Category: Memoir

Stepping into Joy

On By Alethea KehasIn Dreams, Memoir, ReflectionsLeave a comment

I love Denise Linn and her wisdom. Today these words of hers appeared on my FB wall, “When you step into your joy, you’ll recognize the need to release people that consistently make you feel anything less. Be your own fierce protector.”

The more light we let in, the less room there is for pain. Pockets of dense matter suddenly start breaking away. But, it is not always an easy process. In my last blogs I have  spoken of my struggle to heed the urgings of my guides and their messages that have often come through so strongly in my dreams and meditations. Recognizing that I have immersed myself and my family in an environment that I had tried to believe was premised on love and community, but was really dominated by the undertones of fear, has been difficult, at best.

These last few weeks I have struggled to break free. I have felt anger, sadness, guilt and remorse. I have felt alone, as the resistance extends to my family. But I have also felt the undertones of freedom and my own personal power. I know that sometimes relationships are meant to end, having served out their purposes, it is time to move on. Yet, sometimes we need to be “fierce” in our approach to break free from an environment that we now recognize as abusive. The other people involved will not see themselves in the same way we now perceive them, as they are still living in that place trapped by pain. They will often try to keep your ties firmly knotted, so that you remain in a place of less light. It makes them feel better. It makes their pain bodies feel powerful.

I also know that I have benefitted from these circumstances. Each is a lesson; a chance to grow and move to a place of more light and healing. More light seeps into the pockets of pain, breaking away the dense energy that has been trapped. I am reminded that when we are called to move beyond a place of pain, all parties benefit, even if it is not recognized. The worst thing we can do is to stay in an effort to protect the egos of others. We must have the courage to see beyond to the soul, realizing that when we act from the seat of our heart, we can only help the souls of others.

Consistency

On By Alethea KehasIn Energy Healing, Memoir, ReflectionsLeave a comment

If you eat one meal a week, your body will not be nourished. The same concept applies to our souls. We are each here to fulfill the journey we set out to follow when we decided to incarnate in this life. Yet, we often forget to nourish ourselves.

I have been inconsistent in feeding my soul this summer. With my children home, I have chosen not to focus on my own needs. Meditation has been sporadic, at best. On my children’s last day of school I got certified for Shamballa energy healing, levels 1 and 2. Ideally I would be practicing energy healing on myself every day, but that too has been sporadic. Then there is writing. Something I know I need to do everyday. A psychic once suggested that I at least try to journal everyday. Journaling has never been something I am happy doing, but she had a good point. My soul needs me to write everyday. I’m not doing that this summer.

So, I shouldn’t have been surprise last week (and I wasn’t, I knew the results before they came) when I had my TSH levels checked and found out they were rising instead of dropping. If we don’t heal and nurture our souls, our bodies won’t heal. They are our barometers for our spiritual health. When we experience dis-ease in the physical, our souls are crying out for nourishment.

The confirmation that my throat chakra was not spinning in a glorious blue wheel of truth was not a surprise, but it was a good wake up call. Sometimes we need to let things go and make way for our needs. Let the laundry sit another day. Let the kids watch another half hour of TV. Let the grass grow another day. Sit and listen to your soul and find our what it wants. Do it everyday and you will thrive.

Namaste

Free Bird, Fly

On By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Dreams, Gaia & Elementals, Memoir, ReflectionsLeave a comment

The lyrics of Lynyrd Skynyrd filtered through my dream ruminations as I walked the dogs  earlier this morning. Often, spirit spends me messages through songs. They are a blunt, yet kind reminders of the crux of my present state.

