Eleven

Up at 0500, make coffee, shower, go faster, leave by 0555, on the ferry for an hour, at my desk at 0730, work work work, go faster, leave at 1545, back on the ferry, home at 1735, try to write, go faster, study for school, write a paper, go faster, housework, in bed at 2100…repeat repeat repeat.

Then it’s fly to NY, cab into Manhattan, hotel, meet friends, at work site 20 blocks away by 0700, nothing goes right at work, meet friends again, see 2 Broadway shows, more work, that weekend drive upstate to see family, go here go there, still doing schoolwork, fly home, spend all day July 4^th writing papers, Thursday and Friday back to work…

I woke up Saturday morning entirely unaware of how frantic I was.  It was ceremony day and other than a dot on my calendar it had barely entered my mind.  For every other ceremony there had been at least some time, sometimes weeks, preceding my arrival that I’ve been able to prepare mentally, to focus on how I wanted to show up, set intentions for the work I hoped to do.

Not this time.

My new job is exhausting.  It’s nearly 19 hours of commuting a week and it drains me.  I really enjoy the people I work with, many were already friends from a previous position, and the job itself is forcing me to stretch outside of my comfort zone and learn new skills which is useful and productive.  But 12 hr days began to wear on me very quickly after starting here in April.

Then 2 weeks before the circle was a work trip to NY.  Work travel rarely allows much downtime, especially when you are reconnecting with old friends and trying to see family.

On top of it all was school with all the commensurate end of the semester work and papers.

Other than the extreme commute this is all fairly positive and productive, I’ve got a job and I’m going to school and I’m rebuilding connections…I’m not complaining about any one thing, it’s just A LOT for me to juggle.  Humans are not designed to multi-task and I feel that I’m especially bad at it.

More than 2 or 3 big things on my plate and my brain turns into a chaotic maelstrom of random, unorganised thought fragments swirling in a confined and inadequate space; a spinning vortex with no place to go.  When I don’t have time to recharge and process the tank starts to get low and the engine stumbles and struggles.

I’m an introvert by nature, with some seriously gregarious personality traits that often make people think I’m actually extroverted.  There’s an internet meme that you’ve probably seen that says that extroverts get their energy from other people and introverts get their energy from solitude.  It’s an extremely simplistic and incomplete statement but also mostly true, at least in my case.

Overstimulation like this leads to disorganised and hectic thoughts, my movements become erratic and inefficient, and my already “too fast for the Pacific North West,” New York-bred speech pattern speeds up by about 50 percent.  One of my fantasies is to live in a mountainside cabin surrounded by trees, snowy peaks, clean running water, and not much else.

Somehow, even as I flew out of bed Saturday morning and panicked over not being packed and prepared to go I was entirely unaware of my being dialled to eleven.

I grabbed my backpack with all my camping gear, threw in clothes and necessities, tossed them in the car, made coffee, and hit the road.  I hadn’t had a moment to prepare or plan and so, of course, 10 minutes away I realised I had forgotten something.

Goddammit!

Blood pressure went up, stress level went up, and I broke several dozen traffic laws speeding back to the house to get the thing that I probably could have done without if I needed to.

Just made the ferry in time; I have to take 2 to get to where I’m going.  On the other side of Puget Sound I realise I forgot to grind and bag some coffee for the next morning.

Shit!

I stopped at a coffee shop and had them grind some for me, every minute ticking away at a slow, agonising pace.  Ran back to the car and sped to the ferry.  I missed it by perhaps less than a minute.

Hellfire and bloody damnation!

It was nearly 15 minutes before I realised I had missed the ferry prior to the one I needed to be on…I was actually ahead of schedule.  It didn’t matter, I WASN’T THERE YET; a million things could go wrong and my mind analysed each imaginable outcome.  My brain would not slow down. Go faster!

It never crossed my mind that I was approaching this place of peace in a very non-peaceful way.

I made it precisely on time yet there were still things to do.  I ran inside and quickly set up my place in the temple, ran outside to assemble my tent, and unpacked what I would need for the weekend.

K walked by as I was pulling everything out of my backpack and we talked for a few moments.  I had not seen her since the first co-ed ceremony I had attended over a year ago. I was entirely unable to stand still and be present.  I was moving constantly, tossing my water bottle, performing a dance of nervous energy and unfocused attention.

It finally hit me as I squirmed and twitched in front of her; I was an anxious, hot mess.  K commented on my hyperactivity and kindly asked if she could help.  I was a little embarrassed and said I just needed to get my tent set up so I can start to unwind.

Tent went up quickly, sleeping bag and pads swiftly arranged, and I went inside to greet the others before we were asked to sit.  I flitted from person to person, a whirlwind of jerky movements, fast talk, and frenetic eye movements; a Dervish enacting a private dance of frantic fanaticism.

The call to assemble in 10 minutes came and I was sweaty and hot.  I took a quick shower and went up the temple to sit in communion with my tribe.  After a few moments, H leans over and notices that I’m still sweating like a madman and asks if I ran all the way here.

