This resolve has been hard in coming. The dream with Marcia was a serious warning and I knew it. I also knew exactly what behavior had to stop. Deciding how much of that to share on a blog where anyone on earth might read it was not so easy.
Spiritually speaking, I'm unblinkingly honest with myself which is often very painful. When I am not living up to my Essence, I always know it deeply. It haunts me mercilessly, I believe more than most. I base this decision on my tendency to be haunted by shortcomings long after others have forgiven themselves and moved on. In all my years of counseling others, I've met very few who hold themselves to accountability to the degree that I do. I'm not saying it's a good thing. Quite the opposite. It interferes with spiritual peace. I know God does not require this of me but, up until now, I've had a hard time being gentle with myself. In this way, I identify with Marcia's character, Bree, on Desperate Housewives.
For about the past year and a half, I've been doing something that has ended up damaging my health. Shortly after the dream about Marcia, this health crisis came to a no-turning-back point and I had to decide whether to live or die, again. It's not the first time I've had to decide this. I wrote about one such time in the Moon Lodge Visions Handbook. I wrote of another right here on this blog. I've had to make the conscious choice to live or die before but this the first time I've done it with so much spiritual focus and awareness. While I feel it was absolutely vital for me to walk thru this fear and do what I've done, I also realize that to have taken it further would have meant to die a terrible death.
So what was this awful thing I was doing? Drinking alcohol. After 9 years as a tee-totaler and someone who hated the very smell of it, I very consciously decided to drink again. Knowing my father was an alcoholic; knowing alcohol had almost killed me once before, I chose to drink. Why did I do this? I could take the easy way out and say it was because my heart was broken from the end of my spiritual marriage. Most people who have been thru something like that would understand. But it wasn't that at all. In fact, during the first three months after the loss of that relationship, when I lost 30 pounds and did not really function at all, I did not drink. It never crossed my mind.
It was only after I began to heal, began to get on with my life, that I realized I had a huge monster in the closet of my consciousness. Alcohol. I feared it more than I feared death. I feared becoming my father. I feared being addicted. I knew the only way thu that fear "was" thru it, at least for me. I could live the rest of my life running from alcohol and the horrors it had created in my childhood and early adulthood, or I could meet it again, on spiritual terms, and see what it held for me.
I remember making the decision to go get some beer. A spiritual decision, strange as that may seem. For a long, long time I drank one or two beers a day. I actually felt much better doing this. Of course, as a counselor, I am aware of the many studies that suggested drinking one or two drinks per day is actually beneficial for most people. So far, so good. Then, I went further. I only got truly drunk about three times in that year, but it was enough to hurt me. To weaken my liver. I've read that if a person who once drank heavily and starts back, the liver damage is the same as if they never stopped. That doesn't make sense to me but it appears it might be true because I did not drink enough to hurt liver function, if you look at the amount I drank over the course of that year.
Then, I over-drank (though, again, not to the point of terrible drunkeness - more like cocktail party drunk) for four days in a row.
Then, I almost died.
I'm a healer. I recognize when a liver is not functioning. My liver and spleen stopped processing for over 24 hours. I tried everything I knew, including laying on of hands.
By early morning, I was deathly ill. I was also acutely spiritually aware during this 48 hour period that the dream was playing out. My abdomen got very hard, just like Marcia's had in the dream. I could have gone to the doctor, of course. It never was an option though it did cross my mind that I might die if I didn't call 911. This was a spiritual initiation and I meant to see it through. I finally took some WaterOz Alkalizer in a glass of water, and within a minute, I projectile-vomited out everything in my stomach. I think it may have saved my life. A few minutes later my liver processed and it sounded like a freight train. Then, the spleen emptied. Then the bowels.
I lived.
Did I conquer my fear? On one level, yes. On another, I'm not strong enough. A warrior knows when to retreat....at least, eventually they know.
STRONG WARNING: IN SHARING THIS STORY I AM, IN NO WAY, SUGGESTING
THAT ANYONE SHOULD TRY WHAT I TRIED. I DEFINITELY COULD HAVE DIED.
There was more to it than just facing my fear of alcohol though. I was also at a point in my life when I was facing an even bigger demon, boredom. That may sound crazy. It even does to me sometimes. Still, all my life, the hardest thing for me to handle was not being creatively inspired. Being bored in my day. And after I began to heal from the end of my spiritual marriage, and even after I began to pursue some dreams I'd had all my life, I became bored. It terrified me. Of course in all the ACA meetings and all the counseling I got the first go-around with all of this, years ago, I heard the explanations. Someone growing up in an alcoholic home as I did, particularly one with violence and abuse, will often feel unsafe when things go quiet. Unconsciously, you wait for the other shoe to drop. For daddy to come home drunk and do something destructive. Creating drama of some kind, or trying to numb the feeling, is common.
