Touch the Source

I continue to experience some kind of inner terror that causes me to feel nauseous and want to vomit.  It’s something that I usually only experienced in early mornings while prepping myself for a serious of potentially stressful meetings.  But lately I’ve been concerned because it’s happened in the middle of the day or evening when trying to sleep.

So today I took a nap after returning from work.  I woke up around 7 PM kind of feeling displaced and groggy, wondering if this oddly placed nap was going to effect my ability to get a good night sleep and be prepared for a 7 AM meeting the next day.  I was sort of feeling a bit nauseous.  So I took my dog out for a short walk and then I was struck by a remarkably compassionate day.

There was still sunlight out.  The sky was still blue.  The temperature was moderate.  Other people were on there regular walking routes either for exercise or to walk their dogs. And as I stared up at the kind sky I was reminded of this sensation I had before of gratitude to belonging to Earth, Mother Earth, Gaiam.

I remember attending a meditation last week where everyone was extolling the fact that we are “star dust” sort of giving the feeling that we are spirits transcending Earth going beyond this meager Earthly dimension.  And then some ten years ago I attended a spiritual retreat in Hawaii where the leader had discussed discovering whether one was a mere “human being” unawakened and part of this daily mundane human existence, or possibly a awakened being born of Mother Earth.  And then he went on further to describe a smaller select group who might discover that they are beings beyond Earth, that they are beings of the Universe, once again a sense of rising above, being better than, being greater than this meager, finite, and mundane existence on planet Earth.  So all this is consistent with this feeling that the path to resolution, salvation, a calming, is an intention to rise above it all, the financial worries, the physical ailments, even death and loss, because we are immortal spirits wearing sort of a temporary clothing of physical body.

But what I was reminded of today was something a bit more contrary to this spiritual feeling.  Today I embraced my ordinariness in physical body.  I was not a spirit in a physical body.  I was a physical body nothing more.  No more or less than the building I’m next to, the grass, the trees, the air, the clouds, the earth, the ants and my dog.  Every atom of me came from material of this Earth and so I felt one of this Earth.  I am truly a child and moving spiritual expression of this planet Earth.  And when I die I didn’t feel like I needed to rise above to live above this Earth.  No, I felt comfort in an idea that I am actually my physical body and when I die I will decay and become part of this planet Earth possibly in parts to be resurrected in other physical forms  … or not.  I have been, currently am and will be a piece of the sunlight, the birds, the smell, the dirt, the grass, the cat, the people, the trees, the streams, the clouds, the vast sky and every aspect of everything that has been and will be of this wonderful, safe, sacred planet Mother Earth. And being simply just of the dirt in the ground and not having to aspire to be anything more was so comforting.  I don’t have to rise above.  I can actually just sink down and exist and be of the dirt.  So comforting.

And strangely in this acceptance, or more like drinking in of this mundane human existence I felt a bliss of the kind that seemed to match the bliss when I’ve talked about “touching into the Source”.  I wasn’t trying to tap into something “special” but sort of in a way “giving up” and surrendering to the imperfect and vulnerable daily existence of just one tiny person amongst so many other things and creatures on this planet.  I’m no one special, I tried to be, but I give up.  And in that giving up while sitting on a grassy hill side with my dog sitting by my side as we both watch the final minutes of the day waste away I felt comforted, I felt ordinary, and I felt bliss.

I haven’t put in an entry in this blog in a while.  I’ve been holding out until I had something unique, inspirational or worthy of posting an entry.  The intent of a blog is like writing into my personal journal only having the guts to put it out there for the world to see.   There’s a bit of trying to get attention.  But you know at this time I’d rather hide and not be noticed. So that’s some of the reasons I’ve been avoiding putting an entry into this blog.  I guess it’s a matter of shame.

But then again if I view the world as a mirror of my soul and all it’s hopes, dreams and inner turmoil, then maybe it is good to just bare it all, be vulnerable, and look stupid.  So enough rambling and let me get started and try traveling thru my personal shame and terror.