We start with introductions and sharing of intentions.  All the while my knees are bouncing, hands and fingers are tapping, and when I speak I’m now aware of the nervous energy swirling inside me.

After a time, we are sent out to the labyrinth.  Before we go Dr Y offers an observation that he often notices people trying to move through the pattern as quickly as possible.  He offers that the purpose is to move slowly and deliberately, building awareness of each moment with every step, to become fully present.

I felt like he was taking directly to me.  The line formed at the mouth of the maze and I deliberately hung back until everyone but our guides had entered.

At first all I could notice is how far I still had to go.  I traced the lines and tried to spy out where the path lead. Go faster!  I wanted to run and get it over with.  Remembering Dr Y’s words I deliberately stopped and turned my face to the sun.  I felt the breeze and heard, despite being a few feet from over a dozen people, the whispering silence punctuated only by far-off birdsong.

In tiny increments I began to calm my mind, each step more deliberate and present than the last.  Go slower.  I reached the centre and stood calmly with my brothers and sisters, again waiting until all but 2 had begun their silent journey back to normal space.  I wondered if perhaps I was slowing down.

Once out of the labyrinth we were directed back to the temple.  I quickly lengthened my strides until I was walking almost at a run, stomping my boots into the grass.  The frantic energy reasserted itself and filled me with a need to GO.

I was slowly calming down but there was a long way yet to go, the rest of the afternoon passed in similar fashion.  When it was time for ceremony I was concerned how this internal chaos would express itself but I also knew I was safe in this place.

Nothing made that more abundantly clear than how the others had reacted to my arrival.

When I blew into the temple like a mid-summer storm I was greeted with acceptance and compassion.  Everyone asked if they could help or they simply witnessed what I was experiencing and offered their friendship and community regardless of my current state.

There were 10 travellers and 3 guides, only one of my fellow travellers was here for the first time.  Each in our own way, we walked into the temple with the assurance and skill of seasoned veterans who knew their way around,.  The sense of shared experiences, history, and community was palpable in the way we greeted each other with familiar ease and carefree joy.

Even through the humming, hectic haze between my ears their presence had begun to work its magic on me.  The almost-running back from the maze, the bobbing knees, the fast loud talk…these are wall ways the energy was coming out.  I knew I did not want to show up this way and my body was trying to clear itself out to receive the blessings of my tribe.

—

Divinity was the theme of the weekend; encountering the ineffably sublime spirit in all of us, touching the forces of Creation with our souls and experiencing sameness, overlapping ourselves until we exist not as one being but as all beings.

For most of my life I have been a strict atheist and even an anti-theist.  I despised faith in all its flavours.  I saw no value in it and blamed religion for most of the world’s ills going back to before recorded history.  Of course, I was raised Catholic.

Yet since I have done this work with these amazing people, my universe has expanded to encompass a spiritual life as well.  It is uniquely my own and does not involve a separate god or creator, yet I now am able to feel connected to all life and matter in a way that not only meets my criteria for scientific rigour but also the human need to feel a part something more.  Instead of rejecting the unknown I embrace it and wonder at its mystery.

I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.

Western philosophy would have you believe that you are a self-contained construct entirely self-sufficient and self-reliant.  You only need yourself and you are the only thing that determines your fate; the rest of the world has no impact on you or the path of your live.  I am wearing a wry smile as I type this and remembering when I used to think such silly things.

You are related to every creature on the face of the Earth.  You are even related to the Earth itself and all the planets in the solar system.  Your body, the Earth, the Sun, are all made of elements forged in long-dead stars.  These bits of interstellar flotsam and jetsam coalesced and congealed to become planets and another star, its fusion fire the source of all Life on this planet.  To me, that kinship is the essence of the divine.

We are no different from the rock between our feet.  We come from the same place, we formed from the same building blocks.  The rock is merely performing the dance of a rock while I perform the dance of a human.  I will end my dance one day, as will the rock, and our component bits will whirl and spin in another dance;  perhaps we will become part of another creature or perhaps we will be blown out of the solar system to become stellar gas that forms a new star giving life to another small planet.  And on and on until the Universe itself fades into utter blackness.

—

We lay back as the medicine began to take effect; heart medicine, MDMA, a psychic bridge between our true, unfiltered selves and the outside world.  I felt the stresses of my day to day life melt away.  Job, commute, time management, school, money, projects…they all got put back in their proper places and priorities.  These things need attending to and they are valid parts of our lives but to let them overwhelm me with stress and worry is not healthy or sensical.

I wanted to laugh at the silliness of it all.  The truth is that we’re all just playing a game and I’d forgotten that.  For me it’s the silly game of life in America, of working as an IT professional, of trying to accumulate worthless green pieces of paper that this society values so much.  It’s a game most of us take far too seriously, as evidenced by my state upon arrival to this sacred place, but that in the end really doesn’t matter at all.  The game is a distraction that keeps us from truly living in ways that serve our humanity.

I felt it all bleed away into calm, still waters. Never before had I had the medicine transform my state of mind so completely and so profoundly just by virtue of its presence.  I settled into calmness for the first time in weeks.

