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Then in early 1998 I attended a workshop led by a woman I had met in December of 1997. During this six week workshop I finally realized that the Sedona Adventure might be about doing healing. Read about my workshop experiences in 1998 Workshop.
1998 Workshop
Some time passed. There are periods in my life when I seem very spiritual and find meditation easy and feel I am in communication with something greater. This is all very effortless for me. Then there are other times when I cannot even sit still let alone still my thoughts to allow peace in. As you can imagine, this time that passed was one where although I sat for my meditations it seemed as if no meditating took place. Then in December of 1997 I met a woman while dancing who led a women's meditation/visualization/discussion group. I will call her Catherine to protect her privacy. Although I hated to spend so much money, I very much wanted to go to the six week workshop. I felt it was time for some outside support for my meditation and my inner life. I wanted to reconnect with that part of myself and I thought that the structure and the group energy would have a positive effect on my practice. I wrote in the questionnaire that was handed out during the first session that I didn't really know what I wanted to get out of the sessions but that I imagined I would get what I needed. As it turned out, I got so much more than I could ever have expected or imagined.
In the first session we met each other and talked a bit about why we were there and what we wanted to get out of it. There were about six or seven of us but usually there were only four or five of us present at each session. I learned we would do a visualization and then share our experiences if we wanted to. I only hoped I would actually have a visualization and not embarrass myself by having nothing happen. Little did I know I had nothing to worry about on that score. My embarrassment came from having so much happen that I feared I would come across as completely egocentric and grandiose and even possibly deluded. Oh well, I shared it all anyway - or at least almost all of it.
The first session. It seemed all the visualizations would share the same pattern. We sat on cushions on the floor in a loose circle, not touching. Catherine would begin by having us all relax and breathe. Then we were to imagine a giant beam of light coming in through the tops of our heads. This light would permeate our entire bodies until we saw ourselves as beings of light. Next we were to imagine the group as a circle of light. We took this light and sent it to people we knew that needed love now. Then we imagined other light beings around us who were not incarnate and then we imagined all beings on the planet as beings of light. This was a powerful visualization of connection with others. Then we were instructed to find a beautiful place in nature and to imagine ourselves there. Once there, we were to imagine our guide coming to us and then taking us on a journey. After enough time for a journey we came back, said goodbye to our guides, and brought ourselves back into the room.
Class Meditation #1 (3-25-98):
I easily went with the visualization. I found myself imagining many parts of the visualization in advance and it all felt so natural. Just in advance of Catherine's voice, I drew light into the top of my head and brought it to all parts of my body, I saw the others in the circle as beings of light, I sent this love energy that I was generating out to those that needed it, I went to my power place. I did not however think of other beings around us in advance, but when I did it surely did look crowded. I had a sense that reality did not consist of space or time, but only of thought. When I sent love out to others I thought of mothers who had lost their children. I thought of the mothers in Arkansas that had just lost children in school shooting, I thought of a man I knew whose friend had lost a child, I thought of two women I knew who had "lost" their children to their children's fathers. I felt that time did not matter. Even though some of these events had taken place years before it was just as real now as then.
When it was time to find a beautiful place in nature I found myself in my power place, the cave in the side of the cliff in Sedona. My guide appeared first as the thought of a smile. Then she was a light being with her hand extended toward me. I knew immediately that she wanted me to fly with her. The thought of it surprised and terrified me. We were very high up on the side of the cliff and I didn't want to go out there. But I knew I was in a visualization and I knew that I would go - I just had to work up my nerve for a few minutes. She said to me "Don't you trust me? Don't you know I've always been with you? Who do you think told you all those things to do in the meditation before Catherine guided you there?" I knew then that she had been guiding me. And I did trust her so I tried to summon up the courage to go. I tried to imagine myself as a giant bird with white feathers that was being pushed out of the nest to fly for the first time. That didn't work. Finally I reached out my hand to her. When she took it I became a being of light as well. It seemed to me at that instant that my guide and I were one as we were light. Then we didn't fly from the cave as I imagined; we floated. Floating wasn't scary at all.
