I’m In!
I got the phone call last week from Susun Weed to say that I am accepted to the apprenticeship. She really does have a very witchy voice… and today, I received my acceptance package.
A huge box.
With a huge bag.
Filled with books about herbs. Woa. I kind of forgot about the herb part. We have Peterson Wildflowers of Northeastern and North central North America, A City Herbal by Maida Silverman, Common Herbs for Natural Health, by Juliette de Bairacli Levy, Breast Cancer? Breast Health! by Susun Weed, New Menopausal Years by Susun Weed, Opening Our Wild Hearts to the Healing Herbs by Gail Faith Edwards, Herbal for the Childbearing Year by Susun Weed, Healing Wise by Susun Weed, Moon Days edited by Cassie Premo Steele. Gulp.
I’ve been clarifying my intentions about going since she called. I know myself and that the herbalism will be a great context, but what I am really going for is to grow in my power as a woman, to know myself better, to gain strength. I want to be able to trust my intuition and be confident in myself to be BIG. I want to be able to take on my destiny and wear it fully.
Side effects of the magic pill
Humans are funny beings. We seem to want to be able solve problems in a fraction of the amount of time it took for the it to bubble to the perceivable surface. Hundreds upon hundreds of magic pill solutions are thought up and churned out of our collective consciousness – diets, pills for disease, pills for the side effects of the pills for the disease, eye glasses, special chairs, posture aids, orthopaedic this and that. Imagine yourself as an ET visiting our planet, we must look like we would fall apart if taken out of the fragile bubbles we have created for ourselves.
So, I’m doing something different. I’ve decided to look into all areas of my life where I require a magic pill to keep on going and look at the source of the imbalance* (I prefer imbalance over problem, problem makes it seem like the issue is outside of the self). Here is my list of physical imbalances that I have found so far and the corrections I am trying.
- Bladder: I have to use a catheter to pee, but I wonder if nerve healing has taken place and I am only compensating for weak muscles now. Correction: learning to relax my muscles and trying to pee first without the catheter.
- Right foot: The enervation to my right foot was damaged in my accident, however, I am able to use it properly for short periods of time. Like my bladder, am I simply compensating for weak muscles? Correction: Using my mind to stand on both feet equally, being sure to balance my weight over the entire foot. Single leg calf raises. Taking bellydance lessons with Lava, taking Alexander Technique lessons.
- Back: Since my accident I have had troubles with posture. It has gotten worse with time. My aaron chair doesn’t seem to make it any better, In fact I feel like my abs have gotten weaker. Correction: Taking Alexander Technique lessons. Changing my way of thinking while stationary and moving.
- Walking: Having relearned to walk as an adult, I have pretty much been going on my own hunches and intuition when trying to alter my gate so that I have less pain and fatigue. Is it possible to get the help I need to correct my gate and walk properly? Correction: Taking Alexander Technique lessons. Changing my way of thinking while stationary and moving.
- Wandering Eye: I had a wandering left eye as a child and had two eye operations to fix it. My eyes have never quite aligned and I feel like I look out of my good eye predominantly. Correction: Working with the Tibetan Eye Chart. Beginning next week working with a Natural Vision Educator that I found through the Bates Method website
- Nearsightedness: Since grade 7 I have been wearing corrective lenses. My eyesight has continued to get worse since then, and I am about -3.00 in one eye and -3.25 in the other according to my prescription from 5 years ago. I feel like my eyes are worse and I need a new prescription. Is there another option? Correction: Working with the Tibetan Eye Chart. Beginning next week working with a Natural Vision Educator
I also have a few conscious imbalances that I’ve noticed.
- Fear: I have a strong fear of getting out of my box. I think that our society makes it pretty easy to have a comfortable, unchanging life. I’ve become a bit dependant on everything being the same. Correction: Applied for the 6 Week Shamanic Apprenticeship with Susun Weed. Got in! Leaving April 13th! I learned from the Alexander Method: Look up and out (I stare at the ground a lot)
- Discernment: I am getting better at this, but we are not taught in our society to discern between ego and divine will. I find things happen effortlessly when I am aligning my will with the divine will. I want more of that and less of the other. Correction: See above. Plus, following my intuition and trying to notice when things feel effort-full, slowing down and listening.
- Self trust: In our culture we often give our power to the media, authorities and other people. I find myself wondering how someone else could possibly know me better than me! Is there a way to resist the temptation of laziness in this direction and become undoubtedly self knowing? Correction: Writing this blog! And see above.