Last night I dreamed I was in an elevator. After the doors were closed and the button was pushed, I found myself drifting swiftly towards the ceiling until I hovered there alone. Everyone else’s feet were grounded as the elevator moved towards its destination. I panicked, asking someone to pull me down. Finally, the bellhop grabbed my legs and pulled me to the floor. When my feet were back on level ground, I searched my wallet for a tip. Intending initially to give him 2, 1 dollar bills, I pulled out a 5 instead. In her book, The Hidden Power of Dreams, Denise Linn writes that the number 5 is often indicative of freedom, “the number of the free soul, of excitement, and of change.” It is “self-emancipating.” (p. 206)

The messages from spirit could not be more clear. A week ago I saw Eagle during meditation. After flying freely through the heavens, Eagle landed upon a large, white oval egg. As I watched, this symbol of freedom and the egg it clutched between its talons, it rotated upon the air as though upon an invisible pedestal. “What do you wish to tell me,” I asked. Eagle replied, “I am incubating you until you are ready to hatch out.”

When I asked my guides to bring me to the under-world for healing, I found myself on a pond with my palms turned up to the heavens. Beneath me I was sitting on a pink lotus flower, its petals in full bloom. I was Sarasvati, her energy pouring through my palms. A large, healthy fish swam around me, leaping through the surface like a dolphin.

I have a dear friend in Savannah, Georgia. My friend is a transplant of the south, having grown up in the northeast. In the south she often finds herself the outsider. She is not only a writer, she is a mom and an environmental activist. We share these traits. While I have always shirked from confrontation though, my friend shines when she is “agitating the pot.” Her powerful, beautiful soul shines through in these moments when she stands, often alone, amongst the masses to voice her thoughts regarding perceived injustices. She was an instrumental force in shutting down a polluting power plant near her home. The victory resulted in the clearing of her son’s asthma. My friend is a testament to the power of the spirit. I find her power inspirational.

Often, it takes me long periods of bubbling silence until I finally reach the point of action. The water in the pot, nearly, if not already, boiling over. I have yet to achieve comfort in standing alone – in hovering above the crowds, secure in my wisdom. There are times though, when our souls call us to action; when silence is not the path to peace. Like my friend, I am often called to act when a situation not only concerns my own health (I mean this on a soul and physical level), but the health of my family. I have to trust that sometimes my vision extends beyond those around me, to the seat of the soul. This is a sometimes troubling “gift” I have had since childhood. When I was young and opened my mouth to speak my truth, I was silenced. The same fear holds me like an invisible noose.

The challenge for many of us, I suspect, is learning to speak with compassion and conviction. Oppressors of individual freedom most often have no idea that they are oppressors, as they exist within their own environments of fear. When we oppress others, our souls are crying out for our own freedom, yet our shadow selves will often take over and use “power” or physical force to silence those around us. Often those who are silenced are the souls who have been victimized many times in the past (or in traumatic past lives that they are still recovering from). They are easy targets.

The oppressors in my life have often been people I love deeply, making it exponentially more difficult to confront them and remove myself and my family from their toxic energy.  Sometimes their true souls shine through in the white light of love, but too often they are crippled within the darkness of pain. My efforts to “heal” them with love fail, as I learn it is not my path to change theirs. Yet, people must not compromise individual health and the health of their children, spouses, etc, by allowing a toxic relationship to occur. Even if we cannot shine a light of mutual understanding on these circumstances, we must have the courage to break free while still within the place of love.

Luminous Beings We Are

On By Alethea KehasIn Gaia & Elementals, Memoir, ReflectionsLeave a comment

My daughter, Ava, came into this world remembering. I hope she never forgets. Between the ages of 1 and 2 she fell in love with birds, remembering her wings. It was a game we played, especially her “Gampy.” Two souls on very different levels, teaching each other. She would sit on his lap in front of his computer screen, while he pulled up the songs of the birds she was learning. “What’s this one,” he would ask, and she’d identify the voice. For her second birthday I gave her a “Bird Party,” and she dazzled the guests with her ability to identify and name.  It seemed fated that my husband and I had chosen the name “Ava” for our daughter.  A being of the earth, but not bound to it.

