The retreat was fabulous; also insightful and emotionally draining. My intention was to discard labels that fostered stagnation or negative thinking. With my “old bones” in hand, the object that represented old stories (labels) about me, I said a prayer to Spirit and tossed it into the bonfire.
The specific content of the brown paper bag is immaterial. What it represented is significant for me: guilt and shame and their parents: “hopeless failure” and “worthless drug addict”. And another label I have not heretofore mentioned: “damaged goods,” with its prolific offspring, fear and loneliness. Into the fire went my assumed right to refer to myself as anything other than Shawn, Child of God and Defender of the Underdog….well, and also Dad.
Hell, with all that accomplished on just the first night, I was well underway, I thought.
My intention for the remainder of the retreat was to remain open to whatever Spirit wanted to show me. And, show me a few things she did.
1. I pull away from present and/or potential sources of love and affections because I fear their loss. It's true: drug addiction is frightening to people who don’t understand it—not to mention the threats of theft and that ridiculous nodding off at the dinner table thing that some addicts do. It's also true that some have severed ties because of prejudice. However, rather than place blame, I simply want to acknowledge the loss. I miss them. I miss feeling like I was one with them, granted it was often a dysfunctional family of my own creation, but I loved them. I love them still. (Disclaimer, I did not anticipate such an emotive oration. However, that’s my point. Excuse me, that was Spirit’s point: I still need to grieve those losses and until I walk through the process I’ll continue to say mean things to myself and feel lots of shame and feel stuck and self-medicate the pain.)
2. Next, Spirit showed me that when I speak loving kindness, warmth, and prosperity about others, I feel it reciprocated.
3. Commitment came next. Well, actually the sweat lodge came next, but, in the sweat lodge came the lesson regarding commitment. Normally, I dread the lodge; what with all the steam and heat and anguish and laying my face on the earth just to remember what reasonable coolness felt like, a few times I've asked to leave part-way through the ceremony. This time it was not an option. I was committed to remaining present throughout. My lesson: If something is worth committing to, I am invited to simply make the commitment. Speak it out loud. See myself doing it in my mind. Then, just do it. And, if to follow through with that commitment becomes painful, I can and should take care of myself in the process. In other words, if I need to I’ll plant my face on mother earth and nurse from her cool, refreshing tit. (Ok, that went way too far. Sorry.)
4. Then the fairies got their two-cents in. On the final morning of the retreat I went into the dining area for coffee and found a friend engaged in a personal reading from the Fairy Cards. Their observations of him where right on and their forecast was downright exciting, so, naturally, I wanted in. After carefully shuffling the cards, dividing them into four groups, re-stacking them and pulling the top card, I was told what the upside-down “Lilly of the Rainbows” said. I’ll paraphrase: The universe has given you significant challenges lately. You need to relax, trust and be patient with the process.” Quickly, I shuffled again, divided, re-stacked and turned the top card. Surprisingly, upside-down “Lilly of the Rainbows” appeared again, telling me that the universe has given me significant challenges, I should relax and trust the process and patient. Well…needless to say, I was a bit taken back. Right back to the book shelf where the I Ching was waiting. I was determined to hear something different, insisted on it. After carefully following the steps for getting a reading from this ancient oracle, the message was loud and clear when it told me, almost verbatim, the same thing. Thankfully, it also said this: “…success is imminent, if only you BE PATIENT.”
5. And, finally, Spirit showed me that, even following an amazingly beautiful and spiritually rejuvenating weekend such as this one, my ego still wants me to feel sorry for myself. It still wants me to come home to my modestly-gay-fashionable-yet-strangely-lesbian-sheik, one-bedroom apartment, passing along the way many homeless men and women, and whine because my apartment is too small. Or, feel different because I only ‘committed’ to the lodge; I didn’t see a vision like that one guy. Or, and here’s the stickler, I can feel fabulously free of all those labels when I’m on the ranch, outside the real world, but, “down here buddy, you’ll hurt just like all the rest of us pieces of shit!”
Wow….I'm taking deep breaths and trying to center myself here. I’m tired of writing for today and I’m almost out of humorous clichés so I’m going to stop. However, let me say this: Today, I want to take care of myself a little better; I want to commit to be kinder to myself in my thoughts, and, more patient with myself in the process. I don’t want to avoid like I have done for the past week (I hear those of you saying ‘try the last several years.’). I don’t want to sulk (although my sulking skills are some of the best around) anymore when the universe challenges me or when Spirit shows me some troubling things about myself.
What I want is peace inside my noisy brain, replacing mindless chatter. And, I want my friends back, or maybe just more and more new ones, but I want to feel at home in my own skin first. I want that success that is “imminent,” as well as the patience to wait.
That’s a lot.
Thanks God.