- Divine Feminine: I have never felt comfortable as a woman. I have always felt more like a girl. I think that our culture contributes to this in a major way and so it takes some practice to embody deeply the feminine Correction: Bellydancing, voice lessons, posture work with the Alexander Technique, working with the Gathering The Women Global Matrix, and the Hildegard Von Bingen
Curiously, both of these lists work together. Meaning that I believe some of the conscious imbalances are perhaps effecting my physical body. Fear of stepping out of my bubble, nearsightedness? Difficulty walking, holding myself up, confidently putting one foot in front of the other, a lack of self trust? Inability to create effortlessness? Bladder connection with the entire sacral area, divine feminine? I feel the truth in the idea that every thing in the body, mind and spirit is connected in a grand matrix, and therefor imbalances in one part would cause imbalances throughout the entire matrix.
Wanna see just how crazy the magic pill can get? Hubby sent me this link, imagine, if you will, what the resulting physical implications are on the human body….
*I am a little bit neurotic in this direction! I believe wholey that we can be strong, adaptable and aware and increasingly so with age. I refuse to believe that as our body starts to rely more on the energy of the spirit that we have to suffer
In the inbetween
Dear Self,
This is a reminder that in the in between, there is nothing to DO. Remember that Steiner referred to this in between place as Hades? The place of the initiate after she has released the old paradigm, but hasn’t yet experienced the new. It is tempting to try and reach to the edges, grasping for where you are going, groping for where you came from. That the comfort of believing you know something, anything, even if it is only a belief, is false. The knowledge you gained to move into the in between space will prevent the old place from ever feeling truly comfortable again. There will always be a niggling feeling that you don’t belong there anymore. Similarly, reaching forward, grasping for what you think can see of the new place is not whole. The awareness that you are only getting a fraction of the picture will always remain, no matter how vivid your imagination, how creative and believable your story. What awaits will always be much greater than you can imagine.
Remember that the present moment is where you receive the most of your experience. When you reach backward or forward a piece of you, your attention is dispersed. You are not wholey available to align with what IS. The present is thus the best place to be when the greater space is unveiled. Resist the temptation to do. Find comfort in not knowing.
Remembering these, but also remember that the inverse is true. You must gather the energy from the place you are in to expand into a greater place, and therefore you must not fault yourself for not doing what you have agreed to do. Remember this video by MagentaPixie2012, and don’t be so hard on yourself.
Lightly,
Self
The Gray Area
Life’s not black and white. I heard this a lot growing up. Arguments with adults often ended in not everything is fair or the famous do as I say, not as I do. Now, as an adult, I see that the phrase was at some point contorted. It should read Life is grey. Now that I got that out, it sounds like ‘life is depressing’ but you know what I’m getting at here.
Today I went deep into the gray.
I have a tendency to ignore things that I don’t like until they drive me so crazy that I snap. If things that I don’t like are personality traits in another person, I just get to a point where I say I don’t want to be around that person. If they are characteristics or habits of a teacher, I will just break the relationship off and stop my lessons. This inability to speak my mind has gotten me into trouble before and it got me into trouble today.
Here are the details. I started taking lessons with a teacher, and during the first lesson, I found her pretty intense. Kind of dramatic in the way that I used to be dramatic. She was super nice, but kind of… too much friendly, not enough professional. Also, I found that I wasn’t understanding what she was telling me about posture. It just didn’t seem to be jiving with the posture work I had done. But for some reason, I ignored these nagging red flags.. I had expectations (judging from how long she had been teaching and the fact that she was also a teacher of a self development course that I had done) that she was worth whatever oddities she came with. At the end of the lesson, the next student came into her living room and then, I suppose my lesson was over. There was no one on one talk about how to continue etc. So, dispite my discomfort, and these observations I was deluding myself into ignoring, I signed on for four classes.
That day she calls and asks me if I am sure I would like to go on with the lessons. I said yes (clearly still in denial)!
Flash forward to now. I’ve gone to my second lesson, found it to be equally as unprofessional as she started my lesson late due to her necessary coffee, then ended it right as the other student came in, right after my last exercise. No closing comments, no nothing. I have returned home to try and practice. I’m frustrated. I don’t feel like I know what I should know. All at once, the nagging red flags come forward and I decide that I need to quit. I need to find a new teacher. So, I write her an email (she decided last week that she needed a week off, so she cancelled this weeks lesson) because I didn’t want to disturb her week off (maybe I was actually scared of the difficult conversation?) I wrote that I felt that these lessons weren’t a good fit for me, and I was wondering if she wouldn’t mind refunding the rest of my lessons.
She wrote back and said, in summary, that the lessons were not refundable. She stated that in the 39 years she had been teaching, she had never had a student want a refund. (Ego, hit). If I would like to discuss my concerns, then I could do so.
I didn’t want to discuss my concerns. I felt that my opnions of her were really irrelevant to the situation and that really, if the relationship wasn’t working for me then I should find a different teacher. I wrote back and said that I would finish out my classes and that it was just not a good fit for me, that was all. I probably should have followed my intuition after the first lesson.
