Part One: The ghost
Last Tuesday I was overcome with an intense need to deep clean my house. Even though it is generally “tidy” most days, I needed to scrub, wipe down, vacuum every corner, and re-organize the pantry, cabinets, and drawers.
I lit some Palo Santo and put on a playlist I made of Billie Eilish’s saddest songs, accompanied by the sound of pouring rain outside. Dishes done, countertops wiped down, floor vacuumed, and I had finally made my way to the pantry, where I found you.
I hadn’t thought about this purse in ages, and by that I mean at least a year, maybe even two. A pantry is an odd place for an old purse I no longer use, but I suppose it’s because there isn’t much space for random things in a 800ish square foot house.
As soon as I saw the purse my stomach dropped. I knew exactly what was in it. I felt the resentment and anger surface as I recalled probably one of the last times I even wore the purse. I left it hanging on a chair in the bar I saw you at, and I was so eager to give you back the stone you gifted me years before. Like a ghost that haunts me, I needed to return it to finally set myself free.
You refused, and deep down I think I knew that you would, but here we were in the dance of Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner, very literally playing out the archetype of “trickster.”
You finally budged and took the stone, and I remember I felt relieved. Like I was actually being set free from the suffocating energy that was you, or us. As though your actions of receiving it and taking it back was going to be the only way to be freed (ha, my codependency).
I went home that night feeling complete. Feeling like the burden had finally been taken off my shoulders, like I had finally got my life force energy back and sealed up all the holes. Until the next morning, when I reached in my purse and felt the sharp edges meet my finger tips, and just like I felt in this moment in my pantry as I looked at my purse, my stomach dropped. You snuck it back in my bag when I wasn’t looking, and there I was, cursed by this seemingly never ending cycle that I was so desperate to get out of.
I grabbed the purse and opened it. There it was, the stone with the hard and sharp edges, noticing how it is literally shaped as a hook. Hooked into my very being, haunting me still to this day. Although the energy is less and less every passing day, you still find ways to remind me that you haven’t gone anywhere. It’s usually in the moments I experience the most peace, gratitude, or joy. You somehow come in, like a vampire thirsty for blood, and you suck what little ecstasy I have in the moment and take it for yourself. And I lay there, numb and helpless, like a victim to it all.
I took a deep breath and let out a sigh, maybe of defeat, as I zipped the purse closed and put it up in the top corner of the pantry.
Fast forward to Friday, on the Full Moon in Taurus. I had plans to gather with sisters to sit in ritual and ceremony out in the Oregon woods. Their invite shared:
You may also bring personal items imbued with difficult memories or energy you wish to clear, such as a gift from someone you’re releasing or an object that no longer serves you.
I gasped as I read it, knowing exactly what this meant. There was no coincidence (is there ever?) that I stumbled across this stone just days before. As joy began to fill my heart and soul I packed it in my bag and brought it along for the drive into the woods where I would release this physical and spiritual haunting into the fire.
We wrote on a piece of paper what we were releasing during this Full Moon in Taurus. Here is what I wrote (or some semblance of this):
I release any and all karmic contracts across all timelines that are no longer supporting my highest and best good, and the highest good of all that is. I release them with immense gratitude for the lessons that I have learned, and for all the ways that they have walked me home and reminded me of who I truly am. I release them back to Mother Earth, holy, whole, and healed, transmuted back to their original form as Love, to support the highest and best good of all that is. And so it is.
I felt proud as I wrote it. I felt clear. I felt in my power. I felt more ready than ever before to take my life back and release myself from this timeline I’ve been walking, like a tightrope.
Before making our way to the fire, we did a meditation to meet with the energy of release. In my vision I walked to a pond to release, and in my hand I held the stone. I looked at my reflection, and the reflection of the moon in the water, as I dropped the stone into the pond. Then I noticed more stones taking form, but forming from my own body. First they started on my back, then my arms, and then my whole body turned into thousands of little stones and I disintegrated into the water.
I panicked slightly as I turned into stones, I think even saying, “Oh no”—however, reminded myself of dismemberment, and breathed through the fear.
