...with Long Intervals Of Horrible Sanity turned 9 today! Wow -- nine years! Where has the time gone? I should give an update. My life has taken on great changes. I am still living in the same apartment, still going through the same battles with housing and food assistance (they cut the latter and I’m getting $100/mo to buy groceries). My eldest cat has renal failure and pancreatitis and I have no idea how much longer he will be with me, so I am cherishing every day. Not to be outdone, two other cats decided they needed to have costly trips to the vet, one with a middle ear infection brought on by food allergy, which I’m now treating at home, and another who had to have all but four of her teeth extracted. I had to put my ghostwriting on hold for fear of losing rent assistance -- back in 2017, I was told it didn’t count as “regular” income, but then in 2018 I got a new caseworker who said all income counts, but now I’m back to the previous caseworker and she refuses to return my calls or answer my emails, and calling the main number is useless because it routes directly to a voicemail box that’s always full. Back in November 2017, I received Kona, a 2002 Subaru Impreza Sport from a friend who could no longer drive (medically). She knew I needed a car, so she just gave it to me. Original owner, she had put 38K miles on this vehicle. Mechanics everywhere have said, “That car will outlive you!” Yeah, well...unfortunately, this particular make/model/year of Subaru comes with what one website calls The Dreaded Head Gasket Problem. It is inevitable, and last winter I noticed a lot of odd-smelling exhaust coming from Kona that smelled of burning coolant. I had the radiator and thermostat replaced, and was told there was a leak somewhere. A few months ago, another mechanic found this tiny leak. I am told I can still drive as long as I watch the coolant level and temp gauge, and what to do if she overheats. Meanwhile, the Check Engine light is on because the O2 sensor has gone out, and now there is a squealing sound which I know means a bad belt somewhere. And the brakes are getting soft, too. I was quoted over $1800 for the head gasket repair and O2 sensor which entails taking out the engine, fixing it, and putting it back in. I’ve already had to replace two tires (and on an AWD, you have to have all tires matching -- come to find out, they have discontinued this tire so I got two of the last new ones in existence). This “free” car has already required over $1000 in work. And it’s all I’ve got so I have to do what I can to make sure she keeps going. Now, I don’t know if I’ve talked about this, before, but I do have a spiritual side to me. It’s not conventional by any means. I don’t subscribe to any one religion. But I always knew I was a natural healer (laying on of hands, energy work) and came from a long line of witches (going back to my Pictish ancestors and Native American roots; my great-great-grandfather was a medicine man). I used to do this for as long as I can remember, drawn to people in pain and using something inside me to take it away and make them better. I never knew there was a name for it, until one day someone saw me working on a friend’s migraine and asked, “Where did you learn Reiki?” My reply was, “What’s ‘Reiki?’” I had a very dark period in my life about 15 years or so ago where I shut down, though, withdrew into myself, because I was so depressed and suffering from undiagnosed PTSD and anxiety/panic disorder. I was so afraid I would pass my sickness on to someone else, so I stopped healing. Following the end of my marriage in 2010 and being on my own for the first time in my life, I went through several surgeries and was put on different medications for various ailments, some of which nearly killed me. I also had a few TIAs (mini-strokes). The only thing keeping me from ending my life was knowing my cats needed me around to care for them. Also, I found out my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s but then six months later during a follow-up, the doctors at U of M Ann Arbor said, “It’s not Alzheimer’s, we don’t know what it is.” (Note: based on her behavior, it may be Vascular Dementia but that can’t be diagnosed until after death -- so for now, we just know it’s dementia.) And then right before Christmas 2017, I got fed up with the repeating cycle of being used and abused by my sister, prompting me to cut ties with her, and my eldest niece told me to go fuck myself, leaving me pretty much on my own. Well, Life has a way of making things fall into place whether you like it or not. After all the shit I was going through with the TIAs and getting my cholesterol under control (I’ve put myself on a low-carb diet), my chiropractor told me out of the blue, “You should go into Reiki.” Damn, there’s that word, again... He said there was a guy named Adam, a massage therapist and Reiki Master, who rented space from him twice a week; I should talk to him. Well, Adam was never in when I would go for my appointments. One day, my friend Keith who volunteers at the local Gilda’s Club said I should look into their free workshops for yoga, meditation, and tai chi. I figured this might be good to help with my stress levels, at the very least, so I checked their calendar -- and there was someone offering free Reiki at the end of the month. I went in and immediately felt something happen, just being in the room with this woman. It was like being inside a Tesla coil. I began telling her things -- about her, like her childhood, etc, that she confirmed. And I began to cry. Not out of sadness but release. She said when I walked into the room I had an entourage of spirits with me -- guides, angels, light beings -- more than she’d ever seen, before. She got me on the table and while she never once actually touched me, I could feel pain, like she was physically pulling on me. What she was doing was pulling things out of me. She found his large cord attached at my solar plexus chakra and said, “You are attached to past trauma.” Oh, yes...yes, indeed. I told her to cut the cord and I felt it. It made me cry out, it hurt so much, but then afterward...I felt different. Something had changed. A week or so later, I went to my next chiropractic appointment, and when I stepped out of the exam room, I turned and saw this young man standing in the hall, looking right at me. I just stopped and said, “You’re Adam.” He said yes. “You’re a Reiki Master.” He said yes. “We need to talk,” I said. And he showed me into his room, where we spent an hour talking. I noticed he seemed nervous. He said, “I’m always nervous in the presence of a great healer.” Who, me? He said he could ‘feel’ my energy. He then recommended I go to Jodi, the Reiki Master who taught him. I found her place of business online and saw that they did monthly “Open Reiki Shares” where people just get together and work on each other in a group, for free. One of these sessions was coming up. I decided to go and see what it was about. What happened that day...it was incredible. Not