It is important and it dates back over two weeks now, to April 8th: our last mooncircle, the day before Jimmy's birthday.
Remembering right now how much weaker I felt then, how much slow deliberate effort it took to get the house ready to welcome everyone here, it already seems like eons ago.
We had several highlights waiting for us. There was the exuberant joy of reunion for the Antiguan travelers, complete with the countless bubbles of memories that, depending on the content, ignited sighs of gratitude and awe, waves of giggles or roaring laughter... pictures and little computer-slide-shows documenting the places and special events... giving Annabel and me the feeling of alomost having been there... there was the rich random collection of utterly beautiful dishes for our potluck meal together... there even were rounds of gift giving: tokens of gratitude from Jimmy and me to all of them, tokens of success from her life as a publisher from Annabel to all of us, and tokens of memories from Antigua from Maria and Sarah to everyone... and... there was the "sandpainting", a ritual/creative manifestation piece that Patrice was going to teach us.
Patrice had learned this in her shaman training and found it to be a powerful and fun tool for transformation, so she wanted to pass it on to us.
You basically take a flat tray and fill it with rice or sand or grain and put on it whatever you have in your house and garden that represents in your eyes what it is you want to shift in your life. In that way you create a threedimensional manifestation with stones or shells, ribbons, leaves, twigs, beads or pictures, of how you wish for some thing, person or event to unfold or evolve in your life. She also gave us a bunch of stunning example stories, things that had happened to her after using this, more things that had happened to her teacher, so we were juiced up. Pretty exciting!
A sweet little meditation to allow us to tune into what it was we wanted to play with today made the beginning. As I had no intention or plan of what I was going to use it for, I went into this meditation with a kind of innocent openness. And as she started to speak, I was drawn to look at what the larger outcome of my "cystal" experience might be, drawn to not decide or make something up in my mind, but to let myself be guided to the potential outcome that was offering itself.
And all of a sudden there was a burst of new awareness, a recognition of so much all at once, it will be hard to put it into separate sentences, because there was no sequence to this experience, it hit me all at once like a tidal wave. Within seconds tears of gratitude were running down my face, keeping silent as much as I could, so not to interrupt the meditation for anyone else.
This is what I saw:
There was me, the two cysts outside my body, and I was surrounded by all the women in the mooncircle, and the wave of support, love and connection I had begun to feel during this time was radiating out beyond them. The oneness I had been able to feel, this feeling of nonseparateness, that for me was now most noticeable as the unfamiliar and complete absence of needing to prove myself, needing to earn recognition, needing to find evidence of being valued or loved... needing to do all this stuff, making all this... yes, effort really, in sharing something really moving, or valuable, or insightful, or funny... all these doubts whether I had the right to take up as much time as some of the other women did in circle, whether what I was contributing to the circle was after all not as interesting or meaningful as other women's stuff... all this little nasty debris... all this mental clutter... was now... gone.
All that was there was immense gratitude, love and an unshakable connection. And all this was now ready to expand beyond this circle. It felt like a promise was given to me: I would be able to have this experience with other, more groups of people. Larger and larger ones. Potentially I could feel this connected to the entire world. Oh, my, God! Had I not been wishing for this? Ohhhhhh, how unspeakably beautiful! Living life like that.
When I began to lay down the pieces on my platter (which incidentally was round) I found a couple of little tiny folded paper stars, and for some reason those had to be the first small circle surrounding me (as a fat little seashell, which had been a gift from my sister). I didn't know what they represented, just followed the guidance. Then came the circle of small seashells, 12 of them, one for every moonwoman, then some green stones connecting to the outside rim of black beans and red beans, lots of them, topped by several old tribal beads from Africa and South America. Later a few red Cardinal feathers were added that arched back from the outside rim to myself in the center. Something would return to me, this too a circle closing.
It wasn't until it was my turn to share my discoveries, that I realized the small inner circle of stars stood for my other group, my WOT sisters. Yes, that too was true, wasn't it? This was indeed the first group I had felt safe in, the first group in which I felt seen and unconditionally accepted in, even though I had met these women much later in life than some of my friends in the mooncircle. It was in this group that I had gained the courage in to speak up with more uncomfortable feelings of lack and neediness. It was the springboard from which this amazing experience in my mooncircle had happened. Yes.
Thorough as I am, I counted the puffy little stars: 6 of them. Hmmmm, yet there were 9 of us in our WOT group... oh, but there was me of course in the middle, oh and Mary, of course already represented in the outside circle! that made 8, so: just one star short. How interesting! Well, I guessed maybe the guidance couldn't be expected to be that accurate... and I let it go. Until the next day.
After breakfast I walked by the antiques console in the living room, when my eyes caught a small glimmer of blue, and there: of all things hiding between this and that was: another paper star!! Circle complete.
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