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Happy Mother’s Day and Pain of Rejection
May 12, 2014

Happy Mother’s Day and Pain of Rejection

All holidays can be tough for people who have experienced abuse, neglect, or rejection by their own parents, the people who are supposed to love them the most. Of course our parents are only human, they will make mistakes in raising us, and in navigating the sometimes strange tides of adult child to parent relationship. Neither family relationships, nor life itself, rarely resemble the idyllic world of a Hallmark movie. But there are some parents who commit true evil toward their children. Remembering the rejection of a mother can be particularly painful on the Mother’s Day holiday.

My own family was filled with chaos and secrets as I grew up. My father had a violent temper, and made liberal use of “spare the rod, spoil the child,” in order to beat (“grow”) us into godliness. My mother supported him and stood silently by, although she rarely raised her own hand to us.

There were also good times, tender conversations with my mother, and contemplative fishing trips with my father. These joyful waters never calmed completely, though, as the constant threat of another storm always loomed on the horizon. Even as a young child, my parents would argue with me and put me down over my liberal ideas of environmentalism, collectivism, feminism, and oneness. I was raised strictly evangelical fundamental, but my spirit rebelled against this from birth. At times I overrode my heart and tried my hardest to use fundie talk, and convert all my friends to Christianity, to earn my parent’s admiration. Even then, I felt like I never fit into my family, and, deep in my heart, I often questioned my parent’s love for me.

Many years later, after a painful excommunication by my church (my safety network of friends), unemployed, despite my master’s degree, because of a crap economy, homeless after exhausting all of my savings and credit cards, with a helpless toddler in my arms, my husband and I went back to my parents, asking for help. They said we were headed to hell for our “new age” views, we were in league with the devil, and God was judging us. After another religious argument they kicked us out the door and said they never wanted to speak to us again.

My tears fell.

My tears fell as Christian love died.

My tears fell as parental love died.

The pain of rejection was far worse than the pain of homelessness and the fear of the future. But the Holy Spirit spoke tender words to me in her healing grace. YHWH guided us to Minnesota in his wisdom. I found work and we have begun to rebuild our life.

The pain and sadness still linger, especially as so many people today on Mother’s Day are talking about the joy of their mother and how mothers forever love the children they carried, no matter what. Unfortunately, this is not always true. Today I am just finding joy in being a mother to my own son, and I know that, no matter where his life journey takes him, I will always love him.

If you, friend, are struggling today with memories of a mother’s rejection, or abuse, I feel your pain. I am sending healing Reiki out into the world to help soothe these wounds. Feel and acknowledge the pain, but embrace Life. Feel free to share your story in the comments, or contact me for a healing appointment.

Find joy in the journey.

Happy Mother’s Day.

February 21, 2014

The Empty Room

Photo used freely, courtesy of iprole on sxc.hu
Photo used freely, courtesy of iprole on sxc.hu

I just quit my day job at the preschool where I have worked for the last year. The situation became very suffocating, and I have better opportunities ahead of me. Here are my feelings.

The Empty Room

I look upon the empty room,
A room exhaling silence
             memories
             of child voices

The room sees
Eyes pour over lesson plans.
All the educational demands.
A told B and B told C
about the spontaneous ecstasy,
the momentary lessons be
of childhood wonder.

The room measures
Tick-tock hours measured by
laughs and tears and fears and smiles.
Days that measure, dress themselves
in colors of artwork upon the shelves
in water play in yellow sun
in raking red-gold leaves that run
with tiny footprints in the white.

The room sighs
Teachers silenced by harsh demands.
Take the pain upon their hands.
Fix the room, scream the theme
do the project, the curriculum means
but don’t you dare stay on the scene
just a minute late.

The room cries
Children sob the rules they dread.
Don’t make a mess, stay on your bed,
don’t put that bucket on your head,
too much noise behind the door,
be always ready for the Tour.

The room hurts
Teachers broken under stress
contradicting rules, duress.
Mental wounds leak out their bodies
while trying, trying, trying hardly
able to do it all and not get hurt
again.

The room suffocates
I. Can’t. Breathe.

The walls of the room come closing in,
exhaling sickness, a volcano explosion.
Struggling to inhale the stale air,
the room echoes the silent terror.