Then I was irritated. All day I felt uneasy about having to pay for these lessons that I didn’t want to take. What teacher in their right mind would want to teach a student who plainly did not want to learn from her? I suddenly realized that it said nowhere on her website that the fees were nonrefundable. I wrote her an email outlining my uneasiness and asking for her to point me to where I should have read this before I signed on the dotted line. (Note: Lawyer tactic – trying to get out of something on a technicality… remember, life is grey. Not black. Not white.)
I sent the email and then conferred with my husband. He said that he would have to side with her, I made the call at the first lesson and it was my own fault if I didn’t want to continue. I should have tried a second lesson before I got into it so deeply. All true. I felt bad. I felt like in a way I was right, and then…. in another way I was all wrong. I was right in the black and white sense, but in the gray sense. I was wrong.
We decided that the right thing to do was for me to call her and tell her that she is right, it was my responsibility to make a more thorough assessment before I committed, and that I would forfeit the money. Lesson learned. There was the possibility of telling her exactly what bothered me from the very beginning, but I realized that that would have been okay had I refused to continue from the beginning, but after going to two lessons, agreeing to ignore her eccentricities and then not ignore them? I was being just as unprofessional as she was!
I called her and said the above. She offered to pay me anyway and seemed to want to have the difficult conversation. I held my ground and said that it was nothing personal, my learning style just didn’t work with her teaching style. I said that she was completely in the right to keep the money and that I was okay with it, but she insisted. She said she would call me in three weeks to arrange to get me the money and ended the conversation.
Gray. But I realize that black and white never touch except in the gray. Gray is a coming together of black and white. I think part of the reason I am on this planet is to learn how to come together with others without hurting them, bruising their ego or creating karma for myself. This was a pretty messy first try, but it came out way better than I expected in the end.
Endurance of the will
A bit of context: according to the teachings of Rudolf Steiner, there exists the threefold human being, which consists of Thinking, Feeling and Willing. Loosely and in my own words, for an idea to manifest, it takes clear thinking about its parts and pieces. Clear thinking is followed by the the cultivation of feelings to support the idea, which helps to sustain the idea from thought to action. Finally, the power of the will is needed to bring the idea into manifestation – to take action.
We all know, however, that there is more to the will than just manifesting the idea, the idea has to stay manifest. This is the endurance of the will. The endurance of the will (again my own words) comes from the etheric body, or life energy.
A perfect example of deficiency in the endurance of the will is my experience over the past 5 days. Recall the assessment of the self bubble, and then the feeling that I was ready to change. I even got myself rolling – identified where I needed to go, got the teachers, made it to the lessons and then, screeeeech. Have I practised? No.
Instead I went down the guilt ridden rabbit hole (an old friend of mine):
- I vow to establish a discipline and too quickly allowing other things to get in the way.
- I get swept up by the feeling of frustration when I don’t do what my soul calls me to do, which leads me down a road of self-deprecation and a bad mood to boot.
- “I am unable to be present for others and its all my own fault” ensues, pushing me further into the ‘I’ll never succeed as a human being’ rabbit hole, cutting off all light and air.
The more I try and change, the deeper and scarier the rabbit hole is. It collects evidence of each successive disappointment on some hidden white-board.
In fact a rather interesting pickle arose, showing this leopard her spots: Last Wednesday, the singing teacher gave me a DVD of my lesson so that I don’t need to have a piano to practice. I didn’t end up trying it until Thursday, at which point, I did the breathing section and then went to bed. Then, yesterday, caught in the guilt ridden rabbit hole in the middle of Valentines day (because I went to my mom’s for Friday night and Saturday and didn’t practice), I put myself in my room and turned on the dvd. I got through the breathing part and then… the singing practice didn’t actually record. There was nothing there. Sunday. Two more practising days left until my lesson, and there is no way I can call my singing teacher and say “… uh… the DVD didn’t work” – she would definitely know that I hadn’t been c at all during the past 5 days. So to avoid disappointing her (as if it won’t be glaringly obvious) I have organized myself to get a keyboard so that I can do my warm-ups twice a day for the next couple of days so that I can have some semblance of dedication before my teacher. Ahhh… ego.
Not this time, I say.
Why will it be different this time? I’ve experienced the etheric energy of aligning my will with the divine will. I know that I need to do this stuff. I am going to be successful. In fact, I have to be successful now or else there won’t be enough time to move forward before I have to move on. It occurs to me that this is where the sense of duty ties into the etheric. It’s not about likes and dislikes anymore… get out of my way rabbit hole. I’m going to pick up the keyboard, and I am not sleeping until every lesson has been accounted for. DISCIPLINE will be achieved!