I heard those explanations and there is truth to them, of course. I'm not negating the value of psychological counseling but I am saying it's limited in the scope of what is understood about the Spirit. There is more to it than fear of something bad happening when things finally get calm and seem to be going your way. I don't have it all articulated but what I understand is that it is the very nature of Spirit to create, to be in constant energetic motion. This motion is not the same as motion in form. We have to exert effort to move form. Spirit moves because it is the nature state of Spirit to move, much like our breathing is natural in form. Energetic spiritual motion is like that.
On the other hand, it is the very nature of third-dimensional flesh to be slow, and finally, to stop. We are closer and closer to stopping, each day we live in form. We chose to embody form, which is dense, heavy, slow if compared to the formless. Form has a hard time with the consistent energetic motion of Spirit. See, this is difficult to put into words but perhaps someone can get the energy of what I'm working to share here. Perhaps I will share more on this at some point in the future.
Anyway, back to the dream. This experience, I know, was foretold in the dream. I was reminded of my message about the okra pepsin. I think maybe the message was the same in this dream as it was in that one. More is not better. More is definitely not better in some cases. It was true with the okra and it was certainly true with the alcohol.
The bruising on the right side of Marcia's neck was still unresolved until I realized the obvious - throat chakra. Communication. Would I be brave enough to share this with you, people I've never met or people who knew me when? Would I be spiritually open about what I've gone through? In the end, I knew that I had to be. I didn't want the rest of that dream to play out. The physical reality of what it might mean to my throat was enough to persuade me.
I think of Marcia's words to me "Don't leave me yet but when you go, don't come back"
I said back to her "I won't leave you yet but when I go I won't come back".
Sealed with a kiss. A promise made, to myself.
To walk to the edge of death, once more, and leave it before it claimed me.
And having left, not to go back to that damaging behavior.
Will I keep that promise? Time will tell.
I heard those explanations and there is truth to them, of course. I'm not negating the value of psychological counseling but I am saying it's limited in the scope of what is understood about the Spirit. There is more to it than fear of something bad happening when things finally get calm and seem to be going your way. I don't have it all articulated but what I understand is that it is the very nature of Spirit to create, to be in constant energetic motion. This motion is not the same as motion in form. We have to exert effort to move form. Spirit moves because it is the nature state of Spirit to move, much like our breathing is natural in form. Energetic spiritual motion is like that.
On the other hand, it is the very nature of third-dimensional flesh to be slow, and finally, to stop. We are closer and closer to stopping, each day we live in form. We chose to embody form, which is dense, heavy, slow if compared to the formless. Form has a hard time with the consistent energetic motion of Spirit. See, this is difficult to put into words but perhaps someone can get the energy of what I'm working to share here. Perhaps I will share more on this at some point in the future.
Anyway, back to the dream. This experience, I know, was foretold in the dream. I was reminded of my message about the okra pepsin. I think maybe the message was the same in this dream as it was in that one. More is not better. More is definitely not better in some cases. It was true with the okra and it was certainly true with the alcohol.
The bruising on the right side of Marcia's neck was still unresolved until I realized the obvious - throat chakra. Communication. Would I be brave enough to share this with you, people I've never met or people who knew me when? Would I be spiritually open about what I've gone through? In the end, I knew that I had to be. I didn't want the rest of that dream to play out.
I think of Marcia's words to me "Don't leave me yet but when you go, don't come back"
I said back to her "I won't leave you yet but when I go I won't come back".
Sealed with a kiss. A promise made, to myself.
ps. Just began taking the Iridodial I ordered because of the dream. I had forgotten the ants in the dream. This isn't the first time ants have appeared as a totem. I remember the first time I read that ants are associated with 2-year cycles. I looked at my life and realized I had indeed been in a 2-year cycle that was ending.
Then, last night, just a half hour or so after I took my first dose of Iridodial, it was as if a light bulb went off over my head and I realized that it was almost 2 years to the month, that I left Alabama and went to California to dedicate time to a craft I had loved all my life, which is acting. It was shortly after the trip to California that I made the decision to drink again.
So, I'm encouraged by the signs that this is another two-year cycle ending for me and ant medicine has come along to help end that cycle in the best possible way. I can't say the Iridodial tastes wonderful. Somehow, it takes exactly what I'd imagine an ant would taste like if you ate an ant live, like they do on Fear Factor. But I do feel the energy of it, both physically and spiritually.
In case you haven't heard of iridodial, it is extracted from ants and is helping peole with cancer among other things. Ants do not have an immune system. They have a gene-repair system. It's really quite amazing. The medical hypothesis is that the same gene repair information contained in the dna of ants can help us repair. Makes sense to me but I'd take it anyway, for the totem animal connection.
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