The room dies
I. Quit.

Two words fill the empty room
I turn my back, I leave alone.
I must hide all the memories saved
to bury them in my mind’s grave.
I leave the room to the hands of God.
And breathe a prayer for my beloved
children.

I think upon the empty preschool room,
A room exhaling silence
             memories
             of voices of pain
             spiritual death

The Bus Stop
February 18, 2014

The Bus Stop

She sat on the corner of the bench, fidgeting nervously as she waited for the bus.

I was a graduate student, studying music. I had left my car at home that afternoon and taken the bus to school for the week’s masterclass.

I had performed from the bottom of my heart. But the masterclass teacher had ripped apart my performance, picking at the length of my eighth notes and the sloppy edges of my articulation. Tiny details, but enough to make or break someone in the cutthroat world of classical music. And he should know. He was renowned in the music world, he had performed big gigs with big orchestras. My dream. Or was it? Now I found myself at the bus stop, warm tears threatening to overflow my eyes onto my cold cheeks in the brisk Michigan autumn.

“Details, Amy, details. Practice more. Technique. Your musicality is great, we can feel the emotions in your music, but details. You’ll never make it without the technical details.” The words echoed through my head like a hammer smashing and splintering glass. The glass of my psyche, which I always willed to turn to steel. They always told me I was too sensitive. Words of the masterclass teacher, words of many of my other professors throughout my high school and college musical years. I wanted to quit. I wanted to run away. I wanted to leave my clarinet case right there at the bus stop and run home, or run somewhere else, run anywhere. Run until the pain would stop.

I noticed the woman sitting next to me. She looked sad, too, another soul lost in the sea of broken dreams. I breathed deeply and said a small prayer for her. Reiki. I did not know much about energy healing at that time, but I knew the power of prayer.

A minute later, a bus showed up. Not my bus, but the woman stood up to talk to the driver. “Where is bus 75 tonight?” she asked.

“Sorry, ma’am, that bus came by fifteen minutes ago.”

“Oh, no, is there another bus to Haslett tonight?”

“No, ma’am, sorry.”

“OK,” she said and limped back to the bench. I hadn’t noticed the limp at first. I had been too self-absorbed in my own thoughts. Compassion and regret flooded over me. What should I care about stupid master classes and eighth notes when a fellow human being was suffering right in front of me?

“Are you OK?” I asked, timidly. I am an introvert by nature, so I struggle to start conversations with strangers.

“Oh, yeah,” she shrugged. “I just gotta get to Haslett. I guess I’ll have to walk again.”

“It’s such a cold night. Can I give you a ride?”

“You have a car? What are you doing at the bus stop?”

I shrugged. “I like to take the bus sometimes, but I do have my car at home. Here comes bus 84. Let’s take the bus back to my place, and I’ll give you a ride.”

“You sure?” She looked at me incredulously. I could tell that she was a woman not used to favors. Maybe her dark skin, her heavy weight, her stooped shoulders which betrayed years of poverty and hardship, worked against her in this rich college town. But why? Didn’t we talk in college about systems of oppression? Weren’t college students known for caring tremendously, radically fighting the System? Did I care enough?

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m sure. Let’s get out of the cold. My name is Amy.”

“My name is J.” she said.

I gave her a ride home that night, and we eventually became great friends. I prayed over her aching knees and other joints, her body groaning under the mental anguish of unrelenting poverty and discrimination. She told me of her struggles to get a job, her struggles to raise her children, and her dark journey of depression when social services took her children away because she could not maintain housing. I cried as she told me of undergoing knee surgery and then being released from the hospital to the street. I could only imagine her pain, but, in sharing the burden, she looked a little happier, a little lighter.

This is true Reiki healing. This is Holy Spirit healing. Yeshua came to seek and to save the least of these, and J. is his best friend. Reiki is holy, and the holy is intricately tied with social justice. I couldn’t pull J out of poverty, give her a better place to live, but I could offer a listening ear, compassion, Reiki.

This is the story of the Good Samaritan. Help everyone you can in any way you can, one hurting individual at a time. Open your eyes to the pain around you, my friends. I know that it can be hard to see others when your own pain is so overwhelming. I certainly struggle with this. But Reiki is a journey as much as it is a healing modality. Let’s link arms on this journey and carry the light of the Holy Spirit into the darkest of places.