When she was two, Ava traded in her passion for birds for a new love. Yoda. My husband had begun showing her nonviolent scenes from “Star Wars,” and Ava developed a crush on the adorably ugly green being. Again, we all jumped on board. I found her a Yoda costume for Halloween, my parents a back-pack for her birthday. When she turned 3 we urged the party-goers to hit the dark side of the pinata, which bore the taped figure of Darth Vader, to release the prizes held within.

As with the birds, I found my young daughter’s natural attraction to the essence of her existence fascinating and beautiful. Today, my wish is that each of you be reminded of what “Luminous beings we are.” – Yoda

The Weight of Water

On By Alethea KehasIn Dreams, Gaia & Elementals, MemoirLeave a comment

The weight of my mother rests inside my chest. Last night, in dream, I saw her face as it once was, young and full of beauty. Inside her blue eyes there was the light of hope and understanding. My urgent words had started breaking down a barrier and through its thinned walls I could see the beauty of her soul. I wonder does she know that we all hold pain within our bodies, but each of us has the will to set it free?

Later, I walked through a land covered in blue-gray. A still water rose with my steps, covering the earth. Together, the water and I reached a transformer station, where electrical energy is caged behind wires before it is sent to our homes. I wondered what would happen when we all met: water, electricity and me. What would my body do with the surge of power?

Letting in the Light

On By Alethea KehasIn Energy Healing, Memoir, ReflectionsLeave a comment

Last week the heavy energy that had been accumulating in the form of humidity where I live, was released by a night of tremendous thunderstorms. Structures shook with the power of lightning, as the clouds and wind brought the rain back to the earth and lifted dense energy to light.

The next day I felt lighter, in fact I felt so light I knew I was not completely grounded to the Earth. That is the trade-off of too much light. It can leave us feeling as though we could easily drift into the heavens. Not by accident, it was a turtle that brought me back down to Earth. Turtle is the animal symbol of Mother Earth, and the teacher who shows us how to join Heaven and Earth inside of our bodies. There it was in front of me as I walked the path in the woods with my dogs. A small snapper stopped on its way. I couldn’t help but pause, knowing that there was a message in this unexpected creature, and as I did, the dogs too took notice. In a flash, the turtle jumped to meet the sniffing nose of Daisy, and as I watched my dog retract in pain, I followed the drip of her red blood as it met the Earth.

I was back on this plane.

We, as souls incarnated as humans, face the challenge of balancing the elements inside of our beings. Too much air and we lose our ground; too much earth and we feel heavy; too much fire and we feel rage; too much water and we are over-come with emotion.

Today, I asked my guides about light and realized as I transcribed their words that we each, individually, have the ability to bring light to our shadows and heal the wounds we accumulate through our lives and store within our cells. Not long ago I was convinced I needed someone else, a trained healer of energy, to heal my centers of pain. Perhaps I did need this catalyst, for soon after I started paying attention to moments when the intellect gives way to the soul. In my sleep and in my meditations, my body let in the energy of light, and healed the pain lurking in the shadows.

These were dramatic moments, like the sessions I had with the energy healer. There are though, I’ve come to realize, many ways to bring in the healing energy of light. Months ago, I started tuning into the energy of trees, and felt my body bounce each time I passed large pines and oaks while I walked through the forest. When we laugh we release heavy energy and let in the light. Sometimes the act is involuntary, like a sneeze, or a good cry.

This morning I did my tai chi forms outside, with my bare feet finding balance on the uneven ground. With martial arts forms like tai chi (yoga also does this), we bring the red energy of the Earth Mother into our bodies, drawing it up through the soles of our feet as we plant them firmly on the ground. It is an active event. The breath is the vehicle. When we breathe in we draw energy into our bodies and disperse it throughout our cells. The body moves with the breath, which exhales from deep within, drawing the toxins out of the shadows and dispersing them into the air. In doing this we find our power. We become charged with light energy, with our feet still firmly planted on the ground.

