhelment
12. Disappointment
13. Doubt
14. Worry
15. Blame
16. Discouragement
17. Anger
18. Revenge
19. Hatred/Rage
20. Jealousy
21. Insecurity/Guilt/Unworthiness
22. Fear/Grief/Depression/Despair/Powerlessness
From the book “Ask and It is Given”, pg. 114