Photo used freely, courtesy of that guy A on sxc.hu

October 20, 2013

Meditation to Clear Negative Reiki

Picture used freely, courtesy of miamiamia on stock.xchng
Picture used freely, courtesy of miamiamia on stock.xchng

The Negative Side of Reiki

I often talk about the power of Love and the connection with the universal oneness that a Reiki session can facilitate. Most Reiki practitioners say that Reiki is a pure healing energy and cannot produce any harm.

But some people have experienced negative and even life-threatening side effects from Reiki treatments. Why? The answer is found in the energy and connection of the Reiki practitioner. The biggest disrupter of pure energy is greed. Money. The lust for power, or even the fear of not having enough. Stay far away from any practitioner of Reiki or any form of healing who is all about the money or shows signs of greed.

Holy Spirit Reiki is energy healing, the same healing practiced by religious mystics, even Yeshua himself. Dr. Usui codified the healing and added some symbols to help his students focus and grasp his teaching. These symbols are helpful on the journey, but not necessary. Some Reiki practitioners have not developed their intuitive connection to YHWH, the Great Spirit, and they use the symbols as a substitute for connection. Many of these people have simply used their money to buy Reiki classes and certifications, but they do not understand the holy healing which they claim to hold. This is not great.

You must be very careful when allowing anyone to lay hands on you and practice Reiki and any other form or energy healing. The chakras and pathways of your spirit body are delicate and sensitive to both positive and negative energy. If you have ever walked into a crowded room or public place, such as a shopping mall, and felt uneasy, light-headed, short of breath, or just out-of-place, you have felt the disruption of your energy field. All of these people holding their own mixtures of light and darkness, love and greed, can create a perilous energy field, especially for the spiritually sensitive. The same is even more true when paying a visit to an individual energy healer. Be alert and intuitive to what they are offering, and do not open yourself up to anyone with negative energy.

Worse than misinformed or greedy practitioners are people who purposely practice negative energy work, otherwise known as “psychic attacks.” This is all too common, and I think most if not all of us have experienced this and need to clear these things from our energy bodies, our “psyches.” Psychic attacks happen through jealousy, competition, ill will. One of the most grievous forms is child or spousal abuse, being attacked by your family to whom you have given part of your heart or body.

If you have been a victim of psychic attacks or negative energy healing, it can leave long-lasting pain in your body and emotions. I would like to lead you in a healing meditation to recover from this. Use this meditation as often as you like, and don’t hesitate to call me for a personal session for deeper healing from the Holy Spirit. If you are struggling financially, just contact me. I will not turn anyone away, and I share freely what I have been given from Spirit.

Psychic Attack Meditation

Get into a comfortable place, sitting or laying down. Close your eyes.

Imagine all your hurt and pain as gray clouds in your mind. Breath deeply and slowly, letting your stomach rise and your shoulders fall down peacefully on your back.

Imagine the clouds turning white and fluffy. If this does not happen immediately, let the clouds rain. Hear the lightning and thunder. Do not be afraid of the storm. It will bring refreshment and clarity. Imagine the rain as sparkling crystal, each drop pregnant with healing.

Sit with the storm for as long as it takes to allow the negative energy to dissipate with the rain. Eventually you will see the thunder leave, the rain slow down, and the clouds start to lighten and turn to white.

Watch the clouds with the imagination of a child. What do you see? A sheep? A mushroom? Let the shapes float over and delight you. Feel the light breeze around you, and let your body sink into a field of cool, green grass. Imagine the Great Spirit, the Great Shepherd cradling you as a lost lamb in his arms, welcoming you home to the place of peace. You have everything you need. You feel overwhelming love and peace.

Now you notice a sparkling pool of crystal blue water, surrounded by shimmering trees. Look at your reflection in the pool. See yourself as a child of the universe, a being of light, free from the darkness of pain. Let the memories float over you. Memories of this world, or memories of heaven. You have been there before. You have seen this place in your dreams.

Sit by the pool for a time. Let the waters speak to you. Let the grass and the trees speak to you. Let them sing a song of healing over you, removing all the pain and the hurts and the negative energy that the world and people have done to you. Rest a time in the healing.

