Rebirth Begins

I'm not sure what it is about me. Maybe it's just that I'm a human being struggling with human being-ness. As Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead observed, "We're all just bozos on the bus!" I'm definitely a bozo. Possibly a queen bozo at that.

For some unknown reason it appears that for me to make any significant changes in my life I need someone to die. The most blatant example of this was my sister's unexpected death in October of 2001. Her death propelled me into changes that I would never have dreamed existed much less be possible. Going from a twenty-two year elementary teaching career to a practice in Reiki energy healing, animal communication and shamanic healing in the six months after her death was like being shot out of a cannon, destination unknown. I remember feeling like I was diving off a tall cliff into ice cold water. After my world was turned upside down by my sister's death the icy plunge almost seemed welcome.

I remember my friends asking me, "Can you make a living at this?" They looked at me with such furrowed brows and I knew they thought I had gone off the deep end, or at the very least dove into the shallow end and conked my head! At first I would answer with a tentative, "I think so." Then I realized if I wasn't optimistic that this would work then what the heck was I doing anyway?!

Well, it has worked out and quite well at that. I love what I do now as much as I loved all those years of teaching. And I realize what a unique blessing it is to be on earth and love what you do.

So what about this latest rebirth?

Claire’s death caught me completely off guard and put me out of balance for a good while. Friends did healing work on me, I journeyed shamanically for clarity; I even tried to “replace” Claire with another dog without any luck. Finally I figured out what was going on. Just as my sister’s death had allowed me to make huge changes amidst the chaos of her sudden departure, Claire’s leaving put me in that space again. I was so out of balance temporarily that it brought into focus how out of balance I was in other, more concrete ways. Adrenal and thyroid issues, hormonal imbalance, huge caffeine and sugar addictions, weight gain and so on. I had been feeling myself being more and more unlike myself. I asked myself ‘who is this person who doesn’t fit into her clothes anymore’? There was so much of me I didn’t recognize and it wasn’t in a good way as in, ‘look, I’m an animal communicator, look, I’m a shaman.’  Those were cool ways to not recognize myself. Claire’s death helped me focus on the things about myself that weren’t cool anymore.

So here I am. I completed a ten day cleanse two weeks ago that helped me get off of caffeine, dairy, gluten and sugar for good. I’ve lost a bit of that chubby extra weight although I can personally attest to the fact that it is harder to lose weight as you age. I feel better about myself; I have regained some of the verve and self control that was starting to get lost in the everyday shuffle of life.

Lately I have been thanking Claire for this latest gift. The gift of imbalance after death and a huge opportunity to make changes that I knew were necessary but was not getting around to making. Much as I eventually viewed my sister’s death as a huge gift I am slowly moving in that direction with Claire's. As I continue to make positive changes I open more to the fact that her death did have meaning and, as the saying goes, “It’s all good”. But it still hurts.