We floated over the canyon I remember so well. I saw the saddle and I saw myself there doing yoga postures as I had a few years earlier. I saw the whole canyon and I sat briefly on one cow pattie power spot. Then we floated up very high. We floated up to the Crystal Palace. This time I didn't feel so out of place because I was with my guide. There were lots of light beings there. As before these beings had light flowing from their hands. Messages came into my mind. The light from the hands was the light of healing; the light beings were there to learn in the Crystal Palace. I will learn from them, I am also a being of light, and when I am more gentle my light will flow more strongly. I was happy to be there and to be with my guide. I didn't know what I was to learn but I knew that they would teach me. We came back to the cave and I was again sitting in my power spot and I was so happy to have these places that tears formed in my eyes.
There were many more visualizations in the next few months. One in each session and several more that I just had on my own during this time. It was as if something was opening up and I was being given so much information. Much of it is personal, much of it involves other people that I know who are close to me, so it is almost impossible to include here and respect their privacy. Also much of it alludes to my life and would not be understood without explanation. But they all had a healing theme in common. And they are all very special to me. I have included two of my favorites with ellipses to show where I am leaving out passages that would be confusing without more explanation or that are too personal.
Class Meditation #4 (4-15-98):
I saw myself on top of a mountain looking out over peaks and valleys and clouds. I was far away from everyone. My guide first appeared again as the thought of a smile. Then she was a beautiful old woman. I asked - who do I heal and how - do I heal those who have pains in their bodies that are telling me about them? She said to heal if I have the thoughts for it. I felt like I was looking out over the mountains and the time could have been any of eons and eons. I was nowhere and everywhere in time. How could I heal anyone from there? I couldn't even see anyone or know what time (day or century) it was. Then I thought of ... And I realized everyone hears me no matter where I am or where they are in time and space. So what do I see energy wise around me?
It has always been important to work on myself and my attitudes/feelings but here I felt the importance of what I create or give out. I connected with everything and did not confine it to this planet. So I don't have to decide anything about healing - as I develop compassion I will begin this either in my mind or I will be driven to try it with my hands. (I did so want to feel the energy around … today but I knew I was too tired and needed my rest for this meditation session.) I sat with my guide in that place and we held hands as usual. I saw that I didn't need to go anywhere or do anything. Everything would come to me wherever I was. I wanted to learn more about color and sound and vibration. I wondered if all is thought what is vibration? There is no time and space only thought. Thought is different depending on vibration.
I thanked my guide for my visions during the week - of the tendrils through generations and of the tree in the forest. I asked her to help me keep my ego out of the healing stuff. We sat there and felt together the things I am working on. We felt compassion, tried to be gentle, and thought of worship. We both bowed down over our crossed legs on top of this mountain.
She very sweetly and almost shyly gave me a crystal. It was probably quartz and it was shaped about 3 inches long. I think it was a healing crystal to use to focus light energy from my hands.
I tried to see the energy that connected us all.
Meditation (6/26/98):
I found myself on a beach with warm sand. I had tears in my eyes from love for my dad. I covered my body with sand, heard the ocean. My tear was a part of the ocean. My guide came but had no real form. We went into my tear. We shrank and saw the space between atoms. Where did the tears end and become the air? When was the tear no longer be a part of "me"? I shrank into space and I saw that I was only where my thoughts were. I saw the whole island I was on. I felt the warmth and felt like the warmth of the sand was me since it permeated into my body. Where did one end and the other begin? Sand, ocean, all me. The island where I lived took care of all my needs. Money was of no use here. I had to trust that I would be taken care of. I lived out my days here. So what purpose? Not to build anything. My only purpose was in the direction and sharing of my thoughts. My interaction and loving attention to the creatures around me. Then I realized that even though I knew no one, my thoughts and energy were not confined to the island. They went everywhere and affected the person on the next island much like the 100th monkey story (I hope you are familiar with that story!). Pay attention to my thoughts and put them where I want them to go. My island was beautiful. I had bananas and coconuts and fish. I had fresh water pools, birds. I saw crystals buried underneath the sand and beauty everywhere. Sometimes it rained and then it was warm again. The leaves in the forest were my protection from the rain and the sun. The sand was my sensuous connection to the earth. The sound of the ocean was my comfort, my mother's breast. My needs were all met - my only responsibility was the place where I put my thoughts.
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