Slowly leave this magical place of warmth and love. Bring your consciousness back into your present world, your present moment. Gently open your eyes. Carry the healing with you and trust your intuition, your inner child to guide you forward.

Come back to this place as often as you can.

Namaste.

October 16, 2013

Can Pain Be My Medicine?

pain as medicine
Photo by kaniths, used freely on stock.xchng

Is pain something to be avoided at all costs? Or can pain be my friend, my teacher, my companion on the spiritual journey?

Where does pain come from? This is a deep question that neither doctors nor philosophers can adequately answer. If I cut my finger or place my hand on a hot iron, my nerves fire lightning-speed, and my brain tells my muscles to withdraw. This is a natural protective response in our physical bodies to protect us from physical harm. Scientists call it the sympathetic nervous system.

But what about spiritual pain? How can we protect our spirit-bodies from injury? Intuition is key here. If you have a “gut feeling” about something, you should always follow that instinct. As a matter of fact, scientists say that the third nervous system of our physical bodies, called the enteric nervous system, is housed in our digestive system. Our guts can literally “think” for themselves, even if completely cut off from the brain. Our enteric nervous system holds most of our serotonin and dopamine receptors, our emotional center, and the enteric nervous system partners with the brain to process these emotions. We call this our “heart” feelings or “butterflies in our stomach.” And, again, butterflies are very spiritual. There are many connections here. Shamans and tribal people have often referred to the stomach as the origin of pain and the origin of healing, the seat of understanding.

Each person’s pain is unique, and I believe that all pain is a mixture of the physical, emotional, and spiritual. We cannot separate these parts of our being. If you fall down and break your ankle,your body has a marvelous power to mend the bones back together, but your spirit tends to hold the memory of that traumatic event in that joint. I struggle a lot with ankle pain, but I am learning to let go. I used to be a long-distance runner, something that I really enjoyed doing. When I developed severe tendonitis in my ankle, and could no longer run, I also suffered the emotional injury of losing an activity that I loved. In addition, I had wrapped part of my identity around being thin and “fit,” and my spirit body had experienced the pain of me rejecting my true self for a cultural ideal. There are many layers of pain, and unraveling all of this has taken me years of work, and is still a journey.

The pain is my teacher and guide to help me understand where I have strayed from my deepest self. For another example, when I was studying at the conservatory as a classical clarinetist, I developed severe, intractable pain in my arms and back. Some days I could hardly walk or lift anything or even get out of bed. It got so bad that I was forced to put down my instrument completely for a period of time.

But where did all this pain come from? Did I simply practice too much? Not really. The pain started out as an emotion. I beat myself up in the practice room over every little mistake, punishing myself for every imperfection in my last lesson or recital. My spirit shriveled under my self-abuse, and under the harsh words of my teachers, who themselves struggled with ego and emotional pain. The result eventually became physical pain in my body.

The pain was my wake-up call. The pain was my medicine. The pain forced me to look at my emotions and my beat-up spirit body. In the forced break from my instrument, I slowly learned the importance of refuge, rest, and nurturing of my spiritual self.

I am still a healer on a healing journey for myself. Sometimes when I do a Reiki session with another person, I feel their pain in my own body. My spirit connects with their spirit so deeply that I join them, if only briefly, on their spiritual journey. The pain is the guide to the healing. We are called to help bear one another’s burdens, and this pain is medicine, too.

If you are struggling with pain anywhere in your body or psyche today, listen to the pain. Welcome the pain as a guide and companion for your journey. Don’t just flush it away with another pill and ignore it (although there is certainly a time and a place for medicine). What is your spirit trying to communicate to your physical body? What memory do you need to process and release? What is causing tension and friction in your life, and how can you release that?

Breathe deeply, drink in the new day, and embrace your pain so that you can live in true healing.

Namaste, my friends.

The Soul of the Tree
September 1, 2013

The Soul of the Tree

Spring is my favorite season. I enjoy feeling the wind tickling my leaves and the sun warming my branches. I enjoy watching the flowers popping up around my roots, adding their blues, yellows, purples to the newly-green grass, like a bunch of crayons in a child’s world. Spring is innocent and new. Spring is a child.