Except…there was this one thing.  This one thing that showed itself to be as something that needed to be done, something that could only be done here.  As we lay back and Dr Z guided us through a mediation this pea beneath the mattress chafed and demanded my attention.  It needed to come out.

This stressor wasn’t part of any silly game, it was something real and vital requiring expression.  It required an act of bravery on my part and I rose to the challenge.  When I had given a voice to it, my relief was complete.  I was finally fully at peace.

As powerful and huge of an experience the last circle was, this was equally as subtle and complex.  I slipped back into a place of equanimity and a place of awareness that I had let myself lose hold of in allowing the daily rat race get to me.

I found myself in a state I hadn’t been before, even in ceremony: entirely and fully unencumbered by shame or self-consciousness.  I often write about the internal freedom from all forms of fear one can find with MDMA.  It is, in my opinion, the single most important aspect of the medicine’s efficacy in healing trauma and working with our wounds.  Even so, there is still a voice in my heads that can tell me to hold back- don’t say that, it’s too much, you’re not ready for that. 

I used to feel like I was ‘doing it wrong’ when I listened to that voice during ceremony but experience has changed my mind.  That voice is not driven by fear but rather logic and experience.  This is the voice we all naturally have that allows us to navigate the world and society skilfully and in ways that serve us and keep us safe.  I’ve found that listening to that voice allows me to save certain topics for the right time and place, when I am ready and have the necessary tools to attend to them.

Not every internal voice that sets boundaries on our self-expression is limiting.  Boundaries, physical, intellectual, and emotional, are entirely necessary and healthy for us.  Without them, we overstep ourselves and venture into dangerous realms.

Yet on this day I was free, perhaps more so than I’d ever been before.  Nothing arose that the voice needed to respond to.  I showed up within the circle as a being of light freed from the dark that once imprisoned it.

At some point we moved outside.  I was delighted; we had never done this before!  To walk in the deep green grass and cavort with my tribesmen and women was beautiful and healing beyond comparison.  I felt cousin grass tickling the back of my neck and listened to the wind swoosh through the needles of uncle pine while brother bird chortled and warbled in the bright evening sun.  I sensed the bushes and ferns and fungi; all of us part of one family, descendants of the same long-forgotten sire.

And suddenly, too soon, the call came for the next stage of ceremony.  The one aspect to the heart medicine that feels a little unfair is that time flits by unnoticed.  The medicine frees us from feeling the passing of the minutes and yet in doing so we are often surprised when our guides inform us that time has passed.  When I move from one part of ceremony there is often a pang of regret…just a little more time?  I don’t want to go.  

—

The next morning is another glorious day.  Many of us had, unlike other ceremonies, brought tents to sleep outside, as if there had been an unconscious psychic agreement amongst us.  Dr Z often asks us to maintain “noble silence” in the morning and it’s one of the hardest things for me to do.

I sit with K, me with my coffee and her with her tea, talking quietly and blissfully enjoying the sunlight and birdsong when suddenly out of Dr Z’s tent comes, “noble silence!”

We giggle and make ‘oops’ faces.  I whisper in K’s ear that I should put a sign on his tent that says “Hall Monitor.”  S and then D come out to join us and, like children who forget the rules after a few minutes, soon we are chatting happily along again.

After breakfast we are back upstairs in the temple, the circle re-formed.  This is the time for integration, when we discuss our inner experiences, what we learned, and how the others impacted us.

As the focus of the integration circle moved from person to person I marvelled at the deep sharing, brave compassion, and stark vulnerability in each of us.  We cast many of our most painful, embarrassing, or traumatic secrets into the centre and had them returned to us as kindness, acceptance, and understanding.  I witnessed profound bravery, gleeful surprise, adamant strength, peaceful awareness, and innocent humour.

As the moments unfolded I realised that this is what it means to be divine.  As each person spoke their truth the circle enfolded their sorrows, worries, and pain with a wrapper of joy.  Not joy for the burden of their sorrows but joy in the courage it took to share their pain, joy for the healing the circle brings, joy for this community in which such magnificent things are possible.

Joy is in the ears that hear, not in the mouth that speaks. The world has few stories glad in themselves, and we must have gay ears to defy Despite.
-Stephen R. Donaldson, Lord Foul’s Bane

Divinity is a state of connectedness, of knowing you are bound, body and soul, to every other creature and object on this planet.  It is passing through the barrier of the self to encounter the universe not as an observer, but as a part of the greater whole; as integral and necessary as every other being.

Divinity is accepting another’s pain and smiling, returning love in its place.  It is seeing these people in the circle in the context of their suffering and understanding how very alike we all are.  It is seeing past the hurt to the wound and offering comfort.

Though I can only speak for myself I believe that we set out to encounter divinity and found it within ourselves.  It is found in the spaces between us and in the intertwining of our spirits.  We each have within us that sparkling light, but it is only when we authentically share it with others and receive a bit of theirs in turn that we truly encounter God.