Sandra Ingerman describes that in shamanism, dismemberment is a powerful initiation where the body and mind are left behind so that the initiate can feel his or her spiritual identity and merge with the Creator to remember that there is only oneness and unity. The body is torn apart by some force of nature whether it be a helping spirit or an element. And the bones and organs are cleaned. Any illness is left out and the initiate is vital and rejuvenated once again.
I have had several dismemberment experiences now, and every time there is a deep sense of fear that emerges as your body disintegrates, and there is a gift, or invitation that Spirit gives us in the process. This time, that gift was peace. Slowly my body began to take form again, with the moonlight, water, trees (specifically cedar); like I was being hodgepodged back together again with the elements. Fire illuminated in my womb space and it brought me back to life. The fire that birthed me anew pulled me towards another fire near the pond. I pulled myself off the ground and walked towards the fire, seeing myself standing in a white gown as wolves began to surround me, and the fire. I howled with them at the moon, and as the moonlight reflected off the pond and kissed my third eye I heard, “You are now who you are meant to be, it is time for you to share who you have become.”
I came back from the meditation in a daze, like I had just jumped some crazy timeline and somehow needed to interact in this 3D world. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for the 3D experience to grab me by the feet and drag me…
Part Two: The trickster
We grabbed our items and paper that we were going to release into the fire, put on our coats and shoes, and were getting ready to make our way to the fire across the creek, surrounded by cedars, and under the full moon's light.
Before I stepped through the threshold, leaving the house and embarking into the woods, I panicked as I looked for the piece of paper that I wrote what I was releasing on. I found it hidden in my sweater pocket, deep sighed, and put it in my jacket pocket with the sharp edged hook-like stone I was also releasing into the fire.
We journeyed in the dark, taking in the full moon and all of her radiance as she lit the way to the fire, just off into the distance. As we gathered around the fire, I took rose petals I had brought and placed them around the outer edge of the circle. I stood in front of the fire, ready to read my paper with the stone in hand. I reached into my pocket, grabbed the stone, and fumbled for the paper.
There was no paper in my pocket.
Puzzled, I reached my hand into my other pocket, fingers anxiously tracing all edges of the pocket. Nothing.
“I must have left it in my sweater pocket” I thought, as I lifted up my jacket and searched my sweater pocket. Nothing.
Panic doesn’t even begin to describe this moment. The depth of helplessness, fear, and angst surpasses the words we have to describe this feeling. I frantically check every pocket, once, twice, three times. I feel myself spiral in an obsessive and looping stupor, one where I almost completely forget where I am and what I’m doing.
Then it hits me.
This, this is the exact energy that consumed me. This is the karmic contract, cycle, pattern.
An obsessive, frantic, all consuming stupor where I completely lose all sense of myself and who I am. The helpless victim who is haunted by this energy that sucks the life out of me like a ravenous beast that could never be satisfied or satiated.
I stood there, looking into the eye of the fire as it transported me into the heart of my soul and there it showed me how I am the trickster.
Who am I if I am not a helpless victim?
Who am I if I am not haunted by this person?
Who am I if my life force is not sucked from me?
Who am I if I created this narrative to keep me small and helpless?
I am the trickster.
I am the Creator, creating the very experience I am meant to transcend through the mirror of this person, who also agreed to be this person for me in this lifetime.
Whoosh, and there I find gratitude, again. Gratitude I lost in the frantic stupor. There I find peace, again. Peace that is the salve to this collective wound we all carry. The wound of the victim. The story of the perpetrator. The dance that keeps us all in chains and keeps us blind to our freedom.
I was never the Victim, I am the Creator. You were never the Perpetrator, you are the Liberator.
I look down at the chains and see that they are made of braided sweetgrass. I watch you as you gently untangle them around my wrists and I experience peace in your presence. It’s like a can finally take a deep breath, because I’m not afraid of you. You never were the one to decide when I would be set free, I was, and always will be. The wings of the eagle fly over me and take away the thoughts that tied me to this timeline. I bow to you, as my own wings emerge, and like a great rapture, I spread my wings and fly up.
Liberated.
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Chills ! You are such an amazing writer
GOOSEBUMPS!!!!! ✨✨✨✨✨✨