Summer is nice, too. I especially like the summer evenings, a cool blanket of darkness chasing away the thick heat. I dream of the starry constellations carrying me away to the realm of mystery and spirit, timelessness, peace. I especially like when the owls light on my branches, their deep voices echoing the wisdom of time past and future. I have never experienced the ocean, but I have known whispers from the coastal trees, and I imagine the owls and the whales singing the same haunting songs calling for the harmony and healing on earth.

Fall is the season of color and change before the rest. As a young tree, I feared fall. I was afraid to lose my beautiful leaves and stand naked before the world. As I grew older, I learned that my leaves are only the outward part of me, providing me energy and helping me to grow, but my outside is not me.

Winter is a time of rest and rebirth. I have experienced over 100 winters on earth, as the humans measure it, but the trees measure time in cycles of growth and rest, birth, and death, and rebirth. Winter brings snow and dark and the contemplation of silence. Once in a while, I wake out of my winter revelry as a squirrel brushes my trunk with its bushy tail, or scampers up my bark in search of a place to hide his treasure. Mostly I sleep and dream.

I often dream of my young days, only a seedling. I was born in the spring. I grew up through the seasons in a forest, surrounded by my elders. I most loved listening to the stories of the pines, who never lost their leaves, and welcomed the quiet of winter. They were the prophets and listeners and told us young ones about the coming days in which the forest would be no more. They told us not to worry, though, that the ancient cycles always bring balance, and that if we someday found ourselves as a sacrifice for modernity, our souls would make the journey back to the Creator and source.

I grew up feeling the struggles of all the trees. We are connected in the life circle of earth. I feel their fear and cries as the loggers come, extinguishing our life-spark in their appetite. Sometimes they use our wood for their constructions and communications, sometimes they clear us out of the way for their farms or their cities.

Today, on a sultry summer morning, I felt the spray on my trunk, a garish red x. The building and parking lot had replaced my friends and elders long ago. Now the building needed new paint, and my branches stood in the way. I knew this would be my last starry summer night, my last time enjoying the wind in my branches. During the afternoon, a storm blew through, driving rain like teardrops from the heavens. I am sad.

There are still trees around me, older than me. I feel their whispers, “Do not be afraid on the journey. Your soul is free.”

Photo used freely, courtesy of humusak2 on stock.xchng

August 4, 2013

Running Shoe

 

Photo used under creative commons license by Sharon Drummond on flickr.com
Photo used under creative commons license by Sharon Drummond on flickr.com

This is a story that I created for a writing class that I am taking. The teacher challenged us to use a shoe as metaphor, and this is my response. Several years ago, when I was a music student in graduate school, a marathon runner, and a wounded soul just beginning to discover my path of healing, I experienced a brutal ankle injury. Here is my memory of that time.

***

The shoe sits by my door, new dust of neglect mixing with the old dust of races won and lost. The shoe looks lonely, like a puppy waiting by the door, leash in mouth, looking for her owner to come home for a walk. But the outing will have to wait for a brighter day.

Months earlier, I had sat on the edge of the doctor’s table. “Take off your shoes, please,” he mumbled as he stared at the X-ray. “Well, there’s nothing broken, but you will have to lay off running for a while.” He took my bare foot in his hand and gently flexed my ankle. “Does that hurt?”

Does that hurt? I wanted to scream at him. If it didn’t hurt, why would I be here? Please, fix it now. I have a race this weekend, and then in two weeks, the big one. The marathon. I have trained all year for this race. Eight miles a day. Twenty-mile-plus runs on the weekend. Does that hurt? Yeah, but the pain is good, right? Just breathe, Amy. Just breathe.

I stared at the doctor. He picked up my shoe and studied the bottom, looking for some clue in the wear pattern. Was there something wrong with my gait? Maybe a pebble had gotten lodged in some deep crevice, making me limp, ever so slightly, changing the balance.

Balance.

New Balance.

That was the name of this pair of shoes. Ironic. My life seems so out of balance right now. There is so much pressure in grad school. Perform, perform, perform. Audition next week. Get those études perfect. Come on, I expected more out of you. You call that music?

Running is my escape. I lace up my shoes and let them take me deep into the woods, and I meditate to the rhythm of my shoes on the path and the trees whispering around me.