only was I healing but I was tapping into the minds of these other people, seeing what they were seeing. Then they got me on the table and the Master seated at my head began to shake. She said, “You’re not an Old Soul -- you’re ancient, and you come from a place across the universe.” Well, I already knew that...but no one else had ever acknowledged it, until that moment. Someone picked up on the fact that I’m a writer, and then another Master said, “She is a Storyteller, and she is going to help others with her words.” Cryptic! They also said they saw a mass of spirits around me, and one of them said that there was a guide who had yet to reveal itself to me but would do so soon. I signed up that day to take Jodi’s Reiki I & II course. When the time came, I found myself learning things I already knew, things I already did, and I understood after all these years why people thought I knew Reiki -- because I had been doing it, all along. Even my chiropractor, who is an empath and a healer, sensed it in me. During the attunement, as I had my eyes closed, I “saw” a dragon look down over my head at me while Jodi was behind me. I had been told she had a Dragon guide, so I figured that was him. I even looked up and said, “Hello!” I cannot begin to describe how it felt to be attuned, and how I have felt ever since. I called my friend Seth, a massage therapist and a powerful healer in her own right who is studying shamanism, and she said it sounded like I was tripping. I was seeing everything in such sharp focus, hearing things, aware on so many levels. Jodi had asked me if I experienced anything during the attunement and I mentioned seeing her dragon. She just grinned and said no, he was my Dragon. Now, please note: in the late 90′s, I attended a drumming circle class where we all went on an inner journey to meet different spirit guides, and the one that appeared to me was a Phoenix. Back then, I figured he represented that part of me that was always getting burned up and somehow rising from the ashes. I even got a tattoo of the bird on my back. Well, now I have a Phoenix and a Dragon -- in Chinese, these are the balance of Yin and Yang. Coincidentally, my first tattoo was a yin-yang, and one of the first rings I ever bought was a yin-yang with the OM symbol on either side. It would also explain why, after being attuned, I had a sudden craving for Chinese food... I have since learned the purpose of these guides. The Phoenix is used in long-distance healing when I send Reiki out to others, and the Dragon protects me while I do my work. He will also “encase” me or other people in eggs of protection. The Phoenix takes his duties very seriously, while the Dragon...is a bit of a diva. He’s also a shape-shifter because I’ve seen him in full reptilian form and in human form with wings. I have many other animal totems but these two are connected to my healing abilities and now that I’ve come back to that aspect of who I am, I find that they represent the dual sides of me -- Two-Spirit. The Phoenix is still me as I reinvent myself, refusing to be destroyed. I used to be so timid and when I screamed in anger I sounded like a wounded animal; now when I’m angry, my Dragon roars through me, refusing to take shit from anyone. Life has changed for me so much since this all happened. We are in a time of Awakening and Transition, and I’m seeing it all around me even as I, myself, am going through it. I have people asking for my help -- “Please send me Reiki!” from all over. And I do. I’ve been using it on my cats. I’ve used it on myself. It’s incredible. I have been changing the vibration in my home, making it brighter, more colorful, inspirational. I have been finding old jewelry and wearing it (that’s the Dragon, show-off that he is with his bling!). I have been pushing myself out of my comfort zone and spending more time at Gilda’s, where I hope to offer free Reiki once a month to those who need it. I am also hoping to get a portable massage table so I can do Reiki housecalls. I’ve even joined a local group of professional writers that gets together once a month. I have started to wean off of one of my medications (Klonopin) which has been rough but I knew I had to stop when I began to notice an occurrence of bad side effects and found that it could do a lot of long-term damage to other parts of my body. I am doing meditation, now, which helps. I am also preparing to set up a Patreon in order to fund my writing so I can get my first novel out -- somewhat autobiographical, it has been years in the works and deals with surviving narcissists and finding one’s path in life, it’s called The Dragon in the Garden. (I came up with the title ages ago; little did I know...) I have a sequel plotted, and then another book set in New Orleans with different characters. All of these are mine, not ghostwritten, but I can’t use my own name because two other authors have published under variations, so I’ve come up with something else that will serve. Bit by bit, things are falling into place. But you know the most important part of all of this? I am not stressing out, anymore. I have decided to live in the moment, and see anything ahead of me is positive. Yes, I am concerned about the state of the planet, about the children in concentration camps, about the madman running the country...I am aware. My head is not in the sand nor in the stars. I remain a realist. But I can do that and focus my energy on making things happen for the better. I am being the change I wish to see in the world. I am putting out what I want to receive; instead of calling negativity to me, I am sending out positive energy. I cannot deny the results, the changes that have happened since I started to do this. It’s good. Very good. Recently, I volunteered to make a journey to Mississippi, driving a rental car down to the Gulf of Mexico and back in three days (18 hours driving down, 21 hours driving back), to rescue some kittens that were about to be abandoned and bring them to a local foster group. I saw this as an opportunity to do a Medicine Walk/Spirit Journey. I saw so many signs along the way, received messages, and learned things about myself. I had my eyes opened to people around me, those who would deceive and manipulate. And I had a lot of time to think. I discovered new levels of forgiveness within me, and how to release what is no longer of use or importance. It makes things so much better, so much simpler. I have wasted too many years worrying about stuff and nonsense.
Oh, I still have limitations -- physical and mental. As my Reiki Masters have all told me, every healer is damaged in some way. I envision myself as a work of kintsugi, the Japanese art of putting broken pottery back together with gold. I am not perfect and never will claim to be. But I know that I am One with the Divine, Source, Creator Energy, God/Goddess/All That Is. I am on the right path -- and maybe I always was. I just had to go through some dark and scary places along the way in order to be where I am, now. Namaste!
