Of course, we all know, or we’ve all heard, that spiritual progress on this human plane is never really “done,” and so I think it’s the same with healing, although certain aspects of healing may be accomplished, we always have more, and we’ll certainly experience more that must be healed.

So I think I shouldn’t have been taken so low last week – I think I should have understood and taken it in stride – but I didn’t.  I thought I’d had enough, and I wanted to die.

On the third evening of three painful days, I lay on my bed and really tried to give up the ghost.  My heart had been in pain (in a vice, it seemed) for three days, and I’d been shown a print-out of my slow heart rate with an unhealthy delay between the beats of the first and second chambers.  My arms and jaw startled me now and then with their own pains throughout those days – classic heart attack symptoms I’ve had before (which I attribute to my life of mind control electroshocks and Tasering).

But after lying down, crying, sobbing, and giving up this life, but not dying, and my heart pain mysteriously gone, I got up, accepted my fate (to live), and wrote in my journal that I was pissed and not happy about it at all.

Even as I outlined my points of justification, I realized things that I could control.

1.  I don’t have enough help!

Well, I thought in response, you aren’t very consistent about asking for help. 

Point taken.

2.  I don’t have enough understanding!

Ditto answer.

Okay….

3.  I’m too messed with (my biggie, my Ace), which makes me too often too exhausted to do more than barely keep up, not a state worth continuing life for.  I never know when I’m going to wake with bruises, biopsy holes, or even Taser burns, all with incredible exhaustion which will zap all my energy and put everything in my life on hold for a week or two, making me look like a totally irresponsible person.  Not fair!

Oh, get off it!  You’ve known for a long time that nothing’s fair.  As for the attacks, you need to learn to stop them.  You need to rediscover your warrior part.  Yes, you’ve been trying, but maybe you haven’t been trying the right things, or the right timing, or something else, so life keeps on demanding this of you until you figure it out.  It’s the human condition, for where you are.  Get help, get creative, but figure it out.  Quit whining.  You know you’ve been strong in past lives and came into this world with a lot of wisdom, and yes, you’ve been “messed with,” as you say, mind controlled, but so has everyone, and even though yours might be a super-demanding version of it, it’s what you came here for.  You’re down right now, but you’ll get it.  That’s why we haven’t let you die yet.  You really do have the power to figure it out, even though you’re stumped now and angry (a cover for fear).  You’ll get over it.  And then you’ll get back to the Work.

Sigh.

And so I have.  And I have realized a couple of things that have kept me from my power:

First, I have been afraid to tell the truth about who I am because… I’m not sure, but I’m willing to bet I’ve been mind controlled to be ashamed about who I am, so I only allude to things most important to me, but usually only very subtly, and rarely.  Most of my days I’ve gone around pretending to be Every Woman, or an old-hippie version of Every Woman.  And I thought this had value, made my writing most accessible to my audience.  This is possibly true, but my writing has also been very limited, sorta of “lowest common denominator” (as I was trained to write as a journalist), and so it’s been least useful.

When I thought I was dying, I gave up “everything,” and I realized later that that also included what others think about me.  What a wonderful thing to finally give up!

It is infinitely more important for me to communicate the truth of who I am, to however small an audience, than to communicate a tepid, easy-to-accept version of me to the “masses.”

And that “safe” presentation is part of keeping me split – keeping the real me hidden (requiring splitting) while the “socially acceptable” part plays a role.  I didn’t realize I was failing so badly at simple Truth, but I was.  It reinforced my splittedness and made me forget my truth.

Second, because I wanted to be and offer something socially acceptable, I forgot what I am:  called to shamanic practice – as we call  it today.  My subconscious decision to hide has made me forget it myself, making me a very irresponsible practitioner, taking “days” off that turned into weeks and months.

I wasn’t afraid that people, at least those I cared about, wouldn’t understand or accept – as most seem to be animists at heart, so they should.  But I thought they would secretly ridicule or denounce me as either too stupid or unworthy, or as someone jumping on a bandwagon – and indeed, I myself have problems with others promoting it like the newest fad, putting it on business cards, etc.  I don’t want others to say about me what I’ve said about others!

Shamanic practice feels too sacred an avocation to speak of.  So when someone asks about one’s vocation, I haven’t known what to say; I kept it a secret, and together with other excuses, it became almost a secret to me.

But this is who I am:  I am one who sees the world in multiple dimensions and seeks (hopefully forever now more consistently) to strengthen my relationships with all my spirit help, and thereby continue my healing to the point where I will be more confident about helping others.

This all became clear only after I’d wallowed for three days in my death wish and gave up everything of this world.  When all was stripped away, I could see who I was and what is most important to me in this world.

It is:  to continue to learn personally about the other realms, develop skills in them, learn to communicate and navigate, learn to bring back information, and learn to help others – what we call shamanism or shamanic practice.  

On and off I’ve been living this life for decades, secretly.  I’ve participated in healings, and they’ve been life-changing for me and others.  I’ve received information from those on the other side.  I’ve gone there and come back.  I know my helpers.  I know my practice.

But there is so much more I need to learn.  And there’s nothing more in this world that I want to do, other than create the setting around me to facilitate this, and then use it to help myself and others.

Three days believing I was dying – it was a difficult, but clarifying time, for which I am grateful.  I now know (again) what is most important to me.  Sometimes we forget.  (The world wants us to forget.)  And sometimes only great pain can help us remember.

Now, I’m happily back in contact – wait, I forgot to confess one more failure.  I subconsciously, for decades, have attributed to my spirit help one characteristic of my parents: that they would love me more the more silent I was and the less I needed them, the less I asked for.  One of my shamanic teachers helped me recognize this ten years ago, but I “forgot”!

So now I’ve remembered and I’ve been spending lots of daily time with my help, asking for whatever I need, and making great progress for just a week.  I have a half-dozen more essays in my head to write, some designing I’ve envisioned, some practices to practice.

And I believe we can actually get through this, this crazy world in which Carlos Castaneda’s mentor Don Juan Matus said we need to “change the course of sorcery.”  The current sorcery is mind control, and we need to help change that, especially those of us who can see it so well.  This is our world too.  We have a role to play.