But now the shoes and the trees are silent. I only hear the ticking clock in the doctor’s office. He has left the room to go talk to someone. He comes back with a prescription for pain medicine  and physical therapy. He looks at me sternly. “Take it easy. Keep your weight off that ankle as much as possible and DO NOT run.” I nod my head and get up to leave. I see compassion in his gaze as he watches me, and I think I hear him whisper, “I know how it is. I miss my shoes, too.”

I cannot stay away. I load up on pain drugs, and I hobble to the race. The physical pain in my ankle is nothing compared to the emotional pain that I can beat away on the pavement. Maybe it’s an addiction. Maybe I can erase the pain of my past and all the abuse and hurtful words by running them into the ground. My running shoes are an escape valve for my exploding heart. I am excited by the cheers of the race-day crowd, and I breathe deeply of the brisk autumn air tickling the red and gold leaves on the trees. I am propelled forward by a physical high, my body responding to injury upon injury by supplying an extraordinary, primal adrenaline rush. I finish the race with a new personal best time.

Then I collapse in the first aid tent, pain coursing through my foot like a hammer crushing through my dreams.

A friend takes me back to the doctor. I have to trade my shoe for a walking cast and crutches. The doctor looks at the pain in my eyes, and he holds back his lecture. Instead, he pats me on the shoulder and says, “You will get better, in time. Give it time.”

The damage is complete, and complications ensue. I end up traversing seven months on crutches, two surgeries, and almost a year of physical therapy before I can walk normally again. While the storm rages, I learn to invite the rain to begin healing the deep places in my soul and make peace with my music and my past. At the end of the year, I hobble across the graduation stage, minus one shoe, but plus seven months of a lifetime of wisdom.

July 19, 2013

Trayvon Martin and Injustice in America

Photo used freely, posted by nokomai on stock.xchng.
Photo used freely, posted by nokomai on stock.xchng.

When I heard the verdict in the Trayvon Martin case, I wept. I wept for my country, I wept for my family, I wept for Trayvon’s family, I wept for Trayvon. “No justice. No peace,” mirrored in crystal tears.

I weep for America. The case is a black and white portrayal of the racism still deeply ingrained in American society, a farce of everything that is called justice. The verdict echoes through the hallowed halls of abolition, civil rights, affirmative action, and every other progress we claim to have made in America. The cry for equality returns void, the pound of the gavel snuffing out the life of so many Trayvons now and forward.

I weep for my son. He is black and white, a beautiful velvet creation of love. But will he, as a teenager, decide to wear a hoodie one night to fend away the chill of the pouring rain? Will he meet another  Zimmerman on that fatal night, jumping out of his car or the bushes to stop the beating heart of my son, and to snuff out my own lifeblood of love?

I weep for Trayvon’s parents. Did they know from his birth that their child would become a martyr, a sacrifice to appease the gods of racism? What did they say that night to him before he left?

I weep for Trayvon. I hope his spirit can find peace. I hope he has left behind this world of cruelty and pain and traded it for a beautiful place of love and dreams and oneness of all.

There are those who would say that this case has nothing to do with race. “Oh, Trayvon was a troubled child,” they wag their fingers and cluck their tongues like so many chickens. Chicken to face the truth. Many teenagers struggle to assert their independence, find out who they are, but teenage angst is not any crime, much less one worthy of the death sentence.

“Oh, but look at poor George’s nose,” they continue to cluck. Well, sometimes the prey fights back and the predator gets a little hurt. Against all orders, Zimmerman left his car and started on the hunt. By his own words, he claims that “they always get away.” So black and white, in his mind. Get out of his car and take care of a little black problem so it won’t get away.

And he knew that he would get away with it, like every other white American who has hunted and killed black people throughout this country’s bloody history. It doesn’t matter whether the hunt and kill is physical, or whether it is emotional, spiritual, economical. Sometimes the death of a dream, or the waking death of constant emotional oppression is worse than the physical death. Black people in America live this nightmare every day.

