Open seas

I wanted to let go and just let the wind take me.  In fact, I knew that nothing would change if I didn’t feel released at the core of my being.  If there was something I was holding onto, some belief or outmoded idea, now was the time to release it and to open myself to change like a sail is ready for the wind.  So I invited the universe to destroy me.  Naturally, I sought the advice of a shaman.  I didn’t want to leave too many things to chance.

     I thought this would be a way through the inertia, if that’s what it was, that was stopping me.  Call it whatever you want, know what I mean, but get it out of the way. 

     One of my biggest fears when I left Nic was, “Would I know myself?”  Well, I decided to take care of this fear in ship shape fashion and made a full commitment to leaving the certain shore for the uncertain waters.  How else could I have gone?   It’s not that I was used to such adventures but I couldn’t imagine another way out of the tangled tango I was dancing in.

     There were many thoughts I had about why I might extend this invitation.  For one, I knew that alchemists looked at destruction as a preliminary step to reorganization.  I was willing to try anything that would help me become a stronger person.  Part of the deal was that you were destroyed by what you most feared.  By facing my worst fears I thought I could then certainly live without Nic - and not simply as a person making due but as someone that has overcome.  It’s almost heroic when I think about it.  And another aspect is that since all shamanic work has the important feature of deliberate choice, this journey was like an initiation into my new selfhood.  You’re also given the gift of knowing your end.  I was shredded.   That was only the beginning of the “transition.”  The rest became a series of evolutions and watery meanderings that makes Darwin’s theory of evolution seem like the biological equivalent of lethargy.

More about the journey and Conversations with Nic available at http://amzn.to/14jUNUs