Each of us has the ability to be our own energy healers. Taking the time to listen to your spirit and finding the method(s) that work for you, will bring unquestionable benefits. It’s not something, as I was reminded today, you can do only on occasion, but ideally, a daily practice. What makes your soul lighter? Is it singing, writing, painting, dancing, gardening, or cooking and eating healthy foods? Or something else? Most likely there will be many answers that come to you. It’s worth the exploration.

When I was Two #memoir #dreams #animalmessengers

On By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Dreams, MemoirLeave a comment

When I was two-years-old, my mother left my father. She took me and my sister with her, fleeing without a note of where we could be found. It was just the three of us and a duffle bag filled with our belongings. For six months, we went from one Hare Krishnas commune, to another. The first was in Seattle, then, when my mother caught wind of my father searching for us, she headed south to California. Our final stop was West Virginia, where the “Palace of Gold” was being built. My mother, when I have asked her about this time, of which I have only muted memories of landscapes stored, does not like to share our experiences in hiding.

When children are two-years-old they are learning language in the form of voice; they are learning how to control their bodies; they are learning independence.

My first clear memory was formed when I was two. It is not of a time when I was with the Hare Krishnas, but occurred just after our return.  Growing up I would sometimes replay the movie inside my head, wondering if it was an artifact of a nightmare. A few years ago I discovered this memory was created out of an actual event.

In my memory I am sitting on my Grammy’s blue and white checked sofa with my sister and our older cousin. My cousin is in the middle, reading us a picture book. Above our heads hangs my favorite print, “The Fairy Tale” by Sir Walter Ferle. The three little girls in the print could almost be us, but instead of frozen in happiness, I am frozen in a scene of terror. Outside the room I can hear the voices of my mother and my father. I imagine my mother running across the halls of Grammy’s house, my father chasing after her. I imagine he catches her and she falls. I imagine he hurts her. I want to run and save her, but I am frozen on the sofa.

The details of my memory are not a complete match of the events, which were, in part, created inside my two-yr-old imagination. This, in many ways, is irrelevant. What matters is what my mind and body decided to retain.

Last night, I dreamt I was hanging from a large boulder at the edge of a forest. Below me was a steep decline leading to the forest floor. If I looked down I could see trees through the twilight, and in between the trees I could see animals. In my dream I was wearing only a shirt, naked from the waist down.

As I clung to the boulder with my two hands, a bear appeared above me, standing on my rock. The bear was large, but not immense, with dark brown fur. The face of the bear was so close to my own, that we were peering into each other’s eyes. In that moment I knew I should be afraid, in fact there were people above me on the lawn warning me to be careful. Instead, I felt my heart open to the place of love, willing the heart of the bear to open in return. She was there to teach me something, and I wanted to learn.

Below the bear I saw her two cubs, playing among the trees. A spotted cat (a panther or a leopard), which passed nearby me while its family playing among the trees. According to Ted Andrews, Bear teaches us to go inside and find the source of our inner power and the source our dormant creation. Panther/leopard/jaguar, is symbolic of the dark, female power. Moon energy. In his book, Animal Speak, Andrews writes “…longstanding wounds will finally begin to heal, and with the healing will come a reclaiming of power that was lost at the time of wounding.” (p. 227) According to Andrews, Panther is a symbol of rebirth, “Those things of childhood and beyond that created suffering, and which caused a loss of innate power and creativity are about to be awakened, confronted and transmuted.” (p. 299)

Don’t forget your dreams.

What I heard

On By Alethea KehasIn Memoir, Poems, Reflections2 Comments

This afternoon, as I walked through the woods, I thought about fracking. I thought about how my home is, in part, warmed, by the act of splitting the body that gives me life.  A year ago I created this poem by erasing words from an article I had read online (also know as an erasure poem).