I grew up with my white girl privilege in the white suburbs of white America. But I made that fatal error of marrying the man I loved, the man of dark skin. All my white privilege melted away in one ceremony, and suddenly I was counted as one of them. Security guards began to include me as they followed my husband around the store. Police followed and often stopped me for no reason at all just because he was in the car. Black and white. Sinful. Prey. I was thrust into poverty and homelessness as apartment managers looked at our application and laughed. Illegal, you say? Perhaps, but who enforces these boundaries when society’s enforcers are overwhelmingly racist? Zimmerman was a wanna-be cop. How much more racist are the real cops?

I don’t know what the future holds for my son. Perhaps he will take his mother’s white genes, dress himself in a certain manner, and surround himself with the light-skinned, so he can pass in the white world. Maybe, in so doing, he will avoid all the Zimmermans, but will the price demand his beautiful mahogany soul? Will it create a crisis of identity just to live in America? Or will he stand up and fight for the truth, fight for a world of true equality?

We must never forget Trayvon and his mighty sacrifice. We must continue to dream and battle for that day when we are all one and free. Rest in peace, Trayvon, and know that your death is a revolution.

July 4, 2013

Broken Glasses, Body Memories

broken glasses
Photo used freely, courtesy of jfg on stock.xchng

Healing is a journey taken deep within. Your body holds the memories of all the pains and injustices felt throughout your life. Pain can be covered up by a pill or bandage, but to get rid of pain completely, you must do the hard work of processing and forgiving traumas.

Sometimes the healer needs healing. This is the case in my own life. Although I do Reiki over others, I need its power for myself as well. Today on the 4th of July, I woke up with a swollen, droopy, teary eye. It is painful, but more annoying than harmful. Still, my eye is trying to tell me something. I placed a cold compress to ease the pain, and I sat down to meditate. I thought back to last year on the 4th of July.

The fireworks burst over my friend’s house, high above the Michigan trees, adding to the sizzle of the hottest summer on record. I sat on the steps of the camper trailer in his yard, my temporary home with my husband and young son. At least I felt grateful to have a bed and a shelter from the elements.

But, to make matters worse, I wore a pair of broken glasses. Earlier that week, I had set my glasses on top of my car while I put on my sunglasses, and then forgotten about them. A half hour later, I arrived at my destination.  I looked in my car to take off my sunglasses, and change back into my regular glasses, but, to my horror, I could not find the glasses. I panicked. To say that I am blind as a bat is insulting to the bat. I am sorely dependent upon my glasses.

I turned my car around and drove back to my friend’s house, slowly, scouring the road for any sign of optical life. I found the glasses laying in their case in the middle of the road, cars going by on both sides. I parked my car and waited for the traffic to clear. I nabbed my specs, still nestled in their cracked case, and took them back to my car. Hands shaking, I opened the case.

The glasses lay with frame twisted and mangled. I moaned to my husband, “What am I going to do?”

He replied, “Look closer.”

In the middle of the carnage, a miracle. God only knows how many times cars had run over the glasses, yet the lenses stayed completely intact. Not a scratch. God had worked a small miracle for me. It is amazing that with all of the world problems occupying his time, God still sent an angel to watch over my glasses.

I pieced the frame back together, and I actually formed a cool design with the tape. Still, I mourned because I had no money for an eye exam or new glasses. I know that sounds pitiful and ungrateful, but it felt like the last straw in a series of misfortunes. I was also hobbling around on crutches at this point with a severely sprained, maybe broken, ankle and no insurance to see a doctor.  Still, again, God  had supplied those crutches.

I felt all alone in the world.  My family and most of my friends had disowned me simply because they believed in a hateful church doctrine with which I disagreed. They had thrown the gambit, and I had chosen to pursue the path of Love and the universe. Did anyone care about my struggles?

Months went by and things slowly got better for me and my little family. We moved to Minnesota and found work, and I bought new glasses. Through Reiki, time, and the innate healing powers of my own body, my ankle healed. Small miracles.

Yet, my body holds these painful memories. With meditation, Reiki, and prayer, I am learning to let go and make room for true healing.

If you are hurting today, listen to the message of your body. Meditate on the root of your pain, large or small. Let your muscles relax, and release those memories to the Universe. Forgive all the wrongs you have experienced. Forgiveness does not make the actions right or just, it only releases the injustice to the hands of karma and the great Judge.

Let go and let the healing flow!

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