The Touch of a Healer

The moment she put her hand on my heart, I wanted to throw it off. I felt an immediate pull of energy, and I didn't want to feel exposed.

I didn't want to let go.

I had just returned from a chanting ceremony where the energy in the room reverberated through my body. There was an intense love in the air, and a feeling of infinite freedom. But when the lady on the left side began to recite her mantra, I immediately felt hurt. I was overwhelmed with sadness.

In listening to this sadness, whether it came from outside or within I was unsure. All I noticed was my unease and my unwillingness to sit with it. I just wanted the song to be over, I just wanted to halt this immense feeling of pressure on my chest. But the song kept going and there I sat, fidgety and unable to let the feeling pass. The heaviness loomed on me, and I didn't want to let it fully in.

A new player began their song, and I felt like I could finally breath again. I got into it, and moved and jibed with the uplifting beats. But I couldn't help but think that moments ago I had felt imprisoned and resistant. 

                                                                    ______________________

I don't like to feel sad. I don't like to let my guard down. But when you've come to a point in awakening, you can't help but notice all your feelings. I can't help not to, at least.

So there I sat. Hours later. In a new space. Puzzled by my unwillingness to let the sadness in, or rather out. Unwilling to let my heart break. Unwilling to let my heart go. I couldn't even remember what we had been chanting about, was it Gopala? Was it Govinda? What were the words that had made me feel so broken?

And then I glanced up and saw the world map on the wall, in the living room of a friend of a friend. I looked at where I was, Australia, and I looked at where I was born, America. I looked at where all my family were. I looked at where all my friends were. The distance became so much more apparent. I imagined dotting the globe with all the people I've come to love. Scattered around the world.

While my surrounding company spoke, I dazed off and wondered what if I had stayed put in the USA? What if I had never left the confines of the United States border? Would all those dots move closer, blanketing me rather than spreading out thin? Would I feel more comforted?

And in that moment of coulda, woulda, shoulda she placed her hand on my heart. The hand I had wanted to tear off my skin.

______________________

I'd met her when I was 19 years old. Her name was Gini.

My best friend and I had come to volunteer on her biodynamic farm in New South Wales. The moment I had seen a picture of Gini and her partner, Pete, on the workaway website I knew this was the loving place I wanted to go. I felt a connection to the words on the page, the description of a place of healing. I didn't even know what healing meant back then, but it sure enticed me.

Pete introduced us to the land, where he shared his practice of speaking to the vegetables and handling them with compassion and care. Gini showed us a gentle type of yoga called Dru and opened up about her experience with Reiki. It was all so new to me, but it all felt so natural.

Days were spent working, laughing, absorbing, relaxing. We suntanned by the lake. We hiked to the river. We journeyed to the tepee. And within a short two weeks, we were gone.

Gini and I kept in touch over the 5 years, not consistently, but the connection lasted. And in some moments of my life, at just the right times, she'd appear on my news feed as a beautiful reminder to the work being done at Ingelara.

She'd opened up my spiritual genes without me even realizing.

So in my voyage back to Australia, who did I know I needed to see but her. Her, who placed a hand on my heart without me even verbalizing much of my pain. Her, who kept that hand there until the tears slowly broke through. Her, who saw my struggle and opened it up wide.

Her, who recognized my role as a child of the universe.

It became clear while staring at that map, with tears leaking from my eyes end, with her hand hovering my chest, that I had attributed heartbreak with my nomadic lifestyle. And that I would have to let go. There was no going back, that was clear.

Because when you find your role in this life, when you really figure it out, it's what you have to do. You can question it, yes. You can be unsettled, yes. You can toss it aside, not really.

And in that moment, the guilt, the pressure, the doubt, it all seemed to ease.

I let go and I let be.