“The Great Shale Gas Rush”
(an erasure poem adapted from the  above titled Businessweek.com article by Jim Efstathiou Jr. & Kim Chipman)

Homes sit atop debate
noise. Muddy water pouring
from taps, chemicals
in a neighbor’s well. A
beautiful rural area

Fracking

smash rock
free gas
clean energy shale rush
creating jobs and fluid
spills overwhelm
plants

A radioactive river
struggles to hold
authority

It’s impossible to miss
the power

While I walked today, I also thought about communities of people reconnecting to the Earth they have forsaken. I saw them in the fields I passed, meditating and mixing their energy with the Earth’s. I am reading a book called Desert Sojourn by Debi Homes-Binney, a memoir about the author’s 40 days of solitude in the desert of Utah. There is a reason why people return to the source of their cells for answers to the questions that trouble their minds. I can’t tell you how many times the woods have healed me.

And I thought about that great floating island of plastic in the pacific, too large, most think, to manage. Yet, I can’t erase the images of albatrosses dead from starvation, their stomaches bloated with bottle caps. “Anything is possible,” a friend told me today during an unrelated conversation, “our only limitation is belief.” If I can fix my body, surely we can fix our Mother’s.

Lightning

On By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Gaia & Elementals, MemoirLeave a comment

I was surprised by the lightning, even though I had welcomed the steady rain that promises to fill the day with the possibility of quiet reflection, meditation and writing. I began by spreading the oracle cards from Steve Farmer’s deck Earth Magic, in a circle upon my coffee table. Twice I let my hand gravitate to the cards at the top of the circle before I pulled out Lightning/Power, and looked at the orange fire spread in a vein of electricity  touching the turquoise crest of waves. There are rocks along the shore, the trees lean against the pull of the wind. The sky is indigo. Least I doubt my choice of cards,  Farmer’s guidebook folded open to its page.

I spread tiger-eye, lapis lazuli, malachite, turquoise and carnelian agate around my pillar of unpolished rose quartz, guarded it with my white angel and lit the pink candle on the table. I was ready to welcome power in whatever form it wanted to speak to me, but first I placed amethyst in my left palm and angelite in my right. Closing gently my fists, I felt the pulses of crystal energy.

I spent about an hour in meditation, letting my thoughts come and go, feeling the hiccup of my breath against my heartbeat. I cannot tell you everything I saw or felt, because some things are stored only for our experience and not for memory. I can tell you that Angelite brought three animal totems to me. First came Seal, a new visitor, wearing the gray silk of creative waters. Then Bat appeared, another surprise, upside down like the Hanged Man card in tarot. (Yesterday I found myself thinking about this card and how it relates to rainbows. That red energy turned towards the sky.) Bat evokes nighttime, like the Power/Lightning card I drew. It foreshadows a time of transition and initiation. I heard the rustle of the crystals still left in their bags beside me. Bat reminds us that there is rebirth out of darkness if we are willing to let the old die to make way for new life. Through facing our fears we can become empowered. The last two nights I shifted through the clutter of old fears still nesting inside of me. I entered dreams within dreams, analyzing the residue of bathrooms, wiping feces from white walls. I tried to resist, but could not, the scattering of superficial beauty tangled into necklaces in boxes and scattered like dust under beds…

After I watched Seal and Bat appear, my old friend, Snake stopped by, twisting its body into dance, its head lifted with two wide eyes daring mine to close. I must tell you that before, during and after these three animals appeared to me, my body was experiencing pockets of pain.  I watched yellow/white energy transfer to my more closed-off right side of my body in gentle waves. This was easy compared to the dis-ease stored in my belly, that center of  power. Nausea came and the impulse to pull out of my meditation. From outside my body I felt my breath deepen as it traveled to the source of the pain, urging release of the old, stored energy to make way for new. This, was not easy.   Hovering at the base of my spine was a spinning vortex, its hum lifting, energizing. The kundalini of Snake. And then there was that dark pit, deep inside my lower right abdomen. I felt and heard my breath deepen its pull as it worked to release an energy accumulation beyond this life. I put my feet on the floor, welcoming the red energy of Earth to aid my breath, feeling the easy hum inside my left foot, but not my right.

This morning I took my first dose of my decreased thyroid medication. 88. A double-dose of infinity. It’s just the beginning.