The thing that’s becoming clearer is that there is something within me that is genuinely terrified of being seen.  That I will be annihilated by the very nature of your eye contact with my bare soul.  And so I can’t dare show you the fullness of my vulnerability.  And then when I hide or mask that vulnerability, then I start to feel ashamed of being weak and inadequate as I’m witnessed in my state of hiding.  It sounds a bit confusing and it is.  So this paragraph is my moment of lack of good judgement as I start to reveal myself in the fullness of imperfection, unknowing, shame, and hurt.

So surrounding all this is a reality where I more often sense a background sensation of great physical naseua, like I need to literally vomit to clear my system.  I feel a great inner crying.  I feel a great inner terror. I feel a great inner sadness and loneliness.  And lately I’m feeling rather burnt out, probably partly due to putting a bit too many 80 plus hour work weeks in a row.

Lately, I’ve been really slowing down and trying to sink into my feelings.  Trying to nurture and heal this “somethings not right” that’s within me. But the really interesting thing is this: Now when I allow myself to sink into this state of deep emotional depression, my sinuses clear up?!  I remember several instances over the course of several years where an allergist commented that my nostrils were always partly closed, meaning I was always existing in some minimum background level of an allergic reaction.  I grew up as a child being plagued by life threatening allergies.  Then with years and years of weekly allergy injections I grew healthier.  I saw allergists less and less often as they identified the next pollen strain I was allergic to and they concocted the right serum mixture to induce the proper immunity within my system.

But I remember that a few years ago when I had gone back to see an allergist and went thru the usual rounds of allergic reaction tests, they concluded that there was no clear cause for some recent asthma attacks when I was doing physical exercise.  So there was no longer an allergy injection they could give me to counter the effects of the unknown cause.  Frustrated I tried my best to moderate my exercise to not flare up my asthma.  And then for no reason there was no more asthma regardless of my exercise activity level. I chalked it up to maybe just my increased fitness level overcoming some yet to be diagnosed allergy and I forgot about it.  But what did stick in my mind is that I’ve always still had some background low level of an allergic reaction that keeps me from being able to breath thru my nose comfortably.

But now with my recent feeling bad and then allowing myself time to really sink into that “feeling bad” my sinuses have opened up and I have been breathing really well thru my nose.  I could actually keep my mouth closed and get all the comfortable air that I needed just thru my nose. Wierd.

Then a couple of days ago I was listening to someone share some of their struggles and insights into their personal life.  I was feeling bad and a bit overwhelmed and unable to fully support that person in my listening.  And as I sank into that “bad feeling” state I started seeing feint blue lines of light on parts of their body.  Those of you not familiar with Barbara Brennan’s books, the 1st level of human energy aura is described as looking like a network of blue lines.  However, in my case the blue lines were not as uniform and linear as shown in the illustrations of Barbara’s books, but were almost patterned like the nonlinear netting of blood vessels.  It’s just I’ve never seen these before until this last time where I sank into this “feeling bad” sensation.  So a small part of me thought this was kind of neat.

So do I think being able to see blue lines of light and being able to breath thru my nose is worth the price of feeling quite bad?  Probably not.  But I’d say I’m not trying to feel bad.  It’s that I realize that there is this something that’s always been in the background and that I’ve maybe always been able to numb myself to and ignore.  I guess now the time has emerged in which I can consider not ignoring it, face it and fall into it.  The side effects could be being able to breath thru my nose and seeing blue lines.  It could also be falling into patterns of emotional eating and putting on more blankets of body weight to sooth that background ache that’s ringing louder and louder each day.

Maybe this is what is meant when someone started coining the phrase “spiritual warrior”, because right now it’s really hard work.  It makes me feel naseaous.  I feel bad.  I feel sad. I feel scared.  But as I witness myself overall I seem to be OK.  I remember someone walking up to me while I was in the midst of feeling bad and saying to me at that moment that something about me looks so much more here and present than ever.  So somehow I’m on a path where when I’m feeling pretty darn terrible I’m also looking better.  What gives?