And So, She Wakes.

As I was flipping open my Morning Pages notebook this morning, it fell open to the back page. Written at the top was “Meditation: Lodge Day 4.” I usually write my journeys and meditations in another “spiritual” notebook, to keep them all together, but I couldn’t find it last Thursday when I apparently wrote this. I’d forgotten, and it makes intensely marvelous sense to me now, and I’m happy I stumbled upon it.

Again, bear with the “do we have to listen to another one of these woo-woo Mollyisms”!

As you may recall, I went to my first sweat lodge last Sunday, and we were told by the facilitator that the lodge “works” for four days after the lodge, hence, Day 4 above. The meditation on that day, then, went something like this:

The four characters of Beauty, Love, Sexuality, and Femininity [I guess I didn't write a blog about her, but a former meditation introduced my Inner Femininity to me as one anorexic and frightened looking young woman, who has been getting healthier for a few months] gathered at the lodge fire. Sexuality discarded her heavy cloak of shame into the fire. All of the rest of “us” stood behind her – all my aspects that sit at my internal dinner table, all my animal guides, and all my teachers human and otherwise. Then the 4 entered the lodge, not with “me.” In the lodge, they merged, joined, combined, and exited as one. She then purged all these prayer bundles [little sacks of tobacco filled with prayers, tied together with string, usually tiny, about the size of a nickel] and the last one was about the size of a bowling ball, filled with shame. It burned brightly and a phoenix rose up from the ashes and swam about the clearing. All the others whooped and cheered – there was great merriment [so it says in my notebook]. She grabbed onto the phoenix and made the whole trip back from the Santa Cruz mountains and to my apartment where I sat meditating. And she asked me, Are you ready? And I answered Yes. And she joined me, into me, empowers/powers me now [I write]. Am I ready? Yes.

So, what? I realized this morning as I read over this page that, in fact, something like this has happened. My dalliance with the married man began the very next day. Brief and physically Rated G as the now-ended tete-a-tete was, I have not felt that kind of power, or charge, or electric in a long time. That awake in a long time. 

I relate it to the awakening of a limb that’s long been asleep. Suddenly it starts to tingle, which feels sorta nice, and then, more suddenly, it begins to feel like it’s burning as it awakens. As the blood starts to rush almost anew into this place so long cut off. You almost wish it would simply go back to sleep again - better that than this. As you know, I’ve cut off much of these parts of me for quite some time, imagining, and having fed the story that my sexuality, femininity, beauty, and love bring me pain, destruction, self-hatred, and, again, shame.

So, beginning to feel the tingle of these parts of me again, these massive alive energized parts of me, means that I’m beginning to walk with my full self again. See, I don’t think it’s just about sex, or being a woman, I think it’s about me being a full and entirely embodied human. About allowing the blood, power, energy to flow into ALL of myself. And when that is allowed to happen, well, I believe I’ll be able to take actions I haven’t been able to take before.

I wrote a few informational interview query letters out to networks of mine last night, and in it, I wrote a line that surprised me at its truth. I wrote that I would, ideally, like to paint, act, sing in a band, and facilitate workshops. So, there you have it. I now have an answer to “What do you want to do.” Isn’t that lovely?

In fact, it is. I know that I’m still finding my way to getting there. But having full working ability of all my limbs has been the only way to get there. When, over the last several months I was told that I had to work on this sex stuff before I could get “more information,” well, I think I’m coming out of it/into it. I think I’m clearing it.

Apparently, sure, I have some work to do on how to do it skillfully. My old habits with righteously attractive unavailable men are much more familiar in my muscle memory – and as my muscles awaken, they seek the familiar. (And seek to post the NIN "I wanna fuck you like an animal" on facebook!) So, it’s about owning, and holding these parts now – how to hold them properly, and respectfully – without fucking shame.

Finally, I realized yesterday, as I was clicking “attend” to a workshop for Shamanic Journey work, that if my professional development could be anything, it would be this – sweat lodges, and collage parties, and shamanic journey workshops. That my professional development ought to align with my personal development. It makes a lot of sense to me.

Therefore, again, it’s about heading there. About allowing myself to head there. Sure, I may need to find a job for the mean time, the in between time, but with the full use of my faculties, with a widened and compassionate understanding of the voraciously ambitious and pulsatingly powerful support of my full feminine, human, creative self, with an eye for new behavior, and with a welcome acceptance of all that I am, and want, and yearn for – I believe that, Yes, I Am Ready.